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'Broken Harts,' Episode 7: 'Stone-Cold Narcissist'


When news of the tragic crash involving the Hart family broke last March, people from as far away as Italy and Australia wanted to know what had happened; many were specifically worried about the fate of Hannah and Devonte, whose whereabouts were, at the time, still largely unknown. Groups like “Missing Hart Children” and “Honoring the Hart Children” began popping up across Facebook, dedicated to locating the whereabouts of the two then-missing Hart kids. Other groups, like “Hart Family Case Discussion” (which has 1411 members); “HART FAMILY CASE DISCUSSION” (with 170 members); “What Happened to the Harts: Their History, The Crash, The Kids” (490 members); and “Hart Family Crash Theories” (101 members) also began popping up thereafter. In a short period of time, the Harts’ story had piqued international interest.

The groups are home to a number of different avenues of discussion, from adoption, to Jen and Sarah’s history of child abuse, to whether or not they were racist, and whether or not the drive over the cliff was premeditated or spontaneous. Group members debated the Harts’ financial situation, their clothing, their smiles, their sleeping arrangements, the contents of their refrigerator, their decor, and even why Jen and Sarah let their chickens roam free in the house. Amy Atlas, founder of “Finding the Missing Hart Children/Honoring the Hart Children,” explains that many members of these Facebook groups spend upwards of 20 hours a day involved in these discussions. “At peak level, I would absolutely say, myself and a few others were working on this 20 hours a day,” she says. “So we were sleeping for about four hours and doing this full-time.”

Sleuth groups like these frequently pop up on Facebook after a grisly crime, and while these groups are dedicated to uncovering the truth, they often breed intense, emotional discussions that spill over into other corners of the web, like Twitter, where friends of the Hart family will sometimes receive hate mail.

PHOTO: Zippy Lomax

To some extent, there’s a certain poetic justice to the Harts’ immortalization on Facebook, considering it was Jen’s preferred mode of communication. But in recent months, it’s also been uncovered that this wasn’t the only world wherein Jen Hart was entrenched. Apparently, Jen was also an avid video gamer, playing for hours on end while Sarah was at work (which would explain why Devonte told Dana DeKalb that his moms weren’t really paying attention to what was going on at home).

Drew, who met Jen when they were both playing the game Oz: Broken Kingdom, explains how dedicated she was to the game. “She was good. By good, I mean she developed relationships very quickly with people…. She got to know them on a personal level,” Drew says. “Jen really shined when there was a newcomer. If someone didn’t know how to conquer a particular part of the game, like, that was her wheelhouse. She loved the bird with the broken wing.”

Jen and Drew would spend hours chatting about everything—the game, politics, their families. As with so many who thought they knew Jen Hart, Drew has really struggled to wrap his mind around the crash, trying to comprehend why Jen did what she did. “Her life had become wrapped up in this image that she so carefully crafted. This image of her as this doting mom and champion of racial reconciliation,” he says. “She had identified herself by this cause, if you will, that when she came to grips with the fact that it was all going to fall apart, I think… ‘Either I get to maintain my preferred image, or none of us get to maintain anything at all.'”

Matthew Besco is someone else who met Jen in the video game community; like Drew, Besco too, believed that Jen had become wrapped up in the image she’d so carefully crafted.

Drew once described Jen as “highly competitive.” Another gamer called her a “stone-cold narcissist.” It was common for Jen to sit near the top of the rankings, due in large part to the sheer number of hours she spent in front of the screen. Team members teased her about how she was the first to crack a really complex part of the game. Drew told her she must have developed a diagram to figure it out. In fact, she said, she had.

Some believe Jen’s entrenchment in the gaming world points to a case of untreated depression. But was it depression that drove Jen and her family over that cliff last March? Some say yes. Others, particularly those in Facebook sleuth groups, speculate that the Harts decided to end it all because of their debt (around $14,000). Another persistent theory: that one of the Hart moms was terminally ill. In a Facebook status update, Jen vaguely blames health issues for a months-long hiatus, though nothing in Glamour‘s interviews and the Harts’ emails and paperwork points to physical illness of any kind.

So what, then, did facilitate this tragedy? That, and more, next time on Broken Harts.

Subscribe now to our new podcast, Broken Harts, from Glamour and HowStuffWorks and based on this story from the October 2018 issue of Glamour. New episodes will air each Tuesday; find them on Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to get your podcasts. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Have any tips, feedback, or questions? Email us at brokenhartspodcast@gmail.com

Top photo: AP Images



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'Broken Harts,' Episode 6: 'Beautiful Black Boys'


Before Jen and Sarah Hart adopted their second set of siblings in 2009, Devonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra had been—according to their Social Security cards—Devonta, Jermiah, and Ciera Davis, three children living in Houston, Texas, under the care of their mother, Sherry Hurd, and her boyfriend, Nathaniel Davis, whose last name the children took on even before the couple married in 2010. But in 2005, CPS removed the siblings from the Davises’ care—due in large part to Sherry’s record of substance abuse—and placed them in the Texas foster care system.

When this happened, the children’s aunt, Priscilla Celestine—the sister of the siblings’ birth father—fought to get them out, even moving to a new home and hiring an attorney to help plead her case. Celestine was ultimately successful in having them brought into her care, but not for long; a fateful decision to let the children’s mother watch them while Celestine worked one day resulted in the children’s permanent removal from the home—a home the Davis siblings had lived in for only five and a half months.

Despite trying to fight this decision, Celestine was ruled against by the presiding judge for that case, Patrick Shelton, who is now retired. In response to questions about how the Harts were allowed to adopt Devonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra after an allegation of child abuse had already been made against them, he pointed to the lack of criminal charges in the state of Minnesota. Shelton told criminal justice site The Appeal: “Unless there’s a criminal charge, what can you do? Believe it or not, kids get bruises that do not get beat.” Shelton also denies reports that he, or his associate judge, favored nonrelative adoptions over placement with family members.

PHOTO: Nathaniel Davis

Photos of the Davis children, provided by Shonda Jones.

PHOTO: Nathaniel Davis

Photo of the Davis children, courtesy of Shonda Jones.

PHOTO: Nathaniel Davis

The agency that later facilitated Jen and Sarah’s adoption of the Davis siblings closed in 2011, but at the time it was known as the Permanent Family Resource Center. According to a 28-page report filed by the Minnesota Department of Human Services in September 2009, only months after Jen and Sarah officially adopted their second set of siblings through the agency, the organization was placed on conditional status after accruing 17 licensing violations, ranging from failing to submit paperwork to failure to complete proper background checks on participating families. For perspective, over the past ten years, the Minnesota DHS has issued only three conditional licenses for child placement agencies.

Back when the Harts were clients, the Permanent Family Resource Center ran the Waiting Children Program, a service that provided families in Minnesota and North Dakota with access to foster kids living in Texas, Washington, Ohio, Idaho, Oregon, California, and Florida. The website reads: “Children in this program are living in foster homes or residential facilities and a termination of parental rights (TPR) has occurred. They are legally available for adoption. The average wait for a child after approval of the home assessment is between six months and three years. Individual circumstances and conditions in specific programs may involve a longer waiting period.”

It took Jen and Sarah Hart less than a year to legally adopt Devonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra.

PHOTO: Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Human Services

The beginning of the letter from Minnesota DHS to the adoption agency that places the agency on conditional status for years of sloppy paperwork and failing to keep complete records about adoptive families.

As with many who knew the Harts, Shonda Jones—the attorney who represented Celestine in court—takes issue with the disconnect between the facts that emerged after the fatal March crash and the fiction Jen Hart presented on Facebook. She recalls reading a post wherein Jen describes a particular incident of racism involving a store clerk and Devonte. “I read this article where I think one of the adoptive moms had said she was in a store,” Jones says. “She was in a store and she was checking out and a cashier, and I think an older gentleman, the impression was that it was an older white gentleman and a cashier who was also Caucasian, were having this discussion about Devonte, asking him something about whether he was gonna play sports.”

In the November 2014 post, Jen describes an incident in the checkout line of a grocery store wherein she says the Caucasian man in front of her takes one look at Devonte and says, “I can tell you are going to be a baseball player when you grow up.” According to Jen’s post, when Devonte says he’s actually not interested in the sport, the Caucasian woman bagging the groceries allegedly replies: “WHAT!?!? I have NEVER met a kid that looks like you that doesn’t play sports,” to which the man reportedly says: “Right?! Never. They all do.” Jen goes on to lament having to watch her child be subjected to what she calls “ongoing racial stereotyping.” But Jones doesn’t believe the incident ever actually took place. In fact, in her opinion: “It never happened.”

PHOTO: Jennifer Hart Facebook

Friends of the Harts often recount the stories Jen and Sarah told about how unwelcoming their neighbors were, how much abuse this unconventional family faced, and how “unsafe” it was for them at times. But Bill Groener, who lived next door to the Harts back in West Linn, Oregon, believes that this was a tactical move on the mothers’ part. Maintaining a sense of fear may have helped Jen and Sarah keep the ongoing abuse under wraps.

But was this all truly calculated, as Groener suspects? Or was it just ignorance at work? In a July 2016 Facebook post, Jen shares seemingly heartfelt frustrations on the topic of systemic racism. Her words and anguish feel genuine. “My beautiful black boys,” she writes alongside a picture of Jeremiah and Devonte smiling in hoodies and beanies. “We talk endlessly about the realities of this world. So much beauty—so much pain and suffering. These boys live and lead with love, but I will never deny them their human right to be frustrated, sad, and ANGRY about the perpetual violence and murder of people of color…My feed is filled with people (white and POC) that want to help make a difference, but are completely at a loss of what to do. Opening up and breaking the silence is a start, because white silence is black death. If that statement makes you uncomfortable, I’m not sorry. Black pain matters. Black anger matters. BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

PHOTO: Zippy Lomax

(From left) Jen Hart, Jeremiah Hart, Sarah Hart (in background), Devonte Hart, Nusheen Bakhtiar, and Sierra Hart (holding Nusheen’s hands) at the Beloved Festival in 2013

Back in 2007, after Jen and Sarah adopted Markis, Hannah, and Abigail, a case worker visited the women’s home in Minnesota. Her findings were positive—she recommended that Jen and Sarah be allowed to adopt a sibling group of up to five more children. Her report, filed on July 11, 2007 read: “The Harts are open to any race and gender, although they would prefer to have at least one boy in the sibling group. Jen and Sarah have adopted biracial children and they have the tools and knowledge to adopt more children from the African American heritage. They are prepared to advocate for their children and to secure the necessary services to support their family.” But what does it mean to be a white advocate for black children?

PHOTO: Courtesy of the Clark County Sheriff’s office

A public document showing the results of the home study wherein Jen and Sarah Hart were preparing to adopt Devonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra

A 2015 evaluation of data on 600 children adopted in Minnesota, the same state where all six Hart children first lived with Jen and Sarah, examined whether being raised by someone of a different race is inherently damaging. The conclusion: not necessarily. Emma Hamilton, the lead author and a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, put it this way: “Being raised by someone of a different race is not inherently damaging to the development of the adoptees, but that much depends on how white parents talk about race with their children of color and help them identify with people of their own race.”

Jen and Sarah Hart spun alarmingly effective stories—particularly on Facebook—that neatly explained away the kids’ strange behavior while simultaneously covering up the truth. They kept Markis, Hannah, Devonte, Abigail, Jeremiah, and Sierra from being able to connect with people who had similar backgrounds. They kept the neighbors from interfering. And most importantly, they ensured that the voices of Hart children were never, ever heard. But what was their motive?

That, and more, next time on Broken Harts.

Subscribe now to our new podcast, Broken Harts, from Glamour and HowStuffWorks and based on this story from the October 2018 issue of Glamour. New episodes will air each Tuesday; find them on Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to get your podcasts. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Have any tips, feedback, or questions? Email us at brokenhartspodcast@gmail.com

Top photo by Zippy Lomax.



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A Look At 'Broken Harts,' Episode 5: 'Owies'


What was happening with the Harts in real life—behind the pixels, in ordinary time? How did Jen and Sarah Hart—“adventurous, tree-hugging, free-spirited peaceniks,” as Jen called them on Facebook—go from being groovy trailblazers to moms who abused their six kids and drove off a cliff?

On March 23, Dana DeKalb, who lives next door to the Hart family in Woodland, Washington, places a call to CPS to report what she believes to be abuse happening in the Hart home. A caseworker visits the Harts that Friday, the 23rd, after Dana’s call, and follows up again on the 26th. When she’s unable to connect with the Harts either day, she calls 911. But by the time authorities show up to the Harts’ home, the family is already on the run.

In a call to Child Protective Services on the 26th, you can hear the Clark County Social Services caseworker requesting a welfare check on the Harts at the family’s home in Woodland, Washington.

As it turns out, Jen and Sarah Hart have a long history of reported abuse and neglect, which, according to police reports, begins in September of 2008 when someone at Washington Elementary School in Alexandria, Minnesota, notices a suspicious bruise on Hannah Hart’s arm; Hannah claims the mark is the result of her mother’s striking her with a belt. When Sarah and Jen are questioned, they tell police that the bruise was likely from a fall down stairs.

Two years later, in November of 2010, another report is filed; this time the subject is Abigail, who is in the first grade. The report claims she was stealing her classmates’ food and digging through the garbage. Later that month, Abigail reports “owies” to her teacher. According to a report later compiled by the Oregon Department of Human Services: “Abigail had bruising on her stomach area from her sternum to waistband, and bruising on her back from mid-back to upper buttocks, reportedly caused by Jen Hart (according to Abigail). But in the CPS interview with the couple, Sarah Hart said she is responsible for the marks. The worker said this incident was over a penny. They had discovered a penny in Abigail’s pocket and asked her about it, and Abigail said she found it. Jen and Sarah Hart did not believe her, and said she stole the penny, and was lying about it, hence the spanking—‘which got out of control,’ per Sarah Hart. Abigail also said they put her head under cold water, and Jen had her two hands on her neck.” Upon questioning the other Hart kids, investigators learn the children are often grounded, spanked, or sent to bed without food.

In December of 2010, Minnesota Child Welfare learns about a bruise on Hannah’s hand. By this point she is in third grade. When she’s questioned, Hannah claims Jen hits her all the time. Later the school nurse calls the Hart home to report that Hannah is asking her classmates for food, saying she hasn’t eaten all day. Sarah’s response is simply: “She’s playing the food card. Just give her water.” The following April, Jen and Sarah pull all six children from school.

But despite these continued complaints to Child Services, many of those closest to the Harts are reportedly unaware of the abuse. In an interview with Bill Groener—the Harts’ neighbor in West Linn, Oregon, where the family lives for four years before they move next door to the DeKalbs in Woodland, Washington—Groener says he had no idea that child abuse allegations had been filed against Jen and Sarah, and that he “wishes there would have been something” that tipped him off.

It seems the Hart matriarchs have become experts at fooling those around them into believing their home was one filled with love and laughter, and on Facebook, Jen continues to craft lengthy, emphatic posts describing the family’s adventures. In one particular instance, in December of 2012, Jen writes that she’s been in a car accident with the kids in Missoula, Montana. The car she is driving at the time is the family’s Yukon—the same one that later goes off the cliff. Jen describes the accident at length, but a thorough investigation does not turn up any record of the accident Jen describes, and a Carfax report of the Yukon shows no body work was performed on the car around the time Jen claims the accident occurs.

PHOTO: Carfax

In another post to her page, this time from June of 2013, Jen shares a photo of a strikingly thin Devonte, naked and playing the guitar. In the post, Jen shares an exchange with her son, wherein she asks him: “Any particular reason you are naked?” to which he allegedly replies: “I’m not naked. I’m wearing a guitar.” The exchange and photo are intended to be funny, showing a thick-as-thieves bond between mother and son. But instead the post raises red flags. Why would a boy of Devonte’s age be so small and frail? Friends of the Harts—both those on Facebook and those who knew the family from the music festival circuit—were frequently told by Jen and Sarah that the children were “crack babies” who were developmentally delayed, giving friends and acquaintances reason to believe that was the cause of the children’s small stature; meanwhile, the children are frequently asking neighbors and classmates for food.

A few short weeks after Jen posts this photo to Facebook, an anonymous whistleblower reports the parents to CPS. A doctor who later examines the children for the Oregon Department of Human Services finds that all but one of the Hart kids—Jeremiah—are behind in their growth to the point of falling off the chart for their ages. The doctor recommends that a caseworker monitor the family and request follow-up physicals in six months, though there is no record of this ever happening.

Online, Jen paints the portrait of a happy, healthy family, but as one anonymous whistleblower tells authorities: “Jen does this thing for her Facebook page, where the kids pose and are made to look like one big happy family, but after the photo event they go back to looking lifeless.”

So what, then, was the truth? That, and more, coming up on Broken Harts.

Subscribe now to our new podcast, Broken Harts, from Glamour and HowStuffWorks and based on this story from the October 2018 issue of Glamour. New episodes will air each Tuesday; find them on Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to get your podcasts. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Have any tips, feedback, or questions? Email us at brokenhartspodcast@gmail.com

Top photo by Holly Andres.



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'Broken Harts,' Episode 3: 'The Perfect People'


What can you really tell about someone by a picture or a video?

Can you determine what kind of person they are? Their values, beliefs, and goals? What about a photo of a presidential hopeful on the campaign trail? What kind of crowd would he assemble around the podium to send the message that he’s the “other” guy—the progressive, antiestablishment choice? Wouldn’t the proximity of two white moms and their six black kids help make his case?

You may remember a particularly iconic moment from a March 2016 rally for then presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. It happened in Portland, Oregon, where Sanders was mid-speech when he a tiny bird landed directly in front of him, inches away from his notes. “I think there may be some symbolism here,” Sanders ad libs, “I know it doesn’t look like it, but that bird is really a dove asking us for world peace.”

There were more than 11,000 attendees that particular rally, and the Hart family were among them. They were standing directly behind Sanders, jumping up and down in matching blue Bernie T-shirts. And this wasn’t the first time the Harts had publicly supported the Senator; days earlier, the family had attended his rally in Vancouver, Washington. Afterward, Jen posted about it on Facebook, saying she’d made the kids stand for four hours in the pouring rain. According to a family friend of the Harts, a member of the Sanders campaign team approached the Harts that day and invited them to come to the Oregon rally.

That’s where they became part of the bird moment. The video has over 2.3 million YouTube views—and counting.

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Jen claimed that the family had been approached about doing a reality TV show, but that “no amount of money would ever be worth the trials and tribulations that would surely come from media/producers manipulating our lives on a TV show.” Fair enough. But how could one family—especially one interested in living off the grid—become virally famous by accident?

PHOTO: Zippy Lomax

From left: Devonte, Abigail, and Sierra Hart at the Beloved Festival in 2013

For photographer Zippy Lomax, the family was the perfect visual symbol for the very transformational music festivals they attended together. One video posted to Jen’s YouTube page shows the family enjoying the 2012 Project Earth Festival in Minnesota. Devonte and Jeremiah, both under 10 at the time, are dancing with flowers around their necks; at the 45-second mark, Jen asks Jeremiah: “You going to give Nahko a hug?” He does.

Some might see her question as proof that Jen coerced the kids into performing. Others might see it as a gesture of encouragement. Either way, if the Hart family seemed off, festival onlookers didn’t notice. They were perceived as the perfect people, living the perfect life.

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Nowhere was this more true than Jen’s Facebook page, where her lengthy, intimate posts landed hundreds of likes from people who believed they knew her well enough to call her a friend. From 2007 through 2018, Jen consistently shared fantastical stories: of the family’s adventures on the road, of homeschooling on the beach, of little moments with the chickens the Harts kept in their backyard. At some point, this fantasy world appears to have eclipsed reality. So what was that reality? We’ll get into that next time, on Episode Four of Broken Harts.

Subscribe now to our new podcast, Broken Harts, from Glamour and HowStuffWorks and based on this story from the October 2018 issue of Glamour. New episodes will air each Tuesday; find them on Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to get your podcasts. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Have any tips, feedback, or questions? Email us at brokenhartspodcast@gmail.com

Photo: Johnny Huu Nguyen



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