Broken Harts, Episode 4: Full Transcript

Liz Egan: We've talked about how Jen and Sarah Hart met each other and how they quickly adopted six kids. We've talked about how Jen curated an identity for the family on social media and at music festivals. And we've talked about how the Harts lived. Now we're going to talk about how they died. This is hard stuff, obviously, and we've spent a lot of time thinking about it. What happened in the week leading up to the Hart's 561-mile trip from Washington to California? And when Jen arrived at the edge of the cliff, what made her keep her foot on the gas? From Glamour and HowStuffWorks, this is Broken Harts. I'm Liz Egan.

Justine Harman: And I'm Justine Harman. We're going to check back in with Bruce and Dana DeKalb, who were the Harts’ neighbors in Woodland, Washington. You'll remember they're the ones who were woken up in the middle of the night by Hannah Hart.

Dana DeKalb: Shortly after the Hannah incident, they bought blinds and never, ever opened them. Never.

Bruce DeKalb: They'd stay closed 24/7.

Dana DeKalb: You couldn't see in the house. You couldn't see in their car. They would go from the house to the car and from the car to the house, literally, single file and it was like kind of at a fast clip, almost like running. Jennifer would get out and open the doors, then they would get out, and single-file to the house. I was hoping to see Hannah again, because I was hoping to get it to her that you are always welcome to my home, that no matter what, feel free to come here. Or have her give me a signal that she needs help. I wanted to let any of the kids know that if they need help, just give me the nod. Because I just never felt comfortable about what I was observing.

Lauren Smiley: That's Dana, who still teared up when talking about the Harts nearly two months after they died. Even though the sheriff's deputy had told Dana it wasn't illegal to not let kids play outside, she still had a bad gut feeling about the family. In fact, she vowed to keep watch, on the comings and goings of their cars, on anything she could decipher from the house with the blinds drawn tightly shut. She made sure to take notes of each new visit Devonte would make to their house. For months Dana had only gotten tiny tidbits. Devonte's clipped greetings when she tried to intercept him in the driveway on garbage runs, but now, finally, little by little, Devonte was opening up.

Dana DeKalb: We had to take our garbage cans to the street, and it's a long ways, and so I would watch for the kids because I wanted to try to have a conversation with any of them, but I could never get them to talk to me. And I never saw Hannah. One time Devonte and I, I kind of waited for him and caught up with him and I talked to him, but he wouldn't answer me. Finally, right when we went to split, I said, "Well, you know, have a good day." And he goes, "Yes, ma'am." That was all I got from the whole way up the driveway. He got back up to the house, and I saw Jennifer scolding him. She went inside and left him standing out in the rain. And my first reaction in my gut was he just got in trouble for talking to me. And then from that day on, we never saw him take the garbage. They did it in the night. I thought, OK, obviously there's something going on that they've been instructed not to speak with us. From that day forward, Devonte, he was the only kid of the six of them that was ever outside doing work. He was raking leaves or hauling things. One day I sat and watched, he carried 10 bags of soil from the front to the back, and I kept thinking, My God, there's six of them. Even if Hannah is too tiny, there's three boys, and Markis was way bigger than Devonte.

Bruce DeKalb: Yeah, he was way bigger.

Dana DeKalb: And so it blew my mind, and I stopped and watched that, thinking, Eventually I'm going to see another kid. But it only was Devonte. When you tell me that the kids chose to live out in the country and wanted to become self-sufficient, then I would expect to see kids out in the yard, planting or enjoying the property, you know. If you want to live like this, you enjoy it. And so it wasn't adding up. My gut instincts still had me on alert.

Bruce DeKalb: She talked about it forever.

Dana DeKalb: I was obsessed with it.

Bruce DeKalb: She was obsessed with it.

Dana DeKalb: I watched their comings and goings. I mean, I knew when Sarah had a day off. I stalked them, essentially. Because I just couldn't let it go.

Liz Egan: Aside from a few brief conversations in the driveway, the DeKalbs felt the Harts were avoiding them. But that changed on Thursday, March 15, 2018, when Devonte approached Bruce, who was working on his truck, and asked for tortillas. It was a simple request, like asking for a cup of sugar or a stick of butter, and Bruce was happy to help.

Justine Harman: That same day, over on Facebook, Jen was celebrating the ninth anniversary of Devonte, Sierra, and Jeremiah's official adoption date. She posted six black-and-white pictures of the kids grinning and wearing cute hats. We won't read the whole status update—it's a long one too—but the lines you're about to hear are pretty poignant considering what was about to happen. And considering that Devonte might have been asking Bruce for food at the very moment Jen typed these words.

Liz Egan: "I am a better human in every possible way for knowing these children. They have been my greatest teachers. Contrary to the common notion that we can't choose our family, we absolutely can. We choose by loving, and that's worth celebrating every damn day."

Justine Harman: Dana and Bruce weren't friends with Jen on Facebook. In fact, they had no idea she was active on social media until after she died. On Friday, March 16, 2018, around 9:00 A.M., they answered a knock on their door. There was Devonte again, asking for bread. This time Dana was the one who gave him the food; she didn't have bread, so she gave him tortillas instead.

Dana DeKalb: The first night I didn't think anything. When he came back, I was like, Hm, that's weird. OK. He would kind of watch down the road.

Bruce DeKalb: He would watch down the road, but he was only here—

Dana DeKalb: Minutes.

Bruce DeKalb: As long as he needed to be for—

Dana DeKalb: He would never come in the house.

Bruce DeKalb: Yeah, never came in the house.

Lauren Smiley: Oh, he didn't?

Dana DeKalb: Nope.

Bruce DeKalb: No, never came in the house.

Dana DeKalb: He would not step foot. I'd say, "Come in, honey, it's raining." "No." And he'd be like, he was always really in a hurry. But then when he came back Friday night, it's like, Wait a minute, I just gave you 30 tortillas. I specifically thought, I've got to take a step back and just size him up. He was always dressed in baggier clothes, rubber boots, and longer sleeves; you know, I mean, in March when he started coming over here, it's still wet and cold. His shoulders were super small in comparison to his head. I have little shoulders. He was smaller than me. He was really thin, you know, like his arms were as big as my wrists.

Lauren Smiley: How tall are you?

Dana DeKalb: 5'4".

Lauren Smiley: Was he taller than you or…?

Bruce DeKalb: No.

Dana DeKalb: Around my height.

Bruce DeKalb: He was small.

Liz Egan: The next day, around 5:00 P.M., Devonte was back. He wanted more food. Bruce and Dana tried to get him to stay and talk. Dana was determined to collect information she could share when she called Child Protective Services again. Remember, the first time she spoke to them, after her dad reported the Harts, she was told there was nothing they could do to help.

Dana DeKalb: That's when it's like, OK, we've got to get details. So every time he came over, I would ask him a little more and a little more. First, it was just about playing outside and, you know," Were you allowed to play outside at your other house?" And then it was, "What about school?"

Liz Egan: Meanwhile, Jen continued to post about Devonte on Facebook. He was one of her favorite subjects, we know that already. Four days after his first visit to the DeKalbs, she shared a picture where you can only see his eyes, brown and smiling. The bottom of his face is obscured by a tray full of dirt and seedlings.

Justine Harman: The post reads: "We currently have 600 flowers/vegetables growing in the living room before their move to the little green house." She goes on to say that the kids are "reading their environmental biology books out loud to each other and to the plants." It sounds like a cozy scene.

Liz Egan: On Tuesday, March 20, Devonte returned to the DeKalbs’ house twice. Although he still wouldn't come inside, he was at least more forthcoming than he'd been on previous visits.

Dana DeKalb: I asked him how he was able to sneak over here. He told me they weren't very observant, and I've learned that Jennifer was a gamer, a video gamer on computers, and so he came over when she was probably gaming or he would come over late at night when they were probably asleep. Sarah was never home, I don't think, when he made his trips over here.

Bruce DeKalb: No.

Dana DeKalb: She was either going to work or it was late enough that she would probably be in bed.

Justine Harman: This made sense. While Sarah was working long hours at Kohl's, Jen was running a guild of video game enthusiasts, sometimes dominating group chats to the point where one dubbed her a "stone-cold narcissist." So it seems like there wasn't a whole lot of supervision happening in the Hart house. And the family life Devonte described to the DeKalbs bore little resemblance to the rosy utopia Jen described to her fans.

Bruce DeKalb: They were withholding food as punishment. He would say, "Well, we're teenagers and we act out and so we get punished in that way." And Dana said, "Well, there's nothing you could ever do that would warrant someone taking food away from you. I don't care what it is."

Lauren Smiley: So to a degree he did say, "We're teenagers and act out." Like trying to claim there was some sort of cause.

Bruce DeKalb: Yeah, yeah. Or that maybe they thought that there was a cause. You know, trying to make it like it was normal somewhat. But obviously it wasn't.

Liz Egan: Just to recap: Devonte showed up at the DeKalbs' on March 15, 16, 17, 20, and 21. He showed up for the last time on March 22.

Dana DeKalb: He started asking for cured meat and six jars of peanut butter, and six packages of tortillas, and apples, and then he goes, "And doughnuts." And he kind of looked and I said, "No, I'm not doing no junk food." And he'd go, "Oh, OK." You know, when you say, specifically, cured meat, and he told us “nonperishables.” He even said "nonperishables": “We can't have anything that's frozen or needs to be refrigerated.” It was like, Is he going to run away?

Lauren Smiley: Was there like a moment that you felt the pitch change of just like, "I'm not going to be guarded about this anymore, I'm just telling you we're being abused"?

Dana DeKalb: Yeah. That was on Wednesday, when he first started telling us a little more about abuse and then asking us, “Please don't call the cops.” Told us that “everything Hannah told you was true. The things my mom told you were just to make you happy.” And it was just like, Oh God, I totally bought into it. And I was just like, Oh God. You know? Just kill me. I said, "OK, so, why did she run away that night?" "’Cause my mom was abusing her." It was just, like, too much. That it had started out just as a meal here or there but now it was long periods of time and then he said, "Sarah used to not go along with it, but she is now." I just felt like, OK, now I have enough to get somebody's attention.

Justine Harman: Oh March 22, 2018, Jen made her final Facebook post. It was a 30-second video of a pair of ducklings, one yellow, one black.

Liz Egan: We see the ducks splashing together in a bowl of water, cuddling in someone's arms, someone who is white and wearing a gray sweatshirt. Then the ducks are balancing on the back of a rabbit and a cat. And finally climbing over a bowl filled with geodes, starfish, and shells. In the background we see a woman with long brown hair, wearing a blazer and a T-shirt, probably Sarah on her way to work. It's a peaceful domestic scene, and the last frame says, "Happy Spring!" in a jaunty font. The caption: "Cuteness Overload Alert, these spring equinox babies have waddled right into our hearts. So much joy in new life." One hundred and forty-two likes, 85 comments, many of which were posted after the Harts died.

Justine Harman: On Friday morning, March 23, Dana DeKalb called Child Protective Services to report all of the information she had collected about Jen and Sarah Hart. Officials showed up within a couple hours, but by then, Dana thought every second counted.

Dana DeKalb: CPS had been contacted and gone out to see them, when she called back she goes, "I'm here, but I can't find you. I'm at where there across the street is a bank of mailboxes.” I said, "OK, well, turn around and I'll watch for you, you know, and then I'll tell you, turn now." So I'm literally standing here watching for her to go by, and I see Jennifer coming down the hill. And I was thinking, Oh, crap. Maybe the kids were home alone. CPS could have been here by now. So I watched Jennifer coming up the driveway and I'm like, "Well, they're home." So I told the lady, “Turn in, and when you come up the driveway, go to the right.” She came to my house. So she pulled up, and I'm like, giving her the signal to go back, I just motioned, because I didn't want to yell, "Next door, you need to go next door." ’Cause I thought, well, They could be out on the driveway. And so she got back in her car and went next door. She wasn't there very long, and I watched her leave and I'm like, "Crap, nothing came of this." But they never answered the door. Even if you do answer the door, you can say, "I'm sorry, you're going to have to come back another time."

Lauren Smiley: What were your feelings when you actually made the call and reported it?

Dana DeKalb: I think I was nervous, you know. I was glad I did it because I got the feeling it had to happen. I mean, I knew it had to happen.

Lauren Smiley: Were you worried that then they would get abused more?

Dana DeKalb: Yeah, I was. That was my biggest fear.

Justine Harman: But what actually happened was worse.

Justine Harman: Dana saw Sarah's car speeding into the driveway, and then, at some point during the night, the car disappeared. As far as Dana could tell, the house next door was completely empty.

Lauren Smiley: You just put it together that they had gone on the run. You didn't see them blaze out or anything?

Bruce DeKalb: We didn't. Well, the rock wall was knocked over.

Dana DeKalb: The end of it was clipped.

Bruce DeKalb: So they must have—

Dana DeKalb: They were leaving in a hurry.

Bruce DeKalb: Left so fast that they backed over that rock wall and knocked it down. That was Saturday morning, then Sunday, when the car was gone Sunday morning, that's when we said, "They're running. They're gone."

Lauren Smiley: At that moment, what did you think would be the outcome of this?

Dana DeKalb: I guess I just figured they were trying to hide long enough to—

Bruce DeKalb: Yeah, sort it out.

Dana DeKalb: Yeah. Figure out their story.

Bruce DeKalb: They owned the house. Where are they going to, what are they going to do? They've got to come back eventually.

Dana DeKalb: Well, and they have chickens still here.

Bruce DeKalb: Chickens were, and the animals were all up there.

Dana DeKalb: Sarah's car. I mean, it just didn't occur to me that this was going to be the outcome.

Bruce DeKalb: You know what, you don't really think about—

Dana DeKalb: I didn't think they'd kill themselves.

Bruce DeKalb: No.

Dana DeKalb: In my wildest imagination.

Liz Egan: Sarah was scheduled to open Kohl's at 6:00 A.M. on Saturday morning. At 3:00 A.M. she texted coworkers, "I am so sorry. I thought I would be able to go to work, but I am too sick to come in."

Justine Harman: Sarah's colleague Cheryl Hart had worked with her the day before on that Friday. She says she didn't notice anything unusual about Sarah, at least not that.

Cheryl Hart: Her mood that day. I felt was fine. I had just found out that I was getting promoted, and she had actually known before me, so she was like, "Oh I'm so glad that now you know, now I can tell you congratulations," and everything, and so she was excited for me, and so we were laughing and stuff.

Liz Egan: On Saturday, March 24, the Harts' phones pinged off cell towers along the Oregon coast into California and as you know, on Sunday the 25th, Jen showed up in Fort Bragg on a Safeway surveillance video. She was alone. And about 25 pounds heavier than friends had ever seen her, wearing a gray sweatshirt, possibly the same one we caught a glimpse of in the video with the ducklings.

Justine Harman: By Monday afternoon Cheryl Hart was getting concerned. Sarah hadn't shown up for work all weekend and wasn't responding to texts, so Cheryl decided to call 911.

Lauren Smiley: When she said she was sick, did she say what was going on or…?

Cheryl Hart: She just said that she is unable to come out and wasn't able to go to work and thought she was going to have to go to the doctors. I checked the hospitals, they didn't have any record of her. And I think her phone was now dead.

Liz Egan: We were curious about why Cheryl made this call. Justine and I work pretty closely together, and we definitely talk about our families and what we did over the weekend, but I'm not sure I would call 911 if she didn't show up for work for a few days.

Lauren Smiley: Can you talk through just why you made the call?

Cheryl Hart: Well, so, it started because Sarah was sick and because Sarah wasn't answering her phone. So they had asked me how to pull up the emergency contact list, because they thought that maybe they could contact Jen. So I pulled that up. They called Jen and left a message. I sent a text message to a coworker like Sunday night and I said, you know, "Has anybody heard from Sarah yet?" And she said, "No." She says it's really kind of weird, and I said, "That is really weird. She would not miss two days of work without checking in or anything like that." I'm like, "It's so bizarre." Because everything that was going on, she still did her job. She still showed up every day. She wasn't late, she still took initiative to get her projects done, she still had great ideas. I mean, she did everything. If you were just to walk in and not know anything about her history or her family or her home life or whatever, you would never have any idea because none of it showed. When she was out on that sales floor, she had that hat on. All other stuff aside, she did her job. So then we went in Monday and we waited until about nine o'clock and she still hadn't shown up. By this time the store manager had come in, and I had filled him in on everything that had happened over the weekend and was like, "Something is going on. What do we do?" And he's like, "Well, I don't know, I don't know if we can get involved or anything." And I was kind of forcing the issue, like, "I think we have to get involved. I mean, something is going on." He had talked to his manager, and they said, "We'll give it another hour or so." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, you guys are being men. This is ridiculous. Something needs to be done." So then I figured out that Jen's emergency contact number was actually Sarah's phone number. So we didn't have an emergency contact number for Sarah. So I finally got the OK to call it in, and I made the call and then here I sit today.

Justine Harman: About two hours after Cheryl hung up the phone, a German tourist spotted the Harts' tan 2013 Yukon XL upside down at the bottom of the cliff in Mendocino County. The police report includes a photo of the car from above, and it looks like it's flat to the ground, with its brown and gray machinery camouflaged by the rocks, sand, and water. When you look at aerial shots of the scene, the car blends in so well it's hard to see. The bodies of Markis, Abigail, and Jeremiah were found nearby. Sierra's body washed to shore about two weeks later. A foot presumed to be Hannah's was found nearby as well, but at the time of this recording, investigators were still trying to match it with DNA from a woman claiming to be Hannah's biological mom. Devonte's body is still missing. The car's computers show that, moments before the crash, Jen had stopped in a gravel pull out 70 feet from the edge of the cliff and then accelerated. You might wonder if the brakes malfunctioned, but according to a Carfax report, the pads had been replaced the previous July. Per industry experts, the average brake pads last for around 40,000 miles, so unless the Harts had driven back and forth across the country six times, the brake pads should have been in perfect working order.

Liz Egan: Meanwhile, remember all that lush greenery Jen wrote about? When the police showed up to search the Harts' house, they found no plants inside.* But over on Jen's Facebook, the ducklings continue to splash in their bowl of water, one yellow, one black. The most recent comment comes from a loyal friend wishing Jen a happy birthday, months after she died.

Justine Harman: Next time on Broken Harts.

Speaker 6: The kids are skinny; well, we just thought they were eating organic food.

Speaker 7: We thought they were all the same age. They were small, so we thought they had to be in kindergarten.

Speaker 6: Looking back on it, it doesn't look like they were normal kids. They didn't really have friends.

Justine Harman: Abigail had bruising on her stomach area from her sternum to waistband. And bruising on her back from midback to upper buttocks, reportedly caused by Jen Hart.

Liz Egan: For access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about the case, visit glamour.com/brokenharts. Have questions for us about this podcast? Reach us on Twitter @GlamourMag or @BrokenHartsPod. If you like what you heard, leave us a review. Broken Harts is a joint production between Glamour and HowStuffWorks, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Harts is cohosted and cowritten by Justine Harman and Elisabeth Egan, and edited by Wendy Naugle. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter. Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor-in-chief. Julie Shen and Deanna Buckman head up the business side of this partnership. Joyce Pendola, Pat Singer, and Luke Zaleski are our research team. Jason Hoch is executive producer, on behalf of HowStuffWorks, along with producers Julian Weller, Ben Kuebrich, and Josh Thane. Special thanks to Jenn Lance.

Top photo by Holly Andres.

To view a transcript of episode three, click here.

*Correction: Although the Clark County Sheriff's Office did not find any plants in the living room of the Harts' home when they searched the residence, they did find seedling trays by a windowsill in one of the bedrooms upstairs. We regret the error. Authorities also found one room with a double bed, presumed to be Jen and Sarah's, and another with a twin bed. Officials reportedly weren't sure where all the children slept; perhaps on two foam loveseats and a padded mat found in a third bedroom.