http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1804/09/ptab.01.html
Tonight a California search team is looking for three missing children after their family drove off a cliff, but there`s been a big break in the case and producer Bernice Man is covering it. Bernice, what`s the latest?
BERNICE MAN, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Seema, that search for three might actually be down to two, but whose body is it? The sheriff working on the case will have the latest with us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: CHP investigators say the crash was intentional, that Jennifer Hart stopped the car, 70 feet back from the edge of the cliff, then drove straight off the edge, never hitting the brakes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IYER: Search teams have spent the last two weeks searching for three missing kids, but tonight, it seems that number is down to two.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get a chance, can you update on the status of the body, if they were able to get on shore or not?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IYER: Investigators say a bystander on the beach actually brought the body up to shore. And though they won`t be able to identify it for a while, they are saying it looks like a black female. I wanted to bring in now Evan Bush, a reporter for the Seattle Times, also Mendocino County Sheriff,
Tom Allman, and Medical Examiner Forensic pathologist, Dr. Michelle DuPre. And to you, Sheriff, to begin with, tell us about the breaking news about a body discovered.
SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN, MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: Seema, good evening, and thank you, once again, for allowing us to get on and discuss this, because we still have a lot of questions out there that we`re hoping the public is going to help us with. But yes, on Saturday a couple was walking the beach and did see something that looked like a body. And another person was there, and pulled it out. And our deputy sheriffs who
were also Coroners responded to the area. And we have -- we`ve transported the victim to the mortuary where an autopsy will be taking place tomorrow morning.
It is at -- it appears to be a young African-American female. And we are working with the family. And even though those were foster children, we do know of relatives there. And so, we`re hopefully going to be able to get a DNA identification and be able to take care of this for closure for a lot of families, but the search continues on. We have a helicopter in today. We`re expecting another rainstorm tomorrow. And this weekend we had waves upwards of 15 feet. And when you have waves like that, you certainly are going to have things that are brought to the beach and so forth. So we`re certainly keeping deputy sheriffs in the area today. And we`re trying to get as much information as possible so we can locate the final two. That is with the assumption that this one body that we recovered Saturday is one of the victims of the tragedy.
IYER: Sheriff, now I understand that you`re also the Coroner. Is that correct?
ALLMAN: Yes, it is.
IYER: All right. So were you one of the first responders at the scene of the crash? Which was two weeks ago today.
ALLMAN: Yes, yes. I was there as a sheriff within an hour of it being dispatched. It`s on the coast, and I happen to be on the coast and I went to the scene. I was there before the car was pulled up and as the victims were brought out of the ocean, yes.
IYER: Sheriff, set the scene for us. What did you see? What -- just lay it all out for us, tell us what you saw.
ALLMAN: All right. Well, you know, I`m going to say the first thing that I saw, we have volunteer firemen in that area. And we saw -- and I have volunteer firefighters that were rappelling down the banks. They were doing everything that need to be done. But, of course, we saw the vehicle, which was upside down at the ocean`s edge, which was at the bottom of the bluffs.
[18:05:09] IYER: What about the bodies, sheriff? The moms, Jennifer, Jean Hart, she was driving, where was Sarah Margaret Hart, the wife, and the three kids who were found deceased, where were they with respect to the car and the crash?
ALLMAN: Right. As I reported last week, the two adults were still inside the vehicle, and the three juveniles were located outside of the vehicle.
IYER: And what was discovered inside the car? Was there any luggage? Was there any indication that this family was moving, or fleeing?
ALLMAN: No, it`s been -- it was noticeably missing the luggage, the possible camping equipment, you know, things that you would normally take on vacation.
IYER: Well, we don`t know that this was a vacation, right, sheriff? We don`t know this was a vacation.
ALLMAN: I can`t -- I don`t know because, you know, things do get washed out of a vehicle. And maybe they`re in the ocean still. But obviously sometimes those things wash up on shore, but we haven`t found many things that washed up on shore. So I think there are some missing personal items that, you know, we`re hoping that they`re going to show up. Because, you know, Seema, as I said last week, this crime -- this crash scene has quickly become a crime scene. But we`re trying to continue to just go down the road of discover any facts that we can, and at the end of this, allow people who weren`t involved in the case to sit down with this information and make a rational conclusion. I`ve met with our district --
IYER: Sheriff?
ALLMAN: Yes.
IYER: Sheriff, were the car doors open or closed?
ALLMAN: The car doors were open. One car door had been torn off. I couldn`t see the other car doors.
IYER: OK. Sheriff, I want you to stand by. This is a bizarre case. There are five people dead, three people missing, all part of the same
family. Evan Bush, please describe to me what you know about this family dynamic, the two moms. What did they do for a living? When did they adopt these children? What`s the -- what was the family makeup?
EVAN BUSH, REPORTER, THE SEATTLE TIMES: Sure. Thanks for having me, Seema. The two moms, one Sarah Hart, worked in retail. And you know, they lived in three different states, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington.
IYER: Why did they live in three different states? Why were they moving around so much?
BUSH: Well, that is not entirely clear. We`re still trying to piece together exactly why they`d been moving so much. But there were abuse allegations in all three states. And --
IYER: As to both the moms? Or just one?
BUSH: Well, for -- we don`t know the details of some of the allegations. In Minnesota, there were allegations against Sarah Hart, and she ended up pleading in a case there. And then, you know, there have been other allegations in Oregon and Washington involving food deprivation and beating as well.
IYER: Well, actually, there were several Hart family red flags, we have a full screen of this dating back to September 2008, 2010, and all the way up to late in March. So there were several red flags here. Is that correct?
BUSH: That is what our reporting has shown.
IYER: Evan, I`m sorry, were the kids fostered, adopted, or a mix of both?
BUSH: So they came from Texas. And they were adopted. And Texas -- let`s see, in two different -- there`s two different sets of siblings. And so first in 2006, and then in 2009 three siblings went to the Hart`s in 2006 and then three in 2009.
IYER: And were they all home schooled? Is that correct?
BUSH: So they were in schools in Minnesota. And then were pulled from schools and homeschooled. And Oregon and Washington, they were homeschooled as well. They never registered for local school districts. And then there are -- you know, there`s paperwork that is required in homeschooling situations to be filled out and turned into local authorities. And in neither state was any of that paperwork turned in by the Hart parents.
IYER: OK, Evan, my understanding is when you have foster children, the state gives you money to take care of those foster children. Were these moms getting money to take care of these kids? Because they were adopted, so they should not have.
[18:10:06] BUSH: Yes. So, that is not something that I`ve done reporting on specifically, but I know the San Antonio Express News had look into that -- yes.
IYER: Evan, OK, Evan, I`m going to make you stand by. Sheriff, can you come back to us for a second and answer this question, were the kids -- I thought that you said the children were foster children. Were they foster children? Were the moms getting money from the state to take care of these kids?
ALLMAN: Well, it sounds kind of strange. Like, I will tell you that what I know is what I read in the paper yesterday that the state of Texas had paid over a decade a total of $270,000 to the family for the foster care and coverage of the children. I read that in the local newspaper that had received it from Social Services in Texas.
IYER: OK. So, Sheriff, I don`t understand this. This happened two weeks ago. And all I have here is one surveillance image from March 25th in the morning. Jennifer Hart is seen on surveillance at Safeway. I am sure law enforcement has made some progress since then. So if you could describe to us, do you have any other surveillance footage of any of these family members, perhaps at an ATM machine, getting money out?
ALLMAN: Well, as I said at the beginning, one of the things that we`re hoping is the public is going to tell us some of the stuff. You know, we have very few electronic transactions from this family. So I`m assuming they paid cash for gasoline, because traveling 500 miles in that GMC Yukon, you`re going to certainly have to stop for gas a couple times.
IYER: Did you check -- was there a large cash withdrawal prior to March 25th, or when they went missing?
ALLMAN: I`m not aware of one, Seema.
IYER: OK. And have you spoken to CPS? Do you know if perhaps -- because there was allegations that the neighbors called CPS to check on the family at the end of March. So my question is, is it possible the family, the moms took the kids, and they were fleeing from CPS for some reason?
ALLMAN: Right. Well, there`s certainly a lot of possibilities, as I said last week, to Ashleigh, there`s a lot of questions that we are not going to know the answer to. But as far as electronic transactions, we are also really going to find that information. We`ve served search warrants, and we`re waiting for the information to come back. We just don`t have it yet, but as I said last week, because the suspect in this case is no longer alive, there`s nothing that we`re going to hold back from the press. When we get the information, we`re going to release information, but if we don`t have it, we`re not going to make it up. We want this to be a fact-driven investigation.
IYER: Absolutely, Sheriff. I completely understand that. And so do our viewers. We just share in your urgency to help your community find some answers. The tip line has been consistently going up. I do also want to show the proximity of where this body was found to the crash site. It was actually very close to the crash site. So hopefully you`ll find some answers there.
But, actually with respect to the body being found, let`s go to Dr. DuPre. Dr. DuPre, thank you for being on the program. Let me ask you this, doctor, a body was found. This incident happened two weeks ago. What, if any, water damage could have affected being able to identify this body?
Because right now they`re not saying age, they don`t know anything, but maybe black female. So how significant is the water damage?
MICHELLE DUPRE M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER AND FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, thanks for having me, first of all. And that is always a concern when we have a case like this, but generally we can tell the basic information. And then once an autopsy is done we can actually confirm the identity through DNA. Certainly that will probably be the case.
IYER: Can an autopsy of the bodies that were found, these five bodies, can that tell you if they died on impact, or some other way?
DUPRE: Yes. In fact, that is one of the reasons we do an autopsy is to determine the cause and manner of death. And by looking at the injuries and the pattern of injuries, we can tell what caused the actual death of that person.
IYER: So, can you tell from the autopsy -- and please tell us, describe to us, can you tell if this accident or this driving off the cliff was on purpose?
DUPRE: It`s really hard to say from examining the body. That is more of a scene investigation. What we can tell oftentimes is if seat belts were worn or if they were not. We can also tell oftentimes the position of the bodies in the car from the injuries. Again, just depending on the state of the body at the time.
IYER: Sheriff, last question to you. I believe that there were no seat belts. Correct? Nobody was wearing a seat belt?
[18:15:00] ALLMAN: From our autopsies, we have a very clear indication that nobody in the vehicle was wearing a seat belt.
IYER: We`ll leave it at that. Thank you so much, Evan Bush, Sheriff Tom Allman, and Dr. DuPre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know the status of the bodies we were able to get it on shore.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body pulled from the water was that after an African-American female.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does she pulled end up at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does that change the dynamic of what you have now called a crime, that they were all unbelted?
Claims the mothers were abusing the children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was inspired by them. They gave me hope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gives more to the motivation of would everybody perish in a vehicle going off the cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say the crash was intentional.
SEEMA IYER, HLN HOST: Good evening, everyone. I`m Seema Iyer in for Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to the second hour of CRIME AND JUSTICE.
We begin tonight with the chilling discovers on a California beach where a couple on vacation spotted a body in the water just yards away from the cliff where the family had plunged to their deaths. And investigators have told us they may have driven off the cliff on purpose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: CHP investigators say the crash was intentional, that Jennifer Hart stopped the car 70 feet back from the edge of the cliff, then drove straight off the edge never hitting the brakes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IYER: It`s been two weeks since that crash, and two weeks of searching for three of the six Hart kids. But tonight, that number may be down to two.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you get a chance, can you give the status of the body, if they were able to get it on shore or not?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IYER: Investigators say it was a bystander on the beach who pulled that body to shore. And they won`t be able to identify it for a while. But they are saying it looks like a black female.
Let`s bring in Nina Shapiro, a reporter for the "Seattle Times." Also Mendocino County sheriff, Thomas Allman, as well as medical examiner and forensic pathologist, Dr. Michelle DuPre.
Sheriff, I would like to start with you, sir. I understand you are also the coroner. And you were part of the team that discovered body?
SHERIFF THOMAS ALLMAN, MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE (on the phone): Well, I was not part of the team that discovered the body. I was at the original scene two weeks ago today. One of my deputies was a deputy coroner as well as deputy sheriff. He was one of the first law enforcement officers there and he was the one who began the investigation of the recovered body.
IYER: And we can see from the map we have that the female body was found somewhat close to the crash site. Now, sir, as the coroner, you were there when the accident first happened. Tell us what you observed, set the scene for us, please.
ALLMAN: Well, no one was there when it happened. That`s one of the problems. This was an unwitnessed accident. So we specifically do not know the time and date of the accident. We certainly know when it was reported and when our units responded.
But when I was there, I certainly saw the volunteer fireman, and they were recovering, working with a tow truck to recover the vehicle. We still had two bodies in it at the bottom of the 100 foot cliff and we were working with the highway patrol and their incredibly talented helicopter pilots working to recover the bodies from the ocean.
IYER: Was anybody wearing seat belts in the car?
ALLMAN: We have no evidence and no indication whatsoever, and I`m speaking post-autopsy of those five bodies that were recovered. There`s no evidence that seat belts were being worn.
IYER: So it looks like nobody had a seat belt on?
ALLMAN: Correct.
IYER: OK. Sheriff, I`m going to ask you to just stand by, and let`s bring in Nina Shapiro.
Nina, I know that you can give us some background on this family. This is a highly unusual case. You have a family of eight people. We don`t know the motive for this. We don`t know why this happened. And the moms, Jennifer and Sarah, how long have they been together? What type of work do they do? And are these kids fostered or adopted? Just set -- tell us what the family was like.
[19:05:15] NINA SHAPIRO, REPORTER, THE SEATTLE TIMES (on the phone): Sure. So it seems that they -- the couple, Jen and Sarah met in college.
They were both from South Dakota. And they went to college there. They both studied education. A couple years later they were living in a small town in Minnesota. And that`s when they started to adopt children from Texas. So Texas does out of state adoptions. And this couple adopted first one set of siblings in 2006. And then another set of siblings in 2009. Jen stayed home and Sarah was the one who worked consistently. Sarah would work at department stores, both in Minnesota, and then in Oregon and Washington when the couple moved there. And they were very much a couple of contradiction. So on the one hand they were deeply immersed in an alternative culture around Portland and they attended a lot of music festivals and rallies and went to an organic farm. But on the other hand they seemed to live a deliberately private life and kept neighbors and the outside world at a distance.
IYER: Well, I`m glad you bring that up. So, number one, you mentioned Jen stayed home. Does she homeschool these kids?
SHAPIRO: She did for part of the time. So in Minnesota the kids were in public schools, at least for a while. And then after -- there were two instances of abuse allegations in Minnesota.
IYER: Right, tell us about that.
SHAPIRO: And -- right, OK. Well, the first one was in 2008 and one of the children reported that Jen had hit the child with a belt. That case ended up being closed. The parents had said that the child had fallen down the stairs a few days prior. And then you have in 2010 one of the children, one of the little girls, had told a teacher that she had owies (ph) on her tummy and her back, and that mom had hit her. And an investigation was done. And Sarah ended up pleading guilty to a domestic assault charge.
IYER: Now, that was in Minnesota. Now, I want to bring you to Washington. Because you said they were very private as a couple and as a family. In mid-2017 wash neighbors said one of the hart girls came to their home at 1:30 a.m. asking for help, claiming she`d been mistreated by the parents. And we can put all this information up and this history of these red flags.
In March of 2018 Washington neighbors said Devonte was asking for food once a day, sometimes up to three times a day. The end of March, neighbors called CPS to check on the hart family. Authorities conducted a welfare check. So was CPS involved in this family`s life? Is it possible that Jennifer and Sarah were taking the kids and fleeing from cps?
SHAPIRO: Well, I think that`s entirely possible. The family left soon after CPS in Washington came to visit the home. And we have a neighbor saying that Jen was actually inside the home when the CPS worker knocked on the door. So I think that`s entirely possible.
You have to remember that there -- these social service agencies were in different states that got involved. So they hadn`t lived in Washington all that long. Some of the investigations were in different places. And there was also a separate complaint that happened in Oregon which is where they lived before they came to Washington. But they ended up moving after a lot of these different allegations happened. They moved to different states.
IYER: OK. I want to go back to you, sheriff. And, listen, we have surveillance footage. And this seems to be all we have, surveillance footage from a Safeway, March 25th. And we can see Jennifer Hart seen there. Do you have any other surveillance footage that can show where -- what has happened prior to the crash? Where they were? Did they take out money? Were they buying items? Were they calling people, visiting people?
Anything?
[19:10:00] ALLMAN: We have nothing, Seema. The fact that they had to get gas at least twice to come down here, you know, you have six kids. You know they have to get out and go to the restroom and stretch their legs and maybe run in place. This family would have been noticed with the two moms and the six kids. They would have been noticed by someone. We offer our tip line, our anonymous tip line and dispatch number. And CNN has put it on the screen a hundred times. And still, we have very few tips from the public that are giving us good information of where we can go to get footage from gas stations, from a rest stop, from a grocery store. We have search warrants, and I`m hoping this week we`ll get the results of our search warrants for phone tracking, text messaging, any other credit card information we`re looking for so we can move on to the next stage.
The family members, even though they were foster kids and adopted, these kids had grandparents and have family members, blood relatives that live throughout our nation. These are the next of kin we are working with to get their remains to them so this family can have closure. We want to get the answers as much as anybody else.
ALLMAN: I know you do, sheriff, and we definitely want to help you. Thank you for bringing up the grandparents. That is my next question. What have you learned from the grandparents? I`m assuming you are speaking about Jennifer and Sarah`s parents?
We`ve talked to the next of kin. They`re going through a grieving process. It wouldn`t be polite for me to disclose conversations other than to say we have made the necessary legal notification of the passing of their relatives. But other conversations, you know, we are working with them through the next stage of this grieving and getting remains to them and so forth. You know, there -- even if this is a crime, and certainly at this point. That`s my personal belief it is. There`s still the fact that up to eight people have perished. And there`s grieving, and there`s emotions going. And we are not going to ever go to court to find out, you know, if a jury is going to say guilty or innocent. So we`re trying to just allow this to be a very fact driven investigation where everybody is going to be told the facts as soon as we get them.
IYER: But, sheriff, when you went to get that search warrant, you did give the judge enough information to say we are trying to look for phone records, and credit card charges, and looking at the home computers, all of that information is -- are things that you`re trying to look at. Correct?
ALLMAN: Well, some of these search warrants were served by law enforcement agencies in other states, you know, because they lived in Washington. They worked in Oregon, and we`re in California. So our investigation does not include the computers and so forth. But the cell phones, yes, it does, ask then, of course, any other credit cards and phone records we`re looking for.
IYER: Have you been in touch with cps? Because the neighbors, they called cps at the end of march. So this is all timewise right Mt. Same proximity, is cps helping you in this investigation?
ALLMAN: We have been in touch with the Clark county sheriff`s office in Washington, and their agency is assisting us greatly in this, the type of investigation that you`re alluding to.
IYER: Sheriff, thank you.
I want to bring in Dr. Dupree. Doctor, now, the autopsies, I believe they are scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday. Can you tell us, will an autopsy of the body -- we`re just talking about the five bodies that were found initially. Will those autopsies be able to tell us if those people died on impact?
DR. MICHELLE DUPRE, PATHOLOGIST: In most cases they can tell that. They can tell by the type of injury, and we know by the type of injury what kind of damage that might do. So, yes, we would probably be able to tell that. In addition, the interesting thing is we will also be able to tell if there was chronic abuse or evidence of chronic abuse for the children.
IYER: Right. That is also another great point. Thank you, Dr. DuPre.
Now, let me ask you this, can an autopsy tell us if this car was driven off the cliff on purpose?
DUPREE: Not really. That`s more of a scene investigation. However, again, by the injuries that are sustained, we can tell whether they were sustained in the accident. And sometimes car accidents are used to hide other injuries, maybe a different cause of death, a shooting, a stabbing or something of that nature can often be covered up, supposedly, by a car accident. But we can usually discover that.
IYER: Last question, Dr. Dupree, the female body that was found, they are saying possibly a black female. They can`t tell us the age. Is it because the body may have been missing for two weeks, and there`s water damage? Would the water have perhaps perished the ability to find out the age of that body?
[19:15:09] DUPREE: Upon initial examination, perhaps. But once we do the autopsy, oftentimes from various factors, even just the skeletal remains, and I`m sure we probably have a little bit more than that, but we can tell the age of the person. And certainly in this case we would identify that person by DNA.
IYER: Thank you to all my guests on this story.
