Perhaps. Maybe they superficially intended for the cliff plunge to look like an accident, but I'm skeptical about that.
It's hard for me to imagine that 2 relatively smart women could be that stupid. Did they really think their movements could not be tracked? Did they think paying cash completely covered their movements versus a credit card? Did they not know every inch of stores are monitored with security cameras, most especially check out lines?? Did they really think all they had to do was "delete" the history of a search on a smart phone and *poof*, it was "gone"? And did they really think that the high doses of Benadryl would never be discovered in their bodies??
To me, their actions in leaving (panicked fleeing, escaping), and once they continued on the run down the coast seem chaotic, unplanned (or planned only briefly before implementing), and on the fly. Impulsive. All they could process, IMO, was fleeing. Run. Escape. Must take kids and run. Unable to rationally process any coping decisions beyond fleeing with the kids, and ultimately ending it all in cowardly drug induced Thelma and Louise plunge, taking 6 innocents with them.
Their actions every single time they were confronted about problems with the kids, allegations of abuse, were to take the kids and run away/ move away/ get away. Murder/ suicide is the ultimate "run away" move. I think they were tired of running away, and didn't care about how they were found. They only seemed to care that they were powerful enough take the kids lives in addition to their own.
I find it interesting that only 3 of the kids had high levels of Benadryl in their systems. I also wonder about the interval between drug ingestion and death-- at that kind of enteric dosage (especially if the drug was in pill or capsule form), vomiting would be common.
I wonder if 2-3 of them were going along with the suicide plan, and 3 weren't, so those 3 had to be persuaded to cooperate with chemicals? Or were the kids allowed to choose whether or not to take the drugs to dull their senses? That wouldn't make sense to me, because the Hart kids were hardly ever allowed to make any decisions for themselves. It would seem odd if they were "allowed" to decide whether or not to take an overdose of drugs in preparation for their death.
I do think the kids were almost certainly victims of "Stockholm Syndrome". The continuous psychological manipulation these kids suffered was extreme, IMO.
I doubt if the kids had a clue what the Benedryl would do.
I imagine they were used to seeing intoxication with their mothers.
The chiropractor who murdered four people in North Dakota had served in the military, had an RN degree and then went on to get a chiropractor license. He thought he could fool cameras. Many many cameras. He went as far as a disguise