Online, the Hart family seemed perfect. From lengthy, paragraphs-long Facebook posts to intimate YouTube videos, Jen Hart consistently painted the idyllic picture of a family of eight—"The Hart Tribe," as many called them—exploring, laughing, dancing, and singing together. They were the quintessential happy family, or so it consistently seemed.

In one particular YouTube video Jen posted back in 2013, four of the Hart children can be seen singing along to the song "We Are So Provided For" by Nahko Bear, whose band Nahko and Medicine for the People was one the family had seen perform at various alternative music festivals over the years. In the two-minute clip, the children are standing in what appears to be the Harts' living room; Devonte is seen dancing with a bongo drum, Abigail is holding a guitar, and Jeremiah is shaking a maraca while Hannah dances off to the side.

Is this a candid moment…or an artfully constructed illusion?

We don't know when Jen and Sarah Hart decided they wanted children. It's possible they'd always wanted to be moms, though Sarah did once tell a former colleague that she wished she'd known she didn't have to have a big family. In 2004, when Jen and Sarah were in their midtwenties, they took in a 15-year-old foster daughter. But according to Jordan Smith, who worked with the Harts at Herberger's, a department store in Alexandria, Minnesota, the women's foray into new parenthood was bumpy. "It didn't feel like they really had interest in developing her as a person and giving her the tools she needed to be a successful adult," Smith tells our field reporter Lauren Smiley. "I just felt so sorry for the girl."