Jury finds Hart family crash on Mendocino Coast was murder-suicide

From Sonoma Magazine: How a decade of deception led to the Hart family's tragic end on the Mendocino Coast

WILLITS – A Mendocino County jury determined Thursday that the deaths of the eight-member Hart family from Washington state resulted from a deliberate act, concluding a rare coroner’s inquest with findings that indicate the moms Jennifer and Sarah Hart jointly decided to launch the family SUV over a steep coastal cliff a year ago with their six children inside.

The jury’s verdict followed two days of testimony that included explosive new evidence revealed for the first time Thursday about internet searches conducted on Sarah Hart’s cellphone during the final two days of her life. The queries on Google were about suicide, death by hypothermia, how much of the antihistamine Benadryl it might take to cause overdose or death, and how painful it would be to drown, according to court testimony.

The new evidence marked the first clear indication that Sarah Hart, who was a passenger in the car driven by her wife, Jennifer, was a knowing participant in the shocking murder of a family the pair had forged through adoptions from other broken homes, including two sets of three siblings from foster care in Texas.

Sarah Hart had “a toxic level” of the active ingredient in the Benadryl in her blood, and at least three of the kids had enough put them to sleep or make them unconscious, a forensic patholigist said. Jennifer Hart – a non-drinker – had a blood-alcohol level of 0.10%, about what she’d have if she had just consumed five drinks, CHP investigator Jake Slates testified Thursday.

“For a person to be at that level of intoxication and to have that much alcohol in her system, it would be extremely difficult for that person to function,” Slates said. “It was investigators belief that she was drinking to build up her courage.”

The jury of eight women and six men deliberated barely an hour and was unanimous in its verdict, though only a majority vote was needed. The death certificates for the Hart mothers will now be marked “suicide,” and those of all six kids, ages 12 to 19, will now carry the ruling “homicide.”

“The Hart family is hopefully resting in peace. The tragedy of the six children murdered should never be forgotten,” said Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman.

The jury’s decision was presented to hearing officer Matthew Guichard, a longtime Walnut Creek attorney who frequently oversees coroner’s inquests in Contra Costa County, one place where they are relatively common.

It came hours after a CHP investigator testified about the Google hits on Sarah Hart’s phone researching suicide. The phone was retrieved after it washed ashore on the Mendocino Coast, Slates told jurors.

Another astonishing revelation came in Slates’ testimony that the Hart family was not alone on the dark stretch of Highway 1 when they went over the cliff.

A Homer, Alaska, couple were sleeping in their camper in the same turnout near Westport where the Hart family spent its last few hours before plunging to their deaths.

The man told Slates he heard a vehicle come into the pullout around 11 p.m. March 25, and he looked outside just to make sure it didn’t signal any kind of trouble, but didn’t notice anything amiss.

Then, around 3 a.m. March 26, he was awakened by the sound of a revving engine, a vehicle accelerating across the gravel and “what he described as a vehicle bottoming out,” Slates said.