WILLITS, CALIF. -- Jennifer and Sarah Hart killed themselves and their six children when Jennifer Hart aimed the family’s SUV straight off a California cliff and into the sea, a unanimous Mendocino County jury determined Thursday.

Jurors reached their verdicts in just 57 minutes, ending a two-day coroner's inquest during which police for the first time made public evidence that the women had planned the crash.

The evidence centered on information collected from three digital devices: the family’s GPS device, the SUV’s “black box”-style computer and Sarah Hart’s cell phone.

Police found searches on Sarah Hart's phone about death by Benadryl, the effects of over-the-counter medications, drowning and hypothermia. The searches began as the family drove south from their Southwest Washington home through Oregon toward California, said lead investigator Jake Slates, a California Highway Patrol officer.

The computer in the family’s SUV indicated Jennifer Hart drove straight toward the cliff with the car’s gas pedal at full throttle. She never touched the brakes.

The jurors ruled that both Jennifer and Sarah Hart died by suicide. They also decided each of the six children died from their mothers’ intentional act.

As the jury of eight women and six men filed back into the hearing room for the final time, one female juror wiped tears from her eyes.

After the hearing, juror Tony Howard said reaching the decisions was not as hard as processing the tragic information investigators detailed over the previous two days. The testimony left jurors in pain, he said. “It’s kind of hard on the whole group,” he said.

A second juror, Steve Greenwood, said the jurors agreed from the start about most of their decisions, a fact that he felt was reflective of the investigative work and the way in which it was presented. The person whose death required the most discussion was Sarah Hart, he said, but ultimately all jurors concluded that it had been by suicide. “We made all of our decisions unanimously,” he said.

WILLITS, CALIF. -- California Highway Patrol Officer Jake Slates, right, speaks about his investigation in the Hart family crash as Mendocino County Sheriff Thomas Allman looks on. (Molly Young/The Oregonian)

Slates testified that Jennifer and Sarah Hart packed their children into their SUV and left their Woodland, Washington home three hours after a case worker arrived to investigate reports of child abuses.

Slates said he believes the women left home without a clear plan. But by the time they drove to the scenic lookout point two nights later, they had agreed on what would come next, he surmised. Sarah Hart took at least 42 doses of Benadryl, he said. Jennifer Hart, who rarely drank, consumed the equivalent of five shots of alcohol.

The women administered Benadryl in some form to their children. Their oldest son, Markis, had the equivalent of 19 doses in his system, Slates said. Markis, 19, Hannah, 16, Devonte, 15, Jeremiah, 14, Abigail, 14, and Sierra, 12, all died in the crash. No one in the Yukon was wearing a seat belt, another California Highway Patrol officer testified.

"They both decided that this was going to be the end," Slates said.

Slates' testimony provided jurors the most comprehensive picture of the family's final days before the crash. Eight other people also testified, including a forensic pathologist who performed autopsies and several people involved in the search for children whose bodies were not immediately found. Devonte's body remains missing.

A Garmin GPS recovered weeks after the crash allowed police to piece together an incredibly detailed timeline of the family’s journey from their Woodland, Washington home to the Mendocino Coast, Slates said. Stops included a Walmart in Longview, where authorities believe Jennifer Hart bought the generic version of Benadryl, sold by Walmart under the brand name Equate, he said.

Police learned Jennifer and Sarah Hart often gave their adolescent children Benadryl on long drives “just so they would sleep,” Slates said.

Police found diphenhydramine-containing Equate medicine in liquid and pill forms in the wreckage found the afternoon of March 26, 2018.

Slates listed off several of the Google searches conducted on Sarah Hart’s phone:

“Can 500 mgs of Benadryl kill a 120-pound woman?”

“Is death by drowning relatively painless?”

“How long does it take to die from hypothermia while drowning in a car?”

“No-kill shelters for dogs”

The family often traveled and always took their two dogs with them, Slates said. Since the family fled Washington, no one has found their dogs. Slates said there is no evidence they in fact stopped at an animal shelter.

Slates said the searches on Sarah Hart’s phone began at 12:30 a.m. the morning after the family drove away from their Woodland home. Sarah Hart texted co-workers at 3 a.m. that she was sick and would be unable to work that day.

Slates said Sarah Hart deleted the searches from her phone but that a forensic search was able to find them anyway.

Slates said after testifying that others of the Harts’ electronic devices, such as Jennifer’s phone and the laptops collected at the family’s home, mainly contained family photos and emails not relevant to the inquest, he said.

A tourist from Alaska camping near the crash site told police that he heard an engine revving and tires squealing, then a loud sound, at around 3 a.m. that morning, Slates said.

The account matched with testimony from another California Highway Patrol officer trained to analyze crash scenes said. Computer readings from the SUV showed the vehicle idled, then accelerated at full throttle over a protective grass berm and off the cliff. Within two seconds, the vehicle landed upside down at the base of the cliff.

Based on all the evidence his crash investigation team collected, he said, they reached an inevitable conclusion about the cause of the crash: intentional.

“When you’re at a cliff edge with your family inside, how often do you apply 100 percent throttle?” asked Officer Timothy Roloff.

-- Molly Young