Friends react to Woodland family’s deadly California crash as new details emergeThe California High Patrol reported that the crash off a cliff in Mendocino County last week that killed Jennifer Jean Hart, Sarah Margaret Hart and at least three of their adopted children may have been an intentional act.
Investigators said information pulled from the couple’s SUV showed it had stopped off the highway before accelerating straight off the cliff. There were no tire friction marks, dirt prints from the tires or skid marks at the scene and the SUV’s speedometer was pinned at 90 mph at impact, indicating to police it was running and in motion just prior to hitting the rocks.
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Neighbors in Woodland told FOX 12 last week they contacted Child Protective Services when one of the children, 15-year-old Devonte Hart, came to their home begging for food for himself and his siblings.
The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services released a statement last week confirming a case was opened regarding the family last Friday, as “the now-deceased children were identified as potential victims of alleged abuse or neglect.”
Peace Patriot (3400 posts) (Reply to HIP56948 - post #1) April 2, 2018 at 7:13 pm
2. Yes, it does seem like an unlikely end to what, on the surface, seemed to be…
…a wonderful family. There were signs of trouble, though. 1 Some news reports indicate that at least one of the parents had control issues. (She whipped one of the girls’ buttocks making her bend over the bathtub rim.) 2 There were some strange reports of one of the boys going to neighbors for food for himself and the other kids. They were hungry. Just some snippets. Social services was involved at some point.
Incident
1 was several years ago (I think I've read that it was 2011) in another state (Minnesota?). Incident
2 was a week or two before they disappeared. In between they had lived in OR, and they had lived in Woodland, WA for some 4 years.
I've commented on this incident very carefully because I know that highway can be very unforgiving of misjudging one of its many curves, of driving distracted, or of falling asleep it the wheel. The highway, State Highway 1, hugs the coast closely for most of the ~200 miles from north of Fort Bragg south to the tip of the Marin Peninsula (across the Golden Gate from SF). At various point one is driving at beach level,dipping into a redwood glen, crossing a creek, and, frequently, driving along the edge of a cliff high above rocks or small beach. A driver must be paying attention to the road, and all the more so at night when the car's headlights and maybe the Moon are the only light.
The particulars I knew until this AM - specifically that they drove across a 75 foot pull-out to get to the cliff ruled out a misjudged curve or a moment of distraction. Still open,with the time of the plunge unknown, was that the driver fell asleep.
Now it looks like the plunge was deliberate. The car stopped at the turn-out, then accelerated toward the cliff edge, and the engine was still driving the wheels, now faster because contact with the ground no longer slowed the wheels. The major remaining unknowns seem to whether it was a murder-suicide or a suicide pact, and why they did whatever they did.
It's kind of apparent that their family's manner of life was unraveling, pretty much of their own doing. But why did they drive the entire length of Oregon and 1/4 the length and half the width of California before doing their deed? In that drive they passed through the Cascades and Siskyous and had ample opportunities to go off a cliff if that was their plan. For that matter, why not just drive to the WA or northern OR coast and find a convenient cliff there?
What some conservatives seem to "want" is to hold them up as, "This is what can happen when lesbians adopt children." OTOH, Libs & Progs seriously want the causes underlying this to be utterly unrelated to the women being lesbians. As I avoided conclusion-jumping when basic facts of the sequence of events were unknown, I won't jump to conclusions about the "Why?" Frankly, I think the situation is too complex to be able to definitely link their plunge (however it was decided) to the women's lesbian life choices and style. And on a broader, nationwide, scale I doubt a corresponding definitively identified link between lesbian life choices and styles and this kind of self-destructive behaviors. There is a difference between statistical correlations and definitive proof; I think people are too complex for the latter.
