The car carrying two women and their six adopted children was going 90 mph when it plunged off a 100-foot cliff along a seaside California highway in a mysterious wreck discovered last Monday, Fox affiliate KPTV reports.
Jennifer Jean Hart and Sarah Margaret Hart, along with three of their adopted children, Markis Hart, 19; Jeremiah Hart, 14; and Abigail Hart, 14, were found dead. The other three children, Hannah Hart, 16; Devonte Hart, 15; and Sierra Hart, 12, have not been found, but are feared dead. Jennifer Hart was at the wheel when the car went over the cliff near Highway 1 in the Westport area of Mendocino County.
California Highway Patrol investigators found no “acceleration marks, tire friction marks or braking furrow marks” at the scene, and there was also no evidence the car collided with the embankment as it “traversed towards the tidal zone below.”
“Based upon the California Highway Patrol investigation, it is their belief ‘a felony has been committed,’” said court documents.
The Hart family lived in Washington State, grew their own food and took up activist causes. The children were homeschooled.
The family grabbed national headlines after Devonte Hart was photographed during a 2014 protest in Portland, Oregon, over a grand jury's decision not to indict a police officer in the shooting of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri.
But there was trouble at home, according to news reports, and child welfare authorities were called to the Hart home in Washington State to investigate possible abuse and neglect just three days before the wreck.
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