Mystery remains 4 years after woman drove wife and 6 adopted kids off a cliff wiping out entire family

THEIR family pictures would tell a story of a happy family, bound together by love, shared passions and matching t-shirts.

But the reality of the Hart family would turn out to be very different from the carefully curated image presented to the world.

In fact, any mention of their name would soon only be connected to the harrowing murder-suicide that killed them all in March 2018.

A jury would later find married couple Jennifer and Sarah Hart deliberately took their own lives after driving off a 100-foot cliff in their SUV at 90mph.

They would also rule that they took the lives of their six adopted children, aged between 12 to 19, in Mendocino County, California.

But questions still remains how they were able to slip through the social welfare cracks.

And there is a mystery about the remains of one son, Devonte Hart, which have never been found.

The black teen, 15, had gained attention when he was photographed in tears while hugging a white police officer during a 2014 protest in Portland, Oregon.

Family friend Zippy Lomax said in 2018: "There were no clues anywhere that something was wrong."

Another, Riannah Weaver, said in 2019: "They were always together, and very wonderful and very approachable. They were just magical.”

But what friends saw was not the complete picture.

Another pal, Niema Lightseed, reflected: "In hindsight, it definitely looks like they were painting themselves as heroes and these children as very sad victims that needed to be rescued.”

And in fact, just days before the murder-suicide authorities in Washington state opened an investigation into allegations of neglect. 

That came after a neighbor of the Harts had filed a complaint with the state, saying the children - who they began adopting in 2006 - were apparently being deprived of food as punishment.

No one answered when social workers went to the family’s home.

That was because the Hart family had fled their Woodland, Washington, home on March 23.

Investigative journalist Zaron Burnett III, told The New York Post: "They [the children] were accessories to a lifestyle Jen and Sarah wanted to portray on social media and the likes were dopamine."

Sarah had already pleaded guilty in 2011 to a domestic assault charge in Minnesota over what she said was a spanking given to one of her children.

Oregon child welfare officials also investigated the couple in 2013 but closed the case without taking any action.

A special coroner’s jury heard in 2019 heard that Sarah searched death by drowning online.

Jennifer deliberately stepped on the gas, sending their SUV plunging off a cliff, they were told.

The bodies of both women were found in the vehicle, which landed below a cliff located more than 160 miles north of San Francisco.

The bodies of siblings Markis, Jeremiah and Abigail were found the same day near the car.

Weeks later, the body of Ciera Hart was pulled from the Pacific Ocean. Hannah Hart was eventually identified through a DNA match.

California Highway Patrol investigator Jake Slates said that Jennifer, who rarely drank, had a blood alcohol level over the legal limit and may have been “drinking to build up her courage.”

Sarah had 42 doses of generic Benadryl in her system and the children also had high amounts of the sleep-inducing drug in their bodies, he said.

A witness who was camping by their vehicle says he heard their car rev up and peal out around 3am on March 26.

“It is my belief that both Jennifer and Sarah succumbed to a lot of pressure,” sheriff’s Lt. Shannon Barney.

“Just a lot of stuff going on in their lives, to the point where they made this conscious decision to end their lives this way and take their children’s lives.”

“They both decided that this was going to be the end,” California Highway Patrol investigator Slates said.

“That if they can’t have their kids that nobody was going to have those kids.”