PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – In 2018, a family of eight from Woodland, Washington died when their SUV was driven off a cliff in Northern California, in what investigators discovered was an act of murder. Now, a book is looking into the murders and the child welfare system.

“I started reporting this from the mind frame of where these children came from, and who their birth families were, and what happened in the foster care system that led them to Jennifer and Sara Hart,” said Roxanna Asgarian, author of “We Were Once a Family: A Riveting Indictment of the Child Welfare System.”

Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six adopted children disappeared from their Woodland home in late March 2018 – shortly after a Washington Child Protective Services caseworker tried to contact the women at home. Neighbors had called CPS, concerned that the children were being abused and neglected.  

On March 26, 2018, Jennifer and Sarah Hart and five of their children — Markis, Hannah, Jeremiah, Abigail and Ciera — were found dead after their car plunged into the Pacific Ocean in the area of Juan Creek and North Highway 1 in Mendocino County, California. The remains of 15-year-old Devonte were never found.

Pathologist Dr. Greg Pizarro said based on his toxicology report, Jennifer Hart — who was driving the SUV — had an alcohol level above the legal limit. He also confirmed several other family members had unusually high amounts of Benadryl in their system and said Sara Hart (Jennifer’s wife) had a toxic level of Benadryl.

The jury returned unanimous verdicts: Sarah and Jennifer Hart, the married 38-year-old couple, died by suicide. Their six children — Markis, Hannah, Jeremiah, Abigail, Ciera and Devonte — died “at the hands of another.”

Asgarian, a reporter for the Texas Tribune, told KOIN 6 News one of the major takeaways from writing the book was the broken child welfare system and “how the adoptive parents were treated so vastly different from how the birth families were treated in the child welfare system.”

The adoptive parents, Asgairian said, repeatedly got the benefit of the doubt despite signs and reports of abuse.

There was later testimony on accusations of child abuse that dogged the Harts from 2011 in Minnesota, 2013 in Oregon and 2017 in Clark County, Washington. 

Asgarian pointed out, “the birth families were investigated for neglect, not abuse, and lost their kids after minor issues and mistakes.”

Within the child welfare system, she says one thing that needs reform is how neglect cases are handled.

“I think that the child welfare system could really limit the removals from families for things like neglect, which can be confused for poverty and focus on the cases of actual physical abuse,” Asgarian said.

The system needs systemic and local change, Asgarain said, adding, “it’s a big patchwork of city and county and state agencies, and that was part of the issue is that the Hart family moved from state to state.”

Powell’s is hosting a conversation on the book with Asgarian and Oregonian reporter Shane Kavanaugh at 7 p.m. on May 7.