Body of girl ID’d as Hart family daughter
The body of a young girl that washed ashore in early April was identified Tuesday as 12-yearold Ciera Hart, one of four children killed and two others presumed dead after their mother drove the family’s car off a Mendocino County cliff, officials said.
A couple on vacation near the coast found the body on April 7 — nearly two weeks after the March 26 crash — and another bystander pulled her body onto the beach, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff ’s Office. Her identity was reportedly confirmed by DNA analysis.
Ciera’s parents, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, both 32, of Woodland, Wash., were found dead last month in an overturned 2003 GMC Yukon located on a rocky stretch of the Northern California coastline, along with three of their adopted children: Markis, 19, and Jeremiah and Abigail, both 14.
A multi-agency search remains under way for the couple’s two other missing children — Devonte, 15, and Hannah, 16 — who are presumed dead after the SUV plunged off Highway 1 near Westport.
A preliminary toxicology report found that Jennifer Hart, the driver of the vehicle, had a blood alcohol content of 0.102, above the legal limit of 0.08. Her wife and two of the children tested positive for Benadryl, authorities said. Officials did not release which children had traces of the drug in their system, nor whether the amount found was consistent with normal use.
An initial investigation by the California Highway Patrol indicated that Jennifer Hart may have intentionally sped off the cliff, as information stored by the SUV’s computer system showed that it never stopped accelerating from the time it started moving 70 feet from the ledge until the time it made final impact. The car’s speedometer was stuck at 90 mph, indicating the vehicle’s top speed, officials said.
The Hart family gained a bit of fame in 2014, when Devonte Hart was photographed tearfully hugging a police officer in Portland, Ore., during a rally in support of protests against police brutality in Ferguson, Mo. The family was known to be politically active and a positive influence in the community, but reports of child abuse have since surfaced.
Days before the crash, Child Protective Services in Washington attempted to reach the family at their Washington state home, and authorities initially suspected they had gone on a vacation.
Neighbors of the family have told media outlets that Devonte said his parents weren’t feeding him and his siblings. After a report of abuse and neglect, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services tried unsuccessfully to contact the family at their home three days before the family’s vehicle was discovered on the Mendocino County coastline.
Court records show that Sarah Hart pleaded guilty to a domestic assault charge in 2011 for abusing her 6-year-old adopted daughter when the family lived in Minnesota. Authorities on Tuesday also said Ciera’s name had been misspelled in previous reports and she had been incorrectly identified at the time of the accident as a 15-year-old. Annie Ma is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ama@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anniema15