Kid in famous pic among 8 feared dead in SUV fall

WASHINGTON STATE child welfare workers launched an investigation into a same-sex couple with six adopted kids just days before their SUV careened off a 100-foot northern California cliff, authorities said Thursday.

The crushed bodies of parents Jennifer and Sarah Hart were pulled from the wrecked 2003 GMC on Monday, two days after neighbors reported that one of the children, 15-year-old Devonte Hart, told them he was been starved as a punishment.

The family became famous after a 2014 photo of the weeping Devonte, who is black, hugging a white police officer went viral.

Three of the children — 14-year-olds Jeremiah and Abigail, and Markis, 19, died after they were thrown from the vehicle.

Authorities have still not found 15-year-old Devonte or his sisters, Hannah, 16, and Sierra, 12, who are missing and feared dead.

The crash comes as the couple was being investigated by the Washington State child protective services.

Bruce and Dana DeKalb, next-door neighbors of the Harts in Woodland, Wash., called child welfare workers on Friday because Devonte went to their house almost every day for a week, asking for food, Dana DeKalb said.

Devonte told her his parents were “punishing them by withholding food.

The boy asked her to leave food in a box by the fence for him, DeKalb said.

The investigation started March 23 after the DeKalbs complained, but social workers didn’t find anyone home, state officials said.

The agency had no prior history with the family, said Norah West, a spokeswoman with the Department of Health Services.

By Saturday, the family’s SUV was gone from the driveway, said Bruce DeKalb.

Sarah Hart received a 90-day jail sentence in 2010, which was suspended, for spanking her 6-year-old daughter in Minnesota. The girl, who had bruises on her front and back, told a teacher, “Mom hit me.”

“Sarah immediately took responsibility for the spanking that occurred the previous day,” according to a criminal complaint.

Lomax, a Portland, Ore.-based photographer who has known the family since 2012, said she doesn’t believe the crash was intentional.

She suggested the family may have lost its way after pulling over in the dark.

The parents homeschooled their six adopted children, and friends said they were known to take spontaneous road trips.

A photo of a crying Devonte hugging a Portland cop during a Social and 2014 Black Lives Matter protest went viral, in wake of the decision not to charge the Ferguson cop who fatally shot unarmed teen Michael Brown.

“All of us were like, ‘Of course, it’s Devonte,’” said Lomax, who hadn’t seen the family since a 2016 rally in Portland for Bernie Sanders. “Of course he’s going to be hugging a policeman. Because that’s his heart.”

Devonte usually spends every birthday standing outside with his “free hugs” sign to raise money for charity, she said.

But the family faced immediate backlash over the police photo and increasingly became less outgoing.

“After the hug photo of Devonte, things got really hard for them,” Lomax told The News. “People were sending them death threats.”

The family of eight eventually moved from West Linn, Ore., to Woodland, Wash., where they had a more secluded life.