Friend Called 911 After 3am Text From Hart Family Mom

A social worker in Washington state wasn't the only person to call 911 in reference to the Hart family around the time their SUV plunged off a seaside cliff in California. Shortly before the SUV was found on March 26 at the bottom of the 70-foot cliff alongside five bodies, a friend called 911 to say she'd been unable to reach Sarah and Jennifer Hart since receiving a text from Sarah at 3am on March 24. Sarah had said in the text that she was feeling sick, wouldn't be at work, and might have to visit a doctor, reports the Statesman Journal. "We're just concerned," Cheryl Hart, unrelated to the family, told a dispatcher, per CBS News, adding she'd already checked local hospitals.

Unbeknownst to her friend, Sarah's text had been sent hours after a child welfare official visited the Hart home in Woodland, Wash., acting on a call from a neighbor who said the couple's six adopted children weren't being fed. Jennifer Hart had just returned home from work but didn't answer the door, per CNN; a card left at the door was later found to have been removed. By the next morning, the family was gone. A surveillance video shows Jennifer buying groceries in Fort Bragg, Calif., on the morning of March 25. The bodies of Jennifer, Sarah, and three children were found the next day at the bottom of a cliff 15 miles away. The Harts' three other children are believed to have been in the vehicle at the time of the crash. (Another body was recently found near where the crash occurred.)