Broken Harts Podcast, Episode 1: Full Transcript

Justine Harman: The cliff is the kind of place Jennifer Hart would have loved to photograph her kids. Located 200 miles north of San Francisco, it has a green-edged bluff right off of California's Highway 1, with a gravel path leading to a dramatic 100 foot drop into the Pacific. On other trips, Jen and her wife, Sarah, might have pulled to the side of the road and had their brood line up as they often did: backs to the camera, hands raised in peace signs, a Technical sunset framing their silhouettes.

Justine Harman: They were Markis, 19, Hannah, 16, Devonte, 15, Abigail and Jeremiah, both 14, and Sierra, 12; two sets of biological siblings, both black, adopted by two white moms. A beautiful family by most accounts. Friends called them the Hart Tribe. But this trip wouldn't be like the others the Hart Tribe took to places like Bliss, Idaho or Zion National Park in Utah.

Speaker 1: Investigators have been desperate to figure out how that family flew off that cliff in California, and whether it was on purpose.

Speaker 2: I was at the scene two days ago. There was no skid marks. We have no evidence and no reason to believe that this was an intentional act. Certainly people are wondering what caused this.

Liz Egan: On March 26th, 2018, a German tourist spotted the family's 2003 GMC Yukon XL belly-up on the rocks below the picturesque Mendocino cliff. The car plummeted more than 100 feet. Here's what we know happened in the days leading up to the crash. On March 24th, at 3:00 a.m., Sarah's coworkers at Kohl's, where she worked as an assistant manager, received a text from Sarah saying she was too sick to open the store that morning. That same morning, the Hart's next door neighbors, Bruce and Dana DeKalb, noticed that the Yukon was no longer in their driveway, and that the bright red kayak that typically sat on top of it had been removed. Cinder blocks littered the driveway, suggesting that the family had crashed into a retaining wall in their rush to leave.

Liz Egan: On March 25th, at 8:05 a.m., a surveillance camera in a Fort Bragg Safeway captured Jen in eyeglasses and an ill-fitting gray hoodie, paying $20.08 in cash for groceries. She bought bananas, Saltines, and Chef Boyardee ravioli, and used a club card for discounts. Friends said she looked 25 pounds heavier than they'd ever seen her. On March 26th, at 1:12 p.m., Sarah's coworker, Cheryl Hart...no relation... called 911, asking for a welfare check on her friend.

Speaker 3: Thanks for holding, can I help you?

Ms. Hart: Yes, I was calling to see if I can get a welfare check done.

Speaker 3: Okay, and who are we checking on?

Ms. Hart: Sarah Hart.

Speaker 3: Tell me the reason that we're checking on her.

Ms. Hart: She sent out a text message at 3:00 in the morning on Saturday morning, stating that she was sick, but nobody's been able to get ahold of her, talk to her, and seen her since that text message.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Ms. Hart: Or her wife, which is Jen, so we're just concerned.

Speaker 3: Okay, and when she said she was sick, did she say what was going on?

Ms. Hart: She just said that she just is unable to come out and wasn't able to go to work, and thought she was going to have to go to the doctor. I've checked the hospitals. They didn't have any record of her. I think her phone is now dead.

Speaker 3: Okay, and just the two of them live there?

Ms. Hart: They have six children.

Speaker 3: Okay. Any known medical history?

Ms. Hart: Not that I'm aware of, no. She has been sick, I think just like a cold.

Speaker 3: Okay. Has she been suicidal at all?

Ms. Hart: Not that I'm aware of.

Justine Harman: The call you just heard came several hours too late. Early the morning of March 26th, rescue workers rappelled down the cliff, where they lifted the dead bodies of three children, later identified as Markis, Abigail, and Jeremiah Hart, and spotted two more, Sarah in the back, and Jen in the driver's seat. The coroner found an ingredient commonly used in allergy medicines like Benadryl in the bodies of Sarah and two of the kids. Jen's blood alcohol content was over the legal limit. No one had been wearing a seat belt. The car's computer revealed that Jen had stopped on a pull-out some 70 feet from the cliff moments before the freefall. She then gunned it off the ledge. 10 days later the county sheriff issued a statement about the gruesome incident.

Speaker 4: I'm to the point where I no longer am calling this an accident, I'm calling it a crime.

Justine Harman: From Glamour and How Stuff Works, this is Broken Harts. I'm Justine Harman.

Liz Egan: And I'm Liz Egan.

Justine Harman: Together we've been looking into this story for the past six months, and what has emerged is one of the most complex and compelling stories of abuse, neglect, privilege and confusion in the digital age we've ever encountered. One astounding element of this story is that this family, the Hart Tribe, didn't just burst into the news after the horrific crash. Over the years, they had somehow managed to be at the center of multiple news events.

Liz Egan: Remember that picture of a young black boy in a blue fedora embracing a white cop in riot gear at a Black Lives Matter rally in 2014, and the debate that ensued over whether it was a symbolic moment of racial healing or semi-staged theater? That was Devonte Hart, the third oldest of the Hart kids. Devonte was a trumpet player, who loved to brush his dog, Kenya. He had big teeth and big eyes. His whole face looked like a smile. He often wore a Free Hug sign around his neck. He was an extrovert and an empath. That photo from the rally was taken in 2014, nearly four years before the family's death. And that wasn't the only time the Hart's found themselves in the spotlight, but we'll get into that later.

Liz Egan: A few weeks ago, our producer, Jason, asked us what drew us to this story in the first place. Our answers were different.

Liz Egan: I was on a 10-day road trip with my family. One afternoon after spending about nine hours in the car with my three kids, who are 17, 14, and 11, I looked at the New York Times homepage, and I read a story about the Harts. I was really surprised by how quickly it fell out of the news. There weren't that many stories. That sent me down a rabbit hole of wondering what had happened.

Justine Harman: At Glamour morning meetings, we discuss not only what we're working on currently, but what stories are sort of piquing our interest, and Liz brought up this story that I had almost surreptitiously clicked on the night before. Something about the picture I saw, these two women, white, very attractive, sort of everyday-looking, nothing seemed sinister about them, and six really adorable ... I mean, the kids just looked so happy, and so to have that juxtaposed with such an egregious storyline and headline, I was instantly captivated by well, what could have driven these women to do such a thing? How does someone get to a place where they're willing to choose not only a path for yourself, but that of six young people? I am a mother of a two-year-old. I can't imagine ever being pushed to the brink that way, but at the same time, it is a relatable feeling as a mother, as a woman, to feel trapped by the choices you make.

Justine Harman: The story's so complex, in fact, that we brought on Lauren Smiley, a San Francisco- based investigative reporter, to help us figure out what really happened in the days, months, and years leading up to the crash. You'll hear from Lauren. She's the intrepid interviewer with the throaty chuckle and the Iowa accent.

Justine Harman: Over the course of this cross-country journey that leads us from South Dakota to Minnesota to Oregon, Washington, and ultimately a cliff in California, you'll also meet a variety of people who knew the Harts, or thought they did. And you'll get an exclusive look into a case that left six people dead, two missing, and a nation puzzled over the perfect family they never knew.

Liz Egan: But the most important voices in this podcast belong to the people we couldn't interview, the Hart kids: Markis, Hannah, Devonte, Abigail, Jeremiah, and Sierra. Hannah and Devonte were not found in the car that day in March, and their bodies have not yet surfaced at the crash site. Since their whereabouts have yet to be located, some fear they were killed before the plunge. Others speculate they escaped in the nick of time.

Justine Harman: Back in May, we sent Lauren to Woodland, Washington to meet with Dana and Bruce DeKalb, the Harts' next door neighbors. The families shared a driveway. Take the fork to the left and you'll hit the DeKalb's red split level. Take the one to the right and drive down a little bit and you're at the Harts. This is Lauren.

Lauren Smiley: I got out of my car and felt like I'd landed in a postcard of the Pacific Northwest. It seems like the DeKalbs' property could be swallowed up by nature at any moment. Their house is blanketed by pine trees and rhododendron bushes. Just for some orientation, I'd driven up from Portland for about an hour on I-5, which continues on up to Seattle. I took an exit and then drove along this twisty road with trees overhead, for five minutes. Even though there's this huge freeway just minutes away, by the time you get to the DeKalbs, it feels really remote. You move out here to be close to nature, not people.

Lauren Smiley: Dana greeted me at the door. She's in her late 50s and has short curly hair. She's a talker and always wears a smartwatch to track her daily steps. Two decades ago, she and Bruce moved from a California cul-de-sac to this spot in the foothills of the Cascades, where you can see clear to Mount St. Helens. Bruce is about six feet tall. He's more laid back. He's chatty, too, but when together, lets Dana do the talking. Their days usually include some beating back of the Washington wild, then a venturing out on jet ski or kayak. Last September, their retirement good life was interrupted when a small, frightened girl wrapped in a fleece blanket rang their doorbell at 1:30 in the morning.

Bruce DeKalb: The doorbell rang and I went to the front door. There's this girl standing there and a blanket wrapped around her. She comes bolting in the house and I'm yelling for Dana, "Hey, wake up, come help me!", and she ran up the stairs on her own.

Dana DeKalb: She bolted upstairs, pounced on me. That's when I woke up thinking who are you and where'd you come from? I came down here and was talking to her and trying to get her to calm down to understand what was going on, and she was just frantic and begging that, "Take me to Seattle. Don't make me go back there. They're racist, they're abusive."

Dana DeKalb: "Don't make me go back there, they're racist, they're abusive." We're just going, "Whoa." Bruce asked her, "Well, what do you mean?" And she's like, "Well, they whip us with a belt." And he was like, "Well, I've been whipped with a belt," trying to think, "Oh, you know."

Bruce DeKalb: And in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out where she came from, because we don't know she lives next door. I noticed that the whole family was outside looking for her with flashlights.

Dana DeKalb: And she was freaking out, and I'm like, "They're coming. I have to figure this out, just stay put." They came in and they just kind of pushed their way in, too. Sarah and Jennifer did and they started going around looking through the house and went up to the bedroom.

Lauren: Did you invite the family to come into the house?

Dana DeKalb: No, no.

Bruce DeKalb: No.

Lauren: Oh.

Bruce DeKalb: They just kind of came in on their own.

Dana DeKalb: Like barged. It's 1:30 in the morning and you're freaking out. Hannah had crouched down between my bed and dresser in this little spot and she was like in the fetal position and they just went in and Sarah approached her first and Hannah, she was like, "No," and so I said, "Back up, give her some space. You guys are freaking her out and freaking me out. Let's just back up." And about that time, Jennifer grabbed Sarah and said, "I'll deal with this, you go back downstairs with the kids."

Dana DeKalb: Jennifer started talking to her and calming her and being all nice and stuff, so I thought, "Okay, I'm going to give them a minute," and so I left the room, regretfully. Then they came back downstairs and when they started coming back downstairs, Jennifer told Sarah, "You need to take the kids and go. Hannah's having a problem with her big brother right now."

Dana DeKalb: We were like, "What? Her issue wasn't her brother at all, what do you mean?" That was a little bit weird, but I don't know. They sat there saying, "You need to tell these people you're sorry." "Yes, ma'am." "And you need to explain to them you just had a really bad week." "Yes, ma'am." And she just constantly was looking at Jennifer, never even talked to us. It was just robot.

Dana DeKalb: They ended up leaving. Now it's like 2:30 in the morning. You're trying to figure out, "Wow, what's really going on here?" I guess it was just beyond our imagination.

Justine Harman: For a variety of reasons, the DeKalbs wouldn't call the authorities until nearly six months after the incident. But that didn't stop her 80-year-old dad, whom she told about the event, from getting involved. On November 18th, 2017, nearly three months after Hannah visited in the middle of the night, Dana's dad, Steve, placed the call to 911.

Steve: There's some kids that I feel is being highly abused.

Speaker 5: What's the address?

Steve: And how I ... Okay, I'm going to give you the address of my daughter's house, because it's right next door. Yeah. If you're going up the road to her house, it's the house on the right.

Speaker 5: Okay, and what's going on there?

Steve: Well, they have black children, which that part doesn't matter. They're new here, but the other night a little girl jumped out of the second story window on the roof and then down onto the ground and ran to my daughter, and this is like two in the morning begging them to help her, to help her. And when they came looking for her, she was begging my daughter not to let them know she was there and then eventually my son-in-law let them know. He doesn't want to get involved, but the more I sit on it, I just can't live with it. Somebody's got to go there and check on these kids.

Speaker 5: Okay, so how old was the little kid that did that? That ran to your daughter's house?

Steve: About 12 years old, 13, and then she had all four of the kids come back later and to say everything was okay and they were all standing at attention like they were just scared to death, and I think there's something very serious going on there. They're here from Texas. The kids might even be kidnapped and basically, my son-in-law's like most people, they don't want to get involved, and so he's keeping my daughter out of it, but since she's told me about it, I just can't live with it. I'm very concerned for these kids.

Justine Harman: Someone from the county sheriff's office called the DeKalbs to ask whether there had been more incidents, and Dana explained what she had observed since that night. The kids next door were almost always indoors. She remembers being told, "It's not illegal to keep kids inside."

Justine Harman: On August 7th, 2018, a little less than a year after her dad called, I contacted county sergeant Brent Waddell over the phone.

Brent Waddell: Dana's dad called down here and reported that Dana's neighbor's child had come over in the middle of the night and the deputy contacted dad and also contacted Dana. When the deputy talked with Dana, there was no indication that there was any ongoing issues or anything like that.

Justine Harman:Waddell wasn't the one who talked with Dana, but the department had done an internal review of how they handled their interactions with Dana and her dad.

Brent Waddell: He inquired and documented that he talked with Dana and they had discussed, "Is there anything over there since it's happened, anything concerning?" And Dana basically said, "We never see them out." For us to go up and knock on the door, we would need something a little bit more. People have frights in this country and in this state and just because your neighbor...If there was something a little bit more current and some other factors. Again, we don't know what happens behind closed doors, so just because the kids aren't playing outside or aren't outside or aren't seen that much, that amongst itself is not a trigger or a red flag. Hindsight being 20/20, who knows? But the deputy and Dana had a conversation and the deputy was okay with not going up and knocking on the door.

Justine Harman: But what really went on behind the white door in that baby blue split level? Who are these women and how did they come to adopt six children? Two sets of three black siblings? Their story starts in small town South Dakota, where Sarah Gengler and and Jenn Hart both grew up. A photo of five year old Jenn shows her dressed up in a ruffly blue dress with knee-high white socks outside a cornflower blue home with AstroTurf covered stairs. "Extremely rare find," she wrote on Facebook in May of 2016, "Me in a dress."

Justine Harman: The women met when they were 20 years old as undergraduates at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. It was 1999. American Pie was the biggest thing at the box office. JFK Jr. had just been found dead off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, still strapped into the pilot seat of his plane. Livin' La Vida Loca was the biggest thing on the radio, but it would be more than a decade before Ricky Martin would publicly come out as gay.

Justine Harman: At Aberdeen, Sarah would go on to earn her degree in education. Jenn never graduated. Later, Jenn would describe on Facebook how she called Sarah her friend or her roommate. Once they did come out as a couple, however, "The Midwestern mindset," she wrote, "Was relentlessly unforgiving."

Justine Harman:The pair eventually moved to Alexandria, Minnesota, a lake town famous for Big Ole, a 25-foot-tall statue of a viking that was built for the '64 World's Fair. Herberger's, where the women worked, Jenn in the junior's department, Sarah as a department manager, was the biggest store at Viking Mill Plaza, a one level strip mall located off of route 29.

Jordan Smith: Jenn was probably the one I met first. She was taller than me, she had like this big, bright red hair. I remember her feeling so much older than she actually was, like she probably was 26 or 27 at the time and she was confident and assertive and intimidating. I immediately did not feel like I was on the same level as her.

Justine Harman: This is Jordan Smith. Jordan worked with Jenn and Sarah in the summer of 2004 at Herberger's. We asked Lauren to find out what they were like.

Lauren:Most people who knew the women back then noted their differences. Jenn was more colorful, outgoing. "Abrasive, that would be the Minnesota term for it," Smith says, "Sarah could be more emotional and stressed, but she lovingly kept a picture of her and Jenn cuddling on her office desk." When I talked to Jordan, she remembered the time Jenn complained about a mannequin's nipples being sexist. Jenn hauled the mannequin to a back room in Herberger's and manually cut them off with a hack saw.

Jordan Smith: She pulled the mannequins in the back to do it. She wasn't doing it like on the floor in front of customers. It was probably her relationship with Sarah that gave her that, "I can do this." As a couple they were very discreet. It took me almost nine months to realize they were a couple. I mean, we're talking real world Minnesota, like the Bible Belt of Minnesota, that's Alexandria.

Justine Harman: In 2004 Alexandria, Minnesota, a town located 132 miles northwest of Minneapolis had a population of around 11,000. It was a bit more progressive than rural South Dakota, but it wasn't exactly the most tolerant of places, either, as Jordan recalls.

Jordan Smith: It was pretty usual to get called a dyke or a fag and, "You're gay," and everything negative.

Justine Harman: It may not seem that long ago, but 2004 was a very different time socially, especially in the rural Midwest. You could describe the mentality as, well, "Don't ask, don't tell." Jordan identifies this clear now, but back then it wasn't so easy to be out.

Jordan Smith: To Sarah and Jenn's credit, they were probably one of a very rare handful of open and out homosexual couples in the area.

Justine Harman: Years later in a Facebook post, Jenn would recall the realities of being a gay woman living in the unforgiving and unaccepting Midwest. "The truth of our love was clouded with fear," she wrote. "Fear of rejection from family and friends, fear of being unwanted, unloved. Fear of not being able to get a job. Fear of acts of violence. Fear of not being able to have a family. Fear of walking through this life..."

Justine Harman: Fear of not being able to have a family. Fear of walking through this life alone with our love, keeping it a secret.

Liz Egan: The Harts would eventually find a community. Over the years, they became regulars at transformational festivals, days-long, socially-conscious mashups of music, yoga, dance, and creative costumes. The kids would join too, often dressed in colorful costumes, and carrying motivational signs, and interacting with the musical acts.

Liz Egan: In one YouTube clip, we see Devonte at the Beloved Festival, an annual gathering dedicated to what its website describes as vulnerability, belonging, and liberation. In the clip, a large group of adults dressed in tie-dye and bucket hats congregate around the musician, Xavier Rudd, as he plucks at a guitar placed across his lap. Rudd is shirtless. His long, blond hair is pulled back with a headband. His eyes are closed.

Liz Egan: About eight minutes into the song, he notices someone in the crowd and beckons him to the stage. Devonte, dressed in a zebra costume, a free hugs sign around his neck, and the word beloved shaved into his head, approaches the musician and gives him a hug. There are tears in his eyes. The embrace lasts over a minute. The whole moment is a lot.

Justine Harman: But, it was also at these festivals that friends like Zippy Lomax, a Portland- based photographer, first encountered Jen and Sarah in 2013. After the news of the crash broke, Lomax, like so many of the people in the Harts' inner circle, took to social media to defend the women she knew.

Zippy Lomax: They were that really bright kind of presence. It was pretty hard to miss them. Any event that I was at where they were, if I had a camera, I was of course attracted to that. I was inspired by them. They gave me hope.

Zippy Lomax: Everyone considered them like the Hart tribe. It was just sort of like a natural term that would come out when you would see them showing up at places. "Look, there's the Hart tribe." That term, like tribe, has been thrown around a lot in that, because there's some sort of returning re-indigenization and these interesting terminologies. There's even a book that this other photographer put out called "Tribal Revival", and it's all about the people from all these different festivals.

Zippy Lomax: Beloved is just one of many of these kind of festivals that fit under the umbrella of what would be considered transformational festivals that have this very similar kind of goal, I guess, of experimental community, different ways of coming together and being supportive, rather than competitive. Looking a little deeper into understanding what that festival is kind of a part of will maybe give a little bit of context for why there were so many people quick to jump up and say, "Wait a minute, you guys have this story wrong."

Liz Egan: Zippy Lomax and Jen especially became close, often communicating over DM and social media. Zippy shared with us over 300 of Jen's Facebook posts, often accompanied by long, well-written captions, many of which served as a keyhole into who these women and who these six kids were.

Liz Egan: There are photos of Abigail and Devonte eating breakfast with hens perched on their heads. "Vegetarian chicken and waffles," the caption reads. Devonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra painting on the living room floor, "Mini Jackson Pollocks." All six kids grinning with a kindness is contagious sign. "Redwood Nation is about to get blasted with kindness," Jen wrote.

Justine Harman: Each post reaffirms the same storyline. Two moms and their rehabilitated kids thriving against all odds. As we've had to remind ourselves through the course of digging into this story, Jen Hart, who is far more active on social media than her wife, Sarah, isn't the most reliable narrator. This is something that Zippy and many friends of the Harts struggle with.

Liz Egan: Zippy has received a lot of messages from people who once knew the family but maybe lost touch over the years. It's a nice counter, she says, to the loads of hate mail she received. Like this letter she got two months after the crash from a high school friend of Jen's with the subject line, "Your Hart."

Zippy Lomax: Subject, she just said, "Your Hart. Hi, Zipporah, I wanted to reach out to you after all of this Hart story broke. I could sense that you are a beautiful soul with good intentions caught defending some people you think you knew. I knew Sarah and Jen from college, and I, too, was in disbelief. I was not even brave enough to admit knowing them, so I was proud of you for stepping out there and speaking up. The people I knew in college were not capable of this act. Although, looking back now, it's clear there were warning signs from Jen in the way she exerted absolute control over Sarah, I just thought they were in love. I'm wondering if you, too, have had any change of heart.

Zippy Lomax: I'm looking for some deep, philosophical guidance on this, because it is weighing heavily on my heart. I go between anger, and confusion, and sadness, and love, and then disbelief. I visited them in Alexandria in 2005, before they adopted their kids. After that, I followed them on Facebook and was amazed and proud of how many lives they were touching.

Zippy Lomax: I know you're busy, but if you ever have time, please send me a message or point me to a person who can. I hope you're doing okay. I'm sure the pain and grief you feel is a thousand times worse than mine."

Zippy Lomax: I was grateful that, because every other message I had got was hateful and awful. Like, somebody saying it, that just kind of echoes what other people have said kind of in more quiet ways, that they were grateful that I was willing to speak up.

Justine Harman: No part of Zippy is able to reconcile the women she once knew with the women who began to emerge on paper after the fateful crash.

Speaker 6: As we've been reporting, most of the Hart family was found dead at the crash site on March 26th. That was just days after Child Protective Services tried to visit their home in Clark County to look into reports of potential neglect against parents Sarah and Jennifer Hart.

Speaker 7: Tonight, investigators held a telephone news conference that they believe the SUV was crashed on purpose. What first appeared to be a tragic accident now looks much more sinister. Captain Bart said, "Information downloaded from the airbag control module shows the SUV actually stopped before accelerating over the clip."

Speaker 8: It was pure acceleration from the last brake application until it hit the bottom of the cliff, the ocean.

Speaker 9: Investigators are releasing new details about the Hart family tragedy, telling us that Jennifer Hart was drunk when she drove the family's car off a cliff in northern California and her wife, Sarah, had a drug in her system.

Liz Egan: Even now, Zippy has a hard time believing her friends were living dual lives.

Zippy Lomax: There's no part of me and all of my looking back at all of my observations of them that's capable of seeing that it was just a charade.

Liz Egan: Somehow, the smoke and mirrors of the compelling digital narrative Jen created was able to cloud a sense of civic responsibility. It's not unlike the same mental gymnastics we perform on a daily basis while absentmindedly scrolling through anyone's feed. We know, of course we do, that perfect is a myth, but we also convince ourselves that other people must have achieved it. Pictures have an uncanny way of making any story true.

Liz Egan: Markis, Hannah, Devonte, Abigail, Jeremiah, and Sierra died because everyone saw something different when they looked at them. The perfect family. Some lucky rescued kids. A symbol for post-racial kumbaya. No one saw six young people in desperate need of help, not even the people who were looking right at them.

Justine Harman:Next time, on Broken Harts.

Speaker 10: (singing)

Speaker 11: She was eating out of the garbage.

Speaker 12: To this day, it just seems so strange.

Speaker 13: I remember vaguely hearing that they dropped the foster daughter off and just abandoned her.

Speaker 14: That should kind of be a clue right then and there that this is a person you don't think can operate in the child's best interests.

Female: My inner monologue was like, "Something's not right about them."

Speaker 14: Absolutely, I think race is playing a part. You know when people are sitting in an audience thinking that, "Okay, well, why did the judge just rule that way?"

Speaker 15: It's like he's trying to kiss me.

Female: Maybe he loves you.

Liz Egan: Broken Harts is a joint production between Glamour and HowStuffWorks with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Harts is co-hosted and co-written by Justine Harman and Elisabeth Egan, and edited by Wendy Naugle. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter. Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor-in-chief. Julie Shen and Deanna Buckman head up the business side of this partnership. Joyce Pendola, Pat Signer, and Luke Zalesky are our research team. Jason Hoch is executive producer, on behalf of HowStuffWorks, along with producers Julian Weller, Ben Kuebrich, and Josh Thane. Special thanks to Jenn Lance.

Liz Egan: Have questions for us about this podcast? Reach us on Twitter @GlamourMag. For access to exclusive photos, and videos, and documents about the case, visit glamour.com/brokenharts. If you like what you heard, leave us a review.