'We Were Once a Family' examines how the foster care system failed the Hart siblings

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In 2018, Jennifer and Sarah Hart drove off a cliff in California, killing themselves and their six adopted children. While much of the media attention focused on the two women, reporter Roxanna Asgarian set off to investigate what had happened to the children's birth families, and why they'd been removed from their care. In today's episode, Asgarian speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about her book, We Were Once a Family, and the ways the foster care and child welfare system in the United States pushed the Hart siblings into an abusive and ultimately fatal situation.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. The story of the Hart family murders
0:07.2	was salacious enough that it drew all kinds of media attention when it happened. It goes like this.
0:12.9	Jennifer and Sarah Hart were a white lesbian couple who adopted six black kids. And in March 2018,
0:19.9	the two drove the entire family off a cliff
0:23.0	along the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators called it a murder suicide. If you look up
0:28.1	news articles at the time, you'll find stuff about Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their background
0:32.6	and the number of warning signs that the two were being abusive to these kids they adopted. But reporter Roxana Asgarian dug into the number of warning signs that the two were being abusive to these kids they adopted.
0:38.3	But reporter Roxana Asgarian dug into the background of the kids who they were, the families
0:43.8	they came from, and ended up writing a book that takes a close look at the foster care system
0:49.0	in Texas. It's called We Were Once a Family, and it's recently out in paperback.
0:53.9	She talked to here and now as Deepa Fernandez about what drove her reporting
0:57.0	and about the one biological sibling of some of these kids who was not adopted,
1:02.4	and so managed to survive.
1:04.9	That's ahead.
1:06.5	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:11.2	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:17.8	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:25.4	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your
1:28.7	podcasts. The book started as a newspaper assignment when you were dispatched to find the birth
1:35.7	parents of the dead children and get their perspective right after it happened. How, or actually
1:42.9	maybe why did that one assignment turn into this book?
1:47.3	I knew immediately when I was let into the homes of the birth family of three of the kids,
	...

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