“Why did this happen?”

This is the very question posed in a nerve-racking highlight from Discovery+‘s two-hour documentary about the Hart family murder-suicide. The new documentary, titled Broken Harts and available for streaming now, examines the horrifyingly true story of adoptive parents Jennifer and Sarah Hart, who died alongside their six children in a 2018 car incident.

However, as the clip above notes, this was not an everyday car accident. Despite their online persona depicting a perfectly happy home, allegations of child abuse against the couple popped up in three different states.

So, per retired Sheriff Tom Allman in the Broken Harts clip, it didn’t take long for authorities to piece together the situation. “To know that we had possibly six children, two adults,” the former sheriff states to the camera, “I don’t think, I know, it was on everybody’s mind of this is what we’re dealing with.”

According to another official from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, named Lt. Shannon Barney, Sarah was the first of the family to be identified. “We suspected the other adult female was Jennifer Hart, her married partner,” he recalls. “And two deceased children, and one that was believed to be a child but was late teens. So, we weren’t really sure.”