When asked why she was checking on the children, the worker says the department received “concerns that the children aren’t being fed,” CBS News reports. “The people I know wouldn’t starve their kids and lock them up.” 
 
 She’s referring to allegations of abuse that dogged the Harts — including depriving their adopted children of food, and a harsh spanking that resulted in a 2011 domestic-assault conviction for Sarah — as well as reports from neighbors suggesting the family lived an isolated life outside of the music festivals and rallies they attended.  Washington officials have released a 911 call made by a child welfare worker who was attempting to reach the Hart family on the day their SUV was found on the bottom of a California cliff. “The mothers are Sarah and Jennifer Hart, and according to my intake, they have six children in the home,” the worker says on the call, KTPV reports. “Different cars have been moving in and out, I noticed, so I feel like someone is there.” 
 
 The dispatcher then asks: “And what was the reason we are checking on them?” 
 
 “Concerns that the children aren’t being fed,” Krotke said. Investigators said they won’t know if it’s one of the Hart girls until DNA analysis is complete. “Who are we checking on?” the dispatcher asks. “I’m to the point where I no longer am calling this an accident; I’m calling it a crime,” Allman said during an appearance on HLN’s Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield. The Dekalbs, a neighbor couple, have told local media that they reported the suspected abuse of the children, and said that when state workers knocked on the Harts’ door, the family was allegedly home but did not answer.
– A social worker worried about the welfare of the Hart family called 911 in Washington state the same day the family's SUV plunged off a cliff in California. The Department of Social and Health Services employee told dispatchers in the March 26 call that she was requesting a welfare check after repeated failed attempts to locate Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six adopted children, People reports. "I've been to the home Monday and Friday and knocked on the door just this morning, and I can get no response," the worker said. "Different cars have been moving in and out, I noticed, so I feel like someone is there." The worker said she was worried about the family because of "concerns the children aren't being fed," reports KPTV. The couple and at least three of the children—Markis, 19; Jeremiah, 14; and Abigail, 14— died in what investigators believe was an intentional crash. Three other children—Devonte, 15; Hannah, 16; and Sierra, 12—are missing and presumed dead. The Harts were being investigated for alleged child abuse and neglect, which mystifies friends who knew them in the mid-2000s, when they lived in Minnesota, reports the Seattle Times. "They were passionate about trying to help," says Kayla Schmitz, who worked with the couple at Herberger's department store when they first got their foster-care license. "The people I know wouldn't starve their kids and lock them up." (An autopsy is being carried out on an unidentified body found near the crash site.)