Two women found dead alongside four children inside an upstate New York home last month died by suicide, while the children’s deaths are being investigated as homicides, authorities said.
Mechanicville Police Chief Bill Rabbitt told the Times Union that Sarah Myers, 44, and her mother, Amy Steadman, 64, are believed to have taken their own lives before all six family members were discovered inside Steadman’s Mechanicville residence on June 23.
The four children were identified by police as 13-year-old Harper, 11-year-old Hudson and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn.
According to Rabbitt, one of the children was fatally stabbed. Investigators believe the other three children were poisoned.
Police had previously said Steadman was suspected of carrying out an “intentional poisoning.”
“We will say that there is recovered evidence inside the apartment to indicate intentional poisoning to include numerous persons and over-the-counter medications,” Rabbitt said during a June 25 news conference.
Myers was Steadman’s daughter and the mother of all four children. Myers and her children reportedly lived in a separate unit within the same apartment complex.
Authorities discovered the six bodies while conducting a welfare check after neighbors became concerned because they had not seen the family for several days.
Rabbitt said investigators found a handwritten note at the scene, along with evidence of prescription and over-the-counter drugs inside Steadman’s apartment.
The bodies were badly decomposed by the time officers entered the residence, according to the police chief.
The children’s father, Brady Harmon, spoke publicly about the devastating loss from his home in Salt Lake City. He said he had not seen his children in person since separating from their mother in November 2019.
Harmon claimed he had spent six years trying to secure custody or visitation and was only days away from finally seeing the children again.
“I wish there was something else I could have done legally,” Harmon told WNYT. “But I went through everything I could. Everything that my lawyers could do, everything. I just never thought that someone would go and do this.”
He told News 10 that the children were scheduled to stay with him in Utah from July 1 through September 1.
They were supposed to “just come and be with Dad and connect with family they have not seen,” Harmon said, as well as meet additional relatives they had never known.
Harmon learned about his children’s deaths on June 23.
“You talk about the feeling of, how do you prepare for this?” he told WNYT. “You get down to almost the finish line — just absolutely cut your legs out from underneath you and the only thing left to do is crawl across the finish line to bring the remains home.”
Mechanicville police did not immediately provide additional information about the ongoing investigation.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis or emotional distress, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org. Help is available 24 hours a day.
Anyone experiencing domestic violence can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. Calls are free, confidential and available around the clock.
