In this episode of Pushing Up Lilies, I examine the tragic Mechanicville family deaths involving Amy Steadman. I walk through the investigation, the forensic process used to reconstruct the events, and the challenges investigators face when responding to scenes involving multiple deaths. As always, my goal is to help you understand the investigative process while honoring the victims and the lives forever changed by this tragedy. Listener discretion is advised.
In this episode of Pushing Up Lilies, I’m covering the heartbreaking case involving Amy Steadman and the tragic family deaths that shook the community of Mechanicville, New York.
Cases involving multiple family members are among the most emotionally difficult for investigators, first responders, and the communities left searching for answers. As details emerged, investigators were faced with the complex task of piecing together what happened inside a home where several lives were lost, while loved ones struggled to make sense of an unimaginable tragedy.
As a forensic death investigator, I discuss the investigative process behind cases like this, the importance of carefully documenting the scene, evaluating the evidence without assumptions, and understanding how investigators work to reconstruct the events that led to such devastating outcomes. I also explore the emotional toll these cases can have, not only on surviving family members, but on the professionals responsible for uncovering the truth.
But beyond the investigation, I want to remember the people at the center of this story.
Behind every report are individuals whose lives mattered, families forever changed, and a community left grieving. Every death investigation is about more than determining what happened, it's about honoring those who can no longer speak for themselves and seeking answers with compassion, professionalism, and respect.
This episode contains discussion of family violence, homicide, and death.
Listener discretion is advised.
00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine-tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Welcome to another episode of Pushing Up Lilies. I'm so happy that y'all joined us today. Still recovering from all the CrimeCon stuff. My items that I had there were boxed up and shipped back to me, and I just got them all back.
00:46
So, I'm trying to get them into my store at the Mercantile in Krum. Thank you for being patient with me. My plan was to try to do that today, but I ended up having to make a doctor's appointment. So, it's been kind of crazy.
00:58
Clinical tomorrow and then meds fall, med spa, and, you know, the routine. Trying to keep my head afloat while I'm finishing school. I've got one month left of this semester. So, I get a month and a half off and then I have two more small three-month semesters finished or left.
01:18
So hopefully it will go quickly. It seems like so far away, but I know that these days’ time flies super-fast. I want to make sure that y'all have a super safe 4th of July. I know at the medical examiner's office, we would always frequently have drownings during the holidays when everyone's at the lake and having their hold my beer and watch this moment.
01:41
So, keep a close eye on your friends. And my biggest thing is don't always assume that your friends that can swim don't still need to be watched because if they're drinking or if they're not super healthy, they could have a medical emergency in the water.
02:02
There are, in many cases, free life jackets available at the lakes. So, everyone in your boat should have one. There's just a lot of ways to think ahead about how to be safe and prevent accidents and injuries and deaths.
02:19
Just kind of keep that in your head when you're going to the lake or even when you're just outside in the heat. Take water. Stay hydrated. We don't want a bunch of heat strokes going on. Think about your health and the health of the others with you.
02:32
And that will help tremendously in preventing deaths and accidents and injuries. So, okay, that's my spiel. Gonna get into this week's episode. This week, I want to talk to you a little bit about the case regarding Amy Steadman, and this is the Mechanicville family deaths.
02:51
Now, this happened on June 23rd, so it wasn't that long ago. This year, police in Mechanicville, New York responded to a wellness check at an apartment on Harris Avenue. Now, a neighbor had grown worried.
03:05
The family had not been seen, and the air around the apartment smelled wrong, and flies were gathering. And we've talked about this before when someone's in their home, haven't been seen in a while. They call the police for a welfare check, and it smells bad.
03:23
I mean, you've smelled an animal that has been decaying in the road or in the ditch, and it's just not a pleasant smell. Those details actually matter in death investigation. Odor and flies, they tell you, obviously, that time has passed.
03:40
They tell you that something inside has changed, and they tell you that the body or bodies are no longer in an early stage of death, but they are decomposing. So, when officers actually entered Amy Steadman's apartment, they found six people dead.
03:58
Amy Steadman was 64. Her daughter, Sarah Myers, was 44. Sarah's daughter, Harper Harmon, was 13. Sarah's son, Hudson Harmon, was 11. And Sarah's 10-year-old twins were Gavin Harmon and Gracelyn Harmon.
04:17
So, all six were found inside Amy's apartment. And even though Sarah and the children actually lived in a separate unit in the same apartment complex. Police later said that the deaths appeared criminal and evidence suggested intentional poisoning.
04:35
Investigators also said that one of the children had suffered fatal sharp force injuries. So, a handwritten note found inside the home strongly pointed towards Amy Stedman. According to the police, that's just what they said.
04:51
Toxicology results and final medical examiner findings were still pending when these details were released. Today we're talking about what police believe Amy Steadman did. So, we're talking about the crime scene and the poisoning, sharp force injury, decomposition, custody conflict, and just the sickening silence inside the apartment.
05:17
And we're going to say children's names, Harper, Hudson, Gavin, and Graceland, because before this was a headline, it was a family. Now, a welfare check sounds simple. Someone hasn't been seen. Someone's not answering their phone calls.
05:35
Somebody missed work. Somebody missed an appointment somewhere, but something is different. Something seems a little bit off. So, the police knock and maybe someone answers, but maybe no one answers. Sometimes the person is fine.
05:52
Sometimes they're just sick. They haven't been out. They don't want to go anywhere. But sometimes there's a crisis. And sometimes officers open a door and walk into a scene that they'll remember for the rest of their lives.
06:07
And this is what happened in Mechanicville. Police were called to Amy's Harris Avenue apartment after people grew concerned about the family. Reports say that neighbors hadn't seen or heard from them in several days.
06:21
One report actually said a neighbor hadn't heard from them in about two weeks. When responders arrived, this was not a clean, quiet scene where everyone inside had been recently deceased. They said the bodies had been inside for an extended period of time and identification at the scene was difficult because of their condition.
06:43
And this was always hard for me to explain to families or tell them because at this point, everyone starts blaming themselves. Everyone starts thinking, if I had only checked on them sooner, or other things that make them feel guilty.
07:04
The sentence is short, but it says a lot. Extended period means decomposition had really already started. So, the apartment would have smelled heavy and unmistakable. Human decomposition has a kind of a sweet, rotten chemical odor, and it clings to the walls and the furniture and the carpet and the bedding and the clothes and also the people who enter.
07:31
I know that I've told y'all before when we went on a decomp scene, many of us would just shed our clothes in our garage when we got home and not go in with our clothing on because it just sticks to you.
07:43
It sticks to your hair. It sticks in your nose hairs. It's definitely recognizable to the people in your home. The flies would have followed the odor. They gather at windows and they would cluster near like cracks in the doors.
07:59
They'd move towards light and they would actually tell first responders before anyone touched anything that the death inside had occurred quite some time ago. The officers would have stepped into hot stale air.
08:14
The air would not feel like a regular apartment. It would feel thick. And that is the part that most people don't understand about death scenes. You don't always see them. You smell them and you feel them and you carry them with you.
08:29
And inside that apartment, officers found these six bodies, a grandmother, a mother, and four children. Now, police identified the victims as 64-year-old Amy Steadman, 44-year-old Sarah Myers, 13-year-old Harper Harmon, 11-year-old Hudson Harmon, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelyn Harmon.
08:48
Sarah Myers was Amy Stedman's daughter. Harper, Hudson, Gavin, and Gracelyn were Sarah's children. And again, they lived in the same apartment complex, but Sarah and the children did not live in Amy's unit, but all bodies were found inside Amy's apartment.
09:06
And that detail matters because it places all six people in one location near the time of death. So, it narrows the crime scene, and it gives investigators one central space to examine. But it also raises questions.
09:22
Why were Sarah and all four children inside Amy's apartment? Not a big deal, visiting mom. But nonetheless, did they go willingly? Were they just visiting? Were they asked to come over? Were they staying there temporarily for some reason?
09:37
Had they been sick? Had they been sedated previously? Were they aware of the danger that they were walking into when they went there? Police really haven't released those answers, but the location matters because this was not a scene spread across separate homes.
09:56
This was one apartment in one space again. At the press briefing, Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbit said that evidence found inside the apartment suggested intentional poisoning. Now, police reported prescription and over-the-counter medication at the scene, but they also said there was a handwritten note and other circumstantial evidence strongly suggesting that Amy Steadman was responsible.
10:23
Now, one child, only one of them, according to police, actually suffered sharp force injuries. And that means police weren't looking at one simple cause of death. They were looking at possible poisoning with at least one violent, sharp force death.
10:39
So that changes the entire investigation. Poisoning is often quiet and it can leave a little visible trauma at first, but a person may just look like they're asleep. A child may be found in dead. A mother may be found on a couch.
10:54
A grandmother might be found nearby. But sharp force injury is different because it actually leaves trauma and it leaves blood on most occasions and it may leave signs of a struggle. It could also leave a weapon and transfer stains.
11:11
So, police haven't named yet which child suffered the sharp force injuries, and they have not released the weapon. They have not released the position of the bodies or the contents of the note. So, we're not going to invent those facts.
11:27
We're going to wait until that comes out in the news media and then we'll report that. But we are going to explain what a scene like this means from a forensic standpoint. Picture a small apartment inside a public housing complex.
11:41
So, the door opens, the smell comes first, then the insects, no television noise, no children talking or laughing, no one calling for help, just six bodies, the remains of daily life around them, and the evidence waiting to be read.
11:58
Investigators would freeze the apartment in place. Nobody casually walks through. We've talked about this before. Nobody moves anything. Nobody picks up medication bottles and says, what's this? Because every movement matters and every item at that crime scene matters.
12:18
So the first photograph starts wide, the front door, the entryway, the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, then the bathroom, the hallways, windows, locks, the thermostat, trash cans, medication bottles, syringes, cups, food containers, bedding, phones, notes, weapons, whatever we find, all those things have to be photographed.
12:44
And then the investigators would move closer, body by body, position by position, hand placement, face position, clothing, bedding, nearby objects, fluid stains, blood stains, pill bottles, residue, vomit, any signs of movement, signs of cleaning, or signs of staging.
13:07
The apartment wouldn't only tell police who died, it would tell them how the deaths unfolded, possibly in what order. Poisoning scenes kind of hide the violence. So, a body can be lying peacefully, but the death itself may have been terrifying.
13:22
So, depending on the medication or drug mixture, victims might become confused, dizzy, nauseated, weak, sleepy, or unable to breathe. They might vomit or they could choke on their vomit. They might have a seizure.
13:38
They might become too sedated to fight. And they might know something is wrong, but still be unable to move, which to me just sounds frightening. And that's one reason poisoning is so cruel, because the victim loses control of their body before they lose life.
13:56
And if the victims are children, the cruelty is even worse. Children trust adults and they drink what adults’ hand to them. They take medicine that adults tell them will help. They lie down when they're told to rest and they don't expect their grandma to be a dangerous person.
14:16
Police said numerous prescription drugs and medications were recovered at the scene. And reports also mentioned over-the-counter medications being present. That matters because poisoning investigations depend on more than autopsy.
14:31
The scene has to kind of match the body. The lab has to match the scene. And the story has to match both. So, you can see how difficult it is sometimes for investigators to put it all together. The investigators would collect the medication bottles and documents whose name was on the label, what medication it was, how many pills were prescribed, when it was prescribed, and how many were actually left.
14:57
And they would document whether the pills were mixed, whether the pills appeared to be crushed, whether the labels were removed, if the bottles were empty, if the caps were off, and whether medications were found near bodies, like in the trash or in sinks and cups and foods or in containers.
15:17
Was there a food on a plate that appeared to have crushed medication mixed in it? Were there cups nearby with drinks or liquid in them that may have had medications added to them? So, all these things have to be tested.
15:34
They would test liquids in the cups and stomach contents, if available, blood, urine, vitreous fluid, or that's fluid from the eye, liver tissue, other specimens, depending on decomposition and what kind of quality specimen they could actually get.
15:52
But when bodies decompose, toxicology, as you can all suspect, becomes more difficult. Drugs can redistribute after you die. Blood might not be ideal. Some substances actually degrade and are harder to find in your system.
16:08
And so, some tissues become more useful than others. That's why toxicology actually takes time. And that's also why the police were careful to say that the final cause and manner of death depended on medical examiner findings and toxicology.
16:24
So, the crime scene might screen poisoning, but the lab still has to prove it. We still don't know at this point what happened. Some reports state that syringes were recovered from the scene. That obviously immediately is going to raise some questions.
16:41
What were they used for? Was grandma diabetic? Were they used to inject medications? Were they empty? Did they have medications or liquid in them? Were the caps on them? Were they near Amy? Were they near a child?
16:55
Were they near Sarah? Were they in the trash? Were they on a table? Were they in a bathroom? Because the location matters. A syringe in a diabetic's home might be a very innocent explanation, as it would be for any other death.
17:12
But a syringe next to multiple unexplained deaths actually is very suspicious. Investigators would also look for injection sites, but you know, decomposition is going to make that much more difficult.
17:25
And that's why decomposed bodies always go to the medical examiner's office. And that's because it is very difficult to detect trauma on a decomposed body. Needle punctures might be difficult to be seen because of the skin changes.
17:41
And bruising is less reliable because your skin starts to slip and come off and the tissue breaks down. And so that means investigators really need very careful autopsy, toxicology, and scene correlation, because if substances were injected, toxicology might show a different pattern than ingestion.
18:02
So, if substances were swallowed, gastric contents are going to show pill fragments or medication residue, but if they're injected, they're not. So, you can't assume that someone hasn't been poisoned by a pill that they took orally or ingested that was mixed with a drink than if it were actually injected into someone's system.
18:25
If the substances were actually placed in drinks, if the children were told they were taking medication because they were sick and there's cups there and spoons and syringes, dosing devices, all of those things, you have to just pay attention to them.
18:41
Police haven't released the delivery method, but every object in that apartment would have been treated like evidence until proven otherwise. Now we need to talk about the most disturbing detail released about the child that suffered fatal sharp force injuries.
18:57
That's obviously caused by an object with an edge or a point. So, a knife, a blade, a sharp tool, or something that had been broken. Police haven't said what weapon caused that injury, and they haven't yet said which child died that way, or whether or not that child might have also had toxic substances in their body.
19:20
But these details changes the emotional and forensic weight of this case because if most victims were poisoned, why did one suffer sharp force injury? So, there are several possibilities to be examined by investigators.
19:35
The poison may not have worked fast enough. That child may have resisted. That child may have woken up after they drank the poison. That child may have tried to escape. And so, the sharp force injury may have been part of the original plan, but the offender might have also panicked and that child may have been attacked before or after being poisoned.
19:59
But we don't know what's true. So that's why the medical examiner gets involved and starts looking for answers. They're going to document the wound or wounds. We don't know yet how many. They'll assess the location and the depth and the direction, the number, the force, whether or not clothing was damaged, how much blood was lost, and if there were any defensive injuries.
20:24
They're going to look at the hands and the forearms because children who defend themselves or anyone who defends themselves may have cuts to their fingers or their palms or their wrists or their arms.
20:37
They're going to test that child also for medications because a heavily sedated child may not have been able to fight. That might explain why there were no defensive wounds if there aren't any. But a conscious person in a case like this might show defensive injuries.
20:53
And that distinction matters because it speaks to awareness and sequence and suffering. And it may tell investigators whether the poisoning failed or whether the sharp force injury was always part of the plan.
21:07
Police said the bodies had been inside the apartment for an extended time, which, like we said, with decomposition, it really makes identification difficult at times. And that's just a clinical way to describe something that's horrific.
21:24
In the summer inside an apartment, decomposition can move kind of quickly. Of course, based on the temperature inside, but the body's going to change color. The skin's going to become marble. The abdomen's going to swell.
21:38
Fluids are going to purge from the mouth and nose. And people's skin starts to blister. It slips. And then the odor gets worse. And then the insects come and they lay eggs and soft tissue breaks down.
21:50
A face may no longer look like the person in the photographs. And for responders, that means visual identification may not really be reliable. Family members shouldn't be asked to identify decomposed bodies, even in children who have not been fingerprinted for a driver's license, if they have like dental work that's been done.
22:15
But that is, you know, anybody identifying is worst case scenario. Normally they'll do DNA before they would do that. It's so traumatizing. Medical records, tattoos. Of course, these kids aren't going to have tattoos.
22:30
They may have scars, jewelry, certain clothing, or just their body size. But DNA is usually the best at that point. All these victims were found together, and police later released their identities. But imagine the first few hours.
22:47
There were six bodies, four children, advanced decomposition, possible poisoning, possible sharp force injury, medication evidence, and a note. So there's a lot of discipline required at a scene like this.
23:01
You cannot let your emotions make you sloppy. And you can't let horror make you rush. I got to get out of here. This is terrible. I don't want to see this anymore. You can't do that. You got to slow down.
23:13
You have to photograph and you have to document and preserve any evidence you can. You want to be sure and tell this story properly because the dead only get this one investigation. So, police in a handwritten note found that the scene strongly suggested that Amy was responsible, but they haven't released the contents.
23:35
But that's important because we all want to know what it said. We're curious people. And that family wants answers. And the media, of course, wants a headline. But investigators protect evidence for a reason.
23:49
A note can answer a lot of questions about motive, but it can also mislead. So, people who kill family members sometimes use notes to control the narrative. They may apologize or blame someone else or describe the murder as mercy.
24:05
They may say they had no choice. They may punish a surviving family member with final words, which is always terrible to read as an investigator. And they may lie. And investigators are going to treat that note as physical evidence.
24:19
And they're going to determine who wrote it and when it was written and whether the handwriting is consistent, whether DNA was present, fingerprints were present, and whether it was written before or after the children were killed.
24:35
And they'll also ask whether the note was placed in plain view. Was it near Amy? Did it mention anything about custody? Did it mention medications? Did it mention the names of the victims or give any instructions?
24:48
Did it express remorse or did it show that there was planning involved? So, this note matters, but the scene matters more because if the note says one thing and the evidence says another, then investigators have to follow the evidence.
25:08
Now, the children's father, Brady Harmon, he actually lived in Utah, and he told investigators that he hadn't seen the children in years, which is odd to me, but had been expecting summer custody. Now, reports state that the court paperwork involved joint custody and that Sarah Myers and Brady Harmon had separated back in 2019, but their divorce was finalized in 2020.
25:32
Harmon publicly said that he thought the deaths were somehow connected to the custody situation, but police really haven't confirmed that motive yet. Now, that distinction actually matters because this poor grieving father, police still have to prove motive with evidence, and they need messages and court records and witness statements and a search history and phone logs and medication records and timeline evidence,
25:59
the note, all these things. But still, custody conflict is a major point in this case because of the timing. Family annihilation often happens near a triggering event. So, if there's a court order, a custody exchange, a separation, issues with the financing, a major loss of control, perceived humiliation, or some sort of forced change.
26:27
So, when an offender sees a family member as possessions, custody can actually become dangerous. The thought process becomes very twisted because they start thinking, if you can't have them, no one will.
26:41
But that's not love, that's control. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases like this one, the children actually pay the price. So, family annihilation is one of the hardest homicide patterns to understand because the offender kills the people closest to them, which doesn't make sense to us.
26:59
They kill their spouse, the children, their parents, grandchildren, and then sometimes themselves. And the act is often framed by the offender as mercy or punishment or control or revenge or some form of escape.
27:15
But children are not problems to solve. They're people and they have futures and voices, and they have their favorite snacks and their favorite shows and their bad moods and their jokes and their messy rooms.
27:27
And my room's still messy and I'm not even a child anymore. Harper was 13, Hudson was 11. And again, Gavin and Gracelyn were 10. They didn't make the custody orders. They did not create the conflict between these adults.
27:42
And they didn't deserve to become the final act in someone else's rage. But if police are correct and Amy Steadman was responsible, this was betrayal from inside the family. And that's what makes it so painful.
27:57
A stranger didn't break into the apartment. There's really no evidence of any outside involvement. And so, the threat appears to have been inside their trusted circle. And so, we need to be careful because police haven't released the final timeline and they haven't said who died first.
28:12
They haven't said where the bodies were or what medication was involved or what the note contained. But based on the evidence described, investigators are going to reconstruct the sequence. Some of the framework that they're going to have to decide is, were the children given their medications and the drinks?
28:35
Were they told they were sick? Did anyone try to call for help? Were phones disabled or removed? Were doors locked? Were windows closed? Was the apartment cleaned or did it appear staged? Was there any vomit?
28:48
You know, that's something they're going to have to look for. Was there any indication that the children were sick or became ill from the poisoning? Were there any stains on the pillows, a trail from one room to the other?
29:00
These tiny details are actually going to become the timeline. So, I want to explain the scene in a way people who are outside death investigation may not understand. This apartment's not going to look like a television crime scene.
29:14
There would be no neat outline on the floor, no clean white sheet placed over each victim, no dramatic music, and no instant answer as to what happened. A real decomposed death scene is physical, it's messy, and it's heavy.
29:30
And if the bodies were there for days, the decomposition fluids are going to seep into bedding, carpet, flooring. The smell would be overwhelming. There would be insect activity. There's fluid. There's staining around the bodies.
29:45
If the child who had sharp force injuries, if the scene was bloody, basically, blood from an injury behaves differently from the decomposition fluid and is a different color. So blood can spool, spatter, smear, transfer, soak into fabric.
30:02
It can dry very dark, and decomposition fluid may spread under the body and stain materials surrounding the body. So, investigators need to be able to tell those apart, and they need to know whether blood loss occurred before death.
30:18
They need to know whether the child was alive when he was injured or he or she. They need to know whether the injury was fatal by blood loss, organ damage, airway injury, or another mechanism. And they need to know whether the child moved afterward, which you could be able to tell if you look closely at the scene in most cases.
30:39
So, a scene with poisoning and sharp force trauma requires two tracks of investigation. The quiet track is the medication and the toxicology and the sedation, the possible ingestion or injection, either one or whichever.
30:56
The violent track is wound analysis, blood evidence, the weapon. Was there struggle? And what order did that all happen in? But tracks meet inside this apartment. And that's what makes this case so dark.
31:11
So, I want to stop the timeline for a moment because these four children died together. And the public sometimes turns them into one phrase, the four kids. But that's not enough. Harper Harmon was 13.
31:25
She was old enough to understand tension in a room. She was old enough to sense stress in the adults that were around her. And she was old enough to know when something was wrong. Now, Hudson Harmon was 11.
31:41
And although he was still a child, he was old enough to ask questions and old enough to know when people were acting strangely. And Gavin and Grayson were 10-year-old twins. 10 is young, but 10 still believes adults have answers, and 10 still needs to be protected.
31:59
And these children were found in their grandmother's apartment, and that should have been a safe place. Their mother was there, and that should have made it even safer. But instead, according to police, the scene points toward intentional poisoning and these sharp forced injuries.
32:17
So, it's hard to sit with that, but true crime should not turn away from the truth. Because if we talk about the crime, we need to remember who paid for it. Brady Harmon, the children's father, he spoke publicly about the deaths, and he said he had not seen his children in years.
32:35
Of course, he was expecting summer custody. He believed that Amy Steadman and Sarah Myers were to blame, though police publicly pointed most strongly towards Amy based on the note and the evidence. So again, we'll have to wait for that information to come out.
32:52
But that's another painful part of the case because here's this parent far away, a custody order, children expected to travel, and then silence and then death. Reports are saying that the father wants to bury the children in Utah.
33:09
Think about how cruel that is. He was planning for summer in custody and enjoying time with his children, and now he's forced to plan their funerals, wondering what they knew and if they were scared and if they asked for him.
33:26
You know, that has to go on in his mind. You know, were they asking for their dad? Were they begging for help? Wondering whether the system missed something. And that grief doesn't end after the headlines.
33:39
It'll follow him through birthdays and holidays and school years and graduations that never happen and four empty spaces where future should have been. Some people hear note found at the scene and think that the case is solved, but it's not that simple.
33:57
The note's important again, but it's only one part of this investigation. You still need to prove the cause of death for each victim. You need to prove the manner of death for each victim, who had access to the medications, whether they were taken voluntarily or forcibly, whether Sarah was a victim only, and was she also an actor along with Amy.
34:20
They also need to determine whether the sharp force injuries occurred before, during, or after the poisoning, and they need to know whether anyone was alive after the others died. So, toxicology, again, is key.
34:33
Autopsy is key. Digital evidence is key. Scene reconstruction, everything. The final story has to survive science, not emotion. Toxicology may answer some of the hardest questions, but if all the victims have the same medication in their system, it suggests a shared poisoning event.
34:54
But if the children have similar levels, investigators are going to look for a common source. So, if Sarah has high sedative levels, she may have been incapacitated early. But if Amy has a different medication pattern, then that may suggest that she took something different.
35:13
Now, if the child with sharp force injuries has a lower medication level, that might suggest poisoning failed. Maybe it didn't happen. Or maybe it was in a different way. If the child has sedative levels and still suffered sharp force injuries, investigators are going to want to know, or they may want to ask, why did that additional violence occur?
35:36
Was it necessary? Toxicology can also identify the drugs, whether they were prescription, over the counter, insulin, antihistamine, sleep aids, opioids, psychiatric, or even cardiac medications or other substances.
35:53
So, they haven't named the medications yet. So, we don't know the name of them, but the lab will know. And when it does, the crime scene is going to make more sense. So, the Mechanicville community held a vigil for the children and residents actually placed memorial items and gathered to grieve.
36:11
There's a lot of shock, as you can imagine, disbelief, deep sadness from the neighbors and everyone who knew this family. And that's what happens after a case like this. People replay every interaction.
36:27
They ask if they missed something. Again, they're going to start to kind of blame themselves. They ask, should they have knocked sooner? Should they have called earlier? Was there a sign that we missed?
36:37
Could someone have stopped this? But all those questions are normal. Blame shouldn't be there. Neighbors did notice something. Then they called for a welfare check. Police responded. The tragedy is that the deaths had already happened.
36:54
The lesson is not to live in fear. The lesson is to act fast when warning signs come together. No contact, missed custody exchange, strange excuses, multiple children sick, odor, flies, silence, lack of movement, no answer.
37:15
Those are the signs that need urgency. So, from a forensic nursing and death investigation standpoint, the case teaches a lot of hard lessons. Poisoning scenes aren't always visually obvious at first.
37:29
Decomposed bodies still hold evidence. One sharp forced death among possible poisoning deaths demands careful sequence reconstruction. Notes are evidence, but not automatic truth. And custody conflict may become dangerous when control, isolation, and refusal to comply appear.
37:52
Most of all, children must never become leverage in adult conflict. And unfortunately, that happens a lot. Children are not property. They're not bargaining chips. They're not extensions of a parent or grandparent.
38:09
They're separate humans and they have rights and they have a future that they have a right to live out. And they deserve safety even when the adults around them are angry, even when their parents are fighting, or even when their parents are fighting with grandparents.
38:26
Like they deserve to feel safe. And I keep picturing that apartment door, people walking by outside, cars coming and going, neighbors living their normal lives. The world keeps moving, but inside there's six people that are deceased.
38:44
When that person called for help and the police opened the door and found all of these people, could you just imagine? Now, they do believe that Amy Stedman was responsible. They believe intentional poisoning played a major role.
39:00
And so now toxicology and autopsy, scene evidence, and digital records are going to have to tell the rest of the story. But no report is going to give those children back. And Harper won't turn 14. Hudson won't grow into himself.
39:17
Gavin and Gracelyn will not get another birthday. And Sarah Myers won't get another chance to mother her children. And Amy Steadman, if the police are right, will be remembered as the grandmother who turned a home that should have been a safe place for those children into a death scene.
39:37
This case is still under investigation, so we'll follow the evidence. Again, are not going to invent details. We do not spread rumors. We do not turn children into clickbait. We say their names. Harper Harmon, Hudson Harmon, Gavin Harmon, Gracelyn Harmon, and Sarah Myers.
40:00
And we remember the scene on Harris Avenue for what it was. A family death investigation, a suspected poisoning, a child with sharp force injuries, a note, a custody backdrop, and six lives gone inside one apartment.
40:17
So, this story is just heartbreaking because again, you know, I'm a grandma. I could never, ever, ever imagine hurting my grandchild. I mean, I am her safe space, and I hope she always knows that. It breaks my heart to think that these children were surrounded by people that made them feel safe and they weren't.
40:44
We'll follow up on that. I'm going to keep an eye on what's going on about the case. I don't know if y'all are aware of it or not. It only happened like a week ago, but it's just super heartbreaking.
40:55
And, you know, we've seen several murder suicides like this in our area. And it's just, oh, it's just sad. It's heartbreaking. Anyway, I don't have anything really coming up that I have to talk about other than oh, school, you know.
41:13
In July, I'm going to be a guest host on another podcast, and I'll reveal that podcast in my next episode. Also, next Friday, I will be a guest host on another podcast whose host is a friend of mine that I met at Beyond the Crime back in April of this year.
41:33
And she is precious and amazing as well. I look forward to being a guest host on those two. And also, I'll be speaking at a trauma conference. I think it's in November, but there'll be more details on that to come up too.
41:50
And also, been invited to speak at another forensic conference. A lot going on, y'all. But I look forward to every week with y'all. And please, please, please share the podcast and share it with your friends and talk about it.
42:09
If you met me at CrimeCon, or at Beyond the Crime, we had pictures taken together. I'd appreciate it if you'd put those on your Facebook and tag me. That would be amazing. Most people took them with their own phone, so I didn't get copies of them.
42:22
As you can imagine, I don't like giving out my phone number because it already goes crazy with the MedSpa, which I love, but I have to limit how many people have my phone number. Anyway, love y'all so much.
42:34
Again, 4th of July, right around the corner. Please, please, please keep an eye on your friends. Stay hydrated. Be careful and stay safe. Bye, y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
42:51
If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplies.com for merchandise and past episodes.