BREAKING: Sarah Myers and Amy Steadman had been planning this for weeks; investigators say the 44-year-old mother and her 64-year-old mother exchanged text messages over several days, purchased drugs, scouted a location for a stabbing, and coordinated the deaths of four children before taking their own lives. But the handwritten letters they left behind may be the most chilling aspect of the entire case.
In the days leading up to June 10, 2026, Sarah Myers and her mother, Amy Steadman, methodically prepared for the deaths of four children. According to Mechanicville police, the 44-year-old mother and her 64-year-old mother exchanged detailed text messages, bought medications from multiple pharmacies, researched the most lethal places to stab a person, and coordinated the timing of the killings so they would be finished before a scheduled phone call with the children’s father. When the initial poisoning attempt failed, they adjusted the plan in real time. By nightfall, Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon were dead. Myers and Steadman then took their own lives.
The bodies of all six were discovered nearly two weeks later, on June 23, inside Steadman’s apartment on Harris Avenue in Mechanicville, New York. Advanced decomposition made immediate identification difficult. What investigators uncovered in the weeks that followed revealed not a sudden act of desperation, but a calculated joint enterprise that began no later than June 5.
Yet among all the digital records, pharmacy receipts, internet searches, and physical evidence, police say the handwritten letters left at the scene may be the most unsettling element of the case.
Weeks of Preparation
Police Chief William Rabbitt laid out the timeline at an August 4 news conference. Planning started by June 5. Steadman began visiting pharmacies to purchase over-the-counter sleep aids and medications that had been prescribed to her. Surveillance footage and purchase records documented the transactions. Her internet activity included searches about medication reactions, the effects of insulin on non-diabetics, and the Utah family court system. Later queries turned more specific: “Where is the most fatal place to be stabbed” and information about locating the carotid artery.
Text messages between mother and daughter covered logistics in detail—where to obtain the drugs, where inside the apartment the acts would occur, how the medications would be given, how the children would be gathered, what they would be told, and how to avoid suspicion. Myers directed that the medications be administered between 10:30 a.m. and noon on June 10 so the process would be complete before a 6 p.m. call with Brady Harmon, the children’s father in Utah.
When the drugs did not work as expected, one of the women texted: “It’s not working. We need another option.” The plan shifted. Gracelynn sent a message on her iPad describing rising stomach pain and asking why she was not being allowed to vomit. Steadman later wrote, “Gracie is aware.” The final text exchange between Myers and Steadman occurred at 8:41 p.m. Around 9:30 p.m., cameras captured Steadman at a gas station before she returned to the apartment.
Three children died from poisoning. Gavin was stabbed multiple times with a knife and showed a defensive wound. Investigators linked the stabbing to the failure of the initial method and to Steadman’s earlier online research on fatal stab locations.
The Letters
Inside the apartment, officers recovered a series of handwritten documents that police describe as central to understanding the mindset of the two women.
One letter, signed with Amy Steadman’s name, accepted full responsibility. In it, the author stated that killing the children was “the only way to keep them safe from alleged abuse in Utah.” The letter asserted that Sarah Myers had done everything she could and that no one would help her. It also acknowledged that the events had not gone according to the original plan.
A second group of unsigned notes, which investigators believe were written by Myers, repeatedly referred to the children as “my babies.” These writings expressed intense anger toward the Utah family court system, repeated claims that Myers and the children had been abused while living in Utah, and complained that she had been unable to obtain legal representation. The tone was personal and maternal even as it justified the children’s deaths.
Electronic files belonging to Myers contained images that appeared to document injuries to herself and some of the children, along with additional messages and notes repeating the same abuse allegations. Chief Rabbitt stated clearly that investigators reviewed all of this material carefully but “were not able to independently verify the circumstances surrounding the alleged incidents.”
Brady Harmon has denied every allegation. He has never been charged with any related offense and has told police and reporters that the claims were false. He described them as a justification constructed to prevent him from exercising court-ordered parenting time.
The Custody Backdrop
Myers and Harmon married in 2015 and separated in 2019. Their 2020 divorce decree provided for joint legal custody. Myers had the children during the school year; Harmon was entitled to uninterrupted summer time, regular video contact, holidays, and birthdays. In practice, Harmon had not seen the children in person since November 2019.
By the spring of 2026 he had secured summer parenting time scheduled to begin around July 1—the first extended period with his children in more than six years. Myers faced a Utah court date on June 29 for alleged noncompliance with the parenting plan. Harmon last spoke with the children on June 7 via FaceTime. On June 10, the day of the killings, Myers texted him that the children were sick and would call the next day. The call never came. The same day his attorney sent formal enforcement paperwork.
Child Protective Services records show multiple investigations into Myers between 2020 and 2024, with findings of inadequate guardianship and educational neglect in at least three cases. Harmon received approximately ten notifications from the agency. Myers had withdrawn the children from public school to homeschool them.
Discovery and Aftermath
Neighbors requested welfare checks on June 13 and June 17. Officers responded but did not enter the correct unit. On June 23, after a third call, police entered Steadman’s apartment and found the six bodies.
The children’s remains were later cremated and returned to Utah, where Harmon’s family scattered the ashes on a mountaintop. Steadman’s public death notice consisted of two sparse lines noting her death on June 23 and that services were private at the family’s request.
In Mechanicville, residents held a vigil for the four children. Police emphasized there was no continuing threat to the public. The investigation remains open pending final toxicology results, which authorities have indicated they are unlikely to release in detail.
Official Assessment
Chief Rabbitt summarized the evidence at the August 4 news conference: the multi-day text exchanges, the pharmacy purchases, the internet research on lethal methods, the real-time adjustment when poisoning failed, the stabbing of Gavin, and the handwritten letters left behind.
“Amy Steadman and Sarah Myers consistently portrayed these murders as a way of protecting the children,” he said. “Whatever they believed justified their actions, the deliberate murder of four children cannot be described as protection.”
The letters stand apart from the other evidence. The digital trail and physical items establish the planning, the coordination, and the sequence of the killings. The handwritten pages attempt to frame those acts as necessary and protective. Investigators have not been able to corroborate the central claim of abuse that the letters advance. The father of the four children rejects it entirely.
What remains is a documented record of preparation over days, a failed first method, a rapid change of plan, the deaths of four children, and two adults who then ended their own lives—leaving behind words that sought to explain the inexplicable.
