The father of four children killed by their mother and grandmother in a horrific upstate New York murder-suicide said it was “sickening” to learn that the children endured “such unimaginable” suffering.
Brady Harmon spoke out after police released an update indicating that his children — Harper, 13, Hudson, 11, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon — were poisoned with a combination of allergy medication and mitragynine, a key compound in so-called gas-station heroin.
“I will never understand how two people who claimed to love and care about these children could deliberately cause them such unimaginable harm,” Harmon said of his former wife, Sarah Myers, 44, and her mother, Amy Steadman, 64. Police said the women killed the children before taking their own lives.
“The pain is still as raw as if it happened yesterday,” Harmon wrote on Facebook three months after the shocking murder-suicide in Mechanicville, New York, on June 10.
“Reading today’s official toxicology findings makes it even more sickening to understand what was done to them.”
The toxicology report found that the four children were killed with diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, and mitragynine, a primary compound in kratom. Kratom is a psychoactive plant-based extract with opioid-like effects that is commonly sold over the counter at convenience stores and gas stations.
The Mechanicville Police Department said diphenhydramine “was present at fatal or lethal levels in all six individuals” discovered at the scene. Mitragynine was detected in four of the six.
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“Harper, Hudson, Gavin, and Gracelynn were innocent. They deserved to feel safe. They deserved to grow up, chase their dreams, celebrate birthdays, reach milestones, and live the lives that were stolen from them,” wrote Harmon, who now lives in Utah.
“I still miss them every second. And I will continue speaking their names and fighting to make sure their lives — and what happened to them — are never forgotten.”
Harmon previously told News10 that the people responsible for his children’s deaths deserved “a special place in hell.”
He has since moved to sue New York authorities for more than $400 million, alleging that his children died after years of abuse continued despite multiple warning signs that officials failed to address.
Harmon filed a legal notice indicating his intention to sue the City of Mechanicville, Ballston Spa Central School District, Mechanicville City School District, Saratoga County, and the Mechanicville Housing Authority.
In the 17-page filing, Harmon alleges that his former wife and mother-in-law suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy — a mental health condition in which a caregiver, most often a parent, deliberately makes a child sick or harms them, or falsely portrays the child as ill.
The filing further claims that Myers and Steadman were “regularly drugging” the children “to control them and make them sick,” allegedly using substances such as Benadryl and kratom — the same drugs identified in the toxicology report following their deaths.