The heartbroken father of four children killed by their mother and grandmother in a horrifying upstate New York murder-suicide said it was “sickening” to know how they were put through “such unimaginable” suffering.
Brady Harmon revealed his pain as he shared a police update showing that his kids — Harper, 13, Hudson, 11, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon — were poisoned with a mixture of allergy meds and a key ingredient 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,” he said of his ex-wife, Sarah Myers, 44, and her mother, Amy Steadman, 64, who killed the kids and then themselves, according to cops.
“The pain is still as raw as if it happened yesterday,” he wrote on Facebook three months after the shocking mass murder and 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 showed that the pair killed the four youngsters with over-the-counter drugs diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, and Mitragynine, a primary compound in kratom, a psychoactive plant-derived extract with opioid-like properties 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” found at the scene, and Mitragynine was found in four of them.
“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 the anguished father, 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.”
He previously told News10 that his children’s killers deserve “a special place in hell.”
Brady has since moved to sue New York authorities for upwards of $400 million, alleging his children died following a pattern of abuse that continued for years under their noses despite multiple warning signs.
He has filed a legal notice signaling his intent 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, Brady alleges his ex-wife and mother-in-law of suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy — a form of mental illness in which a caretaker, most often the mother, deliberately sickens or harms their children, or falsely creates the impression they’re unwell.
The bombshell filing claims Myers and Steadman were “regularly drugging” the children “to control them and make them sick” — with drugs including Benadryl and kratom — the very same substances their toxicology report revealed killed them.
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