AMERICAN HORROR STORY- Mother And Grandmother Murder All 4 Kids Just So The Dad Can't Have Custody, Then Kill Themselves

In a chilling case that has stunned a small upstate New York community and left a devastated father mourning the loss of his children, police say a mother and grandmother meticulously planned and carried out the murders of four young kids before taking their own lives.

Sarah Myers, 44, and her mother Amy Steadman, 64, allegedly poisoned three of Myers’ children and stabbed the fourth in a calculated murder-suicide at Steadman’s apartment in Mechanicville on or around June 10, 2026. The bodies of Myers, Steadman, and the children, Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon, were discovered June 23 during a welfare check after neighbors reported not seeing them for days and detected suspicious odors.

Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbitt detailed the nightmare in an August 4 update: The pair began plotting as early as June 5, with Steadman visiting multiple pharmacies to stock up on over-the-counter sleep aids and her own prescription medications. Internet searches included queries about drug interactions, the effects of insulin on non-diabetics, “where is the most fatal place to be stabbed,” and how to locate the carotid artery.

Text messages between mother and daughter laid out the timeline: dose the children between 10:30 a.m. and noon on June 10—before a scheduled evening phone call with their father—so the plan could unfold undetected. When the medications failed to work as expected, one text read something to the effect of “It’s not working, we need another option.” Ten-year-old Gracelynn messaged on her iPad that her stomach hurt and asked, “Why would you do that? You won’t let me puke.” Steadman later texted that “Gracie is aware.” Communications continued as the killings unfolded, with the final message exchanged at 8:41 p.m.

Gavin, the 10-year-old twin, was stabbed multiple times with a knife as he tried to defend himself, authorities said. The other three children were poisoned. Myers and Steadman then died by suicide. Handwritten notes left behind claimed the acts were necessary to “protect” the children from alleged abuse by their father, Brady Harmon, who lives in Utah. Investigators found no evidence to support those claims, and Harmon has firmly denied them.

“Amy Steadman and Sarah Myers consistently portrayed these murders as a way to protect the children,” Rabbitt said. “Whatever they believed to justify their actions, the murder of four children cannot be described as protection.” He called it a mass killing and stressed that the deliberate slaughter of the kids “cannot be described as protection.”

The tragedy unfolded against the backdrop of a bitter, years-long custody battle. Harmon, who said he had not seen his children in person since November 2019, had finally secured a parenting agreement granting him custody from July 1 to September 1, his first extended time with them in more than six and a half years. He was counting down the days to reunite with them when the unthinkable happened. After the discovery, the children’s cremated remains were flown to Utah, where the family scattered their ashes on a mountaintop.

Harmon later told reporters the latest police revelations left him reeling. “All it tells me is that my kids were afraid, terrified,” he said. “You don’t do that to someone you love. ... They stabbed my son; they poisoned my children. All in the delusional state of, ‘We’re doing this for your benefit.’”

Welfare checks on June 13 and 17 went unanswered because officers knocked on the wrong apartment door in the complex, unaware the family was already dead next door. The bodies were badly decomposed by the time they were found, complicating initial identification.

The close-knit city of Mechanicville, about 18 miles north of Albany, has been rocked by the horror. Neighbors described Steadman as friendly and attentive to the kids, who were homeschooled. Vigils sprang up with balloons, crosses bearing the children’s names, and messages like “Fly High Babies.” Community members expressed disbelief that such evil could unfold in their quiet apartment complex.

Toxicology results remain pending, and the investigation continues. But the evidence, texts coordinating the killings in real time, pharmacy runs, fatal searches, and the notes rationalizing the unthinkable, paints a picture of premeditated evil dressed up as “protection.”

This is the kind of American horror story that defies comprehension: four innocent children, ages 10 to 13, murdered by the very people meant to keep them safe, all to deny a father the chance to finally hold them again. No justification can ever excuse it.