Left: Amy Steadman (Facebook). Right: Sarah Myers and her children (GoFundMe/Facebook).
A New York grandmother appears to have poisoned her daughter and four young grandchildren to death using “prescription pills and over-the-counter medications,” according to police officials.
A “handwritten note” and other items found inside Amy Steadman”s home “strongly” suggest that the 64-year-old killed her daughter, Sarah Myers, and her grandchildren Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and twins Gavin Harmon, 10 and Gracelynn Harmon, 10.
Steadman was also found dead inside the home.
One child was stabbed, while the rest appear to have been poisoned with “prescription pills and over-the-counter medications,” Mechanicville Police Chief Bill Rabbitt said during a press conference Thursday.
“There is recovered evidence from inside the apartment indicating intentional poisoning,” according to Rabbitt. He added that a “handwritten note and other circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that Amy Steadman was involved in the deaths.”
Sources tell local NBC affiliate WNYT there was resentment on the grandmother’s part toward her grandchildren’s father after he was granted custody of them recently. Local CBS affiliate WRGB has obtained court documents showing Myers and the father divorced in 2020 and were initially both granted joint custody.
According to the documents, the custody agreement allows Myers to have the children during the school year, while the father gets uninterrupted time with them during the summer months — from July to September, WRGB reports.
The family had all been dead “for an extended period of time” before police found them this week while performing a welfare check. A concerned neighbor hadn’t seen them in several days and notified authorities.
The bodies were too badly decomposed for responding officers to immediately identify them, according to Rabbitt.
“I went from, ‘I’m seeing my kids,’ to ‘I’ll never see my kids again,'” Brady Harmon, the father, told the Times Union, a local news website. “Things happen, but nothing like this.”
Harmon said his ex-wife had kept the kids from him, only allowing for an occasional FaceTime. He told the Times Union he wants to bury the children in Utah, where he currently lives.
“I want them as far away as possible from their mother,” he said.
