Times Union13%
Police: Mechanicville mother, grandmother plotted to kill 4 children 16%
By H.R. Schneider9%
8/4/2026, 7:35:54 AM
Keywords: Mechanicville, Mother, Grandmother, Murder, Children, Suicide, Plot, Conspiracy, Drugs, Abuse Allegations, Saratoga County, William Rabbitt, Sarah Myers, Amy Steadman, Brady Harmon
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Confirmation Bias, and Self-Serving Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 22.7% saturation with 202 hits. Analysis detected 952 faulty-reasoning hits from 888 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 25.5% and a BS Rank of 16% (23,878 of 28,359 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 84.20% of the article peer group.
Editor’s note: This story contains discussion of suicide.
If you or someone you know needs help, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or at 988lifeline.org/chat.
MECHANICVILLE — Four children found dead at an apartment complex in June were murdered by their mother and grandmother as part of a conspiracy to keep them from their father, city police said at a news conference Tuesday morning.
In what he described as a mass killing, police Chief William Rabbitt said 44-year-old Sarah Myers conspired with her mother, Amy Steadman, 64, to kill 13-year-old Harper, 11-year-old Hudson and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn on June 10.
Myers and Steadman then died by suicide.
At a news conference Tuesday morning, Rabbitt said Steadman and Myers began their plan as early as June 5, when Steadman began visiting multiple pharmacies to purchase over-the-counter sleep aids and medication prescribed to her.
Steadman’s internet search history included queries about medication reactions and the effects of insulin on non-diabetics.
Messages between the mother and daughter revealed they wanted to dose the children between 10:30 a.m. and noon on June 10, before a scheduled 6 p.m. phone call with their father, Utah resident Brady Harmon.
Police have previously said they found evidence of over-the-counter and prescription drugs and a handwritten note at the scene.
On Tuesday, Rabbitt said that, in fact, investigators found multiple notes: one handwritten by Steadman and others unsigned.
The letter from Steadman took responsibility for killing the children, claiming it was the only way to prevent abuse by their father.
The series of unsigned handwritten papers — believed to be written by Myers — also alleged abuse had occurred while she and her children lived in Utah and expressed anger with the Utah Family Court system.
Rabbitt said police were unable to independently verify these claims, and Harmon has denied them.
Harmon previously told the Times Union that he had received 10 letters from Saratoga County Child Protective Services informing him of several investigations into inadequate guardianship and educational neglect, and that Myers had postponed his court-ordered time with them last summer until she said they had to return to school.
Harmon, who said he had not seen his children in person since November 2019, had planned to pick them up on July 1.
Instead, on July 2, the children’s cremated remains were flown to Utah, where Harmon and his family scattered their ashes on a mountaintop.
Rabbitt said three of the children were poisoned, while 10-year-old Gavin was stabbed with a knife as he evidently tried to protect himself.
The police chief said Steadman’s search history included “where’s the most fatal place to be stabbed?”
and “find the carotid artery.”
Rabbitt said that Steadman's letter acknowledged that the scheme hadn’t gone as planned: Messages between the grandmother and her daughter indicated the children were not responding to the medication as predicted.
“It’s not working, we need another option,” one message said.
At one point, 10-year-old Gracelynn messaged on her iPad about her stomach hurting.
“Why would you do that?,” she wrote.
“You won’t let me puke.”
In a final disturbing message that evening, Steadman wrote that “Gracie is aware.”
Rabbitt said the final message between Steadman and Myers was at 8:41 p.m.
Steadman was last seen on surveillance footage around 9:30 p.m. going to a gas station before returning to her apartment.
The investigation is still ongoing, and toxicology results have not yet been completed, Rabbitt said.
“The deliberate murder of four children cannot be described as protection,” he said, later adding, “As a community, we cannot change what happened, but together we can honor these children by caring for one another, supporting those in need and doing everything within our power and to prevent another family from experiencing tragedy like this.”
Speaking to the Times Union in a phone call after the news conference, Harmon said he had received a message on June 10 that the children had stomach aches and that they would call him the next day.
His subsequent calls and messages went unanswered.
He said the latest information from police did not surprise him, but it has left him reeling nonetheless.
“All it tells me is that my kids were afraid, terrified,” he said.
“You don’t do that to someone you love.”
Harmon said he was disgusted by what he described as Myers’ hypocrisy and toxicity, and that she was “sick enough to believe her own lies.”
In the six and a half years he said he fought to see his children, Harmon said Myers was under investigation by Child Protective Services.
He had been unaware that they had been pulled out of school to be homeschooled.
“You shouldn’t be able to pull your kids out of school,” he said.
Harmon said he would like to know what medication his children were given, and who stabbed Gavin.
“They stabbed my son; they poisoned my children,” he said.
“All in the delusional state of, ‘We’re doing this for your benefit.’”
Days after the killings, police responded to calls for wellness checks on June 13 and 17.
Rabbitt said officers knocked on the door of the apartment they believed the children were at and spoke to a neighbor, unaware the family was already dead one building over.
Speakers
4speakers70%attributed speech268writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageSteadman
13 attributed words2.1% of attributed speech58% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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