Times Union13%
Father shares final messages with mother accused of killing their 4 children 11%
By Wendy Liberatore11%
8/5/2026, 11:30:48 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Self-Serving Bias, Negativity Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 9.4% saturation with 84 hits. Analysis detected 554 faulty-reasoning hits from 897 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 20.9% and a BS Rank of 11% (25,496 of 28,359 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.90% of the article peer group.
MECHANICVILLE — On June 10, the day Brady Harmon expected to talk to his four children about their upcoming reunion, their mother postponed the call.
In a text message, Harmon’s ex-wife Sarah Myers told him their children couldn’t come to the phone, that they “have gotten a little stomach bug” and were “throwing up.”
“Is it okay to switch your online visit to tomorrow at 4 p.m. your time, please,” she asked in a message to Harmon, who lives in Utah.
He agreed, writing, “Hopefully they will feel better soon.”
But the next day nobody answered his text checking in on the children or a video call around 4 p.m.
Unbeknownst to him at the time, his children and Myers were most likely dead.
On Tuesday, Mechanicville police said investigators believe Myers and her mother, Amy Steadman, conspired to kill the four Harmon children — 13-year-old Harper, 11-year-old Hudson and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn — on June 10, to keep them from their father.
Police said it appears that Gavin was stabbed to death with a knife and that his siblings were poisoned with over-the-counter medications and medications prescribed to Steadman.
The deaths of Myers, 44, and Steadman, 64, were ruled suicides.
Their bodies were not discovered until 13 days later in Steadman’s John S.
Moore apartment.
They were so badly decomposed that they could not be immediately identified.
Police Chief William Rabbitt told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that Gavin appeared to be trying to defend himself.
Rabbitt said investigators found multiple notes at the scene, including one from Steadman, in which she took responsibility for killing the children, claiming it was the only way to prevent abuse by their father.
Unsigned notes believed to be written by Myers also alleged she and the children had been abused when they lived in Utah.
Rabbitt said police were unable to verify those claims and that Harmon had denied all allegations of abuse.
In a long Facebook post Wednesday morning, Harmon published screenshots of his final messages with Myers in the days leading up to the family’s deaths.
The messages included information about Harmon’s planned flight to Albany on July 1, the day he was to pick up the children for their court-ordered, two-month stay with him in Utah.
Harmon also wrote in a text to Myers that he was bringing his mother with him to New York for the reunion.
His wife, Chantal, would return with him and the children in September, he told Myers.
Myers wrote back on June 5, “we are good for summer,” and then asked him to put money into a bank account to pay for sneakers for the children.
He did, and she thanked him.
Then he wrote, “Everything is set up for summer calls in the parenting plan Sunday and Wednesdays 4:00 MST,” adding, “of course you can call them on their birthdays I would never prevent it plus it is in the parenting plan anyway for both of our sakes.”
Three days later, Harmon, who hadn’t seen his children in person since 2019, asked Myers to tell him about the children’s hobbies so he could plan activities that “fit each child’s interests.”
“Since I have missed a significant amount of time with them, I want to make sure their summer is enjoyable, engaging, and centered around things they genuinely like to do,” Harmon wrote in a text.
“My goal is to create opportunities for all of us to spend quality time together, stay active and enjoy the outdoors, make positive memories and reconnect as a family.”
He also asked for medical records “so I can properly care for them.”
The tone in the message was cordial, and he thanked her for her “cooperation.”
Police believe that at the time those messages were exchanged, Myers and Steadman had already been plotting to kill the children.
Mechanicville police said they found evidence they had been making plans as early as June 5, when Steadman began visiting multiple pharmacies to purchase over-the-counter sleep aids.
The investigation also revealed that Steadman did online searches about her own prescribed medications, researching the physical effects of insulin on nondiabetics.
“Nothing in these conversations warned me about what was allegedly being planned behind the scenes,” Harmon wrote in the Facebook post.
Harmon did have concerns, however.
Since 2020, he had received 10 letters from Saratoga County Child Protective Services informing him that they were investigating conditions in the Mechanicville home where his children lived.
He received the last letter, dated June 24, after the bodies had been discovered.
The letter, signed by a caseworker, stated someone reported a child was allegedly maltreated or abused.
It’s unclear who made the report to the agency, since the letters only informed Harmon that an investigation was underway, but did not include details about who contacted Child Protective Services or the specific allegations.
In his Facebook post, Harmon wrote that instead of allowing his and his children’s relationship to be restored, “the people responsible chose to permanently silence four innocent children.”
“I cannot understand how anyone could claim that this was done to ‘save’ my children from harm,” Harmon wrote.
“The greatest possible harm was done to them.
They were terrified, betrayed and robbed of their lives by the very people who were supposed to protect them.”
Speakers
3speakers28%attributed speech645writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageBrady Harmon
95 attributed words38% of attributed speech42% 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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