Their father had spent years seeking parenting time and was preparing to bring them from New York to Utah.
MECHANICVILLE, N.Y. — Brady Harmon was preparing for a trip he had pursued through years of court proceedings: bringing his four children to Utah for an extended summer visit after not seeing them in person since 2019.
The reunion never happened. On June 23, police found Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon dead inside their maternal grandmother’s apartment in Mechanicville. Their mother, Sarah Myers, 44, and grandmother, Amy Steadman, 64, were also dead. Investigators say evidence points to intentional poisoning, while one child suffered fatal sharp-force injuries.
The timing placed the deaths against the final days of a bitter and prolonged custody fight. Harmon said he expected to collect the children around the beginning of July and take them west for the summer. Myers was also due to appear in court in connection with the dispute. Police have not declared the custody case to be the motive, and the latest investigation has not ruled out Myers’ possible involvement.
Harmon and Myers had once shared a family life in Utah. That changed in November 2019, when Myers left the state with the children, according to Harmon and court records described by local news organizations. He filed for divorce in 2020 and began a legal effort to restore regular contact. He has said that the years that followed brought filings, hearings and only limited opportunities to speak with the children. The custody arrangement eventually divided the year between the parents. Reports on the court documents said Myers was to have the children during the school year, while Harmon would receive an uninterrupted period with them during the summer. The arrangement appeared to give him something more substantial than the video calls he said had become his main link to the children.
Harmon told local reporters that he last spoke with the four children during a video call in early June. He remembered them as cheerful during the roughly 15-minute conversation. Nothing he observed led him to believe that all four were in immediate danger. He was focused instead on the travel arrangements and the possibility of rebuilding an in-person relationship after years apart.
The court calendar added urgency. Myers had been expected to return to court shortly after the bodies were found. Local reports said Harmon was seeking enforcement of parenting provisions and feared that the planned summer transfer might again be blocked. Those fears involved whether the children would be allowed to travel, not whether they would survive long enough to make the trip.
Police entered Steadman’s unit at the John S. Moore apartment complex after a neighbor requested a welfare check. The neighbor had not seen the family for a number of days. Officers found all six bodies inside. Myers and the children maintained another apartment a few doors away, making their presence together in Steadman’s residence one of the details investigators have had to reconstruct.
Authorities said the family had been dead for an extended period. Decomposition initially made identification difficult and complicated the determination of a precise timeline. Police have not announced the date on which each person died. Without that chronology, it is not publicly known how close the deaths were to Myers’ next court appearance or the children’s expected departure for Utah.
Inside the apartment, investigators recovered prescription pills, over-the-counter medications and a handwritten note. Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbitt said those items and other circumstantial evidence initially pointed strongly toward Steadman. He said the evidence indicated intentional poisoning and that police found no sign that an outside person entered the apartment and harmed the family. One child had fatal sharp-force injuries, police said. Authorities have not identified the child, described the instrument or explained how the injury fits into the suspected poisonings. Official causes and manners of death have not been released for all six people because medical and toxicological testing remains incomplete.
The note has also remained private. Police have not said who wrote it, whether it refers to the custody dispute or whether it contains an admission. Reports citing unnamed sources described Steadman as resentful of the children’s father and the summer arrangement, but police have not publicly confirmed that account as an established motive. The investigation became more complex in July when Rabbitt said Myers had not been ruled out as complicit in the deaths of her children. He did not release the evidence behind that statement. The chief’s wording left open several possibilities without endorsing any one of them, including whether Myers participated, knew what was planned or had no role.
That uncertainty changes how the custody history must be viewed. The legal dispute explains why the children’s expected trip mattered and why the timing attracted attention. It does not prove what occurred in the apartment. Neither the court schedule nor the conflict between the parents establishes that Steadman or Myers acted because the children were about to leave.
Because both women died, detectives cannot obtain their accounts or test their statements against the physical evidence. Investigators must work backward through the note, medications, phone records, prescription histories, family communications and the condition of the apartment. They must also determine whether the sharp-force injury occurred before or after any drugs were administered. For Harmon, the legal dispute ended not with a custody exchange but with a call from police. He traveled to New York after the deaths and met with investigators. He also entered the apartment where his children had lived to gather belongings with help from his wife and mother. He described the experience as extremely difficult.
The children’s remains were cremated because of their condition, Harmon said. He retrieved the ashes July 2 and took them to Utah, where three of the children had been born. After a funeral, their ashes were spread on a mountain where Harmon’s father’s ashes had been placed. The journey west that was supposed to begin a summer together instead became their final return.
Harmon has publicly criticized the agencies and legal processes that dealt with the family during the years of separation. He said he received multiple communications involving child protective services inquiries. Local reporting has described prior neglect-related findings, though officials have not released a complete public file explaining each report, investigation and response.
His wife, Chantal Erb, said the family wants to pursue changes so others do not experience a similar loss. Their criticism raises questions about whether separate pieces of information held by courts, schools, social workers and family members revealed a level of danger that was not recognized. No agency has publicly accepted responsibility for the deaths.
Even as the custody record receives scrutiny, the central investigative facts remain incomplete. Police have not released final toxicology results, a confirmed sequence of events or the wording of the note. They have not said whether the deaths occurred on one day, whether the drugs were given in food or drink or whether any family member resisted. Harmon’s planned summer with his children therefore remains both an established part of the timeline and an unproven part of any motive. It explains why he was preparing to see them and why a court appearance was approaching. It does not yet explain why six people died in Steadman’s apartment.
Mechanicville police continue to await forensic results that could clarify the roles of the two women. Until those findings are complete, authorities have stopped short of a final conclusion about who caused the deaths, who may have participated and whether the custody fight directly influenced the events.
Author note: Last updated July 23, 2026.