Father of Four Poisoned Children Says Six-Year Custody Fight Failed Them. He Never Got Them Back.

Since six bodies were found during a welfare check at a Mechanicville, New York apartment on June 23, the investigation into the suspected poisoning murder-suicide by grandmother Amy Steadman, 64, has moved into a new phase. The forensic results remain pending, and the father left behind is now speaking.

Brady Harmon, who lives in Utah, told Fox News Digital that he had been planning to take his four children back to Utah with him for the summer when he got the news. He never had the chance.

"There is no preparation. It's horrendous," Harmon said.

What Police Have Established

Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbitt said at a Thursday news conference that investigators found "recovered evidence inside the apartment that indicates intentional poisoning with numerous prescriptions and over-the-counter medication." A handwritten note recovered at the scene may link Steadman to the deaths, Rabbitt said.

Autopsy results also revealed that one of the four child victims may have "suffered fatal sharp force injuries," meaning a potential stabbing on top of the suspected poisoning. Causes of death remain pending additional investigation and toxicology testing, according to Rabbitt. No charges have been filed, as Steadman is also dead.

A Father Who Saw It Coming

Harmon told Fox News Digital he had raised concerns about his children's safety and well-being before the killings. He had been in an ongoing custody dispute with the children's mother for years.

"The system is broken, it takes way too long to get anything done. I spent six and a half years fighting to be able to have access to my kids," he said.

His immediate focus now, he told Fox News Digital, is on the children themselves: "My concern right now is being able to bring my kids home, and have them away from those two monsters that did this to them."

The Custody System

Family court critics have long argued that the system creates dangerous bottlenecks, particularly for non-custodial fathers raising safety concerns. Six and a half years to resolve custody access is not unusual in contested cases, and advocates point out that courts frequently lack the investigative resources to verify abuse or risk claims before tragedy strikes. Harmon's account describes a father who says he flagged a problem, got ground up in the process, and ran out of time.

Family law practitioners counter that courts must weigh competing claims carefully, that allegations of danger are sometimes tactical, and that summary removal of children based on one parent's concerns carries its own risks. That concern does not explain why this particular case dragged for six and a half years, and no official has addressed that timeline on the record.

What Remains Unresolved

The specific names of the four children were referenced during the Mechanicville Police Department news conference but were not fully reproduced across available coverage. Steadman's motive has not been publicly established beyond the handwritten note. Whether Harmon's formal custody complaints were reviewed, escalated, or dismissed by any court or child welfare agency has not been addressed by any official on record.

Toxicology results will be the critical evidentiary document in this case. Until those come back, the precise cause of death for each victim, and whether the sharp force injury to one child was the actual cause of that child's death rather than poisoning, remains an open question.

Mechanicville PD has not announced a timeline for when those results will be available.