A woman from Sunriver was taken into custody at a Coos Bay hotel on suspicion of attempting to kill a kid. Her parents were also taken into custody on suspicion of helping her.
Police were looking for Sunriver resident 33-year-old Sarah Session and her parents, Paula and Gary Hardenburg.On Thursday, the Deschutes County Circuit Court issued warrants for their arrests.
The family was reportedly staying at the Best Western Hotel on North Bayshore Drive in Coos Bay, according to a tip that Coos Bay police announced Friday afternoon.
All three of the family members were safely taken into custody when Coos Bay police, U.S. Marshals, Bandon police, and the Coos County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the motel and another site in Coos County, according to the police.
According to court documents, Session has been charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault, criminal maltreatment, and compulsion for the abuse of a youngster under the age of ten that began in 2023.
The 60-year-old Paula Hardenburg is accused of abuse, illegal maltreatment, and tampering with tangible evidence. The 65-year-old Gary Hardenburg is accused of abuse, illegal maltreatment, and tampering with tangible evidence.
On Tuesday, a grand jury in Deschutes County indicted all three.
According to court documents, Session is suspected of using sodium, a deadly weapon, to seriously injure the youngster. Steve Gunnels, the district attorney for Deschutes County, claimed that Session made the youngster consume salt. According to court documents and Gunnels, she is also charged with striking the boy with a curtain rod and window stopper multiple times, hitting him on the head and leg, and forcing him to eat his own vomit.
Aggravating circumstances are included in session charges, which increase the seriousness of the offense and the associated penalty. These factors include intentional cruelty during the alleged crimes, a degree of harm that was much higher than usual, a lack of regret, and the fact that, according to court records, Session had specialized education and training regarding the care and education of minor children and disregarded that education and training.
According to Scott Maben, a spokesman for Bend-La Pine Schools, Session taught special education at Ponderosa Elementary School in Bend from 2020 to 2021. The Oregon Teacher’s Standards and Practices Commission reports that she currently holds a professional teaching license for grades PreK–12 with a special education concentration, which is set to expire in 2026. There are no limitations on the license.
According to court documents, Session was charged on similar counts last year as part of the same investigation, except the attempted murder accusation. However, the case was dismissed because the district attorney was not yet prepared to move forward with a grand jury.
Session filed for a court review in Marion County in January after the Oregon Department of Human Services determined that Session was accountable for her stepchild’s physical abuse, emotional harm, and neglect, as well as for threatening to hurt her own two children. According to court filings supporting the DHS order in November, Session allegedly struck, harshly disciplined, and made cruel remarks about her stepchild in addition to rejecting, spurning, pathologizing, and terrorizing him. Additionally, the documents said that Session denied him food and drink, which caused him to starve and end up in the hospital. She was accused of seriously mentally harming her two other children.
The Bulletin, by NOEMI ARELLANO-SUMMER
This report was provided to by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
