The SUV that authorities said was carrying a family of eight – two parents and six adopted children – was traveling at 90 mph before it plunged off a California cliff last week, according to court documents obtained by a local TV station.

Fox affiliate KPTV in Oregon reported that the SUV’s speedometer was “pinned” at that speed, indicating that the vehicle remained in motion after it fell and just before it hit the rocks 100 feet below on the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators also did not find any marks showing that the vehicle either accelerated or slowed down before it reached the cliff, or any evidence that it crashed into the embankment as it “traversed towards the tidal zone below,” according to documents cited by KPTV.

The crash, which killed a family that had once captured the world’s attention, has left troubling questions. Killed are the two mothers, Jennifer Jean Hart and Sarah Margaret Hart, both 38, and at least three of their adopted children. The other three remain missing.

The TV report provides a glimpse into what may have preceded Monday’s crash at the ocean overlook near Westport, California, a small community about 180 miles north of San Francisco. Child services officials in Washington state, where the family lived, also have confirmed that they had begun investigating the Harts over “alleged abuse or neglect” days earlier.

The Washington Department of Social and Health Services said it tried unsuccessfully to contact the family on three occasions, first on March 23, three days before the crash, according to a statement. The agency tried again Monday, the day of the crash, and Tuesday.

Investigators are looking into the possibility of suicide, although police said earlier that they have no reason to suspect that the crash was intentional. KPTV reported that investigators have secured a warrant to search the family’s home, including documents such as bank and cellphone records, credit-card statements, journals and suicide notes.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said the family may not have intended to stay away from home for long that day because many of their belongings, including a pet and some chickens, were still at their home. First responders immediately found the bodies of Jean and Sarah Hart and their children Markis, 19, Jeremiah, 14, and Abigail, 14. The others – Devonte, 15, Hannah, 16, and Sierra, 12 – remain unaccounted for.

The family had previously lived in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, before they moved north across the Columbia River to Woodland, Washington. Authorities said the family left Oregon to escape intense scrutiny that began in 2014, when Devonte Hart was photographed sobbing in the arms of a white police officer in Portland, where people had gathered to support protests in Ferguson, Missouri. The demonstration was prompted by a grand jury decision not to charge police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Devonte and his siblings are black. Jennifer and Sarah Hart were white.

The family’s mixed races have fueled suspicion and anger about the crash, reflected in hundreds of comments left on Facebook postings mourning the family. Many of the comments questioned the motives of white women who adopted black children.

Meanwhile, those who knew the Harts described them as inspiring and devoted parents who had been unfairly subjected to criticisms and assumptions about their motives for adopting the children.

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