June 26, 2024 • 47 mins
Jerry Harris's pregnant daughter is murdered, her uterus removed, and her body thrown in a river. She is found by fishermen six days after she is last seen alive. Jerry Harris commits suicide outside the Sheriff's Office. On this episode of Body Bags Joseph Scott Morgan go behind the evidence and take a look at the body of Jerry Harris' daughter, Jennifer, a murder still unsolved. Dave Mack digs into the story of Jennifer Harris. Who knew she was pregnant and who wanted her dead? The ex-husband? The ex-boyfriend? Did Jerry Harris get so depressed over the murder of his daughter that he killed himself at the Sheriff's office as some kind of challenge? We know Jerry Harris killed himself. Do we know why?
Transcript Highlights
00:00:17.19 Introduction of "Cold Case" and recent suicide
00:03:48.25 Discussion of life and "dark space"
00:07:29.51 Talk about notification of family
00:10:31.93 Discussion of Jennifer Harris before she vanishes
00:14:43.53 Discussion of evidence, finding Jennifer
00:19:47.66 Talk about detaching while investigating
00:25:25.90 Discussion of finding and condition of remains in Red River
00:29:57.94 Talking about water damage
00:33:35.52 Discussion of ex-husband alibi
00:39:03.49 Talk about Jeep, latent hand or palm print
00:40:04.96 Discussion of cabin in the woods, burned down
00:43:30.88 Discussion of skill level of the person removing uterus
00:45:36.30 Conclusion: Blue clay, caretakers' cabin, suicide of Jerry Harris
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore. I think probably out of
all the you know, the pantheon of the founders of
this country, I think probably my favorite of that collection
of men, it's probably been Franklin. I like Ben Franklin,
(00:25):
and this is why Ben Franklin lived a life that
was not a life of privilege. As a matter of fact,
he lived on the streets in the Northeast, like Boston
in the wintertime, and he, you know, drank life up
(00:46):
to the fullest, and he had a lot of ups
and downs. And being a death investigator, I'm always coming
across interesting little quotes. And there was a quote that
he had made and he may have written this in
Poor Richard's I think that's where it comes from. And
(01:07):
the quote that I'm interested in today is the one
where Ben wrote, nine men in ten are suicides. And
you have to kind of pause on that just for
a moment and kind of meditate on it and think
(01:27):
about what he is saying there. I don't necessarily think
that Ben believed that every nine men that pass away
are suicides. However, this is what I think. He had
lived enough life, he had seen enough of the tragedy
(01:48):
in this world. I think what he meant was that
nine in ten men are potentially suicides of the world
around them, and sometimes you just don't have control. You
don't have control of the circumstances. Today, I want to
(02:12):
talk about a case that, just in and of itself
as a cold case, is certainly a tragedy, but it's
bookended by another tragedy. It's tragedy of a man who
sought justice for his daughter for over twenty years she
(02:36):
was a homicide victim, but at the end he wound
up taking his own life. Today we're going to talk
about the cold case of Jennifer Harris and also her father,
who recently passed away at his own hand, Jerry Harris.
(03:03):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks Dave. As
anyone knows that it's familiar with me. I wrote my
memoir many years ago and talked very frankly about the
(03:24):
inner workings of my mind and the things that I
had borne witness to and the things that I'd seen.
And I've been in that dark space. I've been in
that place where I really thought that there was nothing
left to live for. And it's not a judgment on
anybody at all, because I've that's a set of circumstances
(03:44):
I think very broadly where I can say that I
have walked, I've walked in those shoes. But with this
particular case, Jerry Harris going to the Fannin County Sheriff's
Office in fan And, Texas and setting up in the
parking lot there and taking his own life recently, it's
(04:09):
really a very very sad tale that is super emphasized
by this idea of hopelessness when it comes to your
precious child that has been brutally murdered and there are
no answers.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There's a lot of questions about why Jerry Harris took
his own life and what was it symbolic doing it
at the Fannin County Sheriff's office in their parking lot
and Jerry Harris his daughter's cold case dating back twenty
two years now. I don't know the impact something like
(04:45):
that would have on you as a person. I have
to imagine that it's going to manifest itself in certain
physical ailments when you have something so devastating, and Jerry
Harris listed his own medical issues as a reason for
committing suicide in those three notes he addressed one too,
(05:06):
the sitting Sheriff, Mark Johnson. When Mark Johnson became sheriff
several years ago as part of his campaign, Jerry worked
with him on the campaign because he said, I'm going
to solve the case.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
This case.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
No, I don't think he said I'm going to solve it.
I think he said, I am going to take a
closer look and open up the files on Jennifer Harris's
murder and see and try to solve that. That's going
to be day one priority. And so when Mark Johnson
was elected sheriff, his first day in the office, first day,
first thing, bring me the file of Jennifer Harris's death.
(05:47):
And it was that file being brought to him that
was exciting for Jerry Harris. My daughter's murder is going
to be solved now, That's what he's thinking. And then
utter disappointment and shocked when they opened up the file
and realized that many things were damaged from water getting
(06:08):
into this saved. But on top of that, Joe, not
only was stuff ruined, the file was not kept very well.
Evidence was They had to they got rid of evidence
because it was not usable in the case anymore. Because
of how it had been taken care of. So there
were a lot of issues with this. Jerry Harris committing
(06:29):
suicide claims it had nothing to do with the cold
case death of his wife, of his daughter. I don't know,
and I'm not even you know, my goodness, Joe. All
I can think, Joe is if if it was me.
I don't know that you come back from this. I
know you can have a life, you can laugh again,
you can smile again, but it's never the same.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
It can't be.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, And as I learned early on, I used to
as a young death investigator, I would talk about day
when I talk to families, when I notify them and
all these sorts of things. I would always use that
kind of fallback phrase where I would say, I understand
your pain. And that is the most disingenuous thing to
(07:15):
say to anyone that's under it, because no, you don't.
And even if you've had something like this happen in
your life, it still doesn't marry up or measure up
to the acute pain that a family member is having.
It that there's no way you can identify. Well, you
(07:35):
might say that you can, but with their particular set
of circumstances, and how much more so for this man
that has been struggling along for load these many years
and he essentially has no answers whatsoever. There's no way
that any of us could identify with this man and
talk about a gut punch when you know you're you're
(08:00):
right on the cusp of maybe a refresh here, okay,
where you think that everything is going to be open
to new and you get in there and water damage
we're talking about flood leaking water, that sort of thing.
Getting into what they're describing as a pod where they're
(08:21):
keeping evidence stored in all of this, and it's not
just a handwritten files. There were actually, and this is
the way it's kind of phrased, there were actually items
contained in there that were suspected suspected of being his
child's clothing. And I say suspected because you know, when
(08:44):
her remains were found, Dave.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
She was nude.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
She was nude, and so that one thing that you're
trying to hold onto maybe there's physical evidence there because
you know that that bodies, they don't lose their clothing
in the water, which she's found in a body of water.
The clothing generally stays on the body. And to say that,
(09:10):
you know that one thing that might tie back, say,
if somebody had undressed her, it's gone, man, it's gone forever.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
We know.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
The case of Jennifer Harris began at a different time.
It's so in two thousand and two, I thought we
were fairly advanced, Okay, I did I remember at that
time of where we were. And even looking back at
that time now I tend to think, oh, we had
plenty of DNA and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Comparing two thousand and two technology in twenty twenty four,
it's like it's almost like the Stone Age. Really, it's
like Fred Flenstone running is, you know, using his feet
to motor of the car versus the tesla. And anyway,
the case of Jennifer Harris is a simple one.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
To give you the.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Overall picture, already told you it's a cold case. Jennifer
Harris went missing. She was with a friend, gets in
her car, her green Jeep, to drive home or actually
to go somewhere. Didn't really say where she was going
for her kind of left that hanging. Not an unusual
thing for a twenty eight year old person. And she
she was pregnant at the time. Jennifer Harris was now
(10:21):
she didn't broadcast that out to all humanity. A couple
of very close friends knew, and she was going somewhere.
Her car was found on the side of the road.
And the term abandoned always gives me a bigger idea
of a car than just the car was parked on
the side of the road. You know, I've parked my
(10:42):
car on the side of the road to go for
a walk in the mountains. I wasn't abandoning it. I
parked it. In this case, I don't know if she
parked her car and went for a walk and didn't
make sense to do it at night, but she parked
her car is found. Her green jeep found on the road,
and she's nowhere to be found. She was missing for
(11:04):
six days. And by the way, I just want to
little tidbit. When her jeep was spotted, it was by
somebody walking in their dog. Somebody very familiar with the area,
walked the dog in that area all the time, sees
the green jeep and kind of looks around, you know,
her and her dog. But look, people park their car
for any number of reasons. It was the next day,
(11:25):
the day two of the green jeep being on the
side of the road where the woman went, Okay, this
is not right, something's wrong, calls police. Hey, I've got
this abandoned car out here. You might want to take
a look at it. And that's when the search for
Jennifer Harris began. Was the abandoned car. Six days later,
fishermen find her body floating in a creek red River,
(11:49):
and her uterus was removed. There were other body parts,
and we'll get into this in a minute that were
also removed, but that's the case. Six days missing, her
body is found nude in the red River where their
years removed and they have not they being law enforcement,
has yet to solve this case. We're not dealing with
a big area fan in Texas. Fanning County, Texas is
(12:12):
near the Oklahoma border. You'll have to get it, well, no,
meet you might not. I had to get out a
map or a Google search whatever. Yeah, because in Texas
is so large.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah it is, and it's hard for many of us
to kind of envision. And when people say in Texas, yeah,
it's just right down the road, well, yeah, right down
the road in Texas is it ain't right down the road, say,
for instance, in Connecticut. Yeah, right, because it's nothing. You know,
if you hop in a car and you drive one
hundred and fifty miles, that's right down the road, right,
(12:42):
you know, it's not necessarily it's all relative to where
you are, but it is in kind of the the
northern I think they refer to it in the Dallas
area as the Dallas Metroplex, right, it's the term. It's yeah, yeah,
it's it's north of the city. But you know, once
you get outside of that densely populated area around Dallas
(13:05):
for Worth, you run into scrubbrush and prairie land, and
you know, you when you get out, you get out, dude,
you know you're you're out there. And but you know
she's from this area. I think her hometown's actually Bottom Bottom, Texas,
and you have you have this area out there that
(13:28):
you know, it's always interesting when you because this is
like a very it's not a big road that she's on.
It's not like the the the jeep was found abandoned
on the side of like you know, I don't know
what runs through Dallas I twenty or something like that.
We're talking about kind of one of these county state
kind of roads that's out there, and where are you
(13:50):
going to go? Are there houses around there? Did the
jeep break down?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, was there some kind of problem? What? What
did the interior of the jeep look like? Is there
any ants that something had occurred within that? What would
compel her to pull over on side of the road
at that particular spot? And then where is she? You know,
for those many days afterwards, they had no idea. And
(14:17):
it always amazes me, it seems like consistently every time.
And I got to tell you the little boy and me,
I was always kind of a cowboy at heart. I
used to love being, you know, pretending to be a cowboy.
Every search that ever occurs in Texas, it seems like
involves horses, and so, you know, you've got people that
are saddled up and they're riding through the brush and
(14:39):
they're looking and all those sorts of things. But it's
not somebody on horseback that actually finds her remains. It's
somebody that's out fishing in the Red River. And that
doubles the problem here, Dave, because her body is without
clothing when she's found. She's in this river that swiftly moves.
(15:07):
I always take exception to people they talk about the
slow rolling Mississippi River or like the Red River, you know,
which the Red River eventually does feed into the Mississippi
back down in Louisiana. It ain't slow moving. You get on,
you get above this thing. And the speed with which
this thing moves is problematic for you as an investigator,
(15:31):
because it's not like being in a lake. You have
to think about, well, where could her body have gone in?
Who would have had access to a location, maybe a
boat ramp or a bridge. Who's going to take the
risk of taking someone's remains and then toss them over
the side of the bridge. And if what we believe
(15:52):
happened actually happened, he had gone somewhere else prior to
being deposited in that river. She left that jeep, probably
with somebody else, maybe somebody she trusted, that got her
(16:13):
into a car, took her away, killed her, and then
did a post wartem dissection on her body. Reflecting back
(16:37):
to one of the chapters in my memoir had to
do with rain and all those years ago I talked
about how investigators hate rain. They hate water because it
destroys things, it's the great eradicator most of the time
from an evidentiary standpoint, and I think that that water
(16:58):
symbolic as well. You know the trials that we go
through in life. It's like a rock that is always
getting pounded by water. Maybe out on the West coast
somewhere you don't see it changing, but it is changing.
Water changes everything. In this case, we've got a body
that's found floating in the Red River, and we've also
(17:22):
got evidence involved in this case, including documents that have
been subjected to a ton of water. Water plays a
big role in this case, Dave, and I can't imagine, well, yeah,
I can kind of imagine the disappointment that the investigators
had when they remove Jennifer's body from the Red River
(17:48):
and thinking about, Lord, what are we going to do now,
because I'm going to tell you she was heading down
the road. Relative to decomposition here.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I wasn't shocked at that, But when I saw this case,
my first thought was curious as to how much decomposition
and what that actually tells, because oftentimes when we have
a story where somebody is discovered in this case, six
(18:20):
days after she goes missing, I tend to wonder well,
when was she killed? You know, it's not like they
got her out of the jeep, killed her right there
and threw her in the river. Was there something else
taking place? And based on the fact that we have
been told her uterus was removed, I'm thinking that something
might have gone on for a couple of days before
(18:42):
she was thrown in the river. Possibly to give an
idea of where her body was found in the Red River,
it was about two miles down river from a bridge
crossing over Highway seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I say that because how else.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Does a body get in the river other than dragging
the body down and putting it in, And which is reality?
I don't I don't discount that they could have the
person you know, could have just taken or people could
have done this. We actually know that when her body
was found, that her uterus had been removed and creatures
(19:20):
had done damage. And I'm wondering, Joe, because I don't
know for real covering cases like this for a long time.
I know that certain predator animals go for soft tissue
or you know, red balls and things like that, right,
and so how does that affect your ability to determine
(19:41):
how she died? Just the fact that her uterus is missing.
That does not say that she wasn't alive strapped down
on the table while they cut that out. I mean
she had I'm assuming hoping she was murdered first before
they did the removal of the uterus.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, you have to h scientifically, you have to be
able to compartmentalize a lot of when you're doing an
assessment on a body, you have to compartmentalize, obviously, and
we've talked about this before, having we dave on bodybags.
We've got anti mortem, perry mortem, and postmodem, all of
those things. You don't get into those the broader meaning
(20:20):
of what this means necessarily. Okay, you have to detach
for real. I mean you you just have this as
a body. I'm studying it to determine what took place,
because I'm gonna guess if you thought about it in
terms of being a husband, father, grandfather, that you wouldn't
There'd be no way you could actually move forward with
(20:42):
your occupation.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
It would have it would be very difficult.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You have to check your baggage at the door, okay,
because as soon as you come dragging yourself into the
midst of that's time, you need to quit. Okay, you
need to quit doing what you're doing. That's that's a
big sign that you have to throw up. So you
have to check any kind of emotional baggage that you have,
familial baggage. I'm not saying that it's not valid, but
(21:07):
what I am saying is you have a job to do,
and so when you're doing this assessment, it's you don't
have Like if I sat there on every single case
and thought, oh, this is somebody's child, I bet I
can imagine all the birthdays. You can't do that. You
cannot because you're doing a disservice to the dead. And
(21:28):
we are there to service the dead. We are, and
we service families too, but you know, we're trying to
tell their story. And so you have to compartmentalize with
your examination what you're looking for. Okay, I have to
go through a process of elimination relative to Okay, this
might be an anti mortem event. Now let's talk about
(21:49):
anti mortem with Jennifer. There are some who say, first off,
that her cause of death was related to homicidal violence. Well,
you know, and I know all the cases that we've
covered with Nancy and these other things that we do
when they say that it lacks specificity, but there has
(22:12):
also been information that's come out that she had apparently
sustained anti mortem prior to death trauma to her neck,
which they have taken to imply that this is some
kind of asphixial event where either you know, somebody has
throttled her, you know, like wrapped their hands around her
(22:33):
neck and choked her to death, or maybe something else,
but that's anti mortem. So you look at that, you
assess it, and when you do the examination of the
what's referred to as the organs in the neck, you
want to see how deep this goes, and you begin
to look into strap muscles, all these areas. You want
to check the cartilage and you know what otherwise would
(22:55):
be you know, referred to as the windpipe if you will,
to see if it's fractured, because that does happen, and
of course you're going to check the hyoid. You want
to see to what extent can you measure the level
of trauma that she may have sustained in the pre
mortem state in the anti morton state, and also can
(23:17):
you appreciate any kind of defensive injuries. Is there any
evidence that she had been bound because you know, Dave,
you made an interesting point just a moment ago, and
this is so horrific. But when you begin to think
about the absence of the uterus, and they have admitted
that the uterus was absent, we don't think that she's
(23:38):
had a full on hysterectomy. She's told people, at least
her best friend, we know that she was pregnant, so
that can't be valid. So you begin to try to
think about, well, was she restrained, like tied to a
table and her uterus was removed. As horrific as that is,
(23:59):
that's something you have to take into consideration. You have
to check your emotions at the door when you do that.
So you're looking for that. You want to see if
there's in this area where her uterus was removed from you.
You're going to be looking for hemorrhage surrounding the incision
and also internally because if you got hemorrhage, that implies
(24:22):
that she was still in the land of living when
this happened. And back to being tied up, is she
because this is a very angry event. You know, I
could see somebody wanting to torture her. Was she bound?
Was she tied down. Can you see that on the wrist,
because if you know, if somebody's restrained, say by the wrist,
(24:44):
they're tied up, or ankles are tied, if they're fighting
against it, You're going to see hemorrhage in dwelling there.
You'll see abrasions in dwelling there, you know, just to
try to get free or struggling against the pain. How
much of that is diminished, you know, result of the
time being in the water. And then you go to
what you can verify as post mortem injuries. And this
(25:08):
is horrible to consider, but look, this is the reality.
This is the true reality of true crime, okay, and
what we.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Look for.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
She's in an aquatic environment. Now, in this aquatic environment environment,
are we thinking that the water could change your body? Yes,
it could. You're going to get things like pretty severe
skin slippage, which means the top of the skin is
going to come off. It's kind of in that time
(25:38):
of year in Texas. Because this occurred in May mid
May of two thousand and two, the water would not
be obviously as hot as it is in July, so
the body would not have degraded as much, perhaps decompositionally
but they're saying she was decomposing.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
What did that mean when they say that early on
like that, Yeah, really mentioned and my first thought was, well,
how much would you expect?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and a lot of it. It's going to be deep.
And you have to understand what are they calling decomposition
as opposed to trauma, because we do know this. They
have stated pretty pretty plainly that there were there was
post mortem animal animal activity, aquatic animal and they're talking
(26:26):
about turtles, and turtles do do feast on human remains.
They're scavengers. That's one of the things that they do.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And I was reading this is said eyes, nose, ears.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, and that's things that yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, the
softer areas they are going to go for. They'll also
go for fingers, anything that's kind of hanging down like that.
And you think about a body floating in water. I mean,
just think about this, and next time you go to
a pool or something like that and you're in the water,
can yourself just for a moment, you remember when we
(27:01):
were kids, we would do the dead man float. And
so if you do that in a classic position, your
feet are hanging down, your arms and fingertips are hanging down.
So from an evidentiary standpoint, we're talking about a young
lady that just been absolutely brutalized. Well, how do we
(27:21):
experience the world. We are tactile creatures. So what that
means is we touch things. We touch things from the
moment that we were born. We begin to experience the
world through our fingertips. Well, when it comes to crime,
if you're trying to defend yourself, let's just say that
you're missing your fingertips as a result of postmortum animal
(27:43):
activity or decomposition. You've lost a lot of evidence there,
fingernail scrapings. You can't get that any longer. It's all gone.
And not to mention the impact that the water is
having on the body in rape cases, for instance, if
you've got a nude body, which by the way, is
another important tell here Jennifer's remains, we're nude. That that
(28:08):
goes again to kind of a sexualization of the body. Right,
So are you thinking sexual assault here? Well, guess what
If you're talking about sexual assault, then that would mean
that the remains might hold hold evidence relative to that.
(28:29):
But guess what water destroys it? You know, if you
if you talk about the openings in the body. They're essentially,
I don't know the correct term, would not be flushed
in a classic sense, like a proactive flushing, you know,
where this is being attempted to be done, but it's
kind of a passive thing. The current of the of
(28:50):
the water, the swirling. You know, we had a case
not too long ago we talked about where a body
gets caught in an eddy. I think that case was
inten Exis, where she had been weighted down in the
water and the water the divers, remember in that case,
they were talking about how the body was swirling about
when they got to the body, and so that's that
kind of tumbling that happens in the water is destroying
(29:12):
evidence as well. So it's almost like a perfect storm
when you you know, you begin to consider this and
then everything you're having to marry up in your mind
once you get the body, Once you get the body
back to the more to do your exam day. Cases
(29:40):
do not conclude once a body is found, the body
of a missing person. That's that's not the conclusion. That
is merely the beginning. In any case. You can drone
on and on about you know, what may or may
not have happened all those sorts of things, and then
you get the body and you think that it's all
(30:02):
over with. Well, you're still just looking for answers at
that point in time and trying to unravel with the
dead or attempting to tell you through all the remains
of their bodies. And Dave, you know, we talked a
lot about water here, and we talked about the destructive
force of it. But the police, I think, and this
(30:23):
is kind of born out and how much time has elapsed.
You think about this and you think, well, you know,
where do these roads lead? You know, how do you
go about getting answers? And I just don't know that
there's a lot of definitive material out there relative to
Jennersfir's passing. I know that, correct me if I'm wrong.
I think that there were two people that were questioned
(30:45):
in this case.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Joe they brought in. She was married to a guy
named Rob Holman. Previously they were divorced, but she had
an ongoing relationship with Holman. But she also had a
fella that she got involved with when she was learning
to be a messuse or therapeutic massage right right, Yeah,
(31:07):
It was kind of an interesting thing just to give
you the very quick one. She married Rob Holman. They
were from the general same area, northeast Texas. He liked
that small town feel. Jennifer when they moved to Dallas
so that she could get her education at therapeutic massage
and things like that, she had a big vision for
her life. She had big dreams at twenty eight, you know,
(31:29):
she had a plan. Her husband didn't. After being in
Dallas with her for a couple of years, he really
just wanted to go back home. I just want to
be back out in the country man, And she didn't.
While she was taking her classes in massage therapy, she
meets a fellow and I want to be as kind
about this as I possibly can. Okay, his name is
(31:50):
James Hamilton. I and Jennifer got involved in a romantic relationship.
They ended up going into business together, Jennifer and Hamilton,
James Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
They open up their own.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Massage place and they're moving forward with this whole thing
when the business pretty much goes bankrupt and they break
up romantically. Their business is falling apart. So there's a
lot going on there, but everything tells us they were
friends through it all. They had a rough relationship romantically
her ex husband, Rob Homan. He was a little different.
(32:22):
I told you that he moved to Dallas with her
to get her education. He didn't like it. He wanted
to go back home and he did. Fast forward to
the disappearance of Jennifer Harris. The night she goes missing,
we know that there was at least one, probably more
people that knew she was pregnant. Her uterus was removed
(32:45):
from her body. If she was pregnant, then you've got
a baby in there. Yes, And we have the police
bringing in the two guys that know are the best, Okay,
James Hamilton romantic relationship for and business partner.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
He's a good suspect because a lot of issues here,
business and romantic, bankrupt financially, romantically. Anyway, he has an alibi, Joe.
For the time they believe she went missing, he has
an alibi. He was over an hour away at a
McDonald's with some people that saw him there. So and
he look, he talked to police without a lawyer. They asked,
(33:21):
would you take a polygraph? Absolutely? He said, Look, I
just want the best for Jennifer. We need to find her.
What can I do to help you? Eliminate me first
and then let's move let's find her. That was James
Hamilton's opinion. Rob Holman was a bit different. Joe, the
ex husband, well, he didn't have an alibi. His alibi
(33:42):
for the night in question was he got a twelve
pack of beer and he was going to go hang
out with some friends. But when they weren't home, he
just started riding around Fanning County, just riding the back roads,
drinking beer for five hours by himself. And during his interview,
this first interview, he was also without an attorney. He
was mirandized. But hey, man, he's answering questions. But it
(34:06):
was a very skill The person that did the interview
was skilled. They knew what they were doing. And when
I went back and was looking over the notes Joe,
I found out that the ex husband, Rob Holman, actually
made a few mistakes in his statement to police. At first,
he said he was driving around, never saw the green jeep,
Never saw a jeep that night while I was riding around,
(34:26):
never saw Jennifer. Later in the interview, I was like,
you know, maybe I did see a jeep. Maybe, Yeah,
I think I did see a jeep. Later on, yeah,
I saw the jeep and I saw Jennifer. So we've
got a lie. Never saw anything that night? Oh yeah,
I did.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's the biggest thing here. And by the way, when
they asked, hey, would you mind taking a polygraph? So
we again, same thing with Hamilton, We just want to
eliminate you so we can move forward. As soon as
he walks out of that first interview with police, he
calls an attorney and he stops talking with police and
doesn't take a polygraph.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
In twenty seventeen, fifteen years after the fact, Mark Johnson
was elected sheriff. Jennifer's dad, Jerry, actually had been involved
in the campaign because Mark Johnson said, if you'd like
me to sheriff, I'm going to dig into this case
and I'm going to find out who did it. I'm
going to do my best to solve this case. And
he did first day out bring me the box. As
we told you earlier, he found out that there was
(35:25):
not much of a file in the case. What they
did have was damage. But he started there and he
announced two suspects, James Hamilton and Rob Homan. Those are
still the only two people that have been only talking.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Of Yeah, And I have to think, first off, wouldn't
it be fantastic to know how that jeep was handled? Yeah,
I want to know who's DNA would have been contained
within the cab of that jeep other than Jennifer's.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Now, if she's you know, she's in a relationship with
this fellow that she was in massage school with, we'd
have an expectation that you could probably find something in
there related to him, all right, depended upon how recently
(36:19):
they had broken up and those sorts of things. But
when you begin to think about the ex husband, I'd
just like to know, just for grins and giggles, I'd
like to know if if his DNA was found in there.
I mean, I don't know how many folks have exes.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Would DNA last in that it would?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Well, it's dependent, right, It's depended upon the type the
type of DNA you're talking about, you know, and how
is it being conveyed. Are you talking about hair boy?
We've seen that played out in recent history, you know,
relative to find a mitochondrial DNA through you know, hair
shafts and that sort of thing. But if you're talking
about you know, I don't know, could it be blood.
(37:00):
Was there blood in the jeep?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Let's say that for the sake of argument, that I
was driving around Banning County around that same time and
I saw Jennifer walking with a Jerry can you know
the gas cant going down the road rand of gas.
And I pick her up and go get gas and
take her back to her jeep. And while we're there,
I sit down in My back's hurting. So I sit
down in her car for a minute, in the passenger side,
(37:24):
front seat whatever. And I'm only in there for a
couple of minutes. Yep, would I I know, I would
leave behind something.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
How long would it? You know?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, you would, And it would be again depended upon
you know, what is, for lack of better term, what's
emanating from your body? Are we talking about? Yes, sweat
that could? That could certainly if it's gotten in, if
it's gotten into the fabric of the vehicle where the
seats removed from the jeep, that was all that stuff retained.
(37:55):
I mean, you're talking about what turns out to be.
I don't know what other homicide have happened in Fannin County, Texas,
but I got to tell you as far as the
level of brutality here. This is probably going to be
at the top of the list. If I had that vehicle,
that thing would be so secured and locked down and
everybody would be forbidden. You know, I want to know
(38:18):
where the jeep is. Was it passed on to the
family and then the family just let it go, which
happens many times because there's expenses incurred and all those
sorts of things. But I got to tell you in
a case like this, and we're not talking, you know,
let's think back to what we're saying here, Dave. We're
talking about the jeep that is owned by this young
(38:40):
woman who is later found six days later floating nude
in the river with her uterus removed. I'd say that
that jeep is the last point in contact from an
evidentiary standpoint. It might be other than the body, which again,
as we have stated previously, is greatly at this point
(39:00):
in time. That jeep is the hub of everything, you know,
because she was operating that jeep at one point in time,
probably right before she died, and anybody that would have
come in contact with her would have been at least
outside of the jeep. I don't know did they lean
on the jeep. Hey put their hand on the jeep
(39:21):
and say you're coming with me. Well, guess what, we're
not even talking about DNA there. We're talking about the basics,
like a latent handprint, palm print on the outside of
that jeep. What happened to the jeep? I'd like to
know that. I want to know what the status of
that thing is. Is that now in five million pieces
in junk yards all over Texas? Is somebody still riding
(39:41):
around in it? Or have they sequestered this thing somewhere?
Speaker 3 (39:45):
But Joe, let me ask you very quickly.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
The uterus being removed and the police find out that
she'd at least told at least one friend she was pregnant,
kind of indicative her uterus being removed at whoever did this?
A didn't I just fall upon her on the side
of the road, because it's a very specific thing that
is removed.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
It is very specific.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, and you know with privacy to do this, right,
Oh my god, now get on the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
No, no, And if you attempted to do it, you
would have to have a certain level, not a certain level,
you'd have to have a very specific level of privacy
and here's something else. You're going to have to have tools.
They're going to satisfy this task that you're attempting to achieve.
(40:38):
You have to have some knowledge. H And I guess
anybody could say, well, you know, anybody that's had a
biology class or has been through sex ed, do you
know what the uterus is for? Maybe so, but do
you have the skill to know where to go and
find the uterus? And another cold cold thought with as
(41:02):
if there's not enough here already, But another cold thought
of this is that if you're so intimately involved with
somebody where you understand that they are pregnant, and let's
say you kill them now, you're going to stand over
them with a sharp instrument that maybe you've never done
this before. You're going to go in there and you're
(41:25):
going to remove an organ from her body that's going
to tell everything. This is a very specific kind of
person that they would be looking for, somebody that is
so you know, he didn't go after the heart, didn't
go after the lungs, he didn't go for a kidney.
He went for the uterus. And I say he, I'm
not saying a woman couldn't have done it, because we've
had some of these cases where women have taken babies
(41:47):
out of the womb and left the mother to die. Yeah,
that could be plausible, I suppose, but it's a very
specific person and you'd have to look at the level
of skill. This comes up a lot of time. It
came up in the black Dahlia case. It still comes
up today. What level of skill did and proficiency did
this individual have when it comes to doing a dissection?
(42:09):
And I think that's that's curious, sir, I an intriguing question.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
There was a couple of things that you mentioned to
me when we were talking a minute ago about this
off air blue clay and a little cabin. Now we
know that Jennifer Harris had been with her friend earlier
in the evening when she went missing. She was driving
her green Jeep and it was left on the side
of the road and missing six days, body found floating
(42:37):
nude in the Red River. Uterus removed. Tell me about
blue clay and a burned down cabin.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
According to what has been previously reported, there was blue clay.
And when I say clay, I'm talking about like clay,
like you know, you hear about the Red Clay Hills
of Georgia. Yeah, it's a particular type of clay that
has a blue tin and there's only I think they said,
like only three or four places where this there's a
deposition of this on the banks of the Red River. Well, Dave,
(43:10):
you know we talked about trace evidence. Guess what they
found blue clay on her body. And to really drive
home this, there was what they referred to as a
caretaker's cabin. Now what this thing took care of or
who occupied the space, I have no idea, but that
caretaker's cabin was immediately adjacent to one of these points
(43:34):
of entry where blue clay was. Okay, cabin burned down.
And remember how you had mentioned you mentioned just a
moment ago, you would have to have a place, and
I've seen the images from what remains. There's like a
concrete slab in the middle of the wooded area. Nobody's
going to hear anything, nobody's going to see anything. You're there,
(43:58):
You show up with the instruments from maybe you're pre prepared,
maybe it's a place where you've picnicked before. Maybe it's abandoned,
and you know that you could remove somebody there and
do these things. And oh, by the way. The river
is right there, so after I'm done, I'm going to
deposit the body there. Here's a big question as well,
(44:19):
what'd you do with the uterus? Is it something that
you've kept or did it go in the river as well,
hoping that you know, the aquatic environment would take care
of it. It's a chilling, chilling thought, Dave. But I
got to tell you something that is absolutely heartbreaking. As
(44:40):
sad as this is for you and I my friend
to talk about Jennifer's death, we haven't had to live
with it, have we. Nope, twenty two years on, Jerry,
her father, decided to end his life, and I think
(45:05):
this is one of the most poignant things. He wrote
three letters, Dave. You know we've three notes, and you
know we talked about I've talked about before how people
I think people when you do suicide investigations, they believe
that everybody leaves a note. That is the exception.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I thought that until you told me that it wasn't
the norm.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
It's really most people that do it just decide to
go and do it. Jerry wrote three and to show
you what kind of heart this man had, and this
is absolutely just horrible. He didn't want to inconvenience anybody,
(45:51):
So he went to the parking lot of the sheriff's
office and removed himself from this life. But he didn't
want to inconvenience anybody by causing a fuss at his
home or anywhere else. He thought that it would make
it easy for the sheriff. And then in one last act,
he states in the letter, You're not at fault for this.
(46:14):
This has nothing to do with the unsolved murder of
my daughter. I can't go on anymore. My health has
gotten so bad. I submit to you that whoever is
out there that killed Jennifer, as far as this old
(46:39):
death investigator is concerned, you have the blood of not
just one person on your hand, you have the blood
of two. At this point, whoever you are, I hold
you responsible for the death of this man as well.
I'm Joseph Scotten Morgan and this is bodybags
Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore. I think probably out of
all the you know, the pantheon of the founders of
this country, I think probably my favorite of that collection
of men, it's probably been Franklin. I like Ben Franklin,
(00:25):
and this is why Ben Franklin lived a life that
was not a life of privilege. As a matter of fact,
he lived on the streets in the Northeast, like Boston
in the wintertime, and he, you know, drank life up
(00:46):
to the fullest, and he had a lot of ups
and downs. And being a death investigator, I'm always coming
across interesting little quotes. And there was a quote that
he had made and he may have written this in
Poor Richard's I think that's where it comes from. And
(01:07):
the quote that I'm interested in today is the one
where Ben wrote, nine men in ten are suicides. And
you have to kind of pause on that just for
a moment and kind of meditate on it and think
(01:27):
about what he is saying there. I don't necessarily think
that Ben believed that every nine men that pass away
are suicides. However, this is what I think. He had
lived enough life, he had seen enough of the tragedy
(01:48):
in this world. I think what he meant was that
nine in ten men are potentially suicides of the world
around them, and sometimes you just don't have control. You
don't have control of the circumstances. Today, I want to
(02:12):
talk about a case that, just in and of itself
as a cold case, is certainly a tragedy, but it's
bookended by another tragedy. It's tragedy of a man who
sought justice for his daughter for over twenty years she
(02:36):
was a homicide victim, but at the end he wound
up taking his own life. Today we're going to talk
about the cold case of Jennifer Harris and also her father,
who recently passed away at his own hand, Jerry Harris.
(03:03):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks Dave. As
anyone knows that it's familiar with me. I wrote my
memoir many years ago and talked very frankly about the
(03:24):
inner workings of my mind and the things that I
had borne witness to and the things that I'd seen.
And I've been in that dark space. I've been in
that place where I really thought that there was nothing
left to live for. And it's not a judgment on
anybody at all, because I've that's a set of circumstances
(03:44):
I think very broadly where I can say that I
have walked, I've walked in those shoes. But with this
particular case, Jerry Harris going to the Fannin County Sheriff's
Office in fan And, Texas and setting up in the
parking lot there and taking his own life recently, it's
(04:09):
really a very very sad tale that is super emphasized
by this idea of hopelessness when it comes to your
precious child that has been brutally murdered and there are
no answers.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There's a lot of questions about why Jerry Harris took
his own life and what was it symbolic doing it
at the Fannin County Sheriff's office in their parking lot
and Jerry Harris his daughter's cold case dating back twenty
two years now. I don't know the impact something like
(04:45):
that would have on you as a person. I have
to imagine that it's going to manifest itself in certain
physical ailments when you have something so devastating, and Jerry
Harris listed his own medical issues as a reason for
committing suicide in those three notes he addressed one too,
(05:06):
the sitting Sheriff, Mark Johnson. When Mark Johnson became sheriff
several years ago as part of his campaign, Jerry worked
with him on the campaign because he said, I'm going
to solve the case.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
This case.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
No, I don't think he said I'm going to solve it.
I think he said, I am going to take a
closer look and open up the files on Jennifer Harris's
murder and see and try to solve that. That's going
to be day one priority. And so when Mark Johnson
was elected sheriff, his first day in the office, first day,
first thing, bring me the file of Jennifer Harris's death.
(05:47):
And it was that file being brought to him that
was exciting for Jerry Harris. My daughter's murder is going
to be solved now, That's what he's thinking. And then
utter disappointment and shocked when they opened up the file
and realized that many things were damaged from water getting
(06:08):
into this saved. But on top of that, Joe, not
only was stuff ruined, the file was not kept very well.
Evidence was They had to they got rid of evidence
because it was not usable in the case anymore. Because
of how it had been taken care of. So there
were a lot of issues with this. Jerry Harris committing
(06:29):
suicide claims it had nothing to do with the cold
case death of his wife, of his daughter. I don't know,
and I'm not even you know, my goodness, Joe. All
I can think, Joe is if if it was me.
I don't know that you come back from this. I
know you can have a life, you can laugh again,
you can smile again, but it's never the same.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
It can't be.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, And as I learned early on, I used to
as a young death investigator, I would talk about day
when I talk to families, when I notify them and
all these sorts of things. I would always use that
kind of fallback phrase where I would say, I understand
your pain. And that is the most disingenuous thing to
(07:15):
say to anyone that's under it, because no, you don't.
And even if you've had something like this happen in
your life, it still doesn't marry up or measure up
to the acute pain that a family member is having.
It that there's no way you can identify. Well, you
(07:35):
might say that you can, but with their particular set
of circumstances, and how much more so for this man
that has been struggling along for load these many years
and he essentially has no answers whatsoever. There's no way
that any of us could identify with this man and
talk about a gut punch when you know you're you're
(08:00):
right on the cusp of maybe a refresh here, okay,
where you think that everything is going to be open
to new and you get in there and water damage
we're talking about flood leaking water, that sort of thing.
Getting into what they're describing as a pod where they're
(08:21):
keeping evidence stored in all of this, and it's not
just a handwritten files. There were actually, and this is
the way it's kind of phrased, there were actually items
contained in there that were suspected suspected of being his
child's clothing. And I say suspected because you know, when
(08:44):
her remains were found, Dave.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
She was nude.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
She was nude, and so that one thing that you're
trying to hold onto maybe there's physical evidence there because
you know that that bodies, they don't lose their clothing
in the water, which she's found in a body of water.
The clothing generally stays on the body. And to say that,
(09:10):
you know that one thing that might tie back, say,
if somebody had undressed her, it's gone, man, it's gone forever.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
We know.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
The case of Jennifer Harris began at a different time.
It's so in two thousand and two, I thought we
were fairly advanced, Okay, I did I remember at that
time of where we were. And even looking back at
that time now I tend to think, oh, we had
plenty of DNA and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Comparing two thousand and two technology in twenty twenty four,
it's like it's almost like the Stone Age. Really, it's
like Fred Flenstone running is, you know, using his feet
to motor of the car versus the tesla. And anyway,
the case of Jennifer Harris is a simple one.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
To give you the.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Overall picture, already told you it's a cold case. Jennifer
Harris went missing. She was with a friend, gets in
her car, her green Jeep, to drive home or actually
to go somewhere. Didn't really say where she was going
for her kind of left that hanging. Not an unusual
thing for a twenty eight year old person. And she
she was pregnant at the time. Jennifer Harris was now
(10:21):
she didn't broadcast that out to all humanity. A couple
of very close friends knew, and she was going somewhere.
Her car was found on the side of the road.
And the term abandoned always gives me a bigger idea
of a car than just the car was parked on
the side of the road. You know, I've parked my
(10:42):
car on the side of the road to go for
a walk in the mountains. I wasn't abandoning it. I
parked it. In this case, I don't know if she
parked her car and went for a walk and didn't
make sense to do it at night, but she parked
her car is found. Her green jeep found on the road,
and she's nowhere to be found. She was missing for
(11:04):
six days. And by the way, I just want to
little tidbit. When her jeep was spotted, it was by
somebody walking in their dog. Somebody very familiar with the area,
walked the dog in that area all the time, sees
the green jeep and kind of looks around, you know,
her and her dog. But look, people park their car
for any number of reasons. It was the next day,
(11:25):
the day two of the green jeep being on the
side of the road where the woman went, Okay, this
is not right, something's wrong, calls police. Hey, I've got
this abandoned car out here. You might want to take
a look at it. And that's when the search for
Jennifer Harris began. Was the abandoned car. Six days later,
fishermen find her body floating in a creek red River,
(11:49):
and her uterus was removed. There were other body parts,
and we'll get into this in a minute that were
also removed, but that's the case. Six days missing, her
body is found nude in the red River where their
years removed and they have not they being law enforcement,
has yet to solve this case. We're not dealing with
a big area fan in Texas. Fanning County, Texas is
(12:12):
near the Oklahoma border. You'll have to get it, well, no,
meet you might not. I had to get out a
map or a Google search whatever. Yeah, because in Texas
is so large.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah it is, and it's hard for many of us
to kind of envision. And when people say in Texas, yeah,
it's just right down the road, well, yeah, right down
the road in Texas is it ain't right down the road, say,
for instance, in Connecticut. Yeah, right, because it's nothing. You know,
if you hop in a car and you drive one
hundred and fifty miles, that's right down the road, right,
(12:42):
you know, it's not necessarily it's all relative to where
you are, but it is in kind of the the
northern I think they refer to it in the Dallas
area as the Dallas Metroplex, right, it's the term. It's yeah, yeah,
it's it's north of the city. But you know, once
you get outside of that densely populated area around Dallas
(13:05):
for Worth, you run into scrubbrush and prairie land, and
you know, you when you get out, you get out, dude,
you know you're you're out there. And but you know
she's from this area. I think her hometown's actually Bottom Bottom, Texas,
and you have you have this area out there that
(13:28):
you know, it's always interesting when you because this is
like a very it's not a big road that she's on.
It's not like the the the jeep was found abandoned
on the side of like you know, I don't know
what runs through Dallas I twenty or something like that.
We're talking about kind of one of these county state
kind of roads that's out there, and where are you
(13:50):
going to go? Are there houses around there? Did the
jeep break down?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, was there some kind of problem? What? What
did the interior of the jeep look like? Is there
any ants that something had occurred within that? What would
compel her to pull over on side of the road
at that particular spot? And then where is she? You know,
for those many days afterwards, they had no idea. And
(14:17):
it always amazes me, it seems like consistently every time.
And I got to tell you the little boy and me,
I was always kind of a cowboy at heart. I
used to love being, you know, pretending to be a cowboy.
Every search that ever occurs in Texas, it seems like
involves horses, and so, you know, you've got people that
are saddled up and they're riding through the brush and
(14:39):
they're looking and all those sorts of things. But it's
not somebody on horseback that actually finds her remains. It's
somebody that's out fishing in the Red River. And that
doubles the problem here, Dave, because her body is without
clothing when she's found. She's in this river that swiftly moves.
(15:07):
I always take exception to people they talk about the
slow rolling Mississippi River or like the Red River, you know,
which the Red River eventually does feed into the Mississippi
back down in Louisiana. It ain't slow moving. You get on,
you get above this thing. And the speed with which
this thing moves is problematic for you as an investigator,
(15:31):
because it's not like being in a lake. You have
to think about, well, where could her body have gone in?
Who would have had access to a location, maybe a
boat ramp or a bridge. Who's going to take the
risk of taking someone's remains and then toss them over
the side of the bridge. And if what we believe
(15:52):
happened actually happened, he had gone somewhere else prior to
being deposited in that river. She left that jeep, probably
with somebody else, maybe somebody she trusted, that got her
(16:13):
into a car, took her away, killed her, and then
did a post wartem dissection on her body. Reflecting back
(16:37):
to one of the chapters in my memoir had to
do with rain and all those years ago I talked
about how investigators hate rain. They hate water because it
destroys things, it's the great eradicator most of the time
from an evidentiary standpoint, and I think that that water
(16:58):
symbolic as well. You know the trials that we go
through in life. It's like a rock that is always
getting pounded by water. Maybe out on the West coast
somewhere you don't see it changing, but it is changing.
Water changes everything. In this case, we've got a body
that's found floating in the Red River, and we've also
(17:22):
got evidence involved in this case, including documents that have
been subjected to a ton of water. Water plays a
big role in this case, Dave, and I can't imagine, well, yeah,
I can kind of imagine the disappointment that the investigators
had when they remove Jennifer's body from the Red River
(17:48):
and thinking about, Lord, what are we going to do now,
because I'm going to tell you she was heading down
the road. Relative to decomposition here.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I wasn't shocked at that, But when I saw this case,
my first thought was curious as to how much decomposition
and what that actually tells, because oftentimes when we have
a story where somebody is discovered in this case, six
(18:20):
days after she goes missing, I tend to wonder well,
when was she killed? You know, it's not like they
got her out of the jeep, killed her right there
and threw her in the river. Was there something else
taking place? And based on the fact that we have
been told her uterus was removed, I'm thinking that something
might have gone on for a couple of days before
(18:42):
she was thrown in the river. Possibly to give an
idea of where her body was found in the Red River,
it was about two miles down river from a bridge
crossing over Highway seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I say that because how else.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Does a body get in the river other than dragging
the body down and putting it in, And which is reality?
I don't I don't discount that they could have the
person you know, could have just taken or people could
have done this. We actually know that when her body
was found, that her uterus had been removed and creatures
(19:20):
had done damage. And I'm wondering, Joe, because I don't
know for real covering cases like this for a long time.
I know that certain predator animals go for soft tissue
or you know, red balls and things like that, right,
and so how does that affect your ability to determine
(19:41):
how she died? Just the fact that her uterus is missing.
That does not say that she wasn't alive strapped down
on the table while they cut that out. I mean
she had I'm assuming hoping she was murdered first before
they did the removal of the uterus.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, you have to h scientifically, you have to be
able to compartmentalize a lot of when you're doing an
assessment on a body, you have to compartmentalize, obviously, and
we've talked about this before, having we dave on bodybags.
We've got anti mortem, perry mortem, and postmodem, all of
those things. You don't get into those the broader meaning
(20:20):
of what this means necessarily. Okay, you have to detach
for real. I mean you you just have this as
a body. I'm studying it to determine what took place,
because I'm gonna guess if you thought about it in
terms of being a husband, father, grandfather, that you wouldn't
There'd be no way you could actually move forward with
(20:42):
your occupation.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
It would have it would be very difficult.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You have to check your baggage at the door, okay,
because as soon as you come dragging yourself into the
midst of that's time, you need to quit. Okay, you
need to quit doing what you're doing. That's that's a
big sign that you have to throw up. So you
have to check any kind of emotional baggage that you have,
familial baggage. I'm not saying that it's not valid, but
(21:07):
what I am saying is you have a job to do,
and so when you're doing this assessment, it's you don't
have Like if I sat there on every single case
and thought, oh, this is somebody's child, I bet I
can imagine all the birthdays. You can't do that. You
cannot because you're doing a disservice to the dead. And
(21:28):
we are there to service the dead. We are, and
we service families too, but you know, we're trying to
tell their story. And so you have to compartmentalize with
your examination what you're looking for. Okay, I have to
go through a process of elimination relative to Okay, this
might be an anti mortem event. Now let's talk about
(21:49):
anti mortem with Jennifer. There are some who say, first off,
that her cause of death was related to homicidal violence. Well,
you know, and I know all the cases that we've
covered with Nancy and these other things that we do
when they say that it lacks specificity, but there has
(22:12):
also been information that's come out that she had apparently
sustained anti mortem prior to death trauma to her neck,
which they have taken to imply that this is some
kind of asphixial event where either you know, somebody has
throttled her, you know, like wrapped their hands around her
(22:33):
neck and choked her to death, or maybe something else,
but that's anti mortem. So you look at that, you
assess it, and when you do the examination of the
what's referred to as the organs in the neck, you
want to see how deep this goes, and you begin
to look into strap muscles, all these areas. You want
to check the cartilage and you know what otherwise would
(22:55):
be you know, referred to as the windpipe if you will,
to see if it's fractured, because that does happen, and
of course you're going to check the hyoid. You want
to see to what extent can you measure the level
of trauma that she may have sustained in the pre
mortem state in the anti morton state, and also can
(23:17):
you appreciate any kind of defensive injuries. Is there any
evidence that she had been bound because you know, Dave,
you made an interesting point just a moment ago, and
this is so horrific. But when you begin to think
about the absence of the uterus, and they have admitted
that the uterus was absent, we don't think that she's
(23:38):
had a full on hysterectomy. She's told people, at least
her best friend, we know that she was pregnant, so
that can't be valid. So you begin to try to
think about, well, was she restrained, like tied to a
table and her uterus was removed. As horrific as that is,
(23:59):
that's something you have to take into consideration. You have
to check your emotions at the door when you do that.
So you're looking for that. You want to see if
there's in this area where her uterus was removed from you.
You're going to be looking for hemorrhage surrounding the incision
and also internally because if you got hemorrhage, that implies
(24:22):
that she was still in the land of living when
this happened. And back to being tied up, is she
because this is a very angry event. You know, I
could see somebody wanting to torture her. Was she bound?
Was she tied down. Can you see that on the wrist,
because if you know, if somebody's restrained, say by the wrist,
(24:44):
they're tied up, or ankles are tied, if they're fighting
against it, You're going to see hemorrhage in dwelling there.
You'll see abrasions in dwelling there, you know, just to
try to get free or struggling against the pain. How
much of that is diminished, you know, result of the
time being in the water. And then you go to
what you can verify as post mortem injuries. And this
(25:08):
is horrible to consider, but look, this is the reality.
This is the true reality of true crime, okay, and
what we.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Look for.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
She's in an aquatic environment. Now, in this aquatic environment environment,
are we thinking that the water could change your body? Yes,
it could. You're going to get things like pretty severe
skin slippage, which means the top of the skin is
going to come off. It's kind of in that time
(25:38):
of year in Texas. Because this occurred in May mid
May of two thousand and two, the water would not
be obviously as hot as it is in July, so
the body would not have degraded as much, perhaps decompositionally
but they're saying she was decomposing.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
What did that mean when they say that early on
like that, Yeah, really mentioned and my first thought was, well,
how much would you expect?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and a lot of it. It's going to be deep.
And you have to understand what are they calling decomposition
as opposed to trauma, because we do know this. They
have stated pretty pretty plainly that there were there was
post mortem animal animal activity, aquatic animal and they're talking
(26:26):
about turtles, and turtles do do feast on human remains.
They're scavengers. That's one of the things that they do.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And I was reading this is said eyes, nose, ears.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, and that's things that yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, the
softer areas they are going to go for. They'll also
go for fingers, anything that's kind of hanging down like that.
And you think about a body floating in water. I mean,
just think about this, and next time you go to
a pool or something like that and you're in the water,
can yourself just for a moment, you remember when we
(27:01):
were kids, we would do the dead man float. And
so if you do that in a classic position, your
feet are hanging down, your arms and fingertips are hanging down.
So from an evidentiary standpoint, we're talking about a young
lady that just been absolutely brutalized. Well, how do we
(27:21):
experience the world. We are tactile creatures. So what that
means is we touch things. We touch things from the
moment that we were born. We begin to experience the
world through our fingertips. Well, when it comes to crime,
if you're trying to defend yourself, let's just say that
you're missing your fingertips as a result of postmortum animal
(27:43):
activity or decomposition. You've lost a lot of evidence there,
fingernail scrapings. You can't get that any longer. It's all gone.
And not to mention the impact that the water is
having on the body in rape cases, for instance, if
you've got a nude body, which by the way, is
another important tell here Jennifer's remains, we're nude. That that
(28:08):
goes again to kind of a sexualization of the body. Right,
So are you thinking sexual assault here? Well, guess what
If you're talking about sexual assault, then that would mean
that the remains might hold hold evidence relative to that.
(28:29):
But guess what water destroys it? You know, if you
if you talk about the openings in the body. They're essentially,
I don't know the correct term, would not be flushed
in a classic sense, like a proactive flushing, you know,
where this is being attempted to be done, but it's
kind of a passive thing. The current of the of
(28:50):
the water, the swirling. You know, we had a case
not too long ago we talked about where a body
gets caught in an eddy. I think that case was
inten Exis, where she had been weighted down in the
water and the water the divers, remember in that case,
they were talking about how the body was swirling about
when they got to the body, and so that's that
kind of tumbling that happens in the water is destroying
(29:12):
evidence as well. So it's almost like a perfect storm
when you you know, you begin to consider this and
then everything you're having to marry up in your mind
once you get the body, Once you get the body
back to the more to do your exam day. Cases
(29:40):
do not conclude once a body is found, the body
of a missing person. That's that's not the conclusion. That
is merely the beginning. In any case. You can drone
on and on about you know, what may or may
not have happened all those sorts of things, and then
you get the body and you think that it's all
(30:02):
over with. Well, you're still just looking for answers at
that point in time and trying to unravel with the
dead or attempting to tell you through all the remains
of their bodies. And Dave, you know, we talked a
lot about water here, and we talked about the destructive
force of it. But the police, I think, and this
(30:23):
is kind of born out and how much time has elapsed.
You think about this and you think, well, you know,
where do these roads lead? You know, how do you
go about getting answers? And I just don't know that
there's a lot of definitive material out there relative to
Jennersfir's passing. I know that, correct me if I'm wrong.
I think that there were two people that were questioned
(30:45):
in this case.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Joe they brought in. She was married to a guy
named Rob Holman. Previously they were divorced, but she had
an ongoing relationship with Holman. But she also had a
fella that she got involved with when she was learning
to be a messuse or therapeutic massage right right, Yeah,
(31:07):
It was kind of an interesting thing just to give
you the very quick one. She married Rob Holman. They
were from the general same area, northeast Texas. He liked
that small town feel. Jennifer when they moved to Dallas
so that she could get her education at therapeutic massage
and things like that, she had a big vision for
her life. She had big dreams at twenty eight, you know,
(31:29):
she had a plan. Her husband didn't. After being in
Dallas with her for a couple of years, he really
just wanted to go back home. I just want to
be back out in the country man, And she didn't.
While she was taking her classes in massage therapy, she
meets a fellow and I want to be as kind
about this as I possibly can. Okay, his name is
(31:50):
James Hamilton. I and Jennifer got involved in a romantic relationship.
They ended up going into business together, Jennifer and Hamilton,
James Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
They open up their own.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Massage place and they're moving forward with this whole thing
when the business pretty much goes bankrupt and they break
up romantically. Their business is falling apart. So there's a
lot going on there, but everything tells us they were
friends through it all. They had a rough relationship romantically
her ex husband, Rob Homan. He was a little different.
(32:22):
I told you that he moved to Dallas with her
to get her education. He didn't like it. He wanted
to go back home and he did. Fast forward to
the disappearance of Jennifer Harris. The night she goes missing,
we know that there was at least one, probably more
people that knew she was pregnant. Her uterus was removed
(32:45):
from her body. If she was pregnant, then you've got
a baby in there. Yes, And we have the police
bringing in the two guys that know are the best, Okay,
James Hamilton romantic relationship for and business partner.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
He's a good suspect because a lot of issues here,
business and romantic, bankrupt financially, romantically. Anyway, he has an alibi, Joe.
For the time they believe she went missing, he has
an alibi. He was over an hour away at a
McDonald's with some people that saw him there. So and
he look, he talked to police without a lawyer. They asked,
(33:21):
would you take a polygraph? Absolutely? He said, Look, I
just want the best for Jennifer. We need to find her.
What can I do to help you? Eliminate me first
and then let's move let's find her. That was James
Hamilton's opinion. Rob Holman was a bit different. Joe, the
ex husband, well, he didn't have an alibi. His alibi
(33:42):
for the night in question was he got a twelve
pack of beer and he was going to go hang
out with some friends. But when they weren't home, he
just started riding around Fanning County, just riding the back roads,
drinking beer for five hours by himself. And during his interview,
this first interview, he was also without an attorney. He
was mirandized. But hey, man, he's answering questions. But it
(34:06):
was a very skill The person that did the interview
was skilled. They knew what they were doing. And when
I went back and was looking over the notes Joe,
I found out that the ex husband, Rob Holman, actually
made a few mistakes in his statement to police. At first,
he said he was driving around, never saw the green jeep,
Never saw a jeep that night while I was riding around,
(34:26):
never saw Jennifer. Later in the interview, I was like,
you know, maybe I did see a jeep. Maybe, Yeah,
I think I did see a jeep. Later on, yeah,
I saw the jeep and I saw Jennifer. So we've
got a lie. Never saw anything that night? Oh yeah,
I did.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's the biggest thing here. And by the way, when
they asked, hey, would you mind taking a polygraph? So
we again, same thing with Hamilton, We just want to
eliminate you so we can move forward. As soon as
he walks out of that first interview with police, he
calls an attorney and he stops talking with police and
doesn't take a polygraph.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
In twenty seventeen, fifteen years after the fact, Mark Johnson
was elected sheriff. Jennifer's dad, Jerry, actually had been involved
in the campaign because Mark Johnson said, if you'd like
me to sheriff, I'm going to dig into this case
and I'm going to find out who did it. I'm
going to do my best to solve this case. And
he did first day out bring me the box. As
we told you earlier, he found out that there was
(35:25):
not much of a file in the case. What they
did have was damage. But he started there and he
announced two suspects, James Hamilton and Rob Homan. Those are
still the only two people that have been only talking.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Of Yeah, And I have to think, first off, wouldn't
it be fantastic to know how that jeep was handled? Yeah,
I want to know who's DNA would have been contained
within the cab of that jeep other than Jennifer's.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Now, if she's you know, she's in a relationship with
this fellow that she was in massage school with, we'd
have an expectation that you could probably find something in
there related to him, all right, depended upon how recently
(36:19):
they had broken up and those sorts of things. But
when you begin to think about the ex husband, I'd
just like to know, just for grins and giggles, I'd
like to know if if his DNA was found in there.
I mean, I don't know how many folks have exes.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Would DNA last in that it would?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Well, it's dependent, right, It's depended upon the type the
type of DNA you're talking about, you know, and how
is it being conveyed. Are you talking about hair boy?
We've seen that played out in recent history, you know,
relative to find a mitochondrial DNA through you know, hair
shafts and that sort of thing. But if you're talking
about you know, I don't know, could it be blood.
(37:00):
Was there blood in the jeep?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Let's say that for the sake of argument, that I
was driving around Banning County around that same time and
I saw Jennifer walking with a Jerry can you know
the gas cant going down the road rand of gas.
And I pick her up and go get gas and
take her back to her jeep. And while we're there,
I sit down in My back's hurting. So I sit
down in her car for a minute, in the passenger side,
(37:24):
front seat whatever. And I'm only in there for a
couple of minutes. Yep, would I I know, I would
leave behind something.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
How long would it? You know?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, you would, And it would be again depended upon
you know, what is, for lack of better term, what's
emanating from your body? Are we talking about? Yes, sweat
that could? That could certainly if it's gotten in, if
it's gotten into the fabric of the vehicle where the
seats removed from the jeep, that was all that stuff retained.
(37:55):
I mean, you're talking about what turns out to be.
I don't know what other homicide have happened in Fannin County, Texas,
but I got to tell you as far as the
level of brutality here. This is probably going to be
at the top of the list. If I had that vehicle,
that thing would be so secured and locked down and
everybody would be forbidden. You know, I want to know
(38:18):
where the jeep is. Was it passed on to the
family and then the family just let it go, which
happens many times because there's expenses incurred and all those
sorts of things. But I got to tell you in
a case like this, and we're not talking, you know,
let's think back to what we're saying here, Dave. We're
talking about the jeep that is owned by this young
(38:40):
woman who is later found six days later floating nude
in the river with her uterus removed. I'd say that
that jeep is the last point in contact from an
evidentiary standpoint. It might be other than the body, which again,
as we have stated previously, is greatly at this point
(39:00):
in time. That jeep is the hub of everything, you know,
because she was operating that jeep at one point in time,
probably right before she died, and anybody that would have
come in contact with her would have been at least
outside of the jeep. I don't know did they lean
on the jeep. Hey put their hand on the jeep
(39:21):
and say you're coming with me. Well, guess what, we're
not even talking about DNA there. We're talking about the basics,
like a latent handprint, palm print on the outside of
that jeep. What happened to the jeep? I'd like to
know that. I want to know what the status of
that thing is. Is that now in five million pieces
in junk yards all over Texas? Is somebody still riding
(39:41):
around in it? Or have they sequestered this thing somewhere?
Speaker 3 (39:45):
But Joe, let me ask you very quickly.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
The uterus being removed and the police find out that
she'd at least told at least one friend she was pregnant,
kind of indicative her uterus being removed at whoever did this?
A didn't I just fall upon her on the side
of the road, because it's a very specific thing that
is removed.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
It is very specific.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, and you know with privacy to do this, right,
Oh my god, now get on the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
No, no, And if you attempted to do it, you
would have to have a certain level, not a certain level,
you'd have to have a very specific level of privacy
and here's something else. You're going to have to have tools.
They're going to satisfy this task that you're attempting to achieve.
(40:38):
You have to have some knowledge. H And I guess
anybody could say, well, you know, anybody that's had a
biology class or has been through sex ed, do you
know what the uterus is for? Maybe so, but do
you have the skill to know where to go and
find the uterus? And another cold cold thought with as
(41:02):
if there's not enough here already, But another cold thought
of this is that if you're so intimately involved with
somebody where you understand that they are pregnant, and let's
say you kill them now, you're going to stand over
them with a sharp instrument that maybe you've never done
this before. You're going to go in there and you're
(41:25):
going to remove an organ from her body that's going
to tell everything. This is a very specific kind of
person that they would be looking for, somebody that is
so you know, he didn't go after the heart, didn't
go after the lungs, he didn't go for a kidney.
He went for the uterus. And I say he, I'm
not saying a woman couldn't have done it, because we've
had some of these cases where women have taken babies
(41:47):
out of the womb and left the mother to die. Yeah,
that could be plausible, I suppose, but it's a very
specific person and you'd have to look at the level
of skill. This comes up a lot of time. It
came up in the black Dahlia case. It still comes
up today. What level of skill did and proficiency did
this individual have when it comes to doing a dissection?
(42:09):
And I think that's that's curious, sir, I an intriguing question.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
There was a couple of things that you mentioned to
me when we were talking a minute ago about this
off air blue clay and a little cabin. Now we
know that Jennifer Harris had been with her friend earlier
in the evening when she went missing. She was driving
her green Jeep and it was left on the side
of the road and missing six days, body found floating
(42:37):
nude in the Red River. Uterus removed. Tell me about
blue clay and a burned down cabin.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
According to what has been previously reported, there was blue clay.
And when I say clay, I'm talking about like clay,
like you know, you hear about the Red Clay Hills
of Georgia. Yeah, it's a particular type of clay that
has a blue tin and there's only I think they said,
like only three or four places where this there's a
deposition of this on the banks of the Red River. Well, Dave,
(43:10):
you know we talked about trace evidence. Guess what they
found blue clay on her body. And to really drive
home this, there was what they referred to as a
caretaker's cabin. Now what this thing took care of or
who occupied the space, I have no idea, but that
caretaker's cabin was immediately adjacent to one of these points
(43:34):
of entry where blue clay was. Okay, cabin burned down.
And remember how you had mentioned you mentioned just a
moment ago, you would have to have a place, and
I've seen the images from what remains. There's like a
concrete slab in the middle of the wooded area. Nobody's
going to hear anything, nobody's going to see anything. You're there,
(43:58):
You show up with the instruments from maybe you're pre prepared,
maybe it's a place where you've picnicked before. Maybe it's abandoned,
and you know that you could remove somebody there and
do these things. And oh, by the way. The river
is right there, so after I'm done, I'm going to
deposit the body there. Here's a big question as well,
(44:19):
what'd you do with the uterus? Is it something that
you've kept or did it go in the river as well,
hoping that you know, the aquatic environment would take care
of it. It's a chilling, chilling thought, Dave. But I
got to tell you something that is absolutely heartbreaking. As
(44:40):
sad as this is for you and I my friend
to talk about Jennifer's death, we haven't had to live
with it, have we. Nope, twenty two years on, Jerry,
her father, decided to end his life, and I think
(45:05):
this is one of the most poignant things. He wrote
three letters, Dave. You know we've three notes, and you
know we talked about I've talked about before how people
I think people when you do suicide investigations, they believe
that everybody leaves a note. That is the exception.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I thought that until you told me that it wasn't
the norm.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
It's really most people that do it just decide to
go and do it. Jerry wrote three and to show
you what kind of heart this man had, and this
is absolutely just horrible. He didn't want to inconvenience anybody,
(45:51):
So he went to the parking lot of the sheriff's
office and removed himself from this life. But he didn't
want to inconvenience anybody by causing a fuss at his
home or anywhere else. He thought that it would make
it easy for the sheriff. And then in one last act,
he states in the letter, You're not at fault for this.
(46:14):
This has nothing to do with the unsolved murder of
my daughter. I can't go on anymore. My health has
gotten so bad. I submit to you that whoever is
out there that killed Jennifer, as far as this old
(46:39):
death investigator is concerned, you have the blood of not
just one person on your hand, you have the blood
of two. At this point, whoever you are, I hold
you responsible for the death of this man as well.
I'm Joseph Scotten Morgan and this is bodybags
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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