Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / JENNIFER HARRIS, 28 & PREGNANT, FLOATING DEAD IN RED RIVER, TEXAS

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JENNIFER HARRIS, 28 & PREGNANT, FLOATING DEAD IN RED RIVER, TEXAS · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:06
Speaker 2: A small town mom to be goes missing after visiting
0:09
Speaker 2: a friend. Her jeep discovered abandon the next day. What
0:13
Speaker 2: Happened to Jennifer?
0:16
Speaker 3: Joining us Tonight, an all star panel including Jennifer's family
0:20
Speaker 3: joining us in the search for what happened to Jennifer.
0:25
Speaker 3: It all started on a Mother's Day Listen Mother's Day.
0:30
Speaker 3: Jennifer spends the afternoon at friend Christy Farr's house. Around
0:33
Speaker 3: eight pm, Jennifer says she has to go. Seemingly headed
0:37
Speaker 3: to other plans, she takes off in her green soft
0:40
Speaker 3: Time jeep, but Jennifer never makes it home that night.
0:43
Speaker 3: Family reports you're missing early the next morning. Very often
0:46
Speaker 3: we hear comments like you can't report someone missing until
0:50
Speaker 3: twenty four hours have passed.
0:53
Speaker 1: When a woman disappears.
0:55
Speaker 3: It's often said, oh, she's taking some me time, she's
0:59
Speaker 3: out with her new boyfriend. Every time I have ever
1:03
Speaker 3: heard that, it's been false. The person the woman is
1:07
Speaker 3: either missing or dead. And we all know the single
1:13
Speaker 3: highest cause of death amongst pregnant women is homicide. I'm
1:20
Speaker 3: sure there are all sorts of psychological or psychiatric reasons
1:23
Speaker 3: for that shocking statistic, but What.
1:26
Speaker 1: I do know and what is relevant to me, is
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Speaker 1: that is true.
1:31
Speaker 3: The number one cause of death amongst pregnant women in
1:36
Speaker 3: America is homicide. Not high blood pressure, not a heart attack,
1:44
Speaker 3: not some complication of the pregnancy.
1:47
Speaker 1: It's homicide.
1:49
Speaker 3: This beautiful young woman, just twenty eight pregnant. How did
1:55
Speaker 3: she end up floating dead in the Red River in Texas?
2:02
Speaker 3: That's what we're trying to determine. So we know Mother's Day.
2:06
Speaker 3: She spends the afternoon at a friend, Christie's. Around eight pm,
2:11
Speaker 3: she leaves, but she never makes it home.
2:15
Speaker 1: What else do we know?
2:17
Speaker 4: Listen that afternoon, Jennifer's car is found abandoned on the
2:20
Speaker 4: side of the road, not far from a local music spot.
2:23
Speaker 4: It doesn't appear like there was any struggle, and none
2:26
Speaker 4: of Jennifer's belongings are in the car. Foot searches of
2:29
Speaker 4: the area turn up nothing. Volunteers and police officers spend
2:33
Speaker 4: days combing the streets of Bonham looking for any sign
2:36
Speaker 4: of Jennifer.
2:37
Speaker 3: Harris joining us All Star panel including Claire Saint Armont
2:43
Speaker 3: joining us, author of Killer Story, The Truth behind True
2:47
Speaker 3: Crime TV. Claire, thank you for joining us. Explain to
2:52
Speaker 3: me where her jeep was found. Thanks for having me, Nancy. So,
2:56
Speaker 3: Jennifer's jeep was found on a county road Lake Bonham,
3:01
Speaker 3: and it was a remote area. It was not highly populated,
3:06
Speaker 3: and it was found there with the door closed, locked,
3:11
Speaker 3: and her purse was missing. Huh, So tell me about
3:15
Speaker 3: this remote area. Why do you say it was remote
3:18
Speaker 3: and very undertraveled.
3:21
Speaker 5: So Bonham is a small town to begin with, There
3:24
Speaker 5: are not a lot of people who lived there, and
3:26
Speaker 5: this was a back road. It wasn't well lit, It
3:29
Speaker 5: didn't have many businesses on it. There was one business
3:33
Speaker 5: that was called the Hoedown, but it was closed. It
3:36
Speaker 5: was like a local music venue and it was not
3:40
Speaker 5: having any activity that night. So the only reason to
3:44
Speaker 5: be on this road would have been if you lived
3:46
Speaker 5: over there, or perhaps to go to the lake. But
3:50
Speaker 5: by the time you.
3:51
Speaker 1: Know her vehicle traveled this road.
3:55
Speaker 5: And we do have some various ways of knowing what
3:59
Speaker 5: time that her her vehicle was going down this road,
4:02
Speaker 5: it was already after dark, so there wouldn't have been
4:05
Speaker 5: a whole lot to.
4:06
Speaker 3: See Claire Saint Ramont joining us. Claire, what time, according
4:10
Speaker 3: to the evidence, was she driving in along this remote area?
4:14
Speaker 5: So it was shortly after eight pm that she was
4:16
Speaker 5: found to be driving in this area. And we know
4:19
Speaker 5: that because she had left her friend's house after getting
4:24
Speaker 5: a recipe for chicken spaghetti. She had left her friend's
4:27
Speaker 5: house and said, it's almost eight o'clock. I've got to go.
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Speaker 5: And she didn't say who she had to go meet
4:33
Speaker 5: with or why she had to leave, but she specifically said,
4:37
Speaker 5: it's almost eight I've got to go. And it doesn't
4:40
Speaker 5: take long to get from Christy Farr's house to where
4:43
Speaker 5: her vehicle was found, and it's believed that she took
4:46
Speaker 5: a direct route, so it would have.
4:48
Speaker 1: Just been minutes.
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Speaker 5: And there's even a neighbor who saw her car as
4:53
Speaker 5: she was taking her evening walk and she remembered that
4:56
Speaker 5: it had just started to rain, and so based on
5:01
Speaker 5: using weather data, we can really pinpoint the time that
5:05
Speaker 5: her jeep arrived at this area.
5:08
Speaker 1: To just a few minutes after eight pm.
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Speaker 3: I'm not really sure that just because Jennifer, who spent
5:14
Speaker 3: the whole day with her friend Christy Farr, looks at
5:17
Speaker 3: our watcher says, oh my goodness, it's eight o'clock. I
5:19
Speaker 3: gotta go, I don't know that we can extrapolate to
5:22
Speaker 3: she was meeting someone in some nefarious way. Why is
5:27
Speaker 3: her jeep in this remote area We don't know that
5:31
Speaker 3: yet an empty music venue, But let's move forward. Jennifer's
5:38
Speaker 3: family is with us tonight. Straight out to Alissa Warnick
5:44
Speaker 3: and Barry Warnick. This is Alissa's husband. To both the Warnicks,
5:48
Speaker 3: thank you for being with us. Alissa, I'm sure you
5:52
Speaker 3: recall when you learned your sister was missing.
5:56
Speaker 1: Tell me what happened.
5:58
Speaker 2: Well.
5:58
Speaker 6: I was living in Austin and I a phone call
6:01
Speaker 6: the day after Mother's Day that her deep had been
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Speaker 6: found in the area of Lake Bonham, which is north
6:09
Speaker 6: of the bottom on a county road. And it just
6:13
Speaker 6: seemed peculiar to me that she would leave her vehicle
6:17
Speaker 6: for any reason, much less without her dog, who she
6:21
Speaker 6: carried wherever she went. So I just started calling and
6:27
Speaker 6: asking questions and wondering what she.
6:30
Speaker 7: Could be up to if she decided to take a.
6:33
Speaker 6: Trip somewhere or join someone somewhere. But the fact that
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Speaker 6: she didn't come home at night was a major red flag.
6:40
Speaker 1: How closely were you guys in touch.
6:43
Speaker 6: We were three years apart, so we had.
6:48
Speaker 7: Different sort of life paths going on at that time.
6:52
Speaker 6: But We did touch base with each other, especially around
6:56
Speaker 6: Mother's Day because we lost our mother and that was
7:00
Speaker 6: an emotional time. But unfortunately I didn't get a hold
7:03
Speaker 6: of her on Mother's Day. She had been in Sherman
7:06
Speaker 6: with my grandmother and her friend.
7:10
Speaker 1: But we did talk.
7:11
Speaker 7: From time to time.
7:12
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say every day, but recently up until her death,
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Speaker 6: we were in touch quite a.
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Speaker 1: Bit, very often.
7:20
Speaker 3: When we saw cases and we hit a dead end,
7:24
Speaker 3: we circle back and we take a look at the victim.
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Speaker 1: Listen.
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Speaker 8: Jennifer Harris grows up in rural Bottom, Texas. Parents Jerry
7:33
Speaker 8: and Alicia Harris couldn't be more proud. Jennifer is a
7:36
Speaker 8: wonderful sister, a cheerleader, part of student council, and is
7:39
Speaker 8: rarely found without her bow Rob Holman. The couple starts
7:43
Speaker 8: dating in the sixth grade and has been inseparable ever since. Jennifer,
7:46
Speaker 8: known as the dreamer of the family, heads off to
7:49
Speaker 8: college three hours away in Nacadochius. Three years later, Rob
7:53
Speaker 8: follows Jennifer to Dallas and asks her to marry him,
7:55
Speaker 8: a proposal she happily accepts.
7:58
Speaker 3: And then a life changing event, the loss of her mother.
8:04
Speaker 4: Less than a year after her wedding, Jennifer loses her
8:07
Speaker 4: mother to a long battle with cancer. Jennifer experiences a
8:11
Speaker 4: great deal of personal growth as she grieves with her family.
8:14
Speaker 4: Jennifer and Rob settle in suburban Dallas so Jennifer can
8:17
Speaker 4: return to school, now training as a massage therapist, while
8:21
Speaker 4: Rob takes a landscaping job.
8:23
Speaker 3: Melissa, this is Jennifer's sister. How did the loss of
8:28
Speaker 3: your mother affect her?
8:30
Speaker 7: Well?
8:33
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, we lived with her illness of cancer for quite
8:38
Speaker 6: a long time. We both took turns visiting her every
8:42
Speaker 6: other weekend because I was living in Austin and she
8:45
Speaker 6: was living bac Indoches at scy and so we wanted
8:50
Speaker 6: to make sure that one of us was with her
8:52
Speaker 6: each weekend.
8:54
Speaker 9: But it was.
8:55
Speaker 6: Unfortunate that it happened to be the week that my
9:00
Speaker 6: past that she was visiting a friend in California. So
9:03
Speaker 6: she never forgave herself for not being there when it happened.
9:07
Speaker 3: I got a question, Alissa, do you in any way
9:12
Speaker 3: think Jennifer, who we believe was pregnant at the time,
9:16
Speaker 3: would have committed suicide?
9:18
Speaker 6: Absolutely not a chance. She actually, in fact was putting
9:23
Speaker 6: her pieces of her own puzzle together and trying to
9:26
Speaker 6: pick up and start a new life.
9:28
Speaker 7: She had her sights.
9:29
Speaker 6: On moving to Colorado or New Mexico and starting fresh.
9:34
Speaker 7: She even considered moving to Austin to be near me, and.
9:38
Speaker 1: She had a lot of hope Mary or joining us.
9:41
Speaker 3: This is Alissa's husband, also an attorney and mediator.
9:45
Speaker 1: But thanks for being with us.
9:46
Speaker 3: Mary, What were your impressions of your sister in law Jennifer?
9:51
Speaker 3: Do you agree no way would she have committed suicide.
9:54
Speaker 10: From everything that I know and I've learned about Alyssa
9:58
Speaker 10: and her family, that would have been the furthest thing
10:01
Speaker 10: from Jennifer's mind, especially at that time. I'm also a
10:07
Speaker 10: filmmaker and we're working on investigating Jennifer's murder and documenting
10:13
Speaker 10: it and putting together a docuseries, and in so doing
10:16
Speaker 10: we're interviewing so many different people, but just talking to Alissa,
10:21
Speaker 10: talking to Jennifer's friends. At the time, she had hope.
10:27
Speaker 10: She was getting her life together. She was planning on
10:31
Speaker 10: a movie either to Austin. She was applying for jobs.
10:34
Speaker 10: She actually scheduled a trip with her father a couple
10:37
Speaker 10: weeks later to go down to the Gudaloupe Mountains to
10:41
Speaker 10: go hiking, so she had plans moving forward. The other
10:48
Speaker 10: thing is her jeep was found twelve miles from the
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Speaker 10: Red River. Now how someone gets out of their car,
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Speaker 10: takes the purse, leaves everything in order. Of course, there's
11:02
Speaker 10: a CD missing that she was planning on giving to
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Speaker 10: her ex husband and somehow just gets herself naked, walks
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Speaker 10: twelve miles or takes a ride twelve miles to.
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Speaker 3: I don't know, yeah, very I mean, I'm certainly not
11:20
Speaker 3: a shrink, but I do know this and all the
11:23
Speaker 3: cases I have ever investigated, prosecuted, or covered, I've never
11:28
Speaker 3: seen a person part their jeep, go for a twelve
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Speaker 3: mile hike and then go, oh, I think I'll kill myself.
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Speaker 3: That just doesn't make sense. Also, the fact that she
11:41
Speaker 3: was pregnant. It's very unlikely statistically that she would have
11:47
Speaker 3: committed suicide while pregnant. Why again, I can't tell you that,
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Speaker 3: but I do know what statistics tell me now.
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Speaker 1: Also, Alyssa warn't joining us.
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Speaker 3: This is Jennifer's sister, the closest person in the world
12:01
Speaker 3: to Jennifer.
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Speaker 1: So she had started dating.
12:06
Speaker 3: I guess that means holding hands with her soon to
12:09
Speaker 3: be husband all the way back in the sixth grade
12:13
Speaker 3: and they became inseparable. She moves to the big city
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Speaker 3: from Bottom to Dallas, and then he wants to be
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Speaker 3: with her, so he follows her and they do get married.
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Speaker 1: Is that correct, Alyssa?
12:27
Speaker 6: Well, she moved to Dacadochis to go to Stephen FoST University.
12:31
Speaker 1: And Rob followed her there.
12:35
Speaker 6: They were inseparable at the time. They loved Nacadochius. That
12:39
Speaker 6: was the happiest time of their lives in my opinion,
12:43
Speaker 6: and it just wasn't until they both graduated and needed
12:46
Speaker 6: to start their careers that more opportunity was in the
12:49
Speaker 6: Dallas area.
12:51
Speaker 7: So that's when they moved to Dallas.
12:53
Speaker 6: And they lived in Carrollton, I believe, at the very
12:55
Speaker 6: beginning of their career journeys.
13:12
Speaker 2: Police launch an exhaustive search. Six days later, a fisherman
13:16
Speaker 2: finds a naked body floating in Red River. Cooked up
13:19
Speaker 2: theories and public opinions lead law enforcement on a wild
13:22
Speaker 2: goose chase for suspects. What really happened?
13:26
Speaker 1: Let me understand?
13:28
Speaker 3: The two of them, Mary and they settle down in
13:30
Speaker 3: suburban Dallas. She goes back to school to study massage
13:35
Speaker 3: therapy and he goes into landscaping.
13:39
Speaker 1: Is that where we're at at that point? Yes?
13:41
Speaker 3: Correct, And as Mary and I have discussed off air,
13:44
Speaker 3: I mean he is a lawyer now filmmaker and the
13:47
Speaker 3: title of that dot is planned to be Justice for Jennifer.
13:52
Speaker 3: You know how one little fact Barry can totally skew
13:56
Speaker 3: an investigation, much less a presentation to the jury.
14:00
Speaker 1: Do you have one fact wrong? You could be screwed.
14:03
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's correct. It takes it puts everything else into jeopardy.
14:07
Speaker 10: Now what's really credible? You know, and everything loses credibility.
14:12
Speaker 10: So you want to make sure that every fact, every
14:15
Speaker 10: detail that you have is correct and no presuppositions or
14:19
Speaker 10: anything else like that. We are talking about whether whether
14:24
Speaker 10: Jennifer could have committed suicide.
14:26
Speaker 11: The couple seems happy in their first home together, but
14:29
Speaker 11: they begin to learn that they want different things in life.
14:32
Speaker 11: Jennifer loves frequent outings and their proximity to the city,
14:36
Speaker 11: but Rob hates the hustle and bustle, preferring the slower
14:39
Speaker 11: pace of Bontom and wants to settle down and start
14:41
Speaker 11: a family. Resentment builds between the childhood sweethearts. Friends and
14:45
Speaker 11: families start to take notice of the cracks and their relationship.
14:48
Speaker 3: The two break up. They want a different lifestyle. She
14:52
Speaker 3: likes a big city. He wanted to go back home
14:54
Speaker 3: and acquire a pace of life, so they split. Let's
14:57
Speaker 3: get back to the present day. Jennifer is found face
15:03
Speaker 3: down pregnant in a river. Let's go back to the
15:07
Speaker 3: times she disappeared.
15:09
Speaker 1: Listen.
15:09
Speaker 8: When Jennifer Harris disappears without a trace, police immediately turned
15:13
Speaker 8: to the men in her life, ex boyfriend James Hamilton
15:16
Speaker 8: and ex husband Rob Holman. Hamilton tells officers he moved
15:20
Speaker 8: on and hope Jennifer was happy. Hamilton says he was
15:23
Speaker 8: eating with friends at a McDonald's fifty miles away at
15:25
Speaker 8: eight pm on Mother's Day.
15:27
Speaker 3: That got to Claire Saint Amant joining us, author of
15:30
Speaker 3: Kill Our Story, The Truth Behind True Crime TV.
15:34
Speaker 1: Claire. When the two separated, okay.
15:38
Speaker 3: When the husband went back home and she stayed in
15:42
Speaker 3: the big city, they both started seeing other people.
15:48
Speaker 5: Right correct, they were no longer together. They continued to communicate,
15:53
Speaker 5: They continued to keep up a relationship, but they were
15:56
Speaker 5: dating other people.
15:58
Speaker 3: Dot A Judy Hoe joining us now Clinical forensic neuropsychologist
16:02
Speaker 3: and author of the New Rules of Attachment. Doctor Judy,
16:07
Speaker 3: thank you for being with us. You know, these two
16:11
Speaker 3: had been sweethearts since sixth grade. They split up, they
16:18
Speaker 3: want different lifestyles and find new loves. But you know,
16:24
Speaker 3: it's not always as simple as it seems, is it,
16:26
Speaker 3: doctor Hope.
16:27
Speaker 12: It really isn't, Nancy, Because they've known each other pretty
16:29
Speaker 12: much all their lives.
16:31
Speaker 7: There's still going to be that connection.
16:33
Speaker 12: As we grow, of course, our preferences change, we start
16:35
Speaker 12: to know ourselves better, they decide they.
16:38
Speaker 13: Want different things, But that type of emotional connection, it's
16:41
Speaker 13: not just going to end overnight. These individuals have seen
16:45
Speaker 13: each other grow up, have seen each other's dreams and hopes,
16:48
Speaker 13: have been seen each other through big things, and it's
16:51
Speaker 13: not just.
16:51
Speaker 12: Going to be as easy as we're broken up and
16:53
Speaker 12: we're never going to speak again.
16:54
Speaker 7: I'm never going to think about you again.
16:56
Speaker 14: You know.
16:56
Speaker 3: Earlier, doctor Judy Hope, we were discussing the unlikelihood that
17:02
Speaker 3: Jennifer committed suicide. There is no cod yet cause of death,
17:07
Speaker 3: and I find that very very interesting. Doctor Thomas Coin
17:12
Speaker 3: joining me Chief Medical Examiner or District to ma's office
17:16
Speaker 3: in Florida, doctor Coin, I'm very surprised she's found floating
17:21
Speaker 3: dead in a river that they could not attribute her
17:25
Speaker 3: cod cause of death to drowning more than likely.
17:27
Speaker 15: Because of the processes of decomposition. Bodies in water are
17:32
Speaker 15: probably some of the most hardest cases that we encounter.
17:36
Speaker 15: Second you die, your body starts to basically digest itself
17:40
Speaker 15: as well as the bacteria that lines all of our
17:42
Speaker 15: cavities begin the process of future fraction. Future faction will
17:48
Speaker 15: break down all of our body tissues, you know, causes
17:52
Speaker 15: massive color change, literal loss of tissue. Now you add
17:57
Speaker 15: that into a water environment where you have a number
17:59
Speaker 15: of other scavenging marine life, which include crabs, turtles, fish,
18:05
Speaker 15: you have other ab and species that may be involved
18:07
Speaker 15: that actually come in and actually remove tissue. So when
18:11
Speaker 15: the body is received of the medical exoner's office, and
18:13
Speaker 15: may be very difficult to determine cause of death because
18:16
Speaker 15: you're just simply missing a lot. You know, we based
18:19
Speaker 15: our decisions upon what we see with our eyes as
18:21
Speaker 15: well as what we see under our microscope, and if
18:25
Speaker 15: the tissue isn't there, it's hard to take a diagnosis.
18:28
Speaker 15: It's hard to actually track hemorrhage in tissue if the
18:31
Speaker 15: tissue is absent, especially like, for instance, if we find
18:35
Speaker 15: a body outside and it has completely skeletonized, and very
18:39
Speaker 15: often it does that in the heat of Florida or
18:40
Speaker 15: in the heat of Texas. If a person was shot
18:43
Speaker 15: and that bullet only traveled through soft tissue and all
18:45
Speaker 15: we have left the skeleton, we may not be able
18:47
Speaker 15: to tell whether or not a person has been shot.
18:49
Speaker 15: So again, decomposition, the actual scavenging of animal life, that
18:54
Speaker 15: can make it very difficult for us to determine how
18:56
Speaker 15: a person.
18:57
Speaker 3: Died, too, Doctor Judy Hoe, likely is statistically that a
19:02
Speaker 3: pregnant mom commits suicide.
19:04
Speaker 1: Extremely unlikely, Nancy.
19:06
Speaker 7: As you mentioned earlier, that.
19:08
Speaker 12: Is a huge wrench in this supposed story, that she
19:11
Speaker 12: would somehow take her own life.
19:14
Speaker 7: Usually that is a meaning to live life to the
19:18
Speaker 7: best of your ability for most people, and even.
19:20
Speaker 12: Sometimes when the pregnancy is a surprise, when the pregnancy
19:24
Speaker 12: is not necessarily planned, it's still usually and we're saying usually,
19:29
Speaker 12: because of course there's always the exception, but usually it
19:33
Speaker 12: helps the person to say, no, I'm not living for
19:35
Speaker 12: myself anymore, and no matter what happens, I got to
19:39
Speaker 12: do better, and I have to look forward to something
19:41
Speaker 12: for the future. And when you have hope and meaningfulness
19:44
Speaker 12: like that, you do not take your own life.
19:46
Speaker 1: You know, docter Gio, I need you to be able
19:48
Speaker 1: to explain it.
19:49
Speaker 3: I just know the statistics based on cases I investigate,
19:53
Speaker 3: try as a homicide and cover that I never see
19:59
Speaker 3: pregnant women can a suicide. And very curious to Claire
20:02
Speaker 3: Saint Amant joining us in addition to Jennifer's family, her
20:05
Speaker 3: sister and her husband, who is so moved by this case.
20:08
Speaker 3: He's actually creating a documentary. Claire, again, thank you for
20:12
Speaker 3: being with us. Claire, the time period from the time
20:15
Speaker 3: she went missing I was reported missing to the time
20:20
Speaker 3: her body was found in the Red River, how much
20:22
Speaker 3: time passed?
20:23
Speaker 5: It was one week, So she's found in the Red
20:27
Speaker 5: River a week after she goes missing, and so it's
20:30
Speaker 5: a long period of time. It's difficult, you know, for
20:33
Speaker 5: her family. They're searching for her, They're looking in wooded areas,
20:38
Speaker 5: they're looking, you know, in bodies of water, trying to
20:41
Speaker 5: figure out where she could have gone.
20:47
Speaker 1: Baby Lisa Irwin vanishes from her crib in the middle
20:50
Speaker 1: of the night. Then a key.
20:52
Speaker 16: Witness sees a suspicious man that night carrying a baby.
20:57
Speaker 16: This potential suspect has never been interview before, but Magan
21:01
Speaker 16: Kelly tracks him down. Making Kelly Investigates is a five
21:05
Speaker 16: part series releasing every weekday beginning Monday, March ten, available
21:11
Speaker 16: on YouTube Series six XM and wherever you listen to
21:14
Speaker 16: The Megan Kelly Show podcast. Click the link in the
21:18
Speaker 16: description of this episode for more crime stories with Nancy Grace.
21:28
Speaker 2: No suspects, lost evidence, and dead witnesses stalls the search
21:33
Speaker 2: for a killer who had the most to gain by
21:36
Speaker 2: Jennifer's disappearance.
21:38
Speaker 3: Another thing that I noticed, doctor Thomas Coin, is that
21:42
Speaker 3: while we don't have a cod cause of death such
21:46
Speaker 3: as legature, strangulation, poisoning, a gunshot one a knife.
21:51
Speaker 1: When we don't have the cause of.
21:52
Speaker 3: Death, but we've been thrown a little clue, we do
21:57
Speaker 3: know her death was ruled quote violent homicide. Now I
22:02
Speaker 3: find that curious because if they won't tell me the
22:05
Speaker 3: cod then how do they know it is violent homicide.
22:08
Speaker 1: I've got one other clue.
22:10
Speaker 3: The only injury that we could get from the medical
22:14
Speaker 3: examiner's report was a wound on her abdomen in damage.
22:17
Speaker 1: To internal organs.
22:20
Speaker 3: Now that is in total contradiction of a theory she
22:23
Speaker 3: could have committed suicide, right what did she beat herself
22:26
Speaker 3: and cause internal damage?
22:28
Speaker 15: No sure, and I assume those injuries could be determined
22:32
Speaker 15: to be not from animal scavenging or decomposition. But it's
22:36
Speaker 15: not common for medical examiners to rule on a matter
22:39
Speaker 15: of death and not a cause of death based upon
22:41
Speaker 15: the circumstances, you know, given the fact that she was
22:44
Speaker 15: found so far from her vehicle, the police investigation did
22:48
Speaker 15: not and the family interviews did not show any evidence
22:51
Speaker 15: that suggests perhaps that this was a suicide. I'm assuming
22:54
Speaker 15: also the autopsy at least disclosed that she had no
22:57
Speaker 15: underlying natural disease processes, although decomposition was present, but you
23:01
Speaker 15: could still sometimes determine if whether or not there was
23:04
Speaker 15: any other serious disease processes, you know, that were present.
23:09
Speaker 15: So my assumption is that based upon all of the circumstances,
23:13
Speaker 15: they were able to at least render a manner of
23:14
Speaker 15: death in this case, which is homicide.
23:16
Speaker 3: You know, I was talking to daughter Gdo earlier about
23:18
Speaker 3: how things are not always as they same. I remember
23:21
Speaker 3: my first high school boyfriend with great affection this guy
23:28
Speaker 3: she had known since sixth grade.
23:31
Speaker 1: Okay, listen.
23:33
Speaker 9: On a visit to Jennifer's Dallas home, Jennifer's father, Jerry Harris,
23:37
Speaker 9: notices five large holes in the living room wall. When
23:40
Speaker 9: asked what happened, Jennifer says she got in an argument
23:44
Speaker 9: with Rob, who got so angry he began punching the wall.
23:48
Speaker 9: Late one night, Alyssa Harris gets a call from her
23:50
Speaker 9: older sister. Jennifer tells her Rob came home drunk and
23:54
Speaker 9: angry and forced himself on her when she tried to
23:57
Speaker 9: calm him down. Jennifer never reports the attack to police,
24:01
Speaker 9: but Alyssa notices a huge change in her sister's demeanor
24:05
Speaker 9: with her husband that was.
24:06
Speaker 3: Never reported to police, and the husband, the ex husband,
24:12
Speaker 3: has never been accused or charged in that event. Alyssa,
24:17
Speaker 3: what do you recall of that conversation with Jennifer.
24:19
Speaker 6: I just remember she called me and she was very upset.
24:22
Speaker 6: She was crying and she didn't understand.
24:25
Speaker 7: How could this happen?
24:27
Speaker 6: It's her husband, and she felt like she couldn't record
24:31
Speaker 6: anything because how do you go to the authorities and say,
24:35
Speaker 6: you know, my husband forced me to have sex with
24:38
Speaker 6: him or forced me onto the bed or whatever. She
24:43
Speaker 6: felt like things had gotten out of control with the drinking,
24:49
Speaker 6: and it really forced her to look at some bigger
24:54
Speaker 6: issues and that's when she began therapy.
24:56
Speaker 3: Daryl Parker is joining US certified Criminal Defense Investigator, President
25:02
Speaker 3: of Blackfish Intelligence. Daryl, why is it that so many
25:07
Speaker 3: women don't report rape? In this case, if it's true
25:13
Speaker 3: and the husband, the ex husband, of course, denies it,
25:18
Speaker 3: we have no claim, no police report. So many women
25:23
Speaker 3: feel they cannot report a rape because fill in the blank.
25:27
Speaker 3: I was married to him, I was out on a
25:30
Speaker 3: date with him, I had been drinking, my skirt.
25:33
Speaker 1: Was too short. Have you noticed that so often.
25:37
Speaker 3: Alleged rapes do not get reported for a multitude of reasons, Daryl, Yeah.
25:42
Speaker 17: I mean a lot of times these women are invested
25:44
Speaker 17: in these relationships. You know, they either for financial reasons, security,
25:50
Speaker 17: the length of the relationship.
25:52
Speaker 18: Fear of further violence, those kind of things. All those
25:56
Speaker 18: are reasons why someone might not report a rate.
25:58
Speaker 1: Well, we definitely need to shrink from this.
26:00
Speaker 3: Why is it wring You break up so often, you
26:04
Speaker 3: bounce back a rebound relationship, And that's what Jennifer did.
26:09
Speaker 1: Listen with her marriage.
26:09
Speaker 8: On the rocks, Jennifer meets someone new at massage therapy school,
26:13
Speaker 8: James Hamilton, who lives with the mother of his child
26:15
Speaker 8: and has a second one on the way. Is Rob's
26:17
Speaker 8: polar opposite.
26:18
Speaker 19: James has big dreams and likes Jennifer as much as
26:21
Speaker 19: she likes him. Friends Warren Jennifer about getting involved with
26:24
Speaker 19: James with her husband at home.
26:26
Speaker 3: Due Doctor Judy Hoe, what do you make of the
26:30
Speaker 3: rebound relationship.
26:31
Speaker 12: Well, Nancy, it's a pattern that obviously we see sometimes
26:36
Speaker 12: maybe we've even done ourselves after we break up with.
26:39
Speaker 1: Someone, and the reason is this.
26:41
Speaker 18: There's that emotional attachment, and sometimes the breakup.
26:44
Speaker 20: Is very sudden, or there's a feeling that am I
26:47
Speaker 20: making the right choice? So then there's all of these
26:51
Speaker 20: feelings and you've got nowhere to go, and in that time,
26:54
Speaker 20: your decision making is going to be a big cloud,
26:56
Speaker 20: and you may not decide on the best partner, just
27:00
Speaker 20: on somebody who's around who's going to fill that void,
27:02
Speaker 20: at least temporarily.
27:03
Speaker 7: And this is why a lot of times when people have.
27:05
Speaker 12: Her rebound relationship, friends and family members are commenting because hey,
27:10
Speaker 12: maybe this is.
27:10
Speaker 7: Not the person you should be with.
27:12
Speaker 12: But the reason is you're just looking for anyone, anyone
27:16
Speaker 12: that you can cling onto during that emotionally vulnerable moment,
27:18
Speaker 12: and you're not making your best decisions.
27:20
Speaker 3: Melissa, what did you think of your younger sister Jennifer's
27:23
Speaker 3: rebound relationship?
27:25
Speaker 6: I thought it was a little quick and based on
27:30
Speaker 6: emotional not so much brain, but more heart, and I
27:38
Speaker 6: thought she could think things throw better and take things
27:42
Speaker 6: a little slower. I do feel like it was solely
27:46
Speaker 6: based on shared dreams and aspirations and not so much.
27:52
Speaker 3: Well, not only that, Alissa, the guy has a pregnant
27:56
Speaker 3: wife at home and a baby. It's not a good choice. Well,
28:03
Speaker 3: she came to that realization.
28:04
Speaker 1: Listen.
28:05
Speaker 8: Not long after finishing school, Jennifer hands Rob divorce papers
28:08
Speaker 8: and he returns to Bonham a single man. James quickly
28:11
Speaker 8: moves in with Jennifer, and the couple decides to start
28:14
Speaker 8: their own spa together. As they struggle to get their
28:16
Speaker 8: business off the ground, James begins hinting he wants to
28:19
Speaker 8: get married, but Jennifer is starting to regret leaving Rob.
28:23
Speaker 8: As the spa fails, Jennifer's relationship with James also fails.
28:26
Speaker 8: Jennifer files for bankruptcy and breaks up with James on
28:29
Speaker 8: bad terms.
28:43
Speaker 2: A small town mom to be goes missing after visiting
28:46
Speaker 2: a friend. Her jeep discovered abandon the next day. What
28:50
Speaker 2: happened to Jennifer.
28:51
Speaker 3: Claire saint Amont joining us Claire, so she breaks up
28:56
Speaker 3: with the new love of James. Isn't it true that
29:00
Speaker 3: when they were dating, James was married, had a pregnant wife,
29:05
Speaker 3: and already had one child with the wife.
29:08
Speaker 5: Yes, it was a complicated relationship, Nancy. So Jennifer was
29:12
Speaker 5: involved with James at the same time that she was
29:16
Speaker 5: still married to Rob and so they had met in
29:18
Speaker 5: massage therapy school and James had another relationship, Jennifer had
29:23
Speaker 5: another relationship. There was nothing, you know, very clean or
29:28
Speaker 5: traditional about their relationship.
29:30
Speaker 3: Alyssa, what did you make of her rebound relationship being
29:33
Speaker 3: with a guy who was in a relationship with a.
29:37
Speaker 1: Pregnant woman that already had one child.
29:39
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I was clearly not supportive.
29:41
Speaker 7: It was not ideal.
29:43
Speaker 6: I felt like it was something out of The Springer
29:47
Speaker 6: Show or something like it. Just it rereaked of just
29:52
Speaker 6: drama and chaos.
29:54
Speaker 1: Claire.
29:54
Speaker 3: It wasn't long after that that without any income not
29:58
Speaker 3: knowing what to do next, Jennifer decides to move back home.
30:02
Speaker 1: Isn't that where the ex is, correct, Nancy.
30:05
Speaker 5: So Jennifer moves back to her hometown of Bottom, Texas,
30:08
Speaker 5: and she moves in with her grandmother, and she's seen
30:12
Speaker 5: around town with Rob Holman, her ex husband.
30:15
Speaker 3: At that point, clear wasn't Holman already in another relationship?
30:21
Speaker 1: Yes he was.
30:22
Speaker 5: Rob was dating his new girlfriend and they had moved
30:27
Speaker 5: in together, but he was seeing Jennifer also, and it
30:32
Speaker 5: was something that she felt really uncomfortable about. She knew
30:37
Speaker 5: that he was going to continue to see his ex wife.
30:41
Speaker 5: And now Rob said that it was just like a
30:44
Speaker 5: cordial relationship. It was because their families knew each other
30:48
Speaker 5: and they had known each other for so long, but
30:50
Speaker 5: many people wondered if something else was going on.
30:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, for her to.
30:53
Speaker 3: Move back where he is, and then a bombshell, he says,
30:58
Speaker 3: it's a cordial relationship and that's it.
31:01
Speaker 1: Well, what about this?
31:02
Speaker 9: Jill Wagner gets a call from her best friend Jennifer.
31:05
Speaker 1: When Jennifer leads with you're.
31:07
Speaker 9: Not going to believe the mess I'm in, Jill takes
31:10
Speaker 9: a wild guess, you're pregnant? Jennifer tells her Rob Holman
31:14
Speaker 9: is the father and she doesn't know what to do.
31:17
Speaker 9: Holman doesn't seem to have any intention of breaking up
31:20
Speaker 9: with his girlfriend. Jill doesn't have much advice to offer,
31:24
Speaker 9: telling her friend to follow her gut, and.
31:28
Speaker 3: When she decides to tell her ex she's pregnant, she
31:33
Speaker 3: does not get the response most women hope for.
31:36
Speaker 19: Jennifer gets the courage to tell Rob about her pregnancy
31:39
Speaker 19: on a drive in date. The couple talks about their options,
31:41
Speaker 19: but Rob says he's overwhelmed and needs some time to process.
31:45
Speaker 19: They go their separate ways that evening without committing to
31:48
Speaker 19: any decision about the future.
31:57
Speaker 3: Crime stories with Nancy Grace, So let me understand, Alyssa,
32:03
Speaker 3: Jennifer's pregnant, and we're leading up to the moment she's
32:07
Speaker 3: discovered face.
32:07
Speaker 1: Down in the Red River. She believes it's her ex
32:11
Speaker 1: Holman's baby.
32:13
Speaker 3: She tells Holman and he says he's overwhelmed and that
32:19
Speaker 3: he didn't know what he wanted to do. He actually
32:24
Speaker 3: admits we just saw him on tape, stating she told
32:27
Speaker 3: me she was pregnant and it was mine.
32:29
Speaker 1: Did you know all that?
32:31
Speaker 6: I didn't know she was pregnant until I got to
32:34
Speaker 6: the house in my grandmother's house when she was missing,
32:37
Speaker 6: and I started kind of pilfering through items in the
32:41
Speaker 6: bathroom trying to find out any.
32:43
Speaker 7: Indication of what her mindset was.
32:45
Speaker 6: And I did find pregnancy tests, and that coupled with
32:50
Speaker 6: the fact that I found out that she was seeing
32:54
Speaker 6: Rob on the side, it just indicated to me that
32:59
Speaker 6: she was pregnant with his child.
33:01
Speaker 3: Yes, the pregnancy test she found, had it been used,
33:04
Speaker 3: did it say positive?
33:05
Speaker 1: It had not been used?
33:06
Speaker 6: That it was a packet of like two and one
33:09
Speaker 6: was missing.
33:09
Speaker 3: It's not long after this where she tells the X
33:13
Speaker 3: that she's pregnant by him.
33:16
Speaker 1: Her body is found. Listen.
33:17
Speaker 19: Six days into the search for Jennifer, a fisherman in
33:20
Speaker 19: the Red River calls nine to one one he sees
33:22
Speaker 19: a woman's naked body floating face down in the water.
33:26
Speaker 19: She has reddish brown hair. It's Jennifer. Her body is
33:29
Speaker 19: so badly decomposed a medical examiner cannot determine her cause
33:32
Speaker 19: of death, only classifying it as a violent homicide. There
33:36
Speaker 19: is damage to some of her internal organs, and shockingly,
33:39
Speaker 19: Jennifer's uterus is missing. Forensic experts cannot explain why, but
33:44
Speaker 19: believe it was destroyed by fish and turtles.
33:46
Speaker 3: And that is why the emmy cannot confirm she was pregnant,
33:50
Speaker 3: but we know that she was. Also, we are learning
33:54
Speaker 3: about a caretaker's home, an abandoned caretaker's home that was
33:59
Speaker 3: burned down the night Jennifer disappeared. What can you tell
34:04
Speaker 3: me about that, Clare Saint a.
34:05
Speaker 5: Mont So, this is a fascinating development, Nancy. There was
34:09
Speaker 5: a small caretaker's cottage that was near a private boat
34:14
Speaker 5: ramp in Fannin County and this cottage burned to the
34:19
Speaker 5: ground that night. And it's no known cause for why
34:25
Speaker 5: this would have burned down. There was not any electricity
34:28
Speaker 5: to the cabin. It really points to arson, an intentional
34:33
Speaker 5: lighting of this property, possibly to destroy evidence in Jennifer's murder.
34:40
Speaker 1: And then Moore added to the mystery Listen.
34:43
Speaker 11: A year after Jennifer Harris's murder, Deborah Lambert seize Jennifer's
34:47
Speaker 11: face on the news and realizes she recognizes her. Lambert
34:51
Speaker 11: immediately calls police. She says she was driving on the
34:53
Speaker 11: Red River Bridge and saw a redheaded woman with three men.
34:57
Speaker 11: Two of the men had the woman by the elbows
34:59
Speaker 11: while she struggled to get away. Lambert says she was
35:02
Speaker 11: too scared to get involved at the time, but she
35:05
Speaker 11: now believes that was Jennifer Harris.
35:07
Speaker 21: I made contact with her and she was scared, terrified,
35:12
Speaker 21: little corner face. My mom saying or two, and she
35:16
Speaker 21: said that girl's visit to get great.
35:18
Speaker 3: Thank you now for my friends at CBS forty eight
35:20
Speaker 3: hours too. Darryl Parker joining US board certified criminal defense
35:23
Speaker 3: investigator at Blackfish Intelligence.
35:29
Speaker 1: Darryl, I'm torn.
35:31
Speaker 3: When you spot a redhead, which is really statistically not often,
35:39
Speaker 3: that's stuck in this witness's mind.
35:41
Speaker 1: Okay.
35:43
Speaker 3: She says she made eye contact with the woman, the redhead,
35:47
Speaker 3: and that she looked terrified. Her mother, the witness's mother,
35:52
Speaker 3: saw the redhead and said that girl's.
35:55
Speaker 1: Facing and get raped and killed. Interesting.
35:59
Speaker 3: They did not call police, they did not report it,
36:02
Speaker 3: and they say there were three men. I find it
36:06
Speaker 3: very difficult to believe, Daryl, that three people have managed
36:10
Speaker 3: to keep quiet all this time.
36:13
Speaker 17: Yeah, whatever miss Lambert saw that day, it didn't have
36:16
Speaker 17: anything to do with Jennifer Harris.
36:18
Speaker 18: Jennifer Harris's whereabouts throughout the day, We're pretty.
36:21
Speaker 17: Well known through the investigation and the time of missus
36:25
Speaker 17: Lambert's reported siding of whatever happened was several hours before
36:30
Speaker 17: Jennifer went missing.
36:31
Speaker 3: Ah ah, huh, so we've got an inconsistency. But then
36:35
Speaker 3: there's the issue of a lineup.
36:38
Speaker 9: Listen, police create a lineup for Deborah Lambert in an
36:41
Speaker 9: attempt to identify the men she saw with Jennifer. Lambert
36:45
Speaker 9: picks Rob Holman out of the lineup. Sure he was
36:49
Speaker 9: one of the men she saw, but currently investigators cannot
36:52
Speaker 9: attest to the quality of the test. There are no
36:55
Speaker 9: records on who was included.
37:12
Speaker 2: Family members still looking for the murderer, who left Jennifer's
37:15
Speaker 2: body naked and floating in a river, and what happened
37:18
Speaker 2: to Jennifer's baby.
37:22
Speaker 19: Six days into the search for Jennifer, a fisherman in
37:25
Speaker 19: the Red River calls nine to one one. He sees
37:27
Speaker 19: a woman's naked body floating face down in the water.
37:30
Speaker 19: She has reddish brown hair. It's Jennifer. Her body is
37:34
Speaker 19: so badly decomposed a medical examiner cannot determine her cause
37:37
Speaker 19: of death, only classifying it as a violent homicide. There
37:41
Speaker 19: is damage to some of her internal organs and Shockingly,
37:44
Speaker 19: Jennifer's uterus is missing. Forensic experts cannot explain why, but
37:49
Speaker 19: believe it was destroyed by fish and turtles.
37:51
Speaker 3: Claire tell me about the ill fated lineup.
37:55
Speaker 5: So, Nancy, people wonder if this lineup was done properly.
38:00
Speaker 5: There was a way that possibly it was tainted, that
38:03
Speaker 5: it could have been that the position that you know,
38:06
Speaker 5: Rob's photo was in that it led the eyewitness to
38:11
Speaker 5: use it. But you know, ultimately he was identified as
38:15
Speaker 5: who they believed to be the person on the Red
38:18
Speaker 5: River Bridge.
38:19
Speaker 1: And there's more. Listen Mother's Day.
38:22
Speaker 19: Eight years after Jennifer Harris's murder, Fanin County, Lieutenant Sheriff
38:26
Speaker 19: Darryl Parker takes a stack of Harris family photos to
38:29
Speaker 19: Rob Holman's home. Holman is struck by a photo of
38:32
Speaker 19: Jennifer swimming in muddy water and seems to get emotional.
38:35
Speaker 19: Parker gives Holman his card and just a few hours
38:38
Speaker 19: later gets a call. Holman wants to talk. Caught off guard,
38:42
Speaker 19: Parker schedules an interview for the next day, but by
38:44
Speaker 19: then Holman's lost his nerve and lawyered up.
38:48
Speaker 8: Did you have anything to do with death of Jenniferer's No,
38:51
Speaker 8: Jennifer's preynancy.
38:53
Speaker 10: Did you believe she was predant?
38:54
Speaker 5: No?
38:55
Speaker 10: How did he like sho did you think that she
38:58
Speaker 10: believed she was pregnant?
39:00
Speaker 3: That from our friends at CBS forty eight hours, Claire,
39:04
Speaker 3: explain to me what we are hearing. So the ex,
39:09
Speaker 3: who is not named, a suspect at this juncture, So
39:15
Speaker 3: the ex wants to confess, they say, come in.
39:19
Speaker 1: The next day, and by then he's lawyered up and
39:22
Speaker 1: won't give a statement.
39:23
Speaker 5: Correct, and he no longer is willing to talk. He's
39:26
Speaker 5: no longer willing to take a polygraph as he had
39:29
Speaker 5: previously said that he would be willing to do. You know,
39:32
Speaker 5: in the recorded interviews that we have with Rob Holman,
39:37
Speaker 5: right when Jennifer goes missing, I think we have the
39:40
Speaker 5: most reliable information. That's whenever he says that he knew
39:45
Speaker 5: that she was pregnant, that he asked her to get
39:47
Speaker 5: an abortion, that he didn't want her to have the baby,
39:50
Speaker 5: that it would ruin his life, that she had threatened
39:53
Speaker 5: to come to the house and tell his new girlfriend
39:56
Speaker 5: that she was pregnant with his child, and all of
39:59
Speaker 5: these things are sort of spilling out of him in
40:01
Speaker 5: this initial interview with police, but in future conversations once
40:06
Speaker 5: he's represented by an attorney, he says he didn't know
40:09
Speaker 5: she was pregnant. He says he didn't have any idea
40:13
Speaker 5: that the baby, you know, that there was a baby,
40:15
Speaker 5: or that it could be his, and he's completely changed
40:18
Speaker 5: his story.
40:19
Speaker 1: Nancy Claire Sittlement, that's a problem.
40:21
Speaker 3: It's a problem not when you add facts to your statement,
40:26
Speaker 3: but when you actually change facts.
40:29
Speaker 1: That's when there's a problem.
40:30
Speaker 5: You would think it would raise more suspicions. But in
40:33
Speaker 5: you know, Rob Holman's case, he was never rested, never charged,
40:37
Speaker 5: never had to face any more scrutiny for the fact
40:43
Speaker 5: that he changed his story that he now says that
40:46
Speaker 5: he didn't believe that she was pregnant. You know, this
40:49
Speaker 5: should be a huge investigative turn, I would think.
40:53
Speaker 14: But he was never arrested, never charged again. He is
40:58
Speaker 14: not named a suspect, has not been charged. Just because
41:01
Speaker 14: he gave conflicting statements does not mean he's.
41:05
Speaker 1: Going to be charged with murder. As of right now,
41:08
Speaker 1: we don't even have a cod cause of death.
41:12
Speaker 3: There is a fifty thousand dollar reward for evidence information
41:19
Speaker 3: regarding what happened to Jennifer. If you know or think
41:24
Speaker 3: you know anything about what happened to Jennifer, please dial
41:30
Speaker 3: one nine zero three five eight three two one four three.
41:36
Speaker 3: We stop now and remember an American hero, Lauren Michael
41:40
Speaker 3: Court's Detroit PD shot and killed in the line of duty,
41:45
Speaker 3: Survived by grieving mother Lillian and father a retired Detroit
41:51
Speaker 3: Police officer, wife Kirsten, now a widow and son Darien,
41:58
Speaker 3: daughter Devin. American hero police officer Lauren Michael COURTZ Nancy
42:05
Speaker 3: Gray signing off goodbye friend.