Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Breast Milk Proves Murder, Hubby Poisons Wife with Heroin

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Breast Milk Proves Murder, Hubby Poisons Wife with Heroin · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous young mother still breastfeeding,
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Speaker 1: ends up dead. The coroner's report says she was on
0:23
Speaker 1: heroin that it was an overdose, but her family is
0:28
Speaker 1: insistent she had never done drugs. But there's no doubt
0:34
Speaker 1: about the toxicology report. There is heroine in her system.
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Speaker 1: So how exactly did Christina die leaving behind a child
0:45
Speaker 1: still breastfeeding? I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank
0:49
Speaker 1: you for being with us here at Fox Nation and
0:51
Speaker 1: Sirius XM one eleven take a listen to our friends
0:55
Speaker 1: at crime online dot com. Just after ten am on
0:58
Speaker 1: September twenty ninth, Chase and Harris called, asking his neighbor
1:02
Speaker 1: to check on his wife. It was the second time
1:05
Speaker 1: he had made that request. The first was just eleven
1:08
Speaker 1: days before. In that instance, Jason Harris asked his neighbor
1:11
Speaker 1: to see if his wife's vehicle was still in the driveway.
1:14
Speaker 1: He was afraid his wife, Christina, had overslept. The neighbor
1:18
Speaker 1: went to a side door but got no answer to
1:21
Speaker 1: her knock. She was able to open the door and
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Speaker 1: call out to Christina, who then answered her. The second time,
1:27
Speaker 1: September twenty ninth. The neighbor again went to the door,
1:29
Speaker 1: which was unlocked. Christina Harris was in bed with the
1:33
Speaker 1: covers pulled over her face. The neighbor touched Christina but
1:36
Speaker 1: there was no response. Thinking Harris was still asleep, she
1:40
Speaker 1: left and called Jason Harris to let him know. Concerned.
1:43
Speaker 1: The neighbor went back and Christina was cold to the touch, stiff,
1:47
Speaker 1: and had phone coming out of her mouth. The neighbor
1:50
Speaker 1: also said Christina had no pulse and wasn't breathing. She
1:54
Speaker 1: called nine one one and another neighbor who was a
1:57
Speaker 1: registered nurse to help. Christina Harris was dead. This young
2:02
Speaker 1: mom was a little baby, still breastfeeding Dan in her
2:06
Speaker 1: own bed, frothing at the mouth. What happened with me?
2:10
Speaker 1: An all star panel to make sense of what we
2:13
Speaker 1: know now? First of all, Matthew Mangino, former elected district attorney,
2:17
Speaker 1: now private lawyer and author of The Executioner's Toll. Doctor
2:22
Speaker 1: Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologists joining us specializing in crimes of
2:27
Speaker 1: this nature her book Criminal Behavior and Where Law and
2:31
Speaker 1: Psychology Intersect. Justin Boordman, former Special Victims Unit Detective West
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Speaker 1: Valley and author of I Was Wrong an investigator's battle
2:40
Speaker 1: cry for change within the SVU. Doctor Michelle Dupree, medical examiner,
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Speaker 1: forensic pathologist, detective and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide.
2:51
Speaker 1: But first to Karen Drew special guests joining US TV
2:55
Speaker 1: news anchor investigative reporter with w d I, VTV NBC.
2:59
Speaker 1: Karen Thay, thank you so much for being with us. Karen.
3:02
Speaker 1: First of all, take a listen to our cut one,
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Speaker 1: who is Christina Harris. Christina and Thompson and Jason Harris
3:09
Speaker 1: were married for eleven years, but they had been a
3:11
Speaker 1: couple for five years before that. Six years into the marriage,
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Speaker 1: they welcomed a daughter. Five years later, daughter number two
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Speaker 1: was born. Christina Harris's family says she loves swimming, crafting,
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Speaker 1: and family game night and being a stay at home mom.
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Speaker 1: She was still breastfeeding and stalking a freezer full of
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Speaker 1: milk for her infant. The little girl was just eight
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Speaker 1: months old when Harris was found dead in their home.
3:35
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine to you, Karen Drew. I remember
3:39
Speaker 1: when I gave birth to the twins, Lucy and I
3:41
Speaker 1: almost died and it was horrible. We were all in
3:46
Speaker 1: intensive care. The children says of care a really long time.
3:50
Speaker 1: And I remember lying there in the bed thinking, am
3:55
Speaker 1: I going to die? And I going to watch my
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Speaker 1: children from the other side of life grow up without
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Speaker 1: a mother? And that thought consumed me. And here is
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Speaker 1: this woman, Christina Harris, with this eight month old baby girl. God,
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Speaker 1: no mother to raise a child. Tell me what happened?
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Speaker 1: What was her toxicology report? Heroin? That is what investigators
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Speaker 1: found Nancy, that there was haroin in her system. And
4:24
Speaker 1: I can tell you I talked with family, I talked
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Speaker 1: with one of her best friends, and they were flabbergasted.
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Speaker 1: They knew her, They knew her well. I mean ever
4:33
Speaker 1: since she was a young person, when she met Jason
4:35
Speaker 1: as a teenager, her husband, she had always dreamed about
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Speaker 1: being a mom. She always wanted to be this terrific mom.
4:42
Speaker 1: Breastfeeding was so important, healthy food, spending time with the children,
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Speaker 1: and you know, Nancy, the whole bond that you have
4:50
Speaker 1: with breastfeeding a child, that was very, very important to her.
4:54
Speaker 1: She took being a mom very serious. She worked part
4:59
Speaker 1: time at a local subway shop to pick up a
5:02
Speaker 1: few hours just to help ends meet, you know, but
5:06
Speaker 1: but her priority was being a mom, being there for
5:08
Speaker 1: her kids and taking care of them the best way
5:11
Speaker 1: she could. And so when family found out that there
5:14
Speaker 1: was heroin in there in her system, they just simply said,
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Speaker 1: no way, not possible. You know, to doctor Sherry Schwartz,
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Speaker 1: family and friends they always think they know you so well.
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Speaker 1: But if you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, that
5:31
Speaker 1: can make even any mom do things she would normally do,
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Speaker 1: things that she would keep secret from family and friends,
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Speaker 1: like drugs and alcohol addiction. Well, that's absolutely right, but
5:42
Speaker 1: when we're talking about a drug like heroin, that's kind
5:45
Speaker 1: of a hard one to keep a secret, right, because
5:47
Speaker 1: there's also physical signs, not just the impairment, but you
5:52
Speaker 1: would see possibly track marks, right clouded thinking flu like symptoms,
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Speaker 1: So that would be hard to mask from people who
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Speaker 1: see you frequently. You're right, heroin is pretty hard to
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Speaker 1: hie to you. Karen Drew joining us to WDIVTV. Karen,
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Speaker 1: what can you tell us about the day that Christina
6:13
Speaker 1: was found dead? Well, it was a little different kind
6:16
Speaker 1: of a day. Her husband, they lived in a middle
6:21
Speaker 1: to lower class community, he had gone to work with it,
6:26
Speaker 1: went to work a little bit earlier than normal, and
6:29
Speaker 1: she would be at home with the kids. He left,
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Speaker 1: and from what we understand, he was trying to call
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Speaker 1: her later in the morning, you know, around that eight
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Speaker 1: nine o'clock time, and hadn't heard from her, and that
6:41
Speaker 1: seemed a little strange because she would be up by
6:42
Speaker 1: that time with the kids and called a couple of times,
6:45
Speaker 1: didn't hear from her. He became worried, so he called
6:49
Speaker 1: the neighbor that lived right in back of the house,
6:52
Speaker 1: and I had talked to her too, and she said
6:54
Speaker 1: she was It was a little surprising to hear from Jason,
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Speaker 1: her husband, but then he had called her one time
6:59
Speaker 1: before or just kind of making sure that his wife
7:02
Speaker 1: was okay. So he just said, hey, can you just
7:04
Speaker 1: check on Christie and knock on the door. I've been
7:07
Speaker 1: trying to call her. So then a neighbor went over
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Speaker 1: to the house and as you had said earlier, then
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Speaker 1: found her pretty much lifeless, with foam from the mouth
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Speaker 1: in the bed, a very scary situation for her. So
7:21
Speaker 1: then she they called another neighbor who was a registered
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Speaker 1: nurse and she came in. At that point she knew
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Speaker 1: Christie was dead. She was lifeless. To doctor Michelle Dupree,
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Speaker 1: former forensic pathologists medical examiner, and author doctor Dupree. What
7:36
Speaker 1: does that mean when you have phone coming out of
7:38
Speaker 1: your lips and death? Well, Nancy, this is typically pulmonary edema,
7:42
Speaker 1: which means that your lungs are filling up with lung
7:44
Speaker 1: with water and fluids. And we often see this in
7:48
Speaker 1: especially two types of death. One is drowning and one
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Speaker 1: is a drug overdose. Now how does that work? How
7:53
Speaker 1: do you get liquid in your lungs? I understand from
7:55
Speaker 1: drowning because you breathe in the water and then you
7:58
Speaker 1: aspirate it up. Why would you aspirate? Why would you
8:02
Speaker 1: breathe out liquid foam after a drug overdose? Because in
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Speaker 1: this case, especially with something like heroine, which is a depressant,
8:11
Speaker 1: a central nervous system depressant, your lungs stunt function as
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Speaker 1: they should, and so even your saliva and the fluids
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Speaker 1: that you would just normally cough up are going to
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Speaker 1: be retained in your lungs and caused at wait wait
8:24
Speaker 1: wait wait, wait, wait right there, right there saliva. Of course,
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Speaker 1: you're the MD, I'm just a JD. But why would
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Speaker 1: there be saliva in your lungs? Isn't that in your stomach?
8:34
Speaker 1: I don't again, how Because you have you take drugs,
8:38
Speaker 1: and you have a drug od you get fluid in
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Speaker 1: your lungs. It's in your mouth, saliva is in your mouth,
8:43
Speaker 1: and you don't really swallow it down your esophagus as
8:46
Speaker 1: you should. Instead it goes down your trachea and into
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Speaker 1: your lungs in addition the surrounding tissue. The fluids just
8:53
Speaker 1: begin to ease out because your body is not functioning
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Speaker 1: as it should. It's depressed and it isn't working as
9:00
Speaker 1: properly as it would. Okay, see doctor Dufree, you're the
9:04
Speaker 1: reason that the medical examiner and all of the examiner's
9:09
Speaker 1: staff would hide when they would see my beat up
9:11
Speaker 1: toyota come into the parking lot to see everything you
9:15
Speaker 1: just said. That makes no sense to me at all.
9:18
Speaker 1: Now you said something about and I would have to
9:21
Speaker 1: go through every medical examiner report and their page is
9:25
Speaker 1: a line by line and go what does that mean? Okay?
9:29
Speaker 1: What does that mean? So I heard you say, Jackie,
9:32
Speaker 1: did you hear say this? That fluid eases out? What
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Speaker 1: fluid eases out? Then you die? I don't understand that, yes,
9:42
Speaker 1: eases out of what? Into what our vessels are, Our
9:46
Speaker 1: blood vessels are under pressure, our lymph vessels are under
9:50
Speaker 1: pressure because our heart is pumping normally and is pumping strongly.
9:55
Speaker 1: When that heart begins to pump weakly, not as it
9:59
Speaker 1: should in the pressure that is holding our vessels and
10:04
Speaker 1: all the fluids inside of our vessels together begins to ease.
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Speaker 1: And that's why we have a plural pulmonary edema or
10:14
Speaker 1: plural fusion. Things sucked out when someone is is CNS
10:19
Speaker 1: to press. Okay, the only way King could make sense
10:22
Speaker 1: of what you're saying is, okay, don't laugh, doctor Duprey,
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Speaker 1: which I know you're laughing right into your fist, is
10:29
Speaker 1: comparing it to gravity. As long as the earth keeps spinning,
10:32
Speaker 1: You got that gravity. The moment it stops, like the
10:35
Speaker 1: heart stops suddenly, poof, we all just float away. So
10:38
Speaker 1: as soon as the heart stops pumping, that pressure going
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Speaker 1: through the veins and all of the organ stops, and
10:46
Speaker 1: as you said, ease is out. And as she's barely
10:49
Speaker 1: still breathing, that fluid that is now accumulating her lungs
10:54
Speaker 1: comes out as froth out of her mouth. Now, let
10:58
Speaker 1: me ask, do you actually asphyxiate on that froth? I mean,
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Speaker 1: why would you die or do you die because your
11:04
Speaker 1: heart stops because the heroine slows it down. You really
11:08
Speaker 1: die because it is a central nervous system depressing and
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Speaker 1: all of your organ functions, your brain. Did you just
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Speaker 1: say in your own special way that your heart stops
11:17
Speaker 1: because it's depressed. Yes, it slows down and then it
11:20
Speaker 1: eventually stops, as does your brain. Okay, I think it
11:23
Speaker 1: should be repressed, because depressed seems like the heart is sad. Well,
11:29
Speaker 1: so that it is. But what I'm saying is it stops.
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Speaker 1: It slows the heart down so much the heart stops,
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Speaker 1: and that's why you die with an overdose. Yes, your heart,
11:39
Speaker 1: own brain stop. Yes, okay. Just as an aside, What
11:42
Speaker 1: about if you're on meth, which speeds you up? How
11:45
Speaker 1: do you odon meth well? On math? Because it is
11:47
Speaker 1: a stimula, as you said, it speeds everything up. You
11:50
Speaker 1: can actually speed your heart up so fast that you
11:52
Speaker 1: have an arrhythmia, and that can cause death. I knew
11:55
Speaker 1: you'd have an answer, and that one I understood pretty
11:58
Speaker 1: easily time stories with Nancy Grace. Isn't it true, Matthew Mangina,
12:16
Speaker 1: You were the elected DA now a private lawyer. Juries
12:20
Speaker 1: can't well in most jurisdictions. I had one judge, and
12:23
Speaker 1: the judge was suddenly just blurt out a question in
12:26
Speaker 1: my director cross exam, just out of the blue, and
12:29
Speaker 1: he would let the jurars blurt out questions and the
12:33
Speaker 1: middle of the and it could be a question I
12:35
Speaker 1: didn't want the answer to. But jurars typically cannot blurt
12:42
Speaker 1: out a question. So that is why, Matthew, we have
12:47
Speaker 1: to pin down the witnesses and especially experts who taught
12:51
Speaker 1: their own language before they get on the stand so
12:54
Speaker 1: they make sense to the jury. I'm not a cross
12:57
Speaker 1: examining dupree any more than I would anybody else. Let's
13:00
Speaker 1: put on the stand, well, right, I mean it's important
13:03
Speaker 1: that a witness that you've called as an expert does
13:07
Speaker 1: not speak in terms that a jury isn't going to
13:11
Speaker 1: be able to relate to hear that we can we
13:16
Speaker 1: can sit and talk about all these things and you know,
13:19
Speaker 1: all these different medical terms, which really won't amount to
13:23
Speaker 1: a hill of beans for a lot of jurors. So
13:27
Speaker 1: you have to be sure that you spend the appropriate
13:29
Speaker 1: amount of time with your expert witnesses, with the medical
13:32
Speaker 1: examiner that that that we're talking in Layman's terms. And
13:36
Speaker 1: I think when you watch a trial you find that
13:39
Speaker 1: the most compelling expert witnesses are the kind of folk
13:44
Speaker 1: see kind of uh person who can talk layman's terms
13:50
Speaker 1: and relate to issues that the jury is going to
13:53
Speaker 1: be able to understand. And so that's always an important
13:57
Speaker 1: aspect of preparing for a case, you know, the astutely.
14:01
Speaker 1: And for example, when when I'm in court, I often
14:04
Speaker 1: look at the jury and I'll answer a question by
14:06
Speaker 1: starting off saying, it's not like how it happens on TV.
14:10
Speaker 1: Here's the way it really happens. That's so true, doctor Dupree.
14:14
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's just yours that don't understand.
14:18
Speaker 1: I don't think lawyers know what the doctors are saying either,
14:21
Speaker 1: but they're too pompous to admit they don't know what
14:23
Speaker 1: the hay is going on, so they just act like
14:25
Speaker 1: they know what jump in Matthew Well, I think it's
14:28
Speaker 1: interesting when when you look at this case, uh, you know,
14:33
Speaker 1: what did the police do in terms of their investigation.
14:37
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a thirty six year old woman
14:39
Speaker 1: who's otherwise healthy. Um, you know you found her in
14:44
Speaker 1: her bed overdosed, as we've heard on heroin. But but
14:51
Speaker 1: did you search the house? Was that was there heroin
14:53
Speaker 1: found in the house? Were there any tools that typically used, uh,
14:58
Speaker 1: you know, to use heroin? Was this hero when inject did?
15:01
Speaker 1: Was this heroine in hell? You know how that's really smart,
15:05
Speaker 1: Matthew Ngino, And you're absolutely right. As cops love to
15:08
Speaker 1: call it drug paraphernalia. And I know why they say
15:11
Speaker 1: that because there's such a long list adre paraphernalia you
15:15
Speaker 1: can't fit it onto an indictment that we're talking about
15:18
Speaker 1: your syringe, we're talking about your spoon, we're talking about
15:21
Speaker 1: your bond. Just there's so much drug paraphernalia they call
15:24
Speaker 1: it all paraphernalia. And that's a really good question. Kieren
15:28
Speaker 1: Drew joining us, who's been on this from the very
15:31
Speaker 1: very beginning when she heard that Christina's family sisters were
15:35
Speaker 1: she's never done drugs ever, This isn't true, This can't
15:39
Speaker 1: be right. But they check and they recheck the toxicology
15:42
Speaker 1: and oh yes, she did od on heroin, Kieren Drew
15:47
Speaker 1: joining us, WDIV Did they search the home for drug
15:52
Speaker 1: paraphernalia or her heroine stash? From what we understand, Nancy,
15:57
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the home was searched, but I have
15:59
Speaker 1: to tell you that the detective that was there at
16:03
Speaker 1: the time when they obviously everyone responds to the body.
16:06
Speaker 1: Then Jason came home from work obviously distraught. UM, they
16:12
Speaker 1: rushed the body to a hospital, and then after the
16:15
Speaker 1: body was removed, from what we understand, the detective left
16:20
Speaker 1: because they thought it was an overdose case. So there
16:23
Speaker 1: wasn't I mean there from what we understand, there was
16:25
Speaker 1: nothing else found drug related in the home. UM. I
16:29
Speaker 1: don't have the tabulations from from if there was a
16:32
Speaker 1: search warrant that was presented, but everything from what I
16:35
Speaker 1: understand talking with family, talking to detectives, and talking to
16:38
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, there was nothing found in the house that
16:41
Speaker 1: really supported a drug habit a drug paraphernalia. UM. You know,
16:48
Speaker 1: so that was a little bit of a mystery there
16:50
Speaker 1: or did they really even look? And that's you know,
16:53
Speaker 1: a Nancy, that's the question, did they? Because I had
16:56
Speaker 1: to kind of give you this then for Davison. Davison,
17:00
Speaker 1: Chigan is a small town, and I mean small um
17:04
Speaker 1: murder crime, robbery that doesn't happen in Davison. It's just
17:09
Speaker 1: a small town, a small police force. So that's not
17:13
Speaker 1: really on your radar when something happens. There's not a
17:15
Speaker 1: lot of detectives that are searching for clues. There's just
17:19
Speaker 1: not a lot of experience. And so that that's been
17:21
Speaker 1: brought up too. Was there something, did they miss something,
17:25
Speaker 1: did they do a search? Was it complete? Because it
17:29
Speaker 1: just was a place that you know, there isn't a
17:31
Speaker 1: whole lot of crime, not a lot of a lot
17:33
Speaker 1: of police experience, and that that has been really examined
17:37
Speaker 1: a lot in this case. You know, go ahead, jump
17:41
Speaker 1: in so you know, another really good method in this
17:44
Speaker 1: case of a forensic method. We can analyze the hair
17:48
Speaker 1: to determine if it has been long term heroin use.
17:51
Speaker 1: You know that that can tell a real story. I
17:53
Speaker 1: did not know that that you could actually tell in
17:57
Speaker 1: the hair, which grows of course from the route. A
18:00
Speaker 1: lot of people think your hair grows from the tip.
18:03
Speaker 1: It doesn't. And in your hair as it grows out,
18:06
Speaker 1: it could be tested to see what you had ingested
18:09
Speaker 1: drug wise a week, two weeks, a month, even longer
18:13
Speaker 1: before that is so smart, doctor Dupree, listen to this.
18:18
Speaker 1: Christina Harris's cause of death was initially ruled an accident
18:22
Speaker 1: by the Medical Examiner's office after a blood sample tested
18:26
Speaker 1: positive for opiates, but her family was adamant Christina did
18:30
Speaker 1: not use drugs. The family even insisted police officers test
18:34
Speaker 1: her frozen breast milk to prove it. Remember, Harris was
18:37
Speaker 1: still breastfeeding and eight month old. Friends and family said
18:41
Speaker 1: Harris was very careful about what she put into her body. Plus,
18:45
Speaker 1: she was supposed to go to an obgy unemployment the
18:48
Speaker 1: morning she was found. You know too, Karen Drew joining
18:52
Speaker 1: us D I VTV. I find it very odd that
18:55
Speaker 1: she would actually take heroin just before she was going
18:59
Speaker 1: to the OBG. I right, I agree, that seems a
19:02
Speaker 1: little strange if you know you're going to the doctor's office.
19:05
Speaker 1: I mean, we all knew how serious of a mom
19:08
Speaker 1: she was in terms of she was really everything family
19:11
Speaker 1: told me, you know, cared about the kids and making
19:14
Speaker 1: sure the sockets in the wall were plugged, and getting
19:17
Speaker 1: healthy food and doing all of this. So it seems
19:20
Speaker 1: strange if she was doing heroin that she would even
19:25
Speaker 1: be breastfeeding then, or if she was doing heroin she
19:28
Speaker 1: was going to go to the doctor the same day. So,
19:30
Speaker 1: so let me ask you a question. Your so, I
19:33
Speaker 1: keep hearing that, the family became upset. They insisted she
19:36
Speaker 1: had never used drugs. Who in the family was upset.
19:40
Speaker 1: The mother was very upset, and she had two sisters,
19:44
Speaker 1: And I will tell you those sisters were are a force.
19:47
Speaker 1: I mean they really, really really were strong on this,
19:51
Speaker 1: and really Patricia and Katrina just were very vehement. They said,
19:55
Speaker 1: there's just no way I know her. We spend you know,
19:58
Speaker 1: we do birthday parties, we got do we have coffee
20:01
Speaker 1: together in the morning. I mean, it wasn't just like
20:03
Speaker 1: we just visit on the weekends. They saw each other
20:05
Speaker 1: and talk to each other almost every single day, so
20:08
Speaker 1: they they felt they really knew their sisters. I guess
20:11
Speaker 1: the police were saying, yeah, we hear you, We hear you.
20:14
Speaker 1: But the blood test show it was oh date heroin,
20:19
Speaker 1: take a list to our cut Jay Davidson. Police didn't
20:21
Speaker 1: consider the mother of two's death a murder, that is
20:25
Speaker 1: until Christie's sisters started nosing around. And I'm not a detective,
20:29
Speaker 1: but I mean I looked up more than I've ever
20:32
Speaker 1: looked up before. Their first concern how the crime scene
20:35
Speaker 1: was handled. The day their sister's body was found inside
20:37
Speaker 1: her Davison home, remember, her death was deemed an accidental
20:41
Speaker 1: drug overdose. As soon as my sister's body left the
20:45
Speaker 1: house and the officer left when she left, then there
20:49
Speaker 1: is their sister's breast milk. The family kept telling police
20:52
Speaker 1: to check Christie's milk, it would show she was not
20:55
Speaker 1: doing drugs. No tests were run. They had information at
20:59
Speaker 1: their fingertips that they ignored within the first forty eight
21:04
Speaker 1: hours Prime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, I don't believe
21:16
Speaker 1: I've ever had the opportunity to say this in a
21:19
Speaker 1: single case I investigated, prosecutor or covered. Let's talk about
21:24
Speaker 1: breast milk all right too, Doctor Michelle Dupree, former forensic pathologists,
21:30
Speaker 1: medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. What
21:35
Speaker 1: will breast milk show? Probatively speaking, like, what can it prove? Well, Nancy,
21:42
Speaker 1: it can actually prove that there was in this case,
21:44
Speaker 1: heroin in the mother because it is an end the
21:48
Speaker 1: mother's milk. It also passes along aunt basically antibiotics and
21:52
Speaker 1: things like that. So basically, whatever you drink or eat
21:56
Speaker 1: will be passed to your baby through your breast milk. Yes, exactly, Huh.
22:03
Speaker 1: I mean I've heard cases where mom would have Mexican
22:05
Speaker 1: food and then breastfeed, and the baby would get a
22:09
Speaker 1: six stomach and burt and carry on because it's getting
22:12
Speaker 1: the after effects of spicy food exactly. And that's real. Yes,
22:16
Speaker 1: it is real, and the same thing with alcohol or
22:19
Speaker 1: drugs in this case, Blessing whoever that was justin Bourman.
22:23
Speaker 1: Let me go to you, former Special Victims Unit detective
22:25
Speaker 1: and author. Why would the police be so resistant to
22:31
Speaker 1: the sisters saying there's something wrong without toxicology. Get her
22:36
Speaker 1: breast milk. It's it's in the freezer. Well, we seem
22:40
Speaker 1: to as a profession sometimes get stuck in our stylos
22:43
Speaker 1: and not look quite out of them, if you will,
22:48
Speaker 1: or ask questions. As a profession, we are responding to
22:53
Speaker 1: overdose after overdose after overdose, and when we respond on
22:59
Speaker 1: a body and we see the phone cone is what
23:01
Speaker 1: we're calling it, if you will, um, we go okay, well,
23:05
Speaker 1: it looks like an opioid overdose. And one of my
23:10
Speaker 1: questions for doctor Dupree was we keep calling this heroin
23:14
Speaker 1: and this is something that's that's that's fine. I don't
23:17
Speaker 1: know that if it was exactly heroin, but with heroin
23:21
Speaker 1: and an opioid like oxyconton show up in the testing
23:26
Speaker 1: as the same like an opioid. Are we assuming it
23:29
Speaker 1: was heroin? That's what about it, doctor Dufree. What it
23:32
Speaker 1: show up is the same if it's Sarah Win versus
23:34
Speaker 1: oxy basically to show up as as metabolites probably of
23:38
Speaker 1: whatever the original drug was. There may be some native
23:42
Speaker 1: drug as well, and that's one of the things we
23:44
Speaker 1: do is we compare the metabolites to the native drug
23:46
Speaker 1: to determine how long that has been in the system.
23:49
Speaker 1: What did she say? Okay, let me jumping down my question. Okay,
23:53
Speaker 1: if she had taken oxyoxyconton, for instance, oxycodone, would it
23:58
Speaker 1: show up in the task called to test the same
24:01
Speaker 1: way heroin would That's a yes, no, doctor Dupree. Essentially yes.
24:06
Speaker 1: I knew you would not do it in one world.
24:08
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the other world was gonna be.
24:10
Speaker 1: Now I know it's essentially okay, So there's no answer.
24:14
Speaker 1: You know what I think, Kara is Drew W. D Ivy.
24:17
Speaker 1: I think that many times cops discount what women tell them.
24:22
Speaker 1: Women will karage me. I hear somebody grinding ground all
24:27
Speaker 1: you want to don't care. I think that the cops
24:31
Speaker 1: went of, the sisters are calling again, who's gonna take
24:33
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen home alone? When he the mom
24:37
Speaker 1: is calling from Paris and they go, a, it's the
24:39
Speaker 1: mom again, you take it, same thing, it's the sisters again. Ah,
24:44
Speaker 1: she's a she's a hair and went at it. Why
24:46
Speaker 1: why do they keep calling me? You know that's what happened,
24:49
Speaker 1: Karen Drew. I've seen it in the stories I've covered.
24:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean there's many times that there's the
24:54
Speaker 1: eyes roll back and say, okay, whatever, and come on,
24:57
Speaker 1: it's the sisters. What family really very rarely, unless it's
25:01
Speaker 1: a very well known drug addiction, does family know about it.
25:05
Speaker 1: Many times family is surprised and family says, this isn't true,
25:08
Speaker 1: this couldn't be. So it's no surprise they said that.
25:10
Speaker 1: And you're right with the with the way the body reacted.
25:14
Speaker 1: You know, the authorities are thinking one way. But but
25:17
Speaker 1: but I have to say, manthing, they have this breast
25:19
Speaker 1: milk that they said they had, and they're like, I
25:22
Speaker 1: felt like that that kind of opens the doors too,
25:25
Speaker 1: like could we check it? Could we check it? And
25:28
Speaker 1: but they like the other these sisters, they don't check it.
25:31
Speaker 1: But no, they wouldn't check it anything. Are stubborn personal
25:36
Speaker 1: biases or one of those reasons, those male biases if
25:39
Speaker 1: you will. Um, but I think he's admitting. I've got
25:43
Speaker 1: two guys on the panel, Justin Boorman and Matthew Ma
25:47
Speaker 1: and Gina, who's confessing to male bias Justin is Then
25:51
Speaker 1: everything went quiet more. Yeah. So you've got the sisters
25:56
Speaker 1: just riding the police like a mule, insisting they're all wrong,
26:02
Speaker 1: begging them to test the breast milk. They won't do it.
26:06
Speaker 1: But wait, wait, wait, now, listen to this. Take a list.
26:09
Speaker 1: An hour cut four from Crime Online, Sheila Coop told
26:13
Speaker 1: police that on one occasion, she saw Christie Harris run
26:16
Speaker 1: out of her home visibly upset, sobbing. Harris told her
26:19
Speaker 1: that Jason Harris was cheating and her newborn was just
26:23
Speaker 1: two weeks old. Other family and friends also thought Jason
26:26
Speaker 1: Harris was seeing other femine. Nearly five thousand, nine hundred
26:30
Speaker 1: texts were found to a woman from Providence, Rhode Island.
26:33
Speaker 1: There were also emails and pictures sent to several other women.
26:37
Speaker 1: Nine days after Christina died, Jason Harris bought a plane
26:41
Speaker 1: ticket to go visit the woman in Providence. Not long
26:44
Speaker 1: after that, a woman and her daughter moved in with
26:46
Speaker 1: Jason Harris in the home where Christina had died. What
26:50
Speaker 1: more will it take to put a fire under the
26:53
Speaker 1: rear ends of the police. A woman moves into the
26:56
Speaker 1: home right after Christina dies and brings her order two.
27:01
Speaker 1: They didn't know that Karen Drew. Oh, folks knew that, Nancy.
27:04
Speaker 1: I mean again, this is a small town. People know
27:07
Speaker 1: what's going on. And she moved in and the kids
27:11
Speaker 1: are in the house, and it just seems strange, no
27:13
Speaker 1: matter what, like what's going on. So yes, lots of
27:16
Speaker 1: people were. I talked to two of the neighbors and
27:18
Speaker 1: they were They were very upset. It seemed very strange.
27:22
Speaker 1: The sisters were mad. They didn't know what was going on.
27:25
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not illegal to move someone into
27:28
Speaker 1: your house, so you know, there was no action from police.
27:32
Speaker 1: It took two years, two years after the heroin overdose
27:41
Speaker 1: before anybody finally got around to testing that breast milk.
27:47
Speaker 1: Now you know, another woman has moved into the home
27:50
Speaker 1: with her children, so I doubt very seriously that the
27:55
Speaker 1: new girlfriend would keep the ex wife's breast milk in
27:59
Speaker 1: the freezer. Wait a minute. Thank a listen to our
28:03
Speaker 1: cut F W d Ivy. Two years after the medical
28:07
Speaker 1: examiner ruled her death an accidental overdose, a key piece
28:11
Speaker 1: of evidence was found at her parents' house. Police were
28:15
Speaker 1: able to secure three plastic packages of Christina Harris's frozen
28:21
Speaker 1: breast milk that were placed in a cooler. All three
28:25
Speaker 1: of those were submitted to the Michigan State Police crime lab.
28:29
Speaker 1: In each instance, no controlled substance was detected. So then,
28:36
Speaker 1: how did heroine get into her system? Take a listen
28:43
Speaker 1: to more from Michigan State Police. You believe Jason Harris
28:49
Speaker 1: murdered his wife. We believe he put heroin into her
28:55
Speaker 1: cereal and milk the night that she died. Now take
28:59
Speaker 1: a listen to cut c Stephanie Park, NBC twenty five.
29:03
Speaker 1: One of his co workers actually claims that Jason Harris
29:06
Speaker 1: first tried to hire him to kill his wife, but
29:09
Speaker 1: that co worker said no. In court today, this man
29:12
Speaker 1: said he thought that this was all just set out
29:13
Speaker 1: of frustration. That was until he found out Christina, who
29:16
Speaker 1: had just had a baby, was found dead at the
29:18
Speaker 1: home she shared with the Jason Harris. He had asked
29:21
Speaker 1: me if I would do it, and he told me
29:24
Speaker 1: he would be able to pay me out of a
29:27
Speaker 1: life insurance policy she had. That shocking question came from
29:30
Speaker 1: Zacharias Shustock's boss. Jason Harris was his supervisor at work
29:35
Speaker 1: at the time. Shusto thought it was just Jason venting,
29:38
Speaker 1: but the odd questions continued. I knew of anything that
29:41
Speaker 1: would put her to sleep, Shustock says. Jason kept asking
29:44
Speaker 1: for pills. He asked me if I knew of any
29:47
Speaker 1: that were tasteless or that she would not know of
29:52
Speaker 1: being put inside something she was going to eat or drink.
29:54
Speaker 1: Shustock knew Jason was struggling in his marriage because he
29:56
Speaker 1: would complain a lot to him. He was just saying
29:59
Speaker 1: that Christie, I wasn't wanting to go back to work,
30:02
Speaker 1: that he believed the child they had wasn't his, and
30:07
Speaker 1: as she was just laying around the house, not doing anything,
30:09
Speaker 1: and he was just getting tired of it. Okay, it
30:12
Speaker 1: just takes me a minute to hear that, because you know,
30:15
Speaker 1: I laid around the house too, right after I nearly
30:18
Speaker 1: died during childbirth and didn't really feel like doing anything.
30:21
Speaker 1: So his answer is to kill her because she didn't
30:27
Speaker 1: want to go back to work? Who is this person?
30:37
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Karen Drew joining us w
30:41
Speaker 1: d IV. Who is this guy? Six thousand texts messages
30:46
Speaker 1: to other women? Wants to have his wife killed because
30:49
Speaker 1: she's laying around the house and won't go back to work.
30:52
Speaker 1: Is this her second child? She's still breastfeeding? Who is
30:55
Speaker 1: this guy? You know, nobody can figure him out? He
30:58
Speaker 1: really is? I mean, she is this loving doughty mother.
31:03
Speaker 1: She's breastfeeding. He's I'm a law backcass, that's the technical
31:10
Speaker 1: legal term, a complete horses rear and and another thing.
31:15
Speaker 1: Let's get off him for a moment. Let me hop
31:17
Speaker 1: back on the police. Two years passed, Time passes, so
31:23
Speaker 1: Matthew Mangino joining me, former elected DA Lawrence County now
31:27
Speaker 1: private attorney and author of the executioners told Matthew it
31:31
Speaker 1: took a civil lawsuit, statute of limitations running ending before
31:38
Speaker 1: the place got off their rear ends. What happened? Matthew
31:41
Speaker 1: explain it now, Really it's a clever way to gather
31:46
Speaker 1: evidence in escape. The suit was filed, and I'm sure
31:52
Speaker 1: through discovery they were able to obtain information about people
31:58
Speaker 1: that he was communicating with. Other women, you know, emails,
32:03
Speaker 1: all this sort of thing that would help them begin
32:06
Speaker 1: to build a case, you know, circumstantially, you know, here's
32:11
Speaker 1: a mode of here's a reason why he would want
32:14
Speaker 1: to kill his wife. And then you know, some of
32:18
Speaker 1: these other pieces began to come together as the state
32:21
Speaker 1: police got involved in this investigation, and they they very
32:27
Speaker 1: you know, fundamentally built a case based on information that
32:33
Speaker 1: they were able to obtain from the defendant in a
32:37
Speaker 1: civil lossuit. It's a clever maneuver. And I heard you
32:41
Speaker 1: say a reason to kill her, So I guess you're
32:43
Speaker 1: saying that the wife laying around and that's with air
32:47
Speaker 1: quotes after giving birth was a reason for murder. Okay,
32:52
Speaker 1: before I tear you to shreds on that, Matthew Mangino,
32:55
Speaker 1: here's a good comparison. Who can forget the Oja Simpson
32:59
Speaker 1: murder trial. Remember how much more we found out in
33:03
Speaker 1: the civil case, How that was his Bruno Molly footprint
33:08
Speaker 1: at the crime scene in blood, How he failed his
33:11
Speaker 1: polygraph with another I think a negative forty something. Just
33:15
Speaker 1: so much more came out in the civil case than
33:17
Speaker 1: we learned in the criminal case. That's exactly what happened. Here,
33:22
Speaker 1: but in the reversed order, Nancy, because yeah, that's right,
33:26
Speaker 1: simseluent and trial criminally first. Right. They come after a
33:31
Speaker 1: criminal case because there's a conviction. It's much easier to
33:34
Speaker 1: prove what you have to The burden of proof is
33:37
Speaker 1: much less in the civil case. But here we have
33:39
Speaker 1: it used. And that's why I say it's clever. They
33:42
Speaker 1: used it in a different way. They used it to
33:44
Speaker 1: accumulate evidence to prosecute a criminal kit. They did take
33:48
Speaker 1: a listen to our cut ge, our friend Karen Drew
33:52
Speaker 1: wdiv on that civil lawsuit. Christie's family filed a wrongful
33:57
Speaker 1: death lawsuit, so Jason was deposed under oath. Let's start
34:02
Speaker 1: with another woman he admitted being in contact with during
34:06
Speaker 1: his marriage to Christie. You sent sexual messages to her. Yes,
34:10
Speaker 1: you just close this at some point to your wife, Yes,
34:13
Speaker 1: when did you just close it? To Christie? As soon
34:16
Speaker 1: as she asked about him, She asked what the number was,
34:18
Speaker 1: and I told her. Harris also admitted what he said
34:21
Speaker 1: about divorcing Christie. He came up as an option for
34:30
Speaker 1: the whole theory of living in a perfect world. He
34:32
Speaker 1: was questioned about money problems in his marriage. What was
34:36
Speaker 1: the reason for filing bankruptcy because we were well over
34:39
Speaker 1: our head, And then asked about hiring a hitman to
34:42
Speaker 1: kill his wife. Did you ever request that mister Shustock
34:47
Speaker 1: kill your wife? You know? And if he said that
34:52
Speaker 1: you did, he's either lying or mistaken. Now he'd be lying. Oh,
34:57
Speaker 1: I love it when the Finnish do that. Everybody's line,
35:00
Speaker 1: but VM they're the only person telling the truth. Take
35:04
Speaker 1: a list to more from Kara jur w dvr cut H.
35:07
Speaker 1: The forty four year old father also talked about what
35:09
Speaker 1: happened inside is Davison home while the couple's two children
35:13
Speaker 1: slept the night before his wife died. When you went
35:17
Speaker 1: to bed that night, you were concerned that anything was wrong.
35:19
Speaker 1: So did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Rather
35:23
Speaker 1: than her thought asleep? When pumping, she got hungry. I
35:29
Speaker 1: made her up a bowl of cereal, so she asked
35:31
Speaker 1: for Harris left early for work the next day, and
35:34
Speaker 1: when you left, she was life correct. A neighbor then
35:38
Speaker 1: found his wife dead in her bed after Jason called
35:42
Speaker 1: that neighbor asking her to check on Christie. At that time,
35:45
Speaker 1: Christie's death was ruled an accidental overdose. You had nothing
35:49
Speaker 1: to do with your wife death right? Correct? Right? Okay,
35:53
Speaker 1: So Kara dre joining me WDIVTV investigative reporter. So the
35:58
Speaker 1: working theory is that he put heroin in her cereal,
36:03
Speaker 1: he made her the night before. Yeah, that is that
36:06
Speaker 1: was the theory that was going you know, That's what
36:08
Speaker 1: the prosecutor believed. And there was some digging from the
36:12
Speaker 1: sisters as they were trying to get that information from
36:15
Speaker 1: the civil lawsuit, because they were knocking on doors and
36:17
Speaker 1: talking talking to neighbors and talking to co workers, and
36:20
Speaker 1: there was some word out on the street that he
36:22
Speaker 1: was unhappy in his marriage, and he was talking to
36:25
Speaker 1: some folks who were known to deal drugs and things
36:30
Speaker 1: like that. So that was kind of the pieces that
36:32
Speaker 1: they were trying to put together that they thought he
36:35
Speaker 1: literally put heroin in her cereal. So is it true
36:39
Speaker 1: that he would proposition people at work to be a hitman?
36:43
Speaker 1: Can you believe that? I mean, we always talk about
36:45
Speaker 1: dumb criminals, but I mean that that was the case.
36:48
Speaker 1: They had two individuals from his work take the stand
36:51
Speaker 1: and talk about how he won complain about his wife,
36:54
Speaker 1: and then a second one he was looking for a hitman,
36:57
Speaker 1: and then a third he was trying to get drugs,
37:00
Speaker 1: and there was some situation where he did some I
37:06
Speaker 1: was a clunic pin or some type of drug that
37:08
Speaker 1: he did. Initially tried, there was a weird taste she
37:11
Speaker 1: was eating. It was a weird taste, so she didn't
37:12
Speaker 1: finish whatever he tried the first time. And then when
37:15
Speaker 1: he went back and talked to the guy at work,
37:18
Speaker 1: there was just even this guy was like, this guy's
37:20
Speaker 1: a little crazy. I don't want anything to do with
37:22
Speaker 1: him right now, So he stopped helping him out with
37:25
Speaker 1: his plot. What's amazing to me is that the coworkers
37:29
Speaker 1: just never said anything. He got a guy trying to
37:33
Speaker 1: hire a hit man, and isn't it true that he
37:35
Speaker 1: bragged he hired another hitman for five thousand dollars and
37:40
Speaker 1: the hit man was doing surveillance and got caught with
37:43
Speaker 1: a gun and sent back to jail because he was
37:46
Speaker 1: on for all and he bragged it out that at work. Yes, Hi,
37:49
Speaker 1: here's a hit man. Guy gets busted with a gun
37:52
Speaker 1: right there. Now, we gotta and feel free from the
37:55
Speaker 1: police stand when I gotta be like, okay, what's going
37:58
Speaker 1: on here? I mean, we've got so much stuff going on.
38:00
Speaker 1: Clearly somebody is trying to do something to their wife.
38:05
Speaker 1: I mean, you had to interview that guy, but I
38:07
Speaker 1: don't think get it. I don't get it, and I
38:09
Speaker 1: want to go straight out to our shrink joining us.
38:12
Speaker 1: And I say that in a loving, caring way, Doctor
38:15
Speaker 1: Sherry Schwartz, Doctor Sherry. People just sit by and listen
38:19
Speaker 1: to a guy soliciting for a hitman to kill his wife,
38:22
Speaker 1: and they do nothing, and then she pops up dead
38:25
Speaker 1: and they still do nothing. Well, we know that this
38:28
Speaker 1: happens more frequently than we care to talk about. I
38:32
Speaker 1: think a lot of times, you know, people think, oh,
38:34
Speaker 1: this guy's just crazy, he's not really going to do it,
38:36
Speaker 1: he's not serious, he's just talking nonsense. And then you
38:39
Speaker 1: have the other guy who's giving away or selling klonopin.
38:44
Speaker 1: That's somebody who's highly unlikely to go to the police,
38:47
Speaker 1: right because they're engaging in criminal behavior. They don't want
38:51
Speaker 1: to be detected. Where did he work, Karen Drew? You know,
38:55
Speaker 1: I don't remember the name of the facility, but it
38:57
Speaker 1: was like a man it was kind of like a
39:00
Speaker 1: manufacturing factory kind of environment. Okay, in case you're wondering
39:05
Speaker 1: whether he got away with it, take a listen to
39:08
Speaker 1: our cut b our friend, Karen Drew wiv the jury
39:12
Speaker 1: didn't believe your lies and now only finally exposed for
39:16
Speaker 1: the selfish, murdering, lying monster that you are. Judge David
39:19
Speaker 1: Knublen did not hold back on what he thought about
39:22
Speaker 1: Jason Harris and his plot to kill his wife, Christy
39:25
Speaker 1: Thompson Harris and cash in on her one hundred and
39:28
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars life insurance. What you wanted, all the
39:32
Speaker 1: stuff you sacrificed your daughters, but you took away their mother.
39:38
Speaker 1: That's the first thing you did. You took away their mother.
39:41
Speaker 1: Forty seven year old Harris was found guilty of a
39:43
Speaker 1: murder plot that involved Harris lacing his wife's cereal with heroin,
39:47
Speaker 1: causing her death. Christie was a mother of two. It
39:51
Speaker 1: was a breast milk that would prove she was not
39:54
Speaker 1: doing drugs and was poisoned by her own husband. To
39:57
Speaker 1: Karen Drew Special Guests joining us to d I VTV,
40:02
Speaker 1: where is this poc another technical legal term. Jason Harris Now, oh,
40:08
Speaker 1: he's behind bars, sentenced to life in prison that he
40:14
Speaker 1: stays there. I can't even put into words. I've covered
40:17
Speaker 1: a lot of court cases, and as a reporter, you
40:20
Speaker 1: normally you sound from you know, when somebody takes the
40:23
Speaker 1: stand and talks about that judge. I had never heard
40:26
Speaker 1: of judge go off on an individual more than this judge.
40:30
Speaker 1: And he summed it up. You wanted all the stuff.
40:33
Speaker 1: You wanted her one hundred thousand dollar life and insurance policy,
40:38
Speaker 1: you wanted to buy a car with that, you wanted
40:41
Speaker 1: to have an affair. You just wanted some stuff, and
40:44
Speaker 1: then you left your two kids without a mom, and
40:48
Speaker 1: you have the shoulder now, Karen Well, I hate to
40:51
Speaker 1: say now they're in a fight with guardianship because when
40:55
Speaker 1: this is all going on, when Jason was pulled out,
40:58
Speaker 1: you know, when they were in court, his parents were
41:00
Speaker 1: watching the children, and Christie's parents obviously want to have
41:05
Speaker 1: the children. But that's why they're remaining quiet. And I
41:08
Speaker 1: knew they wanted to talk on this podcast. But they
41:10
Speaker 1: have to do everything they can to try to make
41:12
Speaker 1: sure they do every single thing right to win one
41:15
Speaker 1: percent guardianship of those kids. So they're in the process
41:17
Speaker 1: of that right now. The twelve year old one of
41:19
Speaker 1: the children is twelve right now. They read her statement
41:22
Speaker 1: in court. It was chilling. I mean she basically said, Dad,
41:26
Speaker 1: you lied to me, you killed my mom, and the
41:30
Speaker 1: children don't want anything to do with him. All I
41:33
Speaker 1: can say is Jason Harris rot in Hell, of course,
41:36
Speaker 1: and to the SI Correctional Institute where he is housed.
41:42
Speaker 1: Don't let him work in the cafeteria. Nancy Grace Crime Story,
41:46
Speaker 1: signing off good byes,