June 24, 2008
A Time To Kill
A Mother Disappears The Day After 9/11
-
Photo
Michele Harris (CBS)
-
Play CBS Video
Video
Exclusive: More On The Case
Only On The Web: Erin Moriarty shares more details about the Michele Harris case, including information about the evidence.
Capt. Lester says a black plastic bag of bones was found. But they turned out to be animal bones.
The search went on for a year, then two. After four years and no sign of Michele, investigators felt it was now or never. "The case wasn’t getting any better," Lester explains. "There were really no new significant leads or evidence coming in. But win, lose or draw, this case had to go to trial."
On Sept. 30, 2005, Cal was arrested and charged with Michele's murder. But how much of a case is there? Defense attorney Joe Cawley is confident Cal will never be convicted.
"Because you can't find a murder weapon. You can't just say, 'Well, he must have disposed of it,'" Cawley says. "And because you can't find sufficient quantities of blood, he must have cleaned it up. He must have just done a really good job. And we can't find the body. Well, he must have done a good job of that, too. A lack of evidence is reasonable doubt."
Nothing has quite shaken the calm of Owego, N.Y., like the murder trial of Calvin Harris. It took nearly six years, but Cal's trial finally began on May 21, 2007.
Harris, out on a half a million dollar bail, came to court from the house where authorities believe he murdered his wife almost six years earlier.
"Have you ever had a case where there was no body and you’ve prosecuted someone for murder? No body? No witness. No murder weapon. Nothing?" Moriarty asks District Attorney Gerald Keene.
"No. This was the most difficult case that I've ever done," Keene says.
Defense attorney Bill Easton says Cal is on trial because of who he is, not because of anything he did. "In most cases we have admissions, or we have eye witnesses. That’s not this case. This case is 'She’s missing. He was divorcing from her. His behavior was odd, there’s very small amounts of blood that might suggest something.' And that’s it," he says.
That blood is the main focus at the trial -- the small amounts police found inside the Harris home two days after Michele disappeared. Six drops of her blood on the doorway between the kitchen and the garage, more drops on a kitchen throw rug and on the garage floor.
"These are sub-millimeter spots," says defense attorney Joe Cawley. "It's such a small amount you know, it’s just not indicative of criminal conduct."
But D.A. Gerald Keene says, "It wasn't really the amount of blood that was incriminating here. It was the size of the blood specks and the manner in which the blood was deposited."
With so much riding on the blood evidence in the case, the prosecution recruited world renowned criminologist Henry Lee, who testified on videotape.
Lee, best known for the work in the O.J. Simpson trial more than a decade ago, says the small amounts of blood in the Harris home tell the story of what happened to Michele.
The pattern of blood spots in the doorway, says Lee, was caused when Michele was hit, twice. The first punch knocked her down. The second hit caused her blood to fly.
Using red dye to demonstrate, senior forensic investigator Steve Andersen showed Moriarty how spatter similar to what was found in the Harris home is created.
Andersen says the spatter was approximately a millimeter in size and some smaller than that.
Asked if this was enough to tell him that that was a crime scene, Andersen tells Moriarty, "The very potential of a crime scene was there. Yes."
Andersen, who also testified at trial, believes Michele was hit with medium velocity by some kind of blunt instrument, like a hammer or even a fist. "To get that size you have to apply a force to break that up into smaller droplets and propel it through the air," he explains.
"Isn’t it normal in a family’s home to find blood? I mean, people bleed. There’s kids," Moriarty points out.
"Yes. But normally, not medium velocity impact spatter," Andersen says.
"It was blood spatter, so that it wouldn’t come from a bloody nose dripping or a cut finger," D.A. Keene says.
Produced By Lisa Freed and Marc Goldbaum
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Segments
Scroll Left
Scroll Right



There isn''t enough evidence to convict, the family just wants to ease their pain and blame anyone for this murder and investigators want a scapegoat after 4 years of incompetency. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!
I just don''t believe that someone should be found guilty of murder when there''s no hard evidence that a murder even took place and just because of a little odd behavior. Also, his lack of concern over the disappearance of his estranged wife doesn''t even really seem that odd to me. Personally, I found it odd that there was at least one man Michelle was seeing that her close friends knew nothing about. In any case, it seems to me there are still a number of possible suspects in this case and several leads that were never really followed up on.
Calvin Harris (why does everybody refer to him as Cal like they are all old buddies?) is a puke and anyone that knows him or has worked for him knows this.
Harris''s girlfriend that he was cheating with loves an abusive relationship. She was in another one with yet another car dealer that put her in a hospital several times in Cortland.
2. What 23 year old man dates a married 35 year old woman with 4 kids who is still living with her husband, moves to a different state, and buys her a house?? All to find out she isn''t as interested in him as he is in her. Then he is the last person to see her alive.
3. Why does Cal''s reaction send up red flags? His soon to be ex-wife is dating multiple men, and they have clearly both moved on. They were far from being in love. It may be a sad truth, but how many people who go through horrible divorces would truly be devastated if the other person went missing?
4. Usually, you can trust the family and friends of a victim as to their instincts to who did it, but it is obvious that Michele hid quite a lot from her friends and family %u2013 her marital problems for many years, here new boyfriends, and what else?
I''m speaking about this case from strictly a law standpoint concerning reasonable doubt. Do I think Cal was capable of committing the crime? Absolutely. Do I think he did? I don''t know. Should he be convicted based on a bloody rug? NO WAY! Were there other people capable of committing the crime (ie: RAPIST)? Absolutely.
"He who has the gold, rules."
This story may not have made it to us IF MONEY WAS NOT A FACTOR!(ROOT OF EVIL)I have some things I would like to know? 1) Where was HE dearing the trial?
2) Why did HE wait to come forward?
3) What does HE hope to gain from this or has HE
gained something we will hear about?
4) Why was he out @ 5:40 with hay,I''am sure he was
not bring it in from the field to put in his barn,
wet hay meldews then get''s hot and burns later.
Any farmer Knows this. Or had HE sold some and
delivering it? Hard to trace after 7yrs.
5) I can think of a lot of ways to dispose of a body
on HIS land.At that time of year in the woods with
falling leaves could hide a small grave very well.
6) He had a car lot''s and a lot of cleaners have acid
in them enough of one type could do the job.(acid
used to clean aluminum burn skin bad)
7) A car going to the crusher for disposal or
shedding,with the body in it may not be found,
7yrs hard to trace!
8) I could not let someone I loved and the mother of
My kid''s that disappeared with out looking for her
even if I hated her,for the sake of My kids.
Their is a lot more I could bring up but I dont know what thse Police have done.Let us know what is going on with this case please.
www.pressconnects.com
and search for Cal Harris. This will give you the insight about the story you need to formulate a smart comment on this subject.
i''m sure that the farmer has been paid off to step forward. he''s paid off to be a witness, but his presence wasn''t necessary until cal was actually convicted. ooooh ok, so now he saw something. very handy.
I can see Cal''s lack of emotion concerning his wife. Put yourself in his shoes; he''s just watched the love of his life, the mother of his children, throw everything away. Reject him and start a life of absolute debauchery and narcissistic hedonism. He''s watched the most precious person in his life has become a two-bit *** having multiple flings with whoever she could run up against. If it were me, I too would have withdrawn emotionally and just prayed that this whole thing would be over and that she''d take the shame and insult she''s brought to him and his family away. He undoubtedly knew that her new behavior would be ruinous, and just wanted it over. How doesn''t matter how so much as she could have decided simply to move away with some other *** and complete her transformation into a real whorish scumbag. Matter of fact we don''t know that that didn''t happen!
Why do you find the need to make the victim..let me say that one more time, victim seem like a *** or a horrible person in general. The husband is always the first suspect for good reason. With her gone his life would be less stressful. How about her claims he was controlling and mean? She can''t be telling the truth? Circumstantial evidence is all you have at times. Do soem research...circumstantial evidence is meant to form a puzzle and at the end the picture is clear. Just because you may have had a bad experience in life don''t assume every woman is the same.
Terrible jeff82, poor taste on your comment.
I''ll just leave it at that.
-
by klhudson01
June 26, 2008 2:27 AM PDT
- I think this is really a sad case for our judicial system. Someone''s love one lost her life and our justice system failed her and her family. I wonder if Cal with his errogant attitude may have paid off the local mortitian to burrie her or to have her cremated without anyones knowledge? Just my thoughts!
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 48 Comments