After a Michigan woman died suddenly, her death was initially ruled “accidental.” That was far from the truth, however, as investigators would discover when they decided to check the freezer — leaving the woman’s husband with some explaining to do.
Jason Harris, a 47-year-old Michigan man, garnered scrutiny, even from his own family, after his wife, 36-year-old Christina Ann Thompson Harris, died suddenly. After Christina’s body was found “unresponsive in bed and cold to the touch,” her death was ruled an “accidental overdose.” When investigators decided to have a look in the freezer, however, murder charges would soon arise.
According to Jason Harris, he had prepared a bowl of cereal for Christina one evening when he noticed that his wife was having difficulty holding onto her spoon as she tried to eat the food. Jason helped Christina to bed and the two slept, according to Click On Detroit. The next day, Jason left for work with the couple’s two children while Christina was still sleeping. Later that morning, Jason said he became concerned when he couldn’t reach Christina to answer calls or texts later that morning, so he asked a neighbor to check on her, he told police.
The neighbor found the door unlocked, went inside, and discovered Christina, who was unresponsive and cold to the touch. Another neighbor, who happened to be a registered nurse, was called over to check on Christina, recognized that she was dead, and called 911, MLive reported. Initially, Christina’s cause of death was ruled an accidental overdose after a blood sample tested positive for opiates, but her family wasn’t buying it.
In fact, two days after Christina’s death, members of her family went to the Davison Police Department to complain that something wasn’t right. They were adamant that Christina didn’t use drugs, so at some point, authorities turned their attention to the freezer, where Christina had stored breast milk to feed her infant child. Samples of Christina’s breast milk from multiple months were tested and all came back negative for any trace of controlled substances, which indicated that the family was right and the deceased mother was not a drug user.
That wasn’t the only thing that was raising a few eyebrows. According to officials, Jason Harris’ own siblings told police that he had made statements in the past about getting rid of his wife. Making matters all the more suspicious, Harris moved another woman into the family home just two weeks after Christina’s death and cashed in on $120,000 in life insurance benefits from his wife’s death.
Davison police investigated the case for almost two years before Michigan State Police took over. Eventually, the Genesee County Medical Examiner changed the cause of death from “accidental” to “homicide,” which allowed police and prosecutors to pursue a murder charge, and Jason Harris was the prime suspect.
In addition to the evidence already stacked against him, trial testimony revealed that Jason Harris had communicated with several women via emails and text messages, including sending pictures to them before and after his wife’s death. He also bought an airline ticket to visit a woman in Rhode Island just nine days after his wife’s death after exchanging thousands of text messages with the woman beforehand, authorities said. Perhaps most damning of all, he had paid a hitman to kill his wife before taking matters into his own hands.
Many years after Christina’s tragic passing, Jason Harris was found guilty of killing his wife after it was determined that he had laced her bowl of cereal with a lethal dose of heroin. He was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, solicitation of murder, and delivery of a controlled substance causing death and faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the NY Post reported.
According to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, the victim’s breast milk played a key role in the case. This was a first for the Wolverine State, which had never before used breast milk as evidence in a criminal trial. While that may garner headlines because of its uniqueness, it’s so much more than that. In fact, it speaks to an unnamed hero in this story — law enforcement.
This husband almost got away with killing his wife, claiming her life insurance benefits, and living happily ever after. Instead, he’s facing life in prison for poisoning an innocent person, and somewhere, there is a detective that deserves praise for that. Since breast milk had never been used as evidence in a criminal case before, it’s evident that at least one investigator thought outside the box in deciding to test the milk as evidence. The result is a murderer being off the streets, and that’s a job well done.
