The House on the Lake

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Speaker 11 He's a good dad.

Speaker 12 He loves us so much. No one wants to have both their parents taken away from them.

Speaker 13 A dramatic new turn in the story of a young family facing heartache beyond measure.

Speaker 11 A mom who suddenly vanished.

Speaker 13 A dad suddenly under suspicion.

Speaker 16 You just hear the awful things they say.

Speaker 17 I knew they were focusing on me.

Speaker 13 There was no body, no weapon, no eyewitness.

Speaker 19 There's not one doubt in my mind that he's guilty.

Speaker 20 Now, after four trials, the final verdict is in.

Speaker 17 I'm not guilty. I didn't do this.

Speaker 20 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 22 Here's Keith Morrison with The House on the Lake.

Speaker 24 It's a long winding ride, this tale, studded with surprises.

Speaker 26 I just felt like I was being kidnapped in broad daylight and no one could help me.

Speaker 28 It's the story of his life.

Speaker 30 And theirs.

Speaker 31 We cannot sit here in silence and watch another tragedy of justice take place.

Speaker 30 It's about their world, the one that fell apart in a time they can't recall.

Speaker 32 Do you remember very much about your mom anymore?

Speaker 12 Not really.

Speaker 27 It's been a long time.

Speaker 33 It's about what happened on a September day the rest of the world can't forget.

Speaker 35 Is there a corner of your brain that thinks maybe it was somebody else?

Speaker 3 Not at all.

Speaker 18 Not at all.

Speaker 37 15 years, four trials.

Speaker 1 Would it never end?

Speaker 17 I just put my head down. I went numb.

Speaker 27 I just, I went numb.

Speaker 30 This is the climactic chapter in a family saga, one that began in a moment all but drowned out in the chaos of history.

Speaker 11 It was September 2001.

Speaker 23 The Harris kids were little, seven, six, four, and two.

Speaker 32 The family lived in this sprawling patch of wilderness with a private lake in the backyard.

Speaker 39 Living in paradise, seems like.

Speaker 32 Yeah.

Speaker 17 The kids have, still have a lot of happy memories out here. You know, it's just a very unique and special place that we were fortunate enough to

Speaker 17 purchase, you know, years and years ago.

Speaker 29 A unique and special place that only a prosperous person could afford, like the prominent car dealer, Cal Harris.

Speaker 41 He loved it out here, too, he said, and taught his kids to love it.

Speaker 32 You went hunting with the kids here?

Speaker 44 Hunting, fishing,

Speaker 17 you name it. We swim in the lake, we jet ski in the lake, we water ski.
My kids like to bring their friends out and really enjoy. It's just a, if you like to be outdoors, it's a fun place.

Speaker 45 Christmas is always fun.

Speaker 40 I can imagine.

Speaker 45 Opening presents, playing well at the new things you get.

Speaker 32 Well, I can't think of a more idyllic sort of place to have Christmas.

Speaker 36 And does it feel like that at the time? Yeah.

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 46 It was here in this patch of paradise, said Cal, that he woke up one morning years ago to find that his wife, Michelle, wasn't home.

Speaker 30 She'd gone to work the evening before, didn't come back.

Speaker 46 Mary Harris is Cal's aunt.

Speaker 47 He didn't know where she was and didn't know what had happened.

Speaker 46 Woke up and she wasn't there.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 47 honestly, he didn't, it wasn't something he seemed comfortable talking about a lot.

Speaker 47 I think it was very emotional for him.

Speaker 23 She was gone.

Speaker 48 Gone without warning.

Speaker 25 Her friends, distraught, called her cell phone.

Speaker 25 Where the hell are you? You need to call me as soon as looking possible. I am worried to death about you.

Speaker 28 They heard her cheery cell phone message, haunting now.

Speaker 28 Hi, this is Michelle. Leave me your name and number, and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Michelle, Brian Miller, what's going on over here?

Speaker 46 There is something else about this you should know.

Speaker 30 The night Michelle Harris vanished was not just any night.

Speaker 2 It was September 11th, 2001.

Speaker 50 Things are in some kind of disarray.

Speaker 49 So they were.

Speaker 46 And so nobody was paying much attention to the disturbing events up here around little Owego, New York.

Speaker 50 Troopers have all been sent to New York City.

Speaker 50 There's a skeleton crew left at all the stations.

Speaker 30 Back then, Sue Mulvey was a senior investigator with the New York State Police. She took the call morning of September 12th.

Speaker 51 What'd you do?

Speaker 50 I sent two investigators over to talk to Calvin Harris, and I sent a uniformed trooper up to the house.

Speaker 30 Cal Harris opened up his house to them.

Speaker 6 He said, whatever you need, look wherever you need to look.

Speaker 52 We have carte blanche.

Speaker 50 I want this to be solved.

Speaker 47 I want to know what happened.

Speaker 30 That morning, Investigator Mulvey knew only this.

Speaker 37 She had a missing person case on her hands, and with luck, it would resolve itself speedily, as many do.

Speaker 50 We kept hoping, as everyone did, that Michelle would call her house or call one of her friends and show up.

Speaker 30 Cal said his aunt Mary was completely focused on his four children, had to leave it to others to search for Michelle.

Speaker 47 His thing was, okay, it's time for them to go to school. All right, now it's time for me to pick them up.
I need to be sure that if this is the routine

Speaker 47 that is normal for them, we're going to keep them in that routine.

Speaker 27 But where was their mother?

Speaker 30 Here was a clue, and it didn't look good. Michelle's van had been left at the foot of the long driveway leading up to her house, out here on that big big country lot.

Speaker 15 The keys were still in the ignition. But where was she?

Speaker 27 All these investigators, video camera in hand, searched the house outside those 200-plus acres to look through.

Speaker 50 That area was homesteaded heavily in the 1800s, so there's a lot of laid-up wells and old foundations and things like that. Didn't find anything.
No, we didn't.

Speaker 27 Not at first and not outside. But a few days later, they did.

Speaker 54 I entered the residence through the open garage door.

Speaker 30 Senior investigator Steve Anderson.

Speaker 54 I noticed blood stains on the floor and on the moldings of the doorway that led out to the garage.

Speaker 5 And there was more blood, tiny stains, on a kitchen rug.

Speaker 56 They sent it out for tests.

Speaker 54 Everything on the floor, on the inside walls, and on the carpet came back to being Michelle's blood.

Speaker 46 And suddenly the case looked very different.

Speaker 50 Then we knew we had a real problem.

Speaker 40 What in the world had happened to Michelle Harris?

Speaker 50 When we come back, they have what would appear to be an idyllic life and a beautiful home and beautiful children. We learned more and more.
He became the focus.

Speaker 58 A husband suspected, a daughter questioned.

Speaker 12 I didn't talk. I just sat there and cried the whole time.

Speaker 30 Michelle Harris, 35-year-old mother of four, was missing. And New York State Police Investigator Sue Mulvey felt sure of one thing: Michelle had not abandoned her children.

Speaker 50 The clear picture that we develop is that Michelle would never leave her children.

Speaker 59 Ever.

Speaker 30 So, was it foul play?

Speaker 30 After all, Michelle's van was abandoned at the foot of her driveway, and that blood on the garage floor and in the kitchen alcove. Testing proved it was Michelle's blood.

Speaker 50 There's a lot of blood in the garage and spread over a wide area.

Speaker 50 And there's a lot of blood splatter, I mean over 60 drops of blood that's been not just dripped but splattered by some force on that throw rug.

Speaker 39 And yet it didn't make sense.

Speaker 30 This woman, wife of an affluent car dealer, devoted mom, seemed like an unlikely victim.

Speaker 50 And they have what would appear to be an idyllic life and a beautiful home and beautiful children.

Speaker 28 It got off to a storybook start.

Speaker 30 He, the attractive, wealthy car dealer, she, a pretty young woman from modest means, answering phones at a Harris family car dealership.

Speaker 17 My brother had his office across the street from mine, and

Speaker 17 I just saw her one day and just

Speaker 17 kind of evolved from there.

Speaker 24 What attracted the two of you to each She was very outgoing and

Speaker 17 very attractive and good personality.

Speaker 47 She was a knockout. She was funny.
She was vibrant.

Speaker 59 His aunt Mary Harris was also taken by Cal's new girl.

Speaker 30 Michelle, she said, was a woman up for anything.

Speaker 47 Athletic, let's have a good time, you know, jump on the jet ski, jump on the four-wheeler.

Speaker 43 Wasn't a dainty-wee thing, as it were. Right.

Speaker 46 And not a shy retiring type either.

Speaker 47 No, I mean, that's part of why I thought they, I mean, their personalities to me seemed to really mesh.

Speaker 33 Michelle fell hard too for the man and his lifestyle.

Speaker 41 Gary Taylor is her dad.

Speaker 19 He won some dealership thing and they went to Switzerland, I think. And, you know, I mean, there was a lot of perks there that she'd never had before.

Speaker 46 So.

Speaker 30 In August 1990, Michelle and Cal got married here beside Empire Lake.

Speaker 17 It was a great day. It was just a beautiful setting and very relaxing, not very stressful.
Just kind of

Speaker 17 ended up being a big party afterwards.

Speaker 59 The fairy tale rolled on.

Speaker 32 Kids kept coming.

Speaker 38 They built a house on Empire Lake, and here on their private preserve, they were a family in motion.

Speaker 32 Fishing, swimming, skating, Michelle and all of it.

Speaker 56 The kids, of course, grew older. Taylor is the oldest, followed by Kayla and Jenna and Tanner.

Speaker 3 Their mom?

Speaker 30 About her, they have no real memories.

Speaker 27 It's been a long time.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's true. Well, most of your lives.

Speaker 14 And how old were you?

Speaker 45 I'm not sure how old I was, but I don't have any memories.

Speaker 37 Jenna is often told by those who knew Michelle how much she resembles her mom.

Speaker 61 I have seen pictures of her. She's really pretty.
She's always smiling. She seems like a really happy person.

Speaker 61 So it makes me feel good that people see me and her.

Speaker 30 And even with that terrible loss, said the kids, they've grown up happy and content for the most part, all thanks to one person.

Speaker 39 Just tell me about your dad.

Speaker 32 What kind of guy is he?

Speaker 45 Funny.

Speaker 1 Funny?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 He's funny, and he's the most caring guy in the world, and he's nice, and we're his whole world, and he's protective, and just loves us so much.

Speaker 12 Wants the best for us.

Speaker 43 A protective dad who said he tried to shield them best he could from the not-so-happy times.

Speaker 17 Michelle was really struggling with those kids at a young age, which I totally understood. What I noticed was that she was just drifting away from being a stay-at-home mom.
And I understood that.

Speaker 30 There was certainly friction in the Harris marriage.

Speaker 29 He loved order.

Speaker 48 She, not so much.

Speaker 19 She had a room downstairs and she'd call it the chuckroom. Or if there was going to be a party or a picnic or whatever, she'd throw it and take it down in the chuck room.

Speaker 30 And she told friends and family he had a temper, a controlling way. Once back in 1996, she called her sister-in-law from a closet, terrified.

Speaker 62 He had the gun outside the closet, and she was inside hiding.

Speaker 40 What did you hear about that?

Speaker 19 He was out there as a pump gun, I guess, and he was racking the

Speaker 19 pump action up and down and telling her to come out.

Speaker 43 Cal later denied it was true that he'd been fighting or threatening Michelle with a gun.

Speaker 30 Then in 1999, Michelle learned Cal was having an affair. She was devastated, but not ready to end the marriage.

Speaker 46 And Cal said he wasn't either.

Speaker 19 Michelle said, you know, we can work through this, but, you know, you got to get rid of the girl she worked up at the Cortland dealership.

Speaker 37 They did what they could to salvage the marriage.

Speaker 23 It didn't work.

Speaker 63 She told her family he cut off her spending money.

Speaker 30 She took up with a young man in November 2000.

Speaker 28 A month later, she told Cal she wanted a divorce.

Speaker 41 Her family said he didn't take it well.

Speaker 59 And things in that big house in Paradise grew strained indeed.

Speaker 11 Why did she stay in the house?

Speaker 50 Her attorney had advised her to stay in the house and

Speaker 50 to not leave.

Speaker 30 So they divided the parenting duties and worked on a settlement.

Speaker 59 Michelle got a job as a waitress at a local restaurant and bar.

Speaker 43 And that's where she was the night of September 11th.

Speaker 34 She finished her shift about 9, had some drinks with two co-workers, and then then she drove to her boyfriend's apartment.

Speaker 48 Left there about 11.

Speaker 56 And that, Sumalvey believed, was the last time anybody saw Michelle Harris.

Speaker 50 We did a lot of work on a lot of different people early on, and it wasn't until they were eliminated, and then we learned more and more about Calvin that he became the focus.

Speaker 28 The district attorney even tried to speak to the two eldest children.

Speaker 30 Didn't accomplish much beyond frightening them, apparently.

Speaker 12 I know, I just sat there and cried the whole time. I didn't talk.
I wasn't allowed to be in there with Taylor.

Speaker 14 How old were you at the time?

Speaker 31 I was in fourth grade and he was in fifth grade.

Speaker 61 So

Speaker 12 nine and ten.

Speaker 5 But Jerry Keene, then the district attorney, said he interviewed plenty of other witnesses who convinced him that the police had the right man.

Speaker 5 In September 2005, four years after Michelle Harris disappeared, the DA charged her husband, Cal with second-degree murder.

Speaker 17 Three state police personnel

Speaker 17 literally busted into my office and kicked the door open. And the three of them jumped me and handcuffed me and shackled me and

Speaker 17 walked me out the front door of my office.

Speaker 24 Got a taste of law and order up close and personal.

Speaker 59 Yeah.

Speaker 11 The DA was going to take the case to trial.

Speaker 48 Even though there was no body, no murder weapon, and even though he himself was by no means convinced he could prevail.

Speaker 64 I thought that

Speaker 64 it was maybe a 50-50 shot at a conviction. I thought that a jury could go either way.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 1 Oh, it hurts.

Speaker 17 Absolutely. All of it was just taken away.

Speaker 8 Prosecutors come on strong.

Speaker 64 He told her that he would put her body in a place where it would never be found.

Speaker 57 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 43 In September 2005, four years after his wife Michelle vanished, Cal Harris was charged with murder.

Speaker 59 Oh, it hurts.

Speaker 17 Absolutely. You know, I had a good standing in the community.
I had a successful business.

Speaker 17 Donated my time and money and resources to a lot of good causes in the community, raised my kids in that community. And,

Speaker 17 you know, all of it was just taken away.

Speaker 30 But the Tioga County DA had become convinced that Cal killed his wife late on the night of 9-11, and as the children slept, disposed of her body.

Speaker 64 The more I met with the people that were close to Michelle and that knew something about the case, the more convinced I became that, you know, he really did this.

Speaker 15 The trial began in May 2007 with the prosecution claim that Cal Harris was a man used to being in charge of everyone and everything in his life.

Speaker 64 He's in control of his businesses, he's in control of his wife, he's in control of his finances, his employees,

Speaker 64 and his children, and just kind of a domineering person.

Speaker 46 More than that, said the prosecutor.

Speaker 33 Cal Harris could be volatile.

Speaker 37 Michelle began keeping notes about what she said was abusive language and behavior.

Speaker 30 In fact, she won a temporary order of protection against him.

Speaker 64 What he said to her was, I wouldn't need a gun to kill you, and if I did kill you, they'll never find your body.

Speaker 11 In the heat of passion, people say terrible things to each other.

Speaker 3 Doesn't mean they kill them, though.

Speaker 64 But he went beyond saying terrible things to her. He told her that he would put her body in a place where it would never be found.

Speaker 64 And that's like one of the biggest facts of the case: that we've looked and looked and looked for this woman's body and have not been able to find it.

Speaker 30 The Harris family babysitter, a woman named Barb Thayer, testified that she was the one who found Michelle's van parked at the end of the long driveway.

Speaker 64 She goes into the house and she yells, is Michelle here? Because her car's at the end of the driveway. And the defendant, without missing a beat, he just said, we'd better go get the car.

Speaker 43 According to the babysitter, Cal didn't seem surprised.

Speaker 64 Doesn't ask her any questions about the keys, like he knows that the keys are in the van.

Speaker 11 This is an interpretation of a person's reaction.

Speaker 64 Yeah, you're right. But it's all these hundreds of little things that convinced me that he's just not acting like someone would act if they didn't know what had happened to their wife.

Speaker 49 Later that morning, when New York State troopers talked to Cal, they too made note of his demeanor.

Speaker 50 He seemed kind of unconcerned. He was more concerned with getting Michelle Harris's van cleaned up and back on the lot.

Speaker 35 The motive, said the prosecutor, was simply money.

Speaker 43 Cal had learned that Michelle was demanding an appraisal of the car business.

Speaker 34 Did she intend to take a piece of it in the divorce?

Speaker 64 All of a sudden, everything is out of his control.

Speaker 30 So, the argument went.

Speaker 37 If Michelle disappeared, Cal's problems did too.

Speaker 50 He was going to have his finances scrutinized. He was perhaps not going to be able to stay in the marital residence.
Certainly his children were leaving.

Speaker 50 And the next day, all those things are back in his control.

Speaker 48 Finally, that blood evidence.

Speaker 55 Prosecution witnesses called it medium velocity spatter that had been left there only recently.

Speaker 54 I think it could very well have been the most important part of the case as far as placing Michelle

Speaker 54 bleeding in the house with some force having been applied to that blood

Speaker 54 and no explanation for it.

Speaker 42 So what happened that night?

Speaker 15 Prosecutor Keene put his theory to the jury.

Speaker 64 She got home that night at about 11.30, parked her car, went in through the garage door, and that as soon as she got inside the house, she was struck with something by the defendant.

Speaker 27 She went down on the kitchen rug, he said, was struck again. That blood spatter.

Speaker 64 So this would put her down either on her knees or on her bottom as she's being struck, and the blood spatters on the door and on the carpet.

Speaker 64 Took her back out into the garage and laid her down on the garage floor. She must have bled some onto the garage floor because there's an area three feet by six feet where blood was found.

Speaker 37 Then, said the prosecutor, Cal tried to clean up before he disposed of the body.

Speaker 64 He would have then taken the car back down to the end of the driveway, walked back up to the house, and disposed of the body during the seven hours or thereabouts before he called Mrs. Thayer.

Speaker 14 The defense attorneys tried to swat it all down, and Cal Harris himself was adamant.

Speaker 30 He had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance.

Speaker 17 It's one thing to say, look, I'm innocent, I didn't do this, but it's another thing to have so many people accusing you and pointing the finger at you. Look, I'm not guilty.
I didn't do this.

Speaker 17 I didn't commit this crime.

Speaker 48 There was no body, no murder weapon.

Speaker 30 And the defense said the forensics were unconvincing at best.

Speaker 40 But the jurors weren't having it.

Speaker 28 It was June 2007.

Speaker 40 They came back guilty.

Speaker 30 Cal Harris broke down and sobbed.

Speaker 17 Because I knew I was going to not see my kids. I knew I wasn't going to home that night.
You know, and I knew how they were going to be, and it just was overwhelming.

Speaker 59 But...

Speaker 30 In the eyes of Michelle's family, it was finally justice.

Speaker 14 And then?

Speaker 30 Then an extraordinary thing happened.

Speaker 64 My first reaction was, come on, the judge is not going to accept this guy's claim.

Speaker 8 A new witness with an amazing story, and it turned the Harris case on its head.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 66 As I was going by the Harris property, there was a blonde woman out there.

Speaker 67 Looked like she was crying.

Speaker 66 I know it was her.

Speaker 68 Had this man seen Michelle?

Speaker 19 As the the most bizarre story that you could have ever told.

Speaker 20 Get ready for trial number two.

Speaker 46 What happened here in Little Owego, New York in August 2007 was almost unbelievable.

Speaker 28 Kyle Harris, convicted of killing his wife Michelle, was about to be sent away for 25 to life.

Speaker 30 And suddenly, it all blew up right in D.A.

Speaker 29 Jerry Keene's face.

Speaker 64 I came into the courtroom thinking that the defendant was going to be sentenced, and it ended up being more of

Speaker 64 my being on trial.

Speaker 48 Who on earth had the power to make this happen?

Speaker 23 He did.

Speaker 38 Kevin Tubbs.

Speaker 67 I know that she was there, okay? I know she was.

Speaker 38 Kevin Tubbs, a plain-spoken, rough-hewn farm worker back then, was hauling hay.

Speaker 43 And why was he so important?

Speaker 37 Because after six years during which Tubbs swore he barely registered the fuss over the Harris case, he picked up a paper and saw the story of Cal's conviction.

Speaker 44 And.

Speaker 66 I seen that and, you know, I started like recalling, you know, thinking like, oh my God.

Speaker 30 Just like that, he suddenly knew, he said, that what he saw the morning after 9-11, the morning Michelle Harris disappeared, was

Speaker 23 important.

Speaker 30 It was between 5.30 and 6 in the morning, he said. He was hauling a load of hay.

Speaker 66 As I was going by the Harris property, there was a blonde woman out there and a young gentleman,

Speaker 66 you know, in his early 20s.

Speaker 30 Standing by a pickup truck.

Speaker 20 My lights is right on him.

Speaker 30 And hardly more than 10 feet away, he said.

Speaker 2 He looked straight at the young man, saw he was dark-haired, muscular, and visibly angry.

Speaker 66 He looks at me like this, like, you know, what do you want?

Speaker 30 And the woman, she was looking down.

Speaker 67 Just by her face, looked like she was crying. She was either upset or wasted.

Speaker 60 The woman, he said, he was certain of it, was Michelle Harris.

Speaker 66 I know it was her.

Speaker 28 Was it true?

Speaker 43 If Kevin Tubbs really did see Michelle in the early morning hours of September 12th, then the prosecutor's case was in ruins because Cal Harris couldn't have murdered her some seven hours before.

Speaker 30 And an innocent man had just been convicted.

Speaker 33 And so the judge tossed out the verdict, called for another trial, and sent Cal home to his kids.

Speaker 49 Many, including Michelle's family, thought Tubbs' story was bogus.

Speaker 19 Everybody knew he was lying. You know, I mean, it was the most bizarre

Speaker 19 story that you could have ever told.

Speaker 30 And of course, when trial number two opened in 2009, the prosecution attacked Tubbs' credibility.

Speaker 43 Why did he wait six years to come forward?

Speaker 29 Still, for the defense, Tubbs was pure gold, the man to create reasonable doubt.

Speaker 21 There simply isn't enough evidence to convict Cal Harris of murder.

Speaker 30 Bill Easton was one of Cal's attorneys.

Speaker 21 There's not an eyewitness to it, an ear witness to it. He didn't confess to it.
None of this direct evidence is present in this case.

Speaker 43 The prosecution argued that Cal showed how unfeeling he was by failing to join the search for Michelle.

Speaker 30 That was nonsense, said his aunt Mary.

Speaker 33 Cal was simply trying to keep it all together for his small children.

Speaker 47 There were dozens, maybe hundreds of experts scouring the area looking for her. And there was one person taking care of these four kids.

Speaker 15 That alleged motive, that Cal was worried that dealerships would take a hit because of the divorce?

Speaker 25 Not so, said Cal's side.

Speaker 37 His lawyer told him Michelle couldn't touch the business.

Speaker 49 And that anyway, before she vanished, Michelle had decided to accept Cal's settlement offer, $740,000.

Speaker 21 She had indicated to numerous people she was happy with the settlement.

Speaker 47 Besides, said Aunt Mary, there was plenty of money to go around.

Speaker 47 And no amount of money

Speaker 47 would have made Cal

Speaker 47 say, aha, you know, for $2 million, I'm just going to wipe her out.

Speaker 43 Then there was the blood, the spatter in the kitchen alcove.

Speaker 25 Could have been a cut finger, said the defense.

Speaker 5 And anyway, nobody could really tell when it was left there.

Speaker 40 And as for a prosecution claim that Cal tried to wash away blood on the garage floor, there's a small amount of diluted blood, which was found days after.

Speaker 21 The New York State police had walked through this particular area of the house while they were conducting the search.

Speaker 46 But walking out is not going to destroy the blood cells.

Speaker 21 It could dilute it if their boots are wet.

Speaker 25 Finally, the defense decided jurors needed to hear from Cal Harris as a caring father, not as the menacing husband the state made him out to be.

Speaker 30 So the defendant took the stand.

Speaker 17 It was nerve-wracking at first. You know, obviously, my life is on the line, and my kids are, you know, their lives are on the line.

Speaker 30 He admitted to an affair, blamed himself for the end of the marriage, but denied he'd threatened, hurt, or tried to control Michelle.

Speaker 48 If anything, anything, he said, Michelle had been living a bit of a wild life, staying out all hours, just before she disappeared.

Speaker 17 She came when as she pleased.

Speaker 17 She had money to spend. I wasn't tracking her down.

Speaker 17 The babysitters were here. The nannies were here.
She was off doing whatever she was doing. I didn't even know what she was doing.

Speaker 33 Was it enough?

Speaker 42 The jury deliberated for almost two days.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 15 it wasn't guilty again.

Speaker 64 Takes your breath away.

Speaker 17 You know, it's like getting stabbed in the stomach.

Speaker 17 It just, I'm numb.

Speaker 17 You know, I'd already been through it once.

Speaker 28 Family and friends stepped in and took care of his small kids, who began a weekly ritual visiting dad in prison.

Speaker 23 Taylor, the eldest.

Speaker 16 You go and you get to see him for two hours a week and... You got a bunch of other people talking and it's loud and can't really have a private conversation.

Speaker 16 Leaving was definitely the hardest part for us.

Speaker 32 I mean, he held it together well, but.

Speaker 1 What was it like driving home? It was quiet.

Speaker 43 Watching his kids walk away week after week, said Cal, was unimaginably hard.

Speaker 17 That was the worst. I went back to my cell and just laid there for hours and hours and just

Speaker 17 closed my eyes and tried to block it out.

Speaker 11 Three years rolled by, but then came a day in October 2012 when Cal Harris found himself crying for joy in the prison yard.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 23 This is rare, though. I mean, this is really rare.

Speaker 44 Yeah.

Speaker 13 A new chance at freedom.

Speaker 20 New urgency from the kids.

Speaker 16 This was kind of our time to come out and do our part.

Speaker 22 And a whole new theory of the case.

Speaker 52 It's all coming together.

Speaker 46 It's time to look elsewhere.

Speaker 20 Trial number three,

Speaker 57 when dateline continues.

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Speaker 30 Had Cal Harris won the lottery.

Speaker 43 It could hardly have been more surprising than the news he heard in the prison yard in October 2012.

Speaker 23 It's rare, though. I mean, this is really rare for that to happen.

Speaker 14 What happened?

Speaker 56 New York's Court of Appeals overturned Cal's second murder conviction, said the trial judge made mistakes during jury selection and when he allowed hearsay testimony.

Speaker 70 So the appeals court ordered trial number three.

Speaker 30 And Cal once again went home to the house on Empire Lake and his four growing children.

Speaker 5 Tanner, the youngest, was in eighth grade then.

Speaker 3 The rest were in high school.

Speaker 12 Oh, it was great.

Speaker 15 What a change, huh?

Speaker 27 When you were back to normal, it was easy. Yeah?

Speaker 32 Didn't take long to adjust.

Speaker 45 Well, he had to adjust to what our plans were.

Speaker 5 Well, you've been coping on your own for so long.

Speaker 14 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 41 Now, this time, this third chance, the kids were determined this would be different.

Speaker 31 We want to know that our dad will not be taken away from us again for a crime we know he did not commit.

Speaker 28 It was a very public coming out.

Speaker 30 Kayla addressed the cameras.

Speaker 28 The rest of the kids and their teary-eyed dad stood by.

Speaker 31 We cannot sit here in silence and watch another tragedy of justice take place.

Speaker 36 The family launched a tip line asking the public to help find out what really happened to Michelle.

Speaker 46 It was March 2014.

Speaker 31 It's time for a real investigation that will get us answers.

Speaker 12 I think that it was a good thing for us to finally come out and talk about it.

Speaker 15 How did it feel to do it? Good.

Speaker 16 We all knew this was kind of our time to come out and give our side and, you know, do our part in this.

Speaker 30 Cal hired new lawyers, and they condemned the state for an investigation which they said was blind to any suspect but their client, lead defense attorney Bruce Barquette.

Speaker 68 They've pursued this man for 14 years

Speaker 68 with scant evidence. Evidence that really no

Speaker 68 prosecutor should bring a case on.

Speaker 2 The defense went back to witnesses the police had interviewed years before, talked to others, and heard a whole new story of Michelle's last hours on Earth.

Speaker 46 Earlier trials, they said, revealed the mother of four had been hanging with an unsavory crowd, co-workers and customers from her waitressing job.

Speaker 5 Attorney Aida Lessonring.

Speaker 52 There were people there that had criminal records. There were people there that were dealing drugs.
There were people there that were making sexual advances.

Speaker 25 And on the night she vanished, after she left her boyfriend's place, they now knew, they said, that Michelle did not go home.

Speaker 30 Because one of those witnesses reported seeing her later that night with another man,

Speaker 49 a local steel worker, attorney Donna Eldea.

Speaker 69 On September 11th, on that night, in a bar, in a dance club, he actually said, and that he was there, but then he left the two of them alone and he went home.

Speaker 53 The steel worker spotted with Michelle was a regular at her restaurant, said the defense.

Speaker 10 His name was Stacey Stewart.

Speaker 43 The defense said he told his friends he had a sexual relationship with Michelle.

Speaker 6 And, said the defense, Stacey Stewart appeared to be the very man Kevin Tubbs saw with Michelle in the early hours of September 12th.

Speaker 66 There was a blond woman out there and a young gentleman,

Speaker 66 you know, in his early 20s.

Speaker 38 Tubbs identified that man from a photograph.

Speaker 68 His physical appearance, his facial hair, his height, his age, and the type of vehicle he drove.

Speaker 46 Tubbs said the man he saw was standing beside a black truck.

Speaker 30 Stacey Stewart owned a black truck, same kind.

Speaker 52 And it's a new model, and it's a Chevy. And you look everything up and it's all coming together.

Speaker 3 Stacey Stewart has denied any involvement in Michelle's disappearance.

Speaker 8 He's denied he ever had a relationship with Michelle.

Speaker 1 Said he was never even alone with her.

Speaker 8 Still, Cal's side was convinced that Stewart and a friend of his played some role in Michelle's disappearance. In 2015, trial trial number three opened in the town of Skohari.

Speaker 46 A change of venue necessary, said the defense, because the case was too well known in Tioga County.

Speaker 11 And the defense managed to get some of the prosecution's case thrown out.

Speaker 29 The state wasn't allowed to suggest, as it had before, that the blood was spilled around the time Michelle disappeared.

Speaker 68 To have forensic scientists get up and speculate and guess at how old blood was based upon the color from a photograph is an outrageously unsupported proposition.

Speaker 43 Also out, hearsay testimony from prosecution witnesses who said Michelle told them that Cal threatened her life.

Speaker 68 We don't think they belonged in the evidence. It was part of the reason the case was unfair the first time or the second time.

Speaker 46 Then the defense attempted to present its evidence about that alternate suspect, Stacey Stewart. And the judge shut them down.

Speaker 46 The jury would only be allowed to hear Stewart's name, that Michelle knew him, that Kevin Tubbs had ID'd him, and that he owned a black truck at the time.

Speaker 65 No more.

Speaker 14 Why?

Speaker 39 Because Stacey Stewart wasn't on trial.

Speaker 2 Cal Harris was.

Speaker 36 The wrong man, his attorneys insisted.

Speaker 68 Cal did not deserve to be on trial.

Speaker 71 And frankly, Michelle and her family deserve better. We all want to know what happened to her.
It's time to look elsewhere.

Speaker 56 There was a new prosecutor this time, Cuyoga County's Kirk Martin.

Speaker 46 He made the same arguments as the previous DA, saying the evidence pointed to Cal Harris killing his wife. The trial took three months.

Speaker 37 And finally, late April, the jury got it, and the waiting began.

Speaker 46 Michelle's family still convinced that Cal was guilty.

Speaker 35 Is there a corner of your brain that thinks...

Speaker 36 God, maybe it was somebody else.

Speaker 3 Not at all.

Speaker 18 Not at all.

Speaker 46 Well, Cal and his his family hoped the jury had been persuaded otherwise.

Speaker 24 You know, you have been confident before when you've gone on trial because you have said, I didn't do it. I should be acquitted.

Speaker 23 And yet you weren't.

Speaker 11 So how does that impact your thinking now?

Speaker 17 Just by what Bruce and his team have done in the investigation. It's got to create some doubt.
And we didn't have that before.

Speaker 1 So, uncertainty.

Speaker 56 By this time, it was a way of life for the children.

Speaker 16 So I think,

Speaker 16 you know, if things don't go our way, it'll definitely, you know, turn all of our worlds upside down.

Speaker 16 But I think we're, I know we're tough enough that we'll get through it, but you know, you definitely don't like to think about that kind of thing.

Speaker 45 We definitely have plans and what we want to do when it's all said and done and over with, and the good end turns out.

Speaker 14 Won't talk about that at all?

Speaker 45 Vacation.

Speaker 45 Somewhere cool.

Speaker 40 Maybe.

Speaker 23 Maybe not.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 30 What would happen this time?

Speaker 75 Breaking news out of the Schoharie County Courthouse.

Speaker 20 Would you believe trial number four?

Speaker 69 Shocked. I was truly shocked.

Speaker 41 In Cal Harris's first two trials, jurors returned their verdict swiftly.

Speaker 4 Third time, deliberations dragged.

Speaker 5 Finally, almost two weeks in, the jurors made it clear they simply could not reach a verdict.

Speaker 75 Breaking news out of the Schoharie County Courthouse, the third Cal Harris murder trial has been ruled a mistrial by the judge.

Speaker 10 A mistrial.

Speaker 33 It was the outcome nobody wanted.

Speaker 26 We got closer to justice, but we're not there yet.

Speaker 59 Michelle's family, convinced they knew the truth that Cal murdered Michelle, left the courthouse without comment.

Speaker 1 Not right now. And Tioga County prosecutor Kirk Martin vowed to do it again.

Speaker 76 There have been two guilty verdicts in this case, and I eagerly await the earliest possible trial date that fits with the court schedule.

Speaker 40 A fourth trial? Really?

Speaker 40 Yes, indeed.

Speaker 70 In March 2016, deja vu all over again.

Speaker 40 Same courthouse, same cast of characters, with one notable newcomer.

Speaker 14 Good, how are you?

Speaker 32 Judge Richard Mott.

Speaker 56 When Cal waived his right to a jury trial, the new judge suddenly had a starring role in trial number four. He would decide the case.
He'd also decide whether to hear the defense's new evidence.

Speaker 3 In the end, he allowed some, but not all.

Speaker 43 Lead Defense Attorney Bruce Barquette.

Speaker 77 But the truth has finally began to peek its head at this trial.

Speaker 58 We finally begin to see at least an outline of who is actually responsible for Michelle Harris's demise.

Speaker 1 A peek or two, that's all.

Speaker 7 Barquette made the most of it.

Speaker 6 Quoting testimony about something that steel worker Stacey Stewart once said, something about Michelle.

Speaker 77 He says, I was the last person to be seen

Speaker 68 with her when she was alive.

Speaker 38 Defense attorney said they wanted to put Stacey Stewart on the stand, but couldn't track him down.

Speaker 53 So now, in closing, Barquette didn't offer a detailed theory about what happened to Michelle.

Speaker 40 Didn't have to.

Speaker 28 I'm asking the court to find Mr.

Speaker 58 Harris not guilty because there's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed this offense.

Speaker 1 Four trials.

Speaker 3 And now it was all on the line. And so DA Kirk Martin came on strong.

Speaker 30 That whole defense theory, he told the judge, was a fantasy.

Speaker 76 There's no evidence Stacey Stewart had any sort of relationship with Michelle. Let alone any reason or motive to harm one hair on her head.

Speaker 43 Finally, said the DA, after so many years, so many trials, it was time to convict Cal Harris once and for all.

Speaker 76 Michelle died at the hands of her husband, the defendant, Calvin Harris.

Speaker 15 So, what would the judge do?

Speaker 27 We presented the evidence about what we think happened.

Speaker 10 The judge was terse.

Speaker 46 His verdict brief with no explanation.

Speaker 44 Just two words.

Speaker 56 Words Cal Harris and his children had waited 15 years to hear.

Speaker 1 Not guilty.

Speaker 26 When he came back with the not guilty, I was just, I was shocked.

Speaker 69 I was truly shocked.

Speaker 7 Shocked.

Speaker 15 Overjoyed.

Speaker 1 And saddened by what he'd lost.

Speaker 75 Best years of.

Speaker 26 My life as a parent.

Speaker 26 And I'll never get those years back.

Speaker 43 He will also never stand trial for his wife's murder again, exonerated now, and free finally to speak his mind about his terrible 15-year ordeal.

Speaker 26 From my standpoint personally, I think one of the greatest hypocrisies in our country is our criminal justice system. There is nothing fair about it.

Speaker 4 But Kel did more than just speak out.

Speaker 55 In August 2017, his legal team filed a sweeping 26-page federal complaint claiming malicious prosecution and violations of civil rights.

Speaker 4 The lawsuit targets Tioga County and members of the New York State Police, among others.

Speaker 7 All those named in the suit have denied allegations of misconduct.

Speaker 27 But still, a mystery endures about a woman who vanished on a warm September night while the rest of the world was looking the other way.

Speaker 29 That's all for now.

Speaker 20 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 72 Thanks for joining us.

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