Episode 683: The Murder of David Harris (Part 2)

Hey weirdos, it's Ash.

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She did not listen to it, but she said, Girl, this title sounds so you.

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Dad?

How do you make a happy egg?

Well, it starts with a happy hen.

Happy egg.

Happy crack.

Happy flip.

Happy poach.

Happy whip.

Happy hen.

Happy egg.

Happy sizzle.

Happy brunch.

Happy hen.

Happy egg.

And you can make eggs a mazillion ways, but that orange oak is how you know it's happy.

Happy

egg.

Hey, weirdos.

I'm Ash and I am Elena and this is Morbid.

This is Morbid trying to figure out what to eat for dinner.

Not flamin' hot Cheetos.

No, I just tried flaming hot Cheetos for the first time.

I like that you say flaming.

Flaming?

What is it supposed to be like flamin'?

Flamin'.

Flamin'.

Oh, I thought it was flaming.

Flamin'.

It's flaming.

I'm such a good author.

I have tried flaming hot Cheetos for the first time.

It's, yeah, I've never tried them before, which you would think I would.

I love cheesy goodness.

Yeah.

Um,

they're okay.

Yeah, I took a video of her trying them.

She just said, so spicy.

They're so spicy.

They're not like crazy spicy.

And then they're so artificial tasting.

I think I've just like lost a taste for super artificial tasting stuff.

I get that.

You offer me some and I was not interested.

Yeah.

I think that's what happened.

Remember I tried Takis?

Oh, yeah.

And it made me literally sick.

Like, I think it was just, I couldn't get it.

That's another thing I've never tried.

I know my bounds when it comes to this IBS body of.

Well, your stomach is a, is the Wild West.

So I don't blame you for.

putting up boundaries.

Listen, I'm going to say some crazy shit right now.

I'm not a medical doctor, so don't fucking listen to me.

No, no, no, no.

And I'm not.

i was gonna say it but then i decided not to but you're not someone who claims that you can beat infertility with a positive mindset no or raw milk um but

i do

find a difference in my tum-tum's happiness when i eat chia seed pudding in the morning you know and there's actually scientific evidence behind that and like how it works as it travels through your body well people also people like it it's hard i've never really had it but i i think there's something to that you don't like pudding though i do love pudding.

You do like pudding.

Yeah, I love pudding.

Why did I think you don't like pudding?

I don't know.

Pudding.

I love it.

Pudding moment.

I think it's really good, and it's also really easy to make.

So there.

It's like four ingredients.

I should try that because I really need to.

I got to get back.

I was in a really good

meal preppy

place of being for like the last few months.

I was like...

Every Sunday, I was doing my meal prep for the week.

And it was mostly like snacks for the kids.

You know, just getting things ready so we could have an easier week.

And I like that ebbs and flows so much just because life, yeah, it's like we would have a couple of busy weekends and it would throw me off, or we people got sick, like the kids got sick, I got sick, John got like somebody got sick, and it just threw us all off.

But I need to get back in my ship because I do think the that life flows nicer when there's a little bit of prep involved.

No, definitely a prep.

I just prepped three of these for this week because I was like, I'm, I was waking up, I've been waking up so late lately.

I need to because I happen to to get it coming into the office ridiculously late.

I just roll up in here at fucking like 9.17.

I'm like, sorry.

We start early usually, but I just, I don't know what's going on with my legs.

Josh says, fuck y'all.

Yeah, I make myself.

I show up when I want to.

I show up when I can.

When I can.

I show up pretty regularly.

Yeah.

But yeah, no,

I kept just like not eating breakfast or like grabbing something stupid or being exponentially more late because I was like, I have to eat breakfast.

Yeah.

And these cheesy seed puddings, you make them, you have to set them in the fridge because they, um, they'll fuck you up if they don't.

Oh, if they, because they're, they're like loaded with fiber, but, um, they have to soak in a, like, some kind of liquid so that they're not, so they're not as like crazy.

I don't know.

Yeah.

But because I think basically, I think they can like

maybe not exactly, but I think they can like explode in you if you don't soak them first.

I think people have had like ruptures.

Here's the thing.

I don't know if I'll be doing chia seed pudding.

I don't like having any kind of risk with my food.

No, there's no risk if you soak like

one thing, rhubarb pie.

What?

I'm scared of rhubarb pie.

Why is that?

Because you have to, like,

there's a certain part of a rhubarb that if you eat it, it's poisonous.

For real?

Yeah.

Have you ever had a rhubarb?

Um, I don't know if I have.

I don't even know if I've come across a rhubarb.

The produce

pie is a is a thing.

But yeah, it's like the leaves, I think.

If you like leave any of the leaves on, they're poisonous and that i don't like having any kind of risk with my food no i got that you know like i'm not one of those people who's going to eat that like highly poisonous like fucking sushi that like you know that like crazy thing that it's like if they don't do it perfectly but there's a highly poisonous sushi it's like a it's in like

I think it's like some crazy delicacy that like, oh, if they don't prepare it exactly right, it can kill you.

Is it like the kind of fish or something?

I think so.

I've never heard of that.

It's like the way you prepare it, I think, if you don't do it correctly.

Oh, fuck.

I'm not living that life.

Like, that's why I don't bungee jump.

That's why I'm not skydiving.

Yeah, that's why you ruined oysters for me and my husband.

That's why I ruined oysters for as many people as I could.

Because I'm just like, no, live this life with me.

Yeah.

Where we eat food that doesn't kill us.

It's good.

No, honestly, chia seed pudding is fine.

You literally just have to soak it in a liquid before you eat it.

Yeah.

Otherwise, it could just, you know, kill you.

Yeah.

I'm a little scared by that.

It won't kill you.

It'll just explode in your diet.

I'm just going to support you.

I don't know.

Look into it.

I honestly, I recommend it, though, because it gets things moving.

It gets things moving.

And it might really get things moving by exploding inside of you.

Just soak it in a liquid.

But they're loaded in fiber.

And we, as women, especially, don't get enough fiber.

And this is not an ad.

We literally just don't.

That sounded like it was about to be an ad.

I know.

For a second, I was like, do we have an ad?

I was like,

fuck off.

No, I feel

passionate about this.

Because women do not get an ad.

I was like, ooh.

Lately, I feel so passionate about like women's like like just like health there's no research into women's health whatsoever and i've been looking more into it and they don't recommend that we have enough fiber so all of us are lacking in fiber and that makes us tired and irregular and have ibs and you know this is a health podcast now yeah welcome now anyways um we were gonna say something else no uh i don't know we just have uh

We have some

stuff coming up that's fun.

We do.

That I just, you know, I'm just sharing with with my besties here, you know, all of you, everybody.

You, Mikey, all the people listening.

Mockley.

Um, we get to go to the Jack's mannequin concert soon.

I mean, it's like a day after tomorrow.

I was going to say, it's like, because I'm going to be able to do that.

By the time you hear this, we'll have already been.

Yeah, and it was awesome, I'm sure.

It was great.

Good job, Andrew.

Yeah, we get to hang with Andrew

for a minute again, and that'll be fun.

And Aiden's coming.

Because that's always a fun thing to be like, oh, let's just hang out with Andrew McMahon again, rock star.

Again, 16-year-old me is just not really fully grasping that as reality.

But here we are.

And I'm just excited to see Jack's Mannequin play again because I haven't been to a Jack's Mannequin concert in a long time.

I actually can't believe I talked about fiber before this.

It was like the worst transition ever.

I just talked about like digestive tracks and fiber before.

The Nagar like, let's talk about...

Jack's mannequin.

Yeah.

I'm like, that's good.

You're like, oh, yeah, you know?

That really shifted us into gear.

Jesus Christ.

I love it.

I'm so excited.

I haven't seen Jack's Mannequin since, I think, 2016.

Yeah, it's been a long time.

Yeah.

So that'll be fun.

Mm-hmm.

We got that.

And hopefully, you know, hopefully we see some of you there.

Yeah.

I bet we did.

We probably did.

It was so much fun.

Oh, we did.

We saw some of you there.

And it was.

Hey.

Hey, guys.

Good to see you.

Hey, you.

We saw there.

Hey, listener.

You know what's going to be, you know, what's super duper cool?

What?

There's only like,

20-ish episodes left where we have to be so far ahead.

20 episodes left that we have to be able to.

Yeah, we only have a handful of episodes where we're not going to understand where it's falling in the

rushing order.

Where we're at.

So the space-time continues.

Yeah, we're almost at a point where we're going to be up to date with you guys.

It's going to be so nice to see you guys again.

Can't wait.

Yeah, it's going to be nice.

What if I laughed like that?

Whenever I say, what if I laughed like that?

So many people comment.

They're like, you do.

You do.

I'm like, don't tell me I laugh like that.

You laugh like that.

I just don't tell me.

I'm reckless today.

You are reckless.

And this is a reckless story that you're about to finish.

Yeah.

It's certainly a great way to describe it.

I know, I think we bantered the banterer

a thousand sons.

That was beautiful.

Thank you.

Poetic even.

All right.

So, yeah, we are in part two of the murder of David Harris.

This is, like Elena just said, a reckless story, harrowing, one might say.

In part part one, we started obviously with the unfortunate act of Clara Harris running over her husband David while his 16-year-old daughter Lindsay sat in the passenger seat of the car.

I cannot get over that.

Yeah, I just feel deep, deep sadness for her.

Me too.

Like, I'm sending her all of my condolences at all times.

Yeah.

So, Clara had just learned two weeks earlier that David was having an affair with his secretary, Gail Bridges, how cliché.

Obviously, that was absolutely devastating to her for so many reasons, but they had been married for 10 years at that point.

They had three-year-old twins.

Wow.

Three-year-old twins at that point.

Three years old, and she's being told

that she's like not bouncing back quick enough.

Oh, yeah, because remember in part one, that's another part to revisit.

Yeah.

She had him sit down with her and make a list of all their attributes that, like, she, so she could compare to make herself better, which is horrifying.

The saddest thing I think I've ever heard.

And he wrote down that Gail had almost a perfect body with almost no fat.

And that

Clara was a large person, comma, too big.

And again,

she had three-year-old twins.

So that's fucking terrible.

That's cool.

But also, so that all of that was devastating.

And they also were owners of multiple practices across Houston together.

And he's cheating with one of their employees.

When you think about that, like her money that she's earning, Clara, is going to this woman who's having an affair with her husband.

She's paying this woman's salary.

She's having an affair with her husband.

Yeah.

Not anymore, though, because remember.

He got fired.

She got fired.

Clara said, hand over those keys.

So now that she knew.

Pretty much everything there was to know about her husband's affair, Clara wanted to know more about Gail Bridges.

Who was this woman who had managed to easily lure her husband?

You don't want to know.

You know what, though?

You don't want to know.

I know.

No, I know.

I was going to know.

That's why I just looked at you.

But for real, you don't.

It's not going to do anything for you.

It's not going to do anything for you.

It's going to upset you more.

I totally understand

people's response to this.

Oh, 100%.

Because I have to know everything about everything too, even like when it's a bad thing.

Oh, yeah.

I can't imagine this specific bad thing.

It's never good, though.

Oh, it's awful.

It just never ends in you being like, wow, I feel so much better for having known that.

I know.

Well, she found out that Gail, I mean, she knew that Gail had worked for the company for several months, but Clara didn't really know a lot about her.

So she started asking around.

What she learned about Gail was kind of just a mix of vapid facts, salacious rumors, and obviously biased opinions.

But one thing caught her off guard, caught Clara off guard.

Supposedly, Gail had left her husband years earlier to be in a relationship with another woman.

So the news was unconfirmed.

It was just a rumor, but it was confusing to Clara.

Her understanding of sexual identity, remember, this is like very early 2000s in Texas.

Her understanding was somewhat rigid.

Yeah.

She wondered, how could Gail be interested in a sexual romantic relationship with David if she was a lesbian?

Which, like, you can be in a relationship with a woman and not be a lesbian in case anybody was confused.

Yeah.

So upon learning more about Gail, Clara got determined to learn as much as she possibly could.

Every time she learns a new piece of information, she wants more and more and more and more.

Yeah, see, it's a slippery slope.

And she didn't just want information.

She wanted revenge.

Great band.

To that end, on July 22nd, Clara made an appointment with Blue Moon Investigations, which was a private investigation firm that she found in the yellow pages of the phone book.

The yellow pages.

Yeah.

Oof.

A few hours later, she found herself sitting down with Blue Moon's owners, Lucas and Bobby Baca, where she handed out a large sum of cash in advance.

What she wanted, she explained to them, was them to just surveil Gail Bridges to get any information or even possibly recordings of her with her supposed lover, Julian Knight, that Clara could use to publicly shame Gail and ruin her reputation, which is like homophobic and annoying.

And also,

it's not doing anything.

No, and this is where it's not doing it.

That's childish.

It's childish.

And this is where I, Clara really loses me.

Yeah.

She's thinking that she's going to publicly shame this woman for being a lesbian.

Yeah.

And it's like, nope.

And also, and it's literally just like,

for why?

Yeah.

Like, that's just, it doesn't.

What do you get out of that it's not doing anything like this is doing nothing but wasting your time and if you're truly wanting to work on your marriage you do have to now concentrate on the dirt and yeah like get her out of here you know that's the thing like make sure she's gone like that doesn't mean obsessing over her which obviously again better easier said than easier said than done but it's like this just isn't going through this big thing to like publicly shame her and shit is just not

it's not worth your time time.

It's not conducive to anything.

And it's very childish, regardless of how angry you are or upset.

That's childish.

It just is.

It is.

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But

the private investigators assured Clara none of this would be any problem.

The case file on Gail Bridges actually came together pretty quickly because it turned out that during her divorce proceedings three years earlier, Gail's husband, Steve, had accused her of carrying on an affair with her friend, Julie Knight.

Oh.

It didn't take long for the accusations to get back to Julie's husband, Chuck Knight, who then in turn filed his own divorce papers, alleging his wife was having an affair with Gail.

So this is messy as hell now.

And Gail is messy as hell.

Well, neither man offered any evidence.

Gail's messy for having an affair with David.

With David.

Her affair with Julie is unconfirmed.

It seems like...

It might have just been helpful for her husband to have this in divorce proceedings.

That kind of thing.

Yeah, we've seen that.

Yeah, because neither man offered any evidence to support their claims.

And according to Valerie Davenport, who ended up being a lawyer for both Julie and Gail, she said the tale of the affair had been invented by their husbands as a way to divert attention from their own improper misconduct.

Ah.

Apparently, Steve Bridges had alleged alcoholism and drug abuse, and Chuck Knight had his own alleged extramarital affair.

Alleged.

Alleged.

For the Bacchas, the private investigators, the details and the actual facts didn't really matter very much.

So what they reported was only what appeared in public record.

Yeah.

So throughout the day, the bizarre story started to grow in size and in strangeness.

It turned out that in 2001, just a couple of years earlier, a year earlier, Julie and Gail had appeared on an episode of the daytime talk show.

I don't know if you've heard of it, Sally Jesse Raphael.

Oh, holy shit.

With the glasses.

Oh, with the glasses.

With the glasses.

I remember Sally Jesse Raphael.

I never saw it.

That was before my time.

But okay.

Just kidding.

But Julie and Gail appeared in an episode entitled, My Husband Spies on Me.

Shut up.

So this is a real, this is an episode?

Yes.

My husband.

Gail is in.

Google My Husband Spies on Me, Sally, Jesse, Raphael, and they're in it, but wearing wigs and dark glasses to disguise their appearances because daytime talk show.

I cannot.

Yeah.

And because their husband spies on them.

And because their husband spies on them.

Julie and Gail described how their husbands tried to portray them as lesbians in order to get favorable outcomes in their respective divorces.

Which is fucked up.

It is super fucked up.

A few weeks later, after David's murder, the press seized on this information because, obviously, it is the perfect thing to write a sleazy story about.

Of course.

They were hoping that the scandal, however fabricated it was, would drive readership, and it worked.

Yeah, they don't care if it's real.

No.

The story of David Harris's murder became a national news story within just days of his death.

The Houston Chronicle was publishing photos of the women and their wigs from the Sally Jesse Raphael episode, elevating the story from one of local interest to a bizarre sex scandal that would obviously fascinate the nation.

Because it is bizarre.

It is bizarre.

Like it's very bizarre.

The whole thing.

It's so layered at this point.

Other tabloid and tabloid adjacent papers followed suit.

The New York Post declared a headline reading, bisexual triangle led to car sleigh of hubby.

Who wrote that?

That's a lot.

I want to.

That's a lot.

I want to talk to the person.

Yeah, I got to talk to you about that because that one is...

A lot.

That's a lot.

They also compared gail bridges to the character of hester prin from the scarlet letter which like do better yeah i mean that that's also just like all right unoriginal yeah so i'm like okay scarlet a we get it okay julie knight said it is madness there's no other way to describe it and i feel bad that she got dragged into it because from the sounds of it gail and julie like when gail and julie were married to their respective partners they were all friends And then they just decided to.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like they watched this scheme.

It doesn't really sound like they had a relationship.

Yeah.

but within days of david's death photos of clara david gail and julie were just plastered across every newspaper every tabloid tv talk shows all across the country

julie told skip hollinsworth in 2002 you really do think you have your life worked out you really do think nothing can go too wrong and now here we all are on the front pages of newspapers that's rough would you feel bad for her specifically because she has nothing to dig into it she's such a side like character in this whole thing it's you feel really bad it's really sad given the timeline it would seem kind of impossible too that bobby and lucas baca could have dug up so much information about gail bridges it was just like a day and a half before the murder took place oh wow that gail got all of this information yeah but they didn't seem to have any trouble putting together a large file on gail in a matter of like hours essentially it was only after the murder that clara learned the real reason blue moon investigations had also been hired by julie's ex-husband Chuck Knight, to surveil his wife, who he believed was having an affair with his, with her best friend, Gail Bridges.

Ah, Bobby Baca followed both women for days and ultimately came up with nothing.

So like I said, it doesn't seem like they were even having an affair.

She actually told Chuck Knight, they acted like Wilma and Betty from the Flintstones and there was nothing quote-unquote lesbian-like about their behavior.

Nothing.

And I'm like, what is lesbian-like?

Is that just like if they start making out?

If they just start like food on the street, is that lesbian-like?

Like, what i'm like it sounds like they were just best friends that were like hanging out and probably going through hard times in their marriages yeah but please bobby let us do tell about lesbian like mannerisms but according to bobby when she reported her her findings to chuck knight he asked her to inflame the lesbian aspects of the report again to help him in his divorce proceedings this is all alleged after that Bobby filed the report away, didn't really think anything else about it until a few months later when Gail and Julie showed up at her office.

They both intended to hire Blue Moon to investigate their husbands, but only Julie ended up going through with it and Bobby opened a case into Chuck Knight's life.

Ah.

Among the things that Bobby learned was that Chuck was allegedly having an affair of his own with a woman named Lori who was a part-time baton twirling instructor and a wife of a local builder.

How are these people real?

That's what I want to know.

You know what?

It's so Texas.

Like, that's real wild.

Everything's bigger in Texas.

Yeah.

Why not?

You can't make that up.

You can't.

You really can't.

Everything is, in fact, bigger and more bodacious and wild.

Texas.

Yes, apparently.

So when Bobby brought the report to Gail and Julie, the women were stunned.

Steve and Lori Wells had also been very close friends with the Knights and the Bridges until they drifted apart.

Oh, damn.

So because so Chuck was having an affair with Lori.

So like all these people who are friends, like these couple friends, are all just allegedly are all having an affair with one or other people.

Wow.

Adorable.

Yeah.

So after months of court appointments and back and forth with the lawyers, all three women ended up getting divorced from their husbands, which I would say is good.

You're probably great for everybody.

Great for everybody.

But that's how Gail Bridges found herself in the employee of David Harris.

And it wasn't until six or seven months later when Clara hired Blue Moon to follow her husband that the lives of all these people then became pretty tenuously connected and only through all of their connections to the Blue Moon private investigation firm.

Which, like, damn, these people got business.

Yeah, seriously.

But when Clara first met with Bobby to hire Blue Moon Investigations Firm a few days before David was ultimately killed, Bobby didn't recognize Gail or Julie's names and assigned the case to one of her part-time investigators.

It was only after the murder that she made the connections.

And then by that point, the media had also made the connections and started playing up all these crazy aspects of the story.

So that's how it got

really like inflamed.

Yes.

Now, by the time she went on trial in late January 2003, Clara Harris had become a household name across the U.S.

because of all this.

Yeah.

Her story of a suburban sex scandal and a woman driven to murder had, for some reason, resonated with a certain segment of the population.

I can't imagine this story resonating.

I'm so sad that it resonated.

I know.

You know, like, that's just like, damn.

Yeah.

Like, can you imagine?

No.

Like,

if this is the story that you're like, been there, sister.

No.

Like, that's hard.

No.

No.

Not been there, sister.

Honey.

No.

So while the tabloids focused on the sensational aspects of the story, like the sex lives of everybody involved or, you know, tangenti involved,

others speculated on the motive or just simply gave their uninformed opinions on the matter.

Yeah, which is literally what we're doing.

So exactly what we're doing.

But I'm speaking from a point of total not knowing what this feels like.

Yeah, uninformed.

You know, according to Skip Hollandsworth, local radio talk shows were jammed with callers saying that Clara should not be severely punished for what she had done, reasoning that she never would have committed murder had her husband not cheated on her.

Okay, here's the thing.

Like, go off.

Here's the thing.

No.

Because

those two things can be true at once.

Yeah.

Would she have committed murder if this didn't happen?

Probably not.

I don't think so.

Probably not.

But that doesn't mean that she shouldn't be caught.

She shouldn't, that she should have done it.

Like, or that she's somehow like just relieved of all, you know, guilt for having done it.

And that would mean that every single woman who's ever been cheated on can run their husband over with their car.

Or that's pretty fucking lawless.

Or that anytime someone commits murder in like a crime of passion or something like that, they get away with it.

Would they have committed murder if like this hadn't happened?

Probably not.

Right.

So I guess we won't punish them for it because, whoops, that's a slippery, slope, slippery slope.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

And I get it.

Emotions are high.

People who probably have cheating spouses are sitting there being like, yeah,

like let it, let it all happen.

But it's like you really have to take it down about a hundred notches

and take yourself totally out of the emotions of it and say, Yeah, I get that you are upset.

I get that sucks.

I get that you can sit there and be like, I want to run him over with my car.

Like saying that as like a, I'm frustrated.

Hyperbole.

Hyperbole.

That's the key here.

And it's like, in the words of Zach from the Valley, is hyperbole dead, everybody?

There you go.

They Elena doesn't watch.

I don't watch the Valley, so I don't know, but I'll trust you.

And but that's, and it's like, you, nobody's taking this as like a human thing.

No.

That like, yes, shitty thing, shitty things like leading up to this for sure.

She had every right to be angry.

She had every reason to lash out at times and get upset and act, you know, a little foolishly at times.

Like you can even put that aside a little bit.

You cannot excuse murdering someone because they

were.

terrible to you even like you know what i mean like that like that they hurt your feelings and that they betrayed you even you can't justify it slippery because that's a slippery ass slope

because like everybody takes betrayal a different way and you can't just blanketly say well he did this shitty thing so he deserved it yeah you can't do that we would have a reckless nation it would be a lawless nation it's like you can't do that yeah so it's like we gotta take it back to being rational humans here and rational adults and say yeah you have every right to be pissed You can't do that.

You don't have every right to be able to.

He didn't have a vehicle.

He shouldn't have lost his life.

No.

Should he have been, you know, should he have had some of his money spent on her behalf?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Even the, even the DA says that later.

Yeah.

Should he have had to, like, you know, he, should he have had to hear it from her?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Should he have had to repair his relationships with everyone around him and had to go through the hardship of that?

Absolutely.

And he should have bent over backwards for it.

Yep.

But he shouldn't have been murdered.

It's just not.

No.

It's pretty black and white to me.

I agree.

I agree wholeheartedly.

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Well, the sympathy that many people seem to have for Clara wasn't just lost on the press.

Once the trial opened, a lot of outlets reported on the fact that her high-priced defense attorneys were paid for at least in part by David's parents.

Wow.

Which is, these are big people.

It's wow.

This was very shocking to me, this piece, but I was like.

I think these are good people.

Like, I can't imagine.

Like the parents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So throughout the trial, it was actually common to see David's parents escort Clara, their daughter-in-law, in and out of court each day and sit behind her in a show of support.

Wow.

In their statement to the press, the Harris has said, as a good Christian family, they had forgiven their daughter-in-law and hoped she would remain free to raise the young twin boys that she had shared with her husband.

Those are

bigger people than me.

I'm stunned by that.

This is a shocking case.

I would say that is one of the most shocking.

That's honestly very shocking.

I can't even comment on that because I don't even, That's shocking.

It's

a whole other level.

Yeah, that's a whole different thing.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's like shocking.

Yeah.

I can't say that I would feel the same.

Yeah.

But, like, I don't think I could get to that place.

I really give them a lot of credit because that's a whole other level of forgiveness.

Yeah.

That I have never found in my heart.

Yeah, I don't think I will ever find that.

Nor.

But wild.

And lucky fucking Clara.

Yeah.

Can you like,

how do you face your mother-in-law after running down her child?

Yeah.

That's wow.

Well, for her part, Clara did seem to be remorseful for what she had done.

As her lawyer, George Parnum, said in a 2002 interview, it was rare to find Clara not weeping and Clara was having, was still having difficulty believing that David would never again walk through the front door of their home.

Because again, I think she blinked out, man.

I really do.

I don't think she was with it.

I definitely think she feels regret.

Yeah.

But I still think she needed to be punished.

Yeah.

Prior to the Harris murder and prior to Clara's trial, George Parnum had actually gained national notoriety as the defense attorney for Andrea Yates.

And for anybody that doesn't know Andrea Yates, she was a Houston mother who drowned her five children in 2001.

I'm not going to say no.

And just so you know, we will literally never cover that case.

And you don't want to hear us cover that case.

Yeah, you don't want to hear my opinion.

But that notoriety brought even more attention to an already heavily watched story, the fact that this guy is the same guy who repped Andrea Yates.

Oh, yeah.

I would say so.

That's a whole damn.

Yeah.

We're not talking about that.

Yeah, that's a horrible case.

But when the trial finally did get started, Parnum laid out the defense in his opening statement.

When she learned of her husband's affair with Gail Bridges, he said Clara was deeply hurt, but willing to work on their marriage, provided David end his relationship, which he did agree to do.

But when Clara learned that contrary to what they had agreed upon, David had checked into the Nassau Bay Hilton with Gail, Clara, quote, quote, acted in the heat of anger and betrayal, which I do think is what happened.

I think that's correct, like, you know, at the very base level of what it is.

I think you're stating facts for sure.

Yup.

It's a little more nuanced than that.

Yes, yes, which is true, but it's a little more nuanced.

That's the perfect way to say it.

He said, once she came out of her rage-induced fog and realized what she had done, she was immediately remorseful.

And she cradled David's head in her hands and insisted that he begin breathing.

She was, according to Parnum, desperate to, quote, keep her family together to bring her husband of 10 years back to her, which she had tried to do through cosmetic surgery and other beauty products.

That is just so sad.

It's tragic.

It really is.

Unlike the outcome in the Yates case, Parnum's defense of Clara stood a fairly good chance of success with the jury, though, which was composed of nine women and three men.

which I was like, damn, where was the selection there?

Right?

Nine women and three men.

Damn.

That's a for real jury of your peers.

Yeah, it is.

During jury selection, one potential juror said, any married woman can relate to Clara Harris.

Oh,

married woman here.

Nope.

I'm going to go on the record and say, no.

Married woman.

Nope.

Can't, can't say that I do.

Any married women right here do not relate to Clara Harris.

Another juror was, a potential juror was dismissed when she said she, quote, nicked her husband with a truck after discovering him with a mistress years ago.

Some of these things are inside thoughts that I think

Texas is crazy.

Some of these things are go to the grave with

I'm confident in saying Texas is a wild place.

It's a wild place.

And like even, I feel confident saying that because even Texans say that.

Yes.

Like, and this story is just such a prime example of Texas being a wild place.

Just the fact that this just opened up women just being like, oh, don't worry.

I, too, hit my husband's mistress with my car.

Like, it's just like, whoa, everybody.

This is not like everybody admit.

i don't think in boston you well you know what never mind i'm not i don't know man i don't know i don't know but strangely i was just saying like she's so lucky that there are so many women on the jury but even the men in the jury pool seemed open to her defense one man said he had been accused of assault when he discovered his wife's infidelity so he understood the impulse he said

Here's the thing.

I think they are correct in what they're saying, some of them, like being like, I understand the, that you got out of yourself.

I can like, I think they're almost looking at it like we are, where we're like, I understand the emotion behind it.

Yes.

That's driving you to this like place of just no return.

Yeah.

But I'm not understanding the act and I'm not understanding not pulling yourself back from that point of no return.

Hopefully.

You can look at it and go, okay, I get that you are upset.

I get it.

Like you had every right to be upset.

And there were some of them like

I've been there.

It's the ones that are like, I too have nicked my husband with the car.

And it's like, whoa, okay.

We're not in the same.

We didn't give that enough attention.

Did you say you nicked?

Snicked them.

Nicked your husband with your car.

It's a little crazy.

You just gave him a little boop.

Like, that's all.

You can't nick someone with your car.

You either hit them or you don't.

It's a motor vehicle.

Like, and that's a human body.

Like, that's.

You don't nick someone.

You nick someone with like some tweezers or like

some trimmers.

No.

Your toenail cutters.

And that's where the, that's where my issue is lying.

It's like we're getting, they're getting outside of the real point here of like, of like like the emotions and the the betrayal and and all that is not coming into question uh-uh it's the act that followed it it's like you can

it's just the same thing you can get upset you can feel betrayed you can scream you can yell you can act a little out of yourself i get it like i would i i can't imagine i I'm not going to sit here and say I would be in total control

of my emotions and myself.

No, I'm barely in control of my emotions on a good day.

When I'm happy, I'm barely in control of it.

So it's like, I get that.

And it's like, but you just, there's no excuse for running someone over three times in your car with their child in the car.

There's just no excuse for that.

And to sit there and give the like, well, yeah, like, you know, like, I beat the shit out of my wife's, you know, side piece there.

Right.

And I caught a case for it.

So I get it.

And it's like, one, that's, you shouldn't do that.

And two, that's a little different.

It's a little different.

jury select someone over in the car three times with the child in the car jury selection for this case sounded buckwild i think people were just like

it sounds like people were just kind of

they found a lot of people who could relate to this which is really sad yeah we all need to to be better to our loved ones well almost to sum it all up in one statement one of the trial watchers told a reporter there's the rule of law and then there's the rule of law in texas the rule of law in texas kind of cowboy law it's a fine fine line between sanity and madness.

I think that encompasses the movie.

No, I think that encompasses this entire fucking case.

It literally does.

There's the rule of law and then there's the rule of law in Texas.

I, Skip Hollinsworth covers so many cases in Texas and whenever I do cover a case in Texas, he's usually a source I'll use.

And all of those cases that he has reported on throughout the years and all of the cases that we have covered in Morbid throughout the years, the Texas ones are among the motherfucking craziest stories i've ever read in my life yeah texas is just like

and they even say it like that this is a man from texas it's cowboy law

and i think that's the thing i think they're just more willing to say that like yeah

felt like we wanted to run someone over in a car she just did it and it's like yeah okay

i don't maybe keep that stuff inside like i don't that's a lot like that there's just so many people openly being like yeah yeah, I get it.

Like, ah, like, please be specific.

Tell me you get the emotion.

Yeah, you got it.

No one's saying that.

Everyone's just saying, I get it.

You gotta be specific.

And it's like, no, we don't get it.

We can't get that.

We can't get murdering someone because you're mad.

The prosecution didn't.

That's a good thing.

Good news.

Yeah.

However sympathetic Clara Harris looked to the jury and anybody even watching the trial, the prosecution flatly rejected the sudden passion defense and instead pointed to the evidence, which they believed would show the murder to be at least deliberate, if not entirely planned.

I don't think, personally, I don't think this was planned.

Doesn't feel

deliberate.

I think it was 100% deliberate.

Had a moment where she said, I'm going to run him the fuck over with my car and then followed through on it.

I don't think that she thought.

I don't think she woke up that morning and thought that.

I don't think that either.

Yeah.

That's just my feeling as a person looking at this case completely from the outside.

And he

woke up that morning in a really bad emotional state that only got worse throughout the day.

Yeah, I think so too.

And I think she made a poor decision

with

going out to look for

them.

Because I think in that emotional state, there should have been a little self-regulation here to say, I am in a highly emotional state about this.

I feel some type of way.

I should not go out looking because also she's not going to like I don't I don't know that she had a plan when she did ultimately find them, but you're sitting like you're gonna find them at some point.

You're hunting them down.

So what's the plan from there?

And Lindsay never, ever, ever should have been invited to go along.

That's really my huge starting point here.

Obviously, the murder and the entire thing having Lindsay involved in any way, shape, or form should never, ever, ever have happened.

Yeah.

And that honestly should have been the like come down to earth moment of like Lindsay being around is being like, okay, self-regulate.

Yeah.

Like I have someone, that should have been your thing.

And it's, and it is a little, that was scary that like that didn't regulate her.

Well, Lindsay ended up testifying.

And I do think that

helped bring people down to earth and on the job.

Like away from like the emotional impact of everything.

And, you know, relating to hating your husband.

Yeah.

Well.

On the first day of the trial, the prosecution called, like I just said, Lindsay Harris to testify against her stepmother.

Lindsay explained that they had had gone out looking for her father and Gail that afternoon, and how once she learned where they were, Clara seemed determined to kill David.

Lindsay told the jury she said she would kill my father for what he'd done to her.

Now, again, who knows if that's like hyperbolic?

Like, I think we've all said, I'm going to kill, oh my God, I'm going to kill him.

Like, she didn't say that to a kid.

I didn't say that to a kid.

She could never say that.

I don't care how old that kid is.

No.

16 years old is still a kid.

And it's like, you don't say that about their father.

And you ended up killing him later that day.

Yeah, so that's not great that you said that.

It makes it it seem like you had a plan here.

Which, you know, maybe she did.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But in his opening statement, George Parnum had, you know, tried to frame the murder as something akin to an accident.

Clara hadn't gone into the hotel in order to kill anyone, but after the brawl in the lobby, she was in a highly aroused emotional state and acted without thinking.

And he challenged the prosecution's claim that Clara had driven over her husband multiple times, telling the jury that she only hit him once.

Despite his best efforts to frame Clara in a sympathetic light as a woman who had made a terrible mistake, the evidence and the testimony of those present at the hotel when David Harris was killed was

all of those people were telling a very different story.

It's, I go back to the cackling.

The cackling, and she absolutely ran over him more than one time.

There's video evidence of it.

Yeah.

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Lindsay testified she was on a mission to find out where he was.

She was determined.

They had tricked her.

They had hidden from her and she was upset by that.

And once she found David and Gail, she waited to make her move.

In her testimony, Lindsay told the jury that her father was, quote, really scared when he saw Clara's car barreling toward him.

She said, I know he was trying to get away and he couldn't.

Oh, that's awful.

And this is, this will make you cry.

She described what it was like when she, quote, felt the bumps and knew that Clara had driven over her father again and again and then put the car in reverse and hit him a third time.

Holy shit.

Like that's, you see, that's where like it's like.

The salaciousness of everything.

Everybody's like, oh my God, yeah, I get it.

Blah, blah, blah.

And then you go straight from this case to the real shit in this case.

It's just like 16-year-old girl.

Disgusting.

It's a 16-year-old girl who was brought along to run over her father and now has to probably relive that at least every other day of her life.

Yeah.

Like that is trauma that you will never unpack.

Never.

And she never asked for that to happen either.

And she, by there's not

one person among us that could say that that would not affect them.

No.

Deeply.

No.

And

I can't.

And that's where, like, that's like a whole other, like, Clara killed somebody.

And then she,

the emotional trauma that she inflicted on Lindsay, I almost wish there was a charge for that.

Yeah, honestly.

But she seemed to feel remorse, I guess.

As she listened to Lindsay's testimony, her loud sobbing filled the courtroom to the point where she was repeatedly reprimanded by the judge, who eventually told her, either you'll sit here in a composed manner or you will be removed from the courtroom.

I don't don't blame them.

Which it's like, quiet down.

Yeah, it's like, get it together.

This isn't your moment to lose your show.

This, exactly.

This is her moment to tell her story.

Now, from the outset of the trial, there was never a plan for Clara to testify on her own behalf.

Uh-oh.

But about a week in, she stunned everyone when she insisted that she did want to testify in her own defense, despite her lawyer's own objections.

On the day of her testimony, George Parnham was already in a tremendous amount of stress, which was exacerbated by the fact that he also had terrible flu at that time.

Oh no.

Flu symptoms notwithstanding, he did do his best to proceed as normal when he called Clara to the stand.

In her testimony, Clara said of her relationship with David, we were best friends.

We were very much in love.

According to her, she and her husband had been incredibly close romantically and professionally all until Gail came along.

In her testimony heard early in the trial, Gail had explained that David told her he and Clara had an open marriage, which was the only reason she started to see him to begin with.

I will literally never give any ounce of credence to that.

That's what every side chick is told and you can't believe it.

Yeah, you just can't.

And honestly, if you're not having any,

like, I don't know.

It's so easy for someone to say that.

If you're in an open marriage, let your wife confirm it.

Exactly.

That's what you need to say to somebody.

To a man or a woman who tells you that they are in an open relationship or an open marriage you want confirmation directly from their partner because how anybody can say that and you just take it at face value exactly and nine out of ten times it's not and also

here's where like my i'm like i call bullshit on that because it's like She could tell that everybody in that office was uncomfortable and was probably sitting there and being like, oh, like, what's going on here?

If they were in an open marriage, then nobody would be batting an eye.

Exactly.

Because he could do whatever he wanted.

And it's like, again, also, why are they sneaking around if he's in an open marriage?

Well, that's the thing.

Did you act like that when Clara came into the office?

That's the thing.

It's like, sounds like you were sneaking around.

Yeah.

So it's like, if you're in an open marriage, I would assume you don't have to do that.

And supposedly, who knows exactly what happened that day, but supposedly when Clara went in and fired her, she accused Gail of having the relationship and Gail supposedly denied it.

If that's what it in fact happened.

So it's like, why wouldn't you just sit there and say, I'm so sorry.

I thought you were in an open marriage.

He lied to both of us.

Exactly.

That's when you like like sisters unite right there.

Exactly.

That's when you

become a girl's girl and you say, holy shit.

I don't think he told her that.

And even if he did, I think she was naive to believe that.

I think so too.

That statement grew an incredible amount of sarcastic criticism from Clara, who also rejected it entirely.

As for the murder itself, though, Clara explained, I was extremely upset.

He was holding Gail's hand the way he used to hold my hand when I was special to him.

By the time she was in the car and pulling out of the parking space, she described herself as being in a, quote, fog, like in a dream.

She claimed that she had a blackout and she wasn't in control.

She said, All of this happened in a fraction of a second.

I didn't have time to think.

The court broke for lunch just after she walked through the events of her husband's murder.

And just as George Parnum stepped outside of the courtroom to get some air, he collapsed in the hallway and passed out, lying on the floor for about 20 minutes before he ended up being removed by paramedics.

Holy shit.

The press immediately keyed in on that fact,

on the fact that just prior to Parnham passing out, Clara had more or less confessed to murder.

And people were like, hey, maybe those two events are linked.

The fact that his client just confessed to murder on the stand when he never wanted her to testify at all.

And then he just passed out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that made the case even more sensational, if you can imagine.

Yeah.

The judge.

was not very sympathetic though and considered it to be one more unprofessional stunt in a series of attention-grabbing moments in this case, which I don't blame her.

I'd be fucking pissed if that's how my courtroom was going.

Yeah, I'd be like, come on, guys.

Now listen to this.

On February 13th, 2003, just one day before what would have been Clara and David's 11th wedding anniversary, the jury retired for deliberation.

Wow.

How does that even happen?

How does that happen?

How does that even happen?

That's wild.

In her closing statement, Assistant District Attorney Mia Magnus focused entirely on the evidence of the case and the rule of the law.

She told the jury, if the man is cheating on you, this is exactly what we're saying, you do what every other woman in this country does.

You take him to the cleaners.

Exactly.

You don't kill him.

Yes.

It's just, that's just the, that's just life, man.

Yeah.

You know.

George Parna, meanwhile, continued his attempt to frame the murder as a crime of passion.

He described Gail Bridges as a homewrecker who enticed and seduced David into a relationship that should never have happened.

And he argued that if Clara had intended to kill her husband that night, why would she have brought along his daughter, knowing what she would do to traumatize the girl for the rest of her life?

And you would hope that's the truth.

Yeah.

If that was a plan that she wouldn't have brought.

And that's the thing.

Maybe there's no malice aforethought there.

Yeah.

But

he died.

Well, and her saying, like, you know, I was out of control of myself and life, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, yeah, okay.

But as human beings and as adults, we have to maintain control.

We have to become in control.

It's just not an excuse to get out of control like it just isn't that's just the way we run things here like you can't that's that's the way

i'm sure that happened but that's on you man that you didn't get into control especially with that kid in the car right like this just you just can't get away from that yeah so the next day the jury returned their verdict the day that would have been her 11th wedding anniversary which is just the irony there is not lost on anyone darkly poetic yeah they found Clara Harris guilty of the murder of her husband.

Later that day during the sentencing phase, Clara was asked if she had anything to say.

And she turned to her stepdaughter, Lindsay, and said, I'm sorry, Lindsay.

I'm sorry, baby.

Which is like,

you got to say a whole thing that's not going to do it.

It's never going to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At the same time, the jury had the option of accepting the sudden passion defense, which carried a sentence of two to 20 years, or a second-degree murder sentence, which was up to 99 years.

Because the case didn't meet the special circumstances threshold, the death penalty was not on the table.

Before the sentence could be passed, the judge had to stop the proceedings on account of Clara hysterically sobbing, which made it completely impossible for anyone in the courtroom to hear anything.

Which, once again, you have to get it together.

Yeah, she has no control over it.

Yeah, you are not in control right now and it's showing.

The judge warned her, be quiet.

I'm going to give you one more chance.

Don't blow it or you will be out of this courtroom.

Damn.

And this time her attorney, George Parnham, stood up for his client saying she just got convicted of murder.

I mean, yeah.

But it's like, but it's still a court of money.

You did that murder.

And again, as an adult, you literally need to find some goddamn way to control yourself.

And also,

like, the whole thing is like, you have been highly emotional and out of control this entire time.

It's not like you just fell apart.

Like you've been screaming and sobbing the whole time.

Like you can't do that.

Yeah.

You just can't.

And it's not really helping your case at all.

It's really not.

Once the courtroom was finally back in order, the judge read the sentence that was handed down from the jury.

20 years in prison with a minimum of 10 served before becoming eligible for parole, which I would say is a pretty sweet fucking deal.

That's a pretty sweet deal.

After running your husband over with your car multiple times.

Yeah, I would say so.

In her statement to the press, the assistant district attorney said that she was pleased with the outcome.

She said, after hearing all the evidence, this jury recognized the case for what it was and that it is the senseless taking of a human life.

Their verdict recognized Mrs.

Harris's conduct and they didn't excuse it.

I was overwhelmed with just how tragic the whole thing was and that it seemed to me the victim was getting lost in the process.

Which it, I think this case was so heavily sensationalized.

And I'm sure

the people who could relate to Clara had some kind of hatred in their heart for David.

So he did

very much get lost in this process.

I can see that for sure.

And he made a bad choice by stepping out on his wife.

Yeah, he made a series.

He had a series of bad choices.

By stepping out on his family and not ending the relationship.

But he was also a human being.

He was also a father.

And you can't just kill people because they hurt your feelings.

Because they hurt your feelings.

And that really does come down to that.

No matter how much they hurt your feelings.

His life should have been a little more precious than that.

Yeah.

It was,

yeah.

It's just not.

The punishment for cheating is not death.

It just isn't.

No.

I know it feels like when you're on the other side of it, that maybe that's that feels like it should be the punishment.

But the reality of the situation is it's not.

It's just not.

Yeah.

So a year after the sentence was passed, Clara did appeal the verdict to the Court of Appeals for the 1st District of Texas on the grounds that, among other things, the judge didn't allow the inclusion of two videotapes showing the murder and the fact that the judge refused to impeach a witness who they thought lied on the stand.

But on all points, the appeals court sided with the trial judge, finding it was reasonable to defer to experts in excluding the tapes and deferring to the the judge's judgment when it came to witness testimony.

In their conclusion, they said, we note that even if the appellant were correct in her interpretation of the law, she could not show harm.

Therefore, the order of the argument did not disadvantage Appilant in meeting her burden.

So they said, stay in jail.

Stay in jail.

Stay in jail.

In 2018, in May of 2018, after serving 15 years of her 20-year sentence, Clara Harris was released on parole.

In the year since her release, she has completed the terms of her probation and has concluded her obligation to the state.

She is now a free woman.

Wow.

And hopefully doesn't drive around often.

Yeah.

And maintains her control.

Yeah.

I mean, she hasn't popped up in the news again, so that's good.

So there's that.

Yeah.

But I just.

What a devastating tale.

Truly.

I feel the most for Lindsay.

Yeah.

And then their other two children who not only lost their father, but then lost their mother for 50 years.

That's the thing.

Like, they grew up without two parents.

Yeah.

They absolutely did.

And that's awful.

No matter if she regretted it or not.

Yeah.

Like everyone loses

in this scenario.

Everyone lost.

Clara lost.

She lost her freedom, which she should have for the time being.

Lindsay lost her dad.

Yeah.

And a stepmom who she actually really liked up until that point.

And those twins lost

both their parents.

And the Harris's lost their son.

Yeah.

And somehow stood by Clara, which I just really commend them for that.

That's, that's big people.

Yeah.

Like that's what a devastating case.

That's just everyone's so layered.

Everyone just.

And it's very interesting to see how everybody had their own two cents, you know?

Yeah.

Even us.

Even us, you know.

We've always got our own two cents.

We've always got our own two cents.

Four cents right here.

Yep.

That's right.

Well, with that being said, we definitely hope you keep listening.

Yeah.

And we hope you keep it.

Weird.

And tell us your two cents.

Yeah.

I want to know what think.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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