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You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. My name is TJ Raphael.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I am Alayna. And this is Morbid.
This is Morbid trying to figure out what to eat for dinner.
Not Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
No. I just tried Flamin' 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 Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
You're such an author.
I have tried Flamin' 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 offered 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.
That's another thing I've never ever tried.
I know my bounds when it comes to this IBS body of mine.
Well, your stomach 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.
And I'm not. I was going to 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. But I do find a difference in my my tum -tums 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 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 a pudding moment it's i think it's really good it's also really easy to make so there it's like four ingredients
i should try that because Because I really need to, I got to get back.
I was in a really good like 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 and like, you know, just getting things ready so we could have an easier week.
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 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 I like 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 because I had to get it coming into the office ridiculously late I just roll up in here at like 9 17 I'm like sorry hey we start early usually but I just I don't know what's going on with my life says fuck y 'all yeah i make my show up when i want to i show up i show up when i can when i can i show up pretty regularly
yeah um but yeah no i i kept 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 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 are 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 them like Like one thing, rhubarb pie.
What? I'm a little scared of rhubarb pie.
Why is that? Because you have to like, if they don't, 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?
I don't know if I have, to be quite honest. I don't know if I've come across a rhubarb in the produce section.
But rhubarb pie 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 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 wait there's 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 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 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 I don't kill you we'll just explode in your diet I'm just gonna support you I don't look into it I honestly I recommend it though because 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?
Fuck off. No, I feel passionate about this.
Because we as women do not get enough.
I was like, ooh. Lately I feel so passionate about about like women's like like just like health there's no fucking 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 no anyways um we were gonna say something else no uh i don't know we just have uh we have some some stuff coming up that's fun we do um that i just I'm just sharing with my besties here.
All of you. Everybody.
You, Mikey, all the people listening.
Mockle. We get to go to the Jaxx Mannequin concert.
Soon. It's like the day after tomorrow.
Yeah, I was going to say.
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.
Yeah, I'm stoked. For a minute again.
And that'll be fun.
And Aiden's coming.
Because that's always a fun thing to be like, Like, oh, let's just hang out with Andrew McMahon again.
Rockstar. Again, 16 -year -old me is just not really fully grasping that as reality.
But here we are. Yeah.
And I'm just excited to see Jax Mannequin play again because I haven't been to a Jax 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 drugs and fiber before that.
And now you're like, let's talk about Jax Mannequin.
Yeah. I'm like, that's good.
we'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 we got that and hopefully you know hopefully we see some of you there yeah i bet we did we probably did 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 their listener you know it's gonna be you know it'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 we only have we only
have a handful of episodes where we're not going to understand where it's uh falling in the where we're at in 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 in our episodes it's gonna be so nice to see you guys again yeah i missed you guys can't wait yeah it's gonna 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 say don't tell me i'm reckless today you are reckless um
and this is a reckless story that you're about to finish yeah it certainly is a great way to describe it i know know i think we bantered the banter a thousand suns 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 uh in part one we started obviously with the unfortunate act of clara harris running over her husband david while his 16 year old daughter lindsey sat in 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 cliche. 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 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 other 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 that Gail had almost a perfect body with almost no fat.
Oh, good for Gail. 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 all of that was devastating.
And they also were owners of multiple practices across Houston together.
Yeah. And he's cheating with one of their employees.
keys yeah 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 this woman's salary yeah he'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 she you know what though you do i know no i know you that's why i just looked
at you but for real you don't it's not gonna do anything for you it's not gonna do anything for you but set you more it's i totally understand people's response to this 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 never good though oh it's 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 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 a few hours later 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, Julie 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. That's not doing it.
That's childish. It's childish, and this is where Clara really loses me.
Yeah. She's thinking that she's going to publicly shame this woman for being a lesbian.
Yeah. Fuck off. Nope.
And it's literally just like, for why?
Yeah. What do you get out of that?
It's not doing anything.
This is doing nothing but wasting your fucking time.
And if you're truly wanting to work on your marriage, you do have to leave that girl in the dirt in the dust 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 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 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 as the temps start rising i feel that familiar urge to refresh
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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 but her affair with julie is unconfirmed
it seems like it might have just been helpful for her husband to have this in divorce proceedings 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.
Apparently Steve Bridges had alleged alcoholism and drug abuse and Chuck Knight had his own alleged extramarital affair.
Alleged. Alleged. For the Baca's, 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 eyes and in strangeness it turned out that in 2001 just a couple 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 rafale oh holy shit with the glasses oh with the glasses with the glasses i remember sally jesse rafale i never saw it it 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 gail is in google my husband spies on me
sally jesse rafael 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 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 in their wigs from the Sally Jessie 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. 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 slay of hubby.
who wrote that that's a lot i want to that's a lot i want to talk to the yeah i gotta 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 print from the scarlet letter which like do better yeah i mean that that's also just like all right unoriginal yeah 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 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 this scheme 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 hollandsworth 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. But you feel bad for her specifically because she has nothing to do.
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 to that Bobby and Lucas Baca could have dug up so much information about Gale 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 baka 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.
What is lesbian like?
Is that just like if they start making out?
If they just start like fooking in the street?
Is that lesbian like?
Like what? It sounds like they were just best friends that were like hanging out.
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 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 bins but only Julie ended up going through with it and Bobby opened a case into Chuck Knight's life 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 and suck instructor and uh wife of a local builder how 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 baton twirling instructor yeah 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 wilder.
In Texas. In Texas.
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 in the Bridges until they drifted apart.
Oh, damn. 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 probably great for everybody great for everybody but that's how gail bridges found herself in the employ 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 Gayle 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 restrictions and started playing up all these crazy aspects of the story so that's how it got like 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 us 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 ah 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 no this is the story that you're like been there sister no like that's hard no no not been there sister honey no No. So while the tabloids focused on the sensational aspects of the story, like the sex lives of everybody involved or, you know, tangentially 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 we're speaking from a points of total not knowing what this feels like.
Yeah. Uninformed. According to Skip Hollingsworth, 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 punished.
But that doesn't mean that she should have done it.
Or that she somehow, Like, just relieved of all, you know, guilt for having done it.
Because then that would mean that every single woman who's ever been cheated on can run their husband over with their car.
That's pretty fucking lawless.
Or that anytime someone commits murder in, like, a crime of passion or something like that...
They just 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.
Such a 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, 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, 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 alaina 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 would be a lawless nation.
It's like, you can't do that.
Yeah. So it's like, we got to 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 hit someone with 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, should he have had to hear it from her?
Yeah. Absolutely. 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 had to bend over backwards for it.
But he shouldn't have been murdered.
It's just not. It's pretty black and white to me.
I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.
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Happy wedding. 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 yeah just 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 i'm just i'm like bigger people than me i'm stunned 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, 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 parnham said in a 2002 interview it was rare to find clara not 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 think I definitely think she feels regret yeah but I still think she yeah 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 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 a fucking word. 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 opinions.
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, which I do think is what happened.
I think that's correct, like, you know, know at the very base level of what it is i think you're stating facts for sure yep once you have more nuance than that i would say yes yes which is true but it's it's a little more nuanced that's the perfect way to say it he said once she came out of her rage -induced fogged 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 parnam 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's 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 Clare Harris?
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.
Two married women right here do not relate to Clare Harris.
Another 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. 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.
Didn't you? Well, you know what?
Never mind. I'm not even gonna.
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 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 that's driving you to this place of just no return but I'm not understanding the act and I'm not understanding not pulling yourself back from that point of no return but 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 no one's taking that away 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 boat here We didn't give that enough attention to say you nicked, nicked
your husband with your car.
Crazy. 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, it's 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, Like, of, like, the emotions and the betrayal 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 can't imagine.
I'm not going to sit here and say I would be in total control.
No, no, no. 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.
So it's like, I, 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 than running someone over in the car three times with the child in the car.
Jury selection for this case sounded buck wild.
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.
We all need 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 line between sanity and madness.
I think that encompasses.
Isn't that from the movie?
No, I think that encompasses this entire fucking case.
It literally does. There is the rule of law.
And then there's the rule of law in Texas.
I, Skip Hollinsworth, cover 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.
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, we've all felt like we wanted to run someone over in a car.
She just did it. And it's like, okay, I don't...
maybe keep that stuff inside like i don't that's a lot like there's just so many people openly being like yeah i get it it's like ah like please be specific tell me you get the emotion yeah you got 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 look 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 i think it was deliberate i think it was i think she had a moment where she said i'm gonna run him the fuck over with my car and then followed through on it i don't think i 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.
I think she 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 what— I shouldn't go doing this.
Like I don't know that she had a plan when she did ultimately find them, but you're sitting, like you're going to 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 for this.
That's really my huge sticking point here.
Obviously the murder and the entire thing having Lindsay involved 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 lindsey 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 lindsey ended up testifying and And I do think that helped bring people down to earth and on the jury.
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 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.
Yeah, see? Now again, who knows if that's like hyperbolic.
Like, I think we've all said, I'm gonna kill, oh my God, I'm gonna kill him.
But don't say that to a kid.
Don't say that to a kid.
You should 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.
So that's not great that you said that.
Makes 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 Parnam 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 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.
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lindsey 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 lindsey 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 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 And then you go right down to the real shit in this case.
It's a 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 to her.
And she, there's not one person person among us that could say that that would not affect them no deeply no in 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 blame them.
Which is like, quiet down.
Yeah, it's like, get it together.
This isn't your moment to lose your shit.
Let her tell her story.
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.
Mm. 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, financially all until gail came along and 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 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.
Yeah, because how anybody can say that.
Anybody can say that.
And you just take it at face value.
Exactly. And nine out of ten times it's not the truth.
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.
Because he could do whatever he wanted.
And it's like. And 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 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 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. 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 parnam 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 parnam 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 um 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 how my courtroom was going down.
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 Parnum, 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 that if that that was a plan that she wouldn't have brought and that's the thing maybe there's no malice of forethought there yeah but and he died well and her saying like you know i was out of control of myself and like well that's like yeah okay but as human beings and as adults we have to maintain control 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 of the law 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 is just that's why i 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.
That is 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 sad. You got to say a whole lot more than that.
Because that's not going to do it.
That's never going to.
Yeah. Yeah. At the same time, the jury had the option of accepting the a 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 herself.
Yeah, you are not in control right now when 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 Parnum, stood up for his client saying she just got convicted of murder.
I mean, yeah. But it's like...
But it's still a courtroom.
You did that murder.
Yeah. 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.
No, 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 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 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'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 feels like it should be the punishment.
But it's just not. 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 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 appellant 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 years 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 lindsey yeah and then their other two children who not only lost their father but then lost their mother for 15 that's the thing They grew up without two parents.
Yeah, they absolutely did.
And that's awful, no matter if she regretted it or not.
Yeah, 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 and a stepmom who she actually really liked up until that point.
And those twins lost both their parents.
And the Harrises lost their son.
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 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 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 you think.
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