-Caveat Lector- Print this article | Close this window Mercy pleas for the Mercedes murderess By Kate Zernike in Houston January 25 2003
No one disputes that Clara Harris revved her Mercedes and ran over her husband in the parking lot of the hotel where she had discovered him with his mistress. And no one disputes she killed him while his 16-year-old daughter from a previous marriage screamed in the passenger seat. It would all be too difficult to deny, for the whole scene was captured on videotape by the private detective firm Mrs Harris had hired after her husband confessed to the affair a week earlier. It was the same detective firm that the mistress' best friend's former husband had hired during their divorce to try to prove that the two women were having an affair - a tale the two friends would later don wigs and dark glasses to recount on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show. For the purposes of the trial that began in Houston this week, all that needs to be decided is whether Mrs Harris intended to kill her husband, turning, as a prosecutor said on Thursday, "her 70-some-odd- thousand- dollar vehicle into a 4000-pound murder weapon". The defence insists that Clara Harris, 44, a former beauty queen and successful dentist, acted in the heat of anger and betrayal, and realised what she had done only after she got out of the car, when, one witness testified, she lay on top of her dying husband crying, "David, David, David, I'm sorry." Her lawyers portray her sympathetically, saying she desperately wanted to keep her family together, to bring her husband of 10 years back to her, and to do so, had started going to a tanning salon, hired a personal trainer, renounced her career, and was planning to have plastic surgery and breast implants. The defence has been helped by David Harris's parents, who escorted their daughter-in-law to court and stood behind her with badges prominently identifying them as members of the defence. The senior Harrises also announced that as good Christians they had forgiven their daughter-in-law, and hoped she would remain free to raise the young twin boys she shared with her husband, and the stepdaughter, who is expected to testify against her. All indications suggest that, at least in Texas, Clara Harris's lawyer, George Parnham might generate sympathy for a woman with a cheating husband. Of nine women and three men on the jury, four, plus one alternate, told the judge during questioning they could "emotionally relate" to Clara Harris. And in the neat suburban enclaves where the Harrises' scandal unfolded, and in the spectator seats at the trial, people wondered aloud whether they might act the same way if confronted with a similar betrayal. The New York Times This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/24/1042911547891.html <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
