Crawfordville man convicted in 2020 murder of children's mother

A Wakulla County man was convicted Friday of the 2020 murder of the mother of his children and sentenced to life in prison.

Edward M. Harris Jr, 35, was convicted after a two day trial of the first-degree murder of Brittany Steier, child neglect, fleeing and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

On July 18, 2020, Steier arrived at Harris’ house in Wakulla County to pick up the couple’s two children. Then he shot her three times, twice at point-blank range.

Detectives found the couple’s then one-year-old child covered in blood.

Harris, who has a long history of domestic abuse and threatened Steier with a handgun just months before the incident, fled the scene. He fled law enforcement while driving near 100 mph through Crawfordville, running one vehicle off the road, before he was taken into custody.

The murder rocked Wakulla County and North Florida domestic violence advocates, who pointed to an alarming string of domestic violence-related homicides during the height of the COVID pandemic.

'Lethal assaults': Rural Big Bend sees alarming string of domestic violence homicides

'A shining light': Crawfordville murder victim remembered by her family for boundless love

Remembering:Brittany Steier's family still grieving a year after her murder as they look to 'God's redemptive power'

Steier was remembered as a loving mother, daughter and sister, "full of light and love and compassion."

Steier's sister, Christy Bertera and her husband Jeff adopted Steier's two young children in late 2020 adding to their three children and growing their family from five to seven people overnight.

"I just want her to be remembered for the amount of love that she showed," Christy told the Democrat in a July 2020 interview. "If there's nothing else that she taught them, it was how to love."

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida man guilty of murder in death of his children's mother