Michigan man guilty of murder for poisoning wife’s cereal with heroin
A Michigan man who dosed his wife’s cereal with a lethal dose of heroin was convicted Wednesday of her murder.
Jason Harris, 47, was found guilty on one count each of first-degree murder, solicitation of murder and delivery of a controlled substance causing death for the 2014 overdose death of Christina Ann-Thompson Harris.
Harris told police that his wife had been struggling to hold her spoon during dinner on the night of Sept. 28, so he helped her to bed. When he left for work the next morning with their two children, she was still asleep.
When she didn’t answer texts or calls all morning, Harris claims he asked a neighbor to check on her. That neighbor called another, a registered nurse, who confirmed that Christina was dead.
Genesee County Medical Examiner Brian Hunter originally ruled her death an accidental overdose, but when family members insisted that she did not do drugs, the medical examiner tested two batches of her frozen breast milk, neither of which contained any trace of opiates.
That’s when police began properly investigating her death and discovered that Jason Harris had been texting multiple women in the months before the overdose, including one in Rhode Island whom he flew out to see nine days later. Within two weeks of her death, another woman moved into their home.
“This was a very tragic case and my heart goes out to the family and friends of Christina Harris,” Prosecutor David Leyton said in a statement after Harris’ conviction.
“The circumstances in the case make for a unique story and garner headlines in media but, at the core of it, a family is mourning the loss of their loved one and, I only hope that today’s verdict will help them with closure as they continue to grieve so they can feel some sense of comfort in knowing that justice under the law has been served.”
Harris is due to be sentenced Dec. 10.
