Good Evening everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong. And when I say terribly wrong, how wrong do I mean [Dead wrong].
I am your host Ky along with my co-host Char.
Our show discusses true crime cases told in the form of a story with mystery, suspense, and just a little bit of humor sprinkled on top – but never at the expense of the victim.
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Tonight we’re continuing the mysterious case of the Harrison Family Murders. Last week we left off on this note: On April 21, the day before Melissa’s abduction hearing, Caleb and Melissa’s 8 year old son came home from school on his bike. He put his bike up, opened the front door and saw his grandmother laying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
But before we begin, I’m gonna give you my weekly reminder to listen to our last episode – which was part 1 of the Harrison Family Murders. For you to appreciate and understand the craziness of part 2, you have got to listen to the first half. So you can find part 1 anywhere you get your podcast or you can go to our website, www.murderandlove.com and click on “Case Files” in the menu above.
And in our exclusive community we have a bonus episode of a getting to know the hosts. Char and I answer questions that are supposed to be deep and get to the heart of who we are. So far, we’re hearing rave reviews about it. If you want to get to know us better then head on over our exclusive community in Patreon at www.patreon.com/loveandmurder and join us there. Later on, I’ll tell you more about what you get from joining this community.
And now, let’s continue the case:
On April 21, the day before Melissa’s abduction hearing, Caleb and Melissa’s 8 year old son came home from school on his bike. He put his bike up, opened the front door and saw his grandmother laying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Scared, he ran to a neighbor’s house and they called 911. EMRs came to the house and saw that Bridget was lying face up, her head was lying on the last stair, her arms were at her side, and her eyes were open. First responders deduced that Bridget had fallen down the stairs, in which the family said bullshit. “There’s no way anyone falls down the stairs and ends up in that position. It doesn’t look right. It doesn’t make sense.” Caleb said.
When the coroner, Dr. Robert Boyko, arrived he noticed that there were abrasions and bruising on her chin and neck. This sparked concern for him and he had the body sent for a full forensic autopsy because they ruled it as a suspicious death. This is something Bill’s body didn’t get. Anyway, they noted that Bridget had a broken neck, evidence of neck compression which is a sign of asphyxiation, and she had several broken ribs.
The family told officers about Melissa and her actions. Her constant unsubstantiated complaints, her kidnapping of the kids, and her husband’s facebook page. Hours after the body was found, Caleb spoke with Constable Robert Boyer on camera in which he reiterated Melissa’s actions in the past and the fact that his mom’s death coincided with Melissa’s hearing date.
On April 23, during the case conference, the forensic pathologists explained to officers that the injuries sustained to the front of Bridget’s neck along with petechial hemorrhaging brought them to the conclusion of neck compression. In layman’s terms, there were like red dotted type of bruising on the skin and blood spots in the eyes – which means that the blood vessels broke during a pressure build up. This along with what the report called “neck compression” all pointed to strangulation. But then again, she had broken bones in the back of her neck. This is what swayed them from the strangulation theory, because you don’t typically see this in neck compression cases. “At this time it is unknown how (she) suffered this combination of injuries” police wrote. But then my thing is, using common sense, wouldn’t you immediately think she was strangled and then pushed down the stairs which caused the broken bones in her chest and back of her neck? I mean – how hard was that conclusion.
Later that afternoon, during a second meeting with the coroner, they brought in concerns from the chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Pollanen. He was worried that this was the second death in the house and wondered about the similarities in the deaths. He reminded officers that Bill had died with unexplained injuries, like Briget, including the throat abrasions and a fractured sternum. Dr. Pollanen reported that the earlier pathologist, Dr. Feltis, hadn’t performed the required layered neck dissection to find out where the marks on Bill’s throat came from. Dr. Pollanen requested that Bill’s body be exhumed to be able to do the proper autopsy BUT Bill had been cremated sooooo.
The death of his mother and the way the investigation was going broke Caleb. Although they had a rocky relationship, he loved his mother. Caleb ended up going into a deep depression. He broke up with Corinda and began to drink again. On April 26, he got temporary sole custody of his kids and Melissa would only be allowed to see them during supervised visits.
Police interviewed Melissa and Caleb, but because Caleb had a rough relationship with his mother, investigators eyed him as the main suspect.
In Melissa’s interview, she told officers that on the day Bridget died, she was home taking care of a child for a home daycare she was trying to start.
Caleb’s alibi also came through – he’d been working all day.
Police then interviewed Christopher who said he’d been running errands all day and working in his backyard. Investigators retrieved surveillance vidoes from one of the stores Christopher said he went to and affirmed his presence.
So now the investigation has stalled. Investigators spent two weeks investigating Bridget’s death, but in early May the officer in charge of the investigation was reassigned to another command team. “I really didn’t have too much more involvement.” No one knew who took over the case after that and even the junior detective on the case didn’t have any involvement in the investigation after the end of April.
On June 10, the pathologists dealing with the case presented their findings which read, “possible mechanisms of injury.” The forensic pathologist who performed Bridget’s autopsy documented his findings of “neck injuries” as the cause of death. The police then presented their own findings and wrote, “No evidence of ‘foul play’ was discovered. The injuries, however, cannot be explained by a single mechanism.” The forensic coroner then classified her death as “undetermined.”
On September 2, 2010 the junior investigator closed out the case saying, “After an extensive investigation into this matter there has been no evidence to suggest (Bridget) Harrison was the victim of foul play or any other criminal act. The coroner has concluded that the cause of death in this matter is ‘asphyxia’ and the mechanism of death is unknown. Case Closed pending the receipt of further information.”
During the next three years, Caleb got into a groove of being a single father and resumed his relationship with Corinda. He got a job at CMC Electronics and, although he still couldn’t drive, he’d made plans with a neighbor to take the kids to school and back home. He was very active in the kid’s lives and even volunteered in their baseball league as their coach. He was still depressed about his parents deaths, but he was pushing forward.
Melissa and Christopher moved to Perth County, which is approximately 2 hours away from Caleb.
Once in awhile, they would search fpr news Bill and Bridget Harrison and one of them even searched for “how to tell if your phone is tapped.”
Caleb allowed Melissa to have unsupervised access to the children and they would stay at their mom’s house every other week.
On March 1 2012, while Melissa was 5 months pregnant with her 6th child, they awoke to noise at their bedroom door and saw smoke coming in from under the door. They ran and grabbed the children from their beds and got out of the house through a bedroom window.
Their pets – 2 dogs, a guinea pig, and a rabbit weren’t so fortunate.
By the time firefighters arrived and put out the fire, the entire home was destroyed. Firefighters deduced that it had started in the living room. The family moved into a hotel room and started a GoFundMe asking for $50,000 to help them restart their lives. They only received about $5000.
Some time after this incident, Caleb went back to enforcing the sole custody ruling with Melissa only having supervised visitation. I mean who could blame him? So with this back in effect, August 22, 2013 would be the last day that the kids would stay with Melissa.
On this same day, Caleb took his kids to their baseball game and then took them back to stay with Melissa. When Caleb got home, he turned on the tv and around 11pm called Corinda. He then put his phone on silent mode and went to bed. He was a light sleeper so he wore an eye mask and had a loud fan running for background noise.
On August 23 the house keeper came over to clean Caleb’s house and, at noon, Caleb’s co-worker came to the house wondering why he hadn’t come to work. He didn’t call, didn’t inform anyone -just didn’t show up. So he came to check on him – wow that’s so thoughtful. When I worked out of my house, if I was a no call no show nobody came to check on me. So he thought that Caleb had overslept so he went up to his room and knocked on the door. The housekeeper said, “I’m scared, I’m scared” and who could blame her given the history of the house. After no response, they let themselves into Caleb’s room and that’s where they found his body still in the bed. They called 911 and when parametics arrived, one of them – Patrick Morin – thought to himself, “I’ve been here before.” He was actually one of the paramedics who came to the house after Bridget died.
Police noted questionable injuries like abrasions and bruising on Caleb’s neck – the same thing with his mother and father. There were also deep scratches on his chest and his knuckles were swollen.
They took the body for an autopsy and unlike the other deaths, this death was ruled a murder by asphyxiation. The autopsy showed that Caleb had been strangled. ALSO another difference in this case was that a fully trained, and certified forensic pathologist was handling the autopsy. That’s right, in the previous cases the forensic pathologist performing the autopsy was still in the training process. Still in the training process. Basically, he didn’t fully know what he was doing yet which is why, despite the evidence sitting on a plate staring at him, he’d ruled Bridge’s death as suspicious – not a natural death but suspicous – but definately not a homicide.
Now, everyone questioned the other two deaths. NOW, after everyone was dead, they began investigating 3 homicides.
Almost immediately, they put Melissa and Christopher under surveillance. They went back and viewed surveillance footage from the night before Caleb’s murder and saw that Christopher and Melissa went to Walmart to buy a par of men’s sneaker.
During the investigation, it turned out that Melissa didn’t want the arrangement of her having the kids every other week to end and she’d filed an application for shared custody on July 10. According to the application, Melissa wrote, “I have communicated with Caleb on numerous occasions over the past 12-18 months, in an attempt to reach an agreement with him on the children spending more time with me. Caleb has been unwilling to entertain any increase in time, contrary to the children’s best interest, unless I agree to his child support demands.”
The night before Caleb was supposed to file a response, he was killed.
Melissa went to attend Caleb’s wake, but his family and friends told her to leave.
Two weeks after Caleb was murdered, Melissa filed an application seeking sole custody of the kids with an explanation that their father had died, writing “This news was (and is) tragic and very shocking.” The application was approved and she was granted sole custody of the children.
In November, she then packed up all of her kids, husband, and house and they headed back to the East Coast.
During this entire time, investigators were still working the case and watching Melissa and her family. During the autopsy, DNA was taken from under Caleb’s fingernails. Undercover police officers who were tailing Christopher waited for him to slip up and one day he did. One day while he was out doing errands, he dropped his coffee cup in the trash and police picked it right on up. Another undercover officer posed as a trash man and picked up one of the bags of trash from Melissa’s house. In it they found the shoes that Christopher had bought at Walmart and a pair of latex gloves. The shoes were covered in dog hair, the gloves had Caleb’s DNA all over the outside and Christopher’s DNA on the inside, and the report came back saying that the DNA under Caleb’s fingernails matched Christopher’s.
They also found interesting correspondence between Melissa and the Harrisons. We’ll go into that later.
In January 2014, Detective Phil King flew out to Nova Scotia and met up with officers from that region. Then they all drove out to Melissa’s house. When they arrived, Christopher came out to meet them and he was arrested immediately. Melissa was arrested a short time later. They were arrested and charged with first degree murders the murders of both Caleb and Bridget. First degree murder holds a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. When they were brought to the station, they were put into separate interrogation rooms. After 13 hous of interrogation, Christopher finally told Detective King, “I didn’t like Caleb Harrison. I’m telling you right now that Melissa Merritt did not know anything until after it was done.”
“What did you do?”
“I killed Bridget Harrison and Caleb Harrison.”
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Anyway, Christopher said that in April 2010, he went to the house with a note pretending it was for the children and when Bridget answered the door, he forced his way in the house and attacked her. “I hit her a couple of times. I then proceeded to squeeze her neck. Until she stopped breathing and laid on the floor.” Can you believe he was crying when he said this? I don’t think he was crying because he was sorry; more because he was caught.
When he was asked why he did it, he said that he thought if Bridget was out of the picture Melissa would have a chance to get custody of the kids.
As for Caleb, Christopher got inside his house using a key that he’d taken from Caleb’s eldest son. He went in wearing latex gloves and those Walmart shoes. He punched Caleb in his chest while he slept. Of course Caleb work up and they started to fight, but Christopher was bigger and not drunk like Caleb was. In the end, Caleb begged for his life, even offering Christopher money. Christopher kept quiet and Caleb started scratchin him. Then Chistopher began strangleing Caleb and killed him.
A plethera of evidence that Melissa and Christopher left behind in their rush to leave Mississauga, was found. The most damning evidence was a laptop that had a bunch of search histories like:
Two months before Bridget was murdered someone searched for “what if a grandparent has legal custody and they die.” “Legal custody and they die”
“If a grandparent has custody of the children and they die, which of the parents get the kids?”
“Bridget Harrison”
“Bridget Harrison, Mississauga”
Then, three weeks before Bridget was murdered, another search for “how long does it take to die from choking” and “how long does it take for a person being strangled to pass out.”
So basically, if investigators and gotten a warrant to search Melissa’s house after Bill or Bridget were killed, they would have found all of this and Caleb might still be alive.
Anyway, a month before Caleb’s death there was a search for “easy ways to kill and get away with it.” I mean, why didn’t they just call the cops and ask that question? I mean what the…
The only problem with all of this evidence was that Melissa and Christopher shared the computer so they couldn’t tell exactly who performed the searches. Investigators, in their urgent hope to catch Melissa and Caleb, they used alot of unauthorized search and seizures of evidence.
Weeks before the trial, it was ruled that the computer searches would be inadmissible in court.
On September 27, 2017 the trial began. Christopher was faced 2 counts of 1st degree murder and a 3rd count of second degree murder. Of course he pleaded – what Char? Not guilty, but he wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter in Caleb’s death, but the Crown rejected that plea.
When Christopher took to the witness stand, he said that he confessed to protect his family; his confession was false and he wants to take it back. He confessed because he thought he was making a deal for his wife to be released so that she could go and take care of the kids. He testified that he had nothing to do with Bridget’s death nor with Bill’s death. And with Caleb, yea he killed him but he didn’t mean to. He only meant to “rough him up” so that he would give them a couple extra days with the kids. I mean, if someone broke into my house, roughed me up and threatened me, yea I could see how I would give them a couple of days with my kids. What?!
During the trial, the Crown brought forth evidence that right before Bill died, he’d learned that Melisssa and Christopher wee planning to take the kids and leave. They argued that Bill could have confronted Christopher with this information and been killed in the process.
The case against Melissa was ruled as circumstantial because there was no evidence to tie her directly to the crimes. Her defense argued that the worst cae scenario is that she was an accessory after the fact.
After 3 months of the trial and 4 days of deliberations, they reached a verdict in January 2018.
Christopher was found not guilty for the second degree murder of Bill Harrison. He was found guilty of first degree murder of Caleb and Bridget.
Melissa was found guilty of first degree murder of Caleb and Bridget. However the court called a mistrial on her charge of Bridget’s murder because the jury couldn’t reach a verdict so the Crown issued a stay of proceedings. According to canlii.org, “to “stay” a proceeding is to stop or put a hold on a legal proceeding. A stay of proceedings can be temporary or permanent. For instance, a court may stay a civil lawsuit brought against an individual until the criminal trial against that same individual is complete.”
Both of them received the mandatory life in prison sentence without the possibility of parole for 25 years. After that time they can see about parole. Christopher actually got two life sentences to be served concurrently.
Both of them, of course, are appealing the verdicts.
Going back, the murders of Bill and Bridget were completely bungled. First, for Bill, the officer who reported that “Sudden death, doesn’t appear to be any foul play.” was a rookie; only in his second year on the force. Why was he the one in charge??!!
Second, the neck abrasions, the fractured sternum, and the bruise on Bills scalp should have been inspected. Years later, Ontario’s chief pathologist would go on record as saying that this was “an astonishing finding” that should have raised a bunch of red flags.
The coroner who bungled Bill’s investigation then became the province’s deputy chief coroner.
Also, if the police had just done any further investigation, they would have found out that Melissa and Christopher had left Mississauga on the same day that Bill died.
In the case of Bridget, if police had continued investigating Christopher’s allibi’s they would have found out that he had never visited Melissa’s grandmother on the day that Bridget died, even though he said he did.
Horrible communication, terrible coordination, and bad note taking are the result of these bungled investigations and, in my opinion, led to the death of Caleb. I mean to Melissa and Christopher figured they’d gotten away with it once, why not again.
During an internal investigation, it was reported that “The officers involved in the death investigation of Bridget Harrison ultimately concluded that foul play was not a factor. The administrative review has determined that this conclusion was made in error.”
The investigation determined Bills’ death was missed as a homicide because of a “lack of ownership” of the case by detectives. “The constable who was initially in charge of the investigation into Bridget’s death was relieved by an acting detective as the primary investigator. Within three weeks of the death, neither of these officers were actively working on the investigation” and there was “confusion over who was responsible.”
They also reported “gaps in communication among police” and between the police and the coroner in both of the parent’s deaths and that “homicide was not consulted before the case was closed and no inquiries were made by the homicide bureau.”
Modern forensic pathology in Canada started just around the time of the death of Bill Harrison. Most of the world had started training forensic pathologists in the 60’s and 70’s but it took Canada until around 2000 to train their first forensic pathologist. And even then, the only reason Ontario started to modernize thie forensic pathology department was because Charles Smith constantly failed in amazingly huge ways at his job. He was a pediatric pathologist in Toronto from 1981 to 2005, but had no training or accreditation as a forensic pathologist. However, by the 1992, he became looked at as the expert in the field – he became the director of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic Pathology Unit. Now, this wasn’t because of his qualifications, because clearly he had none. Why do you think he got the job Char? It’s because he was the only person willing to take the job. What the what the??!
For 25 years, Smith lectured to coroners, to police, to prosecuters about something he had no idea what he was talking about. He rarely ever went to the scene of a death he ws investigating, he didn’t collect medical information about the body he was doing an autopsy on, and he was very unorganized. Basically, he was like me, a true crime podcaster trying to actually tell cops and everyone else how this person died. The only difference is that people listened to him. He often testified at trials and his testimony would seal the fate of the criminal defendant.
In 2007, the Office of the Chief Coroner did a review of the homicides and the criminally suspicious deaths that Smith had supervised, and they found that in 20 of the 45 cases, his report or testimony proved to be suspect and about a dozen of those cases had resulted in a criminal conviction.
And that’s the case of the Harrison family. The entire family is dead, Melissa is in prison and her husband Christopher is in prison.
I couldn’t find what happened to the children.
What do yall think of this mind boggling case? Let us know in the comments below.
