00:00:01
[music] Yep. >> What Riding for Justice has done is reached out to people that knew Jennifer
00:00:21
Harris. >> How often do you saddle up and ride? >> Once a month. >> We got a big crowd. Let's keep it safe.
00:00:33
[music] >> Something has touched the people of Fannic County about this case. [music]
00:00:38
>> Absolutely. Everybody in this county wants to see this case solved. >> To let something like this go on this
00:00:43
long is uncalled for. >> Jennifer Harris was well loved here. >> That's a Jennifer [music] Harris case.
00:00:51
Everything that's involved. >> This This is the whole investigation right here. >> This is it. Sheriff, I I hope you don't
00:00:59
mind me asking, but that doesn't seem like a whole lot for 15 years. >> Well, that's all we got to work with.
00:01:07
>> Doesn't get any easier. There's not one day that I don't wake up and think about
00:01:12
my sister. >> I wish I could only have a handful of the friends she had. She was
00:01:22
amazing. [music] She was the redhaired girl who was the goofball. adorable, lovable Lucille Ball type. She smothered
00:01:32
me with love. >> On Mother's Day, >> 2002, no different than any other day. You take the walk,
00:01:39
>> right? I saw a Jeep, but I didn't think anything about it. But then when it was
00:01:43
here the second day, you're like, why is that Jeep still here? [music] >> I get a phone call that her Jeep had
00:01:48
been found. What did she do leaving her Jeep on the side of the road? [music] There was a [music] fisherman who was
00:01:59
fishing on the Red River. He saw a body in the water. I remember going to the Red River to the bridge,
00:02:10
seeing the police officers, the sheriff. >> There more up here, y'all. >> And I remember [music] my dad
00:02:19
being right there with them. And I just Let me see her. Let me see her. Let me see. It's got Is it hers?
00:02:26
It can't be her. It [laughter] has to. Why? Is it her? Is it her? >> Whenever we move her, just move right
00:02:34
into a boat. >> Is it really her? And >> the body is completely naked. >> Not a stitch of clothing,
00:02:43
>> not a sock. >> The way she was disposed of like a piece of trash. [snorts] She didn't deserve
00:02:49
that. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as [music] homicidal violence.
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>> What is that? Were they strangled? Were they shot? Those are the things you need
00:02:59
to know. >> Jennifer's murder impacted my wife and her family. You can't even put it
00:03:06
[music] in words. >> Cemeterial one. >> This is unlike anything that I've ever done as a filmmaker. But I thought he
00:03:11
said it first time we were with him. Finding the killer and actually being able to prove where's the physical
00:03:17
evidence who the killer is. Let's continue with the timeline. >> This is much more than a passion project
00:03:23
because this is family. >> We're going to follow through and [music] we're going to get this done.
00:03:30
>> You want to know who killed Jennifer Harris? >> Absolutely. I'm a Texas girl. I believe in justice.
00:03:36
Old school justice. >> [music] [music] >> 48 hours murder on Red River [music] in the northeast corner of Texas where
00:04:16
the banks of the Red [music] river touch Oklahoma, you'll find Fanning County and
00:04:20
the town of Bonham, one of the oldest cities in the Lonear State. And it's where Mark Johnson, who had
00:04:31
just wrapped up 32 years in law enforcement, decided to ditch retirement and run for sheriff in 2016.
00:04:39
I met Jerry Harris, the father of the young lady on the campaign trail, [music] >> and he made a promise from one father to
00:04:46
another to continue the investigation into the murder of Jerry's oldest daughter, 28-year-old Jennifer Harris, a
00:04:54
case unsolved for more than 15 years. >> When I came here January 1, >> you sure,
00:05:03
>> I demanded that case be brought to me. >> That was the first thing you did. >> Yes. I wanted a Jennifer Harris case.
00:05:10
>> Jennifer's father, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, finally has hope. >> I think he's serious about trying to
00:05:18
solve this case. >> This is my office. >> And he's not the only one. >> The week.
00:05:23
>> For the last 8 years, Daryl Parker has been working with Jerry Harris to solve
00:05:28
his daughter's murder. First as a lieutenant in the Fannon County Sheriff's Office and now as a private
00:05:35
investigator. A Marine never meets a stranger if he meets another Marine. >> He too was a Marine and Parker has never
00:05:43
charged Jerry a dime. >> I still have a lot of that Captain America justice kind of thing going on.
00:05:50
I want Jerry and his family to find justice. >> In high school, Jennifer Harris was
00:05:55
popular and athletic. >> Brilliant redhaired [music] girl, bright brown eyes, played tennis, and was a
00:06:04
cheerleader. Jennifer's younger sister, Alyssa. >> She was a dreamer. She was an idealist
00:06:10
and she knew that there was a bigger world outside of Bonum, Texas. >> Bonham is probably your prototypical
00:06:19
small town USA. Gossip is on an epic scale. >> When Jennifer Harris goes missing, how
00:06:27
does that news play in Bonum? It was a bombshell because this girl was not too far removed from high school. To
00:06:35
understand that she had been murdered, it disturbed a lot of people. >> She was only 28 years old. She was just
00:06:42
beginning to come into her own right when she was murdered. >> The day that I came in here and looked
00:06:47
at her cases and opening those boxes, I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry.
00:06:53
>> That's because after more than 15 years, this is all they have to work with. And what do we have in in each of these
00:07:03
boxes? >> These are all this is all documentation that's in there. You know, when she
00:07:07
first come up missing poster, they're looking for newspaper articles, business records, and this is just some case
00:07:15
reports. You can see that now this was wet. A lot of stuff got wet. They had some pods out back. They stored a lot of
00:07:22
evidence. They leaked and a lot of stuff got wet. >> Contaminated. >> Yes. and some of them got destroyed. The
00:07:29
>> file was very light. The duplicates of the same paperwork over and over and over again. It was a mess.
00:07:36
>> Although the original investigators have said they did their best, [music] Jennifer's laptop computer and clothing,
00:07:43
a shirt, bra, and jeans that might have been hers were booked into evidence, but
00:07:49
somehow mysteriously disappeared. >> It's just been mishandled. >> Why would it be mishandled? I I honestly
00:07:56
don't know. The only thing I can gather out of it is lack of lack of experience,
00:08:00
lack of training. >> It was Mother's Day 2002. Jennifer was visiting her friend Christy Far in the
00:08:08
early evening. >> It gets to be close to 8:00 and Jennifer is like, I got to go.
00:08:13
>> Correct. >> She [music] never told Christy where she was going, but Jennifer Harris never
00:08:19
returned home that night. The next day, Jennifer's Jeep was discovered, parked just down the road from a local music
00:08:26
spot. While she was still missing, authorities reached out to the two men in her life.
00:08:33
>> I know I'm guilty of anything. >> Her former boyfriend and [music] business partner, James Hamilton, and
00:08:39
her ex-husband, Rob Hullman. >> Rob, how you doing? >> Pretty good. >> Both agreed to speak with investigators
00:08:46
without a lawyer present. They had not been arrested, but both men were read their Miranda rights.
00:08:52
>> So, you have the right to be silent. Anything you say can will be against you, the court of law.
00:08:57
>> And both denied seeing Jennifer the night she disappeared. >> I would love to know that she's okay,
00:09:03
that she's happy. According to his police interview, Jennifer's former boyfriend, James Hamilton, was with a
00:09:10
friend more than an hour away from Bonum at this McDonald's around the time investigators believe Jennifer
00:09:17
disappeared. He even took and [music] passed a lie detector test. >> He had an alibi for that evening. Alibi
00:09:24
checked [music] out. >> But ex-husband Rob Homeman seemed concerned about his alibi. I'm just
00:09:31
worried and scared because I know that I don't have anybody to say where I was at
00:09:37
that night. >> Rob told investigators he had gone out that night to buy beer and visit
00:09:42
friends. But when they weren't home, he drove around alone for 5 hours on the roads of rural Fanning County.
00:09:51
>> Suddenly when you went riding around you saw her I didn't see somebody. I saw a
00:09:57
chief but I didn't see I don't know who it was. But when the investigator pushes
00:10:01
harder, it sounds like Rob is admitting he did see her Jeep that night. >> Where did you see her Jeep?
00:10:08
>> I was on 898 at the stop sign by the blinking light. Then I turned over. She was in front of me. She was coming from
00:10:15
town. >> By now, Jennifer had been [music] missing for 72 hours. The search would
00:10:22
continue for three more days. >> I was getting about 3 or 4 hours sleep a night. spent the rest of my time
00:10:31
searching, driving country roads, looking for buzzards. >> That's a hell of a [music] thing for a
00:10:37
father to have to do. >> That's what I did until they found her. Things seemed to go in slow motion. It
00:10:46
was very surreal. >> When we move, >> finding Jennifer's body 6 days after her disappearance devastated her father,
00:10:54
Jerry, but it did little to clear up the mystery of what had happened to her. She
00:10:59
was so badly decomposed, the medical examiner couldn't determine the cause of death.
00:11:05
>> Jennifer was in >> But Jennifer's [music] family believes they know the answer. Her sister Alyssa
00:11:12
and her filmmaker [music] husband Barry Wernernick are on a mission to prove who
00:11:17
killed Jennifer and why. In the time you've been looking [music] into this, have you gone from I want the
00:11:25
facts to shape my opinion to now having a sense of who killed Jennifer? >> Absolutely.
00:11:45
to think about how beautiful she was and her red hair and just how [sighs] and to think about how she was found.
00:12:01
That's what um that's what I just can't let go of until justice is done. >> Was the prom dress? There's that prom
00:12:08
dress. >> Filmmaker Barry Wernerick married Jennifer Harris's sister, Alyssa, eight
00:12:13
years after Jennifer's murder. >> When Alyssa first told me about her sister's murder, the first thing that
00:12:19
came to my mind was, "Who did it? Do you know who did it?" All these things started going through my mind.
00:12:25
>> Barry and Alyssa are determined to answer those questions by making a docu series.
00:12:30
>> Didn't transcribe that. >> Barry, an experienced filmmaker, was a consultant on [music] this broadcast.
00:12:37
I felt like I could use my film making ability to do our own investigating because it doesn't didn't seem like
00:12:45
anyone was doing it. >> He is working hand in hand with Daryl Parker and another private eye, Jim
00:12:51
Holloway, re-examining everything. >> We are in a place this is central to your theory of what happened.
00:13:01
>> Yes. The reason why Daryl Parker is so sure this is where Jennifer died is because of a clue that lies on the
00:13:09
river's floor a short way down this dirt [music] road. >> She had some blue mud on the front of
00:13:16
her. According to fishermen, [music] there are only two spots on the river within several miles that that mud is on
00:13:22
the bottom. >> And this is one of them. >> This is that blue marl mud that was on
00:13:28
the body. Not far from the riverbank, there used to be a cottage. >> This is where the original, you know,
00:13:34
caretaker cottage [music] was, >> and it just so happened to burn down the night that Jennifer Harris disappeared.
00:13:41
>> That is a piece of melted glass from the original fire. >> Parker suspects Jennifer left her friend
00:13:46
Christiey's house and met her killer here. >> He believes the cottage was burned to
00:13:52
hide the evidence. >> No godly earth reason for that shack to burn. At the same night, Jennifer comes
00:13:59
up missing. >> Parker hoped to find clues here. >> We came here with a crew and excavated
00:14:04
the whole thing [music] 15 ft that way to another 10 ft that way on either side of this foundation.
00:14:11
>> I see [music] a well. >> We drained the well and then we dug down in the muck probably a foot or two and
00:14:17
[music] we didn't come up with anything. >> But years of coming up empty hasn't deterred Daryl Parker or Barry and
00:14:24
Alyssa Wernerick. And it hasn't shaken their conviction of who killed Jennifer. >> When I think about Jennifer, I think
00:14:32
about Jennifer and Rob. >> Rob and Jennifer were together for as long as anyone can remember. She was a
00:14:40
sixth grader when she began dating Rob, a fifth grader. By high school, the teenagers were practically inseparable,
00:14:48
says Jennifer's cousin, Susan Bowen. He was just part of our family from the time we were growing up. Jennifer was
00:14:57
just in love [music] with him. She just adored everything about him. >> Jennifer had big dreams, bigger than
00:15:04
could take flight in small town Bonham. >> Jennifer had potential to explore greater horizons than just Fannon
00:15:12
County, [music] Texas. >> She moved 3 hours away to go to college. A few years later, Rob followed her
00:15:19
there and the couple married in 1996. >> It was gorgeous. It [music] was meticulously planned at a very beautiful
00:15:27
mansion out in the in the country. >> It landed us. >> It does. >> One year after the wedding, Jennifer's
00:15:38
mother died of cancer. >> You could tell she had learned a lot in the few years that we lost our mother.
00:15:45
She became an adult that [music] was very open-minded. >> In 1999, the couple bought a house in
00:15:54
suburban Dallas, but there was friction brewing. >> I think that my sister was growing and
00:16:00
evolving and moving [music] forward in her life and Rob was stuck and he just wasn't going to change. According to
00:16:08
Jennifer's family, Rob, who was working in landscaping, preferred the slower pace of rural bonum, while she enjoyed
00:16:16
living near a big city, Jennifer embraced a holistic lifestyle and enrolled in massage therapy school.
00:16:23
>> She transformed in front of my eyes. She said that she had met someone who was
00:16:29
like-minded and who wanted to start a business that was [music] a massage and wellness center. That someone was James
00:16:38
Hamilton, someone she'd met in that massage therapy school. >> He was different, but um
00:16:44
>> in what way? >> Well, he was new age and >> touchy feely >> a little bit. >> Their relationship was complicated.
00:16:55
James was living with the mother of his child and had another on the way. [music]
00:16:59
Jennifer was still married to Rob. I told her that it was not a good idea that I
00:17:06
>> What did she say? [music] >> She didn't tell me a lot after that. [laughter] She knew where I stood.
00:17:11
>> I went up there to see what was going on in their lives. >> When Jennifer's father got there, he was
00:17:18
shocked to see holes in the wall. While no one knows for sure how they got there, Jerry seemed certain [music]
00:17:25
Rob was responsible. He took his fist and knocked five holes in the living room wall
00:17:32
about as big as a softball. >> Jerry remembers the holes in the wall. Alyssa remembers something worse.
00:17:41
>> My sister called me one night and um was shaking in her voice. [music] >> She says Jennifer told her Rob came home
00:17:49
drunk and forced himself on her. Jennifer never reported the alleged attack, but Rob would later [music] tell
00:17:57
police after her disappearance that Jennifer was the violent one in the relationship.
00:18:02
>> She's not tempered. We're married. Generally her way or no way. Sometimes I would grab her, wrap her up, keep her
00:18:11
hidden. >> Rob moved back to Bonum and Jennifer's new love interest, James Hamilton, moved
00:18:17
in with her. They became partners in a massage therapy business in suburban Dallas. But Jennifer's infatuation with
00:18:26
James quickly faded. >> Well, James wanted to marry her and she refused to marry him and he was very
00:18:34
upset about that. >> The private investigators say Jennifer's relationship with Hamilton was rocky.
00:18:41
>> Real fiery, just uh fussing and fighting at each other all the time. By the spring of 2002,
00:18:48
>> your sister is leading one complicated life emotionally. >> Jennifer [music] had divorced Rob and
00:18:56
her relationship with James was on the skids. To add to the chaos, the [music] massage business had failed and Jennifer
00:19:04
was forced to file for bankruptcy. [music] >> I think that everything was catching up
00:19:08
to her and she'd ever really grieved my mom's death and I think she was exhausted. She said, "I'm not happy. I
00:19:17
don't care about the business anymore." >> With no job or income, Jennifer confided
00:19:21
in cousin Susan that she'd been back in touch with her former husband, Rob Holman, who now had a new girlfriend.
00:19:29
>> And she [music] said, "I still love him." And she said, "I want him back." And she said, "I even told him that." In
00:19:35
fact, Rob later admitted to police that even though he had a girlfriend, he and Jennifer were still having sex
00:19:43
>> four or five times his pregnancy. Yeah. >> So, Jennifer was living a little bit of
00:19:49
a split life >> to a certain extent, but James didn't know it. He knew nothing about it all.
00:19:55
>> Then one day, Susan saw Jennifer outside her apartment with a moving truck. >> I said, "What are you doing?" and she
00:20:04
said, "I'm moving to Bonham." I thought, "You're only going to Bonham because Rob's in Bonham." Okay. And with that, I
00:20:12
turned around and left. And that was the last time I ever saw her. >> About 6 weeks later, Jennifer
00:20:18
disappeared. On the very day she went missing, she called Rob. Rob says she asked to see him,
00:20:26
>> but he refused. >> I had plans for the girlfriend. She got real upset cuz it was Mother's Day and I
00:20:34
would come over. >> Rob agreed to take a polygraph to back up his story, but for some reason it was
00:20:40
never administered. Sheriff's investigators [music] allowed him to go home. They had a lot
00:20:45
more digging to do, and it centered around a [music] secret Jennifer had shared with her best friend Jill Wagner
00:20:52
just weeks before she died. >> You know, we started talking and she was kind of, "Well, you're not going to
00:20:56
believe, you know, the mess I'm in." And she told me how, you know, that and I pretty much guessed. I was like, you're
00:21:03
pregnant. >> If Jennifer was pregnant, who was the father? Was it Rob Homeman or someone
00:21:11
else? That question became even more important after the medical examiner's autopsy revealed a stunning piece of
00:21:19
information. >> Her uterus was gone. [music] When they examined Jennifer Harris's
00:21:42
body, investigators were shocked. >> There was a wound that affected some of the internal organs.
00:21:49
>> Her uterus was missing. >> Her [music] death was classified as a quote violent homicide. her uterus had
00:21:55
somehow been removed. >> The question was, what damaged her? >> What would have the motive been?
00:22:01
>> That she was possibly pregnant and that the person who killed her was trying to
00:22:06
destroy that evidence. >> In Bonum, where gossip is often taken for gospel, people couldn't stop
00:22:13
talking. >> The public grab a hold of that information and they started concocting
00:22:17
their own theories as to who did it and why. But according to the case file, there was no scientific evidence to
00:22:25
prove Jennifer was actually pregnant at the time of her death. Still, Jennifer's
00:22:31
best friend, Jill Wagner, told investigators she had talked to Jennifer about being pregnant. And that's not all
00:22:37
she said. >> You know, she told me that it was Robs, and I was kind of shocked. >> Rob Holman, Jennifer's [music]
00:22:43
ex-husband. He had revealed to detectives in his police interview that he'd met Jennifer a month before she
00:22:50
disappeared near a drive-in movie theater. >> She told me that she was pregnant and
00:22:56
it's mine. >> I definitely think that she brought it up with Rob. And in my mind, that's what
00:23:04
led to her death. >> Daryl Parker had long been familiar with the story of Jennifer [music] being
00:23:10
pregnant. 8 years after her murder, Parker, then a lieutenant for the sheriff's department, dropped by Rob
00:23:17
Holman's house. It was Sunday, Mother's Day. A calculated move by Parker. >> So, it was the anniversary of the crime.
00:23:26
I had picked out a number of photographs of her and Rob. One of those being Jennifer swimming in a muddy body of
00:23:32
water. And when I gave him [music] the the stack of photographs, the very first one he picked out was that one with the
00:23:39
muddy water. He stood there for about five or six seconds staring at that photograph. But that's the one that
00:23:44
caught his attention like that, you know. I said, "Well, if you want to talk, call me." And I gave him my card
00:23:50
and I left. >> A few hours later, to Parker's surprise, Holman called and wanted to talk. But
00:23:57
Parker had [music] wanted to record the interview, so he suggested they meet at the sheriff's office the next day.
00:24:03
>> That's where I screwed up. I should have gone right then and there. I think he
00:24:07
was ready to talk and say something and I should have just done it. This really has you still. Why so
00:24:22
emotional, Darl? You're really blaming yourself here. >> Well, the previous investigation had failed in
00:24:32
so many ways, but he was responding to me. He was responding to the pressure I was putting on him and I let it slip
00:24:38
away. >> When Holman arrived for the interview with Parker, >> he had a lawyer. >> Did you have anything to do with the
00:24:47
death of Jennifer Harris? >> No. >> Jennifer's pregnancy. Did you believe Did you believe she was pregnant?
00:24:57
>> No, I didn't think she was. >> Did you think that she believed she was pregnant?
00:25:02
>> No. Remember, there was no evidence Jennifer was pregnant. And in fact, forensic experts in Dallas would later
00:25:10
conclude Jennifer's missing uterus wasn't even cut out by the killer. Instead, her uterus and other body parts
00:25:18
were destroyed by turtles and fish in the river. But the rumors persisted, and they had
00:25:26
plenty of company in Bonum. A year after Jennifer's murder, this man found himself in the center of the
00:25:34
storm. >> They were saying that I had been arrested for this murder. >> I mean, you hear this and what's your
00:25:40
reaction? >> What are you talking about? Where did this come from? That's crazy.
00:25:46
>> Crazy because Miles Porter was also the district attorney at the time, overseeing the case.
00:25:53
>> For the record, did you know Jennifer Harris? >> No. >> Had you ever met Jennifer Harris?
00:25:58
>> No. Did you kill Jennifer Harris? >> Absolutely not. >> Porter says locals cooked up the story
00:26:05
because they had a grudge against him over an unrelated case he tried. >> Did this cost you your job?
00:26:11
>> Yeah, no doubt. >> Miles Porter blames losing his reelection on the Jennifer Harris
00:26:17
gossip. Now in private practice, [music] Porter still lives with the fallout from
00:26:22
the unfounded allegations. I've had on a number of occasions random people throughout the county say, "I can't be
00:26:30
fair in this case because [music] you're with the lawyer and I think you killed Jennifer Harris."
00:26:35
>> Crazy. >> 14, 15 [music] years later. >> Absolutely. Still happens >> in the court of public opinion. He was
00:26:42
definitely a suspect. >> Meanwhile, there's no shred of evidence that he was connected at all.
00:26:48
>> None. >> Daryl Parker [music] thinks he knows who's responsible. Not Miles Porter, not
00:26:54
James Hamilton, not a random stranger. In my view, the evidence [music] points directly at Rob Homeman.
00:27:01
>> If you believe this, >> filmmaker Barry Wernernick agrees. >> We were going to let the facts take us
00:27:07
where the facts took us. And we would and where it brought us was to one person that it had to be.
00:27:14
>> But they haven't been able to physically connect [music] Rob Hullman to Jennifer
00:27:18
Harris the night of her disappearance. They're both hoping this woman can. >> We need that [music] eyewitness, huh?
00:27:25
>> And in your view, Rhonda Fitzwater is that eyewitness. >> Yes. >> [music] >> On this rural road in Fannon County,
00:27:46
Texas, Ronda Fitzwater could hold the key to Daryl Parker and Barry Wernernick's theory that Rob Holman met
00:27:53
up with Jennifer Harris that night. >> So, what do you make of this idea that somehow you saw Jennifer Harris and Rob
00:28:01
Holman? >> I've not ever heard that until you tell me that. >> Rhonda has always insisted that all she
00:28:06
saw that night was Jennifer's parked Jeep. Did you see anybody following the Jeep?
00:28:11
>> No, it was already parked. >> Did you see Jennifer Harris? >> No, not at all.
00:28:19
>> But for years, Parker and Wernernick have believed there is more to Rhonda Fitzwater's story. Only she says they
00:28:25
are sorely mistaken. After 15 years of investigation by people closely connected to Bonum, maybe
00:28:33
the best thing anyone can hope for is a fresh set of eyes. I'm flying out to Dallas, Texas. My job
00:28:41
is really to look at the the facts of the case, study [snorts] the case. >> Could the questions about a murder in
00:28:46
Bonham be answered by someone 1700 miles away in Boston? >> Emergency. >> Meet Joe Mora, a private investigator
00:28:57
and CBS News consultant. >> Jennifer has been dead 15 years by the time you're looking at the file.
00:29:02
>> Absolutely. Yeah. >> What' you make of that collection of papers? I thought the file was very
00:29:08
weak, meaning that the investigation that went into it was extremely weak. >> 48 hours brought Mora to Texas to take a
00:29:17
closer look at the Jennifer Harris case. >> You got to speak to people, and that's
00:29:21
what I've done. >> So, you got a little time for me? >> I do. Come on back. >> His first stop, Fannon County Sheriff
00:29:30
Mark Johnson. >> I can see your frustration where, you know, you're in the job for one one
00:29:35
year. You got the public and you sure the family still wants to know what happened to their daughter.
00:29:40
>> There's no no physical evidence. That's the problem. >> In fact, today the sheriff won't call
00:29:46
either Rob Holman or James Hamilton suspects even though detectives did early in the investigation in these
00:29:54
documents. >> How come you can't call them suspects? You have things that lead up to them
00:29:59
that draw you your interest to them to make them a person of interest, but you don't have that connection to make them
00:30:04
a suspect where you can tie some physical evidence into them. >> Filmmaker Barry Wernerick took Mora to
00:30:10
the location of the cottage private eyes Parker and Holloway had come to believe
00:30:15
was [music] burned to hide the evidence of Jennifer's murder. >> So, this is the shed that burnt down
00:30:21
that night. >> Yeah, the stuff gem with the burning shed. There's all kinds of theories
00:30:25
about that. Now you just murdered somebody, but about 200 yds away from where you're disposing the body in the
00:30:31
river. Let's light up this shed and fire. Attract people. >> Makes no sense to you.
00:30:36
>> Absolutely not. It certainly can't tie to this case, but people are trying to
00:30:39
make it to tie in. >> Wernernick also brought him to the bank of the Red River where he believes his
00:30:46
sister-in-law's body was dumped. There's nothing on the records of this case or any eyewitnesses that'll tell you that
00:30:53
this is where her body was disposed, >> right? >> So, we're just here basically guessing.
00:31:01
>> Mora sat down with the private eyes who had been working the case for nearly [music] a decade.
00:31:06
>> To me, I think it boils down to who had the most to lose by killing her or not
00:31:12
killing her. But 18 years of child support, maybe, maybe not. She told me that she was pregnant and was mine.
00:31:20
>> Well, I don't think that we need to speculate about Rob Hullman's motive because he made it clear that she was
00:31:26
applying pressure to him. >> And there could be no more intense pressure than I'm about to have a baby
00:31:34
and you're the father. >> That's right. >> You have to consider it. >> However, he disbelieves her and he
00:31:41
admits that in the interviews. Yeah, she said it, but I don't believe it. I don't
00:31:44
think she is pregnant. >> Did you believe she was pregnant? No, I didn't think she was.
00:31:48
>> For his part, Mora was surprised authorities seemed to quickly disregard James Hamilton, the ex-boyfriend who
00:31:56
wanted to marry Jennifer before she left him when their business failed. >> She covered all the finances for the
00:32:02
business. She's the one that put her name on the loans. >> Jennifer's father, Jerry, made notes
00:32:07
that two months after Jennifer's death, Hamilton called him asking about her life insurance policy. And in my
00:32:15
experience, money, insuranceances, all that stuff is a big deal. Money creates a lot of motive for
00:32:22
a lot of people. >> What's more, he believes investigators [music] bought Hamilton's alibi, that he was
00:32:29
with a friend at that McDonald's more than 50 m away without thoroughly vetting it.
00:32:34
>> And I'm not so thrilled about the checking they did on that alibi. The one thing is you go check who the alibis and
00:32:41
the next thing you you look at are these alibis lying to me? So you got to go check that out. That was never done.
00:32:46
Why? >> To Joe Mora, the investigation was flawed from the outset. And had authorities approached it differently,
00:32:54
they may have gotten more from their interviews. >> Here's what bothers me about this
00:32:58
situation. It's a missing person. They're calling people and talking to people about a missing person. And the
00:33:04
first thing they do, they read your Miranda warnings, >> right? You have the right to someone.
00:33:09
Now, that is unheard of. >> You're saying that sure Rob said, "I don't have an alibi and that might be
00:33:15
incriminating." >> That was after you already signed the Miranda warning. So, he's already
00:33:18
nervous and he's already saying, "Oh, I'm being charged. God, I don't have an alibi." Of course, he was nervous. Most
00:33:24
people would. >> But at the end of the day, the men who've been working this case for years
00:33:30
see it very differently than the man with the fresh set of eyes. Circumstantially,
00:33:36
there is a lot of evidence in the case. It is all circumstantial. >> But Daryl, I think me and you are a
00:33:41
little confused in reference to circumstantial. I'm saying to you, and I submit to you, that there's very little
00:33:47
circumstantial evidence. >> Okay. >> We'll have to agree to disagree. >> Well, because I'm asking you to give me
00:33:53
the facts on what your circumstantial evidence is, and it's based on theory. Theory ain't going to cut it.
00:33:57
>> Like Daryl Parker's theory about Ronda Fitzwwater knowing more. Everybody's putting all the weight on
00:34:05
this woman and she has nothing to offer to the case. Only that yeah, that Jeep was there. Well, we know the Jeep was
00:34:11
there. But what Joe Mora does find interesting in the case file is one of the least examined parts of the story.
00:34:20
One year after Jennifer's murder, this woman, Deborah Lambert, who had seen a news report about the unsolved case,
00:34:29
told detectives she saw something when she was driving [music] across the Red River Bridge on Mother's Day.
00:34:35
>> There was three guys out there and a [music] girl. >> Two guys had the girl by her elbows, and
00:34:43
it was like she was trying to [music] get away from him, and they were restraining her. The girl she says she
00:34:49
saw had reddish brown hair and >> I made eye contact with her and she was [music] scared terrified look on her
00:34:58
face. My mom seen her too and she said that girl to get raped and killed. >> But Lambert never called police back
00:35:07
then. She said she was too afraid to get involved. What's more, her story didn't
00:35:13
fit with the investigator's [music] timeline. She put Jennifer near the bridge at 5:00 p.m. But detectives
00:35:21
believe Jennifer left her friend Christiey's house around 8:00 p.m. >> Deborah Lambert saying what she saw she
00:35:28
saw at 5:00. That's not a dealbreaker for you. >> Absolutely not. In the real world,
00:35:34
people are not looking at their watches and clocks all the time. She may be wrong on her time and not wrong on what
00:35:40
she witnessed. Could Deborah Lambert hold the answer to who killed Jennifer Harris?
00:36:00
A year and a half after Jennifer's murder, the Texas Rangers launched their own investigation into the case.
00:36:07
They reintered Deborah Lambert >> in the story was the same. She was very detailed, redhead, three guys. Two were
00:36:16
wearing jeans, one was wearing shorts. >> Lambert was asked to look at a photo lineup to see if she recognized any of
00:36:23
the men the woman was with. She did. She was very clear that one of the men she saw was Rob Holman.
00:36:33
>> Maybe Mrs. Lambert is believable. Now, the situation is is I worry about how was that lineup done? How many
00:36:41
photographs do they show? In other words, do they have a good old boy, Texan boy there with his uh baseball cap
00:36:48
on and then they had three Mexican photos next to him? Okay. Those are the things I worry about.
00:36:54
>> The way the the lineup was conducted, we don't know anything about. >> No. And that's that's crucial. But Mora
00:37:01
can't be confident because there are no details in the case file about how the [music] lineup was done. Still, Mora
00:37:09
considers Deborah Lambert a missed opportunity to potentially solve Jennifer's murder.
00:37:15
>> There's an open lead there that I feel was enclosed. Therefore, until that lead
00:37:20
is closed, it's problematic to say, I'm going to disregard what this woman saw, and I'm still going to focus on Rob and
00:37:28
James. [music] Rob Hullman, on the advice of his attorney back then, declined to speak with the Texas
00:37:34
Rangers. After working the case for a year, they suspended their investigation. We wanted to know why,
00:37:42
but they wouldn't comment on an unsolved case. The conclusion to their report, no
00:37:48
physical evidence, specific cause of death, or credible witnesses link any particular person as a suspect.
00:37:58
No one can actually follow up with Deborah Lambert. She and her mother have both passed away, but Alyssa and Barry
00:38:06
Wernick now cling to Lambert's story. >> In my mind, I always just believe that she got in the truck with Rob [music]
00:38:13
and it was just the two of them. This changes everything. Um, there are other people that know. There are other people
00:38:19
that could possibly speak up >> now knowing that there were two other people involved. Oh, yeah. There's
00:38:26
renewed hope. >> The problem here, I suppose, is that Deborah Lambert's dead. >> She's dead, but her her interview isn't.
00:38:34
She's alive. You can see what she said. >> Neither James Hamilton [music] nor Rob
00:38:42
Hullman have ever been arrested or charged with any crime related to Jennifer's murder.
00:38:50
During our reporting of this case, we made several attempts to contact both men. James, if this is your number, I'm
00:38:57
calling to follow up on a letter I sent you recently. We got no response. >> This is Rob. I can't take your call
00:39:05
right now. >> We sent you a letter a couple of weeks ago. So, on one of our trips to Texas,
00:39:09
we went to Rob Hullman's home. >> How are you, Mr. Homeman? Jim Axar with CBS News.
00:39:17
>> Turn that off. >> Will you talk to me if I turn that camera off? >> Yeah, I'll talk to you. Holman told us
00:39:22
off camera he never saw Jennifer that night and he's been advised by his attorney not to talk to anyone. His
00:39:29
attorney provided this statement to 48 Hours. Robert Holman has neither been arrested nor charged with any criminal
00:39:36
conduct as it relates to this investigation. This notwithstanding, Mr. Holman has from the inception of the
00:39:43
investigation been treated by law enforcement as a suspect. Mr. Holman has maintained his innocence from the very
00:39:50
beginning and his position has not wavered. With no resolution [music] in sight,
00:40:02
filmmaker Barry Wernernick has a new plan. >> Barry wants to raise $50,000 under the theory that reward money could
00:40:12
shake someone loose. >> No shot. You can't put money out there and thinking that that's going to create
00:40:19
evidence for you. >> Joe Moira said as much to the sheriff. >> This isn't a cold case. This is a frozen
00:40:26
case. It's done. It's over. If you have a prosecutor whose worth is weight, he would never bring this case to trial. He
00:40:34
has absolutely nothing on this case. >> But Sheriff Mark Johnson is not giving up.
00:40:42
>> I want to solve the case. I want it solved and I want it done right. >> Neither is private eye Daryl Parker.
00:40:49
>> When Mr. Harris came to the sheriff's office and he got me involved, I told him that I would get results and I can't
00:40:56
I can't put it down until I'm sure that either the person is held accountable or
00:41:02
I can't do anything more. I have to carry it. >> And if it takes another 15 years,
00:41:07
>> if it takes another 15 years, >> the sadness is we all have kids. We all have family members and I have a
00:41:14
daughter. It's devastating to not know. [music] >> I don't know how she was killed. I wish
00:41:23
I did. I want closure. >> I'm going to do everything I can [music] to bring justice for Jennifer
00:41:33
>> for my dad. He needs to see some justice done. [music] To have walked in my shoes for the last
00:41:42
15 and 1/2 years hadn't been easy. We miss her every day. We [music] miss Jennifer not being here.
00:41:52
I still have high hopes that justice will prevail. [music] [music] >> [music] [music]
00:42:29
[music] [music]