DAVISON, Mich. – A Michigan man has been convicted of premeditated murder after his late wife’s breast milk helped prove that he laced her cereal with a lethal dose of heroin, officials said.
Jason Harris, 47, of Davison, was found guilty Wednesday (Nov. 17) of first-degree premeditated murder, solicitation of murder and delivery of a controlled substance causing death.
The jury verdict was returned in the murder case of his wife, Christina Ann Thompson Harris, 36, from September 2014.
Officials said Harris prepared a bowl of cereal for his wife and laced it with a lethal dose of heroin. According to trial testimony, he told police investigators his wife was eating cereal the evening of Sept. 28, 2014, when she had difficulty holding onto her spoon.
Harris told police that he had to help her get to bed before they both went to sleep. The next morning, his wife was still sleeping when he left for work with their two children, Harris told investigators.
He claims he couldn’t get his wife to answer calls or texts later that morning, so he asked a neighbor to check on her. That neighbor said the door was unlocked and Christina Harris was unresponsive in bed and cold to the touch, according to authorities.
Another neighbor, who is also a registered nurse, came over and called 911. Christina Harris was declared dead shortly afterward.
The case was initially ruled an accidental overdose, but two days later, Christina Harris’ family members went to the Davison Police Department to complain that something wasn’t right. They said she didn’t use drugs and felt the case needed to be investigated further.
A sample of Christina Harris’ breast milk, which she had previously stored in her freezer to feed her infant child, was tested and came back negative for any trace of controlled substances, according to officials. It was the first time Michigan officials had used breast milk as evidence in a criminal case.
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Jason Harris’ own brother and sister told police that he had made statements in the past about getting rid of his wife, according to officials.
Trial testimony revealed Jason Harris had communicated with several women via emails and text messages, including sending pictures to them before and after his wife’s death.
He bought an airline ticket to visit a woman in Rhode Island just nine days after his wife’s death, officials said. He had exchanged thousands of text messages with that woman beforehand, according to authorities.
Two weeks after Christina Harris’ death, another woman moved into Jason Harris’ home, officials said.
Police investigators said Jason Harris received $120,000 in life insurance benefits from his wife’s death.
Davison police investigated the case for almost two years before Michigan State Police took over in August 2016.
In August 2019, the Genesee County Medical Examiner changed the cause of death from “accidental” to “homicide,” which allowed police and prosecutors to pursue a murder charge.
The case was tried in Circuit Court by assistant prosecutor Rebecca Jurva-Brinn.
“This was a very tragic case and my heart goes out to the family and friends of Christina Harris for their terrible loss,” Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said after the verdict was read. “The circumstances of this case make for a unique story and garner headlines in the media, but at the core of it, a family is mourning the loss of their loved one, and I can only hope that today’s verdict will help them with closure as they continue to grieve and they can feel some sense of comfort in knowing that justice under the law has been served.”
Harris faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced Dec. 10, authorities said.
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