January 27, 2005

‘Promising leads’ followed in ’04 murder investigation

By Robert Mihalek

Yellow Springs police continue to investigate the murder of Yellow Springs resident Timothy Harris, more than a month after he was found dead in his home.

Police have still not located Harris’s missing car, a red 1987 Toyota Celica, which has license plates DKC 9585 and a loud muffler. The car has been entered as a “wanted felony vehicle” in a national computer database.

Police Chief Carl Bush said that investigators are waiting for the weather to clear so that police can search for the car in areas around Yellow Springs and Greene County from above in a helicopter. He said the car may have been dumped somewhere in the area.

Bush said that police are “exhausting all possibilities” to find the car, including alerting the public of the missing car through television media.

Police still do not know if Harris’s death is connected to the fact that his car is missing, Bush said.

Two friends found Harris in his kitchen in the afternoon of Dec. 16. The friends had not seen Harris, who was 45, for several days and decided to check in on him, Bush has said.

The Greene County coroner’s office conducted an autopsy on Harris and ruled that he was killed as a result of blunt force trauma to the head.

Police do not know why Harris was killed, though Bush said that police are following several avenues in the investigation.

“We’ve had some promising leads,” evidence that may contain DNA, Bush said.

“We’ve collected some items that we believe have potential DNA evidence,” he said.

The DNA evidence has been sent to a lab in California, which Bush described as having an excellent reputation. “We wanted to use the best that we have access to,” he said of the California lab. Other evidence has been sent to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification in London. Bush said that police are awaiting the results of testing on evidence.

Bush, who is resigning from the Yellow Springs Police Department in early February, said that his departure would not affect the police force’s investigation.

He noted that Sergeant Tom Jones has been the lead investigator in the case. Bush, who has accepted a position with the Butler Township Police Department, where he will serve as captain/assistant chief, also said that he would be available “to assist in any way, shape or form” after he leaves for his new job.

“It is a priority for the department,” he said of the murder investigation.