March 3, 2005

Tip helps police locate car belonging to slain villager

By Robert Mihalek

Yellow Springs police on Monday found the 1987 Toyota Corolla that had been missing since the slaying of its owner, Yellow Springs resident Timothy Harris, in December.

Acting on a tip, Police Chief John Grote located the car around 3:30 p.m. at a scrap yard, Xenia Iron and Metal on Jasper Road. The car was lying on top of a pile of other vehicles and would have eventually been crushed, Grote said.

“We were very fortunate it was still intact,” Grote said of Harris’s car, which he described as being in “pretty good condition.”

The car was found three days after the Greene County prosecuting attorney’s office and Yellow Springs police held a news conference asking Miami Valley residents to help them locate the vehicle. Grote said that the Police Department received four or five leads after the news conference, including the one that helped police find the car. He said he did not yet know how the tipster knew the car was at Xenia Iron and Metal, though the person, who called the Police Department, may work at the scrap yard.

The Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification, a state agency based in London, will process and examine the vehicle for evidence, Grote said. It will take several hours to process the car, but depending on what kind of evidence, if any, is discovered, it could take weeks or months to analyze the findings, he said.

Grote said that police are still following up on the lead and do not yet know who brought the car to the scrap yard or how long it had been there.

Finding the car, Grote said, is “another piece of the puzzle. It’s more information.” He said he is hopeful the break will help police find whoever killed Harris.

Harris, who was 45, was found lying on the floor of his kitchen by a friend on the afternoon of Dec. 16. He had not been seen for several days. William F. Schenck, the Greene County prosecuting attorney, said investigators think that Harris had been dead for at least 48 hours before he was discovered.

Grote said that it’s still not clear if the car is connected with Harris’s murder.

During the news conference on Friday, Feb. 25, Schenck indicated that the vehicle may have been stolen as a part of the slaying. He told reporters that investigators believe that Harris’s car was stolen and sold for drug money, though he added that investigators “don’t know that as fact.”

He declined to elaborate on why investigators think the car was stolen. Schenck also said that investigators “don’t know if the car was the primary motive” in the killing.

It appears that investigators still do not know why Harris was killed. Schenck speculated he could have been murdered for money or because of an argument.

After locating the car, Grote was more cautious, saying that he is “not drawing any conclusions yet” about the vehicle or the investigation. “We’re open to everything,” he said.

“We very much would like anyone with any information to come forward,” Schenck said. People may report information related to the case anonymously, he said. Last week, Schenck said that the prosecuting attorney’s office is willing to offer a reward for information leading to the discovery of Harris’s vehicle. Grote said that the reward offer is the responsibility of Schenck’s office.

Last Friday’s news conference, which was called by Schenck’s office and was held in a Greene County government building in Xenia, also revealed several more details on the investigation and Harris’s death.

Schenck said that Harris “died of multiple blunt force injuries to the front of his head.” He said the fatal blows were delivered by “some kind of blunt object.”

There were no signs of forced entry at Harris’s Pleasant Street home and “from the initial scene” it does not appear that there was a struggle in the house, Grote said. The murder scene was “centralized” in Harris’s kitchen, he said. Grote, who was promoted from captain to chief last week, is serving as the department’s spokesman on the case, though Sergeant Tom Jones is leading the investigation.

Schenck said that investigators “do not have a suspect, per se,” and noted that they do not know how many people may have been involved in the slaying. The prosecuting attorney said he would not answer a question about whether investigators have interviewed any suspects.

He also said that while investigators continue to follow up on leads, those tips have “not led to anything specific.”

“We don’t have anything solid,” Schenck said.

Last month, Yellow Springs police and the prosecuting attorney’s office sent potential DNA evidence for testing to a lab in Richmond, Calif. Schenck said it could be several weeks before investigators receive the results of the analysis.

“We do believe there is sufficient material to get a genetic profile,” Schenck said of the DNA evidence.

While Schenck would not describe the evidence, he did confirm that the evidence is blood. “We are trying to get a genetic profile of blood,” he said. Investigators, however, do not know whose blood it is, he said.

In response to a question about evidence collected at Harris’s house, Schenck said that investigators are testing “numerous items at this time.”

Grote, who is 47 and a Yellow Springs native, said that he remembers Harris from when they were growing up and described Harris as an acquaintance. “Tim was an easy-going kind of person,” Grote said, adding that Harris was “a fixture in the village.”