48 Hours - Murder at Red River

Episode Date: May 20, 2018

A filmmaker tries to solve a real-life murder – the victim, his wife's sister. Sixteen years later, can they find her killer? CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod investigates.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. What Riding for Justice has done is reached out to people that knew Jennifer Harris. How often do you saddle up and ride? Once a month. We've got a big crowd.

Let's keep it safe. Something has touched the people of Fannin County about this case. Absolutely. Everybody in this county wants to see this case solved. To let something like this go on this long is uncalled for. Jennifer Harris was well loved here. That's the Jennifer Harris case, everything that's involved. This is the whole investigation right here? This is it. Sheriff, I hope you don't mind me asking,

but that doesn't seem like a whole lot for 15 years. Well, that's all we got to work with. Doesn't get any easier. There's not one day that I don't wake up and think about my sister. I wish I could only have a handful of the friends she had. She was amazing. She was the red-haired girl who was the goofball,

adorable, lovable, Lucille Ball type. She smothered me with love. On Mother's Day, 2002, no different than any other day, you take the walk. Right. I saw a Jeep, but I didn't think anything about it. But then when it was here the second day, you're like, why is that Jeep still here?

I get a phone call that her Jeep had been found. What did she do leaving her Jeep on the side of the road? There was a fisherman who was fishing on the Red River. He saw a body in the water. I remember going to the Red River, to the bridge, seeing the police officers, the sheriff. There are more up here, y'all. And I remember my dad being right there with him,

and I just, let me see her, let me see her, let me see. Is it her? It can't be her, let me see. Is it hers? It can't be hers. It has to. Why? Is it her? Is it her? Whenever we move her, just move right into a bowl.

Is it really her? The body is completely naked. Not a stitch of clothing. Not a sock. The way she was disposed of like a piece of trash. She didn't deserve that. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as homicidal violence. What is that? Were they strangled? Were they shot? Those are the things you need to know. Jennifer's murder impacted my wife and her family. You can't even put it in words. Cemetery 01.

This is unlike anything that I've ever done as a filmmaker. But I thought he said it the first time we were with him. Finding the killer and actually being able to prove where's the physical evidence, who the killer is. Let's continue with the timeline. This is much more than a passion project because this is family. We We're gonna follow through, and we're gonna get this done. You want to know who killed Jennifer Harris? Absolutely. I'm a Texas girl.

I believe in justice, old-school justice. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely, Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was

called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. In the northeast corner of Texas, where the banks of the Red River touch Oklahoma, you'll find Fannin County and the town of Bonham,

one of the oldest cities in the Lone Star State. And it's where Mark Johnson, who had just wrapped up 32 years in law enforcement, decided to ditch retirement and run for sheriff in 2016. I met Jerry Harris, the father of the young lady, on the campaign trail. And he made a promise from one father to another to continue the investigation into the murder of Jerry's oldest daughter, 28-year-old Jennifer Harris,

a case unsolved for more than 15 years. When I came here January 1, I demanded that case be brought to me. That was the first thing you did? Yes, I wanted the Jennifer Harris case. Jennifer's father, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, finally has hope. I think he's serious about trying to solve this case. This is my office. And he's not the only one.

For the last eight years, Darrell Parker has been working with Jerry Harris to solve his daughter's murder. First, as a lieutenant in the Fannin County Sheriff's Office, and now as a private investigator. A Marine never meets a stranger if he meets another Marine. He too was a Marine, and Parker has never charged Jerry a dime. I still have a lot of that Captain America justice kind of thing going on. I want Jerry and his family to find justice.

In high school, Jennifer Harris was popular and athletic. Brilliant red-haired girl, bright brown eyes, played tennis, and was a cheerleader. Jennifer's younger sister, Alyssa. She was a dreamer. She was an idealist. And she knew that there was a bigger world outside of Bonham, Texas. Bonham is probably your prototypical small town USA. Gossip is on an epic scale.

When Jennifer Harris goes missing, how does that news play in Bonham? It was a bombshell, because this girl was not too far removed from high school. To understand that she had been murdered, it disturbed a lot of people. She was only 28 years old. She was just beginning to come into her own right when she was murdered. The day that I came in here and looked at her cases,

it opened in those boxes. I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry. That's because after more than 15 years, this is all they have to work with. And what do we have in each of these boxes? This is all documentation that's in there. You know, when she first come up missing, posted they're looking for newspaper articles, business records, and this is just some case reports. You can see that now this was wet.

A lot of this stuff got wet. They had some pods out back. They stored a lot of evidence. They leaked, and a lot of stuff got wet. Contaminated. Yes. Some of it got destroyed. The file was very light. The duplicates of the same paperwork

over and over and over again. It was a mess. Although the original investigators have said they did their best jennifer's laptop computer and clothing a shirt bra and jeans that might have been hers were booked into evidence but somehow mysteriously disappeared it's just been mishandled why would it be mishandled i honestly don't know The only thing I can gather out of it is lack of experience, lack of training. It was Mother's Day, 2002.

Jennifer was visiting her friend, Christy Farr, in the early evening. It gets to be close to 8 o'clock, and Jennifer's like, I gotta go? Correct. She never told Christy where she was going, but Jennifer Harris never returned home that night. The next day, Jennifer's Jeep was discovered, parked just down the road from a local music spot.

While she was still missing, authorities reached out to the two men in her life. Her former boyfriend and business partner, James Hamilton, and her ex-husband, Rob Holman. Rob, how you doing? Pretty good. Both agreed to speak with investigators without a lawyer present. They had not been arrested, but both men were read their Miranda rights. So you have the right to make silence. Anything you say can't be against you before the law.

And both denied seeing Jennifer the night she disappeared. According to his police interview, Jennifer's former boyfriend, James Hamilton, was with a friend more than an hour away from Bonham at this McDonald's around the time investigators believed Jennifer disappeared. He even took and passed a lie detector test. He had an alibi for that evening. Alibi checked out. But ex-husband Rob Holman seemed concerned about his alibi.

I'm just worried and scared. I don't have anybody to say where I was at that night. Rob told investigators he had gone out that night to buy beer and visit friends. But when they weren't home, he drove around alone for five hours on the roads of rural Fanning County. Sunday when you went riding around, you saw him. I didn't see him. I saw a jeep, but I didn't see her somebody. I saw a Jeep, but I didn't see, I don't know whose it was. But when the investigator pushes harder,

it sounds like Rob is admitting he did see her Jeep that night. Where did you see her Jeep? I was on 898 at the stop sign. By the plate number. So then I turned north, she was in front of me. She was coming from town. By now, Jennifer had been missing for 72 hours. The search would continue for three more days.

I was getting about three or four hours sleep a night. Spent the rest of my time searching, driving country roads, looking for buzzards. That's a hell of a thing for a father to have to do. That's what I did a thing for a father to have to do. That's what I did until they found her. Things seemed to go in slow motion. It was very surreal. Finding Jennifer's body six days after her disappearance

devastated her father, Jerry. But it did little to clear up the mystery of what had happened to her. She was so badly decomposed, the medical examiner couldn't determine the cause of death. Jennifer was in... But Jennifer's family believes they know the answer. Her sister Alyssa and her filmmaker husband Barry Wernick are on a mission to prove who killed Jennifer and why. In the time you've been looking into this,

have you gone from, I want the facts to shape my opinion, to now having a sense of who killed Jennifer? Absolutely. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-ters who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists

because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans. Discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet.

Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.

She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's

most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. To think about how beautiful she was and her red hair and just how... And to think about how she was found.

That's what I just can't let go of until justice is done. Where's the prom dress? Where's that prom dress? Filmmaker Barry Wernick married Jennifer Harris' sister, Alyssa, eight years after Jennifer's murder. When Alyssa first told me about her sister's murder, the first thing that came to my mind was, who did it? Do you know who did it?

All these things started going through my mind. Barry and Alyssa are determined to answer those questions by making a docuseries. Didn't transcribe that? Barry, an experienced filmmaker, was a consultant on this broadcast. I felt like I could use my filmmaking ability to do our own investigating because it didn't seem like anyone was doing it. He is working hand-in-hand with Daryl Parker and another private eye, Jim Holloway, reexamining everything.

We are in a place, this is central to your theory of what happened. Yes. The reason why Daryl Parker is so sure this is where Jennifer died is because of a clue that lies on the river's floor, a short way down this dirt road. She had some blue mud on the front of her. According to fishermen, there are only two spots on the river within several miles that that mud is on the bottom.

And this is one of them. This is that blue marl mud that was on the body. Not far from the riverbank, there used to be a cottage. This is where the original, you know, caretaker cottage was. And it just so happened to burn down the night that Jennifer Harris disappeared. That is a piece of melted glass from the original fire. Parker suspects Jennifer left her friend Christy's house and met her killer here.

He believes the cottage was burned to hide the evidence. No godly earth reason for that shack to burn. At the same night, Jennifer comes up missing. Parker hoped to find clues here. We came here with a crew and excavated the whole thing. Fifteen feet that way to another ten feet that way on either

side of this foundation. I see a well. We drained the well and then we dug down in the muck probably a foot or two and we didn't come up with anything. But years of coming up empty hasn't deterred Darryl Parker or Barry and Alyssa Wernick. And it hasn't shaken their conviction of who killed Jennifer.

When I think about Jennifer, I think about Jennifer and Rob. Rob and Jennifer were together for as long as anyone can remember. She was a sixth grader when she began dating Rob, a fifth grader. By high school, the teenagers were practically inseparable, says Jennifer's cousin, Susan Bowen. He was just part of our family from the time we were growing up. Jennifer was just in love with him. She just adored everything about him. Jennifer had big dreams, bigger than could take flight in small town Bonham. Jennifer had potential to explore greater horizons than just Fannin County, Texas. She moved three hours away to go to college. A few years later, Rob followed

her there, and the couple married in 1996. It was gorgeous. It was meticulously planned at a very beautiful mansion out in the country. It meant us two hearts. One year after the wedding, Jennifer's mother died of cancer. You could tell she had learned a lot. In the few years that we lost our mother, she became an adult that was very open-minded. In 1999, the couple bought a house in suburban Dallas,

but there was friction brewing. I think that my sister was growing and evolving and moving forward in her life, and Rob was stuck. And he just wasn't going to change. According to Jennifer's family, Rob, who was working in landscaping, preferred the slower pace of rural Bonham while she enjoyed living near a big city. Jennifer embraced a holistic lifestyle and enrolled in massage therapy school. She transformed in front of my eyes. She said that she had met someone who was like-minded

and who wanted to start a business that was a massage and wellness center. That someone was James Hamilton, someone she'd met in that massage therapy school. He was different, but... In what way? Well, he was new age and... Touchy-feely? A little bit. Their relationship was complicated.

James was living with the mother of his child and had another on the way. Jennifer was still married to Rob. I told her that it was not a good idea. And what did she say? She didn't tell me a lot after that. She knew where I stood. I went up there to see what was going on in their lives. When Jennifer's father got there,

he was shocked to see holes in the wall. While no one knows for sure how they got there, Jerry seems certain Rob was responsible. He took his fist and knocked five holes in the living room wall, about as big as a softball. Jerry remembers the holes in the wall. Alyssa remembers something worse. My sister called me one night

and was shaking in her voice. She says Jennifer told her Rob came home drunk and forced himself on her. Jennifer never reported the alleged attack, but Rob would later tell police after her disappearance that Jennifer was the violent one in the relationship. She's not dead. We're married. It was generally her way, no way. Sometimes I'd grab her, wrap her up, keep hitting her.

Rob moved back to Bonham, and Jennifer's new love interest, James Hamilton, moved in with her. They became partners in a massage therapy business in suburban Dallas. But Jennifer's infatuation with James quickly faded. Well, James wanted to marry her and she refused to marry him and he was very upset about that. The private investigators say Jennifer's relationship with Hamilton was rocky. Real fiery, just fussing and fighting at each other all the time. By the spring of 2002, your sister is leading one complicated life emotionally. Jennifer had divorced Rob,

and her relationship with James was on the skids. To add to the chaos, the massage business had failed, and Jennifer was forced to file for bankruptcy. I think that everything was catching up to her and she never really grieved my mom's death and I think she was exhausted. She said, I'm not happy. I don't care about the business anymore. With no job or income, Jennifer confided in cousin Susan that she'd been back in touch with her former husband, Rob Holman, who now had a new girlfriend. And she said, I still love him. And she said, I want him back. And she said, I even told him that. In fact, Rob later admitted to police that even though he had a girlfriend, he and Jennifer were still having sex.

So Jennifer was living a little bit of a split life. To a certain extent, but James didn't know it. He knew nothing about it all. Then one day, Susan saw Jennifer outside her apartment with a moving truck. I said, what are you doing? And she said, I'm moving to Bonham. I thought, you're only going to Bonham because Rob's in Bonham.

Okay, and with that, I turned around and left, and that was the last time I ever saw her. About six weeks later, Jennifer disappeared. On the very day she went missing, she called Rob. Rob says she asked to see him, but he refused. Rob agreed to take a polygraph to back up his story, but for some reason, it was never administered. Sheriff's investigators allowed him to go home. They had a lot more digging to do, and it centered around a secret Jennifer had shared

with her best friend Jill Wagner just weeks before she died. You know, we started talking, and she was kind of like, you're not going to believe, you know, the mess I'm in. And she told me how, you know, that I'm pretty much a guest. I was like, you're, that I pretty much guessed, it was like you're pregnant. If Jennifer was pregnant, who was the father? Was it Rob Holman or someone else? That question became even more important

after the medical examiner's autopsy revealed a stunning piece of information. Her uterus was gone. When they examined Jennifer Harris' body, investigators were shocked. There was a wound that affected some of the internal organs. Her uterus was missing. Her death was classified as a, quote, violent homicide. Her uterus had somehow been removed.

The question was, what damaged her? What would have the motive been? That she was possibly pregnant, and that the person who killed her was trying to destroy that evidence. In Bonham, where gossip is often taken for gospel, people couldn't stop talking. The public grabbed ahold of that information, and they started concocting their own theories

as to who did it and why. But according to the case file, there was no scientific evidence to prove Jennifer was actually pregnant at the time of her death. Still, Jennifer's best friend Jill Wagner told investigators she had talked to Jennifer about being pregnant. And that's not all she said. You know, she told me that it was Rob's,

and I was kind of shocked. Rob Holman, Jennifer's ex-husband. He had revealed to detectives in his police interview that he'd met Jennifer a month before she disappeared near a drive-in movie theater. She told me that she was pregnant. I definitely think that she brought it up with Rob. And in my mind, that's what led to her death. Daryl Parker had long been familiar with the story of Jennifer being pregnant. Eight years after her murder, Parker, then a lieutenant for the sheriff's department, dropped by Rob Holman's house.

It was Sunday, Mother's Day, a calculated move by Parker. So it was the anniversary of the crime. I had picked out a number of photographs of her and Rob, one of those being Jennifer swimming in a muddy body of water. And when I gave him the stack of photographs, the very first one he picked out was that one with the muddy water. He stood there for about five or six seconds staring at that photograph. But that's the one that caught his attention. Like that. You know, I said, well, if you want to talk, call me. And I gave him my card and I left. A few hours later, to Parker's surprise, Holman called and wanted to talk. But Parker had wanted to record the interview. So he suggested they meet at the sheriff's office the next day.

That's where I screwed up. I should have gone right then and there. I think he was ready to talk and say something, and I should have just done it. This really has you still. Why so emotional, Daryl? You're really blaming you still. Why so emotional, Darrell? You're really blaming yourself here. Well, the previous investigation had failed in 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 away. When Holman arrived for the interview with Parker, he had a lawyer. Did you have anything to do with the death of Jennifer Harris? No. Jennifer's pregnancy.

Did you believe... Did you believe she was pregnant? No. I didn't think she was. Did you think that she believed she was pregnant? No. Remember, there was she believed she was pregnant? No. Remember, there was no evidence Jennifer was pregnant. And in fact, forensic experts in Dallas would later conclude

Jennifer's missing uterus wasn't even cut out by the killer. Instead, her uterus and other body parts were destroyed by turtles and fish in the river. and other body parts were destroyed by turtles and fish in the river. But the rumors persisted, and they had plenty of company in Bonham. A year after Jennifer's murder, this man found himself in the center of the storm. They were saying that I had been arrested for this murder. I mean, you hear this, and what's your reaction? What are you talking about?

Where did this come from? That's crazy. Crazy, because Miles Porter was also the district attorney at the time, overseeing the case. For the record, did you know Jennifer Harris? No. Had you ever met Jennifer Harris? No. Did you kill Jennifer Harris?

Absolutely not. Porter says locals cooked up the story because they had a grudge against him over an unrelated case he tried. Did this cost you your job? Yeah, no doubt. Miles Porter blames losing his reelection on the Jennifer Harris gossip. Now in private practice, Porter still lives with the fallout from the unfounded allegations. I've had, on a number of occasions, random people throughout the county say, I can't be fair in this case because you're with the lawyer and I think you killed Jennifer Harris. Crazy. 14, 15 years later? Absolutely. Still happens. In the court of public opinion, Absolutely. Still happens. In the court of public opinion, he was definitely a suspect.

Meanwhile, there's no shred of evidence that he was connected at all. None. Daryl Parker thinks he knows who's responsible. Not Miles Porter, not James Hamilton, not a random stranger. In my view, the evidence points directly at Rob Holman. Filmmaker Barry Wernick agrees. We were going to let the facts take us where the facts took us, and where it brought us was to one person that it had to be.

But they haven't been able to physically connect Rob Holman to Jennifer Harris the night of her disappearance. They're both hoping this woman can. We need that eyewitness, huh? And in your view, Rhonda Fitzwater is that eyewitness? Yes. On this rural road in Fanning County, Texas, Rhonda Fitzwater could hold the key to Darrell Parker and Barry Wernick's theory that Rob Holman met up with Jennifer Harris that night.

So what do you make of this idea that somehow you saw Jennifer Harris and Rob Holman? I've not ever heard that until you told me that. Rhonda has always insisted that all she saw that night was Jennifer's parked Jeep. Did you see anybody following the Jeep? No, it was already parked. Did you see Jennifer Harris? No, not at all. But for years, Parker and Wernick have believed there is more to Rhonda Fitzwater's story. Only she says they are sorely mistaken. After 15 years of investigation by people closely connected to Bonham, maybe the best thing anyone can hope for is a fresh set of eyes.

I'm flying out to Dallas, Texas. My job is really to look at the facts of the case, study the case. Could the questions about a murder in Bonham be answered by someone 1,700 miles away in Boston? Meet Joe Mora, a private investigator and CBS News consultant. Jennifer's been dead 15 years by the time you're looking at the file. Absolutely, yeah. What'd you make of that collection of papers? I thought the file was very weak, meaning that the investigation that went into it was

extremely weak. 48 Hours brought Morita Texas to take a closer look at the Jennifer Harris case. You got to speak to people, and that's what I've done. So you got a little time for me? I do. Come on back. His first stop, Fannin County Sheriff Mark Johnson. I can see your frustration where, you know, you're in the job for one year,

you got the public, and sure, the family still wants to know what happened to their daughter. There's no physical evidence. That's the problem. In fact, today the sheriff won't call either Rob Holman or James Hamilton suspects, even though detectives did early in the investigation in these documents. How come you can't call them suspects? You have things that lead up to them, that draw your interest to them, that make them a person of interest,

but you don't have that connection to make them a suspect where you can tie some physical evidence into them. Filmmaker Barry Wernick took Maura to the location of the cottage privatized Parker and Holloway it come to believe was burned to hide the evidence of Jennifer's murder. This is the shed that burnt down that night. The stuffed gem with the burning shed.

There's all kinds of theories about that. Now, you just murdered somebody, but about 200 yards away from where you're disposing the body in the river, let's light up this shed and fire, attract people. Makes no sense to you. Absolutely not. It certainly can't tie to this case, but people are trying to make it to tie in.

Wernick also brought him to the bank of the Red River, where he believes his sister-in-law's body was dumped. There's nothing on the records of this case or any eyewitnesses that will tell you that this is where her body was disposed. Right. So we're just here basically guessing. Mora sat down with the private eyes

who had been working the case for nearly a decade. To me, I think it boils down to who had the most to lose by killing her or not killing her? 18 years of child support? Maybe. Maybe not. She told me that she was pregnant. Well, I don't think that we need to speculate

about Rob Holman's motive because he made it clear that she was applying. Well, I don't think that we need to speculate about Rob Holman's motive, because he made it clear that she was applying pressure to him. And there could be no more intense pressure than, I'm about to have a baby, and you're the father. That's right. You have to consider it. However, he disbelieves her. And he admits that in the interviews.

Yeah, she said it, but I don't believe it. I don't think she is pregnant. Did you believe she was pregnant? No. I didn't think she was. For his part, Morrow was surprised authorities seemed to quickly disregard James Hamilton, the ex-boyfriend who wanted to marry Jennifer before she left him when their business failed. She covered all the finances for the business.

She's the one that put her name on the loans. Jennifer's father, Jerry, made notes that two months after Jennifer's death, Hamilton called him, asking about her life insurance policy. And in my experience, money, insurances, all that stuff is a big deal. Money creates a lot of motive for a lot of people. What's more, he believes investigators bought Hamilton's alibi

that he was with a friend at that McDonald's more than 50 miles away without thoroughly vetting it. And I'm not so thrilled about the checking they did on that alibi. The one thing is you go check with the alibis, and the next thing you look at are these alibis lying to me? So you've got to go check that out. That was never done. Why? To Joe Mora, the investigation was flawed from the outset,

and had authorities approached it differently, they may have gotten more from their interviews. Here's what bothers me about this situation. It's a missing person. They're calling people and talking to people about a missing person, and the first thing they do is they read you a Miranda warning. Right. You have the right to read the warning.

Now, that is unheard of. You're saying that, sure, Rob said, I don't have an alibi, and that might be incriminating. That was after he already signed the Miranda warning. So he's already nervous, and he's already saying, oh, I'm being charged. God, I don't have an alibi. Of course he was nervous. Most people would be. But at the end of the day, the men who've been working this case for years see it very differently than the man with the fresh set of eyes. Circumstantially, there is a lot of evidence in the case.

It is all circumstantial. But, Daryl, I think me and you are a little confused in reference to circumstantial. I'm saying to you and I submit to you that there's very little circumstantial evidence. Okay. Well, I have to agree to disagree. Well, because I'm asking you to give me the facts on what your circumstantial evidence is. Sure. And it's based on theory. Theory ain't going to cut it.

Like Daryl Parker's theory about Rhonda Fitzwater knowing more. Like Daryl Parker's theory about Rhonda Fitzwater knowing more. Everybody's putting all the weight on this woman, and she has nothing to offer to the case. Only that, yeah, that Jeep was there. Well, we know the Jeep was there. But what Joe Mora does find interesting in the case file is one of the least examined parts of the story. One year after Jennifer's murder, this woman, Deborah Lambert, who had seen a news report about the unsolved case, told detectives she saw something when she was driving across the Red River Bridge on Mother's Day. There was three guys out there and a girl. Two guys had the girl by her elbows, and it was like she was trying to

get away from him, and they were restraining her. The girl she says she saw had reddish-brown hair. I made eye contact with her, and she was scared, terrified, look on her face. My mom seen her too, and she said, that girl's supposed to get raped and killed. But Lambert never called police back then. She said she was too afraid to get involved. What's more, her story didn't fit with the investigator's timeline. She put Jennifer near the bridge at 5 o'clock p.m., but detectives believe Jennifer left her friend Christie's house around 8 p.m. Deborah Lambert saying

what she saw, she saw at 5 o'clock, that's not a deal-breaker for you? Absolutely not. In the real world, people are not looking at their watches

and clocks all the time. She may be wrong on her time and not wrong on what she witnessed. Could Deborah Lambert hold the answer to who killed Jennifer Harris? A year and a half after Jennifer's murder,

the Texas Rangers launched their own investigation into the case. They re-interviewed Deborah Lambert. And the story was the same. She was very detailed. Redhead. Three guys. Two were wearing jeans. One was wearing shorts.

Lambert was asked to look at a photo lineup to see if she recognized any of the men the woman was with she did she was very clear that one of the men she saw was rob holman maybe mrs lambert is believable now the situation is is i worry about how was that lineup done how many photographs do they show? In other words, did they have a good old boy, Texan boy there with his baseball cap on? And then they had three Mexican photos next to him. Okay? Those are the things I worry about.

The way that the lineup was conducted, we don't know anything about. No, and that's crucial. But Mora can't be confident because there are no details in the case file about how the lineup was done. Still, Mora considers Deborah Lambert a missed opportunity to potentially solve Jennifer's murder. There's an open lead there that I feel wasn't closed. Therefore, until that lead 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 James.

Rob Holman, on the advice of his attorney back then, declined to speak with the Texas Rangers. After working the case for a year, they suspended their investigation. We wanted to know why, but they wouldn't comment on an unsolved case. The conclusion to their report, no physical evidence, specific cause of death, or credible witnesses link any particular person as a suspect.

No one can actually follow up with Deborah Lambert. She and her mother have both passed away. But Alyssa and Barry Warnick now cling to Lambert's story. In my mind, I always just believed that she got in the truck with Rob, and it was just the two of them. This changes everything. There are other people that know. There are other people that could possibly speak up.

Now, knowing that there were two other people involved, oh yeah, there's renewed hope. The problem here, I suppose, is that Deborah Lambert's dead. She's dead, but her interview isn't. She's alive. You can see what she said. Neither James Hamilton nor Rob Holman have ever been arrested or charged with any crime related to Jennifer's murder.

During our reporting of this case, we made several attempts to contact both men. James, if this is your number, I'm calling to follow up on a letter I sent you recently. We got no response. This is Rob. I can't take your call right now. We sent you a letter a couple of weeks ago. So on one of our trips to Texas, we went to Rob Holman's home.

How are you? Mr. Holman? Jim Axelrod with CBS News. Will you talk to me if I turn that camera off? Holman told us off camera he never saw Jennifer that night, and he's been advised by his attorney not to talk to anyone. His attorney provided this statement to 48 Hours. Robert Holman has neither been arrested nor charged with any criminal conduct as it relates to this investigation.

This notwithstanding, Mr. Holman has, from the inception of the investigation, been treated by law enforcement as a suspect. Mr. Holman has maintained his innocence from the very beginning, and his position has not wavered. With no resolution in sight, filmmaker Barry Wernick has a new plan. Barry wants to raise $50,000 under the theory that reward money could shake someone loose. No shot. You can't put money out there in thinking that that's going to create evidence for you.

Joe Mora said as much to the sheriff. This isn't a cold case. This is a frozen 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 has absolutely nothing on this case.

But Sheriff Mark Johnson is not giving up. I want to solve the case. I want it solved, and I want it done right. Neither is private eye Darrell Parker. DARRELL PARKER, 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 put it down. Until I'm sure that either the person is held accountable or I can't do anything more, I have to carry it. And if it takes another 15 years?

If it takes another 15 years. The sadness is we all have kids, we all have family members, and I have a daughter. It's devastating to not know. I don't know how she was killed. I wish I did. I want closure. I'm going to do everything I can to bring justice for Jennifer.

For my dad, he needs to see some justice done. To have walked in my shoes for the last 15 and a half years hadn't been easy. We miss her every day. We miss Jennifer not being here. I still have high hopes that justice will prevail. If you have any information about the Jennifer Harris case, contact the Fannin County Sheriff's Office at 903-583-2143. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.