The Binge Crimes: Night Shift - What Happened to the Harrisons? | 2. Tug of War
Episode Date: September 8, 2026When Caleb Harrison meets Melissa Merritt, she gives him two kids who look like him and a fresh start. But their marriage burns to the ground…and what's left is a bitter, years-long battle waged thr...ough the courts, the police, and a string of accusations. Want the full story? Binge every episode of What Happened to the Harrisons? ad-free now by subscribing to The Binge+. You’ll unlock over 60 true crime series instantly, get early access to drops on the first of every month, and hear exclusive bonus episodes. Search for the channel on Apple Podcasts or head to GetTheBinge.com. For behind-the-scenes details, join our free newsletter at Patreon.com/TheBinge. What Happened to the Harrisons? is a production of Sony Music Entertainment. Follow @sonypodcasts and discover more at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices at podcastchoices.com/adchoices. The Binge — feed your true crime obsession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Before we begin, just wanted to let you know.
This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence.
I'm looking at a grainy video of a police interview.
Bridget Harrison is sitting alone at a small round table in a windowless room.
She's at the police station near her home on Pitch Pine Crescent, waiting for a constable to join her.
It's May 6, 2009.
Three weeks after Bridget found her husband, Bill Harrison,
dead of an apparent heart arrhythmia.
And now, she's here to report a crime.
She looks deeply distressed,
but even now she's carefully put together
in a tailored blazer and stylish glasses.
It's right there.
It's okay.
She lifts her head as a police officer enters
and opens a spiral notebook.
Bridget is a meticulous note taker.
Class of Mike Young, the original police criminal litigation's bureau.
He's a middle-aged man with thinning gray hair,
and today he's dressed in plain clothes, a shirt and tie.
This room right now is being audio and videotaped, and you are.
My name is Bridget Harrison.
Bridget Harrison.
Right.
And I am the mother of Caleb Harrison and the grandmother of two grandchildren.
Bridget names the children here.
a girl and a boy, five and seven years old.
And these are the children who have been abducted by their mother.
Abducted by their mother.
Bridget's son Caleb isn't here with her, and we'll get to why later.
All right.
So that's what we're here.
Bridget reviews the events that have led her here.
She explains that Caleb has been living in her home on Pitch Pine Crescent
since his marriage ended in 2005.
And his children had been living there, too, when Caleb had visitation.
Until recently.
On April the 16th of this year, which is just like three weeks ago,
my husband died, completely unexpected, and so suddenly he's never been ill.
Bridget says she wanted to be the one to tell her grandchildren that their papa had died.
But the kids were scheduled to be with their mom that weekend.
But because of the death of my husband
went to school on Friday
and found out they weren't in school.
She thought their mom might have kept them home from school.
So Bridget drove to Melissa's house to check.
We went by the house, 2651 Aquitaine,
all dark, all locked up,
made me nervous.
I called her dad.
Melissa's father, Mike Merritt.
Partly to tell him, well, first of all, to tell him about Bill's
death, but also to ask them please to talk to Melissa and make sure that we were able to tell the
children and ourselves so that we could be with them when we had to give them this information.
The weekend passed with Bridget in mourning for her husband and worried for her grandkids.
She heard nothing from Melissa.
On the day the kids were supposed to return to Pitch Pine Crescent, Bridget went back to the school.
When they're not in school on Tuesday, that's the flags really went.
When I first learned about the abduction, I remember thinking,
what would motivate a mother of little kids to just make a run for it,
to walk away from her home, her life, to risk criminal charges and jail time,
to risk losing her kids altogether?
I wanted to understand what led to that moment,
what had to happen, step by step, for that decision to feel like the only option.
So one morning a few months ago, I dragged two boxes of family court records into my office.
They were stuffed with custody orders, police reports, thousands of pages that were once kept at the Harrison residence.
The records told the story of a marriage that fell apart and a relentless battle for control of the kids.
A lot of custody battles get ugly.
This one turned deadly.
From Sony Music Entertainment, this is what happened to the Harrisons.
I'm Amy Dempsey Raven.
Episode 2, Tug of War.
I'm going to take you back now to the year 2000.
A time of landlines, frosted tips, internet chat rooms, CD burners,
and everyone watching shows at the show.
same time. This is when a 27-year-old Caleb Harrison met his future wife, Melissa Merritt,
at a store that sold collector Barbies. Melissa was 20, with highlighted hair, a round face,
and bright green eyes. She worked in the shop, and Caleb would come out from the warehouse to flirt
with her. But when they met, she was actually engaged to someone else.
The Melissa that I know was a very outgoing, popular, sociable person who seemed to love life
who really aspired to just settle down right away and live the family life.
This is the guy Melissa was going to marry, her high school sweetheart, Matthew Groves.
Melissa was a jeans and sneakers girl who loved animals, and she came from a middle-class family.
Her father, Mike, was a Toronto police officer.
A very intimidating, imposing guy, but a really good guy.
And her mom worked at a flour mill near the family home.
In high school, Melissa wasn't afraid to speak her mind.
She was really good to her friends, and she was not good to any of her enemies.
If you crossed her, you know, she would let you know she didn't like you.
What were her, like, gold and her hopes for life?
Make babies.
Matthew had proposed on graduation night,
but he wasn't ready to have kids.
And Melissa, she didn't want to wait.
She wanted kids straight out of high school.
Everything looked like a match made in heaven until it wasn't.
Melissa's attention turned toward her older co-worker, Caleb,
who was ready to give her what she wanted.
Before long, they were spending all their time together.
When Caleb started bringing her to family events on Pitch Pine Crescent,
everyone could tell he was into her.
This is Pam Main, the family friend from last episode.
Given some of the ladies that Caleb had dated, things were looking good.
Only a few months in, Melissa became pregnant.
When Caleb told his parents, he acknowledged that,
yes, things were moving fast, but explained why.
Melissa told Caleb that she had lost one ovary because of the detection of pre-cancerous cells
and that her doctor had told her she had a very small window of opportunity in which to become pregnant.
This is an excerpt from Bridget's notes read by her friend Val McGivrin.
Bridget kept a journal and I have some of her writing about the family.
According to Bridget, Melissa told Caleb it was likely she'd lose the other ovary one day.
Caleb said to his mother,
if you'd known that you couldn't have children by the time you were 25,
wouldn't you have wanted to become pregnant early to have a child of your own with dad?
So this was happening.
Caleb was going to be a father.
He had always struggled with being an adopted child who didn't resemble his parents.
Now he was going to have a tiny person who looked just like him.
early on his parents were happy about the relationship
Melissa seemed like the best thing that had ever happened to Caleb
Melissa and Caleb borrowed money from her parents
to put a down payment on a townhouse
and they started planning a wedding
their son was born in the spring of 2001
he looked just like his dad
fatherhood seemed to be the role Caleb was born for
He was the dad at the park who'd be entertaining all the kids while the other parents hung out.
Nothing gave him more joy than his son, and he spent all his non-working time at home with his family.
Melissa and Caleb got married the next year when their son was a toddler.
It was a big white wedding on Lake Ontario.
Caleb's grandmother gave them a honeymoon in Barbados, and soon after, Melissa announced she was pregnant again.
This was a planned pregnancy
as both Caleb and Melissa wanted a second child.
Hanging over them was the issue of Melissa's ovary.
The time for conception was limited,
even though she was just 22.
They moved into a bigger home in Georgetown,
a more affordable area half an hour
from their families in Mississauga with a proper yard.
Melissa's dad helped Caleb build a deck.
With the new house came a bigger mortgage.
finances were going to be tight, but...
Because they had been such disciplined planners and savers, up to now, the view was optimistic.
Their daughter was born in August 2003.
She looked like her dad, too.
Now Melissa and Caleb had the life they'd both wanted,
two beautiful kids, a comfortable house.
But they were also juggling sleepless nights with a new baby,
chasing a toddler, doing home improvements,
and struggling to pay for it all.
It was during this time that cracks in the relationship started to form.
They were in serious debt, and Caleb blamed Melissa for the overspending.
She opened a number of credit card accounts and accumulated debt they had not planned for and could not afford.
Three years into the marriage, Bridget and Bill loaned them the money to pay off their debts, about $30,000.
But there were conditions on this loan.
Caleb and Melissa would have to start couples counseling,
get advice from a financial planner,
and destroy their credit cards.
On top of the money issues,
Caleb's drinking was becoming a problem.
Melissa said alcohol turned Caleb into a different person.
She said it made him aggressive.
It all came to a head.
one night in June 2005.
The children were in bed.
Caleb didn't have to work in the morning,
so he was having a couple of beers and watching the game.
Melissa and Caleb gave police very different accounts
of what happened next.
Caleb said they were arguing about a marriage counseling session
the next day.
Melissa wanted to cancel,
and he was angry.
Melissa said they were arguing
about finances, that he'd been drinking and became aggressive, so she went to bed.
You won't hear from Melissa or Caleb directly in this episode, but my producer Cooper Mall
and my friend John Hasmatali will read from their affidavits and letters.
Here's what Melissa said happened.
He followed me to the bedroom, and when I refused to continue the discussion, he put me in a
headlock and hit me repeatedly in the head.
Caleb said it was Melissa who attacked him
and he was just defending himself.
I remember her yelling at me and hitting me,
scratching and gouging.
I grabbed her hair to pull her away.
I hit her on the head to slow her down
or get her back to her senses.
But she got angered, so I left and went outside.
Melissa called 911.
Then she called her parents.
Caleb ran outside and hid in some bushes.
He also called his parents.
He wanted his mom and dad there to witness his arrest.
Caleb was taken away in handcuffs,
and the four parents, the merits and the Harrisons,
were left there, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Despite claiming that Melissa started the fight,
Caleb would eventually be convicted of domestic assault.
After his arrest, Melissa told police about another assault,
she said had taken place several months earlier.
She said Caleb had attacked her unprovoked in the middle of the night.
Caleb said this never happened.
He said that one morning, Melissa showed him some bruises on her stomach and told him a story.
She said that I had beaten the crap out of her and gone back to sleep.
Caleb called that incident a complete fabrication.
But why would Melissa make something like that up?
False reports of domestic abuse are rare.
More often, violence against women is underreported.
This wasn't the first time Caleb had accused Melissa of lying.
Over the past year, the Harrisons had started to question the stories she'd told
and wonder whether the relationship itself had been built on lies.
Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life?
You know, the same way you can skip an ad?
I get it.
I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove.
I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned.
And today, I'm still figuring it out.
Somehow things usually get worse before they get better.
Apparently, that's how I roll.
So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride.
Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.
Some evil thing happened here.
Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada.
It's not a coincidence.
One after the other.
In the same house.
Is this bad luck or something more sinister?
The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered.
A long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here.
From Sony Music Entertainment, this is what happened to the Harris.
I'm Amy Dempsey Raven.
What Happened to the Harrison's is available now on The Binge.
Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.
Subscribers to the Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad free.
It started in the spring of 2004, a year before Melissa and Caleb split up, when they were still working on their marriage.
One day in May, Melissa returned from the doctor.
and told Caleb about a devastating diagnosis.
She had ovarian cancer.
This was terrifying for their family.
Bridget went in to fix-it mode.
She arranged for Melissa and Caleb to visit a cancer support center.
Bridget, and myself and her went together.
This is Aunt Liz, the nurse again.
We went for moral support.
Bridget was encouraging her to get some professional help.
Bridget and I left with feeling that we had helped her in some way.
At the Cancer Center, Melissa was invited to join a group therapy program.
But Melissa never ended up going to group therapy.
Soon after the diagnosis, she told Caleb she was pregnant again
and that she planned to proceed with the pregnancy.
This struck Caleb and his family as alarming.
Then, about a month after the diagnosis,
Caleb found a note on the kitchen counter from his wife.
He picked it up, and when he started reading,
he was floored.
I have a copy of Melissa's note here.
It's handwritten on a piece of scrap paper in big, bubbly letters.
It's just a few sentences.
It says,
Caleb, I need to let you know something.
I don't have cancer.
I have cancer like cells that could become cancer in the future.
I am sorry for lying to you.
I love you more than anything.
Love always and forever, Melissa.
When we found out it was like, it was shocking.
It was like, what do you mean somebody can claim to have cancer and they don't actually?
Melissa had lied.
and she wasn't carrying a child.
She told Caleb she'd had a molar pregnancy.
He didn't know what to believe.
There was talk of postpartum depression.
Maybe Melissa needed mental health treatment.
During the fallout from this lie,
Caleb learned about another.
Melissa was never missing an ovary.
The story he said she told him
about why she needed to have kids right away?
It wasn't true.
I admit to embellishing a health problem
and causing concern for both my and Caleb's family.
This is Melissa's response to these allegations
from an affidavit she filed in family court.
I was being treated for a cyst,
and I embellished the situation
which resulted in my and Caleb's fearing that I had cancer.
But there was one thing Melissa denied.
I have never claimed that I had an ovary removed.
The Harrison said she had spoken about her missing ovary
not only with her husband,
but with both of his parents and other family members, multiple times.
Caleb also learned that Melissa had been engaged when they met,
to Matthew, the guy you heard from earlier.
Caleb never knew that.
Bridget wrote about the impact these revelations had on her son.
He felt manipulated and used.
Nevertheless, because of his firm commitment and belief that children need to be raised by both parents,
he decided to stay and try and make it work.
But Caleb stopped trying after he was arrested for domestic assault.
His marriage was over.
Caleb moved into his parents' house on Pitch Pine Crescent,
and Melissa refused to let him see his children.
So the Harrison's got a lawyer.
But before Caleb could take Melissa to court,
he would make a fatal error,
one that would have far-reaching consequences,
for him and everyone he loved.
You're never prepared for what you're going to see,
no matter how many of these fatal or serious injury collisions you go to.
This is Staff Sergeant Paul Davies,
a police officer in Halton, west of Toronto.
But I do recall this was a catastrophic type of collision.
He's talking about a car crash he was called to in July 2005.
I was the on-call collision reconstructionist for the regional home.
It happened at 3 a.m. on a four-lane country road.
It was pitch dark when Sergeant Davies arrived,
and in the street he saw two cars, both completely totaled.
There was a lot of front-term.
and damage. It was probably one of the worst physical scenes of Vina.
The two vehicles had slammed together and burst into flames.
The taxi had been carrying four passengers, all teenage boys.
The Mercedes was traveling at a high rate of speed and hit the taxi cab head on, coming the other direction.
You're going to have some pretty serious injuries, if not deaths, with that kind of collision.
Six people were taken to hospital.
The Mercedes was registered to a Mississauga woman named Bridget Harrison.
For some reason, that just that name kind of stood out with me.
At the time, I didn't know why.
But Bridget wasn't in the car that night.
The 32-year-old driver was her son, Caleb.
It was tragic. It was very, very tragic.
in a nutshell it was impaired driving.
Caleb had been at a keg party that night,
and his blood alcohol level would reveal
that he'd been drinking three times the limit.
He was supposed to be the designated driver
for a group of friends,
but when it was time to leave,
they could see he was wasted.
They refused to ride with him
and left the party on foot.
There were about 15, 20 minutes walking along the road
when they see his car, like, fly by them.
They watched as their friends Mercedes
slammed into the taxi.
They heard the explosive bang of the impact,
the crunch of metal on metal.
Then they started running toward the crash.
They were the ones that pulled the boys out with a burning cat.
They also pulled Caleb from the Mercedes
before flames overtook it.
But not everyone could be saved.
The taxi driver, Michael Raymond, was dead.
He never regained consciousness from the time of the crash.
He was just a hardworking guy working in nightshifting for a local cab company.
Here's this car full of innocence.
Tragedy struck them through death.
Some of them were named.
Some of them had life-altering injuries.
And just for this other young guy, totally disregard friends and his own.
Did you wish not to drink a drive?
There was some anger there.
Bridget and Bill were everything you'd expect parents in their position to be.
Angry, disappointed, full of guilt,
and worried about what the criminal charges would mean for their son's future.
How do you even go on after something like this?
It was very, very sad, all of it.
Caleb had a broken femur.
His leg had been surgically repaired with a metal rod.
He couldn't walk.
His aunt Liz became his nurse.
She spent a lot of time at her brother's house in the weeks after the crash.
She remembers that things were especially tense between Bridget and Caleb.
She was acting like a mother who was very disappointed.
You know, her child, which she would be.
Caleb was charged with one count of impaired driving causing death
and four counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
He faced the possibility of prison time.
time. But in the meantime, he was released on strict bail conditions and fell into a period of
darkness. Anger. Lots of anger. That's all I can remember. Lots of anger. He had caused a man's death,
and now he'd have to live with the consequences. Melissa saw the crash as further proof that
Caleb was a dangerous person who couldn't be trusted with her children.
But criminal charges don't necessarily limit custody.
In Canada, custody decisions are based on the best interests of the child.
Kids are supposed to have as much contact as possible with both parents,
so long as courts decide it's safe.
This would be the key tension in the custody battle that unfolded.
Melissa's belief that the children
weren't safe with Caleb and his family.
In Caleb's belief that his ex was doing everything in her power to keep them from him.
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dealer today for more details. Over the next few years, they played tug-of-war in Family Course.
Caleb pushed for more time with the kids and gradually got it,
while Melissa fought to limit his access.
Their arguments are documented in stacks of family court records.
The children have been very happy to be reunited with me.
I disagree with the applicant's assertion that the children have adjusted extremely well to the current access arrangement.
I am ready, willing and able to be part of our children's lives and not just a visiting father.
The children have both told me that they do not want.
wish to visit at the applicant's house.
The respondent has acted as if she has soul and complete control of our children and that they
are her possessions.
During the summer they separated, weird things started happening.
Melissa called the cops to say that a masked intruder had attacked her in her home,
kicking her in the head, then fleeing.
Afterward, police officers raced to Pitch Pine Crescent.
looking for Caleb.
Four cruisers pulled up to the house at 2.45 a.m.
The officers found Caleb on crutches and in a hip-to-foot cast from the crash, barely able to walk.
He wasn't the assailant.
So who could it have been?
Melissa reported two more home break-ins that summer.
Each time, police questioned Caleb, but determined he couldn't have been involved.
The Harrisons believed she was making the whole thing up
to cast suspicion on Caleb,
to make him look bad in family court.
She denied this allegation.
Melissa has deliberately misled both Halton and Peel police officers
in her continued attempts to implicate me in acts of abuse.
Caleb wasn't allowed to communicate with his ex,
so his mother called Melissa Weekly to ask,
if she would please let them see the kids.
Bridget had started writing detailed accounts
of every interaction they had with Melissa.
In one call a few months after the separation,
Bridget said Melissa insinuated
that police believed Caleb was responsible
for the home invasions.
Bridget said Melissa told her,
you will never see the children, and hung up.
But four months after the separation,
Caleb finally got to hug his kids again.
His son had turned four, and his daughter too, since he last saw them.
The courts granted him visitation, two evenings a week and every other weekend.
He wanted 50-50, but this was a start.
While Caleb was living at his family home on Pitch Pine Crescent,
his parents became very involved in the lives of their grandchildren.
They did school drop-offs and pickups and took the kids to swimming lessons, appointments, and play
dates. Caleb wasn't allowed near his ex, so his parents handled the custody exchanges.
This role put them in direct conflict with Melissa.
Soon, every interaction was turning into a scene. It wasn't just Melissa. She had a new boyfriend
in the picture. His name was Chris Vittore. He was an enormous man. Six foot four,
built like a linebacker and soft around the middle.
He had the physical presence of a grizzly bear,
but he seemed sweet and eager to jump into family life.
Chris was fiercely protective of Melissa.
After one custody hearing,
the pair drove by Bridget and Caleb in the courthouse parking lot.
The Harrison said Chris rolled down his window and shouted,
You'll pay for this, you fucking bastard.
Over time, the courts began,
to rule in Caleb's favor.
One judge said Melissa seemed to be trying to limit his access as much as possible.
Melissa upped the ante.
She claimed the children came home from Pitch Pine Crescent, dirty and hungry.
She accused Caleb and his parents of assaulting the kids.
None of the abuse claims held up.
One officer even concluded the children had been coached to lie.
But while the claims were being investigated,
Melissa withheld custody for weeks at a time,
in one case over Christmas.
Each time, the children had to be interviewed by police and social workers.
These false allegations have a serious effect on the children.
The inference is that I have done something wrong.
A judge warned that if Melissa withheld custody again,
police should apprehend the children and deliver them to the Harrisons.
The officers who interviewed the kids noticed they were calling their father, Caleb,
and calling their mother's boyfriend, Daddy.
Melissa insisted the kids had started doing that on their own.
Melissa pushed back hard against the narrative that she was inventing these allegations.
I have never made any effort to alienate the children from their father.
I'm a good mom and provide an excellent life for my children.
If I don't protect them, who will?
Bridget's brother Doug says she did not buy that.
Melissa was doing everything within her control
to separate Caleb from his own children.
Bridget maintained the high ground.
She didn't lie, she didn't exaggerate,
she just told what was going on and how it was occurring.
Everyone I spoke with said the idea of Bridget or Bill abusing the grandchildren was ridiculous.
No mistreatment. None. Never, never, never, never, never.
In October 2008, Caleb Harrison was found guilty for his role in the drunk driving crash that killed a taxi driver.
prosecutors wanted a two-year prison term.
The defense asked for a conditional sentence with no jail time.
They said Caleb had made a terrible decision when he was separated from his kids and depressed.
Sergeant Davies was there in the courtroom for the proceedings, sitting on a bench behind the prosecutors.
He'd finally realized why the name on the vehicle registration was familiar to him.
He knew Bridget Harrison.
She was my vice principal in my high school for many years.
Davies could tell Caleb regretted what he'd done.
There's a lot of remorse there.
As usual, there were people in the court to support both the victims and the accused.
As the lead investigator on the crime, Sergeant Davies knew most of them.
But also, a row or two behind him was a family he didn't initially recognize.
a family that didn't appear to be there to support the victims or the perpetrator.
The older gentleman was Kelsey saying, this is a joke, this is a joke.
They appeared to be heckling Caleb and his family.
I would turn around and look at them like, hey, come on, day decorum here.
Davies eventually figured out who they were, Caleb's ex-wife, her father, and her boyfriend.
I was struck the fact that they were there to begin with.
They had no standing in this case.
It was like intimidation of bullying.
It was really bad.
He even heard one of the men sitting with Melissa,
he doesn't know which one,
using the N-word to describe Caleb.
They would just say it under their breath just loud enough.
The harassment became so concerning
that Sergeant Davies asked for extra security.
Ahead of the court date,
Melissa's new boyfriend, Chris,
had started a Facebook page,
pushing for a tough sentence.
One post included a doctored photo of Caleb
with devil horns and a speech bubble that read,
Give me a beer in the key to mommy's Mercedes.
The merits were banking on Caleb getting a harsh sentence.
But that's not what happened.
I felt it was the light, to be honest.
I think it deserved a penitentiary term.
In March 2009, Caleb was sentenced
to a year and a half in Provincial.
jail and two years probation.
He'd be eligible for parole in six to nine months.
His parents believed Melissa would use his incarceration as an opportunity to cut their family
out of the children's lives for good.
So they went to family court and asked a judge to give them Caleb's share of the 50-50
custody split while he was in jail.
Melissa was outraged.
It does not make any sense to name Bridget and Bejit and
Bill Harrison parents.
She filed this affidavit without a lawyer, so it's written in her own words, and you can
feel her exasperation.
It can only be assumed that Caleb Harrison will not spend the rest of his adult life living
with his parents.
At some point, the grandparents have to be just that.
Grandparents.
She said 50% is way too much time, and she proposed grandparent visitation instead, one
night a week and one weekend a month.
A judge ruled in the Harrison's favor, saying Pitch Pine Crescent was the kid's second home
and should remain so.
The Harrisons had won.
Bridget and Bill would effectively become parents and share custody with the kid's mom,
50-50.
Melissa had been outplayed.
Three weeks into the shared custody arrangement while Caleb was in jail, Melissa and Chris,
packed up their house and told the kids they were going on a road trip.
When Caleb's children disappeared, Bridget believed at first
that his ex-wife had taken advantage of Bill's sudden passing
and left town while the Harrison family was mourning and distracted.
Bridget opened her mailbox one day and found a letter,
postmarked the day after her husband's death.
It was from Melissa.
And it began, Dear Bridget and Bill.
I've been getting threatening phone calls and letters for a week now,
and I'm getting very worried for mine and all the children's safety.
I am writing to let you know that we have gone away for a bit,
hopefully only until things settled down.
The morning of Bill's funeral, Bridget called Melissa's father
to ask again if he'd heard from her,
and to remind him how important it was for the children to attend the service.
He missed the call, but left her a voicemail that afternoon.
Bridget, this is Michael Merritt calling.
Our deepest condolences to your situation and the passing of Bill.
This is Mike Merritt's message, read by a friend of the show.
Bridget transcribed the voicemail and filed it with her family court records.
I have a copy.
We're as deeply distressed as you are as parents and his grandparents with regards to Melissa and the family.
We spent most of the weekend confirming the fact that they have in fact moved very abruptly.
The whereabouts were unknown to us and I believe everybody at this point.
I probably understand that you find it hard to believe that we don't know anything about this,
but if you could grasp the idea that we're as shocked as anybody.
Bridget had a feeling that Mike Merritt wasn't going to be very helpful.
So she did what she always did when confronted with a problem.
She made a plan.
Whatever it took, Bridget would find the children.
But she had no way of knowing what it would cost her.
Next time on what happened to the Harrisons, police show up at Pitch Pine again.
Bridget started to see things.
There were a lot of things there that ought to have raised serious flags.
her suspicions were very high of Christopher and Melissa involved in this.
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What happened to The Harrison's is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment.
The show is hosted and reported by me, Amy Dempsey Raven.
The lead producer is Cooper Mall.
The series is written by me and Cooper.
From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch.
The series was sound designed and mixed by Scott Somerville.
We used music from Epidemic Sound.
Production managers are Tamika Ballance Kulasny and Ashley Ann Craigbone,
fact-checking by Fendell Fulton, additional production support by Myron Kaplan.
Our lawyer is Alison Sherry.
Special thanks to the Toronto Star, where my reporting on this story began more than a decade ago.
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