The Binge Crimes: Night Shift - What Happened to the Harrisons? | 4. Haunted House

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Caleb has turned his life around. Then, one morning, he doesn't show up for work. When police arrive at the Harrison home for the third time in four years, they can no longer call it a coincidence. 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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You'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes, and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap subscribe or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. After his mother's death, Caleb stayed in the house on Pitch Pine Crescent. But he took precautions. He changed the locks, made a will, and got a dog, a German shepherd named Daisy. Caleb had a dark sense of humor, and he sometimes joked that he'd be the next one to end up dead. But he didn't have time to dwell on his fears. He was a single dad now, with sole custody.

Melissa had supervised visitation, but Caleb was in charge. Something shifted in him after Bridget died. He stepped up. He coached his kids' sports teams. He hired a piano teacher and a tutor because he knew it would have made his parents proud. He also had a girlfriend with two kids of her own, and she was planning to move in soon. All those years of conflict with his mom, and she never got to see the version of him that finally found his way.

One morning in August 2013, a little over two years after Bridget died, Caleb didn't show up for work. His co-workers were concerned. One of them, a guy named Paolo Zafino, drove to Pitch Pine Crescent to check on him. Paolo knocked on the door around noon, and a cleaning lady answered.

She'd been there for three hours, scrubbing and vacuuming the main floor. floor. She hadn't gone upstairs. Palo went up to check on his friend. The room was dark and Caleb was in bed with the blankets pulled up to his chin. He had an eye mask on and a pillow over his forehead. He looked like he'd been tucked in to sleep. Palo approached the bed, calling his name, but Caleb didn't answer. Palo pressed. two fingers to his friend's neck. It was ice cold.

Officers went door to door in Mississauga today, looking for information about Caleb Harrison. The father of two was found dead inside his home this weekend. Police are now investigating if Harrison's death and his mothers are connected. We haven't linked anything. However, everything is on the table. For the third time, in just over four years, Pitch Pine Crescent had become a spectacle.

One of the paramedics who arrived at the house felt an eerie sense of dread. He said to his partner, I've been here before. He'd been called to the scene when Bridget died. The flashing lights of police cars on Pitchpine Crescent brought neighbors outside. The commotion set off a chain reaction of telephone calls.

One neighbor phoned a friend who phoned Pam Main. She said, I just heard a rumor that Caleb died. And I was angry. Because after all that had gone on, I said, you need to either squelch the rumor or figure out if it's true. So I said, I'm calling Liz right away. Caleb's aunt. So I call Liz, and she's waiting for a cab to go visit her daughter.

daughter in New York, and I'm beating around the bush trying to, obviously she didn't know. Finally, she said to me, is everything all right? And I said, well, I don't think so. I think Caleb has died. I said, here's what I've heard. So she immediately drove over to Pitch Pine and phoned me and said, yes. Three death scenes and Liz had been to all of them. She'd been here with Bridget when Bill died. She'd been with Caleb after Bridget died. Now, there was no one left.

I was in tears and in a mess. Imagine living with suspicion for years, and then the thing you think you're being paranoid about happens again. Liz was with another relative of Caleb's, Aunt Carol. We went over to the driveway and they said we couldn't go in. And we had to explain who we were, you know, relatives' friends. Standing in front of the house, Carol screamed at the officers. How could you let this happen?

By now, it was obvious police had messed up. Bridget's friend Pam arrived at the scene and saw the commotion. There had to be 10 cop cars arrive, police cars. And they started knocking on doors, asking questions with great fury. And I said to myself, Peel has finally had the light bulb go off, that three murders in one house might not be normal. Inside the house, a coroner examined Caleb's body and found suspicious injuries, abrasions and bruising on his neck, swollen knuckles, and scratches on his chest. The autopsy results left no doubts. Caleb had been murdered.

It appeared that he'd been struck, hard in the chest, and then he'd been strangled. injuries hauntingly similar to the ones his parents had suffered. This time, the police were going to catch a killer. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is what happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey Raven. Episode 4. Haunted House. In August 2013, I was a reporter at the show.

the Toronto Star. My editors came to me one morning and said, there's something weird happening at this house in Mississauga. Can you head out there? They gave me the address. 3635 Pitch Pine Crescent. When I turned my car down the street, I was struck by how beautiful it was. The homes had lush gardens, old leafy trees lined the sidewalks, creating a sort of dreamy canopy overhead. The Harrison residence was still wrapped in yellow crime scene tape.

Neighbors had placed flowers against a tree in the front yard. A police forensic van was parked outside, and I watched as officers carried evidence bags out of the house. People I spoke with that day were horrified, and some were angry. Everyone was asking the same question. What happened to the Harrisons? You don't have anybody who's more anxious to know what's going on than our immediate family. This is Caleb's uncle Doug giving a police interview a few days after his nephew's murder.

It was just such a grinding shock to see it the third time in the same house. Think back of the history. Think back to my sister. Think back to my brother-in-law. And understand that nobody, nobody is thinking, you know, Well, it was just a bad accident or, you know. There's nobody who will buy that story. Not once, not twice.

Yeah, three times. So we're all anxious to know. The police officer wanted to speak to Doug about Caleb's past. They started with the years since his mom died. Doug said he worried how Caleb would cope without his parents, whether he'd be able to take care of the house and manage the money he'd inherited. So Doug became a sort of advice. visor. One of the things I was adamant with Caleb was that he had to have a will. Because as I said to him,

you know, if anything happens to you, the money will go to your ex-wife. And, you know, we kept saying, you know, you're the only warm body between the estate and the control of the children. The Harrison estate was worth more than a million dollars. Plus, Doug said, there was a separate stash of money for the kids, survivor benefits from Bridget's teacher's pension, money that Doug and Caleb had decided to keep secret. Again, I'm paranoid, but I'm saying these deaths have not been random or chance. And I said, you know, we don't want to be hanging a pork chop around these kids' necks or yours.

Doug thought the money might make the kids a target. Enemies. Who would his enemies be? Well, you know, here we go. I've known Doug for years, and it's not in his nature to point fingers without proof. But now a third member of his family was dead, so he laid out what he and others were thinking. The Harrison family, and the black holes included, have had to be. nothing but an antagonistic relationship with his ex-wife's family. So does he have enemies?

I think his wife is an enemy. But I don't think she's physically capable of doing any of the things that have taken place. Doug had someone else in mind. Who would be your number one suspect in this case? Melissa's father. Mike Merritt. or her current husband, because you have to be physically tough, strong to do, to kill Caleb. The only people who have a mad on against Caleb is that true.

And I'm thinking that it's financially driven as well. I need to pause for a moment here. Remember when I told you about Melissa and Chris's wedding in 2007, he wore a kid. and she wore a white dress over her baby bump? Well, it wasn't exactly legit. Melissa explained this in a police interview. Basically, I made a mistake when I thought that after two years of separation, that you were automatically divorced.

By the time I realized that I wasn't actually going to have a divorce certificate, everything was already booked and all that stuff. So we went through with the wedding, but it wasn't a real wedding. This odd detail matters because Melissa was still legally married to Caleb. And Doug believed that Melissa or the people close to her

might be after his money. I think that because they've never been formally divorced, that her belief is that because she will control the kids and she is the widow that all the estate will come to her? Melissa is a very strange lady,

and you will have spoken to a lot of people and they will tell you that this lady is remarkably different. At this moment, Doug believes that the first two police investigations were thorough. He thinks that if Bill and Bridget were murdered, the killer had to be someone with the skills and knowledge to evade police. someone like a former police officer.

I would look at Mike first. I really would. Because I think he has the abilities to be this sudden. And if that first instinct is wrong? Then I would go with Melissa's current spouse. Chris Fetore. He's a big, strong fellow. But, and another thing is that Melissa talked him into running away.

I don't think your spouse or my spouse could have talked me into doing something that stupid. So because of his size and because of the influence that I believe his wife has over him, he would be my next choice. And I suspect that the only people you're ever going to be able to point a finger at is the mirror family. What Doug didn't know at the time was police were looking into the merits. In fact, they'd already spoken to Mike. Okay, today is the Sunday, the 25th of August 2013.

It's 128 p.m. I am Derek Rice with Peel Regional Police. Detective Rice and his partner are walking toward the Merit family home. It's a boxy white bungalow with blue shutters, backing on to a ravine. Detective Rice is with the Homicide Bureau, and he takes on a sort of clueless cop persona in this interview, friendly, a little rambling and non-confrontational. I'm just hoping maybe you can fill in a bit of the background.

They're married. They had the two children. Okay. And the kids are 10 and 12. That's correct. Mike says that early on, he got along well with his son-in-law. But that was before, in Mike's words... Everything went for the shits. The way Mike talked about the domestic assault that ended Melissa and Caleb's marriage really surprised me. He said that it was Caleb's mother, Bridget, who decided that night that the marriage was over.

Basically, she said, well, I guess that's it. That's it. It's not. And I went, well, it's a little severe. Mike thought there might be a chance to work things out. But it was. From then on, it was done. And then she was always a very controlling person in his life. Mike made two stunning revelations in this interview. First, he brought up the home invasion. The incident Melissa reported after she and Caleb separated. The one where she said a masked intruder attacked her, then fled.

Melissa's father told Detective Rice that the police officers who, investigated the home invasion... ...came to me and suggested that it was made up by her. Mike was saying that the detectives who investigated the home invasion believed there was no home invasion. I can't tell if he's complaining about this conclusion or admitting that Melissa lied. Later, the homicide cops would speak to the home invasion investigators, and one would say, I'm 100% convinced. convinced she was making up the whole story.

Detective Rice wanted to know more about the abduction. Mike said he had no idea Melissa was planning to leave. My wife called me in hysterics. They're gone. They're gone where. We're texting and phoning and paging and everything else that you can possibly do saying, what are you doing? Get back here.

All this time, people thought Melissa had left town the day before Bill's death. Mike revealed that wasn't true. Melissa left in April of 2009 with the kids. The day she left, the actual day that she left, the actual day that she left, Mississauga, was the day that his mother found the first. father dead in the house. Oh, the exact same day. That same day that she left while he was found dead in the house.

This must have landed as a giant exclamation mark for Detective Rice, but he didn't show it. Because this meant that Melissa and Chris were in town the day Bill was found lifeless. That they could, theoretically, have confronted Bill or killed him. then took off for Nova Scotia. A few days after Mike's police interview, I walked up to the white bungalow with the blue shutters. I had been to the courthouse to pull records and I'd learned about Caleb's history.

The car crash, the domestic assault, the abduction. It was my job to try to speak with the people connected to Caleb if they were willing. So I headed to the address on Melissa's court records to see if she'd talk. It turned out to be her parents' house. At the time, I had no idea the police were investigating the merits. Mike answered the door.

He was an imposing guy, middle-aged with thick arms and a mustache. I'm looking for Melissa. I'm a reporter from the Toronto Star. Mike listened calmly. I can't play his part of the recording, but I can tell you what he said. He told me, it's not going to happen. There's no reason for her to be involved. in this.

Running a story about his life and about his history. You know, they were married. There's the history with the abduction charge and custody stuff. He said, I don't know what bringing up the abduction charge has to do with Caleb's death. What does that have to do with it other than to badmouth my daughter?

It's about the family's history. Then, Mike got angry. And he said something to me about the Harrison that would piss off a lot of people. He said, the family has a shitty history and it's all in the paper already. I walked away thinking,

whoa, what the hell was that? On the one hand, he was a father sticking up for his daughter whose marriage had ended in a domestic assault, but also, what a strange thing to say about a family that now appeared to have been murdered. I thought, what is going on with the merits?

Do 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 Siaiaia 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 Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons 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. Caleb's death forced the Peel Police to take a closer look at the earlier deaths

on Pitch Pine Crescent. and right away they began to uncover things they'd dismissed or missed entirely. Bill, Bridget, and Caleb had all died at key moments in the custody battle. Investigators pulled banking records that confirmed what Melissa's father had told Detective Rice. She and Chris had left Ontario the same day Bill died. Then Bridget died the day before she was supposed to give a victim impact. statement at Melissa's sentencing. After her mission to track the kids down, led to Melissa's arrest, and at a time when she had sole custody. Well, who no doubt was going to make her a target?

Soon as she gets custody, she's dead. My sister had no enemies. She had thousands of friends, but no enemies. Except for the merits. A little over two years after, his mother's death, Caleb had sole custody of his children, and Melissa only had visitation. But for the summer of 2013, he agreed to a temporary 50-50 schedule, a week with mom, a week with dad. Melissa wanted him to make that arrangement permanent, but he said no. And he died the exact day the 50-50 arrangement was to end. I had learned over many years that not to be a much of a believer in coincidence. This is Steve Sheriff,

a former big deal prosecutor in Peel region. We've got two people dead for falling, right? In their own home. You shouldn't just say, oh, isn't that strange, you know, a coincidence. It's not a coincidence. Sheriff is kind of a legend. He worked on homicide cases for 30 years

and was embedded with the Peel police for a long time. I chose deliberately the toughest ones. the hoodnets, I think it was just my nature. Sheriff has an unusual connection to the Harrison family. He was almost retired when troubling things started happening

on Pitch Pine Crescent. He lived in Mississauga, and his brother and sister-in-law lived just down the street from the Harrisons. They came to him worried after the second death. They said to me, Steve, this is awful strange.

there was a lady that we knew in the house, Bridgett was her name, and she was found dead recently. And her husband was found dead the year before. And there was this custody problem going on with the kids. Sheriff still had contacts at the Homicide Bureau. So in 2010, soon after Bridget died, he went down to speak with the inspector. Are you sure there's nothing to this death? because it's coupled up with this custody dispute.

And isn't she the one I'd learned that abducted the kids and took them down to Nova Scotia? Someone had told him about the strange timing of Bill's death. I said, that is absolutely wild. So have you had a good look at this? Like, you know, this seems a bit much to me. The then inspector assured me that they'd had a very good look at this

and that this was an accident, you know, that the lady looked like she'd just fallen down the stairs. Sheriff told me in an earlier conversation that the police inspector said, He was getting accidental vibes from the pathologist. At that time, I accepted that and let it be. On the assurance that this had been thoroughly thought out, I regret that.

Three years later, When Sheriff heard about Caleb's death, he was furious. My reaction was, this has to be homicide. I said to myself, okay, these first two, you know, they're connected. It didn't take long to connect the dots. The dots were obvious. He was so incensed that he muscled his way into the police investigation. I inserted myself.

Basically, he started being a huge pain in the ass. prosecutors don't typically knows their way into investigations, but Sheriff was on a mission. First, he took his concerns to a senior Peel police official. I said to him, I understand we have a haunted house in this region,

which was my sarcastic reference to the fact that these weren't accidental deaths, right? This wasn't ghosts and goblins, okay, these were murders. Sheriff went all over town with this haunted house line. He showed up at case conferences, he phoned the detectives. sheriff told me that until he stepped in, police weren't going to reopen Bridget and Bill's death investigations. They only wanted to do a murder investigation for the easy one.

Now, police sources I spoke with dispute sheriff's account. One actually said, and I quote, he's absolutely full of shit. They said it was a push from inside the force that made the higher-ups reopen Bridget and Bill's cases. But it couldn't have hurt. have someone like sheriff going around town in a fury, ranting about haunted houses. What matters here is that a few weeks after Caleb's murder, police made a decision. They would investigate all three deaths as homicides. This was now a triple murder investigation. Police were acknowledging they had failed to uncover two homicides, and they might be looking

for a serial killer. When the homicide detectives looked at Bridget's autopsy, they were disturbed. There was clear evidence of strangulation. How could their own police force have possibly come to the conclusion that there was no evidence of foul play? Then, the detectives looked back

at the statements Melissa and Chris had given after Bridget's death and realized something else. They didn't have alibis. The divisional officers had said they'd firmed up the couple's movements, but they hadn't. Melissa and Chris had alibied each other, and there were large windows of time they hadn't accounted for. It was time to take a closer look at Melissa and Chris. When the police started doing a deep dive on the couple, they uncovered a new layer of the story,

a troubling incident that would give them reason to believe Melissa and Chris were willing to go to extreme. dream lengths to get what they wanted. A year and a half before Caleb's death, Melissa and Chris had moved to a farmhouse in St. Mary's, Ontario, nearly two hours outside of Mississauga. They were a young couple with a young family and were in the street, done, living in the country, and facing care of the lawn and the property.

This is Dan Colthard, a local farmer. Melissa and Chris rented the house from him. They had references. I called them. They said, yeah, they were the best people in the world and great people and always pay their bills. They moved in the fall of 2011 and started blogging about life in the country. They had two pot-bellied pigs, Priscilla and Wilbur and a bunch of other pets. Dogs, a cat, a guinea pig, a rabbit. Melissa was crafty.

She knitted hats and bookmarks and sold them on Etsy. Chris got a job at a chicken hatchery. That winter, Melissa wrote about a flu that had struck the family. We did nothing but whining complained to each other comparing who felt worse. I still say it was me because sick or not, mommy still needs to take care of everyone, cook and clean. Not to mention be the only one who couldn't take any medication due to pregnancy. Melissa was expecting her sixth child.

Then, a few weeks after they came down with the flu, their simple life in the country went up in flames. It was one or two in the morning. Dan got in his truck and drove to the house. The flames were shooting right out through the roof. Melissa, Chris, and their three young kids were safe at a neighbor's house. Melissa's older children were with their dad. Melissa wrote about the incident on her blog,

Fire is the scariest thing I have ever been through. It will be hard for a long time. But the main thing is we have each other. The morning after, Dan went back to the farm. The house was burned out. And the property was crawling with police. Serious investigators wearing suits. They got a hold of me and wanted to interview me.

They were kind of asking me all these, you know, questions about why I had this insurance and why I had that insurance and where was I? Turns out, the police were investigating the fire as a possible arson. They pinpointed right where the fire had started and it was just down in the basement, like not by the electrical or anything. Like it was just, it was down in a corner. Soon though, the police turned their suspicions from the landlord to the tenants. The fire investigators later told Peel Police that Melissa had taken out renter's insurance twice in the few weeks before the fire. First, she got a $25,000 policy.

Then she upped it to $50,000. And the story Chris had told about the fire, it didn't add up. He said he woke to the sound of his bedroom door rattling and saw thick black smoke in the hall when he opened it. He said he got the kids out but couldn't save the pets. The fire investigators told Peel Police that if the blaze had been as Chris described, it's unlikely he would have been able to get the kids. Afterward, Melissa and Chris started a go-fund me for themselves.

The couple posed in front of the burnt-out farmhouse for a story in the local paper. They were soliciting furniture and clothing donations and made about $4,500. $500. Dan said the fire investigators told him they believed his tenants had burnt the house down for the insurance money. But he said they swore him to secrecy.

Is there any part of you that thinks it could have been an accident? Oh, 100% no. Yeah, I don't have a doubt in my mind. You know, they just didn't have any money. To be clear, they were never charged with arson. I couldn't ask Melissa and Chris about the fire or anything else because they declined our interview requests. After the fire, their money problems continued.

They spent six months living in hotels with the kids, then moved back to Mississauga to a rental house. They were both unemployed for the next year and a half. They lived off welfare payments in a monthly government baby bonus. Chris had even borrowed cash from his elderly Nona and an uncle. Uncle. Melissa borrowed money from her parents. They were waiting for their insurance payment from the fire, but it would take years. In the months before Caleb's death, money became another battleground in the custody dispute. Melissa wanted more time with the kids, but Caleb wasn't

willing to make the 50-50 summer arrangement permanent, unless she paid child support. Weeks before he died, Melissa filed a motion in family court. She wrote that her ex had a pensioned for control and domination. Caleb has been unwilling to entertain any increase in time, contrary to the children's best interest, unless I agree to his child support demands. She said Caleb wanted $500 a month and wouldn't give her more time with the kids until she paid.

Melissa was unemployed, broke. Caleb didn't see that his problem. Melissa had made him pay child support while he was unemployed. Melissa offered $200 a month, but Caleb said no. She accused him of blackmail. Her family court motion included a copy of an email Caleb had sent to her. If you're not going to pay me 500 to 600, don't pay at all, but don't expect to see the kids any extra either. As far as how I talk to the kids. I have sole custody so I raise them how I want. Keep your nose out of my business. The police now had a possible motive for murder, an acrimonious custody battle and financial gain.

They needed to talk to Melissa. Where some see heroes and others see egos, Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of men. money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings. The end of jobs, or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others

follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. One summer evening when she was 20 years old, something terrible happened to Vienna-Luc. I can't figure it out, but I do know that it was a violation.

Then people started asking questions. What a creep. Who else knows about this? From CBC's personally, this is Agent Leila. The story of how a victim went undercover. So bring it on. Let's go. Let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. I was asking what day it was this morning. It's 925 a.m. We're at 180 Dairy Road East in Mississauga. This is the Homicide Bureau office. and we are, we, the Peel Regional Police, are investigating a murder. This is Detective Rice again, the cop who interviewed Melissa's father.

He's now in a room with Melissa. You're here voluntarily. You're not a suspect. You're not under arrest. You're free to go at any time. But obviously, you know, given your history with him that we would like to speak to you, hopefully from the information we get from you will be able to lead us to who's responsible for his Yeah. Okay.

It's three days after Caleb was found dead. Melissa is wearing a black hoodie and leggings, and her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her eyebrows are tweezed into high peaks. She looks like a tired mom you'd run into at the playground. This is just the beginning of a six-hour interview that covers the entire history of Melissa's relationship with the Harrisons. We're going to look at a few key parts.

First, how Melissa learned about Caleb's death and how she explained it to her kids. Melissa said she'd been getting ready to take the children back to their father's house that afternoon when a police officer phoned her, told her to stay put, and then showed up at her house. She told me that Caleb had earlier that day been found dead in his home. So that kind of hits you like a Mack truck.

I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do. Of course, started asking the questions, how, why, when, and she ultimately had no information to give me at the time. Afterward, Melissa took her two older children aside to tell them about their dad. Well, I just told him that he had passed away. Someone found him in his house. They obviously weren't a state of shock. Didn't know what to do. Didn't know what to say.

Just kind of staring at me, mouths half open. Melissa tried to console them by saying it could have been a freak accident or a natural death. We said, who knows, you know, he could have been drinking, fell down, bumped his head, not thought anything of it, gone to bed,

you know, just trying to give them ideas of natural ways that he could have passed away. But her kids? They automatically thought, the worst, they thought someone did something to him. And at the time we didn't know it was a homicide. They were terrified.

They were terrified. They were convinced that someone was coming to kill them next. They thought that they were going to come into our house, into their bedrooms, and do something to them. I'm not surprised the children felt this way after everything they'd been through. What I do find strange is that Melissa herself isn't worried about their safety. Three members of their immediate family have died in the house they lived in, one after the other. wouldn't you be asking the police, what the hell is happening?

Are my kids in danger? I was like, I can 99.9% guarantee you. No one is coming here. Then, Melissa told Detective Rice that after learning Caleb had, in fact, been murdered, she sat the kids down and told them they were right. I said, someone took Caleb's life. Someone killed him.

And they were just, like, who? Right away. And I was like, that's what we don't know. They're trying now to find out who did this. And I was like, we all need to know who did this. So they, of course, as children, say, okay, so when are they going to find out? And so I was just like, I don't know.

And I told them there's a possibility that you guys may never really find out. Like, some things don't get solved. I explain that to them. Some things don't get solved? It's a strange thing to say two days into a murder investigation. I said, but most of the time, you guys can do it. And when you find the person, they will be arrested, they will go to jail.

And that's what they will stay for a long time. There was one crucial thing police needed to get out of this interview and a separate interview with Chris. They needed to know their whereabouts the night Caleb was killed. Police believed the couple may have been the last people to see Caleb a lot. at his daughter's softball game. So Melissa walked Detective Rice through that night in careful detail. Caleb had been helping coach the team.

It was a warm late summer night. Melissa said he threw the girls' grounders to warm them up and then cheered them on from second base. She saw Caleb leave the field around 8.30, alone. She and Chris left with the kids around the same time and stopped for food. Just up further on Mississauga Road past our house, there's a plaza with a Walmart. Both described that stop at the Walmart Plaza in detail.

The timing, who went to Pita Pit or Subway, but neither mentioned going into Walmart. That omission would matter later. They went home and put the kids to bed. The rest of the night, as Melissa told it, was uneventful. She and Chris went to sleep. A few hours later, the baby woke, and Melissa opened her computer to check the time. Notice it was shortly after 4 in the morning.

She fed the baby and went back to sleep. Chris doesn't wake up for any baby crying, which I've been working on, but it's still not working after all he's good. So he was out cold and the bed. Chris told the same story in his interview, almost word for word. I saw the light open. I guess she opened the computer.

Okay. See what time was. Melissa said they slept close, usually touching, and that if he'd gotten out of bed, she probably would have felt it. Chris said the same. We're either like laying with an arm around each other or like we're always kind of like

touchy feelings, so we always know where each other are. The question investigators kept coming back to was simple. Could Chris have gotten up and left the house without Melissa knowing? She said she didn't think so. At no point did I know he'd love with it. After the interviews, Melissa and Chris went home and carried on with family life. Thursday was garbage day in their neighborhood,

and that morning a truck came to a rumbling stop at the foot of the driveway. On it were two undercover police officers, posing as city workers. The officers seized the trash. bags and brought them back to the Homicide Bureau, where officers picked through the mess. Inside, they found a pair of black latex gloves and men's size 12 sneakers from Walmart. The shoes appeared to be brand new, yet someone had wrapped them in a shopping bag and tossed them out. Police sent the items for DNA analysis. The gloves had two profiles.

On the inside was Chris's DNA. And on the outside was Caleb's. Detectives pulled surveillance tape from the Walmart where Melissa and Chris had stopped the night before Caleb was killed. And around 9.15 p.m., there was Chris, heading into the store, then leaving with a shopping bag. His purchase? Sneakers.

This was a huge break in the case, but the police weren't ready to make an arrest yet. Caleb wasn't the only victim, and Chris wasn't the only suspect. They needed more evidence. Melissa and Chris soon grew tired of the suspicion on them. They wanted to escape Mississauga. Two weeks after Caleb's murder,

Melissa went back to family court to ask for full custody of her kids. In an affidavit, she wrote that the children's father had died. This news was and is tragic and very shocking. She attached one of my newspaper articles as proof of her ex's death. Melissa then got what she'd always wanted. Soul custody.

Soon after, she and Chris packed up, loaded the six kids into their van and headed east again to Nova Scotia. But this time, the police were watching their every move. Next time on what happened to the Harrisons. The walls close in, and the evidence stacks up. Those gloves, pardon the pun, those gloves are killed for you. They put you in a real tight spot. Don't want to wait for the next episode? You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of what happened to the

Harrisons early and ad-free right now by subscribing to the binge. And it doesn't stop at what happened to the Harrisons. Subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series on the first of every month. That's all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe. Not on Apple. Head to get the binge.com to subscribe directly. What happened to the Harrisons 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 use music from Epidemic Sound. Production managers are Tamika Balins Kalasny and Ashley Ann Craigbaum. 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. If you value local investigative journalism, subscribe to a newspaper where you live. Please rate and review what happened to the Harrisons. It helps spread the word.