Posted on 01/28/2003 5:24:00 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Woman accused of running over husband with car breaks down twice in courtroom
01/28/2003
By PAM EASTON / The Associated Press
HOUSTON — A pathologist with the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office testified Tuesday that a Houston orthodontist suffered a broken back, ribs, pelvis and jaw after he was run over at least twice by a Mercedes-Benz, which was driven by the man's wife last summer.
The gruesome testimony prompted the woman, Clara Harris, on trial for her husband's murder, to shake and weep audibly, at one point collapsing onto the table in front of her.
It was the second time during testimony Tuesday that Harris broke down, causing State District Judge Carol Davies to remove jurors from the courtroom both times. Harris also loudly sobbed when graphic autopsy photos of her husband's injuries were shown during the testimony of pathologist Dwayne Wolf.
The outbursts prompted complaints from prosecutors, who accuse Harris of intentionally running down her husband, 44-year-old David Harris, in the parking lot of a southeast Houston hotel on July 24 after she caught him with another woman.
Once jurors were removed, Davies told Harris, 44, she had to be quiet if she wished to remain in the courtroom.
"We're just not going to have a big show going on," Davies told Harris.
Harris pleaded with the judge, saying, "It's the first time I've heard what's happening!"
Harris' defense attorney, George Parnham, then motioned his client to remain quiet.
Before the courtroom was cleared, Wolf testified that David Harris was run over once while he was face down and a second time while he was face up.
Wolf said a photo of David Harris' body showed a leg injury consistent with a car running over him.
Under cross examination, Wolf admitted he did not put in his autopsy report that he believed David Harris had been struck twice.
Earlier Tuesday, Webster Police Department Det. Julio Cesar Rincones testified that in addition to blood and bits of hair, David Harris' palm and fingerprints were found on the Mercedes — one palm print near the hood ornament and another near the driver's side fender.
Harris admits she struck her husband with her car on July 24. The question before jurors is whether she intentionally killed him, Parnham said.
She claims she accidentally struck David Harris, who prosecutors say chose a woman he was having an affair with over his wife that night at the same hotel where the Harrises were married on Valentine's Day a decade earlier.
Besides the bloody evidence, jurors also heard the 911 calls to police that night. On one call, a man tells the operator: "We have a guy in a car who went nuts. He ran over somebody."
Jurors also looked at the windshield wiper blades which were ripped from the Lincoln Navigator belonging to David Harris' lover, Gail Bridges, and photographs showing deep scratch marks along the vehicle's sides and rear that were made by a key.
Rincones said he couldn't lift fingerprints from the wiper blades, but Parnham said his client committed the vandalism.
Also presented to jurors Tuesday was a checkbook for a joint checking account the Harrises had with Bank of America that was found in the Mercedes. Written on the back inside flap of the checkbook was Bridges' name, address and phone numbers.
Parnham asked Rincones to read through the carbon copy receipts in the checkbook. Among checks signed by Clara Harris in the days leading up to her husband's death were two made out to a hair salon, a $100 check to a spa, a check to a nail salon, a check to a Baptist church for its building fund and a $1,277.25 check for a one-year membership to a gym.
Additional checks signed by her were to the investigative firm she hired to follow her husband, a lingerie store, a women's clothing store and two checks totaling $5,310 on the day of David Harris' death to the family's bank with a notation in the memo section reading: "Thomas Wiener."
Rincones said he didn't know Weiner's profession. Wiener's office said Tuesday he is a board certified plastic surgeon, who practices in southeast Houston.
If convicted, Clara Harris faces up to life in prison. If jurors determine she acted under the legal definition of sudden passion, they could consider a lighter sentence of two to 20 years in prison.(ap.state.online.tx 0391 01/28/2003 20:09:38 )
Any relation to I.C. Weiner>
From what, a busted strut? Maybe the title should have read, "brakes down in court".LOLOL
No sympathy. Divorce could have been equally painful, and completely legal. Stupid woman.
Guillotine! Guillotine!
Dumb move, she's toast.
She *might* have gotten off on a temporary insanity defense, but it's just stupid to try to claim that running him over multiple times was an "accident".
Not only is a "run 'em over several times" accident pretty unbelievable by itself, but it's entirely unbelievable when she "happened" to have a motive and frame of mind to do it on purpose.
Aye, she's a witch! Burn her!
He was wrong for his adultery.....But dead wrong? No, I don't think so. She's a death penalty candidate.
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