Michael Darnell Harris (born March 7, 1963) is an American serial killer and rapist who has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for four murders and one rape committed in Michigan from 1981 to 1982, but is a suspect in several others. Harris has insisted on his innocence since his conviction, and in the mid-2010s, DNA testing proved that he was not responsible for the one of the murders. According to his attorneys, his first conviction influenced all of Harris' subsequent trials, due to which the Michigan State Police launched an investigation into supposed falsified evidence against him. In the end, his remaining convictions were upheld, but Harris is still considered by some to be innocent.
Early years
Michael Darnell Harris was born on March 7, 1963, in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, the eldest of five children. He spent most of his childhood in Muskegon, where he claimed to have been raised in a good family. In 1973, his mother found a high-paying job at a veterans hospital in Ann Arbor, where the family soon moved in to live with a stepfather. Since the move, Harris began to frequently argue with his stepfather, who became increasingly aggressive and physically abusive. In the late 1970s, Harris dropped out of school and began spending a lot of time on the streets, sleeping in the homes of friends and acquaintances, as well as homeless shelters. In 1980, he left Ann Arbor and moved to Lansing, where he met a woman who bore him a daughter. For the next two years, Harris struggled financially, leading him to do jobs involving low-skilled labor and to live a vagrant lifestyle.
Arrest, investigation and trial
On December 7, 1982, Harris was arrested at a homeless shelter in Jackson for breaking into the property of 68-year-old Lenora Nayrhardt, whom he was accused of beating and raping. Soon after his arrest, he was proposed as a suspect in the murders of 85-year-old Margorie Upson and 84-year-old Louise Koebnick, who were raped and strangled on September 28 and 30 of that year, respectively, in Ypsilanti. Authorities from the Lansing area also suspected him in a series of rapes and strangulations in their city:
Edna Ryckaert (78), October 18, 1980
Edith Crossette (83), February 14, 1981
Ula Curdy (79), November 2, 1981
Denise Swanson (79), November 30, 1981
In addition to these, Harris was also among the suspects in the murder of 91-year-old Florence Bell, who lived near Upson and was found with her throat slit in her home on January 8, 1982. The reason for this suspicion was the fact that, at the time of the killings in Lansing, Harris lived in the city, which stopped right after he left in October. Not long after, similar killings started to occur in Jackson, where he moved to.
On December 14, during a visual identification procedure, Harris was identified as the rapist of Nayrhardt. He pleaded not guilty to the crime, claiming that he was in a homeless shelter at the time, which was backed up by an attendant who worked there. On January 12, 1983, he was charged with Curdy's murder after his fingerprints where found on a chair in the room where she was killed. At the request of his attorneys, he was sent for a psychiatric evaluation at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti, which declared him sane in March of that year. Soon after, he was also charged with Swanson's murder.
On March 28, 1983, Harris went on trial for the assault and rape of Nayrhardt. During the proceedings, the prosecutor's office presented evidence which showed that the perpetrator's blood type and seminal fluid matched Harris, as well as cat hairs found on his clothing that matched those of the two cats in the woman's home. In addition, nineteen people, including the victim herself, identified Harris as the attacker. On April 4, he attempted to hang himself in his cell using a rope made from the torn fabric of his mattress. The rope was unable to support Harris' weight, and after it broke, other inmates called in staff, who transported him to the Ypsilanit Regional Psychiatric Hospital for treatment for depression.
On May 19, Harris was found guilty of assaulting and raping Nayrhardt, but was initially deemed incompetent to stand trial for the murder charges. He was eventually sentenced to 60-to-90 years imprisonment, and while his sentence was read out, he showed no emotion. After undergoing treatment, Harris went on trial for the murders of Swanson and Curdy in July 1983. On September 27, he was found guilty of Curdy's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on October 24. An identical verdict was handed down in the Swanson trial on November 3, for which he was given another life term without parole.