Former Deputy James Howard Harrison could be a suspect in other cases as well, but no charges can be filed because he has died
The St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office has named one of their former deputies as "the only probable suspect" in the 1983 murder of an 11 year old girl.
At a news conference Thursday morning officials identified former Sheriff’s Deputy James Howard Harrison as the probable suspect. No charges will be pursued because Harrison died in 2008.
The young girl, Lora Ann Huizar, was found dead on Nov. 9 1983 south of Midway Road near the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds in Fort Pierce. She had been reported missing 3 days before. An autopsy determined that the cause of her death was asphyxiation.
At a news conference SLC Sheriff's Chief Deputy Brian Hester said "we have established probable cause to determine that Harrison abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered the juvenile victim and later altered the crime scene by placing the victim in a drainage ditch in an attempt to destroy physical evidence.”
Since the 1960s Harrison had worked for 10 separate law enforcement agencies in Florida, including the SLC Sherriff's Office. Dep. Hester said the investigation found that during that time, he exhibited a pattern of inappropriate behavior involving juvenile females and they suspect Harrison may be responsible for other sexual assaults across the state.
Deputy Hester called on the law enforcement community and the public throughout Florida to contact the SLC Sheriff's Office if they have any information about Harrison or his possible involvement in any other criminal investigation. The phone number for the SLC Sheriff's Criminal investigation Division is: 772-462-3230.
"I think there are going to be a lot of victims out there," said SLC Cold Case Detective Paul Taylor who led the investigation that cracked the 39 year Huizar murder. “Since this got released this morning my phone has been ringing like crazy,” he said.
The Huizar Investigation
A sexual assault kit was compiled back in 1983, including physical samples taken from the girl. However investigators were not able to link any suspects to the crime at that time.
Det. Taylor began his re-examination of the case nearly 2 years ago. “When I first started looking into this case Dep. Harrison was not a suspect,” he said.
However Det. Taylor became suspicious when he reviewed a report filed by former deputy Harrison 3 days before Huizar’s body was found. On Jan. 6 1983, “around the time” Huizar was reported missing, former Dep. Harrison reported seeing her walking toward her home from a local gas station.
“What made me scratch my head” said Taylor, “was any deputy that saw this little girl walking in the area that she was walking, would assume that she was a run-away. She’s carrying cloths, she was little, they would have stopped out with her.”
That’s when Taylor asked himself “why did this deputy not stop out with her and give her a ride home?”
That led Taylor to look deeper into Harrison’s background and review his record at the other law enforcement agencies that he had worked at, which led to the discovery of reports about Harrison's previous "inappropriate behavior involving juvenile females."
It was not until 2021 that a private lab recovered traces of male DNA from the samples taken from Huizar in 1983. As a result Harrison's body was exhumed and Det. Taylor said they were able to get a DNA profile of Harrison. But no link could be made to the murder because Huizar’s DNA in the rape kit was “degraded" beyond the point where a comparison could be made.
There were “missteps” in the original investigation said Taylor. “There’s no doubt about that … there was a lot of steps that were missed.”
He pointed to the initial search that was conducted after Huizar was first reported missing and before her body was found. “They really didn’t do a good search,” said Det. Taylor. In addition he said “they never doubled back to speak with the original witnesses.”
Det. Taylor has already met with the Huizar family. He said they were "distraught" but they were "glad it wasn't somebody that they actually knew."
St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken J. Mascara decided to create the Cold Case Squad. He opened the news conference by saying that “Det. Paul Taylor has done an amazing, amazing job on this case, as he does with all cold case.”
The Sheriff said his office has been “shocked to its core … by the identification of a former deputy as the probable suspect in this murder.” He also revealed that he had worked with Harrison in the late 70s and early 80s. “He actually was a zone partner of mine when I was on the road,” said Mascara. The Sheriff said that he complained to his supervisor back then saying that he thought Harrison “was having inappropriate relationships with young adults, not sexual … but his interactions with young adults I thought was inappropriate.”
However Mascara said his supervisor told him that Harrison was serving as a preacher and “he was spiritually mentoring teenagers at risk.” Looking back Sheriff Mascara said “I wonder if he was using his authority as a deputy sheriff and his standing as a preacher in the community to go ahead and violate children during the entire course of his life.