Calvin Harris receives instruction from attorney William Easton after his sentence was handed down following his second trial in 2009. (File Photo)
On Thursday, jury selection began in Schoharie County, N.Y. in the high profile murder trial of Calvin Harris, the 55-year-old Spencer, N.Y. resident and Tioga County businessman who was convicted twice for killing his estranged wife, Michele Harris, convictions that were both overturned.
Now into a third trial at a new venue in Schoharie County, Calvin Harris continues to claim his innocence of accusations that he killed his estranged wife, Michele Harris, sometime during the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. Michele Harris’ vehicle was found at the end of the driveway at the residence the couple shared on Hagadorn Hill Road in Spencer, N.Y. — a property located next to the former Empire Lake.
Calvin Harris and the couple’s property became the immediate focus in the investigation into Michele Harris’ disappearance that evening as neither her body, nor a weapon was never found. Prosecutors, in 2005, indicted Calvin Harris in relation to her disappearance.
During the first trial in 2007, the prosecution argued that blood spatter was found on the garage floor and just inside the Harris’ residence, and that Calvin Harris had motive for murder.
But when a farmer, Kevin Tubbs, came forward claiming he saw Michele Harris arguing with a man who was not Calvin Harris at the end of the couple’s residence on Sept. 12, 2001, the first conviction was overturned and a second trial ordered.
Once again, in 2009, Calvin Harris was tried and convicted in Tioga County, N.Y. for the murder of his estranged wife, Michele Harris, and subsequently sentenced and sent to Auburn Correctional Facility. Three years later, the New York Court of Appeals ordered a new trial, and a new venue was granted as the defense argued that Calvin Harris could not get a fair trial in Tioga County, N.Y.
Jury selection will continue today. The trial, according to reports, could last for as long as four to five weeks.
