Kevin Tubbs is pictured leaving the Tioga County Courthouse following the second trial in 2009. On Tuesday, Kevin Tubbs was called to testify during the fourth murder trial for Calvin Harris that is being held in Schoharie County. (File Photo)
As the second-degree murder trial for Calvin Harris entered into its sixth week in Schoharie County, a familiar name took the stand for the duration of Tuesday’s proceedings.
Kevin Tubbs, a former Candor farmer that is now living in Sayre, Pa., became involved in the Calvin Harris trial after he appeared at Harris’ sentencing following his first trial in 2007, stating that he saw someone that looked like Michele Harris at the end of the couple’s residence on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001 – hours after the prosecution claimed Harris killed her.
In Tubbs’ testimony, which has remained the same throughout all of the trials, he claims to have seen a blonde haired woman that may have been arguing with a man with dark hair at the end of the driveway at the Harris residence on Hagadorn Hill Road in Spencer, N.Y.
Tubbs testified that the man was about 5-foot ten-inches tall, or so, and had brown hair and a muscular build. Tubbs later identified a photo of Stacey Stewart as resembling the man that he saw at the end of the driveway.
Tubbs also specifically described a blue or black Chevy pickup truck in great detail, a truck that the defense, during the last trial, determined to be the type of truck that Stacey Stewart was driving at that time.
Pictured, Broome County Judge Joseph Cawley departs the courthouse in Schoharie County. Cawley was called to testify for the defense on Tuesday. (Photo by Wendy Post)
At the time that Tubbs claims to have seen Michele Harris, he was working as a farmer and was delivering bales of hay. It was somewhere between 5:45 and 6:10 a.m., Tubbs concluded after being questioned by the defense on Tuesday, and then cross-examined by the prosecutor.
The prosecution continued to argue the timeline, stating that it would not have been light enough out for Tubbs to see who was at the end of the driveway. The prosecution also tried to discredit the defense witness as they have in previous trials.
But Kevin Tubbs, who is now working for Marcellus Energy, a company owned by his parents, stuck to his testimony as he has in previous trials.
Another arguing point for the prosecution remains the amount of time that it took Tubbs to come forward to the court stating what he saw that morning.
The prosecution also utilized arrests made on Tubbs to discredit his testimony, arrests that were all made following Tubbs’ first appearance at the Calvin Harris trial in 2007. Because all of the charges were resolved or dropped, Judge Richard Mott did not need to know anything further.
To help tighten Tubbs’ testimony, the defense also called Joseph Cawley to the stand on Tuesday. Cawley was the attorney for Calvin Harris during the first trial, and is now serving as the Broome County Judge.
Cawley confirmed that Tubbs contacted him on June 7, 2007, the day that a guilty verdict was rendered in Calvin Harris’ first trial. After filing a motion to set aside a verdict, Judge Martin Smith reversed the jury’s decision, and the second trial was ordered.
By the end of the day on Tuesday, the testimony of Tubbs concluded – which is also a sign that the fourth trial is moving much faster. During the third trial, Tubbs was called back to court several days in a row because of arguments amongst counsel.
The defense, before departing on Tuesday, also tried to introduce a statement from John Steele – but was denied by the judge. Steele issued a statement that corroborates that of Kevin Tubbs as to what was seen at the end of the Harris driveway on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001.
Steele died of a heart attack in 2008, before Harris’ second trial, and therefore was not able to enter into court as a witness.
Wednesday will see testimony from retired New York State Police investigator Robert Delgiorno.
Delgiorno interviewed Michele Harris’ hairdresser, Jerome Wilcynski, a few days after her disappearance, and, according to the defense, took notes that contradict Wilcynski’s testimony that he heard Calvin Harris threatening Michele over the phone in the summer of 2001.
Delgiorno is retired and has declined to appear to testify during this trial, and the third trial that was held last year.
The defense will present several other witness over the next couple of days to include a friend of Stacey Stewart who was too ill last week to appear in court, and they will be presenting their evidence surrounding the dig on a burn pit located on the property once occupied by Stacey Stewart in Lockwood, N.Y.
The courtroom will also welcome approximately 60 students from the school in Schoharie on Wednesday. The students will be arriving in the morning.
Calvin Harris’ wife, Michele, disappeared sometime between the evening of Sept. 11, 2001 and Sept. 12, 2001. Neither her body, nor a weapon has ever been found.
Prosecutors, in 2005, indicted Calvin Harris in relation to her disappearance.
During the first trial in 2007, Judge Smith threw the conviction out and ordered a new trial, which took place in 2009.
Once again, in 2009, 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. That trial was held last year, and spanned over a period of four months and saw 11 days of deliberations before ending in a hung jury.
Now, the fourth trial is being held in Schoharie, but is a non-jury trial being presided over by Judge Richard Mott.
