Lindsay Marie Harris: 1983 - 2005 - REST IN PEACE, Sweet Girl

LINDSAY MARIE HARRIS

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I know more about Lindsay's case than many of the missing, because I met (over the phone & on the Internet) her parents within a month or so of Jessie being missing.
My younger brother Jimbo & his fiancé Colette called me and said they had been looking up things on the Internet about Jessie / missing people . . . anything they could to become as knowledgeable as possible on what was happening in their own family. What they had found was on the America's Most Wanted website and it was the story about a missing woman named Lindsay Marie Harris. She had gone missing in Las Vegas in May 2005 and her story could have been Jessie's story, only with a different name, face & eye colour (Lindsay=blue & Jessie=hazel) and from a different Country. Lindsay is from New York State in eastern United States and Jessie is from the province of British Columbia in western Canada. Lindsay went missing on May 4, 2005 and Jessie was taken to Las Vegas on May 13, 2005. (THOUGHT: was Lindsay bumped and replaced by Jessie, and then 10 months later was Jessie bumped?)

I have some articles about Lindsay's disappearance when she 1st went missing, during her disappearance and after she was identified. I hope that no one minds me putting these articles together this way, as I found them separately and through different people, but they tell the story of a woman, loved by those who knew her and those who didn't. She was just that sort of girl.

 

1 - DETAILS OF DISAPPEARANCE

Lindsay Harris moved from New York to Nevada to be with her boyfriend. Lindsay always kept in touch with those she loved from home, but hasn’t called anyone since May 5, 2005. On May 4, Harris called her twin brother to wish him well on his college exams, which was the last time Lindsay’s family spoke with her. Unbeknownst to her family, Lindsay had been working as an escort. She was last seen at a Henderson Bank of America. Her car was later found at the Luxor Hotel and Casino.

 

On January 21, 2006, more than two hundred volunteers and police personnel scoured the desert looking for clues that might lead to Lindsay or her remains. Some items were found and are undergoing testing to see if they’re related to her case. A major lead was also discovered due to a tip through America’s Most Wanted, though the circumstances of the lead have not been made public.

 

An alternate version of events is given by the National Center for Missing Adults. They state, “She was last heard from at approximately 1:00 am when she contacted an acquaintance via telephone and told them that she was leaving the Monte Carlo Casino to go back to the Luxor Casino where her Mercedes was parked. The Mercedes was found in the parking lot near the Excalibur Casino. Two weeks later, a rented PT Cruiser in her name was found abandoned in a desert area near her Henderson home.”

2 - A GIRL WITH A PLAN

Lindsay Harris left her small hometown of Skaneateles, N.Y. in January 2003 with a plan in mind. She left on a cross-country drive to the west coast, eager to start a new and adventurous chapter of her life.

The shy, funny 19-year-old had a new boyfriend, then 26-year-old Solomon Barron, who she had met at a jazz festival in Syracuse, New York. Barron was a hip-hop promoter with businesses in Syracuse and Las Vegas, and it was there in Sin City that Lindsay planned to start anew.

Initially, Lindsay lived with her aunt in San Diego, but two months later relocated to Las Vegas and secretly moved in with Solomon. Martha and Robert Harris, Lindsay's parents, knew nothing of Solomon Barron until she brought him home for Christmas 2004. On May 5, 2005 -- just five months after their visit -- Solomon was calling the Harris’s with bad news: Lindsay was missing.

Lindsay's disappearance quickly exposed the other life she was living -- as an escort in Las Vegas.

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3 - A TALE OF TWO LINDSAYS

Shortly after she had moved in with Solomon, Lindsay told her family she was dancing in a nightclub. But they didn't know about the double life she was really leading.

Her disappearance quickly exposed the truth, however. She was working as an escort in Las Vegas and was even arrested for solicitation. Yet despite the sting of this reality, Lindsay's parents are only concerned with finding their daughter.

Police say Lindsay made a bank deposit near her home in Henderson, Nev. at 3:36 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4. This is the last independent confirmed sighting of the young woman.

Lindsay's boyfriend, Solomon, was in Syracuse, N.Y. during the time of her disappearance. Solomon says he received a voicemail message from Lindsay nearly twelve hours after her trip to the bank on the morning of Thursday, May 5, 2005.

Solomon says Lindsay said she was leaving the Monte Carlo Casino and heading to the Luxor Casino, where her Mercedes was parked. After calling Lindsay's cell phone repeatedly with no success, a concerned Solomon flew right back to Las Vegas. He later phoned the Harris’s to find out if they had heard from their daughter. But they hadn't.

As for Lindsay, authorities say she never made it to her car. Las Vegas Metro Police found Lindsay's Mercedes on May 9 in a parking lot between the Excalibur and Luxor casinos.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

NAME: Lindsay Marie Harris

CLASSIFICATION: Endangered Missing Adult / FOUND: Deceased
ALIAS / NICKNAME: Sara Mills, Sylvia Olen
DATE OF BIRTH: September 3, 1983

DATE MISSING: May 5, 2005

MISSING FROM CITY / STATE: Las Vegas, NV

MISSING FROM (Country): USA
AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE: 21
AGE NOW: 24

SEX: Female
RACE: White
HEIGHT: 5'6" / 66"
WEIGHT: 120 lbs.
HAIR COLOR: Blonde
EYE COLOR: Blue

COMPLEXION: Light

IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS: Pierced ears, pierced navel, tattoo of a Hindu symbol at the base of neck meaning, "All things beautiful", tattoo resembling "S O S" scrolling on thigh, weak right rotator cuff in shoulder, previous Rhino plastic surgery.

CLOTHING: Possibly wearing a navy blue ¾ length sleeve shirt, jeans.

JEWELRY: "Corum" brand watch with a mother of pearl face, pink band, and diamonds in the shape of a heart around the face.
POSSIBLE LOCATIONS: Last seen in Henderson, NV

INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY: Henderson Police Department PHONE: 702-385-5555 INVESTIGATIVE CASE #: 05-09938

NCIC #: M-844915703

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3 - SECOND HUMAN LEG IS FOUND IN WOODED AREA (May 25, 2005)

Investigators spent Wednesday afternoon looking for clues after two severed human legs were found along the same wooded area near Springfield, Ill.

 

Local residents, who were riding all-terrain vehicles in a wooded area off Interstate 55 near mile marker 80 in Sangamon County, Ill., found the first leg just after sundown Monday, police said. Tuesday, investigators with the county sheriff’s office and the Illinois State Police found another human leg within a mile of the same wooded area.

 

Illinois State Police Lt. Cheryl Sims said police have concluded the legs are those of a female, but do not know how long the legs were there. Police didn’t find any other body parts, Sims said, and it’s too soon for investigators to estimate the woman’s age or race.

 

Sims said investigators had already spoken with detectives from the St. Louis-area Major Case Squad, which is trying to find out if the legs belong to a human torso found in Wright City in June.

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4 - CORONER STRIVES TO PUT NAME TO TORSO OF WOMAN (June 27, 2005)

Warren County Coroner Roger Mauzy hopes a service to mark the one-year anniversary of the discovery of a woman’s torso near a Wright City rest stop will spark a new lead in the case.

 

“I’ve almost become obsessed with getting this young lady back to her family,” Mauzy said. “It’s become that important to me.”

 

Last October, Mauzy used money from his department’s budget to bury the woman’s remains in a local cemetery. That ceremony was private, and the grave’s location was kept secret to prevent vandalism.

 

But now he wants to give the community a chance to attend a memorial service for her, he said. So at 11 a.m. today, Mauzy is inviting everyone to Pitman Funeral Homes, 904 South Highway 47, in Warrenton.

 

“I want to keep this case in the eye of the public in hopes that it jogs some memory or some though with somebody,” he said.

 

Investigators have no new leads in the case and still don’t know the identity of the woman, who is believed to have been in her early 20s. She had undergone an appendectomy and a Caesarean section, an autopsy showed.

 

Maj. Bob Lowery of the Major Case Squad said that what’s most baffling about the case is that no one had received a report of this woman being missing.

 

He said that when investigators did the initial search of missing person, they found 900 potential matches.

 

“We spent countless hours running down each one of those, and each one of those so far has led us to a dead end,” he said.

 

Lowery said he still believed the woman was murdered regionally, rather than somewhere far away, because she had not been dead very long before the discovery of her remains. Her head and limbs were never found.

 

“We never did have the idea that it was a truck driver who had anything to do with this just based on where she was found,” he said. “It was a picnic area all the way in the back, and those big over-the-road trucks simply can’t get back there.”

 

He said detectives continued to work with several federal and national agencies to try to identify the woman.

 

“Once that identity’s made, which we’re certain we’ll be able to do one day, we believe then the homicide investigation itself will begin in earnest,” he said.

 

In the meantime, Mauzy says he’ll continue to keep the woman’s identity alive.

 

“She’s got a child; she, obviously, had parents someplace. It’s a shame that I’m her only living relative at this point,” he said.

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5 - HUNDREDS SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE OF MISSING WOMAN (January 23, 2006)

Hundreds of people searched a local desert area looking for the remains of a missing Henderson woman on Saturday. Lindsay Harris, 21,disappeared last May. Harris' boyfriend spoke with Eyewitness News and gave us some more insight into this mystery.

More than two hundred volunteers and police personnel scoured the desert looking for clues that might lead to Lindsay Harris or at least her remains. Police were able to gather some evidence out there, some things that might turn out to be some of Lindsay's personal items. Some bones were found as well, but scientists ruled they were animal bones.

Robert Harris, missing woman's father, said, "It's been eight months, eight long months and emotionally this family has a long way to go before we ever get back to where we were before our baby left us."

Volunteers searched on foot while police used horses and ATVs. Police say some evidence was found, but they would not get into specifics.

Lindsay Harris has been missing for eight months. She was last seen at a Henderson bank. Her family says they are broken without her. Robert Harris said, "If she could get in touch with us she would."

Her family didn't know Harris worked as an escort. She moved to Las Vegas from New York with her boyfriend Solomon Barron, a music promoter. He did not want his face shown on camera. He recalls their last phone conversation. "She did not say anything out of the ordinary. She told me she was leaving the Monte Carlo."

Her car was found between the Luxor and Excalibur. Barron, who is aware Harris is an escort, says she didn't tell him of any person whom she was afraid, but did say, "She had fears. Everyone has fears." Barron said Harris wore a heart-shaped diamond studded blue Corum watch worth about $7,000.

The Harris family acknowledges that her job may have put her in harm's way. Robert Harris adds, "No matter what you've done as a young person it does not overshadow the fact that no one deserves to be murdered."

Police are still treating this as a missing person's case, not a murder. The Harris family isn't hopeful that Lindsay is alive. They say if she is she's being held against her will.

Henderson police with now examine the evidence they found in the desert to see if it did indeed belong to Lindsay Harris.

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6 - REMAINS FOUND NEAR AN ILLINOIS HIGHWAY HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED (May 14, 2008)

 

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Remains found nears an Illinois highway have been identified as those of a former central New York woman who was last seen three years ago in a Las Vegas suburb.

 

A family friend says Martha and Robert Harris of Skaneateles (skan-ee-AT’-les) were notified last weekend by Illinois authorities that the legs found in May 2005 near Springfield were those of their 21-year-old daughter Lindsay.

 

The woman was last seen earlier that month in Henderson, Nevada.

 

After her disappearance, Henderson police say Lindsay Harris was associated with a local escort service.

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7 - DNA MATCH IDENTIFIES LEGS FOUND ALONG I-55  (May 14, 2008)

The identification of a pair of severed legs found along Interstate 55 near Divernon three years ago has been a surprise and a godsend, a local investigator on the case said Wednesday.

Authorities here and in Nevada have determined through a DNA match that the legs are those of Lindsay Marie Harris, a 21-year-old woman who disappeared from a Las Vegas suburb in May 2005. Her legs were discovered along the interstate south of Springfield 21/2 weeks later.

“It’s been something I think about every day, wondering when is somebody going to submit DNA from this girl’s family, because that is what it’s going to take — that or some other blind luck or somebody confessing, which is highly unlikely,” said Mike Jennings, a special agent with the Illinois State Police in Springfield who has worked the case from the beginning.

“I was praying for this day and this DNA match, and lo and behold, it happened. It’s really opened the case up.”

The case
Harris, a blond-haired blue-eyed woman from central New York, last was seen May 4, 2005, in Henderson, Nev. In 2003, she moved to Nevada to be with her hip-hop promoter boyfriend.

On May 4, 2005, she called her twin brother to wish him well on his college exams. The next day, her boyfriend called her family in New York to say she was missing.

Her family later found out she had been working as an escort in Las Vegas.

She last was seen making a deposit at a bank in Henderson on May 4, and her Mercedes was found May 9 in a parking lot between the Excalibur and Luxor casinos in Las Vegas.

On Jan. 21, 2006, more than 200 volunteers, along with police, searched the desert looking for clues about her disappearance.

Information was posted on numerous missing-persons Web sites, and the case was featured three times on the America’s Most Wanted television show, as well as on national shows hosted by Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Maury Povich and Cathryn Crier.

The discovery
The evening of May 23, 2005, all-terrain vehicle riders found a severed leg in a wooded area off I-55 near Divernon, about 20 miles south of Springfield. The riders notified police, and when investigators returned to the area the following day, they found a second severed leg nearby.

A cadaver dog helped search the area, but no additional body parts or evidence were found.

Police determined the mummified legs must belong to a woman because the toenails were polished. They submitted the remains to the state police crime lab and pathologist for analysis, but could not seem to catch a break in the case.

Analysis of the remains determined they were of a white woman with brown hair, 20 to 40 years old and 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-7, with a French pedicure of light pink nail polish with white tips.

She also had a partial tattoo with pink, yellow and black ink on her right inner thigh, but police never could positively identify the design because it was near where the legs were severed from the torso.

The coroner said at the time that it was difficult to tell where the legs were severed, but that a thighbone was exposed on one. The feet were attached to both legs.

Police distributed the information to law enforcement agencies across the country with the hope of identifying the woman.

The identification
Jennings, the state police investigator, said Wednesday that after the forensic testing and a DNA analysis of the remains were completed, the results were submitted in June 2005 to a national databank called CODIS — Combined DNA Index System.

“Clearly, with the lack of evidence we had there, other than the remains, our best shot at identifying this victim was through CODIS with a DNA match. Our hopes then were that the relatives or the loved ones of this victim would report her missing and would submit DNA samples … to this CODIS databank,” Jennings said.

On April 16, the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program provided state police with five cases they considered similar to that of the severed legs.

Jennings reviewed the report and found one case in particular that stood out. He said he couldn’t discuss it, but added, “It had particular specific characteristics that really got my attention.”

He called the Henderson Police Department, and he and the investigator on the Harris case exchanged information. Jennings said he would send his reports to Henderson for review.

“Before I could send that out to him, three days later, our forensics lab was contacted by a DNA lab in California who informed them they had a DNA match for our remains here in Illinois. I, in turn, was called by our DNA scientist, who informed me of the match,” Jennings said.

“When I asked him where it was coming from, he advised it was coming from a missing person in Henderson, Nevada. I was quite surprised. They named the missing person, and I said that was the girl we were talking about. It was really uncanny.”

Police then notified Harris’ parents, Martha and Robert Harris in Skaneateles, N.Y.

“It’s a godsend,” Jennings said. “It’s really cast a light on a lot of leads we need to follow up on and our efforts to identify and bring the person responsible for this to justice.”

Police declined to release additional details about their investigation. It is unclear if additional remains have been found, but if they have, they apparently have not been linked to the Harris case. There also is apparently no evidence that Harris was murdered in this area.

Jennings said there really are two parts to the investigation — identifying the victim and finding the person responsible.

“We’ve been able to accomplish one of those things. At the time, with the lack of information that we had, I had serious doubts we would ever identify (the legs),” he said.