The Red River Mystery: The Murder Of Jennifer Harris

Jennifer Lenette Harris was born on October 26th,1973 in
Bonham, Fannin County, Texas to Alicia and Jerry Harris. She was a very spirited and brilliant 28 year old woman with fiery red hair and bright brown eyes. She was a goofball who was a cheerleader and loved to play tennis. 
It was Mother's Day 2002. Jennifer was visiting her friend Kristy Farr. Around 8 p.m. she told her friend that she had to go.  Jennifer would never be seen alive again. 

The next day Jennifer's Jeep was discovered abandoned parked just down the road from a local music spot. Police reach out to her former boyfriend and business partner James Hamilton and her ex-husband Rob Holman. Both agreed to speak with investigators without a lawyer present. 

James Hamilton, was with a friend more than an hour away from Bonham at a McDonald's around the time investigators believe Jennifer disappeared. He also took and passed a lie detector test.

Ex-husband Rob Holman was concerned about his alibi. Holman told investigators that he had gone out that night to buy beer and visit friends. But when they weren't home, he drove around alone for five hours on the roads of rural Fannin County. At first Holman denied having seen Jennifer, but after additional questioning Holman is admitted he did see her Jeep that night.

For six days there was no sign of Jennifer. Then a fisherman who was fishing on the Red River, he saw a body in the water. The body was completely naked. It turned out to be Jennifer's and her body was badly decomposed and her uterus was missing. The medical examiner couldn't determine the cause of death, but classified Jennifer's death as a violent homicide.

According to the fishermen, Jennifer had some blue mud on the front of her. Supposedly there are only two spots on the river within several miles that that mud is on the bottom. And the river bank is one of those spots. Not far from the river bank there used to be the original caretaker's cottage. The cottage coincidentally burned down the night that Jennifer vanished.

So what happened to Jennifer? Her family thinks that her ex-husband was involved. 

She was a sixth grader when she began dating Rob, a fifth-grader. According to the family, by high school the two were practically inseparable. Jennifer had big dreams and she moved three hours away to go to college. A few years later, Rob followed her there, and the couple married in 1996. One year after the wedding, Jennifer's mother died of cancer. 

In 1999, the couple bought a house in suburban Dallas and that's when the turmoil started. Rob, who was working in landscaping, preferred the slower pace of rural Bonham while she enjoyed living near a big city. Jennifer embraced a holistic lifestyle and enrolled in massage therapy school. She met James Hamilton who was like-minded and who wanted to start a business that was a massage and wellness center. Their relationship was complicated. Hamilton was living with the mother of his child, and had another on the way. Jennifer was still married to Rob.

Jennifer's father went to visit her in her new home. He was shocked and dismayed to see holes in the living room wall. Jennifer and Rob both claimed they didn't know how they got there, but Jennifer's dad was sure Rob did it in a fit of rage.

Jennifer's sister Alyssa said that Jennifer called her one night, her voice shaking. She told her Rob came home drunk and forced himself on her. Jennifer never reported the alleged attack. But Rob would later tell police, after her disappearance, that Jennifer was the violent one in the relationship.

Rob wasn't the only one with a possible motive in Jennifer's death.

Jennifer and Rob soon split. Rob moved back to Bonham, and Jennifer's new love interest, James Hamilton, moved in with her. They became partners in a massage therapy business in suburban Dallas. James wanted to marry her, but she refused to marry him. Supposedly, this made him very very upset. Soon their relationship was on the rocks and to top it all off, they had to file bankruptcy on their business.

Soon Jennifer got back into contact with Rob, who had a new girlfriend. She even told one of her cousin's that, "I still love him. I want him back. I even told him that." Supposedly, James didn't know that this was going on. Rob later admitted to police, that even though he had a girlfriend, he and Jennifer were still having sex.

Jennifer moved back to Bonham, some speculated to be closer to Rob. Six weeks later, Jennifer disappeared. On the very day she went missing, she called Rob. Rob says she asked to see him, but he refused. 

Jennifer's best friend says that she had told her that she was pregnant and that it was Rob's.

Was Jennifer really pregnant? The medical examiner could find no evidence that Jennifer was pregnant. Remember, her uterus was missing, was that due to wild life or something more sinister?

 Rob did come forward to detectives and told them that he had met Jennifer a month before she disappeared, near a drive-in movie theater. She allegedly told him that she was pregnant and that the baby was his. Authorities haven't been able to physically connect Rob to Jennifer the night of her disappearance.

Jennifer's dad said that James called two months after Jennifer's death and asking about her insurance policy... Also, Jame's alibi wasn't checked out.

One year after Jennifer's murder, Deborah Lambert told detectives she saw something when she was driving across the Red River Bridge on Mother's Day. She said that there was three guys out there and a girl. And two guys had the girl by her elbows and she was trying to get away from them and they were restraining her. She said she was too afraid to get involved. Her story didn't fit with the investigators' timeline. She put Jennifer near the bridge at 5 p.m., but detectives believed Jennifer left her friend Kristy's Farr's house around 8 p.m. Lambert was asked to look at a photo lineup to see if she recognized any of the men the woman was with. She did. She was very clear that one of the men she saw was Rob Holman. No one can follow up with Lambert, she and her mom both have passed away.

After 48 hours did a story on Jennifer, new tips came in. 

An anonymous tipster said he was driving back to Fannin County from the Choctaw Casino in May 2002 when he began driving across the Red River and saw something unusual.

"I observed someone standing beside the van with two trash bags," said anonymous tipster. "The person I observed was a local resident in Bonham." He said the man was dressed in all black with white gloves holding the bags. He said the man drove away in a green van after he was spotted.

Neither James Hamilton nor Rob Holman have ever been arrested or charged with any crime related to Jennifer's murder. And her case remains unsolved.

Anyone with information about the Jennifer Harris case is asked to contact the Fannin County Sheriff's Office at 903-583-2143.