Jury finds man guilty of murder,
shooting
Christopher Edward Harris,
20, shot and killed a driver who pulled in front of him, then
used the same gun to shoot a woman in another car.
By LEON M. TUCKER, Times Staff
Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 16, 2002
CLEARWATER -- Almost two years
after police arrested and charged Christopher Edward Harris with
the murder of one Clearwater motorist and the attempted murder of
another, a jury on Monday found the 20-year-old guilty of both acts.
After a weeklong trial, it took
a jury of six men nearly five hours to convict Harris of second-degree
murder for shooting and killing Cesar Perez-Hernandez -- a 20-year-old
cook who had moved to Clearwater from Hidalgo, Mexico -- the night
of May 4, 2000.
Prosecutors said Harris, who
was followed by friends in another car, was driving south on Starcrest
Drive toward his apartment to drop off his mother's 1995 Ford Contour.
Perez-Hernandez turned his Ford
Fiesta from Rainbow Drive onto northbound Starcrest Drive, into
the path of Harris' car.
Prosecutors said an angry Harris,
extended his arm out the window of his mother's car, aimed the gun
at Perez-Hernandez and pulled the trigger as he drove by, killing
him almost instantly.
After Harris dropped off his
mother's car, Harris got into the back seat of the car that had
been following him.
An hour after the first shooting,
Danielle Laprease, 22, was driving her Ford Tempo north on Missouri
Avenue. The car Harris rode in sped up and got in front of her,
and the driver slammed on the brakes several times.
In the 1400 block of Missouri,
prosecutors say, Harris' car pulled up next to Laprease's. Harris
pulled out the same gun that killed Perez-Hernandez and fired four
shots at Laprease, only 2 feet away.
A bullet ripped into her neck
and exited her shoulder. She recovered from her wounds.
Prosecutors said they expected
the guilty verdict.
"It's what we expected," said
Pat Siracusa, assistant state attorney. "It's difficult to overcome
(the charges) when you have all your friends saying you are a murderer."
Relatives of Perez-Hernandez
were joined inside the courtroom by his former girlfriend, Estella
Bolteada, as they listened to the verdict through an interpreter.
"The last two years have been
very difficult," Bolteada, 19, said through an interpreter. "I hope
this never happens to anyone else at the hands of (Harris)."
After the verdict, tears welled
up in Harris' eyes as bailiffs walked him to the other side of the
courtroom and clicked handcuffs on his wrists. His mother, Vicki
Harris, still seated in the pews behind the defense table, wept.
She says prosecutors have the
wrong man.
"One day and one day soon (prosecutors)
are going to have to explain to another family why they didn't do
what they were supposed to do," the mother said. "All we ever wanted
was the truth.
"There is a young man who died
for no reason and a young girl who didn't deserve to be shot," she
said. "I believe my son was railroaded."
Sentencing in Harris' murder
trial has been set for May 31. A pretrial hearing on an unrelated
charge of home invasion and armed robbery also was scheduled for
May 1.
In the April 10 home invasion,
an elderly Clearwater couple was pistol-whipped by an intruder in
their mobile home.
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