- I'm craig melvin and this is
"dateline: Secrets uncovered".
- Murder is so personal.
She knew who was in the room with her.
She trusted that person.
And the saddest thing is that the last person
You look at in this world
Is not your loved ones,
It's your killer.
- Gosh, I miss her so much.
- Tough, tenacious, as feisty as her name,
Hard-driving defense attorney chiquita tate.
- She would walk into a courtroom
And she looked like she owned the place.
- She loved defending those clients.
She loved law.
- She'd stayed late at work to read up on a murder case,
But the next murder police wound up
Investigating was hers.
- She's representing some really hardened criminals.
Maybe somebody had a beef with her.
- It was personal. - The clues?
A missing gucci wallet, mystery strands of hair.
- It suggested that a female had maybe
Killed her and she'd pulled the hair out.
- Who done it? Who came up here and did it?
- Somebody planned this murder.
- Somebody wanted her out of the way.
- I told her I will make this right.
I will make this right for you.
- Hello and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
Chiquita tate was a rising star in
The louisiana legal scene when tragedy struck.
The young defense attorney had been stabbed to death,
Leaving detectives to sort through a case
Filled with secrets and misdirection.
Chiquita was someone who believed deeply
In the rule of law.
Now, her family needed it
To bring them justice.
Here's dennis murphy with "shining star".
- Cajun country is where the dreadful thing happened.
Baton rouge, the louisiana state capital
Perched on the banks of the mississippi.
Three blocks off the river,
On a chilly Thursday night,
A criminal defense lawyer was working late,
Drafting a writ for the big murder trial starting Monday.
When did the killer take her?
Sometime after 8 o'clock was the best guess.
The news led next morning's early drive.
- I hear on a local news station.
They interrupt to say that there is
A downtown murder in a law office.
- Attorney prem burns was on her way into work.
- Which, of course, alerts me.
Initially, my-my gosh, uh, is it an attorney?
- The office, now strung with yellow crime scene tape,
Belonged to an up-and-comer named chiquita tate,
A local woman just a few years out of law school
But already making a name for herself
In the competitive pads and helmets arena
Of litigation and criminal defense.
- She had recently won
A half-million-dollar jury verdict.
That's pretty awfully good for somebody
Out such a short time.
- Chiquita was one of seven, her father absent,
Raised by her grandma in a tired neighborhood
Of boarded-up houses.
Smart and determined,
She rose above her impoverished early years,
And once her fuse was lit, she became a rocket.
- She was talented, she had overcome
So very much in a short time period.
She was the star of her family.
- Chiquita was the first in her family to go to college.
Then she enrolled in hometown
Southern university law center,
Got grabbed up by a law firm where she started
Clerking while studying for the bar.
That's when she met a legal assistant
Named lessie hookfin.
- She was just driven,
Wanting to-to get that next--
I'll call it, that next high.
And law school was that.
Being a lawyer was that, and she achieved it.
- She passed the bar on her first shot?
- On her first shot.
- She eagerly lapped up the hard cases,
The kind that made news: Accused killers,
Druggies, gangbangers.
She seemed at ease in the spotlight,
Happily talking to reporters.
[laughing] - have a good one!
- Chiquita was enjoying such success
She opened her own firm in a nice building
A few blocks from the courts complex.
Lessie hookfin went with her.
- What areas did she start to stake out for herself?
- Criminal.
She wanted to do criminal so bad.
- Prem burns watched her in action.
Chiquita was one to speak her mind
And dress how she wanted,
In conservative lady lawyer pantsuits one day
And stilettos and spiky hair the next.
- She would walk into a courtroom
And she looked like she owned the place.
- You could hear her coming before you saw her.
- You could! You could.
And-and we always joked because chiquita would
Wear four-inch heels and just strut in
And you knew chiquita tate was in the courtroom.
- Another thing, chiquita was all about family.
She hired her sister danita to help in the office.
And danita knew better than anyone that
Hard-driving chiquita could be sunny one minute
And a gulf coast storm the next.
- She fired me like every week.
- She fired you?
- Yeah, every week, and then at night--
- You were her office assistant?
- Yeah.
And that night-- at night she would call me and say,
We were talking then she'd say,
"see you in the morning."
I'm like, I thought I was fired.
[chuckling]
- In fact, it was a skirmish with chiquita that
Sparked the interest of a young man named greg harris
Who almost literally bumped into her
While they were both cruising around town.
Greg's brother mike says it started
When greg cut chiquita off.
- She's in a corvette, he's in a mercedes.
She's blowing the horn at him and, you know,
"oh, you-you-you don't cut me off!"
And so they pull up to the red light and,
Uh, I heard a few smiles went from him,
A few smiles went from her.
And after that, it's all she wrote.
- Greg harris was doing well as a contractor.
The romance blossomed
And chiquita moved into greg's home,
A big step up from the falling down neighborhood
Of shotgun houses where she grew up.
They got married in a small wedding with family in 2008.
And a year later,
Chiquita was moving into that nice new office,
Varnishing the bookshelves,
Proudly hanging out her shingle.
- Did anybody every worry about her and her clients?
Because there were some tough hombres
That she was defending. - There were.
Um, but I don't think that
It was to the point where
Either she had to worry or anyone else had to worry.
- On February 19, 2009,
Chiquita was working hard prepping
Her defense in a double homicide case.
She told lessie she had to work late,
Just a couple of hours.
But chiquita never returned home that night.
Her husband greg called her office repeatedly
But got no answer.
Around dawn, he drove down to the office,
Troubled, he'd say later,
To see his wife's hummer parked where she'd left it.
He couldn't get in the locked building,
So he called 911.
- Greg suddenly spotted a patrol car
And flagged it down.
An office worker let the policeman in the building
While greg called his sister-in-law,
Danita, sounding frantic.
- It's like, "dee, the hummer is still parked here
"and they won't let me in the office."
- Once upstairs, it took only a glance for
The patrol officer to declare chiquita's office
A crime scene, a bad one.
The shining starlight of chiquita tate
Had been cruelly extinguished.
By whom and for what reason?
- Detectives at the scene would have those questions
And more as the hunt for a killer begins.
- The first clue.
- No blood in the elevator, no blood in the lobby.
Her left hand was opened.
There was a piece of hair in it.
I was like oh, my lord.
- What were your theories?
What did you think had happened?
- I actually, uh-- I did not come to any conclusions
Because I couldn't think of a soul
Who would have wanted her dead.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- As the sun was coming up over the mississippi
That cold February morning,
The family and friends of chiquita tate
Were converging on the street below her office.
- So, I tried to run in the office
And the police grabbed me.
And he was like, "ma'am, you can't go in there."
I say, "that's my sister in there."
- Just like danita, chiquita's legal assistant
Lessie hookfin was stopped on the street
Outside by an officer.
- And he saw me coming, so he came toward me
And grabbed me, um, pretty much to hold me up
'cause I was going down.
And-and that's when he told me
She was dead.
- Chiquita's loved ones were huddled together
When veteran homicide detectives chris johnson
And elvin howard rolled up to the scene.
- So, the responding officers told you
That's the husband over there,
But he's on the edge of things for you.
You haven't approached him yet.
- That's correct.
He was upset to the point where uniformed patrol
Had to put him in the back of-of the unit.
- So, do you go up at that point?
- Um, no, at that time,
We-we try to gather as much information as possible.
- The detectives began their standard investigative ritual:
Putting together a timeline of the victim's last day.
Assistant lessie hookfin knew some of it.
- So, that Thursday,
How does that fit in your recollection?
What was that day like?
- Pretty regular day.
- Chiquita had gone to court and that very day
Talked to reporters about her latest case.
- Under the statute is the question that I would like
The, um, appellate court to review.
- After a quick chat, she headed back to her office
Where workers were refinishing a bookcase.
Lessie left at her regular time, about 5:30,
And she remembers being concerned
About the smell of varnish.
- I said, "kita, don't stay in here too late,"
Because the smell was just overpowering.
Uh, she said, "les, I'm not gonna stay in here late.
I'm just gonna read this."
- But she did stay late.
Chiquita's husband greg told police his wife
Called him around seven or so and asked him
To please bring her something to eat.
So, he set out from their home in baker,
About 25 minutes away.
- Then he said he went to mcdonald's in baker
And got some hamburgers and fries
And brought it to chiquita in her office.
Uh, chiquita met him downstairs,
According to greg, and let him into the building
Because at 5:30 in the evening until
7:30 the next morning the building is locked.
- And unless you have a swipe card,
You can't get access? - Exactly.
- Greg told the cops he encountered a number of
Tenants in the building working late that night.
He remembered running downstairs
On a small errand for his wife.
- Chiquita had a client that was coming over
To pick up some money,
So he went downstairs to-to pay this client
And pick up some paperwork from this person for chiquita.
- Greg said chiquita had more work to do
And yet another client to see,
So he said he took off for home.
It was sometime around 8:30.
What happened next was a bloody mystery.
It would be up to the detectives
And also prem burns to figure out.
The attorney, hearing the awful news
On her car radio that morning,
The one who got such a kick out of chiquita in court,
Was, in fact, a legendary baton rouge prosecutor.
- My boss, the district attorney, was out there.
There were so many police officers there.
The crime scene van was there.
And so, I went into bat and immediately said to my boss,
"I want this. I want this case."
- Prem insisted, as she always does,
On viewing the crime scene.
As she entered the office,
She noticed chiquita had been fixing things up.
- But then when you proceeded into the next room
Where her body was, I was like,
"oh, my lord."
She was butchered. She was butchered.
She was laying on the floor.
She had little slipper socks on her feet,
The way all of us would be if we stay after work.
We're not going to keep our heels on.
She basically had a law book that
I think she had been reading that was
In her hands at the time the attack began.
- Chiquita had been stabbed 43 times.
The attack was brutal and messy,
The blood-stained wall suggesting a fight to the death.
Did you have a murder weapon?
- No, we didn't. - No, sir.
- Did you get lucky with a footprint or a partial print
Or anything in blood, anything like that?
- No, we did not get lucky with a footprint.
- No blood in the elevator, no blood in the lobby,
No blood on the buttons.
- The killer had improbably vanished
Without leaving a trail.
And at first glance, hadn't taken anything either.
Had the office been trashed?
Had anybody been looking through files
Or something like that? - No.
- No, we didn't see that.
- She had expensive jewelry still on her-- on her hands,
She had earrings in her ear. Um, so, it definitely...
- So, this is starting to tell you some stuff
About the nature of this killing.
- That's correct.
- It didn't look like a robbery,
However, as crime scene techs processed the scene,
The investigators realized chiquita's wallet
Was missing from her purse.
And there, in the victim's hand,
What looked like a major clue.
- And her left hand was opened.
There was a piece of hair in it.
No, actually 91 strands of hair in it.
And her right arm was over her head and she just--
She just died like that.
- Had she pulled it from her killer's head?
The hair was long. Had the killer been a woman?
What were your theories?
What are you thinking happened?
- I actually, uh-- I did not come to
Any conclusions because I couldn't think of
A soul who would have wanted her dead.
- Chiquita's father-in-law silver ray harris
Admired her courage but wondered about
The kind of clients who came with her line of work.
- Being a criminal lawyer, that's what you deal with.
Criminals. - Yeah.
-So, you have to accept a degree of bad people.
They come looking for...
- She had some of the toughest of the tough, huh?
- That's what I hear. That she would-- she'd--
If you went there, she'd-she'd try to help you.
- Could have been an unhappy client.
- Could-could well have been.
- Someone who didn't like the results they got from her.
- Could have been, or could have been
A member of the victim's family.
- The list of potential suspects could be
As long as her client list.
Yet chiquita's brother-in-law says he can't understand
How anyone could do such a thing.
- Heartless.
Completely, to do her that way.
When I get on my knees at night,
I pray he'll get justice.
- Police were confident they would get their man or woman.
And something up a street pole gave them hope.
Outside chiquita's office were
City surveillance cameras and traffic cams.
Did one of several cameras
See someone enter after greg left?
There may not have been a trail of blood,
But with a little luck, those cameras just might
Give them a portrait of their killer
Or killers suitable for framing.
- Will the cameras capture chiquita's killer?
And that mystery clump of hair: What might it reveal?
- If you were in a fight and pulled someone's hair out,
You're going to find root hairs.
- So, the scenario that occurs to me is
This is a woman that's in this assault.
- Exactly. - Two women are fighting and--
- Exactly.
- She's gotten a bit of this weave and yanked it.
- Exactly.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Chiquita tate's vicious killing,
Stabbed and slashed dozens of times,
Had shaken her friends and family to their very roots.
And, as an officer of the courts,
It was also an attack on baton rouge's
Criminal justice system family.
The heat was on detectives johnson and howard
To find the killer.
You're looking at the poles around here.
What was that, greg? - Yeah, the crime cameras.
We know that most of baton rouge has crime cameras
Down here at several locations.
And across from the office
Is a crime camera right there on the pole.
- We also have traffic cameras that are
On-on each, um, signal light.
There are some right here.
- Oh, yeah, I see it right here. - Yeah, that's correct.
- So, you could get really lucky, maybe.
- Yeah, hopefully.
We thought we would be getting lucky.
- Get the perpetrator coming or going, huh?
- Exactly. - That's correct.
- This camera about a block away from
Chiquita's office was working fine.
It showed a quiet street the night of the killing,
Normal activity.
What they really wanted was the shot from this camera,
Which swept right past chiquita's office door.
But bad luck.
A recent storm had knocked it out.
- Uh, the camera in the front of the office
Was not working properly that particular night.
- So, no picture of a suspect.
This wasn't going to be an open-shut solve.
But there was evidence to work with.
The crime scene technicians had taken
Scrapings from under chiquita's fingernails
And sent them off for lab analysis.
Had she scratched dna material from her killer?
They'd have to wait on findings.
And likewise, the clump of hair
Found in chiquita's hand,
Did it contain dna identifying the killer?
- If you were in a fight and pulled someone's hair out,
You're going to find root hairs, hairballs.
- But the lab work was back on the hair sample.
There were no roots on those strands,
But the hair had come from a woman's hair extension or weave.
- So, the scenario that occurs to me is
This is a woman that's in this assault.
- Exactly. - Two women are fighting and--
- Exactly.
- She's gotten a bit of this weave and yanked it.
- Exactly.
- The theory of two women in a death struggle
Didn't make sense to the cops.
The attack seemed too violent, too overwhelming.
But with homicides, you never know.
In the early hours of the investigation, though,
They did catch a major break.
A report had come into dispatch.
A woman driving through a high crime area
Known as gardere lane
Called police to say she'd found a wallet
And it belonged to chiquita tate.
- She's driving down gardere lane
And she sees the wallet on the side of the road.
- Amazingly enough,
The finder of the wallet knew chiquita.
The young attorney had given a speech
At her daughter's school
And made quite an impression.
- That prompted her to call the police and advise us
That she-she located this wallet.
- And unexpectantly for a wallet
Taken from a victim's purse and then tossed,
Chiquita's id and her credit cards were all inside,
Which got investigators thinking maybe
The killer planted the wallet there hoping
Some street person would find it
And stumble right into a homicide investigation.
- When you take a nice gucci wallet
Loaded with credit cards to gardere lane
And leave it in the streets,
Somebody is going to pick it up
And start going to the mall,
Spending some of those credit cards,
And the first thing that's going to happen
Is that the police are going to have a film
Of the transaction and go to that person and say...
"you killed chiquita tate."
- There's our suspect. - Absolutely.
- So, this killer unknown started taking on
Some traits in the detectives' minds.
The person was good or lucky enough
To get out of the office building
Without leaving a trail of blood.
And after what had to have been a frenzied attack,
Still had the composure to think up the red herring
Of the tossed wallet.
The killer looked like a cool customer,
Perhaps a professional.
As the cops went down the list of dubious characters
On her client roster, they looked closely at
Two men who had been accused of killing a man
And his 17-year-old son. Possible suspects?
- One of them actually was in jail
At the time of the-- of the homicide.
It-it just was very unlikely that-that someone
Who-who she worked so hard for would kill her.
- A few of the people on chiquita's client list
Were incarcerated at the time of her killing.
Others had alibis.
But she also had clients who were free to come and go.
Did one of them have an appointment?
- Was there anybody due to come in that evening?
- No. - As far as you recall?
- Not after-- not after hours.
- After hours. - No.
That would have been very unusual.
And I would have known.
- A mystery client with the worst of grudges?
A woman unknown?
Only theories until the cops play poker with a witness
And hit the jackpot when they're only holding
A pair of deuces.
- A revealing phone call
With a jaw-dropping tip for police.
- This is a voice saying I think I know
Who may have killed chiquita.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin.
Detectives had a hunch that whoever killed chiquita tate
Was purposely planting false leads
To pin the crime on someone else.
That might explain why her designer wallet
Was found in a neighborhood known for crime.
But investigators saw through the smokescreen
And were about to discover a secret recording that would
Put them on the trail of a potential suspect.
Once again, here's dennis murphy
With "shining star".
- There's a concept in police work
Called victimology.
The detectives probe the backstory of someone's life
To understand what made them tick.
In chiquita's case, they found for sure
A woman loved, respected, and admired.
But they also learned she had a capital t temper.
- She was extremely aggressive.
- To the point of bring irritating or...
- Umm, to some. And to some extent.
- Had she pushed someone too hard or too far?
As detectives ran though the evidence,
They'd of course been taking to the husband, greg harris,
Right from the start.
- Greg, meanwhile, was being very helpful
With investigators. He hadn't lawyered up,
He was telling them the story of his night.
Here's the keys to my vehicle,
Take a look. - Yes.
- If you want to go to the house, check it out.
- Yes, absolutely. - I'm with you.
- And they conducted those searches because spouses,
No matter how cooperative, are always suspects.
And what crime scene investigators found
When they poured over greg and chiquita's house
Was, well, at first glance, not much.
No weapons, certainly. No blood-soaked clothes.
They took dna swabs and bagged various items
For lab analysis.
And then, in a closet,
They found a really oddball souvenir.
An audio recording made by greg of him and chiquita
Engaged in a screaming match.
- This sounded like a couple splitting the sheets,
Divvying up the household goods.
- Danita was aware that her sister chiquita was unhappy.
But realistically, she didn't think
Her strong-willed sister would ever be happy in a marriage.
- You know in a relationship you have to compromise.
- Mmm.
- I don't think she was willing to do it.
It's her way or no way.
- Danita says her tempestuous sister
Was always threatening to storm out of the marriage,
Right up to her last day.
- And that morning of February 19 she called me
And she said that
"dee, I just can't do the married thing anymore."
- Greg's parents silver ray harris
And joycie henderson believed the couple
Had just hit a rough patch.
- I think it had to do with her not being home very often.
She would take cases that would take her to new orleans
And, uh, she'd work on cases to late up into the night.
- Too much career going on for her?
- Yeah. And no time for him.
And I think he wanted more time.
- But in the early hours of the investigation,
Detectives learned the fight recorded at the couple's home
Wasn't an isolated incident.
Their files showed that a 911 domestic call
Brought police to greg and chiquita's house
Two months before they got married.
- What was that all about?
- Police were called out because uh, chiquita
Accused greg of-of hitting her.
From what we understand, a charge was filed
Against both of them.
- So, with that in mind, when greg sat down
With investigators, the conversation
Became contentious, even combative.
- I love my wife.
We was trying to make this relationship happen.
- You were trying to make the relationship happen.
- No, we both were.
- They'd had problems, he admitted,
But said he wasn't violent with chiquita.
The detectives told greg what they'd picked up on,
That chiquita was leaving the marriage.
Wrong, countered the husband.
- She was still living with me.
You go to my house.
It ain't no clothes packed. - Yeah.
- Well, if she was leaving, why did she ask me
To come over there and help her?
When we was still doing-- going to the movies,
Doing everything else?
- They reviewed greg's timeline the night of the killing,
How he brought his wife dinner and left her
Still working at the office some time around 8:30.
- Where did you go?
- Where did I go? I went home.
- Straight home? - I went straight home.
- Which path you took home? - I got on the interstate.
- That's when police, clearly suspicious of greg,
Used a ploy to smoke him out,
To catch him in a lie if he were, in fact, lying.
- According to the cameras, that's not the path
In which you've taken last night.
- We convinced him that we had cameras up,
Which we do have cameras up.
We convinced him that we can track his cellphone.
- In fact, did you have anything like that?
- No, we did not.
We just-- we was bluffing him.
- You know we do phone records?
Your phone records, her phone records.
It tells every tower that-that-that you hit
When you make phone call.
- That's fine.
That's fine.
- And so, with greg thinking the cops knew his every move,
They confronted him with an important question
About the place where chiquita's wallet
Had already been found.
- When's the last time you've been on gardere lane?
- Gardere lane?
I went to gardere lane last night.
- Really? - Yes.
- What time you went through gardere lane?
- I don't-I don't know what time it was.
- Approximately?
- What's he say he's doing there?
- Um, he said he went to buy steroids.
He-he's a big guy and he lifts weights
And he said that's where his steroid dealer live.
- A little street transaction? - Right.
- Whatever the explanation, greg harris had put himself
In the neighborhood where the wallet had been tossed.
For the cops, it was a gotcha moment.
And while they had no evidence, no dna,
No forensics that connected him to the killing,
They did have some leverage:
That old domestic dispute call.
Though she and greg were charged,
Only the charge against chiquita was dropped.
- Why are you the only one that had a warrant?
- All this was supposed to have been dismissed.
Now, other than this, I don't know anything about it.
I never hit the girl a day in my life.
- So, using a year and a half old warrant
Unrelated to the death of chiquita tate,
The police put greg in custody for a few days.
- So, they could put him on ice, huh?
- Absolutely.
While the forensics were being tested from the crime scene.
- But then, seemingly out of the blue
Came a strange tip from an anonymous caller.
- Saying you need to look into this angle because
I think I know who may have killed chiquita.
- This is a voice on the phone?
- This is a voice on the phone. - Female voice.
- And it's like you need to look into it.
She was involved in a lesbian love triangle.
- Did that explain the clump of hair?
The impassioned intimate killing?
The investigation was charging off in a wholly new direction.
- Chiquita's husband, greg, was he in danger?
- Someone came up to his bedroom window
At about 3:40 in the morning and shoots in the window.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Just as investigators were zeroing in on the husband,
Greg harris, they got a tip that brought them back
To chiquita tate's list of clients.
But it wasn't about any of the career criminals
On her roster.
The tip concerned two female clients,
A same-sex couple that chiquita had been helping
With an adoption case.
The anonymous caller suggested their lawyer-client relationship
Was more than that.
- A female said there was two women
That chiquita was-- had a-a love triangle.
She even gave the-the two, uh, suspects' names, as well.
She indicated that one suspect had scratches
On-on their body.
- Well, that would explain the crime of passion,
Which you'd think is a signature here.
- Yes.
- And also, maybe why there's hair
In the palm of her hand. - That's correct.
- Some sort of a tussle. - Yes.
- That goes a long way towards explaining a lot of it.
There's some sort of a romantic relationship here
That's gone wrong.
Police confirmed the names of the two women
On chiquita's client list, and then paid each a call.
- We had to investigate and contact both individuals
And got statements from them.
- The detectives told the prosecutor
That both women insisted chiquita wasn't their lover,
Just a good attorney. - We loved her work.
She was a friend, but that's where it ended.
- Still, the detectives took a closer look at the couple.
- We didn't see any scratches on their arms.
We also realized one of the suspects had braids
And not a weave in her hair.
- What's more, police say that both women had alibis.
Legal assistant lessie hookfin
Was sure the secret love triangle was nonsense.
- I know about the adoption.
I knew the clients and everything was going well.
- Is there any way you can see that that's somehow
Involved with chiquita's
Being butchered? - Never. No.
- So, the investigators put the tip in their back files
And proceeded to check out the tipster.
They traced her call to a town in texas.
They even drove there,
And after questioning a few locals,
Managed to reach a woman by phone
With an oddly familiar voice.
- I immediately recognized her as the voice that I heard
That had called the office that time.
I asked her how did she know chiquita tate and she said,
"well, um, chiquita tate used to be married
"to my brother."
- This was greg harris' sister?
- Yes. - That's correct.
Greg harris' sister.
- So, the tip that sent detectives off to texas
Had led them right back to greg, the husband.
Was greg, or maybe his sister, trying to plant a false lead?
Prem burns added that
To her list of concerns about greg harris.
She as also discovering that greg had a bad history
With some of the women in his life.
Her investigators found greg had control issues
And a temper according to chiquita's family members
And some old girlfriends.
- He just wanted them within his eyesight
And within his control.
- She also learned that chiquita had taken out
A lease on an apartment.
She hadn't yet moved into her new place,
But prem burns believes chiquita was indeed
Going to divorce greg.
Which meant he had lost control of her.
- And I believe that's what happened with chiquita
Is that he was not going to let her.
- Nobody leaves me, huh? - Nobody leaves greg harris
Unless greg harris throws them out of the house
Onto the front lawn.
- Greg's brother mike doesn't believe it for a second.
His brother, he says, wasn't violent.
And what's more, he says greg and chiquita
Were working it out. - We all go through bumps.
But there's also a phase called reconciliation
And healing.
You know? And that's what they had.
- And as for that tip about the same sex couple,
Greg's father silver ray says his daughter
Wasn't trying to throw off the cops.
The female love triangle was a legitimate concern of his.
- She got that strictly from me,
Which I got it from another attorney.
And we just wanted to look at all the options
To make sure that all the bases were covered.
We wanted to look at these two-two women.
- Did you encourage her to call the cops with the story?
- I didn't encourage her. She did it on her own.
But it was-it wasn't nothing to throw the cops off.
If you investigate it, you've got to look
At all the angles.
- In fact, greg's father, and mother joycie,
And brother mike say they couldn't believe
That police even suspected greg.
Not the greg they knew.
- My greg was a son that helped raise his brothers.
He made sure that they were fed when I worked.
He made sure when they came home,
They did their homework.
- You have people you want to grow up to be like.
My model was my older brother.
I wouldn't be the person I am today
If it wasn't for him.
- Even chiquita's sister could not imagine greg
As the killer.
- Can you see him in that office?
- No. - In a rage,
Slashing your sister? - No.
- Fight that's moving from here to there?
- No.
No, I can't even picture it.
- Greg's parents and his brother believe that
Whoever killed chiquita also wanted greg dead.
They recount an incident that happened
After greg was released from custody.
Shots were fired into his home.
- Someone came up to his bedroom window
At about 3:40 in the morning
And shoots in the bedroom window
Five times with a 10-millimeter gun.
- Ah.
- Hoping that he was in the bed.
It just so happened greg fell asleep on the sofa.
God saved him. He was not in the bed.
- Greg's family, convinced he was innocent,
Became only more so when they heard this.
Scrapings from under chiquita's nails showed dna,
Not only from greg, but from someone else, as well.
An unknown male.
What could that mean?
- If greg harris had done this,
You would have found an enormous amount of blood.
And that just wasn't the case.
- Another dna surprise is coming
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back.
Detectives suspected greg harris was a controlling husband
Who killed his wife chiquita after she threatened divorce.
But there were doubts.
Even chiquita's own sister did not think
He was capable of murder.
Chiquita had been stabbed dozens of times
And the violence indicated to investigators
That this crime was emotional.
But they also believed that cold,
Hard science was about to help them solve it.
Here's dennis murphy with the conclusion
Of "shining star".
- The case against him.
Greg harris was the last person known
To have seen chiquita alive.
His marriage to chiquita had been volatile
And he put himself near the street
Where chiquita's stolen wallet was tossed.
But what galvanized this case for the prosecutor
Was a pair of sunglasses discovered in greg harris' car.
- The glasses are under the seat.
- Is there blood evidence on them?
- There absolutely was.
There was a combination of his blood and her blood
On the left lens.
When I was told that there is their blood mixed
On this left lens and the right arm
Of those glasses,
I said I don't need anything more.
- On March 16, 2009, greg harris was charged
With second-degree murder.
He went on trial two years after chiquita's death,
In March of 2011.
The prosecution set out to prove that greg
Killed chiquita because she was going to leave him.
Former girlfriends testified that greg
Had a jekyll and hyde personality.
Sweet when he was courting, volatile and controlling
Once he won them over.
- He would hit them.
He would, um, fight with these girls.
As-as long as he could control them, he was fine.
- Prosecutors played the 911 tape
From that domestic abuse call.
While both chiquita and greg were charged,
The call didn't sound as though they were locked
In a fair fight.
- And the prosecution argued greg had another motive. Money.
- The night the murder happened,
He called his boss and said I need to get an advance
Or a loan on my 401(k).
And his boss said, "you know, I can't do it.
"I'm sorry, greg."
- But, as prem burns told the jury,
Greg could get about $60,000 in insurance
If chiquita were to die.
- I think money was a motivation,
But moreso I think, uh, chiquita had planned to leave greg,
And that's one thing greg could not, uh,
Could not accept.
- The prosecution told the jury greg may have been angry,
But he was also cool and calculating,
Planning both the crime and the cover up.
Case in point, those long hairs
That suggested a female killer.
The state argued greg brought the hair
To the crime scene and then planted it.
- Her hand was not, like, clenching it
As if she died that way.
It was actually strewn, as if somebody had taken it
And just weaved it through her hand.
- It was a ploy, said the prosecution,
Designed to throw off the cops,
Just like the tossed and found wallet
From gardere lane
Where greg eventually admitted he went
The night of the killing. - Gardere lane?
I went to gardere lane last night.
- Misdirection, according to the prosecutor,
Was greg's m.O. She even suspects
He fired those shots into his own bedroom
To make it look as though the killer was still at large.
- It was kind of like, "gee, let me call and say
That there's a lesbian love triangle.
"let me plant the hair."
It's like, "let me just go one step further.
- And, of course, there was the blood evidence.
Prosecutors presented more than the blood-stained glasses.
A lab analysis revealed there were dots of blood
Throughout greg and chiquita's house.
There was a significant blood stain on a clorox bottle.
- The clorox bottle was out, up on the sink.
And it had blood visible to the eyes.
- Prosecutors say that stain
Contained chiquita's and greg's dna.
What makes sense to you?
- What makes sense to me is that greg harris
Had no reason to want to kill chiquita tate.
Zero whatsoever.
- Lance unglesby was on the defense team.
And he argued there wasn't nearly enough evidence
To convict greg harris.
Nothing put him at the site of the killing.
The alleged motive was weak and the blood evidence paltry.
- Our theory was very clear.
If greg harris had done this,
You would have found an enormous amount of blood
In that mercedes,
And on his clothes, and at the house in baker.
And that just wasn't the case.
- Lance, out at the house there,
Very curious about his clorox bottle, where again,
They think they see co-mingled blood.
What about that? That's a problem for you.
- Well, eh, practically, it's not a problem.
In the normal course of living,
A little blood on a clorox bottle is really
Not that big a deal.
Chiquita lived there.
Of course her dna would be on that bottle.
- As for the hair that the prosecution said
Was planted, the defense argued
That was just an unproven theory.
Those two female clients may not have been involved,
But the long strands suggest another woman
May have been there.
- It suggested that a female had maybe killed her
And that in the middle of the fight,
She had pulled the hair out.
Between that and the amount of cleanup
That would have been required,
We always believed two people were involved in this murder.
- And as for that visit to gardere lane,
The defense lawyer says greg was reluctant to admit it,
But not because he had tossed the wallet.
- Well, because he was buying steroids.
He was discussing buying steroids,
Which is illegal.
- Kill her for the insurance?
The defense said no way.
- He had too much going for him.
We did not buy into the prosecutor's theory
That he would do it
Because he was in some financial stress.
We didn't believe-- buy into that for a minute.
- The defense argued cops didn't look hard enough
At the list of scary clients
Who may have wanted chiquita dead.
And that unknown male dna under her fingernails,
The source still unknown.
We believe that there was just more to this
Than was being presented to that jury.
- The trial lasted 16 days,
And then the jurors were given their instructions.
After listening to the evidence, danita was torn.
And she remembers how she felt when,
After three-and-one-half hours of deliberation,
The jury announced it had a verdict.
- Now, take me right through your mind and your stomach
As you're walking back into the courtroom.
- Shaking, barely could stand on my feet.
And we holding hands walking back in there.
- Did they see greg as a stone killer
Capable of premeditated murder
Or an innocent, grieving husband?
The answer is neither.
The verdict they reached was something in-between.
Guilty of manslaughter, a lesser charge,
Which the judge allowed them to consider.
The prosecutor was flabbergasted.
- I-I just about passed out.
And so did the defense attorney.
Nobody argued manslaughter.
- She wanted to know why the jury rejected her argument
Of premeditated murder.
- I went back and talked to the jury and they said well,
You know what we think?
We think something just went on up there
That got out of hand.
- The judge had a lot of latitude
In imposing the sentence.
Manslaughter could carry anywhere from a few months
To 40 years in prison.
- A lesser conviction, a lesser charge.
But the judge threw the metaphorical book at him.
- She did.
- Forty years without the possibility of parole.
- Correct. - The maximum sentence.
In 2012, an appeals court upheld greg harris' conviction,
But amended his sentence to 40 years
With the possibility of parole.
Then in 2015, greg began working with a different lawyer
To get his conviction reversed.
He argued that the judge should never have presided.
Before trial, judge trudy white
Disclosed that she knew the victim
And that chiquita had been her law clerk.
The defense didn't object.
- Should you have gotten her recused?
- Absolutely. - Was that a trial error?
- No. She was a very fair judge.
- But greg's lawyer, rick gallo,
Said the judge did not disclose everything
About their relationship.
- We discovered that chiquita, the-the victim,
Had actually, uh, represented judge white,
Uh, in a civil lawsuit.
- Judge white did not respond to our request for a comment.
Greg's attorney also said the harris family received
Letters after the trial, claiming someone else
Killed chiquita because she knew too much about something.
But the cops will tell you that every lead they chased down
Brought them back to one man,
Someone who robbed a family of its shining young star.
In April 2016, a louisiana district court
Denied greg harris' petition for a new trial.
- So, it's been years now, lessie.
Do you-- do you miss her? - Oh, I miss her so much.
Everything. I miss it all.
- Baton rouge, the river rolls on.
But without that fiery young lawyer
Who'd come so far so fast.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.