Date Set for Third Trial of Cal Harris

A court date has been set for the start of the third trial of Cal Harris, the Owego businessman whose wife, Michele, has been missing since 2001. The trial, which was moved from Tioga County to Schoharie County, is set to begin the morning of September 15th. The trial will begin almost 13 years to the day after Michele went missing on September 11th back in 2001. Harris was first convicted of murdering his wife in 2007, despite neither a weapon nor her body ever being found. That conviction was set aside after a local farmer said he saw Michele Harris with an unidentified man hours after the prosecution alleged that Harris had killed her. A second conviction in 2009 was turned over on appeal after the state Court of Appeals found legal errors in the trial. Harris has been free on bail since October of 2012. A motion was passed to move the third trial to Schoharie County after Harris’ lawyers argued it was impossible to pick a fair jury in the Southern Tier.