A mid-level state appeals court in Albany has decided on a change of venue for the third murder trial for Owego businessman Cal Harris. The trial will be taking place in Schoharie County, a rural county in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan area. The decision was handed down this week, and comes after the state Court of Appeals in 2012 found errors in Harris’ second trial for the alleged murder of his estranged wife. That’s when the court ordered a third trial.
Harris was first convicted of murdering his wife, Michele Harris, back in 2007. Prosecutors say Michele went missing sometime between the night of September 11, 2001 and the next morning. Neither a weapon nor a body were ever found in the case. Harris’ first conviction in Tioga County Court was set aside and a new trial was ordered after a local farmer came forward claiming to have seen Michele with an unidentified man hours after the prosecution said Harris had killed her. A Tioga County jury again found Harris guilty in 2009, but his attorney appealed to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which suggested a change of venue for the third trial. Following the most recent appeal, Harris was released on bail.
