20 September 2024 :
September 4, 2024 - CALIFORNIA. Death sentence recommended for Googie Rene Harris in the April 14, 1998 slaying of 33-year-old Terry Cheek.
A death sentence was recommended today for Googie Rene Harris who killed his estranged wife, while jurors recommended life in prison without the possibility of parole for Joaquin L. Leal, the defendant's nephew, in the quarter-century-old slaying for which another man had been wrongfully convicted.
A Riverside jury deliberated roughly 2 days before returning with recommendations in the penalty trial of Googie Rene Harris Sr., 67, and Joaquin L. Leal, 58.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz scheduled a sentencing hearing for Leal on Oct. 18 and for Harris on Dec. 6 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.
Harris' son, Googie Rene Harris Jr., 45, pleaded guilty in February 2020 to being an accessory to murder. He's free on bond and is set for sentencing on Sept. 26.
According to a trial brief filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, Harris Sr. and Cheek were embroiled in a divorce, and proceedings faltered due to failed negotiations over disposition of the house they'd purchased together.
After the body of the woman were found three days later near a lake, sheriff's investigators questioned Harris Sr., who told them "Terry was driving her own car and was planning to meet Horace Roberts (after separating from Harris Sr., Cheek became romantically involved with a coworker, Horace Roberts) to carpool to work that night," according to the brief.
Detectives turned their attention to Roberts, theorizing he had gotten into an altercation with Cheek and killed her, despite his repeated denials and alibis. There were two criminal trials that resulted in hung juries. A panel convicted him, wrongfully, of the homicide in 1999. Harris Sr. testified for the prosecution in all three trials.
The San Diego-based Innocence Project's attorneys took on Roberts' appeals, but the process of re-examining DNA evidence collected from Cheek's body stretched for years. By 2018, there was a successful re-analysis of her fingernail clippings and stains on her jeans.
The findings concluded there was a 1 in 38 trillion possibility that someone other than Harris Sr. was the contributor of the skin and stain samples.
Roberts was released from prison on Oct. 15, 2018, and charges were immediately filed against Harris Sr. and Leal. Harris Jr. was charged a year later and confessed.
Roberts, now 66, received an $11 million settlement from the county in 2021 after suing over his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
https://kesq.com/news/crime/2024/09/04/death-sentence-recommended-for-man-who-killed-estranged-wife/
