Investigators Counter Claims on Harris Probe

Two district attorney’s investigators testified Wednesday that they did not enlist a jailhouse informant in 1978 to question Robert Alton Harris about his motive for killing two teen-agers.

The informant, Joey Dee Abshire, a 44-year-old career criminal, had testified Tuesday that investigators John Boulden and Raymond Cameron asked him to elicit information from Harris in exchange for favorable treatment while he served a 90-day jail sentence.

Abshire testified at Harris’ 1979 murder trial that Harris told him he killed two 16-year-olds, John Mayeski and Michael Baker, on July 5, 1978, so they could not identify him. Harris and his brother, Daniel, kidnaped the boys and took their car to use in a bank robbery.

Abshire’s 1979 testimony was important for the prosecution’s case because it suggested that instead of acting on impulse, Harris planned the deaths. By proving that the murders were premeditated, prosecutors were able to convict Harris of first-degree murder, which made him eligible for the gas chamber.

Harris was sentenced to death, but his execution has been postponed several times by appeals and court hearings. U.S. District Judge William Enright is presiding over a hearing to determine if Abshire acted as an agent for Boulden and Cameron when he questioned Harris on July 26, 1978.

Attorneys for Harris said that if Enright finds that Abshire was acting as a police agent, his trial testimony would be inadmissible. If Abshire’s testimony is thrown out, Harris could get a new trial.

If Harris loses this appeal, he could be executed in the gas chamber next year.

On Tuesday, Abshire recanted his 1979 trial testimony and said he lied at Harris’ murder trial. Furthermore, he said that Boulden and Cameron enlisted him to obtain secret information from Harris and coached him on how to testify at the murder trial. Abshire said that Boulden and Cameron promised him that they would arrange to have him transferred from the Chula Vista jail where he was serving his sentence to an honor camp.

But Boulden and Cameron testified Wednesday that they never made any deals with Abshire and never enlisted him to work as an informant. The two investigators also raised questions about the testimony of other witnesses presented by Harris’ attorneys.

For example, Abshire testified on Tuesday that Boulden and Cameron had him taken out of the cell he was sharing with Harris on July 26, 1978. Abshire said the investigators gave him newspaper stories about the case to read and then directed him to return to the cell and question Harris.

But both investigators testified Wednesday that they were summoned by then-Sgt. Charles Shramek of the marshal’s office. Shramek told them he overheard a conversation between Harris and Abshire. Shramek told Cameron that he heard Harris tell Abshire that he shot the teen-agers because “he couldn’t have anybody around who would identify him. So, he wasted the punks.”

Cameron said they arrived at the jail some time after the lunch hour and questioned Abshire for 15 minutes. Both Cameron and Boulder said that Abshire agreed to talk to them about what Harris told him and to have their conversation tape-recorded. They never provided him with newspaper stories, the investigators said.

Abshire also testified that he met with Cameron and Boulder on several occasions after July 26, 1978. But Cameron testified that July 26 was the only time that he ever met with Abshire.

Sonny Wisdom, another witness called by Harris’ attorneys, said he heard Abshire grilling Harris about the murders. Wisdom, who is serving a life sentence in Alabama for being a habitual criminal, shared the same cell with both men on July 26, 1978.

Wisdom testified on Wednesday that Abshire questioned Harris for about two hours, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. But Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Michaels said that Shramek, who is retired from the marshal’s office, will testify today that Harris had been taken out of the cell by 9 a.m. and transferred to the County Jail in downtown San Diego.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Louis R. Hanoian produced a document taken from jail records that show Harris was taken out of the holding cell at 9 a.m., after making a court appearance in South Bay Municipal Court on another matter, and returned to the downtown jail.

Michaels and Hanoian denied that Abshire was ever a secret informant for the prosecution. Both prosecutors argued that Abshire’s testimony was not necessary to prove that the killings were premeditated anyway.

There was plenty of physical evidence to prove that Harris’ motive was to eliminate the teen-agers as witnesses, Michaels said. In addition, Harris admitted shooting the boys to at least three law enforcement officers and a psychiatrist, he added.

Harris’ attorneys succeeded in getting Boulden and Cameron to admit that Harris never told anybody what his motive was for committing the murders.

“(But) the crime scene pretty well inferred the motive,” said Cameron while being questioned by Michael Laurence, an attorney representing Harris. “It was an execution-type killing.”

In addition, attorney Jerome Paul Wallingford, who represented Daniel Harris in 1978, testified that Daniel told prosecutors on Oct. 24, 1978, that Robert Harris killed the teen-agers to eliminate them as witnesses. Daniel Harris told the same story to a psychiatrist who examined both brothers, Wallingford said.

Daniel Harris plea bargained with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to one count of kidnaping and testified against his brother. However, he was never questioned about a motive when he testified against his brother, Michaels said.