By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Staff Writer
BLOOMFIELD -- Deliberations are expected today in the trial of a Doniphan man accused of shooting a convicted sex offender to death in 2016 and burning his body.
A Stoddard County jury of 10 men and four women were chosen from a panel of 77 residents Monday. The jurors were seated and sworn in at 1:35 p.m. to hear the case of Michael G. "Mick" Harris.
The 61-year-old is standing trial before Presiding Circuit Judge Robert Mayer on the Class A felony of first-degree murder, the unclassified felony of armed criminal action and the Class D felonies of tampering with evidence and abandonment of a corpse.
Harris is accused of acting with Matthew Brandon Bruce to cause the April 26, 2016, death of Jonathan Tarvin, aka Giovanni Luciendada, 34.
After hearing opening statements from special prosecuting attorney, Steve Sokoloff, and Harris' attorney, Tim Fleener with the Public Defender's Office, the jury then heard testimony from nine witnesses.
Pauline "Polly" DeWitt, Harris' mother-in-law, testified she met Tarvin, who she knew as "Giovanni" during the summer of 2015.
Tarvin, she said, later moved to Arizona, but they continued to talk "over the phone sometimes a couple of times a day." DeWitt said she and Tarvin talked about him "coming down and staying with me, and we would see where it went."
DeWitt said Tarvin took the train to Poplar Bluff, where she picked him up the Saturday before Easter on March 26, 2016. DeWitt testified Tarvin had two suitcases and a duffle bag at the time. When Sokoloff asked how long Tarvin planned to stay, the witness responded with indefinitely.
On April 25, 2016, DeWitt said, her niece, Ashley Bruce, told her she had "pulled (Tarvin) up on Facebook" and found "he had some warrants out for his arrest and was registered in Texas" as a sex offender.
Tarvin, she said, reportedly was supposed to register when he arrived in Missouri, but "he did not."
After being told about the information, DeWitt said, she and her niece told her daughter, Jama Harris, about it.
"(Jama Harris) called the sheriff's department and went up there to see about it," DeWitt said.
The next day, DeWitt said, she was sleeping in her bedroom when she was awaken by a commotion between Tarvin and Mick Harris.
"(Mick Harris) was hollering he needed to leave that day and that he wasn't going to stay there any longer," said DeWitt, who indicated her son-in-law had a black-powder pistol.
"He had it pointed at Giovanni," DeWitt said. "I told him he needed to put it away."
Although Mick Harris, she said, initially didn't lower the weapon, he subsequently put it down to his side and went out to the back porch.
DeWitt said her niece and nephew, Brandon Bruce, subsequently came over from their mother's nearby home.
DeWitt said her nephew "came walking up to Giovanni," who began "hollering he had no warrants on him.
"He (Tarvin) got up and walked into the yard away" from the others as "he did not want to fight. He was just trying to explain he didn't have all the warrants."
DeWitt said her nephew subsequently got Tarvin "around the neck" and took him to the ground, then walked him to Mick Harris' truck.
"Michael told me to go get his stuff" because they were taking Tarvin to Highway P, said DeWitt, who indicated she was inside fewer than five minutes as she gathered Tarvin's things.
After her nephew and son-in-law left with Tarvin, she said, she didn't see any of them again that day.
DeWitt said she spoke to her daughter that night.
"I asked him where did they take (Tarvin) ... Mick said I didn't have to worry about it no more," DeWitt said.
Mick Harris, she further said, indicated "Giovanni would no longer need" his belongings.
DeWitt said she tried to get in touch with Melba Wiggins, who Tarvin previously had stayed in the Highway P area.
It wasn't until the next weekend, she said, that she ran into Wiggins at the Doniphan McDonalds.
"She had been out of town and was coming home," said DeWitt, who indicated she told Wiggins about what had happened and asked whether she had seen Tarvin.
Wiggins had not, said DeWitt, who called the other woman a couple of times as she was getting worried about Tarvin.
DeWitt said she went to the Ripley County Sheriff's Department in early May and filed a missing persons report. She later turned over Tarvin's suitcases to a deputy.
To this day, DeWitt said, she had not heard from Tarvin.
On cross-examination, DeWitt told Mick Harris' attorney, Steve Lynxwiler, she had first met Tarvin about 18 months "before this case."
DeWitt said Tarvin had been in Arizona about six months before he arrived back in Missouri, where "he had stayed with me" for more than a month.
When Lynxwiler asked whether Ashley Bruce or her mother, Sarah "Beth" Bruce had any contact with Tarvin, DeWitt said, her niece talked with him, but "Beth didn't care for him."
DeWitt reiterated it was her nephew who "put him on the ground."
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Wiggins, who lives in the Gatewood area, testified she had known Tarvin for about five to six years, but he had not lived with her that entire time.
"He was in and out," said Wiggins, who indicated she saw him a couple of times after he came back to Missouri, but never saw him or heard from him after April 26, 2016.
Wiggins testified she saw DeWitt on the McDonalds parking lot.
"She told me what happened and thought he would be at my place, and he wasn't," said Wiggins, who later also filed a missing persons report, as well as contacted Tarvin's family members.
Ashley Bruce confirmed she looked Tarvin up online and found he had a Texas conviction for a sexual assault of a child.
The witness said she told her mother, Beth Bruce, the information, who "told my aunt Polly, who told her daughter, Jama."
On April 26, 2016, Ashley Bruce said, Mick Harris hollered for her to came down to her aunt's house, where he and Tarvin were on the back porch.
The witness said Mick Harris had a pistol in his hand.
"He was pointing it at Giovanni," said Ashley Bruce, who indicated her brother followed her down to the house.
Ashley Bruce said she didn't see the entire confrontation between her brother and Tarvin, who "first put his hands on Brandon," but, she said, saw them walk around the house.
"My brother took him down," she said.
Tarvin, she said, then got up and got into Mick Harris' truck, as did the other two men.
On cross-examination, she reiterated there was a physical altercation between her brother and Tarvin.
Beth Bruce confirmed her daughter found "something out about Giovanni."
"We told Pauline (who) wanted Ashley to meet her and her daughter, Jama," Beth Bruce said. "She didn't want to be the one to tell her."
Beth Bruce said she spoke with Mick Harris frequently.
Although she didn't remember the dates, "on a couple of different occasions, he told me to get Giovanni's stuff picked up and burn it because he wouldn't be needing it any more."
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Jama Harris testified that on April 25, 2016, Ashley Bruce "told me Giovanni wasn't his real name. She told me what his real name was and that he was a registered sex offender out of a different state."
After learning about Tarvin, Jama Harris said, she told her mom she was going to the sheriff's department the next morning to make a report.
"The guy I talked to looked it up and came back and said they were going to send a deputy out," said Jama Harris, who relayed the information to her mother and husband.
"I was told they were going to send a deputy out sometime that day to mom's," Jama Harris said. "When he never showed up, I called back " and was told the Missouri State Highway Patrol had been contacted to "figure out logistics."
When Jama Harris learned no one was coming, she said, she went back to her mom's house with her husband.
"After we got back to the house, he called and the same woman told him the same thing she had told me," Jama Harris said.
The Harris subsequently left and later returned separately to DeWitt's house.
Sokoloff asked whether Jama Harris had a "conversation with Mick about what happened" with Tarvin.
"I had asked him; he told me not to ask questions I didn't want the answers to," Jama Harris said.
A couple days later, she said, her husband took his truck and trailer loaded with a riding lawn mower over to Brandon Bruce's house.
That action is something he had never done before or since that time, said Jama Harris, who had to later retrieve the mower.
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Jennifer Wright told the jury she was Tarvin's older sister by 11 years and confirmed he had a difficult childhood. Tarvin, she said, had been accused of sexual assault of a child. The victim, she said, was "my daughter," who was 6 at the time.
Tarvin, his sister said, served his entered prison sentence, and in later years the siblings began communicating again.
"He stayed in contact with my mother even when he was in jail," she said.
In April 2016, Wright said, she quit hearing from her brother, and since that time, no one in her family has heard from him.
Family members, Wright said, were contacted by Wiggins, who told them Tarvin was missing after supposedly having been dropped off on Highway P.
Wright said she immediately contacted the sheriff's department and spoke with deputies, including at one point, then chief deputy Richie Phillips. She later was told the investigation had been turned over to the highway patrol.
Wright said she had called Tarvin's cellphone a number of times with no answer.
"I stopped calling," she said.
On cross-examination, Wright confirmed she lost contact with Tarvin around his birthday in early April.
Wright said Phillips reported to her that authorities were looking into her brother's records/accounts and found there had been no activity on his bank account other than deposits.
Phillips confirmed he was contacted by Wright and told her he would look into the missing person reports.
Tarvin, he said, was on Social Security disability, and his bank account showed those deposits being made, but no other account activity.
Phillips said contacted Social Security officials and later turned the investigation over to the patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control.
Rachel McColley, who was a Ripley County deputy at that time, testified she was told to recover Tarvin's belongings from DeWitt's house.
All, she said, were found sitting together in one area.
McColley confirmed she unpacked and inventoried all the items, including Tarvin's wallet, which had been found in a duffle bag.
McColley opened both hard-sided suitcases, as well as the duffle bag, for the jury to see. She then went through the cards in Tarvin's wallet, some of which were entered into evidence.
On cross-examination, Lynxwiler asked McColley about the searches she had been involved with during the investigation.
McColley testified she was among those who sifted through a burn pile at the Bruce home where bone fragments were found..
In addition, McColley helped search the home of a family member of Brandon Bruce in an attempt to find Tarvin's body. Nothing reportedly was found.
McColley said she also helped searched a wooded area on conservation land, located on the north side of Fourche Lake.
"We found someone's shoe," said McColley, who indicated officers searched for several days.
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Patrol Trooper Shannon Sitton testified he went Mick Harris' home after the man was identified as a suspect.
"I asked him to come to the Ripley County Sheriff's Office, and he agreed to that," Sitton said
Mick Harris, he said, asked to change his clothes and agreed to allow the trooper to accompany him as he did so.
When Mick Harris walked into his bedroom, Sitton said, he asked the man whether he had "any weapons on you. He pulled the sheets back on the bed. The pistol was laying there."
Sitton described the weapon as a black-power pistol.
Sitton subsequently removed the disassembled pistol from an evidence box.
On cross-examination, Sitton confirmed the pistol was assembled when it was found, and there were ball rounds were in the cylinder.
Like McColley, Sitton also assisted in the sifting of the burn pile at the Bruce home. Three bone fragments were found in the pile, he said.
Sixteen firearms, as well as ammunition and three marijuana plants, were found inside the Bruce home, Sitton said.
The trooper answered no when Lynxwiler asked whether any ball rounds were found in the burn pile.
Of the weapons recovered, Sitton said, none were sawed off.