Both sides in the Christopher Harris murder trial agreed Rick and Ruth Gee suffered dozens of blows while they were on the ground and motionless more than three years ago.
But who killed them and why are left up to a Peoria County jury to determine.
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That jury is likely to spend most of May hearing about the graphic and horrific end to five members of the Gee family of Beason in the early hours of Sept. 21, 2009.
Opening statements began Wednesday at the Peoria County Courthouse. From the outset, the 10 women and six men on the jury — 12 jurors and four alternates — were told this was unlike anything they had seen.
The Gees and three of their children, Justina Constant, 16, Dillen Constant, 14, and Austin Gee, 11, were found beaten to death with a tire iron. Blood was splattered throughout the house and outside. Bodies were found in hallways, bedrooms and in bathrooms. Only Tabitha Gee, 3, survived.
Logan County State’s Attorney Jonathan Wright said in his opening statement that all inside the house suffered skull fractures, and in some cases, multiple ones.
Tabitha Gee suffered a wound near her right ear that was struck with such force it peeled back her skin, Wright said. Ruth Gee’s skull was crushed over her right eye. Both sides of Austin Gee’s skull were caved.
The prosecutor said Harris’ brother, Jason Harris, would take the stand as part of deal to avoid a murder conviction and testify he saw his brother go into the house, heard a thud and then heard a woman scream.
“It sounded like the house was coming apart. Thud. Thud. Thud,” Wright said in an otherwise silent courtroom.
Defense attorney Peter Naylor laid out a self-defense claim, as expected.
He admitted Christopher Harris, 34, was in the house, stole a laptop computer and got rid of his bloody shoes and a tire iron used in the slayings. But Harris did that because he was afraid as he had “walked in on a horror that no one could imagine,” according to Naylor
“This was the end of the night, he’s not ready for this,” Naylor said. “He regrets to this day that he didn’t see Tabitha in the closet (of her room).”
His client can’t sleep because of the guilt of killing the 14-year-old Constant, whom he says was in the midst of killing his family when Harris arrived at the home. The defense wants to make the trial about the teen, whom Naylor said was a “deeply troubled young man” with antisocial tendencies and a violent background.
He pointed to DNA evidence found under Rick Gee’s fingernails that could have been Dillen Constant’s but not Christopher Harris’.
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Naylor also attacked Jason Harris for his deal with prosecutors.
Naylor said Jason Harris, 26, couldn’t be trusted as he repeatedly changed his story, was a convicted perjurer and received a good deal — 20 years in prison — for his testimony. His brother faces life in prison if convicted.
The younger Harris appears to be the state’s star witness, as he placed his brother at the house. The two allegedly had been out drinking and received cocaine from a buddy. Christopher Harris tried unsuccessfully to “hook up” with two former girlfriends before going to the Gee home, where he wanted to see Justina Constant.
Prosecutors had alleged Christopher Harris tried to sexually assault the girl, but those charges were dropped last week. Rather, the official motive appears to be robbery. Christopher Harris admitted to his brother that he killed the family because he didn’t “want to leave any witnesses,” it is alleged.
Later in the day, prosecutors showed crime scene photos, giving jurors their first glimpse of the horrific scene at the Gee home.
Deputy Michael Block of the Logan County Sheriff’s Department took jurors with him as he entered the home on Sept. 21, 2009, along with an Illinois State Police trooper. There, he and the trooper found Rick Gee lying face down in the hallway, his blood splattered halfway up the wall. His head suffered severe cranial trauma, he said.
In the master bedroom was Ruth Gee, who was lying dead mere feet from son Dillen. Austin Gee was found lying on a blood-smeared tile floor in the master bedroom. Justina’s body was flung on her bed, her head hanging over it. Tabitha Gee was initially thought to be dead when, out of the corner of his eye, Block said he saw some movement.
“I saw her arm move and then I said, ”Oh (expletive), Paul, she’s alive,” he told the trooper.
Within seconds, a firefighter raced in, scooped up the preschooler and whisked her out.
Christopher Harris — married at one time to Rick Gee’s eldest daughter, Nicole — dabbed his eyes and wiped them during Block’s testimony. Jurors appeared uncomfortable during the 45 minutes Block testified.
The state’s first witness was Judy Stogdell, Rick Gee’s mother and the children’s grandmother. Her role was to identity the family members from family photos. She was the only one of the Gee family to openly show emotion when prosecutors put a photo of Rick Gee’s body on a large screen.
Perhaps more unnerving was a phone call between Nicole Gee and Stogdell. After being told the Gees were “gone,” Nicole said, “Grammy, you’re all I got left now. Drive safe.”
Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686-3283 or [email protected]. For live courtroom updates, follow him on Twitter @andykravetz.
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Beason massacre survivor has been adopted
With her tiny fist, little Tabitha Gee tried to fight the killer that beat her family to death and left her for dead.
The 3-year-old wasn’t the only one in the Gee household who tried to fend off a merciless attacker wielding a tire iron, according to ghastly court statements Wednesday in Peoria. Of 86 blows, 84 were deadly, bashing the life out of her parents and three siblings in their modest home in the small community of Beason.
The other two blows smashed a fracture and a hole into Tabitha’s skull. Prosecutors say her assailant, Christopher Harris, 34, walked away with his bloody tire iron, satisfied that he’d wiped out the entire clan.
Outside, where his brother was waiting inside a truck, Harris allegedly said, “I didn’t want to leave any witnesses.” Then they drove off.
But wee Tabitha wasn’t ready to die. When police arrived later, the bloody scene looked grotesquely hopeless. Yet out of the corner of an eye, a cop saw faint movement by the smallest of the bodies.
“We’ve got a live one!” he screamed.
Tabitha almost didn’t make it. But after more than a month in a hospital — where doctors removed another part of her skull, to allow her battered brain to swell — she healed.
Today, little is known publicly about her. Just before her fourth birthday, she went into foster care and underwent counseling. But she since has been adopted, according to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. It’s unknown publicly if the adoption was done by kinfolk or otherwise.
Further, after adoption, the DCFS ends its oversight of a child, so we don’t know what Tabitha is up to these days as a 7-year-old.
In court Wednesday, a relative testified that at the time of the killings, Tabitha — a “delightful” child with a speech impediment — loved preschool in nearby Lincoln. But outside the courtroom, family members declined to discuss her. Meantime, lawyers on both sides can’t talk outside the trial, silenced by a judge’s gag order.
While Tabitha was in a Peoria hospital in 2009, security was provided by Illinois State Police District 8. Troopers spent every day playing, painting her toes and reading books and otherwise entertaining her.
Even after she got out of the hospital early that November, troopers threw a birthday party for her later that month. And they pledged to keep ties with the little survivor who won their hearts.
But during the trial, the attorney general’s office has ordered troopers to discuss nothing of the case or Tabitha.
– Phil Luciano
Source: https://t-tees.com
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