JACKSON, Mich — In August of 1984, 13-year-old Kelly Harris was reported missing from her home here in Summit Township. More than forty years later, her mother's significant other is facing murder charges here in Jackson.
I went to the Sheriff'S Office to find out how this cold case finally got cracked…and what took so long.
WATCH THE VIDEO TO SEE HOW THIS COLD CASE WAS CRACKED:
According to Undersheriff Jeremy Barnett, two things led to a reactivation of the investigation.
One, authorities here in Jackson were notified that the suspect — Leonard Hugall — was going to be released from prison in Florida, where he's been serving time for another crime. Barnett says Hugall was the prime suspect all along.
"That kind of triggered us into — we were under the belief that he was never going to get out of prison — to dig in, see if there was anything more we could do to put it over the hump and get the charges authorized," says Jeremy Barnett.
The problem: Kelly Harris's body was never found. So, Barnett says, for these charges to be brought:
"You have to get them legally declared deceased. There is a court process for that that we assisted going through."
Once that was done, the medical examiner declared the case a homicide, says Barnett.
Barnett credits Detectives Kelly Ebersole and Mark Easter with going back through decades of material.
"A forty-year case — a lot of hands have touched this….Detective Easter and Detective Ebersole were able to put enough pieces together, get in touch with the Prosecutor's office, who agreed to charge the case."
The Sheriff's office confirms that Hugall remains in custody in Florida.
"We do think we have a good case," says Barnett. "The Prosecutor's Office feels like we have a good case, and he's going to get extradited back to Michigan, and he's going to face those charges."
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