Long suspected of murder, she confessed but avoided prison
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Pamela Pitts’ body was found burned beyond recognition in a pile of trash in 1988. Tips flooded in blaming a Satanic cult, a drug dealer, an ex-lover, an overdose at an Arizona party spot. It would take more than 30 years, some prison calls and an eyebrow-raising plea deal before a convicted murderer would confess. But in a shocking twist, a court recently agreed the 19-year-old’s killer wouldn’t spend any more time behind bars.
Over the years, investigators couldn’t pin down the evidence they needed to arrest anyone in the slaying that stoked fear about a killer on the loose around Prescott, a tourist town about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Phoenix. The tips didn’t add up. And then the case went cold. Yet, suspicion followed Pitts’ roommate Shelly Harmon for the 20 years she spent in prison for fatally shooting her ex-boyfriend, Raymond F. Clerx. As her sentence was ending, police started monitoring Harmon’s phone calls.
One call gave prosecutors what they said they needed. In it, Harmon’s father said she never told him what happened.
“I had a moment. I had a huge moment,” Harmon replied.
Dennis McGrane of the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office saw it as an admission of guilt.
“Like a sudden quarrel with the roommate,” he said. “She wasn’t planning it, but she did do it.”
Harmon’s attorney, Dwane Cates, said the statement could have referred to Clerx’s death.
Clerx had wanted to end the relationship and was going to take their dogs. In a burst of anger, Harmon shot him as he lay on the roof of a car watching planes overhead. She later dropped his body in a mineshaft.
Harmon confessed. But with Pitts’ death, her story changed over the years: She said Clerx was her alibi. She claimed another roommate strangled Pitts.
Prosecutors tried to draw similarities between the two cases to back up a theory that when Harmon felt threatened or abandoned, she killed. Cates called that a stretch.
Prosecutors knew Harmon was furious with Pitts over money, for wanting to move out and for sharing news of Harmon’s pregnancy, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Pitts went missing on Sept. 16, 1988, the day that Harmon drove around Prescott looking for her and saying she’d kill her if she found her, the documents say. Harmon also said she knew how to conceal a killing: by burning a body or dumping it down a mineshaft — a statement a judge said could be included at a trial that was supposed to start in mid-March.