A triple murder, a family torn, a jury’s dilemma
Bill, Bridget and Caleb Harrison were found dead in the same house years apart. Will a ruling call into question the role of Peel police?
In a triple murder trial now nearing an end in Brampton, the Crown has put forward a disturbing theory: a father, mother and adult son were murdered years apart in their Mississauga home, one after the other, by the same person.
The defence team for accused killer Christopher Fattore has argued that a sudden cardiac event and a fall down the stairs were to blame for the first two deaths, while Fattore killed the third victim unintentionally.
A jury must now decide what happened to Bill, Bridget and Caleb Harrison. After 12 weeks of testimony and a four-day charge by Superior Court Justice Fletcher Dawson, members began deliberating Wednesday afternoon.
Their verdict may answer some of the troubling questions that have hung over the trial and haunted everyone who knew the family.
Did Peel police miss two homicides? Did a murderer escape punishment for years, leaving him free to kill again? And could the deaths of at least two Harrisons have been prevented?
Melissa Merritt, a 37-year-old Mississauga mother of six, is accused of firstdegree murder in the 2013 death of her former husband, Caleb Harrison, and the 2010 death of his mother, Bridget Harrison, a beloved educator and retired Peel District School Board superintendent.
Facing the same charges is Fattore, 40, father to Merritt’s four younger children. Fattore faces an additional charge of second-degree murder in the 2009 death of Bill Harrison, Bridget’s husband and Caleb’s father.
Merritt and Fattore have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The bodies of all three Harrisons were discovered years apart in their family home on Pitch Pine Cres., a quiet suburban street in Mississauga. Bill and Bridget’s deaths were not classified as homicides until after their son was killed.
A spokesperson for Peel Regional Police declined to comment, saying it would be “improper” to respond to questions while the jury is deliberating.
The Crown has alleged the Harrisons were murdered at key moments in an acrimonious custody battle over Caleb and Merritt’s two children. Prosecutors believe Merritt and Fattore, who began dating in 2006 after her split with Caleb, conspired to murder her ex and his mother, while Fattore alone committed the acts.
Fattore attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter in Caleb’s death, but the Crown rejected his plea. He testified that he did kill his wife’s ex, but that he only intended to “rough him up.”
His explanation contradicted a statement made to police after his 2014 arrest in which he confessed to attacking and strangling both Bridget and Caleb. Fattore now says he falsely confessed after a 13-hour police interview because he believed that Merritt, who had been arrested on the same charges, would be freed to be with their children. Fattore has consistently denied that Merritt had any involvement.
Lawyers for the accused killers have suggested the Crown theory is far-fetched.
“Experienced investigators” concluded there were no suspicious circumstances after attending the scene of Bill Harrison’s death in 2009, “not a bunch of rookie fools,” said Jennifer Myers, counsel for Fattore with Daisy McCabe-Lokos, in a closing argument to the jury in December.
Joel Hechter, Merritt’s lawyer, said the circumstantial evidence presented against his client shows she only learned about Fattore’s plan after Caleb was dead. “She didn’t kill anyone. She didn’t plot to kill anyone,” he said in his closing argument.
Merritt and Fattore would have to be “criminal masterminds” to pull off what the Crown has alleged, Hechter said.
Hechter said that if the jury finds Fattore did commit the acts alleged, the evidence shows he is capable of having acted alone. “If the Crown is right,” Hechter said, Fattore “managed to hide his involvement in two murders for years . . . from highly trained investigators who looked at him with considerable suspicion.”
On Aug. 23, 2013, Caleb Harrison, a 40-year-old father of two, was found dead in his home on Pitch Pine Cres. His was the third body discovered in the same house in less than five years. His mother, Bridget, had been found dead at the bottom of a staircase on the main floor in April 2010. One year earlier, in April 2009, Bridget had discovered her husband’s lifeless body in the main-floor powder room.
Bill’s 2009 death was not considered suspicious at the time. The cause was listed as “acute cardiac arrhythmia.” At trial, Dr. Michael Pollanen, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist, testified that the autopsy performed on Bill was not as thorough as it should have been and that it was his opinion Bill had been assaulted before he died. Fattore’s lawyer argued the original cause of death was correct, and provided evidence from a defence expert in forensic pathology.
When Bridget died in 2010, the cause of death was listed as “neck injuries” including neck compression, but it appears police favoured the theory that she had fallen down the stairs. The investigation into her death “stalled, and then eventually stopped altogether,” Crown counsel Eric Taylor said in his opening argument at trial last September.
It was only after the discovery of Caleb’s body in 2013 that police took a closer look at the earlier deaths and created a timeline that would form the Crown’s theory.
Merritt and Caleb separated in 2005 after he was charged with domestic assault. Following the split, Caleb lived with his parents, who became very involved in their grandchildren’s lives — a development Merritt was not happy with, the prosecution argued.
All three Harrisons died at key mo- ments in a heated custody battle.
In early 2009, a judge gave Bill and Bridget shared custody with Merritt while Caleb was serving a jail sentence for an impaired driving crash that left a man dead. The jury heard that Merritt and Fattore did not want the children visiting their father in jail and were having financial troubles, so they decided to leave the province in secret.
Bill died the same day they fled with the children in contravention of the shared custody order. The jury heard Bill had learned of their intentions from a mutual acquaintance a day earlier. The prosecution argued that it would be reasonable to conclude Bill died in a confrontation with Fattore related to their plan.
Police did not make the connection between Bill’s death and the abduction at the time, “but you can,” Crown counsel Brian McGuire said in his closing argument.
Bridget died months after she had tracked down her missing grandchildren in Nova Scotia and the day before she was to testify at Merritt’s parental abduction trial, at a time when she had sole interim custody of the children. Three years later, Caleb died the night before a 50-50 summer custody split was to revert back to sole custody for him.
In January 2014, police arrested Merritt and Fattore in Nova Scotia, where they had moved again after Caleb’s death.
Among the key questions the jury will have to answer is whether Merritt drove Fattore to Walmart to buy the throw-away shoes he has admitted he wore the night he killed Caleb — shoes he paid for with his own debit card, which were later found in the trash at the Merritt-Fattore household. Fattore has testified that Merritt did not know about the shoes until later.
Evidence presented at trial includes autopsy reports; DNA from the scene of Caleb’s death that has been linked to Fattore; the 13-hour confession video; and wiretaps recorded while Merritt and Fattore were living in Nova Scotia after the alleged crimes.
What can be heard in the wiretaps has been a hotly contested issue, with the defence charging that transcripts prepared by police contain errors that, when corrected, change the meaning of what was said. In one intercept, recorded after Merritt and Fattore received a police stimulation email meant to get them talking about Caleb, the prosecution says Fattore can be heard saying, “I killed him f---ing perfect.”
The defence contends that Fattore actually said “f---ing prove it.”