San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Army identifies soldier in family’s deaths
A soldier assigned to Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston found dead with his wife and four children in their home on the city’s far North Side was an intelligence analyst who served in Iraq late in the U.S.-led occupation.
Staff Sgt. Jared Esquibel Harless was a 35Q cryptologic cyberspace intelligence collector/ analyst and had joined the Army in January 2010, the Army said Saturday. A deployment to Iraq, in 2011 for Operation New Dawn, was the only one in his career.
Their deaths are believed to have been a murder-suicide. Harless, 38, his wife, Sheryll, 36, and their four children were discovered Thursday in the rear of a mid-sized SUV, parked in their garage. Police detected carbon monoxide permeating the house and called in a bomb squad robot after finding a cryptic note warning of bodies inside. The children included two boys, ages 4 and 11 months; and two girls, ages 3 and 1.
Harless served with Fort Sam’s 470th Military Intelligence Brigade, with the Army listing his home of record as Renton, Wash. Records show he married Sheryll Ann Frias Cargo on Sept. 1, 2008, in King County, Wash. A search of Bexar County records showed they had no pending legal issues.
No close relatives could be reached for comment Saturday and a Facebook page for his late father, Jimmy Harless, made no reference to the deaths. The pages of other family members and friends didn’t mention them either.
In the Life Events link, the elder Harless, who lived in Grand Junction, Colo., entered “had a child” on Jan. 24, 1982 — Jared Harless. Photos of Harless were included in his father’s timeline. One posted in November 2012 showed Jared Harless in a light moment with some Army buddies.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Thursday the deaths had the appearance of a murder-suicide, but it was too early to know for sure. Police were called to the rented 2,928-square-foot home in the Heights of Stone Oak, a gated subdivision, to make a welfare check after Harless didn’t call his office. He had been working from home.
A neighbor said no one no
ticed anything out of the ordinary but also doubted anyone would have because the Harlesses were seldom seen in public.
“They’d been here since January, and the husband waved to me just once, outside,” said Jorge Canavati Jr., a 62-year-old consultant who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. “That was it. I mean, they were always locked up in the house.”
News researcher Misty Harris contributed to this report. | sigc@express-news.net