Victim’s mother can’t bear to hear murderer’s apology
He stabbed her daughter to death, tried to dismember the woman’s body and dumped it beside a vacant East Side apartment building.
As Alan A. Stewart began apologizing Monday in a Franklin County courtroom, the victim’s mother placed her hands over her ears and turned away from him, weeping.
Minutes earlier, Beverly Motten had told the judge that her daughter, Jessica N. Harris, was “a sweet, loving, 24-year-old baby who didn’t deserve this.”
Stewart, 28, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years after pleading guilty to aggravated murder in Harris’ death.
Common Pleas Judge Charles Schneider imposed the sentence, which was recommended as part of a plea agreement negotiated by prosecuting and defense attorneys.
Stewart had no prior criminal record, defense attorney Kia Wrice said.
Harris’ mother had reported her missing on Jan. 27, 2016. Stewart, an acquaintance, was the last person seen with her. Columbus police detectives interviewed him two days later. After leaving the interview, Stewart jumped from the Hamilton Road bridge over Interstate 270 in Gahanna in an apparent suicide attempt.
He was recovering at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center when he confessed to killing Harris and told police where they could find her body.
Harris told detectives that he had pushed her down a flight of stairs at his apartment on Soft Wind Drive on the Southeast Side, then stabbed and suffocated her.
The nature of the relationship between Stewart and Harris was unclear, according to prosecutors, investigators and family members; the two had not known each other long.
Assistant Prosecutor Nadia Haque said Stewart was upset because he had shared personal matters with Harris, and she “had belittled the problems in his life.”
He told police that he had “thought about killing a person for several years,” Haque said.
After killing Harris, Stewart tried unsuccessfully to dismember her body in his bathtub before wrapping it in blankets, placing it in a military-style duffle bag and taking it to a vacant apartment building in the 1100 block of Rand Avenue, Haque said. Police found the body in a brush pile behind tattered couches and an overturned whirlpool tub.
“There are no words to describe how sorry I am,” Stewart said when given his chance to speak. “I caused a lot of pain. I took away an innocent life ... I really didn’t want to be this kind of guy, being looked at this way, causing all this pain and heartache.”
The victim’s mother wasn’t looking at him or listening.