Jean Harris Clemency Plea Rejected
New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo today denied a request for clemency from Jean Harris, convicted in the 1980 murder of Scarsdale Diet author Dr. Herman Tarnower.
Harris, 65, is serving 15 years to life for the slaying of her lover. Friends and relatives of Harris, former headmistress at the exclusive Madeira School in McLean, Va., had mounted a petition appeal campaign on her behalf.
They said as many as 10,000 letters had been sent to Cuomo and that they had delivered petitions containing 25,000 signatures seeking clemency for her.
Harris has always maintained she meant to kill herself and not Tarnower when she went to his house, upset because he had taken up with a younger woman.
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