Prosecutors Drop Murder Case Against Boys, 7 and 8

At a hastily arranged court hearing Friday, prosecutors dropped the murder case against two boys, ages 7 and 8, after an analysis of the 11-year-old victim’s underwear turned up evidence of semen, which the boys are almost certainly too young to produce.

“It has raised questions. It raises a lot of questions,” Cook County State’s Atty. Richard A. Devine said in announcing the turnabout in a case that stunned the city and the world. “Medical experts confirm that the possibility of semen coming from boys this age is, at best, remote. . . . When we have that doubt, we have to act.”

Even as news of the boys’ freedom was being greeted with elation in the South Side neighborhood where one of them lives and where young Ryan Harris’ body was found July 28, Chicago Police Supt. Terry G. Hillard repeated his contention that in interviews with detectives, the boys “related facts that would only be known to someone who was intimately involved in Ryan Harris’ death.”

Calling this “an extremely emotional case,” Hillard said: “The Police Department must be concerned with facts.”

New Charges Called Possible

Prosecutors would not rule out the possibility that new charges could be filed against the boys as the investigation continues.

“What we have are some contradictions,” Devine said when asked if the boys might have been involved in the slaying along with an adult. “We can all plot out scenarios where multiple things could have happened, but it’s our job to act based on the evidence and not to speculate.”

Family members, neighbors and attorneys for the boys--who were at first required to wear electronic monitoring bracelets but recently were allowed to simply remain under the 24-hour-a-day supervision of their families--were thrilled with the unexpected turn of events. They also reiterated accusations of a bungled, racist investigation and malicious prosecution.

“I think everyone owes our client an apology,” said attorney Elizabeth Tarzia, who represents the 7-year-old. “This is a terrible thing to do to little children.”

The actions of police in the days following the murder have come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks as details of the investigation have emerged--including the fact that at least four witnesses reported seeing Harris with an adult male on the afternoon or evening of July 27, when she was last seen alive.

The fact that it took more than a month to return evidence of a semen stain in the girl’s underwear infuriated defense attorneys and left prosecutors struggling for an explanation Friday.

Although DNA testing of semen can take weeks, simply determining that a stain is seminal material is a simple procedure that can easily be performed in a day, one Los Angeles Police Department expert said.

“Any prosecution of a case like this without first acquiring a result of the semen tests demonstrates an ineffective, inefficient and incompetent investigation,” said R. Eugene Pincham, a former Illinois appellate court judge who represents the 8-year-old.

The only explanation prosecutors could offer was that the underwear was among numerous pieces of evidence to be analyzed.

“Our information is there were a number of exhibits that they had to deal with in this case, and by luck of the draw--or lack of luck of the draw--this ended up being one of the last ones,” Devine said.

The underwear had been stuffed into Harris’ mouth, possibly contributing to her death from asphyxiation and head trauma.

Harris, who had been staying with her godmother in the neighborhood so that she could attend a nearby summer camp, pedaled off for a ride on a borrowed blue Road Warrior bicycle the afternoon of July 27. By dusk, her godmother had begun combing the neighborhood in search of the straight-A student who dreamed of being a professional basketball player and a doctor.

Her body was discovered the next day in a weed-choked yard near some railroad tracks. Her shorts had been pulled down and her underwear torn off and stuffed into her mouth. Twigs had been shoved up her nostrils.

There was no evidence, police said, that she had been sexually molested.

Police Tell of Conflicting Stories

The boys, who had been questioned early in the investigation--along with dozens of others in the area--were arrested Aug. 9 when they began to tell conflicting stories, police said.

Eventually, police said, the boys confessed to throwing a rock and hitting Harris in the head because they wanted to steal her bike. Harris fell off the bike and hit her head on the sidewalk, police said the boys told them, and then they dragged her about 20 feet to a brushy area and “began to play with her very softly,” Det. Allen Nathaniel testified in a juvenile court hearing.

At a series of neighborhood meetings, however, those who knew the boys--who ate Happy Meals at the police station and doodled on legal pads in court--defended them as exceptionally good kids who simply could not have killed Harris.

On Friday, the mother of the 8-year-old got word that the charges had been dropped while visiting a laundry where her son liked to help out in exchange for candy money.

“She was thrilled, overjoyed,” said Shirley Blanton, the manager at the Wash Factory 2 and a friend of the family. “There was never any doubt her baby didn’t do it.”

Times researcher John Beckham in Chicago and staff writer Matt Lait in Los Angeles contributed to this story.