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Clara & David Harris had a life that, from the outside, looked like an absolute dream until it sadly came crumbling down in a sudden, violent nightmare. While Clara had been raised in Columbia, she always dreamed of one day living in America. Not only had she achieved this goal, but she became a highly successful dentist, running two dental practices in the Houston, Texas area with David, her handsome husband of ten years, who was an orthodontist.
By July 2002, David & Clara were in the process of building a third office where they planned to practice dentistry together. They lived in a sprawling mansion with David’s 16-year-old daughter, Lindsay, who was from a previous marriage, as well as their 3-year-old twin sons, Brian & Bradley. Anyone standing on the outside looking in would have seen what appeared to be a perfect life & a wonderful marriage. But we all know that behind closed doors, things aren’t always what they seem.
Clara’s fairytale life came crashing down when David confessed that he’d been having an affair with his office receptionist. Only eight days later, he was dead.
Clara Suarez was born in 1958 in a small town outside of Bogota, Columbia. While her father worked as an electrical engineer, he tried his best to shield his young daughter from the poverty that surrounded their family. Sadly, when Clara was only 5-years-old, he passed away, leaving her mom to make ends meet while she worked as a seamstress.
As Clara studied dentistry in Columbia, she remained focused on one day coming to America, something her father had always wished for her. When she was in her 20s, she packed her belongings & relocated to the United States, working long hours cleaning houses in conjunction with earning her U.S. dental certification.
In 1991, when Clara began working at Houston-based dental chain, Castle Dental Center, she met 33-year-old orthodontist, David Harris. At the time, he was a divorced father to his 5-year-old daughter, Lindsay. The couple very quickly fell in love & after their engagement, they were married on Valentine’s Day in 1992.
David & Clara settled in Houston where they each ran successful dental practices. They built a sprawling home in a neighborhood that had its own private airstrip with a life that afforded them many luxuries. As Lindsay grew up, she & Clara developed a very close relationship & in September 1998, Clara gave birth to their twin boys, Brian & Bradley.
In 2002, it seemed that Clara was truly living her American dream; she was a successful dentist who’d built a lucrative career, she had an equally successful, handsome husband by her side & they had a gorgeous family.
By the spring of 2002, it was clear that beneath the surface, things were not at all what they seemed. David, a once devoted, attentive husband, suddenly began dedicating himself to a new fitness routine. He was no longer taking his wife’s phone calls at work or showing up to family functions, something her friends couldn’t help but notice & they suspected that something more was going on.
David had hired a new secretary at his orthodontic practice, Space Center Orthodontics, 38-year-old Gail Bridges. According to friends & employees within the practice, Gail very quickly swooped in & began giving him all of the attention that Clara had once been able to give before adding two young children, a stepdaughter & a busy dental practice to her life.
When Diana, a woman who worked at the Harris’ dental office, told Clara that David was having an affair, she refused to believe her, assuming that she was trying to destroy her marriage. However, deep down inside, she couldn’t help but suspect that Diana could be right.
When she & David sat down to talk in July 2002, he admitted that he had been seeing Gail over the past three months, although he insisted that he never did more than kiss her hand. He appeared to be filled with remorse, promising Clara that he would do anything to save their marriage & their family.
Clara had some stipulations: She wanted David to fire Gail immediately, she wanted them to attend counseling together & she wanted him to tell his parents as well as their pastor what he had done.
As their discussion ended, Clara stormed downstairs feeling angry & confused & she found 16-year-old Lindsay in the kitchen. According to Clara, when she told her that there was something she needed to know about her dad, Lindsay told her that she already knew about his affair & that all of the women in their dental office were also aware of her dad’s relationship with Gail since they went to lunch together everyday.
Clara felt that much more betrayed & foolish, but she made the decision to do anything in her power to save her marriage. When she took David out to a romantic piano bar that evening, she asked him what was so attractive about Gail in comparison to her.
David put it all out on the table without hesitation, telling Clara that although he appreciated how professionally driven she was, he felt she wasn’t paying enough attention to him. He believed she was too wrapped up in her practice as well as taking care of their young boys. He said she dominated conversations & called her a workaholic.
David also told her that as far as looks were concerned, she was overweight in contrast to Gail, whom he said had zero fat. Even more devastating, he not only admitted that they were having sex, but he described it as a fantasy come true, saying that Gail would have sex with him three times a day. He loved that she’d had a breast augmentation as well as her petite frame which was the perfect fit to sleep with, holding her all night long. Clara felt as if she’d been punched in the gut since David never slept wrapped up in her arms.
David basically gave his wife a to-do list, something Clara wrote down on a napkin with points such as, smiles a lot, optimistic, good frequency of communication.
Clara, feeling undeterred, told her husband that she would have sex with him twice as much as Gail did. She almost immediately hired a personal trainer, she got a membership at a tanning salon, dyed her hair blond & planned to have her nails done as often as possible. She put a deposit down with a plastic surgeon’s office for breast augmentation as well as liposuction & began shopping for sexy clothes.
She also called her office & told the staff that they would never see her again since she planned to retire so she could dedicate herself to her family.
According to Clara, David agreed to end his relationship with Gail. Although she wanted him to end things over the phone, he insisted that he would do it in person, meeting Gail at Perry’s Grille & Steakhouse on the evening of Wednesday, July 24, 2002.
Just the day before he planned to meet Gail, 44-year-old Clara hired a private investigator with Blue Moon Investigations to go into the restaurant & listen in on their conversation to be 100% certain that he was actually ending things. She also recruited the dental office manager’s help & she agreed to follow David & Gail to be sure they were actually at the restaurant.
Clara & Lindsay had spent the day shopping & as early evening approached, the office manager called Clara to let her know that neither Gail nor David’s cars were at the restaurant. Lindsay & Clara began driving around looking for him.
When Clara contacted Blue Moon Investigations, they explained that according to their office policy, they cannot give clients play-by-play information to prevent potential violence or retaliation. However, after she managed to track down an investigator from the firm, she gave her an update, letting her know that David & Gail were at a hotel together, although she didn’t tell her which one.
When David had confessed to his affair, he told Clara that he’d taken Gail to the nearby Nassau Bay Hilton hotel in Clear Lake, the very hotel where they held their wedding reception ten years earlier. After Clara & Lindsay drove over to the hotel, they approached the reception desk, asking if anyone had registered for a room under David or Gail’s names, but they were told no.
They went back out to the parking lot to drive around in search of David & Gail’s cars & they found Gail’s Lincoln Navigator SUV with its unmistakable heart-shaped hitch at the back. Clara immediately jumped out of her car & began scratching it with a key, pulling the windshield wipers from the car.
When they went back into the lobby, Lindsay called her father, telling him that one of the twins was sick & she needed him to come home right away.
Only moments later, Clara saw David & Gail emerging from the elevator, holding hands. According to Clara, when she saw the man she loved holding another woman’s hand the way he’d held her hand so many times, she later described the moment as a complete disconnection between her brain & her actions.
Clara suddenly lunged at Gail & according to witness John Tyler, Clara punched Gail with a closed fist at least two or three times in the side of her head. After she was pulled away, Clara made a loud announcement to all of the people who were standing in the lobby saying, Ladies & gentleman, we’re here tonight because this is Dr. David Harris & he’s effing his secretary.
The first 911 call was placed at this point, as hotel staff told a Nassau Bay dispatcher that two women were fighting in their hotel lobby.
When Clara managed to break free, she continued to attack Gail, tearing her shirt & pulling her hair, her screams causing the crowd of spectators to grow even bigger. Gail’s purse fell to the floor, its contents scattering about while Lindsay used her own bag to hit her dad in the back, repeatedly telling him that she hated him.
A hotel security guard eventually scrambled over, pulling the two women apart, forcing Clara & Lindsay to leave the hotel. While they were escorted to Clara’s Mercedes which was parked in the front lot, a hotel employee walked Gail & David over to Gail’s Lincoln Navigator SUV that was parked at the back of the building.
Witness John Tyler recalled hearing an engine revving before the Mercedes backed up & tore out of its parking spot, its tires squealing as it made a turn in the lot while security guards tried to get Clara to stop.
Clara said that while they were in the parking lot, she realized that because she hadn’t seen David’s truck there, he must have ridden to the hotel in Gail’s car. She couldn’t stand the idea of her husband climbing into his mistress’s car, so she immediately drove her $70,000 Mercedes toward Gail’s SUV.
Witnesses Julie Creger & her fiance, Robert Williams, were vacationing in Houston, staying at the Hilton when they decided to go swimming after visiting the nearby Johnson Space Center. While they sat by the pool a little after 8:30 pm, they began hearing a shrill scream in the parking lot as a person yelled, He’s been hit!
When they ran over, they saw David laying on his back while Clara knelt over him with his head cradled in his hands. Clara was shaking her husband screaming, David, look what you made me do!
Clara later claimed that at the last second, she turned her car to the side to avoid hitting Gail’s SUV head on. Although she thought that the cement parking block would stop her car, it didn’t & instead, the car sailed over it. Lindsay said she saw her father turn back to stop the car, something Clara later said wasn’t a surprise to her since David always thought he was such a macho man.
When Clara realized that she’d hit her husband, she said she climbed out of the car like a zombie. She only just saw him running so she couldn’t believe that he was now lying motionless on the ground.
Witness Robert Williams could see just how severe David’s injuries were. Both sides of his head & his ears were basically gone, having been shaved off by the concrete. When Julie Creger tried to clear David’s airway, his teeth came off in her hand. Meanwhile, Lindsay was hysterical, screaming & crying as explained that the man was her father.
While Julie stood to comfort Lindsay, Robert remained with David with the goal of keeping him alive. David was in & out of consciousness as Robert screamed at him to keep him awake, telling him that his daughter was there & he couldn’t die in front of her.
A slew of 911 calls began pouring through, many with inaccurate information as the dispatcher was told that a guy in a car had gone nuts & ran over someone. Paramedics responded to the scene, rushing David to the hospital where he was sadly pronounced dead.
Back at the scene, Clara was taken into custody & charged with her husband’s murder while the private investigator approached investigators, handing them a tape that captured video of some of the incident. The footage began at 7:59 pm in the Hilton parking lot when it was still light outside that showed David’s Chevy Suburban & Gail’s black Navigator. The tape then jumped 44 minutes ahead to 8:43 pm, just after David had been hit, a time when it was dark outside.
Clara’s car could be seen driving erratically in circles, going around twice, bumping up & down before it came to a stop.
The case quickly made national headlines since it involved two well-educated professionals that had a seemingly perfect life. Beyond the tragedy of David’s death, people couldn’t help but find it interesting since it was a salacious story that involved a cheating husband & his mistress.
When Clara’s closest friends heard the news the following morning, they were absolutely stunned since this sort of violence was completely out of character for her. Up until that point, they only saw her as a wife, a devoted mother & a professional woman.
According to her friends, after David confessed to his affair, although she’d told him that they could get divorced, David had been adamant that he wanted to make their marriage work.
Clara’s attorney, George Parnham, hired accident reconstruction expert Steve Irwin, who used high-tech imagery to recreate car crashes. The computer animation would allow jurors to see the parking lot from various angles, something the private investigator’s video tape didn’t depict since it was grainy & shot from a distance.
Based on his reconstruction, Steve believed that Clara had been unable to see David when she drove around the side of Gail’s SUV.
As the trial began on January 23, 2003 at the Harris County Courthouse in Houston, there was no question that Clara had been responsible for her husband’s death, but jury members were tasked with deciding if she’d meant to kill him. If found guilty, she faced a sentence of up to life in prison.
There were questions as to how many times Clara had run her husband over. Prosecutors claimed that when she had repeatedly ran her husband over, she turned her $70,000 car into a 4,000# murder weapon. Although Steve Irwin planned to argue that based on the tire marks from Clara’s car that formed a 40-foot circle, she could have only ran him over once, he was never able to present his reenactment to the jury as the judge ruled it to be misleading & confusing.
According to defense attorney George Parnham, when Clara learned of her husband’s infidelity, something inside her snapped, causing her to lose her ability to think & act rationally. He argued that it had been a terrible accident, saying that she’d only intended to hit Gail’s Navigator while the prosecution argued that because she’d run David over more than once, she knew exactly what she was doing.
Witnesses testified that Clara had first driven her Mercedes into Gail’s parked Navigator & then struck her husband, causing his body to project 25-30 feet across the parking lot. Based on the private investigator’s video evidence, it appeared that Clara had circled back around, striking him at least one more time, maybe even twice more.
When the hotel’s front desk clerk, Paul Clark, had checked David & Gail into room 604 at 6 pm, he never entered his name into the computer system. After paying in cash, David had asked him for a nice room. About 2 ½ hours later, when Clara began attacking Gail, he jumped in between them in an attempt to break up their physical altercation. As he did, he said he was punched in the temple three times by Clara & all the while, David stood off to the side, never attempting to intervene.
Paul Clark told jurors that as Clara drove around the side of Gail’s SUV, she cackled as she grazed him & when she did hit him, his body was propelled across the parking lot before she drove across the grassy median & ran his body over for the first time. She continued to circle three more times before she stopped, put her car in reverse & ran him over for the fifth time.
Clark was able to see that while Clara did this, Lindsay was in the front seat of the car, screaming, trying to get out, begging Clara to stop, but she continued to run over her father.
Another hotel employee testified that when he escorted Clara & Lindsay from the hotel, David had screamed at his wife, It’s over! It’s over! After she backed out of her parking spot in a normal fashion, she suddenly squealed away while he chased her car, banging on the trunk, warning her that she was going to hurt someone. After hearing a thump, he saw Clara run over David twice.
The medical examiner, who had conducted 44-year-old David’s autopsy, also felt that he’d been struck multiple times.
Although Clara had been relying on Lindsay’s support when she discovered her husband’s affair, by the time the case reached trial, 17-year-old Lindsay testified against her stepmother. She told jurors that just before Clara had stepped onto the accelerator, driving straight toward her dad, she said, I’m going to hit him. Although he had been trying to get away, he hadn’t been able to. Lindsay begged her stepmother to stop, screaming that she was killing her father, but Clara didn’t seem to hear her.
Lindsay later said that since her father’s death, Clara wanted to be in the spotlight to convince the public of her innocence, portraying herself as the victim. When she killed her father, she had only been thinking of herself rather than the fact that she was leaving her two young sons to grow up without a mother or a father. Lindsay will never be able to erase the image of her father’s face as the car sped toward his body, the feel of the car as it bumped over his body. Lindsay felt very strongly that no one should ever feel an ounce of sympathy for Clara.
When Clara testified in her own defense, she said that after she learned about her husband’s infidelity, she’d been in so much physical pain from the betrayal she felt. She claimed that after she confronted David & Gail in the hotel lobby, she felt as if everything had been a dream & she was no longer thinking clearly. When she pulled out of her parking spot, she suddenly got the idea to smash into Gail’s car as she picked up speed.
She said that she noticed three figures by Gail’s Navigator & while two dodged to the right, her husband moved left toward her approaching car. When she caught a glimpse of his face, she could see his surprised eyes, but she maintained that she hadn’t intended to run him over, saying she doesn’t recall striking him since she closed her eyes just before impact.
Clara said that she didn’t snap out of her daze until Lindsay began screaming for her to stop. When she got out of the car, she saw her husband lying on the pavement with blood streaming from his ears & mouth.
Three weeks after the trial began, the jury began their deliberations on February 13, 2003. Eight hours later they came back with a verdict finding 45-year-old Clara Harris guilty of murder.
The next day on February 14, 2003, on what would have been David & Clara’s 11th wedding anniversary, the jury was back to decide how long her sentence should be, facing as much as life in prison.
Defense attorney George Parnham argued that Clara had acted in what is known as sudden passion. In Texas, sudden passion can be raised during the punishment phase of a murder trial to reduce a first-degree felony conviction to a second-degree charge, meaning the murder was committed under immediate, intense passion stemming from direct provocation by the victim.
With a ruling of sudden death, rather than serving as much as life in prison, the defendant can be given a reduced sentence of 2-20 years in prison.
Jurors agreed that Clara had intended to kill her husband as a result of sudden passion & decided on the harshest sentence under sudden passion with 20 years behind bars.
Bradley & Brian, David & Clara’s twins, went on to live with Clara’s closest friends, Anna & Pat, who incidentally have twins of their own who are the same age as the boys. According to Clara, as her sons got older, she explained that their father’s death was an accident & that they have forgiven her. Clara was allowed to see them for two hours each month & said that she lived for their visits.
On Friday, May 11, 2018, after serving 15 years of her 20 year sentence, a 60-year-old Clara Harris was released from Gatesville prison, about 45 minutes west of Waco. The conditions of her release included no contact with her former in-laws, her step-daughter, Lindsay, as well as David’s mistress, Gail Bridges. She was to remain in Galveston County, wearing an ankle monitor & remaining on parole until February 2023.
After her release, Clara began working as a Braille Transcriber, something she began doing during her time behind bars & she remains close with her twin boys, who are now adults.
After David’s violent death, his case became an absolute tabloid spectacle that involved two wealthy dentists, a scorned wife & the other woman. Many could relate to her humiliation after discovering her husband’s infidelity & the rage & betrayal she felt, something that diminished her identity.
Regardless of how she may have felt, few could condone what she did next when she used her car as a weapon, killing her husband while his teenage daughter sat in the front seat of the car to witness it all. No matter how many years pass, Lindsay will forever carry the image of her dad’s face just before Clara’s car struck him or the feeling of the car as it plowed into his body. She & her two little brothers were left to grow up without their father while Bradley & Brian also lost their mother during their entire childhood.
References:
- Chron: Harris witness testifies death scene ‘like movie’
- CBS News: Wife guilty of murder by Mercedes
- YouTube: Varghese Summersett PLLC: Sudden passion murder in Texas
- YouTube: Crime 360: Dentist murders her adulterous husband (S13, E9) – American Justice
- YouTube: KPRC 2 Click2Houston: Driven to Kill: The Clara Harris Story – The Evidence Room, Episode 21
- Oprah: Shattered lives
- ABC 7: Clara Harris walks out of prison after serving 15 years for husband’s murder
