Cal Harris

Tiny, tiny bloodstains on the kitchen rug.

There were more bloodstains that looked like they had been washed or watered down on the garage floor.

So they sent samples off for testing, and tests confirmed that it was Michelle's blood.

The investigators believe that the blood came from a recent act of violence that someone had then tried to clean up.

Well, his attorneys said that investigators found less than a teaspoon worth of blood, and there was no evidence of a cleanup.

They argued that Michelle could have had a minor injury and dripped blood on the floor, but this was not, they insisted, evidence of a murder.

So Harris was convicted at his first trial, and that was in 2007, just as he was about to be sentenced.

The judge threw out the verdict because of a witness who suddenly came forward at that hearing, and he was a local farmer, this witness.

He said he was out hauling hay early, early, and he said he saw Michelle at the end of the driveway.

She was crying, he said, and he said she was with a brown-haired man.

He later identified that person as being someone Michelle knew from the restaurant where she worked.

So Harris got a new trial, and he was convicted again at trial number two.

He went to prison, but that verdict was then overturned on appeal.

The appellate court said the judge had made mistakes in jury selection.

Then trial number three ended in a hung jury, so a mistrial was declared.

Trial number four, Cal Harris opted to have a judge hear the case against him.

And the judge acquitted him.

Incredible.

Kyle Harris accused the New York State investigators of pressuring the prosecutor to bring charges, fabricating evidence, and grooming witnesses to get the result they wanted.

He said that Steve Anderson, one of the investigators who found the blood, had doctored photos of the bloodstains.