What Happened to the Harrisons? | 3. Think Dirty
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What triggered Bridget Harrison’s relentless search for her missing grandchildren?
Some evil thing happened here.
Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada.
It's not a coincidence.
One after the other in the same house. Is this bad luck or something more sinister?
The worst investigative mess I've ever
encountered. A long simmering, what took you so fucking long to get here?
From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free.
Listen to every episode of What Happened to the Harrisons ad-free right now when you subscribe to The Binge. You'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes, and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap subscribe, or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. Bridget was on a mission to find her grandchildren. In the months after they went missing, she checked in with the police every few days. She had a private investigator looking for leads, and she made a missing persons poster that went out across the country. Caleb's son had spiky hair. His daughter still had her baby teeth. Bridget had just lost her husband, and now this was her life.
Her son was behind bars, serving time for a drunk driving death, and she was consumed with finding her grandkids. She wrote about that time. It
is difficult to find words to describe the agony of worry experienced every night before trying to sleep, wondering where the children were, worrying if they were all right.
Also on the missing persons poster was a photo of Melissa and her new husband from their 2007 wedding. Melissa wore a gown that showed her baby bump. Chris had a distinct face, round and meaty with a coarse goatee. In the fall of 2009, they were discovered in Nova Scotia, renting a home under the name Russo. Chris got sloppy and paid rent with a check that had his real name on it. The landlord Googled him, found the missing person's poster, and called the police. They'd been hiding out in a tiny hamlet in the Annapolis Valley, a thousand miles from Pitch Pine Crescent. Melissa had dyed the children's hair and kept them out of school. They'd been gone for seven and a half months, forever in the life of a kid.
Here's Chris speaking to a cop about Melissa's arrest.
The police showed up at the house. They asked if Melissa was there. At first I said no. Yeah. They said that they had a search warrant anyway, so they said it would be my best interest if she's there to just tell them. So I told them. The kids were freaking out. Melissa was freaking out. And then basically it was like a whirlwind.
If Melissa had run because she wanted the children she had with Caleb to herself, her plan backfired spectacularly. Because soon, she wouldn't see them at all. She was arrested when her newborn was just two months old and brought back to Ontario to face criminal charges of parental abduction. Melissa's parents posted her bail and she was released to live with them on the condition that she have no contact with Bridget, Caleb, or her two eldest children. Bridget now had sole custody while Melissa was facing up to 10 years in prison. Her actions destroyed her credibility in family court. It would be years before she'd get custody of her kids again. Some things once done cannot be undone. This is Bridget again.
Well, it's her friend, Val McGivern, reading from a victim impact statement Bridget wrote for Melissa's sentencing.
The loss of trust as a result of this betrayal has been complete. We are required to maintain constant vigilance in order to protect the children. The
kids had missed their grandfather's funeral. Bridget would never forgive Melissa for that.
Without a doubt, I can say that this was the most desperate seven and a half months of my life.
Bridget couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong. That she and her family were in danger.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What triggered Bridget Harrison’s relentless search for her missing grandchildren?
0:02–8:05
2
How did the investigation uncover Melissa and Chris’s secret stay in Nova Scotia?
8:05–15:16
3
What evidence did the coroner’s autopsy reveal about Bridget’s cause of death?
15:16–23:27
4
Why did police classify Bridget’s death as an undetermined suspicious death?
23:27–31:48
5
How did the Gouge Inquiry and the “think dirty” principle change forensic practice?
31:48–39:53
6
What were the family’s reactions to the police’s decision to close the case?
39:53–45:59
7
What unanswered questions remain about the Harrison family murders?
45:59–46:02