Remains identified as Caleb Harris, ‘no obvious signs of homicide’

CORPUS CHRISTI — After a months-long search, the remains of Caleb Harris has been found and identified.

According to a release from Corpus Christi Police Blotter, forensic analysts with the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification (UNTCHI) have determined that the human remains found inside a City Wastewater Lift Station last month are most likely Harris.

Texas A&M student Caleb Harris went missing on March 4. (Alexis Scott, Scripps News Corpus Christi)

Harris, a 21-year-old Texas A&M – Corpus Christi student , disappeared from his off-campus apartment in the early morning of March 4. CCPD organized an exhaustive search of the area around Harris’s apartment complex for weeks following his disappearance.

Dozens of law enforcement agencies, student volunteers from Texas A&M CC, along with countless additional civilian volunteers joined the search effort.

An investigative team, which included CCPD’s Criminal Investigation Division and Organized Crime Unit, the FBI, the United States Marshals Service, and the Texas Rangers was formed within days of his vanishing. These investigators executed over 50 digital search warrants, submitted 82 preservation requests, and analyzed over 1500 GB of Data for months.

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On Monday, June 24, city workers conducting maintenance at the Perry Place wastewater lift station discovered the remains inside a wastewater collection well and immediately contacted police.

The remains, which had “no obvious signs of homicide,” as stated in the Blotter, were transported to the Nueces County Medical Examiner’s Office for examination. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, the Medical Examiner’s Office was unable to make an identification, or provide cause of death. The remains were then sent to the UNTCHI for DNA analysis, along with DNA samples from Harris’s parents.

According to the Missing Persons DNA Report issued Thursday by UNTCHI, the remains “are approximately 2.4 sextillion times more likely to be observed if the unidentified remains originated from a biological child of (Caleb Harris’s parents) rather than if the unidentified remains originated from an unrelated individual from the Caucasian population.”

The remains will be returned to the Nueces County Medical Examiner’s office, which will then issue the final autopsy report.

This story was originally published by Scripps News Corpus Christi, an E.W. Scripps Company.