TX TX - Caleb Harris, 21, Texas A&M University student, Corpus Christi, 4 Mar 2024 #3

[PommyMommy]

JUN 26, 2024

'No obvious signs of homicide' in human remains found Monday

Police still have not yet found any link to missing person Caleb Harris, who disappeared from a nearby apartment complex March 4.

www.kiiitv.com

[...]

Authorities said on Wednesday that the remains bore no obvious signs of homicide. They were found by City Water employees who were conducting maintenance operations at about 3:30 p.m. on Monday and immediately contacted the police department.

[...]

The remains are being sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for DNA analysis. The university is a major resource in the United States for the identification of missing persons and unidentified human remains.

[...]

 

[OptimusLime]

I thought of Caleb today and did a quick google search. I was shocked to see an update. The only source of discussion I would consider in any cases, I always come here.
I have no idea what to think or make an opinion. However, it is good to scroll through the posts to get more insight. My thoughts are with his family. I truly hope there is some closure for them and LE get answers.

 

[OptimusLime]

IMO, to be fair, it's only been a short while since the remains were discovered, then recovered and transported and then transported again. Since CCPD believes themselves to have done thorough searches of the relevant areas in the initial days after Caleb disappeared, I have to assume they were just as stunned as we were when remains were found in that lift station. There may not be a handy script available to address such an eventuality.

Further, it seems either evidence or waste water management procedures dictated that LE then needed to carry the investigation forward to the Greenwood waste water facility as well. We don't know why that was necessary, but those investigatory efforts are also young.

LE initially answered questions quickly, but only generally, in part, I think, because many specific details weren't yet known. Captain Markle said nothing direct about an intact body, a skull or not, limbs separated or not, bits and pieces drifting or not. That's why we can't know when an ID will be made. It could be days, could be weeks; we just don't know what they have to work with.

JMO, all LE enforcement involved want an ID as soon as practicable. It's their job to close open cases and solve brand new ones. It's also their critically important job to get that ID to a waiting family. We, the public, will get the ID, I believe, soon after that.

Then there is an entirely new facet as well, the investigation that, IMO, will have to be undertaken in joint by LE and Public Works about whether the lift station was breached intentionally.

LE has a lot on their hands here. JMO, they'll get it right. It is hard to wait, though. If Caleb has finally been found, I have so many questions about what happened.

Gasp! This is such a well thought out post and I'm steering toward this POV. Thank you.

 

[branmuffin]

We already know he was outside at that time shoeless. The following photos are from his Instagram. He obviously liked to do a little night time exploring. In one of the photo he's under a bridge with some friends at night. The other photo he is in some sort of skinny stairwell? with a spray paint can lid in his hand. I'm guessing adventuring at night in places he wasn't supposed to be was a normal activity for Caleb. IMO

edit: grammar and photo clarificationView attachment 513362View attachment 513361

There's a lot of people who like to go into areas that the public doesn't usually go. Not just kids, either. They call themselves urban explorers and like to break into empty homes, vacant factories, unused subway stations. An urban explorer broke into the Sherman residence where their murders took place prior to it being razed to the ground. People regularly go into old psychiatric hospitals, boarded up hotels, etc. and post their findings online. Some of the photos they take are incredible.

I don't really find it that unusual to be honest. When I was in high school, a couple of friends and I, crawled through the heating ducts from one end of the school to the other, entering through the air return in the gymnasium and crawling out through the last classroom on the other end. Was it dumb? Absolutely. I'm sure my mom would have been horrified by my behavior but I never told her.

Based on those images of Caleb with a spray can, he and his friends were tagging the locations they filmed themselves in and posting them online.

 

[mst]

There's a lot of people who like to go into areas that the public doesn't usually go. Not just kids, either. They call themselves urban explorers and like to break into empty homes, vacant factories, unused subway stations. An urban explorer broke into the Sherman residence where their murders took place prior to it being razed to the ground. People regularly go into old psychiatric hospitals, boarded up hotels, etc. and post their findings online. Some of the photos they take are incredible.

I don't really find it that unusual to be honest. When I was in high school, a couple of friends and I, crawled through the heating ducts from one end of the school to the other, entering through the air return in the gymnasium and crawling out through the last classroom on the other end. Was it dumb? Absolutely. I'm sure my mom would have been horrified by my behavior but I never told her.

Based on those images of Caleb with a spray can, he and his friends were tagging the locations they filmed themselves in and posting them online.

You read my mind with the tagging

 

[IDK]

There's a lot of people who like to go into areas that the public doesn't usually go. Not just kids, either. They call themselves urban explorers and like to break into empty homes, vacant factories, unused subway stations. An urban explorer broke into the Sherman residence where their murders took place prior to it being razed to the ground. People regularly go into old psychiatric hospitals, boarded up hotels, etc. and post their findings online. Some of the photos they take are incredible.

I don't really find it that unusual to be honest. When I was in high school, a couple of friends and I, crawled through the heating ducts from one end of the school to the other, entering through the air return in the gymnasium and crawling out through the last classroom on the other end. Was it dumb? Absolutely. I'm sure my mom would have been horrified by my behavior but I never told her.

Based on those images of Caleb with a spray can, he and his friends were tagging the locations they filmed themselves in and posting them online.

Just curious here// what exactly is the purpose of tagging? Google says it’s a way to mark territory— not sure.

 

[sunflowermomma]

Just curious here// what exactly is the purpose of tagging? Google says it’s a way to mark territory— not sure.

Graffiti - "street art", having your artist tag recognized, having tags in places that are hard to reach. it is generally a counterculture art thing.

 

[IDK]

Graffiti - "street art", having your artist tag recognized, having tags in places that are hard to reach. it is generally a counterculture art thing.

OK thank you, interesting!

 

[Leopard]

Just curious here// what exactly is the purpose of tagging? Google says it’s a way to mark territory— not sure.

It can be a way to mark territory, but it can also be as simple as leaving a "I was here" mark like signing a guestbook. It's generally frowned upon to leave any graffiti or damage property in any way during urban exploring/urbex, but some people still do it to show that they were at the location, especially if there's already graffiti there.

 

[branmuffin]

Just curious here// what exactly is the purpose of tagging? Google says it’s a way to mark territory— not sure.

I think it's a modern way of marking your territory. It's nothing new. Graffiti has been around for thousands of years. I remember years ago, Londoners were intrigued by some graffiti in a tube station written in some arcane south Asian dialect. All these language experts mulled over it only to find out it said "I hate rice pudding".

 

[branmuffin]

If the unidentified remains are Caleb's, I think his parents will be haunted by his death for the rest of their lives. Unlike Riley Strain, where we were given an almost play by play of his eventual demise: frat boy gets drunk, frat boy gets kicked out of a bar, barred entry at another, wandering through the streets obviously impaired, so much so, he fell and hit his head and ended up in the river, much of it on video. It didn't take much to put two and two together.

Here, Caleb's absence was already a mystery: a (maybe) history of anonymous hookups, leaving his condo at 3 am, a cryptic image of a foggy night near a bridge, his lunch outside the door left untouched, all his belongings including his shoes still at home. The theories run the gamut, all of them speculative but most rooted in that one scenario where a hookup went really, really wrong.

I think Caleb's disappearance just goes to show that no matter how much a parent prepares their child to leave the nest, there is always that one scenario you are never prepared for. Girls are far better prepared for the possibility of an assault or abduction; it's baked into our brains from a young age but I think after a certain age, boys don't get that same training that the buddy system can save lives. A big, strong boy/man can take care of themselves. Until they can't.

 

[carterkatt]

Girls are far better prepared for the possibility of an assault or abduction; it's baked into our brains from a young age but I think after a certain age, boys don't get that same training that the buddy system can save lives. A big, strong boy/man can take care of themselves. Until they can't.

RSBM
BBM

Exactly. Excellent post.

 

[Aric Hall]

I recall a while back someone was posting a video and showing open manhole covers near the apartments. One open one was found in the field right next to the apartment complex. Could he have accidentally fallen into a manhole and was stuck in there for a while and them somehow his body decomposed and eventually was pushed toward the pump station? Gosh this is so close. Seems he may have been just right there all along.

I was absent from this search forum for several weeks... when did someone do a video showing open manhole covers near the apartments. I never heard of anyone reporting that. It would certainly be telling in light of Monday's discovery.

 

[oakparkmall]

'3NEWS has learned that the lift station was locked when a Corpus Christi Water employee discovered the human remains while conducting maintenance. That means that someone would have had to have a key to get in to where the wet well is located, which is where the human remains were found.'

 

[Inthedetails]

'3NEWS has learned that the lift station was locked when a Corpus Christi Water employee discovered the human remains while conducting maintenance. That means that someone would have had to have a key to get in to where the wet well is located, which is where the human remains were found.'

Locked when the worker discovered remains. Was it locked the night Caleb went missing? Two completely different days.

 

[oakparkmall]

Locked when the worker discovered remains. Was it locked the night Caleb went missing? Two completely different days.

Yeah, the fence you can clearly crawl under, and there's always the chance that the door to the station was unlocked.
I found it interesting 3NEWS so definitively said it in the way that they did.

 

[Aric Hall]

Once Caleb was known to me missing, any searcher or Public Works person seeing an open manhole cover would have surely seen that as a red flag and made it known. But, I never heard such mentioned until Monday. After the human remains were found Monday, I would expect someone to say "yes, I came across an open manhole". If someone has knowledge of this ever happening, please tell me where that was reported.

That said, I am skeptical of a grown man walking out into a field at 3 a.m. and disappearing into a hole. It seems so improbable. I notice from the news video earlier this week at the lift station, you can see the field in the background... it is not the fallow plowed field shown on Google Earth. It is full of dead corn... it means no planting was done there this spring, and that dead corn was there on March 4. Did the searchers wander through all of that ? Were there other entry points where he could have fallen into ?

As to the lift station, we were told it had numerous locks to get through to get to that sewage vault. It means he did not enter the sewer system there, and who would want to? I think there has been a mis-use of terminology as to the wet well vs gravity vault. Officials and first responders may be intertangling those terms accidentally.

Unless someone says they found an open manhole and put the lid on, after he went missing, then we are left with foul play.

 

[SMK777]

Unless someone says they found an open manhole and put the lid on, after he went missing, then we are left with foul play.

Snipped for focus:
I definitely see your point.
QUESTION : Is there any other way, if the remains are Caleb, that he could have wound up where he was discovered, besides an open manhole?

 

[oakparkmall]

Snipped for focus:
I definitely see your point.
QUESTION : Is there any other way, if the remains are Caleb, that he could have wound up where he was discovered, besides an open manhole?

• entered the wet well at the station (unlocked) by himself or remains brought in by someone else
• foul play occurred elsewhere and remains placed in wet well at unlocked station or via wastewater manhole

 

[IDK]

Once Caleb was known to me missing, any searcher or Public Works person seeing an open manhole cover would have surely seen that as a red flag and made it known. But, I never heard such mentioned until Monday. After the human remains were found Monday, I would expect someone to say "yes, I came across an open manhole". If someone has knowledge of this ever happening, please tell me where that was reported.

That said, I am skeptical of a grown man walking out into a field at 3 a.m. and disappearing into a hole. It seems so improbable. I notice from the news video earlier this week at the lift station, you can see the field in the background... it is not the fallow plowed field shown on Google Earth. It is full of dead corn... it means no planting was done there this spring, and that dead corn was there on March 4. Did the searchers wander through all of that ? Were there other entry points where he could have fallen into ?

As to the lift station, we were told it had numerous locks to get through to get to that sewage vault. It means he did not enter the sewer system there, and who would want to? I think there has been a mis-use of terminology as to the wet well vs gravity vault. Officials and first responders may be intertangling those terms accidentally.

Unless someone says they found an open manhole and put the lid on, after he went missing, then we are left with foul play.

Appreciate your post! Not sure if you or anyone else knows the answer to this— do the sewage system and storm water drainage systems interconnect in any way? The opinions I’ve read elsewhere are that they don’t interconnect in any way. Not sure if this is true.

I guess my main point is we don’t really know if any open manholes were part of the storm drainage system or sewer system, or if they are connected. IMO.

Will try to do more research myself!