Missing Student Found Dead

What a heartbreaking and scary way to find a missing person…

Back in March, Corpus Christi college student Caleb Harris (pictured above) went missing completely out of the blue. One moment in the early hours of the morning he was texting a friend, the next he was never seen again. Now, a harrowing June 24 discovery of bones in a local wastewater well have been confirmed to be the skeletal remains of the missing 21-year-old. And although police now know he’s deceased, they still aren’t exactly sure what happened…

The Corpus Christi Police Department made the announcement on Wednesday that Harris’ remains had been found in the wastewater well near his off-campus apartment. And while they’re not exactly certain whether this involved foul play or not, the most likely explanation is horrifying. Deputy Chief Billy Breedlove told People on Thursday that it’s possible the boy was “harmed and then was put there” — but they’re leaning towards a freak accident.

Related: Missing 17-Year-Old Girl Found Dead — And ANOTHER Teen Has Been Charged!

The deputy revealed around 3:03 a.m. on the day of his disappearance, the college student sent a photo over Snapchat to one of his buddies, which showed a bridge nearby his apartment complex. About 600 feet away from that, investigators found a manhole — one in which the cover “had been knocked aside”:

“[The manhole] was covered with grass at the time and no one was [initially] able to find this or notice that this hole was there. We don’t know how that occurred. It is an area that is farmed every year. So there’s the likelihood that a farming implement knocked it off and with the high grass growing across there, it would be sort of camouflaged to most people walking around there.”

Because of this, and due to Harris’ disappearance happening on one of the foggiest nights of the year, they believe it’s possible he fell in the manhole! We do know he was walking and texting… Were that the case it’s possible he got sucked into the sewer system from there, ending up in his final resting place:

“There are four other manholes on the roadway, and we cannot rule out that he entered the system in one of those, but it is more likely to have entered through the open hole.”

The thing police are unsure of, though, is if there was water in the manhole that night or not. Back on April 18, a little over a month after Harris’ disappearance, authorities actually drained the manhole after it was reported to be open. At the time “there was no indication of a body”. They even went up to the lift station where they’d eventually find the body and “drained the tank there” but still found nothing.

It wasn’t until nearly two months later after Tropical Storm Alberto came through that employees at the station found something jammed in one of the pipes. Because of the water accumulating, Deputy Breedlove said “we believe that the body” had been in the pipe and was “pushed into that lift station”:

“They opened it and found what appeared to be a human bone, which we now know was one of the shoulder bones.”

With this and other “small pieces of bone” being found along the way, they were able to get DNA from the Harris family and confirm the identity of the boy. So sad. But even though they believe this is the most likely answer to what caused Caleb’s death, they can’t definitively say foul play was not involved just yet. In fact, the whole investigation has been quite frustrating as far as getting concrete answers:

“We put together a team of very experienced investigators. We had what we would consider good leads of some vehicles coming and going from the area. They never materialized…it was very frustrating.”

Deputy Breedlove also said Harris’ apartment complex “had no working surveillance cameras” so that made things much harder. All they could do was use a nearby complex’s camera footage, but it did give them the opportunity to “run down pretty much all the vehicles that had come and gone from that area at the time of his disappearance”. They’re continuing to investigate the possibility of a homicide.

Right now, though, the young man’s family made a post to Facebook addressing their loss. They wrote:

“We all have heavy hearts this evening as we learned of the positive identification of our sweet Caleb. We will grieve our son … Thank you for your prayers and support during this tragic time.”

Heartbreaking. Our thoughts are with Caleb’s family as they navigate this tragedy. Hopefully they’ll get answers soon.

R.I.P.

[Image via Bee County Sheriff’s Office]

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