The Cold Case of Alexander Harris

November 28th, 1987, Roxanne Harris, her father (I have also read sources that state that she was with both of her parents), and her son, 7-year-old Alexander, were on their way back to their Home in Mountain View, California. The family had been visiting Las Vegas for Thanksgiving and decided to make a stop on their way home at Whiskey Pete’s Casino in Primm, Nevada.

The reason for their stop is unknown, but Primm is only 40 miles or so outside of Las Vegas and Mountain View almost 500 miles from Primm. Perhaps it was simply a last chance to gamble before entering California, as Primm sits on the border between the two states.

Roxanne Harris took Alexander into the video arcade, leaving him there whilst she and her father were in the casino. When she returned some 20 minutes later, Alexander had vanished.

The police were called and composites of a man were drawn up based on witness accounts. Several witnesses claimed to have seen a man in the casino holding hands with a young boy. They assumed it was a father and son as the child was willingly walking alongside the man.

When sketches were complete, there were some slight discrepancies between the accounts that witnesses gave the police. They could only determine a rough version of the man's appearance, which was that of a white man in his 30s, with glasses and blonde hair. He was about 6 foot tall and weighed around 170 pounds. There was some CCTV footage from the casino. However, it was very grainy and a clear image could not be obtained. Police still did not know for certain if the child on the CCTV was Alexander.

Nobody was found matching the description of the man, nor did anyone come forwards with a confession. The case gained nationwide attention, appearing in the broadcast and print media. 30 days later, Alexander's body was found underneath a nearby trailer at a trailer park that was used by off duty casino staff.

When Alexander was found, he was wearing the same clothing that he had worn on the day of his abduction. His glasses were also found close to his body. The autopsy determined that he had been suffocated, and his time of death was close to the time that he had gone missing.

There was very little evidence at the crime scene and with little evidence from the casino, and no other leads, the police were struggling to find a solid suspect. They did have three people that were suspects. However, two had solid alibis and the third could only vaguely be tied to Alexander. The third man did match the description given by witnesses and he was staying at Whiskey Pete’s at the same time that Alexander was abducted.

Despite the lack of evidence, police still thought that their third suspect was the killer, a 38-year-old computer programmer from San Diego called Howard Lee Haupt. Mr Haupt was staying at the casino as he was attending a land selling tournament in the area. Although Mr Haupt’s appearance matched that of the witness sketches, at a police line-up, witnesses could not determine if it was indeed Mr Haupt that they saw with the boy in the casino.

On February 20, 1988, Haupt was arrested and charged with kidnapping and first degree murder. When police searched his home and his car, there was no further evidence found that would link him to Alexander. He also had his own alibi, along with two eyewitnesses that saw him out sailing at the time that Alexander was taken.

Haupt passed two lie detector tests and a print found on Alexander's glasses did not match that of Haupt (several sources report that it did have some similarities with Haupt’s fingerprint, but a substantial connection could not be made).

The trial lasted 5 weeks, with the jury deciding a not guilty verdict. The jury stated that the eyewitnesses were unreliable from the casino and there was not enough evidence to convict Haupt.

In 1990, Haupt filed a $4 million lawsuit, alleging that detectives and the department violated his civil rights, He received $1 million in punitive damages.

The case was full of discrepancies from the start. Haupt claimed that the police just wanted to secure a conviction, so they ignored evidence that could have been crucial and misrepresented other pieces of evidence. I found out about this case from a YouTube video on Primm by Wonderhussy. When I started to research the story, I was shocked that there was very little about the case online. There are some true crime blogs and conspiracy theorists accounts that have covered it, but there has been very little else written about the case in recent times. The sources that I found are listed below.

As of 2022, Alexander's case remains unsolved. This was the first of two child murders that occurred in Primm. The second was that of -year-old Sherrice Iverson in May 1997.

Sources

https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/boys-killing-near-nevada-border-remains-unsolved-after-30-years/

https://lasvegassun.com/news/1997/may/29/columnist-bob-shemeligian-the-worst-nightmare-here/