The Cold Case of Alexander Harris

On November 28th, 1987, Roxanne Harris, her father, 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 not known. Primm is only 40 miles or so outside of Las Vegas and Mountain View almost 500 miles from Primm. Perhaps it was just a last chance to gamble for the family before returning to California, as Primm sits on the border of 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 slight discrepancies between the accounts that witnesses gave to 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 feet tall and 170 pounds. There was some CCTV footage from the casino. However, it was very grainy and 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 further evidence. 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 as accommodation for staff working at the casinos in Primm.

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 his cause of death was by suffocation, 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, 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 tied to Alexander because 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. Mr Haupt's appearance matched that of the witness sketches, but at a 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. Despite this, there was no further evidence found in his car or at his home to link him to Alexander. His own alibi, along with two eyewitnesses, state that he was 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 a not guilty verdict. The jury stated that the eyewitnesses were unreliable and there was not enough evidence for a conviction.

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

The case was full of discrepancies. 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.

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

https://defrostingcoldcases.com/who-killed-alexander-harris/

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