The Cereal Killer: Frozen Breast Milk Solved a Michigan Murder

Christina Harris struggled to hold her spoon while eating cereal one evening in September 2014. By morning, the 36-year-old mother of two was dead. Her husband Jason collected the life insurance money, moved on with his life, and thought he'd gotten away with it. But Christina's family knew something wasn't right, and what investigators eventually discovered in her frozen breast milk would change everything.

Jason Harris Murdered His Wife Christina with Heroin-Laced Cereal in Michigan

This case out of Davison, Michigan starts in September 2014, and it's one of those stories that shows you how close someone can come to getting away with murder when they're patient and willing to wait it out.

Christina Ann-Thompson Harris was 36 years old. She had two daughters, including a baby she'd given birth to just a few months earlier. She was working as a manager at Subway, where people said she was a mentor and a friend to everyone. And she was married to Jason Harris, who was 44 years old and had a serious problem with his wife still being alive.

The Other Women and the Rocky Marriage

Jason was involved with other women. Multiple women. Christina knew about it. Her family said the marriage was rocky. Jason's own siblings said they'd heard him talk about wanting to get rid of Christina.

Here's what makes this particularly calculated. Jason didn't want a divorce. He told his coworkers exactly why. He didn't want to pay alimony. He didn't want to lose custody of his kids. He wanted Christina gone, but he wanted to keep everything else. The house, the kids, the life he'd built. He just wanted to remove her from the picture entirely.

So he started asking questions at work. What kind of pills are tasteless and odorless? He tried crushing up Xanax and putting it in Christina's water one time. She refused to drink it because she said it tasted funny. So he kept asking around. What would knock someone out so they wouldn't feel anything?

The Failed Hitman Plot

Then Jason started trying to hire someone to actually kill Christina. He told coworkers he'd already paid an ex-con $5,000 to do it, but the guy got caught on a parole violation before he could follow through. Police had supposedly caught this hitman doing surveillance on Christina, and when they found him with a gun, they sent him back to prison.

Jason tried again. He asked at least one coworker directly if they would kill his wife for $5,000. The coworker said no. Never reported it to police at the time, which is wild, but there it is.

When the murder-for-hire thing kept failing, Jason decided he'd have to do it himself.

Christina Knew She Was in Danger

Christina told a friend that if something happened to her, look at Jason. She knew. She was aware her husband wanted her dead, and she told someone, and then it happened anyway.

The evening of September 28, 2014, Christina told Jason she was hungry. He made her a bowl of cereal. Really thoughtful husband behavior, right? Except he'd put heroin in it. He'd asked around enough to believe heroin was tasteless and odorless, so it would just look like she accidentally overdosed.

Jason told his neighbor later that Christina tried to eat the cereal but dropped the bowl. She fell out of her chair and passed out on the living room floor. He said he helped her to bed. The next morning, September 29th, he took their two kids and went to work. He texted Christina. Called her. She didn't respond. So he asked a neighbor to go check on her.

The neighbor found the door unlocked. Christina was in bed, cold to the touch, unresponsive. Foaming at the mouth. Another neighbor who was a nurse came over and knew immediately that Christina was dead.

The Accidental Overdose Ruling

When police arrived, they ruled it an accidental heroin overdose. Which is exactly what Jason was counting on. Christina Harris, 36-year-old mother of two, accidentally overdosed. Case closed.

Jason told police Christina had been sick with a cold. She'd been coughing, not sleeping well. He attributed her death to being in a weakened state. The medical examiner confirmed heroin toxicity and called it accidental.

But Christina's family immediately knew something was wrong. Christina didn't use drugs. She'd never tested positive for anything during her pregnancy. She'd just had a baby four months earlier. She was breastfeeding. None of this made sense.

Jason's own brother and sister went to the police just days after Christina died. They said Jason had talked about getting rid of Christina. They said he was seeing other women. They had concerns.

Jason Moves On Quickly

Jason collected $120,000 in life insurance benefits. He'd been fired from his factory job for repeatedly testing positive for drugs himself, so that money was probably looking real good to him.

Within days of Christina's death, he was on a plane to Rhode Island to visit a woman he'd been texting. Prosecutors would later reveal that Jason had exchanged over 5,800 text messages with this woman. Two weeks after Christina died, a different woman moved into the house. Into the home Christina had shared with him and their children.

In Christina's obituary, Jason asked mourners to send money. "In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the family payable to Jason Harris." That's what it said.

The Five-Year Investigation

Christina's family refused to let this go. They kept pushing. The Davison police investigated for years. Then the Michigan State Police took over. They dug deeper.

Coworkers started coming forward with stories. Jason had asked them about pills. He'd tried to hire them to kill Christina. He'd complained constantly about wanting to get rid of her. He'd specifically said he didn't want to go through a divorce because of child support and custody.

Jason's own brother testified that Jason had asked him to book a hotel room for a secret hookup with another woman. The brother canceled it when he found out what it was for.

Investigators got Christina's medical records. No history of drug use whatsoever. They tracked down every doctor's visit during her pregnancy. Nothing.

Then they got the frozen breast milk.

The Breast Milk Evidence That Sealed the Conviction

Christina had been breastfeeding their infant daughter. She'd stored frozen breast milk at her parents' house. Investigators collected those samples in 2016 and had them tested.

No controlled substances. Zero. Nothing. Christina Harris was not using drugs.

This was the first time in Michigan history that breast milk had been analyzed as evidence in a criminal case. And it completely destroyed any possible defense that Christina accidentally overdosed herself.

The science was clear. If Christina had been using heroin regularly, it would have shown up in her breast milk. But there was nothing there. Which meant that massive, lethal dose of heroin in her system the night she died had to have come from somewhere else. And everyone knew Jason had made her that cereal.

In August 2019, five years after Christina's death, the medical examiner officially changed the manner of death from accidental overdose to homicide. That ruling was everything. Without it, prosecutors couldn't charge Jason with murder.

The Trial and Conviction

When this finally went to trial in November 2021, seven years after Christina died, the prosecution had an overwhelming case.

They had Jason's coworkers testifying about the murder-for-hire attempts. The $5,000 offer. The questions about tasteless pills. His constant complaints about wanting Christina dead. His explicit statements that he didn't want to pay child support or lose custody.

They had his own brother testifying against him.

They had the breast milk evidence proving scientifically that Christina wasn't a drug user.

They had Jason's behavior after her death. The life insurance collection. The trip to Rhode Island. The new girlfriend moving in two weeks later. The money request in the obituary.

The jury convicted Jason Harris of first-degree premeditated murder, solicitation of murder, and delivery of a controlled substance causing death.

The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

During sentencing, Jason maintained his innocence. Said he was going to appeal. The judge called him a murderer and a liar.

The Appeal

Jason did appeal. He claimed he had ineffective counsel, that his lawyers didn't do a good job representing him.

On February 22, 2024, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld his conviction. They reviewed everything. They said the evidence against him was overwhelming. The conviction stands.

Christina's Legacy

Christina Ann-Thompson Harris was 36 years old when her husband poisoned her cereal because he didn't want to deal with the consequences of divorce. She left behind two young daughters who have to grow up knowing their father murdered their mother over money and inconvenience.

She told a friend that if something happened to her, Jason did it. She knew she was in danger. And her family fought for five years to make sure the truth came out, to make sure her death wasn't written off as just another overdose statistic.

That frozen breast milk she'd stored for her baby daughter ended up being the key piece of evidence that proved she was a good mother who wasn't using drugs. It proved that someone gave her that heroin. And the only person who had the opportunity was the man who made her cereal that night.

Jason Harris asked coworkers about tasteless pills. He tried to hire a hitman. When all of that failed, he put heroin in his wife's food and watched her drop the bowl and pass out. Then he went to work the next morning like nothing happened.

He's now serving life without parole. Christina's daughters are growing up without their mother. And all of it could have been prevented if Jason had just been willing to deal with child support payments like millions of other divorced parents instead of choosing murder.