Elderly-Slaying Suspect Charged

Elderly-slaying suspect charged

By B0NNIE DeSIMONE

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Michael Darnell Harris, a prime suspect in the slayings of two elderly women in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, was charged today with a year-old homicide in Lansing.

Harris, 19, is charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 2, 1981 strangulation of Ula Curdy, 78, found dead in her Glenrose Street home. Detective Sgt. Thomas Munshaw of the Lansing Police Department said Harris’ fingerprints matched with those taken at the scene.

In Lansing this morning, Ingham County Prosecutor Peter Houk said that Harris is under investigation in three other Lansing homicides and four assaults over a 20-month period in 1980-81. Harris, who has also used the name Michael Stiggles, resided with his mother during his stay in Lansing.

Harris is currently being held in the Jackson County Jail on $100,000 bond on charges of choking and raping an elderly Jackson woman on Dec. 4. Houk said arrangements were being made to bring Harris to Lansing for booking and arraignment.

Harris is charged in Jackson County Circuit Court with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, assault with intent to commit murder and two count of breaking and entering for the beating of the 68-year-old Jackson woman.  She was choked to unconsciousness and raped in the bedroom of her home.

Under a provision of the criminal sexual conduct law, the press and the public were barred from Harris’ preliminary examination at his request in that case last month. His pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8.

Jackson Detective Lt. Dennis M. Drake said Harris continues to be under investigation in three similar assaults in Jackson where elderly women were attacked.

Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti detectives met with Jackson investigators in mid-November to discuss similarities between the Jackson cases and two unsolved murders in their two cities earlier this fall.

Eighty-five-year-old Ypsilanti resident Margorie Upson was killed Sept. 29 and Louise Koebnick, 84, was murdered on Ann Arbor’s west side three days later. Both were raped and strangled in their homes.

Both the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti police departments have sent evidence in their cases to the state police crime lab to be processed.

Police in Harris’ hometown, Muskegon Heights, say he is also a suspect in a March 5, 1981 assault in that city.