The Sinister Case of the Harrison Family

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video we are going back to canada been a while okay i'll be a bit more specific ontario mississauga right by toronto so yeah toronto again so what the story with this one in this whole video we're talking about the harrison family a family that was originally thought to have you know extremely bad luck yeah what happened to them was completely natural and coincidental wink wink until it was revealed that look had nothing to do with it [Music] so yeah let's give it a go you and i come on [Music] it's like that old saying fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me fool me three times go [ __ ] yourself that's what happened to the harrisons right when tragedy followed tragedy followed you guessed it it's like their house was haunted and it was it was but not by ghosts [ __ ] so let's talk about the family that lived in that house bill harrison was married to bridget and they lived at 3635 in leafy pitch pine crescent mississauga they lived there for almost four decades it was a big old house and where the harrisons would host large family gatherings they were the gregarious type bill had met bridget in the 60s they fell in love at a performing arts theater they dated shred the 60s and married in 1969 bill worked in management bridget and education bill and bridget were unable to have kids naturally and so in 1973 they adopted caleb at six months old they were a very happy family by all accounts caleb could be a handful but he was loved bridget would go toe-to-toe with him while bill was a cool and calm presence in the house [Music] after school caleb would go on to work in shipping and receiving and it was at a warehouse in the year 2000 if you can believe it that he would meet his future wife melissa merritt melissa was 19. she worked behind a desk at the warehouse and grew up surrounded by law enforcement hmm sure hope she doesn't go on to do something that would you know embarrass her dad and her brother who are both cops because you know that that'd really be a shame so caleb and melissa they hit it off you know right off the bat and within a few months they were ready to settle down their lads and start cranking up the old family production line and believe it or not they did in 2003 they were married with children living in georgetown not far from the harrison home bill and bridget became doting grandparents to the growing family however like all good stories well this is where the bad story begins the relationship became strained and fractured you know caleb maybe he liked a few too many subs money was always an issue melissa was a drama queen and this continued to you know escalate and escalate until the year 2005 came along and well enough is enough and they took the i relationship one in the back of the head caleb was devastated especially by the idea that he might not be around his children every day he had unanswered questions as an adopted child and so wanted to make sure he was always with his own children he would move back in with his mom and dad and end up sharing custody with melissa and the you know the stress of the breakdown of his marriage would just make him even thirstier so that ended in tragedy when one night he drove home drunk from the pub in 2005 and plowed straight into a taxi the taxi driver didn't survive and four passengers were injured caleb himself was seriously injured and released on bail now over the next few weeks melissa would report to the police that she was just having a home invasion and that she'd even been attacked in her own backyard melissa pointed the finger at caleb a caleb that was in crutches you know from the drunk driving incident so we could barely walk she would continue to tell the police of more and more home invasions you know it kept happening jesus you know to the point where a cop would later say he was 100 sure she was just inventing them regardless time rolled ever onward caleb and melissa got 50 50 custody bill and bridget were delighted and heavily involved in their grandkids lives and melissa would eventually divorce and marry a man named christopher fertore a bouncer handyman and hooters manager his youtube username was 1021 big daddy melissa and christopher would have four kids over the next few years [Music] on april 16 2009 bridget was returning home late from work arriving back around 9 00 and the pm the house was dark when she arrived caleb at the time was serving an 18 month sentence for the drunk driving inside you know all the lights were off and she found dinner set up as if bill was expecting her at any moment and so not being able to find bill well she did find him in the bathroom he wasn't breathing and bridgette called between the toilet and the door and everything just stand the line man i can't move him he's not breathing okay i can tell oh my god [Music] the paramedics arrived but there was nothing they could do bridgette had some uh thoughts about the scene well why was the house dark the lights were all off the bathroom door it was locked she had the jimmy the door open the pathologist noticed some abrasions on bill's neck thin red marks across his throat a bruise on his head a fractured sternum in the end it was reported as a natural death they they wrote down basically you know his heart said [ __ ] it i'm out i was done even though they found during the autopsy nothing wrong with his heart at all now some weird things there but i guess you know as weird as it was hindsight is always 20 20. but there's no excuses for what follows see this is where the uh weirdness begins and you'll probably have a pretty incredulous face on pretty soon let me see that shocked face when a year later the same thing happened again on the 21st of april 2010 bridget's eight-year-old grandson walked into the house from school and found bridget lying at the bottom of the stairs he ran to the next door neighbor and paramedics would once again say there was nothing to be done kayla rushed home from work he had been out of prison for a few months now released early for good behavior at first it looked like uh well what it looked like you know she had fallen in the stairs and broken her neck however red flags are waving once again she wasn't lying like she had fallen down the stairs like she was lying on her back with her head on her arm like on the stairs she had bruising on her neck she had injuries unexplainable and this was ruled a suspicious death however this too was flawed when the homicide bureau didn't take the case you know too seriously this would be shocking to say the least when you look at you know what was going on at the time of bridget's death in the years leading up to bridget's death and bills the year before melissa crazy melissa was intensifying her attacks and claims against caleb she was not happy the judge ruled for a 50 50 custody split she made one two three four five unsubstantiated claims that either caleb or bill or bridget had beaten the children upon investigating the police found these claims to be complete [ __ ] and not only that they found that melissa had been coaching had been coaching the kids to say things she would prevent the harrisons from seeing the children all the time and when caleb went away in 2009 to serve the prison sentence for that drunk driving incident bill and bridget were essentially then given his share of the custody that just ramped up melissa's determination see this time melissa and chris ran away with the kids they did this the day bill died brigid with caleb still in prison she gained temporary soul custody of the children which led police to issue an arrest warrant for melissa melissa and chris were then on the run with the children she was supposed to share with the harrisons and her own kids [Music] over the span of seven and a half months they went to calgary then nova scotia where melissa was arrested granny bridget would then get soul custody of the kids you know till caleb got out of get out of prison and melissa would be essentially put on house arrest and not only have like unauthorized you know access to the kids the hearing you know for that abduction case against melissa uh it was scheduled for the 22nd of april 2010. guess who was going to speak at that hearing bridget who was found at the bottom of the stairs the day before melissa got real lucky didn't she the family that had you know um questions after bill's death uh they now had a hell of a lot more during the investigation laughable investigation into bridget's death caleb told the police i would ask where melissa and chris where just so you know caleb we use this room for the purpose of taking statements from anybody we need to take a statement from so there's a video camera here so everything that we say is being recorded okay i just want to say very sorry for your loss uh i understand it's a hard thing for you to have to there's other things you'd rather be doing there was a mark on your mom's chin yeah like this like a bruise or something yeah yeah and the coroner's just not sure yeah i talked to him yeah about when or because i saw that happening it wasn't like that in the morning like when she dropped me off now it's important to note that in both debts uh bills and bridges there was no signs of like a disturbance no signs of a fight no signs of forced entry but they would say you know kale would say they often left the doors unlocked they lived in a very safe neighborhood police spoke to melissa i think it's weird that she passed away like a week after bill like it was almost like a week between the anniversary of yeah i don't know what you call it but say the anniversary of bill passing away he had passed away for one year and then i think it was almost like a week later that she had passed away i think that's odd but you know i you kind of then when you start thinking about it it's like well it was a year anniversary since her husband passed away maybe you know like i said i've heard the stress killed i i've heard you know like it can kill you can just eat away at your body or whatever i've been told that because i've been stressed out you know since my kids were taken from me and my doctor's like you need to take it easy like because it'll keep you like i have ulcers now that i'm on medication yeah so because i'm just always worrying and i don't see them and i'm stressed out about everything that's going on and now he's like you really you'll get sick like from the stress it'll just eat away your body and you'll just shut down me being different i'm you know a 30 year old woman compared to a sixteenth but you know whatever so you know like when i think thought about it i was like that's really weird like that that close of a time span yeah but then sometimes like that i'm thinking well maybe the one-year anniversary get upset again you feel like you go through that remorse again i don't know yeah um as to like you know when i don't know anything that would have happened to her i don't i got you know my worries about things but and what would those worries be well not so much worries just um when i was with caleb you know i'm not i don't want to be like you know i've already been told by detective amber also that fingers are being pointed and i'm not in any way pointing fingers because that's not why i'm here but when i was with guild he didn't have a good relationship with his mom okay and i'm not saying that's enough to do something to her but he didn't have a great relationship with his mom they had you know they would argue a lot i know that they had a rough you know growing up stage where they wouldn't get along i don't know like and again i don't know how she died i don't know what she looked like i don't know if she was assaulted i don't know if she looked for i don't know anything about that so i don't want to be making any assumptions that he beat the hell out of her and she died because i don't know like i don't know what she looked like you know like if you know her face was all bashed in then maybe it would be a little bit more stronger melissa was happy to nudge nudge wink wink away at caleb like i said i'm not pointing fingers at him i wonder if i'm not in any way pointing fingers he beat the hell out of her and she died and told the police she was home all day at a daycare she was trying to stir it up police also spoke with chris who said he was running errands all day now caleb actually became the first suspect into bridget's death as he would have the most to gain from you know his parents dying which was essentially just like completely out of this world when friends and family were like that's ridiculous so uh the investigation into bridget's death uh well it lasted a whole two weeks before the police officers were reassigned case closed cause of death undetermined so yeah the whole thing was kind of weird and full of contradictions and ended up going nowhere and one more person would die in that house in 2013 caleb was still living there raising his kids by himself melissa would have the kids every second weekend this went up to temporary shared custody but as the summer went on she filed for permanent shared custody caleb wasn't too keen on that since she ran away with them last time and on the 23rd of august 2013 caleb didn't show up for work a co-worker popped by and inside caleb's bedroom they found him in bed under the sheets he was ice-cold he had been beaten and strangled this time it was determined right away to be foul play finally only took three times in four years do we not rule the coincidence he also died the day before that temporary shared custody with melissa was due to end people just have like a weird habit of dying when something to do with uh the kids the harrison's shared with melissa you know something new damn happens maybe the kids are cursed police spoke once again with melissa who said she saw caleb at their daughter's baseball game the night before she then took the kids and they got pita breads they spoke with chris also so the autopsy of caleb's body uh it was pretty apparent that there was a lot of similarities between what happened to him what happened to his mother bridget and that's when the police started you know digging into the whole custody crack or nil nilcrack as it would turn out to be and so learning all about the custody disputes that have been going on for years they started investigating melissa and chris keeping a sharp eye on them and getting warrants they managed to get a hold of their rubbish and inside they found these running shoes looking brand new yet binned white they also learned they had been purchased the night before caleb was murdered they also found gloves in the bin gloves which had both calebs and chris's dna chris's dna was also found under caleb's fingernails but the police didn't swoop in just yet two weeks after the death of caleb melissa filed for sole custody and her chris and the six children left for nova scotia under the watch of the police under their listen also as the police vogued their home chris and melissa wanted to start again as demonstrated by this blog a day in the life of chris fattore it's very boring and two months after the last entry in january 2014 police felt like they had enough this morning tuesday january 28th at approximately 10 am local time in nova scotia the peel regional police homicide investigators working with investigators of the royal canadian mounds of police in nova scotia and the halifax regional police attended an address near bridgewater nova scotia and arrested and charged two people the first miss melissa irene merritt aged 33 years and her common-law husband mr christopher fiori fattori aged 36 years they have been charged jointly with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of bridget and caleb harrison both of these parties lived in ontario prior to moving to nova scotia shortly after caleb harrison's death they will be appearing in court in halifax tomorrow morning where they will will be remanded until friday january 31st at which time both will be returned to brampton for appearance in court here chris during a 13-hour long interview confessed i'm here today in this room because of facts okay facts have led us here together what are you thinking i don't know mine's gone everywhere think about something about my kids i didn't like hillary harrison i didn't like the way you treated my kids i didn't like hearing all the horrific stories it was an awful family they treated the children like and i almost had to live with it every day and i couldn't watch moses attitude and how sorry she was for everything that was going on and i'm telling you right now that melissa barrett did not know anything until after it was done what did you do i killed bridget harrison and caleb pearson how did you kill bridget they knocked on her door she opened the door i pretended to have a letter to give to the children she refused the letter so i then forced my way into the house and i attacked her what did you do i hit her a couple times all right then proceeded to squeeze her neck until she stopped breathing on the floor [Music] that's not the plan that's not what i wanted i figured that she would someone would come home or caleb would come home and find her i didn't expect for me to come to the house i didn't think that was going to happen and that's for caleb i snuck out in the middle of the night i also had no idea the laughter went there he got into his house proceeded to go up to the bedroom i hit him in the chest and when he sprung up we began to struggle i threw him into the shelving unit beside his bed he tried to bribe me with money i didn't speak to him i just knocked him to the ground and everything's choking and i hope that when it comes down to sentencing the court has mercy that i told you it takes the fact that i have children i'm very sorry for what i did you've talked about caleb we've talked about bridgette yes i gotta ask about bill bill i know nothing about bill i will say that from the bottom of my heart bill out of the three of them was the nicest man out of the family he said melissa had nothing to do with either murder only finding out later he did it obviously for custody a few days later while at halifax airport on their way you know to be transported back to ontario chris and melissa were put in the same room and they started yapping away unbeknownst to them there was a wire a recording device in the room [Music] reads like a bad movie script murder charges tonight in the case of a mississauga mother and son who died years apart in their own home now the son's ex-wife and her new common-law husband stand accused of those murders both deaths happened inside this home here at 3635 pitch pine crescent and the case took an even more sinister turn today because while caleb harrison's death last summer was quickly deemed a homicide his mother bridget's death in 2010 was only considered suspicious until now they've annihilated an entire family chris and melissa were charged with the murders of caleb and bridget not with bill at that time that is he had been cremated so there was nothing to to reinvestigate but two years later the autopsy report would be re-examined and chris would be charged with second-degree murder for bill's death on their laptop they found such interesting searches as how long does it take to die from choking how long does it take for a person being strangled to pass out if a grandparent has legal custody and they die which of the parents gets the kids and easy ways to kill and get away with it they should have googled harder in 2018 christopher fertore was found guilty of murdering caleb and bridget during the trial he recanted his confession said he only spoke to protect his wife he said he didn't kill bridget and he only killed caleb by accident he only meant to hurt him that ploy did not go well for him but he was found not guilty of murdering bill that turned out to be the ghosts inside the house melissa merritt was found guilty of murdering caleb also though she wasn't there for it the prosecution said you know it was well it was her plan a mistrial was declared on her charge in bridget's death after the jury could not reach a verdict they both received life sentences in prison with parole after 25 years well ken i can tell you that last week in front of the jury melissa merritt seemed to shed a lot of tears and indeed christopher futtori after confessing to the murders to police a few years ago also shed a lot of tears that was a confession he later recanted on the stand but today in front of or as they were watching rather some very tearful victim impact statements it seemed that not a tear was shed from the prisoner's box so uh police came under the [ __ ] after this the harrisons were demanding answers as to what kind of investigation they were running a police review was launched and as of march 2020 they found nothing though in august 2020 two officers admitted to neglect of judy in the death of bridget harrison so there yeah crazy story of an entire family being murdered and nearly the same way over four years bizarre good luck to whoever lives there now not not for a million this guy no to end though i should say that uh melissa and chris they ended up divorcing in prison boohoo you know uh melissa though she found love again at the grand valley uh institution for women she married a fellow inmate chris getting jelly he posted this ad on canadian inmates connect hey thanks for checking out my profile what can i say well you're imprisoned for killing two people so uh kind of hard to get past that but what an icebreaker i killed two people what can i say i'm an easy going and down to earth guy friends and family describe me as fun and caring just a big teddy bear no they don't liar i enjoy drawing and painting staying fit and working out but cooking is my heart and home my favorite way to share and bring family and friends together two things you're not going to be able to do for quite some time there chris football and the outdoors are great passions of mine again chris that's off the table and i love music especially rock and country i'm on this site to find someone i can connect with someone open-minded ah very open-minded i imagine and mature with a lighthearted youthful side someone with a great sense of humor who doesn't mind being silly and having fun i mean ladies if you're that desperate what about cheetos guy mr tummy tattoo or cuddles [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always uh in the next one which will be real soon so there you go take care of yourselves like you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 2,222,661

Keywords: that chapter, caleb harrison, chris fattore, melissa merritt

Id: U7qECRc0VVk

Length: 28min 46sec (1726 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SobBaget1313]

This was a really painful one to go through, this case is just so messed up. That woman is a monster and controlled her spouse to kill an entire family. Just horrible.

[u/keishat_]

This one got to me because I felt during her interrogation after Bridgets death, Calebs baby mama was smiling while trying to insinuate this innocent man. Then at the end, his fate was so unfair. Plus their kid is definitely traumatized

[u/PointlessChemist]

The true crime was those sunglasses Caleb was wearing.

[u/WonkyBearhead]

The sass was very strong in the introduction.

[u/Derpybee]

Just watched. Poor family. I am stoked Mike covers so many Canadian cases!