Carl Harris Case: Confession, Beasley Plea, and Lawsuit

The Carl Harris and Tracey Harris case is the story of an Alabama man who spent nearly four years charged with murdering his ex-wife before another man confessed days before trial. Carl Harris Jr. was arrested in 2016 for the 1990 killing of Tracey Harris in Ozark, Alabama. On January 13, 2020, the day his trial was set to begin, Dale County District Attorney Kirke Adams dropped all charges after Jeff Beasley confessed to the murder and provided details police said only the killer could have known.¹

The 1990 Killing

Tracey Harris was 22 when she disappeared from her home in Ozark on March 7, 1990. Her body was found roughly a week later, on March 14, near Woodham’s Bridge in the Choctawhatchee River in Dale County.² The Department of Forensic Sciences ruled the death a homicide. The cause was drowning, with neck marks consistent with strangulation.³

Investigators focused on Carl Harris, Tracey’s recently divorced husband, as the primary suspect. Witnesses described domestic violence in the marriage, and Carl’s relationship with a teenage girlfriend suggested a motive. Authorities concluded they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him, and the case went cold.⁴

Why Carl Harris Was Charged in 2016

The case sat for 25 years. It was reopened after Tracey’s daughter, Carolyn Aznavour, who was four when her mother was killed, began pressing Ozark authorities in 2015 following her grandmother’s death.⁴ The Ozark Police Department’s cold case unit took the file back up in early 2016, re-interviewing witnesses and again identifying Carl Harris as a person of interest, largely on the strength of witness statements about abuse.²

On September 13, 2016, Carl Harris Jr., then 51, was arrested in South Carolina and charged with murder.³ The case against him was circumstantial. Roughly 14 witnesses had described domestic violence between the couple, and prosecutors pointed to statements Carl allegedly made, including a remark that police were “so dumb” he could “kill somebody and get away with it.”⁴ There was no physical evidence tying him to the killing. No blood, no DNA, no identified crime scene. Defense attorney David Harrison argued the timeline was physically impossible and that police had built a narrative under political pressure to solve cold cases.

The Confession That Ended the Case

Carl Harris’s trial was scheduled to begin on January 13, 2020. In the days before it, everything changed.

Assistant District Attorney Jordan Davis had subpoenaed Dawn Beasley, a woman who briefly lived with the Harrises in 1990 and had previously described witnessing Carl choking Tracey. When Davis finally reached her, she said she could not testify because prosecutors had “an innocent man on trial.”⁵ Beasley then disclosed a secret she had kept for 30 years: on the night of March 7, 1990, her then-fiancé Jeff Beasley had come home and told her he had killed Tracey. According to Dawn, Jeff said he had gone to the Harris home to talk to Carl, found only Tracey there, argued with her, and killed her.⁴

On Friday, January 10, Harrison filed a motion implicating someone other than his client. His defense team had independently tracked down Dawn Beasley, a witness authorities had not spoken to since 1990.¹ Investigators brought Jeff Beasley in. He failed a polygraph and then confessed to drowning Tracey Harris, giving details police said only the killer could have known.⁶ On January 13, 2020, District Attorney Kirke Adams dropped all charges against Carl Harris. Jeff Beasley, 54, was charged with the murder and held on $150,000 bond.

Jeff Beasley’s Guilty Plea

On July 6, 2020, Jeff Beasley pleaded guilty to murder in Dale County Circuit Court. Judge William H. Filmore sentenced him to 30 years in prison.⁷ Adams said Beasley would have to serve 85 percent of the sentence, putting his release at roughly age 80.⁸

Beasley had a prior record. In 1991, shortly after Tracey’s death, he pleaded guilty to third-degree burglary and was sentenced to 15 years.¹

What the Original Investigation Missed

The reopened case exposed gaps in the 1990 work. Prosecutors acknowledged that investigators never interviewed Jeff Beasley and failed to follow up on the full scope of witness statements.⁴ The CBS 48 Hours report noted that the name “Beasley” had been spray-painted under the bridge near where Tracey’s body was recovered, a detail that was never contextualized. Harrison called the police work “shoddy” and alleged that an investigator had fabricated a report describing the murder to justify Carl’s arrest.⁹ Prosecutor Jordan Davis told 48 Hours: “I’ve thought about a thousand times the what-ifs. That’s kind of nauseating, that we were that close” to trying the wrong man.⁵ Former Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker was dismissed in July 2020.

Carl Harris’s Federal Lawsuit

After the charges were dropped, Carl Harris filed a $6 million federal lawsuit against the City of Ozark, former Chief Walker, and Ozark police investigator Jimmy Culbreath. The suit alleged false imprisonment, negligence, malicious prosecution, slander, and abuse of process.⁹ Harrison stressed there had been “no blood, no crime scene, no DNA evidence, no marks upon the body of Carl Harris Jr.” to support the original arrest.

The case, Harris v. The City of Ozark, Alabama (1:21-cv-00553), was filed in the Middle District of Alabama. In January 2022, U.S. Chief District Judge Emily C. Marks dismissed most of the claims, ruling that Harris’s constitutional rights had not been violated.¹⁰ Harris was allowed to amend his complaint on the malicious prosecution claims. The defendants moved to dismiss again, and on May 27, 2022, the court granted that motion and entered final judgment for the defendants, closing the case.¹¹

Tracey’s Daughter

Carolyn Aznavour’s push to reopen the case brought both the wrong arrest and, eventually, the right one. She grew up in Texas with her grandmother and had no contact with her father. When Carl was arrested in 2016, she felt conflicted: “It’s a relief that we found somebody. But then in the back of my mind, I’m like, was it really him?”⁴

After Jeff Beasley’s confession, she said: “We finally did it. We finally found out who killed my mom.” Reconciliation with her father did not follow. She told a local outlet that Carl had “made himself into a victim” and had never spoken openly about Tracey’s death, adding, “I don’t know where it would go between us.”¹² Aznavour created a Facebook page called “Justice for Tracey Carol Gunter-Harris” to raise awareness about domestic violence and to gather memories of her mother.

1
NBC News. Man Charged With Wife’s 1990 Murder Cleared After Friend Confesses
2
AL.com. Man Charged in 1990 Slaying of Alabama Woman
3
CBS News. The 30-Year Secret: The Tracey Harris Murder
4
CBS News. Tracey Harris Murder Case
5
AL.com. Tracey Harris 1990 Ozark Alabama Murder Featured on 48 Hours
6
ABC News. Alabama Police Make Arrest in Woman’s 1990 Murder
7
Tuscaloosa News. Alabama Man Pleads Guilty in 1990 Slaying After Another Man Cleared
8
WTVY. After Charges Dropped Against Husband, Another Man Pleads Guilty in Cold Case Murder
9
WTVY. Ozark Police Sued for Arresting Wrong Murder Suspect
10
WTVY. Wrongly Charged With Wife’s Murder, His $6 Million Suit Is Tossed — Almost
11
CourtListener. Harris v. The City of Ozark, Alabama
12
WDHN. Daughter of Ozark Murder Victim Speaks on Personal Experience