Floyd Durr: Ryan Harris Murder, False Accusations, Guilty Plea

Floyd Durr was a convicted serial child rapist from Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood whose DNA tied him to the 1998 rape and murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris, a case that first drew national attention because Chicago police had charged two boys, ages seven and eight, with the killing. Durr pleaded guilty in 2006, was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, and died at the Pontiac Correctional Center on April 8, 2024, at age 55.¹

How DNA Tied Durr to Ryan Harris

Ryan Harris disappeared near her home on Chicago’s South Side on July 27, 1998. Her body was found the next day in a weedy vacant lot. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted.²

On September 2, 1998, the Illinois State Crime Laboratory reported finding semen on the victim’s underpants, which had been placed in her mouth. Two prepubescent children could not have produced it.³ Two weeks after the state dropped charges against the boys, DNA testing identified 29-year-old Floyd Durr as the source. He was already in custody on suspicion of raping three other young girls in the Englewood area earlier that year. In April 1999, a grand jury indicted him for Harris’s murder.⁴

Floyd Durr’s Record of Sexual Violence

By the time Durr entered his plea in the Harris case, he was already serving a 125-year sentence for multiple sexual assault convictions. His known offenses stretched back at least to 1992, when he raped an 18-year-old woman in a South Side park but was convicted only of misdemeanor battery because prosecutors said the evidence for a sexual assault charge was insufficient. He served 180 days in Cook County Jail.⁵

In 1998, Floyd and his brother Eddie Durr were convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl. Floyd was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old, drawing a 75-year sentence in October 2000.⁶ Additional charges involved the sexual assault of two other girls and the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl who gave birth to twins fathered by Durr.⁵ In a court document, Durr wrote of himself: “When I’m sad, I get high and bad things happen. I rape and I run.”

His defense lawyers described a violent upbringing. Court records indicated the Durr brothers were raised by an abusive father who allegedly beat them with extension cords, broomsticks, and plungers. Floyd said he had been sexually abused by cousins during six years he spent as a child in Belzoni, Mississippi. His attorneys said he had an IQ between 59 and 65, a brain abnormality, and had completed only the eighth grade. His brother Eddie was convicted of more than eight sexual assaults and sentenced to life without parole; a third brother, Eric, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter at 17.⁵

Why Two Boys Were Charged First

Less than two weeks after Harris’s body was found, detectives James Cassidy and Allen Nathaniel brought in two neighborhood boys, one seven and the other eight, for questioning at the Wentworth Area police headquarters. The August 9, 1998, interrogation was not recorded on audio or video. According to police reports, the detectives held the children’s hands, bought them McDonald’s hamburgers, and reminded them of “the difference between good boys and bad boys” while eliciting statements.⁷ Police described the resulting statements as spontaneous confessions and charged both children with murder.⁸

The charges made the boys among the youngest murder suspects in United States history. They also fell apart quickly. Medical examiner Dr. Mitra Kalelkar later testified that she had told Detective Cassidy before the charges were filed that the victim’s injuries, which included severe skull fractures, were inconsistent with the boys’ account of throwing rocks and pointed to a sexual crime.⁴ The boys never actually admitted to killing Harris, nothing in their statements suggested a sexual motive, and police did not search their homes for physical evidence.⁸

On September 4, 1998, 26 days after the boys had been charged, the state entered a nolle prosequi and dropped all charges.⁴⁹ In total, Chicago paid nearly $11 million in settlements and legal fees stemming from the wrongful accusations.¹⁰

The 2006 Guilty Plea

On April 10, 2006, Durr appeared before Cook County Criminal Court Judge Stanley Sacks and entered an Alford plea to the sexual assault and murder of Ryan Harris. An Alford plea, from the 1970 U.S. Supreme Court decision in North Carolina v. Alford, lets a defendant plead guilty while maintaining innocence, conceding only that prosecutors have enough evidence to likely secure a conviction. Defense attorney Daniel Coyne told the court the plea served Durr’s interest in avoiding the death penalty, adding, “Because Floyd Durr did not kill that child.”³

Coyne and co-counsel Geary Kull said the decision was driven by a pretrial ruling that would have allowed jurors to hear evidence of Durr’s prior sexual assaults of other young girls. Both lawyers called Alford pleas rare in their careers.³

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. Durr was sentenced to life plus 30 years.² Prosecutors said they had decided against pursuing capital punishment in part because Durr’s IQ scores fell below the threshold set by the U.S. Supreme Court and Illinois law for death penalty eligibility.¹¹ Judge Sacks rejected a request from Sabrina Harris, Ryan’s mother, to appoint a special prosecutor and pursue the death penalty, ruling that she had no standing as a private citizen to seek capital punishment. Sabrina Harris publicly accused the state of agreeing to the deal to avoid “a fresh batch of humiliating stories” about how authorities had botched the investigation from the start.³

Clemency Denied and Death in Prison

In October 2021, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board held a hearing on a clemency petition filed by Durr. Sabrina Harris appeared with her daughters Ariel and Briona to oppose it. “He took away my first-born child,” she testified. “For him to be able to do all that: breathe, sleep, eat, wake up; it is torture for me.” After her testimony, she collapsed in the hallway and required treatment by paramedics. The final decision rested with Governor JB Pritzker.¹²¹³

Durr died on April 8, 2024, at the Pontiac Correctional Center at age 55. State records indicated he had been in the prison infirmary for a month before his death, suffering from end-of-life lung disease.¹ The Illinois Department of Corrections confirmed his death but did not formally disclose a cause.¹⁴

What the Case Changed

The false confessions in the Harris investigation pushed changes in how Illinois handles juvenile interrogations. As a direct result of the case, the Chicago Police Department required detectives to obtain approval from prosecutors before charging any juvenile with murder.⁸ Chicago police also adopted a rule requiring a parent or guardian to be present when children under 13 are questioned about felony charges, and Illinois passed laws requiring counsel for children under 13 during custodial interrogations in murder and sex crime cases.¹⁰ Illinois later enacted legislation in 2003 mandating electronic recording of custodial interrogations in homicide cases, which took effect in 2005.¹⁵

1
ABC 7 Chicago. Floyd Durr, Convicted Killer of Ryan Harris, Dies in Prison
2
NBC News. Man Pleads Guilty in Girl’s 1998 Slaying
3
Chicago Reader. Who Killed Ryan Harris?
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Chicago Tribune. Boy in Ryan Harris Case to Get $2 Million
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Chicago Tribune. Killer of Ryan Harris Left a Trail of Violence
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Chicago Tribune. Sex Assault Brings 75-Year Term
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Chicago Magazine. Untrue Confessions
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Chicago Tribune. Ryan Harris Case Drags On, Haunting Police, Community
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NPR. Boy Sues Chicago Over False ArrestCity Settles Harris Suit
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Casper Star-Tribune. Ryan Harris Case Settlements
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Chicago Tribune. Ryan Harris Mom Tells of Plea Deal
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ABC 7 Chicago. Ryan Harris Murder: Floyd Durr Clemency Hearing
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Fox 32 Chicago. Chicago Mother Fighting to Keep Daughter’s Killer in Prison
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CBS News Chicago. Floyd Durr Dies in Prison
15
Loyola Chicago Law Journal. Let the Cameras Roll: Mandatory Videotaping of Interrogations