Evandre Harris, identified in court records under that spelling, was a 44-year-old Black woman whose killing became part of the series of murders later attributed to Chicago serial killer Andre Crawford. Harris was found dead on August 13, 1998, inside an abandoned house at 920 West 52nd Street in Chicago. Her body was discovered on the first floor, lying across an ottoman in the kitchen, with a telephone cord found several feet away.
Although some later accounts have given conflicting dates for her death, the Illinois appellate court record establishes August 13, 1998, as the date her body was discovered.
The autopsy showed that Harris had suffered significant violence before her death. Injuries were documented around her forehead, eye, face, wrist and chest, along with internal bleeding in her mouth and tongue. There was hemorrhaging in the muscles of her neck and a ligature abrasion around the sides of her neck, injuries consistent with being strangled with a cord or similar object. The medical examiner determined that Harris died from ligature strangulation, with cerebral injuries caused by blunt-force trauma contributing to her death. Investigators also collected biological evidence that would become crucial to identifying her killer.
Forensic testing detected semen in evidence collected during Harris's autopsy. Illinois State Police forensic scientist Joanna Wenk later testified that DNA recovered from Harris was consistent with Andre Crawford's DNA and that the genetic profile was extraordinarily rare. Harris's killing was one of several murders in which investigators were finding evidence apparently originating from the same unidentified man. Chicago police and the FBI eventually formed a joint task force to investigate the growing series of killings in Englewood, collecting DNA samples from hundreds of men while trying to identify the person responsible.
After Crawford was taken into custody on an unrelated matter, investigators obtained a DNA sample from him and questioned him about the murders. He subsequently gave extensive video-recorded statements describing multiple killings, including Harris's. According to the confession presented to the jury, Crawford said he encountered Harris near West 53rd Street and South Halsted Street during the second week of August 1998. He said the two went to an abandoned house on West 52nd Street. Once inside, Harris attempted to leave after a disagreement. Crawford admitted that he attacked her as she struggled to escape, forcing her down and eventually wrapping a cord or rope around her neck and strangling her until she stopped moving. He also admitted sexually assaulting her, taking her clothing and shoes from the scene, disposing of those items as he walked away, and later returning to the abandoned building and sexually violating her remains again.
Crawford's arrest ultimately exposed a much larger pattern of violence. Prosecutors accused him of murdering 11 women and attacking a twelfth woman who survived. Harris's case was filed as Cook County case number 00 CR 5461. After prosecutors reduced the original collection of more than 200 counts before trial, Crawford still faced three first-degree murder counts and eight aggravated criminal sexual assault counts specifically relating to Harris. The cases involving all 12 victims were tried together, with prosecutors presenting DNA evidence, crime-scene evidence, witness testimony and Crawford's own recorded statements.
The long-delayed trial culminated on December 10, 2009, when jurors found Crawford guilty on all counts submitted to them. In Harris's case, the jury returned guilty verdicts on the murder charges and eight aggravated criminal sexual assault counts. Crawford was also convicted in connection with the other killings and the attempted murder and sexual assault of the surviving victim. The jury found him legally eligible for the death penalty, but during the penalty phase jurors declined to impose death. He instead received a natural-life prison sentence without the possibility of parole.
Crawford appealed his convictions, challenging several aspects of the prosecution and trial, including arguments concerning the DNA evidence associated with Harris and other victims. In December 2013, the Illinois Appellate Court rejected his claims and affirmed the judgment. The result left Crawford's convictions and life sentence intact, formally closing the prosecution that had taken more than a decade to reach a verdict after Harris and numerous other women were killed in abandoned buildings on Chicago's South Side.
