Margorie Upson was an 85-year-old woman living alone in Ypsilanti, Michigan, when she was murdered in her home on September 29, 1982. Online records identify her as female, but reliable sources reviewed for the case do not establish her race or ethnicity. Upson had lived alone for years after the death of her husband and remained active in her neighborhood, including gardening, walking to nearby destinations and handling outdoor chores around her residence.
Her home was on West Cross Street in Ypsilanti, on a block that also contained a Greyhound bus station.
Upson was found inside her residence after suffering a violent sexual assault. Investigators determined that she had been beaten, raped and strangled. Court records later described evidence of forceful sexual penetration and injuries associated with the assault. Her killer used nylon stockings to strangle her. The scene also showed signs of a struggle and a break-in, and her body had been left partially unclothed or with clothing disturbed. Investigators found that her purse or wallet had been emptied onto a bed, while much of the rest of the house had apparently been left undisturbed. Semen was recovered from evidence associated with her body, including vaginal swabs and semen-encrusted pubic hair. Some of those samples would become crucial nearly two decades later, when advances in DNA technology allowed investigators to revisit evidence that could not be fully exploited in 1982.
Upson's killing quickly drew attention because it resembled other attacks on elderly women in southeastern Michigan. Only days later, Louise Koebnick was killed in her Ann Arbor home. Koebnick, who also lived alone, was beaten, raped and strangled, and investigators noted striking similarities between the two crime scenes. Police were also examining the January 1982 killing of Florence Bell, an elderly Ypsilanti woman who lived only several blocks from Upson. Bell had been beaten and had her throat cut. Although the exact manner of death differed, authorities saw enough similarities in the victims, the locations, the violence and evidence left at the scenes to investigate whether one offender was responsible.
By late 1982, police had focused attention on Michael Darnell Harris, who was also known as Michael Stiggles. Harris had lived in both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and was familiar with the area. Investigators also believed he might have traveled through the Greyhound station near Upson's home while visiting his daughter in Belleville. At the time, however, police lacked the kind of eyewitness or fingerprint evidence needed to closely connect Harris to Upson's murder, and the investigation remained unresolved.
Harris came into police custody on December 7, 1982, after an investigation in Jackson involving the sexual assault of another elderly woman. That arrest brought him under scrutiny by police agencies investigating a series of attacks and killings of older women in several Michigan communities. Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti detectives regarded him as a prime suspect in the Upson and Koebnick murders, while Lansing authorities were investigating him in connection with additional cases. His status as a suspect did not immediately result in a charge for Upson's death because investigators still could not establish a sufficiently direct evidentiary link with the scientific techniques then available.
Harris was subsequently prosecuted for other crimes. He received a lengthy prison term for an assault and sexual offense in Jackson County and was convicted in Ingham County of the killings of Ula Curdy and Denise Swanson. Those convictions placed him in prison for life, but the unresolved Upson case continued to be preserved. Evidence collected from Upson's body and residence was retained by police and forensic laboratories rather than discarded, a decision that became significant as DNA analysis improved during the following years.
In the late 1990s, investigators reopened the Upson, Koebnick and Bell evidence because modern DNA techniques could analyze biological material that had been considered inadequate for meaningful genetic testing in the early 1980s. Forensic scientists tested evidence from the three crime scenes and reported that male DNA recovered from them matched Harris's DNA profile. In Upson's case, testing was performed on material including her vaginal swabs and semen-encrusted pubic hair. According to the appellate record, Harris's genetic profile matched or was consistent with the DNA recovered from the biological evidence at nine tested genetic locations. Statistical testimony presented at trial placed the probability of a random match at extremely remote levels.
The renewed forensic evidence led Washtenaw County prosecutors to charge Harris in December 2001 in connection with the Upson and Koebnick murders. The formal charging documents were amended during the proceedings to accuse him under theories that included first-degree felony murder and first-degree premeditated murder. Prosecutors argued that the DNA evidence identified Harris as the man who sexually assaulted and killed Upson and that the similarities among the Upson, Koebnick and Bell crime scenes demonstrated a common pattern.
Harris disputed the prosecution's case and maintained that he had not killed the women. His defense repeatedly challenged the handling, authenticity and chain of custody of the decades-old biological evidence. He argued that authorities had waited far too long to prosecute him and attacked the reliability of the DNA testing. He also accused police and forensic personnel of manipulating or fabricating evidence, including allegations that his known blood samples could have been used to contaminate or falsely create genetic matches with evidence from the crime scenes. Courts examining those claims found that prosecutors had presented sufficient testimony tracing the collection, preservation and testing of the evidence.
Harris went on trial for Upson's murder in February 2003. Prosecutors were permitted to present evidence about the similar killings of Koebnick and Bell as part of their effort to establish the identity and pattern of the offender. The prosecution emphasized that all three victims were elderly women who lived alone and remained active in their neighborhoods; each was violently attacked inside her home; each suffered blunt-force injuries; biological evidence from the offender was left behind; and the homes were otherwise relatively undisturbed apart from personal belongings such as purses or wallets. Upson and Koebnick had both been sexually assaulted and strangled with nylon stockings.
Another controversial piece of evidence introduced against Harris was an adult magazine titled "Over 50" that police had seized from beneath his bunk pillow during a January 2001 search of his prison cell. Prosecutors argued that it demonstrated a sexual interest in older women and therefore helped establish a possible motive for selecting elderly victims. Harris challenged the magazine's relevance and argued that its admission was unfairly prejudicial, but the courts ultimately allowed the evidence and later upheld that ruling on appeal.
A Washtenaw County jury convicted Harris of Upson's murder. Although prosecutors had pursued more than one first-degree murder theory arising from the same death, the trial court ultimately treated the verdict as a single first-degree murder conviction supported by alternative theories rather than imposing multiple murder convictions for one victim. Harris was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He was separately tried and convicted for Louise Koebnick's murder later in 2003 and received another life-without-parole sentence.
Harris appealed the Upson conviction along with the Koebnick case. Among his arguments were claims that the DNA evidence was inadequately authenticated, that investigators and prosecutors had waited too long to bring the charges, that evidence from the other killings should not have been introduced and that the prosecution had failed to prove his identity as Upson's killer beyond a reasonable doubt. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected those arguments in 2005 and affirmed the convictions. The appellate court concluded that testimony concerning the collection and handling of Upson's biological evidence adequately established its chain of custody and that the DNA results provided evidence from which a reasonable jury could identify Harris as the killer.
The Upson prosecution therefore did not end as an unsolved murder or merely a case with a named suspect. Michael Darnell Harris progressed from being a prime suspect shortly after the 1982 killing to a formally charged defendant after DNA testing became available, and ultimately to a convicted murderer. His conviction for killing Upson resulted in a life-without-parole sentence and survived appellate review. Harris has continued to maintain his innocence and has challenged forensic evidence connected with several of the elderly-woman murder cases attributed to him, but the conviction for Margorie Upson's murder has remained in place.
