Mark Edward Harrison was a 51-year-old white man living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who loved simple pleasures like fishing, hunting for old antiques, and working on old cars, and he was remembered by family and friends as a warm, lovable presence who would be dearly missed after his sudden death in late November 2012. He was born on July 6, 1961, and built a life surrounded by a large, close-knit family that included his children, parents, siblings, and many nieces, nephews, and friends who
described him in memorial messages as kind, funny, and an important part of their lives, someone whose absence left a painful emptiness in the family circle.
On Sunday evening, November 25, 2012, Harrison went to the Star Wash car wash at the corner of Southwest 51st Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in southwest Oklahoma City, just across from U.S. Grant High School. He pulled his red Dodge into one of the bays and began vacuuming his vehicle, an ordinary end-of-weekend chore in a familiar neighborhood spot. Investigators later said that as he focused on cleaning his car, an unknown person approached him in the car wash area. Without warning, multiple shots were fired, striking him as he stood by his vehicle, turning the routine errand into a deadly ambush. A nearby resident out walking her dog heard the gunfire break the quiet Sunday evening and became one of the first witnesses to realize something terrible had happened at the car wash.
Emergency responders arrived and found Harrison gravely wounded beside his car. He was rushed from the Star Wash to a local hospital in Oklahoma City, where doctors tried to save him, but the injuries from the shooting were too severe and he was pronounced dead that night. In the days that followed, his family prepared for services at a local funeral home and a burial in Moore, Oklahoma, while friends and relatives filled online condolence pages with memories of his sense of humor, loyalty, and the everyday moments they had shared with him—fishing trips, time spent around old cars, and the easy companionship that had defined his relationships.
For detectives, the focus turned to understanding who had walked up to Harrison at the car wash and why. The scene—an open, public business on a busy corner opposite a high school—suggested there might be witnesses or surveillance footage, and early reports described police canvassing the area and appealing for information from anyone who had been near Southwest 51st and Pennsylvania that Sunday evening. Yet despite those efforts, no clear motive was announced to the public, and authorities did not release any detailed description of the shooter. According to later case summaries, the person who approached Harrison and opened fire has never been publicly identified, and as of the most recent updates more than a decade later, no arrests have been reported in connection with his killing; the investigation remains open, leaving his family and community without answers about who was responsible for the sudden, senseless violence that took his life at a neighborhood car wash.
