Man connected to Fla. murder

Brian Livingston

blivingston@themeridianstar.com

     A man arrested in Meridian Thursday after an intense search of a home on 22nd Avenue Heights is someone Florida police are calling a person of interest in the kidnapping and killing of a northeast Florida girl whose body was found in a landfill.

    Jarred Mitchell Harrell, 24, was taken into custody by FBI agents Thursday afternoon in Meridian and charged with 29 counts of possession of child pornography. According to the affidavit for his arrest from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, multiple items of child pornography — including graphic photos and videos of children between the ages of 6-13 — were discovered on his computer after a search of his former home in Orange Park, Fla., in August of 2009.

    Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said Harrell has not been charged in the death of 7-year-old Somer Thompson — but he’s wanted in connection with the case. The arrest warrant said he was being held on $1 million bond.

    Harrell had lived until recently in a home near Somer Thompson’s. Authorities searched that house Thursday in Florida. Deputies and an FBI forensics team were seen searching its front yard with rakes and shovels. The sheriff’s office restricted access to at least a block around the home, which is in a neighborhood filled with tidy, ranch-style houses.

    Beseler, who announced the arrest during an evening news conference, said a vehicle had also been searched.

    In Meridian Thursday, FBI agents swarmed the large country tin-roof home, moving on and off of the spacious covered front porch. The agents didn’t appear to take anything from the home but did spend more than an hour searching. The home is located on the north end of 22nd Avenue Heights, which winds around and up the hill in the south part of Meridian’s city limits behind the Cefco gas station.

    Some neighbors, who refused to give their names, said they’d seen Harrell in recent days, but they believed in lived in one of the small rental cottages that are located behind the large home.

    Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department officials said they had little to do with Thursday’s arrest, other than transport Harrell from the federal building to the Lauderdale County Detention Facility.

The background

    Somer vanished Oct. 19 as she was walking home from school, sparking a search that lasted for two days. Investigators sorted through more than 225 tons of garbage at a landfill some 50 miles away, across the state line in Georgia, before their worst fears were realized: Sticking out of the rubbish were a child’s lifeless legs.

    Authorities have checked into thousands of tips in the case in the nearly four months since, but no one has been charged in the killing.

    According to Harrell’s arrest report, in August he was kicked out of an Orange Park apartment after a roommate thought he had stolen a cell phone. Harrell left behind a computer, and the roommates said they searched it because they thought Harrell had been using it to look at child porn, the report says. The roommates said they did find porn involving y! oung gir ls and turned the computer and discs over to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 10. The materials were sent to state investigators, who confirmed the contents.

    It is unknown when Harrell moved into the Orange Park house that was searched Thursday, or when he left the neighborhood.

    Dawn Nuss, 39, whose 8-year-old daughter Christina used to walk home with Somer, said her daughter told her that Somer used to stop at the house and pet a white dog. No one would ever come out of the house. Sometimes Somer would run ahead of the children walking home and hide in a ditch.

    “I thought this was the safest place to allow my children to walk home,” she said.

    Before the arrest was announced, the girl’s mother, Diena Thompson, said she didn’t want to get her hopes up that a break had been made in the case.

    “I’m not speculating on anything. I don’t want to get my hopes up and I don’t want to get my hopes down,” she told The Florida Times-Union. “I’m going to put my faith in God.”

    After the news conference, Thompson’s attorney, Michael R. Freed, released a statement that said Thompson and her family are “monitoring the latest developments in the investigation.” The statement said that she was not prepared to speak publicly about the case Thursday.

    P.J. Simms, who has lived in the neighborhood 17 years, said she hopes authorities find what they are looking for.

    “I just hope they find what they were looking for because it has been a long time coming. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened. It’s broken our hearts,” she said. “You used to see 40 to 50 kids out here every day, now there’s always somebody with them.”

    Simms said she knew Somer because she used to baby-sit for the girl’s friend.

    “She was a sweetheart, just very loving. She always wanted to be a part of everything. I hope and pray to God that this is it so we can finally let the kids play.”

    Associated Press Writers Tamara Lush, Lisa Orkin Emmanuel and Suzette Laboy in Miami contributed to this report.