Channahon 911 Dispatcher Was Murdered, Parents Believe

CHANNAHON, IL - Samantha Harer grew up in Channahon, interned at Channahon's Police Department and knew everyone in her small Will County village's police department. In May of 2016, she got her bachelor's degree in criminal justice at Joliet's University of St. Francis, and last year, she became a 911 dispatcher in Will County.

Harer was regarded as one of the hardest working and most dependable 911 dispatchers with WESCOM, her parents said. Last October, when Plainfield officers brought a stray cat into the 911 facility, Harer adopted the cat. She named it Salem.

Then, on Feb. 13, Samantha's parents learned that their 23-year-old daughter and only child was dead.

At about 8:15 a.m., Samantha's live-in boyfriend, Crest Hill Police Officer Phil Flores, called 911 and reported that Samantha had shot herself inside her Channahon apartment on Bridge Street.

Flores, who is in his mid-30s, is previously divorced. In 2016, his former friend Kristen Kurtz, then 30, obtained a protection order against him. She also filed a police report alleging that Flores raped her while she was sleeping at her house in Crest Hill. No criminal charges were filed against Flores, and Crest Hill chose to keep him on its police force. A former Marine from Texas, Flores has been a Crest Hill cop for six years.

Over the weekend Samantha's parents, Heather and Kevin Harer of Minooka, shared with Patch their recollection of last week's tragedy, their memories of their daughter and their interactions with their daughter's live-in boyfriend.

Patch reached out to Flores for comment on Samantha Harer's death, as well as the 2016 rape allegation made against him by Kristen Kurtz, but he has not replied. Flores also took down his Facebook page last week.

'BAD NEWS'

On Tuesday afternoon, Channahon Police Chief Shane Casey, accompanied by Reverend Benjamin Ingelson, pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church, showed up in Minooka at the Three Rivers Public Library branch where Samantha's mother, a librarian, was working that day. The three held their conversation inside a stairwell so they had privacy.

"Chief Casey, he said, he had some bad news," Samantha's mother remembered. "It's about Samantha ... He said, 'I'm sorry, but Samantha is dead.'"

Heather Harer was jolted by the news. The church pastor clutched her arms and prevented her from collapsing, she remembered. Heather had previously battled cancer and went through several rounds of chemotherapy. During that time, her daughter was a constant source of support.

"She took me to all my chemo treatments," Heather noted.

So when Chief Casey broke the news, Heather was dumbfounded.

"I said, 'I don't understand. What the hell happened? She's only 23 years old, what are you talking about?'"

Casey told her Samantha had died of a fatal gunshot wound.

The next day, there were two visitors to Kevin and Heather Harer's house in Minooka: Chief Casey and Channahon Police Detective Andrew McClellan. They met in the dining room. After doing minimal investigation into Samantha's death, the two Channahon police officials were ready to shut the book on the case, Heather said.

Chief Casey told the parents that the cause of Samantha's death was deemed a self-inflicted gunshot wound. "They said based on the 911 call and the text messages between Samantha and Phil, they had determined that her death was a suicide. It was Chief Casey who said that. It's burned into my brain."

'A SUSPICIOUS DEATH'

While Casey had written off Samantha's death in the presence of a fellow Will County police officer as a gunshot suicide, the Will County Coroner's Office was a bit more suspicious.

Coroner Patrick O'Neil conducted Samantha's autopsy Wednesday. Her preliminary autopsy was determined to be inconclusive. Heather said an employee of the coroner's office told her, "I'm relating my findings to the police department that this may be a suspicious death."

So far, though, authorities have made no official ruling on the cause or manner of Harer's death.

There was no suicide note found inside Samantha Harer's apartment, her parents said. They did note, however, that Channahon police have not told them the make and model of the gun involved. Samantha had a FOID card and had undergone proper police training on handling a gun. Her parents said she owned a small 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P Shield with a complicated safety lock.

Then again, they said, Flores owned numerous guns. On Feb. 8, just five days before her death, Samantha exchanged a text message with her father. Flores wanted to buy her father's Glock. Kevin Harer said Officer Flores bought a different gun that day.

'STORMY RELATIONSHIP'

Samantha's parents say they are certain their daughter had no idea Officer Flores, just a year earlier, had been accused of committing a violent rape in Crest Hill. That year, 2016, their daughter was finishing up college and graduating from the University of St. Francis in Joliet. They said their daughter had previously dated a couple of guys prior to Flores, but none of those relationships was serious.

"She was only 23 but not a lot of dating experience," her mother said. "I think she thought that he cared about her ... My daughter is no dummy, but she would have ran from the hills if she would have known that he was accused of something as heinous as a rape."

Their daughter began dating Flores, who was at least 10 years older, around May 2017. Last September, Flores and Samantha flew to Arizona for vacation. In the middle of that vacation, Samantha contacted her parents about getting a one-way flight home. She had locked herself in the bathroom at the condo they were staying at near Phoenix, her parents told Patch.

"I got the impression that he was being manipulative and he had scared her and demeaned her. My daughter was crying when she told me this," her mother said.

Not long after that conversation, Samantha informed her parents that everything was fine.

Samatha Harer and Flores apparently patched up their differences and continued with the final two days of their trip, Harer's parents said. Then came Feb. 9, the day of the huge Joliet snowstorm.

Samantha was busy asking friends and family for "extra Amazon boxes" because her boyfriend was in the process of buying a condominium in Joliet where they would move, her parents said. On Feb. 11, Samantha's mother visited her daughter's apartment on Bridge Street. She figured Flores was at work, since his shift patrolling the city of Crest Hill was from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Heather left at about 11 p.m.

"She hugged me goodbye and said, 'Don't forget, nail appointment and Taco Tuesdays," Samantha's mother remembered of their final exchange.

Mother and daughter often met up for tacos at the Harers' house in Minooka. They also liked to meet at Sophie Nails in Channahon to get their nails painted.

"I do not believe that my daughter killed herself," Heather said. "My baby would never hurt herself. No. She had way too much self confidence and determination."

'A Bad Lifetime Movie'

Last Monday, Feb. 12, Samantha and Flores were both off work that day, her parents said. Samantha's parents fear their daughter's death was staged as a suicide.

They said Flores was manipulative and constantly went through their daughter's phone and iPad to read her messages and contacts; he knew their daughter's passwords to her electronic devices.

One time, for example, Samantha grew visibly upset and informed her parents that Flores told her she was a "bad daughter" because she had asked her dad to borrow $20. Flores only learned this by reading her phone messages, the parents said.

Another time, the parents said Flores got mad at his girlfriend after discovering she and her mother made plans to get their nails done. He reminded Samantha he planned to spend the day with her at the zoo, her mother told Patch, and also expressed reservations about one of Samantha's best friends.

"This guy was trying to isolate her," Heather Harer said. "Why was he constantly in her phone and her iPad all the time?"

She characterized their relationship as "stormy."

"It was like a bad Lifetime movie," she added.

Strange Events With Salem the Cat

After learning of their daughter's death, Samantha's parents inquired about her cat, Salem. The cat she adored. A Plainfield police officer brought the stray to the WESCOM dispatcher center last October. Samantha immediately fell in love with the black kitten and adopted it.

She ordered several engraved collars for the cat from an online company in Australia. Her new cat had an array of colorful collars with bells. The collars had Salem's name tag engraved on it. Samantha made sure to change her cat's collars every week, her mother said.

When the cat was handed over to her parents, Heather explained, Salem looked "like it had been bathed, but it had no collar on.

"Which was completely out of order. Because he had had a collar since the first days that she had rescued him. There is something weird here," her mother said. "I'm telling you that's the weirdest thing of all."

The fact that the cat was missing its collar and appeared to be bathed made them suspicious about both the timing and the events that occurred inside the apartment shared by both their daughter and Flores.

Additionally, Samantha was looking forward to being a bridesmaid in one of her college sorority sisters' upcoming weddings and went to a dress fitting in December. Samantha was also saving her money to finish the tattoo on the rest of her sleeve before she turned 24 this year. She was in regular contact with that tattoo parlor, Native Rituals in Oak Forest-Midlothian, in the weeks before her death.

"This was not somebody despondent who was going to give up," Heather said. "This is my baby. My daughter. People who are planners do not kill themselves. Something terrible happened in that apartment. Something terrible."

The family is in the process of organizing funeral arrangements. The funeral service will be private, open only by invitation to family and friends.

Samantha's parents said they have met Phil Flores at least a dozen times, if not more, since he began dating their daughter last May. Ordinarily, they said, he stays at a house in Joliet with his ex-father-in-law.

He has not contacted them since her death, they told Joliet Patch.

Images of Samantha Harer furnished to Patch by family