Samantha Harer Lawyer Presents 'Making A Murderer' DNA Expert

JOLIET, IL — More than an hour after ex-Crest Hill Police Officer Phil Flores walked out on Will County Circuit Judge John Anderson and ran down the ninth story hallway to escape the Will County Courthouse, a world-renowned DNA expert testified in Friday's wrongful death prove-up hearing involving Flores' late girlfriend, Samantha Harer.

Dr. Karl Reich, who was in the October 2018 Netflix true-crime blockbuster docu-series about Wisconsin's Steven Avery, "Making A Murderer II," appeared over Zoom in Courtroom 905 on Friday afternoon.

The plaintiff's lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, informed the judge she hired Dr. Reich to conduct DNA analysis on the Smith & Wesson handgun owned by Samantha Harer.

On Feb. 13, 2018, Harer died from a single gunshot to the head inside her bedroom at her small apartment in Channahon on Bridge Street. Flores, her estranged boyfriend, was inside her apartment at the time of her shooting.

Flores called 911 claiming Harer had locked herself in her bedroom during an argument. He claimed he busted open her locked bedroom door after she shot herself.

In December 2018, the Channahon Police Department issued a press release indicating Harer's death was ruled a suicide and she had died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

On Friday, Bonjean told Patch that Channahon Police Chief Shane Casey, Deputy Chief Adam Bogart and Detective Andrew McClellan all decided that Harer's death would not be investigated as a homicide even though the evidence was overwhelming against Flores.

"The top brass at Channahon went into a reactive protect the badge mode," Bonjean said after Friday's Will County Courthouse hearing. "It wasn't even about Flores. It was about protecting the badge. They could have been heroes for a young woman who idolized them.

"They didn't care."

During Friday's Zoom testimony, Dr. Reich testified he is chief forensics officer at Independent Forensics of Illinois. He founded the Lombard scientific laboratory in 2002.

According to Friday's testimony, the Illinois State Police crime lab had recovered a full DNA profile from Harer's Smith & Wesson gun, which made sense, since the gun was fired against Harer's skull, plus she owned the weapon.

However, in addition to the full DNA profile of Harer, the Illinois State Police recovered a minor DNA profile.

And for unknown reasons, that's where the Illinois State Police's work stopped.

Flores was long gone from Judge Anderson's courtroom by Friday afternoon when Dr. Reich revealed that the minor DNA profile recovered from Harer's Smith & Wesson definitely came from Flores.

"Yes, there was a tremendous amount of DNA recovered from the firearm," Dr. Reich testified.

Dr. Reich explained that the FBI's scientific standards for obtaining a full DNA profile consist of 20 different DNA markers.

Dr. Reich said the minor DNA profile obtained from Harer's gun — proven to belong to Flores — contained 18 of the necessary 20 DNA markers.

However, the remaining two DNA markers "do not exclude him. They were just partial," Dr. Reich of Flores.

"Mr. Flores' identification is not in dispute, and his DNA is on the firearm," Dr. Reich confidently told the judge.

The statistical odds that the minor DNA sample recovered from Harer's Smith & Wesson handgun came from someone else constitutes "28 more zeroes," Dr. Reich explained.

During Friday's Zoom hearing, Judge Anderson received several photographs showing the Illinois State Police Crime Lab in Chicago analyzed Flores' sweatshirt.

State crime lab analysts found Harer's blood spatter upon the Crest Hill police officer's cuffs as well as blood on the front of his black sweatshirt.

Gunshot residue tests upon Flores' right hand and his dark sweatshirt also came back positive, but were negative on Harer.

The Harer family's lawyer asked Dr. Reich why the Illinois State Police did not follow through to identify the person whose minor DNA sample was left on Harer's handgun.

"They just didn't fully do the analysis of the minor profile," Dr. Reich explained. "They did not do the analysis that I did."

The last step of the handgun's analysis, according to Dr. Reich, was generating a DNA profile, which is what he did, concluding it came from Flores.

During Friday's hearing, Bonjean gave the judge a court transcript containing a Flores interview, insisting he was not inside Harer's bedroom at the time of her Feb. 13, 2018 shooting.

Prior to Dr. Reich's testimony, Bonjean called Illinois State Police Sgt. Cary Morin to testify.

The blood stain analyst arrived at the Channahon apartment to examine Harer's bedroom about seven hours after her death.

Morin testified Harer died from the single gunshot as she was positioned behind her wooden bedroom door and a corner wall. There was a huge pool of blood on her carpet, and plenty of blood spatter on her walls.

However, Morin also observed and photographed several blood smears and several "swipe marks on the wall." Morin found blood smears on Harer's bedroom light switch.

Plus, somebody left several large blood smears on the laundry basket inside Harer's bedroom — several feet away from where her shooting happened.

Judge Anderson entered all of those death scene photos as evidence Friday.

Sgt. Morin testified that he later saw several photos showing blood stains on Flores' clothes and shirts "taken by law enforcement for analysis."

An infrared light source was used upon Flores' black sweatshirt and "there were several ... on the front and sleeves that had visible stains," Sgt. Morin testified. "All but one did test positive for the presence of human blood."

Bonjean asked about the close-up photos of Flores' right sleeve cuff and the sleeve area of Flores' black sweatshirt.

"Yes, those did test positive for the presence of blood," Morin informed the judge.

The left sleeve contained a blood stain on the cuff of the shirt, Morin testified.

Bonjean informed the judge she planned to introduce evidence revealing that now-retired Illinois State Police crime lab forensic scientist Mary Wong tested Flores' clothes and performed the gunshot residue tests on Flores' hands.

Wong's reports showed the presence of GSR on Flores and his clothes, but the results were negative for the swabs taken from Harer's body at St. Joe's hospital, where she died.

When Judge Anderson panned his courtroom, he saw an empty wooden table in front of him.

This was where Flores briefly sat until he walked out on the judge as testimony began.

"Well, there's really no one here to object," Anderson announced. "It's admitted."

On Friday, Bonjean played a short videotape of Will County Sheriff's Detective R. J. Austin interviewing Saul Tellez, the man in the apartment unit next door to Harer.

Tellez told Austin he heard loud commotion coming from Harer's apartment that Tuesday morning before Flores called 911 to report Harer shot herself.

Tellez said it sounded like "when you throw something, somebody to the wall. She said, 'Let me go. Let me go.' After that, you hear more noises on the wall. More than three or four times."

The police investigating Harer's death had photographed a large dent in her bedroom wall.

Next, Channahon firefighter/paramedic Danial Grubisich testified he got the 911 call at 8:18 a.m. He made it to the scene at 8:25 a.m.

The firefighter/paramedics testified the bedroom door needed to be removed by the paramedics trying to provide Harer with life-saving care.

"Miss Harer's body was opposite of the door in a seated position against the wall," he testified.

"She was completely naked."

Grubisich recalled that Channahon Police Sgt. Steve Weiss "was standing in the room to the right. She was in a seated position, leaning toward the door in like a nook ... She did have a pulse."

Harer's heart beat slowly, less than 60 beats per minute, as she continued to bleed from the gunshot through her head, exposing brain matter.

During the ambulance ride to St. Joe's hospital, "Harer flat lined. She did not have a pulse."

Paramedics began to administer cardiac drugs "to get her heart beating again."

By 8:51 a.m., at the St. Joe's emergency trauma room, "she was not breathing on her own," Grubisich told the judge.

Bonjean opened Friday's prove-up hearing by calling Samantha's mother, Heather, and her final witness was Kevin Harer, her father.

"She was my only daughter," Kevin Harer testified. "If I wasn't working, I was home with her. She kept busy."

Bonjean asked Kevin Harer how he would describe his only child.

"More than a friend, probably a savior because this 56-year-old guy does not know technology."

Bonjean asked about his daughter's dating relationship with Phil Flores. He said he learned a long time ago that if you say as a parent you like the person, they will get rid of him and if you don't like him, they will keep him.

Aside from the fact that Flores was previously divorced, "he tried to isolate her from us. So, yes, I kept my mouth shut," Kevin Harer testified.

When asked if his daughter ever showed signs of depression, Kevin Harer testified, "No, that was not Samantha. Samantha was moving forward. Samantha always moved forward."

Samantha Harer volunteered on the political campaign for Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and she passed all her classes to obtain her concealed carry permit in Illinois.

Her father took her to Joliet's now-defunct Gander Mountain store near the Louis Joliet Mall to purchase her first gun.

"And she bought a firearm," he testified.

When asked if he believed his daughter died of a self-inflicted gunshot, Kevin Harer answered, "I would say not on your life."

A carpenter by trade, Kevin Harer was busy on a construction project in Romeoville when the police broke the tragic news that his 23-year-old daughter died.

"My first response was, 'She was murdered and where's Phil and did you check for GSR (Gunshot Residue)?'" Kevin Harer testified.

"I love my wife, but Samantha was my world. Nothing can bring her back. Your life changes you know? It just changes, yeah, it really hurt."

"Does it still hurt?" Bonjean inquired.

"Every day."

"And do you miss the companionship you had with your daughter?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Bonjean asked how he dealt with the sudden loss of his daughter.

"I drank a lot, cried a lot," Kevin Harer testified. "I don't know how to answer that, Jennifer."

"Did you ever imagine growing old without your daughter?"

"Never."

Wrapping it up, Bonjean asked Kevin Harer the same three questions she asked Heather Harer when she started Friday morning's prove-up hearing:

• Did Phil Flores ever call Kevin Harer to express his condolensces?
• Did the Crest Hill police officer ever call to explain what happened inside his daughter's Channahon apartment?
• Did Flores attend his daughter's funeral services?

Kevin Harer answered all three questions with the same two-word answer:

"No, ma'am."

With that, Kevin Harer's testimony came to a close.

Judge Anderson told Bonjean, "I want to take a look at the evidence you're giving me."

Anderson said he would issue a written ruling in the civil wrongful death lawsuit, but he did not announce his time frame.

Late Friday afternoon, Bonjean informed Joliet Patch "that the Harers have never had the opportunity to any process or to tell their story. They were sold falsehood and had to learn the truth on their own. It's not about the money for them. It's about truth and justice. And they never got it. They would have rathered Flores defend the case and have a trial.

"But he denied them even that by running from the courtroom."

Even though Bonjean blames the Channahon Police Department administration, "I want to point out that there were good people in law enforcement like the guys we heard from today. They did their jobs without consideration for Flores' status as a police officer.

"But they were misled. They were given false information by the top brass at Channahon to influence their thinking. They weren't given all the information ... (Channahon Police Detective) McClellan even deceived Morin. He told Morin that Flores did CPR on Samantha to explain away the blood splatter on Flores' sweatshirt. That was a lie.

"They fumbled the ball. They didn't even ask ISP (Illinois State Police) to do the analysis of whether Flores' DNA was on the gun. No one asked Flores why there was a big dent in the wall where Samantha's head would have been. They remained wilfully ignorant. They protected the badge, too. There is no other inference to draw. They are incompetent, but not that incompetent."

Related Joliet Patch coverage from Friday's hearing:

Samantha Harer's 'Coward' Killer Runs From Courtroom: Bonjean