Tiesh Rhue

0:00A devoted family man suddenly disappears. He promised to come get the kids and he never came. She contacted his family, his friends. She was actively trying to find them. A search reveals evidence of a violent crime scene. There was blood on the floor, blood on the walls. It meant a blood that we found in that room. I don't know how anybody could have walked out of there like that. At this point it went from a missing person to, okay, we need to find his body. Detectives question both his wife and his girlfriend. They do not like each other. They have clashed in the past. You already thought he was going to top it in my f***ing way. Did I make it in the pitch?

1:00There's sheep in the hand and no one paid. But the investigation reveals a more tangled web of lies and a family who do anything for each other. Assist them, assault them, they lose. Let us think they're the water. If they were going down, they were going down together. The Georgetown South Carolina is a small town where everyone seems to know each other's business. But on March 9, 2017, one resident somehow disappears without a trace. Brittany Green came in to the Georgetown County Police Department to report a missing person. This man is Leon Harrison Jr. J.R. is everybody called him.

2:02Brittany Green had dated J.R. They were both in each other's past, but they had two children together. She says the last time she spoke to J.R. was on February 25, nearly two weeks ago. I told his detective that he promised to come get the kids and he never came. He didn't reach out and say why? He was very, very good sir because we know that wasn't like him. She called J.R. multiple times. She contacted his family, his friends. She was actively trying to find him through the community. However, no one close to J.R. has seen or heard from him in the last two weeks either. The detective did ask why we took so long to come to the police about him.

3:03I told them because J.R. lost his phone one point of time and it took him a couple of days to come to the house. The letters, no. I just thought that that could have been the case or he got caught up with words. But as the day is going by, we knew something had to go wrong. That's when we really started to get worried. Leon J.R. Harrison was born and raised in Georgetown, South Carolina. His early life was shaped by tragedy. J.R. lost his mom at an early age and he lived with his father. He has like three brothers and a sister and J.R. was close to all of his siblings. Most people with his grave, J.R. as a joker, he got a funny big personality.

4:10After high school, J.R. enlisted in the military. He did about three years in career and then he did a year in I.R. Between deployments, J.R. spent time with his family in Georgetown. On one of those visits, he met a young woman named Brittany Green. J.R. and I met through his cousin. His cousin told me that J.R. had a crush on me and told J.R. I had a crush on him. What attracted me to J.R. is his smile, his personality, the way that he loved, or his loved ones. The army sent J.R. back to Korea, but his heart stayed in South Carolina. When his four years of service were complete, he and Brittany picked up right where they left off. When he came home, that's when we got serious.

5:12It was the year 2005. And I found out that was pregnant. And he was excited. He was ready to be a father and build a family. After the birth of their son, they moved in together. Within the year, Brittany was pregnant with their second child. He always said he wanted a boy first and then his girl. And that's what we got. So he was happy about that. In 2012, after 11 years together, J.R. decided to propose. But he didn't get the answer he was hoping for. That still felt like I was too young to be married. So he said, OK. And gave me enough time, but we separated because I stepped on him.

6:12And then he found out. I knew he was heartbroken, but he just said that we just had to go out several ways. And that he is still a bit of, for me and the kids. He remained a good friend to Brittany and a better father to the kids. By 2013, J.R. was looking for love again. He found it in 29-year-old Taisharu, a single mother of five working as a security guard at the Georgetown Steel Mall. Like J.R., she wanted someone to build a life with. And within a year, they married. J.R. was definitely a family man. That's what he wanted, marriage and stuff like that. So he was happy with his life at the moment. Over the next three years, J.R. did his best to balance the responsibilities of two families.

7:17During that time, he was more so just focused on his kids and not really being friends with me because he was married. And she didn't want a relationship with us. It was kind of like, I'm going to respect my wife and just just going to be about the kids. That devotion to his children is why loved ones are so troubled by his disappearance. I really had to like talk to my kids every day and just pray with them and give them hope. Maybe he's like out of town, you don't want a job or something. Did it spend 12 full days since the last time anyone has seen or talked with J.R.? So that has got to have a real doom-like effect on anyone that's looking. As a part of the Missing Persons report, Brittany provides detectives with every detail she can think of. Brittany starts talking about J.R.'s identifiable markings on his body and one in particular is going to be a tattoo on his forearm that is a remembrance to his mother.

8:30We asked if he was currently married, does he see anybody? And she did tell us that he was married to Taiyish Rui. We looked up her information, she was actually a work as a security guard at the Stillmill. Police immediately contacted Taiyish to see if she knows where J.R. is. She says, I've been out of town. I had to go pick up my kids in DC. She did add that she was concerned about not hearing from J.R. She said that she did reach out to J.R. several times by calls and text, but to no avail. Taiyish comes in after her work shift for a formal interview. She says she hasn't heard from J.R. since she left town 17 days ago. OK, why did you not come to the French former in a call and report missing? I just put some, I had just a point not to ask today.

9:32According to her, they'd agreed to have an open marriage. But she recently caught him breaking the rules of their arrangement. Taiyish was OK with Leon having a relationship outside of their marriage. So long as it didn't become where he would call her his girlfriend. She says that she suspects that he is involved with another woman. According to Taiyish, his cheating caused them to separate about six weeks ago. But recently, they began to patch things up. They started to reconnect. They went back and forth and she kept saying that she wanted him back in her life. Taiyish explains that on the night J.R. vanished, they'd made plans to try and reignite their romance.

10:32So on February the 25th at about 10 o'clock at night, J.R. comes over to her house with her kids, her brother, and her dad there. Taiyish says she was working late that night and raced home right after her shift was over. But when she got there, she found J.R. talking to someone else on the phone. He was holding someone else's hand. He was almost in a set and he didn't get that. And the altercation ensues and she tries to take the phone from him. After the argument, he goes inside, grabs his belongs and he left down the sidewalk. That was the last time she's seen him. I told him to get his phone with him by the phone. And he had that big girl with a little area. Coming up, investigators learn the details of a volatile romance.

11:34It was a wedding and she thought it was something beyond the girls. And a suspect emerges. Do you have any idea of anyone that would have wanted to do harm to J.R.? And immediately she says yes. Twelve days after J.R. Harrison went missing, his wife, Taiyish Roo, explains to detectives that the last time she saw him, they'd argued about the terms of their open marriage and he stormed off into the night. I just lost them because I was a mean. It's not getting me anywhere, though. If he's going to leave, he's going to leave. If that's the case, if it happens so often, I'm just used to. How about you bro? They're going to end up hanging out at night. Did they leave? Not that I know of.

12:34When this situation happened, both of them there come in and ask me if I was OK. And I said, OK, fine. And I want to speak. Investigators asked Taiyish about the woman J.R. was speaking to on the phone. Rosario. I was hanging on her at the time. That he was still talking to us and he was going to win. I've tried to return to this female once before when I first thought about her in June. She believed Rosario was a person who he was having a relationship with. And she even went into to describe her as the crazy, crazy girlfriend. She tells them that Rosario is jealous and that she believes that Rosario meant to harm J.R. Detectives run a record search for Rosario's last known address. She agrees to come to the station and answer questions about J.R's disappearance. She says I haven't seen J.R. either.

13:36But we were romantically involved and we're really hitting it off well. She was working as a cashier for big donkeys. And so he comes through the drive-through at 4 a.m. one morning. It was just star-struck. Rosario did seem very concerned, very heartbroken that he was missing and that she had not heard from him. Well, I have had enough for what we can't say to him. He said he's going to go home with the boy today. Well, the boy is still married and I couldn't have gone to get to be with him. And the other day I said that first I thought it was just maybe he was embarrassed or trying to meditate that because he knows his wife is my crown. Rosario says the last time she saw J.R. was also Saturday the 25th. 12 days before he was reported missing.

14:37They spent the day together, then around 9 p.m. she dropped him off at his father's house. A short time later she got a call from J.R.'s phone, but he wasn't the one on the other end. I decided to have a 10, a birthday and it was the right. All I said was alone and she started talking and they all f***ed out of the job. But I'm smart at any need. Taish was ranting and raving and cursing her, basically saying you think you're going to have my man and I can tell you that you're not. How long has she been working? We were doing a few days in prison in the United States. We were doing a few months or so at least. Tell me about what she's found about you, how that goes. If I'm not the speaking, you told her.

15:39Is this the first time you're a person who's going? No, it's okay. I hold up the phone and then she call back and find me and I'm getting a certain... Those calls went to voicemail. So police were able to get those and obviously it shows Taish is very angry. You were already telling you were going to top it in the f***ing world right? Did I make it in the pitch? She says you think I'm scared of you and then uses a lot of expletives to explain how JR loves her and is staying with her. Rosario says she never heard from JR again. She had called him numerous times with no answer which was one of the reasons why she believed they had just got back together and she was going to respect that. As one of the last questions that they would have is, do you have any idea of anyone that would have wanted to do harm to JR?

16:45And immediately she says yes. She's one's intention that is why he says that she can have a no-one. According to Rosario, if Taish wanted to get rid of JR, there's one person who would happily do it for her. The virus father added they don't get along, prisons only, like putting them inside their issues and their merits. After concluding Rosario's interview, there is no evidence suggesting she was involved in the disappearance of her boyfriend, JR Harrison. Rosario is saying no, I'm not the vallic person that Taish makes me out to be. That's not me. You have Rosario throwing in Alex Jr. into the mix, also alleging that he and JR have an entire history of beef between each other.

17:59Hoping to gain neutral insight, detectives talk to the other woman in JR's life, the mother of his children, Brittany Green. Bigger than was anybody who was the biggest in it. Alex, who got them? They didn't get along, they were following the virus at the rings. A couple of months last year, the thing was that the father had spelt out of the pingle with a bad mouth, and then he went to the toilet and had it stay in the whole way. Police went and talked to a lot of the family members, sort of painting the same picture, a really volatile, terrible relationship between JR and Alex Jr.

19:00Investigators run a background check on Alex Jr. He's got a conspiracy charge and armed robbery charge, so he does have a violent tendency in his past. They really made the police want to talk to him. They also need to get a look inside the Roo family's home. It's the last place anyone saw JR, and one of the places he would occasionally stay before he disappeared. He was in and out of the house. He also was living with Rosario at this point in time. Police obtained a search warrant, and on the evening of March 10th, Alex Roo's senior, Taisha's father, grants them access to the residence. The rear of the house was actually Miss Taisha, Roo, and JR's bedroom.

20:00Immediately, what looked out of place is that there was a rug over a carpeted area. They pulled up the rug, and what the rug was covering was a space of carpet that had been cut out. On the carpet padding are these brownish reddish stains, which is consistent with dry blood. This is the last spot. At this point, we started looking everywhere. We pulled out all the bed linings. We checked the box springs. We checked the frame of the bed. On the mattress, there's a ginormous pool of blood. It barely even looks like it's cleaned up. There's something called lumenol that reacts to blood that'll turn a different color if it's got the proteins of the blood in it. You start spraying around, and you get the room lighting up like Christmas.

21:01There was blood on the floor. There was blood on the walls, on the bed. I mean, they met a blood that we found in that room. I don't know how anybody could have walked out of their linings. It went from a missing person to, okay, we need to find this body because somebody did something very violent in it happening in that bedroom. The following day, March 11th, investigators re-interview Taiish. Okay, so I think we found something else. It's really long, okay? In the room, we found two pieces of missing carpet. They had spots on them. They had spots on them. They had spots on them. Yeah, here is a lot. Those pieces of the carpet were dismissed under four. They were made under separate. They cut it out at least eight or seven months. They had to contain it. But it was blood and magic, too. That's so far away.

22:04Yeah, from my baby, I'm afraid. It's not blood. But we go this, and we're this. That's it. I'll just keep it. Taiish's statement doesn't explain the placement or amount of blood investigators found. But they decide not to confront her with that just yet. They go back to her brother, Alex Jr. We've been to him since he had a job. They absolutely have one brother. They said, who's gonna leave that? They said, well, where is your brother at? And she says, I haven't seen my brother since March 8th. March 8th was three days ago, and one day before JR was reported missing. Investigators suspect Taiish might be covering for Alex Jr. So they return to the room home to talk with their father and see if he'll tell a different story.

23:06We know that Leon was there at the house around 10 o'clock. Did you see him on that night? I'm sure. Okay. Was your son Alex near, too? Yeah, he didn't know how. Okay, he was getting ready to go out. Did he say anything about seeing him? Lots of news. Okay. Does your son Alex, see him, Leon, get along? Sure he got along really well. Just like Taiish, he tells police he hasn't seen Alex Jr. in days. But detectives aren't buying his story. We didn't really know if he was telling us the truth that he was possibly covering up for his children or giving a false alibi was definitely an idea. Coming up, the discovery of a body confirms detectives' worst fears. Somebody just doesn't tie themselves up and throw themselves in the river.

24:08And a witness comes forward. I'm still exiled here. You've got to hear it because I'm very old. Shit off. I don't know. The fucking crap. On March 12, 2017, three days after JR Harrison was reported missing, investigators receive an urgent call. The police department received information that morning that a property owner located what appeared to be a body floating in the black river right by his dock, which had been probably about 10 to 15 miles from the city. The Sheriff's Office and DNR officers responded to the scene. They get a boat and they do a recovery. Rescuers find the body of a black male floating in the water. One feature immediately stands out.

25:10In the green, she told the police about JR's tattoos. And one in particular, a tattoo on his forearm that is a remembrance to his mother. The tattoo was the way the body was identified. It's readily apparent by the decomposition of the body that this didn't happen yesterday, that this body has been here for a few days. The decomposition made it very difficult to zero in on the cause and manner of death. The pathologist is unable to identify a cause of death. But one thing is clear to detectives. This was no accident. His arms and his legs were both bound with speaker wire. Somebody just doesn't tie themselves up and throw themselves in the river.

26:13There's no reason to tie a person that's already dead. It was our theory that he was still alive when he was tied up. And they grabbed the knots to actually drag him and throw him over the highway into the river. It'd be bound up, thrown into water. He was completely defense because he cut me his arms or his legs. I have never seen nothing as inhumane as this, but I hope I never see that ever again. Detectives have already gotten statements from Taish and Alex Sr. But so far, they've been unable to locate Alex Jr. to question him. Now it was very important to talk out for your junior. We need to get out of our environment. We need to try to do it like now. Lo and behold, he is locked up in the Georgetown County Detention Center. He was arrested on a unrelated war. For stealing some money from a gas station, he worked out.

27:16In a strange coincidence, Alex Jr. posted bail that very day. So detectives bring him in to finally get a statement. Yeah, a body, a boy, a girl, a last person, supposedly they seen him with shoes. And you were such a... I mean, I didn't see it. I heard it being outside. I said, do what's just... J.R. I'm here coming to say. I never see. I see the end of sex. I have a positive level. I'm level. I was 6C. I fell asleep. Oh my God. Do you ever go outside and make sure everything was okay? No. Obviously, this group has gotten their story together. His timeline, his dad's timeline, and Taisha's timeline are consistent, but there's small holes in it. When news of J.R.'s murder spreads through the small town, a friend of Alex Jr. and Juan comes forward with information that shatters the roof family's claims.

28:22One day in March, Antoine's brother asked if they could ride to Murdle Beach to go get some furniture for his girlfriend. Antoine asked Alexander Rue Jr. if he would go with them. On the way there, J.R. came up. He's totally exiled. He's about to get out and marry him. He's about to get out and marry him. That's what I'm talking about. Antoine was absolutely dead set that that meant that Alexander Jr. had killed J.R. He told me he told me that his testimony, that it's gone again, and they knew he'd come up with it and he took him for a ride. Antoine's statement gives investigators the probable cause they need to subpoena the Rue family's phone records.

29:22We started out with the victim's cell phone and mapped out what they suspected was the day of the crime. J.R.'s GPS data shows him arriving at Taisha's house around 10pm. At 10.55, he sends a final message. The last text message that is sent from J.R.'s phone is actually two, Ruzari. And what that text message says is, I don't love you. I can't be with you anymore. We had an expert come in and distinguish the texting patterns of J.R. And the actual punctuation and show that it's not typically the way that he texts. Despite what Taisha told police, J.R.'s phone never leaves the house.

30:24But around 1am, others do. We have pings from Alex Senior and Alex Junior heading north on 701. After that one ping, we have a terminating event on almost all cell phones, leading us to believe that these phones are manually turned off at 2am. There's a dead period that we are unable to see anything that's going on. The deactivation of all three phones at the exact same time can only mean one thing. They acted together and conspired to turn off their cell phones all at the same time so that their location could not be tracked. That tells us at that point that they're up to no good, that they have something to hide.

31:31After analyzing all the evidence, detectives are convinced the murder of J.R. Harrison was a family affair. Taisha was not telling the truth about her brother's location or father's location and then the brother and father wouldn't tell him the truth about both of their locations. When lab results come in on the blood found in Taisha and J.R.'s bedroom, there are even more certain the murder occurred there. So investigators had to actually go and send this blood to a private lab and it came back as being J.R.'s blood. On March 22nd, 2017, 25 days after J.R.'s disappearance, authorities confront Taisha with their discoveries. They are trying to get her to go ahead and come clean. We've got three messages in the same message that would have been come over. She'd read me, she'd keep the candles and all that stuff.

32:38And we're just curious if that was a woman to get him over there. I know that's been there for a while. All of a sudden that day, would we get together and get back together? You know what I'm saying? Just make sure that's actually moving in here. As far as Lawrence and Latin, I would never lower here to say anything. I said carefully. She is absolutely livid that that was not her intent at all, that that's not what she did. And so she really doesn't give a straight answer. During the interrogation, Taisha has given multiple opportunities to change her story. The brother and your father's phone was on the move that they were doing. They've been away down, they've been there also. They've been killed. Where your husband's phone went. You say you're dead. Maybe his phone is down where they get left. That directly contradicts everything that she's saying. And when confronted with that evidence, she says it must be wrong.

33:42Also, I'm going to talk to you about National Police. If the last time you see that, you can go out and get out. Going into the forensics, we'll have a tour. That bullet comes back to you more than that. Where you going? Played that one. That one. No, that either goes clean, the letters that were going to be pointed out, but it went last. I can tell by the expression here faces that you know something happened in your bedroom. Nothing at that point, she started getting very worried. The net is tightening and she sees that happening. So she says, I'm not going to give any other statements. I won't be longer. Without a confession, detectives fear there won't be enough evidence to ensure a confirmed answer. So they review the cell phone data again. JR's phone never left the tower that is closest to Taisha's house.

34:50Taisha never left the house. Yet we have pings from Alex Senior and Alex Junior heading north on 701. And in that direction, we have a Walmart. Police intuition was, let's go see if they stopped at Walmart. You can say a lot of things about them, but they've got good camera systems. At 106 AM, on February 26th, 2017, we see Alex Senior walk into Walmart. Investigators watch as Alex Junior appears on camera with his father. He is then seen buying a peculiar item. This midnight run to Walmart was four, was not groceries or milk or even beer. It was for hydrogen peroxide.

35:52There's nothing that gets blood out of carpet, out of clothes, out of the back of a car. Better than peroxide. And they're certainly at this point enough for a magistrate to sign arrest warrant on all three co-defendants. After a three-week investigation, South Carolina police arrest the Roo family and charge them with the murder of JR Harrison. By April 9th, 2017, Taish Roo, her father, Alex Senior and her brother, Alex Junior, have all been placed under arrest for the murder of Taish's husband, JR Harrison. I learned that all three of them was arrested for the murder.

36:52I was angry. I was mad at the fact that they took my kids while the murder. Due to the complexity of trying three defendants at once and delays due to COVID, the trial doesn't start until four years later. On October 11th, 2021, almost everything that we had was circumstance. And it was really important to us to show what those circumstances were. Prosecutors argue that the text history between Taish and JR show her to be a woman desperately trying to win back her husband. And when she realized she was losing him to Rosario, she snapped. They do think it would have been different for her if he was going around and having relationships with multiple different women. But she saw the I love yous. She saw I can't live without you. And that's really what caused her jealousy to come to her head.

38:02She snapped not because of love. She snapped because of control. She didn't want anybody else to have it. It's hard to believe that she lured him over there with the promise of sex. But the real purpose was much more sinister and that was to exact revenge. We theorized that they got into a fight. Taish stopped JR and that it wasn't that deep of a wound. But that at that point she feared that she was going to go to jail. And so her brother and her dad tied him up. And he started to bleed out at this point. They then wrapped him up and drove him to the bridge and threw his body over. But there's no doubt that Mr. Harris was definitely killed in the most inhumane way possible.

39:06Taish put this emotion and then her family really stepped up to help her. And our theme in the entire case is blood as they go than water. If they were going down, they were going down together. The defense argues that prosecutors have nothing more than speculation. The primary focus in the case in general was the lack of evidence they couldn't even determine the cause of death. You would assume that the jury would want to know how a person died in order to determine whether he had been murdered. After nearly 10 days, the case is handed to the jury to decide. The jury stayed out for such a long time. It was the longest that I've ever had to wait for a jury to come back.

40:06The first verdict that they read out was Alexineer's verdict. On the charge of murder, not guilty. And my heart absolutely dropped. Alexineer was found guilty of obstruction of justice and got probation for his part in this hotel. There's no way to explain the way a jury's thinking, but I don't know, maybe he had to do with his age. It was shocking to us, but it was still waiting on the other two verdicts to be right. Alex is next and on Alex, they find him guilty of murder and obstruction of justice. Tyesh, they find her guilty of murder and obstruction of justice. Tyesh, Sharu, is sentenced to 45 years in prison. Alex, Rue, Jr. receives the same 45-year sentence.

41:09They lost a son, a uncle, a father, a brother, a friend. He got a child out there that's now going to have to go through her life without a father. That ain't a whole day of her feels. We celebrate his birthday. We celebrate Father's Day. We got pictures of him around the house, pictures in their bedrooms, memories. We just pray through it, talk through it. And remember the good times to still celebrate him as if he was still here.