1983 Murder of 11-Year-Old Lora Ann Huizar Solved
After almost 4 decades, sheriff deputy James Howard Harrison was found responsible
It was a Sunday afternoon on November 6, 1983, when eleven-year-old Lora Ann Huizar was walking home from a friend’s house in Fort Pierce, Florida. Her parents noticed she didn’t come home, and they called the friend Lora had been with and discovered that Lora had left her friend’s house hours ago. They quickly searched the area, and when they couldn’t find Lora, they went to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office to report her missing.
Officers didn’t take the little girl’s disappearance seriously; a large-scale search by law enforcement was never undertaken, but they did put a BOLO sheet for her.
A deputy, James Howard Harrison, came forward saying that he saw the girl walking near a gas station. Harrison had been on patrol the day she went missing, which had been in his area. He gave the estimated time he saw her and claimed to have continued on his patrol.
Lora Ann was small for her age but was described as “feisty and outspoken.” Her family claimed she would never have gotten in a vehicle with a stranger and that she was very street smart. There was disappointment that the local authorities didn’t do more to find Lora Ann, and three days later, her body was found in a citrus grove less than 600…
