A man who killed his estranged wife with his nephew’s help is now bound for Death Row, while his nephew will serve a life term.
Googie Rene Harris Sr., 68, was convicted last summer of first-degree murder for the 1998 slaying of Terry Cheek, 33, along with a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait.
But long before a jury held him responsible for Cheek’s death, Harris Sr. blamed another man, Horace Roberts of Temecula, who was wrongfully convicted of the crime and only freed after assistance from a group of San Diego-based attorneys.
Harris Sr. lied to investigators to implicate Roberts, and repeated the statements during three separate trials.
Jurors recommended capital punishment for Harris Sr. and life in prison without the possibility of parole for Joaquin L. Leal, 59, the nephew, who was also convicted of first-degree murder in the 2024 trial.
During a sentencing hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice last week, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz affirmed the jurors’ recommendations.
Harris’ son, Googie Rene Harris Jr., 46, of Palm Desert, pleaded guilty in February 2020 to being an accessory to murder. He was sentenced in September to two years’ felony probation.
According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Harris Sr. and Cheek were embroiled in a divorce, and proceedings faltered due to failed negotiations over disposition of the house they’d purchased together on Lindsey Street in Jurupa Valley.
The defendant and victim had a son together, and Cheek had two young daughters from a prior marriage, in addition to Harris’ adult son.
Cheek had become romantically involved with Roberts, a coworker, but she continued to live in the house she and her estranged husband purchased together.
Harris Sr. referred to it as his “dream home,” and didn’t want to lose it in the divorce. The defendant began confiding in Leal, remarking that Cheek was “trying to take everything” and how he wanted “her out of the picture,” the brief stated.
Leal, a convicted sex offender, was sympathetic.
Harris Sr. began scheming, drawing Leal and Googie Harris Jr. into the murder plot, settling on the night of April 14, 1998, to carry it out.
After the victim said goodbye to her son and daughters to head to work, she walked into the hallway connecting the garage and house to drive Roberts’ pickup, which he had allowed her to borrow when her car broke down.
As she stepped into the dark space, Leal grabbed her from behind, at which point Harris Sr. rushed in and joined him in strangling Cheek, court papers said.
Harris Jr. was standing in the driveway, but turned around, “not wanting to see his stepmother killed,” according to the brief.
Harris Jr. drove Roberts’ pickup with his dead stepmother next to him southbound on Interstate 15 into Temescal Valley, where he took an exit toward Lake Corona, with Leal following behind in his vehicle.
The men dumped the body near the lake, then left in Leal’s car, abandoning Roberts’ pickup on the shoulder of the freeway. The remains were found three days later, and sheriff’s investigators questioned Harris Sr., who told them “Terry was driving her own car and was planning to meet Horace to carpool to work that night,” according to the brief.
Detectives turned their attention to Roberts, theorizing he had gotten into an altercation with Cheek and killed her, despite his repeated denials and alibis.
Two criminal trials resulted in hung juries before a third jury convicted Roberts, wrongfully, of the homicide in 1999.
San Diego-based lawyers from the California Innocence Project took on his appeals, but the process of re-examining DNA evidence collected from Cheek’s body wore on until Roberts had been in jail for 20 years.
By 2018, there was a successful re-analysis of her fingernail clippings and stains on her jeans. The findings concluded there was a 1 in 38 trillion possibility that someone other than Harris Sr. was the contributor of the skin and stain samples.
Roberts was released from prison on Oct. 15, 2018, and charges were immediately filed against Harris Sr. and Leal. Harris Jr. was charged a year later and confessed. Neither he nor his father had prior convictions.
Roberts, now 67, received an $11 million settlement from the Riverside County in 2021 after suing over his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
