As the investigation into the murder of missing student Caleb Harris continues, Texas authorities are revealing fresh facts about how the 21-year-old’s body could have wound up in a wastewater well near his residence despite the lack of “obvious homicide.”
On Wednesday, July 17, the Corpus Christi Police Department revealed that human remains discovered on June 24 at the Perry Place wastewater lift station were definitively identified as Harris, who was last seen leaving his off-campus condominium in the early morning hours of March 4.
But when authorities closed the case on one element of Harris’ death, other concerns lingered, most notably how the student ended up in the sewer system in the first place.
Deputy Chief Billy Breedlove of the Corpus Christi Police Department tells PEOPLE that they still don’t know what happened. While it’s possible that Harris was “harmed and then was put there” — officials haven’t ruled out the possibility of foul play, despite the lack of evidence – the investigator adds an accidental fall might also be to blame.
Speaking with PEOPLE on Thursday, July 18, Breedlove stated that at about 3:03 a.m. on March 4, Harris sent a Snapchat photo to a buddy of a tiny bridge a few hundred feet away from his apartment complex.
About 600 feet distant, detectives discovered a manhole in a field.
“[The manhole] was covered with grass at the time, and no one was [initially] able to find this or notice that this hole was there,” Breedlove says—but, more significantly, its cover “had been knocked aside.”
“We don’t know how that occurred,” he says. “It is a region that is farmed year after year. So there’s a chance that an agricultural implement knocked it off, and with the tall grass growing across there, it’d be hidden from most people strolling around.”
Another element that could have affected visibility? Breedlove claims that the night Harris went missing “was probably one of the foggiest nights we’d had.”
Although authorities cannot say for definite how he entered the manhole, which was 25 inches wide and 15 feet deep, Breedlove said they suspect the open manhole was Harris’ point of entry into the sewage system.
“There are four other manholes on the roadway, and we cannot rule out the possibility that he entered the system in one of those, but it is more likely that he entered through the open hole,” he says, adding that investigators are unsure whether there was water in the open manhole on the night of Caleb’s disappearance.
Breedlove tells PEOPLE that someone reported the unsecured manhole on April 18. However, when they went to the site and drained it, “there was no indication of a body.”
They also returned to the lift station where Harris’ body was later discovered and “drained the tank there,” but again, they came up empty.
Then, late last month, Tropical Storm Alberto passed through the area—and on June 24, employees at the lift station told authorities that a sewage pump triggered an alarm, suggesting that something was stuck in the line.
Breedlove claims that because of the water accumulation, “we believe that the body,” which had been in the pipe, was then “pushed into that lift station.”
“They opened it,” Breedlove said, “and found what appeared to be a human bone, which we now know was one of the shoulder bones.”
After officials came, Breedlove claims that the remaining remains were gathered and taken to a facility where they could “spread it out and empty that truck.”
“We were able to find some small other pieces of bone,” according to him. Harris’s parents were promptly alerted once the remains had been discovered. “They were waiting,” Breedlove explains. “They had given consent for us to collect [their] DNA so we could make a comparison since we did not have any DNA on file for Caleb.”
Breedlove describes their conversation with the family, saying, “We’ve had a terrific relationship with them. We were feeling sad at the time. “It was tragic for them to lose this young man.”
Breedlove says the inquiry into the case, which he calls unique, is ongoing.
“We put together a team of very experienced investigators,” he said. “We had what we would call good leads on certain vehicles coming and going from the area. They never materialized…it was quite aggravating.”
Another source of frustration? Harris’ apartment complex “had no working surveillance cameras,” so police had to make do with footage from a nearby complex, which allowed them to “run down pretty much all the vehicles that had come and gone from that area at the time of his disappearance.”
According to the investigator, the police, along with the entire Corpus Christi town, “really hoped that we would find him well.”
Instead, they offered his family a “different type of closure.”
Although they may never have all the answers, Breedlove says police are “going to continue to investigate what we can.”
Harris’ family stated after the remains were identified, stating, “We all have heavy hearts this evening as we learned of the identification of our sweet Caleb.”
“We will grieve for our son,” they continued. “Thank you for your prayers and support during this tragic time.”