The man charged with murder in the 2020 death of Melissa Jean Pughsley pleaded guilty to a lesser charge last week.
Eric Reid Harris was arrested by the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office on January 24, 2020 on charges of Murder and Concealing the Death of Another. Investigators alleged that the incident took place on January 21 or January 22, and that Harris struck Pughsley in the head with a pole multiple times. Warrants state that Harris concealed her death for approximately 48 hours. She was discovered during a welfare check.
In November of 2020, Harris was indicted by a grand jury on a host of charges, including Malice Murder, two counts of Felony Murder, Aggravated Assault, and Aggravated Battery. Each of the violent offenses were based on Harris striking Pughsley in the head with a pipe. He was also indicted on charges of Possession of Tools for the Commission of a Crime (the metal pipe), and Concealing the Death of Another.
Long Road to Trial
In the early stages of his case, Harris was represented by then-Conflict Defender Stephen Yekel, who filed a motion for a mental evaluation of Harris. In February 2021, John Carson became Harris’ attorney, though there was little movement on the case for more than three years.
Superior Court Judge Michael Muldrew signed an order seeking a mental health evaluation by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities (Georgia DBHDD) to determine Harris’ competency to stand trial in March of 2020. After a 90-minute video conference, a report concluded that Harris was, in fact, competent to stand trial.
In June 2022, in November 2022 and in November 2023, Judge Muldrew again signed orders seeking
Evaluation of Harris’ Degree of Criminal Responsibility or Insanity by Georgia DBHDD, but continued delay kept the evaluations from being completed for nearly two years. Finally, in February 2024, the same doctors who evaluated Harris in 2020 for competence determined that he also failed to meet the standards for Insanity at the time of the act.
In May 2024, Harris’ attorneys – John Carson and Klyne Weaver, filed a motion for a hearing before Judge Muldrew to determine Harris’ competency once again to determine if Harris should face a civil commitment instead. They also sought a hearing to argue Harris was immune from prosecution.
Immunity Hearing
During the August 2024 hearing, Harris’ attorneys argued that Pughsley was dealing with addiction at the time of her death and Harris was helping her detox. Attorneys said Harris and Pughsley were up for more than 48 hours when Harris said he needed to go to bed. Pughsley, they said, grabbed a baseball bat and followed him to his room before swinging at him.
“Mr. Harris grabs what is nearest to him, which is a metal pipe, this small metal pipe, and he swung at her. There are repeated statements throughout the reports that he felt that he was in fear for his life, and that he would be on the floor dead, if he did not protect himself like he did.”
Harris decided at the immunity hearing not to testify, which left his attorneys with very little evidence to present to the court. Muldrew ultimately decided that ‘due to the lack of the submission of evidence,’ the claim of immunity was not considered by the Court.
As to the criminal evaluations, the defense subpoenaed both doctors from Georgia DBHDD, but neither appeared for the hearing.
Defense attorneys presented what they could without the individuals who conducted the evaluation, sharing what Harris said in his evaluation.
“He described the prosecutor’s role as trying to convict the innocent, if possible. It doesn’t matter if they did something or didn’t. It’s a corrupt system out of Atlanta. Whenever he was asked to describe what a not guilty plea means, he said it means you’re charged with something that you didn’t have, that they should have never charged him with. Because they didn’t have a chance of convicting a person if they plead not guilty.”
“Whenever he was asked what his charges were, he said, “I’m unsure, I think they relate to murder.” Whenever he was in the evaluation, he required frequent redirection, because he spoke of unrelated circumstances. They made several notes of that throughout their evaluations.”
“It is our position, your honor, he was up for over three days, I believe but I know it’s over 48 hours, your honor. He was up for a long time; he had sleep deprivation and in that moment, he believed that his life was at risk and that Ms. Pughsley was going to kill him with the metal bat. So it would be our position that he is not competent and that he was operating under hallucination at the time, your honor. Pursuant to sleep deprivation.”
The state relied on the findings of Georgia DBHDD and said no evidence had been present to contradict the findings of the evaluations. ADA Ben Edwards told the court that while Harris claims he hit Pughsley in self defense, it was two days before the events came to light. Edwards also said no bat was found at the crime scene during the search of the premises.
Ultimately, Muldrew ruled that Harris was not immune from prosecution and that he was competent to stand trial. In October 2024, the case was placed on the calendar for jury trial.
Plea
Harris’ trial was set to begin November 6, but agreed to a plea deal on Wednesday morning. As part of the plea agreement, the Malice Murder charge was amended to Voluntary Manslaughter and the Felony Murder charge merged into the same. The Aggravated Assault, Aggravated Battery, Possession of Tools for Commission of a Crime, and Concealing the Death of Another were all dismissed.
Harris’ plea was an open ended plea, meaning the sentence was left completely up to the judge. Muldrew sentenced Harris to the maximum allowed under the law – 20 years confinement, plus 7 years confinement for the Concealing Death of Another to be served consecutively.
In total, Harris’ sentence is 27 years confinement followed by three years probation.
