Googie Rene Harris Jr. entered the sixth-floor courtroom at the Riverside County Hall of Justice a free man and left it a free man, for now, much to the dismay of his own relatives.
On Thursday, Sept. 26, Superior Court Judge Gary Polk ordered Harris, who had pleaded guilty to accessory to a felony in the 1998 strangulation murder of his stepmother and framed an innocent man by his silence, to serve a little more than eight months in jail.
Anthony Cheek, brother of murder victim Terry Cheek, pauses during his victim impact statement as Riverside County Managing Deputy District Attorney Will Robinson listens in Superior Court in Riverside on Sept. 26, 2024. Googie Rene Harris Jr. was sentenced to about eight months in jail after his conviction for accessory to a felony. He helped dump the body of his stepmother in Corona after she was slain in Jurupa Valley in 1998. (Brian Rokos, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Harris Jr. must report by Jan. 8 to serve his one-year sentence that was trimmed to 248 days after receiving credits for time served. He was also sentenced to two years of probation.
“You got off easy,” one of Harris’ stepbrothers, Altheria Weaver, said via a remote audio link to the courtroom. “You get to walk around and breathe air. No one snatched air from your lungs.”
The sentence is about 20 years less than Temecula resident Horace Roberts Jr. served in prison after he was erroneously convicted of killing his lover, Terry Cheek of Jurupa Valley. Roberts was released and declared factually innocent in 2018 when improved technology determined that DNA found on and near Cheek’s body belonged to her husband, Googie Rene Harris Sr., his nephew, Joaquin Latee Leal III, and his stepson, Harris Jr.
Penola Joseph, the mother of murder victim Terry Cheek, pauses during her victim impact statement in Superior Court in Riverside on Sept. 26, 2024. Googie Rene Harris Jr. was sentenced to about eight months in jail after his conviction for accessory to a felony. He helped dump the body of his stepmother in Corona after she was slain in Jurupa Valley in 1998. (Brian Rokos, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Based on the DNA and Harris Jr.’s testimony, Harris Sr. and Leal were convicted of murdering Cheek, 32. Harris Sr., 68, faces life without parole or the death penalty and Leal, 58, a term of life without parole when they are sentenced this year.
Harris Jr., 45, did not address the court Thursday.
The prosecution case was largely circumstantial and relied on the jury believing Harris Jr.’s testimony. He told jurors that on April 14, 1998, Cheek was leaving the home she shared with Harris Sr. in Glen Avon, which later became part of Jurupa Valley, when her husband and Leal grabbed her in the garage and strangled her.
Tynisha Weaver, left, stepsister to Googie Rene Harris Jr., right, gives her victim impact statement in Superior Court in Riverside on Sept. 26, 2024, as prosecutors and Harris’ attorney listen. Harris was sentenced to about eight months in jail after his conviction for accessory to a felony. He helped dump the body of stepmother Terry Cheek in Corona after she was slain in Jurupa Valley in 1998.(Brian Rokos, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Leal and Harris Jr. then loaded her body in a pickup belonging to Roberts — with whom she was having an affair and whose pickup she had borrowed on that day — and drove her to Lee Lake near Corona and dumped her body on the rocks, Harris Jr. testified. The men left Roberts’ truck about a mile away on the shoulder of the 15 Freeway.
Harris Sr. knew about the affair and feared Cheek would divorce him and take the house, his son testified. A special circumstances allegation of murder for financial gain made Harris Sr. eligible for the death penalty.
Terry Cheek was slain in 1998 in Jurupa Valley. (Courtesy of Riverside County District Attorney’s Office)
Roberts was convicted after he lied about the affair with his coworker and was evasive about his whereabouts the night Cheek vanished to avoid breaking workplace fraternization rules at Quest Diagnostics in San Juan Capistrano. A watch found near Cheek’s body was originally linked to Roberts but turned out to belong to Harris Jr. and contained his DNA.
Harris Sr. later attended Roberts’ state parole hearings to urge officials to keep him incarcerated.
Harris Jr., Harris Sr. and Leal were charged in 2019. Harris Jr. agreed to testify for prosecutors after they promised to drop a murder charge against him. During the monthlong trial this summer, the attorneys for Harris Sr. and Leal were unsuccessful in convincing the jury that Harris Jr. killed Cheek.
On Thursday, Harris Jr. frequently looked toward those speaking to the court about the impact the crime had on their lives. He wiped tears a few times as they spoke.
The only sound in the near-empty courtroom other than those voices was the tick-tock of the second hand on the circular clock.
“You held this (secret) for 27-odd years. How do you hold this … and act like nothing has happened?” Anthony Cheek, Terry Cheek’s brother, said in court Thursday. “If there is an afterlife, I hope you will meet her again so you can atone for what you did to her.”
Tynisha Weaver, one of Cheek’s daughters and a stepsister to Harris Jr., said she forgives him even though “You destroyed too many lives with your choices.”
Terry Cheek’s mother, Penola Joseph, also spoke, at one point leaning forward for emphasis.
“I don’t hate you,” Joseph said, “but I hate what you did. … Somewhere down the line, you will pay.”
Joseph recalled that she had to identify her daughter’s body by looking at something on her foot because she couldn’t recognize Cheek’s face.
“Help me Lord, help me,” Joseph said.