Body of Slain Woman’s Husband Is Found

SAN JOSE â€”  The body of a San Jose police officer was found on a grassy hillside in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Thursday, four days after his wife’s body was found in the trunk of her car with her throat slashed.

Coroner’s investigators would not say whether officer Tom Harris died of a self-inflicted wound or under other circumstances.

Sheriff’s deputies and bloodhounds found Harris, a 15-year veteran of the force, after locating his abandoned car at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday in a remote section of the mountains, Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Arata said.

Family members reported him missing Wednesday afternoon.

Investigators had insisted for days that the officer was not a suspect in the death of his wife, Judith Lynne Harris, as earlier reports had suggested.

“We have mounted a search because we want to find out if he’s all right,� Arata said before a news helicopter spotted the body lying in a field of grass with a gun nearby.

There were no keys in Harris’ car, which was found on fog-shrouded Mount Umunhum Road the previous night.

Officers discovered the body of Judith Harris, 48, on Sunday in her car, which was parked at a medical complex in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County. Her throat had been cut and she had been beaten in the head. Her mouth and neck were covered with duct tape and her head was at least partially covered with a black bag, the coroner’s office said Wednesday.

That day would have been the couple’s 29th wedding anniversary.

The deaths have stunned the south San Jose neighborhood where the couple lived and the San Jose Police Department, where Harris, their son Scott and Harris’ brother Dale are officers.