The University of North Texas’ Center for Human Identification was able to positively identify a rib bone sent to the center in December 2024.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A rib bone sent to the University of North Texas’ Center for Human Identification in December was definitively identified as Caleb Harris‘.
The Nueces County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the finding Friday.
The office was made aware of the positive identification in a report dated Tuesday, and released to 3NEWS on Friday.
The bone fragment was compared to DNA samples collected from Caleb Harris’ parents, Becky and Randy, in July 2024.
“The genetic data obtained. . . . are consistent with the unidentified human remains originating from a biological child of Rebecca Harris and Randall Harris,” the report states.
The report explains that the genetic data found in the rib bone is 580 trillion times more likely to be found in the Harris’ biological child than anyone else. Randy and Becky Harris are the parents of two biological children: Caleb and his sister, Andie.
The ME’s office received the bone Dec. 2, according to a letter signed by deputy medical examiner Dr. Diane-Ngan H. Trang and chief medical examiner Dr. Rajesh Kannan.
The letter states that the “rib originated from where the remains of Caleb Wilson Harris were found,” and were sent to the UNTCHI to be compared to samples taken from original remains sent from Jose Balderas of the Texas Rangers’ Company D on July 2, 2024.
Those remains included a near-complete skeleton, a left 5th metatarsal (foot bone) and a section of a left femur (leg bone).
Corpus Christi Police Department Public Information Sr. Ofc. Jennifer Collier said Friday that a City of Corpus Christi Wastesater employee at the Greenwood Water Recycling Plant reported the bone to police after it was found by a subcontractor in a drying bed.
That plant is where the contents of the Perry Place lift station wet well were taken in June 2024, following the discovery of Caleb Harris’s remains, she said.
Collier said the bone was picked up by a CCPD officer and taken to the medical examiner’s office, where it was identified as being human and sent to UNTCHI.
Homicide detectives were told Tuesday that it has been positively identified as belonging to Caleb Harris
The Nueces County Medical Examiner said Caleb Harris’ cause and manner of the death remains undetermined.
Caleb Harris’ family held a remembrance ceremony for him in September 2024, and spoke with 3NEWS earlier this month to mark one year since the A&M-Corpus Christi student’s disappearance.
“When I’m sitting in nature, just feeling, like, God’s presence and feeling that presence of Caleb is so near, and it’s so peaceful,” his sister Andie told Lexis Greene on March 5 in the family’s hometown of New Braunfels. “There’s nothing like that.”
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