The Towanda woman charged with killing her husband and 3-year-old son Monday afternoon at a Poconos resort never wanted to get pregnant and resented the boy, the husband’s relatives told police.
EDITOR'S NOTE
Some readers may find details of the case included below disturbing.
Metallica Harrison, 27, acted “dominant” and “controlling” and “isolated the Harrison side of the family” from her husband Charles and their son for three years, Harrison’s sister, Melissa Rivera, and their mother, Ann Harrison, told Pocono Twp. police, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Rivera told police Harrison thought the boy was “taking away one-on-one time between her and Charles,” according to the affidavit.
Police identified the boy only as T.H., but a notice for a Nov. 2 Towanda vigil to remember the boy and his father identifies him as Tristan.
Police charged Harrison with two counts of homicide for stabbing her husband and son to death in guest room 2030 at Great Wolf Lodge. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 3 at 1 p.m.
Treated for apparently self-inflicted cuts at St. Luke’s Hospital in Stroudsburg, Metallica Harrison remained in the Monroe County prison without bail on Friday.
'Too week to stab my neck'
Police say Harrison called county 911 and asked for help killing herself. When a dispatcher asked if she was alone, she apologized for her husband and son being “already gone in the bed in the living room,” according to an arrest affidavit filed by township detectives Earl Ackerman and Michael Scicutella.
“I’m too weak to stab my neck,” she said.
When the dispatcher asked if she had weapons, she said she needed “help dying” and confirmed having knives.
“That’s what I’ve been using and it’s not working,” Harrison said. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
She said she wanted to join her husband and son, according to the arrest affidavit.
Harrison never asked for help for her son or husband, according to Scicutella’s search warrant affidavit.
Police found cuts on Harrison’s left wrist and a neck puncture when she met them at the guest room door, but no defensive wounds or bruises. They found Charles Harrison lying on one mattress and his son on another. Both were on the floor.
According to our newsgathering partners at FOX56, autopsies found that a Tristan Harrison and Charles Harrison, 36 died from stab wounds to the chest in what the Monroe County Coroner’s Office ruled homicides.
The knives at home and the hotel
Police found knives with teal green handles in the room — a large butcher knife on the bathroom floor, a smaller steak knife on the bathroom sink, according to an arrest affidavit.
They found 10 other knives with teal handles and scissors with a teal handle in the Harrisons’ home on Pratt Street in Towanda, according to an inventory of what police took based on a search warrant. Lodge employees told police Great Wolf did not use such knives.
In the guest room, they also found several bottles of medication and a plastic container and garbage can containing suspected blood.
In the ambulance on the way to St. Luke’s Hospital, Harrison said she “took medication to thin her blood” and showed frustration “that the blood was clotting when it wasn’t supposed to,” according to the arrest affidavit.
At the Towanda home, police found a Penelec electricity shutoff notice posted on the front door, two journals, 13 unopened envelopes — nine addressed to Harrison, four to her husband — financial records, a laptop and a safe.
The shutoff notice coincided with the visit to Great Wolf Lodge.
The Harrisons arrived at Great Wolf on Sept. 21. Lodge security told police their reservation was extended on Oct. 5 with a check-out date set for Oct. 13, the day after the murders — a three-week stay.
Rooms this week cost at least $177 a night. A three-week stay at $177 a night adds up to more than $3,700.
'My happy family'
In the search warrant, police said they sought anything written by hand or electronically in the home because people like Harrison commonly “document their homicidal and suicidal ideations” in writing.
"Every day I work so hard to be the best person, the best mother, the best wife," Harrison said in the ambulance, according to the arrest affidavit. "It wasn't supposed to end like this. I was supposed to have my happy family. That’s what I envisioned since I was a child."
