Husband hopes for closure in unsolved murder of wife in 1988

Pamela Harris was found dead in November 1988, one month after her disappearance.

On Nov. 7, 1988, the remains of Pamela Harris were found in a small parkette area outside Waterloo.

The parkette – off Northfield Drive near the Conestogo River – was well known to hunters, fishers and even people just looking for a picnic spot, and it was a pair of hunters that discovered the body.

They immediately contacted police.

Initially, investigators could only determine that the body belonged to a woman, who had been stabbed multiple times in the chest.

“There was also evidence that she had been bludgeoned with an object to the facial area,” says Staff Sgt. Vicki MacDonald.

There was no identification around the body, and nobody made the connection between the discovery and Harris until media began reporting about a distinctive ring found with the remains.

That prompted Harris’ husband to call police.

“I knew it was her, because of the ring,” Allen Harris tells CTV News.

Pamela Harris had disappeared the previous month.

On Oct. 7, 2014, she left her Guelph home.

That night, she was seen partying downtown at the Diplomat Hotel.

The following day, police later learned, a man picked up a hitchhiker now believed to be Harris, dropping her off on Victoria Street North in Kitchener.

“She wanted to get to Kitchener, because it was Oktoberfest time,” MacDonald says.

Police have never learned what happened to Harris after she was dropped off – until her body was driven to the Woolwich parkette and unceremoniously dropped off.

The forensic testing available at the time was unable to determine for how long she had been dead before her body was found.

Each year, when Thanksgiving season rolls around, Allen Harris says memories of his wife return to the front of his mind.

“She was very kind, generous – a very pleasant person when she was in a good mood,” he says.

“This case has to be solved.”