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Louise Harris’ Childhood

Louise Harris was born on June 16th, 1953. She had a rough childhood. She was violated when she was 11. In her teens, her sister died in her arms after having a seizure, and she saw her younger brother pulled from the water after he drowned. After her father was murdered, Louise was the one who found his body.

Murder of Isaiah Harris

By the time Louise was 35 years old, she was a mother of seven living in Montgomery County, Alabama. She was married to law enforcement officer Isaiah Harris. Like most of her past relationships, this one was abusive.

Louise started to step out on her husband with Lorenzo McCarter, who was also abusive toward her. At some point in 1988, she asked McCarter to find someone to get rid of her husband. Isaiah was worth $250,000 dead, and she told McCarter she would split the money with him.

McCarter asked one of his coworkers to commit the murder, but the coworker wasn’t interested and told one of their supervisors. Nothing came of the complaint, and McCarter moved on and asked his buddies, Michael Sockwell and Alex Hood, to do the job.

He offered them $100 and told them they would get more later once the job was done. The vague promise of money in the future was enough to convince the two men to become killers.

They put their plan into action on March 11th, 1988. At around 11 pm, Louise called McCarter’s beeper to alert him that Isaiah was leaving for work. McCarter and Hood were parked nearby while Sockwell hid in some bushes near a stop sign, armed with a shotgun.

When Isaiah drove out of his subdivision and stopped his vehicle at the intersection, Sockwell jumped out and fired one shot at close range, blowing half of Isaiah’s face off. The dead man’s car rolled across the street and stopped in a ditch while the killers fled the scene.

When Isaiah didn’t show up to work, his job called his home and spoke with Louise, but she offered no answers.

At midnight, two people returning home from work found Isaiah’s body and contacted authorities. Not long after the investigation started, detectives knocked on Louise’s door. When notified of her husband’s death, she acted distraught and emotional but didn’t shed any real tears.

She quickly calmed down when they started asking questions.

She admitted to cheating on her husband with several men, including McCarter. She also told them that McCarter’s car had been broken down near her home. When they asked if McCarter might have killed her husband, she reportedly said, “If he did kill him, I didn’t tell him to.”

After her statements, authorities went and found McCarter; they told him how Louise implicated him in the crime. McCarter didn’t want to go down alone, and he didn’t want to get the death penalty, so he decided to spill the beans about the entire plan.

Legal Proceedings

When Harris went to trial, McCarter testified that Louise was the mastermind behind the crime. She was convicted of capital murder. At her sentencing hearing, many witnesses talked about what a great person she was. They said she worked hard, holding multiple jobs, and she was also active in church and didn’t have a criminal record.

The jury voted 7 to 5 in favor of life in prison without parole. The judge didn’t care about her lack of a criminal record or how often she went to church; he was disgusted that she plotted her husband’s death for financial gain.

He overrode the jury’s verdict and sentenced her to death.

Now 73 years old, Louise is no longer on death row, but she remains incarcerated in an Alabama state prison.

Hood and McCarter got life without parole.

Sockwell also received a 7 to 5 vote for life in prison without parole, but the judge also overruled his verdict and sentenced him to death. Sockwell remains on death row, awaiting the ultimate punishment.