Contributed Photos
Harris Clark with his daughter and grandkids.
City police have arrested a 39-year-old New Haven woman for allegedly stabbing to death 66-year-old Harris Clark on Sherman Avenue in 2019.
Cops and family members relayed that news at a Friday afternoon press conference at police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
Clark, whom family members described as an avid cyclist and giver of strong hugs, was stabbed to death on Sept. 15, 2019 in the back of an apartment building at 80 Sherman Ave.
On Oct. 19, city police arrested Markita Johnson for the murder.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit written by New Haven police Det. Steve Cunningham on Oct. 18, police found blood inside and outside of Johnson’s apartment. According to that same affidavit, Johnson, who is a certified nursing assistant, told cops that she did not kill Clark.
Johnson’s phone had been linked to a 9 – 1‑1 call that night reporting that a man had stabbed himself at the apartment building. In interactions with police, Cunningham wrote, Johnson repeatedly told cops: “I did not do anything.”
The affidavit states that she appeared distressed and offered conflicting narratives of where and how she had seen Clark that evening. She told police that the blood on various items in her apartment might have been a result of her menstrual cycle or hamburger meat.
Some DNA evidence and bloodstains in her bedroom, as well as on a knife in her apartment, led police to believe that Clark was stabbed inside Johnson’s apartment and then dragged outside. Police found a black and red Schwinn bicycle that belonged to Clark inside Johnson’s apartment.
Cunningham, the detective who led the investigation, said on Friday that “physical evidence” played a significant role in solving the murder, given that there were “not a lot of witnesses.”
“A motive was never determined,” added Asst. Chief Bertram Ettienne.
The family members present at the press conference, including Clark’s sister, daughter, and grandchildren, said they did not know anything about the alleged perpetrator or the nature of her relationship with Clark.
“She’s always denied it,” Cunningham said of the arrestee’s involvement in the crime.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson noted that Clark’s murder is the fifth to be solved out of 11 homicides that took place in 2019. “So we are gonna continue to go back and look at all these homicides,” he said.
“This is the beginning of the justice process,” said Mayor Justin Elicker.
Laura Glesby Photo
Asst. Chief Ettienne: No motive determined.
Clark’s daughter, LaTonya Sims Faber, said she drives past the scene of the murder each day to pick her kids up from school. The arrest was “like taking a band-aid off of a wound,” she said.
She remembers her father as someone who, though “not a perfect person,” loved his family dearly — and conveyed that love through “sloppy kisses.”
A lifelong New Havener, Clark was living at Leeway, a residential medical care center for patients with HIV and related illnesses in the Cedar Hill neighborhood, at the time of his murder.
Clark’s sister, Barbara Dykes, recalled that Harris had recently become dedicated to his church community. He would hug you so hard you couldn’t breathe, she said.
Clark enjoyed riding his bike all around town, especially on the New Haven Green, family members recalled.
Below his obituary on McClam Funeral Home’s website, Jazz and Bliss Smith commented upon Clark’s death, “A few weeks ago Harris raced my 7 year old grandson on a bike. My grandson was so excited because I told him that Harris was the champion racer in all of New Haven and Harris being the kind man that he was let my grandson win the bike race. The smiles on their faces was priceless.”
LaTonya Sims Faber with two of her sons and Mayor Justin Elicker.
