Less than one month after serving a 22-year stint in prison for second-degree murder, a Republic man is behind bars again and accused of sexually assaulting a woman.
Christopher Davis Harrison, 41, is in the Greene County Jail and is charged with second-degree sodomy and second-degree sexual assault for an incident that allegedly occurred on Monday, May 6, 2024.
According to court documents, Harrison had been released from a Missouri Department of Corrections prison on April 11, 2024. He had been sentenced to 28 years for second-degree murder and armed criminal action in Jackson County.
Harrison served about 22 years of that sentence and was on parole.
Harrison allegedly told victim ‘no’ doesn’t always mean ‘no’
According to the probable cause statement filed by an officer with the Republic Police Department, the alleged victim said she met Harrison on the morning of May 6 while they were both out walking their dogs.
Soon after that first conversation, Harrison knocked on her door and asked to come into her apartment and talk. The woman allowed him in; they had a conversation and exchanged phone numbers.
The woman told the officer that Harrison asked her some intimate questions and then began kissing her. She said she kissed him back for no more than three or four seconds, the officer wrote, and then she began trying to pull back, telling him “no,” and that she was in a committed relationship.
According to the probable cause statement, the woman said she repeatedly told Harrison “no” as he lifted her shirt and bra, kissed one of her breasts, attempted to pull down her pants, pulled down his shorts, exposed his penis and forcibly put her hand on his penis.
The woman said Harrison finally left after she told him she got a text message from her fiancé.
The following day, on a recorded phone call with Harrison, the woman asked Harrison why he continued “doing what he was doing when I kept saying, ‘no.’
According to the probable cause statement, Harrison “explained that when a woman says, ‘No,’ it can mean that in her mind, ‘it can indicate that, okay, damn, he don’t think I’m as beautiful as I really am …’”
Officer: Harrison made another woman feel victimized
In the probable cause statement, the investigating officer wrote that Harrison got married in prison and that his wife said they’d been married for at least a decade.
Another single woman who lived in the same building as the alleged victim from the May 6 incident told the officer about something that happened to her on April 23, 2024. This woman said she was helping Harrison find a workout room code for the apartment complex. She said it was the first time she met Harrison and that he was in her apartment. She said she gave him a code to the workout room and he allegedly gave her a full-frontal hug and kissed her on the cheek.
“She was so upset about it, she sent a text to (Harrison’s) wife that it ‘pissed’ her off because she did not even know him,” the officer wrote. “In less than a month from being in prison for over 20 years, Christopher had at least two incidents with being in the apartments of single women and making both feel victimized, one of which was the felony sexual assault of VICTIM 1.”
According to the probable cause statement, Harrison told the police officer transporting him to jail that he was affiliated with a gang.
“I have reasonable grounds to believe Christopher is a danger to the victim and any community he lives in,” the investigating officer wrote, “due to the criminal lack of boundaries Christopher demonstrated within a month of being released from prison.”
According to online court records, Harrison does not yet have an attorney. He is scheduled to be in court on May 16.
Harrison is being held in jail without bond.
