Chicago Mother’s Conviction Overturned in the Death of Her 4-Year Old

By Staff

In 2005 Nicole Harris was convicted of killing her 4-year son, Jaquari Dancy, with an elastic bedsheet cord around his neck in the bedroom of his family’s Northwest Side home. At a lengthy 27-hour interrogation, Harris made a false confession, and was convicted for the crime and given a 30-year prison sentence. She served seven years of a 30-year conviction that was recently overturned when appeal judges said that Harris’s older son, Diante, should have been allowed to testify that his younger brother put the cord around his own neck while playing “Spider-Man.”

Alicia Shines, Harris’s sister said, “We got the news Thursday, and I’ve just been, ‘I wish I could go to sleep and wake up and Monday can be here,’ because it’s been a long journey for us.” She further noted, “When you know that somebody is innocent and you have to watch them suffer, lose a child and not be able to grieve properly, and miss out on everything, it’s been an ordeal, so we are very, very excited.”
Kevin Smith, Harris’s friend opined, “The state’s gonna try to retry her, but I believe in good faith in God that it’s not gonna happen, because so far she’s getting out today, so she’s already been through enough,”
Harris will most likely remain on probation while the state decides whether to retry her on murder charges. Friends and family say Harris has a degree in psychology and is looking to restart her life. She has one surviving son, now 14.