Police publish timeline of events for missing Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi student

As the third week of searching for 21-year-old Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi student Caleb Harris continues, the Corpus Christi Police Department (CCPD) published a timeline on the CCPD blotter on Thursday detailing the events of the night of March 4, when he disappeared.

The record was compiled from interviews with Harris' roommates, friends and family, as well as hours of surveillance camera footage that was captured on the grounds of the New Braunfels man's off-campus apartment complex, the Cottages at Corpus Christi, where he lived with roommates. Police continue an intense behind-the-scenes investigation in cooperation with state and federal partners.

"Detectives have learned that Harris spent the evening hours of Sunday, March 3 inside his off-campus apartment on the 1900 block of Ennis Joslin Road, along with his two roommates and a mutual friend," wrote CCPD senior officer Jennifer Collier on the CCPD blotter.

Harris and his friend played video games online for over an hour with another former high school classmate who currently resides in Colorado, the officer wrote.

At approximately 12:56 a.m. on Monday, March 4, a doorbell camera at a nearby apartment revealed Harris, his friend and one of Harris’ roommates in the parking lot playing with a puppy belonging to the girlfriend of one of his roommates, the report stated.

The report described a sequence of events that followed in quick succession, with three young men then returning to Harris’ apartment and the mutual friend leaving shortly afterward. At about 2:20 a.m., the second of Harris’ two roommates informed Harris that he (the roommate) was going to bed. Harris replied that he was going to stay up to order snacks via UberEats for his school lunch later that day (Monday).

At about 2:44 a.m., Harris shared a Snapchat video with his younger sister that depicted him walking the puppy through what appeared to be the apartment complex parking lot. At about 3:03 a.m., he sent another Snapchat photo to a high school friend currently living in San Antonio that depicted a small bridge over a drainage ditch on the 1900 block of Ennis Joslin, within a few hundred feet of the entrance to the apartment complex.

Photos of the bridge have been circulating online through social media posts in the last week and are among the unofficial pictures, snapchats, and chat logs published by friends, acquaintances and strangers who have become involved in the search and rescue effort for Harris in parallel to the official police investigation as speculation foments about Harris' whereabouts.

The student's last known location was confirmed by data that his cell phone shared with the nearest cell phone tower at 3:12 a.m.

An UberEats driver delivered food to his apartment, leaving it outside near the front door as it was requested.

The investigators' notes do not confirm when the dog that Harris had been walking was returned to the apartment, nor why the young man's keys and wallet were left in the apartment at the time he went missing.

His roommates called CCPD to report Harris missing after one of them found the UberEats order sitting outside the front door at 11 a.m. Monday morning and went looking for him for a short time. Harris' pickup truck was parked in front of the apartment. The roommates described him as a homebody and a creature of habit and were alarmed by his absence.

After he was reported missing, the initial responding officer, after having obtained the information from the roommates, immediately checked all local hospitals for any unidentified patients matching the student's description without finding any.

The March 28 report elaborated on how police determined, from a preliminary search of the apartment complex and the immediate area surrounding it, that there were no signs of a struggle or violence, nor any indication of a hit and run accident on the roads nearby, and that the officer ensured that Harris was entered into the national computer database as a missing person.

Door-to-door search for evidence at the apartment complex

Previous reports have described an intensive and large-scale search that was organized and conducted in the areas surrounding Harris' apartment by detectives from the CCPD Criminal Investigation Division (CID), with an investigative team consisting of CID detectives, the CCPD Organized Crime Unit (OCU), the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, the Texas Rangers and several civilian crime analysts forming within days of Harris’ vanishing and continuing to work full time to solve the case.

A March 20 news release on the CCPD blotter noted that CID detectives began questioning people who know Harris, with officers going door to door at his apartment complex and an adjacent apartment complex looking for possible witnesses or surveillance video and searching more than 30 vacant apartments.

After interviewing his roommates, friends, family members and acquaintances, CCPD detectives reported March 20 they did not have a reason to suspect that these individuals were involved in the student’s disappearance. The March 28 report stated that those individuals interviewed have been extremely cooperative with investigators since the onset.

Detectives found no evidence of a struggle after searching his apartment, nor a violent act or signs that the apartment had been recently deep cleaned, elaborating on items that were found, including firearms and fishing gear, such as waders, that belonged to the man.

Police obtained a laptop belonging to Harris that was collected and turned over to Forensic Computer Examiners with the OCU for examination and analysis.

After learning that he ordered UberEats in the early morning hours of March 4, officers identified and interviewed the delivery driver, a 31-year-old woman who told detectives that she was driving alone that night and did not see Harris or anyone else at or near the apartment complex. Detectives confirmed she was alone by reviewing surveillance video from the convenience store where she picked up Harris' order and eliminated her as a suspect in the case.

Police have relied on camera footage provided by surveillance videos, checking more than 50 businesses and residences and retrieving video from 27 locations, including city-owned traffic cameras. The search for additional video sources is ongoing.

Detectives have written 16 electronic search warrants, submitted more than 70 preservation requests and issued 14 subpoenas for electronic data related to the investigation. Forensic Computer Examiners have already reviewed over 600 gigabytes of electronic data and continue to pour over data as it arrives on an almost daily basis.

The investigative team, formed during the first days of the search, continues to meet daily to share information from the previous day’s efforts, discuss possible leads, and plot the course of the investigation. Detectives have reviewed, and followed up where appropriate, on fourteen Crime Stoppers tips, 31 tipline tips and several others from various sources.

A $25,000 reward is in place through March 31 for anyone with information about Harris.

Anyone with information on the disappearance of Harris should contact CCPD at (361) 826-2840 or submit an anonymous tip at Crime Stoppers to 888-TIPS (888-8477). The tipline number set up by the Harris family is (361) 826-2950.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Corpus Christi police timeline in student Caleb Harris' disappearance