The Timonium home of James J. Harrison, under scrutiny for months after his estranged wife was slain almost three years ago, was swarming with detectives yesterday.
State and Baltimore County police hauled away several envelopes of personal papers after a 10-hour search of the house in the 600 block of W. Timonium Road.
They were seeking anything, said sources, that might link him to the areas where Susan Harrison's car or her remains were found. Officers gave no specific reason for the search.
Seven detectives searched the house, and three evidence technicians combed through the lawn, flower beds and plantings with metal detectors.
Harrison and his attorney, Steven A. Allen, stood in the driveway yesterday morning watching. Allen said the officers arrived about 8 a.m. He declined to comment on what they took away.
"Basically their probable cause was that they wanted to see if they missed anything the first time they searched the house back in 1994 when she disappeared," he said.
Investigators have theorized that Mrs. Harrison's killer, after burying her body in a secluded area in Frederick County, dropped her car off at National Airport in Washington and rode the train back to Baltimore.
Detectives were looking for anything that might link Harrison, 60, to Amtrak trains, the airport or the area where the body was found, according to a source involved with the case.
Carolyn H. Henneman, chief of the criminal investigations division at the state attorney general's office, said it would inappropriate for her to comment on the case.
Henneman said the attorney general's office uses local grand juries to investigate cases such as these. A Frederick County District Court judge signed the papers authorizing yesterday's search.
Mrs. Harrison, 52, who had moved to Ruxton when the couple became estranged, disappeared Aug. 5, 1994, after visiting her husband at the Timonium house she once shared with him.
Her remains were found Nov. 29 in a grave in the rural town of Wolfsville in Frederick County -- about 50 miles from her Ruxton home.
She was last reported seen the night of Aug. 5, 1994, by Mr. Harrison, a retired chief financial officer of McCormick & Co.
Their marriage, the second for both, had been a violent one, according to police records. When she filed for divorce, she cited violence as grounds.
Her disappearance came on the eve of a trip she had long planned with Nicholas Owsley, her younger son by her first marriage. They were to leave for Boston on the morning of Aug. 6, but Owsley said he never saw her after she went to visit Harrison.
After she was reported missing, her car, a dark green Saab, turned up in a parking lot at National Airport.
Although an autopsy revealed that she had died from blunt force trauma to the head, investigators say they do not know where she was killed or what weapon was used.
James Harrison has been repeatedly questioned by investigators and has denied any knowledge of how she died.
"There are plenty of legitimate leads that can be followed, but police just have blinders on," Allen said yesterday, but he refused to elaborate.
Mrs. Harrison was manic-depressive, according to Mr. Harrison, and left their house angry and yelling insults at him. He said he never saw her again.
He said he has never been to Wolfsville and does not know anyone in the area.
The attorney general's office took over the case in April to resolve any jurisdictional issues between Baltimore County, where Susan Harrison lived, and Frederick County, where her body was found.
Pub Date: 7/11/97
