Bio

James Allen Harris was born on October 27, 1954, in the United States. By the mid-1970s, he resided in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. Documentation from his early life reveals a pattern of sexual violence and legal issues that preceded his 1983 murder charge.

In June 1976, Harris was arrested and subsequently tried in the Marion Criminal Court for an unrelated rape offense. Following a jury trial, he was convicted on June 21, 1976, and received a 15-year prison sentence. He spent the late 1970s incarcerated within the Indiana Department of Corrections system before being released back into the community. 

Mental health evaluations later submitted in court indicated that Harris suffered from a severe, long-standing psychiatric disorder that significantly impaired his cognitive processing, judgment, and behavior, which later became a focal point of his legal proceedings.

Murder Story

On March 28, 1983, Harris targeted 31-year-old businesswoman Jane Brumblay, a stranger to him, in the parking lot of the Glendale Shopping Mall in Indianapolis. As Brumblay prepared to enter her vehicle, Harris ambushed her. When she startled and threatened to notify the authorities, he physically overpowered her and forced her inside the automobile. Harris bound her hands using her own pantyhose and drove her vehicle to a secluded movie theater parking lot, where he committed multiple sexual assaults against her.

During the assault, Brumblay attempted to resist. Harris responded by choking her with her scarf until she lost consciousness, subsequently stuffing the fabric into her mouth. He then drove the vehicle to Broad Ripple Park. By the time he reached the park, Brumblay had partially swallowed the scarf and stopped breathing. Harris concealed her body in the trunk of the car and abandoned the vehicle on site. An autopsy later performed by a forensic pathologist established that Brumblay did not suffocate on the scarf, but rather died from severe manual strangulation.

Law enforcement quickly tied Harris to the vehicle and the homicide, leading to his arrest. Facing capital charges, Harris entered a plea of Guilty But Mentally Ill to charges of murder, kidnapping, and rape on December 1, 1983. On February 10, 1984, Marion County Superior Court Judge John W. Tranberg formally sentenced him to death, citing the statutory aggravating factors of rape and kidnapping. While the court acknowledged his profound psychiatric illness as a mitigating factor, it initially ruled that the severity of the crime outweighed the mitigation.

Harris spent nearly eight years on Indiana's death row while pursuing post-conviction relief. On October 3, 1990, his defense team initiated formal post-conviction petition proceedings. This culminated on March 5, 1992, when the state prosecution and the defense entered into a joint petition to resolve the litigation. The agreement sought to permanently insulate the public by ensuring Harris would never be released, while permanently removing him from death row. 

Under this agreement, Harris pled guilty to murder, class A felony kidnapping, and class A felony rape. Marion County Superior Court Judge Paula E. Lapossa accepted the terms, vacating the death penalty and resentencing Harris to consecutive terms of 60 years, 50 years, and 50 years, resulting in a total sentence of 160 years in prison. He remains incarcerated within the Indiana prison system.