Child killer becomes a monk

Child killer becomes a monk

Suicidal monk has wrestled with past BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER The Catholic monk who stepped in front of a train Tuesday in Elkhorn had joined the Benedictine order partly to atone for a dark past: He murdered his 3-year-old daughter in 1976. A westbound train passes over the spot where an eastbound train struck a man early Tuesday morning.Tuesday wasn't the first time that Brother Patrick Harris, 63, of St. Gabriel Benedictine Priory in Des Moines tried to kill himself. He made a suicide attempt more than 30 years ago after murdering his child in Minnesota. About 6 a.m. Tuesday, he stepped in front of an eastbound Union Pacific train near Main Street and Railroad Avenue, near downtown Elkhorn. He lay down before the train hit him but was injured as about a dozen train cars passed over him. Harris, who was bleeding from the head, was flown to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, where he was being treated in the intensive care unit. A hospital spokeswoman said she could not release his condition. Elkhorn police tried to interview Harris, but he said he did not remember the incident, said Tim Dempsey, Elkhorn police chief. A note found in the car that Harris drove to the tracks indicated that he might have been attempting suicide, Dempsey said. Dempsey did not disclose details of the note or discuss whether there was a connection between Tuesday's events and Harris' past. Harris had been in Omaha for a meeting at Elkhorn's Mount Michael Benedictine Abbey, which is separate from the Mount Michael boys high school. Harris is a monk, not a priest, in the Benedictine order. He lives at the St. Gabriel monastery in Des Moines, which is affiliated with the Elkhorn abbey. Benedictine officials in Des Moines and Omaha praised Harris on Tuesday in prepared statements. They said they were aware of his crime. He disclosed it when he joined the order in Des Moines in 1995. He had repented and served his time in prison, and he poses no threat, said the Rev. Aquinas M. Nichols, prior of St. Gabriel's Priory. "He has served selflessly and admirably during the past 10 years with the poor of the area, and in recent years with the Hispanic community of the Basilica Parish (of St. John) as well," Nichols said. "He is loved and respected by all whom he has served. We pray for him and his family." Nichols' statement said "our judicial system and society at large believes once a convicted person has paid his debt to society he is free to begin life again." Harris was known as Dallas D. Harris before he joined the Benedictine order in the mid-1990s. A New Orleans native, he graduated from Drake University in Des Moines and served in the Army during the Vietnam War, according to a biographical article on the St. Gabriel Web site. He studied at the University of Madrid, became fluent in Spanish and taught English in Spain. The St. Gabriel article says Harris moved to Minneapolis in 1976, where he worked for the Billy Graham evangelical crusade. The article mentions neither his marriage in Europe nor the crime that followed. Harris killed his daughter, Maria Vanessa, on Sept. 23, 1976, in Hinckley, Minn. He had lost an international custody battle with his then-wife, Danielle, who lived in Belgium. Faced with an Iowa court order granting child custody to his wife, Harris drove from central Iowa to Hinckley. According to court records, he told a judge in 1977 that he suffocated the child with a pillow and a towel, and then tried to kill himself so they could be in heaven together. Harris survived smashing his car into a bridge abutment after the slaying. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. A Minnesota judge sentenced him in April 1977 to up to 20 years in prison. He served five years and one month in Minnesota prisons before being paroled in May 1982, after receiving a glowing report from a prison caseworker. Among other things, the caseworker wrote: "Mr. Harris is very involved with religion and his religious beliefs are a significant part of his lifestyle. This is not to confuse Mr. Harris' religious beliefs with many of the pathological conversions that are frequently noted in (prisons)." Harris was released from parole in February 1983. He studied for the Lutheran ministry before becoming a Catholic in 1993, according to the St. Gabriel Web site. He entered St. Benedict Monastery in Oxford, Mich., before transferring to Des Moines in 1996 and taking temporary vows in 2001. He took his permanent vows as a monk in 2004 at a Des Moines ceremony led by the Rev. Theodore Wolff of Mount Michael Benedictine Abbey. "He had served his debt to society and had turned his life to Christ," said Bud Synhorst, Mount Michael's executive director of development. "He's never had problems since he has joined the community. They went through their due diligence when they accepted him." Nichols' statement from Des Moines elaborated: "In part, for reparation of what he had done in his past, Brother Patrick decided to do a life of penance and join a monastic community. With the belief in forgiveness from society, our judicial system and our faith, Brother Patrick was allowed to minister under the supervision of, first, the Society of St. John, and then the religious community at St. Gabriel's Priory. He never posed a threat to others, had all of the proper psychological evaluation to confirm this, and there have been no reports of threatening situation involving Brother Patrick." In Omaha, Synhorst said the monastic communities in Des Moines and Omaha "are offering prayers for Brother Patrick Harris and his family as well as the crew and their families from Union Pacific." The train's crew members hit the emergency brakes when they saw Harris, said Sgt. Roy Scott of the Elkhorn Police Department. Scott said the train had been traveling about 30 mph. Harris then lay down on the tracks, Scott said. World-Herald staff writers Michael O'Connor and Judith Nygren and researchers Jeanne Hauser and Michelle Gullett contributed to this report.