The afternoon before, I was sitting with Donna Harris in the dining room of her home, the brown bungalow at 1742 West 81st Street. With its charming décor and peaceful ambiance, marred only occasionally by her toy poodle scurrying about, you can’t imagine that the house once saw all elements of criminal activity, including more than one overdose victim’s dying on the premises. Young-looking to be in her forties, personable, Harris was as controlled and understated as her surroundings, though you never doubt her iron will and independence. Here was a woman who had seen all sides of life and, in most cases, came away unshaken.
“When I first heard about Lonnie,” she said in a quiet voice as we sat cattycorner at her glass-top dining room table, “it scared me from the inside out. I had nightmares about it.”
She was so close to the Franklins that after Lonnie was arrested—and his wife and children feared a vandal might burn the house down because of the press coverage the story was receiving—Harris helped the family move all of the furnishings out of the house to be placed in storage temporarily until the media attention died down.
“I was in the house with them right after the police finished their search and left,” Harris said. “That hurt just to know what the kids were going through. And Sylvia, his wife—all of this was as much of a shock to her as anyone else. I feel sorry for her.”
Indeed, because of her familiarity with the family, Harris did not accept what police were accusing Lonnie of when they arrested him.
“At first, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “I refused to. I was like, they got the wrong man because Lonnie didn’t do this.”
But she changed her mind once local television stations started playing the 911 call made by the man who reported Barbara Ware’s body being dumped.
“The person who called in and described how the body was wrapped in a rug and had a tank on top of her, that was Lonnie,” Harris said, “That was his voice. I recognized his voice. Anybody who heard that voice knew it was him.”
“So that changed your opinion about his guilt?”
“Yes,” she said. “Now I believe he did it. Hearing his voice is what convinced me.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“It makes me sick because he was such a close friend. I feel bad for what he did.” Donna Harris stopped. Few people ever have to assimilate what she had to deal with: Learning someone who was an integral part of your and your family’s day-to-day life may be pure evil, if what he has been charged with turns out to be true. “It’s not for me to judge or to say what should happen to him,” she said, her voice heavy of emotion. “If he did these things, he’s going to have to answer to God.”