Cops and Courts, News

Preston County man accused of murder has preliminary hearing

KINGWOOD — An eye witness to the stabbing death of Kimberly Harrison cried at a preliminary hearing for her accused murderer as he described her bleeding on him.

Joseph Edward Harrison, 26, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his estranged wife Kimberly, 27. Preston Magistrate Eugene Jenkins bound the case over to the Preston Grand Jury Tuesday after a preliminary hearing Tuesday and kept Harrison’s bond at $1 million. He has been in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail since his arrest May 8.
The witness, whose name The Dominion Post has agreed to withhold, said he was visiting Rodeheaver’s Trailer Park, in Kingwood, washing his car, when the couple argued. He said that he broke it up

Preston Sheriff’s Lt. J.H. Bryan and Capt. J.L. Root Jr. also testified at the hearing. Bryan said there was one other eye witness to the stabbing, a 12-year-old girl.

Surveillance camera footage from a home across the road shows parts of the encounter, Bryan said.

“This has been a domestic violence relationship for sometime,” Bryan. He said a Mon Power employee came forward after the murder and said he had seen Harrison throw Ms. Harrison’s phone into traffic at another location and then push her to the ground.
The employee stopped and broke up that argument, Bryan said, but charges are pending against Harrison because of it. And the phone was one of the factors in the final argument, according to the eye witness.

He said that Joseph Harrison, whom he didn’t know, came up to him at Rodeheaver’s and asked to borrow his phone, which he allowed, to call someone about borrowing money.

“She was wanting her phone now. Like all women, they want things now,” the eye witness said.

He broke up the argument, but it resumed, the man said, and suddenly Kimberly backed into him, bleeding. She then she ran to a nearby trailer, where police say her sister lives and she died.