Clara Harris was raising her family in Friendswood before she was convicted of killing her husband back in 2002.
On Thursday, friends from her old neighborhood picked Harris up from prison to start the next chapter of her life.
“I think she served her time and realized what she did was wrong,” a former neighbor said.
Harris was released after serving 15 years of her 20-year sentence for repeatedly running over husband David Harris with her BMW.
The crime was caught on camera by a private investigator Harris had hired to follow her husband.
She found him with his mistress at a hotel and ran him down in the parking lot, with her teenage stepdaughter watching in horror.
After Harris was sent to prison, her twin sons were raised by a Friendswood couple. They’re now 20 years old and reportedly visited their mom in prison once a month.
Resident Scott Woodfin says he sees them often.
“They take the boat out on the creek. Just well taken care of,” Woodfin said.
It’s not clear where she will be staying now that she has been released from custody, but one of the terms of her parole is she must live in Galveston County. For the time being, she’ll live with a family friend.
Harris must follow other parole conditions, which will include having zero contact with her former in-laws, her stepdaughter and the mistress. She must also wear an ankle monitor.
Harris’s former defense attorney says she will likely transition from prison life back into private life with relative ease.
“Leaving incarceration into the free world, so to speak, can be a difficult, difficult hurdle, but because she is so intelligent and because she has so much support, I think that transition be will easier for her,” attorney George Parnham told KHOU.
KHOU legal analyst Gerald Treece says Harris, a well-known dentist before killing her orthodontist husband, might be able to successfully petition to get her professional license back.
“They got to be a lawyer or engineer or doctor. They can reapply and ask for reinstatement. It might take a while since it’s been a period of years, but that procedure is available,” Treece said.
Harris had previously been denied parole twice. She’ll remain on parole, until February 2023.