Part 3
[Editor’s Note: See “Sgt. Ansman Says the Dead Woman Was Not His Girlfriend,” Jan. 18.]
National Guard veteran Scott Ansman says the pregnant young woman he is charged with murdering six months ago last week was only “an acquaintance,” not his girlfriend, as JoAnn Crystal Harris has been identified from the beginning.
Through his mother, Marilyn Ansman, who relayed her son’s startling claim, Sgt. Ansman’s position is that Ms. Harris’s pregnancy was a fluke, resulting from a “onetime” fling.
This runs counter to earlier reports that Sgt. Ansman, a married father of three children, including an infant, and Ms. Harris had been seeing each other for months.
Worrying About His Fate
Mrs. Ansman said she could not shed any light on her son’s statement. Meanwhile, she is worried about her son’s fate tomorrow and Friday when the first courtroom testimony is scheduled to be taken.
“I don’t know what the District Attorney has up his sleeve or what he will come up with,” she said.
By some accounts, Ms. Harris and Sgt. Ansman, who has spent virtually all of his adult life in the military, met a year ago last September when Ms. Harris, in quest of new adventure or a new career direction, came to the Culver City Armory to inquire about signing up.
Neither the family of the unmarried 29-year-old Ms. Harris, from Leimert Park, nor Sgt. Ansman’s widowed mother and two brothers in the South Bay knew or suspected of a relationship between the couple.
Known in Advance?
Previous reports have said that a so-far unnamed third party went to the Culver City Police Dept. three weeks to the day before the Aug. 24 murder of Ms. Harris. The informant told police that Sgt. Ansman was planning to kill Ms. Harris. He said he knew that because his fellow officer at the National Guard Armory in Culver City had tried to recruit him to assist.
As of last month, a “special circumstances” charge, covering killing of the unborn baby, was added to the original first-degree murder charge brought against the 35-year-old Sgt. Ansman. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a death sentence.
The final scene between the couple late on a Friday afternoon — just as Fiesta La Ballona jubilantly was getting under way a few yards distant — was apparently ignited by a stunning announcement. Sgt. Ansman said he told Ms. Harris that when their baby was born, he planned to take it away from her.
Listing Reasons
He told his mother Ms. Harris not only was abusing drugs and alcohol, she had totally neglected fundamental pre-natal care of their baby.
According to the suspect, Ms. Harris became enraged and began to attack him. He said she sprayed him with a mace-like kind of chemical.
Police said only that Sgt. Ansman repeatedly struck the pregnant woman with a baseball bat and one or more sharp instruments.
The sergeant asserted that Ms. Harris stabbed him in the shoulder and arm, and that he was only defending himself. But the stabbing was not mentioned in the original police report.
Informing Police
The National Guard officer himself telephoned 9-1-1. Through a windowed door at the Armory, he could be seen mopping up blood from the death scene when police arrived. Indeed, the police were asked to wait while he finished mopping, the police report said.
Ms. Harris was scheduled to deliver the couple’s child this past November. This would have been about five months after Sgt. Ansman’s wife had given birth to the couple’s third child.
Residing Elsewhere
Marilyn Ansman previously had indicated that her daughter-in-law, presently living in the Pacific Northwest with the couple’s children, knew of her husband’s relationship with Ms. Harris and the fact she was pregnant.
She said her son intended to take his family to Culver City’s Fiesta Friday night.
But he never returned home. Neither the younger nor older Mrs. Ansman knew what had happened until deep into the evening.
