• Hallsboro resident Harold Ray Harris gets maximum term after jury finds him guilty of “terrible beating” of 31-year-old woman he invited to “cookout” in Chadbourn.

By BOB HIGH

There were no gasps in Superior Court when the guilty verdict was delivered Friday morning, only smiles of satisfaction from the victim and her family as they heard that Harold Ray Harris was convicted of a brutal beating that almost killed the woman.

The 54-year-old Harris was sentenced by Judge Craig Ellis to the maximum the law allowed – 240 months for committing a first-degree sex act on Karen Frances Lambert, and another 25 months for a beating so savage it offended law enforcement officers.

“What you did was a terrible thing. It was an awful set of circumstances, and the terrible photographs shown to this court and the jury will leave your victim emotionally scarred for the rest of her life,” Ellis told Harris – a man with no prior criminal record.

“Nobody should be treated that way under any circumstances,” Ellis added before sentencing Harris to 240 to 297 months for the sex offense, plus an additional 25 to 39 months for the assault.

Lambert, a 31-year-old from Bussey Road, Hallsboro, said she was “satisfied with the verdict. It gives me some closure.”

Jury repulsed

Photographs of Lambert -- her eyes swollen shut from several blows to her head and her mouth so beaten and cut she couldn’t eat -- amazed and repulsed the jury. They took less than 35 minutes to make a decision to end the four-day trial.

Each juror emphatically confirmed their decision as the jury was individually polled at the request of the defense.

The Nov. 6-7 incident last year began when Harris, who lives with his widowed mother along Pierce Cemetery Road in the Hallsboro community, picked Lambert up at her parents’ home to take her to a “cookout” at a Chadbourn motel.

Evidence showed Lambert had known Harris for about three years and although he wanted a more serious relationship with her, she spurned his intimate advances.

Soon after arrival at the motel, Lambert testified she realized the “cookout” was a trick to get her to the motel. When she protested she was struck from behind on the head so hard it nearly caused her to lose consciousness. She said there was no one else in the motel room but Harris when she was hit.

Recalled one punch

Lambert also testified that she remembered being punched in the face by Harris’ fist, and that any other blows to her body were just blurs of memory.

Lambert’s body was penetrated with an unknown object that caused major internal injuries and if she had not received medical attention she would have died within 72 hours, testimony showed.