Lawrence Harris Sr.

All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

I am so ready.

We're talking about Lawrence Harris Sr.

In January 2008, Lawrence Harris Sr. called the police to report a fire at his home.

Inside, authorities found the bodies of his eight and 10-year-old stepdaughters.

Lawrence claimed the girls died during a ritual that had gone bad.

Gone bad.

So we're gonna unpack all of it.

In September 2005, Marla Strachan was a single mother of a son and two daughters, Kendra and Alisha Suing.

Marla was working as a personal care attendant at a group home in Alexandria, Minnesota.

It was here that she met Lawrence Harris Sr. Lawrence, who went by the nickname Larry, was living in the home with his infant son and had been sober for six months after a history of drug abuse.

Larry, who was seven years younger than Marla, was born in Upland, California.

He had contact with law enforcement in California, but he was never actually arrested there.

Marla also had a few minor brushes with the law in Woodbury County, Iowa, including marijuana possession in 2002.

Don't we all have a little bit of, uh, brushes with the law?

Yeah, to varying degrees, I would say.

You know what's interesting, though, is when you say, you know, someone got busted for marijuana possession-

Yeah

...

in 2002.

In most places today, it wouldn't even be a crime.

It would not.

Uh, it's, it's kind of interesting to look at marijuana in particular over the years-

Right

... and how it's been treated.