Houseguest Indicted in Berclair Murder

July 14, 2021 – A 26-year-old man has been indicted on first-degree murder and other felony counts related to the death of an elderly man whose decomposed body was found last summer in his Berclair-area home, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

A grand jury indicted Adalberto Jaimez Jr. on counts of theft of property over $10,000 and identity theft, as well as the murder count. He is being held in the Shelby County Jail.

On the afternoon of July 8, 2020, victim Thomas Harris, 79, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the bedroom of his home in the 1000 block of Mendenhall Cove in northeast Memphis.

Investigators said Jaimez had been staying with Harris for several weeks, but that neither he nor Harris had been seen for some 12 days, and that Harris’s car was missing.

Surveillance video showed that on June 28, 2020, a man resembling Jaimez pull into a service station on Summer Avenue in Harris’s vehicle and attempt to purchase gasoline with Harris’s credit card. The car was found abandoned on July 6, 2020, in an apartment complex on 770 Bartlett Road. Jaimez was arrested in Florida and was returned to Memphis several weeks later.

The case is being handled by Felony Asst. Stacy McEndree of the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 6 which handles cases in General Sessions Division 15 and in Criminal Court Division 10.