https://www.scmp.com/news/world/uni...-hurt-her-nobody-believed-four-year-old-aaron
‘Daddy hurt her’: nobody believed three-year-old Aaron Fraser, until he dug up mother Bonnie Haim’s skull in backyard 20 years later
- Victim’s husband Michael Haim is now facing trial in Florida for the 1993 murder
- Remains were found when Fraser was doing renovations after winning house and US$26 million from father in previous court case
The Washington Post
Published: 5:11am, 10 Apr, 2019
Updated: 6:26am, 10 Apr, 2019
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A photo of Bonnie Haim and her son, Aaron, on a merry-go-round. Photo: Facebook/Bonnie Haim's family
It was a single-story, three-bedroom ranch house on a quiet residential street in a northern stretch of Jacksonville, Florida. Aaron Fraser had not lived inside since he was four years old, and the four walls held plenty of ugly memories and unresolved questions. But in December 2014, after the 24-year-old took possession of the house, he and his brother-in-law rolled up their sleeves for a renovation.
According to the Florida Times-Union, the two men began by smashing apart a swimming pool in the back with a rented excavator. At one point, the machine cracked a large concrete slab near an outdoor shower. Aaron began hacking at the pieces with a sledgehammer. Below in the dirt, he found a plastic bag, and from inside he pulled something out. It was a coconut, he thought.
“Why would someone bury a coconut in a bag?” Aaron asked his brother-in-law, according to News4Jax.
Then, the men noticed the teeth and eye sockets. It was a skull.
A Facebook photo of Bonnie Haim and her son, Aaron, captioned ‘heading to the pool’. Photo: Facebook/Bonnie Haim's family
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The discovery alone was a shock. But for Aaron, the human remains sunk below a layer of concrete in his boyhood home snapped the jumbled pieces of a family mystery into place. In January 1993, his mother, Bonnie Haim, had vanished. Police suspected her husband, Aaron’s father, Michael Haim, of murdering his wife. Those suspicions started with what Aaron, who was then three, had told authorities.
“Daddy hurt her,” Aaron had said, the Times-Union reported. But Aaron’s own family doubted the little boy’s foggy account, and no physical evidence tied Michael to the crime.
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But that day in December 2014, standing amid smashed concrete, Aaron was holding the evidence that would eventually lead to his father’s arrest.
On Monday, the murder trial began in Florida against Michael for his wife’s 1993 murder. He maintains he was not involved in his wife’s death. According to the Times-Union, Aaron is expected to testify, relaying his memories from when he possibly witnessed his mother’s death, as well as the gruesome discovery that jump-started the cold case in 2014.
Next month is going to hurt … But sometimes we have to rip off bandages to really begin to heal Bonnie Haim’s family members on Facebook
“Next month is going to hurt,” Bonnie Haim’s family members wrote last month about the upcoming trial on a Facebook page decided to her memory. “It is going to rip off bandages and expose us to things we had long ago pushed to the back of our memories. But sometimes we have to rip off bandages to really begin to heal.”
Michael and Bonnie Haim worked together at a construction supply company owned by Michael’s aunt, Eveann Haim. He was a manager. Bonnie kept the business accounts.
According to television series Unsolved Mysteries, by the holiday season of 1992, the relationship was at a breaking point. The couple fought frequently, and their blow-ups turned violent.
“One day they got into an argument … in the car park,” Eveann told Unsolved Mysteries. “And she came in crying and he had slammed her hand in the door and her nails were broke and she was very upset at that point.”
Bonnie Haim and her son, Aaron, at the park. Photo: Facebook/Bonnie Haim's family
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Bonnie reportedly had decided to leave the marriage, taking her son with her. She secretly opened a bank account to save money for her escape, the Times-Union reported. When Michael discovered the account and forced her to close it, Bonnie began secreting cash to friends for safekeeping – US$1,250 by early January 1993.
She reportedly picked a date late in January to leave, when Michael was away on business. In early January, she placed deposits on two apartments where she and her son could start over.
But on January 7, 1993, Bonnie, 23, failed to show up to work. Her husband would later say the two had fought the night before, and that she left the house alone around 11pm. He asked his mother, Carol, to come over to watch his son while he went looking for Bonnie.
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“According to Carol and Mike, he was gone approximately 45 minutes,” Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department Detective Robert Hinson told Unsolved Mysteries. “Then after he allegedly did that, he returned to the house where he waited until the next morning and never called the police, and called in and told his employer that he was going to be sick that day.”
The day she went missing, a hotel worker discovered Bonnie’s purse chucked into a rubbish bin behind a Red Roof Inn, not far from Jacksonville International Airport, the Times-Union reported. Police later discovered her Toyota Camry in an airport car park. The car, however, further raised investigators’ suspicions.
“What was unusual was the positioning of the driver’s seat, which appeared to be farther back than would have been comfortable for Bonnie,” Hinson told Unsolved Mysteries. “It was more in relation to someone about Michael Haim’s size.”
The credibility of a child is something that you have to judge in perspective ... He’s said a couple of things that we know were not true Robert Pasciuto, Bonnie Haim’s father
What finally tightened suspicion around Michael, however, was an interview with his three-year-old son. Aaron told a child protective services worker that his father had hurt his mother.
“From what Aaron told us that day, my only conclusion was that there had been a domestic fight and that Michael Haim had killed his wife and had removed her, and that their three-and-a-half-year-old son Aaron Haim had witnessed this,” Hinson said.
But as Aaron would later recount to police as an adult, his family members did not believe his account, feeling he had been “brainwashed” into implicating his father. Even his missing mother’s parents doubted the boy’s account.
“The credibility of a child is something that you have to judge in perspective,” Bonnie’s father, Robert Pasciuto, told Unsolved Mysteries. “He’s said a couple of things that we know were not true. ‘Mom’s car is in the lake.’ We know her car wasn’t there.”
Photos of Bonnie Haim and her son, Aaron, posted on a Facebook page by her family members. Photo: Facebook/Bonnie Haim's family
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Aaron was eventually adopted by another family, taking their last name. In the early 2000s, he filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against his biological father, even though Bonnie’s remains had not been found. In April 2005, he won a US$26.3 million settlement against Michael, which included the ownership of the family home, News4Jax reported. It was being used as a rental.
Then, in 2014, Aaron began renovating the property, and made the discovery in the backyard. Within weeks, investigators confirmed the skull and other remains belonged to Bonnie.
In August 2015, Michael was officially charged with his wife’s murder. According to the Times-Union, a .22 calibre shell casing was discovered with the remains. Michael allegedly owned a rifle of the same calibre.
Michael’s defence attorneys had earlier unsuccessfully petitioned the court to block Aaron’s statements from 1993, arguing the boy had been contradictory. Aaron, however, is expected to testify at this week’s trial. His credibility is likely to be the key factor in the case.
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https://lawandcrime.com/high-profil...s-mothers-skull-two-decades-after-her-murder/
Son Says He Discovered His Mother’s Skull Two Decades After Her Murder
by Alberto Luperon | 1:06 pm, April 10th, 2019
[Warning: The video above includes imagery of human remains.]
Aaron Fraser testified Tuesday that he discovered the remains of his mother Bonnie Haim in 2014, while digging in a yard belonging to his father Michael Haim.
Fraser said he planned on selling the residence, and while preparing for the sale, he set about removing the pool and an outdoor shower. Fraser said he discovered a bag under the shower. In it was something he described as something like a “brown coconut” that turned out to be the top portion of his mother’s skull.
Michael Haim stands trial in Duval County, Florida for Bonnie’s murder. The victim disappeared in 1993, but cops didn’t find a body.
Michael Haim’s uncle said he didn’t expect her to leave her son Aaron, then age 3. He actually said he suspected his nephew of playing a part in this.
“I found it very unusual that she would leave Aaron, period” testifies Bernie Haim about learning #BonnieHaim was missing #MichaelHaim @FCN2go pic.twitter.com/yFjWf01nrl
— anne schindler (@schindy) April 9, 2019
— anne schindler (@schindy) April 9, 2019
Bernie Haim says his relationship with his nephew, Michael, started to deteriorate after the disappearance of Bonnie. He says he suspected Michael was involved. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/brBnNxAxjZ
— Christy Turner (@ChristyANJax) April 9, 2019
— Christy Turner (@ChristyANJax) April 9, 2019
Brenda Medders said she interviewed Aaron at the time as a child protective services worker, and he said his father hurt his mother, according to The Florida Times-Union. The defense cast doubt on Medders’ testimony, saying she didn’t follow proper practices to establish the actual timeline of the alleged attack, and if Aaron knew the difference fact and fiction.
Fraser testified that he had no memory of his mother.
This family has been broken for decades. Aaron was adopted after Bonnie Haim’s disappearance. His last name was changed from Haim to Fraser, but he didn’t let things go. He won a wrongful death lawsuit against his father in 2005, and got the house as part of the judgment.
The defense suggested that someone else may have put the body there after police investigated. Prosecutors said cops didn’t bring dogs to smell for remains.
This is the wooden palette under which #BonnieHaim‘s remains were discovered in 2014. The picture was taken in March 1993, 2 months after she vanished. Defense attorney Tom Fallis says grass growth thru the slats suggests it had not been disturbed in January. @FCN2go pic.twitter.com/s2i5IytJq7
— anne schindler (@schindy) April 10, 2019
— anne schindler (@schindy) April 10, 2019
[Screengrab via News4JAX]
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