Keegan Harroz; Barry Titus II.
A Texas native who worked as an assistant public defender before starting her own law firm in Oklahoma in 2014, criminal defense attorneyKeegan Harrozseemed primed for success.
“She was smart and effective. Judges respected her,” says her ex-boyfriend and former law partner, David Bedford.
But she also had brushes with law enforcement.
In May of that year, she was charged with assault and battery on a police officer and the domestic assault of her then-husband, Nicholas Harroz, who later told an investigator that he was kicked in the face twice.
“The reporting officer documented that the [victim] had blood on his left ear, swollen lumps on his face, and abrasions to his forehead, cheek, and bridge of his nose,” states a probable cause affidavit. (The charges against Harroz were later dropped.)
In the fall of 2018, Harroz began representing Barry Titus II, a former crane operator who owned a dent repair shop, on drug and firearm charges.
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When Harroz began dating Titus, “her decision-making went down the tubes,” says Bedford, who later filed a bar complaint against her. “Not showing up at work. Her attitude was indifferent. She was not communicating. She started changing.”
Jack Chandler; Evelynn “Kaye” Chandler; Tiffany Eichor.
Others who knew Harroz also saw changes.
Lisa Weiszmiller, who met Harroz in 2013 at a veteran’s diversion program where Harroz volunteered, says the lawyer lost her focus, recalling an incident in May of 2019 when she went to her house to prepare for a case Harroz was representing her on.
“We just came specifically to work on my case,” she says. “Which didn’t happen because she was all consumed with [Titus].”
Weiszmiller says a friend later contacted her to inform her about Harroz’s arrest.
“She had texted me a picture of Keegan being arrested. She said, ‘Isn’t that a friend of yours?’ I said, ‘That’s my lawyer on top of it.’ I never got my file back. I never got my stuff back from her. I never got my collateral back from her.”
Prosecutors Detail Alleged Motive Behind Murder Plot
According to authorities, in Dec. 2018, Harroz asked one of her clients to plant what she described as methamphetamine — actually a bag of sugar — at the Beggs, Okla., home of Eichor’s parents, Jack and Evelynn “Kaye” Chandler, where Eichor also lived, in order to discredit them. Eichor’s parents found the package and called the police — and then installed a security camera.
Beggs, OK home where the murders occurred.
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Prosecutors allege that on Sept. 6, 2019, Harroz and Titus drove to Frisco, Texas, and had dinner with her family before checking in at the Red Roof Inn in Plano.
The couple then allegedly drove three hours back to Oklahoma, where, at around 3 a.m., authorities claim they cut the electric meter and phone lines at the Chandlers' home and kicked in the front door. Jack was allegedly killed first. Eichor was outside her bedroom and was shot repeatedly in the back as the suspects “chased her down [the] hallway,” while Kaye attempted to hide in the closet before she was murdered, according to prosecutors' court filings. All three were shot with two different types of weapons.
On the day Eichor and her parents were killed, prosecutors allege that a car resembling Harroz’s 2010 Lexus was seen on surveillance near the residence. Titus’s DNA was also allegedly found on a ball cap near the home, prosecutors say.
Just days after the murders, on Sept. 13, Harroz’s brother called the Sachse Police Department in Texas and turned over an AR-15 rifle that “he stated was involved in a triple homicide,” according to the court documents. The gun was traced to an Oklahoma man who told investigators that Harroz and Titus bought a rifle from him in Aug. 2019, say prosecutors.
In March of 2021, Harroz was sentenced to serve 24 months in federal prison for being a prohibited person unlawfully in possession of a firearm. On April 2, Titus was sentenced to serve 36 months in federal prison for being a prohibited person unlawfully in possession of a firearm after pleading guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
Within days of the sentencing, the couple were arrested and charged with three murders in connection with the deaths of Eichor and her parents.
Harroz and Titus have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and burglary. If convicted, they face the death penalty.
“Harroz has quite the history with law enforcement,” a prosecutor noted in a motion. “For an attorney, and supposed law abiding citizen, this is quite the record of run-ins with the law.”
source: people.com
