Woman Has Family Help Kill Estranged Husband in "Inhumane" Murder: "Blood Is Thicker"

Leon Harrison Jr. had been gone for 12 days when the mother of his children reported the 32-year-old missing in Georgetown, South Carolina on March 9, 2017. Police were stunned to learn that his wife, Tiesh Rhue, hadn’t come forward to report his disappearance, but she told police it was because they were in an open marriage.

“Tiesh was OK with Leon having a relationship outside of their marriage, so long as it didn’t become where he would call her his girlfriend,” said defense attorney Josh Edgeworth on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.

But just three days later, Harrison, who was known as J.R., was found floating in the river — immediately turning the case from a missing persons investigation to a murder investigation.

“Somebody doesn’t just tie themselves up and throw themselves in the river,” said Liz Martin, assistant solicitor, on Snapped.

As police dug deeper into the Rhue’s marriage, they found affairs, lies, deceit, and strong family loyalty that all led to murder and the arrests of not only Tiesh Rhue, but her brother, Alexander Rhue Jr., and her father, Alexander Rhue Sr.

“She snapped not because of love. She snapped because of control. She didn’t want anyone else to have him,” said Jimmy Richardson, solicitor, on Snapped.

Tiesh Rhue and Leon Harrison Jr. met in 2013 and were married within a year. Eventually, she suspected he was with another woman, and that caused them to separate and have an open marriage as they worked things out. Rhue claimed she last saw Harrison on Feb. 25, 2017 at the home they shared with her father and brother, Alexander Rhue Jr. and Sr., but they had an argument and he left.

Police tracked down Harrison’s girlfriend, Rosario, who said she’d spent the day with Harrison on Feb. 25, before she dropped him off at his father’s house. That night, she said she got a call from Tiesh Rhue around 10 p.m.

Tiesh Rhue. Photo: Oxygen

“Tiesh was ranting and raving and cursing at her, basically saying, ‘You think you’re going to have my man and I can tell you that you’re not,’” Richardson said.

Rosario told police that Rhue had been trying to win back her husband.

“He once mentioned that his wife said that, you know, if she couldn’t have him, nobody could,” she said to officers during an interview.

Both Rosario and Brittani Green, the mother of Harrison’s children, insisted to police that Harrison and Alex Rhue Jr. did not get along, which caused police get a search warrant for the Rhue home. Some of the carpet had been ripped out and covered by a rug — and what else police found was stunning.

“On the carpet padding are these brownish reddish stains, which is consistent with dried blood,” Martin said. “On the mattress, there’s a ginormous pool of blood that barely even looks like it’s cleaned up.”

Police were able to detect that blood had been splattered all over the room.

“I mean the amount of blood that we found in that room, I don’t know how anybody could have walked out of there like that,” said Allen Morris, Georgetown police detective, on Snapped.

Leon Harrison Jr. Photo: Oxygen

On March 12, 2017, three days after Leon Harrison Jr. was reported missing, his decomposing body was discovered floating in the river. His arms and legs had been bound with wire.

“To be bound up and thrown in the water, he was completely defenseless because he couldn’t move his arms or his legs,” Morris said. “I have never seen anything as inhumane as this.”

Police got a break when a witness came forward with a tip about Leon Harrison Jr.’s murder: Alex Rhue Jr.’s friend Antwan, who had recently been with Rhue Jr. when he talked about Harrison.

“He started talking,” Antwan told police during an interview. “He was like, ‘Yeah, cuzzo, I’ve been laying low. That f--ker J.R., I took outta here. I took that f—ker for a ride. He told me that the sister knew, his father knew, and um, they knew.”

With that witness, police were able to subpoena the phone records for the Rhue family. Harrison’s GPS data showed he arrived at the Rhue home at 10 p.m. on Feb. 25, and never left again. His last text message to his girlfriend, Rosario, was revealing.

“And what that text message says is, ‘I don’t love you. I can’t be with you anymore,’” Martin said. “We had an expert come in and distinguish the texting patterns of J.R. — the actual punctuation — and show that it’s not typically the way that he texts.”

Although Alex Rhue Sr. and Jr. both told police they never left the house the night of Feb. 25, GPS data showed they left around 1 a.m., and their phones, as well as Harrison’s, were turned off at 2 a.m.

“The deactivation of all three phones at the exact same time can only mean one thing,” Martin said. “They acted together and conspired to turn off their cell phones all at the same time so that their location could not be tracked … they have something to hide.”

On Feb. 26 at 1:06 a.m., the father and son were caught on Walmart cameras walking into the store and purchasing hydrogen peroxide.

“There’s nothing that gets blood out of carpet, out of clothes, out of the back of a car, better than peroxide,” Martin said.

Police believed that Tiesh Rhue lured her estranged husband over to the home, and realized he was in a serious relationship with Rosario.

“I do think it would have been different for her if he was going around and having relationships with multiple different women. But, she saw the ‘I love yous,’ she saw, ‘I can’t live without you,’ and that’s really what caused her jealousy to come to a head,” Martin said.

Police thought she lashed out after seeing texts and calls on his phone.

“We theorized that they got into a fight, Tiesh stabbed J.R. … at that point she feared she was going to go to jail, and so, her brother and her dad, they tied him up, and he started to bleed out at this point. They then wrapped him up and drove him to the bridge and threw his body over,” Martin said.

All of the blood found in the home tested positive as Leon Harrison Jr.’s blood. On Oct. 11, 2021, the father, son, and daughter went on trial for murder.

Alex Rhue Sr. was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to probation. Alex Rhue Jr. was found guilty of murder and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Tiesh Rhue was also found guilty of murder and obstruction of justice and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

“Tiesh put this in motion, and then her family really stepped up to help her,” Martin said. “And our theme in the entire case is 'Blood is thicker than water.' If they were going down, they were going down together.”

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