Welcome back to Pushing Up Lilies! In this episode, we’re diving into the disturbing and heartbreaking case of Sarah Harris, a young woman whose life was tragically cut short by the actions of her much older boyfriend, oral surgeon James Ryan. Sarah's death wasn’t just a tragic accident; it was the result of a horrifying power dynamic where Ryan used anesthesia drugs to control her, leading to her untimely death. We’ll discuss what depraved heart murder really means, the chilling details of how Sarah was manipulated and ultimately killed, and how the law deals with reckless indifference like this. This is a case that truly highlights how dangerous power and control in relationships can become. Join me as we unravel the chilling details of Sarah’s story and the shocking legal outcome that followed. You won't want to miss it! Listener discretion is advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly True Crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:32 Hey, there guys.
0:32I hope everyone's having an amazing week.
0:35 I know that we've been pretty busy at the medical examiner's office.
0:38 It feels like I've had a case every day that I've gone in.
0:41 And then of course, we're always getting hospice calls and those are pretty much nonstop, and it seems like I know that you nurses out there will know that it seems like most people die at shift change.
0:55 Right?
0:55 And my shift starts at like five in the morning and right between like five and eight, we just get a ton of hospice calls and a ton of inpatient hospital calls.
1:08 It just feels like patients know no one's watching them and know that no one's paying attention because we're busy trying to change shifts and that has just always been a nurse thing.
1:21 We could just kind of know a lot of people died during shift change.
1:25 There's busier times that we get calls because of that, which is really weird.
1:29 But it still seems to be the statistic anyway, when my shift starts at five, I don't have to get up.
1:35 I can stay home and stay in bed.
1:38 Which is nice.
1:38 But it seems like at 501 every day my phone rings.
1:42 I wish I could say that I wasn't very busy, but unfortunately that's part of the job.
1:49 And I want to give a shout out to my nurses in the OR at Med City Denton.
1:54 I went up there yesterday on a case and I thought it was kind of funny that one of the local fire departments bagged someone's hands en route to the hospital before they were pronounced, which wouldn't make me feel great if I, if I was the patient, you know, oh, you don't have very much confidence that I'm going to survive.
2:16 But I guess they were thinking of the evidence more than the person, which hey, we appreciate that cause we don't get that very much.
2:23 But anyway, the bags had to be removed and then I had to put new bags on.
2:31 It ended up that it could have destroyed evidence in the long run.
2:36 It's just little things like that sometimes that we see that, you know, we try to correct, and we try to educate.
2:45 But bagging of the hands is something that we do as the medical examiner, the best thing that someone could do on scene is just not touch them.
2:55 And that is the best way to preserve evidence until we get there because we like to take photos of the hands at a crime scene before we bag them.
3:04 And then we also like to make note of jewelry.
3:08 And we typically when we bag the hands, especially if it's a suspected homicide, we don't touch them at all, even to remove rings and bracelets and watches.
3:19 So we leave those alone.
3:20 But in this case, there was no jewelry, evidence could have been lost because there were bags put on the hands and then removed.
3:29 And then of course, I had to replace them just food for thought.
3:33 But the nurses in the OR were amazing and helped me greatly yesterday.
3:38 And we talked a lot about forensic nursing and opportunities, and I always love to educate because again, there's so many nurses that don't even know about the opportunity.
3:53 I had no clue of it.
3:55 Of course, 20 something years ago when I started doing it, but it had really just become a thing.
4:01 Nurses don't mind blood and guts.
4:03 We like to get up in there and see what's going on anyway.
4:07 Again, thank y'all for listening and thank you for subscribing.
4:13 If you want more information on how to get into forensics, I'm always more than happy to help provide information and don't forget that when I get on my YouTube channel, Brains, Body Bags and Bedside Manner.
4:29 We'll be talking a lot about that.
4:31 And if you join my Patreon can take part in online conversations, which would be really cool if you're interested in the career field because you can talk face to face with me and ask me all kinds of questions.
4:44 I'm headed into work this morning.
4:46 Hoping for a super slow day, knock on wood, we always hope for that.
4:51 But unfortunately, we don't always get what we want.
4:54 But this week I want to talk to y'all about the story of Sarah Harris.
4:59 And this took place near Washington DC in the summer of 2020.
5:06 And I know that I hate going to the Dentist.
5:09 I don't know if everyone does.
5:11 I used to work for a Dentist.
5:13 Fun fact when I was in nursing school, well, it was before I started nursing school, I went to my Dentist for just a routine checkup.
5:22 And while I was in there, I was about to start nursing school and I said, hey, why don't you give me a job doing chairside dental assisting?
5:29 Of course, I was like kidding.
5:31 But not kidding.
5:32 You know, you know how you do.
5:34 Anyway, he said start tomorrow and I knew nothing, but he didn't want me to know anything.
5:39 He wanted to train me the way he wanted me to do things and not the way someone else was doing them.
5:45 So I did.
5:46 I started the very next day, and it was funny because we didn't wear scrubs.
5:51 We were required to wear dresses and heels.
5:54 That was kind of weird.
5:55 But that was way back when 94 no, 93 or two or three, that was way back then.
6:02 Times have changed.
6:03 Now we realize we're going to get gunk on us, and we don't want to get it on our good clothes.
6:08 But anyway, we wore dresses, and we wore heels, and we be-bopped into the dental office every morning and I was doing fillings and just doing a little bit of everything and didn't really like it.
6:22 People's mouths are gross.
6:24 But I did that through nursing school, and it was great.
6:28 I still don't like going to the Dentist.
6:30 Sarah went to have surgery to have her wisdom teeth removed and who has had their wisdom teeth removed.
6:37 I had mine removed when I was 19 because my dad told me that if I had it done before I got married, my insurance would pay 100 percent, and they were kind of starting to bother me.
6:50 He's like, just get it done.
6:51 You won't have to pay for it after you get married.
6:54 So I did, I made the appointment and the same Dentist I worked for is the one that removed them.
7:00 And I can remember, my soon to be sister in law, went with me and she came in the room just for emotional support.
7:06 But she quickly left because when she heard the teeth being broken, she kind of started to turn pale and had to leave the room and go to the waiting room and wait there because she couldn't handle the sounds.
7:21 But I was awake, he just gave me shots, you know, to numb it.
7:25 And so I wasn't knocked out, didn't have an IV or anything like that.
7:29 I have to say the sound of your own teeth breaking is a little bit horrid.
7:33 But nonetheless, I had all four removed at the same time.
7:37 It was quite an experience, no problems afterwards, which was good.
7:42 But yeah, so I totally have lived that, and it was not the best experience in the world, but not the worst either.
7:50 But anyway, Sarah Harris went to have her wisdom teeth removed and she chose an oral surgeon named James Ryan at the time he was 50 he was in her hometown.
8:04 He had a very good reputation.
8:07 He had a thriving practice near DC, and he had years of training and, you know, that's what we look for when we're going to have any kind of surgery or even just a procedure, you know, somebody that's experienced and someone that is doing well and other people are going to and seems to be well liked.
8:28 She thought this process out carefully later, we're going to bump ahead to January 26th, 2022.
8:36 Sarah could not be revived after being found unresponsive on the floor in the house that she shared with Ryan.
8:44 The two had become romantically involved after her dental surgery.
8:50 Ryan, the doctor said that he went to bed at about 10:30 the night before and then woke up the next morning and found Sarah unresponsive.
9:01 He told first responders that Sarah had been struggling with drugs and mental health issues and he suspected that she had overdosed.
9:10 But Sarah's mother, Tina Harris, had been suspicious of Ryan for quite some time.
9:18 Ryan admitted to Tina that he noticed Sarah when he saw her in the park with friends way back when she was only 14.
9:30 Ok.
9:30 That's creepy.
9:32 That's really creepy.
9:34 When the two started dating.
9:35 Years later, Ryan provided Sarah with access to drugs that would eventually kill her.
9:43 Sarah's mom, Tina, said that Sarah did have a history of depression and anxiety twice in the previous three months, Tina had discovered Sarah with some drug vials and needles and noticed that her speech was slurred.
10:01 There was definitely some concern with her using drugs and medications from the dental practice.
10:09 Sarah and Ryan claimed during those episodes when Tina discovered her having slurred speech that she was being hydrated and they were just keeping an eye on her and asked Tina Sarah's mom not to call the police.
10:25 But when Sarah was found there were powerful surgical anesthetics found in her system.
10:33 So little about Sarah when she was in school.
10:36 She was a great student.
10:37 She later became an aspiring model.
10:40 She was even a beauty pageant winner, and she had a boyfriend in high school.
10:46 But, you know, jump forward after her dental procedure, Ryan came overtly interested in her to the point that it almost sounds like it was annoying whenever I'm reading through, he began texting her.
11:02 Ok.
11:02 Would y'all not freak out if your Dentist started texting you on your private number after you had your wisdom teeth removed?
11:09 He began texting her smiley face emojis and then, you know, in an effort to kind of lure her in, he offered her a job as an assistant.
11:20 Now, Sarah was somewhat interested in a medical career.
11:26 She took the job kind of like me, you know, of course my incident was nothing like this but sometimes you're like, ok, I need to get used to sterile procedures.
11:37 That's a good way to do it really, in the dental world because it's very similar to the medical field.
11:43 Sarah was working for Ryan and that Christmas he left her a diamond necklace in her locker.
11:50 I never got a diamond necklace, what am I, chop liver? But Ryan was divorced, and he had three grown Children.
11:57 And the weird y'all, this is really weird.
11:59 He had already had a baby with one of his employees.
12:02 He sounds super creepy.
12:05 I mean, number one, if I'm a patient, don't text me smiley face emojis.
12:11 He looks creepy too when I looked at his picture.
12:13 But anyway, he'd already like messed around with one of his employees and she had his child.
12:20 He sounds like somebody that you would want to stay really, really far away from Tina's mom told her to put her foot down because Ryan was definitely after her and she thought, you know, as most parents would, this is inappropriate, this is not something that you should allow to happen, and you can stop it.
12:39 And so you need to put your foot down.
12:41 Well, in 2021 Sarah finally agreed to have a meal with Ryan.
12:47 And so over the next few months, he showered her with trips and gifts and all kinds of attention on some of the trips.
12:57 He even paid for travel expenses for her family members.
13:02 That is when it came out that he had noticed her at the age of 14, they were in Key West, her mom and family were present.
13:13 He was drunk, and he admitted that he first noticed Sarah when she was 14.
13:21 This was obviously long before she ever became a patient.
13:26 He admitted that he saw her in the park with friends and he thought she was pretty ok, creepy because no, as a mom and I'm sure that Tina's red flags went up and it sounded like that she had continued to kind of warn Sarah about this guy.
13:42 What creepy guy is going to tell your mom that he was watching you when you were 14 and thought you were pretty.
13:50 There's another red flag, right?
13:52 She worked at a local toy store probably shortly after that.
13:57 Probably not at that time because she was only 14.
13:59 But he would take his kids into the toy store where she worked so he could see her when he found out that she later had a waitressing job.
14:11 He would go there to eat so he could get her as his server.
14:15 Yeah.
14:16 No, that's not cool.
14:19 After Sarah's death, Tina, her mother shared her concerns with the Montgomery County police.
14:27 She told them that Ryan had brought Sarah drugs that he removed from his office.
14:34 She let him know, you know everything.
14:36 I guess that Ryan had told her that is so creepy.
14:40 And could you imagine as a mom, you can kind of see something like this coming.
14:45 But when your child is an adult, you know, there's nothing that you can really do to stop it.
14:50 In February of 2021 it seems that Sarah's sister Rachel uncovered some texts from Ryan.
15:00 They were texts from Ryan to Sarah saying I can give you an injection.
15:05 The anxiety will be completely gone in six seconds.
15:09 It will work.
15:10 Let's try it.
15:11 Now in October of 2021 Sarah was asking Ryan via text if they had any Ketamine at the house.
15:21 And in November there was a text that Sarah said she needed syringes.
15:27 And then in December, she was asking him for Propofol because Sarah needed to sleep.
15:36 Now, we all know that Propofol is what was used when Michael Jackson died.
15:43 And Ketamine is what was used when Matthew Perry died.
15:47 These are two very popular drugs very common and someone that's on them has to be monitored closely under the care of a physician and not under the care of their Dentist boyfriend that they live with who thinks he can treat anxiety and depression with these medications.
16:10 He basically created an addict that allowed him to control her when you are half conscious all the time.
16:19 You do whatever someone wants you to do, or you don't go wherever someone doesn't want you to go in.
16:25 At least one case, Ryan administered the drugs to Sarah.
16:30 Not only was he providing them and everything that she needed to give them to herself.
16:37 There was a time when he actually gave them to her on December the 20th of 2021, he texted her saying if you wake up, I went to change after I gave you Ketamine just now.
16:51 That's how they know that he administered it because there was a text message in her phone that her sister found and provided to police saying that, hey, I just gave you Ketamine and I went to change kind of pretty much incriminating himself.
17:08 They wanted to charge him with intent to distribute and depraved heart murder, which is a subcategory of second-degree murder in the US.
17:21 It's kind of weird.
17:22 So, depraved heart murder is also known as depraved indifference murder.
17:27 And it's a type of murder where an individual acts with depraved indifference to human life and it results in death.
17:36 Despite the fact that they weren't really intending to kill the person, they commit an act, even though their act runs a really high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to a person.
17:50 If she had not died, he could have been charged with reckless endangerment or even assault.
17:57 I guess a good example of this would be a case way back when and we've had them here where like you're playing Russian roulette, and you basically spin a revolver with one bullet in it and hope that it doesn't stop.
18:14 That when you fire the weapon, the bullet goes off.
18:19 If you did that and pointed it at someone and then they died, you did something dangerous and you did something that, you know, could injure or kill the person that would be depraved heart murder.
18:34 It's kind of interesting, I had never heard of it before.
18:36 I had to look it up because I didn't understand exactly what it was.
18:41 But it's basically a subcategory of second-degree murder.
18:46 The state had to show that he had reckless disregard for human life that he was continuing to give her all these medications sometimes administering them himself, knowing that they could cause her harm, knowing that too much of them could kill her.
19:02 But he continued to do it.
19:04 Not really purposefully trying to kill her, but not trying to keep it from happening either.
19:10 Basically is, I guess the best way to explain it anyway.
19:13 Ryan definitely knew the dangers of the drugs he was bringing to her.
19:18 I mean, he was a Dentist, he was trained to use them.
19:21 He used them in his everyday practice.
19:23 He knew that these drugs could harm her, and he just continued to supply them to her.
19:29 The comments which I thought this was not fair because this would as a juror really freak me out.
19:36 But the comments about him noticing her at the age of 14 and going to the toy store where she was working and going to the restaurant where she waited tables never came up in trial.
19:49 And then his defense claimed that he was only trying to help her through her battle with drugs and depression.
19:58 It only took the jury less than three hours to reach a guilty verdict at his sentencing.
20:05 And this was this year, March 3rd, 2024.
20:08 Ryan addressed the court before the judge gave him 45 years in prison.
20:14 He claimed now all of a sudden that he wasn't sure where she got the drugs.
20:20 He should have made sure that she didn't have access.
20:24 He lied basically to try to make the judge give him a lesser sentence.
20:29 But I think everybody was on to him because of the text messages that her sister found in her phone where she was asking him to bring her stuff home.
20:39 And he even admitted to giving her the medications himself.
20:44 The medical examiner did determine that Sarah died of Ketamine, Propofol and Diazepam intoxication at the time.
20:57 She only weighed 83 pounds.
21:00 I mean, when she died, she only weighed 83 pounds y'all.
21:03 Now, I don't know how big of a girl she was before that, but I can say that it basically sounds to me like she was lying in bed pretty much drugged all the time wasting away.
21:16 Probably not eating.
21:19 And it's just really, really sad because he just continued to basically watch her die and help her die when a grown woman gets down to 83 pounds and is on drugs, especially when you're a doctor.
21:34 You should recognize that, and you should do something about that.
21:39 Someone who really cared about her that was married to her would have tried to get her to go to a drug rehab and stopped supplying the medications that were basically killing her Harris.
21:55 Even in some of the text messages was directed by Ryan on how to make drugs more potent.
22:03 He even went to the extent to bring home an IV pole and Saline and needles and just continue to supply her with all the things that she needed.
22:15 I don't even know if she was working at that time.
22:17 If she was taken that much, I don't see how she could have been and I'm sure her coworkers would have been like, girl, I mean, you weigh 83 pounds.
22:26 She had even overdosed back in that December of 2021 when they asked mom not to call the police because they were trying to keep her hydrated and she was fine.
22:39 She'd overdose back then.
22:41 But Ryan knowing that and knowing how bad her addiction was just continued to offer her these drugs and administer her these drugs.
22:51 You know, we've always heard that the risk of addiction is very, very high and I guess there's a couple of different medical careers, but Dentistry is definitely one of them now, not to say that all Dentists are drug addicts, but a lot of them have alcohol issues.
23:11 It's not always just the drugs that they're able to access in their practice.
23:17 Some Dentists use specific drug groups to deal with stressors and pain and those kinds of things.
23:23 And, and they include Alcohol, Opiates, Benzodiazepines, even the Nitrous Oxide that they give their patients in the office.
23:33 Alcohol though is the drug of choice for about 37% of Dentists with substance abuse problems, Opioid street drugs, Nitrous, just all of those things.
23:45 And I think, you know, I've read in the past that a lot of it is just that work life balance that they kind of struggle with.
23:53 They're sometimes isolated in their practice.
23:55 They have access to all these drugs.
23:58 They're sometimes perfectionists and not real good at managing time and managing stress.
24:05 And many people, not just Dentists, but they have untreated depression and also just genetic vulnerability to addiction in general.
24:15 A lot of people in the health care field suffer from burnout and there's pretty high percentage that deal with substance use disorders.
24:27 You know, just think every year, about 300 to 400 Physicians commit suicide and Dentists is about 80 a year.
24:36 That's a lot when you think about it.
24:39 I've always heard dental school was hard and I've always thought, man, why would you put yourself through all of that and work so hard to get your degree and do what you supposedly love and then risk it all by taking drugs and medications.
24:57 I mean, I've even known nurses in the hospital who have access to drugs and who have found unresponsive in the bathroom at work or unresponsive in the shower at work and things have been put into place over the years that have tried to keep closer counts on medications so that no one has free access to them.
25:19 But I mean, I've heard stories of nurses and other people, you know, refilling a Demerol syringe with water after they injected it with themselves, putting it back in the medication machine.
25:32 That someone will give it to a patient thinking it's Demerol and no one will even know that it was missing.
25:38 And so that patient that got the basically Saline is like, yeah, that Demerol didn't work, you know, nurses and doctors taking opioids out of the drug machines and giving patients who didn't know any better, a Tylenol or something else completely.
25:59 And they thought they were getting a pain pill.
26:01 But strangely, it doesn't work because the nurse took the pain pill.
26:05 It's just that substance use disorder is very, very common among the medical field.
26:11 And Dentists are also a part of that.
26:14 So choose your Dentist wisely.
26:16 No, it's just, it's a really sad story because it sounds like he was slightly infatuated with her weird coincidence that she ended up making an appointment to go in and have her wisdom teeth pulled by him.
26:31 And then he took that opportunity to make his move and eventually got her to go out on a date.
26:39 Eventually she was living with him.
26:41 It just sounds creepy.
26:42 It sounds creepy anyway, he got 45 years.
26:46 We don't have to worry about that anymore, but basically contributed to her death.
26:53 Just another really sad story.
26:56 I hope that the rest of the week is amazing for everyone.
27:01 I am so sorry for all the hurricanes in Florida.
27:05 I hate that everyone there is going through that.
27:08 I don't know many people who live in that area.
27:11 The ones that I know that live in Florida are safe and are not affected.
27:15 I'm not going to say completely unaffected, but they haven't lost their homes.
27:20 I don't know.
27:21 I get worried when two hit back-to-back like this just like the fires in California.
27:26 I mean, it's so devastating.
27:28 I hate when stuff like that happens and I feel like all of us want to help so much, but we know that there's really not a lot we can do and I don't know about y'all, but I don't want to donate to a bunch of organizations because I don't know for sure that the right people are getting the money.
27:44 I mean, everybody's saying, oh, I'm going to collect and donate, and I don't know, I just don't trust everybody.
27:51 There's too many people that are in it for themselves and I want to make sure that the money goes where it needs to go.
27:57 I feel like the best way to help would be to go there and physically help, but I'm not going there now, Milton's on the way.
28:05 We'll hope for the best and pray for everyone there and I hope that y'all have an amazing week.
28:12 Don't forget to, please share.
28:14 I'm trying to get as many followers as I can on my YouTube channel and then we'll get that up and running soon.
28:21 Also wanted to let you all know I have been chosen to compete in a contest called Fab over 40.
28:29 I was chosen to compete, and it is by votes.
28:34 Voting starts on October 14th.
28:37 That would be Monday if I win, I will get a vacation for two, $40,000 and will be on the cover of New Beauty Magazine.
28:48 I would very much appreciate your vote.
28:52 You can vote by going to vote Fab40.com and vote for Julie Mattson and it basically supports the National breast cancer Foundation.
29:07 Anyway, I would love to be on the cover and there's some interview questions on the website that they ask me, why do I love being over 40?
29:17 What would I do with $40,000 and some photos?
29:20 But if everyone would please go on and vote again, voting starts October 14th fab over 40, vote for Julie Mattson.
29:28 I appreciate it very much.
29:30 I love y'all.
29:31 I hope you have a great week, and I will talk to you next week.
29:34 Bye y'all.
29:36 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
29:39 If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple podcast.
29:47 This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
29:50 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.