MARYLAND/REGION

Ruxton woman missing on eve of trip with son

She had visited estranged husband

By Michael Ollove
Sun Staff Writer

   Baltimore County police are investigating the disappearance of a Ruxton woman who they say dropped from sight Friday night after visiting her estranged husband, the former chief financial officer of McCormick & Co.
   Susan Hurley Harrison, 52, the owner of a small Baltimore business, did not return that night to her home where her 19-year-old son Nicholas Owsley was waiting. The two were planning to fly out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport the next morning to visit her relatives in Boston.
   Mrs. Harrison's car, a 1992 dark-green Saab, is also missing.
   "Wherever she’s gone, nobody knows," her husband, James J. Harrison Jr., from whom she is separated, said yesterday. "It’s really alarming."
   Mr. Harrison, 57, who retired from McCormick in 1991, said that his wife had been at his Timonium home several times during the day on Friday and he was aware of her plans to go to Boston the next day.
   He said that when his wife was there in the evening, he left her downstairs and went to bed. Later, he said, he heard a car pull away and assumed it was his wife. That was around 10 p.m., he said.
   When Mrs. Harrison didn’t return to her Ruxton home that night, her increasingly alarmed son called his lather — Mrs. Harrison’s first husband — Tom Owsley. Mr. Owsley notified police of her absence the next afternoon.
   Mrs. Harrison, whose store, the Shady Lady, makes custom lamp shades, is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 110 pounds and has blond hair. She was last seen wearing black shorts and a black sleeveless top.