Case 326: Cooper Harris

*** Content warnings: Child victim ***When doting mother Leanna Harris arrived to pick up her 22-month-old son Cooper Harris from daycare in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 18 2014, she was shocked to find that Cooper wasn’t there. She soon discovered that her husband, Ross Harris, had made a fatal mistake, leaving Cooper to die in the backseat of his hot car after forgetting to drop him off on his way to work.
As details about Cooper’s death emerged, many questions arose. Was this another innocent family who had fallen victim to the phenomenon known as Forgotten Baby Syndrome, or was something more sinister at play?
---
Narration – Anonymous HostResearch & writing – Elsha McGillCreative direction – Milly RasoProduction & music – Mike MigasAudio editing – Anthony Telfer
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Episode Transcript

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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If
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or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children

(01:56):
and won't be suitable for all listeners. Thirty year old
Leanna Harris was nearing the end of her workday on Wednesday,
June eighteenth, twenty fourteen, when at three sixteen pm, she
received a text message. It was from her husband, thirty
three year old Justin Harris, who went by his middle

(02:18):
name of Ross. When are you getting my buddy? The
message read Ross was referring to the couple's son, twenty
two month old Cooper Harris, who needed to be picked
up from daycare. The couple typically took turns dropping Cooper
off and picking him up, depending on whose schedule worked best.

(02:39):
At the time, Ross had dropped him off that morning,
as Leanna had an early start in her job as
a dietitian. It was agreed that Leanna would pick Cooper
up because Ross had plans to go to the movies
with Franz after work to see the comedy action film
twenty two Jump Street. Leanna clocked off at four pm

(03:01):
and made the one hour drive to the Little Apron
Academy in Vinnis, Georgia. The childcare facility was custom built
for employees at the Home Depots Atlanta headquarters, where Ross
Harris worked as a web developer. It was conveniently located
just five and a half miles from the Harris's home

(03:21):
in the city of Mariatta and right around the corner
from Ross's work. Cooper had been a regular attendee at
the Little Apron Academy since he was about six weeks old,
where the staff had come to know the Harris family well.
Leanna had done the daycare run countless times, but when
she entered the building on this occasion, Cooper's teacher looked

(03:44):
surprised to see her. What are you doing here, the
teacher asked. Leanna was confused. I'm here to get Cooper,
she responded. The teacher looked at her with a puzzled
expression on her face and said, Cooper's not here. It
took Leanna a moment to register what she was hearing.

(04:08):
Assuming it was some kind of twisted joke, she asked, no, really,
where is Cooper? But the teacher looked her square in
the eye and firmly repeated, He's not here. Leanna didn't
know what to think. She was immediately overcome with fear

(04:28):
as all kinds of scenarios flooded through her mind. What
if someone had kidnapped Couber. What if Ross had absent
mindedly left him at home that morning by mistake? A
daycare employee offered to drive with Leanna to Ross's office
building around the corner. When they got to the home
depot parking lot, Leanna couldn't see Ross's car anywhere. Panicked,

(04:53):
Leanna raced into the office building, desperately trying to call Ross.
As she ran, he to answer his phone, and the
security guard in the lobby told her that Ross had
already left work for the day. Leanna sat in the
lobby as she contemplated what to do next. Then her

(05:14):
phone rang. It was a detective. He asked Leanna where
she was and told her to stay put, saying he
was coming to see her. It's bad, right, Leanna asked
him yes. The detective replied it's bad. Approximately half an

(05:59):
hour early, at four twenty four pm, police officers had
pulled into the parking lot at the Acres Mill Square
shopping center, roughly two miles from the Home Depot headquarters,
to find a troubling scene. A silver Hyondai twuson suv
was parked haphazardly on the curb with a crowd gathered
around looking at something on the pavement. It was the

(06:23):
body of twenty two month old Cooper Harris, his skin
a bluish green and his veins clearly visible under his
pale skin. His father, Ross Harris, was pacing nervously nearby,
his cell phone impressed to his ear as a good samaritan,
unsuccessfully attempted CPR on the small boy. What have I done?

(06:46):
Ross screened, what have I done? I killed my son.
One of the officers stepped in and took over the
resuscitation attempt, but it was clear that Cooper had been
deceased for so time. Ross came closer, shrieking hysterically, Oh

(07:06):
my god, Oh my god. One of the officers asked
Ross to get off the phone and show them some ID.
He told them to hold on. When they asked him again,
he snapped, shut the fuck up and hold on. My
son just died. This reaction prompted the police to place

(07:28):
Ross in handcuffs and put him into the back of
a patrol car to ensure he didn't flee the scene.
He promised to calm down if they just removed the cuffs, saying,
you have to understand, I'm just really upset. Ross told
the police he needed to call the Little Apron Academy
before his wife arrived to find Cooper wasn't there. One

(07:52):
of the officers asked why she would think her son
was there. Ross responded, because I was posed to drop
him off this morning and I didn't do a second
look in my car and left him in my car
while I was at work. I swore I dropped him off.
I thought I did. Ross Harris was taken to the

(08:17):
police station, where he explained to two interviewing detectives that
the morning had started out like any other. Cooper had
been having trouble sleeping over the past few nights and
had woken up early at around five point fifteen am.
Ross got up and brought him into bed with him
and Leanna, where they all snoozed until Leanna left for

(08:39):
work at around seven point fifteen. Ross and Cooper then
got up and watched the cartoons until it was time
to leave for the day. Ross typically dropped Cooper at
daycare in time for breakfast, but they were running late,
so he decided they'd have a daddy sun meal at
the Chick fil A restaurant near his work instead. Ross

(09:02):
ordered breakfast from there most days, usually from the drive through,
but every couple of weeks he brought Cooper along with
him and they dined in. Ross said that after eating breakfast,
he strapped Cooper into his car seat and kissed him
like he always did. He then pulled onto Cumberland Parkway

(09:22):
and headed towards the Little Apron Academy, but instead of
turning left at the upcoming intersection like he was supposed to,
he must have continued straight towards his office. Ross said
that Cooper didn't make a sound, so he must have
fallen asleep and Ross had completely forgotten he was there.

(09:44):
He parked in Home Depot's surface parking lot and proceeded
to work a normal seven hour shift, going out for
lunch with some friends before knocking off to go to
the movies. Ross admonished himself for not ch checking the
back seat before he went into work that morning. He
told the detectives that he knew how dangerous a hot

(10:07):
car could be for a small child, ever since he'd
seen a news report about a man who accidentally did
the same thing. That man had since become an advocate
for parents to always turn around and double check the
back seat. Ross explained, I've been doing that because the
worst fear for me is to leave my son in

(10:29):
a hot car. He said he'd also watched an online
video about the dangers of leaving dogs inside hot cars,
and it had made him think about how terrible it
would be for a child. When asked about his relationship
with Leanna, Ross said it was good, with its typical
ups and downs. He said their finances were solid, other

(10:54):
than some student debt from their college days. The detectives
told Ross that Leanna had been notified about what happened
and was at the station. They needed to go speak
with her, and in the meantime, they told Ross he'd
be held in a cell. Ross asked why. The detectives

(11:15):
explained that because his actions led to Cooper's death, he
was going to be charged, most likely with cruelty to
a child. Ross seemed shocked. It was completely unintentional. He stated,
I have no history of child abuse, no history of
domestic violence. I have no criminal history. I have no

(11:37):
record whatsoever. I've worked in a law enforcement environment. I'm
a great father, and I have multiple people who would
back that up. Ross wasn't exaggerating. The thirty three year
old had a clean background. He'd been raised in the

(11:58):
Alabama city of Tuscaloosa, where he'd held various jobs at
the University of Alabama before working as a police dispatcher
for several years. He'd met Leanna when he was twenty three,
and the two quickly fell in love and got married.
Leanna was introverted and earnest, whereas Ross was extroverted and outgoing.

(12:21):
Together they brought out the best of each other's personalities.
Ross helped to bring Leanna out of her shell, while
Leanna motivated Ross to reach his potential and encouraged him
to go back to school. He went on to get
a bachelor's degree in commerce and business administration, which led
to his job at home Depot. The couple relocated to

(12:44):
Atlanta in twenty twelve, where Ross lived an active social
life and played guitar in their church band. Life was
going well for the couple, but there was just one
thing missing. From a very young age, each the one
thing Leanna wanted was to be a wife and mother. Likewise,

(13:05):
Ross wanted children so badly that his work colleagues even
referred to him as soccer Dad. After months of trying,
in early twenty twelve, the couple got the good news
they'd been desperately hoping for. Leanna was pregnant. Ross was
so excited that he uploaded a video of their first

(13:26):
ultrasound to his YouTube account, along with the caption. First
video known as Cooper. When Cooper was born on Sunday,
August twelve, twenty twelve, Holding him for the first time
was the best feeling in the world for Leanna. As
the couple navigated their way through the first few exhausting

(13:49):
months of parenting a fussy baby, Leanna was impressed with
how well Ross stepped into his new role. He was
a dedicated, hands on father who never had hesitated to
get up in the night to put Cooper back to sleep.
The father and son developed a special bond, with the
young boy's blue eyes lighting up every time Ross walked

(14:11):
into the room. Cooper grew to be a happy, smiley,
and thriving baby. By the time his second birthday was approaching,
he'd developed an adventurous personality and a love for cars
of all kinds. Everyone who knew Ross Harris described him
as a nice, well mannered man who was a great husband,

(14:34):
supportive friend, and devoted father. He gushed about Cooper so
much that one colleague given told him that people were
sick of hearing about the baby. Therefore, as the news
spread about Cooper's death, there could only be one explanation
for those who knew the Harris family. This was a

(14:55):
tragic accident that couldn't have happened to less deserving people,
and it wouldn't be the first time. According to the
not for profit organization Kids and Car Safety, an average
of around forty young children die in the US each
year after being left in a hot car. While some

(15:18):
of those deaths occur due to criminal negligence or after
a caregiver uneducated on the dangers, decides to leave a
child in the car while they work or attend an appointment,
a majority of caregivers simply forget that their child is
in the car. It is such a common phenomenon that
it has its own name, forgotten baby syndrome. As Associate

(15:44):
professor of law Erika Breitfeld explained in her article about
the phenomenon for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, part
of the reason parents can forget their children in the
car is because of where the children are placed in
a vehicle, especially those under the age of three, are
almost always in a rear facing car seat. Consequently, when

(16:07):
a parent looks behind them in the back seat, whether
or not the child is in the car, they see
the same thing, the back of the child's car seat,
not the child. Because many young children fall asleep during
car rides, there are often no audio cues to remind
a caregiver of their presence in the vehicle. Parents, who

(16:31):
are often sleep deprived in those early years, have nothing
to remind them that a child is in the back
seat except their own memory. On a warm day, the
internal temperature of a vehicle rises rapidly, even when the
windows are partially open. A child's body heat also rises
up to five times faster than an adult. If a

(16:55):
child is left in a hot car, it doesn't take
long before they become high. The thermic and their organs
begin to shut down. On the day Cooper Harris died,
the external temperature had reached eighty six degrees fahrenheit or
thirty degrees celsius by midday. It was estimated that the

(17:17):
inside of Ross's vehicle could have reached around one hundred
degrees fahrenheit or thirty eight degrees celsius by one PM,
and that Cooper was likely dead by then. Scratches on
the young boy's face, as well as small abrasions on
his head, hands, and feet, indicated he had struggled as
he became increasingly uncomfortable. The medical examiner said he likely

(17:41):
experienced nausea, headache, anxiety, and possible seizures before succumbing to
heat stroke. It is a common misconception that only a
negligent parent could accidentally leave their child in a hot car.
The unfortunate reality is that it could happen to anyone.

(18:02):
Neurologists who have studied forgotten baby syndrome have found that
these incidents typically occur when the brain's prospective memory system,
which is responsible for reminding us to do things, goes
into conflict with the brain's habit memory system, which is
the part of our brain that runs on autopilot. When

(18:22):
tensions arise between these two systems, often due to stress, fatigue,
external events, or a change in routine, that habit memory
can take over. If a parent's usual routine is to
drive to work alone, and there are no cues to
remind them that the child is in the car, they
might drive to work on autopilot without ever dropping the

(18:45):
child where they are supposed to go. The brain is
then capable of creating a false memory, leading the parent
to believe that they dropped their child off safely. Journalist
de Gene Winingarten wrote about the phenomenon in a Politzer
Prize winning article for The Washington Post titled Fatal Distraction.

(19:07):
After looking into various cases and statistics involving children left
in hot cars, Gene concluded, what kind of person forgets
a baby? The wealthy do, it, turns out, and the
poor and the middle class. Parents of all ages and
ethnicities do. Mothers are just as likely to do it

(19:31):
as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent minded and
to the fanatically organized, to the college educated, and to
the marginally literate. Last year, it happened three times in
one day. The worst day so far in the worst
year so far, in a phenomenon that gives no sign

(19:51):
of abating. It therefore caused public outrage when it was
announced that Ross Harris was being charged not only with
second degree child cruelty but with Cooper's murder. People who
knew the Harris family, as well as total strangers, immediately

(20:13):
came to Ross's defense. Two petitions were launched urging authorities
to release Ross and to drop the charges. Concerned citizens
said Ross had suffered enough and should not be punished
for an innocent lapse in memory. Other parents whose children
had died as a result of forgotten baby syndrome also

(20:35):
came out in support of Ross, with one of his
friends riding on one of the petitions. Ross is an
incredible friend. He's always the first to help when tragedy
strikes others, so I am returning the favor. Another said,
I've known Ross for over ten years and he is

(20:55):
a selfless man who loved people and loved his family more.
But from the moment police arrived on the scene outside
the Acres Mill Square shopping center, they didn't feel like
this was a typical hot car death straight off the
bat was the unusual positioning of Cooper's car seat. Unlike

(21:17):
most hot car deaths, where the child was in a
rear facing seat, either directly behind the driver's seat or
passenger seat, Cooper's rear facing seat was in the middle.
This placed him just inches from the driver's seat, right
near Ross's elbow. It was hard for the police to
imagine that Ross could have looked to his right without

(21:40):
seeing him there. Furthermore, when crime scene examiners entered the car,
they were hit with the distinct odor that they knew
to be the smell of death. They could also smell
Cooper's urine soap to diaper. It seemed unimaginable that Ross
could have driven the two minds from his work to

(22:01):
Acres Mill Square without noticing the odor and investigating its source.
Not only that, but Cooper's autopsy confirmed that he was
thirty three inches tall. The height limit for his car
seat was thirty inches, and by Cooper's age, most parents
had already opted to put their children in forward facing seats.

(22:25):
Then there was Ross's reaction at the scene. Passers by
who had seen Ross Paul Cooper from his car found
it strange that he placed the child's body on the
hot pavement and stopped attempting CPR after just a couple
of compressions. It seemed even stranger that he walked away
from Cooper and immediately got on his cell phone while

(22:47):
others stepped in to try and help his son. Curiously,
Ross didn't call emergency surfaces, but instead tried calling Cooper's
daycare so that they could alert Leanna. Witnesses and police
thought his reaction looked staged. One minute, he was shrieking hysterically,

(23:08):
the next he was completely calm. While he appeared to
be crying, he didn't shed any actual tears. One officer
described Ross's behavior as very random and very odd, while
another thought that he's yelling seemed to monotone and forced.
Things just got stranger once Ross was placed in the

(23:30):
police car, despite having found his son dad in a
hot car just minutes earlier, Ross immediately started complaining about
how hot it was, even though the air conditioning was on.
He also complained that the handcuffs were hurting him and
asked for them to be released. At no point did

(23:51):
he ask to see Cooper or mention him at all.
Dashcam footage captured Ross as he alternated between sitting calm
and wailing, Oh my god, what have I done? My boy?
What have I done? At one point, he looked directly
into the camera. Then, on the drive to the police station,

(24:15):
Ross engaged in casual chitchat with the officer who detained him.
He asked her how long she had been in law
enforcement and made comments about how the handcuffs their department
used were different to the ones he had seen while
working for the police in Alabama. This casual conversation, coming

(24:35):
from a man who had just lost a child under
horrific circumstances, made the officer uncomfortable. This erratic behavior continued
once Ross was put into the interrogation room. During the
fourteen minute wait before the interviewing detectives arrived, video cameras
captured Ross sitting calmly. Every now and then, his calm

(24:58):
demeanor would give way to a brief moment of dry eyed, crying, wailing,
or heavy breathing, interspersed with erratic yells of oh God,
my boy.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Why.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
At one point, he started pacing around the room, rubbing
his eyes and huffing. One of the detectives who was
watching Ross on the camera, thought he looked like he
was trying to make himself hyperventilate. When Leanna was taken
in to see him, Ross started talking about how scared
he was of going to prison. All I can think

(25:33):
about is that jail cell, he said, specifying he was
particularly worried about the hard bed and the metal toilet.
He also asked what would happen if he lost his job.
To the investigators, these seemed like strange concerns for a
man who had just lost his son to a slow
and painful death. Stranger Still, Ross had told Leanna that

(25:58):
when he pulled Cooper from the vicar, he quote dreaded
how he would look. Not only did investigators find it
concerning that Ross had used the past tense, but Ross
told Leanna that Cooper's eyes had been closed and he
looked at peace. First responders at the scene said that

(26:19):
Cooper's eyes had actually been open. When Ross was taken
to a holding cell after being informed he was being
arrested for murder. His cell mate also found his demeanor
to be inconsistent with someone who had just lost a child.
Instead of seeming sad or upset, he appeared calm and nonchalant,

(26:45):
while the members of law enforcement who crossed paths with
Ross Harris that day were aware that everyone responds very
differently in moments of grief. They all agreed that Ross's
reaction was completely out of the norm. Their suspicions only
grew after viewing CCTV footage taken from the day Cooper died.

(27:08):
The footage from chickphil A showed Ross holding a happy
Cooper in his arms as they ordered their breakfast and
chatted to the manager. After finishing eating, they then headed
to the home Depot parking lot. Ross claimed that Cooper
must have fallen asleep during this drive, but it was
only a four minute journey, leading some investigators to question

(27:31):
the validity of his claim. At nine twenty four a m.
The grainy footage captured Ross as he parked his Tucson
in a spot in the back corner of the lot,
a considerable distance from the security cameras. There was a
parked car on one side of his vehicle and a
grassy patch on the other. Ross sat in the car

(27:54):
for around thirty seconds before walking into his office building,
carrying a Chick fil A carp and his work bag.
Throughout the day, various people passed the Tucson without noticing
Cooper inside. Then, at twelve forty two pm, almost three
and a half hours into Cooper's ordeal, the CCTV footage

(28:16):
captured something unexpected. Ross returned to his car. He opened
the front driver's side door and placed something inside before
walking back into his office. Curiously, Ross had made no
mention of this to the police, despite going into a
lot of detail about everything else. When questioned about it,

(28:41):
Ross explained that the frands he had gone out for
lunch with that day worked around the corner from him.
They'd picked him up, which they typically did, and taken
him to one of their frequent eateries nearby. Afterwards, they
all stopped into home depot so Ross could buy some
light bulbs. Ross's friends then dropped him back at his

(29:03):
car and drove away. The CCTV footage showed Ross reach
into the front driver's side of his vehicle and throw
the bag of light bulbs inside, without putting his head
in or glancing into the back seat. He then closed
the door two seconds later and walked away. The police

(29:25):
weren't entirely sure what to make of this. The fact
that Ross had withheld this information raised some questions about
whether he could have returned to the vehicle to check
that everything was going according to plan. Otherwise, if Ross
had genuinely forgotten that Cooper was inside the vehicle, the

(29:45):
police assumed this moment would have triggered his memory, and
according to the medical examiner who performed Cooper's autopsy, it
was possible that Cooper could have still been alive at
this time. With members of the public debating over whether
or not Ross Harris was guilty, Cooper was remembered at

(30:07):
a funeral service paid for by home depot. Ross, who
had been denied bail, was not allowed to attend. Instead,
he called in from jail, listening in via speakerphone as
Leanna Harris spoke publicly for the first time since Cooper's death.
Leanna clarified to the two hundred and fifty mourners gathered

(30:31):
that she held no anger towards her husband. It has
never crossed my mind, she stated, prompting a round of applause.
Ross is and was and will be if we have
more children, a wonderful father. Ross is a wonderful daddy
and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him.

(30:56):
Leanna said that Cooper had been perfect. He changed their lives,
turning things upside down in a way she wouldn't trade
for the world. She recalled the last two nights of
Cooper's life where he ended up sleeping between her and Ross.
I remember turning over in the middle of the night,

(31:17):
she said. His mouth was open and his full toddler
lips just breathing right into my face. I will cherish
that moment forever. Leaning on her Christianity for strength, Leanna continued,
some of you might wonder how I'm even standing here

(31:38):
to day. I wonder that myself, and I asked myself
that question over and over the last week. I should
be crumpled into a heap of snight and tears into
the dirt. But the Lord is holding me up right now.
He is holding Ross up, and he is holding both
of us up when we can't hold ourselves up. She

(32:01):
said that Cooper was in the most peaceful, wonderful place
there is. Leanna followed Cooper's casket out of the church
with Ross still on speakerphone. Before hanging up, she told
him that she loved him. For those close to the
Harris family, Leanna's impassioned show of support for Ross was

(32:24):
further testament to their belief that he was being subject
to a cruel injustice. But what they and the sympathetic
public didn't know was that the police had uncovered evidence
to suggest Ross wasn't who he painted himself to be.

(32:50):
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our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. When Ross Harris was first taken into custody,

(34:08):
the detectives asked him for the passcode to unlock his
cell phone. He stammered for a moment, saying he didn't
know what it was, before saying he used a biometric sensor.
Later in the interview, Ross said the passcode was his
and Leanna's anniversary. His apparent reluctance to give the police

(34:29):
access to his phone led them to suspect there was
something on there he didn't want them to see. They
obtained search warrants for Ross's work and home, where they
seized the number of items, including his iPhone and several computers.
What they uncovered revealed there was a very different site
to Ross than he publicly portrayed. Electronic records revealed that

(34:54):
he spent a significant amount of time using Whisper, an
anonymous social network app where users could post content, join
interest groups, and send private messages without revealing their identity.
Users were encouraged to share their intimate secrets with others,
able to then like or interact with those posts. Ross

(35:18):
not only used a Whisper to engage with posts, but
as a means to contact other women. In the six
months leading up to Cooper's death, Ross engaged in sexual
conversations with at least thirty women. He spoke of his
strong sexual desires, telling multiple users that he was addicted

(35:39):
to sex. Ross told one woman that he used sex
with strangers to keep him sane, writing to another, I
am a church guitar player, but I can lead somewhat
of a double life. Over various conversations, Ross said that
he missed being single, admitted to cheating on his wife,

(36:02):
and said that he sometimes hated being married. I just
want to fuck a lot of girls, drink a lot,
and have fun, he said. During a conversation. On Christmas
Day twenty thirteen, Ross told one woman that he cheats
quote a lot. When she asked him why he didn't

(36:23):
get a divorce, he responded simply kid. At five forty six,
on the morning that Cooper died, Ross started his day
by exchanging messages with at least three other women, one
of which involved a conversation about oral sex. By the
time Leanna left for work and Ross and Cooper were

(36:46):
up watching cartoons, Ross continued messaging these women, writing to
one of them, you can come suck me today. He
continued using whisper during his breakfast with Cooper at Chick
fil A and throughout his work day. From his office cubicle,
Ross sent sexual messages to several women, asking two of

(37:10):
them for pictures of their brasts. Both of them responded
with the photos as requested. Over the course of an hour,
Ross engaged in an intermittent sexual conversation with another woman
and then another, sending her a photo of his erect penis.

(37:32):
All up, it turned out that Ross Harris had engaged
in sexual conversations with at least six women on the
day that Cooper died. Police managed to track these women down,
as well as several others. After speaking with each of them.
The true extent of Ross's so called double life emerged.

(37:54):
In early twenty thirteen, Ross started exchanging sexual messages with
the twenty three three year old college student named Alexandra.
He never told her he was married or had a child,
only that he had a girlfriend. Shortly after they started
chatting online, Ross drove to Alexandra's dorm and took her

(38:14):
out to a back road where they engaged in oral sex.
They stayed in contact from that point onwards, but didn't
meet again, with Ross sending Alexandra a photo of his
erect penis just days before Cooper died in May twenty thirteen,
Ross started chatting online to an eighteen year old named Janie.

(38:39):
They began talking on the phone too, some of their
conversations being sexual in nature, and eventually they both admitted
they were falling in love. In August twenty thirteen, Ross
unexpectedly showed up at a place he knew Jane was
going to be. They kissed, but didn't meet in person again,

(39:01):
although they stayed in contact and continued to express their
love for one another. During their phone conversations, Janey could
sometimes hear Cooper babbling away in the background. She once
received a message from Ross that's said, if Cooper wasn't
in the picture, I probably would have left my wife

(39:23):
by now. That same summer, Ross struck up a conversation
with a nineteen year old woman named Jacqueline after she
posted on Whisper about seeing the erotic film Fifty Shades
of Gray, and things immediately turned sexual between them. A
few weeks later, Jacqueline went to Ross's house and the

(39:44):
two had sex. They didn't meet again, but continued to
talk online, with Ross encouraging Jacqueline to meet him for
another rendezvous. In February twenty fourteen, Ross told Jacqueline that
while on vacation, he'd met a man on Whisper and
the two had relations also. In early twenty fourteen, Ross

(40:08):
started chatting online with a twenty one year old woman
named Elizabeth. A few weeks later, they met up in
a parking lot and had sex in Ross's vehicle. They
met up again in April twenty fourteen and kissed. Ross
and Elizabeth stayed in contact for five months, during which
they racked up over forty four pages of sexually explicit messages,

(40:32):
with Ross explaining in graphic detail all of the things
he wanted to do to Elizabeth. Ross began communicating with
twenty three year old Caitlyn in June twenty fourteen. Knowing
Ross was married. Caitlyn once asked him if his conscience
ever kicked in, but Ross responded simply nope. On the

(40:55):
morning of Wednesday, June eleventh, one week before Cooper died,
Ross Caitlin a photo of his erect penis, and they
discussed the possibility of her coming to his house after
Leanna left for the day. Ross told Caitlin it would
be risky, but that as long as they got to
have sex, he was quote game for risk. But there

(41:19):
was one woman in particular who Ross contacted in the
hours before Cooper died that really caught the attention of
the police. Bella, not her real name, had been chatting
to Ross on Whisper since late twenty thirteen. Most of
their conversations were sexual in nature, with Ross repeatedly asking
Bella to send him photos of her genitals. Bella refused

(41:44):
every time, but that didn't stop Ross from sending her
five separate photos of his erect penis over a three
month period, along with requests for oral sex. The messages
Ross sent Bella used graphic sexual language, and he proposed
sexual encounters using graphic detail, telling her what he planned

(42:05):
to do to her quote, even if you say no.
The problem was at the time Ross first started communicating
with Bella, she was only sixteen years old. Bella told
the police that Ross was aware of her age, as
she'd told him shortly after they started chatting. This hadn't

(42:27):
stopped Ross from engaging in sexual contact with Bella. Instead,
it seemingly encouraged him. Just weeks before Cooper died, Ross
asked Bella to meet him in his car for her
first experience with oral sex. While Cooper sat strapped into
his car seat, dying of heat stroke. Ross had asked

(42:48):
Bella for a photo of her breast. When she obliged,
he responded yummy, and asked yet again for a photo
of her genitals. Given that Bella was a miner, the
police charged Ross Harris with one count of attempting to
commit sexual exploitation of a child and two counts of

(43:12):
dissemination of harmful material to a miner. But Bella wasn't
the only miner Ross was speaking to. In May twenty fourteen,
he had responded to a whisper post that said I
love older men by sending a picture of his erect penis.
The user who posted it was a fifteen year old

(43:34):
girl named Abbie, not her real name. Abby initially told
Ross she was eighteen, but she came clean about her
real age quickly after the two started chatting. Undeterred, Ross
told Abby quote, make me a naughty older guy, and
sent her graphic sexual messages. He also engaged in sexual

(43:57):
conversations with two other miners. Further examination of Ross's Internet
history revealed that twelve days before Cooper's death, he'd cleared
his Chrome browser cash. This removed all the data from websites.
Ross had previously visited a move the police deemed extremely suspicious. However,

(44:20):
he hadn't cleared his Firefox browser records revealed that Ross
had once googled how to survive in prison, visited a
subreddit group dedicated to living child free, and also conducted
over eight hundred searches for sex work services. In May
twenty fourteen, he contacted a sex worker via her rat

(44:42):
on the classified website back Page, and the two met
for paid sex in the woman's hotel room on three occasions.
Phone records revealed that during one of these encounters, Leanna
texted Ross asking him to come home because she and
Cooper missed him. Ross responded that he was helping a
friend to move house. With the full extent of Ross's

(45:07):
indiscretions coming to light, police believed a motive for Cooper's
murder was starting to emerge. It was apparent that Ross
wanted to have sexual relationships with many other women, and
his marriage to Leanna no doubt impeded that goal. But
it was something else investigators found in Ross's online history

(45:28):
that really solidified this theory. At eight fifty five, on
the morning of Cooper's death, Shortly before he and Cooper
entered Chick fil A for breakfast, Ross viewed a post
on Whisper that said I hate being married with kids.
The novelty has worn off and I have nothing to

(45:48):
show for it. Ross responded to the post, saying I
miss having time by myself and going out with Franz.
The post replied that she had nothing. All her energy
went into being a perfect, underappreciated wife with two small kids.

(46:08):
While she didn't resent her children, she did resent her husband.
At nine fifteen am, Ross wrote back, my wife is
upset when I want to go out with Frans. I
love my son and all, but we both need escapes.

(46:30):
Just five minutes later, Ross left Chick fil A, strapped
Cooper into his car seat, turned onto Cumberland Parkway, and
headed straight to work instead of turning to Cooper's daycare.
Ross was all too aware of how dangerous it was
to leave a child in a parked car on a
hot day. Not only had state childcare officials sent a

(46:52):
generic email about it just two months earlier, but Ross
had told the police about it himself during his interrogameation,
saying he'd just watched a video clip about it. Ross's
Internet history confirmed that just five days before Cooper died,
he watched a video posted by a North Carolina vat

(47:13):
named doctor Ernie Ward, which aimed to raise awareness about
the dangers of hot cars for pad owners. With the
external temperature at ninety four degrees fahrenheit or thirty four
degrees celsius, doctor Ward sat in his car with a
timer and a thermometer and documented his experience for the camera.

(47:34):
Even with all of the windows cracked open about an
inch and a half and a breeze blowing outside, it
reached a one hundred degrees fahrenheit or thirty seven degrees
celsius inside the vehicle within ten minutes. Doctor Ward described
the heat as stifling and almost unbearable. While he could

(47:54):
see the trees arching in the breeze outside, he said
he couldn't feel any semblance of that breeze and was
starting to wonder if this had been a really bad idea.
By the thirty minute mark, the internal temperature had soared
to one hundred and thirteen degrees fahrenheit or forty five
degrees celsius, and a doctor Ward was drenched in sweat.

(48:17):
He said that everything in his body was telling him
to get out, get out, get out, and that he
couldn't imagine how frightening this feeling would be for a
helpless dog that had no idea when its owner was
coming back. You can make all the excuses you want,
doctor Ward concluded, but those excuses are meaningless unless you

(48:39):
have sat in that car during that time. The circumstantial
evidence against Ross Harris was stacking up. Investigators had pieced
together an image of a man who was unsatisfied in
his marriage, yet felt compelled to stay because of his child.
They believed a Ross wanted to pursue his so called

(49:01):
double life without the burden of a wife or child,
and he therefore staged Cooper's accidental death to rid himself
of these burdens. It seemed almost impossible for them to
believe that Ross could have forgotten about Cooper almost immediately
after placing him in the car, especially given the close

(49:22):
proximity of Cooper's head in relation to the driver's seat.
It seemed equally implausible that Cooper had fallen asleep within
just a couple of minutes. And even if Ross had
genuinely forgotten about Cooper, he had several opportunities throughout his
seven hour workday to be reminded of the forgotten daycare

(49:42):
drop off. Not only did Ross physically return to the
car after lunch, but he also texted Leana about who
was picking Cooper up. Investigators felt confident they had enough
circumstantial evidence to secure a conviction against Ross Harris. There
was just one problem. Staff at Cooper's daycare told the

(50:09):
police that when Leanna Harris had arrived at the center
on the afternoon of Wednesday, June eighteen, twenty fourteen, to
discover that Cooper wasn't there, one of the first things
she said was Ross must have left him in the car.
There's no other explanation. The staff had tried to reassure

(50:29):
Leanna there could be many reasons why Ross hadn't dropped
Cooper off that morning, but Leanna apparently insisted that he'd
been left in the vehicle. When detectives then arrived at
the lobby of Ross's office building to break the news
to Leanna about what had happened, her reaction surprised them.
They'd been expecting to find an emotional rack, but Leanna

(50:52):
had calmly followed them outside of the lobby as she
sipped a coffee. A recorded conversation captured one of the
detectives as he told Leanna, there's really no easy way
to tell you this. Your child is deceased. I'm very
sorry to have to tell you that. Leanna showed little emotion.

(51:14):
She didn't ask what had happened to Cooper or asked
to see him. Instead, she responded, where's my husband. Leanna
was taken to the police station to see Ross. Instead
of asking him what happened. Video cameras captured Leanna hugging
and comforting him. When Ross told her that he was

(51:36):
being charged with a crime, Leanna looked at him with
concern and asked, did you say too much? She continuously
reassured Ross that everything was going to be okay, saying
that Cooper was in heaven and his time on Earth
was done, his belly was full of sausage biscuits, and

(51:56):
he fell asleep. She calmly reassured her husband, We're going
to get through this. We're going to be that couple
that makes it through this, okay. Ross replied, I just
don't want you to leave me for anything. You're like
my life support right now. Leanna responded softly, I won't

(52:20):
leave you. I love you. Look at me, I love you.
At Cooper's funeral, Leanna told those gathered that she felt
happy that Cooper wouldn't have to deal with some of
life's slatdowns, like his first heartbreak, school politics, or the
death of his loved ones. I miss him with all

(52:42):
my heart, Leanna said. Would I bring him back? No,
to bring him back into this broken world would be selfish.
When police had asked Leanna about her marriage, she said
she and Ross sometimes felt financially stressed. A search of

(53:03):
the couple's financial records revealed they had student loans, car loans,
and about four thousand dollars of credit card debt. Text
messages between the two also indicated that Leanna was unhappy
about some purchases Ross had recently made. This made the
police all the more suspicious when it was revealed that

(53:23):
the Harrises had two life insurance policies for Cooper. The
first was a two thousand dollar policy through home Depot,
and the second, purchased in November twenty twelve, was for
twenty five thousand dollars. Electronic records revealed it wasn't just
Ross who had searched online for information about hot card deaths,

(53:46):
but Leanna had too. Rumors started circulating about the possibility
that Ross and Leanna had conspired in Cooper's death for
financial gain. By the time the evidence was laid out
during a three hour probable cause hearing fifteen days after
Cooper's death, the public opinion on both Ross and Leanna

(54:08):
Harris had shifted greatly. Although police made it clear that
no charges were being filed against Leanna, social media went
into woverdrive with an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution
reporting based on her own sometimes confounding words, along with
evidence disclosed at her spouse's explosive probable cause hearing Thursday.

(54:32):
Many are wondering whether there's another side to Leanna Harris.
Leanna Harris needs to be arrested. One woman wrote on Twitter,
she is as guilty as he is. Another wrote, look
at those two twisted demons Cooper had for parents. God
will get you and you will pay. Where are your tears,

(54:56):
you scumbag? Someone commented Ross on a YouTube clip of Cooper.
I hope you and your ugly cud chewing cow wife
burn in hell for murdering this baby. Another wrote to Leanna,
I hope you and your husband rot in Hell. I
hope Cooper's screams haunt you until you finally cave and

(55:19):
admit what you did. The public allegations took a massive
toll on Leanna. Not only was she still coming to
terms with the loss of her son, she was humiliated
to find out about Ross's infidelity. Leanna claimed she knew
nothing about her husband's online or real world affairs. She

(55:44):
was aware that Ross had struggled with a pornography addiction
back in two thousand and eight, and she'd once found
a message on his phone asking a woman for pictures
of her breast. The two had sought help for these
issues together, speaking with their pastor and go to couples
therapy for a while. Then, in around December twenty twelve,

(56:06):
Leanna caught Ross watching pornography again, and a few months
later she saw a suspicious text on his phone. They'd
resumed therapy until things felt back on track. As far
as Leanna was concerned, at the time of Cooper's death,
Ross had all of these issues under control. She had

(56:27):
no idea his behavior had ever extended to full blown infidelity,
and had she known, she would have sought a divorce.
Leanna was also adamant that she had nothing to do
with Cooper's death. She later explained to ABC's twenty twenty
program that she could understand why people might have thought

(56:49):
her seemingly emotionless behavior was suspicious because she couldn't quite
understand it herself. There's no way for someone to know
how they would react, She explained, Nothing about it felt real,
nothing about it felt like it was happening. It just
felt like a bad dream. Leanna explained that she had

(57:12):
warmly embraced Ross at the police station because it never
crossed her mind that he could have killed Cooper on purpose.
She hadn't felt any anger towards him at that moment
because she knew it was an accident and her priority
was to provide him with support. She only asked Ross
if he said too much to the police because she

(57:33):
knew his personality and he doesn't shut up. All she
could think was what could Ross have possibly said to
make the police think that he had left Cooper in
the car on purpose. Investigators ultimately concluded there was absolutely
no evidence to suggest that Leanna was involved in Cooper's

(57:55):
death in any way, but that didn't stop the public
and media scrutiny. Not only was Leanna struggling to deal
with the grief of losing her son and now husband,
she was unable to work and lost the long running
consulting job as a result of the media backlash. She
returned to Alabama, filing for a divorce from Ross and

(58:17):
going back to her maiden name. In a victim impact
statement filed in August twenty fourteen, Leanna wrote that she
was living a tortured existence in which she depended on
the Lord for strength and support. Whatever issues transpired in
our marriage is between God and us, for He will

(58:38):
judge those moral sins, she wrote. The rush to judgment
by the public and the mainstream media has left me
with little confidence in our legal system and our society.
The storm around my family has prevented us from grieving
the right way, if there is a right way. Regardless

(59:01):
of her feelings toward Ross, Leanna wanted to make one
thing abundantly clear. Ross was a wonderful father, and he
loved Cooper with all of his heart, she wrote in
the statement. Because I saw how he treasured our little
boy for twenty two months, I know without a doubt
he would never have knowingly allowed any harm to come

(59:24):
to our son. I want you to know what a
loving father he was. If found guilty, Ross was facing
the possibility of the death penalty. Social media was filled
with calls for his execution, with members of the public
saying he should be left to die in a hot
car like his son. For Ross's supporters, the revelations that

(59:49):
had emerged at the probable Cause hearing left them in
a state of shock. The Ross presented in the police
testimony was nothing like the Ross they knew. Many of
them stuck by him regardless, adopting the tagline we're pro
Ross because we know Ross. Case file will be back shortly.

(01:00:19):
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Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting
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(01:01:37):
foremost reason they didn't believe Ross had intentionally left Cooper
in the car was simple. He was, by all accounts,
a caring and involved father who loved Cooper dearly and
had never mistreated him in any way. Everyone said so,
from Leanna to friends and family, to Cooper's daycare workers.

(01:01:58):
Even the other women Ross had been sexting at the
time Cooper died, believed that Ross genuinely loved his wife
and son. Ross had told one of the women that
he and his wife were having problems in the bedroom,
but he never mentioned wanting to leave Leanna. He also
proudly sent the woman pictures of himself and Cooper at

(01:02:20):
a baseball game. Ross told another of the women that
he was having problems in his marriage and that if
his situation was different, he'd be with her instead of Leanna,
but he also talked to her about how much he
loved Cooper, saying his son was his life and that
he wanted to be with Cooper for everything he did.

(01:02:42):
Just five days before Cooper died, Ross told another of
the women he was very happy in his marriage, except
for the sexual aspect because he was quote too much
of a sexual freak. According to the woman who went
to Ross's house to have sex with him while Leanna
was out, Ross loved his wife and didn't want to

(01:03:05):
end his marriage. He also clearly loved his son and
never said a bad word about him. When the woman
once asked Ross how his boy was doing, Ross responded
enthusiastically the best ever, along with a photo of Cooper.
He'd said similar things to Bella, the underage girl he

(01:03:27):
was charged with exploiting, only ever talking about Cooper in
positive ways and saying he loved his wife and would
never leave her. On the morning that Cooper died, one
of his online flings had asked how his son was doing,
and Ross had happily replied, He's awesome. While Ross's secret

(01:03:52):
online history painted a very negative image of the outwardly
presenting devoted family man, Ross's supporters all so believed his
secret online activity proved he hadn't intentionally killed Cooper. At
the time of Cooper's death, Ross and Leanna had been
planning to take Cooper on a family cruise with Ross's

(01:04:12):
half brother and his family. Just after midnight on the
night before Cooper died, Ross had searched online about the
cost of getting a child's passport while Cooper sat dying
in the car. Ross had received an email from a
travel agent about the trip, and had then spent some
time searching online for information about one of the cruise

(01:04:34):
lines the agent recommended. Not only did Ross's supporters believe
this proved he was planning for a future with Cooper,
they also thought his behavior on the day Cooper died
indicated he had no idea that his son was trapped
in the hot car. Ross's co workers said he'd acted
completely normally that day, as had Leanna and the friends

(01:04:59):
he had gone to lunch with. Nothing he did or
said was out of the ordinary, nor did he seem
nervous or distracted. For Ross's supporters, the fact that he
continued sending sexual messages to various women like he usually
did was morally reprehensible, but it wasn't indicative of someone

(01:05:19):
in the middle of a murder plot. They believed there
was simply no way that Ross could have acted so
nonchalantly if he knew the son he adored was slowly
and painfully dying right outside his office. They also didn't
believe that Ross would have made plans to go to
the movies with friends after work if he knew that

(01:05:40):
Cooper would be dead by then. Aside from the communication
with other women, Ross's supporters didn't believe that his online
activity was anywhere near as damning as investigators painted it
to be. For starters, Ross having cleared his Chrome cash
less than two weeks before or Cooper died was standard

(01:06:01):
practice for him and his coworkers. As web developers. They
used Chrome frequently and often cleared the cash to see
if a website change had been effective. Contrary to popular belief,
there was no evidence to suggest that Ross had specifically
sought out information about leaving children in hot cars or

(01:06:22):
anything of that nature. Either. Leanna had warned him of
the dangers back in early twenty thirteen, when she sent
him an email with the subject line don't be this Dad,
and a link to a news story about a man
in New York who accidentally left his baby in the
car for eight hours. As for the video posted by

(01:06:44):
veterinarian doctor Ernie Ward, this had appeared on a popular
creddit thread, and Ross had simply clicked on it, just
like hundreds of other users. The subreddit Ross had visited,
dedicated to living a child free lifestyle, wasn't something he'd
sought out either. A friend had posted about it in
their group chat, and Ross had briefly visited the site,

(01:07:07):
responding almost immediately in the group chat quote grossness. The
claims that Ross had searched for how to survive in
prison also weren't accurate. A computer expert looked into Ross's
search history and found that he'd actually searched for the
term what is prison really Like. He'd done this after

(01:07:30):
telling a friend he'd just finished watching a season of
Orange Is the New Black, a fictional Netflix show sat
in a women's prison. Critics of Ross were quick to
point out that Cooper was too big to still be
in his rear facing car seat. However, as Ross told
police in his initial interrogation, he and Leanna had purchased

(01:07:52):
a new forward facing seat just two weeks before Cooper died.
It was initially in Ross's car, but they'd switched it
over to Leanna's vehicle so that Cooper would be more
comfortable during a trip they took to Alabama. Leanna was
also adamant that Cooper's head had still been at least
two inches from the top of the car seat, making

(01:08:15):
it suitable for a child of his size. A photo
had been taken of Cooper in the car seat just
under a month before he died, and it showed that
the top of his head was not above the top
of the car seat. Leanna said that Cooper hadn't experienced
any significant growth spurts since that time. For Ross's half

(01:08:39):
brother Michael, who worked as a police officer in Alabama,
the very notion that Ross could have killed Cooper on
purpose was preposterous. Sure, Ross could talk too much and
be annoying at times, but if there was one thing
Michael was certain of, it was that Ross loved Cooper
more than life itself. The two were true buddies. For months,

(01:09:05):
it was Ross who had hounded Michael about the possibility
of taking their wives and children on a family cruise.
Ross and Leanna had also been saving up to buy
a four bedroom house because they planned on having another baby.
Before Cooper turned three, they'd been searching for a property
in a good school district with a big backyard for

(01:09:25):
Cooper to run around in. Michael told the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
what parent does that unless they are planning for their kids.
After Cooper died, Michael came to Atlanta to help the
Harrises through the tough time. Ross had given him full

(01:09:46):
control of their bank accounts, and he gained a complete
understanding of the couple's finances. While they did have some
lingering student and credit card dat they also had about
six thousand dollars in saving, always paid their bills on time,
and had excellent credit. Michael told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

(01:10:09):
To say they were in financial trouble is just crazy.
As for the suggestion that Ross could have killed Cooper
to benefit from his life insurance policy, Michael said, to
think that he killed Cooper for twenty seven thousand dollars
is a joke. By the time Ross Harris's murder trial

(01:10:32):
was scheduled to go ahead, it had to be moved
three hundred miles to Brunswick, Georgia due to the intense
local publicity surrounding the case. It took a further nine
and a half days for the courts to carefully select
the jury, with the trial finally commencing in October twenty sixteen,
just over two and a half years after Cooper died.

(01:10:55):
All up, Ross Harris faced eight charges in relation to malice, murder, felony, murder,
cruelty to children, sexual exploitation of children, and dissemination of
harmful materials to miners. Reporters swarmed around the courthouse, with
viewers from all over the country tuning in to watch
the televised live stream of the proceedings. The prosecution's argument

(01:11:20):
was straightforward. They described Ross as being obsessed with his
sexual activities and online interactions to a point that he
was prepared to take risk after risk. He intentionally and
maliciously left Cooper to die in the car so he
could free himself from his self imposed prison and to
pursue his double life by removing their child from the equation.

(01:11:45):
The prosecution said Ross hoped to then divorce Leanna and
achieve his dreams of having sexual relationships with the women
he met online. They presented evidence to support their belief
that there was no way Ross could forgotten about Cooper's
presence during the four minute drive to his work from
Chick fil A. To get from Chick fil A to

(01:12:08):
Ross's office, he had to turn right out of the
restaurant and onto a side road. Then he had to
turn right onto Cumberland Parkway, crossed through two lanes to
get to the left turn lane, make a U turn,
and then continue straight. To get to Cooper's daycare, he
had to do the same U turn, but then immediately

(01:12:29):
move into the left lane and turn left. Investigators who
had driven this route themselves testified that the maneuvers leading
up to that U turn took no more than forty seconds.
This essentially gave Ross just forty seconds to forget that
his son was in the car, despite them having just

(01:12:50):
spent twenty minutes dining together and Cooper's head being just
inches away from Ross in the driver's seat. The defense
argued that Ross was a loving father who had never
mistreated Cooper and had no intention of ending his marriage.
He had simply had a momentary lapse in memory on

(01:13:11):
the morning of Wednesday, June eighteen, twenty fourteen, which had
tragic consequences. Doctor Jean Brewer, an expert in human memory,
Systems testified that it was entirely possible that Ross could
have forgotten about Cooper in that forty second time frame
leading up to the U turn. He explained to the

(01:13:31):
jury that it all came down to prospective memory, which
is the type of memory that allows a person to
remember what they are going to do next. If a
prospective memory goal goes against routine behavior, doctor Brewer explained
that an individual can lapse into their routine behavior and
forget their prospective memory goal in a matter of seconds,

(01:13:55):
especially when they are distracted by things like fatigue, stress,
or external events. Ross had gone to bed late the
night before, as was evident in his phone activity, and
then woken up early to tempt to Cooper. Colleagues also
testified that he'd had a stressful project on the go

(01:14:16):
at work. Doctor Brewer said that these factors, combined with
the immediate distraction of the complicated U turn, could have
all played a role in Ross forgetting that Cooper was
in the car. Given that he dropped his son off
at daycare most days, Ross could have created a false
memory of having dropped Cooper off that morning too. Therefore,

(01:14:40):
when potential triggers arose, such as him discussing the pickup
with Leanna or putting the light bulbs in his car.
There was nothing to signal to Ross that anything was
different or strange about the situation. The defense said that
various factors such as Ross searching for the cost of
cho passport fees at work that day, looking up family

(01:15:03):
cruise information, and planning to see a movie with Franz
that evening were not indicative of someone who was planning
to or actively engaging in, killing his son in a
slow and painful way. He didn't try to isolate himself,
but interacted with coworkers, went to lunch with Franz, and
went about his online activities as per usual. At no

(01:15:28):
point did he do anything to indicate he was aware
of what was unfolding in his car outside. The prosecution
called various members of law enforcement and witnesses who testified
to Ross Harris's strange behavior at the scene of Cooper's
death and at the police station afterwards. However, upon cross examination,

(01:15:53):
these witnesses acknowledged that they didn't know Ross personally or
how he typically responded to traumatic EVAs. Prosecutors also called
multiple women who either had extramarital or sex with Ross
or engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with him, including
one sex worker and two miners. Each of the women

(01:16:15):
seemed embarrassed and uncomfortable as they provided their testimony, particularly
when they were asked to read aloud some of the
vulgar messages that Ross had sent them. However, upon cross examination,
none of the women provided any evidence to suggest that
Ross wanted to rid himself of his parenting responsibilities. On

(01:16:37):
the contrary, several of them testified that Ross had only
ever spoken about Cooper in loving terms, and they believed
him to be an adoring father. Ross waived his right
to testify in his own defense, but he had a
powerful supporter. His now ex wife Leanna, appeared on the

(01:16:58):
stand as a witness for the defences, saying that while
the sight of Ross's personality that had since been revealed
might have made him a lousy husband, he was never
anything but a devoted father to Cooper. He wanted to
be the one to push him on a swing, Leanna said,
He wanted to be the one to slide down the

(01:17:19):
slide with him. He wanted to enjoy every second he
could with him. The defense asked Leanna if Ross loved
his little boy. Yes he did, she replied very much.
Asked how she felt about her ex husband, now, Leanna
looked right at Ross as she said, he ruined my life.

(01:17:43):
He destroyed my life. I'm humiliated. I may never trust
anybody again. If I never see him again after this day,
that's fine. By the time closing arguments were delivered, the
media had run wild with the stories about Ross Harris's
secret sex life. The prosecution told the jury that Ross

(01:18:06):
had closed the door on Cooper's life because of his
own selfishness. This isn't a case about an adult hating
a child, they said. It's just that Ross loved himself
and his other obsession more than that little boy. The
trial ran for twenty six days, with over seventy witnesses

(01:18:30):
providing testimony and twelve hundred pieces of evidence being presented
before the jury was left to deliberate. It had been
a difficult and emotionally charged time for the jury members.
Throughout the trial, they'd been shown upwards of seventy photographs
of Cooper and Ross spending good times together, and to

(01:18:51):
multiple home videos that showed Cooper happily interacting with his parents.
Some of the footage provoked their smiles and laughter, while
others held back tears. The jury deliberated for three and
a half days before delivering the verdict for the malicious
murder of Cooper, as well as the remaining charges against him.

(01:19:15):
Ross Harris was found guilty on all eight counts. Ross
showed little emotion as the verdict was delivered, but as
the news spread, public reaction was mixed. Some felt the
evidence presented had worked in Ross's favor and were genuinely
shocked to find that he had been found guilty. Others

(01:19:38):
were vindicated in their belief that Ross had been guilty
all along with one official telling reporters outside court, I
believe categorically and unequivocally that justice has been served here today.
Ross Harris was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole for malice murder, and consecutive sentences of

(01:20:02):
twenty years for first degree child cruelty, ten years for
attempt to commit sexual exploitation of a child, and one
year for each count of dissemination of harmful material to
a minor. Leanna was devastated, airing her opinion in a
Facebook post, she wrote, for those of you who want

(01:20:25):
to know if I am okay. The answer is no,
I have not been okay since the moment I was
told my son was dead. I have not been okay
since the moment my life was put on this path
that has led to Ross being found to guilty of
maliciously murdering our child. So now you may be saying

(01:20:46):
justice has been served, and you are allowed your right
to that opinion. But guess what. You can convict every
parent that this has ever happened to, And I can
promise you two things. Number one, it will will never
bring our children back, and number two, it will not
prevent this from happening in the future. Next summer, as

(01:21:09):
this begins to happen over and over again, ask yourself
what can be done. The problem is not the parent.
The problem is a society that refuses to believe this
can happen to them. Wake up, accept it, and by
accepting it, you will be protecting your child. Ross Harris's

(01:21:34):
guilty verdict sparked a debate among legal circles. Regardless of
personal opinion, many felt uneasy about the way the prosecution
handled the case. Questions were raised about why the evidence
of Ross's extramarital affairs, in appropriate communications with miners, and
his hiring of a sex worker were allowed to be

(01:21:56):
presented at a trial for the murder of a child.
Prosecutors had even presented the jury with nine enlarged photos
of Ross's erect penis as proof of the sexual images
he had sent to various women. While many felt this
did a good job at tarnishing Ross's character, it did
little to prove he was a killer. As far as

(01:22:20):
Ross's legal team was concerned, the evidence of Ross's deviant
sexual behavior should never have been allowed to be presented
to the jury in the first place. Not only did
they believe it was highly prejudicial and therefore made it
impossible for Ross to have received a fair trial, but
it didn't do anything to prove that Ross had intentionally

(01:22:41):
killed his son. In January twenty seventeen, they filed a
motion for a retrial, but their request was denied. In
January twenty twenty two, Ross was permitted to appeal his
case to the Georgia Supreme Court. Team argued before the

(01:23:01):
panel of nine judges that the trial court abused its
discretion by admitting the extensive evidence of Ross's extramarital activities
specifically his Lewde exchanges with Miners, his decision to hire
a sex worker, and the photos of his penis. The
prosecution told the court it was necessary to present this

(01:23:22):
information as it was intrinsic to some of the charges
against Ross and had also helped establish their theory about
his motive for killing Cooper. For example, He's hiring a
sex worker in May twenty fourteen showed where his priorities
lay and how his behavior was escalating in the lead
up to Cooper's death. The Supreme Court handed down a

(01:23:46):
one hundred and fifty five page report examining the case
against Ross Harris in detail. The report pointed out that
a man doesn't typically enhance his ability to pursue sexual
relationships with women by killing his young child. Furthermore, when
a married man wants to pursue a relationship with other women,

(01:24:07):
he typically does so by cheating, getting a divorce, or,
in criminal situations, by murdering his partner, not his child.
The report stated that there was no evidence that Ross
viewed Cooper as an obstacle to his sexual conquests, and
therefore Ross's obsession with having sexual liaisons with many women

(01:24:29):
lacked a logical and necessary link to the alleged crimes
against Cooper. The report also pointed out that Ross had
already been meeting various women for sex since early twenty thirteen,
so hiring a sex worker in May twenty fourteen was
trivial when it came to the prosecution's case for murder.

(01:24:50):
As one judge told the prosecutor at the appeal hearing,
I will say you did a remarkable job of proving
Ross as a terrible person. But proving he is a
terrible person isn't the same as proving he murdered his child. Ultimately,
the panel of judges ruled six to three that the

(01:25:11):
evidence regarding Ross's extramarital affairs had an extremely unfair prejudicial
impact on the jury. While it showed that Ross was
quote a philanderer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator,
it did little, if anything, to answer the key question
of his intent when he closed the car door on
Cooper that fateful day. The Supreme Court upheld Ross's conviction

(01:25:37):
for sexual exploitation of children, a felony crime for which
he had been sentenced to ten years in prison, as
well as the two misdemean accounts of dissemination of harmful
material to a minor, each of which came with a
one year custodial sentence, but they reversed the convictions relating
to the crimes against Cooper, concluding because the properly admitted

(01:26:02):
evidence that Ross Harris maliciously and intentionally left Cooper to
die was far from overwhelming, we cannot say that it
is highly probable that the erroneously admitted sexual evidence did
not contribute to the jury's guilty verdicts. We cannot say
for sure what was going through Ross's mind when he
shut the Tucson's door on the morning of June eighteen,

(01:26:24):
twenty fourteen, and sealed Cooper's fate. We do not know
whether he planned and executed the horrific murder of his
twenty two month old son by leaving him to suffer
and slowly die in a hot vehicle, or rather if
he made a tragic, fatal mistake by forgetting that the child, whom,
by almost all accounts he loved and cherished, was in

(01:26:47):
the back seat. While Ross Harris continued to serve the
remaining four years of his sentence for the crimes against
a minor, the County District attorney, he began a thorough
review of his case file in preparation for a retrial
for Cooper's murder. Than in May twenty twenty three, the

(01:27:09):
DA's office made a shocking announcement. They released a statement
that raad crucial motive evidence that was admitted at the
first trial in twenty sixteen is no longer available to
the state due to the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore,
after much thought and deliberation, we have made the difficult

(01:27:32):
decision to not retry Justin Ross Harris on the reversed
counts of the indictment. Cooper will always be remembered by
this office and those who fought for him. This meant
that Ross just had to see out the remainder of
his sentence for the crimes against a minor and would

(01:27:52):
face no further action for his role in Cooper's death.
For Leanna, this was very welcome new. Despite everything she'd
been through, she was still unwavering in her belief that
Ross did not intend to kill Cooper. Leanna hoped that
the charges being dismissed would help change the way her

(01:28:14):
son was remembered. In a statement released by her lawyer,
Leanna reiterated that Cooper was wanted, loved, and missed every
single day. While this will not change anything about my
day to day life, I do hope it shows people
what those closest to the case have been saying from

(01:28:34):
the beginning. Leanna said Ross was a loving and proud
father to Cooper. At the same time Ross was being
a terrible husband. These two things can and did exist
at the same time. Changing the narratives surrounding Cooper's death

(01:28:55):
had always been of utmost importance to Leanna, who still
couldn't bring herself to wash the cup that Cooper last
to drank from on the morning that he died. She
felt very strongly that he deserved to have a better
legacy than the boy whose father intended to kill him.
Leanna told twenty twenty that someone once left a card

(01:29:17):
on Cooper's grave that said, I'm sorry that you weren't
loved in this life. Cooper, if you had been my son,
I would have loved you. This broke Leanna's heart. It's
hard enough to lose your child, she said, but then
to have people think that you didn't love him and

(01:29:37):
that you didn't want him, That's something that should never
have been added to the equation of having to bury
your baby. In the years since Cooper died, dozens of
American children had continued to die in the same way
every year. Leanna felt very strongly that wasting precious resources

(01:29:58):
prosecuting the parents of these magic accidents was not the answer.
She urged legislators to instead put money into developing new
laws that would require all child car seats to be
equipped with alarms, like was already being done in other countries.
As Associate Professor of law Erica Breitfeld explained in her

(01:30:19):
article about forgotten Baby syndrome for the Berkeley Journal of
Criminal Law, the market is not short on devices and
initiatives that parents can use to remind them of their
baby in the car. But interestingly, none of these products
are what parents think about when they are preparing for
the child's arrival. Hence, these products remain unknown to most parents. Further,

(01:30:44):
parents who are aware of these products think they have
no need for them because they believe incorrectly that they
could never forget their child in the car. This is
why the prosecuting attorneys, through community prosecution, must educate the
community and shape awareness about the risk all parents face

(01:31:06):
car safety officials recommend various ways that parents can protect
their children against forgotten baby syndrome.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
One.

Speaker 4 (01:31:14):
Set up an agreement with your childcare provider to have
them notify you if your child doesn't arrive at their
usual drop off time. Two, set a reminder on your
phone to check in with your partner to make sure
they have dropped the child off. Three. Create a visual
reminder for yourself by placing your child's bag, jacket, or

(01:31:36):
hat on the front passenger seat, or force yourself to
go to the back seat by placing your own bag, lunch,
or laptop there every day. Ross Harris was released from
jail in June twenty twenty five. The matter of whether
or not he intentionally left Cooper in his car that

(01:31:57):
day remains a topic of public debate. It's an experience
that some other parents who have faced a similar tragedy
can relate to. Erika Breitfeld explains this is because, quote,
when a child dies from a hot card death, we
have a visceral response to blame someone. Someone must have

(01:32:18):
done something wrong for a child to have suffered, and
this is a natural, normal reaction, but it does not
mean it is the right one. Neuroscientist to doctor David
Diamond echoes this sentiment speaking about forgotten baby syndrome to
Washington Poster journalist to Gene Weingarten, doctor Diamond said, memory

(01:32:42):
is a machine and it is not flawless. Our conscious
mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level,
our memory does not. If you're capable of forgetting your
cell phone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child.
After studying various cases involving hot car deaths and speaking

(01:33:06):
to many survivors of similar tragedies, Gene Weingarten concluded there
may be no act of human failing that more fundamentally
challenges our society's views about crime, punishment, justice, and mercy.
While Ross Harris's lawyer said that Ross has always accepted

(01:33:28):
the moral responsibility for Cooper's death, the truth about what
went through his mind back in June twenty fourteen is
something only Ross knows for sure. As Georgia Supreme Court
Chief Justice David E. Nemias wrote in Ross's appeal report,
this is in many ways an extraordinary case. In the

(01:33:52):
dozens of murder cases this Court considers each year, rarely
do we see a case in which diametrically opposed conclusion
could be reached by fair minded jurors from the same evidence.
A fair reading of the cold appellate record presents logical,
common sense cases both for Harris's guilt and his innocence.

(01:34:14):
Was he the heartless, sex crazed killer of the state's telling,
or a deeply flawed but loving father overwhelmed by the
demands of life and work whose worst day resulted in
his most costly mistake.