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Justin "Ross" Harris

Justin “Ross” Harris

I want to preface this article with a few words.  This article is my opinion.  Any facts and opinions are based upon what I have heard via personal reports, newspapers and tv, and what I heard in the courtroom.  Facts and opinions may change in the light of further facts at a later date.

When I first heard the very sad story of Cooper Harris, the toddler who died in his father’s SUV in sweltering heat, I was very sad for the baby and his parents.  I have two children, and I was one of those neurotic mothers who would double check every time I dropped my kids off at daycare and would keep going over my movements in my head to make sure I had not forgotten a child in the car.  I was upset that another parent had not paid as much attention as they needed to do when in charge of a child, but I had heard stories before of cases like this, and assumed this was another one of those.

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However, even the initial reports contained clues that something was amiss in this case.  The father, Justin “Ross” Harris, had apparently been arrested immediately by the police and I began to hear rumors of discrepancies in his story, and the fact that “something weird” was seen on security camera footage at the Home Depot.  I live about a mile from where the Harris family live, and I run a mom’s group (Marietta Moms) and a few other Facebook social groups in Cobb County, so a number of people told me what they had heard and asked if it was true.

Many on facebook initially came out in support of Ross, angry that the police had overcharged a grieving father.  I was not one of them – in fact, I cautioned people that there was a lot more to this case before the police stated that there was.    I was “flamed” on a number of facebook groups for having that opinion. 

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Gradually as more “facts” trickled out, people changed their minds.  The fact that Justin “Ross” Harris had googled about how fast an animal might die in a hot car, rumors that there was security footage showing Ross going back to his car at lunchtime, the fact that he went to Chick Fil A minutes before getting to work that morning, and the “fact” that police could not confirm that the baby was in his car seat at 9am.  It also seemed strange that his wife was not supporting her husband publicly.

 

More damning for me was the fact that Dana Pierce, Cobb police Sgt. and Public Information Officer, publicly stated “Much has changed about the circumstances leading up to the death of this 22-month-old since it was first reported,"  and "I've been in law enforcement for 34 years. What I know about this case shocks my conscience as a police officer, a father and a grandfather".  I recognized that, for Dana Pierce to say this, he would have to be fairly certain that Ross had done something extremely sick – otherwise Dana Pierce was risking losing his job for saying something so prejudicial to the potential jury pool. 

 

Actually, either way, he should have been risking his job for saying something so prejudicial to the potential jury pool.  But this is Cobb County, where police can get away with a lot if they are doing it in an attempt to jail a bad guy – especially a bad guy who killed a child.

 

Then, more “facts” came out, including the fact that Ross had searched for information about what temperature it had to be for a child to die in a hot car.  We heard that his wife, Leanna was not angry at her husband, and that she would not bring Cooper back to this “broken” world.  This, for me, was very hard to understand.  As a mother, I know with every fiber of my being that if my husband had killed one of my children (even accidentally) I would not be able to hold back my rage at him.  And if one of my babies died I would give anything to bring that child back.  Her reaction seemed creepy to me and made me wonder if she had been brainwashed in some way, especially as she referred to her husband as a great “leader of our family”.  I started to do research to try to find out whether the church the Harris family belonged to was some kind of cult. 

Then information was released indicating that Ross had returned to his car during the day and his visit was captured on security cameras and also that his wife, Leanna, had researched child car deaths on the internet.

At this point in time, most people on facebook were convinced that Ross Harris had killed his son on purpose and had meticulously planned it, and most suspected that his wife was involved too.

However, I was still “on the fence” – I wanted more facts before I could decide whether I felt the father was guilty of a heinous crime or whether he had simply accidentally forgotten his son.  Some questions I had included:

-          Why did Ross not pick up his son from daycare that evening if he thought he had dropped him off that morning?

-          What was the item Ross placed in the car at lunchtime?  At the time, I suspected it might be the baby, given that the police could not confirm that the baby was in the car seat at 9am.

-          What would be the motive for Ross to kill his baby?  Was there a huge insurance policy?  Some other reason?

-          How could Ross drive from work to Akers Mill (I estimated 8-10 mins drive) without smelling what had to be a terrible odor of feces and death by then in the car?

So, I went to the court case to hear the “facts” for myself.  I was convinced that Ross Harris was totally responsible for his son’s death – but I needed to be convinced that he was the kind of monster who could actually plan this in advance and kill his child purposely.

The court case was harrowing.  I was actually sitting right next to the family (Ross’s cousin sat right next to me, and his Grandparents sat next to her.  Leanna was on the other side of the Grandparents).  We heard details no one wants to hear about how a baby suffered in his last moments, but seeing and hearing the Grandmother’s reaction two seats from me made it all so much worse.  Noticing that the reporters sitting right in front of us were listening to hear any tidbit of information they could pick up from the family made me angry on their behalf also. 

I watched Ross Harris’s face from the moment he came into the court room and sat down until the moment he left the court room.  He was almost totally emotionless throughout the case – but not in the way a sociopath or psychopath might be emotionless, but instead in the manner of someone who is chronically depressed.  He seemed to me like someone who has been depressed for a very long time and has recently experienced events that pushed him over the edge into a situation where he no longer feels the will to live.  Occasionally a tear (a real tear - I was close enough to see) would fall down his face, but the tears came at odd times in the proceedings.  For example, there was no emotion shown at all when we heard that Cooper had scratched his own face and banged his head against the back of his car seat so badly that his head was badly marked, due to the severe pain of the manner in which he died.  Yet, there were tears when friends and his brother said how good Ross was as a father.

I believe that I am a pretty good judge of people’s faces.  And it is for this reason that I sat so close to Ross in court and watched every expression of his face.  In my opinion, Ross’s face is not the face of an evil sadistic baby killer, but the face of a very depressed man who has just killed his dearly-loved baby and no longer feels there is any point in living.

I think Ross felt like a failure because his marriage was passionless (Leanna admitted they had “intimacy issues”), he had failed to get promoted at work, he had failed to get another job at Chick Fil A headquarters, and he had developed a sex addiction.

We heard a lot of new evidence during the court case on both sides of the case.  I was extremely impressed with the Prosecution’s witness Detective, Phil Stoddard, who had clearly worked very hard and presented a great deal of evidence.  I am always glad there is someone as professional as Detective Stoddard standing up for a baby who has been killed, whether accidentally or on purpose.

However, I listened intently to the details and I believe I heard the evidence slightly differently to many of the general public, so I want to discuss those details here.

Of course, the most important thing we learned in the court case was about Ross’s sexting habit.  The fact that Ross was “sexting” women, and sending photos of his erect penis to women (especially under age women) is of course, very clear evidence that he is a schmuck.  However, I think it may actually be strong evidence against the idea that he is a psychopathic baby killer.

I think Ross’s obsession with sexting is a clear sign of Sex Addiction / Love Addiction.  For those who do not know much about Sex Addiction (I know a lot because I researched it when I was trying to warn my friend that her husband was a Sex Addict), Sex Addiction / Love Addiction is an illness that often afflicts those who are depressed in their “real lives” and have an insatiable desire to be loved and desired.  The addict becomes so obsessed that they are oblivious to the world around them a lot of the time.   Serious depression often is the cause and the result of this behavior in a vicious cycle.  

The addict is completely unable to control the behavior and the desire and it often results in serious consequences in the addict’s life – such as divorce or legal problems.    I believe that in Ross’s case, his problem was so severe that he became unaware of the world around him at times (disassociated) and that during one of those times, unfortunately, it led to the loss of his baby’s life and all the subsequent consequences.  

Indeed, I think he was so distracted by his obsession that he had probably previously left Cooper in the car, on numerous occasions, but luckily had discovered that he had done so in time for the baby not to be harmed. 

I think he was so distracted that day that nothing else existed except the woman he was sexting, and he simply forgot about Cooper.  While this is still a heinous crime in the sense that he was extremely neglectful of his son (legally negligent) and he should indeed be punished in my opinion, I do not think Ross Harris is a psychopathic baby killer.  

See more about sex addiction here http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/sexual-addiction-2/sex-addiction-symptoms/

We also heard that there were two life insurance policies taken out on Cooper – one for $2k and one for $25k.  Some people are now saying “Who takes out life insurance on their 2 year old for that kind of money?” and “Why would they need life insurance on their child?”  Well, if you live in East Cobb, and you have a 2 year old, you are probably in the minority if you do not have a “Gerber Life Policy” on your child.  The Gerber Life Insurance Policy has been heavily marketed in Cobb County, and many moms have succumbed to the marketing because they have received so many mail flyers stating that “Your Grow-Up® Plan not only provides up to $50,000 of whole life insurance for your child now, but the coverage amount automatically doubles during age 18,at no extra cost!”  $25k is not a huge amount of money and I doubt an IT Professional at the Home Depot (who is probably making $80-100k annually) and his wife (a dietitian probably making $50k per year) would risk going to prison for the rest of their lives for $25k.

We heard that Leanna Harris was usually the person who picked up baby Cooper from Daycare – and indeed, showed up at the Daycare that night at 5pm.  So that explains why Ross did not pick up the baby from Daycare before leaving that night.  Also, we heard that Ross sent a text message to his wife asking her what time she was picking up “my buddy” during the hour before he left work (I think around 3:20pm) so that could indicate that he expected her to pick him up as usual.

However, we heard also that Leanna, on hearing that the child was not at the daycare, immediately assumed that the child had been left in the car by Ross.  Though on the surface, this might seem pretty incriminating, I am guessing that Ross had done this before and that is why Leanna jumped to that conclusion.  She had probably nagged him repeatedly about his sex addiction and the way it was affecting how he looked after Cooper.  She had probably made him look at videos and websites warning how terrible such a death would be in an attempt to shock Ross out of his behavior, in an attempt to try to get Ross to pay more attention to their child and be sure he did not leave him in the car again.

This could explain why Ross had watched a video that very explicitly detailed how terrible and painful dying in a hot car would be.  The implication from the Prosecution was that Ross would get some kind of kick out of knowing his son would die such a horrific death.  I would argue he probably watched that video because his wife was trying to shock him into the realization of how serious it was to leave a kid in the car for any time at all.

We heard that Ross is deaf in one ear which certainly might explain why he did not hear the baby in the car when he got to Home Depot.  We also heard a rumor that Ross may have a bad sense of smell which might explain how Ross could drive for five minutes before discovering the baby dead in the car.  My husband has a bad sense of smell and I can tell you that he would not smell a dead baby in a car, but I have no idea how bad Ross’s sense of smell was.

The “financial problems” mentioned as a possible motive in court seem very insignificant to me.  I have run a Mom’s group in Marietta for 7 years, and over time more than 1000 women have been members of my group and been personal friends.  I have known few moms in all that time who have had less debt than the Harris family – and many moms who have had significantly more.  People in East Cobb live on credit cards, it is a known fact of many who live here, and debts and over-spending are a huge problem here.

Despite my confidence that Ross is not a psychotic baby killer, there are some discrepancies we heard about during the court case that I am still intrigued by. 

I want to know why Ross “forgot” to tell Police about the trip to Home Depot to get the light bulbs at lunchtime and the visit back to the car at that time – despite the fact that the Police took him through a minute by minute reenactment of that whole day, there was no mention of this.  This seems strange, but either way, I do not see it as that incriminating, given that apparently security camera footage shows him simply tossing light bulbs into the car and turning his head slightly in Cooper’s direction.  He clearly did not check his son to be sure he was dead, and if he knew his son was there (whether with malicious intent or by accident) this really does not make sense to me either way.

I am interested to hear how Ross explains his warning to his friends that he would be late to the movie that night – given that he left work at 4:18pm approx. and the drive to the movie theater should have taken ten to fifteen minutes, why would he think he would be late?  However, I am guessing it had more to do with sexting than murder.  I suspect that Ross intending to sext for a while in the car before going up to the movie theater.

I suspect that Ross may have known his son was dead before he says he realized it.  I believe he at least knew his son was dead by the time he got into the car at 4:18pm.  That is my gut feel.  I wonder whether panic set in at that point and he was considering disposing of the body in some way so that no one knew it was his fault, for a few minutes, but then he thought better of it.  It is hard to believe that, even with his lack of hearing and sense of smell, he did not notice the dead body of his baby son in the car on the drive to Akers Mill.

I am interested in how Ross explains his behavior on finding his son dead in the car.  I can understand why he did not give the child CPR.  Ross probably knew that once rigor mortis was set in there was nothing he could do to help the child – CPR would not work at that point in time.  However, I would like to know his explanation for the three phone calls after he discovered his child dead in the car.  We know that the first was to Leanna’s cellphone and went unanswered (totally understandable) and the second was to Home Depot corporate phone number (perhaps he was trying to call the Daycare but did not have the number?) and went to voicemail.  And that the third was to the Daycare (presumably he wanted to speak to Leanna).  According to witnesses, Ross spoke for some time to someone at the Daycare (the phone records suggest 6 minutes) and the suspicion is clearly that it was Leanna.  But apparently Ross denies he spoke to his wife.  I wonder what his explanation is for that call?  I believe the police, when they arrived at the Daycare, told Leanna her son was dead and she had little emotional reaction.  I believe , and I think the police believe, that is because she already knew.  But why would Ross try to cover up the fact that he spoke to his wife at the Daycare? 

We also heard that when Leanna told her mother that her son was dead, her mother could not understand Leanna’s emotionless reaction to her own son’s death.  This, too, is puzzling. 

But I would argue that if the conclusion that so many people are jumping to is true, then we are to believe that Leanna and Ross are two of the most evil psychopaths that ever lived.  They were not just evil enough to kill their own child, they were evil enough to plan it in advance so that their child would suffer in the most horrible way they could devise, watching movies beforehand that made it very explicit how horrific such a death would be.

Firstly, psychopaths who are that evil are very rarely found – how many psychopaths have killed their own children?  How many have subjected their own children to terrible, painful deaths? 

Secondly, to find two psychopaths together in a marriage would be even rarer.  The only two I can think of in history are Fred and Rose West who did kill one of their children and subjected the rest to horrific sexual abuse. 

Even if we do have the very rare situation where two psychopaths end up married to one another, these two do not fit the profile.  He has worked as a police dispatcher, comes from a loving church-going family where the eldest son is a cop, has no police record and no one he knows recalls him ever doing so much as hitting a dog.  She is a dietitian who helps people every day with no history of problems. Neither has any legal or psychological history we can find out about and they lived in a pretty nice neighborhood and went to church regularly.  

Whenever two psychopaths get together in this manner, one would expect them to have an extremely close, tight bond that Is impenetrable:  it is the two of them against the world.  They typically do not follow societal conventions.  Leanna and Ross did not have that kind of relationship at all.  They had “intimacy problems” and Leanna had clearly been nagging Ross about a number of issues including his spending.  Ross was having affairs (Leanna had discovered one and it seems the police are aware of at least one other) and his sexting habit had become obsessional to the point he was afraid of going to jail because of having sex with underage girls.

I would argue that Leanna and Ross’s relationship fails to fit the profile of two sadistic psychopathic killers who were simply trying to kill their child, either to be “child free” or to purposely inflict severe harm on a child in order to gain some sick sadistic pleasure.

Having sat in the courtroom fairly close to Leanna, and very close to Ross’s Grandma, I can tell you that Leanna is a woman who tries to be very strong in the face of adversity, and not a woman who has no emotions.  How do I know this?  Well, when the worst details came out in court, Ross’s Grandma was sobbing and close to collapse.  I, myself, felt like I would throw up, and I did not even know Cooper.  I had to put my hand to my mouth and let out a gasp a few times.  I was pretty typical of people in that courtroom.  Leanna was silent.

Now, either Leanna is a grieving mother who just lost her son to a terrible accident because of her husband’s sex addiction distraction (which, I believe, Leanna only found out about that day in court by the way), who is being incredibly strong in the face of adversity, or she is a sadistic psychopath who loves her husband so much that the two of them plotted this cruel death together.

Either way, she should have been upset by some of the court revelations but she showed no emotion and simply chewed gum all the way through the court case. 

However as she left the court room she collapsed in the arms of her family and looked close to fainting.  This was not staged, in fact she looked angry at herself that she had done this and did everything she could to prevent the Media from seeing this. 

If Leanna was a sadistic psychopath I do not think she would have felt the emotions necessary to collapse in that way.  So my gut feel is that she is a grieving mother who has tried very hard to be strong and do the right thing since her husband’s arrest but it all became too much for her.

Not only this, but few women could resist talking to the media in this case, even if told by the lawyers that talking to the media could jeopardize their husband’s case.  Leanna has resisted.  She had most certainly been offered huge amounts of money to appear on Jane Velez Mitchell or Nancy Grace, and that money would have been very useful in paying for her husband’s defence, but she has resisted nonetheless.  I think the evidence points to a very strong young woman but not one without emotions.

Only time will tell.  Evidence on both sides needs to be gathered in this case and presented in a fair court case.  We need to patiently allow the judicial system to do what it does best.

But we must not forget the foundation upon which our legal system is built:  “Innocent until proven guilty”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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