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[Music] Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
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any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for
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confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this
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episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable for all
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listeners. 30-year-old Lyanna Harris was nearing the end of her workday on Wednesday,
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June 18, 2014, when at 3:16 p.m., she received a text message. It was from her husband, 33-year-old Justin Harris, who
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went by his middle name of Ross. When are you getting my buddy? The message read.
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Ross was referring to the couple's son, 22-month-old Cooper Harris, who needed to be picked up from daycare.
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The couple typically took turns dropping Cooper off and picking him up, depending
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on whose schedule worked best at the time. Ross had dropped him off that morning as
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Lyanna had an early start in her job as a dietician. It was agreed that Lyanna would pick
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Cooper up because Ross had plans to go to the movies with friends after work to see the comedy action film 22 Jump
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Street. Lyanna clocked off at 400 p.m. and made the 1-hour drive to the Little Apron
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Academy in Vinnings, Georgia. The child care facility was customuilt for employees at the Home Depot's
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Atlanta headquarters, where Ross Harris worked as a web developer. It was conveniently located just 5 and a
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half miles from the Harris's home in the city of Marietta and right around the corner from Ross' work.
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Cooper had been a regular attendee at the Little Apron Academy since he was about 6 weeks old, where the staff had
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come to know the Harris family well. Lyanna had done the daycare run countless times. But when she entered
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the building on this occasion, Cooper's teacher looked surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?" the teacher
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asked. Lyanna was confused. "I'm here to get Cooper," she responded. The teacher looked at her with a puzzled
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expression on her face and said, "Cooper's not here." It took Lyanna a moment to register what
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she was hearing. Assuming it was some kind of twisted joke, she asked, "No, really, where is Cooper?"
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But the teacher looked her square in the eye and firmly repeated, "He's not here."
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Lyanna didn't know what to think. She was immediately overcome with fear as all kinds of scenarios flooded through
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her mind. What if someone had kidnapped Koopa? What if Ross had absent-mindedly left
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him at home that morning by mistake? A daycare employee offered to drive with Lyanna to Ross' office building around
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the corner. When they got to the Home Depot parking lot, Lyanna couldn't see Ross' car anywhere.
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Panicked, Lyanna raced into the office building, desperately trying to call Ross as she ran.
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He didn't answer his phone and the security guard in the lobby told her that Ross had already left work for the
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day. Lyanna sat in the lobby as she contemplated what to do next. Then her phone rang. It was a detective.
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He asked Lyanna where she was and told her to stay put, saying he was coming to see her. "It's bad, right?" Lyanna asked
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him. "Yes," the detective replied. "It's bad. [Music] [Music] Approximately half an hour earlier at
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4:24 p.m., police officers had pulled into the parking lot at the Acres Mill Square Shopping Center, roughly 2 mi
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from the Home Depot headquarters to find a troubling scene. A silver Hyundai Tucson SUV was parked
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haphazardly on the curb with a crowd gathered around looking at something on the pavement. It was the body of
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22-month-old Cooper Harris, his skin a bluish green and his veins clearly visible under his pale skin. His father,
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Ross Harris, was pacing nervously nearby. His cell phone pressed to his ear as a good Samaritan unsuccessfully
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attempted CPR on the small boy. "What have I done?" Ross screamed. "What have I done? I killed my son."
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One of the officers stepped in and took over the resuscitation attempt, but it was clear that Cooper had been deceased
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for some time. Ross came closer, shrieking hysterically. Oh my god. Oh my god. One of the officers asked Ross to get
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off the phone and show them some ID. He told them to hold on. When they asked him again, he snapped, "Shut the [ __ ] up
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and hold on. My son just died." This reaction prompted the police to place Ross in handcuffs and put him into
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the back of a patrol car to ensure he didn't flee the scene. He promised to calm down if they just
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removed the cuffs, saying, "You have to understand, I'm just really upset." Ross told the police he needed to call
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the Little Apron Academy before his wife arrived to find Cooper wasn't there. One of the officers asked why she would
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think her son was there. Ross responded, "Because I was supposed to drop him off
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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
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him off. I thought I did." Ross Harris was taken to the police station where he explained to two
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interviewing detectives that the morning had started out like any other. Cooper had been having trouble sleeping
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over the past few nights and had woken up early at around 5:15 a.m. Ross got up and brought him into bed
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with him and Lyanna where they all snoozed until Lyanna left for work at around 7:15.
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Ross and Cooper then got up and watched cartoons until it was time to leave for the day.
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Ross typically dropped Cooper at daycare in time for breakfast, but they were running late, so he decided they'd have
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a Daddy Sun meal at the Chick-fil-A restaurant near his work instead. Ross ordered breakfast from there most
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days, usually from the drive-thru, but every couple of weeks, he brought Cooper along with him and they dined in.
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Ross said that after eating breakfast, he strapped Cooper into his car seat and kissed him like he always did. He then
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pulled on to Cumberland Parkway and headed towards the Little Apron Academy. But instead of turning left at the
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upcoming intersection like he was supposed to, he must have continued straight towards his office.
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Ross said that Cooper didn't make a sound, so he must have fallen asleep and Ross had completely forgotten he was
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there. He parked in Home Depot's surface parking lot and proceeded to work a normal 7-hour shift, going out for lunch
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with some friends before knocking off to go to the movies. Ross admonished himself for not checking
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the back seat before he went into work that morning. He told the detectives that he knew how
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dangerous a hot car could be for a small child ever since he'd seen a news report
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about a man who accidentally did the same thing. That man had since become an advocate
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for parents to always turn around and doublech checkck the back seat. Ross explained,
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"I've been doing that because the worst fear for me is to leave my son in a hot car."
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He said he'd also watched an online video about the dangers of leaving dogs inside hot cars and it had made him
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think about how terrible it would be for a child. When asked about his relationship with
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Lyanna, Ross said it was good with its typical ups and downs. He said their finances were solid other
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than some student debt from their college days. The detectives told Ross that Lyanna had
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been notified about what happened and was at the station. They needed to go speak with her. And in
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the meantime, they told Ross he'd be held in a cell. Ross asked why. The detectives explained
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that because his actions led to Cooper's death, he was going to be charged, most
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likely with cruelty to a child. Ross seemed shocked. It was completely unintentional. He
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stated, "I have no history of child abuse, no history of domestic violence. I have no criminal history. I have no
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record whatsoever. I've worked in a law enforcement environment. I'm a great father and I have multiple
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people who would back that up." [Music] Ross wasn't exaggerating. The 33-year-old had a clean background.
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He'd been raised in the Alabama city of Tuscaloosa, where he'd held various jobs
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at the University of Alabama before working as a police dispatcher for several years.
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He'd met Lyanna when he was 23, and the two quickly fell in love and got married.
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Lyanna was introverted and earnest whereas Ross was extroverted and outgoing. Together, they brought out the best of
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each other's personalities. Ross helped to bring Lyanna out of her shell, while Lyanna motivated Ross to
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reach his potential and encouraged him to go back to school. He went on to get a bachelor's degree in
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commerce and business administration, which led to his job at Home Depot. The couple relocated to Atlanta in 2012
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where Ross lived an active social life and played guitar in their church band. Life was going well for the couple, but
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there was just one thing missing. From a very young age, the one thing Lyanna wanted was to be a wife and
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mother. Likewise, Ross wanted children so badly that his work colleagues even referred
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to him as soccer dad. After months of trying, in early 2012, the couple got the good news they'd been
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desperately hoping for. Lyanna was pregnant. Ross was so excited that he uploaded a
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video of their first ultrasound to his YouTube account along with the caption, "First video known as Cooper."
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When Cooper was born on Sunday, August 12th, 2012, holding him for the first time was the best feeling in the world
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for Lyanna. As the couple navigated their way through the first few exhausting months
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of parenting a fussy baby, Lyanna was impressed with how well Ross stepped into his new role.
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He was a dedicated, hands-on father who never hesitated to get up in the night to put Cooper back to sleep.
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The father and son developed a special bond with the young boy's blue eyes lighting up every time Ross walked into
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the room. Cooper grew to be a happy, smiley, and thriving baby. By the time his second birthday was
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approaching, he'd developed an adventurous personality and a love for cars of all kinds.
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Everyone who knew Ross Harris described him as a nice, well-mannered man who was
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a great husband, supportive friend, and devoted father. He gushed about Kooper so much that one
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colleague even told him that people were sick of hearing about the baby. Therefore, as the news spread about
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Kooper's death, there could only be one explanation for those who knew the Harris family.
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This was a tragic accident that couldn't have happened to less deserving people and it wouldn't be the first time.
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According to the not for-p profofit organization Kids and Car Safety, an average of around 40 young children die
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in the US each year after being left in a hot car. While some of those deaths occur due to
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criminal negligence or after a caregiver uneducated on the dangers decides to leave a child in the car while they work
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or attend an appointment, a majority of caregivers simply forget that their child is in the car. It is such a common
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phenomenon that it has its own name, forgotten baby syndrome. Associate professor of law Erica
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Breitfeld explained in her article about the phenomenon for the Berkeley Journal
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of Criminal Law, part of the reason parents can forget their children in the car is because of
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where the children are placed in a vehicle. Children, especially those under the age of three, are almost
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always in a rear-facing car seat. Consequently, when a parent looks behind them in the back seat, whether or not
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the child is in the car, they see the same thing, the back of the child's car seat, not the child.
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Because many young children fall asleep during car rides, there are often no audio cues to remind a caregiver of
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their presence in the vehicle. Parents who are often sleepdeprived in those early years have nothing to remind
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them that a child is in the back seat except their own memory. On a warm day, the internal temperature
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of a vehicle rises rapidly, even when the windows are partially open. A child's body heat also rises up to
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five times faster than an adult. If a child is left in a hot car, it doesn't take long before they become
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hypothermic and their organs begin to shut down. On the day Cooper Harris died, the
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external temperature had reached 86° F or 30° C by midday. It was estimated that the inside of
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Ross' vehicle could have reached around 100° F or 38° C by 100 p.m. and that Cooper was likely dead by then.
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Scratches on the young boy's face as well as small abrasions on his head, hands, and feet indicated he had
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struggled as he became increasingly uncomfortable. The medical examiner said he likely
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experienced nausea, headache, anxiety, and possible seizures before succumbing to heat stroke.
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It is a common misconception that only a negligent parent could accidentally leave their child in a hot car.
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The unfortunate reality is that it could happen to anyone. Neurologists who have studied forgotten
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baby syndrome, have found that these incidents typically occur when the brain's prospective memory system, which
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is responsible for reminding us to do things, goes into conflict with the brain's habit memory system, which is
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the part of our brain that runs on autopilot. When tensions arise between these two
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systems, often due to stress, fatigue, external events, or a change in routine, the habit memory can take over.
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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
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car, they might drive to work on autopilot without ever dropping the child where they are supposed to go.
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The brain is then capable of creating a false memory, leading the parent to believe that they dropped their child
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off safely. Journalist Jean Weinearten wrote about the phenomenon in a Pelitza prize-winning article for the Washington
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Post titled Fatal Distraction. After looking into various cases and statistics involving children left in
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hot cars, Jean concluded, "What kind of person forgets a baby? The wealthy do, it turns out, and the poor
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and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do. Mothers are just as likely to do it as
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fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college educated, and
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to the marginally literate. Last year, it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far in the
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worst year so far in a phenomenon that gives no sign of a baiting. It therefore caused public outrage when
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it was announced that Ross Harris was being charged not only with secondderee child cruelty, but with Cooper's murder.
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People who knew the Harris family, as well as total strangers, immediately came to Ross' defense.
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Two petitions were launched urging authorities to release Ross and drop the charges.
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Concerned citizens said Ross had suffered enough and should not be punished for an innocent lapse in
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memory. Other parents whose children had died as a result of forgotten baby syndrome also
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came out in support of Ross with one of his friends writing on one of the petitions.
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Ross is an incredible friend. He's always the first to help when tragedy strikes others. So, I'm returning the
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favor. Another said, "I've known Ross for over 10 years, and he is a selfless man who
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loved people and loved his family more." But from the moment police arrived on the scene outside the Acres Mill Square
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Shopping Center, they didn't feel like this was a typical hot car death. Straight off the bat was the unusual
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positioning of Cooper's car seat. Unlike most hot car deaths where the child was
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in a rear-facing seat, either directly behind the driver's seat or passenger seat, Cooper's rear-facing seat was in
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the middle. This placed him just inches from the driver's seat, right near Ross's elbow.
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It was hard for the police to imagine that Ross could have looked to his right without seeing him there.
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Furthermore, when crime scene examiners entered the car, they were hit with a distinct odor that they knew to be the
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smell of death. They could also smell Cooper's urine soaked diaper. It seemed unimaginable that Ross could
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have driven the two miles from his work to Acres Mill Square without noticing the odor and investigating its source.
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Not only that, but Cooper's autopsy confirmed that he was 33 in tall. The height limit for his car seat was 30
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in. And by Cooper's age, most parents had already opted to put their children in forward-facing seats.
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Then there was Ross' reaction at the scene. Passers by who had seen Ross pull Cooper
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from his car found it strange that he placed the child's body on the hot pavement and stopped attempting CPR
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after just a couple of compressions. It seemed even stranger that he walked away from Cooper and immediately got on
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his cell phone while others stepped in to try and help his son. Curiously, Ross didn't call emergency
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services, but instead tried calling Cooper's daycare so that they could alert Lyanna.
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Witnesses and police thought his reaction looked staged. One minute he was shrieking hysterically. The next, he
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was completely calm. While he appeared to be crying, he didn't shed any actual tears.
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One officer described Ross' behavior as very random and very odd, while another thought that his yelling seemed monotone
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and forced. Things just got stranger once Ross was placed in the police car. Despite having found his son dead in a
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hot car just minutes earlier, Ross immediately started complaining about how hot it was, even though the air
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conditioning was on. He also complained that the handcuffs were hurting him and asked for them to
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be released. At no point did he ask to see Cooper or mention him at all. Dash cam footage captured Ross as he
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alternated between sitting calmly and wailing, "Oh my god, what have I done? My boy, what have I done?"
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At one point, he looked directly into the camera. Then on the drive to the police station,
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Ross engaged in casual chitchat with the officer who detained him. He asked her how long she had been in law enforcement
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and made comments about how the handcuffs their department used were different to the ones he had seen while
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working for the police in Alabama. This casual conversation coming from a man who had just lost a child under
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horrific circumstances made the officer uncomfortable. This erratic behavior continued once
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Ross was put into the interrogation room. During the 14-minute wait before the interviewing detectives arrived, video
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cameras captured Ross sitting calmly. Every now and then, his calm demeanor would give way to a brief moment of
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dry-eyed crying, wailing, or heavy breathing, interspersed with erratic yells of, "Oh, God, my boy, why?"
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At one point, he started pacing around the room, rubbing his eyes and huffing. One of the detectives who was watching
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Ross on the camera thought he looked like he was trying to make himself hyperventilate.
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When Lyanna was taken in to see him, Ross started talking about how scared he was of going to prison. "All I can think
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about is that jail cell," he said, specifying he was particularly worried about the hard bed and the metal toilet.
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He also asked what would happen if he lost his job. To the investigators, these seemed like strange concerns for a
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man who had just lost his son to a slow and painful death. Stranger still, Ross had told Lyanna
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that when he pulled Cooper from the vehicle, he quote dreaded how he would look.
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Not only did investigators find it concerning that Ross had used the past tense, but Ross told Lyanna that
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Cooper's eyes had been closed and he looked at peace. First responders at the scene said that
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Cooper's eyes had actually been open. When Ross was taken to a holding cell after being informed he was being
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arrested for murder, his cellmate also found his demeanor to be inconsistent with someone who had just lost a child.
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Instead of seeming sad or upset, he appeared calm and nonchalant. While the members of law enforcement who
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crossed paths with Ross Harris that day were aware that everyone responds very differently in moments of grief, they
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all agreed that Ross' reaction was completely out of the norm. Their suspicions only grew after viewing
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CCTV footage taken from the day Cooper died. The footage from Chick-fil-A showed Ross
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holding a Happy Cooper in his arms as they ordered their breakfast and chatted to the manager.
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After finishing eating, they then headed to the Home Depot parking lot. Ross claimed that Cooper must have
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fallen asleep during this drive, but it was only a 4-minute journey, leading some investigators to question the
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validity of his claim. At 9:24 a.m., the grainy footage captured Ross as he parked his Tucson in
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a spot in the back corner of the lot, a considerable distance from the security cameras.
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There was a parked car on one side of his vehicle and a grassy patch on the other.
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Ross sat in the car for around 30 seconds before walking into his office building carrying a Chick-fil-A cup and
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his work bag. Throughout the day, various people passed the Tucson without noticing
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Cooper inside. Then, at 12:42 p.m., almost 3 and 1/2 hours into Cooper's ordeal, the CCTV
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footage captured something unexpected. Ross returned to his car. He opened the front driver's side door and placed
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something inside before walking back into his office. Curiously, Ross had made no mention of
00:27:16
this to the police, despite going into a lot of detail about everything else. When questioned about it, Ross explained
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that the friends he had gone out for lunch with that day worked around the corner from him. They'd picked him up,
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which they typically did, and taken him to one of their frequent eeries nearby. Afterwards, they all stopped into Home
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Depot so Ross could buy some light bulbs. Ross' friends then dropped him back at
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his car and drove away. The CCTV footage showed Ross reach into the front driver's side of his vehicle
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and throw the bag of light bulbs inside without putting his head in or glancing into the back seat. He then closed the
00:28:02
door 2 seconds later and walked away. The police weren't entirely sure what to make of this.
00:28:11
The fact that Ross had withheld this information raised some questions about whether he could have returned to the
00:28:18
vehicle to check that everything was going according to plan. Otherwise, if Ross had genuinely
00:28:24
forgotten that Cooper was inside the vehicle, the police assumed this moment would have triggered his memory.
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And according to the medical examiner who performed Kooper's autopsy, it was possible that Kooper could have still
00:28:39
been alive at this time. With members of the public debating over whether or not Ross Harris was guilty,
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Cooper was remembered at a funeral service paid for by Home Depot. Ross, who had been denied bail, was not
00:28:57
allowed to attend. Instead, he called in from jail, listening in via speaker phone as Lyanna
00:29:04
Harris spoke publicly for the first time since Cooper's death. Lyanna clarified to the 250 mourners
00:29:13
gathered that she held no anger towards her husband. "It has never crossed my mind," she
00:29:20
stated, prompting a round of applause. Ross is and was and will be, if we have more children, a wonderful father.
00:29:30
Ross is a wonderful daddy and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him.
00:29:39
Lyanna said that Cooper had been perfect. He changed their lives, turning things upside down in a way she wouldn't
00:29:47
trade for the world. She recalled the last two nights of Kooper's life where he ended up sleeping
00:29:54
between her and Ross. "I remember turning over in the middle of the night," she said. His mouth was open and
00:30:02
his full toddler lips just breathing right into my face. "I will cherish that moment forever."
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Leaning on her Christianity for strength, Lyanna continued, "Some of you might wonder how I'm even
00:30:20
standing here today. I wonder that myself, and I asked myself that question over and over the last week. I should be
00:30:29
crumpled into a heap of snot and tears into the dirt. But the Lord is holding me up right now.
00:30:36
He is holding Ross up and he is holding both of us up when we can't hold ourselves up.
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She said that Cooper was in the most peaceful, wonderful place there is. Lyanna followed Cooper's casket out of
00:30:53
the church with Ross still on speakerphone. Before hanging up, she told him that she
00:31:00
loved him. For those close to the Harris family, Lyanna's impassioned show of support for
00:31:07
Ross was further testament to their belief that he was being subject to a cruel injustice.
00:31:13
But what they and the sympathetic public didn't know was that the police had uncovered evidence to suggest Ross
00:31:21
wasn't who he painted himself to be. When Ross Harris was first taken into custody, the detectives asked him for
00:31:35
the passcode to unlock his cell phone. He stammered for a moment, saying he didn't know what it was before saying he
00:31:43
used a biometric sensor. Later in the interview, Ross said the passcode was his and Lyanna's anniversary. His
00:31:53
apparent reluctance to give the police access to his phone led them to suspect there was something on there he didn't
00:31:59
want them to see. They obtained search warrants for Ross' work and home where they seized a number of items, including
00:32:07
his iPhone and several computers. What they uncovered revealed there was a very different sites of Ross than he
00:32:16
publicly portrayed. Electronic Records revealed that he spent a significant amount of time using
00:32:23
Whisper, an anonymous social networking app where users could post content, join
00:32:29
interest groups, and send private messages without revealing their identity. Users were encouraged to share their
00:32:37
intimate secrets with others able to then like or interact with those posts. Ross not only used a whisper to engage
00:32:46
with posts, but as a means to contact other women. In the 6 months leading up to Cooper's
00:32:54
death, Ross engaged in sexual conversations with at least 30 women. He spoke of his strong sexual desires,
00:33:03
telling multiple users that he was addicted to sex. Ross told one woman that he used sex
00:33:10
with strangers to keep him sane. writing to another, "I am a church guitar player, but I can lead somewhat of a
00:33:18
double life." Over various conversations, Ross said that he missed being single, admitted to
00:33:27
cheating on his wife, and said that he sometimes hated being married. "I just want to [ __ ] a lot of girls, drink a
00:33:35
lot, and have fun," he said. During a conversation on Christmas Day 2013, Ross told one woman that he cheats
00:33:45
quote a lot. When she asked him why he didn't get a divorce, he responded simply, "Kid
00:33:55
at 5:46 on the morning that Cooper died, Ross started his day by exchanging messages with at least three other
00:34:03
women, one of which involved a conversation about oral sex. By the time Lyanna left for work and
00:34:11
Ross and Cooper were up watching cartoons, Ross continued messaging these women, writing to one of them, "You can
00:34:19
come suck me today." He continued using Whisper during his breakfast with Cooper at Chick-fil-A and
00:34:28
throughout his workday. from his office cubicle. Ross sent sexual messages to several women asking
00:34:35
two of them for pictures of their breasts. Both of them responded with the photos
00:34:41
as requested. Over the course of an hour, Ross engaged in an intermittent sexual conversation
00:34:49
with another woman and then another, sending her a photo of his erect penis. All up, it turned out that Ross Harris
00:35:00
had engaged in sexual conversations with at least six women on the day that Cooper died.
00:35:07
Police managed to track these women down, as well as several others. After speaking with each of them, the
00:35:15
true extent of Ross' so-called double life emerged. In early 2013, Ross started exchanging
00:35:24
sexual messages with a 23-year-old college student named Alexandra. He never told her he was married or had
00:35:32
a child, only that he had a girlfriend. Shortly after they started chatting online, Ross drove to Alexandra's dorm
00:35:40
and took her out to a back road where they engaged in oral sex. They stayed in contact from that point
00:35:48
onwards, but didn't meet again with Ross sending Alexandra a photo of his erect penis just days before Cooper died.
00:35:58
In May 2013, Ross started chatting online to an 18-year-old named Janie. They began talking on the phone, too.
00:36:07
Some of their conversations being sexual in nature, and eventually they both admitted they were falling in love.
00:36:15
In August 2013, Ross unexpectedly showed up at a place he knew Janie was going to
00:36:22
be. They kissed but didn't meet in person again, although they stayed in contact
00:36:29
and continued to express their love for one another. During their phone conversations, Janie
00:36:36
could sometimes hear Cooper babbling away in the background. She once received a message from Ross
00:36:43
that said, "If Cooper wasn't in the picture, I probably would have left my wife by now."
00:36:52
That same summer, Ross struck up a conversation with a 19-year-old woman named Jacqueline after she posted on
00:36:59
Whisper about seeing the erotic film Fifty Shades of Gray, and things immediately turned sexual between them.
00:37:06
A few weeks later, Jacqueline went to Ross's house and the two had sex. They didn't meet again, but continued to
00:37:15
talk online with Ross encouraging Jacquine to meet him for another rendevous. In February 2014, Ross told Jacqueline
00:37:24
that while on vacation, he'd met a man on Whisper, and the two had relations. Also, in early 2014, Ross started
00:37:34
chatting online with a 21-year-old woman named Elizabeth. A few weeks later, they met up in a
00:37:40
parking lot and had sex in Ross' vehicle. They met up again in April 2014 and kissed.
00:37:49
Ross and Elizabeth stayed in contact for 5 months, during which they racked up over 44 pages of sexually explicit
00:37:57
messages, with Ross explaining in graphic detail all of the things he wanted to do to Elizabeth.
00:38:05
Ross began communicating with 23-year-old Caitlyn in June 2014. Knowing Ross was married, Caitlyn once
00:38:14
asked him if his conscience ever kicked in, but Ross responded simply, "Nope." On the morning of Wednesday, June 11,
00:38:23
one week before Cooper died, Ross sent Caitlyn a photo of his erect penis, and they discussed the possibility of her
00:38:30
coming to his house after Lyanna left for the day. Ross told Caitlyn it would be risky, but
00:38:38
that as long as they got to have sex, he was quote, "Game for risk." But there was one woman in particular
00:38:47
who Ross contacted in the hours before Cooper died that really caught the attention of the police.
00:38:54
Bella, not her real name, had been chatting to Ross on Whisper since late 2013. Most of their conversations were sexual
00:39:03
in nature with Ross repeatedly asking Bella to send him photos of her genitals. Bella refused every time, but that
00:39:11
didn't stop Ross from sending her five separate photos of his erect penis over a 3-month period along with requests for
00:39:19
oral sex. The messages Ross sent Bella used graphic sexual language, and he proposed
00:39:26
sexual encounters using graphic detail, telling her what he planned to do to her. Quote, "Even if you say no."
00:39:36
The problem was, at the time Ross first started communicating with Bella, she was only 16 years old.
00:39:44
Bella told the police that Ross was aware of her age, as she'd told him shortly after they started chatting.
00:39:52
This hadn't stopped Ross from engaging in sexual contact with Bella. Instead, it seemingly encouraged him.
00:40:01
Just weeks before Cooper died, Ross asked Bella to meet him in his car for her first experience with oral sex.
00:40:09
While Cooper sat strapped into his car seat dying of heat stroke, Ross had asked Bella for a photo of her breasts.
00:40:17
When she obliged, he responded, "Yummy!" and asked yet again for a photo of her genitals.
00:40:27
[Music] Given that Bella was a minor, the police charged Ross Harris with one count of
00:40:33
attempting to commit sexual exploitation of a child and two counts of dissemination of harmful material to a
00:40:40
minor. But Bella wasn't the only minor Ross was speaking to. In May 2014, he had responded to a
00:40:50
whisper post that said, "I love older men," by sending a picture of his erect penis.
00:40:57
The user who posted it was a 15-year-old girl named Abby, not her real name. Abby
00:41:04
initially told Ross she was 18, but she came clean about her real age quickly after the two started chatting.
00:41:12
Undeterred, Ross told Abby, quote, "Make me a naughty older guy and sent her graphic sexual messages."
00:41:21
He also engaged in sexual conversations with two other minors. Further examination of Ross' internet
00:41:29
history revealed that 12 days before Cooper's death, he'd cleared his Chrome browser cache.
00:41:36
This removed all the data from websites Ross had previously visited, a move the police deemed extremely suspicious.
00:41:45
However, he hadn't cleared his Firefox browser. Records revealed that Ross had once
00:41:52
Googled how to survive in prison, visited a subreddit group dedicated to living childfree, and also conducted
00:42:00
over 800 searches for sex work services. In May 2014, he contacted a sex worker via her ad on the classified website
00:42:10
Back Page, and the two met for paid sex in the woman's hotel room on three occasions.
00:42:16
Phone records revealed that during one of these encounters, Lyanna texted Ross asking him to come home because she and
00:42:23
Cooper missed him. Ross responded that he was helping a friend move house. With the full extent of Ross'
00:42:33
indiscretions coming to light, police believed a motive for Cooper's murder was starting to emerge.
00:42:40
It was apparent that Ross wanted to have sexual relationships with many other women, and his marriage to Lyanna no
00:42:47
doubt impeded that goal. But it was something else investigators found in Ross' online history that
00:42:54
really solidified this theory. At 8:55 on the morning of Cooper's death, shortly before he and Cooper
00:43:02
entered Chick-fil-A for breakfast, Ross viewed a post on Whisper that said, "I hate being married with kids. The
00:43:11
novelty has worn off and I have nothing to show for it." Ross responded to the post saying, "I
00:43:20
miss having time by myself and going out with friends." The poster replied that she had nothing.
00:43:28
All her energy went into being a perfect underappreciated wife with two small kids. While she didn't resent her
00:43:36
children, she did resent her husband. At 9:15 a.m., Ross wrote back, "My wife is upset when I want to go out with
00:43:47
friends. I love my son and all, but we both need escapes. Just 5 minutes later, Ross left
00:43:59
Chick-fil-A, strapped Cooper into his car seat, turned onto Cumberland Parkway, and headed straight to work
00:44:06
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
00:44:14
on a hot day. Not only had state child care officials sent a generic email about it just 2
00:44:21
months earlier, but Ross had told the police about it himself during his interrogation, saying he'd just watched
00:44:28
a video clip about it. Ross' internet history confirmed that just 5 days before Cooper died, he
00:44:36
watched a video posted by a North Carolina vet named Dr. Ernie Ward, which aimed to raise awareness about the
00:44:43
dangers of hot cars for pet owners. With the external temperature at 94° F or 34° C, Dr. Ward sat in his car with a
00:44:54
timer and a thermometer and documented his experience for the camera. Even with all of the windows cracked
00:45:02
open about an inch and a half and a breeze blowing outside, it reached 100° F or 37° Celsius inside the vehicle
00:45:11
within 10 minutes. Dr. Ward described the heat as stifling and almost unbearable.
00:45:19
While he could see the trees arching in the breeze outside, he said he couldn't feel any semblance of that breeze and
00:45:27
was starting to wonder if this had been a really bad idea. By the 30 minute mark, the internal
00:45:34
temperature had soared to 113° F or 45° C, and a Dr. Ward was drenched in sweat.
00:45:43
He said that everything in his body was telling him to get out, get out, get out, and that he couldn't imagine how
00:45:51
frightening this feeling would be for a helpless dog that had no idea when its owner was coming back.
00:45:58
You can make all the excuses you want, Dr. Ward concluded, but those excuses are meaningless unless you have sat in
00:46:06
that car during that time. [Music] The circumstantial evidence against Ross Harris was stacking up. Investigators
00:46:16
had pieced together an image of a man who was unsatisfied in his marriage, yet felt compelled to stay because of his
00:46:23
child. They believed Ross wanted to pursue his so-called double life without the burden
00:46:29
of a wife or child, and he therefore staged Cooper's accidental death to rid himself of these burdens.
00:46:38
It seemed almost impossible for them to believe that Ross could have forgotten about Kooper almost immediately after
00:46:45
placing him in the car, especially given the close proximity of Kooper's head in
00:46:50
relation to the driver's seat. It seemed equally implausible that Cooper had fallen asleep within just a couple of
00:46:57
minutes. And even if Ross had genuinely forgotten about Cooper, he had several opportunities throughout his 7-hour
00:47:05
workday to be reminded of the forgotten daycare drop off. Not only did Ross physically return to
00:47:12
the car after lunch, but he also texted Lyanna about who was picking Cooper up. Investigators felt confident they had
00:47:22
enough circumstantial evidence to secure a conviction against Ross Harris. There was just one problem.
00:47:33
Staff at Cooper's Daycare told the police that when Lyanna Harris had arrived at the center on the afternoon
00:47:39
of Wednesday, June 18, 2014 to discover that Cooper wasn't there. One of the first things she said was, "Ross must
00:47:48
have left him in the car. There's no other explanation." The staff had tried to reassure Lyanna
00:47:56
there could be many reasons why Ross hadn't dropped Cooper off that morning, but Lyanna apparently insisted that he'd
00:48:02
been left in the vehicle. When detectives then arrived at the lobby of Ross' office building to break
00:48:09
the news to Lyanna about what had happened, her reaction surprised them. They'd been expecting to find an
00:48:16
emotional rack, but Lyanna had calmly followed them outside of the lobby as she sipped a coffee.
00:48:23
A recorded conversation captured one of the detectives as he told Lyanna, "There's really no easy way to tell you
00:48:30
this. Your child is deceased. I'm very sorry to have to tell you that." Lyanna showed little emotion. She didn't
00:48:40
ask what had happened to Cooper or ask to see him. Instead, she responded, "Where's my husband?"
00:48:50
Lyanna was taken to the police station to see Ross. Instead of asking him what happened, video cameras captured Lyanna
00:48:57
hugging and comforting him. When Ross told her that he was being charged with a crime, Lyanna looked at
00:49:04
him with concern and asked, "Did you say too much?" She continuously reassured Ross that
00:49:12
everything was going to be okay, saying that Cooper was in heaven and his time on Earth was done. His
00:49:20
belly was full of sausage biscuits and he fell asleep. She calmly reassured her husband. "We're going to get through
00:49:27
this. We're going to be that couple that makes it through this, okay?" Ross replied, "I just don't want you to
00:49:38
leave me for anything. You're like my life support right now." Lyanna responded softly. "I won't leave you. I
00:49:48
love you. Look at me. I love you. At Cooper's funeral, Lyanna told those gathered that she felt happy that Cooper
00:49:58
wouldn't have to deal with some of life's letdowns like his first heartbreak, school politics, or the
00:50:04
death of his loved ones. I miss him with all my heart, Lyanna said. Would I bring him back? No. to
00:50:14
bring him back into this broken world would be selfish. When police had asked Lyanna about her
00:50:23
marriage, she said she and Ross sometimes felt financially stressed. A search of the couple's financial
00:50:30
records revealed they had student loans, car loans, and about $4,000 of credit card debt.
00:50:37
Text messages between the two also indicated that Lyanna was unhappy about some purchases Ross had recently made.
00:50:45
This made the police all the more suspicious when it was revealed that the Harrises had two life insurance policies
00:50:52
for Cooper. The first was a $2,000 policy through Home Depot and the second purchased in
00:51:00
November 2012 was for $25,000. Electronic records revealed it wasn't just Ross who had searched online for
00:51:09
information about hot car deaths, but Lyanna had too. Rumors started circulating about the
00:51:17
possibility that Ross and Lyanna had conspired in Cooper's death for financial gain.
00:51:24
By the time the evidence was laid out during a 3-hour probable cause hearing 15 days after Cooper's death, the public
00:51:32
opinion on both Ross and Lyanna Harris had shifted greatly. Although police made it clear that no
00:51:39
charges were being filed against Lyanna, social media went into overdrive with an
00:51:45
article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reporting based on her own sometimes confounding
00:51:52
words along with evidence disclosed at her spouse's explosive probable cause hearing Thursday. Many are wondering
00:51:59
whether there's another side to Lyanna Harris. Lyanna Harris needs to be arrested, one
00:52:07
woman wrote on Twitter. She is as guilty as he is. Another wrote, "Look at those
00:52:14
two twisted demons Cooper had for parents. God will get you and you will pay. Where
00:52:21
are your tears, you scumbag?" Someone commented to Ross on a YouTube clip of Cooper. I hope you and your ugly
00:52:31
cud chewing cow wife burn in hell for murdering this baby. Another wrote to Lyanna. I hope you and
00:52:39
your husband rot in hell. I hope Cooper's screams haunt you until you finally cave and admit what you did.
00:52:49
[Music] The public allegations took a massive toll on Lyanna. Not only was she still coming to terms
00:52:57
with the loss of her son, she was humiliated to find out about Ross' infidelity.
00:53:03
Lyanna claimed she knew nothing about her husband's online or realworld affairs.
00:53:09
She was aware that Ross had struggled with a pornography addiction back in 2008, and she'd once found a message on
00:53:16
his phone asking a woman for pictures of her breasts. The two had sought help for these issues
00:53:23
together, speaking with their pastor and going to couples therapy for a while. Then in around December 2012, Lyanna
00:53:33
caught Ross watching pornography again. And a few months later, she saw a suspicious text on his phone.
00:53:40
They'd resumed therapy until things felt back on track. As far as Lyanna was concerned, at the
00:53:48
time of Cooper's death, Ross had all of these issues under control. She had no idea his behavior had ever extended to
00:53:56
full-blown infidelity, and had she known, she would have sought a divorce. Lyanna was also adamant that she had
00:54:05
nothing to do with Cooper's death. She later explained to ABC's 2020 program that she could understand why
00:54:14
people might have thought her seemingly emotionless behavior was suspicious because she couldn't quite understand it
00:54:20
herself. There's no way for someone to know how they would react, she explained.
00:54:27
Nothing about it felt real. Nothing about it felt like it was happening. It just felt like a bad dream.
00:54:36
Lyanna explained that she had warmly embraced Ross at the police station because it never crossed her mind that
00:54:43
he could have killed Cooper on purpose. She hadn't felt any anger towards him at
00:54:48
that moment because she knew it was an accident and her priority was to provide him with support.
00:54:55
She only asked Ross if he said too much to the police because she knew his personality and he quote doesn't shut
00:55:03
up. All she could think was, "What could Ross have possibly said to make the police think that he had left Cooper in
00:55:11
the car on purpose?" Investigators ultimately concluded there was absolutely no evidence to suggest
00:55:19
Lyanna was involved in Cooper's death in any way. But that didn't stop the public
00:55:24
and media scrutiny. Not only was Lyanna struggling to deal with the grief of losing her son and now
00:55:32
husband, she was unable to work and lost a longunning consulting job as a result
00:55:37
of the media backlash. She returned to Alabama, filing for a divorce from Ross and going back to her
00:55:44
maiden name. In a victim impact statement filed in August 2014, Lyanna wrote that she was
00:55:53
living a tortured existence in which she depended on the Lord for strength and support.
00:56:00
Whatever issues transpired in our marriage is between God and us, for he will judge those moral sins, she wrote.
00:56:08
The rush to judgment by the public and the mainstream media has left me with little confidence in our legal system
00:56:15
and our society. The storm around my family has prevented us from grieving the right way, if there
00:56:23
is a right way. Regardless of her feelings toward Ross, Lyanna wanted to make one thing
00:56:31
abundantly clear. Ross was a wonderful father and he loved Cooper with all of his heart. She wrote
00:56:38
in the statement. Because I saw how he treasured our little boy for 22 months, I know without
00:56:46
a doubt he would never have knowingly allowed any harm to come to our son. I want you to know what a loving father he
00:56:54
was. If found guilty, Ross was facing the possibility of the death penalty. Social media was filled with calls for
00:57:05
his execution with members of the public saying he should be left to die in a hot
00:57:09
car like his son. For Ross' supporters, the revelations that had emerged at the probable cause
00:57:17
hearing left them in a state of shock. The Ross presented in the police testimony was nothing like the Ross they
00:57:25
knew. Many of them stuck by him regardless, adopting the tagline, "We're pro- Ross because we know Ross."
00:57:44
For Ross Harris's supporters, the first and foremost reason they didn't believe Ross had intentionally left Cooper in
00:57:51
the car was simple. He was by all accounts a caring and involved father who loved Kooper dearly and had never
00:57:59
mistreated him in any way. Everyone said so from Lyanna to friends and family to Cooper's daycare workers.
00:58:08
Even the other women Ross had been sexing at the time Cooper died believed that Ross genuinely loved his wife and
00:58:16
son. Ross had told one of the women that he and his wife were having problems in the
00:58:22
bedroom, but he never mentioned wanting to leave Lyanna. He also proudly sent the woman pictures
00:58:29
of himself and Cooper at a baseball game. Ross told another of the women that he
00:58:35
was having problems in his marriage and that if his situation was different, he'd be with her instead of Lyanna.
00:58:42
But he also talked to her about how much he loved Cooper, saying his son was his
00:58:47
life and that he wanted to be with Cooper for everything he did. Just 5 days before Cooper died, Ross
00:58:56
told another of the women he was very happy in his marriage, except for the sexual aspect because he was quote, "Too
00:59:04
much of a sexual freak." According to the woman who went to Ross's house to have sex with him while
00:59:11
Lyanna was out, Ross loved his wife and didn't want to end his marriage. He also
00:59:18
clearly loved his son and never said a bad word about him. When the woman once asked Ross how his boy was doing, Ross
00:59:27
responded enthusiastically, "The best ever." Along with a photo of Koopa. He'd said similar things to Bella, the
00:59:36
underage girl he was charged with exploiting, only ever talking about Cooper in positive ways, and saying he
00:59:43
loved his wife and would never leave her. On the morning that Cooper died, one of his online flings had asked how
00:59:51
his son was doing, and Ross had happily replied, "He's awesome." [Music] While Ross' secret online history
01:00:03
painted a very negative image of the outwardly presenting devoted family man, Ross' supporters also believed his
01:00:11
secret online activity proved he hadn't intentionally killed Cooper. At the time
01:00:17
of Cooper's death, Ross and Lyanna had been planning to take Cooper on a family cruise with Ross' half brother and his
01:00:24
family. Just after midnight on the night before Cooper died, Ross had searched online
01:00:30
about the cost of getting a child's passport. While Cooper sat dying in the car. Ross
01:00:37
had received an email from a travel agent about the trip and had then spent some time searching online for
01:00:43
information about one of the cruise lines the agent recommended. Not only did Ross' supporters believe
01:00:51
this proved he was planning for a future with Cooper, they also thought his behavior on the day Cooper died
01:00:57
indicated he had no idea that his son was trapped in the hot car. Ross' co-workers said he'd acted
01:01:05
completely normally that day, as had Lyanna and the friends he'd gone to lunch with.
01:01:11
Nothing he did or said was out of the ordinary, nor did he seem nervous or distracted.
01:01:18
For Ross' supporters, the fact that he continued sending sexual messages to various women like he usually did was
01:01:26
morally reprehensible, but it wasn't indicative of someone in the middle of a murder plot.
01:01:33
They believed there was simply no way that Ross could have acted so nonchalantly if he knew the son he
01:01:39
adored was slowly and painfully dying right outside his office. They also didn't believe that Ross would
01:01:46
have made plans to go to the movies with friends after work if he knew that Cooper would be dead by then.
01:01:54
Aside from the communication with other women, Ross' supporters didn't believe that his online activity was anywhere
01:02:01
near as damning as investigators painted it to be. For starters, Ross, having cleared his Chrome cache less than 2
01:02:09
weeks before Cooper died, was standard practice for him and his co-workers. As web developers, they used Chrome
01:02:17
frequently and often cleared the cache to see if a website change had been effective.
01:02:23
Contrary to popular belief, there was no evidence to suggest that Ross had specifically sought out information
01:02:30
about leaving children in hot cars or anything of that nature either. Lyanna had warned him of the dangers
01:02:38
back in early 2013 when she sent him an email with the subject line, "Don't be this, Dad." and a link to a news story
01:02:46
about a man in New York who accidentally left his baby in the car for 8 hours. As for the video posted by veterinarian
01:02:55
Dr. Ernie Ward, this had appeared on a popular Reddit thread, and Ross had simply clicked on it, just like hundreds
01:03:02
of other users. The subreddit Ross had visited dedicated to living a child-free lifestyle wasn't
01:03:09
something he'd sort out either. A friend had posted about it in their group chat
01:03:15
and Ross had briefly visited the site, responding almost immediately in the group chat, quote, grossness.
01:03:24
The claims that Ross had searched for how to survive in prison also weren't accurate. A computer expert looked into
01:03:32
Ross' search history and found that he'd actually searched for the term, "What is
01:03:37
prison really like?" He'd done this after telling a friend he'd just finished watching a season of
01:03:44
Orange is the New Black, a fictional Netflix show set in a women's prison. Critics of Ross were quick to point out
01:03:52
that Cooper was too big to still be in his rear-facing car seat. However, as Ross told police in his initial
01:04:00
interrogation, he and Lyanna had purchased a new forward-facing seat just 2 weeks before Cooper died.
01:04:08
It was initially in Ross's car, but they'd switched it over to Lyanna's vehicle so that Cooper would be more
01:04:14
comfortable during a trip they took to Alabama. Lyanna was also adamant that Cooper's
01:04:21
head had still been at least 2 in from the top of the car seat, making it suitable for a child of his size.
01:04:28
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
01:04:35
head was not above the top of the car seat. Lyanna said that Cooper hadn't experienced any significant growth
01:04:43
spurts since that time. For Ross' half brother, Michael, who worked as a police officer in Alabama,
01:04:53
the very notion that Ross could have killed Cooper on purpose, was preposterous.
01:04:59
Sure, Ross could talk too much and be annoying at times, but if there was one thing Michael was certain of, it was
01:05:07
that Ross loved Cooper more than life itself. The two were true buddies. For months, it was Ross who had hounded
01:05:17
Michael about the possibility of taking their wives and children on a family cruise.
01:05:22
Ross and Lyanna had also been saving up to buy a 4-bedroom house because they planned on having another baby before
01:05:29
Cooper turned three. They'd been searching for a property in a good school district with a big
01:05:35
backyard for Cooper to run around in. Michael told the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
01:05:42
"What parent does that unless they are planning for their kids?" After Cooper died, Michael came to
01:05:50
Atlanta to help the Harrises through the tough time. Ross had given him full control of their
01:05:57
bank accounts, and he gained a complete understanding of the couple's finances. While they did have some lingering
01:06:05
student and credit card debt, they also had about $6,000 in savings, always paid
01:06:11
their bills on time, and had excellent credit. Michael told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
01:06:19
To say they were in financial trouble is just crazy. As for the suggestion that Ross could
01:06:26
have killed Cooper to benefit from his life insurance policy, Michael said to think that he killed Cooper for $27,000
01:06:36
is a joke. By the time Ross Harris's murder trial was scheduled to go ahead, it had to be
01:06:44
moved 300 m to Brunswick, Georgia due to the intense local publicity surrounding
01:06:50
the case. It took a further 9 and 1/2 days for the courts to carefully select the jury with
01:06:57
the trial finally commencing in October 2016, just over 2 and 1/2 years after Cooper died.
01:07:05
All up, Ross Harris faced eight charges in relation to malice murder, felony murder, cruelty to children, sexual
01:07:13
exploitation of children, and dissemination of harmful materials to minors. Reporters swarmed around the courthouse
01:07:21
with viewers from all over the country tuning in to watch the televised live stream of the proceedings.
01:07:29
The prosecution's argument was straightforward. They described Ross as being obsessed with his sexual
01:07:35
activities and online interactions to a point that he was prepared to take risk after risk.
01:07:42
He intentionally and maliciously left Cooper to die in the car so he could free himself from his self-imposed
01:07:49
prison and pursue his double life. By removing their child from the equation, the prosecution said Ross
01:07:57
hoped to then divorce Lyanna and achieve his dreams of having sexual relationships with the women he met
01:08:03
online. They presented evidence to support their belief that there was no way Ross could
01:08:10
have forgotten about Cooper's presence during the 4-minute drive to his work from Chick-fil-A.
01:08:16
To get from Chick-fil-A to Ross' office, he had to turn right out of the restaurant and onto a side road. Then he
01:08:25
had to turn right onto Cumberland Parkway, cross through two lanes to get to the left turn lane, make a U-turn,
01:08:32
and then continue straight. To get to Cooper's daycare, he had to do the same U-turn, but then immediately
01:08:40
move into the left lane and turn left. Investigators who had driven this route themselves testified that the maneuvers
01:08:48
leading up to that U-turn took no more than 40 seconds. This essentially gave Ross just 40
01:08:56
seconds to forget that his son was in the car, despite them having just spent 20 minutes dining together. and Cooper's
01:09:04
head being just inches away from Ross in the driver's seat. The defense argued that Ross was a
01:09:12
loving father who had never mistreated Cooper and had no intention of ending his marriage.
01:09:18
He had simply had a momentary lapse in memory on the morning of Wednesday, June 18, 2014, which had tragic consequences.
01:09:28
Dr. Gene Brewer, an expert in human memory systems, testified that it was entirely possible that Ross could have
01:09:35
forgotten about Cooper in that 42nd time frame leading up to the U-turn. He explained to the jury that it all
01:09:43
came down to prospective memory, which is the type of memory that allows a person to remember what they are going
01:09:49
to do next. If a prospective memory goal goes against routine behavior, Dr. Brewer
01:09:56
explained that an individual can lapse into their routine behavior and forget their prospective memory goal in a
01:10:03
matter of seconds, especially when they are distracted by things like fatigue, stress, or external events.
01:10:12
Ross had gone to bed late the night before, as was evident in his phone activity, and then woken up early to
01:10:20
tend to Cooper. Colleagues also testified that he'd had a stressful project on the go at work.
01:10:28
Dr. Brewer said that these factors, combined with the immediate distraction of the complicated U-turn, could have
01:10:35
all played a role in Ross forgetting that Cooper was in the car. Given that he dropped his son off at
01:10:42
daycare most days, Ross could have created a false memory of having dropped Cooper off that morning, too.
01:10:50
Therefore, when potential triggers arose, such as him discussing the pickup with Lyanna or putting the light bulbs
01:10:57
in his car, there was nothing to signal to Ross that anything was different or strange about the situation.
01:11:05
The defense said that various factors such as Ross searching for the cost of child passport fees at work that day,
01:11:13
looking up family cruise information, and planning to see a movie with friends that evening were not indicative of
01:11:20
someone who was planning to or actively engaging in killing his son in a slow and painful way.
01:11:27
He didn't try to isolate himself, but interacted with co-workers, went to lunch with friends, and went about his
01:11:34
online activities as per usual. At no point did he do anything to indicate he was aware of what was
01:11:42
unfolding in his car outside. The prosecution called various members of law enforcement and witnesses who
01:11:53
testified to Ross Harris's strange behavior at the scene of Cooper's death and at the police station afterwards.
01:12:01
However, upon cross-examination, these witnesses acknowledged that they didn't know Ross personally or how he typically
01:12:08
responded to traumatic events. Prosecutors also called multiple women who either had extrammarital sex with
01:12:16
Ross or engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with him, including one sex worker and two minors.
01:12:25
Each of the women seemed embarrassed and uncomfortable as they provided their testimony, particularly when they were
01:12:31
asked to read aloud some of the vulgar messages that Ross had sent them. However, upon cross-examination, none of
01:12:39
the women provided any evidence to suggest that Ross wanted to rid himself of his parenting responsibilities.
01:12:47
On the contrary, several of them testified that Ross had only ever spoken about Cooper in loving terms, and they
01:12:54
believed him to be an adoring father. Ross waved his right to testify in his own defense, but he had a powerful
01:13:04
supporter. His now ex-wife, Lyanna, appeared on the stand as a witness for the defense,
01:13:11
saying that while the side of Ross' personality that had since been revealed might have made him a lousy husband, he
01:13:18
was never anything but a devoted father to Cooper. He wanted to be the one to push him on a
01:13:25
swing. Lyanna said he wanted to be the one to slide down the slide with him. He wanted to enjoy every second he could
01:13:33
with him. The defense asked Lyanna if Ross loved his little boy. "Yes, he did," she
01:13:41
replied very much. Asked how she felt about her ex-husband now, Lyanna looked right at Ross as she
01:13:50
said. "He ruined my life. He destroyed my life. I'm humiliated. I may never trust anybody again. If I never see him
01:14:00
again after this day, that's fine. By the time closing arguments were delivered, the media had run wild with
01:14:10
stories about Ross Harris's secret sex life. The prosecution told the jury that Ross
01:14:16
had closed the door on Cooper's life because of his own selfishness. This isn't a case about an adult hating
01:14:24
a child, they said. It's just that Ross loved himself and his other obsession more than that little boy.
01:14:36
The trial ran for 26 days with over 70 witnesses providing testimony and 1,200 pieces of evidence being presented
01:14:45
before the jury was left to deliberate. It had been a difficult and emotionally charged time for the jury members.
01:14:54
Throughout the trial, they'd been shown upwards of 70 photographs of Cooper and Ross spending good times together and
01:15:02
multiple home videos that showed Cooper happily interacting with his parents. Some of the footage provoked their
01:15:09
smiles and laughter, while others held back tears. The jury deliberated for 3 and 1/2 days
01:15:17
before delivering the verdict for the malicious murder of Cooper as well as the remaining charges against him. Ross
01:15:25
Harris was found guilty on all eight counts. Ross showed little emotion as the verdict was delivered, but as the news
01:15:36
spread, public reaction was mixed. Some felt the evidence presented had worked in Ross' favor and were genuinely
01:15:44
shocked to find that he'd been found guilty. Others were vindicated in their belief
01:15:50
that Ross had been guilty all along with one official telling reporters outside court. I believe categorically and
01:15:58
unequivocally that justice has been served here today. Ross Harris was sentenced to life in
01:16:06
prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder and consecutive sentences of 20 years for firstdegree
01:16:14
child cruelty. 10 years for attempt to commit sexual exploitation of a child and one year for each count of
01:16:21
dissemination of harmful material to a minor. Lyanna was devastated. airing her opinion in a Facebook post.
01:16:32
She wrote, "For those of you who want to know if I am okay, the answer is no. I have not been okay since the moment I
01:16:41
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
01:16:49
being found guilty of maliciously murdering our child." So now you may be saying justice has
01:16:57
been served and you are allowed your right to that opinion. But guess what? You can convict every parent that this
01:17:05
has ever happened to and I can promise you two things. Number one, it will never bring our children back. And
01:17:12
number two, it will not prevent this from happening in the future. Next summer, as this begins to happen
01:17:20
over and over again, ask yourself what can be done. The problem is not the parent. The
01:17:28
problem is a society that refuses to believe this can happen to them. Wake up, accept it, and by accepting it, you
01:17:38
will be protecting your child. Ross Harris's guilty verdict sparked debate among legal circles.
01:17:49
Regardless of personal opinion, many felt uneasy about the way the prosecution handled the case.
01:17:56
Questions were raised about why the evidence of Ross' extraarital affairs, inappropriate communications with
01:18:03
minors, and his hiring of a sex worker were allowed to be presented at a trial for the murder of a child.
01:18:11
Prosecutors had even presented the jury with nine enlarged photos of Ross' erect
01:18:16
penis as proof of the sexual images he had sent to various women. While many felt this did a good job at tarnishing
01:18:24
Ross' character, it did little to prove he was a killer. As far as Ross' legal team was
01:18:32
concerned, the evidence of Ross' deviant sexual behavior should never have been allowed to be presented to the jury in
01:18:38
the first place. Not only did they believe it was highly prejuditial and therefore made it
01:18:44
impossible for Ross to have received a fair trial, but it didn't do anything to prove that Ross had intentionally killed
01:18:52
his son. In January 2017, they filed a motion for a retrial, but their request was denied.
01:19:02
In January 2022, Ross was permitted to appeal his case to the Georgia Supreme Court. His legal team argued before the
01:19:12
panel of nine judges that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the extensive evidence of Ross'
01:19:18
extrammarital activities, specifically his lewd exchanges with minors, his decision to hire a sex worker, and the
01:19:26
photos of his penis. The prosecution told the court it was necessary to present this information as
01:19:33
it was intrinsic to some of the charges against Ross and it also helped establish their theory about his motive
01:19:40
for killing Cooper. For example, his hiring a sex worker in May 2014 showed where his priorities lay
01:19:49
and how his behavior was escalating in the leadup to Cooper's death. The Supreme Court handed down a 155page
01:19:59
report examining the case against Ross Harris in detail. The report pointed out that a man
01:20:05
doesn't typically enhance his ability to pursue sexual relationships with women by killing his young child.
01:20:13
Furthermore, when a married man wants to pursue a relationship with other women,
01:20:17
he typically does so by cheating, getting a divorce, or in criminal situations, by murdering his partner,
01:20:25
not his child. The report stated that there was no evidence that Ross viewed Cooper as an
01:20:32
obstacle to his sexual conquest and therefore Ross' obsession with having sexual leaison with many women lacked a
01:20:40
logical and necessary link to the alleged crimes against Cooper. The report also pointed out that Ross
01:20:47
had already been meeting various women for sex since early 2013. So hiring a sex worker in May 2014 was trivial when
01:20:57
it came to the prosecution's case for murder. As one judge told the prosecutor at the
01:21:03
appeal hearing, "I will say you did a remarkable job of proving Ross is a terrible person. But proving he is a
01:21:12
terrible person isn't the same as proving he murdered his child." Ultimately, the panel of judges ruled 6 to3 that the
01:21:22
evidence regarding Ross' extrammarital affairs had an extremely unfair prejuditial impact on the jury.
01:21:29
While it showed that Ross was quote a philanderer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator, it did little if
01:21:37
anything to answer the key question of his intent when he closed the car door on Cooper that fateful day.
01:21:45
The Supreme Court upheld Ross' conviction for sexual exploitation of children, a felony crime for which he
01:21:51
had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, as well as the two misdemeanor counts of dissemination of harmful
01:21:58
material to a minor, each of which came with a one-year custodial sentence. But they reversed the convictions
01:22:06
relating to the crimes against Kooper, concluding, "Because the properly admitted evidence
01:22:13
that Ross Harris maliciously and intentionally left Cooper to die was far from overwhelming, we cannot say that it
01:22:20
is highly probable that the erroneously admitted sexual evidence did not contribute to the jury's guilty
01:22:26
verdicts. We cannot say for sure what was going through Ross' mind when he shut the Tucson's door on the morning of
01:22:34
June 18, 2014 and sealed Cooper's fate. We do not know whether he planned and executed the horrific murder of his
01:22:43
22-month-old son by leaving him to suffer and slowly die in a hot vehicle or rather if he made a tragic fatal
01:22:51
mistake by forgetting that the child whom by almost all accounts he loved and cherished was in the back seat.
01:23:02
While Ross Harris continued to serve the remaining four years of his sentence for
01:23:07
the crimes against a minor, the county district attorney began a thorough review of his case file in preparation
01:23:13
for a retrial for Cooper's murder. Then in May 2023, the DA's office made a shocking announcement.
01:23:23
They released a statement that read, "Crucial motive evidence that was admitted at the first trial in 2016 is
01:23:32
no longer available to the state due to the majority decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore, after much thought and
01:23:40
deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to not retry Justin Ross Harris
01:23:46
on the reversed counts of the indictment." Cooper will always be remembered by this
01:23:52
office and those who fought for him. This meant that Ross just had to see out the remainder of his sentence for the
01:24:01
crimes against a minor and would face no further action for his role in Cooper's
01:24:06
death. For Lyanna, this was very welcome news. Despite everything she'd been through,
01:24:14
she was still unwavering in her belief that Ross did not intend to kill Cooper. Lyanna hoped that the charges being
01:24:22
dismissed would help change the way her son was remembered. In a statement released by her lawyer,
01:24:30
Lyanna reiterated that Cooper was wanted, loved, and missed every single day. While this will not change anything
01:24:39
about my day-to-day life, I do hope it shows people what those closest to the case have been saying from the
01:24:45
beginning. Lyanna said Ross was a loving and proud father to Cooper. At the same time, Ross was being
01:24:54
a terrible husband. These two things can and did exist at the same time. Changing the narrative surrounding
01:25:05
Cooper's death had always been of utmost importance to Lyanna, who still couldn't
01:25:09
bring herself to wash the cup that Cooper last drank from on the morning that he died.
01:25:16
She felt very strongly that he deserved to have a better legacy than the boy whose father intended to kill him.
01:25:23
Lyanna told 2020 that someone once left a card on Cooper's grave that said, "I'm
01:25:30
sorry that you weren't loved in this life, Cooper. If you had been my son, I would have loved you."
01:25:38
This broke Lyanna's heart. "It's hard enough to lose your child," she said. But then to have people think that you
01:25:47
didn't love him and that you didn't want him, that's something that should never
01:25:51
have been added to the equation of having to bury your baby. In the years since Cooper died, dozens
01:25:59
of American children had continued to die in the same way every year. Lyanna felt very strongly that wasting
01:26:07
precious resources prosecuting the parents of these tragic accidents was not the answer.
01:26:13
She urged legislators to instead put money into developing new laws that would require all child car seats to be
01:26:20
equipped with alarms like was already being done in other countries. Associate Professor of Law Erica
01:26:28
Breitfeld explained in her article about forgotten baby syndrome for the Berkeley
01:26:32
Journal of Criminal Law, the market is not short on devices and initiatives that parents can use to
01:26:40
remind them of their baby in the car. But interestingly, none of these products are what parents think about
01:26:46
when they are preparing for the child's arrival. Hence, these products remain unknown to most parents.
01:26:53
Further, parents who are aware of these products think they have no need for them because they believe incorrectly
01:27:01
that they could never forget their child in the car. This is why the prosecuting
01:27:06
attorneys through community prosecution must educate the community and shape awareness about the risk all parents
01:27:14
face. Car safety officials recommend various ways that parents can protect their
01:27:21
children against forgotten baby syndrome. One, set up an agreement with your child
01:27:27
care provider to have them notify you if your child doesn't arrive at their usual
01:27:31
drop off time. Two, set a reminder on your phone to check in with your partner to make sure they have dropped the child
01:27:39
off. Three, create a visual reminder for yourself by placing your child's bag, jacket, or hat on the front passenger
01:27:48
seat, or force yourself to go to the back seat by placing your own bag, lunch, or laptop there every day.
01:27:58
Ross Harris was released from jail in June 2025. The matter of whether or not he
01:28:05
intentionally left Cooper in his car that day remains a topic of public debate. It's an experience that some other
01:28:13
parents who have faced a similar tragedy can relate to. Erica Breitfeld explains
01:28:19
this is because quote when a child dies from a hot car death we have a visceral response to blame someone. Someone must
01:28:28
have done something wrong for a child to have suffered. And this is a natural normal reaction, but it does not mean it
01:28:36
is the right one. Neuroscientist Dr. David Diamond echoes this sentiment. Speaking about forgotten baby syndrome
01:28:46
to Washington Poster journalist Gene Weingarten, Dr. Diamond said, "Memory is a machine and it is not
01:28:55
flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular
01:29:01
level, our memory does not. If you're capable of forgetting your cell phone, you are potentially capable of
01:29:09
forgetting your child. After studying various cases involving hot car deaths and speaking to many
01:29:17
survivors of similar tragedies, Gene Weingarten concluded, "There may be no act of human failing
01:29:25
that more fundamentally challenges our society's views about crime, punishment, justice, and mercy."
01:29:35
While Ross Harris's lawyer said that Ross has always accepted the moral responsibility for Cooper's death, the
01:29:42
truth about what went through his mind back in June 2014 is something only Ross knows for sure.
01:29:50
As Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice David E. Namias wrote in Ross' appeal report,
01:29:57
"This is in many ways an extraordinary case. In the dozens of murder cases this court considers each year, rarely do we
01:30:07
see a case in which diametrically opposed conclusions could be reached by fair-minded jurors from the same
01:30:13
evidence. A fair reading of the cold appellet record presents logical common sense
01:30:19
cases both for Harris's guilt and his innocence. Was he the heartless, sexcrazed killer
01:30:27
of the state's telling? Or a deeply flawed but loving father overwhelmed by the demands of life and work whose worst
01:30:36
day resulted in his most costly mistake. [Music]