Minor dies after being left in a car 0:56
(CNN) --
On the last morning of his short life, 22-month-old Cooper Harris woke up early, at 5:15, an hour before dawn in the Atlanta suburb where he lived with his parents.
His father, Justin Ross Harris, a 33-year-old web developer, carried the still-groggy boy into the bed he shared with Leanna Taylor, his wife of eight years.
Standing just under three feet tall, with strands of blond hair framing his face, Cooper snuggled up with Mom and Dad, and went back to sleep.
A young child died after being left in a car;
hours later, his father took her own life, police say
Before the sun rose over the Cobb County town of Marietta that morning on June 18, 2014, Harris had already sent or exchanged messages online, some of a sexual nature, with at least four young women, one of them 17 years old.
At 9:26 a.m., after a leisurely "dad/son breakfast" at Chick-fil-A (her son's belly "full of sausage," in the words of Cooper's mother), Harris closed the door of his Hyundai Tucson SUV.
Carrying a glass of Chick-fil-A and her work bag, Harris walked to her cubicle at the Home Depot offices, leaving Cooper—who was supposed to be dropped off at daycare like every morning—in a car seat. looking back over the next seven hours.
Defense attorney Maddox Kilgore holds a photo of Cooper Harris during the murder trial of Justin Ross Harris in 2016.
This detailed account of Cooper's final hours and his father's actions that day is drawn from a June 22 Georgia Supreme Court ruling, which meticulously recounted the evidence presented at Harris's murder trial in its decision to overturn her conviction for deliberately leaving her son to die of Hyperthermia in the hot SUV.
The ruling came in a month in which at least five heat-related deaths of children in cars were reported in the United States, according to the data website NoHeatStroke.org, temperatures soared and parts of the country stiffened in waves of heat.
These nightmarish cases often attract national attention.
But they rarely lead to murder charges by prosecutors, who must weigh the intent of grieving parents who insist they simply forgot to leave their son in a boiling car.
At Least Seven Heat-Related Auto Deaths Reported This Year
Cooper's death was heartbreakingly familiar: 31 children died from vehicle heatstroke in the United States in 2014, the year the boy died, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
At least nine deaths have been reported this year and more than 900 since 1998, or 38 per year on average, according to the NHTSA and NoHeatStroke.org, which is run by the San Jose University Department of Meteorology and Climate Science.
July is usually the deadliest month and it started with one death on Friday.
A 1-year-old boy died in a hot car while his father was working in Mebane, North Carolina, police said.
The death is being investigated and no charges have been filed.
Mebane police said they were checking with the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
In Danielsville, Georgia, on Thursday, a 1-year-old boy died after his mother left him in a hot vehicle, according to the Madison County Sheriff's Office.
The death appeared to be accidental and the Northern Judicial District Attorney's Office will review the case.
An 18-month-old boy died Tuesday after being left in a car in Virginia for several hours, Chesterfield County police said.
The father, who accidentally left the child in the car, later took his own life.
Last Sunday in South Georgia, a 3-year-old boy died after being left in a hot SUV for nearly three hours.
The preliminary cause of death is asphyxiation, according to Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was conducting an autopsy and the results could take up to five months to complete, Bryan said.
In Texas on June 20, a 5-year-old boy died after he was left in a car outside the family's home in Houston while his mother was preparing her daughter's birthday party.
Child welfare authorities were investigating and it is unclear if the mother will face charges, CNN affiliate KTRK reported.
Most pediatric deaths in cars in extreme heat happen because a caregiver forgets the child, according to Jan Null, a professor of meteorology and climate sciences at San Jose State.
Justin Ross Harris listens to his ex-wife Leanna Taylor testify during her 2016 murder trial.
Monica McCoy, a psychology professor at Converse College in South Carolina who has studied trials after the deaths of children in hot cars, said her unpublished investigation of 508 cases showed that serious charges, such as homicide, are rare: present in 9.6% of cases.
“Murder charges are quite rare and convictions are even less likely,” he said in an email.
“Sometimes severe charges are filed immediately after death, but then reduced or dropped…Parents are also much more likely to be charged in cases involving drugs or alcohol.”
Georgia Supreme Court decision reignites shocking case
The case surrounding the death of Cooper Harris was particularly notable because murder charges were brought against his father, with the prosecution claiming that Harris killed the boy to free himself from the burdens of paternity.
Harris is serving a life sentence without parole after prosecutors in 2016 convinced a Cobb County jury that he was living a “double life”: a loving and involved father, womanizer and sexual predator in the family. other.
His extramarital affairs, the state argued, motivated his decision to leave his only son to "die a slow and painful death" in the hot van.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruling reignites, at least for now, a shocking criminal case that was tried some 300 miles from Cobb County due to intense pretrial publicity.
The state supreme court ruled 6-3 that extensive evidence presented to the jury "convincingly demonstrated" that Harris was "a womanizer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator" but "did little or nothing to answer the key question." of his intention when he walked away from his son.
5-year-old boy dies after being left in a car for hours while his mother prepared for a birthday party, report says
"Because the correctly admitted evidence that Appellant maliciously and intentionally let Cooper die was far from overwhelming," the court's opinion said, "we cannot say that it is highly likely that the wrongly admitted sexual evidence did not contribute to jury guilty verdicts.
Harris was convicted of three counts of murder in the death of his son, two counts of cruelty to children and three counts related to electronic exchanges of lewd material with a minor.
The high court reversed the convictions related to the crimes against her son, ruling that extensive evidence about his sexual activities was "extremely and unfairly damaging."
The court dropped charges related to his exchanges with an underage girl.
Harris was sentenced to a total of 12 years for those three counts: 10 years for one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, and one year each for two counts of lewd material with a minor, according to the ruling.
CNN has sought comment from Harris' attorneys.
The Cobb County District Attorney's Office said it plans to file a motion for the court to reconsider the ruling, but declined to comment further.
Leanna Taylor testifies at her ex-husband's murder trial.
Cooper's mother, Leanna Taylor, said after the Georgia Supreme Court ruling that she hopes it will help change the way her son is remembered.
"That they wanted him, that they loved him and that they miss him every day," he said in a statement released by his attorney Lawrence Zimmerman.
She reiterated her belief that Harris did not intend to kill her only son on that hot day.
That's what she told police that day in 2014, and what she testified at Harris's trial two years later.
She defends those words.
"While this won't change anything about my everyday life, I hope it shows people what those closest to the case have been saying all along," Taylor said in the statement.
“Ross was a loving and proud father to Cooper.
At the same time, Ross was being a terrible husband.
These two things can and did exist at the same time.”
“I love my son and all that, but we both need escapes”
Harris spent a lot of time posting messages on a dating website or communicating with women through the messaging app Whisper, which encourages users to share intimate secrets online.
The hours before her son died were no different, according to the state Supreme Court's retelling of trial evidence.
Just after midnight on June 18, 2014, Harris messaged a 17-year-old girl he began contacting when she was 16. There were also exchanges with a 21-year-old woman about their previous sexual encounter in her SUV at early that year.
At 12:48 a.m., Harris also ran a Google search for child passport fees, apparently related to a family cruise that Taylor later told the jury they were planning with the in-laws and their children.
Between 5:46 and 5:49 that morning, Harris sent or exchanged more messages online with at least three women.
Taylor left for work around 7:15 am Cooper played and watched cartoons at home for the next 45 minutes as his dad responded to four Whisper posts, three of them sexual in nature.
Cooper and his father left home around 8:30 a.m. Harris placed the toddler in the red car seat in the middle of the back row of the SUV, less than 4 inches from the driver's seat but facing the windows. polarized rear.
Ghislaine Maxwell is sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors
Harris would later tell the police that they were running late that morning.
The daycare stopped serving breakfast to children at 8:45 a.m. Harris responded to two Whisper posts and an email from a co-worker on the way to Chick-fil-A, where he and Cooper spent about 20 minutes eating breakfast.
At the restaurant, Harris responded to a Whisper post that read, “I hate being married and having kids.
The novelty has worn off and I have nothing to show."
"I miss having time to myself and hanging out with friends," Harris wrote.
He followed up with two more messages: "My wife gets upset when I want to go out with friends" and "I love my son and all, but we both need escapes."
Harris and Cooper left the restaurant around 9:20 a.m.
"Ready, let's go," Harris said after placing her son back in the car seat and kissing him, according to the lead detective on the case.
Cooper gave his dad a kiss.
After a stoplight, Harris kept driving straight to his office, about four minutes away, instead of turning left toward the daycare.
He pulled into the office parking lot, found a space, and walked over to his cubicle.
At work, Harris exchanged several messages with people.
A travel agent sent you information about the family cruise.
She looked for a cruise line.
There were messages with a mistress and replies to several Whisper posts, including a message telling a user that her son woke him up at 5:30 in the morning.
"It's amazing," Harris responded, referring to her son.
At 11:38 am, Harris went out to lunch with his co-workers at Publix.
They also stopped at a Home Depot store where Harris bought light bulbs.
Harris was dropped off in the parking lot, where surveillance video showed him leaving a bag of light bulbs in the front seat of the Tucson at 12:42 p.m.
Why are heat waves getting more intense?
3:28
The car seat temperature reached 51°C
The temperature at 12:58 pm that day was about 88°F (31°C), according to the state's highest court ruling.
An expert tested car seat temperatures in the SUV, parked in the same space, three weeks after Cooper's death.
The outside temperature was similar on both days.
Car seat temperatures ranged from 88°F (31°C) at 11:35 a.m. to 125°F (51°C) degrees around 3:30 p.m.
In his cubicle that afternoon, Harris messaged women for a few hours, including one in which he asked a woman for a picture of her breasts.
She sent the photo.
She also asked the minor for a photo of her breast, which she sent.
"Delicious," Harris responded.
There were other messages, of a sexual nature, with at least two other women.
Harris sent a woman a picture of her penis.
At 3:16 p.m. Harris wrote to Taylor: “When are you picking up my friend?”
During a subsequent phone conversation, Taylor agreed to pick up Cooper at daycare.
Harris went to the movies with his friends after work.
At 4:16 p.m. Harris got into the van.
He walked away a few seconds later.
He later told police that he saw Cooper sitting in the back seat as he was looking to change lanes on his way to the movies.
Harris pulled into a parking lot about two miles from where he worked.
He pulled Cooper out of the car seat and onto the pavement.
"What have I done?"
she screamed repeatedly, according to witnesses.
"I have killed my son."
"She's gonna kill me".
A witness testified at trial that Harris tried to perform CPR but did so incorrectly.
The witness performed CPR, although "it was clear to him almost immediately that Cooper was dead," according to the state Supreme Court ruling.
Harris turned away and walked while talking on the phone.
Two witnesses called 911. Police arrived at 4:24 p.m.
An agent tried CPR.
Another described Harris as going from "calm to screaming and then back to calm again."
"It seemed very random and very strange," the agent said.
Another officer testified that Harris alternated between a state of calm and a "monotonous scream" that he said sounded "really forced," according to the ruling.
Harris was asked for identification.
"Shut your mouth, my son just died," he told an agent.
Harris was handcuffed and taken to the back of a police car.
Harris later told police that she had forgotten to drop Cooper off at day care.
He, too, had forgotten to take a "second look" at the car seat before getting out of the truck.
“I swore I had left him,” Harris insisted.
A crime scene technician described the back of the SUV as reeking of "a hot, moldy, urine-soaked diaper."
Prosecuting parents 'is not the answer,' mom said
During questioning by detectives that day, Harris at one point began to cry.
"Oh God."
"My son."
"Why?"
Harris told police that despite the common "ups and downs," her marriage to Taylor was a good one.
He said leaving Cooper in the SUV was "an accident" and that he had seen a news report about a man who had left his son in a car and then became an advocate.
“The…worst fear for me is leaving my son in a hot car,” Harris told detectives.
After being told he was being arrested for felony murder and cruelty to children, Harris was allowed to talk to Taylor.
He cried and insisted that the death was an accident.
Harris told him that Cooper was "in heaven and his time on earth was over."
An autopsy showed that Cooper died of hyperthermia.
The boy likely suffered from nausea, a headache, anxiety and possibly seizures, a medical examiner testified at trial.
Cooper probably struggled as he grew more uncomfortable.
According to the medical examiner, small abrasions to the head, hands and feet were likely caused by painful rubbing against the hot parts of the car seat.
Taylor, nursery teachers, family and friends of Taylor and Harris testified that he was "a loving, caring and involved father," the Supreme Court ruling said.
There was no evidence that he had previously abused the boy.
As summer officially begins, millions are already suffering from extreme heat in the US with little hope of improvement
On November 14, 2016, Harris was found guilty on all counts after nearly three and a half days of jury deliberations.
The following month he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for malicious murder and consecutive sentences of 20 years for cruelty to children in the first degree, 10 years for attempting to commit sexual exploitation of a minor, and one year for each count of dissemination of lewd material. to a minor.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that evidence presented by prosecutors about Harris's extramarital sex — which the state described as the motivation to kill her son — had an unfair damaging impact on the jury.
The day after the ruling, Taylor said the Cobb County prosecutors' "overreach" and "misuse of power" ultimately led to the court's decision.
“It has been 8 years since Cooper died and children continue to die the same way every year,” he said in his statement.
“Wasting precious resources prosecuting parents who have this happen to them is not the answer.”
Taylor urged lawmakers to "put the money where it could really save lives" by calling for laws that can "stop these tragedies."
In late June 2014, Taylor told mourners at his son's funeral that Harris was "a wonderful dad" and that "Cooper meant the world to him."
Taylor said she was worried she wouldn't be able to have a child.
She recalled the joy she felt the day Cooper was born: “a perfect 6-pound, 8-ounce [2.9 kilos] baby.”
“As children do, it turned our lives upside down,” he said.
"I wouldn't trade it for the world."
The last two nights of Cooper's life, Taylor said, he had trouble sleeping and ended up in bed between her and Harris.
"I remember turning around in the middle of the night, his mouth was open and his full boyish lips were breathing right into my face," he said.
"I will cherish that moment forever."
Harris was allowed to call the funeral in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from the Cobb County Jail outside Atlanta.
He briefly addressed the crowd by speaker phone.
“Thank you for everything you have done for my son,” he said.
"I'm sorry I can't be there," he added.
After the service, Taylor followed her son's casket out of the church while still on the phone with Harris.
CNN's Rebekah Riess, Dakin Andone, Jarrod Wardwell, Jason Hanna, Travis Caldwell, Amanda Musa, Amy Simonson, Laura James, Scottie Andrew, AJ Willingham, Tina Burnside, Mayra Cuevas, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Marlena Baldacci, Nick Valencia, Jennifer Henderson and Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.