Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Monster Dad Leaves Tot Son to Bake in Car, Then Whines Law 'Unfair'

Episode Date: June 28, 2019

Five years after Justin Ross Harris left his toddler son inside a hot car for eight hours, he's asking for a new trial. His lawyers calling the first 'unfair.' The little boy experienced a horrific death, slowly dying inside a scorching hot car on a summer day. Harris even returned to the car during lunch to place some items inside, yet he claimed he didn’t notice his son strapped inside a car seat in the vehicle.Was it a tragic accident, or a calculated killing?Nancy's expert panel weighs in:Kathleen Murphy:  North Carolina Family AttorneyVincent Hill:   Private InvestigatorDr. Jolie Silva:    Forensic psychologistDr. Michelle Dupre:    South Carolina Medical ExaminerRobyn Walensky:   Crimeonline.com Investigative Reporter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. and coverments, near coverments. Looks like the baby has had a seizure. Yes, ma'am. OK, he was left in the car. I couldn't see anybody around him. Yeah, his dad, and somebody said he was. Can you see the baby from where you are? Yes, ma'am. OK.

How old does the baby appear to be? He looks like he's about a year and a half old. And can you see him breathing? A baby on the ground. 911 coming as fast as they can. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. That baby, little Cooper Harris, just 22 months old. How did a baby that precious, I mean, aren't all babies precious, at that age end up on an

asphalt parking lot near a mall with 911 being called to save his life? I'm a little overwhelmed just hearing it because I know that area so well. There's cars flying by, red lights. There's a huge mall near where this call was made and a tiny little bitty baby lying on the ground. Let's hear more of that 911 call. I'm sorry? The name of the baby is bleeding. It's just under the social life here. I didn't hear you. All right. I didn't hear you. The officer said, okay, he's requested our ambulance to get started, okay?

We have them on the way. Who in the hay had the baby? Who had little Cooper? Who was in charge of him? How did he get there? Why is 911 being called? Well, where's Daddy? Daddy was driving him home from daycare, or at least that's where he should have been. But listen to our friend Amy Robach at ABC's 20-20.

Despite Ross's apparent initial distress, the cops' antennas immediately go up. I think that's what police were suspicious so quickly because of his behavior at the scene. Christian Boone covered the story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When they arrived, someone else was doing CPR to Cooper. He was talking on the phone to somebody. Officer came up, he yelled at her. He's got you. All right, just hold on.

Shut the f*** up, hold on. My son's got it. All right, all right, all right. I'll put the gun in your mouth. F*** you. I'm not trying to, sir. I'll put him in my car. You don't understand, I'm really upset.

Behavior was a little erratic. He was sitting in the back of the squad car, alternately weeping or very distraught, and then sort of looking around to see. In their mind, they felt like he was putting on a performance and not a very good one. One of the officers, the best she could describe it as, was almost like Will Ferrell. One minute he would be yelling, my boy, my boy. What have I done? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What have I done? My boy.

Next minute, he's called. You are hearing again our friends at 20-20. I was just taken aback then when you actually hear the father screaming and carrying on in the background. Take a listen to our friends at HLM. The big word that came out today from the medical examiner's office, homicide, homicide. In the manner of death category, they've now found that this was a homicide cause of death hyperthermia the overheating of the body however the official manner of death and cause of death will not be released just yet but they say that the injuries are

consistent with homicide as the manner of death and hyperthermia as the cause of death joining me now an all-star lineup. Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family attorney. Vincent Hill, cop turned PI, author of Playbook to a Murder. Dr. Jolie Silva, clinical forensic psychologist. Dr. Michelle Dupree, South Carolina medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter and author of Beautiful Life, the CSI behind the Casey Anthony trial on Amazon. To Dr. Michelle Dupree, explain to me what is, did they say hypothermia?

This is actually hyperthermia, Nancy. And hyperthermia is just the opposite of hypothermia. This is when the body cannot regulate the amount of heat it is experiencing. So this is the body getting overheated. Okay, Dr. Michelle Dupree, this is not Hansel and Gretel, where you leave one little breadcrumb and then I run to the next one. Okay, you know what I'm going to say. Break it down. Not everybody listening right now is an MD medical doctor who's performed literally thousands of autopsies and written a book. Okay, how do you get hyperthermia?

How hot does it have to be? How long do you have to be in the heat? Is this the same as a heat stroke? What are the symptoms and what does the victim go through? Just for starters. Thanks, Nancy, for getting me back on course. Well, again, this is when the body becomes overheated and can't handle the amount of heat typically something above 104 degrees is going

to cause a severe reaction but there's different stages of hypothermia it doesn't just happen all at once the body goes into stress heat stress when the person becomes dizzy uncomfortable nauseous maybe and they get thirsty if they get treatment i.e nauseous maybe, and they get thirsty. If they get treatment, i.e. if they get water, if they get rehydrated, then it's not such a big deal. If that doesn't happen, the body can go into heat fatigue. And when that happens, those same symptoms occurs, but it's just a little bit worse and recovery is a little slower. The person can then actually go into heat syncope, which means that they simply faint. Once the person has fainted, of course, they still need to get help and become rehydrated. It gets worse from there.

Heat cramps may occur. There can even become heat edema. There may be a rash. Finally, heat exhaustion occurs. And once heat exhaustion occurs, again, the body is very busy, weak. There may be profuse sweating. There are coordination issues. Now there's trouble concentrating. There's a rapid pulse. Again, the person can get immediate medical attention and overcome this, but there must be immediate rehydration of the body or starting to rehydrate the body. And it's actually very, very common. I recall just recently my sister-in-law, boss, wife, had been out in the afternoon playing tennis.

She got hot. She kept playing. It was some kind of tournament somewhere. And she comes home, gets in the shower, and she notices she feels oddly she has a heat stroke. In perfectly good health. She had no idea anything was happening other than she was hot and thirsty. That was it. Now I'm thinking about this little 22-month-old baby.

And at 22 months old, they're so helpless. They're so defenseless. Take a listen to people I interviewed on the scene. I'm not quite sure why the father ended up in the back of the car, in the back of the police car. When he yelled out F you to the police, I think that pretty much sealed it. What was he doing in the back of the police car? Well, he was sitting there and then there were detective, homicide detective that came. He was about a hundred feet away in a, in a squad car and they came and they began to speak with him,

but he wasn't acting out. He wasn't being violent in the back of the car. Mr. Madden, he actually saw the tot, Baby Cooper, pulled from the car dead. When you saw what was happening, what was the first thing you observed? The first thing after noticing that the body that was laying on the hot pavement was in fact a two-year-old toddler, I was about four or five feet away from him, of course that being Cooper, and then Mr. Ross, I was about three feet away from him, and he was hysterical. He was crying out, he was screaming, he was hollering, my son, oh my God, my son is dead, oh my God.

It just seemed very real very organic you stated you were four or five feet away from baby Cooper what did you observe about him he looked clean I saw no bruises I saw no abrasions his hair wasn't pulled back it was laying on his back or a stomach he was laying on his back okay because the abrasions mostly are on the back of the head where we believe he was banging up against his car seat trying to get out. So was he pale? No, he looked normal. He just was lifeless.

But in the last hours, a stunning new twist in the case of baby Cooper. We are getting breaking news right now we in another case it is about the Utah student Mackenzie Luke let's switch gears and turn to that very quickly we are learning that the missing girl Utah student Mackenzie Luke friends say have spotted activity on her Instagram account, which liked another page. Now, this is nine days after she goes missing. Now, we also learned that at this hour, authorities are digging in the backyard of a, quote, person of interest.

That's a major development. No, no one has been called a suspect. But police are saying there is a person of interest. For those of you just joining us, the Utah co-ed Mackenzie Lucas, a sorority member about age 23, disappeared. Coming into town, she texted her mom that she had landed. It was very late at night. We've seen surveillance video of her in the airport. She's texting. She gets a Lyft ride. The Lyft driver, and this can be verified via her texting, via the Lyft computer system,

she asked to be taken to a local park about eight miles away from her home. When she gets there, according to the Lyft driver, she seems happy. No problem. She gets out of the Lyft driver's car, goes and gets into another unidentified car, and drives away. Last time she's been seen. That doesn't make sense for a young girl who takes her mom that she just lands. Now, this so-called person of interest is A.J. Ayahat. He's 31 years old.

He's a former Army IT specialist. He owns a home near the park. And we are also learning recently, according to reports, that after she goes missing, he gives away or puts up for sale a bed in Box Springs. Now, does that mean anything? Maybe not, but it's quite the coincidence. He currently works at Dell as a senior technical support analyst, and he's done that for nearly a year. Now, authorities have said they believe the house where they're digging has a connection to Luke's disappearance. What does that mean? That's all we know. But when cops

are digging in your yard, that's a bad sign. A lot of this is extremely contrary to what we know about her personality, that she would ever be out of touch with friends and family for that long. But so far she's missed work, she's missed a wedding, and apparently missed a flight, completely unlike her. We will bring you the latest as it happens, but right now, friends are shocked to see that they have discovered activity on her Instagram account since she goes missing. We'll bring you the latest,

and now straight back to Justin Ross Harris and the Hot Car Down. car down. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Do you remember your last moment with Cooper that day? I'm not a morning person. And of course, as usual, I didn't wake up when I wanted to or needed to. I was getting ready to walk out the door. I came back and, you know, I told him wake up when I wanted to or needed to. I was getting ready to walk out the door. I came back, and, you know, I told them both bye, and I kissed Cooper. I kissed Cooper goodbye, not knowing that I was literally kissing him goodbye. 8.30 a.m., Ross loads Cooper into their small SUV. First, a quick stop for breakfast at Chick-fil-A.

Surveillance video from that morning shows Ross holding Cooper while they order food. On any other day, Ross would leave the restaurant and turn left at this intersection to drop Cooper off at daycare. But on this hot summer day, Ross drives straight at the intersection towards his office where he parks and 30 seconds later exits the car. over and over and over trying to figure out how a dad, Justin Ross Harris, could quote, forget about his baby in just literally minutes. And that Chick-fil-A video surveillance becomes extremely significant because you see in the video, baby Cooper is alive, alert, laughing, totally awake, not asleep in the back of the car with dad's mind wandering. I mean, he's just there alive, awake. Just three minutes later, how do you forget your baby's in the car? And actually, the decision was made right after Harris pulls out of the Chick-fil-A, because as you just heard our friends at 2020, that was Amy Robach, when he got to that red light, instead of turning to take baby Cooper to daycare like he always did,

he went straight to his office. So the decision was made right then, less than one minute away from Chick-fil-A, with the baby talking and laughing as much as a 22-month-old can talk. It was made right then. The baby was not going to daycare listen to this he walks across the parking lot swipes into his building and leaves little Cooper behind more than six hours later Ross leaves work at 4 15 p.m. here he is swiping out of his building casually crossing the parking lot he gets in the car seemingly unaware of his son mere inches from him in the car seemingly unaware of his son.

Mirror inches from him in the back seat. He drives roughly a mile and a half before he pulls over and calls out frantically to onlookers. Tell me exactly what happened. The guy pulled in the parking lot and the baby's not breathing. It doesn't look like. At 4.24 p.m., police rushed to the strip mall parking lot where the former 911 dispatcher is in the throes of his own emergency. This child was possibly left in the vehicle. Kept saying, what have I done? What have I done? Laid him on the ground.

Started doing CPR, trying to resuscitate him. Apparently, the child wasn't responding. Well, a lot of people wonder, how could you forget about your baby for that long in the car? I think I have an idea. Listen. Specifically on the day of the incident, on June the 18th, 2014, in reviewing the computers and phones and things like that of the defendants, did you uncover anything of what he was doing during that day while his child was out in the car? Yes.

Okay. What did you uncover? He was having up to six different conversations with different women. It appeared from the messages from Kik mostly, which is a messaging service. And is that a computer-related messaging service? It is. And these conversations he was having with these females, of what nature were they? The most common term would be sexting. And not only that, sending them online photos of his

penis. Let me let that sink in for a minute because at that time of the morning, I am, you know, cleaning a guinea pig cage. I am trying to get a cup of hot tea. I'm getting the twins going to school. The last thing I am thinking about is a picture of a man's penis. Okay? Now, let me understand something. Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. No offense to penises whatsoever. Not taking a position on that. Robin, please help me understand.

What is this man doing? At what, 7.30, 7.45 a.m.? He's just left Chick-fil-A, closed on Sunday, and he's sexting pictures of his penis and leaves his child in the car to die of hyperthermia. Thank you, Dr. Michelle Dupree. What? Nancy, that is quite the segue. I've worked with you for about 10 years. Yeah, no one wants to see a picture of his penis at

830 in the morning. That said, here's how this all started. By the way, when I first moved to Atlanta, that was my Chick-fil-A. You make the point. Oh, my stars. Wait a minute, Robin. Me too. And this was in law school. I came up here for an internship. I was supposed to stay at sorority house for the summer. That Sunday morning before I was leaving to come to Atlanta, found out somebody left something running in the night. The whole thing burned down. So I quickly found an apartment right near that Chick-fil-a that's how I know the area so well because I lived there and fought the Atlanta traffic all summer it's at a very busy intersection and you make the point that

he is seen on the video surveillance with little Cooper well when you come out of that Chick-fil-a parking lot you know you were saying it's about a minute to the light. I could probably do that in 30 seconds. You pull out of that parking lot and you go right around the corner and there is a major intersection there with a light. And to go to where the daycare is, you would have to make a hard left at a 45 degree angle, or you would drive straight, as we heard in the 2020 clip. And 30 seconds later, after you get yourself and your child, your little son breakfast at Chick-fil-A, little nuggets or whatever you're ordering, how do you 30 seconds after pulling out of that parking lot, not take your little son who's eating the Chick-fil-A in the backseat to daycare? How do you go straight at the light? Now, Ross Harris worked at the Home Depot, not one of the stores where you buy plants and nails, but he worked at the corporate office, which is in Cobb County, where he was a web

designer. So was he that focused on getting to work and getting into the building, or was he that focused on getting to work and, you know, getting into the building? Or was he thinking about his sexting and his penis pictures? But to me, it's incredible to me. If I was a juror and I was taking on a tour of where this Chick-fil-A is, where he would have made that left turn, I don't know how you would not go in that direction. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Were photos being sent back and forth between these women and the defendant during this day while the child's out in the car? Yes, there were photos of his exposed penis, erect penis being sent. There were also photos of women's breasts being sent back to him. Now, did you actually, have you located every one of these girls that he's had contact with? I have not. Have you located any of them?

I've located two of them. The first one, I won't use the username, but I guess, for lack of a better term, the older one. Did you speak with her? I did. And what did she say? She said that she had first met Ross and she knew him as Ross through Scout, which is another messaging service, and that he had met up and that he wanted to hook up with her. And did she talk to you and confirm the nature of what you saw on these chats back and forth? Yes, she did. I'm going to turn your attention. Was there also another girl that you met and that you've spoken with?

I have. And how old is that girl? She is 17 at this time. Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay, we've got the baby dying from hyperthermia. We've got the Chick-fil-A piece of the puzzle. We've got the I was distracted because I was sexting photos of my penis part of the puzzle. And now Vincent Hill, cop turned PI, author of playbook to a

murder. Did I just hear underage sexting? Number one, he's married. Okay, number one. But number two, did I just hear something about an underage child? Yeah, you heard that exactly right, Nancy. 17 years old and you're sending pictures of your penis while your son's out in the hot car. I mean, not only are you a sexual pervert, but you're a pedophile. You're sending pictures to a 17-year-old? Oh my gosh, Nancy. And your son is burning inside of a car. Now, Vincent Hill, let me understand something. You wrote Playbook to a Murder on Amazon. You know, there's a lot of ways to commit a murder, many ways to die. What about death by a hot car? That takes some thinking. That takes some premeditation. Vincent Hill. It takes thinking.

It takes planning. This is not something you just at the spur of the moment say, oh, I'm just going to do this because I know it will work. And I'm sure that Mr. Ross himself was looking for ways to kill his son because there were Google searches of hot car deaths on his search history, Nancy. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, Vincent Hill, excellent point. Robin Walensky, let's talk about the computer searches. I mean, hello, everybody, unless you take your computer out into the driveway and run over it with your car, beat it with a sledgehammer, you can get forever and ever information off the hard drive. Now that's the computer hard drive itself. There's also tons of data stored out in the cloud. So it's going to be really hard to get rid of computer

searches. Robin Walensky, we've seen them jump up and bite people in the neck a million times. I don't even have to mention Tot Mom, who was looking up homemade chloroform and neck breaking. I mean, that's just one. There's so many examples. They're staggering. Robin, what did Justin Ross Harris's computer searches reveal? And guys, there is a new update in this case, and I'm stunned by it. But about the computer searches, Robin Walensky. Yeah, the bottom line is that he looked up a video, and it's a man sitting in the front seat of a car talking about how long it would take a dog to die in a hot car with the windows closed in the summer. And the man in the video actually has one of those big circle thermometers, you know, where you can see the temperature that people have outside in their garden.

And he holds up a big thermometer and, you know, it shows, you know, 92 degrees and how hot it would be and how long it would take your pet to die. Yeah, that guy is a vet trying to warn people about hot car deaths and leaving your pet in the car. I want to go now to special guest joining me, Kathleen Murphy. Kathleen Murphy, there were all sorts of problems within the marriage. Take a listen to this, Kathleen. These messages and these chats, did they start in the morning? They do. Okay. And did they continue throughout the day? They do.

And when did they end? Around 3 o'clock that afternoon. So about an hour before he left. Overruled the objection. Now this 16-year-old girl with these chats of the, or now 17, they started when she was 16? Correct. Did these these were these sexually involved as well they were okay did she send him a picture that day she

did of what she sent a picture of her exposed breasts and did he send any pictures to her he did he sent a picture of his exposed erect penis now we talked a little bit about these computers have you guys done examinations on these computers we have are you finished with your examination of these computers though we've only scratched surface now based upon your review these computers? We have. Are you finished with your examination of these computers? No, we've only scratched the surface. Now, based upon your review of these computers and other devices that he's had contact with, is it obvious that he has deleted some of the things from cross referencing these computers and phones and items? Yes. Now, I'm going to turn your attention again, like I said, motive as to his marital status issues he's having in his state of mind. Did the

wife tell you anything they were having any problems in their marriage? Leanna stated that they're having intimacy problems. Yeah, I guess so. I guess they are. With your husband sexting all these women, sending photos of his genitals to underage girls, I guess there are problems. To Dr. Jolie Silva, clinical forensic psychologist joining us. Dr. Silva, it's hard for me to fathom blaming your child for a marital problem, much less hurting your child because you want out of the marriage. Yeah, you know, um, I think what happens a lot of times in, in, you know, relationship issues, especially when they're having these kinds of problems, is that they're so into their own problems and they're so into what's going on internally with them that the children just become kind of this tool to use to help them advance themselves

in whichever way they want in the relationship, which is really a hard thing to wrap your head around if you are a parent. They don't have, at some point, they don't have the ability to put themselves in the child's shoes and understand what the child is going through, but rather use the child as a means to get what they want, you know, turning the child against the other parent or just using the child, you know, to enhance what they want to happen in the relationship. You know, just another piece of this, the forgotten baby syndrome is a syndrome because there are an average 38 deaths a year that happen to babies because of parents leaving their child in a hot car. And it's happening like an average of 38 times a year.

And this is one of them, right? The hard time I have with it is the short amount of time, the 30 seconds where he claims to have forgotten to make the turn to daycare. What happens with forgotten baby syndrome is that there's a part of your brain that controls for habits. So you know when you're driving to work or if you have to, if you have, if you're driving to work every single day, that's just a habit. You're not thinking about it. So if you have to pull over to get gas, you might forget to do that because you're habitually driving to work. There's a part of the brain that controls for habit where you don't have to think to do

something. You don't have to think when you brush your teeth. You don't have to think when you back out of the driver. When you're driving to work, you don't have to actually think and make any decisions because it frees up the part of the brain, the decision-making part of the brain to think about other things you have to do. With forgotten baby syndrome, what happens in a lot of these cases is that people are habitually going through the motions and then don't think that the baby is in the back of the car because they're in kind of a fog. They're just going through the motion. And sometimes what happens is if you are doing something in your routine that deviates from the normal routine, like stopping for breakfast, like stopping for a cup of coffee like getting gas you'd be more likely to have forgotten baby

syndrome which is what i'm guessing is what he is you know arguing in his case for the hard time i have with it is that it's only 30 30 seconds or a minute where he would his brain would have snapped into this habit um where he would have forgotten about it so you know that that's the and also the fact that he was looking at the videos the day before, you know, a couple of days before, and the sexting, you know, his mind was just totally preoccupied with something else. So forgotten baby syndrome is a real thing, and a lot of these parents are 52 children died of hot car syndrome. You know, he could argue hot car syndrome, but the Google searches that he performed just before baby Cooper's death reveal a different story. I've never, ever, except in relation to this case, looked up how many children die in hot cars, how long does it take to die in a hot car, videos explaining hot car death. Not only that, when mom goes to pick up baby Cooper at daycare and they say,

he's not here, he was never brought here, one of the first things she said was, oh no, I hope Justin didn't leave him in the car. So, obviously, that was something that they had discussed. Take a listen to this. Let's take a listen to what happened regarding the stench in that car when Daddy gets back in and then makes his way to a movie. Take a listen. Did he approach the car at any point at the scene?

He did. About how long after the defendant had pulled over? Over an hour. And when he approached the car and stuck his head in, did he stick his head in? He did. When he did that, was there anything of note that he noticed an hour and 20 minutes

after with the door open? Yeah, there was a foul order or a stench coming from the vehicle. Now, did you actually access that vehicle later as well? I did. And why did you do that? We executed a search warrant on that vehicle later on that night. When you executed that search warrant and you went inside that vehicle hours later, did you notice anything? Yeah, it smelled like it was a foul order. It smelled like decomposition or death. crime stories with nancy grace now just to prove the elements this crime show did you speak with the emmy about whether this

child would have suffered cool or excessive physical pain we did okay what did he say would it have been a painful death yes Yes. Did you notice any, were there any injuries to the child's face? There were. And what were those? The way it's explained, there were several marks on the child's face. It would have come from the child or a scratch being made while the child was alive and then not healing, not scabbing over or anything like that and just soon after he passed away. Were there any injuries to the child, back of the child's head? Yes, there were abrasions to the back of the child's head.

You're hearing testimony regarding the death of baby Cooper Harris at the trial of dad Justin Ross Harris, Cooper's dad. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. After days and days of testimony, the father, Justin Ross Harris, convicted. Take a listen to this. The court pronounces the following sentence in the case of the state of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris. Criminal action 1493124. As to count one, the court imposes the State of Georgia v. Justin Ross Harris, Criminal Action 1493124. As to count one, the court imposes the sentence of, as to malice, murder,

with the jury having found the defendant guilty. Sentence of the court is life to serve in confinement without parole. As to count two, felony murder, guilty, spake hated by law due to the conviction on count one as to count three felony murder disposition by the jury of guilty it is also vacated by law due to conviction on count one as to count four cruelty to children in the first degree the jury having found the defendant guilty the sentence of the court is 20 years to serve in confinement. This will be consecutive to count one malice murder, life to serve in confinement without parole. What that means is even after a life without parole sentence, he still will serve a 20-year sentence.

Justin Ross Harris, convicted for leaving his taught son in a hot car to die, at this hour is still in solitary confinement, quote, for his own safety. Bombshell now. Harris filing a round of appeals and a bid to get out of jail. Justin Ross Harris sentenced to life behind bars in 2016. He's been in jail since 2014. He's demanding a new trial over the death of his taught son at just 22 months old. Ross Harris living the high life until his son dies in the back seat of his car. Remember, goes into work, stays there all day, and even, isn't this true, Robin Walensky, goes out to lunch with some of his friends, insists they take him to

buy light bulbs, comes where they can see him, gets them to let him off at his car with the baby That is 100% accurate. How is he demanding a new trial. He claims that the judge in the case allowed some testimony in that shouldn't have been there and that was against him and this and that. And so he's hired a new lawyer and he wants a new trial. And this could come up in the next six months where his attorney has been, his new attorney has been given time to come up with a date and say, when are you going to be ready? And this is serious because not only is he enlisted the services of a brand new lawyer, the founder and president of kidsandcars.org that I've read many, many times. Jeanette Fennell, the founder and president of kidsandcars.org, says Ross Harris is innocent, and this was just a tragic memory loss that killed Cooper. Bombshell now, the dad sent to prison for life 2016 after leaving his son in a hot car to die, has filed a new appeal. And with the help of the founder of kidsandcars.org, may very well get it. You know, he's complaining now about life

behind bars, but I want you to hear about something else he complained about. Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring says Ross's strange behavior continues in the back of that police car, complaining about everything from the cuffs to, believe it or not, it being too hot in the back seat. Within a minute or two, you're allegedly discovering your son deceased in the back of your car. You're in the patrol car complaining about how hot it is in the back of the car. That struck police as well. How would you expect a grieving father who had accidentally placed his child in the back seat and left him there,

how would you expect someone in that situation to act? I think it's fair to say that there's a spectrum of reactions. You can't say one person is going to react a certain way. And Ross Harris' behavior was out of that spectrum? It was absolutely outside the norm. When word spreads of Ross's arrest, an outraged public quickly comes to his defense. The community thought it was just a horrific tragedy, that it was a horrible accident. I think a lot of people couldn't understand why the police were holding Ross Harris. Well, those Google searches didn't help his case looking up hot car deaths just

before his son dies in a hot car. So even then, he's complaining when he's put in the police car after yelling F you to the police and becoming belligerent with them at the scene of his son's, the discovery of his death. He's sitting in the back seat of the car and he starts complaining about how hot it is. All the cops just look at each other. I mean, really, the irony of that. And now he is demanding a new trial, and he seems to have enlisted the aid of kidsandcars.org. We'll see about that. Right now, his defense attorney, Rodriguez, is saying that Harris has filed a motion for a new trial arguing prejudicial testimony admitted by the judge made it an absolute impossibility for him to get a fair trial. You know, Vincent Hill, private investigator, former cop, author of playbook to a murder, the founder and president of kidsandcars.org.

It's an organization focused on educating everyone about the dangers of leaving children in hot cars, agrees that Harris is innocent. She says, quote, Parents have so many things coming at them. Attention spans are getting so much shorter. Our brains can't keep up. I don't believe that for one minute, Vincent Hill.

Yeah, Nancy, here's the problem I have with that. He stops at the Chick-fil-A and listen, we're all parents here. You know, when kids get, you know, that greasy food, they're happy, they're jovial, and they're talking. And he's in the car with his son, who's probably like, yes, I got Chick-fil-A, I'm drinking my juice. How do you forget that your child is in the car, Nancy? And outside of that, you cannot escape the Google searches of hot car death. That shows intent. Now, if there was a Google search of how to do a mass shooting and he left his son in the car, that's a different story.

But the fact that you searched how to conduct a hot car death, that shows your intent. You can't get around that. Well, police say they were suspicious from the very beginning when they removed his son's lifeless body from the SUV. The child had been in the car for seven hours. Right now, Justin Ross Harris now seeking a new trial. Will he walk free? We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart podcast