Man Leaves Son in Hot Car and is Accused of Murder and Child Cruelty

Childcare Product Safety Attorney

Georgia Man Leave Son in Hot Car

During a hearing last Thursday, surprising claims were shared regarding a Georgia man whose 22-month-old son died after being left in a hot car all day. Justin Harris Ross, 33-years-old, was accused with murder and was placed in jail without bond on June 18. During the hearing, allegations were shared that Harris had messaged six women at work while Cooper, his son, was dying in the car. One of the women was underage at the time. The messages included explicit texts with nude images. The temperature had reached 92 degrees in the car that day.

According to Detective Phil Stoddard’s testimony, Harris had buckled his son into his car seat after eating with him at Chic-fil-a that morning. Only thirty seconds after being in the car, Harris made a turn that would have revealed his son’s head in the back seat. Instead of turning towards his daycare, he turned to go to work. He also went to Home Depot during his lunch break where he bought light bulbs and threw them in the passenger side of his vehicle.

Earlier that month Harris had viewed Reddit pages on being ‘child-free.’ He had also searched ‘how to survive in prison’ and watched videos of the dangers of leaving dogs and children inside hot cars.

Several different stories have been released on how Harris reacted after he pulled into the shopping center ‘discovering’ his dead son. “For him to enter the car … when the child had been dead and rigor mortis had set in, and the testimony is the stench in the car was overwhelming at that point in time, that he — in spite of that — got in the car and drove it for some distance before he took any action to check on the welfare of his child, I find there is probable cause for the two charges contained in the warrant,” Cobb County Chief Magistrate Frank Cox shared with the courtroom.

Harris never called 911 after he found his son.  He stated that he did not reach anyone on his phone, but phone records show that he made three calls. One of the calls was to his employer which lasted 6 minutes. When asked to get off his phone, Harris said “F*** you” to the police officer who took his phone and handcuffed him.

Defense attorney H. Maddox Kilgore, shared that Harris was partially deaf in one ear which could have caused him not to hear his son in the back seat.

Source: CNN, Police: Father was ‘sexting’ as son was dying in hot car, Elliot C. McLaughlin and Dana Ford, July 4, 2014.

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