On a clear and bright Wednesday morning in June 2 years back, Justin Ross Harris had breakfast at a Chick-fil-A located in northwest Atlanta. With him was his 22-month-old boy, Cooper, strapped into his rear-facing safety seat in the back row of their Hyundai Tucson.
Harris was expected to drop Cooper off at his day care. However, he drove straight to work, parked his vehicle and went there– leaving Cooper in the SUV.
Parking-lot monitoring video cameras would later reveal that Harris returned to his automobile after heading out to lunch with his colleagues to put away some lightbulbs he had purchased, but didn’t enter the automobile himself.
Harris ultimately left work around 4:15 p.m. Five minutes later, he stopped at a shopping center just a few miles away where, according to police records, Harris pulled Cooper out of the car and attempted to perform CPR.
” My God, what have I done?” Harris yelled then while sobbing, his attorneys later on stated in court. “I killed my boy. I’m so sorry, Cooper, I’m so sorry.”
Cooper was pronounced dead a number of hours later on. As per the investigators, the temperature level near the safety seat inside the SUV had reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
The medical inspector maintained that Cooper had “parched abrasions” to his scalp, right forehead and left cheek.
“The lips are parched,” the medical inspector’s report noted. “The tongue and gums are pale.”
The cause of death was suggested to be hyperthermia.
Harris was detained and alleged of murder. His case, which has covered over two years, was commonly advertised as people inspected every aspect of the trial and the Harris family’s past. The case attracted a lot of that the trial itself had to be moved more than 300 miles away, to Brunswick, Ga.
On Monday during the sentencing hearing, prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence allowed by law, claiming that Harris “was driven by selfishness and committed an unspeakable act against his own flesh and blood,” killing his son in “the most torturous, horrific, unimaginable way possible.”
During much of the hearing, Harris was sitting expressionless in the packed courtroom, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and shackles. His defense attorneys did not provide further evidence or statements.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sentenced Harris lifetime imprisonment, without the possibility of parole, plus 32 years. It was the highest allowed by law based on the charges against him.
Harris’s defense attorneys have stated they plan to submit an appeal under 30 days.
