la_cavalière;10703156 said:
I'm on the fence, but at this time, I am thinking that this was a terrible accident. Make no mistake, I'm not defending JRH – this guy is a terrible parent, husband and employee – but I'm not sure he's a cold-blooded child murderer. I know I am a member of a tiny minority here, so please don't skewer me!
There has been no evidence so far, other than a brief visit to a "Child-Free" website, that JRH didn't love his child or enjoy being a father. His friends say he talked about Cooper all the time and enjoyed spending time with him. Sexting with other women and underage girls may be sick, but it is not solid proof he wanted to kill his child. Shocking as it may be, sexting and chatting on these kinds of forums and social apps is common, even among married people. Ditto for marital problems or insurance policies.
I wish I could feel as convinced as some of you of his guilt - but until I hear more evidence, I am hanging out on this lonely fence.
RSBM for brevity
First up, thanks so much for a reasoned and well explained post about your uncertainty. It's refreshing.
Just to make a few points. You say that you don't have children and if you had a child this would be a major fear for you. (we'll get more to this later) So what you are doing is the same thing that parents do that made excuses for him in the beginning.
One of the reasons I shared my own example of parental negligence is that too often people have "secret truths" about the way they parent and usually that means behind closed doors ALL parents have screwed up a time or two. There isn't a "perfect" parent. So people cut him slack based on "fear" and their own secret guilts. That's not rational.
At the same time, as I've posted before, I think it's ridiculously stupid the way Nancy Grace went off the deep end about the sexting. I agree with you. So what? The sexting has sweet all nothing to do with my opinion that he's negligent. In fact IMO the only reason they brought it up in court was to establish NEGLIGENCE and to make sure he wouldn't get bail. (sexting to underage girls is illegal) At the same time it shows duplicity in character. I'll give you an example.
A few weeks ago my ex husband wanted to force my 18 year old son to let his friends 18 year old daughter move into his apartment for the summer. They'd be living alone. Now I said absolutely NOT because the girl is from a devout Muslim family. I couldn't believe her father had agreed to it. So I called the dad and he didn't know and put the kibosh on the whole thing. Some of my friends were confused as to why I allowed him to move in with a single woman before but said NO WAY IN HELL to this girl. And it was because of her beliefs. You can't present one face to the world and then behind closed doors not follow the rules that you say you believe. It's dishonest. For an 18 year old girl, it's forgiveable. But my ex is Muslim and is a 50 year old man. He basically was telling her to lie to her parents and that REALLY bothered me. You see the difference?
I don't think there is anything wrong with sexting or watching *advertiser censored* or whatnot. Even the teenaged girls, how was he to really know? Perhaps they lied. Many young *advertiser censored* stars lie and say they are 17 when they are 21 because it's a sexual fantasy. So what? Well so what is that he presents himself as this upstanding church going involved Christian and soccer coach and then does this in secret and that's duplicitous. If he wants to get his groove on and that's who he really is, then go for it man, but don't show one face to the world and keep your true self secret.
Next, back to your "fear" that this would happen to you. If you truly feared this, especially as recently as this man supposedly did, wouldn't you be very very careful about making sure you didn't do it? The problem with his story about Chik-fil-a is that it was mere minutes after he had strapped his son into a car and driven off. When people forget their kids it's usually a lot longer than "less than five minutes'
Then we have the other issues of him not telling the cops he went to the car at lunchtime. Why lie? Wouldn't he just be very upset that he had 'been right there, my god maybe I could have saved him!!! I can't believe it!" He lied and got caught.
And finally, one of the reasons I've taken so long to to respond to this post is that you touch on something that I've seen thought many times. That is "why wouldn't he think" And honestly, people don't think of things as clearly as we think they do. We're on the receiving end of the crime and have the ability to look at what actually happened. In real time people make mistakes all the time. Think of all the times you were forgetful or blurted something out that was rude by accident, or ruined a surprise party or just 'didn't think" In the moment he had a lot of balls in the air. He was trying to present his 'story" and he dropped a few of them. Cops are trained to get people to do that.
One of the things I think is really valid in this case are the slips of the tongue that both he and his wife made. His comment about malicious intent, shows foresight. His wife's immediate reaction that "he must have left him in the car" "I dreaded how he would look" etc etc. simple mistake.
As Columbo once said to a criminal, you only commit the crime ONCE. I've investigated over and over again. You will make a mistake and I will find it because that's my job.
And that's what usually happens when people get busted in premeditated crimes.
or his LE brother? Goes right along with him using cop jargon when he was being questioned.