NCTeacher
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NCTeacher -
I don't find anything sinister in the "hot car" chatter with Stoddard, but I may need to re-watch that footage. To me it sounds like "Ross being Ross" and talking at length about the subject at hand. His time at Cobb HQ looks much more to me like someone on the Asperger's Spectrum - talking away, often out of context with the situation at hand.
Obviously he was also trying to cast events in the best light possible. The talk of double checking and being obsessed with hot car deaths was probably improvised, and he may have thought that mentioning the trip to the car after lunch would make him look like a total idiot.
I did have trouble with is behavior after getting in the car, but it can still fit the accident theory. What if he realized, as soon as he got in the car, what had happened? What if he sped off, freaking out, trying to figure out what to do? What if his fear at that point was "what will other people think of me? Leanna?? My Brother???" His demeanor at the scene and at Cobb are consistent with such a scenario.
I just can't bridge the gap between this being a well planned murder and literally everything that happened that day pointing to zero planning whatsoever. Even his reaction when Stoddard told him to wait in a cell - Ross's "say, what?!!" double-take is classic. It was the reaction of someone who had no clue he was ever going to be charged with a crime. I find it hard to believe that he planned and carried this heinous crime with zero consideration of consequences. Look at Jodi's first hours custody - she was shucking and jiving, but harbored no allusions as to the long road ahead.
Well, *if* that is what he did (saw him, and then drove off trying to figure out what to do) then by logical deduction his behavior at the scene of the "discovery" was staged and his defense was rife with lies.
Just the same, I really consider that a far-fetched theory. If this was unintentional, a normal, loving parent (as Ross seems to have been) would've FLIPPED OUT and done everything he could to attempt to save his child's life at the moment of discovery. A parent doesn't think rationally in those situations, he doesn't think "oh, he's been in here seven hours. He's dead. What the hell do I do now? Okay, let me race out of here and pull into a busy shopping place and act like I just discovered him..." Instead a parent thinks "OMG, OMFG, my baby, Cooper, Cooper-- (runs to the back seat to get him) wake up, please wake up, wake up ---HELP, somebody HELP, call 911--no, no, please be okay, Cooper---look at me, please, (check for breathing, check for pulse) SOMEONE CALL 911 NOW (he might throw an F-bomb in here, that would be a normal reaction)." Okay, I concede, everybody reacts differently, but NO loving parent would risk the chance of their child still being alive and getting him medical attention so they can drive off and hatch a plan.
No,Ross didn't react that way when he arrived at his car because he was fully rational---he wasn't overwrought with grief and anguish. He came to the car and found it exactly as he expected, smelling of the rancid odor of baking pee and sweat, feeling of repressive saturation. He drove to a busy place to stage the discovery because he himself had stated a few weeks prior that the only reason he believed a certain person was not guilty was because of the witnesses---and Ross felt he too needed witnesses, strangers attesting to how emotional and sorrowful he was upon realizing his child was dead.
If this was unintentional--as I said before, unless his car always reeked of urine, he would've looked for the source of the smell. He would've saw Cooper, and he would've freaked in the lot. Had he freaked in the lot, his story would have been a lot more believable.
His story would've also been more believable if he had gone through the CFA drive thru that morning---he could've said "oh, I meant to take Cooper to CFA but he fell asleep right before we go there, so I decided to let him sleep and get my food in the drive thru, and then out of habit I just drove on to work, carried my breakfast in like I always do--I meant to take him to daycare, I can't believe I forgot" Then, if he avoided the car during the day and then discovered Cooper after work in the lot---this story would've been quite credible.
Then, I would've believed his story, and I wouldn't have followed it--and I wouldn't be here today. Hubris destroyed Ross.
As far as Ross at the police station, he did a double take because he thought he had this planned out hook, line, sinker. He never thought for one second, in all of his arrogance, loving and doting fatherly ways, and charm (yes, he has it, he is very likeable), that anyone would question or doubt his story.