Small Details that are interesting in the Cooper Harris case, #1

[Chewy]

Besides the biggest loss of all and the reason we are all here -- COOPER -- look at how many people are coming out on the losing end of all of this. RH's biz partners will probably lose all the time, money, & effort they put into starting this venture -- how many of them will suffer financially or reputation-wise because of this down the line? Then there's all the family & friends who stood behind him in the beginning. All of these people (who presumably did nothing wrong and only loved Cooper) will be the ones out amongst the hatred & nastiness in the public and have to deal with being ostracized because they know or once knew a child murderer.... eventually RH (and perhaps LH as well) will be settled in to a daily routine at the prison, kept away from general pop if it's deemed too dangerous... able to eat and read and exercise and have visitors -- while everyone he knows will be trying to figure out how to turn their lives right side up again and how to deal with being ostracized and harassed.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so selfish -- not only to deem their own lives more worthy of living than the one they are snuffing out -- but to not even once think about all the lives around them that will be affected.

Just venting, JMO

Such a great post, thanks just wasn't enough!

 

[popsicle]

DNA would be a part of the autopsy and also a part of his arrest.

 

[renah]

I pin all sorts of cool stuff and lots of DIY stuff...I even have boards titled "must do" and "totally awesome" and "must have"

I've done only TWO things....and have only bought ONE on my "must have" list.

My ambition to pin is substantially greater than my ambition to do.




So basically I believe pinning stuff means VERY little.

All IMO




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LOL... And here I thought I was the only one!!!

 

[LisaB]

The threads are moving so fast that I sometimes think the small details in the case will be lost amongst a sea of bigger details. So I thought I'd start a thread for just the small details that could be useful in proving intent or motive.


One I'm going to start with is one that was brought up by the DA during the preliminary hearing.

Tossing the lightbulbs into the car. Detective Stoddard stated that RH tossed the lightbulbs into the car but also seemed to say he stuck his head in the car a little bit. I am wondering if he anticipated doing the "big reveal" in front of his friends. But when he opened the door he could hear Cooper choking. So he starts into the car, turns his head al little and then pulls back and tosses the lightbulbs onto the passenger seat.

So why "toss" lightbulbs? They are fragile and could break? IMO he couldn't go further into the car because he knew he would be on camera.

Questions

A. Is it possible that Cooper didn't die before lunch? Is it possible he was seizing and gagging when he came back in for lunch?

B. How far into the car did he lean on the video. Detective Stoddard said the it was not a very clear visual but you could see him.

C. Did his friends immediately leave after dropping him off?

D. What about the footage that showed him looking at a person walking towards the car?

He may have expected his friends to wait around a second, maybe even let him put the bulbs in the car and then drive him up to the doors. When they left, he had no audience. Then he made the movie plans to get a second opportunity to do the "reveal" to them. But when they all agreed to take their own cars, he may even have thought he could get to the movie, sit and watch the film with his phone off, and let his wife show up at daycare while he was not able to be reached by phone.

AFTER the movie he'd discover her "Where is Cooper? Is he with you?" messages and then find the baby, OR the theatre management would come find him after his wife showed up there and found the baby in his car. But that smell was his undoing. He could not make it to the theatre and had to do the reveal elsewhere.

 

[SwampMama]

I wonder if RH and LH were in some way "inspired" by the recent case of the mom who left her kids in the car while she went on an interview. Luckily that woman's children were not injured because of vigilant bystanders. Instead of major public condemnation she SHOULD have received, she was actually the recipient of many thousands of dollars of donations. Did RH think maybe that he could pull off a major coup by getting rid of the baby, collecting the insurance money, maybe even get donations, attention and publicity... and then?? Who knows, I wouldn't put it past him to have had fantasies of playing guitar at the baby's funeral, writing a song for his dead son and fantasizing about becoming a famous rock because of all of this.

Hmm, I really do wonder if he ever did write any music for his son and if so, what was it? I really can see him writing a song beforehand so that he would have it ready to play at the funeral, in front of huge audience, all eyes on him and his shiny new $4000 guitar that he no doubt figured that the insurance money would pay for.

 

[LisaB]

If you were to place light bulbs in a car, wouldn't you pop the trunk and place them in, or choose any other door than the driver's to place them in a floorboard, etc??? A small detail, the choice of the driver's door, but very strange to me.

If I click my car unlocker thing once, only the driver side unlocks. I have to press twice to unlock other doors as well. Often I just open the driver's door and place items on the passenger seat from "my side".

 

[LisaB]

Respectfully, it is speculation that the e-mail was only sent to parents of children that were absent. All we know is that Cooper's teacher sent a mass e-mail to RH at 1:30pm. We have no idea who the e-mail was sent to or what it said. BTW - the daycares my sons went to were all pay by the week. Didn't matter if they were there 1 day or 5 days -- you paid for the whole week.

ANY email from Little Apron should have jogged his memory.
I would also like to say that when I do not IMMEDIATELY exit my car, I am EXTRA careful to look around. This prevents me setting my keys down on the seat or console and then locking the door without realizing it. That's just KEYS... I'd be way more careful with a baby (or even expensive electronics, which he KNEW were there).

 

[SnoopyDawgDawg]

Perhaps he wanted to appear to be a loving father. Or maybe in his sick mind, he was being a loving father one last time before he killed his son.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. This goes right along with the warm-and-fuzzy description of what the male parent and Cooper were doing when the female parent left the house that morning. It haunts me to think what that last morning was really like. Shudder.

 

[SnoopyDawgDawg]

Probably it's happened before!!!

I don't think it did. I think she's just a very poor actress.

And along those lines: Re the purported text regarding picking up Cooper: I don't have the exact time line in front of me, but I wonder if LH was dragging her feet getting to the day care and doing her acting job and the male parent texted her to "get her moving," as in, "come on, we're running out of time here!" As in he wasn't supposed to "have" to discover Cooper until he'd received a frantic call from his wife from day care. Those of you in the know about the time line of events...is this a viable possibility? Thanks!

 

[LisaB]

He went to lunch with his friends and then they stopped together somewhere to buy light bulbs, right? He worked at Home Depot. Why wouldn't he just buy light bulbs there? He probably gets a discount at Home Depot. They certain have any and all kinds of light bulbs.

He did buy them at Home Depot. He works in the office. They went by the retail store for the bulbs.

 

[SnoopyDawgDawg]

I thought about the low t treatment, too.

I wonder if all this low T business is a way to set up a possible defense. "The meds made me do it."

I was telling my brother about this case the other day and brought up the low T carp and me thinking it was made public by the parents to set up a future defense. I told him, "In other words, instead of the Twinkie defense, we will be slammed with the Winkie defense."

I'll go sit in the corner now.

 

[LisaB]

I'm still very wrapped up in the whole car seat, car, parking etc. piece. I would like to know whether he arrived at work around the same time as usual or earlier or later that day. I would like to know where and how he usually parks and if this backing in thing is out of the ordinary.

People are creatures of habit. I think they usually arrive and leave around the same time and that they usually park in the same spot at work. I also think that in the morning they usually drive the normal route (which for him would mean to the day care first...)

A post in an earlier thread (maybe #6?) showed where his car was parked the day the Google Street View camera covered his parking lot. Not against a grassy curb, and partly under a tree.

 

[LisaB]

I think the same thing. She was picking the child up, not him. He had other plans.
What difference did it make to him when she was going to pick him up?
I also think he was setting up an alibi, pretending he didn't remember he didn't drop the child off.

Or letting her know that he had been unable to pull of the "discovery" yet and she needed to go start the ball rolling.

 

[LisaB]

The co-workers talked about how they normally dropped him off in the context of explaining how nothing was different about that day.

Except that they did not normally drop him off at the car...

 

[Spice]

Cooper's "Last Meal" at Chik-Fil-A, which is exactly what I think it was meant to be.

A sick sick gesture from this "father" who premeditated this murder. RH knew Cooper would be dead within an hour or so.

So why take him to eat when you know you are about to kill him?

 

[SStarr33]

A post in an earlier thread (maybe #6?) showed where his car was parked the day the Google Street View camera covered his parking lot. Not against a grassy curb, and partly under a tree.

Wait. We are 100% sure that was his car?

 

[New1]

The daycare my son would attend would most certainly call because you pay ahead of time. If you miss a day you are out that money and the daycare would call. It's a really small daycare though and they stress they want people to feel like they are part of the extended family. I'm not sure how a large corporate daycare would handle things, but they did send out an email to the parents of all children who were absent that day. It was sent to RH, but do we know if he read it?

I heard it was a "group email", but didn't hear it was to all parents whose children were absent that day. The email might have been to ALL employees of children in their daycare. It was pretty late in the day (around 1:30 pm) to be sending an email checking on a child's well-being, IMO. I would think the daycare would not rely on sending an email to check on why a child was absent. I think they would call instead, and earlier in the day. The email could have been about an activity like a birthday party for another kid the next day or taking the kids to an off-site event or something like that. I think people just jumped to the conclusion the email was sent only to parents whose kids were not in daycare that day. Does anyone have a link that says what the email said?

 

[Spice]

Even if the email sent to RH from Cooper's daycare at 1:30 p.m. that day did not pertain to his absence and was just an innocuous group email to parents....wouldn't that still be an implication of guilt since it should have triggered his memory that he never dropped Cooper off that morning?

The fact that they contacted him an hour after he "put lightbulbs in the car" and he STILL never thought of Cooper. I think that is why the email is such a big deal. It's not the content of it....it's the fact that it should have triggered something in his mind.

 

[New1]

That was unreal that he actually told LE that he 'noticed him when he made a right turn.' Seriously? If it was so freakin easy to see him, why didnt it happen sooner?

At the very least when he parked and was gathering stuff for work. He was in there for 30 seconds. Wouldnt that indicate he was looking around and getting his stuff together to go to the office? Who doesn't make a quick scan of their car as they are leaving it for the day? GMAFB

I agree. Are we supposed to believe that this was the very first time that day that he changed lanes or looked to his right?

 

[YidArmyRach]

Cooper's "Last Meal" at Chik-Fil-A, which is exactly what I think it was meant to be.

A sick sick gesture from this "father" who premeditated this murder. RH knew Cooper would be dead within an hour or so.

So why take him to eat when you know you are about to kill him?

So witnesses can say what a great dad he was, and how him and his son were so close when they were seen having breakfast that morning. They would be the last people to see Cooper alive, so important witnesses. I think it was just another alibi he set up.

The first thing that stood out to me was that the mother (term used loosely) didn't text or call to check that Cooper had been okay when dropped off at day care. Surely if someone else is dropping off your son, you want reassurance that he settled, especially if its a change of routine? If my husband did the daycare run, which was a rare event, I always used to text him to check it all went ok. Maybe I'm a bit over-protective, but I like to know these things, so I don't worry all day.

Also I believe the text asking what time she was going to be collecting Cooper was another attempt to stage events. You would definitely be prompted to recall that you had forgotten to drop your child off at that point. Same when he went to the car at lunch time.

When she called at nursery, to be told that Cooper hadn't been dropped off, her response was odd too. Surely your first thought would be that they had been in a car crash or something like that, to explain why they hadn't made it in.

Finally, parents' worst fears are usually things they have no control over - such as child abduction. A fear of forgetting your child has been left in a car is a strange one. If they really believed they were capable of forgetting Cooper was in the car, why hadn't they put his car seat in the front passenger seat? Ok its not the safest option, but safer than leaving your baby locked in a car all day. Failing that - you would stick a note on your steering wheel or key ring, or even on your desk at work, asking if you have remembered to drop your son off. Plenty of ways to avoid doing something that 99.999999% of parents have never done.

Not much shocks me these days, but to deliberately plan to cook your baby alive is just sickening. And for what? Less than $30,000. Why not have him adopted if they didn't want him, or ask family to take over his care.

My opinion is that this was planned and both parents were in on it.