The Sidebar - Harris Trial #2

[kjpaw]

I agree with your thinking that you wouldn't assume people wouldn't be supportive but in fact the initial public outcry was total sympathy resulting in $22,000ish in a go fund me and almost 12,000 signatures on an online petition.

 

[gitana1]

Ok suppose he wanted to kill his kid so he could be "child free" or get divorced or pursue a carefree life of sexting or pursue the hand of Ms Meadows or avoid paying for orthodontics in 10 years ....or whatever other crazy motive you might buy into - why would he do it in a way that will almost certainly get him arrested and likely convicted of a felony?

This would be a really stupid way to plan and carry out a murder if you were actually trying to get away with it.

He clearly believed he was NOT going to be charged. He watched a news story about a dad it happened to who was an advocate and thought he could be one as well.

For the “he’s guilty of malice” (majority) crowd here—

One of the main reasons folks seem to believe malice is based on the belief that there is NO WAY Ross could have forgotten Cooper in the short time between strapping him in and reaching the UTurn, right?

Question for you. RH didn’t tell Leanna (during the day) that he’d taken Cooper to CFA, but he freely told LE that he had. A more basic point. He not only took Cooper to CFA, he went inside, knowing he was being videotaped, and then for good measure introduced Cooper to a manager who “knew” Ross well enough to most certainly remember Ross, even without reviewing the videotape.

If Ross was knowledgable about hot car deaths and wanted to stage a FBS scenario, he couldn’t possibly have chosen a less believable scenario, precisely given that exceedingly short window for forgetting.

As I’ve said before, the easiest possible thing for him to have done that morning if he wanted to kill Cooper and claim FBS was simply to drive straight to work. He didn’t. Puzzle me that.

Ross knew about FBS and that doing something out of the norm like a fast food visit, was part of what causes it. He didn't tell Leanna that he did that, while at work because he knew that may prompt questions about Cooper getting to daycare alright.

As to why he picked such an implausible scenario as forgetting that quickly? It sure seems pretty stupid to me. Just like murder always is. Typically, these people aren't that bright. And I think even Ross' defense team has inferred he lacks intelligence.

Regardless, the stupidity or implausibility of the plan does zero to persuade me this was an accident in light of way too many other, quite profound facts in this case.

 

[Hope4More]

I go back to RH being asked by one of the people he was texting with if he had a conscience & his reply was "nope".

The empathetic, caring, thoroughly decent, much loved , innocent victim of an actual sociopath, Travis Alexander, in an email to friends: "I'm a sociopath" (referring to how he had treated some GF's).

Travis was not a sociopath.

RH, cheating on his wife , sexting with a willing partner who knows he's sexting with his wife nearby because RH told her he was, who, knowing that , asks HIM if he has no conscience?

As if SHE did? Ross says no, he doesn't. Maybe because he's accurately assessed who he's sexting with, and they're both just saying - yeah. Cheating doesn't make me feel bad.

Disgusting as a moral measure, but no measure of his ability to kill his son.

 

[katydid23]

Ok suppose he wanted to kill his kid so he could be "child free" or get divorced or pursue a carefree life of sexting or pursue the hand of Ms Meadows or avoid paying for orthodontics in 10 years ....or whatever other crazy motive you might buy into - why would he do it in a way that will almost certainly get him arrested and likely convicted of a felony?

This would be a really stupid way to plan and carry out a murder if you were actually trying to get away with it.

Because he knew of cases where , not only did the father not get arrested, he became a professional advocate, for child safety.

Very few parents do any prison time for accidental hot car deaths.

 

[Hope4More]

Here is my theory. I think that he wanted his friends to drop him off at the car so he could find his son, with an 'audience' of his friends and a video to support his shock and surprise.

But the car backing out forced his friends to speed off. OH OH, now what?

He knew he was on camera and he could not be seen looking into the car. So he quickly tossed the bulbs in while visibly keeping his head above the car. JMO

Meh . Just watched that video. There were plenty of places nearby RH's car for his friends to have pulled in for the few seconds it would have taken for RH to stall them if he wanted to.

Of all the points to be made about malice, imo the whole lunchtime thing is just about the least convincing, though I can definitely understand why LE thought he was hiding something by not remembering, and his hesitation when initially asked.

 

[momoftwocrazies]

Fwiw, the video doesn't talk about shade or trees at all. Also, the good vet is sitting in the car for 30 minutes. He talks about how dogs would experience the heat, but his narration is just as much about how HE is experiencing the heat.

Not sure where you're going with this or what your point is about how he's narrating. Dogs can't narrate, neither can babies. My guess is that he made the leap between a small dog and his son, evidenced by the comment. What he saw in the video, IMO, is how quickly a small creature would pass away. I think it made him feel better that it would be relatively quick.

Yes he does talk about how the trees are swaying from wind but even with the door cracked, there is no relief inside the car. Did you watch the entirety of it?

 

[katydid23]

That would be a delusional belief. Parents who leave their kids in the car to die are usually pretty despised.

And I don't think the sympathy would be worth losing everything and going to prison in any event. Do you?

Just as men who send pictures of their junk to 14 yr olds are pretty despised. And getting caught doing that with minors could also mean he'd lose everything and go to prison, and he still continued to do it, not even trying to hide any connection to his screen name.

 

[pet friend]

A tree in a hot summer Georgia day is totally inadequate & a moot point imo. A ninety degree day in a closed vehicle is not going to be helped by a small tree nearby.

 

[Hope4More]

Fwiw, the video doesn't talk about shade or trees at all. Also, the good vet is sitting in the car for 30 minutes. He talks about how dogs would experience the heat, but his narration is just as much about how HE is experiencing the heat.

Not sure where you're going with this or what your point is about how he's narrating. Dogs can't narrate, neither can babies. My guess is that he made the leap between a small dog and his son, evidenced by the comment. What he saw in the video, IMO, is how quickly a small creature would pass away. I think it made him feel better that it would be relatively quick.

Yes he does talk about how the trees are swaying from wind but even with the door cracked, there is no relief inside the car. Did you watch the entirety of it?

Yes. And yes, palm trees swaying in the breeze in the near distance, not trees providing shade or that are relevant to temps in the car.

 

[katydid23]

For the “he’s guilty of malice” (majority) crowd here—

One of the main reasons folks seem to believe malice is based on the belief that there is NO WAY Ross could have forgotten Cooper in the short time between strapping him in and reaching the UTurn, right?

Question for you. RH didn’t tell Leanna (during the day) that he’d taken Cooper to CFA, but he freely told LE that he had. A more basic point. He not only took Cooper to CFA, he went inside, knowing he was being videotaped, and then for good measure introduced Cooper to a manager who “knew” Ross well enough to most certainly remember Ross, even without reviewing the videotape.

If Ross was knowledgable about hot car deaths and wanted to stage a FBS scenario, he couldn’t possibly have chosen a less believable scenario, precisely given that exceedingly short window for forgetting.

As I’ve said before, the easiest possible thing for him to have done that morning if he wanted to kill Cooper and claim FBS was simply to drive straight to work. He didn’t. Puzzle me that.

He may not have planned to leave him in the car before going to breakfast. It may have been an impulsive decision, triggered by the feelings he was expressing in the Whisper app. He may have pondered it for awhile, but only decided to do so that morning, when he was pulling out of the lot.

All the stresses were hitting him at once---stress from his job, unhappiness with his marriage---and Cooper was the one thing that prevented him from leaving all of that stress behind. He could quit his job, be single, and travel around as an advocate for child safety, just by 'accidentally' on purpose, forgetting to drop him off.

 

[katydid23]

What makes you think that no one ever really gets into trouble for it? IIRC more than half of the people who leave their kids in hot cars like this are charged with a crime.

Yes. More than half are charged. And of those, half are found not guilty. The other half are usually convicted of much lesser charges, and only half are given any prison time. So essentially , only 1 in 4 are sent to prison.

And the LEAST LIKELY to be convicted are fathers, who accidentally left kids while on the way to work, who were not drunk or high.

link:here are some of the stats, but the above conclusions come from various sources I have read.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ho...-hot-cars-shows-inconsistency-charges-n135861

 

[pocketaccent]

These shrimp are very easy.

6 pounds shrimp unpeeled


3 cups Wishbone Italian salad dressing
4-6 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 lemon, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cayenne
Tabasco if you like
3/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup dry white wine

Combine first 7 ingredients and pour over shrimp
Refrigerate at least 2 hours
Place shrimp in pan with marinade
Add butter and wine
Stir and bake at 400 for 20 min , if very large shrimp 25 min. Watch carefully do not overcook the shrimp

Make sure you have French bread to dunk in the sauce cause it's very good

OT
This is our favorite appetizer recipe, Tex.

-Unpeeled large shrimp or prawn
-Wishbone Italian salad dressing
Pour Wishbone over shrimp. Marinate overnight.
BBQ.

Provide lots of wet napkins before letting your guest back inside your house.
(Often our guests don't want to come back in for their main meal. They just want more shrimp and beer.)

 

[PaperDoll]

I think it's puzzling he forgot Cooper in a 30 second timeframe after the big production of strapping him in the car seat and telling him how much he loved him. I think he wanted to show people at CFA that he loved his son by taking him (one last time for his daddy and son breakfast), before killing him. Ross wanted people to know how much he loved his son, but I believe in the back of his mind he didn't want to deal with Cooper anymore. Ross even said in the LE interview to ask people who knew him that he was a great father.

 

[SuperTmo]

I hope I didn't miss anything!

 

[NCTeacher]

Exactly. So why didn't he do anything to prevent it from happening to his son? He knew about putting his satchel in the back seat, or taking the second look, as a precaution. Sounds like criminal neglect, to me.

Precisely, I am paranoid of hot car deaths. It's one of my biggest fears. But I think my fear is smaller than the Harrises because my husband and I don't "talk about it ALL the time." So every day, exactly one block from my workplace, I glance into my rear view mirror so I can look into the car seat in the back of my van. I also place my teacher bag on the floor in front of the car seat as a fail-safe, so when I open the sliding door I look directly into the car seat to get to my bag.

People who are scared of things take precautions against them. Especially if it's their "biggest fear."

 

[arkansasmimi]

Have a nice weeken

HAPPY VETERANS DAY... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE ...

 

[DaleTray]

Also, Arias had plenty of people come forward saying she was a crazy stalking weirdo. Not one person said anything like that about RH.

I can see someone horrible trying hot car death as a way kill a child and possibly get off, or face less of a sentence than other methods. I just do not understand why
he didn't just drive straight to work, and just go out to the car after work like normal. I also do not understand why he would not clear his phone history, even if he thought
he could get off, he had to know it wasn't just going to happen automatically and that his phone would be looked at.

I have always thought along those lines as well. If I were going to commit a murder I would plan to have no witnesses or evidence. I wouldn't have stopped by CFA. I wouldn't have visited my car at lunch. I definitely wouldn't have introduced movie plans. I wouldn't have been texting 6 women seeking a hook up and left evidence on phone knowing those sext offered jail time all by themselves. But, if I were going to try pull off a murder like this, I would plan on allowing the son to bake until the end of my work day then throw the surprise. Why incorporate more potential witnesses when they couldn't offer RH a morning alibi or excuse?

 

[katydid23]

The empathetic, caring, thoroughly decent, much loved , innocent victim of an actual sociopath, Travis Alexander, in an email to friends: "I'm a sociopath" (referring to how he had treated some GF's).

Travis was not a sociopath.

RH, cheating on his wife , sexting with a willing partner who knows he's sexting with his wife nearby because RH told her he was, who, knowing that , asks HIM if he has no conscience?

As if SHE did? Ross says no, he doesn't. Maybe because he's accurately assessed who he's sexting with, and they're both just saying - yeah. Cheating doesn't make me feel bad.

Disgusting as a moral measure, but no measure of his ability to kill his son.

I really don't think we can compare Travis Alexander to Ross Harris, in terms of their actions. Travis was a single man, having consenual sex with a nutcase. Very different.

 

[DaleTray]

I know you know this...whatever motivates a person to kill someone doesn't have to 'make sense' to the juror, for we are not murderers, murder does not 'make sense' to us. It is helpful to be shown by the State that the logic appeared to make sense to the person who committed the murder.

You totally ignored the Ganesh Ramsaran case I sited. He killed his wife and the mother of his children instead of just divorcing her. He was shtupping her 'best friend'. In their house sometimes. Does it 'make sense' to kill your faithful and innocent wife and mother of your children instead of divorcing her? No. Nevertheless, the jurors had no problem seeing that in Ganesh's head, this was a viable solution for not having to deal with the old ball-and-chain anymore.
It doesn't have to be logical to us, or the jurors (for in what world do we all see murder as logical?) to find the defendant guilty. It's helpful to see what the murderer's logic was, however.

I like it when I learn regional words not heard in other areas. I've heard it called many,many things from many, many regions, but never shtupping. I like that one and will use it if you don't have the word trademarked.

 

[katydid23]

I have always thought along those lines as well. If I were going to commit a murder I would plan to have no witnesses or evidence. I wouldn't have stopped by CFA. I wouldn't have visited my car at lunch. I definitely wouldn't have introduced movie plans. I wouldn't have been texting 6 women seeking a hook up and left evidence on phone knowing those sext offered jail time all by themselves. But, if I were going to try pull off a murder like this, I would plan on allowing the son to bake until the end of my work day then throw the surprise. Why incorporate more potential witnesses when they couldn't offer RH a morning alibi or excuse?

But you are not a messy, impulsive obsessive type like Ross. You say he would have been more cautious. But look how messy and ridiculous he was in the way he was sexting minors. He was incredibly stupid--using a screen name that could easily be figured out by LE---sending pictures of his junk to a 14 yr old. He doesn't think things through very well, imo.

You say you wouldn't want any witnesses. But I would want witnesses it see me shocked and upset when I found my dead child. [God forbid]
So maybe he did want others to be there.