WOWZERS---just found an article by Dr Diamond where he speaks about the Ross Harris case:
http://www.kidsandcars.org/files/2014/08/2014-06-30-hln-drdiamond-heat.pdf
On June 18, Justin Ross Harris had breakfast at Chick-fil-A with his 22-month-old son Cooper. Harris claims he buckled him into his car seat, and in the half-mile drive to work, forgot Cooper was in the car. On that sweltering summer day in Atlanta, Cooper spent the entire day in the car, ultimately dying of heatstroke. At the end of his work day, onlookers noticed Harris’ hysterical cries as he discovered his son’s lifeless body, according to CNN.
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The Atlanta case fits the FBS pattern in that the father appears to have been following a well-traveled route, which inconsistently included taking Cooper to daycare. But it appears to have three disturbing components that may make it difficult for people to accept that this was an unintentional act of flawed memory.
First, Harris had breakfast with Cooper only a half mile from his workplace. How can a father forget his son is in the car in only a half-mile drive? Consider a man who places a cup of soda on the roof of the car and then searches his pockets for the keys. His basal ganglia is immediately activated upon finding the keys; he gets in the car and drives off, having completely lost awareness of the cup on the roof. The comparison of a forgotten child to a cup of soda may offend our sensibilities, but the cases of FBS I’ve studied indicate that the brain processes involved in forgotten children and material objects are disturbingly similar. It appears that the memory of the child in the car is blocked instantly and that memory can be suppressed for an entire day.
Second, court documents point out that Harris returned to his car around lunchtime, while Cooper was still inside. People may wonder how Harris could return to the car during the day and not notice his son. In the dozens of FBS cases I’ve researched, the parents who left their children in their cars had absolute certainty that their children were safe at home or with the daycare provider. Again, objective science can be disturbing, but there would have been no reason for Harris to check for his son in the car.
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A third factor is unique to this case and perhaps what people find most disturbing: According to police
documents, Harris and his wife ran an Internet search on how long an animal can survive in a hot car, a day before he forgot his son in his car. Only Harris knows if the Internet search he conducted involved a conscious decision on his part to leave his son in the car, or was just a cruel coincidence.
