Cooper Harris Case Analysis | What is Forgotten Baby Syndrome?

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of cooper harris other questions here would be was this a case of forgotten baby syndrome and how does law enforcement determine appropriate and inappropriate behavior for people in a crisis just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video at the end of this video i have a segment i'll put in where i've named a couple more of the plants that i have there's nothing scientific about naming plants so again that'll be after the analysis portion of this video this case takes place in the state of georgia in 2014 and primarily involves two people justin ross harris who was 33 years old at the time of the incident and his 22 month old son cooper harris justin harris goes by his middle name ross so i will refer to him as ross ross married leanna taylor in 2006 he worked as a police dispatcher in florida until 2009 in 2012 he would earn a bachelor's degree in commerce and business administration he moved to georgia to work for the home depot as a web developer this takes us to june 18 2014 outside atlanta georgia the high temperature for that day was 92 degrees on his way to work ross was going to take cooper to daycare cooper was in a rear-facing car seat in the back seat of ross's vehicle a 2011 hyundai tucson which is a small suv somewhat similar in size to the nissan rogue or a toyota rav4 at 8 57 am he stopped at a chick-fil-a restaurant in vinings georgia that was located near his employer and near the daycare ross was captured on video holding a son in that restaurant so he knew cooper was with him at that point at 9 19 a.m he drove to work from that restaurant and walked into his office at 9 25 am cooper was still in the suv at 12 30 pm two friends came by ross's work picked them up and they all went to lunch after this they drove to a home depot store harris went into the store and bought light bulbs the friends drove him back to his work where ross went over to his vehicle open the front driver's side door and put the light bulbs on the driver's seat it is likely that by this time cooper was already dead ross walked back into the office at 3 16 pm ross texted leanna asking when you getting my buddy referring to the fact that lyanna was supposed to pick up cooper from daycare on that day when ross was done at work he walked back out to his vehicle he entered it and drove away at 4 16 pm he was on his way to an amc movie theater to meet up with friends they were going to watch the movie 22 jump street so either way he was in for a bad experience this evening only a few minutes after driving ross pulls over into a shopping mall he pulled cooper out of the back seat and he called out to bystanders for help he would later say that he caught a glimpse of cooper in the rear view mirror one of the bystanders started performing cpr on cooper as ross walks away around to the other side of his vehicle and places three phone calls from his cell phone the first one was to his wife it appears as though she did not pick up the second one was to his employer and the third one was to the daycare that one lasted five to six minutes a few minutes after this lyanna arrived at the daycare when she was told by the workers that cooper was never dropped off she would say something to the effect of ross must have left cooper in the car it could be considered unusual that she would have jumped to that precise conclusion as the police started their investigation they had suspicions about lyanna but she was never arrested at the same time they had concerns about ross harris they found that he was having a number of extramarital affairs the day that cooper died ross had been communicating via text with at least six different females one was under the age of 18. the police also felt as though ross's reactions were not genuine for example in the back of the police car which was recorded from the dashboard ross appeared to be distraught and crying in one moment but then when no one was looking at him he was calm ross was charged with multiple crimes including maos murder during jury selection the judge decided to grant ross a change of venue so the trial was held in glen county as opposed to cobb county the trial was fairly straightforward the prosecution argued that ross simply wanted to be free from his marriage so he could have affairs cooper was standing in the way the defense said that ross did cause cooper's death but it was due to negligence it was not intentional murder in november of 2016 ross was convicted of eight charges including malice murder he was convicted in connection with sending those explicit messages to underage females as well justin ross harris was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 32 years to be served consecutively ross and lyanna divorced before his conviction but lyanna maintains that ross is not guilty of intentional homicide now moving to my analysis i will start by attempting to answer this question was justin ross harris really guilty of murder i will look at the evidence both for and against the idea that he was guilty so first looking at the guilty side cooper died because ross left him in the vehicle neither side has denied this was the case so as a starting point ross did cause cooper's death the police suggested there was no way ross could have missed the stench when he opened the vehicle after cooper was dead even if he somehow could have missed it toward midday there is no way he would have missed it at the end of his work day then we see different online activity that was not good for ross's case he watched a video where a veterinarian talked about the dangers of leaving animals in hot cars ross deleted some of his search history from his computer but it's not clear why he did that some people do that on a regular basis he searched how to survive in prison it is important to keep in mind however that he was committing crimes that did not involve murder so it could have been that he believed he was going to prison for those crimes he clicked on a link about a child free lifestyle when leanna was about to see ross in the interview room at the police station among other things she said did you say too much this certainly just could have been because he talked a lot and she knew the police were not on their side ross was having multiple affairs including one that involved committing felonies so he was already committing serious crimes it makes sense that murder would have been something he was capable of i don't know if this helped the prosecution as much as they thought but it certainly doesn't help the defense ross looked like he was putting on a show at the chick-fil-a restaurant because he was introducing his son to the workers they already knew who ross was but this was the first time they'd ever seen cooper almost like ross was trying to make sure people knew his son was with him at that time and they had a good relationship like he was happy to introduce cooper to those people the prosecution made a big deal out of ross's inappropriate emotions he wasn't acting right for someone who just lost his son i want to mention this here because it did help the prosecution but i don't think it really means anything i'll talk more about this later ross certainly should have avoided complaining about how the back of the police car was too hot though that was a clear mistake that he made it may have been because of a lack of empathy this would be like bernie madoff complaining that he was not getting enough interest from his checking account now looking at the evidence pointing to not guilty many people said that ross was a great father this point did not seem to be disputed at all even the various love interests that he had or people they had sex with anyway said that he seemed to be a good father so in a sense they were testifying for the prosecution but they ended up helping the defense to some extent the light bulb incident where ross put the light bulbs on his driver's seat was used by the prosecution but i think it's actually indicative of innocence more so than guilt if he had planned to commit this murder why would he open the car door and put those light bulbs in what possible advantage could this give him he didn't check one cooper so it wasn't like he was making sure that he was dead at his work ross actually parked under a tree of course it didn't matter the vehicle still became extremely hot inside but did he know that if he was trying to kill cooper why would he take the chance that the shade might slow the vehicle heating up now the issue of the search history seems to be on the side of the prosecution again they had evidence about him watching a video about animals in vehicles interestingly ross did not search for that video and the harrises own a dog ross never searched for anything related to hot cars as far as that link about the child free lifestyle a friend sent that to him as a joke ross never searched for that what he did search for the night before cooper's death actually seems to be exculpatory he and his wife were planning a cruise he searched for information about whether kids could go on a cruise for free regarding ross's emotional state one of the police officers testified that he never saw ross cry even once and he showed no emotion whatsoever in his report however that same officer indicated that harris was extremely upset when the police arrived at the scene now i kind of get worried anytime police comment on emotional factors they don't always seem to have really good connection about what people are feeling but here we see just plain two different stories he said one thing on the report and another thing on the stand the females with whom ross was interacting testified that ross talked about how much he loved cooper and they said that he said he would never leave his wife one of the witnesses of the shopping mall where ross pulled cooper out of the car initially said that his emotional response was appropriate but later at trial said he was not sincere again we see a change of story and again we don't see clear evidence that that witness understood emotional reactions they weren't a mental health expert as far as i know so we're just looking at this opinion of a person who witnesses this incident but then also looking at their inference looking at their interpretation of the situation not just the objective facts what they actually saw like his different actions would be one thing but they were really speaking to a mental state ross was described as absent-minded this could explain his behavior this point i think is in the defense column a fireworks explosion on new year's eve in 2005 cost ross his hearing in one of his ears therefore he would have been less likely to hear the sounds in the morning that could have reminded him that cooper was still in the car his sexual behavior was not entirely a secret from lyanna the harrises had sought counseling and lyanna had offered ross a divorce on a prior occasion but they were trying to work things out nobody's going to give an award to ross for working hard to fix the marriage with all the affairs and stuff like that but the idea that this was a secret was not accurate so now moving back to the question was ross actually guilty justin ross harris was charged with many crimes i think he was guilty of the crimes related to him communicating with the girl who was under 18. as far as the murder of cooper harris there is the legal guilt to consider and the actual guilt as far as the legal aspect that is was he guilty beyond a reasonable doubt i don't think he was i think there is a reasonable doubt in this case for example he simply forgot cooper was in the car i think a charge of negligent homicide could be supported but malice murder seems like a stretch as for actual guilt i thought about this for a while i really don't know the answer to this if i apply the million dollar standard i've talked about before like if somebody who could magically know the truth was willing to give me a million dollars if i came up with the correct answer so i had to say yes or no and if i was right i get the money i suppose i would have to go with no it's quite suspicious that he happened to go to the chick-fil-a restaurant that morning and introduce everybody to his son and of course it doesn't look good that he was committing other crimes at the same time this speaks to a possible pattern of impulsivity and poor decision making also he was willing to pay money to see 22 jump street even still when considering the big picture i know a lot of people believe he's guilty but i'm just not quite there i've seen people react in very unconventional ways when confronted with incredible stress there is no normal behavior after something like that i'm not convinced that ross harris had the planning skills necessary to have committed this crime intentionally and leave behind so little evidence so if i believe he's not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and i'm not really convinced he actually committed the murder what do i think actually happened this is just a theory of course i don't know what actually happened ross was trapped in a destructive behavior cycle he knew that what he was doing was illegal he knew he could go to prison but he did not want to stop communicating with all those various females he had also paid to visit sex workers in the weeks before the incident this behavior was exciting to him he looked forward to it it was taking over his life filling up every spare moment it was highly distracting that morning on his way to work with cooper in the back seat he was focused on this continued communication with his mind locked on that he completely forgot to drop off cooper so one could make the argument that while planning to commit another crime he took actions that led to cooper's death again negligent homicide seems supported in this case his supposedly atypical reaction was based on the fact that he was unusual perhaps insecure disagreeable impulsive socially awkward and narcissistic i've seen other cases where the same argument is made and the person was not guilty this idea that they weren't acting right in this unusual circumstance everybody responds differently to high stress events as i mentioned the police did not know if he was acting or not they had no mental health training on which to base that assessment it was pure speculation his incorrect emotional response doesn't really point to guilt or innocence i think what happened in this case was that the police encountered someone who was a criminal and who was strange but not necessarily someone who had just committed murder something else to consider in this case is how inconsistent the justice system is regarding forgotten baby syndrome forgotten baby syndrome is when people leave babies in cars but not intentionally in the research literature we see that some people are never charged others are charged with crimes like involuntary manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide and still others are charged with murder many of those who are never charged were still accused by the police for responding inappropriately the police are never on the side of somebody they think is guilty even without any training in mental health police often make definitive claims about human behavior there seems to be a myth that if something is important it can't be forgotten like people look at this case and say well maybe he could forget some things but there's no way he could have forgotten cooper was in the car but that's simply not true people forget all types of important things throughout the course of their lives in order for somebody to be guilty of murder they must have men's rhea that is a criminal state of mind so we see intent awareness or some knowledge is required i just don't see how in this case that standard has been met the idea that one person can do this and not be charged at all and another person can spend the rest of their life in prison speaks to the lack of knowledge about forgotten baby syndrome those are my thoughts in the case of cooper harris please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching now moving to the part where i named the plants so i bought these two plants at the same time not too long ago and when i was buying them they're in the shopping cart and they're kind of pushed up against one another it's just awkward sometimes to get them to all play nice in the shopping cart and this little guy who i don't think has ever been featured in a public video and this guy who has were kind of pushed up against one another and this plant was kind of on the rim a little bit so as i'm pushing the cart this dialogue kind of came to my mind it's from the movie troy featuring brad pitt as achilles i pictured this plant wanting this plant's help like i guess to escape the store or something and with these long spines on this plant i'm thinking he's kind of standoffish so he's like there is no pact between cacti and men essentially telling this plant that he was on his own now the line for the movie troy of course is there is no pact between lions and men achilles said it to hector but this is a cactus so that explains the change in dialogue it would make sense therefore that this plant would be named achilles and this plant would be named hector so achilles and hector both achilles and hector were mighty warriors and i'm sure these plants are as well so now in terms of plants have been named i have achilles and hector here private hudson on the lower shelf behind me and steve mccroskey on the upper shelf when i get the inspiration again to name a plant of course i will feature it in a video thank you for watching this segment where i name plants i will talk to you soon

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

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Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021