Georgia father of dead boy researched online details of child deaths in cars

On the morning of June 18, Harris left the family’s condo in Marietta with his son, Cooper, and drove to a Chick-fil-A to have breakfast, according to an arrest warrant released Wednesday.

The father then put his son in a rear-facing car seat in the middle of the backseat and drove to work, the warrant states.

When Harris got to work at a Home Depot corporate office in Atlanta, he left the toddler in the backseat and went inside the building, according to the documents. He returned to the SUV at lunchtime, when he opened the driver’s side door, put something inside and returned to work, an updated warrant also released Wednesday showed.

Harris left his office at the end of the workday, he told police later, and was already driving the car when he realized his son was still inside. He parked at a shopping plaza and pulled the boy out.

By then, the boy was already dead. Harris, distraught, was not cooperative with police, who handcuffed him and put him in the back of a patrol car, according to the documents. Harris was taken to Cobb County police headquarters for questioning, and within about five hours he was arrested and charged with felony murder and child cruelty.

The boy’s mother, Leanna Harris, said she was not angry at the father and commented on the charges against him at the funeral, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported.

“Ross was and is a wonderful father,” she said.

An online petition asking District Attorney Vic Reynolds to drop the murder charge against Harris gained more than 11,000 supporters before it was closed after an autopsy was released Wednesday. The autopsy determined the manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was hyperthermia, or overheating, police said.

Cooper Harris was the 13th child in the U.S. this year and the sixth this month to perish after being left in a car.