A Kennesaw man broke down on the witness stand Tuesday as he described trying to administer CPR on Cooper Harris, who had died after being left in his father’s car for seven hours on a hot day in June 2014.
“It was blowing into a busted bag,” James Hawkins, a lighting installer, testified at Ross Harris’ murder trial. “He was gone. He was dead.”
Hawkins said he heard Harris screech to a halt into the Akers Mill Square shopping center where he was working at a Mexican restaurant.
He said he heard Harris shout out, “She’s going to kill me. What have I done?”
Hawkins came upon the spot where Cooper lay on the ground by Harris’ SUV and said he saw Harris “fumbling around.”
“He had laid the boy on the ground,” Hawkins said. “It wasn’t right, whatever he was doing. So I moved him away and started doing CPR.”
But almost immediately, after blowing a couple puffs of air into Cooper’s mouth, Hawkins said, he knew the boy was dead. Even so, he continued to administer CPR until police arrived moments later.
When Cobb County prosecutor Chuck Boring asked Hawkins what Cooper looked like, Hawkins grabbed a tissue and began wiping away tears. His voice breaking, he said Cooper was “pale yellow,” “his tongue was sticking out” and “his hands were clenched.”
Hawkins said he immediately left the scene without talking to police. Asked why he did so, Hawkins said a year earlier he had lost his own daughter.
“I was really upset,” he said, his voice breaking again.
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