Prosecutors on Wednesday exposed deviations in Justin Ross Harris' morning routine the day his son died while the defense collected new fodder for their contention Cobb County police played loose with the facts in their investigation of the defendant and his now-former wife.
For Harris, tough questions persist about what made June 18, 2014 — when police say he intentionally left his son strapped into his car seat to die — so different from his typical day.
According to the teachers at Little Apron Academy, which Cooper attended, Harris usually dropped off his son between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m. on his way to work. The former Home Depot web developer was also frequently late, teacher Keyatta Patrick testified, but on those days would notify the school by 8:40 a.m.
At 8:55 a.m. on June 18, Harris and his son were leaving Chick-fil-A. He never called Little Apron to tell them he was running late or to alert them Cooper had already eaten breakfast, as he had done before, said teacher Azure Hawkins.
Two weeks before Cooper died, Harris stopped taking pictures of his son, which, Patrick testified, he did every day after dropping him off at Little Apron. Patrick said she found it odd enough that she asked Harris, who told her it was due to Cooper “getting older.”
While Harris usually took Cooper to Little Apron in the morning, his mother Leanna Taylor, now divorced from the defendant, normally picked him up in the afternoons. Michelle Gray, who stayed with the kids until their parents picked them up, testified she was the first Little Apron employee to speak with Taylor on June 18.
“What are you doing here?” Gray said she asked Taylor. “Cooper’s not here.”
Taylor was “confused, she was frantic,” Gray testified. Asked by lead defense attorney Maddox Kilgore if Taylor seemed genuinely surprised her son was absent, Gray replied, “Yes,” and said she told Cobb police the same thing when interviewed on July 1, 2014.
Two days later, Cobb Police Det. Phil Stoddard, testifying at Harris' probable cause hearing, portrayed Taylor in a much different light.
When told no one had dropped Cooper off that morning, Leanna immediately responded, in front of several witnesses, that “Ross must’ve left him in the car,” Stoddard said.
“They tried to console her, said there could be a million other reasons why Cooper wasn’t there,” the detective said. But Leanna was adamant, he testified. He never mentioned Gray’s account.
Gray also testified that Cobb police apparently believed Harris called her after he discovered Cooper’s body. According to telephone records, Harris called the phone in Gray’s room at Little Apron and had a six-minute conversation. She was adamant she did not talk with him on the phone that day.
“I was frustrated, because I know I didn’t pick up the phone,” Gray said.
Investigators also asked Gray if she was involved with Harris, which she denied, even after police threatened her with a criminal charge of making a false statement.
All of the teachers at Little Apron spoke highly of the Harrises and their son. Academy director Melony Gibson testified Harris was actively involved in his son’s life, often volunteering to participate in school functions. Once, he even dressed up like the Home Depot drill.
Cooper, said Gibson, was “an affable child, calm nature, a normal, soon-to-be 2-year-old.” And he was gregarious, just like his dad.
“We definitely knew when Ross was in the building,” Gibson said.
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