Toddler's Hot Car Death

GnocchiB
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 15:01:10 +0000

I followed the trial very closely. From one of the statements of the prosecution after the verdict, it seemed that the jurors said it wasn’t just one thing, it was all the evidence together that led to their decision.

I agree that the sexting/affairs may or may not have been good enough to be a motive on their own, but when taken with all the other little bits, it makes up a pretty damning theory of the crime that the jury believed, as do I. BTW, I discount the “child-free” website hit as important evidence because that link was contained in something a friend of his sent him, which he clicked - so from what I saw, no evidence showed that he went online to search out that site.

One of the things I heard reported - but can’t find the link - was that in the video footage of Harris going to his car at lunchtime, he had the bag of light bulbs in his left hand and used his left hand (the same hand) to open the car door. (The jury asked to see that clip again once they were deliberating.) This was while he was keeping his head above the car. Can you visualize that? It is awkward and not really what one would do naturally if one had a shopping bag to put into the car. If you think through that, it reads to me like he was doing everything possible not to lean his right side into the car, presumably because he knew his child was in there. It’s sort of like he was keeping everything but his left arm outside of the car. The video also showed him “tossing” the bag of light bulbs into the car … do you know any adult who would throw a shopping bag containing light bulbs?

And, the prosecution played the part of the interrogation in which he was recounting his day and he paused for several seconds before leaving out the part about how he went to his car after coming back from lunch with his friends. I interpret that pause as him thinking through “his cover story.”

My own personal theory is that he meant to get rid of his child on some level, very probably unconsciously, and he figured (again, likely unconsciously) that he could then wear the mantle of “dad who made a horrible mistake” without being punished further. I don’t think he’s one of those criminals who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. I don’t know the exact pyschological terms, but it reminds me of people who can be their own worst enemy because they self-sabotage. That is my theory of what happened here. JMO.