<p>Just a note on rear facing car seats – they now make “Convertible” seats that are designed to be rear-facing until the child is 40 lb… Example:
“Graco Size4Me 70 Convertible”
<p>I have to say that there seemed to be a huge amount of pressure for my son and his ex-wife to keep grandson (now age 4) in the rear-seat position as long as possible. Big to-do between them about shopping for proper car seats, and about which one got to keep the better/larger seat post-divorce-- all with the goal of maximizing that rear-facing time. (I got frustrated over all the car seat drama and insisted on simply buying more car seats so everyone would have what they needed, which of course required the kids to spend a fair amount of effort educating grandma as to which sort of seats were acceptable.). But definitely the standard now is rear-facing up to about age 3 if possible, then a transition into a front facing booster seat with a back and a 5-point harness-which they now make large enough to accommodate kids up to 120lb.</p>
<p>Now this doesn’t tell us whether Harris had a newer seat or was following recommendations. Just that the debate about the rear-facing seat for a 22 month old is kind of bogus. Though I have a small car and figured out quickly enough that there really isn’t room for the larger seats… so a lot would depend on the brand of car seat being used. </p>
<p>However, if they don’t * stay * in the car seat, it’s not going to protect them any better than one facing forward. ( plus by the time my oldest weighed 40 lbs, I expect she was four yrs old.)
They hated taking naps because they didn’t want to miss anything, and they sure wouldn’t have put up with facing a seat back once they figured out how to get out of it.</p>
<p>But the back seat is so tight in that car, I agree that even if he hadn’t taken him to breakfast just minutes before, it is not believeable, he could back up the car and not know his son was there.</p>
<p>It’s unfathomable, how they think anyone could believe it.</p>
<p>I admit, Ive locked myself in the bathroom or my car, when it got to be too much, but to even think about hurting your kids, let alone planning it and carrying it out, is one of the worst things I can imagine.</p>
<p>It’s pretty difficult to undo the latches on some of the newer car seats – so I’m not sure that the average 3 year old could squirm their way out of a seat that easily. I’ve seen my grandson manage to get free of the shoulder straps, but as far as I know he’s never managed the crotch latch. </p>
<p>But bottom line, my kids and now my grandson have never had much reason to try to get out of their car seats. There’s always a parent or grandparent in there with them, ready to attend to their various needs. </p>
<p>So they never are alone in the car with the driver?
I haven’t seen the new car seats, but the old ones were hard enough for me to open, I don’t know how D got it open, but she is a stubborn one.
She also took her braces off herself on the way back to school.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.</p>
<p>Going back to some other details…Ross Harris told family members exactly what they needed to do to claim the life insurance on Cooper. OK, who knows how to do that? And who focuses on that within days or weeks of losing a loved one?</p>
<p>Both parents seemed obsessed SPECIFICALLY with the hot-car scenario–not the wide range of normal fears parents have about their kids.</p>
<p>Yet despite this being top of mind for both of them, neither seems to have taken precautions to make sure it didn’t happen. In addition to just being attentive when getting out of the car, to make sure the boy was not in the back seat, they could have put their own system in place to make sure it never happened. They could have put post-it notes on the dashboard of their cars. The dad could have called the mom to confirm that he was successfully dropped off at daycare. The mom could have texted him to say “drop off go OK today?” Heck, the dad used his phone throughout the day to send women pictures of his body parts–he could have texted his WIFE a picture of their happy son heading in the door to play with his friends.</p>
<p>Re insurance. If they were having financial problems already I would think that they would have to access the funds in order to pay for the funeral. I would guess Harris knew more about it than anyone. </p>
<p>Insurance policies for our kids may have been included in our automatic policies from work. I don’t remember. I assume a $25000 policy for a child would be pretty cheap. That’s also not much money. So with the low amount and the timing of the policy near his birth I would think that’s a non issue. </p>
<p>I was not impressed with the defense attorney at this hearing. He was a bit of a whiner and did not argue very effectively. I wonder if he will be the main guy.</p>
<p>^^ They didn’t need the insurance for the funeral. HD paid for the funeral. They shouldn’t have even been thinking of accessing the insurance money at this point.</p>
<p>I still think the car seat is the strongest evidence yet regardless of the recommendation of front facing vs. rear facing child car seats for that age. The car seat he was in was WAY too small and the straps were set for the smallest child settings making it extremely tight and unsafe. Because the seat was too small, the child’s head was inches over the top of the car seat making him visible. They had a larger front facing car seat which they had been using in that car but switched back to the smaller seat which was no longer safe due to the child’s size. The parents have not offered any kind of explanation for this. Even if they come up with some story to explain going back to the older, smaller seat, why would the straps be adjusted for the smallest child instead of the largest child the seat would hold?</p>
<p>I’d like to learn more about the mother. At one point I read that she worked form home but a from court room video, it was stated that she left for work round 7:00 am. Someplace else I read that they have not confirmed that she was employed anywhere. I have read that spousal privilege doesn’t apply in GA where the death of a child is involved so hopefully they will press charges on the wife too.</p>
<p>Wow, very nice of HD to pay for the funeral. </p>
<p>Hey, I would love to be wrong 2CG. </p>
<p>I don’t know the timing that well. If he is not getting paid by HD and she has no income I assume they are paycheck to paycheck. When is an appropriate time for them to discuss this money. If they do access this money I assume it goes immediately to the lawyers anyway.</p>
<p>If they were doing this in part for the money I would think it would have been a bigger payout.</p>
<p>It seems that he gave out detailed instructions as to how to access the insurance claim. This doesn’t seem like info he would have off the top of his head if he hadn’t looked it up recently. For the policy from work I could see him saying something like contact Ms. Smith in HR and she can help you with the insurance but I wouldn’t expect him to have much more insurance information without access to looking up his files.</p>
<p>There may be other motives in addition to insurance money and the desire to “child free” the new warrants cover medical records to look for evidence of past abuse and to make sure the child was developing ‘normally’ I pray that they don’t find anything in the medical records, that child endured enough at the end of his short life.</p>
<p>*, the dad used his phone throughout the day to send women pictures of his body parts- *</p>
<p>I would be happy never seeing again, any of his body parts, not to mention those usually kept concealed.
X_X </p>
<p>I cant say I worried that much about my kids when they were toddlers, after all I was responsible for them, basically 24/7. So if I was thinking about anything, it was how to get some sleep.
I think I worry more now, when they are on their own.</p>
<p>I just think it is odd for the parents to be so fixated on hot car deaths. After all, it is pretty uncommon - at least much more so than other causes of death. When my kids were toddlers I was more concerned about cancer, running into traffic or child predators. Of course, I know that everyone has their own fears. But how “ironic” that someone who fears a hot car death so much would experience one in their family. Smells fishy to me.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the dad could get in his car after work and not immediately smell the ‘dead-body-smell’. He drove several blocks to a mall w/ the dead baby in the back seat. That dead baby had to smell up the car. </p>
<p>@Tututaxi He claims he has no sense of smell, something they are checking out in his medical records. If he couldn’t smell anything what made him <em>finally</em> notice the boy’s body in the car seat while he was driving to the movies?</p>
<p>I used to fear this exact thing because I’ve always been one to “think alot” while driving. Sometimes I will arrive someplace and not even remember actually driving there. When my kids were toddlers, I was in nursing school, which is a pretty intensive program. I remember driving D1 to her preschool one day. The campus has a very large circle where you get in line to drop off and pick up. On that day, we were late, so there was no line. I circled the school as usual. After leaving the campus, and sitting at a stoplight, I heard this tiny, muted voice say, “Mommy? Are you not taking me to school?” I was so distracted, I had just driven the circle, kept going, and left the campus! This is not identical to the above scenario, but whenever I’ve read about these hot car incidents, I’ve always shuddered, and thought “There but for the grace of God go I…”</p>
<p>All of us come to CC because we love our children so much and are wanting to maximize their chances of getting into the right college so they can be equipped to have wonderful, happy lives. We probably take their rejection letters harder than they do because we care so much for them. The thought of them being hurt in an accident can strike heart stopping fear. The thought of them dying of a disease or being killed somehow: we can’t even “go there” mentally. So how someone plots to put their toddler into a boiling furnace to cause them to suffer an agonizing death, one in which the child knows he has been betrayed or not deemed important enough to remember…this just guts me. </p>
<p>There are no words which can adequately describe the parents if it turns out they did this willfully. I can’t think of something bad enough to call them. </p>