Hot Car Death Dad Charged With Sexting Minors
The father charged with murdering his son by intentionally leaving him in a hot car faces new charges of sharing sexually explicit communications with underage girls.
The new indictment filed on Friday charges Justin Ross Harris of Georgia, Atlanta, with two counts of sexual exploitation of children and six counts of dissemination of harmful material to minors.
#JustinRossHarris indicted for sexually exploiting underage girls https://t.co/yvBQ3Ieyq6
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Harris’ attorney, Maddox Kilgore, expressed concern that these new charges are “a calculated maneuver to inflame public opinion against Ross on the eve of jury selection.” The state has investigated Harris’ life in exquisite detail for nearly two years, and the new charges make no new allegations of cruelty, abuse, or neglect in the new indictment that might relate to the original charges. That said, they may still influence a jury.
However, Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said in an emailed statement that their hand had been forced due to the statute of limitations. The new charges include newly discovered victims and rely on advances in electronic forensic analysis. If the state had waited any longer to file the new charges on Justin Ross Harris, some would have been barred by the statute of limitations.
The original charges to be heard in April are for the murder of his 22-month-son, Cooper, for allegedly purposefully leaving him to die in the backseat of a fatally hot SUV in June of 2014. These charges include malice murder, felony murder, and cruelty to children.
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The story made news and has confounded investigators because of the potentially accidental nature of the death. Justin Ross Harris received an outpouring of sympathy for the nightmarish circumstances of his son’s death. This sympathy quickly dried up when the grand jury’s hearing included child sex charges. During the hearing, the jury heard evidence that Harris had sent an explicit photograph of himself to an underage girl, as well as trying to get her to send photos and having sexually explicit online conversations with her.
In an emailed statement, Harris’ lawyer expresses concern for the timing of the indictment, saying, “It is clear that these allegations are wholly unrelated to the accidental death of Cooper Harris.”
“The content and timing of this indictment confirms the absence of such evidence, and it signals the State’s desperation to convict Ross of the worst mistake any of us as parents could make,” he said.
The new indictment filed on Friday names three underage girls and says, according to the Associated Press and reported by WSB Radio, that he had lewd photos of two of them, sent nude photos to two of them, and gave two of them printed material containing “explicit and detailed verbal descriptions and narrative accounts of sexual excitement and sexual conduct.”
Police estimate the boy was left in the SUV for about seven hours. It was a sunny Atlanta day, and temperatures reached the high 80s. Of course, temperatures inside of a car can become much higher. The medical examiners said the boy died of hyperthermia.
Evidence for the prosecution includes video surveillance of Justin Ross Harris going out to the car in the parking lot at least once during the day. Upon seizing Justin Ross Harris’ computer, investigators found that Harris had also looked up how long it would take an animal to die in a hot car on the internet.
The defence says Harris took Cooper to a Chick-Fil-A for breakfast but forgot to drop Cooper off at daycare before going to work. Harris’ says he forgot Cooper must have fallen asleep and was so quiet he forgot he was in the back seat. He left the SUV in the parking lot for the day and found the boy seven hours later when returning to the car after work.
Harris was immediately jailed without bond on the day of the death and has not been released since.
[Photo by Kelly J. Huff/AP]
