Closing Statements : The Death of Cooper Harris

issues at trial. The jury has spoken. This is about what the case looks like from the inside looking out. The case was extensively litigated by very good lawyers on both sides. A jury reached a verdict, and it's not our place to relitigate those issues. But we do want to bring you inside the case for an insider's look at the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris. Place your left hand on the bay Bible

and Andre's your right hand and repeat after me. I solemnly swear the jury trying it defended, not scared and a rob the country. It makes no sense if it doesn't fit your must equipped judge. You are the last line of reason in this case. Very one of those to all the apothis and we're sworn to uphold of the Constitution. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. This is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. After releasing the first episode of the Death of Cooper Harris, I received a very

interesting and unexpected phone call. It was from Leanna Taylor, the ex wife of Ross Harris and mother to Cooper Harris. As fate would have it, she was a listener of Sworn herself, and she asked to speak with me for the podcast. I am Leanna Taylor, and Cooper is my son, and I'm the ex wife of Ross Hairs. When this case first started, how were you made aware of your son's death? I was told by a detectives that came to Ross's workplace. I was not able to find my

son at daycare. He wasn't there, and I was frantically trying to get in touch with Ross and was not able to And eventually, after trying to find him at work when his cell phone wouldn't connect, got a security guard involved and a daycare worker from Cooper's staycare, and

we weren't able to locate him. We knew that he had left work and that was That was it, but we weren't able to locate exactly where he was, where Ross was, And eventually I've a phone call from an unknown number and when I answered it, it was the detective of Cobb County basically telling me to stay where I was, that they were going to come to me, but they wouldn't tell me what was going on. They wouldn't tell me, you know, if Cooper was okay or if Ross was okay. I didn't know any details. I

didn't know what had happened. So they came to Ross's office, which is where I was at the time, took me into a room and basically told me what had happened. What was that like? Can you describe what you felt in that moment? It was awful. I mean I spent about I spent about thirty minutes in this state of mind of not knowing where Cooper was or what was going on, and uh, I knew in my heart that

something had happened. I knew that something bad had happened, and you're just kind of in the state of maybe I'm overreacting, maybe I'm thinking the worst, but a part of my brain was still working. It was still you know, thinking of a Cooper should have been at daycare. Something's really really wrong. And by the time they got there, I had got myself. I was worked up on the inside, but not on the outside. I was going through all

the scenarios in my head. I mean, I've seen video of myself up here very calm, but only inside I was. I was very distraught. When they got there, it was it was kind of like a dream state. It was very odd experience. I felt pretty much like I was floating. It felt very much like you feel in a dream when it feels extremely real but you know something really really bad is off. It just felt very foreign, just

really odd. You're knowing that something that you're about to get told some really bad news, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing you can do to stop it, and there's nothing you can do to change it. It's just happening. It's almost kind of like being swept up in a in a wave and being pulled under. I mean, you can't stop it. There's nothing you can do.

It's just happening. Well, obviously, we know this case was a very high profile case and lots of things were speculated about and lots was made about statements and conversations that you had with your now ex husband, particularly in the police holding cell. There was a conversation where you were heard to ask him, did you say too much? What did you mean by that? I want to be very clear in the fact that I was legitimately out

of my mind. I I was so confused. I didn't show any of that on the outside, and that tends to be my personality anyway. I'm just I'm not a very openly emotional person. I keep a lot of stuff internalized. I had a lot of thoughts running through my head, and I was very confused. I had just been told that my son had died. I'd been told how he died, and I couldn't make sense of anything, really, you know. I had Ross sitting in front of me telling me that he was going to be charged, and I couldn't

reconcile that either. And when you're sitting there in a state of mind where you're really you're really not believing what's happening, you're trying to, at least I was trying to figure out, Okay, how what's going on, How is this happening? How are they charging him? I didn't believe that it was intentional. I believe that it was was an accident. And that was kind of the mindset that

I had. And I knew Ross, and I knew the kind of person that he was personality wise, and I knew that he talked a lot, and I knew that he would carry on a conversation, you know, longer than needed. I guess she could say. The only thing that I could think in my head is if they're charging him with this, then he must have said something that made him look guilty in a way. And I didn't because I didn't understand the charges of the time. I wouldn't have been able to understand it if they had clearly

explained it to me, which I'm sure they did. I wasn't in a mental or emotional state to really understand what was happening. And that's the only thing that I could think. Ross said something to make him sounds guilty in a way, and now they're charging him. And so that's basically what came out of my mouth. Did you say too much? And I didn't preface that statement with anything.

The thoughts in my head were going, and I just, you know, just said, well, did you say too much, and I can see where that could be seen as a suspicious statement, you know, now looking back on it and knowing the circumstances at the time, I mean I was I was not thinking about a video camera in there. I wasn't thinking about an audio recording. I was thinking about my son being gone and my husband at the time being arrested for his murder. And that's the only

thing that I was thinking about. I wasn't trying to do anything that sounded suspicious or didn't sound suspicious. I truly was just in that moment and trying to understand what was happening in that situation. I was just trying

to understand what was happening in that situation. What would you have to say to the people who watched this case closely and who saw that recording of that conversation in the holding cell and felt like your attention was improperly focused more on your husband than on your late child. What would you say to those people? I would say that you have no idea how you're going to react

in any given situation until you're in that situation. If I had been told a month before that this is going to happen to you, I would have told them that they would have had to put me in a mental institution, that there's no way I would have been able to survive it. But we have an ability, our bodies and brains have an ability to overcome things in our lives that we never would have thought was possible.

And in that situation, I'm very much a kind of person that I'm trying to fix what's going on right in front of me, and the only thing that was in front of me it was Ross, and that was the only thing that I knew to focus on. Was you know, at that time, you've got to people have got to understand it. At that time, I was a I was a wife, and yes my husband was cheating on me, but I didn't know that at the time. I'm sure my reaction would have probably been different had

that been knowledge that I had at the time. I didn't have any of that knowledge, and so for all intentsive purposes, I was speaking to my husband that I trusted and that I didn't feel had done this on purpose. And I'm a nurturing type of person anyway, that was just a default mode that I went into. Ross was in front of me, and the there wasn't anything that I could do for Cooper. And I don't mean that the way it maybe sounds two people, but there was

nothing that I could do Cooper at that point. It was too late. The only thing that I could do

was trying to help Ross at the time. I want to fast forward just a minute to Cooper's funeral, and at the funeral when you were giving, in essence a eulogy, the media was there and it was everything was recorded, and so that it was audio that was broadcast of basically you saying words to the effect that you would not bring Cooper back if you could, but that Ross was a good father and you would you would have

another child with him. People found that to be an unusual statement, and a lot of people found it to be a suspicious statement. What would you say to those people and what did you mean by that? I can understand how that could be taken a couple of different ways.

I can playing it in the way that I am a Christian and I'm very strong in my faith, and we believe as Christians that when you die, especially children, we believe that they go immediately to heaven, and heaven is a place of paradise, it's the place of no tears and no pain. And as a mother who is burying her child, I was trying to be unselfish, and I was still in a very strange mental state at that point. I was I was not emotionally stainable. I

was not mentally stable in any way. And it's not like I've said anything with the intention of people taking it and picking it apart and trying to make something that it wasn't. But as a parent, if your child is experiencing something amazing like heaven, that's paradise, it would be selfish for you to to pull them back from that. But I don't want that to be confused with the fact that if I could have prevented what happened to Cooper opening the Cooper, I would have prevented it. I

would have prevented him that pain. I would have prevented him that suffering. I would have never chosen that for him in any way. I think that what I said was just kind of taken out of the context that I meant it in. I really don't know how to explain it other than the fact that I believe that Cooper's in heaven. I believe that he's there now, and I believe that heaven is a much better place than we live on earth, and that it would be selfish of me to pull him back from that now as

a selfish human, because I am a selfish human. Do I wish I had my son right now? Absolutely? I mean I'm having to watch my friends who had children around the same time I had Cooper send to their children off to kindergarten this year. I'll never see him do that. I'll never see him play ball, I'll never see him graduate from high school. I'll never dance with him at his wedding like I'll I'll never have those experiences with him, and I want that. I wanted that

with him, and and I can't have that. So selfishly I want those things and it hurts me every single day. What was it like for you personally? What did it feel like? What was your life like when you were living under this cloud of suspicion that you ultimately were cleared from but it took a while. What was that like? Well, I do want to be clear about something before I do elaborate on that, and and that's the fact that I don't I don't view myself as a victim in

this case. I don't live my life with a victim mentality, but there have been some tragic and terrible things happened in my life that are just facts of my life. And sometimes when I talk about those things, people get the idea that I'm playing the victim card. That's not the case, so I just wanted to kind of clarify that before I did give details on this. It was very difficult to be and I was simultaneously mourning the loss of my child and dealing with the fact that

my husband was in jail. You know, when you have bad things happen in your life, the world doesn't stop. You think it should, but it doesn't stop, and you still have responsibilities as an adult. And then finding out that you know, not only am I having to deal with the loss of my son in the absence of my husband being in jail, now I'm a suspect, and it was very difficult to deal with. I'm an only child, my mother's only child, and I had to prepare her,

who had just buried her only grandchild. I had to prepare her for me possibly getting arrested. It was a legitimate concern. I was advised to get an attorney. I got on an attorney. It was probably one of the smartest things that I did in my situation. And then I had to prepare my family for my possible arrest. It was horrible because I was trying to keep it together for multiple people in my life. I was trying

to be strong. I was trying to stay on my feet and prepare them for this possible nick really horrible thing to happen, and I didn't know for a while if that was going to be a reality for me. And sitting there knowing that I had absolutely nothing to do with this other than the fact that Cooper was my son, it was terrified. At the time, it was an average thirty year old dietitian, just you know, mom, just working and taking care of Cooper and being a wife,

and within a day everything changed. Where were you living and what were you doing to get by? Ross was the breadwinner of our household. I mean, he was the full time worker. He was the one that the majority of our income came from. He held our health insurance. I was just an as needed employee at the time, and I had family in Tescaloosa, and I had a position come open with the company. That I was with

around that time. Actually the position was open before everything happened, and when it happened, I made the decision and to move back to the Tuscaloosa area and be close to my family so that I would have that family support system, but also so that I could have full time employment. It was September of two thousand and fourteen that I officially moved back to the Tuscaloosa area and I started

working full time towards the end of September. Like I said, the world doesn't stop moving, and it was good for me actually to get back into a routine of some kind, something to keep me busy and and try to keep my mind off of things. So I just I went back to work about ninety days after everything happened, and it was probably one of the good things that I did for myself at that time was to get back to work and just basically keep yourself busy because you can't.

There was nothing about the situation that I could change. It was completely out of my control. I had zero power, and my goal was basically at the time to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. And that's what I did, and that's honestly, that's what I do today. People always say that it gets better, that time hills those kinds of wounds, but it's just not true. It's it doesn't get better. You just learn to live with it. You just learned to live with

the pain. That's what I did. I just learned to keep going despite what was going on in my life. Tell us about your son. I only got twenty two months with him, but they were probably the best twenty two months of my entire life. He had such a adventurous personality. I guess he could say he um. He was a happy child. He was very personable. He he wasn't scared of strangers, he wasn't scared of new people.

He was just very loving towards just about anybody. We used to joke with the daycare workers he had a lot of incident reports written up on him, and they do instant reports any time a child gets a boo

boo at the day care, and and he would. He would have very frequent falls and stuff at daycare, and we used to joke with them that he probably had one of the largest incident report files in the daycare because we would get a call several times a week that Cooper climbed on the table and bumped his head or I mean he was trying to climb on the tables in daycare before he was walking. He was just fun.

I mean, he was a pretty laid back child. We we took a trip when he was five months old, a road trip from Atlanta, Georgia, down to Miami, Florida, when he was only five months old, and he was just he was just a joy. I mean, he would get fuzzy, but it didn't last very long. I think about now what he would be like, and that is he would be five now. He would have turned five on August two, and I think about all the time. You know, what would he be like now, how tall

would he be? You know, what would his favorite things be? What would he be enjoyed. It's hard to know that I'll never know those things because I think that he would have grown to a very lovable and loving child and been into an adult. I think you would have been a very loving, caring personal. One day, let's talk about some things that you learned about your ex husband during the course of the investigation. Did you have any idea prior to the days Cooper died that your husband

might be unfaithful. I had suspicions because of some of the problems that we've had in our marriage prior to that. I didn't know that he had been unfaithful to me physically. I knew that there were some issues with pornography, and there was an occasion of some sexting that I had discovered in two thousand and ten, But I didn't know that he was actually having physical affairs with multiple women.

I didn't know that out based on those issues that you were aware of, had you sought counseling or any type of marital assistance to get past those things? We did. Neither one of us were really interested in divorce. It's strange to say, but we actually had a very good marriage. We didn't fight, we didn't have problems, We co parented very well, We got along very well. The only aspect which was very clear from the trial was intimacy issues.

That Faily way I really know how to categorize it, is that we had issues with intimacy, and that has been going on for several years, and so when I had the most recent discovery of him using pornography, probably in two thousand twelve or maybe two thousand thirteen. Honestly can't remember. We did seek professional counseling from a license sex therapist to try to kill some of the damage that had occurred in our relationship because of the pornography addiction.

I think we've been in counseling a little over each year when it happened. What was it like learning later what you learned about, what really was another life that you were not aware of that your husband was living. I don't think of it in my head as another life, but I can see how people can see it that way, But I don't think about it that way in my head. The intimacy issues in our marriage that we had that were ultimately called by his infidelity to me, it was

evidence of that betrayal. I just didn't know that that betrayal was there, but there was evidence of it in our lack of intimacy and relationship, and there were signs, I guess you could say there were signs that there was a problem. I just didn't exactly know what that problem was. Those little bits of evidence that there was a problem they showed through I just didn't know exactly

what was causing those problems at the time. Now hindsight is like they say, it's very easy to look back on our relationship now and say, well, that's exactly why we never could overcome the problems that we had because he was he was engaging in multiple affairs with multiple women. You learned, I guess from law enforcement or other sources that your husband had in fact been sexting with multiple

women and engaging in sex acts with prostitutes. When did you learn those things, and when you did, how did you react to it? So the initial information that got

regarding his extramarital affairs was at the Problem of Cause Hearing. However, there were some things said in the Problem Cause Hearing that I knew were not true because they involved me, And when that happened, I had a immediate distrust in the law enforcement, and I didn't necessarily believe what they were saying because I knew that they had said some things about me that was was not true, and I

didn't know where they drew the line. So at that time didn't know what was true, and I didn't know what wasn't true, And there were no conversations between Ross's attorney and myself about those things because of confidentiality, So I did not find out until much later the truth about some of those accusations at the time, and I would say it was probably closer to the end of two thousands, fifteens before I found out exactly how extensive

Ross's extramarital affairs were, and it was probably about six months after that information was getting demeded. I thought the divorce was that an easy thing to do, filing for divorce. Many people might say that you should have done it much sooner, right. I've seen different comments from different people about that, about me doing it. They didn't like the timing of it. My job in any of this was not to please anybody. I did things on my own

time and what I could cope with. I was feeling and reeling with the fact that my son was gone and when I got there, you know, the rest of the story and the rest of the information. So for me personally, I had to work through that. I had to. There was a lot of thinking and a lot of contemplating about, you know, each thing that I was told. It took me a while to come to terms with it.

I guess you could say I had to. I had to come around to the fact that my husband had been extremely unfaithful to me, and once I came two terms with it all, it was an easy decision. It wasn't a hard decision to make. Once I made that decision, it was done. I did not waver, it wasn't questioned. I mean, I can remember the day that I made

the decision. I went into counseling one day with my therapist that I was seeing twice a month at that time, and and I didn't go in there with the intention of, you know, talking about getting a divorced, and I don't even think we really talked about it that much. But when I walked out, the decision was made and it was done. It wasn't necessarily a hard decisi And it's just I had to I had to come to terms

with everything that had happened in my life. I had to come to terms with basically the fact that my life blew up in my face and I lost everything. I mean, I lost everything in one day, and I had to come to terms with all of that. And that's a difficult thing to come to terms with when you're thirty and your your life has basically just started. So the once I did, it wasn't a difficult decision

it was. It was hard only because when you've been married to somebody for almost a decade, and we have been dating since I was in my early twenties, and probably I think you started dating when I was twenty and I was thirty at the time. I mean, his family had become my family and had been my second

family for a third of my life. And it was a difficult decision to make because of those aspects that when you looked at the facts of it, and I just couldn't, regardless of what was going to happen in the future with a trial, regardless of any of that, I could not reconcile with being deceived that severely for that long. What was it like, some two years or so after the fact, to have to drive to Brunswick, Georgia, to go into a courtroom full of people that you

don't know and relive this. I really don't know any way to explain it other than absolutely horrible. I mean, it was a torturous experience. When you go through something like that in your life, that traumatic, and you get to a point where you feel like you're able to move forward, it's almost like starting your life over again. I couldn't do that until the trial was over with.

I couldn't move forward in many ways until that was behind me, because I knew that as soon as I got up on that stand and had to start reliving that day and that experience, that it would be a secondary traumatic experience. Everything that I said was going to be picked apart. It does not at or you know, what my intentions have been in any of this process, situation, of these experiencesiness that I've had every time I opened my mouth, I say something that is is taken wrong

by somebody. It's not my job to please everybody. I can't please everybody, And if somebody is going to think something, then they're going to think it is. That's not my problem. I can't change that. For the most part, I didn't know, you know, what was coming next. I didn't know, you know, what they were gonna do. I didn't know if they were going to try to show me pictures. I didn't know if they were going to try to show me things that I was not going to physically be able

to be able to witness and see. It was scary what happened when you walked out of the courtroom the first day, when I walked out of the courtroom, I I basically just wrote down there was a result of me trying to hold it together for an entire eight hour period, and when I walked off, it just all came out. I was in the company a few people that are close to me, and one of them was my attorney, and he had never seen me like that. He had never seen me in that kind of state.

I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't breathe. It was a good thirty minutes of just of them just basically trying to get me to start breathing again. It just all came out. At one time. You reached out to me after you heard part one of this podcast. Why did you do that? I think that the main thing that really struck me with something that Chuck Boring said in the first episode about how a lot of times, especially child victims, don't have anybody there for them at trial,

and they don't have anybody to speak for them. And that was never my intentions with Cooper to not I was there for him during the trial, and that was never my intention in any of this for it to appear as though I was supportive of my son throughout the trial. I believe you testified that Ross ruined your life. Do you still feel that way? I mean, yeah, She's

the reason why I don't have my son anymore. And the actions that he took during our marriage and being unfaithful to me, there's a reason that everything else happened. If those extramarital affairs were what made him appear and look like to be a very bad person, if it had just been Cooper, if it had just been losing Cooper, that would have been bad enough. I mean, that was that would have been enough to have to deal with.

It just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and most of that was because of the things that he was doing outside of our marriage, and so I stand by that statement. He's a big part of why I hurt the way that I did today. How did you become a listener a Swan? I travel a lot for work. I've spent about eight hours in my car every week

committing to work. And it was suggested by a friend that I listened to have been vanished, and so I started listening to that a couple of months ago, and basically Binge listened to most of the episodes and eventually caught up to real time and you know, didn't have

to wait for the episodes to come out. That's where I found out about Born And so when Thorne started up, I migrated over to that podcast and I started listening to it and listened to the first couple of episodes and never crossed my mind that you would have an episode on Cooper. And then you know, I listened to the trailer of the next episode and and realized what it's going to be about. I actually didn't see the trailer until the day that the episode dropped. The first episode,

so uh, Jerry cautiously listened to it. I had made somebody listen to it with me, because I don't like to over listen to things that it's been involved Cooper and and our situation without support of some kinds. I had to about you listen to it with me. I was surprised at the impartiality of it. It seems with our situation, you either follow on one side or the other, and the and the media to begin with was very They didn't have any trouble following on one side or

the other, and they made no apologies for that. And any time I hear anything about our our story that is obviously trying very hard to be impartial and and look at those sides of it. I'm very respectful of that, and I appreciate that very much because it is very difficult to be on the hate side of a mob. That's basically what I've experienced for a lot of the past three years of my life is being on the hate side of a mob, and not a physical mob, but a social media mob. Do you see any parallels

in your stories and listening to have been vanished? Obviously I did listened to it in a way to you know, have something to listen to all the way to work, and a lot of people see the true crime podcasts as a form of entertainment, and obviously that's how I viewed up and Vanish. But I never I never forgot the fact that these were real people, that Terror was somebody's daughter, and that she was lost and they didn't know where she was for you know, ten plus years,

and and it's it's the pain that they experienced. I can relate to that very much. But to think, the thing that really really got me were the episodes on Marcus Harper, and especially after they actually made an arrest in the case, you know, after he was basically found to not be involved in her disappearance. I remember, you know, listening to those episodes and thinking, oh, my gosh, I know how he feels. I know, I know what that feels like. For people to think that you were complicit

in something horrible happening to somebody that you've loved. That's a very difficult place to be in emotionally, to know that people think that you're capable of something so horrible, and that people legitimately believe it. They're not leaving that train of thoughts, and I just thought, man, I know, unfortunately, know how he feels. I know what that feels like. So what is your life like now? Three years later?

It's a pretty normal, boring her life. I work as a dietician with the same company that I worked with before I left the Atlanta area. I try to find small joys in my life, in the relationships that I have with my family and my friends. My perspective of things is completely different now than it was three years ago. I don't worry about little things that I used to worry about. I don't take for granted the people in my life and the people that I love. I wouldn't

say I've necessarily turned into a spontaneous person. That's not my personality. But I definitely appreciate the little things in life and I'm not going to take for granted anything ever again, probably because when you have your most your most precious thing in your life taken from you, and nothing else can compare to that. There's you know, little arguments or work difficulties in the scheme of things. They're nothing.

They're not worth getting worked up over losing sleepover, because there are way worse things that can happen in your life. I guess just overall, I'm probably a more compassionate person. I look at things differently, especially news stories when I see them come on the news or see them pop up on social media or newspapers or whatever. I think about things well differently. I think about everybody in the scenarios and what they're having to go through emotionally because

of of that situation in their life. And so I think I'm overall what compassionate person and just a more appreciative person of a little things in life. What do you say to people now that it's been publicly declare that there's no evidence to suggest that you were involved in Cooper's death. What do you say to people who did or do still think that you had something to do with Cooper's death. That is something that I've essentially had to relieve myself up and move on from because

I can't change somebody's opinion. I can't change their fault understanding of what happened. There's nothing that I can do to change that. But I would just urge people to withhold judgment because unless you have walked in that person's shoes, unless you have experience of things that they have experienced,

you have no idea what they're going through. You have no idea what they've been through, and you have no idea the pain that can be caused to the person because of the things that you say and things that you do with just what Chinee did, its information that you have about their life. I mean, it's not your life, it's not your experiences. And a lot of these people that get so obsessed with these cases, for number one, may need to be thankful, but it's not their situation

and not their life. And number two, they honestly just need to move on because nothing is happening because they are lashing out at somebody who has has been accused of something that they ultimately didn't do. And you just don't understand the emotional and mental damage that you can inflict on somebody with something as simple as you know, sending a extremely hateful or even threatening Facebook message. It's not helpful in any way. Did you receive threats? Yes?

I did. Do you receive threats of physical harm? I did? Of physical violence? Yeah? H How frequent was that a few? There weren't as many as as Honestly I would have thought there would have been. As bad as things got, I was not on social media at the peak of everything we're talking, and probably two years out people were still very, very angry and very accusing of me, basically things like I hope you burn in hell, you know,

think things like that of that nature. But the most hateful one was, you know, basically threatening violence on me. That's scary. I mean, to just be an average person there is experienced this, and for whatever reason, it became national news. And then to just have random people sending hateful things, it's an odd thing to experience. I've never responded to anybody that's been hateful to me, and I won't because it's not productive and it's not going to

solve anything. If somebody has an opinion, they haven't a opinion, and that that is fine. I would just caution people about actually reaching out to this person that you don't know and trying to inflict further pain on them because

you just don't know their situation. You don't know, I mean, he could be wrong, the information you have could be wrong, and and you're just causing further damage regardless of what you read in this case and this situation and the your knowledge of it going into this podcast, that Cooper was a wanted child. He was very much wanted, and he was absolutely loved and adored and cherished and nothing will ever replace him. I mean, he was irreplaceable and

you can't be undone. I think it was rather serendipitous. Who have gotten that phone call from Leanna. I couldn't have asked for a more complete ending to our story on Cooper. Now we've all had the chance to actually hear from a family member and just about the closest person to this case besides Justin Ross Harris. I think what Leanna said about learning to deal with the media is true. You can't always please everyone, and in a case like this, everyone is going to have an opinion.

After a tragic case like this is over, perhaps the only thing you can do is try your best to move on with your life. As some of you may know, there's another podcast out there that covers the Justin Ross Harris case. It's called Breakdown, and it covered the case extensively up to real time during the trial. Today I talked with Bill Rinkin, the host of Breakdown and also a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Bill is extremely well versed on the case, having covered it in

two different mediums. He's here to talk with us about his experience during the trial, as well as being in the True Crown podcast sphere in general. I'm Bill Rankin. I'm the legal affairs reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I covered the case for the newspaper, and I also hosted the Breakdown podcast, which focused on the Ross Harris case in season two. I've covered courts now for more than twenty five years, and I've loved it. I've covered

a lot of high profile cases. I covered the Michael Vick case, the quarterback for the Falcons who was accused of animal cruelty. There was a very high profile case involving the Gold Club in Atlanta with the wrecked hearing case involving mobs alleged connection with the mob and prostitutes who were having sex with professional athletes. But I think the most high profile case I'd covered before this was

the Ray Lewis murder trial. He and two others were accused of killing two people shortly after Super Bowl thirty four in Atlanta, uh and the trial here in Atlanta was followed nationwide on Court TV. And but I think Ross Harris was in another realm because social media now is so pervasive, and the attention on this case was

unlike any any other I've ever covered. I covered the case with a very able colleague, Christian Boon, and we took turns during the day that this was about a five week trial, if I recall, and we wrote stories for the our website throughout the day depending on whether big news came from testimony, And there were a lot of moments that demanded us to write updates for our

website at the same time I had to. I felt like I was part of the radio and TV crew because I was I had a recorder hooked up to the sound that came out of the courtroom, and I was having to monitor that too, make sure I could mark the most importan in moments when I heard interesting testimony and couldn'tess gracious. There was a lot of it.

When I heard somebody say something that I thought would be great on a podcast, I would market so I could go back at night after the trial was over, and then I would go back through all that recorded testimony and try to winnow down the best sound bite that I knew I would use on the weekly podcast. It was like nothing I've ever done before, and it it took a lot of time. It was very long days, but it was interesting. It was so new to me, and it was fun, actually it was. It was a

fascinating trial. During the jury selections, some jurors did say they had listened to breakdown, but I think it was just the the total inundation of news coverage about the case on all fronts TV, radio, newspapers, and social media. At first, when Cooper was found dead in the car, the case was already a national story, but after the probable cause hearing and news of his sexty and infidelities,

came out, the case just went viral. You could see sitting through jury selection and Cobb, especially before the case was moved, how so many jurors not only had fixed opinions about Harris's guild, they it was just so clear that many of them just despised him. I don't know if they could have gotten a fair and impartial jury in Cobb. I was pretty surprised when they moved it. But it was moved because of all the coverage, all

the news coverage, not just the podcast. That's for sure. Today, you know, the defense may have had a better result. That's easy to say, obviously, because they moved to Brunswick, which is a very conservative area to be It's not it's not a defense lawyer's preference to be trying a

case as a prosecutor's dream that area. So, you know, hindsight, I think they did the right thing and trying to move it because I remember one juror she said she would give them that she wanted him to have the eth penalty when she hadn't heard of single word of testimony that kind of described how some people thought about him. She was excused, of course, but the antipathy of him

in Cobb County was ferocious. Phil. I think she referenced Breakdown in context with a lot of other news media when she moved the trial and she referenced Breakdown, she was using that as an example of how how closely the case was being followed by the news media, and she was right about that. I think it's very safe to say that the true crime podcasts are becoming as they become more and more popular, and they are very popular because you know, some of these podcasts are having

millions and millions of downloads. I think they're becoming very influential. And I think it's very safe to say that Ednn Sayed's attempts for a new trial would never have received such careful scrutiny by the courts in Maryland had it not been for the attention on the case by serial and undisclosed those podcast and the prosecution in the Tera

Grinstead case. And you know, tiny Ascilla initially ordered a sweeping gag order of that I had never seen in my life, not only telling people that not to talk about the case, but having no access to documents, which

he since eased quite a bit. But it had to be because of the popularity of the great popularity the up and vanished podcast because you know, not many people were really covering the case, and that's it paid such close attention to it, and that's I think, especially people in that small area we're listening so and the judge knew that. And I guess I would hope also that Breakdown's first season played a role in how Justin Chapman's murder case was received by the courts and prosecution long

after he'd been sent to prison. You know, I did that podcast on Justin Harris many years after he had been convicted. The drive to court in Brunswick during rush hour was a breeze. So but but I guess the bad thing was spending so much time away from my family and I think everybody involved in the case I felt that. But I think as for making the podcast, it presented a lot of challenges for me. I mean, I had to most Breakdown podcast or made in a studio we have here in Atlanta, but I didn't have

that down in Brunswick. So I I made a makeshift studio in my condo bedroom closet, draped quilts over my head and I hung close up and all around me. So I recorded the podcast in a little cocoon setting so I could try to have the best sound quality as I could. You know, my dad worked for the Atlantic Constitution. He died about ten years ago. He worked for the Atlantic Constitution for twenty five years. I can'tnot imagine what he would think, you know, if he'd known

I'd done that as a newspaper reporter. We also had some very interesting developments while we were in Brunswick. We had Hurricane Matthew rumble through and the governor ordered the evacuation of the Georgia coast. I remember I left at five o'clock in the morning on the day he declared a state of emergency, and I guess by the end of the day, lines of traffic going down I sixteen West were bumper to bumper. I left early enough to

miss it, but that was crazy, you know. We also had half a day because of the presidential election, and I tell everybody during the trial, I saw Donald Trump get elected in the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, so it was all very interesting. Do you have any predictions about how long the appeal might take in this

case or what it might look like. The first thing that happened will be the motion for new trial hearing that Justin Russ Harris is Lawri's have already filed, but he has a a new quarter, pointed attorney, Mitch Durham, but he can't proceed until the trial transcript is finished. And from what I understand, and we're now nine months later and the trial transcript is yet to be prepared, it's not unusual for lengthy murder trials to for the

trial transcript to take a year or even longer. So I would think once the transcript is prepared and the motion for new trial is litigated, that could take a year, I would think, and then you would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. After that, again you have to prepare the trial transcript on the hearings for the motion for new trial. I don't know how long that will take, but the Georgia Supreme Court will hear the arguments and it takes two terms. It could take two terms of

its court to decide the case. That could be another half year to nine months, So I think we're talking three years. I don't think that's unreasonable. Justice doesn't move that quickly sometimes. Well, I always tell people that you certainly don't want to put all your eggs in the appellate basket. Your best hope to win a case is that the trial court level, because if you lose, then

the appeal could last a really really long time. And if it's not a murder case and you have a much shorter sentence, oftentimes you've served your sentence before the appeal even begins. UH motion for a new trial is heard by the judge who oversaw the trial. That would be Judge Mary Stanley Clark, and it happens sometimes, but I think it's extremely rare for a judge who oversaw the trial him or herself to order a new trial.

I think they would affirm the conviction and he will have an automatic appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, and I'm sure that's where the case will ultimately to be decided. Is there anything that you think that you might want to add that you think is important about the trial from the inside looking out? I think Veronica covered it pretty well. Who's the guy? Um, the TV guy who you had that was Vinnie Politan Benny. I thought he

said it very well. I felt the same way. I thought Harris needed to testify, even though I knew Chuck Boring would have skinned him alive, but I think the jury needed to hear what he had to say. From what I would think Maddox and Carlos and Brian felt like his videotaped interview, you know, the secretly recorded interview

at the police station, sufficed to that. But I personally, I would have liked to have heard what he had to say because, like I said at the podcast, there's really only one person who knows whether he did it or not, despite how strongly. Another thing about this case is just how strongly and fervently the pros, both the prosecution and the defense, believe they're right. You see that in trials, you know, where the defense will say I know my client sent us, and the prosecution will say, no,

he's guilty. But a lot of that is bluster. I don't believe this was bluster at all. I think that Maddox Ogre thought Justin Ross Harris was absolutely innocent. He never meant to kill his son. I think Chuck Boring believed in his heart of hearts that he did so, and like I said, there's only one person who really knows for sure, and that's Justin Ross Harris and the

jury didn't get to hear from him. And I can understand why they didn't put him on the stand, but I guess, like asking to move the jury to Brunswick instead of keeping it in Cobb, hindsight, maybe it would have been good for the jury to hear him explain what happened that day. Well. You know, that's one of the things that stood out to me from the very beginning of this case is how each side was seemingly two convinced that their side was the right side. I

believe you're right. I believe the defense in their hearts, believes he's innocent, and I believe that the prosecutors in their hearts believes that he's guilty of malice murder. And ultimately, at the end of the day, it had to be the jury to make up their mind. I would say, I bet the jury would have loved to have heard from him on the stand if any of them had

any doubts at all. You know, seeing his demeanor, heard his explanation, see his sorrow in his grief, did it seem as though the defense strategy was really too fiercely defend the murder charges or the charges related to his death and not really focus on the overwhelming evidence that

was presented regarding the sexting allegations. My impression was that the defense basically completely admitted to all the sexting allegations, and I think Maddox said in his opening statement, like I believe he played in the last episode, he was a moral and he admitted to everything. I think absolutely the defense basically laid down on the sexting and child porn charges. There was really no defense they had to combat those charges. They had it all in texts and

on computers. There was no defense to it. Really. I think their main focus was on the malice murder charge. They absolutely didn't believe that he meant to kill his son. Secondly, the criminal negligence charged, their argument was because he did not know Cooper was in the car when he left the car, he couldn't have been negligent. He would only be negligent if he knew Cooper was in the car

when he left. Of course, the prosecution argued that he absolutely knew he was in the car, but the defense argued that this was just a tragic mistake, so he could not be guilty of murder. That was their main focus. Throughout the whole trial, described for us what the atmosphere was like when we knew there was a verdict that was about to be read, and what it was like

inside that courtroom. I was not surprised that the jury found him guilty of malice, murder and criminal negligence, just because you know, when cases go to trial prosecution, the prosecutor usually wins. And I thought this was a pretty conservative jury, and I thought that the sensationalism about the

sexting was tough to overcome from her defense perspective. But when Judge Staley handed her clerk the piece of paper and he stood up to read it, you know, you could have heard a pen drop, and the anxiety and the tension in that courtroom was palpable. There's nothing like a verdict being read in court, especially after a strongly litigated trial that's received national attention. So it's one of

those moments I'll never forget. Without question. Well, we heard from the prosecution, we heard from the defense, we've heard from journalists who covered this once in a lifetime trial, and we've even heard from one of the two living people most affected by this tragedy, Cooper's mom, Leanna Taylor. Now it's time for me to share with you my final thoughts. The truth is, I do have some thoughts,

but I'm not sure that their final thoughts. This case and this trial literally consumed whatever part of my life wasn't spent with my family or my law practice. I too, was part of the media that was glued to every single part of this case, from arrest to verdict. We were there for it all, gavel to gavel, working sources, planning how we were going to cover various aspects of the proceedings. Where would be the best place to set up a live shot for television. I guess I'll let

you in on something of a little secret. Something many people don't know is that I was the first person subpoenaed as a witness for the defense in the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross hare Us. That's right, you see, the defense filed a pre trial motion seeking for the courtroom to be closed during subsequent pre trial hearings in order to protect their client from

pre trial publicity while evidentiary matters were discussed. The defense felt like they needed a witness, a talking head like me, to testify that there would be extensive media coverage of all pre trial matters, and that people like me would dissect every aspect of those proceedings and broadcast them to the pool of potential jurors. Of course, media lawyers, as they always do in situations like this, intervened, and ultimately I was released from my subpoena, and that was a

good thing. I didn't mind being on the news, but I certainly did not want to be the news. Now. You won't find a stronger advocate for open courts than I am. But I get why the defense did this. They were trying to protect their client, Maddox Killgore and his team. Well, they were doing their sworn duty, their duty to be zealous advocates for their client. But Maddox really didn't need me to tell the judge about pre trial publicity. She could see that with her own eyes.

After all, the courtroom was packed with the reporters and cameras and microphones everywhere, so she could see this with her own eyes, and by the way, she did not close the courtroom. But in all of this, the truth is that I really still cannot get my head around the idea that a father would intentionally murder his son in such a horrible way. To this very day, when I think about this case, I don't think so much

about the evidence. I don't think so much about the probable cause hearing that caused so much controversy, and I don't think about the trial or even the verdict. It is true that the initial probable cause hearing against Mr Harris made the state's case seemed quite strong, and it's also true that the evidence at trial was very different and the state's case didn't seem quite as strong by

that point. In fact, I've heard from people who watched the entire trial who had not seen the probable cause hearing, and these people mostly were stunned at the verdict at least as to the murder convictions. To most of us that followed this case closely, there was never any real doubt that Ross Harris was headed to prison. The charges against Mr Harris that were not related to murder, those

charges were factually basically indefensible. On top of that, justin Ross Harris had a second indictment returned against him for indecent images allegedly located later on his electronic devices. If convicted of those charges in that second indictment, he was facing a lot of prison time. But in the end, when I think of this case, what I think of, well,

who I think of mostly is Cooper. The death of a child is always terrible, but the way Cooper died is something I can't really fathom, not as a person and certainly not as a father myself. My hope is that Cooper's death was not in vain. At a minimum, I hope that his death raised awareness, awareness of the dangers of leaving kids in hot cars, and I hope that his death reminds the rest of us of the

dangers of risky behavior and unhealthy addictions. I hope that Leanna and others who knew and loved Cooper can find some peace and hopefully eventually some closure. Finally, I hope that Cooper rests in peace. If you have kids, give them an extra hug today in memory of Cooper Harris. Yes Because You Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta.

Story production and sound design by Payne Lindsay Executive producers Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, and if you have it yet, please check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantaged that follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High school teacher and beauty queen Tera Brinstead Up and Vantaged is available now on Apple Podcasts. The Sworn is mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market for podcast production, go to Resonate Recordings dot com to get

your first episode produced for free. If you haven't already, please head over to iTunes now to subscribe, rate, and review Sworn, and make sure you check us out online at sworn podcast dot com. Follow us on social media at Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can follow me your host, Philip Holloway at Phil Holloway e s Q. On Twitter. Show shop