Speaker 1: The case being discussed in the next couple of episodes
Speaker 1: of Sworn was an emotional case. It was a horrific case.
Speaker 1: It was a highly publicized and emotional case. But the
Speaker 1: purpose of this podcast is not to relitigate guilt or innocence,
Speaker 1: and nothing that I say should be interpreted as an
Speaker 1: expression of my opinion about the guilt or innocence of anybody.
Speaker 1: Neither I nor this podcast is intended to relitigate the
Speaker 1: issues at trial. The jury has spoken. This is about
Speaker 1: what the case looks like from the inside looking out.
Speaker 1: The case was extensively litigated by very good lawyers on
Speaker 1: both sides. A jury reached a verdict, and it's not
Speaker 1: our place to relitigate those issues. But we do want
Speaker 1: to bring you inside the case for an insider's look
Speaker 1: at the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin
Speaker 1: Ross Harris. Place your left hand on the bay Bible
Speaker 1: and Andre's your right hand and repeat after me. I
Speaker 1: solemnly swear the jury trying it defended, not scared and
Speaker 1: a rob the country. It makes no sense if it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit your must equipped judge. You are the last
Speaker 1: line of reason in this case. Very one of those
Speaker 1: to all the apothis and we're sworn to uphold of
Speaker 1: the Constitution. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. This is Sworn.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Philip Holloway. After releasing the first episode
Speaker 1: of the Death of Cooper Harris, I received a very
Speaker 1: interesting and unexpected phone call. It was from Leanna Taylor,
Speaker 1: the ex wife of Ross Harris and mother to Cooper Harris.
Speaker 1: As fate would have it, she was a listener of
Speaker 1: Sworn herself, and she asked to speak with me for
Speaker 1: the podcast. I am Leanna Taylor, and Cooper is my son,
Speaker 1: and I'm the ex wife of Ross Hairs. When this
Speaker 1: case first started, how were you made aware of your
Speaker 1: son's death? I was told by a detectives that came
Speaker 1: to Ross's workplace. I was not able to find my
Speaker 1: son at daycare. He wasn't there, and I was frantically
Speaker 1: trying to get in touch with Ross and was not
Speaker 1: able to And eventually, after trying to find him at
Speaker 1: work when his cell phone wouldn't connect, got a security
Speaker 1: guard involved and a daycare worker from Cooper's staycare, and
Speaker 1: we weren't able to locate him. We knew that he
Speaker 1: had left work and that was That was it, but
Speaker 1: we weren't able to locate exactly where he was, where
Speaker 1: Ross was, And eventually I've a phone call from an
Speaker 1: unknown number and when I answered it, it was the
Speaker 1: detective of Cobb County basically telling me to stay where
Speaker 1: I was, that they were going to come to me,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't tell me what was going on. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell me, you know, if Cooper was okay or
Speaker 1: if Ross was okay. I didn't know any details. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what had happened. So they came to Ross's office,
Speaker 1: which is where I was at the time, took me
Speaker 1: into a room and basically told me what had happened.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Can you describe what you felt
Speaker 1: in that moment? It was awful. I mean I spent
Speaker 1: about I spent about thirty minutes in this state of
Speaker 1: mind of not knowing where Cooper was or what was
Speaker 1: going on, and uh, I knew in my heart that
Speaker 1: something had happened. I knew that something bad had happened,
Speaker 1: and you're just kind of in the state of maybe
Speaker 1: I'm overreacting, maybe I'm thinking the worst, but a part
Speaker 1: of my brain was still working. It was still you know,
Speaker 1: thinking of a Cooper should have been at daycare. Something's
Speaker 1: really really wrong. And by the time they got there,
Speaker 1: I had got myself. I was worked up on the inside,
Speaker 1: but not on the outside. I was going through all
Speaker 1: the scenarios in my head. I mean, I've seen video
Speaker 1: of myself up here very calm, but only inside I was.
Speaker 1: I was very distraught. When they got there, it was
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a dream state. It was
Speaker 1: very odd experience. I felt pretty much like I was floating.
Speaker 1: It felt very much like you feel in a dream
Speaker 1: when it feels extremely real but you know something really
Speaker 1: really bad is off. It just felt very foreign, just
Speaker 1: really odd. You're knowing that something that you're about to
Speaker 1: get told some really bad news, and there's nothing you
Speaker 1: can do about it. There's nothing you can do to
Speaker 1: stop it, and there's nothing you can do to change it.
Speaker 1: It's just happening. It's almost kind of like being swept
Speaker 1: up in a in a wave and being pulled under.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't stop it. There's nothing you can do.
Speaker 1: It's just happening. Well, obviously, we know this case was
Speaker 1: a very high profile case and lots of things were
Speaker 1: speculated about and lots was made about statements and conversations
Speaker 1: that you had with your now ex husband, particularly in
Speaker 1: the police holding cell. There was a conversation where you
Speaker 1: were heard to ask him, did you say too much?
Speaker 1: What did you mean by that? I want to be
Speaker 1: very clear in the fact that I was legitimately out
Speaker 1: of my mind. I I was so confused. I didn't
Speaker 1: show any of that on the outside, and that tends
Speaker 1: to be my personality anyway. I'm just I'm not a
Speaker 1: very openly emotional person. I keep a lot of stuff internalized.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of thoughts running through my head,
Speaker 1: and I was very confused. I had just been told
Speaker 1: that my son had died. I'd been told how he died,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't make sense of anything, really, you know.
Speaker 1: I had Ross sitting in front of me telling me
Speaker 1: that he was going to be charged, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: reconcile that either. And when you're sitting there in a
Speaker 1: state of mind where you're really you're really not believing
Speaker 1: what's happening, you're trying to, at least I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, Okay, how what's going on, How is
Speaker 1: this happening? How are they charging him? I didn't believe
Speaker 1: that it was intentional. I believe that it was was
Speaker 1: an accident. And that was kind of the mindset that
Speaker 1: I had. And I knew Ross, and I knew the
Speaker 1: kind of person that he was personality wise, and I
Speaker 1: knew that he talked a lot, and I knew that
Speaker 1: he would carry on a conversation, you know, longer than needed.
Speaker 1: I guess she could say. The only thing that I
Speaker 1: could think in my head is if they're charging him
Speaker 1: with this, then he must have said something that made
Speaker 1: him look guilty in a way. And I didn't because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand the charges of the time. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to understand it if they had clearly
Speaker 1: explained it to me, which I'm sure they did. I
Speaker 1: wasn't in a mental or emotional state to really understand
Speaker 1: what was happening. And that's the only thing that I
Speaker 1: could think. Ross said something to make him sounds guilty
Speaker 1: in a way, and now they're charging him. And so
Speaker 1: that's basically what came out of my mouth. Did you
Speaker 1: say too much? And I didn't preface that statement with anything.
Speaker 1: The thoughts in my head were going, and I just,
Speaker 1: you know, just said, well, did you say too much,
Speaker 1: and I can see where that could be seen as
Speaker 1: a suspicious statement, you know, now looking back on it
Speaker 1: and knowing the circumstances at the time, I mean I
Speaker 1: was I was not thinking about a video camera in there.
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about an audio recording. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about my son being gone and my husband at the
Speaker 1: time being arrested for his murder. And that's the only
Speaker 1: thing that I was thinking about. I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: do anything that sounded suspicious or didn't sound suspicious. I
Speaker 1: truly was just in that moment and trying to understand
Speaker 1: what was happening in that situation. I was just trying
Speaker 1: to understand what was happening in that situation. What would
Speaker 1: you have to say to the people who watched this
Speaker 1: case closely and who saw that recording of that conversation
Speaker 1: in the holding cell and felt like your attention was
Speaker 1: improperly focused more on your husband than on your late child.
Speaker 1: What would you say to those people? I would say
Speaker 1: that you have no idea how you're going to react
Speaker 1: in any given situation until you're in that situation. If
Speaker 1: I had been told a month before that this is
Speaker 1: going to happen to you, I would have told them
Speaker 1: that they would have had to put me in a
Speaker 1: mental institution, that there's no way I would have been
Speaker 1: able to survive it. But we have an ability, our
Speaker 1: bodies and brains have an ability to overcome things in
Speaker 1: our lives that we never would have thought was possible.
Speaker 1: And in that situation, I'm very much a kind of
Speaker 1: person that I'm trying to fix what's going on right
Speaker 1: in front of me, and the only thing that was
Speaker 1: in front of me it was Ross, and that was
Speaker 1: the only thing that I knew to focus on. Was
Speaker 1: you know, at that time, you've got to people have
Speaker 1: got to understand it. At that time, I was a
Speaker 1: I was a wife, and yes my husband was cheating
Speaker 1: on me, but I didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure my reaction would have probably been different had
Speaker 1: that been knowledge that I had at the time. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any of that knowledge, and so for all
Speaker 1: intentsive purposes, I was speaking to my husband that I
Speaker 1: trusted and that I didn't feel had done this on purpose.
Speaker 1: And I'm a nurturing type of person anyway, that was
Speaker 1: just a default mode that I went into. Ross was
Speaker 1: in front of me, and the there wasn't anything that
Speaker 1: I could do for Cooper. And I don't mean that
Speaker 1: the way it maybe sounds two people, but there was
Speaker 1: nothing that I could do Cooper at that point. It
Speaker 1: was too late. The only thing that I could do
Speaker 1: was trying to help Ross at the time. I want
Speaker 1: to fast forward just a minute to Cooper's funeral, and
Speaker 1: at the funeral when you were giving, in essence a eulogy,
Speaker 1: the media was there and it was everything was recorded,
Speaker 1: and so that it was audio that was broadcast of
Speaker 1: basically you saying words to the effect that you would
Speaker 1: not bring Cooper back if you could, but that Ross
Speaker 1: was a good father and you would you would have
Speaker 1: another child with him. People found that to be an
Speaker 1: unusual statement, and a lot of people found it to
Speaker 1: be a suspicious statement. What would you say to those
Speaker 1: people and what did you mean by that? I can
Speaker 1: understand how that could be taken a couple of different ways.
Speaker 1: I can playing it in the way that I am
Speaker 1: a Christian and I'm very strong in my faith, and
Speaker 1: we believe as Christians that when you die, especially children,
Speaker 1: we believe that they go immediately to heaven, and heaven
Speaker 1: is a place of paradise, it's the place of no
Speaker 1: tears and no pain. And as a mother who is
Speaker 1: burying her child, I was trying to be unselfish, and
Speaker 1: I was still in a very strange mental state at
Speaker 1: that point. I was I was not emotionally stainable. I
Speaker 1: was not mentally stable in any way. And it's not
Speaker 1: like I've said anything with the intention of people taking
Speaker 1: it and picking it apart and trying to make something
Speaker 1: that it wasn't. But as a parent, if your child
Speaker 1: is experiencing something amazing like heaven, that's paradise, it would
Speaker 1: be selfish for you to to pull them back from that.
Speaker 1: But I don't want that to be confused with the
Speaker 1: fact that if I could have prevented what happened to
Speaker 1: Cooper opening the Cooper, I would have prevented it. I
Speaker 1: would have prevented him that pain. I would have prevented
Speaker 1: him that suffering. I would have never chosen that for
Speaker 1: him in any way. I think that what I said
Speaker 1: was just kind of taken out of the context that
Speaker 1: I meant it in. I really don't know how to
Speaker 1: explain it other than the fact that I believe that
Speaker 1: Cooper's in heaven. I believe that he's there now, and
Speaker 1: I believe that heaven is a much better place than
Speaker 1: we live on earth, and that it would be selfish
Speaker 1: of me to pull him back from that now as
Speaker 1: a selfish human, because I am a selfish human. Do
Speaker 1: I wish I had my son right now? Absolutely? I
Speaker 1: mean I'm having to watch my friends who had children
Speaker 1: around the same time I had Cooper send to their
Speaker 1: children off to kindergarten this year. I'll never see him
Speaker 1: do that. I'll never see him play ball, I'll never
Speaker 1: see him graduate from high school. I'll never dance with
Speaker 1: him at his wedding like I'll I'll never have those
Speaker 1: experiences with him, and I want that. I wanted that
Speaker 1: with him, and and I can't have that. So selfishly
Speaker 1: I want those things and it hurts me every single day.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you personally? What did it
Speaker 1: feel like? What was your life like when you were
Speaker 1: living under this cloud of suspicion that you ultimately were
Speaker 1: cleared from but it took a while. What was that like? Well,
Speaker 1: I do want to be clear about something before I
Speaker 1: do elaborate on that, and and that's the fact that
Speaker 1: I don't I don't view myself as a victim in
Speaker 1: this case. I don't live my life with a victim mentality,
Speaker 1: but there have been some tragic and terrible things happened
Speaker 1: in my life that are just facts of my life.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when I talk about those things, people get
Speaker 1: the idea that I'm playing the victim card. That's not
Speaker 1: the case, so I just wanted to kind of clarify
Speaker 1: that before I did give details on this. It was
Speaker 1: very difficult to be and I was simultaneously mourning the
Speaker 1: loss of my child and dealing with the fact that
Speaker 1: my husband was in jail. You know, when you have
Speaker 1: bad things happen in your life, the world doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: You think it should, but it doesn't stop, and you
Speaker 1: still have responsibilities as an adult. And then finding out
Speaker 1: that you know, not only am I having to deal
Speaker 1: with the loss of my son in the absence of
Speaker 1: my husband being in jail, now I'm a suspect, and
Speaker 1: it was very difficult to deal with. I'm an only child,
Speaker 1: my mother's only child, and I had to prepare her,
Speaker 1: who had just buried her only grandchild. I had to
Speaker 1: prepare her for me possibly getting arrested. It was a
Speaker 1: legitimate concern. I was advised to get an attorney. I
Speaker 1: got on an attorney. It was probably one of the
Speaker 1: smartest things that I did in my situation. And then
Speaker 1: I had to prepare my family for my possible arrest.
Speaker 1: It was horrible because I was trying to keep it
Speaker 1: together for multiple people in my life. I was trying
Speaker 1: to be strong. I was trying to stay on my
Speaker 1: feet and prepare them for this possible nick really horrible
Speaker 1: thing to happen, and I didn't know for a while
Speaker 1: if that was going to be a reality for me.
Speaker 1: And sitting there knowing that I had absolutely nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this other than the fact that Cooper was
Speaker 1: my son, it was terrified. At the time, it was
Speaker 1: an average thirty year old dietitian, just you know, mom,
Speaker 1: just working and taking care of Cooper and being a wife,
Speaker 1: and within a day everything changed. Where were you living
Speaker 1: and what were you doing to get by? Ross was
Speaker 1: the breadwinner of our household. I mean, he was the
Speaker 1: full time worker. He was the one that the majority
Speaker 1: of our income came from. He held our health insurance.
Speaker 1: I was just an as needed employee at the time,
Speaker 1: and I had family in Tescaloosa, and I had a
Speaker 1: position come open with the company. That I was with
Speaker 1: around that time. Actually the position was open before everything happened,
Speaker 1: and when it happened, I made the decision and to
Speaker 1: move back to the Tuscaloosa area and be close to
Speaker 1: my family so that I would have that family support system,
Speaker 1: but also so that I could have full time employment.
Speaker 1: It was September of two thousand and fourteen that I
Speaker 1: officially moved back to the Tuscaloosa area and I started
Speaker 1: working full time towards the end of September. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the world doesn't stop moving, and it was good for
Speaker 1: me actually to get back into a routine of some kind,
Speaker 1: something to keep me busy and and try to keep
Speaker 1: my mind off of things. So I just I went
Speaker 1: back to work about ninety days after everything happened, and
Speaker 1: it was probably one of the good things that I
Speaker 1: did for myself at that time was to get back
Speaker 1: to work and just basically keep yourself busy because you can't.
Speaker 1: There was nothing about the situation that I could change.
Speaker 1: It was completely out of my control. I had zero power,
Speaker 1: and my goal was basically at the time to put
Speaker 1: one foot in front of the other and keep moving.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did, and that's honestly, that's what
Speaker 1: I do today. People always say that it gets better,
Speaker 1: that time hills those kinds of wounds, but it's just
Speaker 1: not true. It's it doesn't get better. You just learn
Speaker 1: to live with it. You just learned to live with
Speaker 1: the pain. That's what I did. I just learned to
Speaker 1: keep going despite what was going on in my life.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your son. I only got twenty two
Speaker 1: months with him, but they were probably the best twenty
Speaker 1: two months of my entire life. He had such a
Speaker 1: adventurous personality. I guess he could say he um. He
Speaker 1: was a happy child. He was very personable. He he
Speaker 1: wasn't scared of strangers, he wasn't scared of new people.
Speaker 1: He was just very loving towards just about anybody. We
Speaker 1: used to joke with the daycare workers he had a
Speaker 1: lot of incident reports written up on him, and they
Speaker 1: do instant reports any time a child gets a boo
Speaker 1: boo at the day care, and and he would. He
Speaker 1: would have very frequent falls and stuff at daycare, and
Speaker 1: we used to joke with them that he probably had
Speaker 1: one of the largest incident report files in the daycare
Speaker 1: because we would get a call several times a week
Speaker 1: that Cooper climbed on the table and bumped his head
Speaker 1: or I mean he was trying to climb on the
Speaker 1: tables in daycare before he was walking. He was just fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a pretty laid back child. We
Speaker 1: we took a trip when he was five months old,
Speaker 1: a road trip from Atlanta, Georgia, down to Miami, Florida,
Speaker 1: when he was only five months old, and he was
Speaker 1: just he was just a joy. I mean, he would
Speaker 1: get fuzzy, but it didn't last very long. I think
Speaker 1: about now what he would be like, and that is
Speaker 1: he would be five now. He would have turned five
Speaker 1: on August two, and I think about all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, what would he be like now, how tall
Speaker 1: would he be? You know, what would his favorite things be?
Speaker 1: What would he be enjoyed. It's hard to know that
Speaker 1: I'll never know those things because I think that he
Speaker 1: would have grown to a very lovable and loving child
Speaker 1: and been into an adult. I think you would have
Speaker 1: been a very loving, caring personal. One day, let's talk
Speaker 1: about some things that you learned about your ex husband
Speaker 1: during the course of the investigation. Did you have any
Speaker 1: idea prior to the days Cooper died that your husband
Speaker 1: might be unfaithful. I had suspicions because of some of
Speaker 1: the problems that we've had in our marriage prior to that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that he had been unfaithful to me physically.
Speaker 1: I knew that there were some issues with pornography, and
Speaker 1: there was an occasion of some sexting that I had
Speaker 1: discovered in two thousand and ten, But I didn't know
Speaker 1: that he was actually having physical affairs with multiple women.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that out based on those issues that
Speaker 1: you were aware of, had you sought counseling or any
Speaker 1: type of marital assistance to get past those things? We did.
Speaker 1: Neither one of us were really interested in divorce. It's
Speaker 1: strange to say, but we actually had a very good marriage.
Speaker 1: We didn't fight, we didn't have problems, We co parented
Speaker 1: very well, We got along very well. The only aspect
Speaker 1: which was very clear from the trial was intimacy issues.
Speaker 1: That Faily way I really know how to categorize it,
Speaker 1: is that we had issues with intimacy, and that has
Speaker 1: been going on for several years, and so when I
Speaker 1: had the most recent discovery of him using pornography, probably
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve or maybe two thousand thirteen. Honestly
Speaker 1: can't remember. We did seek professional counseling from a license
Speaker 1: sex therapist to try to kill some of the damage
Speaker 1: that had occurred in our relationship because of the pornography addiction.
Speaker 1: I think we've been in counseling a little over each
Speaker 1: year when it happened. What was it like learning later
Speaker 1: what you learned about, what really was another life that
Speaker 1: you were not aware of that your husband was living.
Speaker 1: I don't think of it in my head as another life,
Speaker 1: but I can see how people can see it that way,
Speaker 1: But I don't think about it that way in my head.
Speaker 1: The intimacy issues in our marriage that we had that
Speaker 1: were ultimately called by his infidelity to me, it was
Speaker 1: evidence of that betrayal. I just didn't know that that
Speaker 1: betrayal was there, but there was evidence of it in
Speaker 1: our lack of intimacy and relationship, and there were signs,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say there were signs that there
Speaker 1: was a problem. I just didn't exactly know what that
Speaker 1: problem was. Those little bits of evidence that there was
Speaker 1: a problem they showed through I just didn't know exactly
Speaker 1: what was causing those problems at the time. Now hindsight
Speaker 1: is like they say, it's very easy to look back
Speaker 1: on our relationship now and say, well, that's exactly why
Speaker 1: we never could overcome the problems that we had because
Speaker 1: he was he was engaging in multiple affairs with multiple women.
Speaker 1: You learned, I guess from law enforcement or other sources
Speaker 1: that your husband had in fact been sexting with multiple
Speaker 1: women and engaging in sex acts with prostitutes. When did
Speaker 1: you learn those things, and when you did, how did
Speaker 1: you react to it? So the initial information that got
Speaker 1: regarding his extramarital affairs was at the Problem of Cause Hearing. However,
Speaker 1: there were some things said in the Problem Cause Hearing
Speaker 1: that I knew were not true because they involved me,
Speaker 1: And when that happened, I had a immediate distrust in
Speaker 1: the law enforcement, and I didn't necessarily believe what they
Speaker 1: were saying because I knew that they had said some
Speaker 1: things about me that was was not true, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know where they drew the line. So at that
Speaker 1: time didn't know what was true, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what wasn't true, And there were no conversations between Ross's
Speaker 1: attorney and myself about those things because of confidentiality, So
Speaker 1: I did not find out until much later the truth
Speaker 1: about some of those accusations at the time, and I
Speaker 1: would say it was probably closer to the end of
Speaker 1: two thousands, fifteens before I found out exactly how extensive
Speaker 1: Ross's extramarital affairs were, and it was probably about six
Speaker 1: months after that information was getting demeded. I thought the
Speaker 1: divorce was that an easy thing to do, filing for divorce.
Speaker 1: Many people might say that you should have done it
Speaker 1: much sooner, right. I've seen different comments from different people
Speaker 1: about that, about me doing it. They didn't like the
Speaker 1: timing of it. My job in any of this was
Speaker 1: not to please anybody. I did things on my own
Speaker 1: time and what I could cope with. I was feeling
Speaker 1: and reeling with the fact that my son was gone
Speaker 1: and when I got there, you know, the rest of
Speaker 1: the story and the rest of the information. So for
Speaker 1: me personally, I had to work through that. I had to.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of thinking and a lot of
Speaker 1: contemplating about, you know, each thing that I was told.
Speaker 1: It took me a while to come to terms with it.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say I had to. I had
Speaker 1: to come around to the fact that my husband had
Speaker 1: been extremely unfaithful to me, and once I came two
Speaker 1: terms with it all, it was an easy decision. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a hard decision to make. Once I made that decision,
Speaker 1: it was done. I did not waver, it wasn't questioned.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can remember the day that I made
Speaker 1: the decision. I went into counseling one day with my
Speaker 1: therapist that I was seeing twice a month at that time,
Speaker 1: and and I didn't go in there with the intention of,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about getting a divorced, and I don't
Speaker 1: even think we really talked about it that much. But
Speaker 1: when I walked out, the decision was made and it
Speaker 1: was done. It wasn't necessarily a hard decisi And it's
Speaker 1: just I had to I had to come to terms
Speaker 1: with everything that had happened in my life. I had
Speaker 1: to come to terms with basically the fact that my
Speaker 1: life blew up in my face and I lost everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I lost everything in one day, and I
Speaker 1: had to come to terms with all of that. And
Speaker 1: that's a difficult thing to come to terms with when
Speaker 1: you're thirty and your your life has basically just started.
Speaker 1: So the once I did, it wasn't a difficult decision
Speaker 1: it was. It was hard only because when you've been
Speaker 1: married to somebody for almost a decade, and we have
Speaker 1: been dating since I was in my early twenties, and
Speaker 1: probably I think you started dating when I was twenty
Speaker 1: and I was thirty at the time. I mean, his
Speaker 1: family had become my family and had been my second
Speaker 1: family for a third of my life. And it was
Speaker 1: a difficult decision to make because of those aspects that
Speaker 1: when you looked at the facts of it, and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't, regardless of what was going to happen in
Speaker 1: the future with a trial, regardless of any of that,
Speaker 1: I could not reconcile with being deceived that severely for
Speaker 1: that long. What was it like, some two years or
Speaker 1: so after the fact, to have to drive to Brunswick, Georgia,
Speaker 1: to go into a courtroom full of people that you
Speaker 1: don't know and relive this. I really don't know any
Speaker 1: way to explain it other than absolutely horrible. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a torturous experience. When you go through something
Speaker 1: like that in your life, that traumatic, and you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you feel like you're able to
Speaker 1: move forward, it's almost like starting your life over again.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that until the trial was over with.
Speaker 1: I couldn't move forward in many ways until that was
Speaker 1: behind me, because I knew that as soon as I
Speaker 1: got up on that stand and had to start reliving
Speaker 1: that day and that experience, that it would be a
Speaker 1: secondary traumatic experience. Everything that I said was going to
Speaker 1: be picked apart. It does not at or you know,
Speaker 1: what my intentions have been in any of this process, situation,
Speaker 1: of these experiencesiness that I've had every time I opened
Speaker 1: my mouth, I say something that is is taken wrong
Speaker 1: by somebody. It's not my job to please everybody. I
Speaker 1: can't please everybody, And if somebody is going to think something,
Speaker 1: then they're going to think it is. That's not my problem.
Speaker 1: I can't change that. For the most part, I didn't know,
Speaker 1: you know, what was coming next. I didn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: what they were gonna do. I didn't know if they
Speaker 1: were going to try to show me pictures. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if they were going to try to show me
Speaker 1: things that I was not going to physically be able
Speaker 1: to be able to witness and see. It was scary
Speaker 1: what happened when you walked out of the courtroom the
Speaker 1: first day, when I walked out of the courtroom, I
Speaker 1: I basically just wrote down there was a result of
Speaker 1: me trying to hold it together for an entire eight
Speaker 1: hour period, and when I walked off, it just all
Speaker 1: came out. I was in the company a few people
Speaker 1: that are close to me, and one of them was
Speaker 1: my attorney, and he had never seen me like that.
Speaker 1: He had never seen me in that kind of state.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't breathe. It was a
Speaker 1: good thirty minutes of just of them just basically trying
Speaker 1: to get me to start breathing again. It just all
Speaker 1: came out. At one time. You reached out to me
Speaker 1: after you heard part one of this podcast. Why did
Speaker 1: you do that? I think that the main thing that
Speaker 1: really struck me with something that Chuck Boring said in
Speaker 1: the first episode about how a lot of times, especially
Speaker 1: child victims, don't have anybody there for them at trial,
Speaker 1: and they don't have anybody to speak for them. And
Speaker 1: that was never my intentions with Cooper to not I
Speaker 1: was there for him during the trial, and that was
Speaker 1: never my intention in any of this for it to
Speaker 1: appear as though I was supportive of my son throughout
Speaker 1: the trial. I believe you testified that Ross ruined your life.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel that way? I mean, yeah, She's
Speaker 1: the reason why I don't have my son anymore. And
Speaker 1: the actions that he took during our marriage and being
Speaker 1: unfaithful to me, there's a reason that everything else happened.
Speaker 1: If those extramarital affairs were what made him appear and
Speaker 1: look like to be a very bad person, if it
Speaker 1: had just been Cooper, if it had just been losing Cooper,
Speaker 1: that would have been bad enough. I mean, that was
Speaker 1: that would have been enough to have to deal with.
Speaker 1: It just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and
Speaker 1: most of that was because of the things that he
Speaker 1: was doing outside of our marriage, and so I stand
Speaker 1: by that statement. He's a big part of why I
Speaker 1: hurt the way that I did today. How did you
Speaker 1: become a listener a Swan? I travel a lot for work.
Speaker 1: I've spent about eight hours in my car every week
Speaker 1: committing to work. And it was suggested by a friend
Speaker 1: that I listened to have been vanished, and so I
Speaker 1: started listening to that a couple of months ago, and
Speaker 1: basically Binge listened to most of the episodes and eventually
Speaker 1: caught up to real time and you know, didn't have
Speaker 1: to wait for the episodes to come out. That's where
Speaker 1: I found out about Born And so when Thorne started up,
Speaker 1: I migrated over to that podcast and I started listening
Speaker 1: to it and listened to the first couple of episodes
Speaker 1: and never crossed my mind that you would have an
Speaker 1: episode on Cooper. And then you know, I listened to
Speaker 1: the trailer of the next episode and and realized what
Speaker 1: it's going to be about. I actually didn't see the
Speaker 1: trailer until the day that the episode dropped. The first episode,
Speaker 1: so uh, Jerry cautiously listened to it. I had made
Speaker 1: somebody listen to it with me, because I don't like
Speaker 1: to over listen to things that it's been involved Cooper
Speaker 1: and and our situation without support of some kinds. I
Speaker 1: had to about you listen to it with me. I
Speaker 1: was surprised at the impartiality of it. It seems with
Speaker 1: our situation, you either follow on one side or the other,
Speaker 1: and the and the media to begin with was very
Speaker 1: They didn't have any trouble following on one side or
Speaker 1: the other, and they made no apologies for that. And
Speaker 1: any time I hear anything about our our story that
Speaker 1: is obviously trying very hard to be impartial and and
Speaker 1: look at those sides of it. I'm very respectful of that,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that very much because it is very
Speaker 1: difficult to be on the hate side of a mob.
Speaker 1: That's basically what I've experienced for a lot of the
Speaker 1: past three years of my life is being on the
Speaker 1: hate side of a mob, and not a physical mob,
Speaker 1: but a social media mob. Do you see any parallels
Speaker 1: in your stories and listening to have been vanished? Obviously
Speaker 1: I did listened to it in a way to you know,
Speaker 1: have something to listen to all the way to work,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people see the true crime podcasts
Speaker 1: as a form of entertainment, and obviously that's how I
Speaker 1: viewed up and Vanish. But I never I never forgot
Speaker 1: the fact that these were real people, that Terror was
Speaker 1: somebody's daughter, and that she was lost and they didn't
Speaker 1: know where she was for you know, ten plus years,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's the pain that they experienced. I
Speaker 1: can relate to that very much. But to think, the
Speaker 1: thing that really really got me were the episodes on
Speaker 1: Marcus Harper, and especially after they actually made an arrest
Speaker 1: in the case, you know, after he was basically found
Speaker 1: to not be involved in her disappearance. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: listening to those episodes and thinking, oh, my gosh, I
Speaker 1: know how he feels. I know, I know what that
Speaker 1: feels like. For people to think that you were complicit
Speaker 1: in something horrible happening to somebody that you've loved. That's
Speaker 1: a very difficult place to be in emotionally, to know
Speaker 1: that people think that you're capable of something so horrible,
Speaker 1: and that people legitimately believe it. They're not leaving that
Speaker 1: train of thoughts, and I just thought, man, I know, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: know how he feels. I know what that feels like.
Speaker 1: So what is your life like now? Three years later?
Speaker 1: It's a pretty normal, boring her life. I work as
Speaker 1: a dietician with the same company that I worked with
Speaker 1: before I left the Atlanta area. I try to find
Speaker 1: small joys in my life, in the relationships that I
Speaker 1: have with my family and my friends. My perspective of
Speaker 1: things is completely different now than it was three years ago.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about little things that I used to
Speaker 1: worry about. I don't take for granted the people in
Speaker 1: my life and the people that I love. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say I've necessarily turned into a spontaneous person. That's not
Speaker 1: my personality. But I definitely appreciate the little things in
Speaker 1: life and I'm not going to take for granted anything
Speaker 1: ever again, probably because when you have your most your
Speaker 1: most precious thing in your life taken from you, and
Speaker 1: nothing else can compare to that. There's you know, little
Speaker 1: arguments or work difficulties in the scheme of things. They're nothing.
Speaker 1: They're not worth getting worked up over losing sleepover, because
Speaker 1: there are way worse things that can happen in your life.
Speaker 1: I guess just overall, I'm probably a more compassionate person.
Speaker 1: I look at things differently, especially news stories when I
Speaker 1: see them come on the news or see them pop
Speaker 1: up on social media or newspapers or whatever. I think
Speaker 1: about things well differently. I think about everybody in the
Speaker 1: scenarios and what they're having to go through emotionally because
Speaker 1: of of that situation in their life. And so I
Speaker 1: think I'm overall what compassionate person and just a more
Speaker 1: appreciative person of a little things in life. What do
Speaker 1: you say to people now that it's been publicly declare
Speaker 1: that there's no evidence to suggest that you were involved
Speaker 1: in Cooper's death. What do you say to people who
Speaker 1: did or do still think that you had something to
Speaker 1: do with Cooper's death. That is something that I've essentially
Speaker 1: had to relieve myself up and move on from because
Speaker 1: I can't change somebody's opinion. I can't change their fault
Speaker 1: understanding of what happened. There's nothing that I can do
Speaker 1: to change that. But I would just urge people to
Speaker 1: withhold judgment because unless you have walked in that person's shoes,
Speaker 1: unless you have experience of things that they have experienced,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what they're going through. You have
Speaker 1: no idea what they've been through, and you have no
Speaker 1: idea the pain that can be caused to the person
Speaker 1: because of the things that you say and things that
Speaker 1: you do with just what Chinee did, its information that
Speaker 1: you have about their life. I mean, it's not your life,
Speaker 1: it's not your experiences. And a lot of these people
Speaker 1: that get so obsessed with these cases, for number one,
Speaker 1: may need to be thankful, but it's not their situation
Speaker 1: and not their life. And number two, they honestly just
Speaker 1: need to move on because nothing is happening because they
Speaker 1: are lashing out at somebody who has has been accused
Speaker 1: of something that they ultimately didn't do. And you just
Speaker 1: don't understand the emotional and mental damage that you can
Speaker 1: inflict on somebody with something as simple as you know,
Speaker 1: sending a extremely hateful or even threatening Facebook message. It's
Speaker 1: not helpful in any way. Did you receive threats? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did. Do you receive threats of physical harm? I did?
Speaker 1: Of physical violence? Yeah? H How frequent was that a few?
Speaker 1: There weren't as many as as Honestly I would have
Speaker 1: thought there would have been. As bad as things got,
Speaker 1: I was not on social media at the peak of
Speaker 1: everything we're talking, and probably two years out people were
Speaker 1: still very, very angry and very accusing of me, basically
Speaker 1: things like I hope you burn in hell, you know,
Speaker 1: think things like that of that nature. But the most
Speaker 1: hateful one was, you know, basically threatening violence on me.
Speaker 1: That's scary. I mean, to just be an average person
Speaker 1: there is experienced this, and for whatever reason, it became
Speaker 1: national news. And then to just have random people sending
Speaker 1: hateful things, it's an odd thing to experience. I've never
Speaker 1: responded to anybody that's been hateful to me, and I
Speaker 1: won't because it's not productive and it's not going to
Speaker 1: solve anything. If somebody has an opinion, they haven't a opinion,
Speaker 1: and that that is fine. I would just caution people
Speaker 1: about actually reaching out to this person that you don't
Speaker 1: know and trying to inflict further pain on them because
Speaker 1: you just don't know their situation. You don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: he could be wrong, the information you have could be wrong,
Speaker 1: and and you're just causing further damage regardless of what
Speaker 1: you read in this case and this situation and the
Speaker 1: your knowledge of it going into this podcast, that Cooper
Speaker 1: was a wanted child. He was very much wanted, and
Speaker 1: he was absolutely loved and adored and cherished and nothing
Speaker 1: will ever replace him. I mean, he was irreplaceable and
Speaker 1: you can't be undone. I think it was rather serendipitous.
Speaker 1: Who have gotten that phone call from Leanna. I couldn't
Speaker 1: have asked for a more complete ending to our story
Speaker 1: on Cooper. Now we've all had the chance to actually
Speaker 1: hear from a family member and just about the closest
Speaker 1: person to this case besides Justin Ross Harris. I think
Speaker 1: what Leanna said about learning to deal with the media
Speaker 1: is true. You can't always please everyone, and in a
Speaker 1: case like this, everyone is going to have an opinion.
Speaker 1: After a tragic case like this is over, perhaps the
Speaker 1: only thing you can do is try your best to
Speaker 1: move on with your life. As some of you may know,
Speaker 1: there's another podcast out there that covers the Justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris case. It's called Breakdown, and it covered the case
Speaker 1: extensively up to real time during the trial. Today I
Speaker 1: talked with Bill Rinkin, the host of Breakdown and also
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Bill is
Speaker 1: extremely well versed on the case, having covered it in
Speaker 1: two different mediums. He's here to talk with us about
Speaker 1: his experience during the trial, as well as being in
Speaker 1: the True Crown podcast sphere in general. I'm Bill Rankin.
Speaker 1: I'm the legal affairs reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Speaker 1: I covered the case for the newspaper, and I also
Speaker 1: hosted the Breakdown podcast, which focused on the Ross Harris
Speaker 1: case in season two. I've covered courts now for more
Speaker 1: than twenty five years, and I've loved it. I've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of high profile cases. I covered the Michael
Speaker 1: Vick case, the quarterback for the Falcons who was accused
Speaker 1: of animal cruelty. There was a very high profile case
Speaker 1: involving the Gold Club in Atlanta with the wrecked hearing
Speaker 1: case involving mobs alleged connection with the mob and prostitutes
Speaker 1: who were having sex with professional athletes. But I think
Speaker 1: the most high profile case I'd covered before this was
Speaker 1: the Ray Lewis murder trial. He and two others were
Speaker 1: accused of killing two people shortly after Super Bowl thirty
Speaker 1: four in Atlanta, uh and the trial here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: was followed nationwide on Court TV. And but I think
Speaker 1: Ross Harris was in another realm because social media now
Speaker 1: is so pervasive, and the attention on this case was
Speaker 1: unlike any any other I've ever covered. I covered the
Speaker 1: case with a very able colleague, Christian Boon, and we
Speaker 1: took turns during the day that this was about a
Speaker 1: five week trial, if I recall, and we wrote stories
Speaker 1: for the our website throughout the day depending on whether
Speaker 1: big news came from testimony, And there were a lot
Speaker 1: of moments that demanded us to write updates for our
Speaker 1: website at the same time I had to. I felt
Speaker 1: like I was part of the radio and TV crew
Speaker 1: because I was I had a recorder hooked up to
Speaker 1: the sound that came out of the courtroom, and I
Speaker 1: was having to monitor that too, make sure I could
Speaker 1: mark the most importan in moments when I heard interesting
Speaker 1: testimony and couldn'tess gracious. There was a lot of it.
Speaker 1: When I heard somebody say something that I thought would
Speaker 1: be great on a podcast, I would market so I
Speaker 1: could go back at night after the trial was over,
Speaker 1: and then I would go back through all that recorded
Speaker 1: testimony and try to winnow down the best sound bite
Speaker 1: that I knew I would use on the weekly podcast.
Speaker 1: It was like nothing I've ever done before, and it
Speaker 1: it took a lot of time. It was very long days,
Speaker 1: but it was interesting. It was so new to me,
Speaker 1: and it was fun, actually it was. It was a
Speaker 1: fascinating trial. During the jury selections, some jurors did say
Speaker 1: they had listened to breakdown, but I think it was
Speaker 1: just the the total inundation of news coverage about the
Speaker 1: case on all fronts TV, radio, newspapers, and social media.
Speaker 1: At first, when Cooper was found dead in the car,
Speaker 1: the case was already a national story, but after the
Speaker 1: probable cause hearing and news of his sexty and infidelities,
Speaker 1: came out, the case just went viral. You could see
Speaker 1: sitting through jury selection and Cobb, especially before the case
Speaker 1: was moved, how so many jurors not only had fixed
Speaker 1: opinions about Harris's guild, they it was just so clear
Speaker 1: that many of them just despised him. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they could have gotten a fair and impartial jury
Speaker 1: in Cobb. I was pretty surprised when they moved it.
Speaker 1: But it was moved because of all the coverage, all
Speaker 1: the news coverage, not just the podcast. That's for sure. Today,
Speaker 1: you know, the defense may have had a better result.
Speaker 1: That's easy to say, obviously, because they moved to Brunswick,
Speaker 1: which is a very conservative area to be It's not
Speaker 1: it's not a defense lawyer's preference to be trying a
Speaker 1: case as a prosecutor's dream that area. So, you know, hindsight,
Speaker 1: I think they did the right thing and trying to
Speaker 1: move it because I remember one juror she said she
Speaker 1: would give them that she wanted him to have the
Speaker 1: eth penalty when she hadn't heard of single word of
Speaker 1: testimony that kind of described how some people thought about him.
Speaker 1: She was excused, of course, but the antipathy of him
Speaker 1: in Cobb County was ferocious. Phil. I think she referenced
Speaker 1: Breakdown in context with a lot of other news media
Speaker 1: when she moved the trial and she referenced Breakdown, she
Speaker 1: was using that as an example of how how closely
Speaker 1: the case was being followed by the news media, and
Speaker 1: she was right about that. I think it's very safe
Speaker 1: to say that the true crime podcasts are becoming as
Speaker 1: they become more and more popular, and they are very
Speaker 1: popular because you know, some of these podcasts are having
Speaker 1: millions and millions of downloads. I think they're becoming very influential.
Speaker 1: And I think it's very safe to say that Ednn
Speaker 1: Sayed's attempts for a new trial would never have received
Speaker 1: such careful scrutiny by the courts in Maryland had it
Speaker 1: not been for the attention on the case by serial
Speaker 1: and undisclosed those podcast and the prosecution in the Tera
Speaker 1: Grinstead case. And you know, tiny Ascilla initially ordered a
Speaker 1: sweeping gag order of that I had never seen in
Speaker 1: my life, not only telling people that not to talk
Speaker 1: about the case, but having no access to documents, which
Speaker 1: he since eased quite a bit. But it had to
Speaker 1: be because of the popularity of the great popularity the
Speaker 1: up and vanished podcast because you know, not many people
Speaker 1: were really covering the case, and that's it paid such
Speaker 1: close attention to it, and that's I think, especially people
Speaker 1: in that small area we're listening so and the judge
Speaker 1: knew that. And I guess I would hope also that
Speaker 1: Breakdown's first season played a role in how Justin Chapman's
Speaker 1: murder case was received by the courts and prosecution long
Speaker 1: after he'd been sent to prison. You know, I did
Speaker 1: that podcast on Justin Harris many years after he had
Speaker 1: been convicted. The drive to court in Brunswick during rush
Speaker 1: hour was a breeze. So but but I guess the
Speaker 1: bad thing was spending so much time away from my
Speaker 1: family and I think everybody involved in the case I
Speaker 1: felt that. But I think as for making the podcast,
Speaker 1: it presented a lot of challenges for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had to most Breakdown podcast or made in a
Speaker 1: studio we have here in Atlanta, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: that down in Brunswick. So I I made a makeshift
Speaker 1: studio in my condo bedroom closet, draped quilts over my
Speaker 1: head and I hung close up and all around me.
Speaker 1: So I recorded the podcast in a little cocoon setting
Speaker 1: so I could try to have the best sound quality
Speaker 1: as I could. You know, my dad worked for the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Constitution. He died about ten years ago. He worked
Speaker 1: for the Atlantic Constitution for twenty five years. I can'tnot
Speaker 1: imagine what he would think, you know, if he'd known
Speaker 1: I'd done that as a newspaper reporter. We also had
Speaker 1: some very interesting developments while we were in Brunswick. We
Speaker 1: had Hurricane Matthew rumble through and the governor ordered the
Speaker 1: evacuation of the Georgia coast. I remember I left at
Speaker 1: five o'clock in the morning on the day he declared
Speaker 1: a state of emergency, and I guess by the end
Speaker 1: of the day, lines of traffic going down I sixteen
Speaker 1: West were bumper to bumper. I left early enough to
Speaker 1: miss it, but that was crazy, you know. We also
Speaker 1: had half a day because of the presidential election, and
Speaker 1: I tell everybody during the trial, I saw Donald Trump
Speaker 1: get elected in the Chicago Cubs win the World Series,
Speaker 1: so it was all very interesting. Do you have any
Speaker 1: predictions about how long the appeal might take in this
Speaker 1: case or what it might look like. The first thing
Speaker 1: that happened will be the motion for new trial hearing
Speaker 1: that Justin Russ Harris is Lawri's have already filed, but
Speaker 1: he has a a new quarter, pointed attorney, Mitch Durham,
Speaker 1: but he can't proceed until the trial transcript is finished.
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, and we're now nine months
Speaker 1: later and the trial transcript is yet to be prepared,
Speaker 1: it's not unusual for lengthy murder trials to for the
Speaker 1: trial transcript to take a year or even longer. So
Speaker 1: I would think once the transcript is prepared and the
Speaker 1: motion for new trial is litigated, that could take a year,
Speaker 1: I would think, and then you would appeal to the
Speaker 1: Georgia Supreme Court. After that, again you have to prepare
Speaker 1: the trial transcript on the hearings for the motion for
Speaker 1: new trial. I don't know how long that will take,
Speaker 1: but the Georgia Supreme Court will hear the arguments and
Speaker 1: it takes two terms. It could take two terms of
Speaker 1: its court to decide the case. That could be another
Speaker 1: half year to nine months, So I think we're talking
Speaker 1: three years. I don't think that's unreasonable. Justice doesn't move
Speaker 1: that quickly sometimes. Well, I always tell people that you
Speaker 1: certainly don't want to put all your eggs in the
Speaker 1: appellate basket. Your best hope to win a case is
Speaker 1: that the trial court level, because if you lose, then
Speaker 1: the appeal could last a really really long time. And
Speaker 1: if it's not a murder case and you have a
Speaker 1: much shorter sentence, oftentimes you've served your sentence before the
Speaker 1: appeal even begins. UH motion for a new trial is
Speaker 1: heard by the judge who oversaw the trial. That would
Speaker 1: be Judge Mary Stanley Clark, and it happens sometimes, but
Speaker 1: I think it's extremely rare for a judge who oversaw
Speaker 1: the trial him or herself to order a new trial.
Speaker 1: I think they would affirm the conviction and he will
Speaker 1: have an automatic appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's where the case will ultimately to be decided.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you think that you might want
Speaker 1: to add that you think is important about the trial
Speaker 1: from the inside looking out? I think Veronica covered it
Speaker 1: pretty well. Who's the guy? Um, the TV guy who
Speaker 1: you had that was Vinnie Politan Benny. I thought he
Speaker 1: said it very well. I felt the same way. I
Speaker 1: thought Harris needed to testify, even though I knew Chuck
Speaker 1: Boring would have skinned him alive, but I think the
Speaker 1: jury needed to hear what he had to say. From
Speaker 1: what I would think Maddox and Carlos and Brian felt
Speaker 1: like his videotaped interview, you know, the secretly recorded interview
Speaker 1: at the police station, sufficed to that. But I personally,
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have heard what he had
Speaker 1: to say because, like I said at the podcast, there's
Speaker 1: really only one person who knows whether he did it
Speaker 1: or not, despite how strongly. Another thing about this case
Speaker 1: is just how strongly and fervently the pros, both the
Speaker 1: prosecution and the defense, believe they're right. You see that
Speaker 1: in trials, you know, where the defense will say I
Speaker 1: know my client sent us, and the prosecution will say, no,
Speaker 1: he's guilty. But a lot of that is bluster. I
Speaker 1: don't believe this was bluster at all. I think that
Speaker 1: Maddox Ogre thought Justin Ross Harris was absolutely innocent. He
Speaker 1: never meant to kill his son. I think Chuck Boring
Speaker 1: believed in his heart of hearts that he did so,
Speaker 1: and like I said, there's only one person who really
Speaker 1: knows for sure, and that's Justin Ross Harris and the
Speaker 1: jury didn't get to hear from him. And I can
Speaker 1: understand why they didn't put him on the stand, but
Speaker 1: I guess, like asking to move the jury to Brunswick
Speaker 1: instead of keeping it in Cobb, hindsight, maybe it would
Speaker 1: have been good for the jury to hear him explain
Speaker 1: what happened that day. Well. You know, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that stood out to me from the very
Speaker 1: beginning of this case is how each side was seemingly
Speaker 1: two convinced that their side was the right side. I
Speaker 1: believe you're right. I believe the defense in their hearts,
Speaker 1: believes he's innocent, and I believe that the prosecutors in
Speaker 1: their hearts believes that he's guilty of malice murder. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it had to be
Speaker 1: the jury to make up their mind. I would say,
Speaker 1: I bet the jury would have loved to have heard
Speaker 1: from him on the stand if any of them had
Speaker 1: any doubts at all. You know, seeing his demeanor, heard
Speaker 1: his explanation, see his sorrow in his grief, did it
Speaker 1: seem as though the defense strategy was really too fiercely
Speaker 1: defend the murder charges or the charges related to his
Speaker 1: death and not really focus on the overwhelming evidence that
Speaker 1: was presented regarding the sexting allegations. My impression was that
Speaker 1: the defense basically completely admitted to all the sexting allegations,
Speaker 1: and I think Maddox said in his opening statement, like
Speaker 1: I believe he played in the last episode, he was
Speaker 1: a moral and he admitted to everything. I think absolutely
Speaker 1: the defense basically laid down on the sexting and child
Speaker 1: porn charges. There was really no defense they had to
Speaker 1: combat those charges. They had it all in texts and
Speaker 1: on computers. There was no defense to it. Really. I
Speaker 1: think their main focus was on the malice murder charge.
Speaker 1: They absolutely didn't believe that he meant to kill his son. Secondly,
Speaker 1: the criminal negligence charged, their argument was because he did
Speaker 1: not know Cooper was in the car when he left
Speaker 1: the car, he couldn't have been negligent. He would only
Speaker 1: be negligent if he knew Cooper was in the car
Speaker 1: when he left. Of course, the prosecution argued that he
Speaker 1: absolutely knew he was in the car, but the defense
Speaker 1: argued that this was just a tragic mistake, so he
Speaker 1: could not be guilty of murder. That was their main focus.
Speaker 1: Throughout the whole trial, described for us what the atmosphere
Speaker 1: was like when we knew there was a verdict that
Speaker 1: was about to be read, and what it was like
Speaker 1: inside that courtroom. I was not surprised that the jury
Speaker 1: found him guilty of malice, murder and criminal negligence, just
Speaker 1: because you know, when cases go to trial prosecution, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor usually wins. And I thought this was a pretty
Speaker 1: conservative jury, and I thought that the sensationalism about the
Speaker 1: sexting was tough to overcome from her defense perspective. But
Speaker 1: when Judge Staley handed her clerk the piece of paper
Speaker 1: and he stood up to read it, you know, you
Speaker 1: could have heard a pen drop, and the anxiety and
Speaker 1: the tension in that courtroom was palpable. There's nothing like
Speaker 1: a verdict being read in court, especially after a strongly
Speaker 1: litigated trial that's received national attention. So it's one of
Speaker 1: those moments I'll never forget. Without question. Well, we heard
Speaker 1: from the prosecution, we heard from the defense, we've heard
Speaker 1: from journalists who covered this once in a lifetime trial,
Speaker 1: and we've even heard from one of the two living
Speaker 1: people most affected by this tragedy, Cooper's mom, Leanna Taylor.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for me to share with you my
Speaker 1: final thoughts. The truth is, I do have some thoughts,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure that their final thoughts. This case
Speaker 1: and this trial literally consumed whatever part of my life
Speaker 1: wasn't spent with my family or my law practice. I too,
Speaker 1: was part of the media that was glued to every
Speaker 1: single part of this case, from arrest to verdict. We
Speaker 1: were there for it all, gavel to gavel, working sources,
Speaker 1: planning how we were going to cover various aspects of
Speaker 1: the proceedings. Where would be the best place to set
Speaker 1: up a live shot for television. I guess I'll let
Speaker 1: you in on something of a little secret. Something many
Speaker 1: people don't know is that I was the first person
Speaker 1: subpoenaed as a witness for the defense in the case
Speaker 1: of the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross hare Us.
Speaker 1: That's right, you see, the defense filed a pre trial
Speaker 1: motion seeking for the courtroom to be closed during subsequent
Speaker 1: pre trial hearings in order to protect their client from
Speaker 1: pre trial publicity while evidentiary matters were discussed. The defense
Speaker 1: felt like they needed a witness, a talking head like me,
Speaker 1: to testify that there would be extensive media coverage of
Speaker 1: all pre trial matters, and that people like me would
Speaker 1: dissect every aspect of those proceedings and broadcast them to
Speaker 1: the pool of potential jurors. Of course, media lawyers, as
Speaker 1: they always do in situations like this, intervened, and ultimately
Speaker 1: I was released from my subpoena, and that was a
Speaker 1: good thing. I didn't mind being on the news, but
Speaker 1: I certainly did not want to be the news. Now.
Speaker 1: You won't find a stronger advocate for open courts than
Speaker 1: I am. But I get why the defense did this.
Speaker 1: They were trying to protect their client, Maddox Killgore and
Speaker 1: his team. Well, they were doing their sworn duty, their
Speaker 1: duty to be zealous advocates for their client. But Maddox
Speaker 1: really didn't need me to tell the judge about pre
Speaker 1: trial publicity. She could see that with her own eyes.
Speaker 1: After all, the courtroom was packed with the reporters and
Speaker 1: cameras and microphones everywhere, so she could see this with
Speaker 1: her own eyes, and by the way, she did not
Speaker 1: close the courtroom. But in all of this, the truth
Speaker 1: is that I really still cannot get my head around
Speaker 1: the idea that a father would intentionally murder his son
Speaker 1: in such a horrible way. To this very day, when
Speaker 1: I think about this case, I don't think so much
Speaker 1: about the evidence. I don't think so much about the
Speaker 1: probable cause hearing that caused so much controversy, and I
Speaker 1: don't think about the trial or even the verdict. It
Speaker 1: is true that the initial probable cause hearing against Mr
Speaker 1: Harris made the state's case seemed quite strong, and it's
Speaker 1: also true that the evidence at trial was very different
Speaker 1: and the state's case didn't seem quite as strong by
Speaker 1: that point. In fact, I've heard from people who watched
Speaker 1: the entire trial who had not seen the probable cause hearing,
Speaker 1: and these people mostly were stunned at the verdict at
Speaker 1: least as to the murder convictions. To most of us
Speaker 1: that followed this case closely, there was never any real
Speaker 1: doubt that Ross Harris was headed to prison. The charges
Speaker 1: against Mr Harris that were not related to murder, those
Speaker 1: charges were factually basically indefensible. On top of that, justin
Speaker 1: Ross Harris had a second indictment returned against him for
Speaker 1: indecent images allegedly located later on his electronic devices. If
Speaker 1: convicted of those charges in that second indictment, he was
Speaker 1: facing a lot of prison time. But in the end,
Speaker 1: when I think of this case, what I think of, well,
Speaker 1: who I think of mostly is Cooper. The death of
Speaker 1: a child is always terrible, but the way Cooper died
Speaker 1: is something I can't really fathom, not as a person
Speaker 1: and certainly not as a father myself. My hope is
Speaker 1: that Cooper's death was not in vain. At a minimum,
Speaker 1: I hope that his death raised awareness, awareness of the
Speaker 1: dangers of leaving kids in hot cars, and I hope
Speaker 1: that his death reminds the rest of us of the
Speaker 1: dangers of risky behavior and unhealthy addictions. I hope that
Speaker 1: Leanna and others who knew and loved Cooper can find
Speaker 1: some peace and hopefully eventually some closure. Finally, I hope
Speaker 1: that Cooper rests in peace. If you have kids, give
Speaker 1: them an extra hug today in memory of Cooper Harris.
Speaker 1: Yes Because You Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Story production and sound design by Payne Lindsay Executive producers
Speaker 1: Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, and if you have it yet,
Speaker 1: please check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantaged that
Speaker 1: follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High school
Speaker 1: teacher and beauty queen Tera Brinstead Up and Vantaged is
Speaker 1: available now on Apple Podcasts. The Sworn is mixed and
Speaker 1: mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market for
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