GA - Suspicion over heat death of Cooper, 22 mo., Cobb County, June 2014, #5

[Linda7NJ]

A clear motive would make a big difference in how I see this case.

Killing your own child either by severe gross neglect or premeditatedly never makes sense to me.

Motive? What motive specifically would "make sense" to you?

Money?
Wanted to be free from the responsibility?
Jealousy?

You pick one.

I'm curious as to which one would convince you,


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[Judicious1]

Same here, but I'm not so sure that a sleeping Cooper would have suffered less. When I did my research I learned a lot about how heat stroke/hyperthermia progresses and towards the terminal stage the victim begins deep gasping – enough to cause intrathoracic petechiae (tiny hemorrhages in the chest cavity) as the heart struggles to pump blood and oxygen through the body.

Unless Cooper was deeply sedated it's likely the lack of air would have aroused him. As time went on he probably became comatose but since the average length of time for death by hyperthermia to occur is about 4.6 hours, well...

Here's more info if you have a strong stomach:

http://www.jems.com/article/patient-care/how-treat-vehicular-hyperthermia-childre

This is a long and agonizing way to die.

So would someone please tell me again how a concerned and fearful parent would research this manner of death and then go on to expose their baby to those exact circumstances – by accident because they were distracted....

This case makes me sick. :furious::stormingmad:

article ( grazed over because I can't handle the details) says average is 4.6 hours but says shortest period 15 minutes. No mentioned of what ages are included. Older the child I think the longer they survive to my understanding from various news outlets. Ughhh this poor baby. As I hold my son typing this I can't bear the thought of him even being in the slightest pain for a teething ... I can't let myself go further with this train of though because I don't want to imagine anything close to how that sweet angel suffered

 

[IAMME]

I haven't been really following this until now, so forgive me if this has been discussed...
So mom and dad have both researched hot car deaths recently... From what I have read mom has said she searched "how they occur"(which I take to mean what has to go wrong to forget your baby in a hot car) http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/29/justice/georgia-toddler-death/ and dad has searched more along the lines of how long and what temp....

Have they (media or LE) said anything about other days he was absent from daycare?
Im thinking maybe dad "forgot" him before and he lived, maybe why he was sick the last couple days and why mom did her search, if dad came home and said something like "omg I accidently left him in the car all day, please forgive me im such a horrible father etc" that might have prompted mom to look up how exactly that could happen, or the increase in temperature could have reminded her of this earlier incident... and then dad did his search to find out how long and at what temp would he have to leave him to actually cause his death..... Then just waited for a hot enough day.... JMO..

I would love to see their work attendance records along with babys daycare attendance records, as well as the wording and timing of their individual searches... I don't think this is the first time this baby has been left in a car all day...

 

[RANCH]

Killing your own child either by severe gross neglect or premeditatedly never makes sense to me.

Motive? What motive specifically would "make sense" to you?

Money?
Wanted to be free from the responsibility?
Jealousy?

You pick one.

I'm curious as to which one would convince you,


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Whatever motive is backed by the evidence would be fine with me. It doesn't need to make sense. JMO.

 

[Spice]

You know how the mother said he child had been sick for 2 days?

What if the father had been making him sick for 2 days, and it didn't "work"?
What if that's when he looked up "what temperature it takes to die in a hot car"?

I keep thinking, didn't the parents talk on the phone or by email at ALL on the day of June 18? If the child had been sick for two days, wouldn't mom maybe wonder how their son fared after eating, or how he seemed about going to daycare in general? From my experience, lots of couples check-in throughout the day, esp. about their kids. Even if they didn't do that regularly, wouldn't they possibly have done so since the son had been sick? Sometimes kids don't want to go the first day back after not feeling well. I keep thinking the mom would want to ask about this.

I think, talking to mom, even IF they didn't talk about the son, would jog his memory. I really wonder if we'll see that he didn't call her or answer her calls or emails all day (and answered others?), to avoid the topic and bolster his alibi. "I was so busy with meetings, I couldn't answer her calls," or something to that effect.

ITA with all of this. My husband and I text/email daily during the workday. At least once per day, even for the most innocuous daily life things. It's the norm for most people. A text. An email. A question. Especially when you have young children.

Also the BBM------Such an upsetting but great observation. It very well could be......

 

[hopingicanhelp]

If he planned it, Then he would have already taken care of the searches. He also would not have searched on his own computer.

I just don't but this guy premeditated this.

And you could be right in that he didn't premeditate murder. However, he could have been acting in a manner that was grossly negligent or irresponsible and there was enough evidence to arrest him on that.

I don't entirely agree with the idea that he would have cleared out his searches if it was premeditated -- he didn't think there would be any warrants issued or that he would be arrested. He thought this would be the perfect crime, that he would simply be the grieving father, and that would be the end of it. He thought he was smarter than everyone -- so much so that he thought volunteering the info about the searches would help him.

Besides, perhaps he knew enough about computers to know that an investigation can pull up deleted files/searches but he didn't know enough to make that trail go away. Which would look worse to the police: 1) finding a search, asking parents about it, and finding a coincidence OR 2) finding a DELETED search that the parents claimed was coincidental ??

 

[tlcya]

:banghead: it does not matter if it was premeditated. It just plain doesn't. The burden of proof is:

Was he aware or would reasonable person be aware that he left his son in the car to bake for 7 damn hours and that that action could lead to Cooper's death? That's IT. If the answer is yes he is guilty of 2nd degree child cruelty/neglect and therefore of murder in the state of Georgia.

 

[Tawny]

Not every crime has to have a motive, though. Plenty of child negligence cases are prosecuted with no motive.

 

[Morag]

Don't most people leave at least one window open a bit on an extremely hot day? Take a look around any parking lot.

Of course, I don't live in an area where we have very many hot days (if it's 80 in July, we get all whiny about how hot it is), but we do leave one or more windows open on hot or hot-ish days. If he truly believed his car to be empty, wouldn't he have cracked the windows open a bit?

 

[popsicle]

Please note: this is a correction to my post from last night....

Ok, WS poster gngrsnap gave me a brainstorm and I decided to explore JH’s driving route a little more. When they mentioned that JH had to pass a hospital, I decided to look at hospitals on his route. Wow!

Below are driving distances of hospitals from his office (Home Depot Inc, 2455 Paces Ferry Road Southeast #20):

2 minutes away (and on route): Kaiser Permanente Cumberland Medical Center, 2525 Cumberland Parkway Southeast (thanks to gngrsnap!)
5 minutes away (just on the other side of his building): Emory-Adventist Hospital, 3949 S Cobb Dr

or…

6 minutes away: Uncle Maddio's Pizza Joint, 2955 Cobb Parkway SE

So. What this means to me is, to get to Uncle Maddio’s, he bypassed 2 hospitals. Even if I forgot my child at 3 opportunities through the day, when I was in his vicinity (+ never spoke to my spouse during the day and have the child come up in conversation, and think back to the morning? Spouse wouldn’t ask, esp. if the child had been sick two days, “How was he when you dropped him off?”), and I found him in the car and knew instantly he’d been there 7 hours+, I would drive straight to the hospital that was 2 minutes away, not some Pizza Joint! Even if I was past the hospital, I’d go back instead of to a place with no care, where we had to wait for EMS.

I think it is a good possibility that emergency services thought of this when they arrived and heard his story.

Is there a firehouse within close proximity to where he stopped?

 

[MissJ]

ITA. I think there was something about the car seat itself that triggered the hinky meter of the responding cops.

JMO

Yes and how close it was to the driver's seat.:moo:

 

[Linda7NJ]

Whatever motive is backed by the evidence would be fine with me. It doesn't need to make sense. JMO.

A motive isn't necessary.

So any old motive as long as there is evidence. Please explain what evidence specifically would be enough to convince you the motive was proven.


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[Linda7NJ]

Is there a firehouse within close proximity to where he stopped?

Iirc there's a medical center extremely ridiculously close.


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[chlban]

I wondered how the parking lot was configured. Did he have to back out of his parking space? If so, did he not look back? I know with a car seat - it seems it might have blocked his rear view or at lease he would check his blind spots.

It may be one of those parking lots where he could have driven straight out if there was no vehicle in front blocking him....just another thought.

I thought of the same thing. Since this, I have noticed that, since I have to back out of my parking space at work, I always check the Rear view before backing up and I have a clear view of the back seat of my car. Of course, I realize it can vary based on vehicle style, but I still wonder.

The bottom line for me though is the smell. There is no way that the smell was not absolutely overwhelming when he got into that car in the afternoon.
Driving any distance without noticing is not believable, IMO.

Seems more like he wanted to get somewhere where there was an audience.

 

[RANCH]

:banghead: it does not matter if it was premeditated. It just plain doesn't. The burden of proof is:

Was he aware or would reasonable person be aware that he left his son in the car to bake for 7 damn hours and that that action could lead to Cooper's death? That's IT. If the answer is yes he is guilty of 2nd degree child cruelty/neglect and therefore of murder in the state of Georgia.

The state will have to prove that he was aware and the defense will try and show that he wasn't aware. I'm not sure he was aware at this point.

JMO.

 

[tlcya]

:rollercoaster:

 

[Minette]

I'm talking about myself not LE or a possible jury. I'm not sure if there's evidence to support the second degree child cruelty charge at this point.

JMO.

RANCH, no worries, it's just that we seem to keep going around and around the question of intent, when intent isn't a factor in the current charges. As I said, what they'll have to prove is criminal negligence, that he should have known that his actions or inactions could have resulted in gross harm to another and he failed to prevent it.

Here's some discussion with case law cites on reckless conduct/criminal negligence in Georgia (and I think his own admission that he had searched for deaths of children in hot cars seals the deal on whether he knew of the probable consequences of leaving a child in a hot car all day):

http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/the-crime-of-reckless-conduct-in-georgia

 

[MyBelle]

Whatever motive is backed by the evidence would be fine with me. It doesn't need to make sense. JMO.

Does the father's claim his dead son was choking make sense?

 

[killarney rose]

Don't most people leave at least one window open a bit on an extremely hot day? Take a look around any parking lot.

Of course, I don't live in an area where we have very many hot days (if it's 80 in July, we get all whiny about how hot it is), but we do leave one or more windows open on hot or hot-ish days. If he truly believed his car to be empty, wouldn't he have cracked the windows open a bit?

I'm here in SE AL. It doesn't get much hotter than here. A cracked window isn't going to make any difference, trust me. I never leave mine open. Too many thieves. I'm not making it any easier for them to get in my vehicle.

 

[Spice]

And you could be right in that he didn't premeditate murder. However, he could have been acting in a manner that was grossly negligent or irresponsible and there was enough evidence to arrest him on that.

RSBM

I would have a much easier time believing in a panicked cover up if he did not "forget him" immediately after chickfila return to his car at noon, open the door, and go back to work.

Once I read that he did that, I felt that it was purposeful and premeditated. Nothing can convince me that he forgot him 3 minutes after interacting with him and then inexplicably would not have noticed anything at noon.

And in light of everything, the breakfast,the return trip to the car, the driving in a reeking car, the acting, the lack of calling 911 immediately in the parking lot at 4:00 P.M., the claim that he heard "choking" coming from a dead child.

Nothing can convince me that those internet searches were not murder research...plain and simple.

The restaurant was an attempt at an audience. And that audience said he appeared to be a bad actor.

He is about as bright as a blackout. His "accidental death" plan looks like nothing but a premeditated murder.