If you want to get rid of your kid, there are ways to do it (open adoption, say). This is awful.

I cannot imagine why a father would deliberately kill his baby especially in such a calculated way.

If it is as it appears, he's a psychopath.

their stand on the death penalty. Put him in a metal box in the desert and let him ponder what he did . Bastard. If he ever gets to prison, his fellow inmate will probably have a discussion with him about what he did.

I would oppose the death penalty for him.

Unless some judge would rule that he would be executed by leaving him in a sealed up automobile in 100 degree heat with 95% humidity until he turned into a tater tot.

Or lethally injected with a 3 drug cocktail composed of cleaning products randomly selected by the prison janitorial staff.

There are 6 billion people on earth. We don't need this one around consuming anymore of our dwindling resources.

why does his death have to be beyond-any-doubt humane??? I say give him a big fat overdose of any drug. Doesn't have to be painless, just quick.

If he did, I really cannot fathom it.
Did he have a huge life insurance policy on him?
It seems our world has many wicked people in it. Can we prepare our children for life in our society?

I have long been a news buff but I tell you it is getting harder and harder to do - I truly believe that more and more, people all over the world are behaving in ways that make no sense

getting rid of a child, in their eyes, is the equivalent of getting rid of an expensive couch that they've decided isn't as comfortable as they want. The child was clearly 'in the way'. Reading about psychopaths and how they think really opened my eyes. It's amazingly fucked up how their brains work. For instance...they may view people they don't know as a piece of paper, their extended family as a tv, their spouse and close family as an expensive piece of furniture or people...so they have people who are 'more important' to them than others but the bottom line is ALWAYS that people are things. I have an ex like that. People are nothing more than a means to an end with him. It's really no use to try to really understand how they feel...because they don't. And they don't care how we feel. It's unbelievable that people like this exist, but sadly they do.

and no cure for it.

Apparently he was seen on a security camera going out the his vehicle on at least one occasion during the day. Geez, I can't think about this case without feeling sick.

If this is all true that bastard needs to rot in an un-air-conditioned jail cell for the rest of his pathetic life. No, I don't support killing him, even for this. I'm unconditionally against the death penalty.

The monster probably thought the child would have been dead at that point but he must have still been alive.

Horrible and so sad to even think about how that child must have suffered.

I'd rather be dead that be in prison for the rest of my life. I feel for this family. So sad. Oh, and someone said he "looks guilty." What would that look be?

Based on available information

1. He and his son stopped at Chick-Fil-A (a fast-food restaurant) for breakfast. He placed his son in his carseat and drove 1/2 mile to his office. He was supposed to drop his son off at the on premises daycare. (I could understand, not forgive, forgetting if they drove 15 miles in heavy traffic between breakfast and the office but not if it was 1/2 mile).

2. He searched the internet for information about how long it takes for an animal (now they are saying maybe also a human) to die in a hot car

3. He went to his vehicle at lunchtime, opened the driver's side door and appears to have placed something inside the vehicle

4. He got in his car that afternoon, drove about 2-3 miles and all of a sudden pulled into a shopping mall parking lot and "discovered" his son dead. Witnesses tried to help and even when the paramedics arrived rather than standing by the side of his son to watch them try to revive him he was just running around screaming 'what have i done'?

The initial public response to the charge of 1st degree child cruelty and murder was negative. An online petition was started to ask the DA to drop the murder charge.

There are still many facts to be determined in this case. I am withholding judgment but it appears to me the evidence strongly suggests he did this intentionally. If so he needs to be punished according to the law.

Again, I think about the daycare run by his company.

I think all daycare facilities should "er on the side of caution." They know what children are expected, they have contact information on file.

Any child doesn't show call the 2 or 3 contact numbers they have on file and leave a message.

Several days before all of this evidence came to light, a good friend of mine was wanting to sign that petition. I talked her out of it ( thankfully) because I was like "All the facts haven't been presented yet, they haven't searched his home or his computers and phone , so we really know nothing." That's what I don't get about the people that created this petition and those that signed it. Virtually none of the facts were presented ( considering his home and electronics hadn't been searched yet) and yet they jumped to the conclusion so quickly that he was innocent with virtually no information saying that he was or he wasn't. Which is very scary. Hopefully none of those fools are on the jury or we'll have another Casey Anthony on our hands! It's cases like this that make me not completely against the death penalty, what he did was so unspeakably horrible, makes my skin crawl. Poor sweet baby

I still can't believe anyone would plan to commit such a horrible murder.

Like, he went into his office and researched this, while the child was out in the car? Or just that this 'happened at some time in the past'?

Large distinction in my mind.

Talk about an unspeakable crime.

i saw a photo of the "family"

- unfathomable what they did

if I had to leave my *cat* at home in the summer with no air conditioning. I doubt I would go to work until it was on and working again (or I could leave her somewhere where the electricity was working, like at our vet). I can't fathom how anyone could do this to another living thing, let alone their child. How can you torture your child like that? Because that's what it is, torture.

"I better just never leave my child in the car on a warm day." Or anytime really, because children just shouldn't be left unattended. If he did that much research on it, it sort of makes it sound like he did it on purpose.

Assuming one actually researches it in order to avoid it.
In his case, if he claims he was actually concerned about it, and that's why he researched it, how did he just "forget" his child in a car?

because if it was intentional , then there isn't enough punishment for him.

Unless he was on drugs or drunk or sick in some way.

did "forget" their child. Unfortunately some of these cases ended in the death of the child.

I was initially a bit skeptical but after listening to some of their stories I believe them, at least some of them.

For most of them it was either stress (such as unusually heavy traffic, work or home related stress) or an unusual circumstance (such as the father was never the one to drop the kids off or due to construction traffic was rerouted etc.) that simply took their minds from what they would normally be thinking and they went on "auto".

I know there are times when I get in the car and even if I have an important errand to run or an appointment will find myself at home having just cruised on "auto pilot".

It isn't forgivable but I can see where it could happen. Everyone is so stressed these days.

The one woman who was interviewed, an attorney, says she places her work shoes in the back seat next to her child now. She wears a pair of slippers to drive. Since she can't go into her law office in slippers she always remembers her child. They are suggesting parents place their purse, briefcase, cell phone or anything else that they would either never leave the car without or would quickly remember they had left it in the seat next to the child.

This case now appears to be turning into something unbelievably cruel and vicious. The little boy is being laid to rest today in Alabama. Her father of course cannot attend the services.

She had placed the child in a car seat in the back of the car. He drove her to work, came home and went into the house and fell asleep on the sofa.

Hours later, the child, still in the car seat was dead. The man, who, by all accounts was a great father (even his ex-wife agreed) said he didn't know his child was in the car.

The Judge (who is known to be very hard line) debated with herself on whether or not to drop the manslaughter charge.

She chose not to do so and sentenced the man to fifteen years in prison.

The child is dead. The family is shattered, including the father. And the two other children will grow up without a father.

Tragedy all around.

“Fatal Distraction”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

This is one of those sad, awful news stories that's especially conducive to making snap-assumptions about guilt -- or even skipping the assumptions entirely and jumping straight to deciding the best way of torturing the accused to death.

IMHO (and with no insult to guilt-assumers intended) the article you link to is a total MUST READ for those of us who prefer instead to withhold judgment -- at least for now -- and burden ourselves with additional, potentially-guilt blurring facts and information ... for example:

Todd Costello of Medina, Ohio, lost his son, Tyler, in 2002 after forgetting the 9-month-old in the back of his car in his office parking lot. He's had to find a way to live with the guilt. "On that morning," he says, "I had to make brief trips from building to building, and it took me past my car. But from that position, you couldn't see into the car. It was just a ball of windshield glare. I know that is a fact. But in my dreams, that scenario changes a little. I can see my son in the car. I wave, and I say, 'I'll be right back, Tyler.'"

It DOES seem hard to believe Harris could so quickly forget his son was in the car, however:

Several people ... have driven from their workplace to the day-care center to pick up the child they’d thought they’d dropped off, never noticing the corpse in the back seat.

It IS daming that security camera footage shows Harris making a lunchtime visit to his car, opening the front passenger door and putting something inside, but:

Then there is the Chattanooga, Tenn., business executive who must live with this: His motion-detector car alarm went off three separate times, out there in the broiling sun. But when he looked out, he couldn’t see anyone tampering with the car. So he remotely deactivated the alarm and went calmly back to work.

And since Harris' family and legal reps are all refusing to comment, there IS nothing but his seemingly-dubious statements to police to support his innocence, and yet (from an article about little Cooper's funeral which was held this past Saturday):

Harris' wife Leanna said "Ross is, was and will be a great daddy," to which family and friends gave a standing ovation, Leanna told the crowd she is not angry with her husband over their son's death.

Around 200 people attended the services for 22-month-old Cooper. Church officials told us the family would not make any statements to the media. But inside the funeral they spoke glowingly of Ross Harris who was listening via speakerphone from Jail.

Yes, it IS highly incriminating that Harris searched the internet re: children dying in overheated cars, but that sure seems like an extremely risky and inexact (not to mention unimaginably heartless) way to murder his infant son. But then, I don't have kids and I'm incapable of murder ...

One final, glaringly missing piece of this puzzle is motive. Of the dozen or so articles I've read about this case so far, not ONE has ventured so much as a single word as to WHY Harris would commit such a terrible crime.

Maybe there's at least a shred of validity to some of these points ... or maybe it's all just desperate bullshit I've concocted because I've reached my limit and can't face even one more example of how monstrous humans can be ... I don't know ...

educate yourself

I'm am fearful he did do it.

The moment I made bail, I'd drive home and kill myself.

Hell, I might just jump in front of a bus at the courthouse if I saw one moving fast enough, save myself the time.

The thought of living even one second with that kind of pain in my heart is unimaginable.

And this sick motherfucker did it ON PURPOSE.

He has no soul. He is an animal. He is not human.

I believe this can happen on accident, if someone is so stressed out and sleep deprived that they are just out of it. But I don't know how the person could stand to exist if it happened, I don't know how anyone could bare it. I really can not imagine continuing to live on this planet.

That he had searched info about how long an animal would survive closed inside a car inthe summer.

One couldn't possibly search for both?

might accidentally do this very thing. I might even research the subject, I'd be so scared of it.

Not saying I know either way in this case, not at all. Only saying it's POSSIBLE that this guy feared this happening because he's had very bad memory failures before.

I'm just don't know that I'm ready to proclaim this as irrefutably 'purposeful' simply because the guy researched it. It *looks bad*, but it might not be as bad as it looks.

That, combined with his actions (captured on security cam) the day it happened, makes plain negligence seem unlikely.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

That's the only word I can think of.

esp on Facebook, etc:

http://www.kidsandcars.org/userfiles/dangers/heat-stroke-safety-tips.pdf

The site also mentions other hazards - backing over a child, children killed by power windows, etc.