Well, my opinion isn't the popular one (clearly) but it's mine.
God knows I've been about this case for so long it's kind of ridiculous. Read reports, transcripts, interviews, looked at evidence Character, Analogical, Circumstantial, and from every angle physically possible.
And I think J. Ross Harris is 100% innocent of malice murder (or murder at all) in Cooper's tragic death. Negligence? God yes. But why aren't the other 30-something people who've done the same thing this year been treated as Ross was? How many of them were charged, even with so much as negligent homicide? Exactly.
There's one reason and one reason only Ross is in jail right now, and it won't make sense to some but others will get it.
When one of the cops at the scene (while paramedics were working on Cooper, a crowd had gathered, etc.) asked Ross to hang up his phone, Ross didn't respond, as though he hadn't heard him. The cop asked again, and Ross said, "Shut the fuck up!"
Because cops don't enjoy shutting the fuck up, they grabbed his phone (and kept it, which they had no right to do. Hence the sexting charges. He did it, but they had no warrant to see the contents of his phone. I don't care if they were curious or whatever reason, it was illegal.)
How many other parents of dead children were thrown into the back of a cruiser as their child lay dead on the ground, unable to get near him, touch him, anything? NONE DID.
How many other parents of dead children were charged with First Degree Murder? NONE WERE.
The media machine did it's job by hurling rumors (Ross NEVER EVER saw a site about "child-free lifestyle." A co-worker sent him a link to it, Ross DID NOT CLICK ONTO IT. Instead, he replied: "No, grossness!")
And he NEVER researched how long it takes a child to die in a hot car. NEVER. Det. Stoddard lied all the way through this farce of a trial and he's either mentally handicapped or he's a fucking liar. I'm leaning towards both. Why isn't anyone talking about that? He did just lie about small details. He told huge lies, he told the lies that convicted Ross Harris. And he did it because it would ensure a prosecution for his side.
The whole world has an opinion of this case, yet none of them can tell me a word about why they think they're right. Because they're wrong. Because they hate that a perfect child is gone and they want someone to pay, by God.
The message here isn't about hot cars or Cooper or Leanna or sending dick pics via text. The point here is DO NOT PISS OFF COPS. They're the ones who who report to the prosecution (that's their side, see) and set the pace for what's to come.
Cops are known to do many things when requested to by citizens, but shutting the fuck up isn't one of them.
J Ross Harris paid for that comment with his life (plus 37 years, if anyone's counting.) I've spoken to his mother, his cousin, and his friend from like middle school, and by every account Ross was an excellent father to his "little buddy." Over 40k was spent conceiving him, and Ross took him everywhere with him. The girls who testified they knew Ross from texting? When asked, every single one admitted he'd told them he was married and had a child.
"And did he tell you the name of that child?"
"Yes. He said Cooper." FIVE TIMES THAT WAS SAID BY FIVE GIRLS.
He must not have wanted that child-free life too much, because even the girls he flirted with over the phone knew he had a child, his name, and that Ross was, over everything else, proud of him and going to stay in his life. He loved him. I've seen nothing disputing it.
I think it's fucked up for people to be, "What a beautiful child; that guy needs to die." Why, because he had a beautiful child? Every point that can be made towards his guilt I can match with the truth.
There was ZERO evidence of guilt of Murder One, and Intent? Ludicrous. Impossible, and a shirking of a jury's duty to make their judgement based on evidence shown, not on what someone told them they saw on the Internet somewhere.
I'm sorry Cooper is gone, I am (unlike Leanna, who "wouldn't bring him back if I could." WTF?) He was beautiful, he was an angel. But he loved his father and his father loved him. Nearly 40 hot car deaths and JRH is the only one charged? Why? It's not rocket science. And because of a cop's ego and lies and assorted fuckery by LE et al, he had to grieve his son in a concrete and steel room that stunk of sweat and vomit, and he had to do it alone.
Shame on people who talk before they know of which they speak. Don't go on what you heard. Go on the evidence presented. Listen to the detectives absolutely lying (big ones, I mean) and then decide. That's the way we do it here, we see the evidence before we decide.
I thought Ross acted 100% appropriately during the trial. If he's stoic, everyone's "he doesn't even care." If he's sobbing, tears flowing, he's "another Susan Smith with crocodile tears." And if he simply hides his face into his hands, he's "trying to cry." GET OUTTA HERE. What are you, body language experts? No? Exactly.
Hopefully his appeals will see what I know to be true. That a man who would never have harmed his son was wrongly convicted due to the bias of Law Enforcement and his disrespecting them. I'd have told them to STFU too. It takes weeks, several of them, to pour over the evidence, and until you've done that, your opinion is based on.... what you heard?
That's a man's life that was just taken from him. "What you heard?" I think that's disgusting.
Pisses me off.