Georgia father freed from prison 10 years after his toddler died in hot car, leading to murder case
MACON, Ga — A father from Georgia has been released from prison 10 years after his toddler died in a hot car, a case that made global headlines after prosecutors accused him of murder.
MACON, Ga — A father from Georgia has been released from prison 10 years after his toddler died in a hot car, a case that made global headlines after prosecutors accused him of murder.
Justin Ross Harris was freed on Sunday — Father’s Day — from the Macon State Prison, Georgia Department of Corrections records show. He began serving his sentence on Dec. 6, 2016.
Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Atlanta area for work in 2012. He told police that on the morning of June 18, 2014, he forgot to drop off his 22-month-old son Cooper at day care. Instead, he drove straight to his job as a web developer for The Home Depot and left the child in his car seat, he told investigators.
Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours in the back seat of the Hyundai Tucson SUV outside his father’s office in suburban Atlanta, where temperatures that day reached at least into the high 80s.
At trial, prosecutors put forth a theory that Harris was miserable in his marriage and killed his son so he could be free. They presented evidence of his extramarital sexual activities, including exchanging sexually explicit messages and graphic photos with women and girls and meeting some of them for sex.
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