Almost everyone has formed an opinion on the guilt or innocence of Ross Harris, but Lyn Balfour is one of the few people who can empathize with the Marietta father accused of killing his son.
Seven years ago, Balfour, an analyst with the U.S. Army, based in Virginia, accidentally left her 9-month-old son in her car while at work, believing she had dropped him off with a baby sitter. Bryce Balfour died of hyperthermia, just as 22-month-old Cooper Harris perished on June 18 after he was left inside his father’s SUV on a hot summer day.
Charged with second-degree murder, Balfour, now 42, was eventually acquitted. Her story was told in a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature by Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten that examined how our brains, when processing routine activities, can sometimes betray us — with tragic consequences.
The Harris case has brought major attention to the dangers of kids being left in cars. On its face, that’s a good thing. But it has also created new challenges for people who want the public to understand that such a tragedy can happen to anyone.
“This case could really hurt us,” said Janette Fennell, who 18 years ago founded the organization KidsAndCars.org to highlight the dangers of children being left in vehicles. “We’ve really started to make a lot of headway in making people understand how, 90 percent of the time, these are good parents who made a tragic mistake.”
Last year, 44 children in the United States died after being left unattended in a hot vehicle, Fennell said. So far in 2014 there have been 19 reported deaths.
The decrease could be attributed to an increased vigilance — not only by parents but by the public as a whole. Fennell said there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of reported cases of youngsters being left in cars since Ross Harris’ arrest.
One such report occurred two weeks ago, when Phoebe Fletcher of Clayton County called 911 after watching Courtney Lamar Kidd leave his 3-month-old daughter in his car on his way to a court appearance. The baby was unharmed.
Fennell said she doesn’t know enough about the Harris case to reach a conclusion about whether Ross Harris intended to kill his son, as Cobb County investigators have alleged.
But the perception that Ross Harris was, at best, a negligent parent and, at worst, a monster is one advocates will now have to overcome, right or wrong.
Fennell said she worries all parents will now be judged using Harris as a template.
Last week, a Wichita, Kan., foster parent was charged with felony murder — the same charge brought against Ross Harris — after a 10-month-old girl he and his partner were in the process of adopting died after spending two hours in her car seat outside of the couple’s home.
Seth Jackson told police that he had picked up his foster daughter from day care then “somehow forgot” he had left her in the car.
Jackson’s lawyer was quick to distance her client from Ross Harris, telling a Wichita TV station there was no evidence Jackson’s two adopted children, or four foster children, had suffered any abuse.
Similarly, there has been no evidence of any prior ill treatment of Cooper Harris by his parents. Ross Harris is being held without bond in Cobb County Jail.
“We’ve seen felony murder charges before, but they usually get reduced,” Fennell said. “Now I’m afraid there’s going to be a rush to overcharge. (Jackson) was in the process of adopting the girl. Why would he want her dead?”
In her case, Balfour said prosecutors charged her just two hours after her son’s funeral.
Balfour, who is now an advocate for KidsAndCars.org, said it appears police believed Harris was guilty from the beginning.
“But it’s easy to judge people on what they did or didn’t say right after they’ve lost their child,” Balfour said. “When I was interviewed by police I don’t remember if they read me my rights or anything. I was in complete shock.”
Balfour’s routines were out of whack the day her son died — a common circumstance in such incidents.
On the night before her son’s death, Balfour had gotten little sleep because Bryce was battling a cold. When she drove to work, her son was positioned in a different car seat than usual. And she also had to drop her husband off at work because his car had been loaned to a relative.
She arrived at work believing she had left Bryce with the baby sitter.
Overwhelmed by guilt, “I wanted to know how I could’ve done this,” Balfour said.
That guilt never goes away, said Aaron Gouveia, who runs the parenting blog, The Daddy Files. Six years ago, while running errands on a cold winter afternoon in Massachusetts, he forgot that he had brought along his son, normally kept by a relative.
“Had I not forgotten my grocery list my son could have frozen to death,” Gouveia said. He never told his wife about it until writing an essay about the incident recently for Time magazine.
“I was so ashamed. Did this make me a bad parent?” Gouveia told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But it can happen to anyone.”
Balfour agrees. “The main thing,” she said, “is to try to prevent these things from happening again.”
Advocates have started a petition on the White House’s official website that would require the installation of technology in all vehicles that would alert drivers that they’ve left someone inside.
“We have buzzers that go off when you fail to fasten your seat belt or the air in your tires is low,” Fennell said. “I think our children deserve the same safeguards.”
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