Murder defendant Ross Harris acted unusually calm and collected after saying he'd just discovered his son was dead, one of the first police officers to arrive at the scene testified Tuesday.
Cobb County Police Officer Jacquelyn Piper, the first witness called by the prosecution, said when she arrived at the Akers Mill Square shopping center parking lot the afternoon of June 18, 2004, she saw 22-month-old Cooper Harris on the ground. His body was “marbeled,” she said, explaining that his veins could be clearly seen under his pale skin.
“It usually means somebody has passed,” Piper said, addressing the jurors.
Harris had pulled into the mall parking lot after he said he realized he’d left Cooper in the car for seven hours while he was at work at Home Depot. When Piper first saw him, Harris was pacing back and forth in the parking lot talking on his cellphone.
“He started a mono-toned yelling that seemed really forced,” Piper said. “I found it kind of unusual.”
Piper compared Harris’ behavior to Will Ferrell’s depiction of Ron Burgundy in the movie “Anchorman.” She was apparently referring to when Burgundy, upset and wailing, called a friend from inside a phone booth, which he described as a “glass case of emotion.”
The prosecution called Piper as a witness to try and convince jurors that Harris’ behavior was contrived and that his explanation that he’d accidentally left Cooper in his car was bogus. But during a 90-minute video taken from a camera inside Piper’s car that was played to the jury, Harris, on a few occasions, could be heard crying aloud over his son’s death.
Piper testified that Harris became agitated when she asked him for his ID and took a step forward towards her and another officer who told him to get off the phone.
“Shut the (expletive) up, my son just died,” Harris told the officers.
They then subdued him in handcuffs and put him in the back of Piper’s squad car. Cobb prosecutor Chuck Boring then got Piper to give these answers to describe Harris’ conduct:
- Once in the police car, "He immediately complained about how hot it was in my vehicle," the officer testified. At that time, she said, her car's air conditioning was on.
- When asked to spell out his name and street address, Harris spoke in phonetics, such as using "alpha" for the letter "a," she said. "I thought that was unusual because most people don't talk like that."
- After being put in the police car, "he never mentioned his son," she said. "I didn't see any crying. His face wasn't wet."
- Harris also casually struck up a conversation with her on the ride to the police station, asking her how long she'd been on the force and talking about the handcuffs that bound his wrists, she said.
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