It's been more than two years since 22-month-old Cooper Harris died in the back seat of a hot SUV outside a Cobb County office building.
His father, Ross Harris, is now on trial for his death.
Follow minute-by-minute coverage of the case below:
2:22 p.m. Harris begins to cry in the back seat of the patrol car saying "What have I done ... Oh my God! What have I done. My boy! My boy! Oh my boy!"
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2:13 p.m. Video shows Harris sitting in patrol car watching the scene out the back window.
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1:56 p.m. "I swore I dropped him off. I thought I did," Harris tells officer in dash cam video moments before being placed in patrol car.
Harris
Trial: Jurors see Harris in police squad car complaining it was hot, officer says he never asked about his son.
-- Ross Cavitt | WSB-TV (@RossCavittWSB)
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1:52 p.m. Video shows Harris pacing in the parking lot with his hands on his head screaming "Oh my God! Oh my God!"
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1:49 p.m. Prosecution begins video from Piper's patrol car on June 18, 2014.
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1:40 p.m. Court resumes. Prosecution says they are preparing to play an hour-and-a-half long video from the day of Cooper's death.
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12:10 p.m. Court recesses for lunch break. Witness will return to the stand at 1:30 p.m.
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12:00 p.m. Piper walks jurors through the crime scene photos.
An officer is explaining where Cooper Harris was found in a shopping center parking lot right now
-- Craig Lucie (@CraigLucie)
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11:52 a.m. State introduces photos into evidence. Boring shows Piper photos from her patrol car and photos taken by crime scene technicians of the scene on the day of Cooper's death.
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11:42 a.m. Piper says Harris made her feel uncomfortable when he tried to make small talk on the way to the police station. She says his behavior was inconsistent with what she would expect of someone who had just lost a child.
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11:37 a.m. Piper says Harris complained again about heat in the back of the car. Piper says she then told Harris he was being detained and he responded, "For what?"
Officer says Harris never asked about his son while he was detained.
-- Ross Harris Trial (@RossHarrisTrial)
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11:34 a.m. ADA Chuck Boring asks Piper about conversation between EMT and Harris in the back of the patrol car. Defense objects, but judge allows conversation to continue. Piper says Harris told EMT he fed Cooper breakfast at home.
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11:30 a.m. "He immediately complained about how hot it was in my vehicle," Piper said about the moment she put Harris into her patrol car that day.
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11:28 a.m. Piper says Harris indirectly referenced his time as a 911 dispatcher several times, using phonetics to spell his name and address and mentioning that the handcuffs are "different than the ones we used."
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11:27 a.m. Piper said Harris told her he forgot to drop his son off at day care that morning and forgot to do a "second look."
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11:19 a.m. Piper says when asked to get off the phone, Harris took a step towards the officer "which (Piper) perceived to be threatening." Piper says they then detained Harris using two sets of handcuffs because he was fighting them. She says Harris then told them, "Shut the f*** up, my son just died."
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11:17 a.m. Piper says when she first saw Harris pacing, "due to his demeanor, (she) thought he was somehow involved." She says Harris was on his cell phone. At first he appeared calm and then he started yelling. Piper says she found it unusual. She says Harris' "monotone yelling seemed very forced."
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11:15 a.m. Piper says she saw Cooper on the ground as she arrived on the scene. Harris was pacing in front of the car.
Harris Trial: Cobb officer who encountered Ross Harris at scene of son's death testifies about his reaction.
-- Ross Cavitt | WSB-TV (@RossCavittWSB)
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11:11 a.m. Piper says it took her one minute and 20 seconds to get to the scene from the restaurant where she was when she heard the call.
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11:08 a.m. Prosecution begins by questioning Piper about her career in law enforcement.
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11:04 a.m. Court resumes. Cobb County Officer Jacquelyn Piper takes the stand. She was one of the first people to encounter Harris on the scene of his son's death and previously testified he was acting violent toward the police and refused to get off the phone. Later she said he tried to chat her up in a squad car, behavior she considered strange given the circumstances.
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10:41 a.m. Judge recesses court for mid-morning break. Will return shortly.
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10:40 a.m. Defense closes by saying, "They got it wrong."
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10:38 a.m. "There is one person in the world that has every right to hate that guy, despise that guy, because he took everything from her," Kilgore said. But Kilgore says Harris' ex-wife, Leanna Taylor, has said since the beginning that Harris "loved that little boy more than anything in the world" and that Harris was a wonderful father. He says if prosecution doesn't call Taylor to the stand, the defense will.
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10:34 a.m. "He never forgot that he had a son. That wasn't the issue. He just lost awareness that he was in the car," Kilgore said.
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10:23 a.m. Kilgore says Harris used to go to Chick-fil-A after dropping Cooper at day care in the mornings so he was used to driving straight through the intersection back to work. He says it was his habit, his pattern.
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10:22 a.m. Kilgore says all the "evidence" on his phone proves he wasn't planning Cooper's death. "He's just adding stuff all day like he had no idea anybody would be looking on his phone."
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10:13 a.m. Kilgore says Harris was planning a cruise for Cooper, Leanna and other family members. Kilgore says Harris was looking into passports for children as Cooper was dying in his car. "He had no idea his son was in that car."
Defense says Harris was planning to take Cooper on a cruise. Was researching, planning the morning of the death
-- Ross Harris Trial (@RossHarrisTrial)
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10:10 a.m. Kilgore says Harris a very engaged dad and had no history of abuse or neglect.
Defense: "There is no history of abuse or neglect...""All evidence you're going to hear is that he was a very engaged dad."
-- Carl Willis (@CarlWillisWSB)
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10:06 a.m. Kilgore says they will play video showing that Harris never looked inside his car when dropping off a bag of light bulbs during his lunch break. Prosecution claimed Harris would have been able to see Cooper when he did that. Kilgore says defense was so suspicious from the beginning that they got a search warrant to see if any light bulbs were even out at Harris' home
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10:00 a.m. Kilgore reads through messages Harris sent on the app Whisper to women on the morning of Cooper's death. Monday, the prosecution themed its opening statement around one of Harris' messages that same morning saying, "I love my son and all but we all need escapes." Kilgore says if Harris planned to kill his son, he wouldn't have written it in a text message.
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9:54 a.m. Kilgore says first responders and bystanders did not report smelling a "stench of death" like the prosecution claimed there was inside the car. He says detective smelled what he wanted to smell.
Defense: EMS personnel & medical examiner did not mention odor. Only the lead detective reported smelling "stench of death" at the scene.-- Carl Willis (@CarlWillisWSB)
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9:51 a.m. Kilgore says Ross never went to "child free" pages and sections on the internet that advocate living a child free life, despite what detectives say. He says months before his son's death Harris did visit the child free section on Reddit but did not click on any articles relating to the topic.
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9:46 a.m. Kilgore says video made by veterinarian titled "How hot does it get in a parked car" was a trending video on Harris' Reddit. Harris did not search for it, just clicked on the trending video.
On Claims Harris searched hot car deaths: "He never searched these things. It was something that was made up by the Cobb Co. Police Dept."
-- Carl Willis (@CarlWillisWSB)
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9:44 a.m. Kilgore says Harris NEVER told police that he researched how long it takes someone to die inside a hot car and what temperature it needs to be. He says Harris never did that, yet detectives swore under oath over and over again that he did.
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9:37 a.m. Kilgore says the lead detective's testimony that Ross showed no emotion in the interview room is not true. "He wept bitterly and cried out to God. Cried out in disbelief." Shows emotional video of Ross Harris crying alone in the interview room before detectives entered the room.
Defense attorney Maddox Kilgore shows the jury video of Ross Harris weeping with his face down @ the police station.
-- Carl Willis (@CarlWillisWSB)
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9:34 a.m. Harris wipes away tears as the defense shows dash cam video from the day of Cooper's death.
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9:32 a.m. Kilgore says Harris first noticed Cooper when he went to change lanes while driving to the movies. "He knew right then his child was dead." Kilgore says he pulled over immediately and pulled Cooper from the car.
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9:29 a.m. Kilgore says Harris and his wife were devastated by their son's death. He says part of the state's evidence rests on the fact that Harris and his wife "didn't at like they should have," but questions how they were "supposed" to act after their son's death.
Harris' Attorney: State says Harris guilty of killing son because he didn't "act right" but he was really a "pitiful, broken man."
-- Ross Cavitt | WSB-TV (@RossCavittWSB)
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9:24 a.m. Kilgore says Harris' friends and church group knew he was dealing with sexual sins and had asked for help and prayer. His wife was aware of some of the problems and they had been to marriage counseling. Defense claims there was no "double life" as prosecutors tried to insinuate.
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9:23 a.m. His sexting throughout the day was after he had forgotten Cooper. Kilgore says that fact will be very crucial during the course of this trial.
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9:20 a.m. "Ross' sex life, no matter how perverse and nasty and wrong that we think it is, it doesn't have a thing in the world to do with the fact that he left that little boy. They're completely unrelated. Got nothing to do with each other ... It isn't some kind of motive to murder the person he loved more than anyone in the world," Kilgore says.
Defense says Harris' sex life has nothing to do with the fact that he forgot his son in the SUV.
-- Ross Harris Trial (@RossHarrisTrial)
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9:17 a.m. He says Harris never tried to blame anyone; called it "the biggest mistake of my life." Kilgore says responsible isn't the same thing as criminal.
Harris
Trial UPDATE: Def Atty: Ross responsible for Cooper's death, but responsible does not always mean criminal.
-- Ross Cavitt | WSB-TV (@RossCavittWSB)
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9:15 a.m. Defense team begins opening statements. "The state is right about one very important matter and that is Ross Harris is responsible for his child's death. It's his fault. There's no doubt about it," defense attorney Maddox Kilgore said.
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9:10 a.m. Court resumes for day two of the Ross Harris hot car death trial. Harris' defense team is expected to make its opening statement. When they finish, Cobb County Officer Jacquelyn Piper is expected to take the stand as a witness for the state. She was one of the first people to encounter Harris on the scene of his son's death and previously testified he was acting violent toward the police and refused to get off the phone. Later she said he tried to chat her up in a squad car, behavior she considered strange given the circumstances.
Ross Harris
UPDATE: Defense to give Opening Statements soon, as court watches impact of Hurricane later this week.
-- Ross Cavitt | WSB-TV (@RossCavittWSB)
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