One woman after another testified Thursday that they either had sex with hot-car murder defendant Ross Harris or engaged in sexually explicit online chats with him.
All told, four women — all of them looking uncomfortable and embarrassed — took the witness stand. Prosecutors called them in their attempt to convince jurors that Harris was so obsessed with having sex with as many women as possible that he killed his son Cooper to live a single life.
One of the women, Jaynie Meadows, testified she was an 18-year-old college student in 2013 when she first began engaging in online chats with Harris. Eventually, she said, she fell in love with him.
“He told me he loved me every day,” the 21-year-old testified.
At one point, lead prosecutor Chuck Boring had Meadows read a message she said Harris had sent to her before September 2013. “It just made me realize how unhappy I can be sometimes. If (Cooper) wasn’t in the picture, I probably would have left L by now,” she said, with the “L” referring to Harris’ then-wife, Leanna Taylor. The two have since divorced.
That’s not a reason to stay with someone, Meadows replied. Harris wrote back, “I know, but it’s hard, Jaynie,” she said.
But under cross-examination, Meadows agreed when defense attorney Maddox Kilgore told her Harris “loved that baby more than anything” and “wouldn’t end his marriage because he loved that little boy.”
Kilgore spent a great deal of time with Meadows going over weeks of texts that she and Harris sent to one another until the morning of June 18, 2014, Cooper’s last day alive.
Meadows grew increasingly impatient with the prolonged questioning, often glaring at the defense attorney. At one point, she looked toward the courtroom gallery, shook her head and mouthed, “Please stop.” But no one could help her, and Kilgore continued.
After Meadows finished her testimony, she broke down crying in the courtroom hallway.
Harris’ lawyers contend Cooper’s death was a horrible mistake. Prosecutors have now called more than 40 witnesses during 10 days of testimony. The trial is expected to end sometime next month.
Alexandra Swindell, another woman who testified Thursday, said she was a student at the University of Alabama when Harris contacted her in an online chat under the user name BAMAXH. In early 2013, she said, Harris drove to Tuscaloosa to pick her up from her dorm room. They drove to a secluded area where she said she performed a sexual act on Harris.
They never met again, but in May 2014 Swindell messaged Harris again. She indicated, in sexually explicit terms, that she’d like to get together once more. Harris responded by sending her photos of his genitals.
Three days before Cooper’s death they were chatting about getting together sometime in July.
Another woman, 24-year-old Elizabeth Smith, testified she began exchanging sexually explicit messages with Harris in January 2014. They met up for sex a month later in a parking lot off I-75, she said. Two months later, Harris texted her a selfie he’d taken of himself and Cooper while they attended a Braves game.
They also exchanged messages in the early morning hours of Cooper’s last day. At 7:25 a.m., Harris messaged Smith and asked her if she would meet up with him to have sex. But Smith replied, “No, I’m in Hilton Head.”
Earlier Thursday, Harris’ defense team tried to paint their client’s online chats and texts in a different light.
Defense lawyer Carlos Rodriguez showed jurors a series of texts sent by Harris that indicated he loved his son.
For example, Rodriguez showed jurors an online chat Harris had on June 18, 2014, with an unidentified person on the anonymous messaging site Whisper while Cooper was strapped inside his overheated SUV.
Cooper woke him up at 5:30 that morning, Harris wrote. “That joker decided, ‘Hey I’m gonna get up early.’ Ha ha Ohhhh gotta love kids. … He’s awesome.”
Rodriguez also showed jurors texts Harris had with his wife days before Cooper's death.
Shortly after 1 p.m. on June 11, 2014, likely at Cooper's daycare facility, Harris took a photo of his son while he was taking a nap.
Harris texted the photo to his wife and noted that at one point the child awoke, saw him and said, “Daddy!!!”
When Cooper’s photo was displayed on the courtroom’s large computer screen, Harris became emotional, wiping his eyes with tissue.
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