Ross Harris: Jekyll or Hyde?

The evidence District Attorney Vic Reynolds presented to the grand jury is secret, and afterward he said emphatically that he will divulge nothing outside of court proceedings.

At Harris’ probable cause hearing in July, police and prosecutors said they believed Ross had grown unhappy in his marriage and was being sexual with numerous women via his smartphone, even boasting that he was unfaithful and Leanna knew it. They suggested that despite the face he showed to friends, of a devoted, doting father, he longed for the freedom of a childless life.

That portrait has dominated the public perception of Ross Harris, and the defense has a mountain to scale in overcoming it.

But after Thursday’s indictment, Ross’ lawyer, H. Maddox Kilgore reasserted what his client has said from the outset: “The truth is that Cooper’s death was a horrible, gut-wrenching accident.”

As he awaits trial on charges that could carry the death penalty, Kilgore said, “Ross is a very broken guy.”

Breaking silence

For all the words written and spoken about Cooper’s death and the man who caused it, he remains largely a cipher. Most people who knew him and Leanna well have maintained a protective cordon of silence.

In recent weeks, however, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution gained the trust of several of those friends. The narrative they tell admittedly comes from people who believe Ross and Leanna love each other and adored their son. In their eyes, Cooper’s death is a tragedy that has devastated both parents.

Nevertheless, their descriptions of Ross and Leanna’s very different personalities, how they met and courted, and how they were as a couple, are nuanced and cohesive. Their insights into the relationship also may foreshadow points the defense will seek to make in court.

Ross emerges as gregarious and undisciplined, strongly religious but not averse to coloring outside the lines. Leanna shares his faith but not his temperament. She’s a motivator and a planner who steadied him, perhaps to a degree he sometimes chafed at. Several friends acknowledge that there were troubles in the marriage.

But one thing that emerges from that collective narrative is this: Whatever the state of their union before Cooper’s death, in the wake of it they have functioned very much as a couple, offering each other strength and comfort as they look to the trial ahead.

Growing up

As a kid growing up in Tuscaloosa, Justin Ross Harris ditched his first name, which he hated, and went by his middle name instead.

He was a kid with a penchant for mischief. He built a “potato gun” that he shot off near the railroad tracks. He unbolted street signs from their posts, one time absconding with the “Entering Tuscaloosa” sign.

A friend from those days, Ben McRea, later dubbed him “The Ferris Bueller of Tuscaloosa.”

Ross grew up in a cozy three-bedroom house in the small town next to the sprawling University of Alabama campus. His mom stayed at home while his dad made tires at the Uniroyal Goodrich plant, often arriving home looking like a dirty tire himself.

Ross had an older half-brother, Michael Baygents, from his father’s previous marriage. They spent many Saturday afternoons sitting at their father’s feet as he sat in his recliner, all watching Alabama football on TV.

A prayer of thanks always preceded dinner, and on Sundays Ross was in church, playing guitar in the band. He continued to go to church even when his parents stopped attending Sunday services.

When he was 14, Ross persuaded Baygents to attend the revival service at which the elder sibling “got saved.” Baygents said he still remembers the huge hug Ross gave him before he walked to the altar.

Ross was fairly popular, the kind of a guy who could jump right into any conversation. He could talk to anyone, and often did.

When Bond first met Ross a few years later, his personality rubbed her wrong. “I thought he was kind of a jerk,” she said. “He seemed to be kind of a know-it-all.”

A talker and a fact-checker

That’s the kind of thing friends latch onto now, hoping Ross’ quirks can help jurors understand some of the behavior that first made police treat him as a suspect rather than a distraught father.

For instance, Kilgore might argue that, given his loquacious nature, it’s no surprise that Ross told officers things the night of Cooper’s death that struck them as peculiar. Reportedly, he volunteered the information that he had recently viewed videos warning of the danger of leaving kids or pets in hot cars.

Friends say that same trait could account for the question Leanna reportedly asked him that night at police headquarters: “Did you say too much?”

“Ross is the kind of guy who talks a lot, and in my mind that was Leanna saying to him, ‘Did you run your mouth off again? Did you make yourself look guilty?’” Bond said.

According to Billy Kirkpatrick, who counts himself as Ross’ best friend, Ross is also endlessly inquisitive. “He’s a fact-checker kind of guy,” Kirkpatrick said. “If he hears about something on TV or in conversation, he likes to read up on the topic in online articles, videos and blogs. He is always researching new subjects and telling others about what he has learned.”

But McRea said that although Ross was a wiz with computers, he was also apt to zone out and forget things. “He could space out a lot,” said McRea, who is now estranged from the Harrises and regarded with suspicion by many of their other friends.

If Kilgore can persuade jurors that Ross is habitually absentminded, they may find it easier to believe that he didn’t realize Cooper was still in the back seat of the family’s Hyundai Tucson, even though they had just had breakfast together at Chick-fil-A. Friends, unlike police and prosecutors, can believe that he mistakenly thought he had dropped off the boy at day care.

Another detail that could be pertinent: According to Baygents, in 2005 a bottle rocket flew straight into Ross’ ear and exploded. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors pulled pieces of the firework out of his ear canal. But he lost the hearing in his right ear.

Kilgore raised that deafness at the July hearing to explain how Ross may have failed to notice that his son was still in the car seat that was behind him and to his right.

Ross and Leanna

Leanna Taylor grew up about an hour away from Ross, in Demopolis. Her parents had split up when she was young and she lived with her mother, a teacher. She was a shy girl, so quiet other kids picked on her.

Bond, now a close friend, was among her tormentors.

“Both of us were very insecure. I got picked on too, but she was weaker. It was just girls being mean,” Bond said.

By high school, the two girls became best friends, bonding over their love of sports. Neither of them dated much.

It was Bond who was photographed at Ross’ probable cause hearing, sitting next to Leanna and offering support. During the hearing, the prosecution made much of Leanna’s lack of outward emotion when she learned of her son’s death.

Bond said that is in keeping with the woman she has known for years: a shy and intensely private person, who had to “shut down just to get through it.”

Around 2004, a friend set up Ross and Leanna on a blind date. McRea was there and noticed right away the chemistry between them. Afterward, as Harris and McRea were driving home, Ross made it about a half mile before he called Leanna on his cell phone, just to talk to her again.

Then Ross, who never took dating too seriously, said something shocking.

“I’m going to marry that girl.”

Leanna was equally smitten. Ross was her first serious boyfriend, and after only a few dates she took him to meet Bond, anxious for her friend’s approval.

Although she was initially put off by his “know-it-all” streak, Bond said, it was obvious he loved Leanna. Eventually she found his quirks endearing.

Ross proposed at Christmastime, 2005, when he and Leanna were in Nashville for an Alabama football game. He took her to a spot overlooking the city and popped the question, the city sparkling below in all its holiday brilliance.

They married in a small ceremony in a park near the Alabama state Capitol. Bond was a bridesmaid and McRea was a groomsman.

Balance of opposites

Ross pushed Leanna to go out more and be social. He calmed her when she obsessed about her weight. She helped curb his rambunctious ways. She could see that he needed taming, but he didn’t like being told what to do. So she learned to push, but not too hard.

“In his early to mid-20s, Ross worked hard but he wasn’t necessarily fulfilling his potential,” Kirkpatrick said. “Then, Leanna entered the picture and everything changed. He became much more serious about his future.”

Ross had dropped out of college after only a few months. He had just goofed around too much. Not having a degree didn’t seem to bother him much. He went from one job to another. For a time he worked as a police dispatcher to help Leanna get through college.

She pressed him to return to school. She was taking classes to be a dietitian, and she wanted a baby desperately, but she felt they needed to become financially stable before bringing a child into the world.

In August, 2009, Ross enrolled at Alabama, intent on pursuing a career in computers. For a while, he continued to work part-time as a dispatcher, then quit to become a full-time student and graduate as soon as possible.

“Once he got married he grew up,” said Baygents. “Once he knew what he wanted, it was like a fire got lit under him.”

Ross helped Chris Wilkinson create a website. He told her he and his wife wanted to move to a bigger place and start a family. He liked her dog, Gabby, a Jack Russell-Beagle mix.

“Is that a good dog for a kid?” he asked her.

Parenthood

It took a long time for Leanna to get pregnant; when she did, the first person she called was Bond.

“She comes over and says she wants to show me something,” Bond said.

It was a photograph of six positive home pregnancy tests. “She was beaming,” Bond said. “I’ve never seen her so excited.”

Not long afterward, Ross graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commerce and business administration, with a concentration in management information systems. He secured an internship doing computer work with Home Depot in Marietta.

Leanna didn’t want to make the move, especially with her first child on the way. But she told friends it was all part of God’s plan.

Kirkpatrick accompanied them as they explored metro Atlanta. He said they specifically searched for the areas that would be best to raise children.

Cooper Harris was born Aug. 2, 2012, shortly after the family moved to Marietta. He had his mother’s brilliant blue eyes and his father’s outgoing personality. According to friends and family, his short life was a happy one.

Ross “comforted Cooper when he was upset, fed him and played with him,” Kirkpatrick said. “He constantly talked with pride about any new things that Cooper was learning to do.”

Wilkinson was introduced to Cooper when she met up with the family at an Alabama football game last fall.

Ross jostled the 1-year-old in his arms. “Meet Cooper. Isn’t he great?” Ross said to her.

Hints of trouble

More recent times yield similar stories. Kristen Hackey, a friend of Leanna’s who lived near the family, said she and Leanna walked for exercise almost every night. Ross and Cooper often accompanied them.

Baygents said he and Ross were planning a cruise with their families weeks before Cooper’s death.

“This wasn’t a husband and wife thing. It was family, kids and all,” said Baygents, a sergeant and an instructor for the Law Enforcement Academy in Tuscaloosa. Kirkpatrick said Ross told him about the trip, too.

But even close friends and family can see only so far into the depths of a marriage. Some things remain private. And some issues between Ross and Leanna, friends say, remain unresolved.

Leanna has made clear that she believes her husband loved his son and would not hurt him. But she has also hinted that the couple had some marital problems.

“Whatever issues that transpired in our marriage is between God and us, for He will judge those moral sins,” Leanna wrote in a “victim impact” statement given to prosecutors.

Friends won’t go into the details behind those words. Asked point blank about the allegations of Ross’ infidelity, Bond said, “That’s something they’re going to have to talk through and work through. She takes her vows very seriously.”

The police portrait

At the July hearing, police and prosecutors painted a picture of man looking for an out.

They said that about two months before Cooper’s death, Ross Harris visited a website where people talk about living child free. About a week before Cooper died, he watched a video made by a veterinarian to demonstrate what it’s like in a hot car.

They said Leanna had revealed that the couple was having “intimacy problems.” And they said that on the day his son died, Ross sexted photos of his private parts to as many as six women.

When Kilgore challenged the relevance of such evidence, Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring told the judge: “It proves motive because he was unhappy in his marriage, and we plan to show that he wanted to live a child-free life, or there’s evidence to suggest that based on his internet searches.”

Baygents said it grates on Ross that, even months before his trial, most everyone inside the Cobb jail where he’s being held has already decided his fate. He said Ross recently told him, “You know, the hardest thing is that you’re treated like you’re guilty here until you’re found innocent.”

The night before Cooper’s funeral, Leanna was an emotional mess. She had spent much of the week preparing her eulogy, but the thought of seeing Cooper in his casket was too much to bear. Comfort came from Ross, in a phone call from jail.

He told his wife that Cooper was in heaven, a better place.

The next day, Leanna told a packed church that even if she could, she would not bring Cooper back, because he has been spared the losses and pain that come with growing up. She seemed oblivious to the fact that to those who don’t share her religious faith, her remarks might sound callous and cold.

One recent day when she went to Cooper’s grave she found an unmarked envelope resting against the gravestone. She opened it.

“You never loved him,” the unsigned note said. “I wish he’d been mine. I would have loved him.”