The Dateline episode ‘Unimaginable’ investigates the 2014 death of 22-month-old Cooper Harris. Police discovered that Cooper’s father Ross Harris left his son in a car for seven hours in the Georgia heat which prompted a murder investigation. Harris says he forgot to take Cooper to daycare and went straight to work. Dateline interviews a number of people including Dr. David Diamond, professor of psychology, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, who has studied hundreds of cases of children who have died in cars. “It’s referred to as forgotten baby syndrome,” he tells Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning. He explains, “It’s when normal, attentive parents lose awareness that their child is in the car.”
But prosecutors say Ross Harris “was clearly living a double life.” When police had seized Ross Harris’ phones and computer, they discovered a trail of sexual messages including dissemination of pornography with a number of women and minors. Ross Harris was found guilty on all eight charges, including malice murder and felony murder. Dateline NBC airs Fridays at 10pm.
