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Mom, dad both researched hot car deaths
03:25 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

Police say Leanna Harris was questioned about the death of her son

She gave "similar statements" to ones her husband gave about looking on the Internet

Investigators used a warrant to take computers into evidence

Justin Ross Harris is charged with murder, child cruelty

CNN  — 

A judge will determine this week whether there’s enough evidence to keep in jail a Georgia man whose son died in a hot SUV.

Her husband, Justin Ross Harris, the child’s father, who is in jail without bond, has also told police that he used the Internet to research child deaths in vehicles and what temperature it needs to be for death to occur, police said.

“Justin stated that he was fearful that this could happen,” the police affidavit said.

In the document released Sunday, police say that during questioning Leanna Harris “made similar statements regarding researching in car deaths and how it occurs.”

The time frame for when this alleged research took place remains unclear.

Cooper, who died June 18, was buried Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

At his funeral, Leanna Harris said she loves her husband and stands by him.

“Am I angry with Ross?” Leanna Harris told a crowd at the funeral. “Absolutely not. It has never crossed my mind. Ross is and was and will be, if we have more children, a wonderful father. Ross is a wonderful daddy and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him.”

Carol Brown, a longtime family friend, was one of those in attendance.

Harris was arrested hours after his son’s death and has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and second-degree child cruelty.

5 questions about toddler’s hot-car death

Timeline of events

On the day Cooper died, his father stopped for breakfast at a fast-food restaurant and afterward strapped his son into a rear-facing child restraint seat on his SUV’s back seat, police said.

He drove to his workplace, a Home Depot corporate office, about a half-mile away. He works as a Web designer there.

Usually, he would take his son to an on-site day care. But that day, police said, Harris left him in the car seat.

During his lunch break, he returned to his car, opening the driver’s side door to put something inside, police said.

After work, around 4:16 p.m., the 33-year-old father got in his car and drove away. A few miles away, he stopped the car at a shopping center and called for help.

When it became clear Cooper was dead, Harris was so inconsolable police had to restrain him.

“What have I done?” he wailed as he tried to resuscitate the boy.

The Cobb County medical examiner’s office found the child’s cause of death “consistent with hyperthermia and the investigative information suggests the manner of death is homicide,” according to a Cobb County Department of Public Safety statement issued last week. Temperatures hit 92 degrees Fahrenheit on the day of Cooper’s death.

The medical examiner’s office is waiting for toxicology test results before making an official ruling as to the cause and manner of the toddler’s death.

Mom of toddler who died in car ‘absolutely not’ angry with husband

Toddler’s dad researched hot-car deaths of children online, officers said in warrant

CNN’s Vivian Kuo, Marlena Baldacci and Nick Valencia contributed to this report.