ATLANTA—The ex-wife of a 36-year-old Georgia man convicted of murder for leaving their toddler son to suffer an agonizing death inside a hot SUV said she still believes “it was an accident.”
Justin Ross Harris was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty in November. His son, 22-month-old Cooper Harris, died in June 2014 after sweltering for hours in the SUV outside his father’s metro Atlanta workplace. Prosecutors argued Harris wanted the boy dead so that he would be free to pursue sexual relationships outside his marriage.
A key witness for Harris’ defense was Leanna Taylor, his ex-wife and the dead child’s mother. She defended her decision to testify in interviews published Friday.
“It never crossed my mind that Ross had done it on purpose,” Leanna Taylor told ABC’s “20/20” in an interview scheduled to air Friday night. “Never. It was an accident.”
In a separate interview, Taylor told The Atlanta Journal Constitution and WSB-TV that she has been criticized for speaking out in defense of her ex-husband.
