Baby Died in Hot Car; Police -- Suspicious Internet Searches by Father of Child Who Died in Host Car
BANFIELD: Every time we think about this story of the baby who was left in that hot car and ultimately died after seven hours, the story cannot get more bizarre and it can't get more heartbreaking either. Something new seems to come out and crush us all over again. And here's what I'm talking about today. According to the police, a source within the police, they believe the father of the baby boy who died in his sweltering hot SUV, that father allegedly searched the Internet for information about animals dying in hot cars prior to this happening. Let's try to get your head around that for a moment. Someone using Justin Ross Harris' computer at work was interested in how long it takes an animal to die in a hot car. That's the exact way that Harris' son Cooper died. He was strapped inside his car seat inside his dad's car for seven hours on a boiling hot Atlanta day. CNN's Victor Blackwell has been on this terribly tragic story from the beginning. And also with me is victim's rights attorney Gloria Allred and CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos. Victor, I want to start with you. Look, the charge came out fairly quick. It was murder. And it was a child abuse charge that was somewhat altered as well. It might just have been logistically altered. But why was it -- do we know why was it that charge came quickly? Did it have to do with this Internet search for how long it takes an animal to die in a hot car?</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, police say initially what made them suspicious were the answers that dad was giving on the scene. And then when they came back here to police headquarters to question him, the story just fell apart from there. Now, in relation to the searches there, we don't know if Justin Ross Harris conducted the search himself or when that happened. Only that, according to these sources, police found those searches on the computer. But here's what, you know, the other attorneys who were on the panel today can help me understand. I mean they're the attorneys. If police believe that Harris conducted these searches, that would point toward premeditation. But there was that downgrade of the child cruelty charge from first degree, which is malice intent, to second degree, which is simple negligence. Just -- they don't seem to correspond.</s>BANFIELD: Well, interestingly enough, as I read through this, and you two are far better with statute than I am, it looked as though the higher level child abuse charge required a withholding of food and water. It was sort of simple logistics issue and then to downgrade it would fit these circumstances, this fact pattern better, if in fact the fact pattern is true. But, Gloria, I want to ask you something. The fact that someone does a search on the Internet prior to a crime is not new. It has popped up in almost every case I've covered in the last 10 years. Police are good at this. Crooks are not. But it doesn't mean a slam dunk.</s>GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS' RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Right. We saw the Scott Peterson case, in that case he was convicted.</s>BANFIELD: We saw it in Casey Anthony too.</s>ALLRED: In that case, she was acquitted, so we don't know. As has just been pointed out, we don't know when the search was conducted. We don't know who conducted it. If it was at his workplace, maybe somebody else used his computer. We don't know. We can go to certain assumption, but do we know for a fact yet? No. Are these going to be the only charges? Are they going to be amended at some point? We don't know that yet either. But it certainly is not a good fact for him, at least for the potential jury pool, that that fact about the animals and how long they can live in a hot car. That's not a good fact in terms of influencing a potential jury pool.</s>BANFIELD: This whole notion of searching for ways to die before somebody near you mysteriously dies and you end up charged with a killing. Sometimes it's just the specifics of how the victim died. I cover a case in Florida where Justin Barber shot his wife and shot himself I think five times and miraculously survived. On his hard drive was a search for how to shoot yourself and survive. That is so specific to that crime. Isn't that a case where it's just better evidence, in terms of it doesn't matter at this point who was searching, it's pretty clear there's a nexus there?</s>CEVALLOS: Internet searches are fascinating as evidence because they're a glimpse into the meanderings of our mind. If you think about everything you've searched for, does it really draw an accurate picture of who you are? It's easy to take -- of all the Internet searches we do and men, all the Internet searches, we search some pretty horrific things. If you looked at mine, it might be all murders and mayhem. It's a difficult thing. Are they admissible as evidence? Yes, if they're authenticated. What do they really tell us about intent? And certainly if you isolate one search, this sounds like a very speck one, the one you talked about, very specific, and I think very damning. But, again, you have to look at Internet searches as a whole. You think about them, they really are the meanderings our curious mind.</s>BANFIELD: This is a semipublic computer, what a perfect way to frame someone for something that might happen, although it's pretty odd, this circumstance and how that child died. But it is something to keep in mind, other people can do things to certainly make your life difficult. Thank you, both. If you could stick around, I've got a couple of other things. Victor Blackwell, as always, excellent reporting, thank you. A boy discovered in his family's basement after disappearing for 11 days, found in his own basement. Now the investigators are talking to that boy, and his parents are trying to piece together what happened as well. So where will the evidence lead them? We've got the very latest on this very unusual case. Plus, have those parents seen that boy yet? It's a bit of a mystery.