Boy's Final Hours in Hot Car Recreated

Investigators in Georgia yesterday had the grim task of trying to recreate the horrific final hours of Cooper Harris, the 22-month-old boy whose father is accused of killing him by deliberately leaving him in a hot car. The investigators parked Justin Ross Harris' SUV in the same place he left it on the June day his son died and took temperature readings over a seven-hour period, the same length of time the boy was in the vehicle, Fox News reports. Prosecutors believe Cooper died within two hours of being left inside the vehicle on a day when temperatures reached the low 90s, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. CNN notes the test results haven't been released, but it speculates temperatures could have neared 140 degrees.

A toxicology report states that the boy had no medication or sedation given to him on the day he died, according to 11 Alive. At a hearing last week, a police detective testified that scratches on Cooper's face and marks on the back of his head were signs of a desperate struggle to escape his car seat. At the same hearing, a magistrate decided there was probable cause to move forward on murder and child cruelty charges, noting that Harris entered the SUV "when the child had been dead and rigor mortis had set in, and the testimony is the stench in the car was overwhelming at that point in time, but drove for some distance before checking on the child," PIX 11 reports. (More Cooper Harris stories.)