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June 24, 2011 Cindy Anthony says she made computer searches for ‘chloroform’Posted: 01:20 PM ET
Orlando, Florida – Yesterday was another day of rather dry forensic testimony in the Casey Anthony first-degree murder trial, as the defense continues to call witnesses it hopes will help convince jurors that the death of two-year-old Caylee Anthony, the defendant’s daughter, was actually an accidental drowning. There was one bright spot yesterday afternoon, however, as Cindy Anthony, the defendant’s own mother, took the stand, explaining to the jury that she was actually the person doing Internet searches for “chloroform” on the family’s computer back in March 2008 – only three months before Caylee was seen alive for the last time. Susan Mears, a crime scene supervisor with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, was recalled to the stand after briefly testifying Wednesday. Mears brought with her several items that were subsequently moved into evidence: the red “World of Disney” plastic bag, the Gatorade bottle, and the syringe that were all discovered near the victim’s remains. Next on the stand was Stephen Shaw, a trace evidence examiner at the FBI crime lab. Shaw previously testified as prosecution witness #55. He returned to the stand to answer questions about a research study he conducted looking at the decomposition of human hairs in various environmental conditions. Shaw introduced a series of slides showing hairs from both living and deceased donors. He acknowledged that two different examiners each misidentified a hair from a living donor (not the same hair) as displaying postmortem hair banding. Shaw found no hairs suitable for comparison on the duct tape recovered with Caylee’s remains. He said there were Caucasian head hairs on the duct tape, but they were consistent with hairs in the hair mass also recovered with the remains. None of the hairs that were stored in a vehicle during his study ever showed signs of postmortem hair banding. In his career, Shaw has never seen a hair with postmortem banding that he couldn’t associate with a deceased person. Next up was Barry Logan, a forensic toxicologist and analytical chemist. Logan is the national director of NMS Labs, a forensic laboratory in Pennsylvania. He reviewed analytical records/reports from the FBI crime lab and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in preparation for his testimony. Logan testified that the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (where some of the evidence in this case was analyzed) has no formal protocols, which creates potential problems. “There’s no way to be sure the test will be done the same way every time,” Logan said. Logan also testified that he’s found no evidence of any protective measure that Oak Ridge might have taken to prevent contamination in this case and that he saw no evidence of any quality assurance that was related to the analysis of pertinent items. He testified that a lab should run its standards on the same day that it runs samples. “In this case, that did not occur,” Logan said. Logan claimed he would be unable to reproduce exactly the analyses run in this case by earlier witnesses Arpad Vass or Marcus Wise. “There would be no way for me to know if how I did the test was the same as how Oak Ridge did the test,” Logan said. Jennifer Welch, a crime scene investigator with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, was recalled to the stand. Welch has testified six times in this case. She was originally called as prosecution witness #45. Welch testified that no shoes or socks were recovered from the area where the victim’s remains were discovered. Cindy Anthony, the defendant’s mother and grandmother of victim Caylee Anthony, was next on the stand. Cindy Anthony previously testified as prosecution witness #21. She testified that anyone had access to the HP desktop computer in the Anthony home, including the defendant and her friends. Cindy Anthony revealed that she personally did searches for “chloroform” in March of 2008. She said she began by searching for “chlorophyll” and that search expanded to searches for chloroform as well. Cindy Anthony also did several other searches during the same month, including searches for alcohols and chemicals in hand sanitizers, and searches for some specific injuries. The defendant’s mother testified that the Anthony family purchased the Pontiac Sunfire from a dealer in 2002, claiming the stain in the trunk was present when they bought the car. Cindy Anthony said that it’s “possible” that she was actually home on days her work records reflect that she was working. “I did go home early a couple of days... my hours are whatever I make them to be,” Cindy Anthony said. Cindy Anthony denied that this is the first time she has testified about searching for “chloroform” in March of 2008. She insisted that she told prosecutors about doing so in a 2009 deposition. However, she conceded that she does not remember specifically searching for “how to make chloroform” but, at the same time, she says her memory is better now than it was in 2009 due to an adjustment in her medication. Sandra Osborne, a computer forensics analyst with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, was next on the stand. Osborne previously testified as prosecution witness #41. She helped detect a hit for “chloroform” in the unallocated space portion of the Anthony family’s HP desktop computer. Osborne passed along her findings to co-worker Kevin Stenger. Kevin Stenger, a forensic computer analyst and head of the Orange County Sheriff’s computer crimes unit, used computer programs Net Analysis and Cache Back to recover deleted Internet search histories from the unallocated space portion of the Anthony family’s HP desktop computer. Stenger testified that results obtained from the Net Analysis and Cache Back programs differed in some details. For example, Net Analysis indicated 84 visits to a MySpace website on one day, while Cache Back made no reference to that number. Stenger conceded that figure of 84 MySpace searches may actually be sequential (each visit given the next sequential number after the last search on a previous occasion) rather than indicating 84 searches on a single day. He identified a Google search for “how to make chloraform [sic]” on March 21, 2008. After the jury was dismissed for the day, Nickolas Savage, the lead FBI agent investigating the Anthony case, testified during a proffer. After a meeting with the prosecution team, Savage attempted to find some photographs for them. Savage requested photos that might have been taken by the Orange County M.E.’s office, showing the duct tape recovered with the remains, and containing scales (rulers) for exact measurements. Savage did not believe that such photographs had been taken up to that time. Erin Martin, a request coordinator with the FBI crime lab, was next on the stand for a proffer. Martin was asked about a February 6, 2009 e-mail that she sent to earlier witness Karen Lowe. The e-mail concerned the request for duct tape/scales photographs testified to by previous witness Nickolas Savage. In the e-mail, Martin tells Lowe that she “decided not to give the measurements to Nick [Savage].” Following the proffer of these two witnesses, prosecutor Jeff Ashton objected to their testimony, calling it clearly irrelevant to the matter at hand. Defense attorney Cheney Mason disagreed, saying that the search for the duct tape photographs is evidence that the State was trying “to create a murder weapon... and tried to get photographs to prove [its] theory... it’s trying to create something. And this is the evidence of them trying to create it.” Judge Perry, however, disagreed, finding that both witnesses’ testimony proves no material fact, and doesn’t impeach any of the material issues in this trial. Therefore, the prosecution’s objection was sustained, and neither Savage nor Martin will be allowed to testify as to this matter. -Michael Christian, In Session Field Producer Filed under: Casey and Caylee Anthony Trial Updates Trials
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