Imperfect Justice

by Jeff Ashton

  EquuSearch hadn’t been able to get their initial teams set up until a week or so after August 20, 2008, when a huge rain maker, Tropical Storm Fay, dumped massive amounts of water on us. When they finally began in late August 2008, there were certain areas that they simply could not search because of the standing water. I recall Miller saying in an interview that they were going to search those areas at a later date. In my opinion, those eleven inches of rain worked in Casey’s favor. Sometimes even bad people have a guardian angel, for whatever reason, and I think Casey had one in that circumstance. When EquuSearch came back, they scoured different areas altogether and never returned to Suburban Drive. And furthermore, nobody knew that was the case. Everyone, including law enforcement, assumed that the most obvious place had to have been combed and given the all clear—which just goes to prove the old adage about what happens when you assume. Everybody ended up looking like an ass and a nation spent an extra four months searching around the country for a lost little girl who was a quarter mile from home.

  The sheriff’s office was equally piecemeal in their efforts. They totally botched Roy Kronk’s three calls. His third call had gone so far up the tip line that it had reached Yuri Melich himself. A Detective White, who had the role of reviewing the tips as they came in and passing them along, brought the Suburban Drive tip from Kronk to Melich’s desk, but Melich told him that the searchers had already completed a sweep of that area. The sheriff’s office was relying on the expertise of Texas EquuSearch, but not actually checking up on them. We all assumed that EquuSearch’s record keeping was better than it was, but they were only volunteers doing the best they could. The case had begun as a missing child investigation, with the sheriff’s office looking for a living child. When they switched the effort from rescue to recovery, the sheriff’s office investigators worked with tips, not grid searches or sweeps. In hindsight, relying solely on a volunteer organization for field searches was probably not the best idea.

  Still, a fierce debate began to rage about whether EquuSearch had in fact searched and cleared that area. The stakes were high, because the defense was trying to substantiate their claim that the body had been placed there while Casey was in jail. If, in fact, EquuSearch had swept that area and okayed it while Casey was in custody, it would lend credence to the defense. Shortly after Caylee’s remains were identified, the defense began an attempt to obtain the records of EquuSearch. By this point, Tim Miller was represented by Mark NeJame, who had previously represented the Anthonys. Initially, Baez wanted the names and personal information of every single searcher who had volunteered in this pursuit. NeJame thought that request was too broad and offered to provide the information related to the swamp area in question, which was initially agreeable to all parties.

  Later on, in August of 2009, the defense would go on to boldly announce, for the benefit of the press, that they had found a hundred people who had searched that area off Suburban Drive while Casey was in jail and had not found Caylee’s remains. A week later, we called their bluff and filed a motion asking the court to require them to produce the list of witnesses. We didn’t mind if the list fell short of a hundred people; we just wanted names so that we could depose them. The court granted the motion and set a February 2010 deadline for the defense to provide it. That deadline came and went, but we didn’t start to get names until late that year.

  In the months following the discovery of Caylee, the defense began to contact some of the searchers for interviews. Shortly after Caylee’s body was found, a searcher named Joe Jordan e-mailed the sheriff’s office to say that he had searched an area on Suburban Drive, and she had not been there. That e-mail was not followed up on initially, but later investigators would learn that the area Jordan referred to in his e-mail was different from the one where Caylee was found. Regardless, the defense contacted Mr. Jordan for an interview, and a date was set.

  Jordan was apprehensive, however. He later told police he’d been hearing rumors from other searchers that a private investigator hired by the defense to look into the records of the searchers was pressuring people to remember things the way he wanted them to. With this in mind, when Jordan agreed to meet with the defense investigators, it was at the office of a local attorney he’d hired, Kelly Sims. This was probably a smart move on his part, but his next decision was not so smart. Without telling even his own lawyer, he brought a concealed tape recorder into the interview and recorded the entire session. The only problem was that by doing so he was unwittingly committing a felony.

  After the interview, Jordan contacted Corporal Eric Edwards at the sheriff’s office, and during their discussion he volunteered the information that he had recorded the interview secretly. Realizing that Jordan had just confessed to a crime, Edwards told him to retain the tape and moved on to the content of the interview. Jordan told Edwards that at the meeting the investigator for the defense, Mortimer Smith, had shown Jordan a document purporting to be an EquuSearch form that supposedly demonstrated his participation in a search of the area off Suburban Drive near where Caylee was found. The document listed the team leader’s name as Laura Buchanan. Jordan informed Edwards that in his opinion the document was not genuine and that the search it purported to document never happened. He also related that he had received a phone call earlier from a woman claiming to be in law enforcement in Kentucky who identified herself as Laura Buchanan. She insisted to him that she had searched the area where Caylee was found and found nothing and that he had been involved with her in the search.

  The recording complicated that case a bit for us. Since it was illegal, we were not permitted by law to listen to it or know its contents. The detective could listen to it as part of his investigation into that offense, but we did not feel that we could. Investigators wanted very badly to inform us of the contents of the tape or to have us review it, because they felt it revealed something important about the defense’s tactics, but we would not permit them to discuss it in our presence. To this day we have no idea what the tape contains. All parties involved in the conversation declined to prosecute Mr. Jordan, so the case was not pursued. The defense then took the position that they wanted to review the tape, but we informed them that if we let them do so, we would be committing a felony as well. They repeatedly attempted to get the court to order us to release it to them, but the judge read the statute the same way we did and it remained unheard.

  As investigators and the defense moved on from Jordan, Laura Buchanan became the center of scrutiny. Buchanan was the Texas EquuSearch team leader who Jordan said had called him. At the time of the search, Buchanan, actually a housewife from Kentucky, had been in Orlando with her husband who was on a business trip, and she had volunteered with EquuSearch in the late August searches. She injected herself into the case having followed it on the news and not having much to do in Orlando while her husband was at his meetings. She said she was in possession of field documents proving that she had searched the Suburban Drive area on or around September 1, 2008. She had also searched Blanchard Park, where, according to Casey, Zanny and Caylee had been frequent visitors. Buchanan went so far as to say that she and Jordan had searched together. She claimed that they agreed that no one had sent them, but they decided to search there on their own. When Jordan was later shown a photograph of Buchanan, he did not recognize her.

  With all of this back-and-forth, it was clear we needed to get Buchanan on the record. She was set for deposition in New Jersey, where she had recently moved. We were attempting to utilize some new technology that would enable us to take depositions over the Internet, so Buchanan was in the office of her attorney while the rest of us were in Florida. During the deposition the witness referenced the EquuSearch document that she claimed to have given to the defense’s investigator, which listed all the people who had searched the area off Suburban Drive. She also referred to a photograph on which the investigator claimed she’d marked the spot she searched.

  As usual, the defense had not
provided either the document or the photograph to us. Buchanan and her attorney tried to fax the document, but the copy was so poor it was illegible. Buchanan went on to make the claim that she had seen the area where Caylee was found on TV and remembered searching that area, but her exact description of the area was a little vague, and precision was hampered by the technology we were using.

  We agreed that she would have to be deposed again. During the period between the first and second depositions, we obtained a good copy of the document in question. The detectives then began investigating and speaking to the people on the list. Some of them told the police that while they did volunteer for EquuSearch, it was not on that day. Others said they remembered searching with Buchanan but not at Suburban Drive. Still another remembered searching Suburban Drive, but only the portion near the school—not where Caylee was found—because it was underwater at the time.

  It was beginning to appear from the witnesses’ statements that the field document Buchanan had produced had been altered, which commenced a criminal investigation against her. She was under scrutiny for perjury and interfering with a homicide investigation. The second deposition was reset at our offices in Orlando, and she appeared in person and represented by a new attorney. This time her attitude was far different. In reference to the EquuSearch document, her story was that she had found it under the seat of her car months after the search, and when the investigator, Mortimer Smith, called for an interview, she’d made notes on the document of people she thought were with her. She claimed that she gave it to Smith without telling him she had altered it.

  Though we found the explanation a bit hard to swallow, at least the defense’s balloon had been burst. Not only did they not have a list of people who’d searched that area, but Buchanan also testified that while she had been in the area off Suburban Drive, she had not searched the exact area where Caylee had been found. Just like all the defense’s theories, this one began to unravel as well. Ultimately, based upon her statements at her second deposition and the police investigation, no charges were brought against Buchanan.

  Linda continued to depose other searchers that the defense had listed. The defense said that each had given a statement saying they had searched the area and found nothing, but as Linda spoke to them, all but one acknowledged that the area in question was underwater and was not searched. The only one who didn’t fold completely was a gentleman who said that after a night of socializing at a sports bar he’d visited the scene. At three in the morning and by moonlight, mind you, he could swear that no remains were present.

  In the end, the defense’s earlier claim that there were a hundred searchers, as well as their subsequent claim that there had been a dozen, were both a big fizzle. It had taken hundreds of hours of investigator time and dozens of hours of depositions to confirm what the physical evidence told us to begin with: for almost six months little Caylee had lain in that spot while literally thousands of people had passed by, never knowing that they were within feet of her.

  I’m not convinced that finding Caylee in mid-August instead of mid-December would have made much of a difference forensically. In either case the little girl would have been completely skeletonized. But emotionally, we all wished she hadn’t had to lie there among discarded trash for even a moment when all those who knew her wanted her home—that is, everyone except perhaps Casey.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LIFE OR DEATH?

  Although a large amount of evidence was collected at the crime scene, the ravages of weather, water, and nature had rendered most of it relatively useless. The worst conditions for preserving DNA or fingerprints involve heat and water, and in the more than six months Caylee was there, we had an overabundance of both. The recovery team left no stone unturned, though. Every scrap of garbage within the search radius was collected, cataloged, and stored, and ultimately most of it was sent to the lab.

  The remains themselves told us the most. It is a credit to the folks at the sheriff’s office, in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and on the FBI’s Evidence Response Team that they were able to recover almost all of Caylee’s bones, some of which were smaller than a dime because of her age. If a bone was large enough to be spotted by the investigator, it was photographed in position and its location recorded both on a diagram and by the placement of numbered flags at the precise location. The information was also entered into a software program called Total Station, which combined that information with a topographical survey of the area so that the precise orientation of any object to any other object could be determined with a keystroke.

  Those bones that were too small or too buried to be detected visually were discovered by a sifting technique. First the search area was divided into approximately four-by-four-foot squares using a grid. Each square was given an alphanumeric designation. The ground cover was then removed to a designated depth and placed in buckets marked as to location and depth. The contents were then sifted through two levels of wire mesh. Any objects of interest were tagged and the bag labeled with location and depth information. The system was set up with the advice and assistance of Dr. John Schultz, an anthropology professor at the University of Central Florida and a contract consultant with Dr. G’s office. As suspected bones were found, they were shown to Dr. Schultz at the site, since he was often participating in the search, or in his absence they were given to Steve Hansen, the ME investigator, during his daily visits to the scene. It was through this rigorous combination of techniques that they were able to recover Caylee’s entire skeleton with the exception of some of the smaller bones of the foot. We were all very proud of the men and women who were so dedicated to showing Caylee the respect that she deserved, even in death.

  Once Dr. G arrived on December 12, she began the process of examining the remains. Unfortunately, the tape had already been removed from the skull by the time she saw it. Dr. Utz had thoroughly documented the condition of the tape on the skull from every possible angle. The FBI was eager to send the skull to the lab for analysis, but in retrospect I wish they had been more patient and waited for Dr. G to see it for herself. As much as we try to use photos as a substitute, there is nothing like seeing something firsthand. We didn’t get good pictures of how the pieces of tape were configured over one another, since all the pictures were taken either after the tape was separated, or to provide exact measurements of the total width of the pieces together. Not having better photos hindered us somewhat in arguing precisely how the tape was placed on Caylee’s face. Who knows if it would have made a difference, but it was a source of frustration as we were deciphering all that we could from the remains.

  Once Dr. G had a chance to examine the entire skeleton, she said it really didn’t tell us much. It was free of any evidence of injury and looked like the skeleton of a perfectly healthy little girl, but it was from this skeleton that Dr. G was tasked with discerning both the manner and the cause of death.

  There is a difference between the manner of death and the cause of death. The cause of death is a purely medical determination of the biological mechanism that causes the body to cease to function. In a suicide by gunshot wound to the head and a murder by the same method, the cause of death is the same. The manner of death is a medical and legal determination that the medical examiner (ME) is required to make based upon both medical and investigative information. In the example above, though the cause of death is the same, the manner of death is different, since one is a suicide and one is a murder. It is not unusual for the cause of death to be undetermined but the manner of death to be homicide—in fact, in most skeletal cases or cases where the body has been incinerated, that is likely to be the case.

  Such was the situation with Caylee. Dr. G rendered the opinion that the manner of death was homicide, basing that judgment mostly upon the manner in which the remains were found and the actions of the mother, but when it came to the cause of death, medically it could not be determined. The only things found with the body
that could have caused her death were the tape and the plastic bags. Either one would have been sufficient to cause suffocation, but the state of the body prevented us from medically determining which one might have played a direct role in the death. That determination would have to come from the jury applying their common sense to the evidence revealed in the photographs.

  Ultimately, most of the information we obtained from the remains was based upon where the bones were found. Dr. Schultz was able to learn a good deal from the distribution of the bones, allowing us to say more definitively that an animal had indeed been involved in their dispersal. He explained that when the body decomposes, the connective tissue keeps certain body units together even as other units separate from each other. The torso may separate from the head and extremities but still maintain cohesion as a unit for a bit longer. As decomposition continues, the torso itself will separate into its component parts as well, until all the connective tissue has decomposed, leaving the individual bones free to be moved about separately. In our situation it was apparent to Dr. Schultz that an animal had moved the torso as a unit from the primary site to a location about ten feet away. All the ribs were found in that area. Since the vertebral column would have been the last to break down, it was later dragged a few feet farther away, where the remaining connective tissue decomposed, leaving all the vertebrae again in the same area.

  More important than an animal’s involvement was that this dispersal gave a better sense of the time period involved. Because of the way the animal(s) had moved the body parts, Dr. Schultz felt that the body had been placed where it was at some point during the decomposition process but while the body was intact. His opinion was that the body could have been completely skeletonized in as little as two weeks after death and most certainly was only bones within a month, a time frame that sent Casey’s thirty-one days of lies shooting back into all of our minds.