by Jeff Ashton
His testimony was twofold. First, Dr. Spitz attacked Dr. Garavaglia for having not opened Caylee’s skull at autopsy. She had left it intact. That was a violation of basic autopsy protocol, he continued. Second, he was the only witness trying to render the opinion the skull had been removed from the crime scene. He testified that someone could have removed it, taken it home, put duct tape on it, and returned it to the scene.
When Dr. Spitz had performed his own autopsy, he had opened the skull and found some residue, which he claimed to be able to recognize from sight as the decomposition of the brain. To him, the residue indicated that the skull had been on its side when the brains decomposed. I called this the “brain dust” testimony.
On cross, I started with his criticism of Dr. Garavaglia’s autopsy, about the violation of protocol claim, that Dr. G had not opened the skull. Dr. Spitz had been one of the authors of a basic textbook on forensic anthropology. I took his book up to the stand, put it down in front of him, and said, “Show me where you say it is protocol to open a skull when it is skeletonized.”
He leafed through the pages and did not find any reference to his claim. I next asked him if he was familiar with any other written protocol on the opening of the skull at autopsy. And he answered no. Next, I addressed the “removal and return of the skull” theory. I went through what I thought would be necessary to carry out what he was alleging. Someone would have to take the skull and the mandible home, put them in an anatomically correct position, tape the two pieces together, and put the skull back in the exact location where it had been. Dr. Spitz argued that though it would be difficult, it could be done.
I showed him the photo taken at the medical examiner’s office, showing that strands of hair were draped over the skull. I asked him how the hair could fall so perfectly back to its original position in a re-created scene. I pointed out that the manner of the hair falling on the skull was not consistent with it being on its side.
Dr. Spitz got belligerent with me, to a point where he didn’t know how to answer. He said that maybe the medical examiner had staged the photo. So I showed him the photo taken at the scene with the strands of hair in exactly the same position. He then claimed that maybe the police had staged the skull. In my opinion, Dr. Spitz’s testimony ended up being completely discredited.
William Rodriguez was a forensic anthropologist who worked for the U.S. Department of Defense, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, a government body in Washington, D.C., that does all the U.S. military’s pathology, such as remains found in Vietnam twenty years after the fact. I had read his report and it was not all that in conflict with what our experts were saying, so I decided not to depose him. He took the stand on a Saturday morning and recited his qualifications. One of his claims was that he was a cofounder of the Anthropological Research Facility, also known as the “Body Farm,” at the University of Tennessee, where my man, Dr. Vass, had his lab. This was news to me. Being so familiar with that research facility, I was shocked that I hadn’t heard about him before. However, in the days following his testimony, I received calls from people in the field who were offended that he had claimed to be a cofounder. They acknowledged he had been a grad student at the “Body Farm,” but had not been credited as a cofounder.
Right off, Dr. Rodriguez started talking about the stickiness of duct tape and other areas that were not in his report and not necessarily in his area of expertise. I objected, and after a great deal of wrangling back and forth, the judge said it appeared there were new areas being discussed and authorized a recess so I could depose him. The witness had to stop testifying and the jury was dismissed. We completed his deposition that afternoon.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was sticking to the decorum of courtroom argument, chaos was breaking out outside the courthouse. The previous night, people had begun lining up for tickets to view the proceedings. The paucity of seats had caused a lot of aggressive behavior in the line. Little fights had broken out now and again, but this was a blow-out brawl. At five A.M. that Friday, two men tried to cut the line. People who had waited all night would have none of it and a shoving match erupted. The circus of this trial had officially turned violent. This was a major embarrassment to our community to have such uncivilized behavior shown on national television. I was often disgusted with the atmosphere reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum. After that, we changed the rules of ticket distribution. All tickets were handed out the night before and no one could show up the day of court without a ticket.
That evening, when I was dining with family and friends I received an urgent call from Dr. G. She had just gotten a call from Dr. Rodriguez’s boss, a captain at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in D.C. He wanted to talk to me urgently. I excused myself from the table, and there in the lobby of the Cheesecake Factory in Winter Park, Florida, I called the captain. He told me he had seen on television that Dr. Rodriguez was a witness in the Casey Anthony trial and there was a huge problem. As a government employee, he was not authorized to testify, and if he continued to do so, he would be terminated from his employment. I was surprised by the information but did not want to become involved in any way in the decision of Dr. Rodriguez’s boss, but I did not expect that he would show up on Monday to complete his testimony. It all made sense why he had pointed out at the start of his testimony that he was appearing in court in a private capacity. “I’d like to inform the court I’m here as an unpaid consultant,” he had announced.
To my surprise, Dr. Rodriguez did show up in court on Monday morning, ready to testify. Before he could begin, I raised the issue about his deposition with Judge Perry. After some wrangling, the court recessed. A meeting with the judge and defense ensued in a back room. I brought up my conversation with the captain and the consequences of Dr. Rodriguez’s testimony. Jose went and spoke with Dr. Rodriguez, and when he came back it sounded like Rodriguez still wanted to testify. But not long after, Jose came to us and told us that Dr. Rodriguez did not want to lose his job, and the defense was withdrawing him as a witness.
A day or two later, Jose filed a motion asking that the charges against Casey be dismissed and accused me of engineering the employment action against Rodriguez, claiming that I had contacted his employer. He was accusing me of tampering with a witness, accusing me of a crime. I was upset, but Linda was outraged. She went to the defense and told them that if they believed this was what had happened, they needed to report me to the Florida Bar, and if they didn’t, she was going to report them.
“You can’t say stuff like this unless you can damn well prove it!” she told them. Linda told them that this was a serious allegation and if they were saying it to cause a little trouble and it wasn’t true, heads were going to roll. About two minutes later, one of Cheney Mason’s young assistants came over to us and said the defense was withdrawing the motion. The bickering behind the scenes was escalating. Even Judge Perry seemed to be at his wit’s end with Baez’s antics.
On June 21, the defense called Jane Bock, a forensic botanist who examined the crime scene on February 1, 2009. Bock testified that “leaf litter,” or fallen leaves, in the area of Caylee’s remains suggested that Caylee might have been put there as recently as two weeks before the discovery. I asked her if it could have been longer, and she said yes. When I pointed out a bone that was buried four inches in the mud, she suggested a dog could have buried it there. With great effort I stifled a laugh and moved on.
Richard Eikelenboom, a “touch DNA” expert from Holland, was the third defense witness to try and testify beyond the scope of his report. Eikelenboom analyzes skin cells left behind when a person touches something, and he was going to render an opinion on whether there should have been detectable DNA on the duct tape found on little Caylee’s skull.
Eikelenboom’s initial report had contained only one line, stating that at the time he had no opinion about the DNA findings to which he was an expert. He had not been set for deposition since he had no opinions, so
when he showed up in the hall one Friday I was surprised. The next thing I knew, the defense was calling him. Now I objected to him taking the stand until I could depose him. As with Rodriguez, we hurriedly took his deposition. I was prepared to respond to his testimony as best I could, but I was wary of investigating witnesses in the middle of trial and pursued sanctions against the defense.
Judge Perry agreed with me, seeming really annoyed with Baez. He went as far as making a specific finding that Baez had “willfully” violated the Court’s order and the rules of discovery despite the number of his admonitions. This time, the judge allowed Eikelenboom’s testimony but went to the extraordinary step of advising the jury about the violations by the defense. He told the jurors that they could take into account Baez’s willful violations when they judged this witness’s credibility. Judge Perry told Baez he would address additional sanctions against him personally after the trial. As of this writing, Judge Perry has not addressed the additional sanctions. In the end, Eikelenboom’s contribution was that there “might” or “might not” have been detectable DNA on the duct tape found in the car and I was able to effectively cross-examine him. Baez’s ambush tactics in this case had little effect on our ability to cross examine his witnesses. All it really accomplished was cutting into what little time I otherwise might have had with my family.
Dr. Marcus Bain Wise was the analytical chemist at Oak Ridge Laboratory who had worked with Dr. Vass on the odor evidence. I think the defense called Dr. Wise, expecting him to say that the amount of chloroform found in the air samples collected from the Pontiac could not be quantified, which he did. But, he added another level of comment to the issue. Dr. Wise had broader experience with chloroform in other contexts in various environmental testing and said he’d never seen levels that high. He also touted Vass’s expertise in chemistry, even though he acknowledged that this was not Vass’s area of specialty. Calling Dr. Wise appeared to have really backfired on the defense.
Kenneth Furton, a professor of chemistry at Florida International University, took the stand to testify about the chloroform and fluid found on paper towels in the trunk of the Pontiac. He was in court to refute Dr. Vass’s findings on both. Dr. Vass had noted that five chemical compounds found in the trunk were associated with human decomposition. Dr. Furton agreed, but clarified that in his opinion those same five compounds could also be found in garbage and household products. He also attempted to blame the odor on the trash in the car, maybe some dried-out remnant of cheese spread. Once again, I faced him with the actual item from the garbage and he fared no better than Dr. Huntington had.
With regard to fluid found on the paper towels, Dr. Furton said it could have come from a milk fat, a cheese, or an animal fat. He mentioned the Velveeta cheese and salami wrappers as being a possible source. In my questioning of him, Dr. Furton agreed that the fluid could have come from a decomposing body, but maintained that it could have been from another source as well.
The topic of chloroform was a sensitive subject for Cindy Anthony. She was in her own chloroform hot water when she took the stand for the defense on Thursday, June 23. In my opinion, this was the point when Cindy chose Casey over Caylee. She testified that she recalled searching for the word chloroform after her little Yorkie had become sick and she was researching if there was a connection between chloroform and the bamboo he had been eating. She said she did not, however, type the words “how to make chloroform.”
During the cross-examination, a stern Linda Burdick asked Cindy question after question about her specific search terms. While Cindy said she had searched the word chloroform, she had not searched how to make chloroform. Linda also drilled her about where she was on the date of the search.
“So, it’s your testimony today that it’s possible that you were home on that day even though your work records reflect something differently? That’s correct? Is that correct? On March 28, 2008, is it your testimony in front of this jury that you were home between 2:16 and 2:28 P.M.?”
“It’s possible,” Cindy replied, and then started to hem and haw.
Work records showed that Cindy was on her computer at the office around the time the searches for chloroform had been conducted on her home computer. Because it would have been impossible for her to be in two places at once, it was my opinion that Cindy Anthony lied to help her daughter. If she was lying and if that lie were found to be material, it could have subjected her to prosecution for perjury. Subsequent to my retirement, the State Attorney’s Office chose not to pursue perjury charges against her.
Because the chloroform searches were now the topic of evidence, the defense recalled Sergeant Kevin Stenger, the head of the computer forensics division at the Sheriff’s Office. In this, the defense caught something we missed, to their credit. Through computer software expert John Dennis Bradley, we had placed into evidence a computer report of the chloroform searches conducted on the Anthonys’ computer. It had been prepared by Stenger, using Bradley’s software. Stenger’s view was that software was the most reliable. That report had indicated that one of the websites related to chloroform had been visited eighty-four times, with specific dates for those searches.
Prior to submitting the files to Bradley, Stenger had done a similar search of the file using a different software program, but felt some of the results may not have been accurate. That report reflected all of the activity in that file. Both reports were provided to the defense. As it turns out, the earlier report that Stenger had produced indicated that the particular site was only visited once and attributed the eighty-four hits to a MySpace page. The defense called Stenger and exposed the discrepancy in the two reports. We still are not completely sure which one was correct but the real effect on the case was that the error took the jury’s attention away from the most important issue: that the site was visited period. It certainly made us all look bad. Once the discrepancy was pointed out to us, we never again argued the search number.
Stenger did an analysis of the deleted file shortly after the trial ended, using a different program, and found the same searches on the same dates, but instead of eighty-four visits to the one site, he found only one. Again, the error unfortunately detracted from the important information, which was that someone had searched for “how to make chloroform” in the first place.
During his testimony, Lee Anthony showed his allegiance to Casey much as his mother had. Perhaps the death penalty on the table was a motivating factor in their loyalty. In deposition, Lee had talked about the period of time when Casey was pregnant. He had been living at home, and said she looked like she was getting fat, so he went to talk to his mother. Cindy didn’t want to talk about it. Lee had just shrugged it off, figuring it was none of his business. He said his parents were soon “over the top” about it, and had even made a nursery and thrown a baby shower.
Now on the stand, he was throwing his parents under the bus, crying and hamming it up. He blamed his mother and father for “hiding” the pregnancy and for being ashamed of it. He acted beside himself that his parents “wouldn’t let him” be involved in any aspect of the pregnancy, and had even kept him away from the birth of his niece. Lee was totally playing into Baez’s claim that this family had secrets and everybody was a victim.
Lee was never asked at trial about his sister’s allegations of sexual misconduct, but I was told that he had denied the claims to Anthony family attorney Mark Lippman, telling the lawyer “it never happened.”
THROUGH THE TESTIMONY OF ALL of these witnesses, Baez had been almost entirely on his own. Cheney Mason had joined the defense team with great hype and celebration, and throughout the six and a half weeks of trial, we had barely heard from him. He had a good reputation as an elder statesman, but made most of his money on divorce cases or high-publicity trials. He tried to project himself as larger than life. In the Anthony case, he had cross-examined only a couple of witnesses, among them Dr. G, but had done little else. Part of his role may have
been funding. We had heard that Cheney was paying for hotel rooms for members of the defense team when we were picking the jury in Pinellas County.
At one point in the middle of trial Cheney had handed Frank a piece of paper with trivia information about the courtroom: how many ceiling tiles there were, how many recessed lights, and other minutiae. I think he was basically telegraphing his boredom, that he was not involved in the case and that this was Baez’s case. Because he was not engaged, he had a lot of time to fill his mind with other factual nuggets. That became clear after one of our many sidebars with Judge Perry over the admission of evidence. Cheney shrugged his shoulders and said in his southern drawl, “I keep trying to teach the boy the rules of evidence.” When we asked him about anything pertaining to the trial, he would often answer, “I don’t know. This is Jose’s show.”
At the eleventh hour, however, it appeared that Cheney had decided he needed to step in. He had approached Linda about a plea. Linda told him that if Casey wanted to plead to second-degree murder for a specific sentence of thirty years, that she could do that. That she might be allowed to plead to the aggravated manslaughter charge, but she would have to give us an explanation to justify it. She would have to give us the truth about how it happened and it would have to fit. We weren’t going to let her plead down without knowing what happened to Caylee.
Cheney wanted Casey to talk to him about entering a plea. At first Jose was not on board with the idea, but he had come around and was at least entertaining it. On Saturday, June 25, we approached the bench and moved to a back room with Judge Perry. There, Cheney told us that Casey refused to even listen to the idea of a plea. Every time he approached the subject with her, she would look at him blankly, like she didn’t know what a plea was. He said her expression gave him concerns about her competency.
