On day 13 of the Casey Anthony murder trial, jurors heard from another canine dog handler and computer forensics experts, but perhaps the bombshell came just before court was recessed for the day.
John Bradley, a computer forensics expert and CEO/founder of SiQuest Corporation, on re-direct by prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick told jurors that someone had searched on a computer in the Anthony family home, eighty-four times, for how to make chloroform.
Drane-Burdick asked Bradley how many times the website, scispot.com had been visited.
“According to the history, 84 times,” Bradley said.
During his testimony, which lasted much of Wednesday afternoon, Bradley said from decoded computer data, searches had been performed in March 2008 on topics such as “head injury”, “alcohol”, “internal bleeding”, “ruptured spleen”, “chest trauma”, neck breaking”, “self-defense” and “how do you make chloroform.”
Bradley also said that someone had conducted searches on how to make weapons out of household products and many of the searches had been manually deleted. During some of the searches, Facebook activity was detected, Bradley told jurors.
Yesterday, an FBI chemist, Dr. Michael Rickenback testified his analysis confirmed the presence of chloroform in the trunk liner of Casey Anthony’s Pontiac Sunfire and he was “surprised” to find chloroform on the spare tire liner.
Prosecutors believe that Casey murdered her two-year-old daughter, Caylee and drove around with the child’s body in the trunk of her car for sometime. They also believe that the murder of the child was pre-mediated, but have not yet offered a motive. Caylee’s remains were found six months after she went missing, in December 2008.
Detective Sandra Osborne, a computer expert with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office testified that when she examined the Anthony family computer she found references to Zenaida Gonzalez, the woman who Casey claimed was Caylee’s babysitter. Detective Osborne told jurors that on July 16, 2008, someone had searched online for Zenaida Gonzales and for chloroform, as well.
Earlier, on Wednesday, Sgt. Kristin Brewer, a cadaver dog handler with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office was called to the witness stand.
Sgt. Brewer testified that her K-9 “Bones” had no misses while in training school. She told jurors that “Bones” alerted to the smell of human decomposition in the backyard of the Anthony family home, close to the playhouse.
On Tuesday, Deputy Jason Forgey told jurors that his canine “Gerus” did give him a “trained final alert” near the kids play house and picnic table in the backyard of the Anthony home when he was first called to search there.
Prosecutors have said that both canines alerted in the Anthony backyard on the same day within 6 to 8 feet of each other. They believe that Casey tried to dispose of Caylee’s body in the backyard, before dumping the child’s body in a wooded area, about 15 houses from the Anthony family home.
Casey’s defense attorneys have claimed that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool and George Anthony, Casey’s father covered up the crime. The defense has also said that their client was sexually abused by George, and her brother Lee.
Casey, if convicted, could face the death penalty.
