After Casey Anthony Declared Competent, Defense Testimony Continues

After a failed attempt by Casey Anthony’s attorneys to have her trial for her daughter’s murder stopped due to questions about her competency, the defense recalled the lead investigator on the case for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Monday to correct a mistake he had made while testifying last week.

Det. Yuri Melich stated that he misspoke Friday regarding the phone records of Roy Kronk, the man who found 2-year-old Caylee Anthony’s remains in December 2008. He said investigators subpoenaed Kronk’s cell phone records from June and July 2008, the same time frame for which they had sought phone records for several other witnesses.

Defense attorney Jose Baez noted that Kronk first made contact with law enforcement about the case in August 2008, but Melich said they did not request his phone records from August through December, even though those records might have shown whether Kronk was in the area off Suburban Drive where the remains were found at a time when his job did not require him to be.

Asked by Baez if he had given the jury any other incorrect information in this case, Melich responded, “You’re suggesting that I intentionally misinformed this jury and I did not.”

Baez listed about a dozen friends and acquaintances of Casey Anthony who investigators subpoenaed phone records for and asked why they did not seek additional records from someone as important as the man who found the body, but Melich said there was no evidence to suggest that was necessary. He said they got all of those records on Anthony’s friends in an effort to locate Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, the imaginary babysitter who she falsely claimed had kidnapped Caylee.

Melich also acknowledged that investigators never confiscated Kronk’s computer, though Baez pointed out that they did collect a computer from a woman who had taken pictures of the Suburban Drive area who also claimed she was a spy for George Bush.

Melich testified that he did not have cadaver dogs search inside the Anthony house or around George or Cindy Anthony’s cars. On cross examination, however, he said that nobody had told him that either of those vehicles smelled like it had a dead body in it.

Baez asked Melich about his testimony that K-9 Dep. Jason Forgey deployed his dog only on Casey Anthony’s car when he searched it outside the forensics bay of the sheriff’s office garage. He also briefly called Michael Vincent and Gerardo Bloise of the crime scene investigation unit, who both said the same thing.

He then called Dep. Forgey, who said the dog started with an unknown blue car before checking Anthony’s Pontiac Sunfire. He testified that in training they use multiple cars during searches to prevent handler bias, but in the real world that is not always practical. There just happened to be another car next to the Pontiac when it was taken out of the forensics bay, so he checked that first.

Defense expert Dr. Kenneth Furton, a professor of chemistry at Florida International University, took the stand next. Once he was accepted by the court as an expert on chemical analysis of human decomposition, Furton explained to the jury research he and his students have done on the unique signature of chemical compounds related to human decomposition.

He stated that there is no “scientifically validated” instrumental method for verifying the presence or absence of human composition based on chemicals, which is what prosecution expert Dr. Arpad Vass had claimed he could do. Furton said that part of the problem is that many of the chemical compounds involved are not unique to human decomposition.

Fatty acids like those identified on a paper towel from the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car, for example, could be found in milk fat, cheese and animal fat, Furton said. He claimed the fatty acids identified in Vass’ report could also be found in hard salami.

Furton also said that chloroform is common in many consumer products and can be found at particularly high levels in bleach. He added that it can be present in drinking water, cheeses of soft drinks, but Ashton objected following that statement and the attorneys went to a sidebar before Judge Belvin Perry announced the lunch break.

Defense attorneys cited “privileged communication” with Casey Anthony as their reason for filing a motion Saturday to determine her competency to proceed with the trial, arguing that she is “not competent to aid and assist in her own defense.” Based on the reports of experts who interviewed Anthony over the weekend, however, Judge Perry ruled Monday morning that she was competent before testimony continued.