The Two-edged Sword of Hearsay
Casey Anthony’s defense team has submitted a list of statements made by Casey and others that they are wanting declared as hearsay or as prejudicial and omitted from being entered into evidence during trial. The defense has basically bunched these statements in categories that they believe show they are prejudicial or hearsay. Those categories are:
- Characterization of Anthony Family Relationships
- Characterization of Casey as liar
- Hearsay
- Contents of Trunk
- Double (dammit) Hearsay
- Characterization of Casey as bad mother
- Characterization of Casey as thief
- Remains of Caylee
- Jesse (Grund) as father of Caylee
- Casey pregnancy
- Roy Kronk tip
- Characterization of Casey as drug user
- Characterization of Casey as frequent partier
- Hearsay (psychic) – (which must be a special subset of double dammit hearsay when a psychic is involved)
- Casey stealing (versus Casey being characterized as thief?)
- Casey’s second pregnancy
- Finding of Caylee Remains
Now, the ones that are “characterizations” or about Casey’s pregnancies pretty much boil down to – they don’t want anybody saying anything about Casey, or the Anthonys. UNLESS, that person is going to say that Casey was a good mother and the Anthony family was a good, wholesome family, and they were all fine, upstanding individuals. I think we can all see the problems with the defense trying to make that play out. While I have no doubt they can find SOMEONE who will make these statements about Casey and/or the Anthony family, the problem is they are going to get cross-examined. I don’t see that part of the witness-box time going well for the defense. In other words, the defense can’t put Amy Huizenga or Maria Kissh on the stand and ask “Did you think Casey was a good mother?” to which they probably would answer yes, without the prosecution getting up and asking “Did Casey take Caylee to parties where there were [fill in the blank - drugs?, smoking?, drinking?, etc.]? Did Casey leave Caylee unattended? (to which the answer is going to be yes)
As to whether Casey is a thief – that really doesn’t play too much into whether she murdered Caylee or not. But at the same time, the defense isn’t going to have too many options in showing Casey to have integrity as far as being self-sufficient, employed, a manager of finances, etc. And, again, any attempt to portray her as possessing these qualities is just going to open the door to the prosecution asking the right questions to the same witness and bringing out the fact that Casey didn’t work, didn’t financially support Caylee, and most likely lead to the revelation that the way she supported her own lifestyle (because that’s where all the money went – Casey, not Caylee) was through unapproved appropriation of funds! What a nice way to say – stealing!
To avoiding characterizing Casey as a liar, I say good luck. The problem the defense has with this is that Casey’s lies are part of her crimes. They “bleed over” into the cover up of the truth of what happened to Caylee and they contaminate the formal investigation. While the defense may be successful at preventing the presentation that Casey appears to have been a liar-extraordinaire for many years prior to Caylee’s death, they are not going to be successful at suppressing the fact that for a critical 31 day period in which Casey claims her daughter was kidnapped; claims she had no knowledge of her daughter’s whereabouts or welfare; and did not report either of those “facts” to the authorities, she lied to her family, her friends, and her casual acquaintances concerning where Caylee was. Nor are they going to be able to suppress that she never has tried to correct the record on any of those events.
Everything Casey did in the month that Caylee was missing and not reported go toward her state of mind, her consciousness of guilt, and her intentional acts to cover up that Caylee could NOT be accounted for. And that’s the main problem the defense has. While they have every legal right to request that Casey’s prior bad acts – or in this case, prior bad living – not come into play in trying to paint their client as…she is (lol), the problems is that her WORST period of behavior is in the month that is critical to the cover-up of her daughter’s murder. That month is not filled with “prior bad acts” but with contemporaneous, connected bad acts. Part and parcel of the reason Caylee was not reported missing for a month, evidence was allowed to be destroyed with time and exposure, and the true nature of Caylee’s death destroyed for prosecution purposes IS Casey’s lies and bad behavior in that month. And as we’ve covered in a prior article, The Power of Circumstantial Evidence, there is precedence that intentionally not reporting your crime in order to make it “go away” doesn’t sit well with jurors, or with appellate judges!
Now, let’s turn to the hearsay that they want suppressed. Here’s where they create a true sticky-wicket due to the double-edged manner in which this could cut. Let’s just give an example of how this will hurt the defense’s only “strategy” we have hints of to date. On page 4 of the list of statements the defense has filed they want excluded is
Cindy tells Britney Schieber about finding the car.
The defense wants this declared hearsay and excluded. The problem is this means that one of the defense’s bulleted reasons in support of moving to have Kronk declared a suspect in Caylee’s murder…
A statement indicating that Mr. Kronk knew of the location of Caylee Anthony’s remains and indeed may have had possession or control of them in November 2008, weeks before he alerted law enforcement on December 11, 2008.
…becomes hearsay as well. And to be clear, this isn’t JUST a bulleted line item in support of declaring him a suspect. This is THE reason for wanting to declare him a suspect. This is the alleged phone call Kronk was supposed to have had with his son in November. The sword cuts both ways. If Cindy making any statements to anyone about her thoughts on the events surrounding the finding of the car is declared hearsay, anything Kronk said to anybody about his thoughts on what he had reported in August becomes hearsay as well. Which utterly destroys the defense’s only rabbit hole they had to hide in (not).
And there are many more examples that can be made to show how the defense’s move to declare statements of certain nature hearsay will have an extremely crippling effect on their attempt to establish Caylee’s body was NOT on Suburban Drive during the period from August to December, 2008, and that Kronk may be connected with the entire murder! This two-edged hearsay sword will literally cut the legs out from under the defense team.
But let’s back up and talk about how trying to avoid “negative characterization” of Casey is going to hit them. If Casey’s propensity to party with her child presence is excluded, so will Kronk’s propensity to do the ol’ duct tape, hot-monkey sex thingy. If Casey’s inability to tell the truth, even when the truth is better for all involved, is excluded, the allegations that Kronk playing World of Warcraft is some type of bizarre evidence he can’t tell fantasy from reality will be excluded. If Casey’s characterization as a “bad mother” is excluded, Kronk’s “possible” (serious…POSSIBLE) history of inappropriate behavior with young girls (which by the way has so far been based ENTIRELY on the “double dammit hearsay” category) will be excluded.
Which leads to the final cut – that is the majority of the only strategy the defense has hinted at so far (i.e. pinning it on Kronk) will lay like so many bad scenes from a B movie on the editor’s floor. Basically what you’re left with in the defense’s motion concerning naming Kronk a suspect is the title and the signature page. All the guts kind of fall out.
Valhall.
We interrupt this blog for a special bulletin…
BOMB-F***ING-SHELL!
The Caylee Marie Anthony murder HAS BEEN SOLVED! (not) We can expect the release of the felon Casey Anthony concerning the charges of the murder of her own child within minutes. (not) Was it Joy Wray who solved this case? NO! Was it O’Town Finest? NO! Was it slick-dick Dom? NO! It was none other than the notorious crime fighter and mystery solver James L. McIntyre.
Who the hell is James L. McIntyre?
[The following desription of "MADD-McSnort James L. McIntyre drunk-driving disbarred lawyer" appears to NOT be of the same "Aveeno-girl obsessed 'I see dead people' James L. McIntyre" who has submitted correspondence to the Judge in the Casey Anthony case. I have sent correspondence to the Uber-sleuth, crime-solving James L. McIntyre in Minnesota who has a hankering for the Aveeno girl and who claims to have McIntyre Consulting asking him to confirm that he is or is not the disbarred lawyer. But Maura has supplied sufficient information when looking at the age of Minnesota Aveeno-loving McIntyre to convince me they are most likely not the same person. As Maura points out, he would have had to have passed the Massachusetts bar at the age of 21, and that's highly unlikely. I will share whatever response I get from Minnesota McIntyre. I have placed the questionable portion of the article in italics and parentheses for the time being. P.S. This has not deterred my use of the nickname Mc-Snort...]
(If he IS the James L. McIntyre from Massachusetts, he’s a lawyer or was, or may be again, but it’s real unclear as to which is true. At least once, for sure, he was a lawyer. Then he got drunk, drove drunk and killed a guy. He got convicted of manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and causing bodily injury while operating a vehicle recklessly and negligently while shit-faced drunk. THEN, he decided drinking wasn’t working out well for him so he got busted for snorting cocaine. Well, at least he had cocaine on him. He could have been shoving it in his ear for all I know (I doubt it) – but he had cocaine. Of course, some where in this mix he lost his license to practice law.
After that he served time in prison, swept floors for community service and lived with his daddy. Then his brother (who still had his law license) said he’d take him on as a partner and the benevolent Justice Cown, in October 2000, reinstated this mullet-head’s ability to lawyer. I’m not sure what happened after that, but it doesn’t appear he has his “lawyering license” anymore, so he could have been snortin’, drinkin’ or just bein’ himself for all I know.)
He has solved many crimes (in his own mind). Pig-dog farmer-killer Pickton case. (not) He’d have already solved the JonBenet Ramsey case if they would have just let him. (not) And he knows the answer to a lot of other crimes as well! (not) Like who killed Jodi Sue Huisentruit. And he’s found valuable evidence concerning the Jennifer Odom murder. (not) Of course, only he knows the answers. (not)
And such is the case with the Caylee Marie Anthony murder. (not)
We’ve seen James “Lyin” McIntyre before. He passed emails to slick-dick Dom and Cindy and he’s posted on numerous blogs and discussion boards using various aliases for some unknown reason….all the while an avid supporter of Casey and her innocence and her FREEDOM! Now that goal is in sight. (not)
So, how did he bust this case? Well, it’s simple. He emailed the Orlando Sentinel all the goods. Because THAT’S where the goods get sent when you know the truth about a murder case. (not)
Zenaida “Zani” Fernandez-Gonzalez
is
Gloria Fernandez-Gonzalez, 28 years old. Evicted from Apartment 210 of Sawgrass apartments on February 25, 2008.
Hold the check – uhhh, no she wasn’t. On page 53 of the discovery released on August 25, 2008 it clearly states that the tenants evicted from Apartment 210 of Sawgrass apartments were Stacy and Joseph Oaks??? No “Gloria”, no “Fernandez” and no “Gonzalez” (or Gonzale if you’re Cindy Anthony). And why are we talking about a “Gloria” Fernandez-Gonzalez? I thought Zanny’s name was “Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez”. I mean that’s what Casey Anthony, at her moment of opportunity to enlist assistance in finding her daughter, who had been missing for 31 days according to her, told the detectives repeatedly. In fact, she even put it in her written statement. No – there’s no “Gloria” in there. The only place “Gloria” comes up is in the name Casey gave the investigators for the name of Zenaida’s mother. And Zenaida’s mother can’t be 28 years old.
Uber-sleuth McIntyre answers this for us. (not)
He’s talking about Gloria Fernandez-Gonzalez Jr! Yep – the first hispanic woman in history to take the “junior” title. Why? Because her mother’s name is Gloria Fernandez-Gonzalez Sr…that’s why!
Oh wait – I thought Zanny’s hyphenated name was because of the joining of her mother and father’s last names. How could her mother have the same hyphenated last name? Unless…INCEST! That’s what has led Zanny (aka Gloria) to do what she’s done. Her mother conceived her in an incestuous relationship with…her own father and her husband’s brother!
But wouldn’t that mean it should be Gloria Fernandez-Gonzalez-Fernandez-Gonzalez Jr? or Gloria Fernandez-Fernandez-Gonzalez-Gonzalez Jr? Or maybe Gloria Fernandez2-2Gonzalez2 Jr? I’m not sure at this point. But I still don’t see “Zenaida” in this mix, double mix, or remix.
Now Gloria moved in with her sister Daisy. But here’s the rub – we haven’t got a clue whether this was Gloria Jr (aka Zenaida, aka Zanny) or Gloria Sr. ONE OF THEM died their hair blond and they were at the airport and Wanda Wery and her son saw them on July 2, 2008. Whichever Gloria this was is 5′7″, 135 lbs when Wanda saw them. And Mensa-McIntyre says Airport Security will CONFIRM. But here’s the problem. For some unknown reason this evidence – which is key in solving the Caylee Anthony murder – was turned over to Justice Jose R. Rodriguez who is presiding over the CIVIL case with Zenaida Gonzalez. Why the hell this would have wound up with a civil court judge nobody knows, BUT madman-McIntyre claims Justice Rodriguez sealed it! (not)
Here’s what McIntyre claims:
Casey Marie Anthony DID NOT murder her daughter, she is INNOCENT! Her daughter Caylee Marie Anthony was KIDNAPPED! Orange County Circuit Court Judge Jose R. Rodriguez has the proof. He sealed BOTH the Police Sergeant’s written report AND the Orlando International Airport’s security camera flash card. The flash card is approximately 3.5 by 3.5 and has video evidence that clearly shows the KIDNAPPING of Caylee Marie Anthony by Zani The Nanny a.k.a. Gloria Fernandez-Gonzalez Jr. Age 28.
Okay, we’re clear now – it’s Gloria-Zanny-Zenaida-Fernandez-Gonzalez Jr that bleached her hair blond. BUT, how did the kidnapping take place in the Orlando Airport??? What was Casey doing there? Why didn’t she tell the detectives that GZZFGJr kidnapped Caylee at the airport??? It doesn’t make sense! And why does a civil case judge have these records??? And what does 3.5 by 3.5 mean? If that’s millimeters, that’s a little-bitty camera! If it’s feet, it’s frigging huge – it could have footage of all crimes committed since the Bay of Pigs went bad! And WHY did a judge presiding over a civil suit that didn’t even get filed until September 24, 2008 have evidence on a murder investigation in which the investigators went to the airport and reviewed the surveillance video on July 24, 2008! How does this happen?!
I smell a conspiraseh.
But wait, the evidence is compelling. Gloria Gonzalez (Jr?) crashed her car near Tampa, Fl on June 23, 2008. She drives a silver four-door 2008 Ford Focus with New York Plates! This has got to be her! An earlier attempt at kidnapping (with her sister Samantha Gonzalez (not born by incestuous relationships and therefore no need for superscripts)) failed at Jay Blanchard Park on June 16, 2008! Victor Fernandez is Gloria-squared’s step-father and he and his half-brother Hector hid Gloria-squared (aka Zanny) and Caylee. Gloria Sr left him over it!
The body – that was found in the swampy area on Suburban Drive – is that of “Baby Doe” who was murdered by her steroid-using father in spite of Baby Doe’s mother and grandmother (whatever the hell that means). The murder was cold and premeditated. (actually, this may be the first part Mc-snort got right).
“CAYLEE MARIE ANTHONY WAS KIDNAPPED BY NANNY/BABYSITTER THAT CASEY MADE THE MISTAKE OF TRUSTING”. (in the airport after she had already tried to kidnap Caylee once in Jay Blanchard Park – maybe Casey gave Zanny-Gloria-squared a mulligan).
This is it people. We’ve wasted our time looking at the facts. We wasted our time looking at the whole “why did she go partying instead of telling someone her baby was missing?”. We wasted our time with the entire “ick, there’s decomp gases and hair in the trunk deal”. And we have wasted our time with the fact that Caylee’s remains were found bagged in trash bags that match those at the Anthony home, a laundry bag that was previously at the Anthony home but is now missing, with a Pooh blanket that was at the Anthony home but is now missing, and with three pieces of duct tape over her skull that match duct tape on the Anthonys’ gas can and on their posters, and seen in an almost full roll at their command center BECAUSE….
Casey, after thwarting an attempt by the evil duo Zanny-Gloria-squared and evil-sister-Samantha in Jay Blanchard Park hid Caylee for 16 days while lying to all her friends about where Caylee was. To this day no one knows where Casey hid Caylee for those 16 days! At the end of those 16 days Casey went to the airport on July 2nd to…do something, but we have no idea what…and Caylee was kidnapped right there on video by bleach-blond Gloria-squared-Zanny! And if that evil rotten Judge Rodriguez would just unseal the 3.5 by 3.5 thingy he has…
this could all be over. (not)
Valhall.
Decomposition Gases in Casey’s Trunk
An area that I haven’t addressed in the forensics reports released to date concerns the results from the air monitoring performed on samples taken from Casey Anthony’s trunk. These tests were conducted by Dr. Arpad Vass, Dr. Marc Wise, and Dr. Madhavi Martin at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This testing was very thorough, and worked to establish if any of the items present in the car (such as the trash bag contents, and the trunk liner itself), as well as things that were alleged to be in the car (such as decomposing pizza) or on the car (dead squirrels) could have caused the presence of gases known to be associated with human decomposition and which were detected in the air testing of the liner samples.
A first step in reviewing this report is to establish how these tests were conducted, and what control measures were used to ensure valuable returns. The tests were conducted on air samples retrieved from sealed bags (called Tedlar bags) which contained samples of the stained liner from Casey’s trunk. The sealed bags containing the samples were placed in an oven at 35 degrees C (95 degrees F) for two days to facilitate outgassing of the volatiles trapped in the carpet samples.
ORNL then employed a technique called “cryo-tapping” to condense the emitting volatiles to a concentrated level. In other words, they condensed the concentration of the volatiles so they could detect them in a Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS). (We’ve covered the GC/MS technique in prior articles.) Cryo-tapping involves cooling the gases coming off the sample using cryogenic nitrogen and oxygen. This results in the gases turning to condensation (liquid). (This is like when you drink a glass of iced tea and water drops form on the outside of the glass. The cold ice in the glass has caused water vapor from the surrounding air to condense into liquid water on your glass. That’s what they are doing in cryo-tapping, only the droplets are not water, they are volatiles like Methanol, Ethanol, etc.) The oxygen and nitrogen are vented off and then the resultant condensate, which contains the volatiles of interest, is reheated. As the condensate is reheated the volatile gases flow to the GC/MS and are detected. It’s kind of like distillation-reverse-distillation – if you will.
They also employed Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) in analyzing the carpet samples. LIBS uses a laser, aimed at the surface of the sample (in this case carpet), that vaporizes an extremely small spot on the sample. When the laser vaporizes the spot on the sample it creates a plume consisting of the elements contained in the sample. As these excited elements fall back to their unexcited state they emit light (in fact, the laser creates a burst of plasma). Optic detectors pick up this light, which will be made up of many wavelengths associated with the different elements that are creating the light. The detected signals are then plotted in the frequency domain where the wavelengths of the different elements that made up the light can be detected.
Any time forensic work is performed there must be control samples to which the results are compared. In this case, the control samples used were:
- trunk liner samples from another 1998 Pontiac Sunfire found at a junkyard (referred to as the “control carpet”),
- a piece of mushroom and pepperoni pizza allowed to decompose (and it’s noted that this was done even though no pizza was found in Casey’s car),
- air samples from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where the samples were stored and prepared,
- a trip blank taken in Florida (remember a blank is a “negative control” – in other words, it’s a vial with just air in it),
- an air sample from the Florida Forensics Unit garage where Casey’s car had been stored,
- air samples from a piece of the control carpet upon which a dead squirrel was allowed to decompose,
- air samples from a blanket in which a 3 year old child (baby ManyWhiteHorses) had been wrapped and left in a trunk for 3 months (this is the “positive control” – positive because they know darned well human decomposition took place for this sample, and not only that but it was a child, and it took place in a closed trunk).
Now, the results are compiled into one massive table at the end of the report (pages 20 and 21 of the pdf). The table can quickly begin to resemble one of those “magic eye” posters where you just hope you can go into a trance and what you need to see pops out at you, so we’re going to break the results down into manageable chunks so that we can understand the importance of the results. In the far left-hand column of the table in the report are the volatiles detected in the air samples from Casey’s trunk. The second column is entitled “Is compound listed in Decompositional Odor Database?”. We’re going to use this column to weed down the table to that information we care about, which would be the volatiles detected in Casey’s car that are listed in the database for human decomposition. This is what we get:
Decomposition gases detected in air testing of samples taken from Casey's trunk liner.
| 1-methyl-ethyl benzene | Carbon disulfide | Isobutanal |
| 1,2 Pentadiene | Carbon tetrachloride | Isooctane |
| 2-butanone | Chloroethane | Limonene/Pinene |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroform | Methanethiol |
| 2-methyl hexane | Chloromethane | Methanol |
| 3-methyl hexane | Decanal | Napthalene |
| 3-methyl pentane | Dichloroethene | Octane |
| 3-methyl butanal | Dichloromethane | Pentane |
| Acetaldehyde | Dimethyl trisulfide | Tetrachloroethene |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Dimethyl disulfide | Toluene |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Ethanol | Trichloroethene |
| Benzene | Ethyl benzene | Trimethyl pentene |
| Butanal | Hexane | Xylene(s) |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Hexanol |
Now, let’s begin to step through the controls ORNL used to discern whether these gases could be coming from items in the car (or items alleged to be in the car). First let’s see which of these gases could be associated with the non-existent decomposing pizza. The way ORNL obtained the pizza data was to take a piece of carpet from the control trunk (the 1998 Pontiac from the junkyard) and place a piece of the pizza on top of it and let it decompose. (As a rule of thumb, when we are looking at the data from external sources, such as the pizza, gasoline, etc. we will eliminate any chemicals that are noted as a firm “Yes” in the column for that control object {in this case the pizza column}, but we will not eliminate gases that are noted as a qualified “Yes” in which it is noted that the chemical was detected in the control object at a level “significantly less than” the level detected in Casey’s trunk samples.) So here are the volatiles that get eliminated if there was a rotting pizza in the trash bag:
Decomposition gas list after gases detected in decomposing pizza are removed.
| 1-methyl-ethyl benzene | Carbon disulfide | Isobutanal |
| 1,2 Pentadiene | Carbon tetrachloride | Isooctane |
| 2-butanone | Chloroethane | Limonene/Pinene |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroform | Methanethiol |
| 2-methyl hexane | Chloromethane | |
| 3-methyl hexane | Decanal | Napthalene |
| 3-methyl pentane | Dichloroethene | Octane |
| 3-methyl butanal | Dichloromethane | Pentane |
| Acetaldehyde | Dimethyl trisulfide | Tetrachloroethene |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Dimethyl disulfide | |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Trichloroethene | |
| Ethyl benzene | Trimethyl pentene | |
| Butanal | Hexane | Xylene(s) |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Hexanol |
The next thing we’re going to do is look at what detected volatiles are also present in gasoline, because we know Casey had stolen gas cans in her trunk and we have to determine if these detected gases came from the fumes of the stolen gasoline. We’ll eliminate anything that shows up in gasoline and give the benefit of the doubt that it is the origin of those volatiles.
Decomposition gas list after gases detected in gasoline are removed.
| Carbon disulfide | Isobutanal | |
| Carbon tetrachloride | ||
| 2-butanone | Chloroethane | Limonene/Pinene |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroform | Methanethiol |
| Chloromethane | ||
| Decanal | ||
| Dichloroethene | Pentane | |
| 3-methyl butanal | Dichloromethane | Tetrachloroethene |
| Dimethyl trisulfide | Trichloroethene | |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Dimethyl disulfide | |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | ||
| Butanal | ||
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Hexanol |
Now, the car sat in the Florida Forensics Unit garage where it was processed, and where the carpet samples were retrieved from its trunk. So in order to rule out any gases that could have been in the garage itself, and therefore be from an external source (i.e. the air in the garage), we will eliminate anything detected in the tests of the garage air samples.
Decomposition gas list after gases detected in Florida Forensics Unit garage are removed.
| 2-butanone | Carbon tetrachloride | Dimethyl disulfide |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroethane | Hexanol |
| 3-methyl butanal | Chloroform | Isobutanal |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Chloromethane | Limonene/Pinene |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Decanal | Methanethiol |
| Butanal | Dichloroethene | |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Dichloromethane | |
| Carbon disulfide | Dimethyl trisulfide | Trichloroethene |
The next thing we ought to do, in order to give the defense all the leeway we can give them, is to look at our “negative control” (i.e. the “empty” vial) and eliminate any gases that show up in it. That way we have ruled out if our spectrometer is picking up on something that may not be there, or if the element is at detectable levels in the ambient air of Florida.
Decomposition gas list after gases detected in trip blank are removed.
| 2-butanone | Carbon tetrachloride | Dimethyl disulfide |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroethane | Hexanol |
| 3-methyl butanal | Chloroform | Isobutanal |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Chloromethane | Limonene/Pinene |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Decanal | Methanethiol |
| Dichloroethene | Trichloroethene | |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Dichloromethane | |
| Carbon disulfide | Dimethyl trisulfide |
We will now eliminate any volatiles detected from the samples taken of the contents of the trash bag retrieved from Casey’s trunk. This is actually being very charitable to the defense because the air flows both ways in the trunk! To eliminate the trash bag volatiles is to say the trash bag contaminated the trunk air and completely ignore the fact the trunk air could have contaminated the trash bag air. In addition to that, we have the evidence that napkins with adipocere on them were in the trash bag, so this is a very generous move on our part.
Decomposition gas list after gases detected in trash bag are removed.
| 2-butanone | Carbon tetrachloride | Dimethyl trisulfide |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroethane | Dimethyl disulfide |
| 3-methyl butanal | Chloroform | Hexanol |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Chloromethane | Isobutanal |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Decanal | |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Dichloroethene | Methanethiol |
| Carbon disulfide | Dichloromethane |
We should also eliminate any gases that are detected in the “control carpet” which was taken from the other 1998 Pontiac from the junkyard. No need to show a table on this one, because there are no common gases in the control carpet that haven’t already been eliminated. Then the last step we’ll take in “cleaning up” the data is to remove any of the human decomposition gases detected in the air samples of Casey’s trunk liner that came in at “trace” levels. That way we’re not dealing with any “iffy” returns.
Decomposition gas list after those detected at "trace" levels are removed.
| 2-butanone | Carbon tetrachloride | Dimethyl trisulfide |
| 2-methyl furan | Chloroethane | Dimethyl disulfide |
| 3-methyl butanal | Chloroform | Hexanol |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | Chloromethane | Isobutanal |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | Limonene/Pinene | |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | Dichloroethene | Methanethiol |
| Carbon disulfide | Dichloromethane | Trichloroethene |
We do not have the actual results of the analysis performed on the decomposing squirrel, but we do have the following statements within the report:
Results of this analysis shows very little similarity to the Florida carpet sample. No sulfur compounds, chloroform or carbon tetrachloride were detected in the sample.
So now that we’ve been extremely conservative in purging the results of the analysis of Casey’s trunk, and can now have a high degree of confidence that we have not included any volatiles that could have come from sources other than a human decomposition event, let’s compare our remaining gases to that of the positive control; the air samples from the blanket that wrapped baby ManyWhiteHorses.
Decomposition gas list compared to decomposition gases detected in positive control sample.
| Casey's Trunk Sample | Positive Control Sample |
|---|---|
| 2-butanone | 2-butanone |
| 2-methyl furan | |
| 3-methyl butanal | 3-methyl butanal |
| Acetic acid, methyl ester | |
| Acetone (2-propanone) | |
| Butanoic acid, methyl ester | |
| Carbon disulfide | Carbon disulfide |
| Carbon tetrachloride | |
| Chloroethane | |
| Chloroform | |
| Chloromethane | Chloromethane |
| Dichloroethene | Dichloroethene |
| Dichloromethane | Dichloromethane |
| Dimethyl trisulfide | Dimethyl trisulfide |
| Dimethyl disulfide | Dimethyl disulfide |
| Hexanol | |
| Isobutanal | |
| Methanethiol | Methanethiol |
The air samples tested from Casey’s trunk actually show the presence of a greater number of human decomposition gases than the positive control sample taken from a blanket that is known to have been around the decomposing body of a 3 year old child who was left in a trunk for 3 months.
Valhall.
Casey’s New Year’s (2008) Resolution
I’ve been both blessed and cursed by my friendship with Muzikman (insert rocker emoticon here). I’ve been blessed by the fact that he has sent me complete copies of discovery releases, often containing materials not uploaded by the media. I’ve been cursed by the fact that the additional detail occupies a lot more of my time than it probably has any right to do so.
With that preamble, I’m ashamed to say I’ve spent some time off and on over the past year looking at the contents of Casey’s Photobucket account – all 12,000 images, 351 MB worth. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not it has any bearing on this case.
According to the Photobucket image time stamps, Casey began uploading images on April 3, 2007 (incidentally, this is right around the time that Casey ended her engagement with Jesse). That day she posted 994 images, the very first being the icon shown on the right.
She did not upload every day, and could go many, many weeks between uploads. But when she did upload images, she would do so hundreds at a time in rapid succession – say one every two seconds. This tells me Casey would harvest images from the web over a period of days or weeks, organize them on her computer, and then upload them en-masse to her Photobucket account. And Casey definitely organized the images before they were uploaded, as the images were often grouped into themes such as “whores” or “rainbows” or “farts”.
As for her themes, there were a number of them. Major themes were tatoos, sex, partying, whores, bitches, House (the TV show), boyfriends and lost love. Minor themes were usually some variant of the major themes, such as flirtatiousness being a sub-theme of sex or whore, depending on the specific image.
The media certainly played up the fact that she uploaded lots of “disturbing” skull and heart images, focusing on the uploads that took place in June and July, 2008. However, from what I can see she was uploading images like that from the day she first got on Photobucket. The image on the right is one of a dozen or so uploaded that first morning. Also, I see images like that all over myspace and other sites frequented by young adults these days. It seems part of their current culture. I truly have not been convinced the images have any link to the murder or premeditation. I believe Casey simply thought they were cool.
Casey, however, uploaded far, far more than images of skulls and hearts – or party pictures. She liked to upload what I will simply call “cute sayings.” Nearly all of them fall into two categories. One category is made up of wistful and often cliche-filled views on love, boyfriends, and broken hearts. The other category is humor – often sophomoric humor. Very often this has a high vulgar content.
Some examples of the first category (think sugary and sappy):
You do make me happy
Love is like a glass door. Sometimes you don’t see it, and it smacks you right in the face.
Please don’t pretend you care, then crush my feelings into little bite-sized pieces for you to eat up with a side order of my dignity covered in self-respect sauce.
Examples of the second category (think Family Guy and South Park):
Don’t hate me because I am beautiful, hate me because I have huge boobs
If you’re happy and you know it, Drop your pants
When life hands you a lemon, say ‘oh yeah, I like lemons. What else ya got?’
Love like a movie star, Party like a rock star, Fuck like a porn star
I’m not a gynecologist but I’ll take a look
No matter what was going on in her life, Casey continued to upload quotes and sayings that fit within those two categories. That is, until May, 2008. Beginning in May, it seems she basically stopped uploading written messages of personal philosophy and stuck with graphics and photos. The two images below were the last ones posted, at the beginning of May:
Later, one image of that ilk was uploaded on the 24th, and another four on June 26, but that was essentially it:
That is not to say she stopped collecting them – which I will get to in a moment.
Casey’s Photobucket behavior change in May was not her first. I also noticed a significant change in her January 4, 2008 uploads. Mixed in with the typical shallow / superficial / sophomoric one-liners are a bunch of quotes and sayings (some quite lengthy) focusing on “getting the most out of life”. For example:
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints. To handle yourself, use your head, to handle others, use your heart. Anger is only one letter short of danger. If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; if he betrays you twice, it is your fault. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses more; he who loses faith, loses all. Beautiful young people are acts of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. Learn from the mistakes of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. Friends, you and me…you brought another friend…and then there were three…we started our group…our circle of friends…and like that circle…there is no beginning or end…yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.
I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
Fall in love or fall in hate. Get inspired or be depressed. Ace a test or flunk a class. Make babies or make art. Speak the truth or lie and cheat. Dance on tables or sit in the corner. Life is divine chaos. Embrace it. Forgive yourself. Breathe. And enjoy the ride…
I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.
Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again.
Here’s to life. Hanging out, making out, sneaking out, passing out. Whatever happens, happens. No regrets.
Now, up to that point in time Casey’s uploads said very little about “life”, and the quotes she chose to upload were never this long unless, of course, they oozed sarcasm and included the word “f*ck”. So seeing them sprinkled in with the typical dreck caught my attention. I began to wonder … did Casey make a new year’s resolution around taking control of her life?
There were a couple of other quotes uploaded that day that sounded vaguely familiar:
Every story has an end, but in life every end is just a new beginning.
Live for today
Those quotes reminded me of:
Every day is a brand new beginning
Carpe Diem – Seize the day
Which of course were written in the infamous diary that the prosecution may or may not have possession of (at least Brad Conway put the offer on the table on live TV with Larry King). The question that popped into my mind: does the ” ‘03 ” written on that page refer to “2003″, or does it refer to “page 3″, or perhaps “January 3″? January 3 seems somewhat plausible.
But it gets better.
The history files for the laptop computer released by OCSO in September 2008 only went back to July 6, and they recorded mostly file accesses on the laptop hard drive rather than internet surfing activity. That seemingly does us no good because we cannot see where Casey was surfing, and neither do we have a copy of the hard drive to see what she was looking at. Here is an example of what I mean:
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/bobby/Desktop/artwork/music-notes-circle.jpg
However, Casey – creature of habit that she is – was downloading images off the internet to be uploaded at a later time to Photobucket, and the act of saving a file on the hard drive was recorded in this history. By taking the file name of the image and searching for it in Google, one might be able to see what it was she had downloaded. Now, if she saved a file with the name “1.jpg” from the internet, that does not do us a lot of good. There are millions of images with that name. Finding the right “1.jpg” without having the laptop in our hands is impossible.
But what about an image with the name music-notes-circle.jpg? Think maybe we can narrow that one down pretty quickly? Of course we can. And using that approach, we can determine that there were some images downloaded to Casey’s laptop in July, 2008 (but never uploaded to Photobucket) that offer the following philosophy (all saved on July 10):
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
Now the above could have been about Tony and her feelings regarding him possibly moving to New York after he finished up with school.
There was a rant I ran across that could have been penned by Casey herself (saved July 14):
There were, of course, a couple graphics of interest ( saved July 13 and July 10, respectively):
And one final quote (one of the very last items she saved to the laptop, on July 14):
The above seemed to echo the sentiment in “page two” of the diary:
I have no regrets, just a bit worried. I just want for everything to work out okay. I completely trust my own judgement & know that I made the right decision. I just hope that the end justifies the means. I just want to know what the future will hold for me. I guess I will soon see. This is the happiest that I have been in a very long time. I hope that my happiness will continue to grow. -I’ve made new friends that I really like. I’ve surrounded myself with good people. -I am finally happy, let’s just hope that it doesn’t change.
So I am left wondering: did Casey decide at the beginning of 2008 that, come hell or high water, from that moment forward the world would be focused on Casey?
Minor updates to The Hinky Meter
Well, I did some updating to the blog this morning. I’m hoping these changes make things more user-friendly.
1. I finally fixed it to where the “Recent Comments” will show up in the top left-hand sidebar when you are in an article. It used to not be there except for the front page.
2. I moved the “Recent Posts” list to the lower left-hand sidebar.
3. I added “Your Unread Comments” on the right-hand sidebar. If you do not delete your cookies, then when you revisit the blog this will list all of the discussion threads in which there have been new comments made since your last visit. The title of the thread in which the comments have been made will be followed by a number in parentheses, like (10). That means there are 10 new comments. If you click on the number inside the parentheses it will take you to the first unread comment in that discussion so that you don’t have to hunt for where you were last.
Of course, if you delete your cookies, then all bets are off.
4. This also works off your cookies – there is now a little indicator square at the top of each comment. If it’s grey then it is a comment that was there last time you visited. If it’s yellow, it’s a new comment.
5. I added a “Related Posts” function that will show up at the end of each article (just before the comments). This should list 5 articles that may be related to the article you are reading.
Hope these changes help!
Valhall.
The Google Searches and Cindy’s Judas Moment
Valhall recently posted an article discussing the Google searches, after which I pointed out a few minor errors in her interpretation of the searches. In her consistently down-home way, she asked me if I would be willing to post my own observations. I told her I would when I finally had the chance, which I seem to have now.
First, I want to say I am humbled by Val’s invitation to have me post. This is her blog, and within mere months she has established a solid reputation on the net as a thorough researcher, careful thinker, and fair moderator. While she and I communicate frequently and have always respected each other’s work, I was nonetheless surprised by her invite. My hope is not to diminish in any way the solid reputation she has already built with this site.
Back a few months ago I went through the Google search spreadsheet line-by-line in an attempt to better understand what it was revealing. The spreadsheet is one that was released on April 6, 2009 as part of discovery, but was not made available by the media. I obtained my copy from Muzikman over at Websleuths (insert rocker emoticon here).
There are some important things to understand about the content of this spreadsheet. Recall an early investigative report by Det. Yuri Melich in which he says he asked computer CSI Sandra Cawn to search for the keyword “chloroform” on the Anthony computer. She did so and found references to the word in unallocated space – meaning the references had been purposely deleted. According to the report, there were searches for the word at Google, as well as similar searches for the ingredients and recipe for chloroform. Also, all of these searches were done from the Firefox browser.
CSI Cawn went a step further and searched for the word “google” in unallocated space. This is how she located searches for “acetone”, “alcohol”, “shovel”, and “neck breaking”. When she performed this search, she saved all URLs visited in March, 2008 with “google” somewhere in the string. In some cases the URL referenced a specific search done from the Google website, such as
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=household+weapons&btnG=Search
The above link refers to a search done for “household weapons” from the Google home page.
In most cases, however, the URL pointed to a page at pagead2.googlesyndication.com. This website is where Google advertisements come from. If you are viewing a webpage and see an advertisement with a little note saying “Ads by Google”, the link to that advertisement is through the googlesyndication website. The fact that you see the ad means you have indirectly visited googlesyndication, which is why the visit is recorded in your browser’s cache. It is not recorded in the browser history, however, unless the link is clicked.
Now, the link to the ad at googlesyndication contains within it the address of the site that hosted the ad. This is important because when someone clicks on a Google ad, not only does Google make a few pennies from the click, so does the site that hosted the ad. Google keeps track of who hosted the ad by burying their address in the ad’s link! That way they can pay their bills.
What this all means is that the spreadsheet CSI Cawn assembled not only tells us what terms were searched from Google, it tells us a little about the websites visited – at least the ones that display Google ads. Following, therefore, is a complete listing in layman’s terms of all the surfing activity represented by the “Google Search” spreadsheet:
March 5
Start 2:41 PM
- Myspace 4896138 – Karmina – music
Start 3:46 PM
- Google search “content box for myspace” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “content box for myspace” (results 11 – 20)
- Google search “content box generator” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.codestogo.com/extra-content-generator
March 6
Start 9:08 AM
- Visit search.azlyrics.com/search.php?q=what+i+got
- Myspace 5715142 – Kate Voegele – artist/musician
- Myspace 333525997 – alterbridge43 – “classic rock”, Buffalo, NY – Join 2/12/2008
- Myspace 10108314 – Natasha Bedingfield – artist/musician
- Myspace 306535277 – User not found – Join 12/30/2007
- Myspace 319177755 – User not found – Join 1/19/2008
- Myspace 347867848 – User not found – Join 3/3/2008
- Myspace 215759866 – Radiohead – artist/musician
- Myspace 346313521 – User not found – Join 3/1/2008
Start 2:50 PM
- Search “hide myspace” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.spacepimping.com/tweaks/hide-friends-comments.php (Hiding only your myspace friends list.)
- Search “hide blog” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.pulseware.com.au/site_pi.asp (Full URL resolves to www.zuuga.com – seems original purpose of this visit was to see how to add a poll to myspace)
March 7
Start 11:27 AM
- Visit www.countingcrows.com
Start 5:22 PM
- Myspace 32651695 – John Mayer – artist/musician
March 8 (Saturday)
Start 8:33 AM
- Google search “google” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “fleas” (results 1 – 10)
- Click sponsored link to advantage.petparents.com/aboutFleas.cfm
- Click sponsored link to www.deadfleas.com
- Google search “capstar” (results 1 – 10)
- Click sponsored link to www.allivet.com
- Google search “natural removal of fleas” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.flea-i.com/natural-flea-control.html
March 11
Start 11:11 AM
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 11 – 20)
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 21 – 30)
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 31 – 40)
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 41 – 50)
- Google search “casey anthony” (results 51 – 60)
- Google search “casey marie anthony” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “casey marie anthony” (results 11 – 20)
- Google search “colonial high school” (results 1 – 10)
March 12 (One week before Casey’s birthday)
Start 12:50 PM
- Myspace 207720756 – BiRTHDAY GiRL – artist/musician
- Myspace 14830333 – Birthday Party Records – artist/musician
- Myspace 58171614 – Now That’s What I Call Music! – Music
- Myspace 130061148 – User not found – Join 11/17/2006
- Myspace 57211598 – Hits on Myspace Music
March 13
Start 9:42
- Myspace 18868132 – Shaggy – artist/musician
Start 10:44
- Google search “lost numbers” (results 1 – 10)
Start 11:17
- Google search “bustdown” (results 1 – 10) (wonder what made her search this???
) - Visit www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bustdown
March 15 (Saturday)
Start 11:00 PM
- Google search “fleas” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “getting rid of fleas” (results 1 – 10)
March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day)
Start 9:35 AM
- Myspace 151289170 – St. Patricks chillness
- Myspace 324869455 – St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn – artist/musician
- Myspace 54689357 – st. Patrick´s – artist/musician
- Myspace 352353447 – User not found – Join 3/9/2008
- Myspace 354429888 – User not found – Join 3/13/2008
Start 1:43 PM
- Google search “chloraform” (results 1 – 10)
- Google auto-correct search “chloroform” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “alcohol” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “acetone” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “peroxide” (results 1 – 10)
March 18 (airing of 100th One Tree Hill Episode)
Start 12:30 PM
- Myspace 191749597 – N.E.R.D: No One Ever Really Dies!
March 19 (Casey’s birthday)
Start 8:42 AM
- Visit www.hot-lyts.com/graphics/images/index.php?id=photography
- Myspace 191749597 – N.E.R.D: No One Ever Really Dies!
Start 10:30 AM
- Google search “one tree hill” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “one tree hill” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “one tree hill 100th episode” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.starpulse.com
- Google search “one tree hill 100th episode” (results 11 – 20)
March 21
Start 2:16 PM
- Google search “how to make chloraform” (results 1 – 10)
- Google auto-correct search “how to make chloroform” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.druglibrary.org
- Google search “self defense” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.7most.com
- Google search “household weapons” (results 1 – 10)
- Visit www.instructables.com
- Visit “Zombie poll“
- Visit www.associatedcontent.com
- Google search “household weapons” (results 11 – 20)
- Google book on household weapons (p. 79)
- Google book on household weapons (p. 80)
- Google search “neck breaking” (results 1 – 10)
- Google search “shovel” (results 1 – 10)
I found it interesting that several of the myspace pages Casey visited that month no longer exist and furthermore were created just days before she viewed them. I will leave speculation around that for another day. What I really want to do is address Cindy’s statements in her deposition under oath regarding those Google searches.
First, Cindy is asked if she used Google:
Linda Drane-Burdick: Do you ever do Google searches on your computer
Cindy: Yes.
Linda Drane-Burdick: the desktop?
Cindy: Yes.
Later, Cindy half-heartedly tries to take the blame for the chloroform searches by claiming she searched for “chlorophil” (sic) in March, and that the two might somehow be confused.
Linda Drane-Burdick: All right. There is a search for how to make chloroform on your desktop computer. Did you make that search?
Cindy: I’m not sure.
Linda Drane-Burdick: Why not?
Cindy: Because I remember looking up chlorophyl back in March of last year, and I am not sure if I looked up chloroform as well. I looked up alcohol and several other things like at that — like ethyl alcohol and peroxide, too.
Linda Drane-Burdick: Why?
Cindy: I was researching things that — as far as the chlorophyl –
Linda Drane-Burdick: Uh-huh.
Cindy: — and possibly chloroform because of my animals because my Cocker — or my Yorkies would eat a lot of bamboo leaves and I know there’s chlorophyl in those leaves and they were getting sick, quite sick. And I had previously lost two Cocker Spaniels, and I wanted to see if there was any tie. I had never thought about that with the cancer and stuff that I lost the Cocker, so I started researching different things.
As far as the alcohol and peroxide, I researched just I was looking through different things that was in our cabinets to make sure that there was nothing that we had in our cabinets that Caylee would get into because we didn’t keep, like, you know, cleaning supplies in the bathrooms. The only thing I kept in the bottom bathrooms that we had locked was alcohol and peroxide.
And I knew alcohol could be costly, but I wasn’t sure about the peroxide because I know you can gargle with it, and I know you can drink some peroxide, but I wanted to see how much could hurt, in case she ever got into anything.
Well, that’s lie #1.
While Google does kindly correct spelling (as Cindy pointed out), the incorrect and corrected searches are recorded by the browser cache. This is exactly what happened with the misspelling of the word chloroform in the searches above. In the results collected by CSI Cawn, there are no variants of the word “chlorophil” found in a page associated with Google. No one ever used Google to search for that word. And remember, CSI Shawn searched for “google”, not “chlorophil”, and Cindy insisted she used Google.
Which brings me to lie #2.
Despite Cindy’s claim in her deposition, prior to July 15 Cindy and George did not use Google. They used Yahoo and other search sites. Only Casey used Google. On top of that, Cindy and George did not use the Firefox browser. They used Internet Explorer.
How do I know?
In September 2008 a discovery release included browser history collected from both the desktop and laptop. The browser history was not pulled from unallocated space, meaning it was history that had not been deleted. This is the discovery release that told us, among other things, someone liked to visit escort service websites
. Again, this information was not distributed by the media, so I got my copy from Muzikman (insert rocker emoticon here).
Focusing on just the desktop, the released files represented surfing history for the Internet Explorer browser used under the “casey” Windows account. Interestingly, this account was not used by Casey – it was used by George and Cindy. It is pretty easy to infer this is the case just by looking at the surfing history. In addition to escort sites, there are many visits to home improvement sites, car sites, and – significantly – job search sites (many connected with security services and healthcare). Sites Casey was highly unlikely to visit.
If Casey had been using this account and web browser, we would expect to see many visits to Myspace, Facebook, or Photobucket. Other than the obvious visits to Cindy’s Myspace and the visits to Casey’s own pages on the 15th of July and later, there are no visits to non-Casey pages (such as friends). Not one. While it is technically possible to delete specific site visits from one’s internet history, I can tell you it is tedious and requires discipline.
Before I continue, let me further point out that Casey used the password-protected “owner” account on the desktop. This fact is indisputable. For example, the AIM chat logs released in September 2008 were pulled directly from that account. Thus, we should not expect to find Casey’s surfing history in the desktop files that were released.
Now, back to Cindy and the internet history. Not only were visits to Myspace, Facebook, and Photobucket missing, there are no visits to the Google search engine! In fact, there are only five sites related to Google in the entire history (one group and the remaining shopping related).
Wait, you ask, didn’t Cindy use Google to search for a flea remedy that she could use for the dogs, as is shown above in the Google searches?
The answer is … no. Casey did it. With Cindy watching over her shoulder.
Accept for a moment that Casey used Firefox and Cindy did not. Imagine Casey on the computer (from the “owner” account) early that Saturday morning, surfing away on Firefox. Cindy walks in to ask her for a little help finding a flea remedy. No problem – Casey just hops over to her favorite search site, Google, and does the searches. Together they spend a little quality time looking at related sites, and Cindy eventually leaves armed with the desired information. (Afterthought … did this little activity cause Casey to think of Caylee as her personal little “flea”?)
If Cindy were on the computer, would it make sense for her to fire up the Firefox browser that one time (remember, the searches were done from Firefox), search for a flea remedy, then delete her surfing history (remember, the searches had been deleted)? Of course not.
So what would Cindy do if she searched for the flea remedy on her own without Casey’s help? Would she perhaps fire up Internet Explorer and go to her favorite search site, Yahoo?
You bet. That is exactly what she did.
About 40 minutes after the Firefox / Google searches for the flea remedy, there are similar Yahoo searches found in the “casey” account’s Internet Explorer history. In other words, after Casey got off the computer, Cindy got on and continued looking for a remedy. That searching continued for approximately 15 minutes.
It is of note that, immediately following this set of searches done by Cindy, there are many, many visits to websites with cute pictures of baby animals. And I do mean cute. I can imagine Caylee walked into the room and saw a picture of a dog or puppy, and Cindy took her on a photo tour of baby animals. Probably a very touching memory for Cindy. It is too bad she used it as an opportunity to spin a lie around her grand-daughter’s killer.
By the way, there are no searches for “chloro” anything in the “casey” account’s Internet Explorer history.
We are creatures of habit, and the Anthony’s habits are clearly imprinted in their computer activity.
My first cliffhanger…
So…tomorrow morning will be a special event at The Hinky Meter.
Tomorrow morning’s article will be NOT be written by Valhall. It will be by a new author who, in the style of a Heinz ketchup commercial coupled with Carly Simon wailing Anticipation, will not be revealed to you until you read the byline. I will not commit this person to more than they have agreed – which is tomorrow’s article, but I would seriously suggest from now on you watch the bylines before assuming who wrote an article! Because this person will be free to write whenever and about whatever they choose from this point on.
This person is very special, has awesome investigative skills, tremendous deductive reasoning, and I hold them in very high regard. They will bring insight in areas in which I am weak. And they will approach things in a different manner than I do – but always with fastidious and sound work. I would hope that you all respond to their articles with as much respect and thoughtful input to the discussion their articles foster as you have with my articles – even when you don’t agree with them, just as you do when you don’t agree with me.
And with that…I have officially created my first cliffhanger!
Stay tuned!
Valhall.
The Search: Dominic Casey’s 01/07/09 interview with OCSO
In the January 7, 2009 interview OCSO conducted with Dominic Casey, OCSO detectives wasted no time getting to what they were truly interested in – the November searches on Suburban Drive. The first question presented to Casey (we’ll just refer to him as DC because calling him Casey confuses me) was how he came to be out there (on Suburban) searching. DC immediately caused issues by first uttering “I was not out there” and then circled around to state there was a meet and greet on the Saturday of November 15th, 2008. He then states:
At the meet and greet. I was headed out to the meet and greet. And in Kiomarie Cruz’s statement she stated that that was a hangout where they hung out. That was one thing in Kiomarie’s statement that I had not seen or verified, so I thought on Saturday when I go to the meet and greet then I will go ahead and run by there and, and just take a look at it and see if it’s a hang out.
Okay, other than the fact that Hoover states otherwise (that Kiomarie was never mentioned) and other than the fact it appears he went for a different reason (i.e. he got a tip from a psychic), there’s a problem with this first reason DC gave: Kiomarie told OCSO about the place she, Casey and other friends would go ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SUBURBAN. DC never went to the “school side” of Suburban on either November 15th or 16th, 2008 while Hoover was with him. So, what DC did on Suburban never connected with Kiomarie’s statements.
Now, immediately after throwing out that he was ALREADY going to stop at Suburban on his way to the meet and greet because of Kiomarie’s statements, he then adds the metaphysical coincidence of:
…On the way over [to his office to meet Jim Hoover] I had received a call from Ginette Lucas.
Now he states he got the phone call on the way to the office and says that was some where between 7 and 8 a.m. Records show (at the least the records we’ve seen so far) that the first call was around 6:43 a.m., which is close enough. The only question is how long a drive it was to the office. Because he didn’t show up at the office until 8:15. That’s an hour and half drive.
So, let’s get this straight so far…based on Kiomarie statements to OCSO DC was ALREADY planning to stop on Suburban Drive on the way to the meet and greet when as he drove to his office to meet Jim gets a call from a psychic who…
…had a vision of seeing Caylee Marie Anthony.
She didn’t say Suburban Drive.
She said it’s an area, she said, at the end of Hopespring Drive. She said, ‘I don’t know what it is. But there’s a school nearby. There’s some woods nearby. There’s a house on the corner. If you look at the house on the corner, and you follow the fence line down, it opens to woods, and there’s…woods in there. And if you go down…’ and she said something like how many yards, whatever it may be. If I’d walk in she said, ‘I believe that’s where you’ll see three concrete paver, concrete blocks.’ Is what she described them as, as concrete blocks. So I said, ‘Okay.’ And when I pulled up, when I pulled up, when I first, when we first pulled up at Suburban she called me again and said, ‘Are you, are you there? Have, have you seen it?’
Let’s stop there for just one moment and rub our reflecting stones. Okay, so Lucas’s psychic Kung Fu is very very strong. Not only is she able to describe in detail the exact description of Suburban Drive as can be gleaned from any Google map, but she apparently has psychic-GPS because according to DC, she called RIGHT AFTER HE EXITED THE VEHICLE UPON ARRIVING AT SUBURBAN. FREAKY good spidey-sense, I’d say. Especially considering she never said it was on Suburban Drive and somehow she’s asking “are you there yet?” Are you where yet? huh??? Now, Jim Hoover does not talk as if DC answered a call when he got out of the vehicle. Jim Hoover talks as if DC exited the car and made a call. And I would have to say that the phone records are on Jim’s side on this debate. Because at 9:02 to 9:03 am DC makes 2 calls to Lucas’s home number and 1 to her cell phone. They play phone tag for a couple of minutes and then DC finally gets her on her home phone for a 14 minute conversation. So the facts do NOT support DC’s claim of the psychic ring-a-ling the minute he arrives on Suburban. But I give him an 8 for dramatic effect. It will play well in the movie…but only in one of those blurry “dream sequences” that is overlayed as you hear DC blabbering his version of the story in the background.
Okay, so the next thing DC shares in the interview is how when Lucas calls him (which is not true) she starts directing him to the “spot” like she’s seeing through his eyes – kind of like one of the palantir stones in Lord of the Rings (cue eerie voice-over saying “I SEE YOU!”) or like she’s psychically taken him over like an Avatar. I don’t think we need to waste too much time on the specifics of what he claims she directed him on bein’s he lied upfront about who called who – that and I don’t really give a crap.
So DC reiterates under questioning that he was, indeed, already on his way to Suburban to “check out Kiomarie’s statements” when the call came through from the uber-psychic. When DC states his original reason was because Kiomarie had said they hung out there when they were kids John Allen points out that Casey’s 22 years old now and …
Hang on, let’s clear this up. DC said he was going out to Suburban Drive to see if he could find a place that looked like a teenage hangout. *reflective pause* Note that he did not state he was going out there to look for a DEAD-Caylee. He was going out there to look for a teenage hangout.
So John Allen points out that Casey is 22 now and how the heck was DC going to identify a spot that Casey might have hung out at when she was in middle school versus one that, say, she didn’t hang out at? Which is a damned good question. But John Allen wasn’t quite through with the really good questions. He followed up with – and if you did find an area that looked like a teenage hangout, what the heck was that going to tell you? What were you going to do with that information? What was going to be your next step?
DC cleared that up straight away…
There would have been no, no next step.
Okie-dokie then. It’s a damned good thing uber-psychic gave the ring-a-ling else this could have been a waste of time! And if you don’t believe me, just look at what DC says next…”I already knew that the place had been searched three times prior by uhm, Equusearch I believe it was three, three times prior. So I knew there was nothing there anyway.“ I’m telling you right now, if Lucas hadn’t called him, he’d have looked like a raving maniac….on video. Oops, he did anyway.
John Allen pushes back on that statement about the Equusearch searches and asked DC how he knows that “particular spot” had already been searched 3 times. DC gets all up in the kerflunkeled and says he wasn’t referring to a particular spot at which point everyone in the room agrees they have found common ground – the sacred ground of confusion, that is. So they all take their sandals off, turn down the lights, and sit Indian style and go forward.
So DC takes the talking stick at this point and says he told Jim on the way to Suburban he had gotten a tip on a DEAD-Caylee at Suburban and that he didn’t want to tell Jim anymore than that. And then he says that when they got there he told Jim to “stay here” (presumably in the car as Jim states) and he’d go do a walk-about and see what he could see.
When asked if he told Jim to video tape he said no. When asked if Jim ask him if he could video tape he said no. I think he’s a big phat liar, personally. (I know I should be more eloquent than that, but economy of words seems to be in order at this point.)
So DC tells the story of looking up and seeing Jim with the camera and saying “What the hell are you doing?” At which point John Allen asks “so we ought to hear you saying that on the tape, right?” LOL Of course, we haven’t heard the audio, but I’ve got this little feeling John Allen already had, so he knows the answer to that question. DC then reveals that he did, in fact, have his still camera with him and he was taking pictures of what he was seeing!
John Allen asks him if he made any phone calls while he was in the woods and DC states he did not – only in the street. Of course, the video states otherwise. (By the way, whether Jim’s lying, DC’s lying or both of them are lying, I want to make clear I don’t think the video is lying.) Then DC outright states upon questioning that he was talking to his sick daughter. We have no phone records to support this, not unless DC’s sick daughter was at Lucas’s house.
Then DC tells about going to the house nearby. He’s asked if he knows Jim is filming then. He says no…and calls Jim a sneaky devil. I’ll just let the non-lying video speak to this point…I personally think it reveals there was more than one sneaky devil on the 15th.
DC then tells about how relieved he is that they didn’t find a DEAD-Caylee and immediately states that he tells Jim he’s going back the next day. Seriously – that’s just how it came out in the interview. So then John Allen asked why he took Jim back with him the next day when he was upset that Jim video’d him on the first day without his permission? And DC really doesn’t have a good answer for this other than “Jim said he wanted to come.”…sneaky devil.
Okay, so DC wants to go back the next day because of the “three pavers”. There’s literally three pavers everywhere the psychic sends him and he’s “freaked out”. He no longer cares about teenage hideouts or anything like that, it is simply all about the “three pavers”. He MUST go back and rule out the “three pavers” factor of the psychic’s uber-Kung Fu spidey sense tips. THIS is compelling. John Allen asks…
Did you notify anybody in this room that…
“No sir, I did not.”
Okay, why?
“Because there was nothing there and that it was part…”
But you went back and looked a second time. Obviously you felt there may have been something there.” [which is a really valid statement bein's DC just said that's why he went back]
“No, I didn’t feel as though there was something there.”
…why’d you go back?
“Just to get set in my mind that I was comfortable that there wasn’t. Simple as that.”
(I’d like to interject here that I don’t think it’s as simple as DC is trying to make it. And I’m almost certain at this point John Allen and Nicholas Savage considered jerking the talking stick out of DC’s hands and smacking him across the temple with it.)
So Savage asks him if he reported the initial tip – no, he didn’t. He asked him if he told anybody at the meet and greet about the tip or the search – no, he didn’t.
Then DC shares that he got NO sleep that night worrying about a DEAD-Caylee being out there and that he had to find out because she needed a proper burial at which point John Allen says…
Hold on hold on hold on….you were passing us tips at that point, right? DC says yes. And this tip freaked you out, right? DC says yes. …but he didn’t turn this one in.
So DC goes on about the second day he and Jim went searching. Again, he claims to not have any knowledge of video being taken. It’s most likely because he was consumed with the “three pavers” thought and was oblivious to what was going on around him. Let’s just say “he was in the zone”.
At this point in the interview John Allen turns to who, exactly, DC is working for. He states he has a letter of engagement with George and Cindy Anthony, and a letter of engagement with Casey Anthony. Allen asks him how long he has had the letter of engagement with George and Cindy and DC says he can’t remember, he’d have to look at it, but he thinks it went back to October, 2008. He’s pretty sure of that because it was at the time he terminated services with Baez. Allen asks about the letter of engagement with Casey Anthony and DC, and DC apparently has a copy of that one dated September 12, 2008.
Nick Savage then asks:
And just for the record, the information that we’re talking about does not relate to any information that Casey provided to you? So what we’ve been discussing is not information that Casey provided so you would work on that behalf. Is that correct?
DC answers: “That is correct.”
Now that exchange right there is very important because DC has now stated he had terminated services with Baez before November, and he was not working on behalf of Casey Anthony, which means – this aint covered by privileges, folks. DC goes further on this point to state “Alright. I have not spoken to, I have not seen Casey since that would be Sunday, October the 12th.” And further clarifies “As of effective October the 12th is the last conversation, or whatever, that I’ve ever had with Casey Anthony. I’ve not provided services from that day forward.“ Which rules out that the search on Suburban Drive can be claimed to be on behalf of Casey Anthony.
John Allen then asks DC about who was deciding what tips would get forwarded on to law enforcement for follow-up. DC states:
Ninety-nine percent of the tips that D&A Investigations received John…Caylee’s tip line or uhm, people sending in, sending tips to the Anthony family. And they would forward it to me.”
Let’s stop here for a second. “Caylee’s tip line” and “tips to the Anthony family” are one in the same. Let’s get that straight. The only difference is the phone number or email address used to get the tip to the Anthonys, but both those pipes funneled to the Anthonys.
When pushed on who decided what tips were “credible” enough to be passed to law enforcement DC answers “George, Cindy and myself”. John Allen asked what the criteria was for deeming a tip “credible”. DC…doesn’t really do well here. He gives the “Florida Mall tip” as an example of what a “credible” tip was. John Allen takes issue with that and gets a pretty good zing in.
John Allen:
She was supposedly seen down there, okay? Somebody must have looked at it and said this is, this is good, credible information, or no, this is not. And obviously you guys decided it is. Did somebody look at this and go, wow, the kidnappers must have decided today’s a good day to take Caylee to the mall and let her go into the mall here in Orlando and hang out in the playground. How did y’all reach that decision? What, what kind of, what things would you discuss?
LOL
So Nick Savage tags in after a lengthy discussion about the Florida Mall tip and asks:
Well I’m curious to know with the tip that you received on Suburban were they included in that criteria whether or not to forward it to law enforcement?
“No, there was nothing to it. I dispelled it.” [I think "dispelled" is a very appropriate word bein's the tip was all "mystic" and stuff.]
And how many, how many times did it take you going to Suburban before you dispelled that?
“Three.”
DC claims the last time he went, which he states was a “a few days after”, he just kind of walked around in the street “…to see if I could see any points of entry, or any kind of differences.” Which I find to be a really strange choice of words. Differences from what? From a few days prior? Entry points for what? Entry points as in signs some one had been there after you had been there? What does this mean? He also clarifies that on the third visit he went alone.
Later in the interview DC is asked what he would have done if he found Caylee’s remains during these searches and he states he would have said a prayer, called 911, and stood vigil until the authorities arrived. When asked if he would have called the Anthonys he states not until after the authorities arrived. But he also states that he never thought Caylee was dead at which point Savage points out had he found “a Caylee” in the woods, it would not have been a “LIVE-Caylee”, to which DC agrees. DC is asked how long after the searches was it before he let the Anthonys know about the tip from the psychic. He states about 2 weeks. So that would have been around the end of November/first of December.
In his response about informing the Anthonys, DC states he worded informing the Anthonys of the search as in connection with investigating the Kiomarie statements. This leads one to believe that BEFORE the searches on Suburban the Anthonys knew that he was going to be going to Suburban to do the whole “hangout” search thingy. This is when Brad Conway seems to jump out of his skin and interject himself into the interview. Before even asking for the talking stick, Brad blurts out “Did you tell them [the Anthonys] what Ginnette told you exactly?” DC seems to be taken aback by this and first replies “Excuse me?” And then follows up with “I did not tell them all the details.” He states he told them “…I went there. I did not find any remains. I did not see anything. There was nothing there uh, that I observed.”
The investigators ask DC if he ever discussed with the Anthonys what he would do if he found a DEAD-Caylee and he responded he had informed them he would call 911 and they were okay with that. This is when he is asked if he was ever given instructions contrary to that by ANYONE, and all hell breaks loose because he had been given such instructions. They turned the tape off, went off the record, and came back on summarizing that DC had just given information he felt was privileged. Which means that the person who gave the instructions to do something other than contact authorities, was some one DC had a contract with and was providing services to at the time, and fell under work privilege.
Valhall.
The Search: Hoover’s civil Deposition
On March 25, 2009 Morgan & Morgan, on behalf of Zenaida Gonzalez and in connection with the civil suit she has against Casey Anthony, deposed Jim Hoover. On page 92 on the transcript they turn to the matter of the November searches on Suburban. Jim Hoover shares that Dominic Casey called him twice on the night of November 14th, 2008. The first time was to tell him of the meet and greet and that Casey wanted him to come down for that. The second time was just a few minutes later to inform Hoover that a blogger had announced there were going to be a “number of them” show up at the meet and greet with baseball bats and Casey needed Hoover there to protect the Anthonys in case things became violent.
Consistent with his OCSO interview, Hoover states Casey requested he meet him at Dominic’s office at 8:00 a.m. Hoover states Dominic showed up at about 8:15 a.m., but this time Hoover gives details of the discussion they had prior to going to Suburban. He states Dominic invited him into his office and described Dominic’s demeanor as “somber”. Hoover states he asked Dominic “What’s up?” and Dominic told him he had something he needed to tell him. Hoover states Dominic told him “I know where Caylee is”. Hoover says he thought Dominic was referring to a LIVE-Caylee so he responded “Great, Let’s go get her” or words to that effect.
Hoover then states Dominic’s response was “We can’t.” Hoover immediately backs out of that statement, but if Dominic did make that statement, it is very telling. Hoover retracts that statement and says Dominic stated next “She’s dead” and after a brief pause followed up with “We have to go find her.” When Hoover is asked how Dominic knew this he claims he had no idea other than Dominic stated he had a tip. Hoover clarifies that Dominic did not share the details of the tip until later (presumably after the searches occurred). BUT, Hoover states during the civil deposition that Dominic NEVER told him where the tip came from. When asked Hoover states that to date (the date of the civil deposition), Dominic had not told him WHO gave the tip. In fact, Hoover states, he asked Dominic at least a couple of times the day of the search who gave the tip and Hoover states Dominic “just walked away”.
Then on page 105 of the transcript, in response to why he thinks Dominic is “less than truthful”, Hoover states:
Like I say, you know, I think Dominic’s a good person. I think he just got caught up in something, you know. And then subsequently the, you know, the day of the 15th, all the different answers that he gave about why we were out there, different people he had talked to, I mean, these are things why I think that sometimes he’s less than truthful.
Hoover clarifies what statements about the search he believes Dominic is being “less than truthful” about, and it’s Dominic’s changing stories of who he was talking to on the phone that day:
Well, first he was talking to his daughter on the phone and then talking to a psychic on the phone and then he was talk to a friend of Casey’s on the phone.
Hoover states when they arrived on Suburban Drive that after he made the u-turn down by the school (the dead end) he drove back up Suburban and parked “almost directly across from where they found — eventually found Caylee’s remains but on the opposite side of the street.” When asked “Was he directing where you to go?” Hoover says “Uh-huh yes, sir.” Hoover gets more exact in where he parked the vehicle later stating “right near the fence” (presumably the wooden fence) “relatively close to where they eventually found the remains.”
Hoover states Dominic (who had made no phone calls while in the vehicle with Hoover) then exited the vehicle and told Hoover “just wait here”. Dominic got out of the car and immediately got on the phone.
Hoover is then asked if Dominic wanted him to film him while he was out of the car – just basically on the street talking on the phone and Hoover said “No, he didn’t tell [me] to film him out there.” But then Hoover is asked, “But he wanted you to be there when he went in the woods?” and Hoover answers “Yes, sir.” Hoover is then asked why Dominic wanted him to film him once he went into the woods and Hoover replies:
We had — actually, we did talk about that on the way down there. Basically, in my career, as a private investigator, you know, I videotape — I document everything I do. I document, you know, surveillance cases. I document everything because if you have to go to court just because you say it doesn’t make it so. You know, so you document what you do so, you know, you have to go to court you can validate, you know, what you’ve done or, you know, what you say you’ve done.
When asked if Dominic explained to him why Dominic wanted him with him during this search, Hoover replies:
To help him look for Caylee. And then the conversation come up basically if we find her, you know, what we would do. And basically it was not touch anything, contact the police, you know, that sort of thing.
Hoover clarifies that on the trip to Suburban he stated he would video the search and Dominic stated he needed to. Hoover states that after Dominic exited the vehicle and started talking on the phone Hoover started a test recording with one camera, the color was off and he switched cameras. When he looked back up after fiddling with the cameras Dominic was gone. Hoover starting backing down Suburban (toward the dead end) and states he eventually got half-way to two-thirds back down Suburban before he finally saw Dominic in the woods.
Hoover then talks about how Dominic centered on the three pavers laying in a row. This is when Hoover exits the vehicle and videos Dominic in the woods. Hoover is asked if he felt they were there to “build an alibi” and his response is:
No, actually, it didn’t. To be honest with you — I hate this interview. I think at one point I thought — God. I thought he was show boating.
He is then asked “It seemed contrived?”
Yeah, I thought he was show boating.
“And describe that. Tell me what you mean by that.”
I think if you saw the video and I’m sure you have — it’s almost –
“Staged?”
Well, not on my part.
Hoover then goes on to state that immediately after filming around the three pavers Dominic tells him they have one more place to go. They then go to the house on the video where Dominic is seen ripping black trash bags open and digging with a spade. Hoover states that again, they centered on three pavers in a row.
Hoover is pressed again on his feelings that the video was staged. He is eventually asked, “Yeah, but for what? For who?” His response is, “For Cindy, perhaps.”
Hoover tells about going back on the 16th. This time they parked right next to the pavers. When asked if he video’d again that day he says yes, and then addresses the fact Dominic had stated he didn’t know Hoover had been videoing during the searches. Hoover states on the 15th that Casey actually held one of the cameras on the drive to Suburban. This second day of searching is when Dominic brought the “rod” and Hoover believes it was the second day that Dominic brought his own camera, but is unsure which day for sure that was. Hoover states in this second visit that Dominic made phone calls again. When asked if he could hear what Dominic was stating he said that Dominic always walked away from him when he was talking on the phone.
After searching the same spot of the woods on Suburban they then returned to the house where Dominic prodded the ground around the three pavers in the same way he had done in the woods. Hoover states that on the first day he felt it was show boating, but when Dominic asked him to return the second day he started wondering if there was really something there, but at the same time he states, “But the behaviors just didn’t — ” and doesn’t complete the thought. When asked if he thought Dominic was trying to build an alibi for Casey Anthony, he states that would be illegal and therefore he does not believe Dominic would do that.
Hoover clarifies that these two days of searches on Suburban Drive and at the vacant house are the only times he is aware that Dominic Casey went looking for a DEAD-Caylee. When asked if Dominic reported this tip to the authorities, Hoover states he did not believe so and upon questioning states had he been the lead investigator he would have reported it to OCSO. Near the end of the deposition he recalls the meeting on December 14th, 2008 at the Anthony home when he asked Dominic in front of the Anthonys and the lawyers if they were aware that he and Dominic had searched those very woods in November. Dominic stated “they know”.
Valhall.
The Search: Jim Hoover’s 12/18/08 interview with OCSO
There is a member on ScaredMonkeys.com forum who posted a link to a video of Bill Sheaffer talking to Kathi Belich about Dominic Casey and Jim Hoover’s November 2008 searches of the area where Caylee was found a month later. I had long forgotten about this conversation between Mr. Sheaffer and Kathi Belich. In it, Mr. Sheaffer voices that he believes the search was staged. It’s been quite some time since I read the interviews of Dominic and Jim with OCSO, so I decided to revisit them and found that because of the many incongruities in their stories, I have been “misremembering” the details. I will state upfront that I agree with Mr. Sheaffer. The search was staged, but I don’t believe by both men – only one. I believe the second was kept clueless so that he could substantiate exactly what he was directed to see – which was NOTHING.
To try and make sense of Dominic Casey and Jim Hoover’s stories surrounding the November 15th/16th, 2008 searches is like skeet shooting while seeing double. The best you can do is aim for the middle and hope for the best – but hitting something of substance is going to be near blind luck. Of the two of them, I’m more inclined to believe Jim is telling the greater portion of the truth than Dominic Casey. And I don’t particularly think that’s because Jim’s a man of high integrity wanting to get the truth out. I think he inadvertently ends up more honest because he never knew what the truth was in the first place. In other words, he wasn’t made privy to the real reason Dominic Casey drug him out there, and so he never really knew what he wasn’t supposed to tell and was supposed to tell. His role was “Patsy-with-a-camera”.
Of the two men’s versions of how the initial search went down, one thing is common: They met up on a Saturday morning (November 15, 2008) and headed toward a “meet and greet” at a command center set up for the search for Caylee. (Let’s be clear, this wasn’t a command center for a DEAD-Caylee search, it was a LIVE-Caylee search with the Anthonys involved.) On their way to the meet and greet they stopped by Suburban Drive to have a looksee. That’s about as far as the common elements go.
Let’s start off with Jim’s version by looking at his interview with OCSO on December 18th, 2008; just a week after little Caylee’s remains were discovered. After we’ve reviewed all of Jim’s statements about this search we’ll move to Dominic’s, and then finally we’ll look at why they both appear to be dishonest to varying degrees. Jim states the night of November 14th he received a call from Dominic Casey. In that call Dominic told Jim he needed him to come down and “help him”. Jim doesn’t state he asked for any specifics, but instead does state he assumed it was that they were going to play “bodyguards” to Cindy and George, most likely at the meet and greet scheduled for that Saturday and Sunday.
Jim goes to Dominic’s office and waits for him in the parking lot and Dominic shows up about 8:15 a.m. Jim states Dominic was “somber” and told him “he thought he knew where Caylee was”. Jim, assuming Dominic means a LIVE-Caylee, says “let’s go get her”. So they head off with Jim driving. Jim states that Dominic had him drive all the way to the dead end of Suburban, make a u-turn and go all the way back to the intersection of Hopespring and Suburban where he parked.
Jim states Dominic got out of the car and told Jim to bring the camera. Jim states he actually had two cameras (video recorders) with him. Jim tried one and it wasn’t working properly so he grabbed the other one. Jim also states that almost immediately after exiting the car Dominic MAKES a phone call. From Dominic’s phone records on the 15th we find that Dominic made a phone call to Ocala, Florida area at 8:10 a.m. (just about the time Jim states he showed up in the parking lot) and then beginning at 9:02 a.m. Dominic makes 4 phone calls in a row to two numbers in Virginia. We’re probably safe to assume these calls were the ones Dominic made once they got to Suburban. These calls were made to Ginnette Lucas’s cell phone and her home phone. Ginnette Lucas is the psychic that Dominic Casey claims had a “vision” of a DEAD-Caylee and told him where to go find her body.
Maura was kind enough to pull together the phone activity between Dominic Casey and Ginny Lucas on November 15th in a previous comment.
6:43am Ginny cell outgoing call to DC’s office lasting 2 minutes
6:51am Ginny cell outgoing call to DC’s cell lasting 2 minutes
6:58am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 1 minute
7:02am DC call to Ginny’s cell lasting 2 minutes
7:02am Ginny cell incoming call from DC’s cell lasting 1 minute
7:06am DC call to Ginny’s cell lasting 1 minute
7:06am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 1 minute
7:12am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 29 minutes
9:02am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 1 minute
9:03am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 1 minute
9:03am DC call to Ginny’s cell lasting 1 minute
9:04am Ginny cell incoming call from DC’s cell lasting 1 minute
9:04am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 14 minutes (9:04-9:18am)
9:26am DC call to Ginny’s home lasting 9 minutes (9:26-9:35am)
The bolded entries are most likely the calls Dominic made just after exiting Jim’s vehicle on Suburban Drive.
Okay, so Jim goes on to state that Dominic walked across the street. Keep in mind that Jim had gone to the end of Suburban Drive, made a u-turn and come all the way back to the intersection of Hopespring and Suburban. That means he is parked on the north side of the street (the side where the school is located). So Dominic crossing the street means Dominic headed toward Caylee. (This is an important point when we get to Dominic’s version of why he was there because it is NOT the location KioMarie Torres spoke of.) Jim states Dominic walked and walked and walked, all the while on the phone. At this point Jim believes it’s about 9:30 a.m. which corresponds with the last phone call listed above that Dominic made to Ginny. According to Jim, Dominic has now walked far enough back down Suburban that Jim backs his vehicle back down Suburban toward the school. Jim states Dominic didn’t walk all the way back down Suburban, but far enough to be “near the school” (but across the street).
Now, an interesting part of Jim’s story is that Dominic, as he continued to walk east on Suburban did step in toward the swamp at a couple of places but would not go in very far and then would continue on east. This is interesting because with Jim referencing the fence (i.e. the triangular wooden fence of the Hopespring Drive home that ends just about 40 feet from where Caylee was located), this means Dominic looked at locations right near where Caylee actually was, but what appears to be intentionally didn’t go on in. In other words, Dominic continued well on past those locations. By this point Dominic has retrieved his “rod” from the vehicle and is poking around. Jim has already stated the vehicle is now parked down by the school, so this is a considerable distance down the street.
Another important point in Jim’s story is that Dominic had a still camera with him. Jim was specifically asked if Dominic was taking pictures and he said yes, but we have not seen any pictures taken by Dominic during this search.
At some point Dominic locates a set of three pavers and says to Jim “this looks like a gravesite” and then instructs Jim “Get a shot of this.“ It’s important to emphasize the instructions by Dominic Casey to Jim that he 1. bring his camera, and 2. get shots of specific things, because Dominic Casey swears he didn’t know Jim was filming until at one point he turned around and saw Jim with his camera and asking what the hell he was doing and to stop it. Jim is asked why Dominic wanted him filming and he responds that he doesn’t recall Dominic giving a reason.
The last important thing to point out as far as the video Jim was taking is that Dominic did not ask to see it or obtain it from Jim Hoover prior to December 6th, and most likely not before December 11th when Caylee was found. Jim can’t be certain of exactly what date after December 6th Dominic first asked for it, but he is certain it was after December 6th because that is the day Jim’s son was in a parade and a significant portion of the video was taped over. This shows that Jim really was a patsy who was not let in on the importance of the search because when Dominic became irate with Jim upon learning the video had been taped over, Jim couldn’t understand why it mattered considering they didn’t find anything.
Now, I emphasize that because Jim has a very good point. Caylee’s body has been found in close proximity to where Dominic Casey had Jim videoing. Rewinding we find that Dominic peered into the swamp at locations that were at or extremely close to Caylee’s remains, but it was not until he had gone east of those locations that he specifically asked Jim to “get a shot”. So, we have Dominic looking into the swamp near Caylee, without requesting any footage be taken, and then we have him specifically requesting footage taken once he has walked on past her and started poking around in an area not near her. Then, after Caylee is found, Dominic becomes demanding to have a video of NOTHING that he instructed Jim to take.
hmmmm…and Dominic is angry about not having the full footage of NOTHING. The video of NOTHING is very important to Dominic immediately after the discovery of Caylee. Keeping in mind that the video was not requested prior to Caylee being discovered, this is an interesting reaction by Dominic Casey.
Jim goes on to verify that the Anthonys knew he and Dominic had searched the area. This came out in the first big lawyer meeting after the discovery of Caylee. Jose Baez and Linda Kenney Baden are at the Anthony home and Dominic and Jim arrive. Jim – being the uninformed patsy – asks Dominic in front of everyone if “they know that we had searched that area?” Jim states Dominic answered “yes”, but apparently there was no reaction by anyone else, so Jim turned to George and asked him “You guys know we were down there, right?” and Jim states George said “Yeah.” Jim follows up with the statement George said he, himself, had walked down to that area at one time…but not into the woods.
And then we get to a very important part of Jim’s interview, because he STARTS (but does not finish) telling why he knew that Cindy and George knew they were not only searching that area, but they were specifically searching for Caylee (and that would be a DEAD-Caylee, right?) and what he starts to say but appears to back out of (feigning he lost his train of thought) is that on November 15th at the meet and greet there is something about the interaction with George and Cindy that let him know they knew where Dominic and Jim had been. He begins to tell how he and Dominic arrived about an hour or so later than they should have, and he never finishes telling what interaction (or possibly lack of interaction) with George and Cindy tipped him to them knowing what was going on. Was it that George and Cindy acted as though they knew exactly where Dominic and Jim had been when they arrived late? We will most likely learn when Jim takes the stand, I believe.
So, to summarize Jim’s version of the search as conveyed in the 12/18/2008 interview with OCSO is: Jim got a call on the night of the 14th from Dominic stating he needed to help Dominic with something he claims wasn’t disclosed. He met Dominic the next morning thinking they were going to a meet and greet. Instead they diverted to Suburban where Dominic had him video specific areas but not near where Caylee was located, then never requested the video of NOTHING until after Caylee’s remains were discovered. And there are indications still unrevealed to us that George and Cindy knew of the search and the intent of the search as early as that same day.
Of course, Jim didn’t mention that on November 8, 2008 he showed up at a command center for Tim Miller’s Equusearch search efforts to find Caylee and gave a tip to searcher Bill Todd. While the exact details of that tip have not been revealed, Bill Todd’s wife states that Hoover told them “someone saw Casey’s car parked near that patch of woods in June.” Todd also claims that at the time Hoover gave the tip he stated no one could find out he was at the command center because he was working for the Anthonys and if they found out his job would be in danger.
That this tip prefaces the November 15th search by a full week is most likely just a coincidence…I believe that would be coincidence #492 in this case. We’ll most likely get to hear Jim not be able to recall who told him of that November 8th tip during the trial.
Valhall.








