The Google Searches and Cindy’s Judas Moment

Posted on March 5, 2010 by JWG

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

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

Start 2:50 PM

March 7

Start 11:27 AM

Start 5:22 PM

March 8 (Saturday)

Start 8:33 AM

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

March 13

Start 9:42

Start 10:44

  • Google search “lost numbers” (results 1 – 10)

Start 11:17

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

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

March 19 (Casey’s birthday)

Start 8:42 AM

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 :oops: . 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.

Related posts:

  1. The Google Searches
  2. The ‘Zenaida’ Searches
  3. Caylee Anthony case: Just Google It!
  4. Computer Savvy Casey?
  5. Tim Miller’s Interview with OCSO
  


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