Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony (49 page)

The topic of chloroform was a sensitive subject for Cindy Anthony. She was in her own chloroform hot water when she took the stand for the defense on Thursday, June 23. In my opinion, this was the point when Cindy chose Casey over Caylee. She testified that she recalled searching for the word
chloroform
after her little Yorkie had become sick and she was researching if there was a connection between chloroform and the bamboo he had been eating. She said she did not, however, type the words “how to make chloroform.”

During the cross-examination, a stern Linda Burdick asked Cindy question after question about her specific search terms. While Cindy said she had searched the word
chloroform,
she had not searched
how to make chloroform
. Linda also drilled her about where she was on the date of the search.

“So, it’s your testimony today that it’s possible that you were home on that day even though your work records reflect something differently? That’s correct? Is that correct? On March 28, 2008, is it your testimony in front of this jury that you were home between 2:16 and 2:28
P.M
.?”

“It’s possible,” Cindy replied, and then started to hem and haw.

Work records showed that Cindy was on her computer at the office around the time the searches for chloroform had been conducted on her home computer. Because it would have been impossible for her to be in two places at once, it was my opinion that Cindy Anthony lied to help her daughter. If she was lying and if that lie were found to be material, it could have subjected her to prosecution for perjury. Subsequent to my retirement, the State Attorney’s Office chose not to pursue perjury charges against her.

Because the chloroform searches were now the topic of evidence, the defense recalled Sergeant Kevin Stenger, the head of the computer forensics division at the Sheriff’s Office. In this, the defense caught something we missed, to their credit. Through computer software expert John Dennis Bradley, we had placed into evidence a computer report of the chloroform searches conducted on the Anthonys’ computer. It had been prepared by Stenger, using Bradley’s software. Stenger’s view was that software was the most reliable. That report had indicated that one of the websites related to chloroform had been visited eighty-four times, with specific dates for those searches.

Prior to submitting the files to Bradley, Stenger had done a similar search of the file using a different software program, but felt some of the results may not have been accurate. That report reflected all of the activity in that file. Both reports were provided to the defense. As it turns out, the earlier report that Stenger had produced indicated that the particular site was only visited once and attributed the eighty-four hits to a MySpace page. The defense called Stenger and exposed the discrepancy in the two reports. We still are not completely sure which one was correct but the real effect on the case was that the error took the jury’s attention away from the most important issue: that the site was visited
period.
It certainly made us all look bad. Once the discrepancy was pointed out to us, we never again argued the search number.

Stenger did an analysis of the deleted file shortly after the trial ended, using a different program, and found the same searches on the same dates, but instead of eighty-four visits to the one site, he found only one. Again, the error unfortunately detracted from the important information, which was that someone had searched for “how to make chloroform” in the first place.

During his testimony, Lee Anthony showed his allegiance to Casey much as his mother had. Perhaps the death penalty on the table was a motivating factor in their loyalty. In deposition, Lee had talked about the period of time when Casey was pregnant. He had been living at home, and said she looked like she was getting fat, so he went to talk to his mother. Cindy didn’t want to talk about it. Lee had just shrugged it off, figuring it was none of his business. He said his parents were soon “over the top” about it, and had even made a nursery and thrown a baby shower.

Now on the stand, he was throwing his parents under the bus, crying and hamming it up. He blamed his mother and father for “hiding” the pregnancy and for being ashamed of it. He acted beside himself that his parents “wouldn’t let him” be involved in any aspect of the pregnancy, and had even kept him away from the birth of his niece. Lee was totally playing into Baez’s claim that this family had secrets and everybody was a victim.

Lee was never asked at trial about his sister’s allegations of sexual misconduct, but I was told that he had denied the claims to Anthony family attorney Mark Lippman, telling the lawyer “it never happened.”

T
HROUGH THE TESTIMONY OF ALL
of these witnesses, Baez had been almost entirely on his own. Cheney Mason had joined the defense team with great hype and celebration, and throughout the six and a half weeks of trial, we had barely heard from him. He had a good reputation as an elder statesman, but made most of his money on divorce cases or high-publicity trials. He tried to project himself as larger than life. In the Anthony case, he had cross-examined only a couple of witnesses, among them Dr. G, but had done little else. Part of his role may have been funding. We had heard that Cheney was paying for hotel rooms for members of the defense team when we were picking the jury in Pinellas County.

At one point in the middle of trial Cheney had handed Frank a piece of paper with trivia information about the courtroom: how many ceiling tiles there were, how many recessed lights, and other minutiae. I think he was basically telegraphing his boredom, that he was not involved in the case and that this was Baez’s case. Because he was not engaged, he had a lot of time to fill his mind with other factual nuggets. That became clear after one of our many sidebars with Judge Perry over the admission of evidence. Cheney shrugged his shoulders and said in his southern drawl, “I keep trying to teach the boy the rules of evidence.” When we asked him about anything pertaining to the trial, he would often answer, “I don’t know. This is Jose’s show.”

At the eleventh hour, however, it appeared that Cheney had decided he needed to step in. He had approached Linda about a plea. Linda told him that if Casey wanted to plead to second-degree murder for a specific sentence of thirty years, that she could do that. That she might be allowed to plead to the aggravated manslaughter charge, but she would have to give us an explanation to justify it. She would have to give us the truth about how it happened and it would have to fit. We weren’t going to let her plead down without knowing what happened to Caylee.

Cheney wanted Casey to talk to him about entering a plea. At first Jose was not on board with the idea, but he had come around and was at least entertaining it. On Saturday, June 25, we approached the bench and moved to a back room with Judge Perry. There, Cheney told us that Casey refused to even listen to the idea of a plea. Every time he approached the subject with her, she would look at him blankly, like she didn’t know what a plea was. He said her expression gave him concerns about her competency.

Whenever an attorney says there is a question of competency the law requires the court to take it seriously and explore the issue. Casey was being so stubborn that she would not even discuss the plea issue with Cheney. When he tried to broach it, she would not react or listen in any way. If he talked about it, she acted like he wasn’t there. Though we doubted there was truly a competency concern, we agreed that a competency examination was necessary.

My take was that Cheney felt they were losing the case and Casey needed to seriously start thinking about taking a plea. I think he was frustrated with her stubbornness. We agreed to tell the press that a legal matter had come up. Casey was ordered to speak with our old friend Dr. Jeffrey Danziger and another psychiatrist, Harry McClaren, who was from Chattahoochee, a small town up near Tallahassee.

The doctors both agreed that Casey was fine and competent to stand trial. They also said that she told them that she was not interested in a plea. It never came up again.

I have never had a “competency for stubbornness” issue before. People decompensate and get worse through the stress of a trial, but this was not a real competency issue. This was addressing stubbornness.

R
OY
K
RONK WAS THE WITNESS
everybody had been waiting for and the defense called him to the stand on June 28. Cheney Mason was going to be questioning the Orange County meter reader, who we hadn’t called because of his credibility issues. But he was an important witness for the defense, because they were trying to make him a scapegoat. Kronk repeated his story of seeing something suspicious at the scene where the body was found on the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth of August. The jury heard all three of his calls to 911. Kronk said that on the day of his final 911 call, he didn’t get any closer than twenty to thirty feet of the suspicious bundle.Mostly, the defense was curious about what kind of money Kronk felt he stood to make for the discovery of Caylee’s body. He said he was aware of the $50,000 reward. Cheney asked him if he had ever used the term “winning the lottery” about the body and if he had told someone he didn’t want his ex-wife to know about his reward. Kronk said that he had been joking when he made those remarks.

Because the defense was alleging that Kronk had taken the Anthony’s duct tape, on cross, we asked him if had ever met the Anthonys or had access to their house, car, or garage. Kronk said he didn’t know the family and did not have access to their home. Kronk’s estranged son, Brandon Sparks, was called to testify the following day. Sparks said his father had told him in November 2008 that he had found Caylee’s skull, and he was going to be rich and famous. But Kronk told jurors the conversation with his son had never happened.

George Anthony took the stand for a fifth time on June 30. Jose started right off the top, ripping into him about why he didn’t do anything if he thought the trunk of the Pontiac smelled like death, and about a statement he allegedly made that his granddaughter would be found in a swamp. Till now, George had managed to keep his composure during his prior cross examinations, but he wept openly when Baez raised questions about his attempted suicide in January 2009.

He asked George about the suicide letter and implied that it contained some expression of guilt. I didn’t want Baez telling the jurors what was in the note. I wanted them to read it for themselves. To this point, I wasn’t sure the judge would let the entire letter in. I had done a ton of research on the issue, and I thought I could get some of it in, but all of it would be a stretch. I objected to Baez’s question, since the letter was not in evidence and pointed out that I had it in the courtroom if defense counsel wanted to place it in evidence. I don’t think Baez knew I had it. He took the letter in his hand and held it as he tried again to give his version of what it said. I objected again and we approached the bench.

At the bench Judge Perry showed once again his understanding of tactics and appellate issues. During the discussion I argued that the questions already had made some portions of the letter admissible. The judge discussed the issue and seemed to agree that what Baez had done might make it admissible, rather than explicitly rule he just sort of gave his impressions on the issue but did not rule. Baez left the bench apparently under the mistaken impression that the court had decide to allow the whole letter in. He then proceeded to question George extensively, implying that the suicide attempt was a fraud.

Casey made no reaction from where she sat, as her father was forced to recount his attempt to end his own life.

George said he had purchased a gun and planned to track down and interrogate friends of Casey who he believed had information about his dead granddaughter. Even as George fought to compose himself, Baez kept hammering away at him. He came back to Casey’s molestation he had used at opening arguments. “You of course would never admit to molesting your child, would you, sir?” Baez prodded.

“Sir, I would never do anything to harm my daughter in that way,” George Anthony said, fighting back tears.

“Only in that way?” Baez taunted.

When I asked George to describe the way he felt the day he learned Caylee’s remains had been found in the swamp off Suburban Drive, it took all he had to answer. “A deep hurt inside, tears, the whole gamut of an emotional loss, a breakdown inside of me and seeing what my wife and son went through,” he sobbed.

I finally did move George’s suicide note into evidence during our rebuttal case, and Baez objected. The judge pointed to his questions as the very reason that he had ruled to make the letter admissible. Judge Perry permitted jurors to read the eight-page farewell George had penned to his wife and that police had discovered in the motel room in Daytona, Florida. I felt that this heart-wrenching correspondence was the single strongest piece of evidence that established that George’s involvement in the death of Caylee was unthinkable. I felt that Baez’s clumsiness in handling the issue was a major mistake on his part.

George’s testimony was followed by the appearance of Krystal Holloway, George Anthony’s supposed mistress. Holloway went by the nickname “River Cruz.” She was a volunteer for the Casey Anthony cause but she was not with Texas EquuSearch. She said the two had met at a tent set up to hand out water bottles and such. Through her volunteering, she had become friends with Cindy and George. She said that she and George had started having an affair in the fall of 2008. It ended before his suicide attempt in January of 2009.