Casey Anthony Murder Trial: Cindy Anthony's Chloroform Internet Search Claim Challenged
Continuing with their rebuttal, the state sought to prove that Cindy Anthony was in fact at work when she stated previously in court that she was at home making searches for chloroform on her computer.
John Camperlengo, the chief compliance officer and general council for Gentiva Health where Cindy was employed in 2008, took the stand Friday afternoon.
He gave a lengthy explanation of the numerous regulations and policies of Gentiva, including their retention of emails, sent, deleted, and received, and recorded computer activity at each office location.
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Camperlengo also explained that each employee had a unique user ID that was not to be shared or used by anyone else. Employees would not be able to do any work on their computers without logging in with their ID first.
A clinical administration management system called Unity would record activity whenever employees would log in to their computers. The company could also tell if employees were using a desktop or a laptop during those periods.
The witness confirmed that Cindy Anthony, under the username “cmanthon,” was in fact logged in to her workstation on March 17, 2008 and on March 21, 2008.
Specifically, on March 17, 2008 from 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. ET, Cindy was active on the computer at work, not at home. Similarly, March 21, 2008 also showed activity from the workstation at around 2 - 3 p.m. ET, discrediting Cindy’s previous testimony that she was in fact at home on those days searching for chlorophyll and chloroform on her personal computer.
Further contrasting Cindy’s testimony, Deborah Polisano, her former supervisor at Gentiva Health in 2008, also testified that Cindy did not have the capability to work from home during March 2008.
The witness also denied ever fixing or changing Cindy’s time card, directly contradicting Cindy’s statement that her supervisor could have inaccurately fixed her time card.
When asked by prosecution if there was ever a time that Cindy was allowed to work from home when the records reflected she was actually at work and logged in, Polisano stated that would be illegal.
Dr. Bruce Goldberger and Dr. Michael Warren also testified in the afternoon, rebutting the defense’s testimony from Dr. Werner Spitz. Spitz had called Dr. Jan Garavaglia’s autopsy of Caylee Anthony's remains shoddy and refuted her findings, saying that there was no evidence to indicate that the toddler's death was a homicide.
Goldberger described his examination of samples taken from Caylee’s skeletal remains, including investigation of her skull. He said that he used cranial washes to detect if volatile substances were present.
Defense attorney Jose Baez however pointed out that the saline washes were somewhat of a crude method and technique to use to which the witness stated that he used the technique several times because he did not want to disturb the structure of the cranium.
Also rebutting Spitz’s method of examination, Dr. Warren, a forensic anthropologist and member of a scientific working group, which developed best practices within a field, testified that sawing open a fragile child’s skull wasn’t the best technique to use.
He stated there were no protocols, like Spitz had asserted, that recommended sawing open a skull. He confirmed during the cross however that there would be a number of reasons why a skull would be opened.
Kevin Stenger and Sandra Osborne were also called back to the stand on Friday, speaking in regards to keyword searches made from the Anthony family computer. Stenger had searched the deleted Internet history on the HP computer from March 4-21, 2008, and affirmed that no searches were made for bamboo poisoning, chlorophyll, and Gentiva.
Cindy has previously stated that when one of her dogs appeared sleepy all the time she became concerned and searched the Internet for bamboo poisoning, because her dogs consumed the leaves in the backyard. She testified that her search for chlorophyll led to chloroform as well.
Stenger found however that the only search conducted in reference to dogs was a search for fleas, not for bamboo poisoning and chlorophyll, like Cindy previously alleged. He also refuted Cindy’s testimony that a pop up referring to “neck breaking” came up. “Neck breaking” was not a pop-up but an actual term searched on Google by a human.
Baez emphasized during his cross that Stenger only searched domain addresses and also stated that no one’s neck was broken in this particular case.
Computer crimes examiner Osbourne also testified about searching for specific keywords on the HP hard drive. Though she did find bamboo, it was not in reference to poisoning but to furniture, flooring, and Tiki bars. She also only found one reference to “chlorophyll” but it was in a dictionary file.
Yuri Melich was the last to testify in the state’s rebuttal case. He confirmed that the cellphone records of Cindy and George Anthony were subpoenaed, contrary to Baez’s claim that Melich had only searched Casey’s cellphone records.
Melich stated that no calls were made from Cindy to George Anthony during the week of June 16, 2008. No calls were made from the Anthony home landline to George’s cellphone as well during that time.
Baez questioned Melich if he knew that George and other members of the family had multiple cellphones. Melich could not recall that information until he was reminded of a statement made by George confirming that he also had a work cellphone.
The state rested their rebuttal case on Friday. After Judge Belvin Perry denied the defense’s motion for acquittal, he announced that closing arguments are expected to be heard on Sunday. Casey, 25, is charged with first-degree murder of her daughter Caylee and could face the death penalty if convicted.
