Anthony testimony focuses on duct tape

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla.

Prosecutors focused Friday on what they believe killed 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in the Florida murder trial of her mother. Jurors heard testimony from the medical examiner who reviewed the child’s skeletal remains and saw graphic video of how duct tape could have been used to suffocate her.

Orange and Osceola County chief medical examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia testified that she determined the toddler’s manner of death to be homicide, though she encountered contentious cross-examination from Anthony’s attorneys.

The official cause of death she listed was “death by undetermined means,” but Garavaglia said she applied a three-pronged test to arrive at her determination. She said she took into account not only the physical evidence present on the remains she examined, but all the information she had about how they were found and what she’d been told about the authorities’ investigation.

“We know by our observations that it’s a red flag when a child has not been reported to authorities with injury, there’s foul play,” Garavaglia said. “ ... There is no child that should have duct tape on its face when it dies.”

Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors believe she suffocated her daughter in June 2008. She didn’t report her missing for 31 days. The defense contends she drowned in her grandparents’ pool. Her remains were found in a wooded area not far from the Anthony family home in December 2008.

Casey Anthony was born in Warren, Ohio, in 1986 to George and Cindy Anthony, who lived in Howland before moving to Florida in 1989.

Garavaglia also bolstered chloroform evidence that was found by investigators inside the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car. She testified that even a small amount of chloroform would be sufficient to cause the death of a child.

Defense attorney Cheney Mason tried to poke holes in Garavaglia’s findings, getting her to admit that toxicology tests on the bones came up negative for “volatile chemicals.” Still, she stuck by her conclusions even when Mason tried to suggest the idea of an accident.

“You’re trying to tell this jury 100 percent that this death couldn’t be an accident?” Mason asked at one point.

“Accidental deaths are reported 100 percent of the time — unless there’s reason not to,” Garavaglia responded.

Later in the day, the defense objected to hearing testimony from University of Florida professor and human identification laboratory director Michael Warren, who planned to present a computer animation of the way duct tape could have been used in the death.

The animation featured a picture of Caylee Anthony taken alongside her mother that was superimposed with an image of her decomposed skull.