Cindy Anthony testifies

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla.

The mother of a Florida woman accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter testified Thursday that she had conducted Internet searches about chloroform on a family computer, directly contradicting prosecutors’ theory that it was the suspect who made the queries.

Casey Anthony’s mother, Cindy, said she had run the chloroform queries while looking up information on chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plants. She believed her dogs may have been eating bamboo leaves containing chlorophyll. Cindy Anthony also said she ran searches on other chemicals, such as hydrogen peroxide, after she was informed about a hand-sanitizer scare.

Casey Anthony listened to her mother’s testimony without showing emotion.

The testimony was a surprise to prosecutors who contend that Casey Anthony made the searches. During cross-examination, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick suggested that Cindy Anthony never mentioned the searches during depositions and that work records show that Cindy Anthony was at her job during the time the searches were made on the family’s home computer.

Cindy Anthony responded that she could leave work when she needed to and that the work records might not have reflected her absence.

“You were aware that computer searches were an issue?” Drane Burdick said.

Drane Burdick asked Cindy Anthony whether she remembered denying that she conducted the searches during her 2009 deposition.

“I did not look up how to make chloroform. I looked up chloroform,” Cindy Anthony said. “I did tell the detectives, and I did tell the state attorneys about the searches.”

Cindy Anthony told Drane Burdick she did not run searches on household weapons, chloroform or neck-breaking, although she said she remembered a YouTube video involving a skateboarder.

The skateboarder’s trick was described as a “neck- breaking feat,” she said.

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