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Friday, June 24, 2011

Casey Anthony's parents want the truth

Anthony family atty clarifies commentsvar cnnWindowParams = window.location.toString().toQueryParams();if(typeof cnnWindowParams.video != "undefined") {if(cnnWindowParams.video) {cnnLoadStoryPlayer('bestoftv/2011/06/23/exp.ac.lippman.clarify.intv.part2.cnn', 'cnnCVP1', '640x384_start_art', playerOverRide, T1);}} else {$('cnnCVP2').onclick = function() {if ($$('.box-opened').length) {$$('.box-opened').each(function(val){Element.fireEvent(val, 'click');});}cnnLoadStoryPlayer('bestoftv/2011/06/23/exp.ac.lippman.clarify.intv.part2.cnn', 'cnnCVP1', '640x384_start_art', playerOverRide, T1);};$('cnnCVP2').onmouseover = function() {$('cnnCVP2').className = 'cnn_mtt1plybttn cnn_mtt1plybttnon';};$('cnnCVP2').onmouseout = function() {$('cnnCVP2').className = 'cnn_mtt1plybttn';};}NEW: Caylee could climb pool stairs on her own, Cindy Anthony testifiesNEW: Casey Anthony's brother says stains were in cars years before she took it overCasey Anthony is charged in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter, CayleeAttorney: Parents "have not come to any conclusion about whether their daughter is guilty"Tune in to HLN's "Nancy Grace" at 8 ET for live reports from Florida with all the details of the Casey Anthony trial. And follow the action on Nancy's special Casey Anthony trial page.

Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- Two-year-old Caylee Anthony was able to climb into the family's backyard pool on her own, but she couldn't have installed the removable ladder or opened gates leading to the area, her grandmother testified Friday at the outset of an emotional day in the Casey Anthony murder trial.

Defense attorneys are trying to prove that Caylee could have accidentally drowned in the family pool on June 16, 2008. They argue Casey Anthony and her father panicked on finding the girl's body and covered up her death.

Prosecutors argue Casey Anthony used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious, put duct tape on her nose and mouth to smother her, then stored her body in the trunk of her car for a few days before disposing of the remains in a wooded field.

But Anthony's defense team has worked intently to call that theory into question in the last few days as the trial rolls towards the end of its fifth week.

On Thursday, Anthony's mother, Cindy Anthony, testified she was using a family computer to search for terms including chloroform and alcohol in March 2008, three months before Caylee disappeared.

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She testified Friday about how Caylee was always anxious to get into the pool and how she could climb and descend the pool steps virtually unaided as she approached her third birthday.

Then Anthony's brother, Lee Anthony, took the stand to say that stains in the back of the trunk were there when he owned the car from 2000 to 2005, and probably before. Witnesses for the prosecution have said subtle stains in the trunk of the car could have been made by fluids from the girl's decomposing body.

Later, Anthony and her brother both began to cry when defense attorney Jose Baez asked why he didn't visit his sister in the hospital after Caylee was born in 2005. He said he only had one brief conversation with his mother about his sister's pregnancy until just days before Caylee was born.

"I was very angry at my mom and at my sister," he said. "I was just angry at everyone in general that they didn't want to include me, didn't find it important enough to tell me."

Cindy Anthony opened the day's testimony, telling Baez that Caylee was able to climb the stairs of the pool on her own, with just a light touch of support to make sure she was safe. She also said the girl rarely, if ever, left the house without shoes -- a nod to the fact that no shoes were found with her body.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick, Cindy Anthony acknowledged that Caylee could not have opened the gate to the back yard or placed the pool's heavy removable ladder into position to climb it. She also acknowledged that she had previously had difficulty assigning correct dates to events.

Baez also attempted to get Cindy Anthony to discuss how often she had mentioned drowning as a possible cause of the girl's death, despite an earlier video played by prosecutors in which she mentioned such a scenario reported by media outlets as a rumor.

Judge Belvin Perry would not allow her to answer.

Lee Anthony followed his mother to the stand, telling jurors about three stains in the trunk of the Pontiac Sunfire that his sister later inherited. The stains were there for at least as long as he owned the car, he said. He may have added a few of his own before he passed the car to his sister in 2005, he testified.

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Baez then began questioning him about his sister's pregnancy.

Lee Anthony said aside from a brief conversation with his mother, he never spoke to anyone in his family about the pregnancy until just a few days before Caylee was born.

Crying, he said he was angry with family members for not including him, but when Baez pressed if there were other reasons why he would have been angry, prosecutor Jeff Ashton objected.

"I was very hurt and I don't think I wanted to believe it," he said.

The trial then broke for lunch.

The emotional testimony came a day after Cindy Anthony told jurors that she conducted the computer searches because she was trying to figure out what was making one of her Yorkie dogs "extremely tired all the time." Both the dogs ate bamboo plants in the backyard, she testified, so she started searching for chlorophyll to see if the plants were causing the dog's exhaustion.

A bacteria associated with chlorophyll production comes from different plants, she said, and some species of algae and seaweed produce natural chloroform, so the search led her from chlorophyll to chloroform.

She also was searching for other chemicals, including alcohol, she told Baez, because of a recent scare regarding hand sanitizers around small children. And she searched on some injuries, she said, because a friend of hers had recently been in a car accident and suffered head and chest injuries. She was, she said, "looking up specific terminology that someone had asked me to look up.".

It appears the computer user first searched for "chloraform" on Google and received results for "chloroform," said John Bradley, owner of the software development company that created the software used to retrieve the data. One of the search results was from Wikipedia.org, which was accessed, he testified.

Searches were also conducted on "how to make chloroform," "neck breaking" and "making weapons out of household products," Bradley testified.

Cindy Anthony testified Thursday she did not search for how to make chloroform or household weapons. She said she also did not search for neck breaking, but remembered a pop-up ad featuring a skateboarder doing a "neck-breaking stunt."

She testified that she told authorities about her search for chlorophyll earlier.

Casey Anthony, 25, is charged with seven counts in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in 2008, including first-degree murder. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.

Caylee was not reported missing to police until July 15, 2008, when Cindy Anthony tracked down her daughter and demanded answers regarding Caylee's whereabouts. Prosecution witnesses described Anthony's behavior in the month after Caylee was last seen as nonchalant, testifying how she spent time with her boyfriend, went shopping and to nightclubs.

Baez said in his opening statement that Anthony behaved as she did because years of sexual abuse by her father and had conditioned her to conceal the truth and hide her pain.

On Thursday, an attorney for Casey Anthony's parents said the couple has not come to any conclusion about whether their daughter is guilty of murdering their granddaughter, comments that came as the capital murder trial neared the conclusion of its fifth week.

After telling CNN's Gary Tuchman that Casey Anthony's parents do not believe she is innocent, attorney Mark Lippman issued a statement Thursday clarifying his remarks.

Lippman said George Anthony never molested his daughter or helped cover up his granddaughter's death, as Casey Anthony's attorneys have alleged. And, he said his clients have not come to any conclusion about whether their daughter is guilty of murder.

"They simply want to know the truth," Lippman told reporters. "They have no idea what happened. ... They just want both the state (prosecutors) and the defense to do their jobs."

CNN's Lateef Mungin and In Session's Mayra Cuevas and Michael Christian contributed to this report.

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