(CNN) -- A convicted felon who served prison time for kidnapping was added to the list of defense witnesses in Casey Anthony's capital murder trial, court records show.
According to an amended witness list filed Tuesday, defense attorneys claim cell phone records show four calls between Vasco Thompson, 52, and Casey Anthony's father, George Anthony, on July 14, 2008 -- one day before Casey Anthony's 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, was reported missing to authorities.
According to Florida Department of Corrections records, Thompson was sentenced in 1998 to serve eight years in prison for kidnapping.
He was released in 1989, but was incarcerated again from 1992 until 1993, and then again from 1998 to 2004, according to the department's website.
It was unclear how Thompson might fit into the defense's strategy in the Anthony case.
Prosecutors allege that Anthony, 25, killed Caylee in 2008 by using chloroform on her and putting duct tape over her nose and mouth. They allege she then put the little girl's body in black garbage bags and stored it in her trunk before dumping it in woods near her home.
Caylee's skeletal remains were found in December 11, 2008. She was last seen June 16, 2008, but her disappearance was not reported until July 15, after Anthony's mother, Cindy Anthony, demanded answers from her daughter about Caylee's whereabouts.
Anthony faces seven counts in Caylee's death, including first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and misleading investigators. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.
She has pleaded not guilty. Her attorneys have said Caylee was not killed, but rather drowned in the family pool on June 16.
Defense attorney Jose Baez told jurors that Casey Anthony and her father, George Anthony, panicked when they discovered the body and covered up her death. George Anthony rejected that scenario in his testimony the first week of the trial.
Prosecutors rested their case earlier Wednesday, and Orange County Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. rejected a defense request for a judgment of acquittal, saying the jury must decide what to make of the evidence.
Casey Anthony's defense attorneys will begin presenting their case Thursday. The trial, held in Orlando, is in its fourth week.
In arguing for acquittal, defense attorney J. Cheney Mason told Perry the state had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and noted that evidence against Anthony is purely circumstantial.
"There is no evidence to establish when the child died, other than a monthly window of opportunity, where she died, how she died, who, if anyone, was with her in attendance when she died," Mason told Perry.
And prosecutors have not disproved that Caylee's death could have been accidental and was covered up, he said. "What has been presented to you and this jury is the mere presence of duct tape on or near the remains."
All the state has been able to prove, he said, is that Anthony had a "history of untruthfulness" with friends and family.
"There has been, in this case, no evidence of premeditation," he said. "... There is a stacking of inferences, a stacking of speculation, but no evidence."
But, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick told Perry, "It is our position that a reasonable jury in this case can conclude that Caylee Marie Anthony died as the result of an application of three pieces of duct tape to her nose and mouth; that a reasonable jury can conclude that Caylee Marie Anthony died as a result of poisoning by chloroform; that a reasonable jury can conclude that Caylee Marie Anthony died as a result of the combination of the two, based on the evidence that was discovered in the trunk and the evidence connected with how her remains were discovered."
She went on, "It is our position that a reasonable jury can conclude that the relationship between the parties in this case (Casey Anthony and Cindy Anthony) could provide, or did provide, a motive for Casey Anthony to eliminate the child. It is our position that a reasonable jury can conclude that Ms. Anthony began preparations for the elimination of the child as early as March of 2008, when she conducted computer searches for how to make chloroform and other means of weapons and how to create injury."
In the past 3 1/2 weeks, jurors have heard testimony that was sometimes dramatic and other times complicated and scientific. They have seen grisly crime-scene photos of skeletal remains and received crash courses in computer forensics, forensic entomology and DNA testing.
Some of the most powerful testimony came from Anthony's former boyfriends, friends and acquaintances, all of whom saw her between June 16 and July 15, 2008.
During that time, according to testimony, Anthony was living at her boyfriend Tony Lazzaro's apartment, attending parties, hitting nightclubs, getting a tattoo that says "Bella Vita" -- Italian for "beautiful life" -- and shopping.
Numerous witnesses testified that they noticed nothing different in her demeanor, that she did not appear anxious or sad and that she did not mention Caylee except to provide different accounts of where she was -- most commonly, with her nanny, identified by Anthony as Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez.
Once an increasingly frantic Cindy Anthony tracked her daughter down and demanded answers as to Caylee's whereabouts, Casey Anthony told her family, as well as police, that Gonzalez had kidnapped Caylee and that she had spent the previous month frantically searching for her daughter.
The apartment Anthony led police to, claiming it was where Gonzalez lived, was vacant at the time. Police were never able to find the nanny. They did find a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez, who denied ever meeting Caylee or Casey Anthony and later sued for defamation.
"No one else benefited from the death of Caylee Marie Anthony," Burdick told jurors in her opening statements. "Caylee's death allowed Casey to live the good life, at least for those 31 days."
When Casey Anthony was asked by authorities, during the 911 call Cindy Anthony made to report her granddaughter missing, why she waited 31 days to report the disappearance, Casey Anthony replied, "I have been looking for her and have gone through other resources to find her, which was stupid."
Gonzalez was one of a host of people Anthony apparently invented, complete with realistic-sounding details, according to testimony.
There was Jeffrey Hopkins, a wealthy suitor she told her mother she and Caylee were spending time with in Jacksonville, Florida, when in reality Caylee was missing and Casey Anthony had not left Orlando. One of Casey Anthony's acquaintances named Jeffrey Hopkins testified, saying he had never dated Anthony, that he was not wealthy and he had never lived in Jacksonville.
In addition, Anthony had claimed to be working at Universal Studios as an event planner through Caylee's disappearance. Testimony showed she had not worked there in years. A co-worker there, Juliette Lewis, whom Anthony said had a daughter Caylee's age, was also not found to exist.
Jurors heard from Anthony's former friend, Amy Huizenga, that her frustration level with her parents, particularly her mother, was rising around the time that Caylee disappeared. "I remember she told me her mom had told her she was an unfit mother," Huizenga said. "She was extremely upset about that."
She said Anthony also had to cancel plans "fairly frequently" when no one was available to watch her daughter.
However, the same friends, acquaintances and former boyfriend of Anthony's also said, when pressed by defense attorneys, that Anthony when seen with Caylee appeared to be a good and loving mother.
Anthony herself has appeared mostly stone-faced during testimony, but has broken down at times, wiping tears away or sobbing outright.
Jurors also heard evidence about Anthony's car, which she abandoned in late June, saying she had run out of gas. It eventually was towed from an Orlando business to a tow yard. Her parents picked it up July 15 after receiving a letter from the wrecker yard.
Numerous witnesses testified about a foul odor coming from the car -- a scent prosecutors allege stemmed from human decomposition. A dog trained to detect human remains alerted to the trunk, according to testimony, and compounds associated with human decomposition were found in the trunk.
One scientist, Arpad Vass of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, also testified that the level of chloroform found in testing of Anthony's trunk was "shockingly high."
Key forensic witnesses described in graphic detail the state of Caylee's remains when they were discovered in a wooded area less than a mile from the Anthony home, and jurors saw pictures of the child's skull; tiny, decaying shorts; and a "Winnie the Pooh" blanket found with the remains.
Animals had chewed on the little girl's bones by the time they were discovered, according to testimony. At times, Anthony ducked her head and tried to avoid looking at the graphic images.
Despite objections from defense attorneys, jurors saw a video in which images of Caylee's skull and the duct tape found across its mouth portion at the scene were superimposed over a photo of Caylee alive, smiling, with her mother.
Some of the most compelling testimony came from Dr. Jan Garavaglia, star of the Discovery Channel's "Dr. G. Medical Examiner" and chief medical examiner in the case. Garavaglia, who examined the child's remains, told jurors she could not say for sure how the child died, but homicide is "the only logical conclusion."
"The fact that it's tossed in a field to rot in bags is a clear indication that the body was trying to be hidden," Garavaglia said.
"It being put in a bag is a very big red flag for homicide, never seen in an accidental death for a child, and the fact that there's duct tape attached anywhere to that child's face is to me indication of a homicide."
An FBI latent print examiner testified that adhesive in the outline of a heart was found on the duct tape that covered the mouth portion of Caylee's remains. Sheets of heart-shaped stickers, with some stickers missing, were found at the Anthony home and introduced into evidence.
A sticker was also found at the site where Caylee's remains were discovered on a small piece of cardboard. An FBI analysis showed that sticker did not match those found at the Anthony home.
Jurors also heard about searches conducted on a computer at the Anthony home on March 17 and 21, 2008 -- several months before Caylee disappeared. They included "chloroform," "how to make chloroform," "household weapons" and "neck-breaking," according to testimony.
Other terms searched included "hand-to-hand combat" and "self-defense" and appeared uninvolved. "Chloroform" was searched for 84 times, according to the testimony of John Bradley, who developed a computer program used to locate the information.
Jurors heard from experts that a hair found in Anthony's trunk appeared similar to that of her daughter's, although the experts could not conclusively state that the hair was Caylee's. In addition, a forensic entomologist testified that tiny flies found in the trunk fit the theory that Caylee's body was stored there -- perhaps for three to five days.
Perry told jurors Monday that testimony in the case could conclude by the end of next week, although he cannot say for sure. Deliberations could begin by June 25, he said.In Session's Mayra Cuevas, Cara Hutt and Michael Christian contributed to this report.
var cnnOmniPartner="TV-Nancy Grace"Watch Nancy Grace Monday through Sunday starting at 8 p.m. ET on HLN. For the latest from Nancy Grace click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment