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Monday, June 13, 2011

Casey Anthony prosecution case could wrap this week

Orlando (CNN) -- The fourth week of Casey Anthony's capital murder trial could mark the close of the prosecution's case and the beginning of the defense.


Only a few prosecution witnesses remain, including a trace-evidence analyst and a tattoo artist Anthony visited in the weeks following her daughter's disappearance.


Over the weekend, an insect expert testified that tiny flies found in the trunk of the Orlando woman's car fit the theory that the body of her 2-year-old daughter was stored there -- perhaps for three to five days.


The flies suggest something began to decompose inside the trunk, but do not prove that the material was a human body, said Neal Haskell, a forensic entomologist from Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana. Such flies will feed on many things, he said.


Based on his analysis of temperatures and the reproductive habits of the small flies found on paper towels that another scientist found were soaked in fluid from decomposition, Haskell said it appeared that whatever attracted the flies had been in the car for three to five days.


Defense attorney Jose Baez, in his cross-examination of Haskell, tried to show that the flies could have been attracted by common garbage or leftover food.


Haskell was the latest in a line of investigators and forensic experts called to the stand by prosecutors in an effort to prove their theory that Anthony, 25, killed her daughter Caylee by knocking her out with chloroform and taping her nose and mouth, putting the body in black garbage bags and storing it in the trunk before dumping her in woods near her home.


Caylee's death retold in vivid detail


Anthony faces seven counts in her daughter'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 that she drowned in the family pool shortly after her family last reported seeing her and that 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.


Saturday's testimony also included a crime scene investigator who collected a piece of Henkel brand duct tape from an area near where Caylee's skull was found.


Ronald Murdock, a forensics supervisor for the Orange County Sheriff's Office, also testified that despite a thorough search of the house, the only piece of Henkel duct tape investigators recovered from the home Anthony shared with her daughter and parents was attached to a gas can.


Last week, jurors saw graphic photos of Caylee's bones and heard testimony that they had been gnawed by animals as her body decomposed during as much as six months in the field.


They also watched a video superimposing an image of Caylee's skull over her living face and an outline of a strip of duct tape in an effort to prove tape could have been, in effect, the murder weapon, prosecutor Jeff Ashton said.


Baez tried to prevent jurors from seeing the presentation, which he called "disgusting." But Judge Belvin Perry ruled the role of duct tape in the girl's death is "highly relevant." He also rejected a defense motion for a mistrial based on the video at the close of Friday's session.

Initial estimates were for the trial, including the defense's case, to be over by the end of June.

In Session's Cara Hutt and Nancy Leung contributed to this report.


CNN

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