Pathological: The Casey Anthony Story — The Science of the Swamp — Ep. 3 | MK Confidential

It is 8.30 p.m. on July 19, 2008, a sweltering night in Orlando. The sun has just gone down, and the nearly full moon is about to rise. Kayley Anthony has been missing for 33 days, and no one has the slightest idea where she is. A woman named Keel Mari Torres calls the detective leading the search for Kayley, Detective Yuri Melek, and tells him, "I'm a childhood friend of Casey's, we grew up together, and I have something to show you. There is a place you need to see." An hour later, Kayomari meets Melek behind Hidden Oaks Elementary School. The last of Twilight is gone, and Dark is settling in. The moon is still down as they leave the school parking lot and walk down a hill into the woods. Once under the trees, it is very dark. Melek switches on his flashlight, but Keel Mari knows the way. She says she and Casey used to ride their bikes down here after school, carrying blankets, toys, and food. They would hang out for hours. After a while, Keel Mari stops. This is the place she tells him, the woods where she and Casey used to disappear as girls, where they went when they wanted to be out of sight from their mothers. It was their favorite hiding spot. It is only a six-minute walk from Casey Anthony's house, about a quarter mile away. Keel Mari says this area floods when it rains and turns the ground into a swamp, but no danger of that tonight, no rain, just humid and mostly still, an occasional light breeze. Detective Melek and Keel Mari decide to search the spot and see what they can find. Perhaps a trace of Kaylee, but they don't find anything. Keel Mari is the first person to point police toward this swampy ground, toward the woods, but she is not the last. In August, a local meter reader, named Roy Cronk, calls the Orange County Sheriff's Office three times about that same stretch of swamp in the woods. That same month, a man from the neighborhood, Keith Williams, goes into those woods after talking to a psychic, who tells him Kaylee will be found in the woods near the road. Keith finds a deflated balloon, stuffed animals, and several pieces of children's clothing. He takes them to the Anthony house, and Cindy says they are not Kaylee's. Keith calls the Orange County Sheriff's Office. None of those items will be officially tied to Kaylee, but they do bring police back to the woods again, months pass. Then on December 11, 2008, Roy Cronk is back in the neighborhood, reading meters. He returns to the woods to relieve himself. This time, he sees something white in the woods. He walks closer, and finds a child's skull. I looked down at my feet, and that's when I discovered the skulls that, basically, at my door, Kaylee Anthony had been there for months in her mother's favorite hiding spot. I'm Megan Kelly. This is MK Confidential. 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Check it out. For two and a half years, the state of Florida builds a murder case against Casey Anthony. Then comes May 2011 and prosecutors have to stand up in a court of law and prove it. The jury does not come from Orlando. Three years of non-stop TV and other coverage has made that impossible. So the court goes west to Clearwater on the Gulf Coast and selects 12 jurors and five alternates from Pinellas County. Then it busses them across the state to Orlando and sequesters them in a hotel where they will live together for the next six weeks. Their meals are private. Their television channels are stripped away one by one as coverage of the trial spreads. By the end, the only channel left is the home shopping network. Even the movies they watch have to be approved by the prosecution and the defense. They will not go home until the case is over. Prosecutor Linda Drain Burtick stands up for the state a little after nine in the morning. She does not begin with the chloroform or the duct tape or the trunk of Kasey Anthony's car. She begins with a baby. This isn't just a case about Kasey Marie Anthony. It's a story about Kayleigh Anthony as well. Kayleigh Anthony was born on August 9th of 2005. It was a Tuesday. And Kayleigh lived nearly every day of her life on a quiet residential street in Orlando called Hope Spring Drive. Kasey Anthony, Kayleigh's mother, appeared to all outward observers. To me, what her parents thought she was. A loving mother working hard to provide support for her daughter. But as the evidence in this case and the investigation into the background of Kasey Anthony will show that was an illusion. When Linda starts moving forward, laying out the timeline of events from Kayleigh's birth and her relationship with her grandparents to Father's Day and the last photograph anyone would ever take of Kayleigh alive. And finally, the 31 days after Kayleigh disappears. Linda has Kasey's cell phone records, receipts, photographs, the people Kasey saw and the places she went. Linda walks the jury through those days one at a time and she keeps coming back to the same question. Where is Kayleigh Marie Anthony? At the defense table, Kasey begins to cry when Linda reaches the last day her daughter was seen alive. The jury sees the last pictures of Kayleigh and they see something else. A photo of her skull. Linda's opening statement lasts more than two hours. For much of it, she does not need a laboratory. She does not need science. She has a calendar. And she gives the jury a rule for understanding the woman's sitting at the defense table. When her back is up against the wall and when the stakes increase, what does Kasey Anthony do? Kasey Anthony comes up with a new, a bigger and a better lie. And Linda tells them one of the biggest lies. A babysitter, Kasey had been describing to her family for two years, whom none of them has ever met, did not exist. She was entirely made up. Then near the end of her opening, Linda Burtick tells the jury what the state says will explain how Kayleigh died. And he will learn that the only evidence indicating the cause of death of Kayleigh Marie Anthony are the three pieces of duct tape covering her nose and mouth. The evidence in this case will establish that there is no other reason for the placement of multiple pieces of duct tape on this child's face, mouth, and nose other than the specific intent to end that child's life. As difficult as it may be for anyone to accept that any mother would intentionally kill her own child. From the evidence that you will hear in this case there is no other conclusion that can be drawn. Linda finishes her opening statement sometime before lunch. The jurors file out, the lawyers gather their papers and the courtroom empties for food. That afternoon Jose Baez opens for the defense and he begins by telling the jury what he says was missing from the prosecution's opening statement. We sat through almost two hours. There was day one, day two, day three, day four, and so on, and so on. No one ever told you what happened. But today you will be the first people to know exactly what happened to Kaylee Maria. I will also discuss with you Mr. Roy wrong. That name was silent throughout the first two hours of this morning and I think you're gonna find after I conclude that it's gonna be shocking why that name was mentioned to you previously and what if any role Mr. Cronk will have in your evaluation of the evidence then the witnesses start coming through the courtroom family members friends detectives scientists for four weeks the state builds its case one person and one exhibit at a time by the end much of it comes down to a handful of things Casey's Pontiac Sunfire a strand of hair searches on the family computer and three pieces of duct tape some of that evidence looks different when the defense gets its turn start with the car go back to June 23rd 2008 Kaylee has not been seen for a week no one in Casey's circle knows she's missing that night Casey's boyfriend Tony Lazaro drives her to her parent's house so she can get gas the shed is padlocked Lazaro breaks the lock with a tire iron Casey takes two gas cans out of the shed and puts them in the trunk of the white Pontiac and Lazaro just stands there while she does it years later in court the prosecutor asks Tony about that moment what did the trunk smell like nothing the next afternoon June 24th 2008 George Anthony comes home and finds his shed has been broken into his padlock is gone so are his gas cans he calls Casey and a little while later she pulls into the family driveway George takes the jury through what happens next Casey just brushes past me great cookie says I'll see dad I'll get it I'll get it out of the car says Casey I'm capable of going out and get it so as she run almost nearly runs to the back of her car and I'm walking just thinking okay here we go a little funny time here between her and I Casey pops the trunk pulls the gas cans out and sets them on the driveway she slams the trunk shut swearing at George while she does it and backs out of the driveway on the stand George tells the jury the whole scene embarrassed him then prosecutor Jeff Ashton asks George to go back to the moment the trunk was open what did you smell gasoline he says on cross defense attorney Jose Baez asks the obvious follow up and you did not smell any smell of human decomposition on June 24th of 2008 in the trunk of your daughter's car did not four days later on June 28th 2008 the Pontiac runs out of gas while Casey is driving she pulls into a parking lot by an Am Scott check caching store and leaves it parked by a dumpster that's four days Casey had the car from the point of the trunk smelling like gasoline to the point she abandoned it in the check caching parking lot two days after she did that on June 30th the check caching business has the Pontiac toad it's two weeks later on July 15th that George and Cindy Anthony show up at the towyard with $488 to get the Pontiac back Simon Birch runs that towyard and lives on the property too he's been in towing for almost 30 years Simon walks George into the yard and opens the Pontiac's door as the door was open the smell came out very intently it was it was almost like you were releasing it into the atmosphere and in the back of my mind I said to myself that's the smell of the of decomposition that I've been exposed to in the past Birch keeps that thought to himself to George he only says the car is a little ripe Birch is a towing business veteran with a couple of years in waste management too he has smelled everything you could imagine in a car in court the defense asks him why he believed it was human decomposition and not just garbage in the Anthony's Pontiac so you are pretty much the perfect person to with you have the perfect experience to be able to tell the difference between garbage and human decomposition I wouldn't say I was a perfect person but I've been exposed to both things on numerous occasions and I've served hundreds of garbage trucks in my years too before the family moved to Florida George Anthony had spent years in law enforcement in Ohio on the stand prosecutor Jeff Ashton brings George back to the Pontiac and asks what he recognized the odor that you were testifying a moment ago that this reminded you of from your past was that the odor of a human corpse yes George opens the driver's door for himself and the smell gets stronger he leans in and looks around no blood that gives him a little relief then he walks around to the back of the Pontiac and at the trunk he says something out loud close to a whisper please God don't let this be Casey or Kaylee inside the trunk is a white bag with a pizza box in it and maggots so now we have our timeline the amount of time that has passed between George being next to that Pontiac in his driveway when he only smells gasoline on June 24th to July 15th when the smell coming out of that Pontiac's trunk is nauseating about three weeks of Florida summer heat separates Casey's boyfriend Tony Lazaro standing at Cindy and George's house beside that open trunk to George Anthony opening the car door at the towyard back now to July 15th 2008 and the tow lot George drives the Pontiac home he pulls it into the garage Cindy had left work in the middle of the day to come see the car at the tow lot she later tells the jury that that is not something she would normally do when Cindy gets home she finds Kaylee's doll still sitting in the child's car seat Cindy picks it up and carries the doll into the garage she sets it on an ice chest and wipes down its face and hands with a Clorox wipe that smell is still there it smells pretty bad so I went that some for breeze and I sprayed the dog then I sprayed for breeze all through the car thinking that that might help the odor I sprayed the front in the back I used pretty much a whole can of for breeze Cindy starts taking things out of the car clothes from the back seat go into the laundry Kaylee's backpack comes out of the trunk then she tries to air out the Pontiac she opens every door rolls down the windows she opens the sunroof raises the trunk and the hood finally she closes the garage door leaves the car sitting there and goes back to work when Cindy takes the stand prosecutor Linda Drain Burtick asks her about her nursing background and whether she has smelled human decomposition before she has did you make some comment at that point about the smell yeah I said it smelled like something had died in the car she says it first to George standing there in the garage then a few hours later back at work to did you tell your co-workers that it smelled like something died in the car yes I was a figure of speech that I I said that it smelled like something that the car smell really bad so you did tell your co-workers that it smelled like something died in the car yes am I dead later that night Cindy says it again this time to a 911 dispatcher she has just learned Kaylee has been missing for a month and in the middle of an argument with Casey she calls 911 and tells the dispatcher what the Pontiac smells like three times in one day in three different places Cindy uses some version of the same phrase something died in that car on the stand she explains all three instances the same way it was just a figure of speech two days after the 911 call deputy Jason forgy is called in with his cadaver dog to search the Pontiac before the dog ever alerts forgy says he smells it himself then the dog works the Pontiac and alerts at the trunk after that investigators send deputy forgy and the dog to the Anthony house I didn't see anything in the trunk I smelled it clear as day then forgy takes the dog into the Anthony backyard the dog alerts again crime scene technicians come in and dig up the spot but find nothing forgy brings him back the next day after the ground has been turned over and this time the dog gives him nothing on cross examination of deputy forgy defense attorney Jose Baez slows the whole thing down and takes forgy through it one step at a time. There are such things as false alerts, right? Yes. Okay. Dogs are not infallible. They are not perfect. No. Okay. There is one more thing in that trunk. The jury has already seen in photos a dark stain on the liner. Investigators test it for blood. Then they test it again. Both tests come back negative. Lead defense attorney Jose Baez takes the state's own crime scene investigator. Herardo Boise, through those results one by one. And in fact, Blue Star is one of the leading forensic tools to help you identify blood. Correct. And this is important, obviously, in a case like this, because if you have blood in the trunk of a car, that would certainly be important. Correct. Now, when you sprayed the stain area with Blue Star, tell the jury what the results were. Negative results. And tell the jury what the presumptive test told you. When I performed a presumptive test on those specific areas that I observed, what appears to be a blood negative results. Investigators find something else inside the trunk of the Pontiac. A single hair, about nine inches long, light to medium brown, untreated, with a dark ring just above the root. That band of color comes from a phenomenon known as post-mortem root banding. Steven Shaw, the FBI examiner behind the root banding validation study, is anything but defensive when the defense gets its turn with him on the stand. Baez asks him about this area of forensic science while casting doubt on its accuracy. You don't know if post-mortem root banding is exclusively from people who are deceased. Correct. That's correct. Okay. And you can never testify in a court of law to such a fact. That's correct. This is still a very ongoing area of forensic science, is it not? There's still research being done. I mean, I'm conducting research myself. It's pretty well established discipline, but it's mostly for the most part based on the experience, experience of hair exammers and observing hairs known to be from deceased individuals, hairs known to be from living individuals and noticing these differences. The defense gets Shaw to admit that he submitted his root banding validation study for approval only after he'd already been deposed in this case and after he'd already given his opinion on the hair evidence. They elicit an admission that Shaw then asked to have the study expedited so it would be finished before trial. He looks agenda-driven, perhaps even self-aggrandizing. Then prosecutor Jeff Ashton gets up to rehabilitate Shaw. The studies that you base your opinions on aren't just these hairs from Tennessee, correct? That's correct. I mean, you use these as an example, but the literature contains studies of hairs from many different areas of the country under many different environmental conditions. Isn't that correct? There are publications with images of banding. Again, it's based also on experience and receiving cases all over the world, really. To this point, the only environmental condition that has consistently been found to lead to post-mortem banding is the attachment of the hair to a decomposing body. At this point, that's where the study, that's where their science is, correct? That's correct. No further questions. The hair also goes to an FBI examiner named Karen Korsberg Low, who puts it under a microscope. The hair from the trunk is untreated. It has never been bleached or dyed and is microscopically dissimilar to the sample from Casey. Low excludes Casey Anthony as the source of the hair from the trunk. The known sample she has for Kaylee is a hairbrush with a single hair in it. She tells the jury the two hairs have consistent characteristics. However, she cannot confirm an exact match. Low sends out a piece of the hair for mitochondrial DNA testing. mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mother to child, generation to generation. It is identical, so cannot point to any one person within that line. Catherine Tyson, also of the FBI, handles the actual DNA analysis. She compares a cheek swab from Casey Anthony, the hair from the trunk, and a hair from the mass of hair that was found with the skull in the swamp. All three share the same mitochondrial DNA. The hair and the trunk belong to someone in Kaylee Anthony's maternal line. Kaylee, Casey, Cindy, anyone else on that side of the family. Tyson explains how rare this finding is on the stand. Further, I would not expect to see that mitochondrial DNA type in more than 0.26 of the African American population, nor in more than 1.85 percent of the Caucasian population, nor in more than 3-9 percent of the Hispanic population. The mitochondrial DNA matches. To narrow the match, the state looked to lows analysis. Low never received a sample of hair from Cindy or Lee Anthony for comparison. Prosecutor Lee Ashton later writes that Cindy's hair was dyed, and both she and Lee kept their hair shorter than the sample. It seems an unlikely match. The decomposing hair in the trunk comes from a fraction of the population that includes Kaylee, Casey, and Cindy, and Casey Anthony has been ruled out. Investigators also cut a piece of stained carpet out of the Pontiac's trunk from the same area where the hair was found. They seal the carpet inside a clean metal evidence can, which looks just like a regular paint can, and send it to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee for analysis. Dr. R. Pod Vass has spent two decades at the Oak Ridge Lab, studying the gases released as a human body decomposes. When the paint can reaches his lab, Dr. Vass opens it. The smell hits him hard enough that he steps back. He knows that smell. It's human decomposition. Then Dr. Vass samples the air sealed inside the paint can with the carpet. Vass tells the jury that the chemical profile is consistent with human decomposition, and one compound jumps out at him, chloroform. He describes the level as "shockingly high." But Oak Ridge is not the only lab that examines the evidence. The FBI tests it, too. The Bureau's chemist, Michael Rickenbach, takes the stand and Jose Baez gives him Vass's own words. And it wasn't the most chloroform you'd ever seen in 20 years, was it? It was not the most chloroform I've seen in 20 years now. And it's not what you would call "shockingly high" levels of chloroform, would it? No, it's not. And Baez hammers another point. The testing shows chloroform was present, but no one ever determines exactly how much was there. The rest of the chloroform case moves out of the car's trunk and onto the Anthony family computer. The chloroform-related searches on that computer take the jury back to March of 2008, three months before Kaylee disappeared, and long before anyone was searching the trunk of Kayce's car, cutting out carpet, or talking about decomposition. The state calls John Bradley, the man who wrote the cash back forensic software. Sergeant Kevin Stinger had used that software to generate an internet history report from the Anthony family computer. Prosecutor Linda Drain-Bertick takes Bradley through the report page by page. And just before she sits down, Linda asks him one more question. Entry number three, the www.sizespot.com chemistry/chloroform. How many times was that site visited? According to the history 84 times? Thank you, that's all I had, Your Honor. Court recesses for the evening on that answer. Founded by four PhD longevity scientists, one skin is different. They focus on the actual cause of aging and not just the surface signs of it. 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When the defense gets its turn, Jose Baez brings back Sergeant Kevin Stinger, the investigator who did the original computer analysis. This time, Baez puts a different internet history report in front of him. An earlier report, Stinger himself had generated using a different software program called Net Analysis. Stinger had generated both reports from the same Anthony family computer. He first used a program called Net Analysis and ran the data again through a newer program called Cashback, which he believed would give him a more reliable result. This time, Baez puts the earlier Net Analysis report in front of Stinger and takes him through it slowly, line by line, until they reach the chloroform website and entry from the afternoon of March 21 at 2.16pm. And how many times does it show that that website was visited? One, sir. Then Baez puts the Cashback report, the one the state had introduced in front of Sergeant Stinger and takes him to the very same entry. On the Net Analysis report, one visit on the Cashback report, 84. Then Baez shows where the 84 actually came from. He backs up 20 seconds in the Net Analysis internet history report. There is another website listed there, MySpace, and next to MySpace is the number 84. So, according to the defense, the chloroform page was visited, but once, not 84 times, the 84 was the count for MySpace. Later, in his testimony software creator, John Bradley is shown the state's internet history report again. The one generated with his Cashback software and used to support the state's 84 visits theory. This time, he makes an important distinction. Cashback is his software, but he did not generate this particular report, Sergeant Stinger did. Bradley tells the jury he will not vouch for a report he did not prepare. The defense has knocked down the number and made the prosecution look unreliable. It has not, however, made the chloroform issue disappear. When the state gets Sergeant Stinger back on redirect, it turns to the defense's own internet history report. Because right above the MySpace line is a Google search. The search is how to make chloroform. Right above the MySpace, you will see a Google search specifically for the words "how to make chloroform." So the 84 number may be wrong, but the search is real, and the question is now in the courtroom, why would someone be searching how to make chloroform? There is one more place the state looks for chloroform. Kaley's remains. The medical examiner sends samples to Bruce Goldberger, a nationally recognized forensic toxicologist at the University of Florida for testing. A piece of bone marrow scraped from inside the thigh bone, and a hair taken from the mat around the remains. Goldberger tests those samples for a long list of substances. Chloroform is one of them. He finds none. But in his report, he adds an important caution. A negative test does not prove that Kaley was never exposed to chloroform before she died. In her opening statement, prosecutor Linda Drain Burdeck told the jury, "The duct tape would explain how Kaley died. Now the state turns to the duct tape itself." Several overlapping pieces of tape were found across the front of the lower skull, over the lower jaw, and part of the upper jaw as well as still caught in Kaley's hair. In the written autopsy report, the medical examiner is unequivocal about when it was put there. Quote, "This duct tape was clearly placed prior to decomposition, keeping the mandible in place." In other words, the report says the tape was already on Kaley before her face decomposed. But then doctors take the stand. Three of them examine the same remains. And they do not all agree on whether that tape was holding Kaley's jaw in place. The first doctor is associate medical examiner, Dr. Gary Uts. He tells the jury that once a body reaches this stage of decomposition, the lower jaw usually separates from the skull completely. But Kaley's had not. So the prosecutor asks him what was holding it there. Uts does not say duct tape. He points instead to the mat of hair around the skull, with plant roots grown through it, binding the bones together. Then the state calls its second doctor, forensic anthropologist Dr. John Schultz, and puts the same photo in front of him. He's asked essentially the same question. I think the tape was, was it here to the hair, but I don't recall it holding the mandible in place in this view. And comes the third doctor, forensic anthropologist Michael Warren. He looks at the same remains and reaches a different conclusion. To Warren, the fact that Kaley's jaw is still lined up with the skull means something had to be holding it there. And when prosecutor Jeff Ashton asks what that something was, Warren has one answer, the duct tape. Do you have an opinion as to whether the duct tape was placed on Kaley Anthony before decomposition? It was placed on prior to decomposition. What do you base that on? On the position of the mandible, still articulated with the rest of the cranium, that mandible will always become disarticulated unless it is held in place by something. And in this case, can you see anything holding it in place other than the duct tape? No, sir. Then the state calls Dr. Jan Garavalia, the chief medical examiner. Her name is on Kaley's autopsy report. She gives the jury three reasons why she called this a homicide. Kaley was not reported missing for a month. Her body was hidden in a field. And there was duct tape across the lower part of her face. There is no child that should have duct tape on its face when it dies. There is no reason to put duct tape on the face after they die. Then prosecutor Jeff Ashton asks the question at the center of the case. How did Kaley die? And Garavalia cannot tell him. What I put was homicide of undetermined means. I believe we can reliably say it's a homicide, but I don't know the means for which that homicide occurred. Garavalia finds no trauma anywhere on Kaley's skeleton. And she tells the jury that means less than they might surmise. All she has is bones. And there is only so much a bone can tell you. By the time Kaley was found, there was no soft tissue left to examine, no bruising, no organs, no way to see injuries that might never have marked the bones at all. Investigators also look for the role of duct tape, but they never find it. The brand of duct tape, Henkel, is not a common brand, but the bold label stamped on the tape itself makes it easy to identify. Detective Yuri Melek tells the defense that police found no Henkel tape when they searched the Anthony House. The only matching tape they found on property was a patch covering the vent on one of George Anthony's gas cans, one of the same gas cans Casey stole on June 24, 2008. On the stand, George is asked whether the tape is his. He evades the question. Prosecutor Jeff Ashton later writes that in a deposition, Cindy told prosecutors that the duct tape from the Anthony House had been used at a command center passing out missing flyers for Kaley. News footage shows the command center, George, and a role of Henkel brand duct tape on the table. The defense will later play it for the court, and George will continue to evade the question of whether the duct tape is his. Before the tape ever reaches the DNA lab, it goes first to the FBI's latent print section. An examiner named Elizabeth Fontaine is looking for fingerprints. Near the end of her work, she puts one of the three pieces of tape under ultraviolet light. And there, near one edge, she sees the outline of a heart. Tiny, about the size of a dime. Fontaine makes a note of it, tells the other investigators, and finishes the fingerprint work she is there to do. And she goes back to photograph the heart. It's gone. So the tape is sent to another FBI examiner, Laurie goddessman, with a very specific job. Find that heart. Goddessman runs the tape under different lights, different filters, equipment designed to pick up things the naked eye cannot see. She finds nothing at all. But there is another heart in this case, and this one is not on the tape. Out in the woods, about 30 feet from Kaley's skull, a crime scene investigator finds a small piece of cardboard with a raised pink heart on it. The ground around it is cluttered with dumped trash, old tires, even a discarded toilet seat. Police also search the Anthony House. Our warrant specifically includes craft supplies, and inside Casey's bedroom they find heart-shaped stickers. So now there is a heart seen briefly on the duct tape, a pink heart found with trash in the woods, and heart stickers in Casey's room. But there is no heart evidence tying all those hearts together. More than two years before the jury hears any of this, cable news coverage had already gone much further, telling viewers definitively that a killer had placed a heart-shaped sticker over Kaley's mouth. The jury never hears that claim, and no evidence at trial ever establishes that there was a heart-shaped sticker on the duct tape. The tape from Kaley's remains is then tested for DNA. Unusable profile comes back, it belongs to Laurie goddessman, the FBI examiner who had been trying to find the heart. Defense attorney Jose Bias asks her how her DNA ended up on that tape. Can you recall a situation where you believe you might have contaminated the duct tape? No, I have no idea how it happened or when in this particular case. And that is the only usable DNA profile recovered from the duct tape. Nothing usable comes back from Casey, nothing even from Kaley. Then this date brings in Dr. Neil Haskell, a forensic entomologist with 30 years experience to testify. He looks at the insects recovered with Kaley's remains and concludes that the body was put into those woods by June or early July 2008 at the latest. The entomologist's timeline aligns with the first reported sighting of the body, months before investigators found it. Roy Cronk, the meter reader, called the Orange County Sheriff's Office in August 2008, three times. One of those calls is played for the jury. I noticed something that looked white and there was a, like, a great bag down there. I don't know what it is, I'm not telling you it's Kaley or anything of that nature. Deputies go to the scene and find nothing. The calls are written up and then closed. Months afterward, December 11, 2008, Cronk got a closer look and found the tiny skull. The defense calls him to testify, attorney Cheney Mason asks Cronk to describe what he saw and did. When you went back in Nero, December the 11th, sir, and you saw this skull, did you do anything to your meter reader state? Yes, sir. I was standing behind it. So I was looking at it from behind and I still didn't think it was real. So I very gently took it and put it into the right eye socket and I gently pivoted it up and I looked down and I realized what it was and I set it down as gently as I could and went up and called my area supervisor. Cronk describes the meter reader stick as a piece of metal about four and a half feet long with a curved end. He apologizes for using it to lift the skull but says he did not know what it was. The state has put on a case about a pathological liar, a mother who wanted to be carefree to live the beautiful life of parties, bars, and childless fun. A woman who searched how to make chloroform was the last known person to be with Kayley who then went weeks not reporting her daughter missing, telling lies about being with Kayley speaking to Kayley, making up a nonexistent nanny who had supposedly kidnapped Kayley. The smell of decomposition in the car that was with Casey, the tests confirming decomposition in Casey's trunk. The remains found near where Casey lived, her childhood hiding spot of all places, with the blanket from Kayley's bed and in a laundry bag that matched those inside the Anthony home. When the state finishes presenting its case, Judge Perry excuses the jury for a moment. Bias and Mason ask the judge to throw out the charges against Casey Anthony altogether, but press especially hard on the first degree murder charge, arguing there is zero proof of premeditation. The state argues that the three separate pieces of duct tape and the time taken to apply them are enough to establish premeditation. Casey Anthony, Linda Drain, Burtick argues had enough time to realize what she was doing while placing them and chose to continue. Judge Perry declines to throw out the charges as for the premeditation and the duct tape. These are strictly questions for the jury to decide. Kayley's death has been ruled a homicide. Prosecution has laid out its case that her mother killed her little girl intentionally. I'm Megan Kelly, next time on MK Confidential. Lead defense attorney Jose Bias tells the jury that Kayley Anthony was never murdered at all and that her grandfather knows what really happened.