Tuesday 14 June 2011

FILICIDE: Florida: Casey Anthony, further forensic evidence

Casey Anthony may have placed a heart-shaped sticker over her two-year-old daughter’s mouth before sealing it shut with duct tape, court evidence has suggested.
As Anthony's murder trial entered its fourth week, jurors in Orlando heard testimony from an FBI forensic expert about a tiny imprint found on the duct tape that prosecutors claim she used to suffocate little Caylee.
The tape was still stuck to the front of the child’s skull, over the nose and mouth, when a utility worker discovered her decomposed remains in woodland six months later, in December 2008.
 Elizabeth Fontaine, a forensic examiner in the FBI’s Latent Print Unit, told the court today they were unable to find any fingerprints on the three stretches of tape, each measuring between six and eight inches long, because Caylee’s remains were in a swampy area prone to flooding.  But one of the pieces, tagged item Q63 for reference, showed up something unusual during examination under a special lighting tool known as RUVIS – Reflected Ultra-Violet Imaging System
Ms Fontaine told the court: 'During my examination of Q63, an outline of a heart appeared on one of the corners and an edge of that piece of duct tape. It was approximately the size of a dime.'
'If you were to wear a Band Aid for an extended period of time and you remove that Band Aid, you have the glue residue outlining the surface.
'The outline of the heart resembled that…Instead of being in the shape of a Band Aid, it was in the shape of a heart.'
A supervisor also saw the heart shape, but when Ms Fontaine attempted to photograph it later it was no longer visible because of the other forensic tests which had been performed, including one with coloured dye.
Prosecutors will assert that similar heart-shaped stickers were found in Anthony’s home, adding to what they say is overwhelming evidence that the party-loving single mother killed her daughter with duct tape after disabling her with chloroform.
A photograph of a sheet of heart stickers found in the 25-year-old's house has been admitted as evidence.
Prosecutors expect to wrap up their evidence this Wednesday, handing the case over to the defence.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003164/Casey-Anthony-stuck-heart-shaped-sticker-Caylees-mouth-suffocating-duct-tape-FBI-expert-tells-court.html#ixzz1PFb7rBuL

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