From WFTV newsroom:
Maybe we can finally get some peace and Casey can get what’s coming to her. My heart hurts for the rest of the family.
ORLANDO, Fla. – Skeletal remains found in the woods are the Florida 3-year-old who has been missing since June, and her death is considered a homicide, a county medical examiner said Friday.
DNA tests confirm that the remains match Caylee Anthony’s genetic profile, said the medical examiner, Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
A utility worker stumbled upon the remains last week, less than a half-mile from where the girl lived. Garavaglia said some of the remains discovered were as small as pebbles, and authorities weren’t certain how the girl was killed.
Caylee’s mother, 22-year-old Casey Anthony, was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even though no body was found. She has insisted that she left the girl with a baby sitter in June, but she didn’t report her missing until July.
A search team said they did not check the wooded area sooner because it was submerged in water.
Casey Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez, was with her at the Orange County Jail when she found out the news, said Todd Black, a spokesman for the attorney. She was notified a short time before the news conference about the positive identification. Black said he wouldn’t comment on her reaction.
Prosecutors this morning released the forensic test results completed by FBI and Oak Ridge National Laboratory labs in connection with the case against Casey Anthony, the mother accused of killing her daughter Caylee Marie.
Investigators have not found Caylee’s body, but Anthony has been indicted on a first-degree murder charge alleging the child is dead.
The FBI lab tested items found in the trunk of Anthony’s Pontiac Sunfire, including a hair strand, pieces from a tire cover and the trunk liner.
Here are some of the findings:
* The root of the hair showed signs of decomposition. A comparison to hair taken from Caylee’s brush and DNA taken from Anthony showed that neither the mother nor the daughter could be excluded as the source of the hair. * Pants, skirts and shirts taken from Anthony’s home showed no signs of hair with decomposing roots. * Residues of chloroform were found on a tire cover in the trunk. * A hair fragment was found in the label on the handle of a shovel Anthony borrowed from a neighbor in mid-June, about the time Caylee is supposed to have disappeared. The hair was too small for microscopic comparison but DNA analysis found it did not belong to Casey Anthony or Caylee. * No fingerprints were found on the shovel.
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Casey Anthony’s attorney now wants detectives to stop all evidence testing in the case. Eyewitness News first reported two weeks ago that recent evidence tests show that Caylee is dead and that she had been in the trunk of Casey’s car.
Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez, filed the motion Wednesday asking Circuit Judge Stan Strickland to order a halt to all forensic testing so that he can have a say in where and how the evidence is tested.
Reportrs found reaction to the filing ranging from “it’s a publicity stunt” to “it’s ridiculous.” One source close to the case said, “Baez needs to go back to law school.”
While many question what Casey Anthony is doing at her lawyer’s office all day, every day, one of the things he’s done is file a motion to force investigators to stop testing evidence. Attorney Jose Baez is trying to convince the judge that forensic testing can damage so much of the evidence that there wouldn’t be enough left for the defense to test effectively and that mistakes could prevent them from doing their own testing.
Baez wrote to the judge: “The cost of a given method/procedure could involve cost and timing that are not of paramount interest to the defendant who seeks unbiased and scientifically objective testing.”
Baez wants the judge to force investigators to let him weigh in on all testing before it’s done.
Then we have more protesting. Lee Anthony took one of the protester’s signs and threw it in the trash. Another spectator took it back out of the trash and gave it back. It was a great sign. Check it out along with the story of the alzheimer’s patients field trip.
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