WKBG-Orlando: Prosecutors unaware of computer search for "foolproof suffocation" on day Caylee died

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Casey-Anthony-The-Overlooked-Evidence/-/1637132/17495808/-/iyjq0a/-/index.html

Casey Anthony: The Overlooked Evidence
Prosecutors unaware of computer search for "foolproof suffocation" on day Caylee died

Consider what they appear to show happening online the afternoon of Monday, June 16, 2008, the day Caylee died:

At 2:49 p.m., after George Anthony said he had left for work and while Casey Anthony’s cellphone is pinging a tower nearest the home, the Anthony family's desktop computer is activated by someone using a password-protected account Casey Anthony used;

At 2:51 p.m., on a browser primarily Casey Anthony used, a Google search for the term "fool-proof suffocation," misspelling the last word as "suffication";

Five seconds later, the user clicks on an article that criticizes pro-suicide websites that include advice on "foolproof" ways to die. "Poison yourself and then follow it up with suffocation" by placing "a plastic bag over the head," the writer quotes others as advising;

At 2:52 p.m., the browser records activity on MySpace, a website Casey Anthony used frequently and George Anthony did not.


"I really believed that (prosecutors) were going to sandbag us with it," said Baez.

After all, poison, suffocation and plastic bags were exactly what the state claimed Casey Anthony used to murder Caylee and dispose of her body; poisoning her with chloroform, suffocating her with duct tape, then placing her body in two plastic bags.

After Local 6 described the findings to him last week, trial prosecutor Jeff Ashton said, "It's just a shame we didn't have it. This certainly would have put the accidental death claim in serious question."
snip

[d_r]

1. Dear Lord

You have his huge investigation. Huge. And nobody at the police computer crimes section ever looked at the history file on firefox. Only internet explorer. And their excuse is "nobody ever asked us to search for "suffocation" - you have got to be kidding me. Any petty jealous lover in the world would look through the history files, what would that take 20 minutes? You have got to be kidding me. It is amazing that she didn't clear the history, but even more amazing that they never looked at it. It was right there. That wasn't any sort of rocket science. How in the world could they possibly have not done that? it is mind boggling. Absolutely amazing. Jaw droppingly unbelievable.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. Yes. The odd part is that she only looked at it for minutes and then to MySpace. If you have two

windows open, does history record each time you move from window to window?

[d_r]

5. no

it just shows the web page that was opened, not how long it was opened.
It said that from the search she linked to a page that was about assisted suicide that instructed how to poison then suffocate by putting a plastic bag over the head.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Central Florida, unfortunately, is prime at using incompetence

as an Affirmative Defense.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. So, the defense attorney knew about the evidence, but the prosecutor

didn't?

The sad thing is that Jeff Ashton was the best choice out of all the options. If he's smart, he would investigate why that detail was missed by his staff. I suspect what we will find in Central Florida, is that there is too much importance put into going along to get along, and not enough respect for people's talents and intelligence. That kind of thing is off-putting since someone's job may be on the line if an underling might be better educated than his supervisor.

[d_r]

6. that is right

the defence had been given an image of the hard drive, a copy of the hard drive. So they had found it and knew it, and assumed that the prosecution would bring it up. They had planned an argument that it was the grandfather had looked it up, wanting to commit suicide after disposing the child's body. But the pattern of use and cell phone pings indicated it was Casey Anthony that was at home using the computer that did the search. The defence basically said that they kept waiting for the prosecution to bring it up and were shocked they never did.

They were shocked because it was such a basic easy thing to find, and the investigators didn't bother to find it.

I'm just stunned, gob-smacked that the investigators didn't find something that obvious and easy, that they didn't look through the history of firefox and only looked at IE, that they offered the excuse that no one asked them search the word "suffocate."

So amazingly beyond adjectives I know how to describe it incompetent.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. This is what happens in a locale that rewards those who look the other way.

Before too long, they forget how the process is supposed to work.

[jsmirman]

7. Sickening

[NotThisTime]

8. Wouldn't have mattered, they couldn't even find her guilty of child neglect or endangerment, they

were never going to find her guilty of anything... Don't report your kid missing for a month, bring the police on a wild goose change and not even a conviction of child neglect. Where else in the world could that happen....