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Casey Anthony Murder Trial: The Computer Evidence (Part 4)

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Category: Blog

Published on Thursday, 23 June 2011 18:33

Written by Keith J. Jones

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In part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series, I discussed some of the computer evidence introduced into the highly publicized trial where mother Casey Anthony has been accused of first degree murder for the death of her toddler, Caylee Anthony. In my previous articles I summarized the testimony of the three computer forensic experts that were used by the prosecution: Detective Osborne, Detective Sergeant Stenger, and Mr. John Bradley. I also provided some suggestions on how the evidence presented by the prosecution could have been presented in a more persuasive manner. Since then, the prosecution has rested and the defense has begun calling witnesses for their case. During today’s testimony (6/23/2011), the defense may have made some headway against the prosecution’s arguments when three witnesses relevant to the computer evidence in this trial were recalled to the stand: Casey’s mother Cindy Anthony, Detective Osborne, and Detective Sergeant Stenger.  

During the direct examination of Cindy Anthony, she testified that she was the user at the Anthony computer system during the weekday searching for chloroform and other limited physical trauma information. When asked why this is a direct contradiction when compared to her work timesheet, she stated that she often made up her own hours and wrote down that she worked a full day when in fact she often worked one short day and then a longer day later to make up for it. Cindy testified that she was home from work early that week and that is why she was able to perform the searches in question at the times they were recorded in the internet history files.

When cross examined by the prosecution, Cindy admitted that she did not perform the other numerous searches relevant to the case that I outlined in part 2. The cross examination also unveiled that Cindy Anthony has been on some type of medication and switched her medication sometime in 2009. The prosecutor suggested that her switch in medication may have been the reason she did not seem to remember her chloroform searches previously when asked by law enforcement and during her deposition. After Cindy answered that she had brought it up to law enforcement previously, such as in her deposition, the prosecution read a portion of the deposition where Cindy said she only searched for “chlorophyll” and they had her spell her search, which was chlorophyll, on the record during the deposition. They also asked her, point blank, if she searched for “How To Make Chloroform”. Cindy testified that she did not. This issue, in my opinion, will make the jury question whether Cindy actually performed these searches or whether she is not being truthful in hopes to save her daughter’s life. You can view Cindy Anthony’s testimony at the following link:

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/anthony_case/062311-casey-anthony-murder-trial

The second witness was Detective Osborne. During the direct examination, the defense team re-established Detective Osborne’s role in the investigation regarding the computer evidence. She stated that she located the Firefox internet activity in question and then brought in her supervisor, Detective Sergeant Stenger. Basically, the bulk of the testimony about their analysis would have to come from Stenger. Video from Osborne’s testimony has not been placed online yet.

The third witness called was Detective Sergeant Stenger. During the direct examination, the defense team was able to introduce potentially important evidence from Stenger’s notes: portions of a NetAnalysis report of the same file John Bradley testified about that was purportedly generated by Stenger himself. You may have picked up in my previous articles that I said Cacheback was just one tool a computer forensic examiner could use to reconstruct internet activity. NetAnalysis is another tool that can be used for similar purposes. After this NetAnalysis report was introduced, the defense team questioned why in the NetAnalysis report it showed the user visiting MySpace 84 times and the Sci-Spot website (that purportedly served the chloroform information) only 1 time while in the Cacheback report generated from the same internet history file it showed that the user visited MySpace 1 time and the Sci-Spot website 84 times. This was a glaring discrepancy that was not presented to the jury previously. Stenger did not appear to have an answer for this discrepency, because, in his words, he was not the developer of either application.  The defense went through each day of the NetAnalysis report with Stenger to show that for each consecutive day the number of times the user visited MySpace incremented, possibly hoping to show that the data was reported correctly by NetAnalysis and to cast doubt on Cacheback.

The defense further attacked the reasoning behind Stenger’s use of Cacheback in 2009 after he already had the results from NetAnalysis in 2008. The defense then questioned Stenger about the fact that he experienced a bug in Cacheback originally, which was the reason he purportedly contacted John Bradley. Video from Stenger’s testimony has not been placed online yet.

I believe the defense was attempting two attacks with this line of questioning. The first attack was suggesting that Stenger may not have received the results he wanted with NetAnalysis so he tried Cacheback a year later. The defense may be suggesting that the switch in software tools could show that Stenger was biased and attempted to find the harshest evidence against Casey Anthony. The second attack at the prosecution’s case was suggesting that since Cacheback had one known bug already when reading the data, it is entirely possible that it had a second bug that reported the number of visits to the chloroform websites incorrectly. Remember, all the defense has to demonstrate is reasonable doubt, and as I have said before, the computer evidence may be the only evidence that could show premeditation.  Premeditation could be the difference between life and death for Casey Anthony. If you recall from my second article in this series, John Bradley testified that he used “reliable” software to test the output of Cacheback when he experienced the bug and was attempting to fix it. This, to me, seemed to put him on record as saying his software was not reliable. That may hurt the prosecution’s case later in the trial. The attacks on the prosecution’s case from the defense may or may not be true, and I do not have any way of validating either of them without the original evidence at this time. However, even if the suggestions are not true, what might the jury believe?

The prosecution did question Stenger about all of the other searches I discussed in part 2 concerning homemade weapons and chloroform, possibly in an effort to show that the defense did not seem to have any problems with the other data in the report. They also asked Stenger about tabbed browsing and it being a possibility that the user opened multiple tabs in order to read the web pages in question. Stenger affirmed that this could have been a possibility. Lastly, the defense asked Stenger if he knew of any printed pages seized from the Anthony house that show how to make chloroform. Stenger testified that that he did not believe any of these documents were found there.

Although the defense has not listed any additional computer forensic experts for their case with the court, the prosecution has provided a CD containing data from the Anthony computer systems earlier this week. It is entirely possible the computer forensic experts may be called yet again by the prosecution as rebuttal witnesses. If so, I plan to write about it!

Read the fifth part of this series here:  Casey Anthony Murder Trial: The Computer Evidence (Part 5)

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