Prosecution Close To Wrapping Case In Casey Anthony Trial
ORLANDO (CBS4) - Prosecutors in the murder trial of Casey Anthony, the 25-year old Orlando woman accused of killing her daughter Caylee in 2008, are close to wrapping up their case.
During testimony Tuesday a forensic expert testified that heart-shaped stickers were found in Casey Anthony's bedroom but didn't testify whether the items were linked to similar outlines on duct tape found on Caylee's body when it was found in a wooded area near the Anthony home.
Even so the stickers, which were shown to jurors over the objection of defense lawyers, were powerful images just before the prosecution wraps up its case.
Crime scene investigator Alina Burroughs told jurors the stickers were found in a box and a scrapbook, along with a letter addressed to Caylee Anthony.
On Monday FBI physical scientist Elizabeth Fontaine said that her examination of duct tape found at the crime scene didn't yield any latent fingerprints. But she testified that she did notice the outline of a heart on one of the three pieces while examining it under ultra-violet lighting.
There were no pictures taken of what she saw, though. After subjecting the tape to chemicals during further fingerprint testing, it was no longer present.
The prosecution said in their opening statement that Caylee was suffocated with duct tape and they believe the outline was a heart-shaped sticker.
The defense claims Caylee drowned in her grandparents' pool.
Depending on the length of the defense's case, Judge Belvin Perry told the jury he thinks they could begin deliberating during the last week of June.
"So far we are ahead of schedule," Perry told them, while noting it was just an estimate at this point.
The other forensic expert to testify Monday was investigator Stephen Shaw who told jurors he analyzed the single hair found in the trunk of Anthony's Pontiac Sunfire compared it to samples found with Caylee skull.
Shaw testified that he saw more evidence of human decomposition on the hairs taken from the child's remains than on the hair found in the trunk. That suggests that if there were a body in Anthony's trunk, it wasn't there for very long.
He also said he found the same microscopic characteristics for the skull hair as the trunk hair, but could not say they definitely were a match.
Defense attorney Jose Baez later got Shaw to say on cross-examination that exposure to the elements could cause scientists to misidentify the presence of decomposition in hair.
Anthony is charged with first-degree murder and faces a death sentence if convicted.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
