Casey Anthony trial: Heart-sticker residue, cadaver dog evidence may be admissible, judge rules - OS

Casey Anthony trial: Heart-sticker residue, cadaver dog evidence may be admissible, judge rules
Judge Belvin Perry issued several orders on key evidence in Casey Anthony's first-degree murder case.
By Amy Pavuk and Anthony Colarossi, Orlando Sentinel
5:40 p.m. EDT, April 26, 2011

Excerpt:

The judge in the Casey Anthony case issued several key orders Tuesday about evidence prosecutors want to use against her in next month's first-degree murder trial, mostly ruling in favor of the state.

Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry ruled that evidence of heart-shaped residue spotted on duct tape that covered 2-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony's mouth could be admissible at trial, so long as the state lays the proper argument for the item, as is required of all evidence.

That piece of evidence is significant because investigators also found heart-shaped stickers at the home Anthony and Caylee shared with their family.

Perry also denied a defense motion to exclude expert testimony about "post-mortem banding" on a single strand of hair found in Anthony's car.

The judge said that Karen Korsberg Lowe, a hair and fiber examiner at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Va., testified that "it is generally accepted in the field of forensic hair examination that such root banding is characteristic of a hair that has been on a decomposing body, although it is not known why this banding occurs."

READ MORE: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/caylee-anthony/os-casey-anthony-trial-rulings-20110425,0,1830290.story