Casey Anthony: Prosecutor says 'foolproof suffocation' search prompted WKMG report--OS

By Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

1:52 p.m. EST, November 20, 2012
A highly promoted local television report set to air this evening will center on Internet searches that authorities didn't know about during the high-profile trial of Casey Anthony, according to the lead prosecutor in the case.

Prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick confirmed in an email to the Orlando Sentinel that someone used the Anthony family computer to search for "foolproof suffocation" on June 16, 2008, the day Casey Anthony's father said she left the family's home with Caylee for the last time.

In the notorious 31 days which followed, Anthony's parents repeatedly sought to see their granddaughter — and, authorities say, Casey Anthony repeatedly lied about her whereabouts.
Though computer searches were a key issue at Anthony's murder trial, the "foolproof suffocation" term never came up. Anthony's criminal defense attorney, Jose Baez, later wrote about the search in his book, "Presumed Guilty, Casey Anthony: The Inside Story."

Burdick wrote that the Orange County Sheriff's Office has confirmed "there was a computer search on 'foolproof suffocation' on 6-16-08 that they did not find." Burdick stressed that this information "is not 'new,'" as it was already published in Baez's book months ago.
However, she confirmed that she "did not know about it before or during trial."

WKMG-Channel 6 has been promoting an expose by investigative reporter Tony Pipitone, advertised to contain evidence "that could have changed the jury's mind" and "points right at Casey," which is set to air tonight at 11 p.m.

But if the segment centers on the computer searches mentioned in Baez's book, Pipitone's is not the first reporting done on that subject.

ABC News' Christina Ng, citing Baez's book, reported on new "suicide-related searches, on terms including 'foolproof suffocation' and 'venturing into the pro-suicide pit'" as long ago as July 5.

In her report, Ng said that the searches were discovered by a defense expert, and were never disclosed by prosecutors.

"I have a hard time believing that law enforcement wouldn't check the Internet history of the day that the child went missing," Baez said on "Good Morning America" in July. Other media outlets have also reported on the searches.

After WKMG began promoting its report, the Sentinel began reaching out to key players in the murder case. Burdick's fellow prosecutor Jeff Ashton said he could not comment until after the WKMG report aired, and Casey Anthony's current attorneys, Charles Greene and Cheney Mason, said they didn't know the subject of the report.

Mason expressed doubt that any substantive evidence would have been missed by authorities, who conducted an exhaustive investigation.

"I find it hard to imagine that there's any evidence that they didn't know about that would have been incriminating," Mason said.

Promotional materials for Pipitone's report suggest that the evidence he's unearthed would incriminate Casey Anthony, but the ABC News report quoted Baez's book, in which he suggested it was her father George Anthony who was damaged by the evidence.

Baez noted that, before the "foolproof suffocation" search, someone logged into an AOL Instant Messenger account on the computer. According to Baez's writings, George Anthony had an AIM account, but Casey Anthony did not.

"Then someone typed in 'foolproof suffocation.' It was misspelled, and George was a poor speller," Baez wrote.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-casey-anthony-searches-suffocation-20121120,0,50368.story

Authorities didn't know about 'foolproof suffocation' search before Casey Anthony trial

Posted: 3:01 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012

ORLANDO, Fla. — The lead prosecutor in the Casey Anthony trial said someone in the Anthony home conducted a computer search for "foolproof suffocation" on the last day 2-year-old Caylee Anthony was seen alive.

The Internet search was discussed in defense attorney Jose Baez's book, released last summer, and prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick said she wanted to confirm that detail with the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office doubled-checked, Burdick said on Tuesday, and it turned out the "foolproof suffocation" search had been done on a desktop computer in the Anthony home about 2:50 p.m. on June 16, 2008.

Burdick reiterated that she and the prosecution team had no knowledge of the search during the 2011 trial, after which Anthony was acquitted of the most serious charges against her, including first-degree murder of her daughter.

Asked if the newly discovered search evidence would have made a difference with jurors, Burdick said, "How can I answer that question? That's asking me to speculate."

Asked about whether the prosecution would have used the evidence, she said, "I'm certain we would have used it."

WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said the never-before-seen-evidence is so significant it could've been all jurors needed to convict Anthony for her daughter's murder.

The sheriff's office wouldn't talk on camera about the situation, but they said analysts were never told to search for "foolproof suffocation," so they never did and never found it, even though it was in their evidence the whole time.

Orange County Sheriff's Capt. Angelo Nieves said the search term "foolproof suffocation" was "never requested" during the investigation or prosecution's the lead up to the trial.

Therefore, he said, "It was not discovered. It wasn't found."

"If someone would have asked for it at that time, that's something they would have looked for," Nieves said. "The analyst never did it."

The experts who handled this part of the investigation are Sheriff's Office employees, he confirmed.

Asked what the value of this evidence might have been at trial, Nieves, like Burdick, said, "We're not going to speculate at this point."

The office will take a look at "lessons learned" in the aftermath of the search term issue, he said. That may include handling cases involving computers and computer searches differently in the future.

The Sheriff's Office may, for instance, obtain outside assistance in future cases, Nieves said.

"We'll take it on a case-by-case basis," he concluded.

The prosecution did use other computer search terms, including the word "chloroform," during the trial. But the credibility of some of the computer searches brought up at trial were placed in doubt by the defense team.

The timing of the "foolproof suffocation" search was significant, Burdick said, because it came during a point in the afternoon when George Anthony was at work – along with other members of the family.

Part of the problem with prosecuting the case was that Caylee's body was not found until months after she was first reported missing. That was in mid-July 2008, a full month after she was last seen by most members of her family.

Burdick said specific details about the "foolproof suffocation" search would have to come from the Sheriff's Office.

"We don't have the forensic tools to search the hard drive," she said.

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/casey-anthony-foolproof-suffocation/nTBkx/