Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [145]
Fontaine testified that the outline she saw resembled a heart, even though there was no photographic evidence of the heart-shaped residue. She described it as something you would see if you left a bandage on your skin for a while and then removed it, with the dirt creating an outline of the bandage.
Ever since the story of the heart sticker had first circulated, I’d felt that this evidence was not worth presenting due to its ambiguous nature. Now that the defense was saying Caylee had drowned and was trying to accuse George Anthony of being complicit in the crime, it had turned into a side issue, as far as I was concerned. There were still questions about the sticker and whether the stickers found during a search of the Anthony home were an exact match to the dime-size imprint Fontaine had seen on the duct tape. I also questioned the relevance of including a sticker that had been found thirty feet away from Caylee’s remains that may or may not have been involved. I thought it was a distraction that we didn’t need, but Linda wanted it included in the testimony, so I acquiesced.
Our final witness was Bobby Williams, the tattoo artist who had given Casey her “Bella Vita” tattoo in the weeks after Caylee disappeared. The purpose of putting him on last was that I felt that the fact that she had gotten the tattoo and what it said were the strongest pieces of evidence we had to suggest motive. I felt it would have a great deal of impact on the jury that three weeks after Caylee died, her mother had gotten an irreversible tattoo celebrating her beautiful new life.
Casey had claimed to one of the shrinks that the tattoo was an ironic commentary on the fact that her life had not been beautiful, but we thought that was ridiculous. The defense never really argued what the tattoo signified. Instead, Baez seemed to be mostly concerned about whether “bella” meant beautiful or good. A substantial legal argument ensued, whereby everyone finally agreed that “bella” meant beautiful.
Wednesday morning, June 15, the nineteenth day of the trial, we on the prosecution team rested our case with great confidence. We had covered everything we wanted with barely a hitch. We had ended with motive, that Casey wanted a life without Caylee, substantiated by our final witness, Bobby Williams. All our witnesses had held up well under cross-examination, and we thought we had laid it all out there as best we could for a circumstantial case. The defense’s opening remarks had thrown us for a loop, but at least we knew the nuclear lie was coming. We were ready to take on Baez and all he had to offer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DEFENDING CASEY
Jose’s dream team had forty-five witnesses on its list, mostly experts to challenge our own forensic discovery. I had reviewed everyone’s reports which, by the judge’s order, were supposed to contain everything a witness was going to testify to. Not included on the defense’s list were the two mental health doctors, so I was unsure how the defense was going to prove their molestation premise without them. Also it was unclear how, without the molestation story, they’d be able to justify Casey’s lies to everyone during the thirty-one days. Furthermore, without the therapists, there would be no evidence that Caylee had drowned, so we weren’t sure how the defense was going to convince the jury of that accusation from their opening argument, either.
We didn’t think Casey was going to testify, but it was still a far-fetched possibility. If she testified, she could speak to these points and more. Regardless of whether she told the truth, we knew that she would be convincing on the stand. On the other hand, Linda was eager to cross-examine her. She had been preparing for the opportunity for three years.
Looking over the witness list ahead of time, we’d thought maybe Baez’s team would mount a defense focused on