Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [80]
We agreed that she would have to be deposed again. During the period between the first and second depositions, we obtained a good copy of the document in question. The detectives then began investigating and speaking to the people on the list. Some of them told the police that while they did volunteer for EquuSearch, it was not on that day. Others said they remembered searching with Buchanan but not at Suburban Drive. Still another remembered searching Suburban Drive, but only the portion near the school—not where Caylee was found—because it was underwater at the time.
It was beginning to appear from the witnesses’ statements that the field document Buchanan had produced had been altered, which commenced a criminal investigation against her. She was under scrutiny for perjury and interfering with a homicide investigation. The second deposition was reset at our offices in Orlando, and she appeared in person and represented by a new attorney. This time her attitude was far different. In reference to the EquuSearch document, her story was that she had found it under the seat of her car months after the search, and when the investigator, Mortimer Smith, called for an interview, she’d made notes on the document of people she thought were with her. She claimed that she gave it to Smith without telling him she had altered it.
Though we found the explanation a bit hard to swallow, at least the defense’s balloon had been burst. Not only did they not have a list of people who’d searched that area, but Buchanan also testified that while she had been in the area off Suburban Drive, she had not searched the exact area where Caylee had been found. Just like all the defense’s theories, this one began to unravel as well. Ultimately, based upon her statements at her second deposition and the police investigation, no charges were brought against Buchanan.
Linda continued to depose other searchers that the defense had listed. The defense said that each had given a statement saying they had searched the area and found nothing, but as Linda spoke to them, all but one acknowledged that the area in question was underwater and was not searched. The only one who didn’t fold completely was a gentleman who said that after a night of socializing at a sports bar he’d visited the scene. At three in the morning and by moonlight, mind you, he could swear that no remains were present.
In the end, the defense’s earlier claim that there were a hundred searchers, as well as their subsequent claim that there had been a dozen, were both a big fizzle. It had taken hundreds of hours of investigator time and dozens of hours of depositions to confirm what the physical evidence told us to begin with: for almost six months little Caylee had lain in that spot while literally thousands of people had passed by, never knowing that they were within feet of her.
I’m not convinced that finding Caylee in mid-August instead of mid-December would have made much of a difference forensically. In either case the little girl would have been completely skeletonized. But emotionally, we all wished she hadn’t had to lie there among discarded trash for even a moment when all those who knew her wanted her home—that is, everyone except perhaps Casey.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LIFE OR DEATH?
Although a large amount of evidence was collected at the crime scene, the ravages of weather, water, and nature had rendered most of it relatively useless. The worst conditions for preserving DNA or fingerprints involve heat and water, and in the more than six months Caylee was there, we had an overabundance of both. The recovery team left no stone unturned, though. Every scrap of garbage within the search radius was collected, cataloged, and stored, and ultimately most of it was sent to the lab.
The remains themselves told us the most. It is a credit to the folks at the sheriff