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the opinion that the manner of death was homicide, basing that judgment mostly upon the manner in which the remains were found and the actions of the mother, but when it came to the cause of death, medically it could not be determined. The only things found with the body that could have caused her death were the tape and the plastic bags. Either one would have been sufficient to cause suffocation, but the state of the body prevented us from medically determining which one might have played a direct role in the death. That determination would have to come from the jury applying their common sense to the evidence revealed in the photographs.

Ultimately, most of the information we obtained from the remains was based upon where the bones were found. Dr. Schultz was able to learn a good deal from the distribution of the bones, allowing us to say more definitively that an animal had indeed been involved in their dispersal. He explained that when the body decomposes, the connective tissue keeps certain body units together even as other units separate from each other. The torso may separate from the head and extremities but still maintain cohesion as a unit for a bit longer. As decomposition continues, the torso itself will separate into its component parts as well, until all the connective tissue has decomposed, leaving the individual bones free to be moved about separately. In our situation it was apparent to Dr. Schultz that an animal had moved the torso as a unit from the primary site to a location about ten feet away. All the ribs were found in that area. Since the vertebral column would have been the last to break down, it was later dragged a few feet farther away, where the remaining connective tissue decomposed, leaving all the vertebrae again in the same area.

More important than an animal’s involvement was that this dispersal gave a better sense of the time period involved. Because of the way the animal(s) had moved the body parts, Dr. Schultz felt that the body had been placed where it was at some point during the decomposition process but while the body was intact. His opinion was that the body could have been completely skeletonized in as little as two weeks after death and most certainly was only bones within a month, a time frame that sent Casey’s thirty-one days of lies shooting back into all of our minds.

One bone in particular was of interest to him in dating the placement of the body. One of Caylee’s hip bones was found several feet away from the primary site. It had evidence of animal damage and was found up against a palmetto trunk, buried in four inches of muck. For those not familiar with the term, muck is the product of decomposing vegetation. It occurs when the vegetation is somewhere between being identifiable as what it was and being actual soil. When an area like the swamp off Suburban Drive floods, this fine debris mixes with the water, and as the water recedes, it leaves behind a layer of the fine debris in the form of muck. It is less dense than soil, and in swamps it can be several feet deep. Occasionally, in an extremely dry period, it can catch fire underground, which is what we call a “muck fire.” The fact that the bone was buried in muck meant that it had been deposited in that spot before the rains of summer and in particular before Tropical Storm Fay in August, which allowed the muck to settle over the bone. Based upon his estimate of the time for decomposition and dispersion of the bones, he placed the date of deposit of the remains in late June or early July.

Dr. David Hall, a retired professor from the University of Florida and a renowned expert in forensic botany, was called to the scene to examine the plants growing in the area where the remains were found. He was also sent photographs of the remains and the items found with them. Dr. Hall noted significant plant root growth into some of the bones. The mass of Caylee’s hair that had fallen around the skull was inundated with both small and large roots. Significant root growth could also be found in the baby blanket, laundry bag, and