Casey Anthony so Many People

Casey Anthony

So many people were outraged by the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial because their gut feelings told them that she was guilty of the murder of her daughter. However, gut feelings are not beyond a reasonable doubt, and objective observers who watched the trial had to come to the conclusion that there was not any evidence that conclusively demonstrated that Anthony played a causative role in her daughter's death. Commentators' opinions varied. Had Anthony committed what amounted to the perfect crime- one where it seems that she is almost certainly guilty, but had destroyed the evidence that could convict her of the crime, or had the prosecution's team failed to meet the burden of proof despite the available evidence?

To answer that question, one must first ask, what was the evidence against Anthony? Though many people believed her to be guilty, there was very little in the way of forensic evidence linking her to the crime. The police never recovered a murder weapon or even established that a murder had occurred; in fact the cause of death was never determined. The police do not have a primary crime scene where the death occurred, nor has anyone been able to identify who dumped the body. There was simply very little evidence to prove that she killed her daughter, though there was evidence to suggest that she played a role in disposing of the child's body. However, even that evidence was weak. The two primary forms of forensic evidence against Anthony involved science that the defense team questioned. The first was the use of post-mortem banding on hair samples found in Anthony's trunk that were linked to her daughter. The second type of evidence that the defense questioned was the use of scientific tests to determine that decomposition of a body had occurred in Anthony's trunk.

The problem with the hair sample is that the prosecution could not establish that the hair belonged to the daughter. Rather than use nuclear DNA analysis, which is the only type of analysis that can conclusively rule out all relatives and establish the identity of a single person, the state used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) testing to determine the origin of the hair found in the trunk. Moreover, this hair was determined to have a decomposition band near the root, which would have suggested that the hair was in the trunk post-mortem. The problem with mitochondrial DNA is that it is inherited only from the maternal side of the family. The hair could have belonged to Anthony, to the victim, to Anthony's brother, or to any of the female ancestors in the maternal side of the family. Because the state could not establish that the victim was the source of this hair, the fact that it could establish that the hair was from a cadaver was not enough to prove that Anthony committed a murder. This is no surprise. The forensics community commonly recognizes that, "in general, the significance of an mtDNA sequence match is dependent on the case in question, and the type of mtDNA involved. In only a restricted set of circumstances can mtDNA matching be considered definitive evidence of identification" (Holland & Parsons, 1999).

The other evidence that the defense questioned was whether scientific tests could determine that decomposition of a human body had occurred in Anthony's trunk. Dr. Arpad Vass, a forensics expert with significant experience in decomposition, was able to determine that the smell coming from Anthony's trunk had the same compounds as those found in the early stages of decomposition of a human body, but could not conclusively state that the odors were caused by the decay of a human corpse. Vass himself acknowledged some of the weaknesses of these investigative techniques (Vass, 2001). His cadaver-sniffing machines may be more practical to use when trying to find bodies than for providing evidence that a body has been in a certain location.