I am providing you with a photo of the heart-shaped stickers found at the Anthony home on December 11, 2008. Ronald Murdock and assistants at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, with a search warrant in hand, had collected these suggestive heart-shaped stickers.
They thought to photograph them as well. But how is the State tying these stickers in with what FBI agent Elizabeth Fontaine testified on Monday? I’ve heard, some of the stickers are missing from the roll. Was one of these stickers applied to the henkel duct tape (by Casey) which was wrapped around little Caylee’s mouth and nose?
I’m trying to tie this evidence together, but is the prosecution doing the same? They enter the photo of the stickers into evidence, then they question Elizabeth Fontaine, about her seeing an outline or heart imprint on Q-63, one of three pieces of deteriorated duct tape she examined.
Then we heard yesterday, Ms. Fontaine failed to photograph the odd, but obvious heart-shaped imprint, a remnant of some peculiar gesture of sentiment by the murderess. A twisted ritualistic tribute of sorts, I might add. But Elizabeth was following protocol. Later, during her examination, she destroyed the imprint, when applying a dye-stain (RAM).
She realizes later the significance of the heart-shaped imprint, that may have been the remnants of one of these child-stickers found at the Anthony home. Her regret must have been great when she later made an attempt to photograph Q-63! But to no avail, she had already altered the pristine state of the duct tape and had no documentation to support her initial claims.
We’ll not fault Ms. Fontaine, she was following protocol. But sometimes we have to think outside the box; our daily procedures don’t always fit every situation that comes down the pike. We saw this with Gerardo Bloise, when he inadvertently cooked an entire bag of trash, that Casey had jettisoned in the trunk of her Pontiac Firebird.
I’m reminded that in the case of O.J. Simpson, lackluster lab procedures were the basis for acquittal, even though everyone under the sun knew he had done it. One thing, Ms. Fontaine didn’t find any latent fingerprints on the duct tape. This is not very unusual, since the duct tape was exposed to the elements (including flooding) for 6 months or more.
But I find it to be impossible for the State to tie one of these missing stickers (from the family roll) to the alleged ‘sticker fingerprint’ observed by Elizabeth Fontaine, when employing RUVIS (Reflective Ultra-Violet Imaging System) technology. I think the jury will have to dismiss this revelatory observation as highly circumstantial in nature.
That is, the two can not be linked to one another. And since she failed to take a picture of the imprint, we won’t be able to do one of these superimpositions (between a pristine heart-sticker and the X-ray print). Such a demonstration could soundly link the two, but this is not to be.
The prosecution is on shaky grounds with this sticker evidence. And even with the duct tape, they can not link it to the Anthony household exclusively. And the single strand of hair with post mortem banding can not be identified as Caylee’s solely. Casey walks!