http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-casey-anthony-air-science-20101008,0,403550.storyAir science may be used for first time ever in Anthony case (long post)
By Anthony Colarossi, Orlando Sentinel
7:31 p.m. EDT, October 8, 2010
The science resembles something you might expect to see on television's "CSI": odor and air samples originating from the trunk of a vehicle being used to prove a child's body decomposed inside.
But life, death, science and the unsavory business of prosecuting child slayings are rarely as clear-cut as they are portrayed on television. Nothing about the advanced testing on Casey Anthony's Pontiac Sunfire provides a conclusive answer about whether her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie's lifeless body was in that vehicle.
But the testing done in this case by a group of scientists in Tennessee shows an emerging science that could be used in a courtroom for the first time ever in the case against Casey Anthony.
The science identifies the chemical compounds associated with the decomposition of human bodies. The researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, led by Dr. Arpad Vass, expressed caution in their final, 18-page, April 2009 forensic report to Orange County detectives. Their battery of tests produced "correlations" indicating "a portion of the total odor signature identified in [Anthony's Pontiac] is consistent with an early decompositional event that could be of human origin."
In other words, a dead and newly decomposing human body may have been in the trunk.
'Junk science'?
Vass and his colleagues are important witnesses in this case and would not comment for this story, but the odor-analysis work is spelled out in great technical detail in their report and earlier published articles on decomposing buried human remains.
The same elements that make this evidence novel and perhaps groundbreaking also make it potentially vulnerable to legal challenges aimed at keeping it out of Anthony's trial in May. This evidence has never been used before in a U.S. court of law, according to those most familiar with the case.
Last month, Casey Anthony's defense team recruited Dorothy Clay Sims, an Ocala attorney specializing in cross-examinations of medical-expert witnesses. She has vowed to attack any "junk science" brought into this case, especially science lacking established standards and error rates. A hearing on whether the evidence should be admitted is expected to come as the trial date nears.
Dr. Thomas Bruno, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., is familiar with Vass' work, has done somewhat similar research involving decomposing rats and has read the report in the Casey Anthony case.
"I certainly don't think what he's doing is junk science," Bruno said. "But it might not be ready for the courtroom yet."
Ultimately, that will be an issue for the lawyers to argue and for Chief Judge Belvin Perry to decide.
In a case now brimming with legal brainpower, the prosecution may have an interesting advantage here: Jeff Ashton. The veteran assistant state attorney helped successfully get DNA findings introduced in a 1987 Orange County rape case.
It was the first time that evidence was ever presented in a U.S. courtroom. Introducing the evidence here all those years ago brought national media attention and, ultimately, broad awareness of a science now used to prove guilt and also exonerate those wrongly accused.
"We realized how amazing this tool would be in solving cases," Ashton said.
Used to find burials
The odor-analysis science is vastly different from DNA in methodology and purpose. It was developed primarily as a way to help with identifying clandestine burials, but now it's being used in the case against the 24-year-old charged with first-degree murder in her daughter's 2008 death.
From the prosecution's standpoint, it reinforces the now-famous statement from Cindy Anthony, Casey's mother, who said during a 911 call in mid-July 2008, "I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."
In July, Judge Perry ruled the jury in this case will get to hear those comments.
Caylee Anthony's remains were found in a heavily wooded area months after she was reported missing, but the prosecution's theory places the body initially in the trunk of her mother's car.
To help prove this, the Oak Ridge researchers took a sample of carpeting from the Pontiac, placed it in a sealed can and sent air from it into a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, a device commonly used in forensics to draw and identify substances from a test sample.
Initially, they found few compounds, primarily chloroform, so they had to concentrate the sample to "increase the sensitivity for lower abundance compounds."
The presence of chloroform traces in the trunk has been long considered evidence supporting the state's case. Often depicted in movies as a chemical used to make someone unconscious, chloroform can also kill if too much is inhaled.
To concentrate their sample, scientists used a technique called "cryogenic trapping," essentially using nitrogen to cool and condense the organic compounds. Heating then vaporized the condensed compounds.
They also tested other items, including trunk-carpet sections from two other Pontiac Sunfires and a piece of decomposing pizza — after early reports indicated pizza had been left in the Anthony vehicle. They even tested samples from a case in Montana in which a 3-year-old was "wrapped in a blanket and allowed to decompose over a three month period in the trunk of a car," the report states.
When they were finished, the researchers found 51 chemicals from the Casey Anthony trunk-carpet sample.
But they eventually identified seven as "significant human decompositional chemicals," and five were used to draw their conclusions.
Chloroform was singled out because of the quantities found. Levels in the carpet sample were determined to be "in the low parts per million range." Typically, the reported noted, adult human decomposition "yields in the low parts per trillion range."
Beyond the chloroform, they found four other chemicals that appear early on in human decompositions.
Vass and others at Oak Ridge have studied this science for years. In an earlier published report on odor analysis, they argue a better understanding of the "chemistry of human decay processes in shallow burial sites" may lead to equipment used in the field to locate such "clandestine" sites.
'I think it's important'
Some suggest that the evidence has lost some significance since the discovery of Caylee's remains. And the prosecution says it confirms or supports other evidence indicating a body was placed in the car.
Bruno, the NIST scientist, says, "This evidence might have lost some significance, but not much. It ties the body to the car. I think it's important."
Still, he said the research may not be ready as legal evidence without further assessing the uncertainty that goes along with any scientific measurement.
As with any good research, Vass and the other authors qualified their report in the Casey Anthony case, stating the results "still do not rule out the remote possibility that an unusual variety of products or materials (not present in the trunk at the time of vehicle discovery) may have had some contribution to the overall chemical signature."
Bruno insists that the scientist's job is making accurate measurements and observations. How those play out in court, he said, is largely up to others.
"Our job is not the truth," Bruno said. "The truth is somebody else's job."
Anthony Colarossi can be reached at
acolarossi@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5447.
