‘I’M the one who Googled chloroform’: Casey Anthony’s mother drops a bombshell as she testifies for the defense
Cindy Anthony claims a change in medication has sharpened her memory
By Jacqui Goddard for MailOnline
Updated: 12:34 BST, 24 June 2011
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Casey Anthony’s own mother attempted to blow up prosecution evidence against her daughter today as she claimed that she was the one who looked up facts about chloroform on the family’s home computer.
In a stunning twist to the state’s accusation that Casey researched the dangerous compound three months before using it to overpower her two-year-old daughter Caylee, Mrs Anthony revealed that she had herself pulled up Internet pages about chloroform in March 2008, seeking health information relating to her pets.
In testimony that prosecutors later challenged aggressively, Mrs Anthony said that her web searches – previously aired in court as part of the state’s evidence that Casey planned her daughter’s June 2008 murder – resulted from her initially looking up chlorophyll, the substance that gives plants their colour.
Cindy Anthony testified at daughter Casey’s trial that she searched on the home computer for information about physical injuries and chloroform
‘I was concerned about my smallest Yorkie – we have two Yorkie puppies. The smallest one was having some issues where she was extremely tired all the time. Both of the dogs would eat the bamboo leaves out the back so I started looking up sources from the back yard that could cause her to be more sleepy, and I started with ‘chlorophyll’ and that prompted me to look up ‘chloroform” Mrs Anthony testified in court.
Cindy wears a necklace with a photo of her granddaughter Caylee on it
‘Looking at chlorophyll, there’s some bacteria associated with chloroform. It comes from different species of plants that have red and brown colour, and that prompted me to look up chloroform because some species naturally produce chloroform.’
Mrs Anthony also told the court in Orlando, Florida, that she had typed in search terms such as ‘hydrogen peroxide’ and ‘alcohol’ while seeking to find out more about a health scare over hand sanitizers and their possible dangers to children that had been brought to her attention by a colleague in March 2008.
She had also inputted other search terms relating to bodily injuries because ‘a good friend of mine was in a car accident and had multiple chest and head injuries,’ she said.
In another revelation, Mrs Anthony said that a stain found in the boot of Casey’s white Pontiac Sunfire car – which the state has attempted to attribute to Caylee’s dead body having been stored in the vehicle before being dumped in a swamp – may have been present when she first bought the vehicle.
Mrs Anthony’s sudden claims rattled prosecutors who have for 26 days held the upper hand in the trial as Casey’s defence team has faltered and made several damaging legal blunders.
State attorney Diane Drane-Burdick appeared visibly angry and cynical as she tore into Mrs Anthony’s evidence, clawing back some ground. She pointed out that Mrs Anthony’s employment records showed her as having been at work at the times and dates that the home computer searches were made – which Mrs Anthony explained by saying that she went home early some days even though her records indicated otherwise – and asked her why she had only just brought up her claims three years on.
Casey Anthony is standing trial in Florida for a first-degree murder charge, accused by prosecutors of killing her two-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008
‘I did tell law enforcement. In fact, I told you during my deposition in 2009 that I made those searches,’ Mrs Anthony replied.
‘You told me that you searched ‘chlorophyll’ and you spelt chlorophyll for me,’ Mrs Drane-Burdick shot back, adding: ‘Did you type into the search bar of Google ‘How to make chloroform’?’ – a reference to FBI evidence that someone typed in those specific words in March 2008.
‘I don’t recall typing in ‘How to make chloroform’,’ Mrs Anthony ceded, also accepting that she had not been responsible for other searches found by FBI computer analysts on the family’s home computer, such as ‘self defence,’ ‘how to make household weapons,’ ‘shovel’ and ‘neck breaking.’
If convicted of daughter Caylee’s murder, Casey could face the death penalty
The Anthony’s home computer had been used to search for terms such as ‘neck breaking’, ‘death’ and ‘head injuries’ as well as ‘chloroform’, the prosecution told the jury two weeks ago
‘I didn’t search for ‘neck breaking’ but I do recall that there was a pop-up that was showing a YouTube (video) that was showing a skateboarder that was going on rails…I recall it saying ‘a neck-breaking feat” Mrs Anthony said.
The timing of the revelations – which scored significant points for the defence despite some of the later doubts raised by prosecutors – came at an ironic time in the trial of Casey Anthony, who potentially faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder. She has pleaded not guilty, claiming that little Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool.
Yesterday, a lawyer for Casey’s parents told CNN that the couple believe their daughter is guilty.
Asked: ‘Do your clients George and Cindy Anthony think that she is not guilty’, the couple’s lawyer Mark Lippman replied: ‘They don’t think that…they do not believe she is innocent.’
George and Cindy Anthony in the courtroom during the murder trial of their daughter Casey Anthony on Tuesday
He later backtracked, insisting that he was misunderstood. ‘I’ve never said they thought she was guilty. I only said they have no idea what happened,’ Mr Lippman said.
‘They have no idea what the facts are. That’s why they’re sitting in the courtroom every single day. They hope they can get some semblance of truth. Based on his story it sounds like I was saying my clients think she is guilty of murder. I never said that. And any inference to that is wrong.’
Mr Lippman added during a brief press conference outside court tonight: ‘They (the Anthonys) don’t know whether or not she’s guilty of the crimes that have been alleged. …She’s still not guilty until the jury comes back and makes a determination of what happened. My clients want to know what happened.’
Addressing Mrs Anthony’s sudden revelations about her computer searches three years on, Mr Lippman echoed his client’s statement in court that she was not the one who had looked up the phrases ‘How to make chloroform’ or ‘neck breaking’ on the home computer.
But the matters she had recalled, such as her inter-connected searches on chlorophyll and chloroform, stemmed from the fact that her memory had improved since 2008 when Caylee was found dead.
‘Normally as time goes on our memory gets a little bit more cloudy, but she was taking medication because of the various issues and the stress she was suffering,’ he said.
‘Her medication has since been changed by her doctor and it has clarified her memory from three years ago.’