As the Anthony family hunkers down behind a theory of disproven leads and tired tips, alleged druggie friends and a nanny who exists only as code for Casey’s ex-fiancé, the State delivers a startling one-two counterpunch to the defense’s motions to dismiss

Remember the photos of the trash from Casey’s trunk? Did anything unusual or out of the ordinary make an impression on you? If you’re like me, probably not. We were all waiting to see if anything particularly incriminating might appear there, but it all seemed mundane and ordinary, and outside of proving that there was no rotting pizza as Cindy had claimed (only an empty pizza box), many of us might not have thought much of significance was to be found there. Wrong.

Present in that trash, as well as the trunk of Casey’s car itself, says the prosecution, were a large number of small flying insects of the scientific family classification phoridae, commonly referred to as coffin flies, which are known to feed on decomposition material. Specifically, the tiny, gnat-like flies were recovered from wadded-up paper towels in the trash, and forensic botanist Neal Haskell, who contributed to the State’s entomology report, wrote that “given the association of the towels with the car, it seems most likely that the paper toweling was used in an attempt to clean the decompositional fluids purged from the remains in the trunk of the car.”

 Left: coffin fly (phoridae family classification); right: evidence photo of paper towels from trash found in Casey Anthony's trunk.

So damaging is this newly released evidence, says an article published over the weekend from Orlando TV station WESH-2, that it “may finally include the smoking gun prosecutors have been seeking since [Casey’s] arrest” (emphasis mine). But the State wasn’t done yet, delivering a second blow to the defense: they now say they found traces of chloroform in liquid inside a bottle of Cool Blue Gatorade and in a plastic syringe that were in a Disney bag recovered near the remains at the scene on Suburban Drive.

 Left: evidence photos of chloroform-laced Gatorade bottle; right: evidence photos of syringe.

Maybe at least momentarily this will quell the recent spate of bravura issuing from the defense table. Just last week the defense filed another motion to dismiss the most serious charges against Casey, because, they said, the State failed to provide sufficient facts linking Casey to these crimes. In an interview segment in CBS Television’s 48 Hours Mystery on the Caylee Anthony case that aired just a couple of weeks ago, Casey Anthony defense attorney Todd Macaluso mustered sufficient temerity to state baldly that “there’s no evidence where the body was found that links the body to the Anthony home,” while fellow defense attorney Linda Kenney-Baden said the defense would be challenging the duct tape purported to be around Caylee’s mouth and told 48 Hours flatly, “Somebody else is the killer of this child.”

It was at that point—and I knew nothing then of these new revelations from the prosecution—that I wanted to retort, Now hold on there just a minute, Mr. Macaluso, Mrs. Kenny-Baden, have you (and 48 Hours) completely forgotten about the special white canvas laundry bag in which Caylee’s remains were found, which had a mate in the Anthonies’ home? Are we talking about the same evidence here? In my view, this laundry bag could turn out to be the strongest link from the remains to the Anthony home.

 Left: evidence photo of white Whitney Design laundry bag in which Caylee's remains were discovered; right: tag from laundry bag.

Although the duct tape and the heart sticker adhesive residue may have been mishandled by FBI lab personnel—and direct DNA and/or blood evidence may not have survived the flooding that took place in the summer of 2008 in the swampy wooded area adjacent to Suburban Drive or the subsequent scattering of bones in that area by animal predators—it is not impossible that hair or fiber evidence could have been recovered from the laundry bag, or even still could be now. Evidently prosecutors considered photos of the laundry bag (including a label showing its manufacture by Whitney Design of Bridgeton, Missouri) important enough to include with photos of the Gatorade Cool Blue bottle and the syringe in the latest round of discovery releases.

And speaking of that bottle: even if the defense successfully challenges the presence of chloroform by claiming it is a natural byproduct of decomposition (By the way, can anything be said to be “natural” when it is associated with the decomposition of the body of a murdered two-year-old girl? Just asking.), the question remains, for what other purpose could the syringe serve?

Maybe I’ve watched too many CSI episodes on TV; but, upon hearing about the laundry bag, the syringe and the sports drink laced with chloroform, my mind jumped to questions about the manufacture and purchase of these items: Can they be traced to particular lots of manufacture, or to store receipts or security camera footage, which can be linked up with their acquisition by Casey or a friend or a member of the Anthony family? My guess is that law enforcement is already miles ahead in trying to gather and analyze whatever information on this there may be, and we may simply need to be patient once more and see how this all plays out.

Meanwhile, what does the defense and the Anthony family offer as an alternate theory of the crime? I was reading through the transcript of Lee Anthony’s July 30 (2009) deposition by Assistant State Attorney Frank George, and what emerges is that Lee and his parents have developed a theory that still places credence in a nanny named Zenaida Gonzalez—although Lee says, along with his mother, that he thinks “Zanny” or “Zenaida” could be code for someone else, whom he assumes could be the nefarious Jesse Grund.

Lee Anthony deposed (February '09 deposition in Zenaida Gonzalez civil case).

Lee and Cindy evidently also still put faith in the tip received early on that Caylee may have been seen boarding a plane at the Atlanta airport with someone matching the description of Jesse Grund’s mother and another tip purporting to place Caylee in a pickup truck in Atlanta with someone vaguely matching the description of Jesse. (You will recall that Orange County Sheriff’s investigators interviewed the airport tipster, Wanda Wery, and produced the manifest from the flight she thought she might have seen Caylee board, which had no one matching Caylee’s description.) The Anthonies tie in this doubtful tip with information from Jesse (announced in a July 10, 2008 Facebook entry, from most accounts I could find—I couldn’t confirm whether he actually did or not) that he was moving away from the Orlando area to Georgia in August of 2008.

To be significant or damaging to the prosecution’s case, however, this more or less assumes that Caylee would still be alive and living in Georgia or some other remote place by way of there. And, of course, the defense team would have to explain why, when the child was supposedly spirited away to a remote locale (Casey told her parents from jail to have authorities look in New York, North Carolina and Puerto Rico, among other places), Caylee’s remains would end up after all only a block away from the Anthony home. With an affirmative case as thin as this one appears, it seems likely the defense will go negative, trying to punch holes in the State’s affirmative case rather than actually explaining Caylee’s disappearance.

Even though Amy Huizenga helped Cindy find Casey and was an apparent fellow victim of Casey’s alleged thievery right along with Cindy, the Anthony family, with information evidently provided by crack private investigator Dominic Casey, now accuses Amy and former Casey beau Ricardo Morales not only of being into pot (which is somewhat believable), but also into heroin. I do not doubt that when Amy appears on the stand to testify in both the fraud and murder cases, Baez and company will launch a no-holds-barred, all-out assault on her credibility on this basis.

Targets for defense impeachment? Prospective prosecution witnesses Amy Huizenga (left) and Roy Kronk (right).

In another recent development, Orange County employee Roy Kronk, who discovered Caylee’s remains along Suburban Drive not far from the Anthony home, was terminated from employment. According to a recent report from WOFL-FOX35’s Holly Bristow, the reason was that Kronk had been reassigned from his duties as a meter reader to those of an inventory specialist with the county, but he didn’t appear for work, for reasons Kronk’s attorney, David Evans, says have to do with an injury sustained at a county warehouse. Bristow reports that Kronk had been on family leave, but that his leave time expired around the first of October, evidently resulting in his termination. In my view, the significance of this development for the Caylee case is that it may leave Kronk, like Huizenga, vulnerable to character impeachment by the defense.

As Mrs. Kenny-Baden stated, the defense appears ready to challenge the duct tape evidence, and it appears to me that in this “corrupted” evidence, they feel that they may have the equivalent of the bloody glove in the O.J. Simpson case. Only time will tell if they can use this or witness impeachment to create enough reasonable doubt to offset the State’s “smoking gun” evidence released this week, and make the case that if the evidence doesn’t fit, the jury must acquit.