Is This Caylee's Daddy?(Photo-Video)

The great mystery of the Casey Anthony trial: Who fathered the 2-year-old she’s accused of murdering? Diane Dimond reveals the person whose DNA may finally solve the riddle.

The man below is Caylee Anthony’s father… if you believe Michael Duggan’s mother, who is “100 percent certain” she is the dead 2-year-old’s paternal grandmother, and is willing to submit to lie-detector and DNA tests to prove it.
Casey Anthony, according to testimony and first-person accounts,

often told her family and friends that Caylee’s biological father—whose identity remains one of the great mysteries of the first-degree murder trial—died in a car accident in 2007. Grandma Cindy Anthony recently repeated that assertion in court, under oath. Meanwhile, Michael Patrick Duggan, a young man with a perpetual smile, died in a one-car accident in Falmouth, Massachusetts, in October 2007.
That isn’t a coincidence, says Duggan’s mother, 47-year-old Donna MacLean of Rutland, Massachusetts, who gave a series of interviews, her first, to The Daily Beast. Like Anthony, Duggan had a colorful family history. His parents divorced and his father had a sex-change operation, according to various records, transforming from Wilfred to Wendy—she is now in jail in Florida for serious DUI violations. Duggan (pronounced DUGG-an) wandered South after high school, first to an uncle’s home in North Carolina, and then on his own. “He was living in Tennessee, working for a moving company [when Caylee was conceived],” says MacLean. “He was traveling all over the region moving households of furniture.” It had become “routine for him to visit Florida,” according to his mother. His paternal grandparents had regularly taken him to visit friends who lived near Disney World in Orlando.
MacLean says she and her son always stayed in touch. In late summer of 2007 during a telephone call, “we were talking about the upcoming birth of my other son’s baby boy,” says MacLean. “I said I had really hoped for a baby girl grandchild, and that’s when Michael told me that he already had one.”
At this point in time Caylee Anthony would have been close to 2 years old.
“I asked him about the circumstances… who is the family? He said the parents were George and Cindy Anthony. I asked who she was and he said her name is Casey. He told me her dad was a cop and I said, ‘Oh, Mike! Does she want child support?’” At this point, Duggan was working as a low-paid waiter in Passaic, New Jersey.
According to Donna MacLean, her 24-year-old son told her the young woman he’d impregnated came from a family with a nice, big home and she was not pressing him for support. In fact, he said, she was talking about possibly putting the child up for adoption. He never mentioned the city in which the child and her mother lived. Testimony at Casey Anthony’s murder trial has revealed she talked to others about the possibility of putting Caylee up for adoption.
MacLean says she learned little more about the circumstances surrounding what would have been her first grandchild because within weeks Michael was dead. A stepsister riding in the car with him during a trip home to Massachusetts also perished. Crippled by grief, MacLean says she forgot about the conversation about a granddaughter.
In May 2011, When Casey Anthony went on trial for murdering Caylee, this Massachusetts housewife became riveted to photographs of the little girl. Like much of the nation she has followed the capital-murder case closely.
“She looked so much like my family, like I did when I was little. The big eyes … I just kept staring into those big brown eyes.” MacLean, who also has brown eyes like her son Mike, says she didn’t realize what intrigued her so about the pictures of Caylee until recently, when she says began to remember details of that long ago phone call with her son. She is wracked with frustration that she hadn’t asked more questions, including the name of the moving company her son worked for or the city in which the child lived.
“I remembered Mike had said Casey offered that if he came back to town they could all ‘crash at a friend’s house.’ Michael thought it was cool.” During testimony at Casey Anthony’s murder trial there has been much said about the nights she spent out—with and without her child—crashing at the homes of various friends.
MacLean’s account is complicated, of course, by the fact that so much of the Casey Anthony drama is based on the tales of a proven liar. Anthony has told numerous stories about who the biological father of her child might be, reportedly saying that the 2007 car-accident victim was named Eric Baker or a man named Josh from Georgia with whom she worked at Universal Studios. Another crash victim named Jesus Ortiz has been mentioned as a possible father. Many people in Casey Anthony’s sphere, including her parents, believed for a time that a preacher’s son named Jesse Grund was the child’s dad. And, of course, Anthony’s defense team has fed the suspicion that Casey’s brother, Lee, or her father George, was responsible. DNA tests have excluded Grund, Lee, and George as a possible parent to the murdered child.
The difference between all those other potential possibilities is that they all deny it—the Ortiz family has expressly rejected the idea. Only Donna MacLean has come forward.
Admittedly, the only proof that MacLean has is her word and the circumstantial coincidence that her son died in a car crash in 2007. Given that she says her son told her that he had a daughter, she confided that bombshell with surprisingly few people who can back up her story contemporaneously—citing just her son from a different marriage, Josh Van Kleef.
When reached by The Daily Beast, Van Kleef, a car salesman in Massachusetts, says he remembers his mother talking to him about a conversation she had with stepbrother Mike right around the time his son was born (September 2007). "At first when she told me he could possibly be a father, we wondered if he was just saying that to be in competition with me," says Van Kleef, citing his son’s impending arrival. He also says he vaguely remembers some talk about a cop in her family.
MacLean, homebound with a back and hip disability, says she is willing to take a lie-detector test, submit DNA for grandparent’s testing and reached out to George and Cindy Anthony almost two weeks ago.
“She contacted me and told me the whole story,” the Anthonys’ attorney, Mark Lippman, confirms. He declined to relay his clients’ reaction was to MacLean’s account.
“I don’t want to have additional pressure on my clients at this time,” says Lippman. “Certainly she has the right to pursue the truth but I don’t understand to what end, the child is clearly dead.” He suggested McLean hire a lawyer to petition the court for a DNA test, but is adamant that any action wait until after the trial. Lippman also expressed concern that MacLean might be trying to insert herself into a notorious case, either for attention or monetary gain.
Donna MacLean insists she wants nothing but information. “I can’t just walk away. I’m trying to do this peacefully without raising a ruckus,” she says. “I would never in a million years bring something like this forward if I wasn’t 100 percent positive. My son wouldn’t lie to me.”
“All I want is to know the truth,” MacLean adds. “I’ve grieved for my son and now I want to grieve for my grandchild.”

Casey Anthony defense tries to put Florida prosecutors on trial(Photos-Video)

Defense attorneys for Casey Anthony are seeking to put the prosecution on trial, alleging an at times incompetent investigation into Caylee's death. The tactic could be working with some jurors.
The defense in the Casey Anthony murder trial is seeking to turn the tables on the prosecution, attempting to put the state itself on trial for conducting what defense lawyers suggest was a lackluster and, at times, incompetent investigation into the death of Ms. Anthony’s two-year-old daughter, Caylee.

Although Chief Judge Belvin Perry is trying to head off the tactic by sustaining frequent prosecution objections at the trial, defense attorney Jose Baez is managing to raise substantial questions that could trouble at least some members of the jury.
The jurors have heard testimony that a “shoddy” autopsy was performed by the county medical examiner, that an FBI lab technician’s own DNA contaminated a piece of duct tape that the state alleges is the murder weapon, and that a crime scene investigator placed a bag of wet trash with live maggots from Ms. Anthony’s car into a drier to preserve the contents for long-term storage.
They have heard about heart-shaped residue that mysteriously disappeared from the surface of the duct tape/alleged murder weapon before it could be photographed. They also heard that investigators waited 3-1/2 months after tests showed the possible presence of chloroform in Anthony’s car before obtaining a warrant to search the Anthony home for evidence of chemicals, mixing instructions, chemistry equipment, or store receipts related to chloroform. Nothing was found.
In addition, the defense is suggesting that the state missed opportunities to conduct DNA testing on the maggots found in the trash bag in Anthony’s car. Two entomologists and a DNA expert have testified that such testing would have been possible. It was apparently not done.
The defense has also suggested that after the FBI discovered a second partial but inconclusive DNA profile on the duct tape/alleged murder weapon, the state could have had the item retested using more sophisticated technology. It did not.
Defense gambit not unique
Mr. Baez’s gambit is not unique. The defense tactic of attacking detectives and prosecutors as sloppy or worse is a standard feature of many trials. But this is no ordinary case. The state has charged Anthony with first-degree murder and is seeking the death penalty.
In addition, the saga of Anthony and her daughter, Caylee, has attracted a national following of self-appointed detectives, moral arbiters, and others who are parsing every utterance in Judge Perry’s Orlando, Fla., courtroom. Interest in the trial is so high that fistfights have broken out among those waiting in long lines outside the courthouse for a chance to witness the unfolding drama inside.
Although the state’s case moved forward quickly and efficiently for nearly three weeks, the defense side of the trial during the past five days has been slowed by a high number of prosecution objections and resulting sidebar conferences outside earshot of the jury. The in-court tension arises against a backdrop of an increasingly bitter struggle between the two camps behind the scenes.
At several points Perry has condemned what he termed “gamesmanship” and rivalry among the lawyers during the trial.
When a potential witness from a DNA laboratory in the Netherlands, Richard Eikelenboom, presented himself at the state attorney’s office last weekend for a possible deposition in advance of his expected testimony this week, Assistant State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton refused to see him. He told him to go away.
Mr. Ashton has sought to block portions of Mr. Eikelenboom’s testimony because he says the defense did not comply with a court order in December to fully disclose all opinions that each expert witness would offer at the trial.
Baez says he sought to comply with the order but that a trial is a dynamic process and he is trying to respond to unexpected issues. The judge said his order was clear and that Baez had willfully violated it.
The judge's unusual punishment

As punishment, immediately before Eikelenboom began his testimony on Tuesday, Perry gave a special instruction to the jury that certain reports outlining the witness’s testimony had not been delivered prior to a court-imposed deadline and that as a result the jury “may consider this in considering the credibility of the witness.”
Such an instruction is highly unusual, particularly in a death-penalty case. A witness’s credibility usually speaks for itself without any pretestimony demerits assigned by a trial judge seeking to punish a defense attorney.
The punishment did not stop there. The judge also barred Baez from questioning Eikelenboom about the possibility of obtaining DNA profiles from a stain in the trunk of Anthony’s car. Prosecutors have suggested that the stain is from fluid that leaked from Caylee’s decomposing body onto the carpet lining the trunk. FBI tests found no DNA. And the state did not seek to perform more sophisticated tests.
Eikelenboom was expected to say that using the more advanced techniques in his lab, such testing might be possible. That testimony could be important to the defense because it would suggest the state has been less than diligent in using available science to help prove its case. At the same time it would highlight the circumstantial and speculative nature of some of the state’s evidence against Anthony.
Despite that pending issue, Eikelenboom was permitted to testify in general about DNA testing. He told the jury that even though the duct tape found with Caylee’s remains was severely weathered, with his techniques “you could expect to still find DNA.”
Pioneer of 'touch DNA'
Eikelenboom is best known in the DNA community as a pioneer in the detection of “touch DNA” – skin cells left behind by an assailant or criminal as a result of rough-handling during criminal activity.
In 2006, Mr. Eikelenboom helped free an innocent man serving a life sentence in Colorado for a murder he didn’t commit. After re-creating precisely how the victim was dragged into a field by her killer, Eikelenboom and his laboratory were able to identify “touch DNA” on the victim’s shirt 20 years after the crime.
The innocent man, Timothy Masters, was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school at the time of the killing. He told police that he had seen the dead body in the field on his way to school but did not report it to police because he wasn’t sure it was real, according to a report in the Denver Post.
Police considered him a murder suspect in part because he did not call 911 and he seemed emotionless, according to the Post report. He was convicted in a circumstantial case with no physical evidence.
Eikelenboom identified three full DNA profiles from the victim’s shirt. It eliminated Mr. Masters and pointed, instead, to someone else on the detectives’ list of suspects.
In 2008, prosecutors moved to vacate Master’s conviction and he was released after serving nearly 10 years of his life sentence.
Work in JonBenet Ramsey case
Eikelenboom was also asked by police in Colorado to investigate the unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Again, he identified DNA profiles by examining the precise points where the assailant grabbed the little girl’s clothing. The resulting DNA profile eliminated JonBenet’s parents as suspects in the killing.
During cross-examination, Ashton belittled Eikelenboom and his Dutch-based laboratory. He compared the company to a “mom and pop operation," and suggested he was working in a “barn.”
Eikelenboom said he and his wife converted a farm into a high-tech crime laboratory.
Ashton insisted that any DNA that might have been on the duct tape with Caylee’s remains would have long since degraded and been unusable in the hot, wet Florida weather.
“We only need a small amount of cells to get a DNA profile,” Eikelenboom said.
At the conclusion of his cross-examination Ashton asked Eikelenboom whether the defense team had asked him to retest the duct tape containing the as-yet unidentified DNA remnant.
"We mentioned that we could investigate this piece of tape,” Eikelenboom said.
Ashton shot back: “Are you aware if items at the defense’s request were sent for additional DNA testing?”
“No,” Eikelenboom answered.
The exchange was important because it potentially suggested to the jury that the defense did not want to retest the duct tape even though Baez was arguing that it should have been retested by the state.
“You were willing and able to test items from this case and you were willing and able to do it pro bono,” Baez asked during his redirect examination.
“Correct,” Eikelenboom said.
“The only reason you didn’t do it in this case is because the prosecution objected to you taking it,” Baez said.
The comment drew an immediate objection from Ashton before Eikelenboom could answer. The judge sustained the objection.
What the jury does not yet know is that a defense request to submit “items” to the Dutch laboratory was rejected by Perry. Instead, the defense team was directed to use a lab in Pennsylvania.
Baez apparently submitted for testing a pair of shorts and a laundry bag recovered with Caylee’s remains. But, according to Ashton, the defense never asked that the duct tape/murder weapon or carpet samples from the trunk of the car be retested for possible DNA.

Casey Anthony trial: Defense launches case with attack on forensic evidence

Three years to the day after Caylee died, the defense began to make its case in the Casey Anthony trial. Seven forensic scientists and crime scene investigators were called to the stand. An FBI forensic document examiner testified on Thursday that she found no evidence of a heart-shaped sticker or heart-shaped residue on a piece of duct tape that prosecutors say was the murder weapon used by Casey Anthony to suffocate her two-year-old daughter Caylee. Lorie Gottesman, a 20-year forensic specialist

at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, also told the jury that she found no match between black plastic bags containing a portion of Caylee’s skeletal remains and similar black plastic bags seized from the Anthony home. The testimony came on the first day of the defense case and Day 20 of the Casey Anthony murder trial, as defense attorney Jose Baez called to the witness stand seven forensic scientists and crime scene investigators in an attempt to cast doubt on the state’s case. The action came three years to the day – June 16, 2008 – that both the prosecution and the defense say Caylee died. Ms. Anthony has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of the toddler. If convicted she faces a possible death sentence. In an unusual twist, Ms. Gottesman also testified that the only traceable DNA evidence found on the duct tape discovered near Caylee’s remains belonged to her. “How did it happen,” Mr. Baez asked. “I have no idea how it happened or when,” Gottesman told the jury. Baez asked if she sneezed on the evidence. “No sir.” “Throughout the entire time you had these items you exercised great care,” Baez asked. “Yes,” she said. Outline of a heart In earlier testimony Gottesman told the jury that when examining the duct tape she used a high-tech device with special lights and filters that is capable of identifying images that are beyond the range of the human eye to see. During the prosecution’s case, earlier this week, an FBI fingerprint expert testified that she observed what appeared to be a dime-sized residue outline in the shape of a heart on a portion of the duct tape that allegedly covered Caylee’s face. A supervisor also said she saw the residue outline. The expert, Elizabeth Fontaine, continued conducting fingerprint tests. Later, when she attempted to photograph the outline, she said she was unable to see it. The testimony is important because it raises doubt about one of the most vivid and brutal suggestions in the case – that Caylee’s killer may have adorned the murder weapon itself with a heart-shaped sticker. Heart stickers found The disappearing heart on the duct tape isn’t the only heart-shaped piece of evidence in the case. Prosecutors also introduced a pink raised heart on a piece of soiled cardboard that crime scene investigators located in the same woods where Caylee’s remains were found. Investigators found and seized heart stickers in a drawer in Casey’s bedroom. But it is unclear whether any of them match the raised pink heart found on the soiled cardboard or are similar to the dime-shaped image reported by the fingerprint expert. Baez called three crime scene investigators who testified for the prosecution back to the witness stand to ask them how far away the pink heart on the cardboard was from Caylee’s remains. Ron Murdock of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office estimated that the sticker was found about 30 feet from Caylee’s skull. Another witness testified that the wooded area was littered with trash. The defense effort was aimed at convincing the jury that the pink heart was just a piece of refuse unassociated with Caylee’s remains or the crime scene. In another potentially important development, a DNA expert at the FBI revealed that she had been asked by investigators to confirm whether Casey Anthony’s brother, Lee, might be Caylee’s father. Shocking claims reintroduced The expert, Heather Seubert, said her analysis of the relevant DNA excluded Lee from being Caylee’s biological father. The revelation is important because it reintroduces shocking claims made by Baez during his opening argument last month. He had suggested that one of the reasons Casey Anthony seemed emotionless after Caylee’s death was that she’d been conditioned to react that way through years of sexual abuse by her father, George Anthony. Baez suggested she’d also been abused by her brother. In testimony during the state’s case, Mr. Anthony denied that he sexually abused his daughter and also denied a defense claim that he was present when Caylee allegedly drowned in the family swimming pool. Baez has said that rather than calling 911, both George and Casey Anthony participated in a coverup to hide Caylee’s body. The trial is set to continue Friday morning.

Navy SEALs forgot to bring a tape measure

The odds that Osama bin Laden was the mysterious figure seen walking around the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan were estimated by U.S. intelligence at between 60 and 80 percent. When the Navy SEALs shot the tall figure on the upper floor of the compound, fatally hitting him in the chest and near his right eye, the next step was to get a positive ID. They planned to use several reference points, including facial recognition and eventually DNA when the body was transported back to Bagram airbasein Afghanistan.

Another measurement was to determine the height of the corpse. Bin Laden is listed on his FBI most wanted poster as being between 6-feet 4-inches and 6-feet 6-inches and weighing about 160 pounds.

Special Section: The Killing of Osama bin Laden

However, the heavily-armed, electronically wired SEALs didn't come with a tape measure to get an accurate height reading. According to reports, a Navy SEAL of about 6-feet laid out next to bin Laden's corpse to gauge the Al Qaeda leader's height. The corpse was several inches taller.

The Washington Post's legendary reporter Bob Woodward came up with some inside the Situation Room conversation while the raid was underway and the president and his team were watching a muted feed of the action.

After Mr. Obama learned of the improvised height measurement technique, he reportedly said, "We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?"

The helicopter in his remark was the stealth technology-outfitted bird that crash-landed as the raid began and had to be destroyed by the SEALs.

Woodward also learned that bin Laden was named "the Pacer" as the intelligence gathering proceeded. Satellite imagery showed a person walking in the compound daily, but the face and exact height of the pacer were not identifiable.

In addition, Woodward learned some specifics about the phone call by the courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti that led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden's Abbottabad lair. Speaking to a friend as the U.S. was recording the conversation, al-Kuwaiti said, "I'm back with the people I was with before."

Police: Serial rape suspect tried to hang self

The man suspected of terrorizing women with sexual assaults from Virginia to Rhode Island over 12 years tried to hang himself in his cell Saturday, but survived and was treated at a hospital, police said.

Aaron Thomas, 39, was returned to jail after a brief hospital stay, New Haven police Officer Joe Avery said Saturday night. Thomas is scheduled to appear Monday in New Haven Superior Court.

Police said Saturday that DNA confirmed that the unemployed truck driver is the East Coast Rapist, suspected in attacks on at least 17 women.

Thomas could not be reached for comment; it was not clear whether he had legal representation.

"It's just shocking to me," said 15-year-old Dashawn Golding, who said his mother is Thomas' girlfriend. "She's crying a lot," he said of his mother.

A woman who answered the phone where neighbors said Thomas lived with his girlfriend said she was devastated.

"I almost died," the woman told The Associated Press before she hung up without giving her name. "I'm scared to walk out my door. I'm just as innocent as the next person."

The woman, who said she met Thomas outside a hospital where she works, said Thomas' 5-year-old son was crying when he learned of the charges. There was a heavy police presence Saturday as investigators searched the house, a yellow colonial with blue shutters and a security sign on the front lawn.

Lt. Julie Johnson said DNA was collected and subsequently matched by the state police forensic lab confirming Thomas was the East Coast Rapist. Investigators reportedly got Thomas' DNA off a discarded cigarette.

Police have a warrant charging Thomas with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor and he was being held on $1 million bond, Johnson said. Authorities in Prince William County, Va., are charging him with being a fugitive as well as rape and abduction charges and use of a firearm while committing a felony.

The East Coast Rapist is wanted for 17 rapes and other attacks in Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island and Virginia that began in 1997. The cases were linked by DNA.

Authorities recently put up electronic billboards in the states where the attacks occurred and neighboring states. U.S. Marshal Joe Faughnan said a tip from Prince William County directed them to Thomas.

"Although the information and investigation of Thomas developed quickly over the last week or so, we should point out that investigators worked tirelessly for years pursuing this case," Johnson said. "This was truly a joint collaboration on all levels. We are proud of our investigation and hope the arrest of Aaron Thomas brings some closure to our victims and our communities."

Johnson did not take questions during the brief news conference.

A neighbor said Thomas was living with a woman in the house in a desirable neighborhood not far from where the mayor lives. The woman, who refused to give her name, said Saturday that Thomas is a truck driver and parked his tractor-trailer in the residential neighborhood, but he seemed to be unemployed and would offer to paint or rake leaves for neighbors.

The woman said Thomas once punched her husband in the face after they got in an argument over his truck.

Another neighbor said Thomas would ride his bicycle as far as Hartford and jogged many miles.

"He liked working out," said the neighbor, who would only give his first name as Jason. "He could run all day long and never stop."

Thomas was not entirely unknown to law enforcement: He had been arrested in September in Woodbridge, Conn., on a larceny charge and was released on $1,000 bond, according to public records.

He had lived previously at addresses in Maryland and Virginia, according to public records.

The assailant eluded police even though the crimes were often committed outdoors, law enforcement officials say.

In some instances, the attacker wore a mask or hooded sweat shirt to conceal his face. He typically approached women outdoors on foot and threatened them with a knife, screwdriver or a handgun, investigators say.

The only attack in New Haven came on Jan. 10, 2007. Police said the suspect entered a 27-year-old woman's bedroom through an open window and threatened to kill her sleeping infant son before assaulting her.

The last known attack occurred on Halloween night in 2009, when two teenagers on their way home from trick-or-treating in Woodbridge, Va., were raped, authorities say.