Casey Anthony trial enters 3rd week

The third week of the Casey Anthony murder trial gets underway Monday. On the second week, that ended Saturday, jurors had a front-row seat to the vivid yet imaginary world the Florida mother created in the weeks after 2-year-old daughter Caylee disappeared in 2008. The jury heard detailed stories from Anthony's mother and her brother, of her business trips to Tampa and visits to an old flame that later proved to be false. Jurors also heard recordings of Anthony's police interviews, jailhouse visits and a 911 call.

Anthony is charged with seven counts, including first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and misleading police in the 2008 death of daughter Caylee. The last time the little girl was seen was June 16, 2008. The girl's grandmother, Cindy, reported her missing on July 15, 2008. Caylee's body was found five months later, in a wooded area less than a mile from the Anthony family home in eastern Orange County. Anthony, 25, has denied harming her daughter or having anything to do with the little girl's disappearance or death. Her lawyer has said that once all the facts were known, it will become clear his client is innocent. In a July 16, 2008, police interview, which the jury heard Thursday, Orange County Sheriff's Sgt. John Allen told Anthony the time had come to reveal the truth. "By burying this ... you are not going to get yourself to a better place, OK?" Allen said. "What you're going to do is you're going to cause everybody else around you to suffer. And at some point this is going to come out; it always does." Anthony heard the same sentiment expressed during in a jailhouse phone conversation with her mother, also on July 16, 2008. When Anthony blames her mother for her being in jail, Cindy Anthony fights back. "Well, whose fault is your sitting in the jail?" she asked her daughter. "Blame yourself for telling lies." The excusesTestimony earlier in the trial in Orlando revealed that Anthony lied to her parents and avoided them for 31 days in the summer of 2008 while Caylee was supposedly missing. During the second week of the trial, jurors learned more about what Anthony told her parents during that time and what she was actually doing. From the witness stand Tuesday, Anthony's mother described heated confrontations with her daughter on July 15, 2008, after she learned Anthony had been lying about her whereabouts for a month. The stories began with Anthony saying she was having a sleepover with a nanny named Zenaida "Zanny" Gonzalez. Then, Anthony said she was out of town on a work trip to Tampa, Florida. By the fourth week, Anthony's story was that she was out of town visiting an old boyfriend named Jeffrey Michael Hopkins. Cindy Anthony caught her daughter in her lies by discovering she was, in fact, in Orlando with a different boyfriend. By the time her mother called 911 to report Caylee missing, Anthony had a new story. "I know who has her. She's been my nanny for about a year-and-a-half, almost two years," Anthony told the operator in the July 15, 2008, call, which jurors heard Tuesday. When asked by the operator why she waited so long to report her daughter missing, Anthony replied, "I have been looking for her and have gone through other resources to try to find her, which was stupid." The characters In the following days, Gonzalez's alleged role would expand from an occasionally-mentioned nanny to a central character in Caylee's disappearance. When initially questioned by Orange County Detective Yuri Melich on July 16, 2008, about Gonzalez, Anthony provided a description of her without hesitation. That interview was played Wednesday. Anthony said she'd known Gonzalez for four years after they met working together at Universal Studios. She provided a physical description of Gonzalez, her address, even her mother's name. Other characters were also fleshed out. Hopkins, a former Universal Studios co-worker, according to Anthony, lived in Jacksonville and had a son named Zachary who played with Caylee. And then there was Juliette Lewis, another co-worker at Universal, who now lived in New York, Anthony said. She also had a daughter Caylee's age. Anthony claimed she called Lewis and Hopkins when she realized Caylee was missing. But prosecutors claim Anthony was not looking for her daughter in the month she was missing. Instead, she was staying with her boyfriend, spending time in Orlando with friends, attending parties, going shopping and hitting nightclubs, according to testimony from friends, her former boyfriend, and acquaintances, who also said that she did not mention her daughter being missing during that time. Anthony's frustration level with her parents, particularly her mother, was rising around the time Caylee disappeared, friend Amy Huizenga testified Tuesday. "I remember she told me her mom had told her she was an unfit mother. She was extremely upset about that," Huizenga said. But Anthony also was agitated at her mother because she had to cancel plans "fairly frequently" when no one was available to watch her daughter, Huizenga testified. In late June, Huizenga said, Anthony told her that she was keeping Caylee away from her parents, as they were having marital problems and were considering divorce, and "she wanted to keep Caylee out of the drama." 'Fessing upOn Thursday, Detective Melich described the day Anthony was finally forced to admit her lies, at least in part. On July 16, 2008, Melich worked with Universal Studios to scour the employee database. Anthony was in the database, but she hadn't been affiliated with Universal for years. Melich also found no record of Gonzalez or Lewis. A Jeffrey Hopkins was found, but never worked for the company at the same time as Anthony. Gonzalez's supposed apartment had also been found vacant. Anthony voluntarily met Melich at Universal Studios to discuss the matter. Melich testified Thursday that he watched Anthony try to enter the park without a badge, then attempted to lead him to her office before being forced to admit she didn't have one. "I can tell you just for certainty everything you've told me so far has been a lie," Melich said in a recorded interview played for the jury on Thursday. "I've gone to every address that you've told me. I've looked up every name, I've talked to every person that you wanted me to talk or try to. And found out all these names you're giving me are people that either never worked here or been fired a long time ago, OK?" Anthony conceded she didn't work at Universal and that the people she had described as her co-workers did not exist. Yet she continued to blame Gonzalez for the disappearance of her child. Cindy Anthony said her daughter had been telling her about Gonzalez along with numerous other people -- a boyfriend, a co-worker and a man named Eric Baker, whom she believed to be Caylee's father -- for years before Caylee went missing. At the time, she said, she never had a reason to believe those people were fictitious. "I just found out they were imaginary people," she testified. A Zenaida Gonzalez was later found, but she had no affiliation with Anthony aside from having filled out a guest card at the Orlando apartment complex where Anthony claimed the nanny lived. The apartment where Anthony said Gonzalez lived was found to be vacant, and there was no record of Gonzalez in the Universal Studios employee database. Anthony has denied killing her daughter. She faces the death penalty if convicted.

No Go for Message Evidence in Florida Mom's Trial

Prosecutors are looking to refocus their case Saturday against an Orlando woman accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter after a judge rebuffed their attempts to allow instant messages to be introduced as evidence that they say go toward her motive. The prosecution on Friday did present its strongest witness against 25-year-old Casey Anthony, who is charged with first-degree murder in Caylee Anthony's death in the summer of 2008. The manager of a towing yard where the defendant's car was kept for more

than two weeks during that summer testified that he smelled an odor coming from her car consistent with decomposing bodies he'd smelled in the past. The defense argued in its opening statement that the smell was actually from a bag of trash Anthony left in her car. Birch said he has spent 30 years in the towing business as well as two years in waste management, and had come across deceased bodies at least eight times. He said he first noticed the smell coming from the car on the fourth day her 1998 Pontiac was parked on his yard. The car had been towed after spending four days in an Amscot parking lot. It stayed there from June 30 to July 15, when Anthony's parents retrieved it. "In my opinion and experience, the smell of decomposition is unique in comparison to rotten food or rotting garbage," Birch said. His testimony went largely unchallenged by the defense. However, late in the day, prosecutors failed to survive a defense challenge of their attempt to introduce computer instant messages between Anthony and an ex-boyfriend. With the jury sent out of the room by Judge Belvin Perry, the state argued the messages, which included sexually laced chatter between Anthony and Tony Lazzaro, help establish the motive for killing her 2-year-old daughter. Judge Belvin Perry was shaky on that premise and initially requested extra time to review all of the content. "What does that tend to prove or disprove?" Perry asked at one point. But after a recess the prosecution withdrew its motion to introduce the evidence, though it could try to get it admitted later Prosecutors contend she Casey Anthony suffocated Caylee with duct tape. Anthony's defense team says the child drowned accidently in a family pool. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death. Her father, George Anthony, testified for the third time in four days Friday and said his mind was racing when he arrived to pick up the car and observed the smell in her car. "That particular smell, whenever you smell it, is something you'll never forget," he said. "...I don't know if I said it out loud or whispered, but I said 'Please God, don't let this be Casey or Caylee.'" Under cross-examination, defense attorney Jose Baez tried to shake the father on some details of the tow yard visit, including why he knew to bring a can of gas with him for the car and whether it was Anthony or Birch who first decided to open the trunk. Anthony and Baez also clashed over if it was a bag of trash in the trunk or the trunk itself that was the source of the odor. Later state attorney Jeff Ashton became agitated at questions he repeatedly objected to as argumentative. He also took issue with a suggestion to Anthony by Baez that the reason he might not have wanted to touch the bag of trash was because he knew its contents could be evidence of Caylee's death. Part of the defense's theory is that George Anthony found Caylee drowned and helped dispose of the body. Mallory Parker, the fiancée of Casey Anthony's brother Lee, was prosecutors' first witness of the day. She described how she and Lee searched for Casey in Orlando bars in the summer of 2008 when her family hadn't seen her in many days. But Parker also said that Anthony had a special relationship with her daughter and at one point broke down in tears under cross examination when Baez asked here to describe the interactions between them. Casey also wiped away tears during Parker's testimony. "It was amazing," Parker said. "Casey and Caylee had a special bond."

Casey Anthony trial: Witness testimony continues after tense jury selection

A central Florida mother charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter wiped away tears Thursday as her ex-boyfriend described to jurors affectionate moments Casey Anthony shared with her toddler. Anthony Lazarro testified under questioning from Anthony’s defense attorney that she taught Caylee how to swim and regularly displayed affection for her daughter. Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death. She has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have offered strikingly different portrayals of Anthony. Prosecutors have gotten witnesses to testify that Anthony never seemed upset during the time Caylee disappeared. Defense attorneys have coaxed witnesses to testify that Anthony was a loving mother. Caylee was last seen June 16, 2008. Prosecutors said Caylee died from three pieces of duct tape being placed over her mouth and nose, while the attorney for Anthony, 25, has claimed the toddler accidentally drowned in her grandparents’ pool. Thursday’s testimony continued to portray very different pictures of Casey Anthony and her relationship with daughter Caylee Anthony. As Elizabeth Flock explained: The trial of Casey Anthony, a 25-year-old woman acused of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2008 opened in Orlando on Tuesday with stunning new revelations. During this week’s proceedings, prosecution and defense attorneys presented vastly different accounts of how Anthony’s daughter, Caylee, had died. For the first time, prosecutors said Caylee Anthony died from three pieces of duct tape being placed over her mouth and nose while a defense attorney for the mother claimed the toddler drowned in the family pool and the little girl’s grandfather covered up the accident. Casey Anthony, 25, is charged with first-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty to the crime. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death. An autopsy was never able to conclude a cause of death for Caylee. No witnesses saw what happened to 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, and only her killer knows exactly how she died. No one has confessed. So when her mother, Casey Anthony, goes to trial Tuesday on murder charges, the jury’s decision will likely come down to forensic evidence. Prosecutors plan to have jurors smell the odor from her car, present evidence of chloroform in the 1998 Pontiac Sunfire and present photos that they say show her partying with friends after her daughter disappeared. They also likely will seek testimony from a botanist, a hair and fiber examiner from an FBI lab, and a cadaver dog handler. Anthony’s defense attorneys plan to present testimony from an expert in the new field of touch DNA, an entomologist and Dr. Henry Lee, a famous forensics expert who has worked on the O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector and JonBenet Ramsey cases. “It is going to be a battle of experts,” said Karin Moore, a law professor at Florida A&M University in Orlando. “They don’t have a confession. They don’t have an eyewitness. They don’t have direct evidence. They are relying on forensic science that is circumstantial, at best.”

Doctor Subpoenaed In Michael Jackson Case

Dr. David Adams, a doctor who administered Propofol to Michael Jackson on multiple occasions, will have to testify on behalf of Dr. Conrad Murray.

Murray's lawyers want Adams to testify regarding Jackson's "behavior and reactions while under the drug . . ." They will also ask him about "how he responded to the administration of the drug," according to a report from TMZ.com. In 2008, Adams put Jackson under with Propofol four times.

Adams has raised objections to providing testimony claiming his association with the case has damaged his reputation. On April 11, however, a judge ruled that Adams would have to testify, because his testimony "could be relevant and material" to the trial.

Dr. Conrad Murray has pleaded not guilty to charges that he administered a fatal dose of Propofol to the singer in 2009.