Read Online Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story by Jose Peter; Baez Golenbock - Free Book Online

and as an experienced detective, Melich surely should have known that.
    Melich also gave testimony to finding hairs similar in color and length to that of Caylee in the trunk of the car. This is also not uncommon because the human head sheds between one hundred and two hundred hairs a day. If Casey had taken Caylee’s sweater and put it in the trunk, her hair easily would have transferred to the trunk. Or Casey could have Caylee’s hair on her clothing from dressing her and then gone into the trunk to retrieve something, transferring the hair in the process. Put simply, every trunk has hair in it. Melich failed to mention that Casey’s hair, and even animal hair, was found in the trunk as well, but no one was accusing Casey of throwing her cats in the trunk.
    I took notes feverishly and listened carefully to each witness because as a defense lawyer, even if I don’t win the battle of the bail hearing, the testimony can help me win the war. Not only was I getting to hear from crucial prosecution witnesses but their testimony was on the record and locked in so they couldn’t ever change it. Having them on the record so early gave us an advantage.
    When the prosecution talked about cadaver dogs and the smell coming from Casey’s Pontiac, I didn’t know how to read them. The bond hearing was the first time that anyone had made a big deal about the smell of the car. Cindy hadn’t made an issue of the smell of the car to me, so I hadn’t paid too much attention to the fact that the car allegedly had some foul odor. I thought there was still a possibility that there was some crazy woman out there who had taken Casey’s baby.
    Next up was the dog part of the state’s dog-and-pony presentation. Deputy Jason Forgey, the handler of a cadaver dog named Gerus, took the stand. He struck me as someone who was slick. And I say that because ever since the Miranda ruling, defendants had to be read their rights before they could be questioned, and the police know just how far they can go to get around that law. The cops know the rules. And they know the exceptions. And, in my experience, this has developed a police culture called testilying , police slang for when they decide to embellish or omit critical testimony regarding a criminal defendant.
    Why do they do it? Because they know they can get away with it. And I strongly sensed Forgey was testilying.
    He got up there and recounted how he and his dog Gerus came to inspect Casey’s Pontiac. He said he deployed Gerus, who alerted Forgey to the trunk area of the car. Forgey then testified that he took Gerus into the backyard of the home, and that the dog alerted there as well. He said he then called in another dog from another county, who alerted to the same area as well.
    When Forgey finished testifying, I stood up to cross-examine him. I had never had any experience dealing with a cadaver-dog handler before. On top of that, this was the first time I was hearing about this evidence, so I really had to think fast on my feet.
    “Your dog alerted in the backyard?” I asked.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “And obviously CSI dug in the backyard and found nothing.”
    “Correct.”
    “And then your dog alerted in the trunk of the car?”
    “Yes.”
    “And obviously you didn’t find a body in the trunk.”
    “No.”
    “And so,” I said, “at the very best your dog was one for two, or at worst, oh for two.”
    And what Forgey did—and I didn’t quite catch it at the time—was save himself by saying, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand you.”
    I went over it again. I even repeated myself, but Forgey avoided answering my question by playing stupid and pretending not to understand the point I was making.
    And then Strickland stepped in to save him.
    “I understand your point,” said the judge. “Move on.”
    So I did. But what I didn’t know—and what Deputy Forgey knew—and what the prosecution likely knew—was that the dog who came back the next day did not alert in the