ORLANDO, Fla. — A renowned forensic expert testified on Saturday that the autopsy done on 2-year-old Caylee Anthony was "shoddy" and that the duct tape Florida prosecutors contend suffocated the child was not applied until after her body had decomposed.
Dr. Werner Spitz offered his opinion on the third day of the defense's case in the murder trial of Casey Anthony, the Florida mother charged with murder in Caylee's death. The state rested its case earlier in the week.
Spitz has been an expert witness in several high-profile cases, including those of O.J. Simpson and record executive Phil Spector. Spitz testified it was a failure that Caylee's skull was not opened during the official autopsy. Spitz conducted a second autopsy later.
"The head is part of the body, and when you do an examination, you examine the whole body," Spitz said. "... That to me is a signal of a shoddy autopsy."
Casey Anthony, 25, faces a possible death sentence if convicted in her daughter's summer 2008 death and has pleaded not guilty. The defense says the girl drowned in her grandparents' swimming pool.
Spitz said he had intended to attend Caylee Anthony's original autopsy after her remains were found in a wooded area in December 2008. He was denied. He eventually came to Orlando to conduct his own exam and visited the crime scene, reviewed photos and read the official autopsy reports.
There were "specks" of decomposition sediment inside the left side of Caylee's skull, which Spitz said indicated the girl's death was not necessarily a homicide. Orange and Osceola County medical examiner Jan Garavaglia determined that Caylee was killed "by undetermined means."
If the tape had suffocated Caylee, evidence of skin would have been on the sticky side of the tape, he said. But there was no such evidence on the tape.
"I had problems with (the manner of death finding)," Spitz said. "When a body decomposes ... the tape comes loose on the skeletal structure. In this case, the only thing that held the tape there was hair and roots.
"My strong opinion is duct tape was placed there to hold the (decomposed) lower jaw in place."
