Casey Anthony's Family Computer Shows Suicide Searches, Lawyer Says
July 5 is the one-year anniversary of Casey Anthony's murder acquittal.
July 5, 2012 — -- On the day 2-year-old Caylee Anthony disappeared, someone in her house used the computer to run suicide-related searches, on terms including "foolproof suffocation" and "venturing into the pro-suicide pit," according to Casey Anthony's defense attorney Jose Baez.
Baez described the "bombshell evidence" in his new book "Presumed Guilty, Casey Anthony: The Inside Story."
One year ago, on July 5, 2011, Anthony was acquitted of charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter for the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony. She was convicted of lying to law enforcement.
In the book, Baez wrote that the suicide-related searches were done one hour after Casey Anthony's father George Anthony said that she had left the home. Casey Anthony's mother Cindy Anthony was not home at the time and her brother Lee Anthony no longer lived there.
Though Anthony home computer searches for "chloroform" were heavily scrutinized during the trial, Baez said the suicide-related searches one of his experts later discovered were never disclosed.
"I have a hard time believing that law enforcement wouldn't check the internet history of the day that the child went missing," Baez said on "Good Morning America" today. "That would have been bombshell evidence in the trial if it had come out.
Baez concedes in the book that computer experts say it is very difficult to prove who was the person using a computer at any given time, but that one can speculate based on the type of searches made.
On the morning of June 16, 2008, computer records show that someone, presumably Casey Anthony, spent about two hours on Facebook, Myspace and "researching outfits worn by shot girls in clubs," Baez wrote. Anthony's boyfriend at the time was a club promoter and Anthony was helping him manage the shot girls, the women who walk around the club selling shots of liquor.
A few hours later, someone got on the computer and logged into an AOL Instant Messenger account. Baez said that George Anthony had an AIM account and that Casey Anthony did not.
"Then someone typed in 'foolproof suffocation.' It was misspelled, and George was a poor speller," Baez wrote. "Google automatically corrected the spelling, and the first link that was clicked was 'venturing into the pro-suicide pit.' It appeared that someone was thinking about killing himself."
At the time these searches were being made, phone records showed that Casey Anthony was on the phone with her friend Amy Huizenga, who did not recall anything strange about the phone call, according to Baez.
"By looking at the websites being researched, all concerned with suicide and death, it certainly appears that the one who felt the blame was a guilt-ridden Goeroge Anthony," Baez wrote in the book. "It had to have been George on the computer because he said Casey was gone, and he was the only one out there trying to kill himself."
George Anthony attempted suicide in January 2009.
Police found him despondent and possibly under the influence of medication and alcohol in a Daytona Beach, Fla., hotel. Police also discovered a five-page suicide note in the hotel that Anthony had apparently written.
In the book, Baez also wrote that Casey Anthony has "serious mental health issues" and described her as someone "not playing with a full deck."
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