i just don't believe that chloroform was used on caylee at all. when this all began i ran the same 'how to make chloroform' search that casey did and every single site warned that 1.chloroform leaves chemical burns 2. chloroform only works for approx 15-20 mins 3. chloroform causes nausea and vomiting. casey would have read the same things. i just don't believe she'd choose to abuse caylee in a manner that would leave obvious marks, only be effective for 20 mins and result in her having to deal w/ a 2yr old throwing up all over cindy's precious carpets.
i don't think she'd go the trouble, or even be capable of making it (and certainly not pure) and finally, if you're trying to kill something so small that it can't protect itself and whose life you could end w/ one carefully placed hand, why bother?
Thanks for posting this. I've always had a problem with chloroform levels in the trunk for several reasons. One is that we immediately decided KC was chloroforming Caylee after the google searches - that whole search seemed to be to be about accidental causes of death around the house, not about how to make a baby go to sleep. Something in CA's medicine cabinet (xanax or benadryl) would be a lot easier - much less work than making and then transporting chloroform in some container in the car, because KC would have had to keep it in the car to administer it after removing Caylee from the house. I doubt she would use a purse flask. The experts that were on shows in the early days also seemed to think that its volatility made it relatively hard to mix - needed ice to keep the components cool - it sounded like more work to me than what KC wouldn normally like to do . How stable would it have been in the kind of heat that a car in Florida reaches in the summer? The interior reaches 120 degrees F very quickly with the windows up. Do we know the flash point of choroform? Also we immediately thought that the chloroform involved could have only come from Caylee's body, hence from KC herself.
I was always struck by how quickly some of the experts said chloroform degraded or broke down. In order for the chloroform to be from Caylee, it would have had to have been in the trunk for at least a month. Obviously we know the trunk was opened several times during the interim (gas can incident if nothing else - and to put the bag of garbage from AL's house in it). So some of the fumes might have escaped. But it sat for two weeks in a hot car lot. Perhaps a chemist could help comment if heat accelerates the breakdown.
Experts also mentioned early on that some car cleaning solvents had chloroform or would produce chloroform when reacting with other substances.
My initial thought, when I had heard the car was cleaned out by her parents after they brought it home, was that some cleaning solvent had been used to get rid of the stain or the smell in the trunk and it left a high chloroform signature afterwards.
Lee did say when he first walked into the garage that the smell hit him and that it was very strong. It is strange that he and his sister went into the garage to speak later, when LE was taking statements, and nobody from LE noticed the smell. I always wondered if Lee had been over earlier, when his father was there and when CA had gone back to work. If GA had been steamcleaning the trunk and airing the car out, maybe he made enough progress for the car not to totally reek with the trunk closed or the garage doors shut (for LE to notice it that night), until the dogs came the next day and hit on the trunk and YM smelled it as well.
It seems to me that if the decomposition smell had been noticed from a closed car by LE that night, a homicide detective would have been called immediately and the car impounded on the spot.
I cannot find this in the reports but I have a feeling LE knew that the car situation was being ignored by the Anthonys the night LE was called. GA could have not only steamcleaned the car that night but also have done it again on the morning of July 16 when KC and LE were "touring" Universal. If he used strong cleaning solvents that might just as easily explain high trace levels of chloroform when the car was finally impounded.
If the water used to clean the car was dumped out in the yard, it would also help explain the various cadaver dog hits if it had traces of decomp fluid.
Valhall I hope maybe you might ask your chemist friend if these scenarios are possible. Because it might be premature for us to assume just how or why the chloroform was in the trunk. I know the toxicology reports may show repeated drug use (and according to several forensic pathologists on NG even repeated chloroform may not show up in hair samples like other drugs that stay in the blood), but until we ever get a COD we might want to keep our options open - she could have been shaken or had a broken neck for all we know.
