2011.03.24 - Air Sample Expert Testimony

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I was personally impressed by the performance of Dr. Vass today. He dealt well with JB's questioning and demonstrated an appropriate amount of confusion and frustration.

He wanted so much to help JB understand but if JB was not getting what he wanted he rudely cut him off and either changed his question or took a different tack. JB was trying hard to outsmart Vass and trap him into a response or gotcha that JB so desperately sought. In my opinion Vass kept calm, cool and, collected and survived well.

This science makes a lot of sense to me. It has been used in other applications for years so why not decomp smells and their chemical signatures?

I don't know whether this will come in or not but ICA is burnt toast either way. There are plenty of pieces that support each component of evidence against her so some dominoes can fall.
 
He is a scientist's scientist.

At one point, Dr. V. tried to explain something to JB, and JB interrupted and told him to wait for a question-I don't think Dr. V was trying to be sassy at that moment, I think he just got so caught up in talking science, he really wanted a dialogue with JB.

Sorry, Dr. Vass-it's like talking to a rock.

That a good comment JustJayla because he obviously is a good one. But what I especially liked about him also is the way he explained things - I could actually understand him, even with what really minimal knowledge I have about such things.

I also really liked the enthusiasm he has for his work and his "isn't that cool" comment to Baez.
 
Exactly.

As to the trash thing, JB just muddied that up, don't know if it was purposefully or if he really thought he had a point-

My take of Dr. Vass's testimony is that, if you have the option to remove the variable of trash for testing purposes, you remove it beforehand.

If you don't have that option, you consider that variable in your hypothesis/testing and measure it's effects. You note its effects by itself and its effects with decomp. You get an outcome-You eliminate the trash from that outcome, and now you have a measurement for the decomp.

Is that what Dr. Vass was getting at?

I also thought Dr. Vass was trying to explain when they were touching on the Manson ranch issue that at that location they were not sure what the trash was so it wasn't "controlled" trash like the trash in the trunk was. They knew what was in the trunk.
 
LOL logicalgirl, I was just trying to dial that up! Upon being confronted with another researcher's findings pretty much lining up with his (IIRC), he blew JB's socks off with "isn't that cool?"

And my heart just melted for this man.
 
I think it should be allowed in but it won't. No way HHJP would want something he allowed to be overturned on appeal. Especially not this case! MOO
 
Sadly, what the DT is getting at here is the pizza. They need GA for this. The Sunfire Pontiac (that KC had sole possession of and that GA frequently detailed, per LA's interview with LE a few days after KC's arrest, is that GA, being a former owner of a car dealership regularly detailed the family's cars on the weekend, because that is what he did, KC's included since she lived there rent free and job free--though the DT would love for us not to know that) that Caylee (IMO and what the evidence supports) died or decomposed in the trunk of, was abandoned by KC by her own words at the Amscot near the A's family home on June 27th (pieced together by LA, and others including LE, on the actual date--not KC's words on the date) by KC herself because the car ran out of gas. LA told LE in his first interview that KC told him that she staked out ZFG's home in her car and that the smell in the car began when two squirrels crawled up under the hood and died. LA said he doubted this and the stakeout as KC had explained that the smell began on June 5th, on CA's birthday. He says this would have been impossible as the car would have been home at least one of the weekends before the 16th of June, last known time Caylee was alive, because GA would have smelled the smell when he would have certainly been detailing the cars on the weekends as was his custom. He also tells LE he doubts the stake out at all because of the smell of the car. No way KC sat in it that long. Period...

The car gets towed to the wrecker after spending three days at the Amscot...not being driven around. It is towed. The person who towed it...iirc, said no suspicious odor.

So there the death car goes to the Amscot. And there it sits. Certified letter gets sent out (after I think a waiting period--policy of the lot that now had the car)...notice gets put on the A's front door. We have all seen the Anthony cams...when there were protesters...and it appears that the A's (GA and CA) came in and out through the garage and not the front door. Notice of certified letter goes unnoticed for almost ten days from time it was sent out...(or they ignored it). Nevertheless, they get it. Go to pick up car on same day all three 911 phone calls from CA to LE are made and KC is tracked down by CA.

GA at the wrecker smells the smell. Wrecker dude (whose testimony we have smells the smell and KNOWS as does GA what that smell is)...wrecker dude is appologetic and all, having seen how mad CA was about the 350 or so they had to cough up about the car, GA is muttering to this guy all along about his problem daughter and missing granddaughter...and walks with him to the car and both are overwhelmed with the smell...

GA opens the trunk with wrecker dude as a witness. Wrecker dude now beginning to freak as GA's words about granddaughter not being seen or heard from are starting to sink in...sees garbage bag in KC's trunk, picks it up...both see contents...of whidh is a pizza box. Wrecker dude says the trash bag is light...very light...tosses it over the fence into a dumpster...

GA goes on his way...either following CA back to the A home or leading CA back to the A home gagging in the death car with the windows rolled down...

Where am I going with this?
We later learn that the stain in the trunk is basketball (slash full plus pizza size in the trunk and now know that it is a foot and a half long according to testimony during the hearing today).
Wrecker dude wakes up the next morning and the A story is all over the news. Freaks out. (oh and btw so much for no amber alert...press had this from day one including Caylee's picture all over the place). Basically runs over to wrecker place in his pj's...remeembering garbage bag and could this be important? It is, he thinks, diving head first in the dumpster...ALAS he cannot find the bag (he remembers it because it was different in color than the bags they use and throw in dumpster)...and calls the police...

AND ladies and gentleman...IIRC speaks to YM who tells him to chill (littlebitty is paraphrasing) he already has said garbage bag in his possession...it was picked up already.

The Defense is saying LE, threw away, a whole pizza ya'll. And will likely throw in the fact that LE didn't take the whole dumpster to LE base camp with them. YM called Vass. YM sent the death smell to Vass. YM was there the night CA called 911.

It is all about the faux pizza that was never in the box. Period. There was no full pizza in that box. I am sure the police have the box. I doubt it showed creepy seepage on its underside from a decomposing full pizza...

KC was playing house with Tony at the time and stealing from AMy to buy beer and other food at Target so she could earn her keep at Tony's. And he had other guy friends...really, a full pizza was thrown away...what college age or growing guy do any of us know that would leave even one slice of a pizza (regardless if it had sat on the counter for 1-3 days) and let her throw it out...NO way...

The phantom pizza is as ridiculous as the phantom nanny. It does not exist.

The defense can make some points about the custody of the garbage bag...and the dumpster itself...but it is a phantom. It didn't cause the basketball sized stain in the trunk, the stains on the paper towels, the hideous smell...

It is bunk. It is just them picking apart something...that no one will buy...which is why they are so desperate to get all of KC's statements to LE thrown out...because they do not gell with the whole scheme of the defense.

Reasonable doubt...I give you, pizza. NOT.

Sorry. I typed a lot...spent too much time on the details. But this is all about the pizza and YM...and trying to place the blame anywhere else but KC...and her "diminished capacity." LOL. Try a grifter showing her true self whenever she is caught. Her true self is at the DT. Her fake self was a good time friend until she was crossed. Period.
 
I was able to take away from Dr. Vass' testimony that his conclusions were based on his scientific background and experience applied to the data outcome from "already generally accepted" scientific procedures.

I understood that the samples tested for compounds come from a given moment in time and environment. As such, that affects the data outcome.

I thought it ridiculous when Baez kept trying to get him to "eliminate" compounds because they are also seen in other "substances". Dr. Vass clearly explained it is a combination of compounds on which he draws conclusions.
Then it appeared to me that Baez kept trying to imply trace amounts should be given the same importance or "weight" as more substantial amounts.

I believe there is plenty of corroboration for the "human decomposition smell".

jmo
 
About the tow truck driver who didn't smell anything suspicious. Do we know if he had used a towtruck that he had to manually attach the metal chains to the tires... or was it one of the newer tow trucks where they don't even have to get out of the truck (it's quite a nifty piece of equipment... easy in... easy out when they have to impound vehicles)?
 
About the tow truck driver who didn't smell anything suspicious. Do we know if he had used a towtruck that he had to manually attach the metal chains to the tires... or was it one of the newer tow trucks where they don't even have to get out of the truck (it's quite a nifty piece of equipment... easy in... easy out when they have to impound vehicles)?

IIRC, tow truck guy was never in the inside of the car. But wrecker guy who was around the car before it was picked up detected a suspicious odor. He knows that odor...in part because he was a part of an operation that had picked up a car in which a man had committed suicide in and decomposed in...

But again...I digress, because really, even if HHJP doesn't want to let the new stuff in (meaning Dr. Vass's work) Dr. Vass can still be called in about his reaction to the sealed unused can of air from KC's trunk...where we know he jumped back two feet upon smelling, because it will at least confirm along with everyone else who smelled the car and knew what it was they were smelling that it was a dead body. My two cents.
 
I loved this witness! Even my new assistant who is only 18 years old "got it"! Unfortunately, JB didn't get it. Seriously. Geez, he asks him about "food" then gets his britches all in a knot & refers to a "pizza box"! Exactly who does he think he's going to fool with such antics? It makes the defense seem so desperate. I'm not worried if the air testing doesn't come in because GA (former LE), CA (nurse), Yummy YM (LE), and even Dr. Vass can testify to their opinions that the odor was decomposition. Even ICA can "testify" via her text messages about the smell of that darn squirrel!
 
Sadly, what the DT is getting at here is the pizza. They need GA for this. The Sunfire Pontiac (that KC had sole possession of and that GA frequently detailed, per LA's interview with LE a few days after KC's arrest, is that GA, being a former owner of a car dealership regularly detailed the family's cars on the weekend, because that is what he did, KC's included since she lived there rent free and job free--though the DT would love for us not to know that) that Caylee (IMO and what the evidence supports) died or decomposed in the trunk of, was abandoned by KC by her own words at the Amscot near the A's family home on June 27th (pieced together by LA, and others including LE, on the actual date--not KC's words on the date) by KC herself because the car ran out of gas. LA told LE in his first interview that KC told him that she staked out ZFG's home in her car and that the smell in the car began when two squirrels crawled up under the hood and died. LA said he doubted this and the stakeout as KC had explained that the smell began on June 5th, on CA's birthday. He says this would have been impossible as the car would have been home at least one of the weekends before the 16th of June, last known time Caylee was alive, because GA would have smelled the smell when he would have certainly been detailing the cars on the weekends as was his custom. He also tells LE he doubts the stake out at all because of the smell of the car. No way KC sat in it that long. Period...

The car gets towed to the wrecker after spending three days at the Amscot...not being driven around. It is towed. The person who towed it...iirc, said no suspicious odor.

So there the death car goes to the Amscot. And there it sits. Certified letter gets sent out (after I think a waiting period--policy of the lot that now had the car)...notice gets put on the A's front door. We have all seen the Anthony cams...when there were protesters...and it appears that the A's (GA and CA) came in and out through the garage and not the front door. Notice of certified letter goes unnoticed for almost ten days from time it was sent out...(or they ignored it). Nevertheless, they get it. Go to pick up car on same day all three 911 phone calls from CA to LE are made and KC is tracked down by CA.

GA at the wrecker smells the smell. Wrecker dude (whose testimony we have smells the smell and KNOWS as does GA what that smell is)...wrecker dude is appologetic and all, having seen how mad CA was about the 350 or so they had to cough up about the car, GA is muttering to this guy all along about his problem daughter and missing granddaughter...and walks with him to the car and both are overwhelmed with the smell...

GA opens the trunk with wrecker dude as a witness. Wrecker dude now beginning to freak as GA's words about granddaughter not being seen or heard from are starting to sink in...sees garbage bag in KC's trunk, picks it up...both see contents...of whidh is a pizza box. Wrecker dude says the trash bag is light...very light...tosses it over the fence into a dumpster...

GA goes on his way...either following CA back to the A home or leading CA back to the A home gagging in the death car with the windows rolled down...

Where am I going with this?
We later learn that the stain in the trunk is basketball (slash full plus pizza size in the trunk and now know that it is a foot and a half long according to testimony during the hearing today).
Wrecker dude wakes up the next morning and the A story is all over the news. Freaks out. (oh and btw so much for no amber alert...press had this from day one including Caylee's picture all over the place). Basically runs over to wrecker place in his pj's...remeembering garbage bag and could this be important? It is, he thinks, diving head first in the dumpster...ALAS he cannot find the bag (he remembers it because it was different in color than the bags they use and throw in dumpster)...and calls the police...

AND ladies and gentleman...IIRC speaks to YM who tells him to chill (littlebitty is paraphrasing) he already has said garbage bag in his possession...it was picked up already.

The Defense is saying LE, threw away, a whole pizza ya'll. And will likely throw in the fact that LE didn't take the whole dumpster to LE base camp with them. YM called Vass. YM sent the death smell to Vass. YM was there the night CA called 911.

It is all about the faux pizza that was never in the box. Period. There was no full pizza in that box. I am sure the police have the box. I doubt it showed creepy seepage on its underside from a decomposing full pizza...

KC was playing house with Tony at the time and stealing from AMy to buy beer and other food at Target so she could earn her keep at Tony's. And he had other guy friends...really, a full pizza was thrown away...what college age or growing guy do any of us know that would leave even one slice of a pizza (regardless if it had sat on the counter for 1-3 days) and let her throw it out...NO way...

The phantom pizza is as ridiculous as the phantom nanny. It does not exist.

The defense can make some points about the custody of the garbage bag...and the dumpster itself...but it is a phantom. It didn't cause the basketball sized stain in the trunk, the stains on the paper towels, the hideous smell...

It is bunk. It is just them picking apart something...that no one will buy...which is why they are so desperate to get all of KC's statements to LE thrown out...because they do not gell with the whole scheme of the defense.

Reasonable doubt...I give you, pizza. NOT.

Sorry. I typed a lot...spent too much time on the details. But this is all about the pizza and YM...and trying to place the blame anywhere else but KC...and her "diminished capacity." LOL. Try a grifter showing her true self whenever she is caught. Her true self is at the DT. Her fake self was a good time friend until she was crossed. Period.

Great summary! But you missed one itsy bitsy yet extremely important point--what STONED college kids are going to throw out any pizza, lol!
 
Exactly.

As to the trash thing, JB just muddied that up, don't know if it was purposefully or if he really thought he had a point-

My take of Dr. Vass's testimony is that, if you have the option to remove the variable of trash for testing purposes, you remove it beforehand.

If you don't have that option, you consider that variable in your hypothesis/testing and measure it's effects. You note its effects by itself and its effects with decomp. You get an outcome-You eliminate the trash from that outcome, and now you have a measurement for the decomp.

Is that what Dr. Vass was getting at?



That is the part that really, really made me embarrassed for JB. What Dr. Vass was trying to make him understand is that the trash would be identifiable and more of a controlled sample in the trunk whereas trash out in the environment considered contamination. There's no way to know what was in the open environment like dead buffalo 200 years ago and the effects in the soil. JB saw that one sentence about the trash causing contamination from the Manson Ranch and thought he had something because Casey had trash in her car. I myself couldn't believe it, I still might not. Dr. Vass' reaction was priceless. I know he didn't believe what he just heard either. After several attempts he just gave up and said he couldn't answer that but geez did you see his face? I was so embarrassed for JB I was up ready to walk out of my room and then remembered I was home. There were several times the cameras caught all three SA's either smiling and laughing after the latest JB nonsense or their mouths hanging open. I guess he's in good company since we know know DCS can't differentiate between post mortem banding and hair discoloration.
 
I'm thinking that JP probably won't give the SA's the air samples on this because it's a DP case. This really isn't the kind of case you want to set a precedent. The DNA JA used was a rape case. Death is different. If convicted and sentenced to DP she gets an automatic appeal anyway.
 
I'm thinking that JP probably won't give the SA's the air samples on this because it's a DP case. This really isn't the kind of case you want to set a precedent. The DNA JA used was a rape case. Death is different. If convicted and sentenced to DP she gets an automatic appeal anyway.

Okay, let's say they don't allow the air samples in. What will they still have in terms of the trunk?
They might have the hair and the deathband, and the stain still? Right?

Or would that be gone too?

And they will still have the odor ? Correct?
 
HLN Primetime News with Vinnie Politan...


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTwdSl0YvHM[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=894_bVCPHUY[/ame]
 
A great blurb by Valhall over at The Hinky Meter regarding Dr. Vass' testimony yesterday.

Enjoy.
 
I'm thinking that JP probably won't give the SA's the air samples on this because it's a DP case. This really isn't the kind of case you want to set a precedent. The DNA JA used was a rape case. Death is different. If convicted and sentenced to DP she gets an automatic appeal anyway.

Yes, but I don't think he's going to treat Casey as anything special. Death is not that different. I get tired of hearing that. This isn't all that new anyway. The way Vass explained it, I think it has a good chance of coming in. I also think HHJP has done his own research on it. He will be basing his ruling on that and the law, not the specialness of this case, which isn't all that special at all anyway.

Honestly, if he were basing it off of the defense's pathetic and lackluster performance, this would be denied already. All the defense has to hold onto is that death is special for some reason I can't understand. There's nothing special about a mother killing her child and throwing her out like trash. Casey shouldn't be treated as anything but the murdering sociopath she is.
 
Honestly, I was expecting this old guy with zero personality. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised. He is VERY likeable, knowlegable and SMART. My favorite part is when he said to JB "pretty cool isn't it?" in regards to him matching someone else doing similar work with a different set of circumstances. JB was speechless. I loved it. I think he is a stellar witness.

:rocker:

I was trying to watch this part last night but did not have time to go far enough back to figure out what led to this remark (which was great!!). I was confused as to the point JB was trying to make as it seems he was saying Dr. V's work had been validated...how does that help JB?
 
On WFTV, the 6th segment of the video from yesterday has sound from the 5th part. I've emailed them and asked them to fix it, but they haven't yet. Does anyone know if a video of the entire hearing is posted somewhere else online? I'd really like to watch that portion.

thanks in advance.
 

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