The Roy Kronk Connection- Opening Statements-Kronk takes the stand 2011.06.28

[crucibelle]

IMO IF Roy Kronk tampered with the remains, all I think he did was either try to conceal the body by maybe placing leaves over it, or perhaps it was further back in the woods and he moved it closer to the road around the FIRST time he called it in. TBH, I think there is something very hinky about the way Kronk found the body, the reason he was back in the woods in the first place, and the multiple calls. BUT, I don't really believe that he moved the body around... I certainly don't believe he carried the body around with him or to his home, etc.

 

[ynotdivein]

IIRC before the LE team came in and dug/sifted out the entire remains site to a depth of 6 inches, there was a draping of kudzu or some other vine near the roadway that would have provided a nice shield for anyone who needed to take a "special break" there.

I have tried to see RK as a villain in all this and I just can't. Crucibelle, help me out here?

 

[thedeviledadvocate]

This is the defense's teams way of saying all evidence found at the remains site is tainted and the jury should ignore it.
The biggest hurdle for me besides the lunacy in general is why would anyone find/place a body, ALERT the police (ala the August calls) with CONTACT information, and THEN say well I guess it's not time yet, scoop it back up and try again four months later????? Last time I checked, RK didn't live in caseyworld.
JB is just jumping on a facet of the case that could be construed as "conspiracy worthy." LE has exhausted this as they usually do b/c they knew what could happen in a trial and that will be proven.
The "boring" but real answer is just a LEO not doing his job (which he lost for this).
For JB to try and link the duct tape and location of the body in relation to the home(which are the most damning and I think the precise aim of this tactic) to Roy Kronk will require WAy too many hoops to jump through.
The law and logic usually coincide. Just not in some Defense attorney's brains.

I agree that this is the DT's way of saying all the evidence at the site of the remains is tainted and the jury should ignore it. It does seem that there has been a lot of lunacy in general in this case. I also agree that JB jumped on this facet of the case because it is conspiracy worthy.

I agree too, that a LEO lost his job for not doing it properly, but this is where my opinion varies from yours. I don't think JB is going to try to tie RK to the duct tape. I think he is going after GA for the duct tape. I think JB is going after the LE poor investigation in regard to the LEO that was terminated, as well as raising questions about what kind of search did LE do in that area prior to RK's first call to LE. JB wrote more checks in that opening statement than KC kited, and he has a lot of work to do if he is gonna cash any of them.

In the legal world where reasonable doubt is the defense lawyer's bread and butter, I think RK brings a whole loaf of buttertop bread.

 

[larryphx]

I kind of feel sorry for Baez and his team, but they brought this on by themselves knowing who their client is. I just wonder if any one of those on her team ever felt she was innocent of anything besides lying to everyone. I think all they are hoping for is a mistrial now. But by bringing up RK in his opening statement, I think JB is only going to confuse the jurors with something irrelevant to figuring out if Caylee was murdered or not by Casey.

I know what you mean. But I think the jurors will pick up on the fact that Cindy won't even look or acknowledge Casey... Doesn't that speak volumes? I think Casey throwing her family under the bus it what will get her the death peanealty. The best will be when Lee is in court with his family. Casey is going to have a break down again.

 

[tragco]

I went back and re-read the Roy Kronk stuff. It's going to be damaging, but I don't know if it will be enough to sway the jury. There are some odd coincidences: his girlfriend was a guard for ICA, his ex wife said he used duct tape to restrain her, he was involved in killing and freezing a snake, and he probably did find Caylee back in August.

He was a good candidate to find the remains. He knew about the case, was interested in it and in searching, and his job just so happened to put him walking all around the place where the remains were.

Unfortunately, he was also a not so great guy who hurt his former family and then bragged about his find. The whole Roy Kronk connection leaves me with reasonable doubt, but only about this part of the case. It's an important part because it could be used to explain the duct tape.

All the other evidence removes the overall reasonable doubt for me. I just hope it does the same for the twelve people whose opinion actually matters.

Here's a good summary that might lay out what the defense will say: it's their motion to include evidence pertaining to Kronk:

http://www.baynews9.com/uploadedfiles/Stories/Local/Deft%27s%20Motion%20in%20Limine%20to%20Introduce%20Prior%20Bad%20Acts%20and%20Other%20Circumstantial%20Evidence%20Pertaining%20to%20Roy%20M.%20Kronk.pdf

 

[Donjeta]

I went back and re-read the Roy Kronk stuff. It's going to be damaging, but I don't know if it will be enough to sway the jury. There are some odd coincidences: his girlfriend was a guard for ICA, his ex wife said he used duct tape to restrain her, he was involved in killing and freezing a snake, and he probably did find Caylee back in August.

He was a good candidate to find the remains. He knew about the case, was interested in it and in searching, and his job just so happened to put him walking all around the place where the remains were.

Unfortunately, he was also a not so great guy who hurt his former family and then bragged about his find. The whole Roy Kronk connection leaves me with reasonable doubt, but only about this part of the case. It's an important part because it could be used to explain the duct tape.

All the other evidence removes the overall reasonable doubt for me. I just hope it does the same for the twelve people whose opinion actually matters.

Here's a good summary that might lay out what the defense will say: it's their motion to include evidence pertaining to Kronk:

http://www.baynews9.com/uploadedfiles/Stories/Local/Deft%27s%20Motion%20in%20Limine%20to%20Introduce%20Prior%20Bad%20Acts%20and%20Other%20Circumstantial%20Evidence%20Pertaining%20to%20Roy%20M.%20Kronk.pdf

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen this motion before. I didn't know they had said that Kronk was a candidate for murder :O. I understand the difficulties with how the body was discovered but whenever that was Caylee was already dead.

IMO and in the light of the current story du jour of the defense I wouldn't like anybody to quote the above motion in court if I was the DT. As Casey has now said that Caylee drowned on her and George's watch, it's not gonna look that good for her if the jurors notice that she has previously lied in a court filing.

"Comes now the defendant Casey Marie Anthony, by and through her attorneys... respectfully moves this court to allow her to introduce at trial circumstantial evidence tending to indicate that a third party, and not Miss Anthony, is equally likely to be responsible for the death of Caylee Marie Anthony"

...

"Despite the suspicious circumstances of Mr. Kronk's involvement in the discovery of the child's remains the state seems never to have treated Mr. Kronk as a possible suspect in the disappearance and the death of Caylee Anthony. Instead, law enforcement and the prosecution have focused solely on Miss Anthony, to the neglect of other suspects and the detriment of the investigation."

"Despite the State's sole focus on herself Miss Anthony has uncovered circumstantial evidence which tends to indicate that Ray M. Kronk is equally as likely to be responsible for the death of Caylee Anthony. While circumstantial in nature, this evidence points to Mr. Kronk just as strongly as the State's circumstantial evidence points to Miss Anthony and clearly raises a reasonable doubt as to her guilt .."

So, basically, since they're now saying that Caylee drowned and Casey knew it all the time, and therefore knew that Roy Kronk had nothing to do with her death and focusing on him as a suspect would just throw the investigation way off track, they're admitting that her previous motion was an attempt to throw an innocent man to the wolves for her disappearance and death. Make up a bigger and a better lie if the previous ones aren't working...

 

[Hot Dogs]

There are some odd coincidences: his girlfriend was a guard for ICA,

Various web sources say that his girlfriend worked in Human Resources for the jail. This would be a desk job with no contact or close proximity to the inmates.

he was involved in killing and freezing a snake,

He (nor his coworkers) didn't kill the rattlesnake. They found it dead.

 

[Hot Dogs]

In any case I started because I thought these conflicted:

He was fifty feet from the corner of the fence when he made the skull comment... The actual remains were "just past" the end of the fence and "a short distance" west.

Does anyone think this is worth looking into a little more?

The actual remains (Dec 11) may have been about 50 feet from the end of the fence. We can't expect the coworkers to be precise anyway in their recollection and they weren't on location when giving statements to OCSO. It was all from memory and mental picture.

In his calls, Kronk describes seeing things like a grey bag, grey vinyl bag, like a pool cover, and something round and white. When the officer was there with RK he cursorily viewed a plastic bag which he simply determined contained lawn trash. That item was of specific interest to Kronk and he was disappointed that the officer just blew it off.

After the remains were found an extensive and broad survey was conducted in the woods to locate, recover and spacially document virtually every object no matter how small or apparently insignificant. They even found things that had obviously been there for years.

I remember looking at that huge list of items found. Nowhere was there anything like the things that RK had described in his August calls. There wasn't even a plastic bag containing lawn trash. The only truly similar items recovered were the actual things (plastic and canvas bags) that were directly associated with Cayee's remains.

So where were the things that RK saw on August 11th? Were they really so far away from the actual discovery site that they weren't even recovered and entered into evidence inventory? IMO, what RK originally saw and reported really was the remains (skull) and the canvas bag. The plastic bag that the officer thought contained lawn trash was one of the bags that was associated with Caylee's disposal.

 

[Hot Dogs]

I believe, although it has been two years since I thought about this one, that we determined the skull would not have been “white” in August anyway. First it was covered in hair, and then skeletal remains only get bleached white after drying out for a long time in direct sunlight, which this area was not.

I did some follow-up research. From the medical examiner's report on page 6468...

During the hot and rainy months in Florida (June, July and August), bodies will decompose rather quickly and can become skeletonized in less than a month...

It would be expected that decomposition of a small child in Florida that is deposited in an outdoor environment during the summer months would have occured in less than a month and most likely within two weeks.

Now that doesn't say a skull would be bleached white. But I don't think that we could somehow rule out Kronk seeing the actual skull and describing it as round and white. Regardless, there doesn't appear to have been anything found in this area that actually was something round and white. RK did tell his coworkers on Aug 11 that he was looking at a skull. Later when he called OCSO he said he saw a round and white thing. It seems logical to me that he was describing his earlier skull observation without actually using the word "skull".

In any case I started because I thought these conflicted:

He was fifty feet from the corner of the fence when he made the skull comment. Forty feet west of the truck. The actual remains were "just past" the end of the fence and "a short distance" west.

The same ME report I linked to above contains a detailed and scaled map of the remains area including the fence (page 6473). They use a scale of 1" = 5'. I measured the distance from the fence endpoint to the center of "Area A" (the location of the skull and bags). The center of A is about 55' from the end of the fence. That is almost exactly where one of RK's coworkers said he was located when he claimed to see a skull on August 11th.

It appears to be the same location.

 

[DawnTCB]

Were they really so far away from the actual discovery site that they weren't even recovered and entered into evidence inventory?

Yes, I think they might have been. The other night I watched news clip (I will go get the link in a minute) which showed the remains site, the memorial site, and then panned down the street to where the PIs were looking which appeared to me to be overgrown and absolutely not cleared. I think that where the coworkers placed RK was in the same area the PIs were.

When we get to see the maps from the defense discovery on 5/23/11 I think we will have a better idea, but I think it is very interesting that in all of the August calls he mentions the fence across the street and the fallen tree (a fallen tree is clearly visible in the PI's tape too) but never mentions the fence that the remains ended up being "just past". Especially in the first call, when he is trying to tell LE how to get a location on their own, it seems he would mention a permanent, singular physical landmark which is so close by, rather than a fence across the way and a fallen tree (of which there could be many).

Going to find the link...

ETA: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZRTi3AVEaU"]Here is the link[/ame]... the pertinent part starts right about :30.

 

[Eric's_Iguana]

I don't know if this makes sense or not, BUT...if RK got the body before July 16 or so, how did he know how BIG this case would become?

Why keep and somehow manage to hide a body? Normally a child's death isn't nearly as newsworthy as this case has been. And if it was an accident why would he even think of keeping a body? Makes no sense at all.

He couldn't have known then that Nancy Grace would discuss this case every night for months, couldn't have known that Caylee would end up on magazine covers, couldn't have known that KC's trial would be televised on HLN.

 

[DawnTCB]

In the [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T04rfgU5E8A"]PI video here[/ame], starting about 6:21, you can see what to me looks like "a fallen tree where someone had tried to cut on it at one point" and a "white board" which JH seems to be paying a lot of attention to. This video makes me a little nauseous :sick: but there are many, many gray/vinyl looking bags that DC stabs with his stick, and at least two white plastic containers, one which looks to me to be like a gallon milk jug and one maybe a quart of oil container?

What do you think?

 

[Steely Dan]

Yes, I think they might have been. The other night I watched news clip (I will go get the link in a minute) which showed the remains site, the memorial site, and then panned down the street to where the PIs were looking which appeared to me to be overgrown and absolutely not cleared. I think that where the coworkers placed RK was in the same area the PIs were.

When we get to see the maps from the defense discovery on 5/23/11 I think we will have a better idea, but I think it is very interesting that in all of the August calls he mentions the fence across the street and the fallen tree (a fallen tree is clearly visible in the PI's tape too) but never mentions the fence that the remains ended up being "just past". Especially in the first call, when he is trying to tell LE how to get a location on their own, it seems he would mention a permanent, singular physical landmark which is so close by, rather than a fence across the way and a fallen tree (of which there could be many).

Going to find the link...

ETA: Here is the link... the pertinent part starts right about :30.

Thanks for the link. The report says the police know who he was on the phone with. I wonder if it was the psychic or someone else they were referring to.

I don't know if this makes sense or not, BUT...if RK got the body before July 16 or so, how did he know how BIG this case would become?

Why keep and somehow manage to hide a body? Normally a child's death isn't nearly as newsworthy as this case has been. And if it was an accident why would he even think of keeping a body? Makes no sense at all.

He couldn't have known then that Nancy Grace would discuss this case every night for months, couldn't have known that Caylee would end up on magazine covers, couldn't have known that KC's trial would be televised on HLN.

It's JB's ridiculous defense. The more I watch the trial I don't know if the defense was the best he could come up with out of the given information, or if it's just lunacy. I'm leaning toward the latter. JMO

 

[Sleuth5]

I simply can't muster the will to waste even the small amount of kinetic energy it would take to motivate my fingers to mechanically form my disdain for the sheer vapidity of this particular angle of the DT OS. :banghead::banghead:

MOO. But I still say it's devoid of intellectual merit.:crosseyed::crosseyed:

 

[allycat1208]

I went back and re-read the Roy Kronk stuff. It's going to be damaging, but I don't know if it will be enough to sway the jury. There are some odd coincidences: his girlfriend was a guard for ICA, his ex wife said he used duct tape to restrain her, he was involved in killing and freezing a snake, and he probably did find Caylee back in August.

He was a good candidate to find the remains. He knew about the case, was interested in it and in searching, and his job just so happened to put him walking all around the place where the remains were.

Unfortunately, he was also a not so great guy who hurt his former family and then bragged about his find. The whole Roy Kronk connection leaves me with reasonable doubt, but only about this part of the case. It's an important part because it could be used to explain the duct tape.

All the other evidence removes the overall reasonable doubt for me. I just hope it does the same for the twelve people whose opinion actually matters.

Here's a good summary that might lay out what the defense will say: it's their motion to include evidence pertaining to Kronk:

http://www.baynews9.com/uploadedfiles/Stories/Local/Deft%27s%20Motion%20in%20Limine%20to%20Introduce%20Prior%20Bad%20Acts%20and%20Other%20Circumstantial%20Evidence%20Pertaining%20to%20Roy%20M.%20Kronk.pdf

How could this RK connection explain the duct tape? Are you implying that RK put the duct tape on Caylee himself. Why would he do that if she was already dead because she supposedly drowned? I don't see any connection there, but maybe I'm brain dead today. Anyone have any suggestions in explaining this...?

 

[RANCH]

How could this RK connection explain the duct tape? Are you implying that RK put the duct tape on Caylee himself. Why would he do that if she was already dead because she supposedly drowned? I don't see any connection there, but maybe I'm brain dead today. Anyone have any suggestions in explaining this...?

Don't beat yourself up trying to make sense of this. It will never add up no matter how hard anybody tries.

 

[Kat]

This is going to sound sassy and completely off the cuff but it's not intended that way.

I honestly paused and thought to myself ---if they could have fit K. Belich into that defense they would have. Good grief.

Again not being flippant. I am serious.

 

[Tuffy]

This is going to sound sassy and completely off the cuff but it's not intended that way.

I honestly paused and thought to myself ---if they could have fit K. Belich into that defense they would have. Good grief.

Again not being flippant. I am serious.

 

[i.b.nora]

Casey Anthony case: Defense can't accuse man who found Caylee's remains of killing her
Chief Judge Belvin Perry also ruled on 5 other motions in the first-degree murder case against Casey Anthony, who is charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel
7:23 p.m. EST, January 21, 2011

"Casey Anthony's defense team was dealt a blow Thursday when a judge ruled her attorneys may not introduce evidence about past "inappropriate behavior" of the man who found the remains of Anthony's 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

The attorneys wanted to introduce circumstantial evidence at her murder trial linking Roy Kronk to the slaying. Anthony, 24, is charged with first-degree murder in the death-penalty case.

The defense wanted jurors to hear that Kronk has a "possible history of inappropriate behavior with young girls," a history of "abusing, restraining and holding women against their will, using duct tape to restrain women" and being involved in "an imaginary world of fantasy and violence," the ruling states.

"Mr. Kronk's purported inappropriate or abusive behavior does not tend to prove or disprove any material fact in the case, and it is not admissible...," Chief Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge Belvin Perry wrote.

" Kronk may be questioned about his calls to 911 in which he reported a suspicious bag in the woods near Suburban Drive in east Orange County, not far from where Anthony and Caylee lived with Anthony's parents, the judge ruled. He also may be asked about any other contact he may have had with Caylee before law officers took custody of her remains."


http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...1_1_roy-kronk-first-degree-murder-case-caylee

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

I have a theory. In his opening, JB made a special mention that Cindy had told investigators that someone had been swimming in the pool while they weren't home (which is true and on record). That she had come home one evening and found the ladder up in the pool and the side gate open. I'm thinking JB will say that George and ICA hid Caylee's body in the playhouse. One day while Kronk was reading the meter, he decided to go for a swim to cool off. He found Caylee's body and took it to try to get the reward.

I can't fill in the blanks of what they think he did with Caylee until she was found, but I think this is what he was setting up today. The trunk doesn't figure into this because he says Caylee was never in the trunk and will try to discredit anyone who says otherwise.

Wow, sitting here after the first two weeks, this seems EXACTLY like what JB is trying to do.