CA/GA "experts" on Human Decomposition Smell - ??

[Darla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt2v6RfG9WI

3 minute mark

Judge Strickland: "The relevant facts that are real real troubling are the deputies testimony about the canine cadaver dog that alerted on the car, and then again in the backyard. That will keep me up tonight. I have a real problem with that....."

If only this video could be prosecutions opening statement...

WowOWow. That was great listening to again. Thanx BB12

 

[Leila]

Hello WS

July 24, 2008
Statement to LE
George Anthony

LE: (skip) ...When I first saw you that night when I first came to your house there was mention of the car. And there was a mention of what you smelled in the car.
GA: Uh-hum
LE: Do you remember what you told me?
GA: I, I, I believe that there's something dead back there and I hate to say the word human. Uhm, I, I hate to say that. (skip) I mean the law enforcement stuff that I did, we caught people out in the woods, in a house, in a, in a car. So I know what it smells like, it's a smell you never...
LE: Uh-huh
GA: ...never get rid of. When I first went there to pick up that vehicle I got within three feet of it I could smell something. You look up and you say, please don't let this be. Please don't let this be. Because may...I'm thinking of my daughter and granddaughter first.
(skip)
GA: As I walked around, I don't believe I said to him you know, aloud and I, I think I whispered out to myself, "please don't let this be my Caylee." That's what I thought. That's what I, my heart was saying.
(skip)
LE: What did your, what did your wife think about it being when she first noticed it? Did she actually notice it, or did she make any comments on it?
GA: Oh, after we pulled inside the garage she said, her exact words were, "Jesus Christ what died?" that's exactly what she said but she said it in a way, she says, "George, it was the pizza right?" And I said yeah it was the pizza. And that's what I left it go at that, but I'm sitting here as the grandfather, as the father, as George Anthony and as a guy who smelled the smell before years ago and you just never forget it. I even stuck my nose down on it and I'm, I'm concerned. So...
(end)

At the tow yard, George knew he was smelling human decomposition. He was worried it was Caylee or Casey. The smell was so bad, George had a hard time driving the Pontiac home. Had to have the windows down, and it was raining that day. After pulling the car into the garage, and Cindy saying "JC what died!" George went back to work and Cindy cleaned the car.

"I am a nurse. I have smelled that odor before, of decomposition." I agree with JBean this is what Cindy meant/was meaning to say. No matter how it is said(magic-cat said this also), the meaning remains the same: Cindy has smelled the odor of decomposition before, she is a nurse.

CA: "It smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

RG: (snipped) ... and then we talked about the smell in the trunk and I said if it's not Caylee, George, who is it? He goes ya know, "I don't know."

...JS...

Cindy knew what the smell was. She said, "George, it was the pizza right?" George didn't correct her and said "Yeah, it was the pizza", and let it go at that. But hours later, when she made that final call to 911 she said, "It's smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Both George and Cindy knew what the smell was, but they didn't (as far as we know) confront that issue and discuss it. They needed to be honest with each other, but avoided it.

I can understand not wanting to acknowledge the truth of what the smell was and why the smell was in Casey's car, but failing to honestly deal with what they were confronted with led to a downward spiral of denial, at least publicly.

 

[LambChop]

If Caylee's remains were never found GA and CA might convince a jury the smell was from bad pizza. Only thing we can be sure of is that Caylee did not walk to her grave on Suburban Drive. JMO

 

[joypath]

the topic is if GA and CA are qualified to know the smell of decomp.
That is it.
We are NOT GOING THROUGH THE ENTIRE DECOMP ARGUMENT HERE. AGAIN

FIND OLD THREADS GO TO THE TIMELINE FORUM ANYTHING BUT BRING UP THE ENTIRE DEBATE HERE.

ARE GA AND CA QUALIFIED ENOUGH TO HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA AS TO WHAT DECOMP SMELLS LIKE? WE KNOW THEY ARE NOT "EXPERTS" BUT DO THEY HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH IT?

SORRY MY CAPS LOCK IS STUCK LOL

My lay person opinion vs my professional opinion, I'd have to say that they are as qualified as the next person to declare that they detected an odor that was "unique". The ability to evaluate the uniqueness as the comparative smell of human decomposition now is based on his or her phenomenological frame of reference.
George as a small community law enforcement officer DID declare that he had experienced upon decaying human bodies as part of his previous employment, the cloying nature of cadaverine and putrescine are odors that are unforgettable.
Cindy, "our nurse of decomposition" per se, an oxymoron, is another story! Hopefully she has never been in the employ of a hospital or agency which retained deceased patients within their premises long enough for the essence of decomposition to be blatantly noticeable to the average staff RN! Can you say license/accreditation revocation ASAP! Yes, a practicing RN does experience the essence of necrotic tissue in LIVING patients (note: the essential organism, the patient remains living but the odor comes from the dying/dead organ/tissue system). Yep, Cindy was right Pseudomonas species in a wound will "announce" itself from a distance and the Clostridium species causing gangrene will add to the odors and ghastly stains as the infection spreads. BUT unless Cindy has been responsible for home health no-response wellness checks with 911 assists/LE, I tend to doubt she's familiar with human body decomposition. Bodies housed within the hospital morgue (now known as the "pathology suite", so PC!!!!) are kept under conditions to minimize decomposition (temp, UV, vent) and are newly deceased.

PS: and don't count on the jury being "invited to smell" the car! IMHO

 

[TallyHo]

My lay person opinion vs my professional opinion, I'd have to say that they are as qualified as the next person to declare that they detected an odor that was "unique". The ability to evaluate the uniqueness as the comparative smell of human decomposition now is based on his or her phenomenological frame of reference.
George as a small community law enforcement officer DID declare that he had experienced upon decaying human bodies as part of his previous employment, the cloying nature of cadaverine and putrescine are odors that are unforgettable.
Cindy, "our nurse of decomposition" per se, an oxymoron, is another story! Hopefully she has never been in the employ of a hospital or agency which retained deceased patients within their premises long enough for the essence of decomposition to be blatantly noticeable to the average staff RN! Can you say license/accreditation revocation ASAP! Yes, a practicing RN does experience the essence of necrotic tissue in LIVING patients (note: the essential organism, the patient remains living but the odor comes from the dying/dead organ/tissue system). Yep, Cindy was right Pseudomonas species in a wound will "announce" itself from a distance and the Clostridium species causing gangrene will add to the odors and ghastly stains as the infection spreads. BUT unless Cindy has been responsible for home health no-response wellness checks with 911 assists/LE, I tend to doubt she's familiar with human body decomposition. Bodies housed within the hospital morgue (now known as the "pathology suite", so PC!!!!) are kept under conditions to minimize decomposition (temp, UV, vent) and are newly deceased.

PS: and don't count on the jury being "invited to smell" the car! IMHO

Joypath-I always appreciate your posts!!

And as for the jury taking a field trip of sorts to smell the car - if I were on that jury, I would not need to smell that car for myself, and probably would appreciate not being made to do it. I know that my opinion would not be an expert one in any case, and it would be sufficient for me to hear the testimony of experts that human decomposition was the nature of the smell.

 

[OKaraMia]

When CA said it mells like a dead body had been in the car, she was alerting to the seriousness of her call.

She recognized the smell of death.

One could say its smelled horrible, rotten, take the breath away terrible...but she identified the smell.

Everyone who was near the car said it smelled like death.
Even CA & GA... who suddenly changed their minds.
Even the dogs...not to mention the stink-o-meter that the lab used.

 

[LinasK]

BUT unless Cindy has been responsible for home health no-response wellness checks with 911 assists/LE, I tend to doubt she's familiar with human body decomposition. Bodies housed within the hospital morgue (now known as the "pathology suite", so PC!!!!) are kept under conditions to minimize decomposition (temp, UV, vent) and are newly deceased.

Okay, I'm going to take issue here and say that Cindy's most recent position was as a Nurse Case Manager for a Home Health Agency. First of all, I have worked for this very agency and I have worked with Nurse Case Managers. They don't only sit behind desks and do paperwork. She may well have gone to do wellness checks and come across patients who have died in their own homes to the point where they are in decomp, haven't been reported.
Secondly, she wasn't always a Case Manager, IIRC, in Ohio, she did hands-on nursing.
On this particular point, I believe Cindy did recognize the smell of death, and wasn't using a figure of speech.

 

[Horace Finklestein]

The jury should be taken to smell the car and see where Casey dumped the body. It's shameful if that doesn't happen.

 

[LambChop]

I believe CA did say in her deposition that she was familiar with the smell of decomposition because she worked with patients who had gangrene when she worked for the hospital. And CA did not say the car smelled like there was a sack of rotten potatoes in the trunk, she said it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn trunk. In her excitement that is what she felt. She needed to get someone out to the house because there was "something wrong" and she knew she would not get any information out of her daughter without the police there. JMO

 

[BB12]

The jury should be taken to smell the car and see where Casey dumped the body. It's shameful if that doesn't happen.

Sometime in 2011, (guess) an *evidentiary hearing, will take place. At this time Judge Strickland will decide what is evidence.

IMO: I assume that the prosecution will ask Judge Strickland to declare the vehicle as evidence. The prosecution can ask that the jury take a **outside trip to view it and smell it.

IMO: Human Decomp can not be removed from a vehicle per testing done by Myth Busters. IMO: KC car still smells of decomp and will in 2011.

*An evidentiary hearing is a hearing where evidence is presented under the appropriate rules of evidence and procedure, parties testify, witnesses testify and the judge makes findings of facts and conclusions of law based upon the evidence presented.

**During the Scott Peterson trial the jury took a trip outside to view the boat. I believe a juror even climbed in the boat.

 

[marspiter]

At some point during training, I am almost certain that nurses will visit a cadaver lab, yes? And if one visits a cadaver lab, although there is a preservative used on the corpses, the underlying smell of death, human decay, is still present in that environment. Are there any nurses around that we could inquire of? I know my teenage daughters had to visit a cadaver lab as part of their high school anatomy class...so I would think that an RN would surely visit one at some point. :waitasec:

I have been in the cadaver lab when I was in college as part of my forensics class. (No I'm not a CSI or a detective) It was a class that was part of my criminal justice curriculum and sounded more interesting then professional writing for careers or civil service administration.

I have also been in a house after a family member died and was in the house for several days. I can attest that the smells are no where near comparable. The cadavers in the lab reminded me of the dead cats and fetal pigs in my advanced biology labs in terms of smell. The formaldehyde smell completely over powers any decomp smell that might exist. All in all the bodies in the cadaver lab didn't smell that bad honestly. I think for many it's not so much a smell but the fact that it's a "human" on the lab table.

 

[Just Jayla]

I am not sure how much more expertise you could ask for, short of being a mortician-One was a detective that worked more than one homicide, the other is a nurse that went to med school, worked on people with rotting flesh, and may even have experienced odor from natural deaths as most home health companies deal in geriatrics.
I don't recall having smelled human decomp, though I have walked past hospital morgues and some say you can smell them from out in the hall-But I have definately smelled animal decomp (pet snakes sometimes kill and leave their meals dead and uneaten while you are at work-Yuck!), and it is unmistakeable.

Sorry to quote and bold myself, but I think I proved myself wrong the other day....I opened my Jeep and wham! The smell of a dead animal-I wondered if something had crawled into my camping items and died, I even had a fleeting thought of a squirrel under my hood!
Alas, I had left a trash bag in the back seat that I meant to throw in the dumpster, and it is starting to get pretty warm here in Virginia.
Because of this case, I took a few more sniffs with the notion in my mind that I should super-anayze the smell and see if I could give it finer definition-I did smell a slight difference between the trash and a dead animal, but it was too close to call on first smell.
My car aired out within a few minutes and did not smell anymore, so it did not linger at all like the smell in KC's car-But I also did not have a spill.
Of course, I have been told and read here that human decomp smells different, so my little mishap/experiment may not have any bearing at all (plus Dr. Lee failed to find squirrel guts on KC's car!)

 

[ZsaZsa]

Sorry to quote and bold myself, but I think I proved myself wrong the other day....I opened my Jeep and wham! The smell of a dead animal-I wondered if something had crawled into my camping items and died, I even had a fleeting thought of a squirrel under my hood!
Alas, I had left a trash bag in the back seat that I meant to throw in the dumpster, and it is starting to get pretty warm here in Virginia.
Because of this case, I took a few more sniffs with the notion in my mind that I should super-anayze the smell and see if I could give it finer definition-I did smell a slight difference between the trash and a dead animal, but it was too close to call on first smell.
My car aired out within a few minutes and did not smell anymore, so it did not linger at all like the smell in KC's car-But I also did not have a spill.
Of course, I have been told and read here that human decomp smells different, so my little mishap/experiment may not have any bearing at all (plus Dr. Lee failed to find squirrel guts on KC's car!)

I often have wet dogs in my car, have had some noxious stuff on the seats and carpet from them and kids over the years and even had some kind of dead rodent in the exhaust system that cooked and smelled awful, none of which even approximate the smell of human decomposition. :innocent:

 

[magic-cat]

My daughter has a friend in the Nursing Program at Radford, and she said her friend was disgusted because they made them smell what certain things smell like, for instance, putrid flesh...and there were others of course...but they did have them "scent" certain things so they would recognize the smell if they ever smelled it in a patient...I would imagine putrid flesh would come pretty close to the smell of a cadaver...ICK!

Cindy had her doubts, obviously, reference her remark "It is the pizza right George?"

 

[Chiquita71]

Hello WS

July 24, 2008
Statement to LE
George Anthony

LE: (skip) ...When I first saw you that night when I first came to your house there was mention of the car. And there was a mention of what you smelled in the car.
GA: Uh-hum
LE: Do you remember what you told me?
GA: I, I, I believe that there's something dead back there and I hate to say the word human. Uhm, I, I hate to say that. (skip) I mean the law enforcement stuff that I did, we caught people out in the woods, in a house, in a, in a car. So I know what it smells like, it's a smell you never...
LE: Uh-huh
GA: ...never get rid of. When I first went there to pick up that vehicle I got within three feet of it I could smell something. You look up and you say, please don't let this be. Please don't let this be. Because may...I'm thinking of my daughter and granddaughter first.
(skip)
GA: As I walked around, I don't believe I said to him you know, aloud and I, I think I whispered out to myself, "please don't let this be my Caylee." That's what I thought. That's what I, my heart was saying.
(skip)
LE: What did your, what did your wife think about it being when she first noticed it? Did she actually notice it, or did she make any comments on it?
GA: Oh, after we pulled inside the garage she said, her exact words were, "Jesus Christ what died?" that's exactly what she said but she said it in a way, she says, "George, it was the pizza right?" And I said yeah it was the pizza. And that's what I left it go at that, but I'm sitting here as the grandfather, as the father, as George Anthony and as a guy who smelled the smell before years ago and you just never forget it. I even stuck my nose down on it and I'm, I'm concerned. So...
(end)

"I am a nurse. I have smelled that odor before..." Cindy has smelled the odor of decomposition before, she is a nurse.

CA: "It smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

...js...(just sleuthing)