Pontiac: The odor, sealing off & processing the car #2

[JBean]

Does LE have such a thing as "bench notes"?
Surely, someone had to write down something...somewhere?! Ooh...maybe tomorrow we'll have the answer to that!

We have to kind of hope that the responding officers were not informed by dispatch about Cindy's dead body report. We also have to hope that the officers never smelled the odor themselves. because if they were aware and did nothing to investigate or preserve evidence that would not look so good!

 

[RR0004]

We have to kind of hope that the responding officers were not informed by dispatch about Cindy's dead body report. We also have to hope that the officers never smelled the odor themselves. because if they were aware and did nothing to investigate or preserve evidence that would not look so good!

I guess we'll find out at trial (heaven knows when) if an officer was left there.

I know it's not funny, but that line about the trunk was a good one.

 

[JBean]

I guess we'll find out at trial (heaven knows when) if an officer was left there.

I know it's not funny, but that line about the trunk was a good one.

You mean an officer there to guard the car or something? if that was the case they would have just sealed it off and not given KC access to it in the garage, alone. GA freely handed over the car to assist in finding his granddaughter.

I welcome a good explanation for YM on this and suspect there may very well be one Perhaps it is not unusual to wait 12 or more hours in a case like this. As always, this may be a nothing issue, but as you can tell, it certainly fascinates me.

 

[Truthwillsetufree]

Actually, Yuri Melich says he does not believe the mother's stories even before she takes him on the wild goose chases. He actually tells her that her stories are very suspicious and gives her opportunity to change said stories. BY the time YM gets there at 3:45 am he already knows that the Seagrass story is bogus.

Grandpa tells already suspicious detective when he first sees him that the car smells like dead body and that his daughter is not being forthright and is holding something back.

Mother has not reported child missing for 31 days.

Couldn't someone at least have popped the trunk and taken a look see?

I agree with you regarding about first responding officers because we still do not know what information they had. but we do know what info the responding detective had.

Bold red by me...I totally agree and who is to say they didn't and so far it hasn't been released...hope that is the case anyway.

 

[Truthwillsetufree]

We have to kind of hope that the responding officers were not informed by dispatch about Cindy's dead body report. We also have to hope that the officers never smelled the odor themselves. because if they were aware and did nothing to investigate or preserve evidence that would not look so good!

Ooh so true.:sick:

 

[JBean]

Bold red by me...I totally agree and who is to say they didn't and so far it hasn't been released...hope that is the case anyway.

We have all the notes together and there is ,to date, no mention of anyone inspecting the car.
But the catch-22 is if they did pop the trunk, based on the reports of that smell, how could they have not known it was decomp and sealed the car right then and there? This situation would not be more favorable if they actually looked in the trunk, but it would make it look worse,imo. because that would mean they looked, smelled and did nothing for 12-15 hours.

 

[JBean]

any clarifying information about car evidence today? any thing that would clear up the issue of leaving the car open for so long?

 

[Darla]

I would think that in any of the LE statements , someone would have said something about the smell in the car. IIRC, BeanE and Bond went through all the statements by the responding officers and investigators, but not one of them wrote up the car odor in their report.
It has turned out to be such a significant part of the case it is really an interesting thing, which probably means absolutely nothing!

Is it possible Cindy or George sprayed a WHOLE BUNCH of Extra Strength Febreeze or something similar in the car before the cops got there? They could have told them the car smelled terribly of cigarette smoke so they had to spray it so it masked the decomp smell enough and that's why they didn't write it down that night/morning. Plus, I hate to say this but I don't think men have as good sense of smell as women. LOL

Didn't KC and Lee go out in the garage for a while to talk? Everyone wondered how they could stand the smell. Maybe they could stand the smell because it was masked by the Febreeze or whatever they might have used.

When did George tell them it smelled like something was dead in the trunk? Wasn't that during the police interview a few days later?

Geesh, it's been so long I'm forgetting everything.

JMO

 

[JBean]

Is it possible Cindy or George sprayed a WHOLE BUNCH of Extra Strength Febreeze or something similar in the car before the cops got there? They could have told them the car smelled terribly of cigarette smoke so they had to spray it so it masked the decomp smell enough and that's why they didn't write it down that night/morning. Plus, I hate to say this but I don't think men have as good sense of smell as women. LOL

Didn't KC and Lee go out in the garage for a while to talk? Everyone wondered how they could stand the smell. Maybe they could stand the smell because it was masked by the Febreeze or whatever they might have used.

When did George tell them it smelled like something was dead in the trunk? Wasn't that during the police interview a few days later?

Geesh, it's been so long I'm forgetting everything.

JMO

You don't have to remember, we have it all documented

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4811703&postcount=252"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Pontiac:the odor- Sealing off and processing the car #2[/ame]

 

[Truthwillsetufree]

We have all the notes together and there is ,to date, no mention of anyone inspecting the car.
But the catch-22 is if they did pop the trunk, based on the reports of that smell, how could they have not known it was decomp and sealed the car right then and there? This situation would not be more favorable if they actually looked in the trunk, but it would make it look worse,imo. because that would mean they looked, smelled and did nothing for 12-15 hours.

Yes, you are correct, or at least I do agree that it would be worse if in fact they did look and did not confiscate that car right then and there as evidence. I realize they would have had to obtained a warrant to search the car but under the circumstances, I don't think a judge would have been that upset to be woken up in the wee hours of the morning for a missing child with reports that a car smelled like a "da*n dead body in it".
That is the one reason I do not think they looked or smelled that car, no search warrant was issued for that night or early morning.

 

[Truthwillsetufree]

Is it possible Cindy or George sprayed a WHOLE BUNCH of Extra Strength Febreeze or something similar in the car before the cops got there? They could have told them the car smelled terribly of cigarette smoke so they had to spray it so it masked the decomp smell enough and that's why they didn't write it down that night/morning. Plus, I hate to say this but I don't think men have as good sense of smell as women. LOL

Didn't KC and Lee go out in the garage for a while to talk? Everyone wondered how they could stand the smell. Maybe they could stand the smell because it was masked by the Febreeze or whatever they might have used.

When did George tell them it smelled like something was dead in the trunk? Wasn't that during the police interview a few days later?

Geesh, it's been so long I'm forgetting everything.

JMO

Febreeze is some good stuff, love it, but all the Febreeze in the world would not cover up the odor of decaying and decomposing flesh. It just wouldn't. It would simply smell like a deady body in a Febreeze factory. On another note in LA statement to the police (no I don't have the link handy)he stated that he had to go back and forth from the garage(when he and KC were in the garage together) to inside the house because the odor was so bad.

 

[JBean]

Yes, you are correct, or at least I do agree that it would be worse if in fact they did look and did not confiscate that car right then and there as evidence. I realize they would have had to obtained a warrant to search the car but under the circumstances, I don't think a judge would have been that upset to be woken up in the wee hours of the morning for a missing child with reports that a car smelled like a "da*n dead body in it".
That is the one reason I do not think they looked or smelled that car, no search warrant was issued for that night or early morning.

LOL I think you are just messing with me now.

No,no search warrant was needed. George was the one offering up the car and trying to raise the red flags as to its possible importance. Geroge and Cindy BOTH reported the smell to LE yet no one seemed to take it seriously. Yuri himself said in the bond hearing that a search warrant was not required and George signed an affadavit turning it over freely to help in the invetigation to find his granddaughter. This thread and the other one I have linked are full of great information that would probably answer most questions you have.

 

[Darla]

Febreeze is some good stuff, love it, but all the Febreeze in the world would not cover up the odor of decaying and decomposing flesh. It just wouldn't. It would simply smell like a deady body in a Febreeze factory. On another note in LA statement to the police (no I don't have the link handy)he stated that he had to go back and forth from the garage(when he and KC were in the garage together) to inside the house because the odor was so bad.

Now that made me LOL. Yeah, what WTH am I thinking?

Can I take that post back? LOL:blushing:

BBM

 

[TorisMom003]

Bringing my post over here from the work bag/purse thread as it has the information from Lee in his interview about the smell in the garage of the Anthony home.




Lee Interview July 29, 2008

pages 47 and 48

LA: Casey had uhm, uh, uh, advised me on the 15th while I was waiting to fill out my statement before I could go to Tony's house to pick up Casey's stuff. Uhm, I was in the garage because they had seperated my folks from my sister. I sat in the garage with my sister.

EE: With the car right there?

LA: With the car right there. And it was atrocious.

EE: Uh-hum

LA: Uhm, and I couldn't be in there any more for a minute or two and I had to keep going back inside because the smell was so bad.

http://www.wftv.com/download/2008/0923/17540065.pdf

I am thinking that he talks more about it and in more detail in another interview too. However, it is late and I can't take anymore of his childish laughter and uhms.

Further in that interview with Lee, the July 29, 2008 one, on page 50 Lee gets into the "stakeouts" that Casey claimed to have done on her own. It is interesting to me that Lee admits he does not believe her but he does seem to forget that Casey had no problem sitting in the garage with the car when Lee himself had to leave because of the smell.


Lee Interview July29, 2008 Page 50

EE: The thing you questioned though where you say you didn't believe her was she said she actually did little stakeout in the car?

LA: Exactly. Casey described it when the, when she went back to get Caylee, when Caylee wasn't there, that nobody was there, that she did, she stayed at, she stayed there in the car, at, and lie as, as a stakeout to see if they were going to come back. And she described it as not just that night or not just one day, but as a few days that she did that. Uhm, and I immediately questioned that to say okay, number one, you're saying that you were driving your daughter, you were driving Caylee around in this car, even to the babysitter's house, with this atrocious smell. You know.....

EE: Right.

LA: .....I don't believe that she would do that. That she would put Caylee through that and she'd put herself through that. And number two, by her saying that she was doing a stakeout in that car for what I would think a stakeout would be at least hours, I couldn't stand it for two minutes and I'm standing on the outside of the car. I couldn't imagine me sitting in the car and smelling it.

http://www.wftv.com/download/2008/0923/17540065.pdf

 

[RainyGirl]

I agree that LE should have sealed up and towed the car for processing by techs right after they arrived on scene. I am not trying to absolve LE of any fault in this case. They are not perfect, that's for sure....but I do sincerely believe they (initially) thought Caylee *may* have been recoverable on that first night/early am (with "the babysitter"). They were hoping against hope that this precious child was still alive. The fact that approx. 15 (?) hours went by before they took the car is certainly a blemish on the part of LE, but not the type of evidenciary blunder that will "make or break" this case.

One thing still has me scratching my head though. IF CA and GA were trying to get the officers and detectives to take notice of the suspiciously smelly car.......WHY the efforts to clean up, scrub down and remove potentially valuable evidence from that car??? :waitasec: I think the cardinal rule of potential evidence in any case is "Don't touch it!!!". It is clear that the smell of decomp was evident (rehash CA 911 call, GA and Simon statements, etc). If the Anthonys wanted LE to pay attention to the alarming odor in the car, WHY try and "mask" said odor?? To me, that "smells like a coverup".

JMO....

 

[Cat13067]

The Anthony's did report the suspicious smell. They both reported that it smelled like a dead body, theior granddaughter was missing and that KC was not being forthright. The only people that were worried about the car having something to do with anything were GA and CA. LE did not investigate the car for 12 to 15 hours and they knew well before that that KC was not being truthful.
The only thing that the thread about why LE didn;t take the car shows is that they perhaps made a big mistake. It was not due to CA or GA that they didn;t take the car, in fact just the opposite. The Anthony;s were worried about the car, but LE wasn't.
I am not attacking LE at all but we have to get the facts straight wherever they lead.

LE was focusing on finding Caylee which is why Cindy called LE, because her daughter finally told the truth that the babysitter took Caylee.Time was of the essense to find this baby. The car became second to the life of this baby. After returning KC to her home after the wild goose chase KC took LE on they took the car for inspection. What good would it have done to take the car first, and ignore looking for Caylee later on. LE was in emergency mode to find this baby which as a mother I would want them to do if my daughter was missing. The car wasn't going anywhere, and apparently as hard as the Anthony's tried to clean the car it still had the smell of decomposition in it. IMO

 

[JBean]

LE was focusing on finding Caylee which is why Cindy called LE, because her daughter finally told the truth that the babysitter took Caylee.Time was of the essense to find this baby. The car became second to the life of this baby. After returning KC to her home after the wild goose chase KC took LE on they took the car for inspection. What good would it have done to take the car first, and ignore looking for Caylee later on. LE was in emergency mode to find this baby which as a mother I would want them to do if my daughter was missing. The car wasn't going anywhere, and apparently as hard as the Anthony's tried to clean the car it still had the smell of decomposition in it. IMO

if you would like to know how it actually went down, it is all linked and documented in the sealing of the pontiac thread.

 

[cecybeans]

LE was focusing on finding Caylee which is why Cindy called LE, because her daughter finally told the truth that the babysitter took Caylee.Time was of the essense to find this baby. The car became second to the life of this baby. After returning KC to her home after the wild goose chase KC took LE on they took the car for inspection. What good would it have done to take the car first, and ignore looking for Caylee later on. LE was in emergency mode to find this baby which as a mother I would want them to do if my daughter was missing. The car wasn't going anywhere, and apparently as hard as the Anthony's tried to clean the car it still had the smell of decomposition in it. IMO

I know you and also know you've read every piece of discovery out there and are completely familiar with the timeline on the Pontiac. I also agree, as do a great many, that LE did not necessarily mess up by leaving the car until the next day. They knew had already been compromised - searched and touched by the Anthonys and perhaps things may have been removed or wiped clean. Any detective will tell you that compromised evidence is far less valuable and rates second in the priority of an investigation. If LE had it to do over again they may have focused more on collecting physical evidence than on determining whether or not Caylee was actually alive and missing, but I think the Anthonys themselves would have hollered if any resources were allocated to anything other than determining where Caylee might be that first 24 hours. I am also amazed at how many resources continued to be wasted because of a lack of cooperation and lies by KC and her entire family for many many months after it was pretty clear who was responsible.

 

[JBean]

I know you and also know you've read every piece of discovery out there and are completely familiar with the timeline on the Pontiac. I also agree, as do a great many, that LE did not necessarily mess up by leaving the car until the next day. They knew had already been compromised - searched and touched by the Anthonys and perhaps things may have been removed or wiped clean. Any detective will tell you that compromised evidence is far less valuable and rates second in the priority of an investigation. If LE had it to do over again they may have focused more on collecting physical evidence than on determining whether or not Caylee was actually alive and missing, but I think the Anthonys themselves would have hollered if any resources were allocated to anything other than determining where Caylee might be that first 24 hours. I am also amazed at how many resources continued to be wasted because of a lack of cooperation and lies by KC and her entire family for many many months after it was pretty clear who was responsible.

Hi Cecy. I know this car issue is an unsettling topic and I am sorry for that.
Since GA and CA both told LE that the baby was gone and that the car smelled like a dead body, wouldn't you at a minimum expect LE to search for a missing child by popping the trunk in an effort to locate her?
Also, I don’t know any detective that would say that even though a potential crime scene is already compromised there would be no harm in letting it get compromised some more.

Bringing this back to topic, I am not defending GA and CA's actions in general. Only in this one instance of the car, they told the police that their daughter is not being forthright, she is holding something back, the baby is gone and the car smells like a dead body. How could they not look at the car? how is that even possible? If they had, do you think they would have sealed it off once they got a whiff? I do. I don’t think they would have said, we’ll just come and back later and close it up.
But I think mistakes happen in every investigation and this mistake will probably come to mean absolutely nothing and in the scheme of things it is inconsequential because it doesn't change any of the facts at all. imo.
This is not an attack on LE because they did everything else right IMO. But I do feel it is important to get the facts square and the chain of events right as it relates to what happened that day and night.

 

[denjet]

I know you and also know you've read every piece of discovery out there and are completely familiar with the timeline on the Pontiac. I also agree, as do a great many, that LE did not necessarily mess up by leaving the car until the next day. They knew had already been compromised - searched and touched by the Anthonys and perhaps things may have been removed or wiped clean. Any detective will tell you that compromised evidence is far less valuable and rates second in the priority of an investigation. If LE had it to do over again they may have focused more on collecting physical evidence than on determining whether or not Caylee was actually alive and missing, but I think the Anthonys themselves would have hollered if any resources were allocated to anything other than determining where Caylee might be that first 24 hours. I am also amazed at how many resources continued to be wasted because of a lack of cooperation and lies by KC and her entire family for many many months after it was pretty clear who was responsible.

Also, I'm not sure that LE had reason or a warrant to take the car that first evening ... IIRC they took the car AFTER the cadaver dogs hit on it ... I think when OSCO went to the Anthonys that first night, they spoke with KC inside the home then they took her to show them where she dropped Caylee off ... I'm not sure they even went in the garage ... I remember wondering why the responding officers didn't know about the full content of the 911 call and Cindy's comment about a dead body in the trunk ...

Maybe someone here can shed some light on this for me ... it never made sense to me the way that first night was handled but maybe it was less about LE oversight and more about having legal cause for taking the car and the contents ????