Ohio man convicted of murder in 11 deaths (AP)

By MEGHAN BARR and THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press Meghan Barr And Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press – Fri Jul 22, 6:08 pm ET

CLEVELAND – A man who lived among the rotting remains of 11 women was convicted Friday of killing all of them, bringing closure to a case that has haunted the city of Cleveland ever since the bodies were unearthed from a house that smelled like death.

Anthony Sowell, 51, was convicted of aggravated murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and abuse of a human corpse in the 11 deaths. He now faces the death penalty.

"We do deserve this justice," said Denise Hunter, whose sister, Amelda, was found buried in Sowell's back yard in plastic garbage bags. "I'm so glad that finally, on July the 21st, that all of our families can rest assured — and all of our loved ones can rest assured — that peace has come to our families."

Most of the victims' families slipped out a side entrance of the courtroom, preferring to avoid making any comment about the verdict. When Sowell was convicted of murdering Tonia Carmichael, who was strangled with an electrical charger, Carmichael's mother and daughter clung to each other and wept as they rocked back and forth in the front row.

The jury deliberated for just over 15 hours before announcing the verdicts.

Sowell, dressed in a gray polo shirt and dark slacks, closed his lips tightly, looked straight ahead and barely moved as the first aggravated murder verdict was read before deputies immediately handcuffed him. Then he sat down, his chest heaving as he pushed himself back in the chair.

Most jurors avoided looking at Sowell while the judge read the verdicts. Two jurors wiped away tears and others swiveled in their chairs to look at sobbing relatives of victims.

When the jury left the room, Sowell raised his clasped, cuffed hands high in the air.

None of the attorneys commented afterward because a gag order remains in place until after Sowell is sentenced. The sentencing phase will begin Aug. 1.

The discovery of the bodies was an embarrassment for the city's police force, which was accused by victims' families of failing to properly investigate the disappearances because most of the women were addicted to drugs and lived in an impoverished neighborhood. In the wake of public outrage over the murders, a panel formed by the mayor recommended a complete overhaul of the city's handling of missing person and sex crime investigations.

Several victims' families filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city last year.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's niece, Lori Frazier, was Sowell's ex-girlfriend and testified during the trial. Jackson said in a statement Friday that he hoped the verdict brings closure for the victims' families.

The jury sat through weeks of disturbing and emotional testimony as the prosecution made its case against Sowell. They saw photographs of the victims' blackened, skeletal corpses lying on autopsy tables and listened to police describe how their bodies had been left to rot in Sowell's home and backyard.

"Some of it was very gross and, you know, devastating to hear," Hunter said. "But I already accepted peace when we found out about the murders. Some of it I didn't want to know, but peace was already settled in my heart."

The women began disappearing in 2007, and prosecutors say Sowell lured them to his home with the promise of alcohol or drugs. Police discovered the first two bodies and a freshly dug grave in late 2009 after officers went to investigate a woman's report that she had been raped there.

Many of the women found in Sowell's home had been missing for weeks or months, and some had criminal records. They were disposed of in garbage bags and plastic sheets, then dumped in various parts of the house and yard. All that remained of one victim, Leshanda Long, was her skull, which was found in a bucket in the basement.

Most of the victims were nude from the waist down, strangled with household objects and had traces of cocaine or depressants in their systems.

All of the victims were black, as is Sowell. He was acquitted of only one count in the 83-count indictment: a charge of aggravated robbery connected to one of the women he was convicted of attacking.

Sowell was also convicted of rape, attempted murder, kidnapping and felonious assault in attacks on two other women who survived. He was convicted of attempted murder, attempted rape, kidnapping and felonious assault in an attack on a third woman who also survived.

During the trial, several women gave grueling testimony of alleged attacks by Sowell, telling the court how they had managed to escape. One woman, who said she was brutally raped by Sowell, testified that she had seen a headless body in his home.

Prosecutors also showed an eight-hour taped interrogation of Sowell after he was first arrested.

During the interrogation, Sowell let out a cry of anguish and buried his head in his hands as two detectives pressed him to explain how the bodies ended up in his house in a drug-ridden neighborhood on the east side of town.

"It had to be me," Sowell said in the video, rubbing his head with his hands. "I can't describe nobody. I cannot do it. I don't know. But I'm trying to."

Sowell told detectives during the interrogation that he heard a voice that told him not to go into a third-floor bedroom where two bodies were found. He also told them about "blackouts" and "nightmares" in which he would hurt women with his hands. He told detectives that he began losing control of his anger about the time the victims started disappearing.

When one detective described a body that was found in his basement, Sowell became visibly upset again in the video.

"I guess I did that, too," he said. "'Cause nobody else could've did it."

The defense declined to call any witnesses.

In his closing statement, defense attorney John Parker questioned the credibility of several witnesses, noting that some had struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues, and criticized police officers for failing to properly investigate when the victims' families tried to report them missing. He asked jurors whether the prosecution proved who actually killed the women — at one point suggesting that more than one person may have dragged the bodies around the house.

When the bodies were found, police concluded that a nearby sausage shop wasn't the source of the lingering stench of rotting meat, as many neighbors had believed. The family-owned shop had spent $20,000 on plumbing fixtures, sewer lines and grease traps in futile attempts to get rid of the odor.

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TV producer ordered to Mexico on murder charges (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A judge on Tuesday ordered a former producer for the TV show "Survivor" extradited to Mexico to face charges that he killed his wife two years ago while they were on holiday in the resort town of Cancun.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian determined that Bruce Beresford-Redman, who has been jailed since November 2010 awaiting a decision, should be sent to Mexico for a trial because there was enough circumstantial evidence to show probable cause he could have murdered his wife.

The U.S. is required to send Beresford-Redman to Mexico within 60 days but he can appeal the judge's ruling, which would extend the process for an undetermined period of time, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors said.

The badly beaten body of Monica Beresford-Redman was found in a sewer at a resort hotel where the couple and their children were vacationing in April 2010. Beresford-Redman had reported his wife was missing three days before she was found.

Mexican authorities believe the two had an argument, he beat her to death, then dumped her body.

Beresford-Redman has proclaimed his innocence, saying in a statement that he was "devastated at her loss" and "incensed at the suggestion" that he could have killed his wife.

At Tuesday's extradition hearing, defense attorneys Richard Hirsch and Vicki Podberesky claimed that statements from the couple's 6 year-old daughter suggested there was no animosity between them while on the Cancun vacation with their family.

But U.S. prosecutors, who have reviewed the case made by Mexican authorities, believe there is enough evidence to show Beresford-Redman killed his wife for three reasons: collecting insurance money, getting sole custody of their children and continuing an extramarital affair.

According to court papers filed in Los Angeles, Monica Beresford-Redman was hit on the head, her face and body were badly beaten and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation. Mexican police searched the couple's hotel room in Cancun and found blood spatter in several areas.

The couple's two young children are currently being raised by their grandparents.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Greg McCune and Cynthia Johnston)

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Casey Anthony murder trial: Has the defendant displayed grief? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Jurors at the Casey Anthony murder trial heard testimony on Wednesday from a grief expert who was called by defense attorneys to try to explain how a young mother might respond to the death of her child by partying at bars, getting a tattoo, renting movies, and going on shopping excursions.

Sally Karioth, a professor at Florida State University, said no two people grieve in exactly the same way. She said young adults, like Ms. Anthony, can sometimes be “reluctant grievers.”

The testimony came on the 31st day of the Orlando trial of the Florida mother accused of killing her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. If convicted, Ms. Anthony could face the death penalty.

IN PICTURES: Key players in the Casey Anthony trial

The testimony is important because it sought to address one of the most perplexing questions raised in the Anthony case. How could a young mother fail to tell her family, friends, and the police about her dead or missing child for 31 days while she partied with friends and acted as if nothing was wrong?

To set up Professor Karioth’s testimony, Defense Attorney Dorothy Sims presented an elaborate hypothetical example which was actually a detailed description of certain factors in Casey Anthony’s life as viewed under the defense theory of the case.

The woman in the hypothetical case was described as a 22-year-old mother of a young child who had a loving bond with the toddler. The woman also lives at home with her parents, who resisted the reality of her unwed pregnancy. Also living in the house was an older brother who was angry for being excluded from any discussion of the pregnancy.

“Add to it that during the 31 days after the child is gone, the mother leaves the home, rents movies, goes shopping, goes to bars, and gets a tattoo that indicated ‘Beautiful Life,’ ” Ms. Sims said.

Karioth said that a young person in such a situation might respond by saying that nothing had happened. They will often engage in risky behaviors, like drinking too much and spending money they don’t have. She added that some hope they can shop their way out of the problem.

Karioth said that people who come from uncommunicative families that don’t talk or feel or share, may engage in denial and what she called “magical thinking.”

As Karioth continued her testimony, Casey Anthony’s eyes turned red. Soon she had a Kleenex out and began dabbing tears away. What made that reaction particularly striking to many observers is that only a few hours earlier she had sat at the defense table cold and expressionless – appearing almost bored – as her father, George Anthony, sobbed on the witness stand while describing his decision to try to kill himself in January 2009 because of his own grief over the loss of his granddaughter, Caylee.

During cross-examination of Karioth, Assistant State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton offered a hypothetical example of his own. In his hypothetical the young mother – within a half day of the child’s death – goes to her boyfriend’s house, rents a movie, spends the night with him, returns secretly to her parents house, and then over the next month doesn’t tell anyone that the child has died or is missing. Then, for the next month, she lies to her mother and her friends by suggesting that the child is with a baby sitter.

a€?Is that conduct consistent with the type of denial you see in mothers,a€

“I would call that more magical thinking,” Karioth said. “If I can keep all these balls in the air, maybe it won’t be true that I’m fearful may have happened,” she said, suggesting a grieving mother’s possible reasoning.

Ashton asked the professor to consider an additional element to the hypothetical. a€?Leta€™s add that the mother deliberately killed the child,a€

Sims objected. She told the judge there was no evidence that the mother killed the child.

The exchange underscored the surreal aspect of offering “hypothetical” testimony to a jury that isn’t hypothetical at all.

Karioth said denial can be a coping mechanism.

“For guilt,” Ashton asked.

“It can be,” the professor said.

Ashton then asked about compartmentalization.

“Compartmentalizing traumatic episodes is a typical way of going on with your life,” Karioth explained.

“So one could compartmentalize an unspeakable act, put it in a box, and then go on and act as if nothing happened,” Ashton asked.

Karioth said questions dealing with psychology were beyond her expertise. But she said she has worked with people who engage in “magical thinking.”

She described a mother who had recently lost a child. The mother was concerned because it was dark outside and the weather was turning bad. The little boy had never been in the dark and the rain alone. Karioth said she told the mother she’d be right over. She found a blanket and some umbrellas and sat with the grieving mother until the rain stopped.

“Now that is magical,” she said, “but it is something we needed to do.”

Ashton asked one last question: “You will agree that the bond between a mother and child is hard to break, even with death.”

“I don’t think it breaks,” she said.

The trial is expected to continue on Thursday.

IN PICTURES: Key players in the Casey Anthony trial

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1983 Okla. murder suspect captured at Wash. border (AP)

SEATTLE – A suspect in a 1983 killing in Oklahoma was arrested when he showed up at the U.S. border in northwestern Washington and tried to enroll in a "trusted traveler" program for frequent border crossers, authorities said Monday.

Suhail Shanti of Burnaby, British Columbia, was wanted on a first-degree murder warrant issued in LeFlore County, Okla. He was arrested Friday when agents at the Pacific Highway Port of Entry in Blaine took his fingerprints as part of the interview process for the border crossing program and checked them against a nationwide database.

Agents confirmed the warrant with officials in Oklahoma, arrested the 48-year-old and turned him over to the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office pending his extradition.

"It's like, `You're kidding me — you're under arrest,'" said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Chief Thomas Schreiber. "For them to walk in like this is just unbelievable."

Few details of the killing were immediately available. Marion Fry, LeFlore County's first assistant district attorney, told The Associated Press that his office was digging the case file out of storage, but that it involved a homicide in the city of Poteau. The defendant failed to appear for trial and the warrant was issued in April 1984, he said.

At the time, Shanti and the victim were both international students at a junior college now known as Carl Albert State College, Fry said. He believed they were both originally from Morocco.

It was not clear if Shanti had obtained a lawyer or how long he had lived in Canada. A voice mail message left on a phone number listed for a Suhail Shanti in Burnaby was not immediately returned.

The program he was applying for is called NEXUS, a joint U.S.-Canadian effort to speed border crossings for frequent travelers who pass a background check. Participants are given a photo identification card for use at the border.

Schreiber said it's not the first time that participants or aspiring participants have been arrested. He recalled the 2008 case of Charles Green, a Blaine resident whose approved status was revoked after he was charged with failing to appear in court on a larceny charge. Green showed up in the NEXUS office to appeal the decision and was promptly arrested.

"I like to put people in handcuffs," Schreiber said. "It usually means there's been an injustice somewhere and we're helping to right it."

___

Associated Press writer Rochelle Hines contributed from Oklahoma City.

___

Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Casey Anthony murder trial enters 30th day (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. – The meter reader who found Caylee Anthony's remains is being questioned at the murder trial of the toddler's mother.

Roy Kronk discovered Caylee's remains in December 2008 in a wooded area near the Anthony family's Orlando home.

Casey Anthony's attorneys began questioning Kronk on Tuesday about an August 2008 visit to the same area when he thought he saw something suspicious in the woods. Kronk had called authorities three times over the next three days but they found nothing at the time.

Kronk returned to the area in December 2008 and discovered the bag containing Caylee's remains.

Anthony has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge.

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Casey Anthony murder trial enters Day 27 in Fla. (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Defense attorneys have called to the witness stand an FBI expert on hair and fiber in the Florida murder trial of a woman charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter.

Stephen Shaw took the witness stand Thursday on the 27th day of Casey Anthony's trial. Defense attorneys are trying to poke holes in some of the prosecution's forensics evidence.

Shaw had testified for the state earlier in the trial.

The body Anthony's daughter, Caylee, was found in December 2008, almost six months after she went missing in Orlando. Anthony is charged with first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. She faces the death penalty if convicted.

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U.S. soldier charged with Afghan murder freed from brig (Reuters)

By Laura L. Myers Laura L. Myers – Sat Jun 11, 1:54 am ET

SEATTLE (Reuters) – One of five U.S. soldiers accused of killing Afghan civilians in cold blood was freed on Friday from a year of pretrial detention and an Army major has recommended that the current charge of premeditated murder be reduced to manslaughter, the soldier's lawyer said.

The release of Private Andrew Holmes came weeks after an Army judge ordered fact-finding proceedings reopened and granted a defense request for a new evidentiary hearing in the case, which was referred in January for court-martial.

Major Michael Liles, the investigating officer who presided over the new hearing last month, concluded that military prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to prove the murder charge, for which Holmes faced a life sentence if convicted.

Instead, Liles urged that Holmes be charged with the lesser offense of manslaughter stemming from the death of a young, unarmed Afghan villager. Under the military code of justice, manslaughter is punishable by a prison term of up to 15 years.

Ultimately, the decision to accept or reject Liles' recommendation rests with the top two commanders at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, the home installation for Holmes' Army unit.

Liles' report was issued June 7 and furnished on Friday to Holmes' civilian lawyer, Dan Conway, who provided it to Reuters. Conway said the recommendation "reenergizes us."

Holmes is the youngest of five members of an infantry unit formerly called the 5th Stryker Brigade charged with murder in connection with three Afghan civilian slayings investigators say were staged to look like legitimate combat casualties.

One of the other soldiers, Jeremy Morlock, was sentenced to 24 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and agreed to testify against his co-defendants.

Another of the accused, Michael Wagnon, was released in April from pretrial confinement, and two others remain in detention -- Adam Winfield and the alleged "kill team" ringleader, Calvin Gibbs.

Holmes, who is from Boise, Idaho, remains restricted to Washington state and is required to wear an electronic monitor on his ankle, Army spokesman Christopher Ophardt said.

He said Army commanders let Holmes out of detention after deciding "he is no longer a flight risk or will conduct serious misconduct in society." He immediately returned to his unit for administrative duty, Ophardt said.

Family members said in a statement on Friday that Holmes had been incarcerated since returning to duty in Afghanistan from a home leave in May of 2010, and expressed hope that his release from the brig marked a turning point in his favor.

"We are guardedly optimistic that this may also be the first step taken toward a larger, more definitive release from custody and dismissal of charges."

The investigation into the incidents involving Holmes and the four Stryker troops, which began as a probe of hashish use by soldiers, has grown into the most serious prosecution of alleged atrocities by the U.S. military during 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

Holmes faces a single count of murder stemming from the death of a 15-year-old Afghan boy in January 2010.

Both he and Morlock appear in photos published in March showing them, posed separately, crouched over the bloodied, prone corpse of the Afghan youth, holding his head up for the camera by the hair.

At his first evidential hearing last year, Holmes professed his innocence to the presiding officer, declaring, "I want to tell you, soldier to soldier, that I did not commit murder."

Liles said that photos of the victim's body presented as defense evidence last month showed the "lack of bullet pattern that would be consistent with" the type of machine-gun Holmes was carrying at the time. Holmes has admitted firing his weapon on orders from Morlock but that he intentionally missed.

A trial date of September 19 has been set, Conway said.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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2 men found guilty in murder of Calif journalist (AP)

OAKLAND, Calif. – A jury convicted the leader of a financially troubled community group of three murders, including the shotgun shooting death of the first American journalist killed on U.S. soil for reporting a story in nearly two decades.

Yusuf Bey IV, former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, was found guilty Thursday in a month-long spree of violence that culminated with the August 2007 shooting of Chauncey Bailey while he walked to the newspaper where he was investigating the financial woes of Bey's group.

Jurors also found co-defendant Antoine Mackey guilty in the murders of Bailey and Michael Wills, but deadlocked on a murder charge against him in the death of Odell Roberson Jr.

"I hope that it sends the message that the First Amendment is not going to be murdered by murdering journalists," prosecutor Melissa Krum said of the verdicts. "You cannot kill the man and expect the message to be killed."

Founded some 40 years ago by Bey's father, the bakery, which promoted self-empowerment, became an institution in Oakland's black community while running a security service, school and other businesses. In recent years, the organization was tainted by connections to criminal activity.

Prosecutors argued that Bey felt he was above the law and was so desperate to protect the legacy of his family's once-influential bakery that he ordered Bailey murdered. The Oakland Post editor had been working on a story about the organization's finances as it descended toward bankruptcy.

Bey and Mackey, both 25, appeared stoic during the reading of the verdicts, which prompted tears from the families of the victims and defendants.

"Justice has finally been done," Bailey's cousin, Wendy Ashley-Johnson, said outside court. "Now Chauncey can rest. This chapter is over."

Bey's attorney, Gene Peretti, said he had thought the case would end in a mistrial because jury deliberations had entered a third week.

"It's a surprise and very disappointing frankly," Peretti said, adding that his client was "a little bit stunned."

Mackey's lawyer, Gary Sirbu, said his client was a victim of guilt by association because he was tried alongside Bey.

"In this particular case, I think Mr. Mackey should have had a separate trial," Sirbu said.

Both lawyers planned to appeal. Bey and Mackey could get life in prison without the possibility of parole when they are sentenced on July 8.

Bey's mother, Daulet Bey, who wept before and after the verdicts were read, said, "I believe in my son's innocence, I do."

Bey was charged with ordering the killing of Bailey, 57, as well as the slayings of Roberson, 31, and Wills, 36, in July 2007.

Mackey, a former bakery supervisor, was accused of acting as the getaway driver for Devaughndre Broussard, who confessed to killing Bailey on a busy city street with three shotgun blasts, including a final shot to the face to ensure his victim was dead.

Mackey was convicted of murder for shooting Wills. He was accused of aiding Broussard in Roberson's shooting, but jurors couldn't decide whether he was guilty.

Prosecutors said Bey ordered Broussard to kill Roberson in retaliation for the murder of Bey's brother by Roberson's nephew.

Mackey was accused of killing Wills at random after Mackey and Bey had a conversation about the Zebra murders, a string of racially motivated black-on-white killings in San Francisco in the 1970s. Bey and Mackey are black, and Wills was white.

Broussard, the prosecution's key witness, testified that Bey ordered him and Mackey to kill the three men in exchange for a line of credit.

The two-month-plus trial featured more than 70 witnesses for the prosecution and only a few for the defense, including Mackey.

Broussard struck a plea deal of 25 years in prison in exchange for serving as the prosecution's key witness. The former bakery handyman inexplicably laughed several times while testifying for more than a week, including while describing Bailey's shooting on Aug. 2, 2007.

Lawyers for Bey and Mackey questioned Broussard's credibility. Prosecutor Krum told jurors that while Broussard, 23, is a "sociopath," his testimony was credible.

Before the killing of Bailey, Cuban-American Manuel de Dios Unanue, an outspoken journalist, was shot in the head in a New York City restaurant in 1992.

Police believe drug traffickers and businessmen plotted to murder him in retaliation for hard-hitting stories he had written about their operations, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Frank Smyth, CPJ's journalist security coordinator, said Thursday's verdicts were reassuring.

"This sends a signal to those who would violently attack the press in the United States that they will not get away with it," Smyth said.

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Casey Anthony trial: Can duct tape be a murder weapon? (The Christian Science Monitor)

A forensic anthropologist testified in an Orlando, Fla., murder trial on Friday that a piece of duct tape found near a toddler’s skull was large enough to simultaneously cover the girl’s mouth and nose, bolstering a prosecution theory that duct tape was the murder weapon used by Casey Anthony to kill her 2-year-old daughter.

On cross examination, however, the same expert, Michael Warren of the University of Florida, said he did not know whether the duct tape actually caused the toddler’s death.

“You don’t know if that duct tape had anything to do with the disposal [of the body] or the death,” defense attorney Jose Baez asked.

“True,” Dr. Warren responded.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for June 5-10, 2011

The testimony came in the third week of the trial of Ms. Anthony, who is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing her daughter, Caylee, and then leaving the body in a wooded area a short walk from the family’s home.

During Warren’s testimony, prosecutors played a short video that Warren had prepared for the jury. The professor superimposed a photograph of Caylee’s face over the image of her recovered skull, and then positioned a proportioned section of duct tape over her face.

The video was played to demonstrate that the duct tape could have been used to suffocate Caylee.

Defense calls video 'highly prejudicial'Defense attorney Mr. Baez objected to the video presentation before it was played, calling it “highly prejudicial” to his client. He later filed a motion for a mistrial after the jury was dismissed for the day.

Judge Belvin Perry defended his decision to allow the jury to see the graphic video. The judge said Warren had testified that duct tape over the nose and mouth was only one possible scenario.

“But that is not outweighed by seeing this beautiful child with her face and skull in the background [of the video],” Baez said. “This inflamed the jury. He could have given that opinion without the video.”

Assistant State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton also defended showing the video. “This was the murder weapon, essentially,” he said.

“The testimony from the expert witness is that at some point that beautiful child did have duct tape over her face – the nose, the mouth, one or both,” Mr. Ashton said.

Judge Perry denied the motion for a mistrial.

Like several other major pieces of evidence introduced during the trial, the duct tape raised expectations among trial observers that the growing mystery surrounding Caylee’s death might be soon be solved. But by the end of the day, the best prosecutors could offer was an expert witness’s speculative opinion that duct tape could have caused Caylee’s death.

Earlier, Orange County Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia, told the jury that based on an examination of Caylee’s skeletal remains and all other available evidence that she had concluded that the case was a homicide – an intentional killing. But she added that she, as medical examiner, was unable to uncover enough evidence to identify the means used to kill Caylee.

The duct tape is significant in the trial because it was found partly attached to Caylee’s skull and hair. The tape was sent to the FBI’s forensic laboratory to examine for possible fingerprints. But those tests came back negative.

Delay in discoveryPart of the problem is that Caylee had disappeared in mid-June 2008 and her remains were not discovered until Dec. 11, 2008. By that time, the body had been reduced to a skeleton and any associated evidence had been degraded or destroyed by weather.

The fact that duct tape was recovered near Caylee’s skull and was still affixed to some hair strongly suggests that it was attached at some point to her face, experts say. But there is no proof that it was attached in such a way to block both her nose and mouth. In addition, there is no proof of whether it was affixed to her face after she was already dead.

As Perry has pointed out to the jury, the jurors are entitled to decide whether expert opinions about the evidence are reliable or not. The burden of proof is that the prosecution establish evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond and to the exclusion of any doubt.

The duct tape found with the skull is also important to the prosecution’s case because investigators say it is the same brand of duct tape used in the Anthony home. Pieces of the same brand of tape were on a pair of gas cans that Ms. Anthony borrowed when she ran out of gas shortly after Caylee’s disappearance.

Duct tape may also play a role during the defense case.

Ms. Anthony has pleaded not guilty. Her lawyer says Caylee died accidentally in the family swimming pool and that Ms. Anthony’s, father, George, helped cover up the death by making it look like a kidnapping and murder. Baez has suggested that the duct tape may lead back to Ms. Anthony’s father.

The trial is expected to continue Saturday morning.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for June 5-10, 2011

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Charge filed in Salt Lake City motel murder case (AP)

SALT LAKE CITY – A murder charge has been filed against a man in the death of a woman whose body was found stuffed in the wooden frame of a bed at a Salt Lake City motel.

The Deseret News of Salt Lake City reports the charges were filed Friday in 3rd District Court against 28-year-old Thomas Kumalac.

The body of 25-year-old Jessica Jensen was found June 2 at the Capitol Motel after a patron complained about an odor in her room.

Kumalac was arrested the next day and booked into the Cache County Jail for investigation of murder.

Prosecutors charged him Friday with murder, a first-degree felony, and obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony.

Prosecutors say video surveillance shows Kumalac and Jensen arriving at the motel together.

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Information from: Deseret News, http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/us_motel_corpse_utah/41828159/SIG=10s0dojr7/*http://www.deseretnews.com

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Closings scheduled in Ga. soldier's murder trial (AP)

FORT STEWART, Ga. – Attorneys at Fort Stewart in Georgia are wrapping up their case in the court-martial of an Army sergeant charged with killing his squad leader and a fellow U.S. soldier at a patrol base in Iraq.

Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich (BOZ-eh-vich) could face the death penalty if a military jury convicts him of premeditated murder. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are scheduled to present closing arguments Tuesday morning before sending the case to the jury, which has heard testimony for more than a month.

Prosecutors say 41-year-old Bozicevich of Minneapolis fatally shot Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson of Pensacola, Fla., and Sgt. Wesley Durbin of Dallas after they critiqued him for poor performance in September 2008.

Bozicevich testified at the trial that he shot both men in self-defense after they threatened him with rifles.

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Casey Anthony murder trial a test of cutting-edge forensic science (The Christian Science Monitor)

After years of lurid details in newspapers and tabloid television shows, the trial of a young Florida woman accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter is set to begin Tuesday in Orlando.

The case is a tragedy, a mystery, and a real-life soap opera rolled into one, and it has attracted intense interest across the country. It may also become an important test of cutting-edge forensic science in the courtroom.

Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee, who was last seen alive on June 16, 2008.

Gallery: Photos of the Day

Caylee's remains were discovered six months later in a wooded area not far from her home. Investigators say there appeared to have been duct tape over her mouth, possibly adorned with a heart-shaped sticker.

If convicted, Ms. Anthony, 25, could be sentenced to death. She insists she is innocent.

Because of extensive pretrial publicity, Chief Judge Belvin Perry selected the 12-member jury and five alternates in Clearwater, Fla., a hundred miles west of the Orlando courtroom where the two-month trial is to take place. The five-man and seven-woman jury will be sequestered throughout the trial to prevent exposure to what is expected to be blanket media attention, including live coverage on TRUtv and daily updates and discussions on talk shows.

CNN crime queen Nancy Grace has made it her mission to cover every twist and turn in the murder case. She rarely refers to Anthony by her name, preferring instead the tabloid-style moniker “Tot Mom.”

The mother emerged as a prime suspect after police were notified in mid-July 2008 that Caylee had been missing for a month. Anthony told deputy sheriffs she suspected a baby sitter had kidnapped her. Asked why she hadn’t contacted law enforcement officials earlier, she told the deputies that she had been conducting her own search and investigation.

A lawyer has also suggested that Anthony was worried that if she went to police the toddler would be harmed.

Police were unable to locate the person Anthony said was the baby sitter. A woman with the same name that Anthony provided to police told authorities shea€™d never met the mother or her daughter. She has since filed a defamation lawsuit against Anthony for harming her reputation.

Police quickly shifted their focus to Anthony when a number of her initial statements were found to have been false or deceptive. In addition, the young mother’s demeanor raised questions about her state of mind and why she did not seem upset or worried about Caylee.

Less than a week after Caylee went missing, Anthony was photographed laughing and partying at an Orlando night club, according to news reports. In addition, two weeks after Caylee’s disappearance, court records show, Anthony got a tattoo. It said: Bella Vita, Italian for “Beautiful Life.”

State prosecutors do not have direct evidence of Anthony’s involvement in her daughter’s death. No fingerprint-laden murder weapon has been recovered. The cause of death has not been determined. And no witnesses have come forward identifying the person or persons who dumped the body.

In addition, Anthony has made no incriminating statements either to investigators or to others that would amount to a confession. Throughout her pretrial detention, investigators have monitored her conversations with her parents and placed her in cells with potential informants who encouraged her to talk about her daughter.

What prosecutors do have is evidence of a stain and a foul smell that has lingered in the trunk of Anthonya€™s 1998 Pontiac Sunfire. A major portion of the statea€™s case against Anthony is aimed at proving to the jury that the foul odor is a remnant of the toddlera€™s decaying body.

Prosecutors have suggested that Anthony may have kept her daughtera€™s body in the trunk of her car for 11 days.

They plan to call as a witness Arpad Vass of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Dr. Vass used highly sensitive scientific instruments to test air and carpet samples from the trunk of Anthony’s car.

He said the odor in the trunk included the presence of compounds found during the early stages of decomposition of a dead human body, according to court documents. But he was unable to state with certainty that the odor was from a decaying human corpse.

Vass also found an unusually large indication of chloroform in a sample taken from the trunk, documents show. He said the quantity detected “was about 10,000 times greater than what we would expect.”

Investigators also discovered that someone had used a computer in the Anthony home to conduct Internet research into how to make chloroform.

Experts retained by defense lawyers say the scientific instruments Vass used are too new and untested to produce reliable evidence for use in a capital murder trial. They say the technology is promising but needs to be verified by other researchers and criminologists.

Defense lawyers have countered prosecution claims about the foul smell in the car by noting that at one point a bag of rotting garbage was left inside Anthony’s car trunk while it was parked outside in the hot sun for several days.

Prosecutors are also expected to present forensic evidence of a strand of hair found in the trunk of the car. Although several hairs were discovered – one of them, identified as Q12 – shows signs of post-mortem hair banding, according to court records.

Forensic experts say such banding can be an indication that the hair had fallen from the head of a corpse. But it is not the only possibility, they say.

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Questions over earlier incident raised in girl's murder (Reuters)

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A dispute has flared up in the case of a murdered 9-year-old girl in Pennsylvania over whether the suspect should have been arrested in regard to an earlier incident involving the victim, officials and family members said on Friday.

James Troutman was arrested on Tuesday and charged with the rape and murder of Skyler Kauffman, whose body was found in a dumpster at their apartment complex in the Philadelphia suburb of Souderton.

Troutman, 36, a neighbor, was charged with 10 criminal counts, and police say he has confessed to the crime.

But some family members of the victim are questioning whether Troutman should have already been in custody after an incident on April 18, when the little girl and a friend went to his apartment door and asked to use the bathroom.

According to a so-called probable cause affidavit filed when Troutman was arrested, the two girls went inside and saw pictures of naked women on the walls.

They tried to leave but found the door locked, it said.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman has declined to release the police report of the incident to settle questions that have been raised over possible discrepancies between it and the affidavit.

The affidavit gives an impression that Troutman could have been charged with false imprisonment while the police report may have a more benign account of the incident, said Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, who wants the report released.

"These discrepancies need to be resolved," he said.

The victim's grandmother Carol Kauffman said she does not think Troutman should have been arrested in the April 18 incident.

"They really had nothing to hold him on," she said.

But she said the girl's mother, Heather Gebhard, disagrees.

"She totally blames the police," Kauffman said.

Gebhard could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Dave Warner; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)

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