Contaminated Evidence or New Knife Found at Crime Scene?

In the County Forensics Reports Part Two, there is a list of evidence provided by specific dates. See Tuesday, December 16, 2008

» County Forensics Reports Part 2
http://www.wftv.com/news/18530366/detail.html

"At approximately 1511 hours I arrived at the Evidence Section and had a meeting with Detectives Melich and Edwards regarding the inspection of the following piece of evidence:

Art 1, Item # H-51975 (Sealed Box)

From the evidence mentioned above I collected the following Items:

- Black Plastic Bag with yellow pull handles.
- Pull-ups "with flowers design" collected from back pack "Adorable".
- Stainless steel knife.

The box was sealed and returned to the Evidence Intake, Mrl Terry Gorman. I returned to the forensics Unit and I secured the evidence mentioned above in my evidence locker.

At 1730 hours in the Forensics Unit I had a meeting with Karen Cowan from the FBI and I informed her about the evidence mentioned above. After reviewing the evidence she agreed to collect the evidence at a later time for further examination.
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This brings up a load of questions for me:

1) No where else is a knife mentioned being found at the Caylee crime scene (only in the car when it was found months before). If it is the previous knife, car evidence should not have been included in a sealed box along with evidence from the other crime scene (possible contamination)

2) If it is a new knife, why wasn't it mentioned along with the other findings of the T-shirt, shorts, etc., i.e., what else is missing?

3) If this a new knife that was found at the Caylee crime scene, why did not LE seek Knife sets in their search warrants?

4) Who else had access to the room when the tech left to deliver the rest of the items in the box back to the evidence room?

5) The FBI lady said that the knife and other items were worth examination, but I can not find where she picked them up (could have missed it). Were they examined?


Any one have any other thoughts on this or other similar evidence questions?

I believe ALL of the evidence in the sealed box was from Casey's car--it was collected in July. The detective was probably re-looking at that evidence to see how it would compare to the new crime secene evidence in dec.

Here's the thread discussing the pants and kitchen knife that was found in the car:
http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70281

Phumi said:

I believe ALL of the evidence in the sealed box was from Casey's car--it was collected in July. The detective was probably re-looking at that evidence to see how it would compare to the new crime secene evidence in dec.

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I believe that the "adorable" back pack was found with Caylee's remains wasn't it? If that is true, then the black plastic trash bag was found there too - in which case it would be a new knife, but I will go back and check what was found in the car and post that as well.

Thanks

No, in the WFTV link this morning it said a "stainless steel" knife was found in the bag, I'll try to post a link.

Sheaffer said the public might never find out why a stainless steel knife was found with the body.
"The knife could have been an agency of the murder, could have been used to cut the tape. A myriad of possibilities with the knife," Sheaffer said.

http://www.wftv.com/news/18530178/detail.html

http://www.wftv.com/news/18530178/detail.html#-

It was found with the body

Sheaffer said the public might never find out why a stainless steel knife was found with the body.

"The knife could have been an agency of the murder, could have been used to cut the tape. A myriad of possibilities with the knife," Sheaffer said.

What they actually took from the house is still sealed, possibly to try to prevent a change of venue, because it may be the strongest evidence linking Casey to the crime.

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I thought the same thing about the knife being a second knife. However, ishouldbeworking pointed out that the numbers for the evidence listed on page 42 are the same numbers for the evidence items taken from the car on page 2. I went back and re read and I concur with ishouldbeworking.
I believe there was only one knife.

JaneInOz said:

http://www.wftv.com/news/18530178/detail.html#-

It was found with the body

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Ok...could it be that Mr. Sheaffer assumed , as I did that the knife was listed as being found in the bag next to the skull?

LancelotLink said:

I thought the same thing about the knife being a second knife. However, ishouldbeworking pointed out that the numbers for the evidence listed on page 42 are the same numbers for the evidence items taken from the car on page 2. I went back and re read and I concur with ishouldbeworking.
I believe there was only one knife.

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Thanks Lancelotlink - Do you have a link for the items found in the car? I have looked everywhere but can not find a mention of the black bags with yellow handles being in the car.

The items listed as coming from the car are listed as H-51975:
Page 2
Black plastic bag containing inside:
· Doll (Art # 3, Item # H-51975)
· Backpack (Art # 4, Item # H-51975)
· Childs tooth brush (Art # 5, Item # H-51975)
· Black leather bag ( Art # 6, Item # H-51975)
· Various papers (Art # 7, Item # H-51975)
· Dinner knife (Art # 8, Item # H-51975)
· Blue plastic crate (Art # 9, Item # H-51975)
· Plastic clothes hangers (Art #10, Item # H-51975 )

the items on page 42 have the same item number
Art # 1, Item # H-51975 (Sealed box)

From the evidence mentioned above I collected the following Items:
· Black plastic bag with yellow pull handles.
· Pull-ups “with flowers design” collected from the back pack “Adorable”
· Stainless steel knife

I don't think they would list evidence from the car and evidence from the remains site with the same numbers.

achristmas1 said:

Thanks Lancelotlink - Do you have a link for the items found in the car? I have looked everywhere but can not find a mention of the black bags with yellow handles being in the car.

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Certainly!
http://www.wesh.com/download/2009/0121/18530363.pdf
Page 2 and 42

Thanks again LancelotLink.

Unfortunately, my computer will not open the document dumps so I will have to wait until tomorrow to research further. I do not know how their numbering system works so you may be right.

Thanks again.

LancelotLink said:

The items listed as coming from the car are listed as H-51975:
Page 2
Black plastic bag containing inside:
· Doll (Art # 3, Item # H-51975)
· Backpack (Art # 4, Item # H-51975)
· Childs tooth brush (Art # 5, Item # H-51975)
· Black leather bag ( Art # 6, Item # H-51975)
· Various papers (Art # 7, Item # H-51975)
· Dinner knife (Art # 8, Item # H-51975)
· Blue plastic crate (Art # 9, Item # H-51975)
· Plastic clothes hangers (Art #10, Item # H-51975 )

the items on page 42 have the same item number
Art # 1, Item # H-51975 (Sealed box)

From the evidence mentioned above I collected the following Items:
· Black plastic bag with yellow pull handles.
· Pull-ups “with flowers design” collected from the back pack “Adorable”
· Stainless steel knife

I don't think they would list evidence from the car and evidence from the remains site with the same numbers.

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What does the "H" stand for.......??

HOUSE....???

Boston said:

What does the "H" stand for.......??

HOUSE....???

Click to expand...

Good Question.

achristmas1 said:

Thanks again LancelotLink.

Unfortunately, my computer will not open the document dumps so I will have to wait until tomorrow to research further. I do not know how their numbering system works so you may be right.

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

No problem.

LancelotLink said:

Ok...could it be that Mr. Sheaffer assumed , as I did that the knife was listed as being found in the bag next to the skull?

Click to expand...

Unless, the media have seen some or all of the missing pages we haven't seen yet? We're missing 69 pages.

LancelotLink said:

Good Question.

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Not thinking the H stands for house. I am thinking it is just a standard coding convention for evidence. i.e. A-00001 and they just keep jumping letters once they hit A-99999.

Can you imagine how many different houses they collect evidence from each year?

If I'm reading things right there are two black plastic bags.....one taken from the vehicle originally and the one the body was in???

If so, I wonder if they match?

PotatoHead said:

Unless, the media have seen some or all of the missing pages we haven't seen yet? We're missing 69 pages.

Click to expand...

I noticed last night when I was reviewing docs that some links had more pages than others...maybe that's where the 69 pages are??

A typical "Dinner Knife":

A typical "stainless steel knife:


Sometimes, perhaps wording is just idiosyncratic to the person writing: i.e., one would call a dinner knife a dinner knife and someone else would call a dinner knife by it's composition....a "stainless steel knife" or "tempered steel knife" or a "ceramic knife"......like that.

However, because I am a coveter of cutlery, I would never confuse a dinner knife with a stainless steel one, because I have different purposes in mind for their use. A steel knife would be used as a task knife, chopping nuts, veggies, other stuff in the kitchen. A dinner knife would be just that.

However, that being said, was the dinner knife ever actually given to LE? I thought Cindy said she'd washed it and put it away.