Just last year in Bradenton, Maribel Chavez was tried for neglect of her child and then later tried for her liability in the death of that child. But the two incidents were not related. The first incident was more abuse than neglect--burns, fracture, bruising. The death occurred when a stove fell atop the child who suffocated for an hour while the drugged mother overslept.
When the two charges are related, they need to be tried together. Baez would fail in trying to separate them in this case. In order to use pertinent evidence to prove both neglect and homicide, both charges must be tried in the same prosecution. Many reasons for this: if evidence of neglect led the trier of fact to conclude the defendant guilty, the trier has a right to question what followed from that neglect? Here we have statutory neglect provable on its face. The mother ignored the fact her child was missing and unable to care for herself for 31 days. It is unreasonable to separate that neglect from the harm that ensued and to prosecute for a death separately.
LE has stated that hair from the trunk, in custody, consists of a hair from Caylee alive and a banded hair from her when dead. Cadaverine and putrescine stained the trunk, at least some of it from the nose & mouth. The air samples analyzed by TN Body Farm were positive for decomposition. LE stated the ongoing effort is to prove Casey is directly responsible for the fact Caylee was in the trunk and deceased. Air sample analysis has not been used in prosecution of a homicide in FL before. With sufficient validation of the science, there is no reason not to break ground here, particularly in conjunction with the other physical evidence.
