Casey Anthony's computer used for chloroform search

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Someone using Casey Anthony's family computer before the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee surfed the Web for information on chloroform, neck-breaking and making weapons out of household products, a computer expert testified on Wednesday.

Previous witnesses at Casey's first-degree murder trial in Orlando, Florida, have testified that they found evidence of what they considered to be a surprisingly large quantity of chloroform, as well as residue from a decomposing human body, in her car trunk.

Casey, 25, is accused of killing Caylee on June 16, 2008, and dumping the child's body in woods a short walk from the Anthony home.

Casey and Caylee shared the house with Casey's parents, George and Cindy Anthony.

The desktop computer at their home was used to search for the keyword "chloroform" on March 17 and March 21, 2008, said Sergeant Kevin Stenger, a computer crimes specialist.

Another expert, Detective Sandra Osborne, said someone then deleted the record of the search. But deleted search information remains stored in the computer in unallocated space on the hard drive, Osborne said.

"We were able to recover an entire Internet history record," Osborne said.

Now in its third week, the Casey Anthony trial has drawn national interest and extensive analysis on cable TV networks. Prosecution witnesses have described how the Florida mother partied and shopped after her daughter's disappearance.

Caylee wasn't reported missing until July 15, 2008, when Cindy Anthony found Casey's car at an impound lot reeking of an odor she likened to death. Cindy told detectives that her daughter had rebuffed her efforts to see or speak to Caylee for a month.

Casey initially told detectives Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny, but her lawyer now contends the toddler drowned in the family's backyard pool.

THREE MINUTES ON CHLOROFORM

Computer expert John Bradley, who created the forensic software that law enforcement uses to recover deleted information, testified on Wednesday that the search history was deleted intentionally rather than by an automatic function of the computer.

Bradley described the March 2008 Web surfing activities, starting with a Google search for "chloroform."

He said the computer user also looked at information, often in Wikipedia, on alcohol, inhalation, death, self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, head injuries, ruptured spleen, chest trauma and internal bleeding.

The user spent a total of three minutes and 11 seconds on five sites relating to chloroform, Bradley said, noting the user appeared to have gone intermittently to Facebook and MySpace pages.

Bradley is expected to return to the stand Thursday.

The experts also checked the Anthony computer for searches concerning Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the name Casey gave detectives for the nanny she alleged had kidnapped Caylee.

Casey told detectives that she did not report Caylee's disappearance because she was conducting her own search for the nanny. But Osborne testified there was no sign on the desktop that anyone had used it to search for Zenaida's name until after Casey made the kidnapping claim to detectives.

Jurors also heard testimony that a dog named Bones who was trained to sniff out decomposing human remains found the scent in the Anthonys' backyard during a search on July 17, 2008.

Bones's search confirmed one performed the same day by a similarly trained dog named Gerus. Both dogs alerted their handlers that they had located the scent in an area between Caylee's playhouse and sandbox, the handlers testified.

Evidence technicians scraped the ground where the dogs indicated but found nothing, said Deputy Jason Forgey, Gerus's handler. Afterward, neither dog detected the odor.

"Whatever he was alerting to could have been moved, destroyed, dissipated," said Officer Kristin Brewer, Bones's handler.

Under questioning by the defense, Brewer confirmed that the dogs would also signal if they found decomposing human body fluids, including blood, from a living person.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)