For months, Florida mother Casey Anthony, 22, has blamed her daughter Caylee's disappearance on a baby sitter, and Anthony's lawyers apparently are sticking with that story in planning her criminal defense -- even though they expect police to confirm that skeletal remains found Thursday are those of girl.
"If this is Caylee Anthony, that doesn't mean Casey Anthony did anything to that child," Todd Black, a spokesman for Anthony's lead attorney, told FOXNews.com on Saturday. "That doesn't determine who or what caused the child's death."
Anthony is in jail accused of murdering Caylee, but Black said Anthony stands by her claim that she dropped off her 2-year-old daughter with a sitter in June and never saw her again. That won't change if it turns out the skull and bones belong to Caylee.
"Casey Anthony handed her daughter off to a woman in a park who was with another woman in a car," Black told FOXNews.com. "Her position and the position of the law firm has been that she handed her child off. ... It would be difficult for a prosecution to absolutely tell a jury that Ms. Anthony is the one who injured the child."
It will be at least a week or two before forensic tests confirm whether the skeletal remains that a utility worker found in the woods Thursday are the girl's, but police haven't stopped looking for clues.
Authorities spent a third day at the scene Saturday, less than a half-mile from the Anthony family home near Orlando, in the hopes of finding more evidence to help solve the case.
Orange County Sheriff's officials say evidence is mounting that the skull found belongs to Caylee. Casey Anthony is charged with murdering her. Anthony's defense said Friday that the sheriff's office is confident that skeletal remains found are Caylee's because the hair on the skull is similar and the bones are those of a child the same age.
Publicly, however, officials are holding back.
"We have not provided any confirmation that it is the Caylee child," Orange County Capt. Angelo Nieves told FOXNews.com on Friday. "We're not going to go and jump the gun, if you will, rush in order to make an identification without the medical examiner's office."
The Orange County Medical Examiner's office and FBI forensics experts say it could be a week or more before conclusive DNA results are released.
Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said the Anthonys' home was searched early Friday after the medical examiner found "some clues that came out of the remains" that "linked (them) to the house." Beary declined to elaborate on what clues were discovered.
Meanwhile, a judge denied defense attorneys' request Friday to have their own experts present during the identification of the remains.
If the bones are confirmed to be those of Caylee, the judge said, the defense will be allowed to have its own representatives present for any future testing.
A utility worker found the remains Thursday morning in a bag bound with duct tape. Caylee, who would have turned 3 in August, was last seen in June but wasn't reported missing for more than a month.
Her mother was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even without a body. She has pleaded not guilty and continued to insist that she left the girl with a baby sitter who disappeared.
For the past several months, Anthony's family, police and volunteers from around the country have searched for Caylee in vain. They had overlooked the wooded lot where the skull was found first because it was flooded after heavy rains and later because it was fenced off.
Last week, prosecutors announced they would not pursue the death penalty for Anthony. Her trial has been postponed from January to March.
Click here for more on this story from MyFOXOrlando.com.
Click here for Casey Anthony's indictment.
Click here for a timeline of the Casey Anthony case.
FOXNews.com's Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox