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Casey Anthony's defense-- wtf is going on in that family?!
Summary: Defense asserts that child drowns in pool, Casey and her dad panic and hide the body, Casey is complicit with this because her dad guilts her and Casey is too messed up by years of sexual abuse from her father and brother to defy dad's orders, and Casey spends the next month having a good old time to hide her pain. In brief, this family is fucksed up.
Defense: Caylee drowned in her grandparents' pool
Two-year-old Caylee Anthony was not murdered by her mother as prosecutors maintain, but drowned in the family's pool in June 2008, Casey Anthony's defense attorney told jurors during his opening statements Tuesday.
Authorities were not alerted to Caylee's death, Jose Baez said, as Anthony and her father, George Anthony, panicked upon finding the child, and George Anthony told his daughter her mother would never forgive her and she would go to jail for child neglect, Baez said.
"This is a tragedy that snowballed out of control," Baez said. "This is not a murder case. This is not a manslaughter case ... this is a tragic accident that happened to some very disturbed people."
Anthony is accused of killing Caylee in 2008 and lying about it to investigators. The Orlando trial, which comes after nearly three years of legal twists, turns and delays, has garnered interest nationwide.
Baez explained Anthony's behavior -- partying and lying about the child's whereabouts -- in the month following her disappearance by saying "Casey did what she's been doing all her life, or most of it: hiding her pain."
Anthony's father began sexually abusing his daughter when she was 8, Baez said as George Anthony sat stony-faced in the courtroom. Anthony was taught from an early age to behave as if nothing was wrong, he said, describing an incident where she went to school and behaved normally at age 13 after performing oral sex on her father.
Anthony put her head on the shoulder of another defense attorney and sobbed as Baez spoke.
Baez also alleged Anthony was inappropriately touched by her brother, Lee, although "it didn't go as far" as it had with her father. It was bad enough, however, he said, that the FBI conducted a paternity test to see if Lee Anthony had fathered Caylee. Asked about the allegations, Baez told jurors, Lee Anthony said, "We'll talk about it when the time is right."
"The time," Baez said, "is now."
He told jurors the Anthony family "keeps its secrets quiet ... You're going to hear all kinds of bizarre family behavior."
Anthony alleged her father and brother sexually abused her in a letter from jail last year. In an interview with NBC News afterward, George Anthony denied the claims and criticized Baez's judgment in questioning him about the allegations.
Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and denies harming her daughter or having anything to do with her disappearance. Baez has said that once all the facts are known, it will become clear his client is innocent.
In addition to capital murder, Anthony faces six other charges, including aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and providing false information to authorities. If she is convicted by jurors -- seven women, five men and five alternates -- she could face the death penalty.
Earlier, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick told jurors that while it may be difficult to accept that a mother could kill her own child, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn, based on the evidence. "No one but Casey Anthony had access to all the pieces of evidence in this case," Burdick said. "... No one else lied to their friends, to their family, to investigators. No one else benefited from the death of Caylee Marie Anthony. Caylee's death allowed Casey Anthony to live the good life -- at least for 31 days."
Now 25, Anthony wore a loose-fitting white shirt for the first day of her trial. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, then put into a bun for the afternoon session.
Anthony, who was 19 when her daughter was born, "appeared to all outward observers to be what her parents thought she was -- a loving mother working hard to provide support for her daughter," Burdick said. "But as the evidence in this case and the investigation into the background of Casey Anthony will show, that was an illusion." Anthony's parents thought she had returned to her job at Universal Studios after maternity leave, Burdick said, and indeed she dressed daily in work clothes and had a Universal Studios ID, but went "who knows where."
Caylee visited her great-grandfather on June 15, 2008 -- Father's Day -- and a photograph was taken of the two together, Burdick said.
"The next time a photograph was taken of Caylee Anthony is on December 11 of 2008, (when her skeletal remains were found)," Burdick said as Anthony frowned, shook her head and wiped tears off her cheeks.
"The story of this case is not about Casey Anthony. It is about what happened between the photograph taken on Father's Day, June 15, 2008, and the photograph taken on December 11 of 2008. What happened to Caylee Marie Anthony? You will hear, during the testimony in this case, that no one had any idea anything had befallen Caylee Marie Anthony until July 15 of 2008. How can that be? What happened between June 16 and July 15? Where was Caylee Marie?"
Burdick took jurors through that 31-day period before the little girl was reported missing, detailing Anthony's lies to her friends and her increasingly frantic parents, George and Cindy Anthony, regarding Caylee's whereabouts. She also talked about Anthony's getting a tattoo during that time -- "Bella Vita," Italian for "beautiful life" -- and referenced photographs of her partying at local clubs.
In addition, she told jurors they would hear in detail about evidence including a stain in Anthony's car trunk and the odor of human decomposition emanating from it, as well as her misleading statements to authorities during the investigation into Caylee's disappearance.
Prosecutors allege Anthony used chloroform -- evidence of which was found in her car trunk by technicians -- on the little girl before putting three pieces of duct tape over her mouth and nose, cutting off her air supply. They allege she then stashed the body in the trunk of her Pontiac Sunfire before disposing of it.
A cadaver dog alerted to the presence of human decomposition in the trunk, Burdick said, and a scientist will testify that air samples from the trunk were also similar in chemical composition to human decomposition. A search of a computer in the Anthony home showed that someone had searched on chloroform and how to make it, along with other searches.
Anthony explained the odor by saying there was a dead animal caught in the frame of the car, Burdick said. She eventually abandoned it, saying it had problems and had run out of gas. On June 30, it was towed to a wrecker yard, where it stayed until July 15, when Anthony's parents picked it up and drove it home.
Anthony's high-powered defense team will likely try to cast doubt on prosecutors' scientific evidence. At pretrial hearings, they have argued that evidence regarding a potential odor of decomposition in the trunk, chloroform and other evidence is not reliable enough for jurors to consider.
At 5 a.m., more than 30 potential spectators were lined up to get tickets to get inside the courtroom, according to In Session producer Nancy Leung. In an hour, that number had swelled to more than 50 -- with a full three hours to go before court began.
One woman said she took time off from her job in Chicago and bought a last-minute ticket to be at the trial. Another woman planned her vacation around opening statements, and a third, from England, happened to be in town for a wedding and decided to come. The first 50 people in line received tickets to get inside.
The jury was seated Friday after the process was moved to Clearwater, Florida, in Pinellas County out of concerns that an impartial jury could not be seated in Orlando, in Orange County, because of the intense media attention surrounding it.
Early in the jury selection process, defense attorneys hinted that mitigating circumstances including "a history of sexual abuse" may have explained Anthony's behavior in the days after her daughter disappeared and her failure to alert authorities sooner. Anthony herself told police she had been trying to find her daughter on her own.
Defense attorney Ann Finnell raised a host of potential mitigating circumstances to gauge what would-be jurors might consider if they had to decide whether to sentence Anthony to death. Those circumstances included a "lack of maturity," "lack of impulse control" and "a history of sexual abuse."
Finnell asked potential members of the jury pool whether the assertion her client came from a "dysfunctional family" might factor into their penalty decision.
https://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/24/florida.casey.anthony.trial/index.html?hpt=T1
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Re: Casey Anthony's defense-- wtf is going on in that family?!
Once a sociopath, always a sociopath.
Which is why life sentence is pointless for her. There is no justice for that little girl.
Exactly. The defense is throwing anything out there to gain sympathy but more importantly, to show reasonable doubt to the jury. IMO, execessive lies to authorities are only told when you are hiding something.
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I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one not buying into this sexual abuse stuff. As of the moment, I don't believe it. And if by chance this is true... shame on her for allowing her father contact with her child.
I doubt if any of that will work. She would have been better off with a burning bed theory (do they know who the baby's father is?) or some other mititgating circumstances.
And too many theories. They went from murder to depraved indifference and her indifference was due to abuse and now she drinks to hide her pain.
Maybe even another suspect and prove that the police only focused on casey, thus allowing the real killer to get away. Someone more crdible than a nanny that was easily located.
her attorney said that her father placed the duct tape there to make it look like casey had murdered caylee.
Did somebody mention something about a meter man moving the body and hiding it for months or something? Because otherwise, I might possibly be going crazy.
I need to step away from the Casey Anthony thing. JFC, how long do I have to wait to know the answer?!
Yeah. Apparently Kronk found the body and kept it until he could cash in the reward for finding her,
Wow, opportunity even in the face of a dead baby.
The whole defense is utter BS. I don't believe a word about the sexual abuse. I think it only used to garner sympathy, a way to confuse the jury, and to discredit her father's testamony. She is a sick individual.
The thing wtih the meter reader is just absurd. Talk about wild specuation.
Yep. This. And why would there be a little heart sticker over the duct tape that covered the baby's mouth? That's a sign of sympathy from the killer to the victim. Someone in that house was looking up uses for Chloroform on the family computer that was confiscated. And when the trunk of her car was searched, cadaver dogs were brought out. Those aren't used in searching for animals, they are trained on the scent of dead humans.
I don't buy anything this chick says. She lies so naturally. If she told me at noon it's gonna be sunny outside, I'd get a flashlight and go check.