Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

The mystery surrounding the death of little Caylee Anthony gripped the nation. Was she the victim of her neglectful, party-girl mother Casey, or was a darker family secret to blame? The only thing more shocking than the testimony was the verdict itself.

more than a decade after the OJ simpson murder trial captivated people around the world another case made it’s way onto our TV screens

and another name became infamous,in 2008, a missing toddler from a quite  Orlando suburb became the focus of international news,her mother ‘s name was casey anthony, and her trial for the little girl’s death would grip the nation …..

the anthony  family was a really typical looking familyit was a cop,a nurse ,their two children and then the daughter had a baby.

non of that  is out of the ordinary

at the center of this case,we had a beautiful little girl, and she was missing and it was a mystery

and we didn’t know why…

but what  we did know was that mom was out parying,miss while the baby  was missing.

July  15, 2008

casey anthony admits to her mother that caylee has been missing for 31 days…..

july 16,2008, casey anthony is arrested for child neglect provading fals statements to police and  obstruction.

october 14, 2008 ,casey anthony is indictced on capital murder and other charges. she pleads not guilty.

April 13 ,2009 . prosecutors announce they will seek the death penalty.

anytime a young mom is charged with killing her children,it  makes the headlines,because that is such an aberration ,it’s such a deviation from what young mothers are.

she did appear normal,she was about as abnormal as you can get, but people wanted her to show  some emotion , she never did.

may 24,2011 , orange county courthouse orlando, florida

this is the case of the state of florida versus casey marie anthony however, it is time to tell the  story of a little girl named caylee.

George anthony specifically recalls that at 12 :50 pm on june 16 th of 2008, george anthony  kissed his grandaughter goodbye and never saw her again.

his daughter ,casey ,left the residence on hope spring drive with caylee marie anthony, she told her mother  that she was ging to spend the night with a babysitter by the nameof sammy.

you will learn there is no sammy.

the body of caylee marie anthony had been wrapped in a winnie the pool blanket and thrown into a littered swamp, like she was just another  piece of  trash.

caylee’s death allowed casey anthony to live the good life at least for those 31 days.

everybody had convicted casey anthony in the court of public opinion long before she ever walked in that courtroom.

and so Jose baez and his group of attorneys had to undo that with these jurors,who a had all kind of heard about the case

the media latched onto this case

death penalty attorney  ann finnell’s job was to save casey anthony from the death penalty if the case went south , then for whatever reason the jury came back that she was guilty  of first degree murder.

her job was to try to save her life,she believed they could have mitigated the death penalty.

The defense for casey marie anthony.

count 1. first degree murder 

count 2. aggravated child abuse.

count 3. aggravated manslaughter of child

count 4,5,6,7 providing false information to law enforcement officer

how in the world can a mother wait 31 days before ever reporting her child missing?it’s insane.it’s bizarre.well ,the answer is actually relatively simple,she never was  missing.

caylee anthony died on june 16th ,2008, when she drowned  in her family’s swimmingpool.

as soon as casey came around this corner and went back ,she saw george anthony holding caylee in his  arms

she  immediately grabbed caylee and began to cry.

her death was covered up.

this family must keep it’s secrets quiet and it all began when casey was 8 years old and her father came into her room and began to touch her inappropriately.

casey has a brother,when he  was a teenager ,he attempted to also touch his sister.

casey was raised to lie.

that  will help you understand why no one knew that her child was dead.

finding out all this dysfunction in this family, al this lies , all these secrets, all this   backfbiting that was going on.

in this famiy before caylee even went missing and that casey was willing to at least accuse her father and her brother of molesting her so that she could get out of jail for killing the baby.

that’s not a normal family , that’s dysfuncution.

the prosecution questioned casey’s friends aboout her actions and demeanor during the 31  days that caylee was missing.

she always seemed like she was having a good time

no  one saw her distraught  or depressed or scared and  she didnt  tell anyone  that her daughter was missing or kidnapped .

they were also asked if  they asked  casey where caylee was  and the response was that she was  at disney world with the nanny ,that she spending the weekend at  the beach with the nanny

casey never told her friend that caylee was missing  and looking for her or that she needed any help and she never cried ,never act scared.

during this night  she never told that her child was missing

once the jury was there. they would glare at her ,they didn’t like her they would shake their heads when they’d see pictures of her dancing on tables  and everything,nobody knows where she is.

but all we know is that mom,casey anthony was out partying when she should have been looking for her  daughter.

as details of the anthony case unfolded each  day ,public interest intensified,along with protests and anger towards casey

and even her family…

on many days , tension outside the courthouse was matched by the friction  inside the courtroom.

the prosecution and the defense of the casey anthony case couldn’t stand each other soometimes,nobody could see it  but those of them in the gallery.

watching them backbite each other watching them snip at each other, watching them roll their  eyes while somebody on their own team was up there cross examining a witness.

the level of tension in this one here was probably a 10,the judge’s  major concern was 1 ,courtroom control.

the judge made it loud and clear that he was not gonna tolerate anyone braking  any rules be it the prosecution ,the defense , or the public.

 never before seen so many people  so  invested in the outcome of a criminal case, everybody had adopted caylee anthony as their own and they wanted to avenge her death in some way.

casey’s  statement to the police

on monday , june 9th , 2008,between 9 am and 1 pm i casey anthony , took my daughter caylee marie anthony , to her nanny’s apartment.

zenadia hernadez hyphen gonzalez has watched her for the past year and a half to two years.

however , after reaching the apartment, i realized that neither zenaida,caylee,or either of  her two roomates were home.

apartment manager amanda macklin  researched the prior occupants of that apartment and it was not zenaida Gonzalez who occupied it.

it’s very simple .she wanted to party, she had looked at different ways to knock the child out and maybe she’d done it before  successfullly that Xanny the Nanny reference.

like Xanax for  the baby ,that’s really the keeper of  the child.

it would have been very hard for casey anthony to take the stand because casey anthony had lied so many times so what would she do under cross examination?

the defense team knew that casey couldn’t take the stand.

the women on the tape was someone  who was completely in charge,she would be demanding , she would speak up,she would challenge them.

they had to to something to counter all the video that were seeing in court of her yelling at her parents and swearing at her parents.

at the beginning of the trial she was  a little bit more defiant she was  outraged that she was on trial for this.

and at s0me point  the courthouse started seeing casey anthony wearing  blouses that came up to her neck,to look as innocent as possible.

they even lowered her seat,so she looked smaller than everybody else on the defense table.

because what they were trying to do was show, this is a girl who could never kill anybody.

as the search efforts for caylee anthony stretched into 5 months,the news  spread like wildfire that human remains had been discovered not far from the anthony home.

the discovery comes a week after a child’s skull was found in a nearby wooded area blocks away from where the 2 year old lived with her mother and grandparents.

they found duct tape and they actually did a graphic of the four parts of the skull and put it back together for the jury so they could see the duct tape around the child’s face.

it is a red flag that when a child is not reported immediately  to authorities, that something  medical examiner look for  for foul play .

besides the delay ,besides the being  founf in a field,decomposed,would be the duct tape.

somewhere  located on on the lower half of this face,there is no chuild that should  have duct tape  on it’s face when it dies.

the medical examiner put  ” homicide of undertermined means”

while the prosecution maintained that casey suffocated caylee usingduct tape, the defense argued that caylee’s death was an accident.

they presented a theory that had surfaced nearly 2 year earlier.

 

this is the proof ,that she was big enough and strong enough to open the door.

when the defense gave their opening statement and said :

caylee anthony was found face down in the pool”.

what the prosecution  should have done  at that point was to say:

when  you find your baby face down in the pool, you call the police, you can call an ambulance,because you don’t know if she’s dead or not”

and if you decide then to put duct  tape around her and wrap her body in a trash bag and  throw it in the wood,that is aggravated child abuse.

that’s a 15 year charge.

they wanted a first degree charge so much they didn’t bother to explain it’s child abuse.

you started off with pointing the finger at george , the father,you start questioning his credibility, his believability,so you would discount his particular testimony and what they did is what they created a ball of  confusion.

george anthony was asked if he was home the day  caylee died ,his answer was  no.

he was also  asked if he dispose of the body of his granddaughter and the answer was no.

casey is staying with her boyfrien tony, and sadly ,caylee is in all likelihood, in the trunk.

forensic science took center stage at the anthony trial ,over several weeks , 37 expert witnesses took the stand.

but would any one of them sway the jury?

most of the forensic science in the anthony case focused on caylee’s remains , and the trunk of casey’s car.

you had a death scene,caylee probably perished,it was the trunk of that car , and that’s why she’d been  in the car, and that’s why she lied so much . that’s why she waited so long.

and the fact that she waited so long  in saying anything meant that  child was so decomposed , the didn’t know the cause of death.

that trunk smelled like a dead body.

the trunk of my daughter’s car smelled like human decomposition .” – george anthony

he was a cop, he knows what a dead body smells like.

casey’s mother was a nurse, she knows what a dead body smells like.

in the significance of the evidence,such as  the smell of death,what that really meant,the fact that you had decaying hair in the trunk of  the car, the defense wanted to call some of it  voodoo science.

the judge call it cuttin’ edge science, that basically had support in the literature and a scientific background.

the thougt  was that perhaps casey had used chloroform just to put her to sleep,so she could go out.

whatever it’s true or not that wasdone from time to time.

and mabybe in earlier years,when people didn’t understand how dangerous it was and that she accidentally killed her.

they late into  the trial got  into  some of the internet searches that were done , and  then they tried to attribute them to casey anthony

she had researched chloroform.

in this case with the chloroform keyword search hit , they were able to recover a complete internet historyfrom mozilla firefox.

the prosecution said that casey anthony used chloroform to kill her child

did casey ever buy those  ingredients?

do you have any proof that she did?

they never saw that,so that’s a big piece of the puzzle missing.

juror’s don’t know anything,you are painting a picture on a canvas,  everything that you want them to see,you gotta paint it in that picture.

the defense,not only did that ,but they did something thatmost people really didn’t notice they were doing.

they were throwin’ out reasonable doubt in every corner that they could.

at week number 4 in the casey anthony trial ,tempers flared as the defense doubled down on the strategy they had floated in opening statements.

destroy the credibility of george anthony.

casey’s car was in orlando,casey’s purse was on the front seat

and caylee’s baby doll ,her favorite doll was in the car seat ,like it was sitting where caylee would have sat.

cindy anthony was  a compelling witness, there were times when she burst into tears on the stand,she was doubled over inagony as she’s listening to the 911 calls, the jury,their heart went out to her.

when you look at the  dynamics of the testimony of george and cindy anthony, you really look  at the ebb and flow of that particular trial.

here you have these loving grandparents,who would move heaven and earth for their granddaughter,  but also you have them in their  role of being the parents of the person who’s accused of murdering this child.

you got cindy faced with this proposition.her testimony not only could lead  her daughter bein’ found guilty of murder in the first degree,but it could also lead to the imposition of the ultimate sanction of death.

defense calls George anthony.

the defense didn’t try to throw george anthony under the buss,the defense  threw him under the bus ,backed up the bus, ran over him again ,backedhim up again and ran over him again.

they crucified him in court.

the jury not necessarly believed what they were saying but  george started to

show this defiant side of him.

george anthony is now a cop with a chip onh is shoulder testifying and he looked like

‘ yeah, he probably could’ve done something wrong.’

which came directly from him being accused of something that he says he didn’t do .

there was a insinuation here that perhaps george had somehow been responsible in some  way for the death of caylee.

and tht casey’s reluctance to turn on her father had something to do with the fact that he hadbeen abusing her.

you don’t talk about a fact if you know that there is not a way to prove it, and  generally ,the only way to prove something is through testimony of an individual .

death penalty attorney  ann finnell don’t  believe that  jose or cheney was intended on calling casey as a witness.

so it was unclear to her how they were going to prove up those accusations.

the defense did a really good job of the congusing the issues maybe it was george anthony, maybe  it  was  somebody else ,maybe  it  was  the meter reader.

and by the time 7 weeks worth of trial,everybody looked guilty.

the prosecutors set for themselves avery tough bar in seeking death.

every piece of evidence is weighed under the microscope by the jurors if there’s any flaw or any missing  link no matter how apparently insignificant it may be,it’s not  insignificant to death panelty jury.

after 5 weeks of testimony in the anthony  trial ,the 7 women and 5 men  on thejury prepared  for closing arguments.

but millions of people around  the world were preparing too.

they remained fixed on the case and hopful that justice for caylee was just around the corner.

june 16, 2011  orange conty courthouse  florida vs. anthony closing argument begin.

the state.

when yhou have a child,that child becomes your life!thiscase is about the clash between that responsibility and the life  that casey anthony  wanted to have.she took her life , and she put her in the trunk and forgot about her 

she disposed of her body in a swamp.

it’s a trip down  a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love teir granddaughters,find them drowned and do nothing ,this is the world that the defense invites you to  occupy. casey anthony is guilty of murder in the first degree.

the defense

it is extremely reasonable that she could’ve dorwned in the pool and that’s where the state fails ,they must rebut each and every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.

they cannot rebut this,they’re hopin’g they throw enough against the  walland see what sticks 

right down to their cause of death, one week it was chloroform ,today it’s duct tape.i ‘m not proud of the way  casey behaved i don’t think anybody here can justify  her  actions but they do not  constitute murder.

the defendant is not required to present evidence or prove anyhing, never forget no matter what the issue is,they have all of the burden , and there is none over here!

the judge’s job is to give  the standard jury instruction ,is the prosecution or the defense,to request a special  instruction.

one , would a special jury instruction indicating that proving how she died was not an element of the crime to  be proven.

that may have made a tremendous difference,the judge had already prepared that instruction ,but when  he got  no request for that  ,he didn’t think it would come form the defense.

he figured it would come from the state but they never asked.

they needed an instruction on how they could convinct on a lesser charger because casey was looking at murder one

but she was also looking at basically negligent, treatment of a child , super easy to prove but they didn’t give that.

july 5 , 2011 , thetrial had lasted 6 weeks, the jury reached a verdict  in less  than 11 hours.

it was totally quiet in the courtroom and the jury  started coming in there was this tension in the room,it was  so quiet in that courtroom that you could hear  a pin drop.

exept you could hear the helicopters from the local news stations circling around overhead.

the jury actually read the verdict twice to make sure that the  judge’s eyes were not  playing  tricks on him .

so when the jury  said not guilty, you could hear 25 floors below the crowd  outside , you could hear them gasp.

justice for caylee! justice for caylee!

then each count was being read, and  she’s being found  not guilty.

and watching casey , she’s standing  there , she’s sort of breathing heavily and as each  verdict is being read , youcan see her shoulders are getting a  little less tense.

you can see that jose’s shoulders are getting a little less tense.

and you can see the prosecution getting more and more tense and more and more angry.

and the cops who investigated the case were sitting 2 rows behind and one of them  walked out and said  to the other..

that was some  bullshit “

..because they were furious.

one of the jurors indicated that the reason she found,the defendant not guilty was because the state could not prove how the child died.

it was a travesty,like the  prosecution hadn’t adequately explained circumstantial evidence.

because this was a circumstantial evidence case.

it wasn’t a suprised. the suprised  was at the total acquittal , as the prosecutors they  shoud’ve  put everyone on alert, and be very  careful before you recommend a prosecution on a death penalty.

had they  charged casey anthony  with manslaughter or second -degree murder ,ultimately the case may have resulted in another manner.

casey anthony  is sentenced to 4  years in prison  for lying to the police

Judge perry orders sentences to run consecutive with credit  for  time  served.

casey  anthony  is released from jail at 12:10 am  on july 17,2011

casey anthony  beat the system, she sat there trying to look like a choir girl the whole time, and ringing her hands and everything else.

she lied to everybody , people hated her.people still hate her.

there’s not but  2 people  that you know what happened one is dead, that’s caylee and the other person is casey.

maybe one day for the sake of that child, she will answer that question what really happened.

if you would ask casey  anthony a question , you wouldn’t  ask her what happened to caylee. you not gonna get the truth from her . you would ask her ,how do you sleep?how do you sleep each night?

what haunts you casey? what did  you do …?

 

 the public outrage over casey anthony’s verdict prompted the Florida legislature to pass caylee’s law in 2012.

that makes it a felony for a parent or a legal guardian to fail to report a missing child.

several other states have passed versions of caylee’s law inspried by that little toddler from Osceola county.

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