Caylee Marie Anthony was a three-year-old girl from Florida. In mid-2008, the child went missing along with his mother, Casey. The woman did not return to her family home for 31 days. In the end, it turned out that Caylee had been murdered, which was suspected of the child's mother. What sentence did Casey hear? Why do many people refer to this as the "process of the century"? Check out the story of the murder of Caylee Marie Anthony.
Caylee Marie Anthony was born on August 9, 2005. Her mother was Casey Anthony. It is not known who the girl's father was. Casey and her child lived in the house of their parents, George and Cindy. The family lived happily in a small house in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. On June 16, 2008, Casey's parents said, their daughter and granddaughter suddenly disappeared. They didn't come home for 31 days. Despite Cindy's pleas and repeated insistence on the meeting, Casey refused. She claimed to be busy working at Universal Studios in Tampa. When her parents offered to relieve her of her responsibilities and look after Caylee, Casey said her daughter was in the care of a nanny. The woman taking care of the child was to be called Zenaida "Zanny" Fernandez-Gonzalez.
On July 16, 2008, George Anthony was informed by police that Casey's car had been found at a construction site. The man immediately arrived on the scene with his wife Cindy. Fortunately, they had spare Casey's car keys in the house. When we managed to open the car, a terrible stench came out of it. George decided to search the vehicle right away. It turned out, however, that there was nothing in it. There was only a garbage bag in the trunk, pointing to the source of the suspicious smell, baffling George. On the same day Cindy decided to notify the Orange County Sheriff's Office about the disappearance of her daughter and granddaughter. She informed them that Casey had not returned home with her little daughter in a month. Desperate, she added that a suspicious, unpleasant smell was emanating from the daughter's car found today: "The stench is as if there was a dead body lying in this car."
Later that day, police officers managed to track down Casey Anthony. The surprised woman was immediately taken to the police station. There she confessed to investigators that she had been looking for her daughter for 31 days. She claimed that Caylee had probably been kidnapped by "Zanna's" nanny. Yes, such a woman did exist - the police immediately managed to establish her data and where she was. But she had never seen Casey or Caylee with her eyes. So it was known that the mother of a three-year-old girl was telling the truth. Casey said she had been looking for a little girl on her own for a month and had been unsuccessful. Apparently, she did not call her parents or the police just so as not to worry anyone. Investigators did not believe Casey because her assurances were not at all credible to them. So they decided to investigate the matter further - it was still unknown what happened to the three-year-old child.
Police officers were able to determine that Casey Anthony did not work at Universal Studios. The day after the three-year-old was reported missing, Casey was asked to take them to her workplace. The woman did take the officers to the multi-story building, where she allegedly had her private office. After several dozen minutes of hanging around in the skyscraper, she replied with a playful smile that she did not have her office there anymore because she was dismissed a few years ago. Casey was therefore charged with making false statements, neglecting the child, and obstructing the investigation of law enforcement. On July 22, 2008, she was sentenced to one year in prison. However, the woman left the prison after only a month. It turned out that Leonard Padili, Casey's nephew from California, paid a deposit of $ 500,000 for her. The man had that Casey would start cooperating with the police and together they would find little Caylee.
Casey Anthony didn't want to cooperate with the police at all. Instead of joining the search, she decided to take the opportunity that she had been released. The woman partied until morning every day. She even got a tattoo that reads "Beautiful Life". Casey did not seem upset by the disappearance of her only child. The media immediately caught the attention of the matter. Many have described this as the "process of the century." Casey, in turn, has been hailed as "America's Most Hated Mother." Those concerned felt that her mother was solely responsible for Caylee's disappearance. Many people boldly said that the woman killed her daughter.
On December 8, 2008, the police called Roy Kronk, who was checking the meters near the Anthony's home. In a wooded area not far from the property, he came across what looked to him like a human skull. It was lying near a large gray laundry bag. Officers quickly arrived at the reporting site. After searching the bag, it turned out that it contained the remains of the child. Inside was also a blanket with Winnie the Pooh - Caylee's favorite blanket. From the autopsy report, it was possible to obtain information that on a part of the child's skull there were pieces of adhesive tape in a heart pattern. The victim's mouth was also stuck with it. The bones of the murdered child were also found scattered at the site of the murder. December 19 came to the results of the analysis of some tissues taken from the bones found. It turned out to be the body of missing Caylee Marie Anthony. Casey was arrested again.
On May 9, 2010, the trial against Casey began. The prosecutor believed that the woman had murdered three-year-old Caylee because her child was interfering with her party lifestyle. During the trial, which lasted six weeks, about 40 pieces of evidence of her guilt was presented to the defendant. Among them were, among others identical gray laundry bags and a heart-shaped ribbon the woman kept in her family home. In the history of Caylee's computer search engine, in turn, terms such as "shovel", "chloroform" and "neck injury" have been found. Traces of chloroform were found in the trunk of the accused's car, which had been searched again, as well as substances indicating that a decomposing body was being held inside. A hair of a three-year-old was also found with a dark rim around the bulb. This is the rim that forms after the death of a person.
The woman was charged with murdering her own child. The trial of Casey Anthony was partially watched by over 40 million Americans as it was broadcast on public television. Casey's case seemed clear - people and the media had long ago convicted the woman. Meanwhile, Casey had a defense that portrayed her as a victim of childhood sexual abuse. The defense also claimed that the three-year-old drowned in her grandparents' pool and that Casey and George hid the body in the woods nearby. Then they faked the girl's disappearance together. Casey Anthony was also supposed to suffer from mental problems - after Caylee's death, she partied to forget about her daughter's disappearance. The accused's father strongly opposed the defense and decided to testify against her daughter.
The prosecution did not have strong enough evidence to charge Casey with the murder of the child. It turned out that the investigators made many mistakes in securing the evidence (e.g. after taking fingerprints from the tape, the characteristic hearts disappeared from it). An autopsy was not performed properly. In addition, Cindy Anthony admitted that she was searching for search terms on the Internet when her friend had an accident - the woman wanted to know more about this case. On July 5, 2011, Casey was officially found not guilty of the child's murder. However, she was sentenced to three years in prison for giving false testimony. The woman is at large today.
The Americans could not come to terms with the judges' verdict. Millions of people have searched for where Casey lives, what he does, or who the father of the deceased three-year-old was. In 2011, "Casey Anthony" was one of the most frequently used search terms in the Google search engine. George Anthony hired a private investigator to publish a book about the murdered Caylee in 2017. In his opinion, Casey allowed the child to enter the pool and then took the ladder out of the pool so that the girl could not get out - causing the 3-year-old to drown. The mother then hid her body in the trunk and rode with it for several days. When it started to decompose, she threw them in the woods. This is, of course, the detective's thesis - one of many that have arisen around the whole case.
Nobody has forgotten the story of the murder of Caylee Marie Anthony. Will the matter ever have a sequel, though? Unfortunately, it is not known. Casey apparently still goes out with friends to bars with a broad smile on her face, where she meets various men. Some of them quickly realize who the "mysterious stranger" is. People are still whispering and taking pictures of Casey undercover. Some slander a woman who constantly considers herself innocent and is harassed by society and the media. It is not expected that the woman will be accused of murdering her daughter again.
Bibliography:
- Janusz Maciej Jastrzębski: Beasts. Zbrodnie i kara, Wydawnictwo Akliwia, Warsaw 2017
- Stephen J. Giannangelo, Jarosław Groth (trans.): Psychopathology of Serial Murder, If P to Q Publishing House, Poznań 2007
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