The Casey Anthony Trial

Every year, many people go on trial and have court cases for a crime of murder, but the Casey Anthony case was deemed “trial of the century”. According to “Casey Anthony,” June 15, 2008 was when two-year old Caylee Anthony was last seen alive. Casey Anthony, Caylee’s mom, claims that she dropped her daughter off at the babysitter’s home. When going to pick her up, neither the babysitter nor Caylee were anywhere to be found. A month later, on July 15, 2008, Cindy Anthony, Casey’s mother, called 911 and reported that Casey had told the family that she had not seen her daughter for 31 days. On July 16, mother of Caylee Anthony, Casey Anthony was arrested and charged for child neglect. On October 14, 2008 Casey Anthony was charged with first-degree
murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter and providing false information to law enforcement. After a six week testimony, Anthony was proven not guilty for the first-degree murder of her daughter but was found guilty of giving false information to law enforcement. The evidence that was provided in court easily created the assumption that Casey was the cause of her daughter's death. Provided with all the evidence, according to Mary Kate Burke, “I did not say she was innocent,” said Ford, who had previously only been identified as juror No. 3. “I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be.” (Page 1)

Throughout the very intriguing case, numerous stories appeared to possibly show what happened to Caylee Anthony.
One story Casey told investigators that the day Caylee went missing, she had left her with the nanny, Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, who watched Caylee in her apartment. Casey also told investigators that her daughter had accidently drowned in her grandparents’ pool while her dad was the one to cover up the evidence. While searching deeper into the cases, the physical evidence seemed to prove that Casey was the primary suspect to this Caylee’s
death.

As for being accused of being in a crime that you may or may haven’t done, you can either change, make up, or tell your story of what happened many different ways. The original story that Casey told investigators that the day Caylee went missing, she had left her with the nanny she had hired, Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, that watched her daughter in her apartment. Once Casey arrived to pick up her daughter, Caylee and her babysitter weren’t there to be found. When Casey was arrested for child neglect, she described Zenaida’s apartment and its location to the police. According to ABC NEWS, “Police found, among discrepancies with her story, that the apartment had been vacant for more than 140 days.” (Page 1). This was one of the lies that she told investigators that she had last seen her daughter.

Since Casey had already told her side of the story, the defense attorney claimed that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family’s swimming pool on June 16, 2008, and that Casey’s father, George, helped cover up the death. “The defense also alleged that Casey hid the accidental drowning just like she hid the sexual abuse from her father and brother. On January 23, 2009 Daytona Beach police found George Anthony, Caylee Anthony’s grandfather in a hotel despondent and possibly under the influence of medication and alcohol. Police also found a five-page suicide note in the hotel which lead people to believe this theory. George later claimed that the reason for the suicide note was because he felt that he had filed Caylee since she had died.” (ABC NEWS). This was a weird assumption for the investigators which George had denied this accusation when it had first came up.

As many different stories were being told, there was physical evidence that pointed fingers towards Casey Anthony. Cindy and George Anthony received a call from a towing company that their daughter's car had been abandoned and needed to be picked up. George retrieved the car and when opening the door, smelled a foul odor in the trunk of the car that smelled like a human body. “It was later revealed that there was body decomposition, coliform, and strands of hair that looked like Caylee’s in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car.” (ABC NEWS). It was also determined while Casey was in prison, an inmate claimed that Casey knew, before they were made public, details about her daughter's body. In the month that Caylee went missing, Casey got a tattoo that says “Bella Vita” meaning “beautiful life”. When investigators discovered the remains for Caylee’s body, they noticed that the duct tape around Caylee’s head was imprinted with a heart.
Being on the Casey Anthony jury was not an easy job and there wasn’t an easy decision to be made about the case.
Jennifer Ford, known as the No. 3 juror on the case, states “I did not say she was innocent,” “I just said there was not enough evidence..” (Mary Burke 1). Not all evidence was allowed to be told to all the jury at which investigators found necessary. Michele Tauber states that an alternate juror, Russell Huekler told HLN “The family appeared to be very dysfunctional and instead of admitting… there was an accident, they chose to hide it for whatever reason.” He also says “You have to remember there were a number of law enforcement officers that responded on July 15 and none of them smelled the odor,” Huekler told HLN. “It was hard for me to accept that there had been a body in the car.” (Page 1). Although there was information leading to Casey, the jury of 11 women and 5 men didn’t believe there was enough evidence to support Casey Anthony being convicted of murder. There was enough reasonable doubt to acquit her, at which the world will never know how or why, two year old Caylee Anthony had her life cut too
short.