(Casey Anthony. Picture credit: People) *Please note, as you may see by the title of this post. I will be covering the disturbing case of Caylee Anthony's death and the circumstances that may or may not have surrounded that and the trial of her mother, Casey. I will be talking about child abuse, neglect and murder. As always, I will try to be as sensitive as I can with the details without taking away from the facts of the case.*
The heartbreaking death of little three year old Caylee Anthony from Orlando, Florida, is and always will be, a great pain in the heart of anyone who followed the case and hoped so hard for justice to be served. So many people took Caylee to their hearts and it's clear to see that no matter how many years have gone by, the strong emotions that this case brings out in people, is still very much there.
I've been contacted numerous times to cover this case and I was reluctant to write about it because of the fact that this little angel was treated in such a disrespectful and cold manner (it's always difficult to write about cases involving children). I followed parts of the trial as it was happening and that was bad enough, it made me feel angry as it did a lot of people.
I found it a very hard case to follow because it had more twists and turns than a roller coaster and some of the ridiculous things that were shared in the courtroom made me scratch my head a few times that this was allowed to take place. The harrowing details, the ridiculous and obvious far-fetched lies along with the behaviours of those involved just baffled me. And then there was that verdict that shocked not just America, but the world.
By the time the verdict came around I saw the reaction of people and it was mostly of utter outrage, shock and disbelief. Casey Anthony is a free woman as many of you know and there's a lot of people out there who believe she is a murderer, but what do you think? This case has been gone over so many times that another reason I was unsure as to write about it. I didn't think I would bring anything new to the story, but I'm always been told that my readers want my take on a particular case, my way of telling it and possibly my opinion.
So, here we are, going back over this shocking case and looking at some of the details. I would love to hear your thoughts on this at the end of the post (either in the comments section below or in confidence via my email at jocaledoniankitty@gmail.com). It's such a controversial story that it divides opinion, I feel it's important to hear what everyone has to say, after all, none of us were there but it's human nature to have our own opinions about what we think may have happened and what our views may be of Casey Anthony's behaviour and the behaviours of that of her family.
It's hard to know where to begin with this case so I suppose starting with a bit of background into Caylee's Mother, Casey might be an appropriate place to start. Casey Marie Anthony was born on the 19th of March 1986 to parents George and Cindy. Her parents already had a child, her brother Lee so it seemed like the perfect set up in the beginning, one girl and one boy. However, early on there were some red flags in Casey's childhood. There was a lot of tension between Casey and Lee growing up, both wanting to be the centre of attention and Casey was known to be a bit over-dramatic and a bit of a fantasist at times. She would tell little lies and it was viewed as something that she would grow out of as it was quite common for children of a young age to make up stories in infancy. I remember doing this myself at a young age but grew out of it, so it was seen as harmless at the time.
Casey grew up in quite a comfortable household financially, her father had worked in law enforcement and she had quite an ordinary upbringing apart from a little rivalry with her brother and making up stories. She was popular and well liked as well as being quite a confident child and sociable. Everything more or less looked positive from the outside looking in. Casey would later say that this was not the case and would give a different story of her childhood later on especially in regards to her father and brother.
Casey was quite a bright child and as she grew up she was academically gifted as well as being very active in sports at school. She was a pretty girl and had no problem with attracting the attention of boys at school that she liked, however, the habit of telling lies, even about the silliest of things, had never left her, almost like she had a compulsion to do it. In the beginning the lies were not that serious, it would be about little things but the older she got, the worse they got, including lying to her parents that she was all set to graduate and was taking her education and her future very seriously only for them to find out that she had been going off the rails and had not attending school.
Her parents were not happy about the lying and the situation with Casey not graduating, Being the people that they were (and this becomes clear the more you go into the case), George and Cindy were very much about appearances, they were quite narcissistic and many people believe that this was handed down to their children, in particular, Casey. Instead of accepting that their daughter didn't graduate and looking at other possible options, they decided that they couldn't face the shame of telling the neighbours and everyone they knew that Casey didn't graduate, it was a huge deal for them. So they threw a ridiculous party pretending that Casey did indeed graduate and she went along with it too. It was all one big performance and it was clear to see where Casey had gotten her art of lying from.
It did seem that Casey could do no wrong in her parents eyes and she was able to play on this and manipulate them. They started to notice that she had put some weight on but didn't think anything of it at first and didn't want to say anything incase it upset Casey and they didn't want to make her feel self-conscious about her body. It was starting to be obvious though that the weight that Casey was displaying, was indeed pregnancy weight even though she kept trying to convince her parents that she was still a virgin.
There was a huge amount of denial going on at the time from both Casey and her parents, there seemed to be this attitude of not wanting to acknowledge that she was pregnant but eventually they had to face facts and after much discussion (despite Casey's reservations about becoming a mother at such a young age) Cindy convinced her to keep the baby and that they would support her in any way that they could.
As for the baby's biological father, there's always been a mystery around that with Casey being very vague about it. Despite being a single mother to now, a beautiful little girl whom she named 'Caylee Marie Anthony' (she gave Caylee the same middle name as herself 'Marie'), it didn't effect her love life in any way. She was still a beautiful young woman and had romances with guys who were so besotted with her and adored Caylee. They wanted to bond with both of them but it seemed that Casey was the one who was standoffish. Although she demonstrated on many occasions that she adored her daughter and both she and Caylee could often be seen playing together and hugging each other, there was also this sense of wanting to be young, free, single and out to party sort of vibe that was coming from her. It appeared that the responsibility of being a parent was something that she had a love/hate relationship with. Casey was very lucky because she had her parents there constantly to help her with Caylee. Both George and Cindy were besotted with Caylee and spend almost every single day with her.
(Caylee Anthony. Picture credit: Medium)Casey was continuing to live with her parents who were helping her everyday with Caylee. She was also in a relationship with a guy that she had been with for quite some time, Jesse Grund and he was convinced that he was Caylee's biological father but after a DNA test revealed that he wasn't. Jesse still wanted to make things work because he adored them both and asked Casey to marry him. The relationship was not to be though as Casey decided to break it off because she felt that Jesse was paying too much attention to Caylee and not enough attention to her which was another demonstration of her narcissistic personality disorder. Cindy was quite happy that the relationship had come to an end because she had grown extremely attached to Caylee and saw Jesse as being in the way. The more you look into this family and their behaviours, they more it just baffles you and leaves you with a 'what the hell was all that about' sort of feeling. To say this family was odd is an understatement and it's hard to keep track (at least, in my experience of researching this case) of what was going on because there's so many lies, twists and turns to this case, it is not a straightforward story.
Cindy appeared to be an overbearing mother and often acted like she was Caylee's mother because she looked after her most of the time. Casey had the habit of picking and choosing when she wanted to be a parent, at times she would be affectionate with Caylee and other times she couldn't be bothered and just wanted to go out shopping or have nights out with friends. It was clear that she wasn't mentally mature enough to be a mother and certainly wasn't maternal (this would also be demonstrated in her behaviour later on). As predicted, Cindy and Casey would often come to blows about Casey's irresponsible behaviour when it came to Caylee. Casey didn't want her mother telling her how to bring her daughter up but at the same time she would keep acting like a teenager with no responsibilities. Arguments in the family home became a regular occurrence and it all came to head one day with Casey walking out the house with Caylee.
The exact circumstances that occurred between Casey and Cindy differs depending on who you believe or want to believe but the next few weeks, Cindy became frantic with worry, missing her granddaughter. When she did get a chance to speak to Casey, she consistently asked where Caylee was and each time there was a different excuse. Casey came up with the infamous and ridiculous lie that Caylee was with a babysitter by the name of Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez (nicknamed 'Zanny'). Every time Cindy or someone else asked where Caylee was, Casey gave a story that Caylee was with Zanny.
This went on for weeks and tensions grew more and more between Cindy and Casey with Cindy demanding to know where her granddaughter was, she was tired of the stories about Zanny, she knew her daughter was a practiced liar and maybe it was a grandmother's instinct but she knew that something was wrong.
Whilst all this was going on, Casey was hanging out and partying with friends in nightclubs with Caylee being nowhere to be seen. She was staying over at guys houses, having sex, partying, telling her friends that Caylee was with Zanny. She also told her friends that she worked for Universal Studios as an event planner. In the whole time that she was with these friends, the guy she was seeing and anyone who had witnessed her partying those nights, everyone repeatedly said that she seemed happy, with not a care in the world, no indication in the slightest that anything was wrong.
It's hard to keep up with the lies but everything was unravelling, as well as everything else, George and Cindy discovered that Casey had been lying about working, she didn't even have a job. Casey had been using her brother's car and when her parents were notified that the vehicle had been found at a tow yard, they began to panic. Communication with themselves and Casey had become scarce and they didn't know what was going on, they were worried and they had no idea who this supposed babysitter 'Zanny' was that Casey had previously been telling them about.
George checked out the car and noticed all of the belongings inside, Caylee's car seat and toys were still in there. Why would they be in there? She would need them wouldn't she? As well as wondering why these items that every parent needs for their young child, were still in this abandoned car, there was a strong, overpowering smell coming from the trunk of the car and George (who had worked years as a police officer recognised this smell, it was the smell of decomposition) began to fear the worst. There was also items of rotten food in the car along with other bits of clutter. He was terrified that he was going to find Casey and Caylee in the car deceased, he later said his heart was pounding as he opened the trunk. To his relief, they were not there. He got into the car and drove it home. As soon as he pulled up, Cindy came racing out in a panic and the first thing she noticed was the smell, she even said (kind of a unfortunate choice of words at the time) ''What died?''.
With the state of the car and Caylee still nowhere to be seen, George and Cindy managed to track Casey down to a boyfriend's house and demanded to know where Caylee was. Getting nowhere with Casey, Cindy gets on the phone to the police and tells them she's worried that something has happened to her granddaughter, that she hasn't seen her in weeks, that Casey is constantly giving her excuses and now her son's car has a horrendous odour coming from the trunk. Out of nowhere, Casey comes out with this story that the mysterious babysitter Zanny has kidnapped Caylee and has been missing for just over a month. Cindy and George appeared to be beside themselves.
Casey was questioned about Zanny as she gave more lies about this mysterious woman being Caylee's babysitter for nearly two years. The whole scene was unbelievable, Casey was so unbothered and not acting like a parent who's child had been missing for 31 days. The fact that she had kept this to herself all of this time? To lie to her parents continuously and go out partying with her friends, laughing and joking all the while her little girl is supposed to have been kidnapped.
As investigators sat back and listened to Casey tell lie upon lie upon lie, they knew that this was ridiculous and instructed Casey to take them to her place of employment, Universal Studios. Casey kept the lies up and when they got to the gate she couldn't get in, she didn't have a security pass obviously and just told the police that she forgot her work ID. The staff at the gate who were used to seeing hundreds, maybe thousands of people everyday, recognised that she was with the police (even though they didn't have a clue who she was) and decided to let everyone in. Even inside the studios she still pretended that she worked there until finally she hit a brick wall and told the cops she didn't work there after all. What did she expect them to do? Take her word for it? She really thought she was a convincing liar. In fact, at her trial, a former friend mentioned that Casey once bragged ''I'm such a great liar''.
Investigators grew tired of her lies and were highly suspicious of her from the get-go, she was remanded in custody. Her parents came to visit her some time after and they tried to get some proper information out of her because as far as they knew, Caylee was just missing. Casey is still keeping up this performance that Caylee has been kidnapped by the mysterious babysitter who's phone number no longer works anymore funnily enough. Her whole demeanour during her parents visiting her was that of a couldn't care less attitude, Casey was always 100% concerned with herself and that's all she ever cared about was herself and that was true of her from her childhood, right up to the moment she sat in that courtroom not even shedding a tear until they began talking about her supposed hard times during her childhood.
(George and Cindy Anthony. Picture credit: ABC News)
At this point in time despite everyones suspicions towards Casey, a massive search for Caylee was underway. Information posters were everywhere with Caylee's cute little face on, T-shirts were printed etc, everyone was trying so hard to find her. Despite the massive search for Caylee, Casey still seemed to be so concerned with herself and wasn't sitting glued to the news or demanding to know the latest updates on the search which is what you would expect a frantic parent to be doing. Instead she remained her usual unbothered self but something she said to her parents whilst they were visiting her, spoke volumes and gave chills down the spine. She was talking about Caylee and she said the words ''Caylee was so lucky to have had you''
To be talking about Caylee in the past tense coupled with everything else that had gone on, the ridiculous lies, taking the police to Universal Studios and then admitting she didn't work there, acting care-free despite her daughter supposedly being kidnapped. Her whole behaviour was not one of a terrified parent worried about their missing child.
With the search for Caylee growing and media attention now on the Anthony family, Cindy and George began to suffer abuse from members of the public who believed (even though no body had been found at that time) that Casey had murdered Caylee.
(Casey Anthony. Picture credit: IBtimes) Despite the dreaded fear that Caylee was no longer alive, everyone did hope that there would be a positive outcome to all of this and that by some miracle she would be found safe and well but it wasn't to be. In August of 2008, a maintenance worker by the name of Roy Kronk had contacted the police on three separate occasions stating that he had seen what he thought was a human skull. There was a bit of back and forth between Roy and the police until eventually they discovered the rest of what looked like a child's remains in a trash bag. The skull had bits of hair, tissue and duct tape still attached to it, it was clear that this child (who was sadly, later identified as Caylee) had their mouth and nose taped up, in fact the duct tape had been wrapped around the head of this child. In my opinion this was done to suffocate Caylee.
On the 19th of December 2008 after more remains were found and positively identified to belong to Caylee Anthony, the medical examiner was able to conclude that Caylee had died from homicide but her death was listed as undetermined. There were high traces of chloroform found during the examination but due to the advanced stages of decomposition there was no way they would be able to determine what caused her death.
As you can imagine, as soon as the news was revealed that Caylee's remains had been found, Cindy and George were devastated as was the rest of the family and members of the public. Casey was still not up or down about it and her coldness spoke volumes about who she really was. George found life difficult at this time, unable to cope with the grief, he tried to take his own life and had a left a five page suicide note. Luckily he survived but the grief for him, Cindy and Lee continued.
Not only did they have to cope with the horrendous death of their granddaughter and niece, they now had to face a public trial with Casey and found themselves getting the finger of the blame.
Casey's lawyer was a force to reckoned with despite working on behalf of her, he really did try to paint her in a certain light and he succeeded because Casey Anthony is a free woman. Casey's team had thrown everything they could at the Jury until something stuck. Yet another story emerged of the death of Caylee being in fact, George's fault. They claimed that Caylee had drowned in the family pool and George helped Casey cover it up. Another story was that Casey was now saying that George had sexually assaulted her as a child and that Caylee had died as a result of drowning. Casey and her team claimed that George killed Caylee to stop her speaking out about sexual abuse. Casey also told the court that her father abused her when she was a child and she suspected that he had been abusing Caylee.
So despite praising her father during one of his prison visits and never saying a thing up until this point, she was now claiming to be a victim of George and that she only lied because that is how George ran the family home. George refuted Casey's claims and sat shocked and in disbelief as he heard her team talk about sexual abuse as well as the claim that George had either drowned Caylee or that Caylee died as an accident from drowning and that he helped cover it up.
Casey Anthony's trial was broadcast to the nation and beyond, a lot of people believed that the Judge was going to throw the book at her. That's not what happened sadly, she was let go because they couldn't prove if she was responsible or not, they knew she lied and she had spent some time in prison leading up to this moment so they just classed it as time served.
Casey has been out of prison now for a very long time and has tried her hand at various things from photography and is supposed to be writing a book about Caylee. In the Double Jeopardy law in America, it means that a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice. Many people believe that Casey Anthony got away with murder, what do you think?
For someone who's daughter was murdered or drowned in the family swimming pool, depending on who you want to believe, there's never been an outpouring of grief from her, no emotion. She's not even looking for the supposed proper justice for her daughter, she's not even bothered.
George had strongly denied any inappropriate behaviour towards his children. Casey and George do not speak to each other to this day. Casey is still in touch, briefly, with her mother and her brother. Her relationship with her brother is still a tense one as she had told a few stories about him in the past, whether or not these stories were true, one can only wonder especially with Casey's track record for lying.
In September of 2024, the New York Post reported that Casey Anthony was reportedly in a relationship with a married man of two children. Apparently the man had become infatuated with Casey and had always been attracted to her, telling relatives that she had an ''attractive aura''. The man left his wife and children to be with Casey. It's not the first time we've seen a situation where a guy (for whatever reason, life crisis, bored with married life, tired of being single...who know's the reason) will become fixated on someone who has been in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. If you are a long-time reader of my blog you will remember the Tracie Andrews Case where she abused and murdered her boyfriend and then tried to cover it up by saying his death was the result of a road-rage incident. Well, she ended up marrying a male fan who'd become fixated on her and he left his wife for her. It seems that serial killers are not the only ones who have groupies, for some reason these men are attracted to unstable and dangerous women. I think it's a sexual interest, a turn-on for them to be with someone that they are not supposed to be with. What are your thoughts about this?
It's clear that no matter where Casey Anthony goes or whatever she does, there's always some sort of drama around or behind her, there are always people left hurt as a result of her actions.
(Caylee Anthony. Picture credit: People)
RIP beautiful angel Caylee, you will never be forgotten x
Further reading & Sources:
- Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony | Book by Jeff Ashton
- Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony by Jose Baez
- The Mother of All Lies | Book by David Kennedy
- Death of Caylee Anthony | Wikipedia
- Casey Anthony: Article | People
- Casey Anthony: An American Murder Mystery | IMDb
- Casey Anthony: Article | New York Post
- Caylee Anthony | Biography
- Casey Anthony: Report | CNN
- Casey Anthony: Article | The Guardian
- Casey Anthony | Trial Playlist
- Casey Anthony | Interrogation Playlist
So, what are your thoughts on this horrendous case? Let me know in the comments below.
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Stay safe & I'll see you in the next post x
