Thread: Caylee Anthony Case

Casey Anthony found competent, trial resumes
– 16 mins ago

ORLANDO, Fla. – A judge ruled Monday that Casey Anthony is competent to remain on trial for murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter after her own lawyers questioned her mental health.

Anthony's attorneys told the judge they did not believe she was competent. They said that assessment was based on their privileged communication with her but did not elaborate in a motion filed Saturday and sealed until the judge ruled Monday.

The motion halted what had been expected to be a full day of testimony Saturday by witnesses. After meeting with attorneys, Judge Belvin Perry told courtroom attorneys and spectators that a "legal matter" had come up that would delay proceedings.

Perry asked for a review of whether Anthony could comprehend the charges against her and the possible penalties and if she could testify relevantly if called to the stand. Anthony was examined by three psychologists over the weekend. After reading their reports, Perry ruled Monday the trial should continue.

"Based upon the reports that the court has reviewed, the court will find that the defendant is competent to proceed," Perry said at the start of Monday's hearing, the 29th day of testimony.

Anthony has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge. Her defense attorneys claim her daughter Caylee Anthony accidentally drowned in the family's swimming pool. Defense attorneys also contend that Anthony and her father, George, covered up the accident.

George Anthony has denied any such theory.

Detective Yuri Melich of the Orange County Sheriff's Office was the first witness to take the stand Monday.

Under questioning from Anthony's attorney, he conceded that he had never examined George Anthony's cell phone records and that a cadaver dog never sniffed out cars driven by George Anthony and his wife, Cindy.

Melich also said he had mixed up the dates he gave the jury for when he took Roy Kronk's deposition, and that he never asked for Kronk's cell phone records or confiscated his computer. Kronk is the meter reader who found Caylee's body in a wooded lot. Melich said it was not intentional but he had the dates mixed up.

Also testifying for the defense Monday were Kenneth Furton, a chemistry professor at the International Forensic Research Institute at Florida International University and an expert on chemicals and human decomposition.

Furton told the jury that the same chemicals found in human remains were also present in the trash found in Anthony's trunk. He said fatty acids in Velveeta cheese and salami, both found in the trunk, are identical to the compounds found when a human body decomposes. He also said that chloroform can be found at very high levels in common household cleaners like bleach.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/...FzZXlhbnRob255

Meter reader says report of Caylee Anthony's skull ignored
By Barbara Liston | Reuters – 2 hrs 0 mins ago

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) - A meter reader recounted on Tuesday how he found the skull of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in August 2008 but couldn't get anyone to take him seriously until four months later when investigators recovered the body in the spot he identified. Roy Kronk is a key witness for the defense in the first-degree murder trial of 25-year-old Casey Anthony, accused of smothering daughter Caylee on June 16, 2008 and dumping her remains in woods near their home.

Kronk is one of several people who defense attorney Jose Baez has said may have played a role in the disposal of Caylee's remains.

Kronk has so far said that on August 11, 2008, he parked his work truck on Suburban Drive -- around the corner from the Anthonys' home -- and walked into the woods to relieve himself. Kronk said he noticed about 30 feet away what appeared to be a small, white skull. He said he told two co-workers with him what he saw, but they were too distracted by the body of a water moccasin snake to pay attention. Kronk said he called a crime tip line later that night to report the skull-like object.

At the time, a nationwide search was underway to find Caylee, who Casey claimed was kidnapped by a nanny.

But detectives were zeroing in on Casey, who they knew had lied extensively about Caylee's disappearance. Special tip lines were created to handle the thousands of tips and leads sent to authorities. Kronk said he called the Orange County Sheriff's Office again a day or two after his first call. This time, two deputies met him on Suburban Drive. But they did not go into the woods or ask him to show them the skull-like object. "I just pointed in the area," Kronk said.

Kronk's meter route brought him back to Suburban Drive on December 11, 2008. This time when he reported the skull, investigators came to the scene and found Caylee's remains.

PSYCHIC TIP

The defense maintains that Caylee drowned in the Anthony family's backyard pool, and no one reported her death. Defense attorneys have also tried to raise questions about what happened to Caylee's body in the six months between her death and the recovery of her remains.

Earlier in the morning, the defense team continued for a second day to stress that numerous other people had fruitlessly searched the same woods in the general area where Caylee's remains ultimately were found.

Private investigator Dominic Casey and his helper, James Hoover, testified on Monday that they searched the same general area in November 2008 based on a psychic's tip and did not find the body. Casey's mother Cindy denied under questioning by defense lawyers on Tuesday that she had directed the private investigator to follow up on the tip. However, Casey's brother Lee testified that his mother told him prior to October 2008 that she had sent the private investigator to follow up on the psychic's tip.

Lee said he specifically remembered the incident because it was the first time anyone in his family had indicated a willingness to search for a body rather than a live Caylee.

Casey's father, George Anthony, also took the stand briefly again on Tuesday, denying assertions by defense attorney Baez that he had an affair with search volunteer Krystal Holloway. George testified he only went to Holloway's condominium to comfort her after learning she had cancer. "I never had a romantic affair," George said.

He denied ever telling Holloway that "Caylee's death was an accident that snowballed out of control." He also said he never told her that he grabbed Casey by the throat, threw her against a wall and demanded Casey tell him where Caylee was. "She (Holloway) is not a good person," George testified.

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-rules-ca...031253312.html

The Defense has rested in the Casey Anthony trial in Orlando, FL. Anthony did not take the stand.

Casey Anthony won't testify; defense rests
By KYLE HIGHTOWER - Associated Press | AP – 16 mins ago

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The defense rested Thursday in the Casey Anthony murder trial without her taking the witness stand, leaving unsubstantiated her attorneys' contention that her 2-year-old daughter Caylee wasn't killed but accidentally drowned.

Her attorneys also never produced any witnesses bolstering the claim made in last month's opening statements that Anthony had acted without apparent remorse in the weeks after her daughter's death because she had been molested by her father as a child, resulting in emotional problems.

Instead, their 13-day case primarily focused on poking holes in the prosecution's contention that Anthony killed Caylee in June 2008 by covering her mouth with duct tape. Prosecutors said the woman dumped Caylee's body in the woods near her parents' home and then resumed her life of partying and shopping.

The defense said in its opening statement that Caylee drowned and that Anthony's father George, a former police officer, helped her cover up the death by making it look like a homicide and dumping the body near their home, where it was found by a meter reader six months later. George Anthony has vehemently denied any involvement in Caylee's death, the disposal of her body or molesting his daughter.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Anthony, 25, could receive the death penalty.

The defense's final witnesses Thursday included Krystal Holloway, a woman who claims she had an affair with George Anthony that began after Caylee disappeared. She said he told her in November 2008 that Caylee's death was "an accident that snowballed out of control." George Anthony has denied having an affair with her but admitted visiting her home on several occasions.

They also recalled George Anthony to ask if he had supplied duct tape he used to put up posters of his granddaughter when she was missing. He said he couldn't remember. Lead defense attorney Jose Baez also asked him if he buried his pets after their deaths in plastic bags wrapped with duct tape. Anthony said he had on some occasions. Prosecutors have contended Caylee's body was disposed of in a similar manner. Under prosecution questioning, he said he had never thrown their carcasses in a swamp.

The prosecution will now put on a rebuttal case that is expected to last about a day. Closing arguments would follow, probably on Saturday, and the jury would then get the case that evening or Sunday.

Caylee was last seen in mid-June 2008. For the next month, Casey Anthony avoided her parents, telling her mother and her friends that Caylee was with a baby sitter named Zanny.

Casey's parents soon got a notice that their daughter's car had been towed. George Anthony and the tow lot operator both said the Pontiac Sunfire smelled like death.

Prosecutors played a tape of a frantic 911 call made by Anthony's mother, Cindy, reporting her granddaughter missing. She tells the operator, "It smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Casey Anthony then told detectives that Caylee had been kidnapped by the nanny, and a massive search was launched.

Over the next several weeks, hundreds of volunteers scoured central Florida for any clues to Caylee's whereabouts. Meanwhile, numerous photos surfaced of Casey Anthony drinking, some of them allegedly taken in the month after Caylee disappeared.

Caylee's skeletal remains were reported in December 2008 by a municipal meter reader. A key part of the defense case was trying to discredit the meter reader, Roy Kronk, saying that he had actually discovered the body in August.

http://news.yahoo.com/casey-anthony-...173849940.html

I hate this waste of a human. I watch the trial when I can and all I can think when I look at her smug face is..evil.

Casey Anthony weeps as prosecutor calls her a liar
By KYLE HIGHTOWER - Associated Press | AP – 13 mins ago

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — Casey Anthony briefly broke down crying Sunday as prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments that she murdered her 2-year-old daughter Caylee because the child prevented her from having a relationship with a club promoter.

The closing arguments came in a case that has played out on national TV since Caylee's disappearance in the summer of 2008 and continued through her mother's trial, with spectators traveling from all over the U.S. to jockey for coveted seats in the courtroom gallery.

Casey Anthony, 25, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. She could face a possible death sentence or life in prison if convicted of that charge.

Anthony also is charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and four counts of providing false information to law enforcement. The child abuse and manslaughter charges each carry a 30-year prison term if convicted.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Jeff Ashton said Anthony wanted a relationship with her boyfriend, to go out with her friends and to live the carefree life she had lived before Caylee's birth. "Something needed to be sacrificed, that something was either the life she wanted or the life thrust upon her. She chose to sacrifice her child," Ashton said during his 90-minute argument.

Prosecutors contend Caylee was suffocated with duct tape by a mother who then crafted elaborate lies to mislead everyone from investigators to her own parents. Defense attorneys countered that the toddler accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that her seemingly carefree mother in fact was hiding emotional distress caused by alleged sexual abuse from her father. Her father has firmly denied that claim.

Defense attorney Jose Baez began his closing argument by telling the jurors that they have more questions than answers, including the biggest: How did Caylee die? Neither prosecutors nor the defense have offered firm proof of how Caylee died. "It can never be proven," he said. That by itself should give them reasonable doubt that Anthony killed her daughter, he said.

He said the prosecutors' case is so weak that they tried to portray Anthony as "a lying, no-good slut."

"Then you'll start to look at this evidence in a different light, you'll start to, wait a minute, maybe I'm seeing something that's not there and start to actually discriminate against her rather than give her the standard that is afforded to each and every citizen in our country," Baez said, noting that the state must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Earlier during Ashton's argument, Anthony appeared mostly stone-faced for about the first 45 minutes, but then she closed her eyes and rested her chin on her hand. She began to cry when Ashton said that the story that Caylee drowned was also false.

Ashton said Caylee's death wasn't an accident because three pieces of duct tape were placed on her face — one on the mouth, one on the nose and one over those to be "thorough."

The jury is expected to begin deliberating after the defense finishes its closing argument.

Ashton began his closing argument by showing a video of Anthony playing with Caylee, causing Anthony to apparently choke back tears. But she quickly regained her composure.

He then told the jury that Anthony worried Caylee was getting to the age where she would have told Anthony's parents that the woman was spending her days and nights with her boyfriend — not going to work and leaving Caylee with a nanny. "Casey is very bright," Ashton said. "Her lies are very detailed. ... But when Casey wants to do what Casey wants to do, she finds a way."

He then described the lies Anthony told her parents, George and Cindy Anthony, about why she couldn't come home and why she couldn't produce Caylee after the toddler was last seen June 16, 2008. That she was with a nanny named Zanny, a woman who doesn't exist. That Anthony and her daughter were spending time in Jacksonville with a rich boyfriend who doesn't exist. That Zanny had been hospitalized after an out-of-town traffic accident and that they were spending time with her.

It only fell apart, Ashton said, a month later when a junk yard told George and Cindy Anthony their daughter's car had been towed. When they picked it up, they discovered a foul odor — George Anthony, a former police officer, and the tow yard operator said it smelled like human decomposition.

Cindy Anthony then tracked down her daughter. When she couldn't produce Caylee, her parents called police. Casey Anthony then told investigators she worked at Universal Studios theme park as an event planner. She went so far as to take them there, talk her way past security, take them to an office building and only give up the lie as she was walking down the hall.

Ashton then attacked the defense contention that Caylee drowned and that George Anthony helped Casey Anthony cover it up. No one faced with an accidental drowning would do that instead of calling the police emergency dispatcher, Ashton said. "It is a trip down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love their granddaughters find them drowned and do nothing," Ashton said. "Where men who love their granddaughters take an accident, a completely innocent act, and make it look like a murder for no reason. A world where a man who buries his pets will take the granddaughter who was the love of his life and throw her in a swamp."


http://beta.news.yahoo.com/casey-ant...143220816.html


Defense says in closings no proof how Caylee died
By KYLE HIGHTOWER - Associated Press | AP – 1 hr 2 mins ago

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The defense began its closing arguments in the Casey Anthony murder trial by saying there is no proof showing how her 2-year-old daughter Caylee died.

Defense attorney Jose Baez told the Florida jury that they have more questions than answers and that there is reasonable doubt that Anthony killed Caylee.

Earlier, Anthony broke down crying as prosecutors called her a liar who murdered her child.

The 25-year-old Anthony is charged with murdering her daughter three years ago. If convicted of first-degree murder, she could get the death penalty.

The defense has contended that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family's pool. They say that Anthony's father then made the death look like a homicide and dumped her in the woods near the family home.

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/defense-s...152751098.html

comments

Consider this, that little baby was under the care of the mother and there is a failure of the mother to care for and protect that child.....She is guilty of not caring for her child which resulted in the death of that child........It is no wonder the mom originally wanted to raise the child, she knew her daughter was unfit.....She needs to be found guilty of manslaughter, child abuse and lieing under oath for sure........This girl is a total disgrace and needs severe punishment......

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How the hell can duct tape over the mouth and nose be accidental drowning? Boy Howdy!!!

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you almost need to have a video to convict anyone of murder these days--this defense attorney is doing everything he can to acquit by confusion. She already has admitted that she knew of her baby's death-by drowning-and lied to the police. No parent hides a child's body that has died by accident. She is as guilty as they come.

NOT GUILTY......................:

Now there is two murderers found not quilty...OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony. No justice for Nicole Simpson, Ron Goldman, Caylee Anthony and many others who didn't receive the publicity the Simpson and Anthony cases did.

She'll probably walk with time served for the false information....karma will happen...she's a train wreck who will quickly meet her own demise. No doubt.