Casey Anthony Acquitted

Published on July 13th, 2011
Written by Public Record Finder Staff

Casey Anthony has been acquitted by the jury in her trial for the murder of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony. The trial has been a media circus, with Casey suffering a "media assassination" as every public legal mind pores over the details of the trial and weighs in with their opinions, all of which sway overwhelmingly towards guilty. This is why the Casey verdict comes as such a shocker; many people believed that she would be convicted of manslaughter in the case, even if she did not receive the death penalty.

The media has already begun drawing parallels with the O.J. Simpson acquittal, in which jurors declared after the trial, "We think he probably did it. We just didn't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt." All of the evidence seems to point towards Anthony's guilt: photos of Casey Anthony half-naked, competing in a Hot Body Contest just days after Caylee's death; her recent tattoo with the phrase 'La Bella Vida" ("The Beautiful Life"); video tapes of her verbally berating her parents while in custody; evidence of her celebrating her freedom after Caylee died; a litany of lies concocted after Caylee's disappearance. But everything can be explained away almost easily, if not logically. Casey's lewd party-girl behavior was the confused grief of a young mother whose child has died accidentally, her anger at her parents and lies were the products of years of sexual abuse by her father and brother.

However, as Marcia Clark, the prosecutor from the O.J. Simpson murder trial notes, an alternate reason, if unproven, does not provide reasonable doubt. And there was no logical proof to corroborate the claims of abuse, or accidental death.

True, no cause of death could be determined in the case of Caylee Anthony; however, this reveals possibly the most damning piece of evidence from the trial, the questions that linger in everyone's mind: If Caylee Anthony died accidentally, what parent would not call 911? What sort of adult concocts a fake murder instead of telling the truth, which would have been simple (albeit devastating) to explain? What mother would lie about her child's whereabouts for 31 days, stating that various reincarnations of a nonexistent nanny named Zanny was with her child, even going so far as to say Zanny kidnapped her (which incidentally is a reminder to perform background checks on all the people who come near your children, because although Zanny was imaginary, all too often stories like Casey Anthony's lies come true for families.)

Perhaps in the end, it is like the verdicts in Scotland, where the options are guilty, not guilty, and not proven. Instead of not guilty, perhaps Casey's involvement in the death of her daughter Caylee is simply not proven. Even without the conviction, Casey Anthony will be punished as all the details of her life have been broadcasted in media headlines and become public records; it is hardly conceivable that she will ever be able to lead a normal life again.