# Casey Anthony trial: why should I care? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 25, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184 "2011-05-25T18:20:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/21 "2011-05-26T01:03:41Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s true that the _media_ only cares about pretty white girls. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. They’re trying to sell soap. I’m willing to believe that this is true. It just gets old when people keep bringing it up in these kind of threads. If you care so much about the difference in the way the media perceives whites involved in brutal crimes vs. blacks involved in brutal crimes, then go stand outside CNN’s headquarters with a sign and a megaphone. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/22 "2011-05-26T01:09:10Z")
Why? They have a better chance of their voices being collectively heard on the internet, frankly. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/23 "2011-05-26T01:17:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > A few years ago, we had a case in Minnesota where an unidentified mother and her baby were found beheaded and dumped in a ditch. Totally bizarre case. No one knew who they were or who did it. It got a little local media coverage, but not that much because they were black. There was a candle light vigil attended mostly by black people. As far as I know, the case is still unsolved. If they’d been white, it would have been national news, would have gotten saturation media coverage and would have been a top law enforcement priority. They were black, though, so the media didn’t give a shit. No ratings in it. Beheaded? Mother and child beheaded, even I should have heard about that. I’m sure there were contributing reasons - Minnesota not being of great national interest, another story of wider importance, local authorities wanting to down play the story for some reason - but so what? That’s not just a random horror story; publicity might have helped. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/24 "2011-05-26T01:24:07Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > LOL! I’ll shut up when people stop bringing up the same tired old racial bullshit! Why should _I_ be the one taken to task when I’m only responding to someone else who started with the whole “the media only cares about white people” horse shit? Okay. Well the reason we’ve only seen the news go pure batshit over cute little white girls and no other race, gender or lack of cuteness is due to something else. That said, I still don’t see why _these_ particular white girls are so fascinating. While wall-to-wall media focus on missing children is centered around cute white females more or less exclusively, though not because they only care about that very narrow demographic, I’m still a bit baffled as to why the Anthonys mean so much. Maybe there aren’t as many missing/possibly-murdered children out there as I think, and this instance is interesting because it’s so very rare, and of most families who undergo these unfortunate circumstances just so happen to have white female victims and/or perpetrators. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/25 "2011-05-26T01:25:33Z")
Beheaded, yes. I was amazed it didn’t get more attention. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/26 "2011-05-26T01:27:47Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] ETA, and when’s the last time you saw the media go bananas over a missing black or Hispanic kid? Or an ugly or fat white kid, for that matter? The media is driven bi pictures, and pretty white girls make better pictures (in their minds) than ugly kids or black kids. [/QUOTE] The week Natalie Holloway went missing there were four other missing kid cases in Birmingham (where she was from). I think two were found (non custodial relatives) but the other two weren’t. One was black and one white, both from the B’ham slums. Here’s the :rolleyes: part: the only time you hear them mentioned is when the media does a follow up to mention “they’re still missing” and to chide the media on only caring about rich white girls. As far as pretty people, I’ve mentioned the Matthew Shepard case many times. He’s far from the only or even the worst hate crime against gays that occurred- there were others before and since- and by all accounts he was something of a prick (not at all implying he deserved to die, but just he wasn’t a nice kid- he was arrogant, classist and bitter even according to people who liked him). BUT, he had pouty waif looks and was very photogenic, while people like gay redneck [Billy Jack Gaither](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CijcaA9yq58/SPDvIW-g3lI/AAAAAAAAAo4/UDyV685pKfU/s400/Billy%2BJack%2BGaither.jpg) (brutally murdered and his body burned 3 months later) doesn’t even get a wiki. That said, the Anthony family isn’t rich and to me Casey isn’t attractive. I think the reason for the attention is more for the unique nature of the crime: the long “is she dead or alive” part and “either way why was mom out partying” and then the ring of lies and seeming psychopathy at play and then for the trial the “how do you win a case in which every single piece of evidence is more damning against the defendant than the one before it”. Sometimes crimes just click with the media. For the amount of print it’s gotten you’d think the Manson Family murdered hundreds of people- Helter Skelter had fewer than a dozen victims and that’s if you count all the ones killed on Cielo Drive and the Labiancas and add in those like Hinman and the ones that Mansons are rumored to have killed. There have been mass murders before and since that claimed as many or more victims, but you don’t have the ‘movie star’ aspect and the “post Summer-of-Love hippies” and cultism and all mingled in, thus the Manson Family achieved a degree of notoriety for which others just got (hopefully) arrested and prosecuted and in some cases never solved. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/27 "2011-05-26T01:36:39Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Okay. Well the reason we’ve only seen the news go pure batshit over cute little white girls and no other race, gender or lack of cuteness is due to something else. > > That said, I still don’t see why _these_ particular white girls are so fascinating. While wall-to-wall media focus on missing children is centered around cute white females more or less exclusively, though not because they only care about that very narrow demographic, I’m still a bit baffled as to why the Anthonys mean so much. Maybe there aren’t as many missing/possibly-murdered children out there as I think, and this instance is interesting because it’s so very rare, and of most families who undergo these unfortunate circumstances just so happen to have white female victims and/or perpetrators. I think that’s it. The fact that mother did it makes it more unusual too, but the attractive female perp quotient puts it over the top. The media thinks like movie producers, and just as superficial. Mo’Nique as the killer? Not sexy. Scarlett Johannson as the killer? Now you’ve got something. The racism/lookism is fairly subconscious, though. They’re venal, shallow and superficial, but they’d be horrified if anyone thought theywere racist, and they love to play up a good racial injustice story just as much as a missing girl story. They just have very narrow ideas about how those stories should be cast. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/28 "2011-05-26T01:36:47Z")
> [@j66](#): > > Beheaded? > > Mother and child beheaded, even I should have heard about that. I’m sure there were contributing reasons - Minnesota not being of great national interest, another story of wider importance, local authorities wanting to down play the story for some reason - but so what? That’s not just a random horror story; publicity might have helped. While I agree that the media ignores cases featuring African Americans and Latinos, I have a feeling that **Dio** ’s recollection doesn’t quite match up with reality. I can’t trust his memories ever since the Oprah thread when he totally misremembered an incident with Oprah and “Interview with a Vampire.” So, please cite the case of the mother and child beheaded in Minnesota. As for the thread in general, I think the bizarre circumstances surrounding the non-discovery of the body and weird behavior of the mom are sufficient explanation as to why so many people are interested. Lady is not hot, though. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/29 "2011-05-26T01:41:27Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > While I agree that the media ignores cases featuring African Americans and Latinos, I have a feeling that **Dio** ’s recollection doesn’t quite match up with reality. I can’t trust his memories ever since the Oprah thread when he totally misremembered an incident with Oprah and “Interview with a Vampire.” So, please cite the case of the mother and child beheaded in Minnesota. > As for the thread in general, I think the bizarre circumstances surrounding the non-discovery of the body and weird behavior of the mom are sufficient explanation as to why so many people are interested. Lady is not hot, though. My memory of the Oprah _Interview with the Vamoire_ incident was 100% accurate, and so is my memory of this mother and baby that were beheaded. I went to the fucking vigil. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/30 "2011-05-26T01:47:38Z")
One reference on the first page of google on the search ‘beheaded mother and child in minnesota’; it’s another message board. It happened around March 2000; I don’t remember anything so earth shattering happening then. Dio, can you find any other references now that we know the date? ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/31 "2011-05-26T01:48:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I think that’s it. The fact that mother did it makes it more unusual too, but the attractive female perp quotient puts it over the top. The media thinks like movie producers, and just as superficial. Mo’Nique as the killer? Not sexy. Scarlett Johannson as the killer? Now you’ve got something. > > The racism/lookism is fairly subconscious, though. They’re venal, shallow and superficial, but they’d be horrified if anyone thought theywere racist, and they love to play up a good racial injustice story just as much as a missing girl story. They just have very narrow ideas about how those stories should be cast. My tone wasn’t clear, apparently. My post roughly translates to “It’s total bullshit to pretend the media doesn’t focus on cases like these because people are just more interested (likely subconsciously) in pretty white girls than they are males, girls of races other than white, ugly white girls, or even pretty black girls. These stories gain more traction, which is why no one ever hears about a little black boy gone missing anywhere, ever.” Now I do in complete earnest wonder why these girls are so particularly interesting. Maybe pretty white ladies killing their adorable daughters is rare enough to warrant interest. My thought was “Don’t a lot of cute white chicks go missing? Why them?” I mean, it’s already a given that if the media are going to obsess about you, I can make accurate guesses about what you look like, but how do they select from that pool who they will fawn over endlessly? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/32 "2011-05-26T01:58:26Z")
> [@j66](#): > > One reference on the first page of google on the search ‘beheaded mother and child in minnesota’; it’s another message board. > > It happened around March 2000; I don’t remember anything so earth shattering happening then. > > Dio, can you find any other references now that we know the date? Not yet, but I’m trying. It was longer ago, than I thought. The internet was still on dial up. I’ll try a Star-Tribune archives search. Maybe some other Minnesota Dopers can remember it. It looks like the bodies were found in Rochester. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/33 "2011-05-26T01:58:36Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > My memory of the Oprah _Interview with the Vamoire_ incident was 100% accurate, and so is my memory of this mother and baby that were beheaded. I went to the fucking vigil. No, it wasn’t. You claimed Oprah left the theater because she felt the film was Satanic. In reality, she left the theater because she was grossed out by the scene with rats. I don’t doubt that _something_ happened, I just would prefer you to find a cite so I don’t have to worry about swallowing another hazy Dio recollection that is actually not true. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/34 "2011-05-26T02:04:10Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > My tone wasn’t clear, apparently. My post roughly translates to “It’s total bullshit to pretend the media doesn’t focus on cases like these because people are just more interested (likely subconsciously) in pretty white girls than they are males, girls of races other than white, ugly white girls, or even pretty black girls. These stories gain more traction, which is why no one ever hears about a little black boy gone missing anywhere, ever.” I get that, and I agree to an extent. I certainly think the media _believes_ that. I just happen to think that, if the media gave some of those other stories a chance, the audience _would_ become engaged, it just might take them a little longer to come around. Maybe that’s Polyanna of me, though. > [@](#): > > Now I do in complete earnest wonder why these girls are so particularly interesting. Maybe pretty white ladies killing their adorable daughters is rare enough to warrant interest. My thought was “Don’t a lot of cute white chicks go missing? Why them?” I mean, it’s already a given that if the media are going to obsess about you, I can make accurate guesses about what you look like, but how do they select from that pool who they will fawn over endlessly? I know from my late mom (a career journalist) that part of that has to do with the pictures that are already available. A missing kid with good pictires (especially if there’s video) will get more play than a kid without pictures because TV is a visual mediom, and TV wants pictures to go with the narrative. Case in point - Elizabeth Smart playing the harp. How much more perfect for TV could that have been. A beautiful, angelic, blonde child playing a harp. You can’t beat that for visual appeal. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/35 "2011-05-26T02:06:00Z")
I don’t give a fuck about Dio’s memory. I really don’t. You seem to agree that ubiquitous news sensations of missing children seem to all be about very specific types of people, so who cares if his anecdotes are made up or mis-remembered? Edit [QUOTE=dio] I just happen to think that, if the media gave some of those pother stories a chance, the audience would become engaged, it just might take them a little longer to come around. [/QUOTE] It’s been tried. Nobody cared. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/36 "2011-05-26T02:10:17Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > No, it wasn’t. You claimed Oprah left the theater because she felt the film was Satanic. In reality, she left the theater because she was grossed out by the scene with rats. She left the theater because she said she thought the mpovie was “contributing to the forces of darkness.” She did say the rat scene was WHEN she left, but she did not say she left becauise it was “gross,” but because it “contributed to the forces of darkness.” Those were her exact words. My use of the word “Satanic” was slightly facetious, but not really inaccurate. I clearly remember her telling Tom Cruise, “I believe there are forces of good, and forces of evil, and I want to know why you woyld contribute to something so dark.” She said that. My memory is accurate. > [@](#): > > I don’t doubt that _something_ happened, I just would prefer you to find a cite so I don’t have to worry about swallowing another hazy Dio recollection that is actually not true. It’s hard to find a linkable cite for something that happened so long ago in internet time, but I’m trying. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/37 "2011-05-26T02:21:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > She left the theater because she said she thought the mpovie was “contributing to the forces of darkness.” She did say the rat scene was WHEN she left, but she did not say she left becauise it was “gross,” but because it “contributed to the forces of darkness.” Those were her exact words. My use of the word “Satanic” was slightly facetious, but not really inaccurate. I clearly remember her telling Tom Cruise, “I believe there are forces of good, and forces of evil, and I want to know why you woyld contribute to something so dark.” She said that. My memory is accurate. > > It’s hard to find a linkable cite for something that happened so long ago in internet time, but I’m trying. Okay. My bad. It’s hard to find any definitive description of the Oprah episode from that long ago, but I found some other comments that back up your side. > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I don’t give a fuck about Dio’s memory. I really don’t. You seem to agree that ubiquitous news sensations of missing children seem to all be about very specific types of people, so who cares if his anecdotes are made up or mis-remembered? Fair enough. I have my own list of sensational cases featuring African American victims that disappeared immediately from the media, but I’d be hard pressed to find a cite for all of them. There was the family in NJ or PA who starved their foster kids while their biological daughters were fat. The news showed a posed picture of the family taken at church, and it was four fat fucks, and two misshapen starved kids that looked like aliens. That one broke me up for weeks. There was a case in Oregon were an African American teenager was held captive by a bunch of poor white people for several weeks and finally escaped wearing next to nothing and bleeding all over. I think they were meth heads. And wasn’t there a case in Virginia where an African American women was serially tortured by a bunch of white people out in the rural part of the state? I can’t remember what happened but it was a really weird story, but it disappeared immediately. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorAcula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ed8c4c/32.png) [@DoctorAcula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorAcula)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/38 "2011-05-26T02:22:01Z")
The relentless coverage of the third China Arnold trial by the national media has drowned out any information I could find about this Casey Anthony case. Is it as big? ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/39 "2011-05-26T02:34:34Z")
> [@DoctorAcula](#): > > The relentless coverage of the third China Arnold trial by the national media has drowned out any information I could find about this Casey Anthony case. Is it as big? Well, considering I had to google “China Arnold” just to know what you were talking about, I’d say no. Yes, I’ve heard of the microwave baby, but no way that is as big as Casey Anthony. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184/40 "2011-05-26T02:45:28Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > Fair enough. I have my own list of sensational cases featuring African American victims that disappeared immediately from the media, but I’d be hard pressed to find a cite for all of them. Excellent. And sorry if I seemed hostile. Sometimes my foul mouth makes me seem more aggravated than I am. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/casey-anthony-trial-why-should-i-care/583184.md?page=3)