It’s the success of the defense attorney’s smear campaign, combined with the deeply-rooted Freudian belief that if a child (even an adult child) is “bad” in some way, it’s always, always, ALWAYS the parents’ (particularly the mother’s) fault. We cannot and will not conceive of a person who is broken for seemingly no reason, so we default to the “parents must be fucked up/bad/dysfunctional/abusive/neglectful” explanation. We saw it in Columbine, we’ll always see it in horrific crimes like this.
Now, granted, sexual abuse does lead to some weird thought processes about the appropriate relationship that the adult survivor and the parental perpetrator “should” have. Not all sexual abuse victims move out immediately, or are reluctant to leave their children with their abusers.
However, accusations of dysfunction or abuse are sticky, stinky things. Witness the belief of others in this thread and on this board that George Anthony MUST be guilty because…because…um…because he MUST be. He’s a former cop, of course he’s involved! He molested his daughter…um…supposedly. So there!
From the defense attorney’s utterly unsupported accusations of sexual abuse and from other people’s projections and beliefs about how screwed-up people must have screwed-up parents, we’ve gotten to a point of “that family is fucked up.”
In the case of murder you do have to have convincing evidence that a murder has taken place and that the accused is the person who committed it. In the case of manslaughter, you have to show the accused is responsible in some way for causing the victim’s death. The prosecution was unable to provide evidence of either and that’s all there is to it. There is simply no evidence that Casey killed Caylee. None! Zip, zilch, zero! End of story!
The jurors reached the correct decision, and, while some of them may indeed be morons/retards, the verdict they reached is not indicative of it.
And it gets worse. Remember, they decided that she had to be ‘not guilty’ because they ‘didn’t want to speculate’ about what might or might not have happened - hey, a pink unicorn could have killed the baby!
But yet when it comes to the father, her conclusion is:
Right, no speculation there :rolleyes:
It looks very much like the father, by his crazy suicide stunt and weird relationship with River ‘I trusted the National Enquirer to be truthful with my story’ Cruz, helped get his daughter off the murder charge. I don’t know how he can sleep at night.
In fact, I don’t know how that family could possibly let her in the house again. For that matter, how does she go back to the house after accusing the dad of molesting her since she was eight?
Because they all knew it was a sham to confuse and distract.
Regardless, these people have to live the rest of their lives, suspecting that they helped the murderer of their grandchild get off. And Casey has to live the rest of her life, in a world that believes she did indeed have some complicity, if not an outright hand in, the death of her own child.
I don’t know how you can not see dysfunction here. Part of me thinks giving your child whatever she wants, until she’s so entitled she thinks it’s okay to steal from you, and you have to force her to care for her own child, is, indeed dysfunction. They paid for everything in her life, and they cared for her daughter every evening so Casey could party on. Then they decided it was time things changed, but it’s kind of late to turn that train around.
I’m curious if she was asked anything about the paternity of the child? Were they not allowed to ask her, or inquire why the Dad wasn’t in her life? This child might have had some protection from this family if the actual father had been informed of her existence.
The biggest factor in her acquittal was the failure of the Orange County deputies to take Kronk seriously about seeing something unusual in August 2008…thus delaying the recovery of the body until December 2008. So much decomposition had occurred, that there was no way to truly determine the cause of death. If the body had been recovered in August, they may have been able to have gathered more evidence and been able to convince the jury.
1 year and $1,000 for each of the 4 counts to be served consecutively. For time served and good behavior, she will probably out in late July or early August.
Sugaree, I read through your points in post #112. I don’t know one way or the other if Murphy’s got any kind of goods in her thesis, but she made me think. Some of your refutations work for me, but I really think Ricardo Morales (and others) needed to be pursued by investigators MUCH harder for information about Caylee. Not that an ex-lover of Casey’s was the culprit – I just think that establishing some facts about Caylee’s immediate pre-murder life would have made a lot of difference in the ultimate case.
One point of yours that I did want to address:
Sorry … I am not taking Casey’s word on anything. AIUI, the Anthony’s lived 60 miles away from Morales’ place. My further understanding (can’t cite it … think Murphy covers it elsewhere) is that Casey returned to bed way too fast to make that round trip.
I don’t mind so much the author’s cherry-picking – there’s no one omnibus theory out there that explains everything, anyway. Some level of cherry-picking is necessary. Of course, there probably can be and is counter-evidence against Murphy’s theory … but that doesn’t necessarily lead me to dismiss the theory out of hand. Murphy could be, say, 60% correct – roughly on the right trail, but with a lot of the real-life details inaccurate or unknown.
From the relatively little I’ve heard about this case, this would seem to be true.
People have said here that it’s possible to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) a murder with no body, with no cause of death, or with no motive. I don’t see how this is possible, although I doubt people are making it up, so if someone could explain, or link to explanation, it would be helpful.
See, from my readings of the police interviews, I have the impression that lots and lots of facts about Caylee’s immediate pre-murder life were indeed established, at least to my satisfaction. And Casey’s friends were investigated. Ricardo Morales, to name one, seemed extremely forthcoming to me.
One point of yours that I did want to address:
If we are not taking Casey’s word on anything, why does Murphy state as fact that Casey received a phone call? All Ricardo said was that he woke up and Caylee was gone. And the two homes were actually less than 10 miles away (yes, I have addresses, if you want them).
And the real-life details she’s using completely twisting out of context. No, I see little merit in her theory.
Think of this way: pimping is work. And if there’s one thing we know about Casey, it’s that she really doesn’t like working.
My guess is that a person might be convicted under those circumstances if credible third party witnesses were to testify that the defendant confessed the murder to them but without revealing weapon, method or motive, or that they overheard the defendant discussing it with someone else.
I can’t believe all the new coverage, with ‘where will she go now, having accused her family of abusing her?’ Seriously? They all knew, from the jump, it was just a tactic, I believe.
And a family that was so willing to support this woman, for so long, until she was stealing from them, and then they were still providing child care and paying for her car, are going to go right on doing what they do best. She won’t be able to get a job anytime soon, I’d wager, and now has a great reason to just go on sponging off of them. And, of course, they have even better reason to ‘take pity’ on her.
Sounds like a life sentence for all of them, to me.
Failing, as the responsible adult, to report a missing child should get you 10 years all by itself. That is the stunning part of all this, that her failure to report the child missing wasn’t a felony crime, in Florida.
social workers, failing to see and check out children in the care of foster parents, when they make their periodic calls, are subject to severe penalties if it turns out the child had been mistreated or killed. Why should social workers get a more severe penalty than a parent?
I know this is a fact, but in reality is ever actually done? Lot’s of such stories come forward, on very rare occasions someone loses a job, at worst. Usually, caseloads are used as an excuse, and no one is every prosecuted no matter how horrendous the outcome for the child.
If it’s not being enforced, for those for whom it was designed, why bother making it include parents? Seems a waste of time somehow.
Too much CSI type TV; among other things. I think jurors need to see an actual video of a murder to even consider convicting; otherwise they’re too afraid they’ll be wrong.
IMO, if your case is entirely circumstantial, you should not be going for capital charges.
By now I’ve read of about half a dozen states where legislators are hurrying to introduce “Caylee’s Law”(*) bills to create or amend existing statutes about reporting a missing/harmed/dead minor to that purpose (plus some people are putting up a misguided effort to make it Federal). I’m good with that, just make it a reasonable one.
(*Surely I’m not the only one grown weary of this Law-titling trope…)