The Casey Anthony murder trial

Could someone give me a Cliffs Notes version of why this is front-page news?

Yep - I have completely ignored everything about the trial other than the fact that (I believe) she might have killed her daughter.

Thanks.

nm

Relatively hot white murderess, beautiful innocent child, lots of available photos, what’s not to get?

Why is a trial being held on a weekend?

Why are people in riots outside the courthouse?

What is up with her parents? (I seriously don’t know anything about it - are they involved?)

I must admit I’m a bit incredulous, this is how these “celebrity” trials work in the U.S. Ever heard of O.J. Simpson? And you can still ask these questions?

How long a story do you want? The basics, is, there was this little girl in Orlando named Caylee Anthony, who was found dead in 2008, after she was reported missing. The police investigated, and then charged her mother, Casey, with murdering her. The case got a lot of attention at the time on the news because cases where pretty looking young white girls get abducted tend to. Anyway, they arrested Casey Anthony and put her on trial. She’s denying she did it and the defense is arguing that the kid drowned accidentally in the family pool, at which point, her grandfather hid the body. This is not commonly believed, especially because Anthony in the past has said a bunch of other false statements to police and investigators.

No idea. I assume they’re just trying to get the trial done at this point.

This is a high profile case, and so a lot of people want to get in to watch. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many seats as people who want to watch, so would be spectators are fighting each other over who gets to get in.

According to the defense, her father hid the body after the girl died. Also, she’s arguing her father molested her as a child. He denies it all.

News coverage in U.S. for criminal matters is directly proportional to how attractive your are, how much money you have, or how famous you are. I don’t know how long it has been this way but Casey Anthony is just one of a long string of them including the Natalie Holloway disappearance, the OJ Simpson trial, and the Menendez brothers before those. It seems readily apparent that the U.S. media has a slot that needs to be filled at all times for such cases and trials and they just pick the best one currently available based on the criteria already stated and run with it as a group. The media would never admit to such a thing but the coverage is obviously built into their schedule rather than being covered through a true need. It is just a phenomenon related to reality TV and people fall for it.

There was incident of an altercation between people in line to get into the trial as spectators, there aren’t “people in riots outside the courthouse”.

Those involved were just fighting over seats in the courthouse because they are only a limited number available to the general public. They were fighting for the same reasons that people fight in all kinds of ticket lines. They wanted to be there to be famous by proxy and someone cut in on their turf. That’s all it is, a trial turned into an in demand event by the coverage.

It is sad that I know any of this. I was just flipping channels while it was being shown. I don’t even want to know about any of it yet I do just because you can’t get away from it.

Cases like Leopold and Loeb were world famous. Lizzie Borden was also famous all over the nation. But that was due the the society aspect and the wealthy status of the families. So it’s not always just attractiveness. Though that helps.

In both those cases people were fighting to get seats.

The case started out as a “kidnapped white girl!” story which as you know, always makes the media cum in their pants.

Then a few astute observers noticed the mother’s story made no fucking sense.

Charges are brought against the mother.

Now, a murder trial, in which it is presented that the mother contradicts, backtracks and doublecrosses her already-nonsensical story in a way that makes her look just a teeeeeensy bit guilty.

For further backdrop, the case takes place in Florida, The Execution State™. So the death penalty is always there in case there’s nothing else to talk about.