The Death of Caylee Anthony: Murder or Accident? (Part I)

Caylee Marie Anthony (August 9, 2005 – 2008) was an American girl who lived in Orlando, Florida, with her mother, Casey Marie Anthony (born March 19, 1986), and her maternal grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony. On July 15, 2008, she was reported missing in a 9-1-1 call made by Cindy, who said she had not seen Caylee for 31 days and that Casey's car smelled like a dead body had been inside it. Cindy said Casey had given varied explanations as to Caylee's whereabouts before finally telling her that she had not seen Caylee for weeks.  Casey lied to detectives, telling them Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny on June 9, and that she had been trying to find her, too frightened to alert the authorities.  She was charged with first-degree murder in October 2008 and pleaded not guilty.

On December 11, 2008, two-year-old Caylee's skeletal remains were found with a blanket inside a trash bag in a wooded area near the Anthony family's house.  Investigative reports and trial testimony varied between duct tape being found near the front of the skull and on the mouth of the skull.  The medical examiner mentioned duct tape as one reason she ruled the death a homicide, but officially listed it as "death by undetermined means".

The trial lasted six weeks, from May to July 2011. The prosecution sought the death penalty and alleged Casey wished to free herself from parental responsibilities and murdered her daughter by administering chloroform and applying duct tape. The defense team, led by Jose Baez, countered that the child had drowned accidentally in the family's swimming pool on June 16, 2008, and that George Anthony disposed of the body. The defense contended that Casey lied about this and other issues because of a dysfunctional upbringing, which they said included sexual abuse by her father. The defense did not present evidence as to how Caylee died, nor evidence that Casey was sexually abused as a child, but challenged every piece of the prosecution's evidence, calling much of it "fantasy forensics".  Casey did not testify. On July 5, 2011, the jury found Casey not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer.  With credit for time served, she was released on July 17, 2011. A Florida appeals court overturned two of the misdemeanor convictions on January 25, 2013.

The not-guilty murder verdict was greeted with public outrage and was both attacked and defended by media and legal commentators. Some complained that the jury misunderstood the meaning of reasonable doubt, while others said the prosecution relied too heavily on the defendant's allegedly poor moral character because they had been unable to show conclusively how the victim had died.  Time magazine described the case as "the social media trial of the century".

Disappearance

According to Casey Anthony's father, George Anthony, Casey left the family's home on June 16, 2008, taking her daughter Caylee (who was almost three years old) with her, and did not return for 31 days.  Casey's mother Cindy asked repeatedly during the month to see Caylee, but Casey claimed that she was too busy with a work assignment in Tampa, Florida. At other times, she said Caylee was with a nanny, who Casey identified by the name of Zenaida "Zanny" Fernandez-Gonzalez, or at theme parks or the beach.  It was eventually determined that a woman named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez did in fact exist, but that she had never met Casey, Caylee, any other member of the Anthony family, nor any of Casey's friends.

On July 13, 2008, while doing yard work, Cindy and George Anthony found a notice from the post office for a certified letter affixed on their front door. George picked up the certified letter from the post office on July 15, 2008, and found that his daughter's car was in a tow yard.  When George picked up the car, both he and the tow yard attendant noted a strong smell coming from the trunk. Both later stated that they believed the odor to be that of a decomposing body.  When the trunk was opened, it contained a bag of trash, but no human remains.

Cindy reported Caylee missing that day, July 15, to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.  During the same telephone call, Casey confirmed to the 9-1-1 operator that Caylee had been missing for 31 days. Sounding distraught, Cindy said: "There is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Case

Investigation

When Detective Yuri Melich of the Orange County Sheriff's Department began investigating Caylee's disappearance, he found discrepancies in Casey's signed statement.  When questioned, Casey said Caylee had been kidnapped by Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, who she also identified as "Zanny", Caylee's nanny. Although Casey had talked about her, Zanny had never been seen by Casey's family or friends, and in fact there was no nanny.  Casey also told police that she was working at Universal Studios, a lie she had been telling her parents for years. Investigators brought Casey to Universal Studios on July 16, 2008; the day after Caylee was reported missing, and asked her to show them her office. Casey led police around for a while before admitting that she had been fired years before.

Casey was first arrested on July 16, 2008, and was charged the following day with giving false statements to law enforcement, child neglect, and obstruction of a criminal investigation. The judge denied bail, saying Casey had shown "woeful disregard for the welfare of her child".  On July 22, 2008, after a bond hearing, the judge set bail at $500,000.  On August 21, 2008, after one month of incarceration, she was released from the Orange County jail after her $500,000 bond was posted by the nephew of California bail bondsman Leonard Padilla in hopes that she would cooperate and Caylee would be found.

On August 11, 12, and 13, 2008, meter reader Roy Kronk called police about a suspicious object found in a forested area near the Anthony residence.  In the first instance, he was directed by the sheriff's office to call the tip line, which he did, receiving no return call. On the second instance, he again called the sheriff's office, eventually was met by two police officers and reported to them that he had seen what appeared to be a skull near a gray bag.  On that occasion, the officer conducted a short search and stated he did not see anything. On December 11, 2008, Kronk again called the police. They searched and found the remains of a child in a trash bag.  Investigative teams recovered duct tape which was hanging from hair attached to the skull and some tissue left on the skull.  Over the next four days, more bones were found in the wooded area near the spot where the remains initially had been discovered.  On December 19, 2008, medical examiner Jan Garavaglia confirmed that the remains found were those of Caylee Anthony. The death was ruled a homicide and the cause of death listed as undetermined.

Arrests and charges

Casey was offered a limited immunity deal on July 29, 2008, by prosecutors related to "the false statements given to law enforcement about locating her child", which was renewed on August 25, to expire August 28.  She did not take it.

On September 5, 2008, she was released again on bail on all pending charges after being fitted with an electronic tracking device.  Her $500,000 bond was posted by her parents, Cindy and George Anthony, who signed a promissory note for the bond.

On October 14, 2008, Casey Anthony was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and four counts of providing false information to police. She was later arrested.  Judge John Jordan ordered that she be held without bond.  On October 21, 2008, the charges of child neglect were dropped against Casey, according to the State Attorney's Office because "[as] the evidence proved that the child was deceased, the State sought an indictment on the legally appropriate charges."  On October 28, Anthony was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

On April 13, 2009, prosecutors announced that they planned to seek the death penalty in the case.

Trial

Evidence

Four hundred pieces of evidence were presented.  A strand of hair was recovered from the trunk of Casey's car which was microscopically similar to hair taken from Caylee's hairbrush.  The strand showed "root-banding," in which hair roots form a dark band after death, which was consistent with hair from a dead body.

Kronk, who discoverered the remains, repeated the same basic story that he had told police. On Friday, October 24, 2008, a forensic report by Arpad Vass of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory judged that results from an air sampling procedure (called LIBS) performed in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car showed chemical compounds "consistent with a decompositional event" based on the presence of five key chemical compounds out of over 400 possible chemical compounds that Vass' research group considers typical of decomposition. Investigators stated that the trunk smelled strongly of human decomposition, but human decomposition was not specified on the laboratory scale. The process has not been affirmed by a Daubert Test in the courts.  Vass' group also stated there was chloroform in the car trunk.

In October 2009, officials released 700 pages of documents related to the Anthony investigation, including records of Google searches of the terms "neck breaking" and "how to make chloroform" on a computer accessible to Casey, presented by the prosecutors as evidence of a crime.

According to detectives, crime-scene evidence included residue of a heart-shaped sticker found on duct tape over the mouth of Caylee's skull.  However, the laboratory was not able to capture a heart-shape photographically after some duct tape was subjected to dye testing.  A blanket found at the crime scene matched Caylee's bedding at her grandparents' home.

Among photos entered into evidence was one from the computer of Ricardo Morales, an ex-boyfriend of Casey Anthony, depicting a poster with the caption "Win her over with Chloroform".

Witness John Dennis Bradley's software, developed for computer investigations, was used by the prosecution to indicate that Casey had conducted extensive computer searches on the word "chloroform" 84 times, and to suggest that Anthony had planned to commit murder. He later discovered that a flaw in the software misread the forensic data and that the word "chloroform" had been searched for only one time and the website in question offered information on the use of chloroform in the 19th century.

Attorneys and jury

The lead prosecutor in the case was Assistant State Attorney Linda Drane Burdick. Assistant State Attorneys Frank George and Jeff Ashton completed the prosecution team.  Lead counsel for the defense was Jose Baez, a Florida criminal defense attorney. Attorneys J. Cheney Mason, Dorothy Clay Sims, and Ann Finnell served as co-counsel.  During the trial, attorney Mark Lippman represented George and Cindy Anthony.

Jury selection began on May 9, 2011, at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater, Florida, because the case had been so widely reported in the Orlando area. Jurors were brought from Pinellas County to Orlando.  Jury selection took longer than expected and ended on May 20, 2011, with twelve jurors and five alternates being sworn in.  The panel consisted of nine women and eight men. The trial took six weeks, during which time the jury was sequestered to avoid influence from information available outside the courtroom.

Opening statements

The trial began on May 24, 2011, at the Orange County Courthouse, with Judge Belvin Perry presiding. In the opening statements, lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick described the story of the disappearance of Caylee Anthony day-by-day. The prosecution alleged an intentional murder and sought the death penalty against Casey Anthony.  Prosecutors stated that Anthony used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious before putting duct tape over her nose and mouth to suffocate her, and left Caylee's body in the trunk of her car for a few days before disposing of it.  They characterized Anthony as a party girl who killed her daughter to free herself from parental responsibility and enjoy her personal life.

The defense, led by Jose Baez, claimed in opening statements that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family's pool on June 16, 2008, and was found by George Anthony, who told Casey she would spend the rest of her life in jail for child neglect and then proceeded to cover up Caylee's death. Baez argued this is why Casey Anthony went on with her life and failed to report the incident for 31 days. He alleged that it was the habit of a lifetime for Casey to hide her pain and pretend nothing was wrong because she had been sexually abused by George Anthony since she was eight years old and her brother Lee also had made advances toward her.  Baez also questioned whether Roy Kronk, the meter reader who found the bones, had actually removed them from another location, and further alleged that the police department's investigation was compromised by their desire to feed a media frenzy about a child's murder, rather than a more mundane drowning.  He admitted that Casey had lied about there being a nanny named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzales.

Witness testimony

Prosecutors called George Anthony as their first witness and, in a response to their question, he denied having sexually abused his daughter Casey.   Anthony testified he did not smell anything resembling human decomposition in Casey's car when she visited him on June 24, but he did smell something similar to human decomposition when he picked the car up on July 15.  Cindy Anthony testified that her comment to 9-1-1 that Casey's car smelled "like someone died" was just a "figure of speech".

Baez asked an FBI analyst about the paternity test the FBI conducted to see if Lee was Caylee's father. She told the jury the test had come back negative.  Regarding a photo on the computer of Ricardo Morales, an ex-boyfriend of Casey Anthony, depicting a poster with the caption "Win her over with Chloroform," Morales said that the photo was on his Myspace page and that he had never discussed chloroform with Anthony or searched for chloroform on her computer.

The prosecution called John Dennis Bradley, a former Canadian law enforcement officer who develops software for computer investigations, to analyze a data file from a desktop taken from the Anthony home.  Bradley said he was able to use a program to recover deleted searches from March 17 and March 21, 2008, and that someone searched the website Sci-spot.com for "chloroform" 84 times. Bradley expressed his belief that "some of these items might have been bookmarked". Under cross-examination by the defense, Bradley agreed there were two individual accounts on the desktop and that there was no way to know who actually performed the searches.

K9 handler Jason Forgey testified that Gerus, a German Shepherd cadaver dog certified in 2005, indicated a high alert of human decomposition in the trunk of Casey's car, saying the police dog has had real-world searches numbering "over three thousand by now". During cross-examination, Baez argued that the dog's search records were "hearsay".  Sgt. Kristin Brewer also testified that her K9 partner, Bones, signaled decomposition in the backyard during a search in July 2008. However, neither K9 partner was able to detect decomposition during a second visit to the Anthony home. Brewer explained that this was because whatever had been in the yard was either moved or the odor dissipated.

The prosecution called chief medical examiner Jan Garavaglia, who testified that she determined Caylee's manner of death to be homicide, but listed it as "death by undetermined means". Garavaglia took into account the physical evidence present on the remains she examined, as well as all the available information on the way they were found and what she had been told by the authorities, before arriving at her determination. "We know by our observations that it's a red flag when a child has not been reported to authorities with injury, there's foul play," Garavaglia said. " ... There is no child that should have duct tape on [the lower part of] its face when it dies." Additionally, Garavaglia addressed the chloroform evidence found by investigators inside the trunk of Casey's car, testifying that even a small amount of chloroform would be sufficient to cause the death of a child.

University of Florida professor and human identification laboratory director Michael Warren was brought on by the prosecution to present a computer animation of the way duct tape could have been used in the death of the child, which the defense objected to hearing. Judge Perry, after a short recess to review, ruled that the video could be shown to the jury. The animation featured a picture of Caylee taken alongside Casey, superimposed with an image of Caylee's decomposed skull, and another with a strip of duct tape that was recovered with her remains. The images were slowly brought together showing that the duct tape could have covered her nose and mouth. Baez stated, "This disgusting superimposition is nothing more than a fantasy ...They're throwing things against the wall and seeing if it sticks." Jurors were seen taking notes of the imagery, and Warren testified that it was his opinion that the duct tape found with Caylee's skull was placed there before her body began decomposing.

FBI latent-print examiner Elizabeth Fontaine testified that adhesive in the shape of a heart was found on a corner of a piece of duct tape that was covering the mouth portion of Caylee's remains during ultraviolet testing. Fontaine examined three pieces of duct tape found on Caylee's remains for fingerprints, and said she did not find fingerprints but did not expect to, given the months the tape and the remains had been outdoors and exposed to the elements, stressing that any oil or sweat from a person's fingertips would have long since deteriorated. Although Fontaine showed the findings to her supervisor, she did not initially try to photograph the heart-shaped adhesive, explaining, "When I observe something is unexpected, I note it and continue with my examination." During the defense's cross-examination, Fontaine explained that when she examined the sticker evidence a second time, after subjecting the tape to dye testing, "It was no longer visible."  She said that other FBI agents had tested the duct tape in the interim.

The defense called two government witnesses who countered prosecution witness testimony about the duct tape. The chief investigator for the medical examiner stated that the original placement of the duct tape was unclear and it could have shifted positions as he collected the remains.  Cindy Anthony testified that their family buried their pets in blankets and plastic bags, using duct tape to seal the opening.  Additionally, an FBI forensic document examiner found no evidence of a sticker or sticker residue on the duct tape found near the child's remains.

The defense called forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz, who performed a second autopsy on Caylee after Garavaglia and challenged Garavaglia's autopsy report. He called her autopsy "shoddy," saying it was a failure that Caylee's skull was not opened during her examination. "You need to examine the whole body in an autopsy," he said. Spitz stated that he was not allowed to attend Garavaglia's initial autopsy on Caylee's remains, and that, from his own follow-up autopsy, he was not comfortable ruling the child's death a homicide. He said he could not determine what Caylee's manner of death was, but said that there was no indication to him that she was murdered. Additionally, Spitz testified that he believed the duct tape found on Caylee's skull was placed there after the body decomposed, opining that if tape was placed on the skin, there should have been DNA left on it, and suggested that someone may have staged some of the crime scene photos. "The person who took this picture, the person who prepared this, put the hair there," stated Spitz. When asked by Ashton during cross-examination, "So your testimony is the medical examiner's personnel took the hair that wasn't on the skull, placed it there?", Spitz answered, "It wouldn't be the first time, sir. I can tell you some horror stories about that."

On June 21, Bradley discovered that a flaw in his software misread the forensic data and that the word "chloroform" had been searched for only one time and the website in question offered information on the use of chloroform in the 19th century.  On June 23, Baez called Cindy Anthony to the stand, who told jurors she had been the one who performed the "chloroform" search on the family computer in March 2008. The prosecution alleged that only Casey could have conducted this search and the others because she was the only one home at the time. When asked by prosecutors how she could have made the Internet searches when employment records show she was at work, Cindy Anthony said despite what her work time sheet indicates, she was at home during these time periods because she left from work early during the days in question.  Bradley alerted prosecutor Linda Burdick and Sgt. Kevin Stenger of the Sheriff's Office the weekend of June 25 about the discrepancy in his software, and volunteered to fly to Orlando at his own expense to show them.   On the same day, the judge temporarily halted proceedings when the defense filed a motion to determine if Anthony was competent to proceed with trial. The motion states the defense received a privileged communication from their client which caused them to believe "...Ms. Anthony is not competent to aid and assist in her own defense".   The trial resumed on June 27 when the judge announced that the results of the psychological evaluations showed Anthony was competent to proceed. Later, in testimony about air samples, Dr. Ken Furton, a professor of chemistry at Florida International University, stated that there is no consensus in the field on what chemicals are typical of human decomposition.  Judge Perry ruled that the jury would not get to smell air samples taken from the trunk.

The prosecution stated they discussed Bradley's software discrepancy with Baez on June 27, and he raised the issue in court testimony.   Baez also asked Judge Perry to instruct the jury about this search information, but prosecutors disputed this and it was not done.   Also on June 27, the defense called two private investigators who, in November 2008, had searched the area where the body was later found. The search was videotaped, but nothing was found.   On June 28, the defense called a Texas EquuSearch team leader who did two searches of the area and found no body.  The defense then called Roy Kronk, who recounted the same basic story he told police about his discovery of Caylee Anthony's remains in December 2008.  He acknowledged receiving $5,000 after the remains were identified, but denied that he told his son that finding the body would make him rich and famous. The next day, his son testified he had made such statements.

On June 30, the defense called Krystal Holloway, a volunteer in the search for Caylee, who stated that she had had an affair with George Anthony, that he had been to her home, and that he had texted her, "Just thinking about you. I need you in my life." She told the defense that George Anthony had told her that Caylee's death was "an accident that snowballed out of control." Under cross-examination by prosecutors, they pointed to her sworn police statement in which she had said that George Anthony believed it was an accident, rather than knowing that it was. In her initial report, Holloway reported George Anthony saying, "I really believe that it was an accident that just went wrong and (Casey Anthony) tried to cover it up." She said he had not told her he was present when the alleged accident occurred.  During redirect examination, Baez asked Holloway if George Anthony had told her that Caylee was dead while stating publicly that she was missing, to which she replied yes.

In his earlier testimony, George Anthony denied the affair with Holloway and said he visited her only because she was ill.  He said he sent the text message because he needed everyone who had helped in his life.  After Holloway's testimony, Judge Perry told jurors that it could be used to impeach George Anthony's credibility, but that it was not proof of how Caylee died and/or evidence of Casey Anthony's guilt or innocence.

The prosecution rested its case on June 15, after calling 59 witnesses for 70 different testimonies. The defense rested its case on June 30, after calling 47 witnesses for 63 different testimonies.  Casey Anthony did not testify.

On June 30 and July 1, the prosecutor presented rebuttal arguments, beginning by showing the jury photographs of Caylee's clothes and George's suicide note.  It called two representatives of Cindy Anthony's former employer who explained why their computer login system shows Cindy was at work the afternoon she said she went home early and searched her computer for information about chloroform. A police computer analyst testified someone had purposely searched online for "neck + breaking." Another analyst testified she did not find evidence that Cindy Anthony had searched certain terms she claimed to have searched. Anthropology professor Dr. Michael Warren from the University of Florida was recalled to rebut a defense witness on the need to open a skull during an autopsy. The lead detective stated that there were no phone calls between Cindy and George Anthony during the week of June 16, 2008. However, he told the defense he did not know that George had a second cell phone.

Closing arguments

Closing arguments were heard July 3 and July 4.  Jeff Ashton, for the prosecution, told the jury, "When you have a child, that child becomes your life. This case is about the clash between that responsibility, and the expectations that go with it and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have."  He outlined the state's case against Casey, touching on her many lies to her parents and others, the smell in her car's trunk—identified by several witnesses, including her own father, as the odor from human decomposition—and the items found with Caylee's skeletal remains in December 2008. He emphasized how Casey "maintains her lies until they absolutely cannot be maintained any more" and then replaces [them] with another lie, using "Zanny the Nanny" as an example. Anthony repeatedly told police that Caylee was with the nanny that she specifically identified as Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. Police, however, were never able to find the nanny. Authorities did find a woman named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, but she denied ever meeting the Anthonys.

Ashton reintroduced the items found with Caylee's remains, including a Winnie the Pooh blanket that matched the bedding at her grandparents' home, one of a set of laundry bags with the twin bag found at the Anthony home, and duct tape he said was a relatively rare brand. "That bag is Caylee's coffin," Ashton said, holding up a photograph of the laundry bag, as Casey reacted with emotion. He further criticized the defense's theory that Caylee drowned in the Anthony pool and that Casey and George panicked upon finding the child's body and covered up her death. He advised jurors to use their common sense when deciding on a verdict. "No one makes an accident look like murder," he said.

Before closing arguments, Judge Perry ruled that the defense could argue that a drowning occurred due to reasonable conclusions aided by witness testimony, but that arguing sexual abuse was not allowed since there was nothing to support the claim that George sexually abused Casey.  Baez began by contending that there were holes in the prosecution's forensic evidence, saying it was based on a "fantasy". He told the jury that the prosecution wanted them to see stains and insects that did not really exist, that they had not proven that the stains in Anthony's car trunk were caused by Caylee's decomposing body, rather than from a trash bag found there. He added that the prosecutors tried to make his client look like a promiscuous liar because their evidence was weak.  He said the drowning is "the only explanation that makes sense" and showed jurors a photograph of Caylee opening the home's sliding glass door by herself. He stressed that there were no child safety locks in the home and that both of Casey's parents, George and Cindy, testified that Caylee could get out of the house easily. Although Cindy testified that Caylee could not put the ladder on the side of the pool and climb up, Baez alleged that Cindy may have left the ladder up the night before. "She didn't admit to doing so in testimony," he said, "but how much guilt would she have knowing it was her that left the ladder up that day?"

Defense attorney Jose Baez told jurors his biggest fear was that they would base their verdict on emotions, not evidence. "The strategy behind that is, if you hate her, if you think she's a lying, no-good slut, then you'll start to look at this evidence in a different light," he said. "I told you at the very beginning of this case that this was an accident that snowballed out of control... What made it unique is not what happened, but who it happened to." He explained Casey Anthony's behavior as being the result of her dysfunctional family situation. At one point as Baez spoke, Ashton could be seen smiling or chuckling behind his hand. This prompted Baez to refer to him as "this laughing guy right here". The judge called a sidebar conference, then a recess. When court resumed, he chastised both sides, saying both Ashton and Baez had violated his order that neither side should make disparaging remarks about opposing counsel. After both attorneys apologized, the judge accepted the apologies but warned that a recurrence would have the offending attorney excluded from the courtroom.

Defense attorney Cheney Mason then followed with an additional closing argument. Addressing the jury to discuss the charges against Casey Anthony. "The burden rests on the shoulders of my colleagues at the state attorney's office," Mason said, referring to proving that Casey Anthony committed a crime. Mason said that the jurors are required; whether they like it or not, to find the defendant not guilty if the state did not adequately prove its case against Casey Anthony.   Mason emphasized that the burden of proof is on the state, and that Casey Anthony's decision not to testify is not an implication of guilt.

Lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick in the prosecution rebuttal told the jurors that she and her colleagues backed up every claim they made in their opening statement six weeks ago, and implied that the defense never directly backed up their own opening-statement claims.  "My biggest fear is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case," she said, insisting that she would never ask the jury to make their decision based on emotion but rather the evidence.  "Responses to guilt are oh, so predictable," she stated. "What do guilty people do? They lie, they avoid, they run, they mislead... they divert attention away from themselves and they act like nothing is wrong." She suggested that the garbage bag in the trunk of the car was a "decoy" put there to keep people from getting suspicious about the smell of the car when she left it abandoned in a parking stall directly beside a dumpster in an Amscot parking lot. "Whose life was better without Caylee?" she asked, stressing how George and Cindy Anthony were wondering where their daughter and granddaughter were in June and July 2008, the same time Casey was staying at her boyfriend's apartment while Caylee's body was decomposing in the woods. "That's the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead." Burdick then showed the jury a split-screen with a photo of Casey partying at a night club on one side and a close-up of the "Bella Vita" (meaning "Beautiful Life") tattoo that she got weeks after Caylee died on the other.

The jury began deliberations on July 4.  On July 5, prosecutors stated that, during deliberations, they were about to give the jury the corrected information with regard to Bradley's software discrepancy; however, the jury reached a verdict before they could do so. One legal analyst stated that if the jury had found Casey guilty before receiving the exculpatory evidence, the prosecution's failure to fully disclose it could have been grounds for a mistrial.