Casey Anthony is viewed by many as a cold-blooded killer, but the full story isn't so simple.
What did she lie about?
And what incriminating evidence was found in her car?
Keep watching to learn more.
In December 2008, two-and-a-half-year-old Caylee Anthony's body was found in a plastic
bag in a small wooded, low-lying area barely off the road, about a half a mile from her
grandparents' home.
There was duct tape on or near her face, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
By the time Caylee was officially found — which was six months after she'd been seen alive
— her remains had substantially decomposed, greatly reducing the amount of evidence investigators
could find.
Near her body was a Gatorade bottle containing chloroform, but more on this later.
Reuters reported that when Caylee's grandfather, George Anthony, had picked up Casey's car
from an impound lot, he noted an overwhelming odor of decay in the trunk.
Having spent decades as a police detective, he recognized what this meant.
The impound lot owner and later the police, smelling the trunk and seeing the stain in
there the size of a small body, became very suspicious.
According to the book Presumed Guilty by her attorney Jose Baez, Casey Anthony depended
on her parents to take on most of the work of caring for Caylee.
Despite that situation, and the job she claimed to have at Universal Studios, Cindy Anthony
accused Casey of stealing money from them.
Casey had told friends that she wanted to give Caylee up for adoption.
She didn't feel ready to be a mother, according to USA Today.
Still, Anthony was described as a good mother, given the circumstances.
Caylee was never abused, and Casey was adamant that no one smoked or drank around her daughter.
Yet, she did not tell anyone that Caylee was missing for a month.
"I don't believe it.
That means she's lying."
Between the time they'd last seen Caylee and when she was reported missing, Caylee Anthony's
grandparents would ask Casey about her.
Casey would say she had dropped Caylee off with her babysitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez,
who was known as "Zanny."
Later, she would say Zanny had kidnapped the child.
Casey told police she had said nothing because she was embarrassed.
No.
Not embarrassed – scared, according to USA Today.
Casey said she was afraid Zanny might hurt Caylee if Casey went to the police, so she
didn't tell anyone.
During the trial, Casey's story changed, according to Time.
She said Caylee had climbed the ladder that had been left against her grandparents' above-ground
pool and drowned.
Casey said that when George Anthony saw this, he shoved his granddaughter into a garbage
bag, duct-taped it as he had with deceased family pets, and dropped it in the woods to
prevent people from thinking that Casey was an unfit mother.
Casey Anthony had a poor relationship with the truth, according to Biography.
In high school, she'd lied about having enough credits to graduate — which she kept up
until graduation day.
During a significant portion of her pregnancy, she maintained that she was a virgin.
The investigation also showed that Casey Anthony had no job.
Central Florida News 13 reported that she brought the police to Universal Studios and
even led them around before she admitted the truth.
There was no Zanny the Nanny, either.
Casey brought the police to "Zanny's" door — an apartment that had been vacant for
months, as Anthony later explained in an interview.
There was a Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, but she had never met Casey and did not work as
a nanny.
Casey Anthony said in an interview with the Associated Press,
"Cops lie to people every day.
I'm just one of the unfortunate idiots who admitted they lied."
The last time anyone saw Caylee alive was in June 2008 when Casey Anthony stormed out
of her parents' home after a fight, pulling her daughter along with her.
Casey soon after turned up at the home of Tony Lazzaro, an Orlando DJ she had recently
begun dating.
She did not have Caylee with her.
The Orlando Sentinel noted that Casey and Tony rented movies at Blockbuster that night.
When anyone asked where Caylee was, Anthony said that she was with Zanny at Universal
Studios, Disneyworld, or Sea World.
When Cindy demanded to see her granddaughter, Casey said "Zanny" had a car accident and
couldn't bring her.
"How would you describe her demeanor?"
"Happy.
Happy to see me."
The details that the prosecution brought up in the trial were designed to make Casey seem
like a restless party girl.
According to ABC News, Anthony got a cheap tattoo reading "Bella Vita," Italian for "Beautiful
Life," and Reuters notes that she participated in a nightclub's "hot body contest" while
her daughter was missing.
ABC News reported that Dr. Arpad Vass, who worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
on their body farm, analyzed the trunk of Casey Anthony's car.
Vass said of his analysis,
"I essentially jumped back a foot or two.
[...] I would recognize it as human decomposition."
Furthermore, where chloroform is usually found in parts per trillion in the environment,
the car sample had parts per million.
Though the prosecution intended them to, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the jury
was not permitted to smell these samples — for which they were likely relieved.
Near Caylee's body, investigators found a Gatorade bottle containing a liquid that turned
out to be a cleaning solution mixed with testosterone.
ABC News reported that hair found in the trunk of the car had come from a dead body because
of post-mortem banding.
During the trial, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported, the prosecution played an animation
superimposing Caylee's decomposed skull over a picture of her and Casey Anthony to demonstrate
how the duct tape could have been placed.
Jose Baez, Casey Anthony's lead defense lawyer, said,
"This disgusting superimposition is nothing more than a fantasy."
In August, meter reader Roy Kronk saw a suspicious black garbage bag while relieving himself
in the woods.
"I saw a object that appeared a little odd to me."
After calling the police for days, he received no response.
Finally, Deputy Richard Cain came but did not wish to check because the ground was wet,
and he had a fear of snakes.
It was not until December that Kronk called again.
Reportedly, the police had not investigated the area closely because a psychic told them
the body would not be there.
Once Caylee Anthony's body was recovered, the psychic implied that Kronk was involved
in her death.
Casey Anthony's defense later lept on the suggestion, finding Kronk's several ex-wives,
who affirmed that he was inappropriate with children.
His ex-wife Jill Kerley even implicated him.
"He probably was the one who murdered Caylee Anthony, or had something to do with it."
On July 29, 2009, Kronk received a reward of $5,000 for finding Caylee's body.
An Anthony spokesman paid him another $5,000.
That same day, Orange County commissioners voted to pay up to $15,000 of Kronk's legal
fees, which, by this point, had exceeded the reward.
Years later, Roy Kronk sued Casey Anthony for defamation, after her lawyers accused
him of murdering Caylee.
A judge awarded a summary judgement to Casey in 2019, and Kronk lost his appeal.
In short, her lawyers had a right to cast suspicion on Kronk, according to civil procedure
rules.
Time reported that Jose Baez gave an opening statement meant to excuse his client's lack
of credibility.
He announced that George Anthony and his son Lee had, since Casey was eight, molested her
regularly.
This alleged abuse caused Casey to lie frequently and appear unbothered by the tragedy.
Both men were tested to see if they could have fathered Caylee and were cleared.
After dropping this bomb, Baez didn't mention it again.
The prosecution called George to the stand and asked him if he had molested his daughter.
He, of course, denied it, but it was enough to have affected the jury.
According to ABC News, Judge Perry said,
"There's absolutely no evidence the defendant was sexually molested by her father or her
brother."
Then came the prosecution's search of the Anthonys' computer.
Someone had looked up "how to make chloroform" on Internet Explorer at around the time of
Caylee's death.
Had the prosecution looked at the Firefox history, Click Orlando reported, they would
have seen a search for "foolproof suffocation."
Casey Anthony's trial is widely considered to be the first social media case, started
by Cindy Anthony posting on MySpace about her missing granddaughter.
Time noted that, during the trial, reporters depended on the Twitter account of the Ninth
Circuit Court of Florida for their information.
Nancy Grace, an HLN host, did more than anyone to elevate this case to the media circus it
became, according to New York Magazine.
Spitting vitriol about Casey, damning and executing her in the court of public opinion,
brought Grace further into the public eye.
The case became so intensely covered that CNN and NBC built a two-story, air-conditioned
building outside the court to house reporters.
At times, there were hundreds of news vehicles outside the court.
People lined up every morning to try to score tickets to watch the trial live.
According to an affidavit filed by investigator Dominic Casey, Anthony was bailed out of jail
by bounty hunter Tony Padilla, nephew of reality TV bondsman Leonard Padilla.
On July 5, 2011, Casey Anthony was acquitted of every charge having to do with killing
or abusing Caylee, having never testified.
"We the jury find the defendant not guilty."
She was still convicted on four charges of lying to the police, each with the sentence
of a year in prison.
With the time she had already spent awaiting trial and her good behavior, however, she
was a free woman in under two weeks.
It was too late for her reputation, though.
The media had called her America's Most Hated Mother, a label that stuck.
Nancy Grace was especially aggressive in her commentary.
"The devil is dancing tonight."
According to the Orlando Sentinel, some in the jury suspected that Casey was involved
in her daughter's death, but the prosecution only had circumstantial evidence.
They had proven Anthony a liar, but they hadn't given a story of how Caylee had died.
The Associated Press reported that, despite this, the Florida Department of Children and
Families did conclude that she was responsible for Caylee's death due to her inaction.
Years later, trial judge Belvin Perry Jr. speculated that Anthony had accidentally killed
Caylee by using chloroform to calm her.
Anthony equated herself to Alice in Wonderland and the public as the Red Queen, stating,
"The queen is proclaiming: 'No, no, sentence first, verdict afterward.'
... People found me guilty long before I had my day in court."
According to ABC News, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez filed a civil suit against Casey Anthony.
Gonzalez had lost her job as a housekeeper at a resort, was evicted, and received a barrage
of death threats, all because of Anthony's lie.
Click Orlando quoted Linda Kenney Baden, a former member of Anthony's defense team, who
said,
"[Anthony] lied.
Sure.
I think everyone knows that was a lie."
"I didn't ask to be brought into it."
Gonzalez's lawyer, John Morgan, intended to ask Anthony to explain when she last saw her
daughter alive and when she knew that she was dead.
Anthony's lawyers requested that Casey’s deposition be canceled because of the trauma
they said she experienced in being tried for her daughter's death.
The lawyers also said that having these depositions made public would put their client in further
danger, and finally said that Anthony would plead the Fifth Amendment on all questions.
Morgan maintains that Anthony became aware of Gonzalez's name when they both visited
the same apartment complex.
Gonzalez filled out an information card with the names of two of her children and the make
and color of her car, all information that Anthony told police.
"We can't prove our case if she doesn't answer our questions."
Two of Casey Anthony's charges of lying to police were overturned on appeal.
These were not the only crimes of which Anthony was convicted, though.
By the time her trial began, Anthony was already serving probation for check fraud, having
forged a friend's checks, according to Dominic Casey's affidavit.
She also used the routing number on a birthday check her grandmother had mailed her to steal
from her, according to Criminal Brief, adding identity theft to her rap sheet.
ABC News reported that EquuSearch, the volunteer search organization that had taken up the
hunt for Caylee when Casey assured them that her daughter was alive, filed a $100,000 lawsuit
to recoup their losses.
Owing to the outrage surrounding this case, Florida passed Caylee's Law, making it a crime
for a parent not to report a missing child.
According to 10 Tampa Bay, Larry Flynt repeatedly offered Anthony half a million dollars and
10% of the magazine profits to pose naked for Hustler, with a portion of the proceeds
going to child abuse charities.
She never took him up on it.
Meanwhile, when Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was asked if he would want Anthony to pose,
he said,
"I wouldn't reward someone like that for what has happened."
The Associated Press reported in 2017 that Casey Anthony lives with and works for Patrick
McKenna, one of the private investigators for her defense.
According to Fox News, she opened up Case Research & Consulting Services, LLC in 2021.
In May 2021, she found herself in the news again after an altercation with another woman
at a bar in West Palm Beach, according to Click Orlando.
Apparently, the two had been dating the same man at the same time.
Casey Anthony told the Associated Press in 2017 that had Caylee lived,
"Caylee would be 12 right now.
And would be a total badass."
She went on,
"I don't give a sh-- about what anyone thinks about me, I never will.
I'm OK with myself, I sleep pretty good at night."
People reported in 2019 that she was considering having another child.
If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp
National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat
services.