Her mother was known to lie long before Caylee Anthony was born. Casey Anthony’s tendency to lie began in high school, when she stopped going to classes without telling her parents, George and Cindy Anthony. George and Cindy arrived at what they believed would be her graduation ceremony, with her grandparents, only to learn that Casey didn’t have the credits to graduate. The lying continued when Casey became pregnant at 19-years old. For a significant portion of her pregnancy, she insisted to her parents that her weight gain was not due to a pregnancy that she had never had sex, but eventually came clean. Caylee Marie Anthony was born on August 9, 2005, and Casey gave two possible fathers. One was her then-fiance, Jesse Grund, who did raise Caylee as his own alongside Casey for a time. The second man she claimed died in a car accident of some kind, but no father has ever been confirmed (Ott) (Editors, 2014).
The lying continued not only in her personal life, but into the investigation that would unfold around her in 2008. After an argument about her parenting methods on Father’s day, June 15, Casey took Caylee and left her parents’ home. During this time, Cindy tried to get Caylee on the phone, but Casey would make up excuses, including that they were in Jacksonville, FL, for the surprise wedding of her supposed ex-boyfriend’s, Jeff Hopkins, mother, Jules (Mooney, and Hopper). It would be a month before the Anthony’s would learn that Caylee had disappeared. It started when they received a letter that one of their cars was impounded – the car Casey had left in. Upon retrieving the car, George Anthony, an ex-police officer, noted that the car smelled of decomposition. Cindy managed to hunt down her daughter at her then-boyfriend’s, Tony Lazaro, home. She brought her back to their home, where Casey Anthony broke down and admitted that she had left Caylee with “Zanny the Nanny,” who had taken her away. Casey claimed that she had spent the month Caylee had been missing searching for her (Editors, 2014) (Ott). Unfortunately, it would later be discovered that “Zanny the Nanny” was not a real person at all. After Casey admitted that Caylee was missing, Cindy Anthony called 911 to report her missing and to request Casey be arrested for stealing their car (Swift).
On July 16, 2008, Casey Anthony was officially arrested and lead investigators to the apartment that she claimed belong to Senaida Fernandez-Gonzales, a.k.a. “Zanny the Nanny.” The apartment was abandoned, however, and Casey claimed Zenaida took off with Caylee, while Zenaida’s sister, Samantha, held her down and told her she was a bad mother on July 9, 2008 (Ott) (Mooney, and Hopper). She then lead investigators to Universal Studios, where she had been telling her parents for years she had been working. After leading them confidently through the doors and into a building for a while, Casey eventually admitted that she had not worked there since she was fired in 2006. She was soon charged with interfering with a criminal investigation, child neglect, and lying to investigators, and by June 22, 2008, she was declared a person of interest in the case (Ott) (Swift).
While under investigation, details of what she had been doing during the month she was allegedly searching for her daughter came to light and brought her character into question. She had been partying during the month and had gotten a tattoo that said “Bella Vitta,” which is Italian and translates to “Beautiful Life.” Not only was her behavior unusual, but a cadaver dog had alerted to the scent of a corpse in the trunk of her car. Her bail was set at $500,000, partially due to her unusual behavior. Her bonds would be paid for on August 20, 2008, by California based bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, who hoped she would lead them to Caylee or give them more information (Ott) (Editors, 2014). Padilla would later describe her as promiscuous and narcissistic, and by August 30th, Casey was again in jail for forging checks and identify theft (Editors, 2014). Just as before, other parties come forward to pay her bond in early September, but she was back in jail by the end of the month (Ott).
Casey Anthony was formally charged with first degree murder on October 14, 2008, as well as aggravated manslaughter, aggravated child abuse, and four counts of providing false information to investigators. By October 24th, the forensic report on Casey’s car became available. Hair found in the trunk was deemed to be similar to hair taken from Caylee’s hairbrush and showed evidence of decomposition, and an air sample from the trunk showed signs of human decomposition (Ott).
Caylee was finally found on December 11, 2008, just a half mile from the Anthony residence. Roy Kronk, a utility worker, came across a plastic bag with skeletal remains. Kronk notably tried to get investigators to search the area her remains were found in during the summer, but the area was not properly searched at the time. By December 20th, the remains are confirmed to be 2-year old Caylee’s and the coroner reports the bones show no evidence of trauma. Despite this, the coroner determined the cause of death to be “homicide of undetermined means.” The advanced state of decomposition she was in when found meant her cause of death and time of death could not be determined, but duct tape across her mouth has lead to speculation of suffication (Ott) (Editors, 2014).
During the trial in 2011, the prosecution aimed for the death penalty in the case. Casey was described as a party girl who had no use for a young child like Caylee, and the prosecution used the month she spent apparently partying while Caylee was missing as their evidence (Ott). It was revealed at court that a search had been done for chloroform on the Anthony family computer during the time when Cindy and George would not have been home, but Cindy insisted she was the one that made the search. The software designer initially testified that someone had searched the chemical a whopping 84 time along with injury related search terms in March 2008, but later recanted due to a malfunction of his software and corrected the statement from 84 searches to one. Arpad Vass of Oak Ridge National Laboratory testified to a shockingly large amount of chloroform present in the trunk, possibly released during decomposition. Vass concluded that a body must have been in the trunk at some point, but was countered by FBI experts who showed how much chloroform can be found in household cleaners. Simon Birch, the manager of the towing company that impounded Casey’s car, claimed that the smell from her car was consistent with previous incidents in which remains were recovered from cars he had towed (Ott) (Editors, 2014).
The defense dropped bombshells during the trial that would lead to a temporary estrangement between the Anthony’s and their daughter. Jose Caez, Casey’s lawyer, claimed that Caylee had drowned in the family pool, a tragic accident, and that George had attempted to cover the death up. Casey’s defense team also alleged that she had been molested by her father and her brother, Lee, in her childhood and had developed a tendency to lie in order to cover up the pain she was in. George denied both allegations, and at one point he and Lee were tested for paternity and it was determined that Caylee was neither of their child. It was claimed that Kronk, who found Caylee’s remains, had actually planted them where they were found. Lee Anthony’s fiancé took the stand to testify that Casey and Caylee had a special bond and Cindy took the stand to refute earlier testimonies. Along with claiming she was the one searching for chloroform, she also claimed that a stain in the trunk of Casey’s car had been there since they had bought it eight years earlier and was not from Caylee’s remains decomposing in the car. At closing arguments, the prosecution reiterated their belief that Casey felt over-burdened by her daughter and would have been motivated by her presence to go to extremes to relieve herself of her. The defense, unable to bring up their molestation claims again, instead pointed out that there was a lack of evidence to prove Caylee’s remains had been in Casey’s car or to tie her to Caylee’s death at all. On July 5, 2011, after six weeks of trial and over 400 pieces of evidence, it took the jury only 11 hours to deem Casey Anthony as not guilty in the murder of her daughter, aggravated manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse. She was found guilty of lying to investigators and charge with four counts, bringing her sentence to four years in prison and $4,000 in fines. Two of the four counts would be dropped in appeals court later and she received credit for time served as well as good behavior. Casey Anthony officially left prison on July 17, 2011 around midnight (Ott) (Editors, 2014).
Casey Anthony has done her best to continue her life following her trial, even doing an interview in 2017 with AP News. In her interview, she said she understands why people don’t like her given how she was portrayed in the media at the time. She said she felt that she had been convicted of her daughter’s murder before the verdict came down. Casey admitted to lying to investigators, about many things. She lied about the nanny, she lied about working at Universal Studios, she lied when she told them that she had gotten a call from Caylee the day before she disappeared, and she lied and told them she had told two people she had made up that Caylee was missing (Replogle). Casey had, in fact, made up several people and stories in her life leading up to Caylee’s disappearance. Besides “Zanny the Nanny,” she had also made up her sister, “Samantha,” and a boyfriend, “Jeffery Hopkins.” While the nanny and her sister were entirely made up, though a woman sharing the nanny’s name was found, Jeffery Hopkins was someone Casey had gone to middle school with. In Casey’s story, Hopkins was her boyfriend and had a son, Zachary, who was about Caylee’s age. Casey told her mother that Hopkins worked at Nickelodeon, was fairly wealthy, and had moved to North Carolina for a time before returning to Florida. The real Jeff Hopkins took the stand during Casey’s trial to refute her stories. Casey also made up another boyfriend, Eric Baker, who she claimed was Caylee’s father. She told Cindy that he was married and had a son as well. While on the stand, Cindy told the court of the day she received a frantic phone call from Casey that Eric had died in a car accident. Despite Casey’s claims that she once had an obituary for him that she lost, no one has been able to successfully link an Eric Baker to her (Mooney, and Hopper).
Officially, Caylee’s Anthony’s murder remains unsolved. What we know is that a little girl was taken from the world far too young, and has left behind a grieving family torn apart by what happened. It’s possible that we will never know exactly what happened, unless someone decides to come forward with the truth someday.
Ott, Tim. “Casey Anthony: A Complete Timeline Of Her Murder Case And Trial”. Biography, https://www.biography.com/news/casey-anthony-muder-trial-timeline-facts?li_source=LI&li_medium=m2m-rcw-biography.
Editors, B., 2014. Casey Anthony Biography. [online] Biography. Available at: <https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/casey-anthony>.
Swift, Nicki. The Most Bizarre Things About The Casey Anthony Case. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k95gbJAGvSU. Accessed 19 Sept 2021.
Replogle, Josh. “Casey Anthony Tells AP: ‘I Didn’t Do What I Was Accused Of'”. AP NEWS, 2017, https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-fl-state-wire-casey-anthony-acquittals-c36cea8e48364edeba200e6e666997a6.
Mooney, Mark, and Jessica Hopper. “Casey Anthony Trial: Caylee’s Mom Created A World Of Made-Up People”. ABC News, 2011, https://abcnews.go.com/US/casey_anthony_trial/casey-anthony-trial-mother-caylees-imaginary-friends/story?id=13988365.
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