Disclaimer: The article contains mention of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
Two-year-old toddler Caylee Anthony was seen alive for the last time on June 16, 2008. She lived with her mother, Casey Anthony, and her maternal grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony, in Orlando, Florida.
On July 15, 2008, Caylee’s grandmother, Cindy, called 911 and reported that her granddaughter had gone missing. She further stated that it had been a month since Caylee’s disappearance, and her daughter Casey’s car smelt morbid. According to People, she said, “I’ve found out that my granddaughter has been taken. She has been missing for a month. Her mother had finally admitted that she had been missing.” She continued, “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.”
Cindy later falsely told authorities that a nanny named Zenaida “Zanny” Fernandez-Gonzalez kidnapped the toddler. On July 16, 2008, authorities arrested Casey Anthony and charged her with “child neglect, giving false statements and obstruction.” Even though officials hadn’t discovered the toddler’s body by then, on October 14, 2008, a Florida grand jury indicted Casey on first-degree murder charges in connection with her daughter’s death.
After five months, Roy Kronk, an Orange County meter reader, discovered Caylee Anthony’s skeletal remains in the woods. During Casey’s murder trial, he recalled this incident by stating, “I did not know what it was. I never lifted it off the ground. That was a very horrific thing for me to find, obviously.”
What was Caylee Anthony’s mother, Casey Anthony, accused of?
Casey Anthony’s murder trial started on May 24, 2011, and went on for six weeks. Reports suggest that the defense led by Jose Baez claimed that the toddler drowned in an accident. Furthermore, Casey’s father, George, helped her cover Caylee Anthony’s death by buying her secretively. In addition, investigators even discovered Google searches for terms like “how to make chloroform” on the family’s computer.
The state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, Jeff Ashton, told the jury, “No one makes an accident look like murder.” On July 5, 2011, the court found Casey Anthony not guilty on all serious charges. These charges included first-degree murder, manslaughter, and child abuse. Two days later, she was sentenced to four years in prison and handed a $4,000 fine for lying to the police.
On July 17, 2011, just 10 days after her sentencing, Casey Anthony was released from prison. The aforementioned People report stated that in 2016, she started her own photography business, Case Photography. A source stated, “She’s got enough money to live, but not enough to really do anything. She sort of lives like an old person, on a fixed income without much going on in her life. She’s bored, and she complains about boredom all the time.”
In March 2017, Casey gave a series of interviews to the Associated Press, where she continued to claim that she was unaware of what happened to her daughter during her final moments. She stated, “I don’t give a s— about what anyone thinks about me, I never will. I’m okay with myself, I sleep pretty good at night.”
She further said, “I understand the reasons people feel about me. I understand why people have the opinions that they do. I’m still not even certain as I stand here today about what happened.”
Casey Anthony was born on March 19, 1986. According to Newsweek, Caylee’s father’s identity remains a mystery.
