Verdict brought few answers in Caylee Anthony case
ST. PETERSBURG, FL
And for the public, that may be one of the most frustrating
parts of the case: Despite all the speculation and theories, they
will never know how or why Caylee Anthony died.
"I think we know as much as we ever will know," said Beth
Hough, a 27-year-old administrative assistant from Chicago who
followed the trial. "We don't know exactly what happened, but if
we did, it would help people to finally just move on and to end the
story."
That's what's missing: an ending. And because we're so used to
neatly packaged, hour-long TV crime dramas where the bad guy is
usually put behind bars, the fact Anthony could be convicted only
of lying to police has left people unsatisfied. And they have been
vocal about their dismay, turning to Twitter and Facebook to vent
their frustration.
So what's left? Some fuzzy defense claims that little Caylee
drowned and that her grandfather tried to make an accident look
like a homicide.
"One of the quite healthy and appropriate satisfactions we get
out of a well-functioning justice system is the belief that the
justice system will give us the best answers to questions," said
Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.
A little girl ended up dead in the woods near her grandparents'
home with duct tape over her mouth, and her mother didn't report
her disappearance for more than a month. But how did Caylee die?
That's where it gets complicated.
The defense said Caylee drowned in the family's swimming pool.
Prosecutors couldn't say how Caylee died because the girl's body
was too decomposed to harvest DNA or other forensic evidence. So
the state relied on circumstantial evidence: the trunk of Casey's
car smelled like a dead body to some witnesses; someone did an
internet search for chloroform -- a chemical that can be used to
knock someone unconscious -- at the Anthony home; and there was duct
tape on Caylee's skull when it was found six months after she was
last seen in June 2008.
"If we don't know how Caylee died, we can't assign
responsibility for the factors that led to her death. So there's no
justice," said Maryann Gajos, a 51-year-old mother of two and a
sixth-grade reading teacher in Inverness, Fla. "Watching all of
these crime shows has spoiled all of us. In TV shows, the coroner
always has the answer."
But in this case, the coroner didn't have the answer. Dr. Jan
Garavaglia told the jury that Caylee had been murdered, but she
couldn't establish exactly how she died from only a skeleton.
And in the life-imitates-TV irony of this case, Garavaglia is
also the star of her own reality TV show on Discovery Health
Channel called "Dr. G: Medical Examiner," in which she solves
cases through autopsies.
"It's frustrating that they can't come up for a definitive
reason for this girl dying," said Sherri Cohen, a self-employed
photographer from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "Archaeologists can tell
you about bones that were found thousands of years ago, but they
can't tell you how a 3-year-old girl died three years ago."
How Casey Anthony acted in the weeks and months after Caylee's
disappearance also contribute to the perception of whether the jury
ultimately delivered justice.
"I feel that the way Casey Anthony behaved during the month her
baby was `missing' and her lies to the police and others have
really frustrated people who want to see justice served," said
Marjorie Stout of Pinellas County, Fla., the same area where the
jury was chosen because of the intense publicity in the Orlando
area. "Not just for what is perceived to be murdering one's own
child but her lack of concern for Caylee as well."
Berman, the Ohio State professor, has another theory about why
folks are so frustrated: Casey Anthony never spoke. The defense
made a strategic decision for Anthony not to testify -- a decision
that clearly worked in her favor, he said.
"It's not just that the jury decision came out differently than
we had hoped, it's that the jury decision wasn't a statement of her
innocence. It was a statement of `We can't figure out what
happened.' And in some sense, that's even more frustrating than if
the jury said, `We don't think she did it."'
That's only amplified by the circumstances surrounding the case.
After all, plenty of people are acquitted at trial because there
isn't enough evidence, said Jennifer Zedalis, a professor at the
University of Florida Levin College of Law. But, she said, "there
aren't a lot of cases where that happens where the victim is a
2-year-old and the mother was out partying when her daughter was
missing or dead."