Casey Anthony's Trial Was a Slam Dunk. Instead, She Walked Free - Daily Beast

Casey Anthony's Trial Was a Slam Dunk. Instead, She Walked Free.
Dec 19, 2011 12:00 AM EST

Excerpt:

This past year was a lurid one for American criminal trials: Michael Jackson’s anesthesia-happy doctor, the Connecticut home-invasion death-row duo, Cleveland’s “house of horrors” serial slayer, Arizona’s Baseline Killer. But no case so captured the country’s imagination or inflamed public opinion as the trial of Casey Anthony, the pretty Florida mother accused of murdering her toddler, Caylee.

Anthony’s story had all the hallmarks of a trial for the ages. It was grisly, full of macabre twists and turns. In July 2008 she called police to report her daughter missing. She claimed a nanny named “Zanny” had abducted the girl a month earlier—but Anthony’s abandoned car, found at an impound lot, stank of decomposing flesh and was infested with maggots. Police quickly discovered that Zanny was an elaborate fiction, as was Anthony’s purported job at Universal Studios. All the while, Casey insisted to her parents and to authorities that Caylee was still alive. The family issued tearful televised pleas for leads. Five months later, the baby’s remains were found in a trash bag, abandoned in the woods behind the Anthony home. Around Caylee’s mouth, someone had plastered a strip of duct tape with the imprint of a tiny heart.

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/18/casey-anthony-s-trial-was-a-slam-dunk-instead-she-walked-free.html