Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony (50 page)

She first spoke to police in 2010 about conversations between her and George. She claimed that George had supposedly told her that his granddaughter’s death had been an accident that had spiraled out of control. At that time, police had asked her if she and George were having an affair, and she said no. But her story changed after she sold it to
The National Enquirer
for $4,000. Then, she portrayed herself as George’s mistress.

On the stand, George Anthony denied the affair, but Krystal had a text message from him that said, “Just thinking about you, I need you in my life.” George admitted that he had sent the text, explaining that at the time he had needed every volunteer in his life.

On cross, Krystal said that she had lied to the police about their affair to protect George. She also said she chose
The National Enquirer
for her story, because she could trust the magazine to tell it honestly, and not because they were willing to pay her. She admitted that George referred to a
belief
that Caylee had died by accident. I got her to admit that he had never claimed any firsthand knowledge, and never indicated any involvement in disposing of his granddaughter’s body.

George was the last witness on the defense’s list. Now came the moment when Casey was either summoned to the stand or wasn’t. In our opinion, Casey needed to take the stand to back up all of the sensational claims that Baez had made in opening. If she did, we would finally hear the story of the sexually-abused child trained to lie. The details would be horrific. Finally the public would see Casey speak and more importantly, face cross-examination. The defense requested a brief recess to consult with their client. When it returned, we learned Casey would not testify, as I had predicted five weeks earlier. Casey 4.0—that Caylee had drowned and she had lied because of her family history—would only come from Baez.

After thirteen days, the defense rested its case. They had thrown the kitchen sink at us, including theories about Roy Kronk and George Anthony, while attacking our forensics. They had never supported their outrageous opening statements. They had not put Casey on the stand. They had no evidence that Caylee had drowned in a pool, or that Casey was so traumatized by sexual abuse that she would not know the difference between a lie and a true story. Their forensic people put on the stand to refute our forensics people were cut to size. We were riding high. We thought the defense case was borderline ridiculous, making claims in opening that you never even supported. In my thirty years, I had never heard of such of a thing.

In all criminal trials, the State has an opportunity to offer evidence to rebut any of the defense’s claims. In most cases, nothing is presented in rebuttal. Whether to rebut is always a difficult decision to make. By the end of a trial, you figure the jury is sick and tired of the case and just wants to get on to deliberations. You don’t want them to perceive you as wasting their time on things that seem trivial. Rebuttal is the last thing they hear, so potentially it can be important. One of the things that we felt we needed to rebut was Cindy’s testimony about the chloroform searches. Before she testified, we had already obtained her work records, which showed that she had been at the office at the times the searches had been conducted. She said it was common practice to clock in at work, then run errands and not note her time away from the office in the time records. Linda knew we needed to probe this further.

From Cindy’s employer, Linda was able to get records of usage on Cindy’s work computer. These showed that Cindy had been on the computer at her desk and entering data at times that would have made it impossible for her to be at home as well. A vice president from Gentiva’s home office in Atlanta, John Camperlengo, was unlucky enough to be the one to come to court with the records to testify. I say unlucky because he ended up having to stay in Orlando for three days while the defense desperately tried to prevent him from testifying. They deposed him, demanded additional records, demanded to talk to the company’s IT people, and ended up trying to argue to the judge that Camperlengo’s testimony should be excluded because of the late disclosure of the information.

Judge Perry responded that the defense should have checked out their witness’s story better before they put her on the stand. He then ruled Camperlengo’s testimony admissible and allowed him testify. On the stand, Camperlengo explained how his office’s record keeping procedures showed that Cindy could not have been home at the times she had claimed.

Cindy’s testimony was further rebutted by the testimony of Sandra Cawn and Kevin Stenger, both of whom had searched the Anthonys’ home computer and had found no evidence that a search for the term
chlorophyll
had ever been conducted.

We also spent a few moments rebutting some of Dr. Spitz’s claims. We presented the testimony of Dr. Bruce Goldberger, the forensic toxicologist who had tested the washing of the interior of the skull. He said that the material that Dr. Spitz had identified as residue of brain matter was, in fact, not organic in nature, and was most likely just dirt.

Dr. Warren from the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory was also called to dispute Dr. Spitz’s claim that Dr. G had not followed proper protocol for examination of a skull. In response to questions, Dr. Warrant explained that the skull of a child should not have been sawed open as Spitz had done. After the rebuttal, all that was left was for Casey to be found guilty, sentenced, and I would retire on a high note.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

THE PROSECUTION RESTS

T
he cases had been presented. The objections had been made. I believed our case was strong. I’m sure the defense believed the same about theirs. But there was still one final drama to play out: the closing arguments.

Early on, we’d decided how we’d order our remarks. Linda, with her brilliant opening, had gotten us off on the right foot, and I would start bringing it full circle. The prosecution always went first, so I would lead off for us. Baez and Mason would close for the defense, then Linda would do our final rebuttal to address anything the defense had said. My portion would spend a lot of time reviewing the thirty-one days that Caylee was missing, connecting Casey’s lies to specific purposes and driving home just how calculated her deception was.

I love closing arguments. I’ve loved them ever since I first began standing in front of court. Closing arguments are the cherry on the sundae, the one thing you don’t give away and the best thing you get to do.

As I prepared for the closing arguments, I was thinking a lot about common sense. We’d based so much of our case on common sense. Was Casey’s behavior that of a loving, caring mother? Did it make sense that she would lie to this extent having done nothing wrong? Putting aside the minutiae of the case, the forensic evidence, the detailed timelines, the intricate lies—what did common sense say about a mother who leaves her parents’ home one morning with her child, and then proceeds to live a new life with her boyfriend without the child? What does common sense tell you about that mother? My common sense told me that it meant she wanted a life without her child. My common sense told me that Casey wanted to be rid of Caylee. When you hear that a few weeks after her child had last been seen, she appeared at a tattoo parlor in high spirits and got a tattoo that said “the beautiful life” in Italian, doesn’t common sense say she got the tattoo because that’s how she feels?

When you hear the young mother spin lie after lie after lie to everyone about her child and where she is and why no one has seen her, your common sense says she is hiding something. When you hear the manager of a tow yard, experienced crime scene technicians, an ex-cop (who happens to be the accused’s father), and a scientist who spent twenty years studying an odor tell you that the smell in the trunk was that of a dead body, common sense tells you that there was a dead body in the car. When you hear that a hair from a child was found in that same trunk with evidence indicating that it came from a corpse, common sense tells you there was a child’s dead body in that car.

When you find that someone has searched on a computer for instructions to make chloroform and you find chloroform in the trunk of the car, common sense puts two and two together, and concludes that someone made chloroform for some purpose.

When Casey continues to spin multiple tales to explain the child’s disappearance, even in the face of questioning by law enforcement officers, and maintains the lie even in the face of arrest, doesn’t your common sense tell you that what she is hiding is her own guilt?

When you find the remains of a little girl in a wooded swamp surrounded by items that tie back to one house, common sense says the child was killed by someone at the house who didn’t want the body found.

Most important, when you find the skull of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl with three pieces of duct tape wrapped from one side of the jaw to the other, covering where the nose and mouth would have been, what does your common sense tell you?

While plotting out my remarks, it also didn’t escape me that this was the last time I’d be standing before a jury for the State of Florida. My thirtieth anniversary with the State Attorney’s Office had come and gone six months earlier. Had I chosen to sit quietly for the last couple of years, I would have been relaxing at home with my kids. Instead, I’d decided to try one last time to bring justice, to see Caylee’s trial through to the end.

Regardless of the outcome, I never second-guessed my choice to be a part of this prosecution team. The last three years had encompassed everything that I’d loved about being a lawyer, as well as a few things that I hated about it, too. Win or lose, I was ending on a high note. But I sure as hell wanted to win. I believed our case was strong. I was ready to help prove that once and for all.

O
N
J
ULY 3, 2011,
I
arrived at court ready to deliver my closing argument in
State of Florida v. Casey Anthony
. We had finished thirty-three days of testimony, two days longer than Caylee had been missing. In all, 141 people had taken the stand, some more than once. Cindy Anthony alone had testified eight times.

As I arrived, the cameras were staked out at Camp Casey and Little Camp Casey. News trucks filled the street. My final day in front of the jury would be anything but quiet, but that was how I wanted it. From the first day I’d signed on, I’d known what I was getting myself into.

When it came time to deliver my remarks, I felt calm. I don’t normally write my remarks out beforehand, but since I would be talking about the thirty-one days, something I was not as conversant in as Linda, I’d spent a good deal of time organizing my thoughts. I knew how I wanted everything to be structured and made myself a road map.

I began by emphasizing the pattern of lies Casey had demonstrated when her baby was missing. One of the things I really wanted the jury to take away was that everything Casey had done had been deliberate. These were not delusions she was suffering from. These were lies for manipulation and gain, lies designed to disrupt and deceive.

In keeping with that idea of deliberate behavior, I returned to the idea of Casey’s MySpace password, which she’d revised to “Timer55” in the days following Caylee’s disappearance. Now, that could mean any number of things, it’s true. But in many ways, the new password was just too coincidental for me to stomach. The “55” number has such a precise significance, the number of days between Caylee’s disappearance on June 16 and her third birthday on August 9. The word “Timer” reminds her that the clock is ticking whenever she logs into her account. The end was drawing near, and she needed to have a solution to the problem that she couldn’t produce Caylee. Playing off this idea of how Casey found new solutions to her lies, I brought up the “end of the hall” concept and how in each of her lies she’d reached a point where she could go no further, a point past which the truth behind the lie was inescapable, when she was officially at the end of the hall. This was the point she would reach when “Timer55” expired on Caylee’s birthday, August 9. Before then she needed to have a plan, an out—specifically, one that would allow her to get away with murder.

Pushing the “end of the hall” idea one step further, I brought up the creation of Casey’s final lie, Casey 4.0, the drowning story that became her version of the truth at trial. I explained how this story was yet another example of Casey reaching the end of the hall. Once the body had been connected to the house through the duct tape and laundry bag, suddenly the stranger abduction story became implausible. She had to take the lie somewhere else, and that somewhere was George Anthony.

One thing that was important to emphasize was the total absence of logic in Casey’s version of the truth. Part of what I wanted to show was that even if you bought the idea that Caylee’s death was an accident, there really was no way to justify Casey’s behavior after the fact. Simply put, her behavior did not reflect how a mother would react to the “accidental” death of her child—unless, of course, you believed in the logic of Casey’s world. In Casey’s world, you didn’t call 911 when your child drowns. In Casey’s world, you didn’t frantically bring your child to the hospital to try and revive her. In Casey’s world, you didn’t grieve for weeks and months on end. Instead, in Casey’s world you stuffed your little girl in a laundry bag, threw her in a swamp, and went out partying with your new boyfriend.