Sx02 - Inside the Caylee Anthony Case

[bunniefuu]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

With regret, I'm here to inform you that the skeletal

remains found on December are those of the missing toddler,

Caylee Anthony.

The manner of death in this case is homicide.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR It's the story that transfixed

the nation, an adorable two-year-old girl, dead.

This is a child that was just dumped in the woods

like a piece of trash.

NARRATOR A young, hard-partying mother

accused of being the k*ller.

REPORTER Casey, where is Caylee's body?

NARRATOR And a verdict that stuns millions.

JURY FOREPERSON We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.

WOMAN A m*rder*r walks free.

NARRATOR But for all the media coverage, interviews,

and legal testimony, the whole story of Caylee Anthony

hasn't been told, until now.

For the first time, we'll see the case

through the eyes of Dr. Jan Garavaglia,

the medical examiner in charge of Caylee's autopsy,

and the star expert witness at her mother's trial.

This child had duct tape over its lower face.

NARRATOR And the main target of the defense attorney's att*cks.

He has the nerve to call my work shoddy.

NARRATOR Now, Dr. G will expose intimate details never

before revealed.

I just can't believe that actually, that

didn't come up at the trial.

There's a lot more to this story

than you guys could ever, ever imagine.

NARRATOR And try to answer the question still

on everyone's mind.

What happened to Caylee Anthony?

And it was really a horrendous piece of information.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OPERATOR --, what's your emergency?

NARRATOR The strange, tragic case of little Caylee Anthony

begins at PM on July , ,

with a panic-wrought -- call.

The caller is Caylee Anthony's grandmother, Cindy,

and the story she begins to tell police

is astounding, disturbing, but also riddled with details that

seem to make no sense at all.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Caylee Marie Anthony is born August

, , in Orlando, Florida.

Her mother, Casey, is just , and still

living at home with her own parents,

George and Cindy Anthony.

Caylee is a very happy child.

She called her grandfather Jo Jo.

She loved to swim.

She clearly looked like a very happy child.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR In June of , according to Cindy,

Casey tells her that she needs to go to Jacksonville for work,

and she's going to take Caylee with her.

She told them she had a job.

She told them she worked at Universal Studios.

NARRATOR Several weeks passed without incident, then

on July , , things take an unexpected turn.

Cindy and George Anthony discover that their daughter's

car was abandoned at a strip mall parking lot

and has been towed to an impound lot in Orlando.

But what is Casey's car doing in Orlando when she's

supposed to be in Jacksonville?

Unable to reach his daughter, Casey's father, George, claims

the car from the impound lot.

It's a trip that brings an unsettling discovery.

AMY PAVUK When he got to the Pontiac at the wrecker yard,

it reeked.

He was a former law enforcement officer.

George knows what a dead body smells like.

And he really thought to himself,

I really hope Caylee or Casey--

I'm not gonna to find them in this trunk.

NARRATOR George opens the trunk and finds a bag of trash.

For the moment, he's relieved.

But they still haven't heard from Casey.

Cindy Anthony was able to track down

Casey at her boyfriend's house.

That's when Casey told her that Caylee was missing.

She had been gone for days.

She was supposedly kidnapped by a nanny.

NARRATOR That's when Cindy calls --.

Then Cindy goes on to give the -- operator

some disturbing information.

Meanwhile, Casey did get on the line

and seemed rather calm.

If my kids were gone for seconds, it would--

I'd freak out.

I can't imagine days.

I really don't remember when I first heard that there was

a toddler missing in Orlando, but you couldn't help

but knowing about it.

It became a huge news story in this community.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Detective Yuri Melich is assigned to the case.
[ … ]

When he arrives at the Anthonys' home,

his first priority is to get information

about the nanny who Casey claims has abducted her daughter.

After hours of interviewing Casey,

police launch a full-scale investigation

led by Detective Melich.

It begins with a visit to the home of the nanny.

But when police arrive, the apartment is vacant.

The babysitter, so far as anyone can determine,

never actually existed, though she

was described in great detail by Casey

on more than one occasion.

NARRATOR And that's not the only thing about Casey's story

that doesn't add up.

Casey was claiming that she worked at Universal Studios,

had a job as an event planner.

The police went to Universal and determined that, in fact, she

didn't work there.

She hadn't worked there in over a year.

Investigators proved through cell phone records

that Casey never left Orlando the entire month.

NARRATOR On July , nearly hours after the -- calls,

Casey Anthony is arrested and charged

with aggravated child neglect and lying to investigators.

Casey denies the charge, and immediately

hires a lawyer, Jose Baez.

Baez was a relatively unknown attorney.

NARRATOR Baez declares that Casey is innocent.

Casey doesn't know where Caylee is.

If she knew where she was, she would have told me,

she would have told the police, she would have told her family.

And we're here to move forward at finding Caylee.

NARRATOR Meanwhile, pictures surface on the internet showing

Casey out partying, even entering a hot body

contest during the time she claimed

to be looking for Caylee.

In one photo, she's showing off a new tattoo.

REPORTER And the tattoo artist who

edged Bella Vita, or beautiful life, on Casey's back two weeks

after Caylee disappeared told us all Casey talked about

was her new boyfriend.

NARRATOR The story of a missing little girl and the sexy photos

of her mother plastered on the internet cause

an instant media frenzy.

REPORTER When these pictures were taken on June at Fusion

Ultra Lounge in Orlando, Casey's daughter

had been missing for five days.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We have a mother whose actions and activities

are inconsistent with a mother whose child has gone missing

and that she does not know where her child is

or what happened to her child.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR While Casey sits in jail,

authorities launch a massive hunt for her daughter.

George and Cindy Anthony are at the forefront of the search.

REPORTER Cindy and George wholeheartedly

believe their granddaughter is still alive

and their daughter is innocent.

She is not dead.

AMY PAVUK Hundreds of people came out to search for her.

NARRATOR Coming up, as the hunt for Caylee

continues, police uncover shocking new evidence that

will turn the case upside down.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And it was really a horrendous piece of information.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR By October of , two-year-old Caylee Anthony has

been missing for four months.

As the search for her continues, law

enforcement officials conduct a forensic exam

of her mother's car.

The vehicle had been in Casey's possession

from the last time Caylee was seen until it was towed,

and then eventually reclaimed by the Anthonys

and the police received it.

NARRATOR The police first test the air inside the trunk

and detect high levels of chloroform,

a chemical that could be used to render someone unconscious.

It's an unexpected finding, and it isn't long

before investigators uncover even more startling

evidence in the trunk.

REPORTER A Caucasian head hair found

exhibits characteristics of apparent decomposition

at the root.

A mitochondrial DNA test goes on to say that the hair

could belong to Caylee.

If the report is accurate, that hair would have

fallen off Caylee's dead body.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Investigators now believe that Caylee is dead,

and that at some point, her dead body was in the trunk

of her mother's car.

It's always hard to prove a m*rder without a body.

But we felt that between the odor evidence in the car,

and the hair, and the chloroform,

which was found in the trunk, we just

felt was sufficient to give it to the grand jury.

CROWD [SHOUTING]

NARRATOR With this evidence, -year-old Casey Anthony
[ … ]

is charged with her daughter's m*rder.

MAN An Orange County grand jury has issued

an indictment on the following charges,

first degree m*rder, aggravated child abuse,

aggravated manslaughter of a child,

and four counts of providing false information

to law enforcement.

NARRATOR On December , , two months after Casey Anthony

is charged with m*rder, a meter reader from the city of Orlando

named Roy Kronk takes a break and walks into an overgrown

field some feet off the road in a residential area, where

something catches his eye.

And then he must've noticed, you know,

this probably is a skull.

NARRATOR He notifies his boss, who immediately calls --.

Lead Detective Yuri Melich in turn

calls Steve Hanson, Dr. G's chief investigator.

And Yuri said, Steve, we found a skeleton.

And I'm going, OK.

He said, we think it could be Caylee Anthony.

And I'm going, you're kidding me, right?

And I turned to Steve, and I said,

unless it's really important, don't bother me with it.

And he goes, it is.

They found a skeleton near the home

of where Casey Anthony lived.

And I-- my heart sank.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Once the body was discovered, it was a real game-changer,

because there's going to be forensic evidence either

associated with the body, or the area where the body was found.

REPORTER All they found is a skull of a small child they

believe is a little girl, Caylee Anthony,

who's been missing since June.

We knew at this point the eyes of at least Orlando were on us.

We didn't realize that the eyes of the country, even the world

were on us.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When I drove up to the scene, it was a zoo.

There are media trucks, there are crowds of people,

there are police cars.

NARRATOR Hanson meets Detective Melich

at the scene, who leads him to a densely wooded, swampy area.

Scattered among the leaves are some small bones,

the skull, two garbage bags, and a laundry bag.

There are also remnants of a toddler-sized t-shirt

and shorts, along with a baby blanket.

It clearly had the pattern of Winnie the Pooh with Piglet

on its back.

This is clearly a baby blanket.

It just makes it a little sadder.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My first thought was, let's get the right team.

NARRATOR Dr. G immediately called John Schultz,

a forensic anthropologist from the University of Central

Florida, and an expert in the recovery and identification

of skeletal remains.

I am often called whenever there

is a skeletal dispersal to work with the law enforcement

agency that's involved.

NARRATOR Dr. G also calls in Dr. Michael Warren,

a University of Florida professor

and forensic anthropologist who specializes in analyzing

children's skeletons.

Everyone has a specific research interest,

and I've had some experience with juveniles.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR With the help of the Orange County crime

scene personnel, Dr. G and her team

carefully document and recover the evidence and bones

that are scattered in a radius over feet.

There was evidence on the bones

where animals had chewed the remains, taking

parts of the skeleton away.

They found bones that were smaller

than the nail on your little finger in dense underbrush.

Unbelievable the job and the documentation they did.

NARRATOR When they study the location pattern of the bones,

Dr. G and her team make a key discovery.

The body of a child had to have

been placed out there prior to really

any significant decomposition.

These bones had to have been there for months.

And there was nothing inconsistent

with them being placed there about the time

she went missing.

And that's very important.

This is a child that was just dumped in the woods

like a piece of trash.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It was my job to not only identify the body,

but to determine the cause and manner of death,

or to collect any information from that body

that could help us piece together what happened.

NARRATOR Dr. G sends the tibia, or shinbone,

the most intact bone recovered, to the FBI lab

for identification to find out if the remains

are indeed Caylee's.

But the results won't come back for seven days.

In the meantime, Dr. G continues her examination.
[ … ]

Whenever you do a forensic exam,

you have to listen to what that body's telling you.

NARRATOR Coming up, it would be an autopsy for the history

books, and one with secrets that would

never make it into the newspapers or the courtroom.

Sometimes the bodies scream out what happened,

and sometimes they whisper.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR In the District morgue in Orlando, Florida,

chief medical examiner Dr. G turns to the evidence photos

of the skeleton believed to be the missing

two-year-old, Caylee Anthony.

But one picture in particular concerns her the most.

It's a pretty horrendous picture.

This childhood had duct tape over its lower face.

NARRATOR Even though the glue in this duct tape

has disintegrated and only the mesh remains, incredibly,

it is still attached to the hair.

The hair is kind of all intertwined in that mesh

and it was attached to it.

NARRATOR Then Dr. G looks at what's under the tape.

Lo and behold, all the teeth were

still present in the mandible.

Incredible.

Particularly with a child jaw, those little tiny baby teeth,

they don't have any roots.

They come right out.

NARRATOR Not only are the teeth still in place,

but the jaw is still attached to the skull.

Normally, there's nothing holding the jaw

or mandible to the skull.

There is nothing that keeps it together when you decompose.

NARRATOR And for Dr. G, this finding is both disturbing,

and telling.

The doctor told us that it was put there before she

started to decompose.

The question is, was it over her nose, was it over her mouth?

It was certainly in that area.

Could I have gone out on a limb and say

she suffocated with that tape?

I can't say for certain, but that duct tape

was put there for a reason.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Dr. G and her team also inspect the skull

for any signs of trauma that could give her

a definitive cause of death.

We examined it on the outside, we examined it on the inside.

We x-rayed it.

There was no reason to open it, but we

were able to look inside that skull with a light,

with a mirror.

We do a very thorough examination.

That child had no traumatic injury to the skull.

NARRATOR Dr. G and her team turn

their attention from the skull to the rest of the body.

What was really telling, and this is really important,

is that there are rootlets, little roots

growing into the bone.

When the roots are growing into a bone,

the bone has to be totally decomposed first.

Roots don't grow into rotting flesh.

Roots also don't go into moving objects.

NARRATOR This finding reinforces

what Dr. G and her team found at the scene

where the remains were recovered.

Namely, that the body had been lying there for a long time,

about the same time Caylee went missing.

Those bones were there for months.

She was dumped at the very early stages of her decomposing.

Those are things we know by the science.

NARRATOR Next, the doctors take a closer look

at each bone individually, searching for clues

about how this child d*ed.

We're looking at the bones under the dissecting

microscope, and that was mostly the work

of Dr. Warren and Dr. Schultz.

They're looking for any kind of subtle fractures, old or new.

Blows to the chest area would maybe

cause some hairline fractures, or a knight that maybe nicked

the rib, anything that might help us indicate trauma,

hit by a car, rolled over, anything.

NARRATOR But their detailed exam yields

no definitive cause of death.

There was just absolutely no signs of traumatic injury

to that child.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If we didn't find anything, it didn't

really mean that didn't happen.

NARRATOR Still searching for a cause of death,

Dr. G has one last place to look.

Toxicology at least needed to be attempted.

And it wasn't going to be conventional toxicology.

Conventional toxicology is we take blood or tissue samples

and analyze it.

These were dry bones.

And when I mean dry bones, there is

no soft tissue on those bones, and there is no marrow

inside those cavities.

It's dry.

Dry as a bone.
[ … ]

We know it was a long sh*t to find

any kind of dr*gs in the bone.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We're trying to leave no stone unturned.

If there was something that could

be answered from this body, we wanted to find it.

I called Dr. Goldberger up at the University of Florida,

who is a prominent toxicologist, and asked if he could help.

We looked for illicit dr*gs, prescription dr*gs,

over-the-counter dr*gs, a whole wide range of hundreds

of different types of dr*gs.

We wanted to check for chloroform,

because we clearly knew from both the media, at this point,

and from the police that there was some connection

with chloroform.

If chloroform was given to Caylee,

it would have knocked her out.

NARRATOR Traces of chloroform can linger in the air

for over a month in confined spaces,

like the trunk of a car.

But it's a very different story in a body or skeleton.

Chloroform doesn't have a half life even of a few days.

NARRATOR So when the results come back from the lab,

as Dr. G anticipated, there's no evidence of any dr*gs.

In the end, we found no chloroform,

no evidence of intoxicants at all in any of the samples

that we evaluated.

Could someone have given a drug or substance to Caylee

and have k*lled her?

The answer is yes.

Although I strongly suspect that it was an asphyxial type

of death, possibly mixed with dr*gs,

wasn't enough to give the cause of death.

NARRATOR Then on December , the results of the DNA testing

come back from the FBI.

They told us this is Caylee Marie Anthony.

The chance of someone else having that same DNA

was in . trillion.

Trillion.

That was good enough for me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR After a thorough examination in the field

and in the morgue, Dr. G also knows

the manner of Caylee's death.

The manner of death, though, is

an opinion based on available information,

including examination of the body,

information from the scene, as well as

circumstantial evidence.

Based on all of this, the manner of death in this case

is homicide.

I truly felt by the circumstances,

by the duct tape, by the way she was

thrown into those plastic bags and hidden and left to rot

that this was a homicide.

I don't speak for the state.

I don't speak for the police.

I don't speak for any lawyers.

I don't speak for any defendant I

speak to try to find the truth.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Now, with Doctor G's official ruling of homicide,

lawyers on both sides get ready for the trial of the century.

Coming up, the prosecution reveals their disturbing theory

of how Caylee was m*rder*d.

Why would you put duct tape over the face of a child?

Google searches were conducted for quote,

"how to make chloroform."

Is that still a possibility of how she d*ed?

You bet.

NARRATOR On May , , almost three years

after two-year-old Caylee Anthony

went missing, her mother, Casey, is about to stand

trial for m*rder.

REPORTER Casey was indicted on first degree

m*rder charges based largely on forensic evidence.

There's a lot more to this story

than you guys could ever, ever imagine.

And it's all gonna come out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

People lined up in the middle of the night

to try to get tickets for that trial.

Everyone wanted to try to get a glimpse of history.

It was clearly a media circus.

REPORTER You see the huge crow.

This is the biggest crowd that has been here.

There are deputies here sort of trying to control the chaos.

CROWD [SHOUTING]

NARRATOR Going into the trial, many

who have been following the case believe

a guilty verdict is likely.

As difficult as it may be for anyone to accept that a mother

would intentionally k*ll her own child, from the evidence

that you will hear in this case, there is no other conclusion

that can be drawn.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR One of the prosecution's most compelling

arguments is the fact that Casey did not report her daughter

missing for days.

No mom is not gonna know where their kid is for days
[ … ]

and not do something about it.

NARRATOR Another cornerstone of the prosecution's case

is Casey's statement about a nonexistent babysitter

kidnapping Caylee.

She comes up with stories that had no basis

in fact, that were lies.

That is so classic with a child death, of a homicide.

NARRATOR But some of the most damning

evidence the prosecution points to is from Casey's own car.

The dead body smell, the strand of Caylee's decomposing hair,

and the levels of chloroform.

Even more alarming is the discovery

that somebody in the Anthonys' home

looked up how to make chloroform on the computer

three months before Caylee disappeared.

On Friday, March , , Google

searches were conducted for quote,

"how to make chloroform."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Next, the prosecution moves

on to the most horrific finding, the pieces of duct tape

recovered from Caylee's skull.

There are three overlapping pieces of duct tape,

not one piece of duct tape, but three pieces of duct tape.

This child was found in a field decomposed,

the duct tape, somewhere located on the lower half of this face."], index ,…}

Why would someone put duct tape over the nose

and mouth of a child?

The only reason you come up with is because you don't

want them to breathe anymore.

It was the prosecution's theory that either the child

d*ed as a result of chloroform, or chloroform, which enabled

the perpetrator to place duct tape over the child's mouth

and nose and suffocate her.

You put the various elements together,

the chloroform in the trunk, the odor

in the trunk from a dead body and the hair,

and the only scenario that explained all of it

was that Casey had used chloroform

to render Caylee unconscious and basically, k*lled her.

NARRATOR But then the defense gives their shocking version

of what happened to Caylee.

JOSE BAEZ This is not a m*rder case.

This is not a manslaughter case.

Her death was covered up.

NARRATOR Coming up, for the very first time,

Dr. G responds to the defense's expl*sive accusations.

He has the nerve to call my work shoddy?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR In May, , the m*rder trial of Casey Anthony

is heating up as the defense is about to present

their shocking theory as to how her two-year-old daughter,

Caylee, d*ed.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JOSE BAEZ Caylee Anthony d*ed on June ,

when she drowned in her family's swimming pool.

NARRATOR The defense claims that George Anthony found

Caylee dead, drowned in the family pool

when Casey wasn't watching her.

Then they imply George disposed of Caylee's body

in the swamp where she was eventually found.

JOSE BAEZ Her death was covered up.

This is not a m*rder case.

This is not a manslaughter case.

This is a sad, tragic accident that snowballed out of control.

NARRATOR When Dr. G is called to the stand,

she testifies this scenario is completely

out of line with how parents react

during an accidental drowning.

I have over years of experience

dealing with mothers whose children

have d*ed accidentally.

This is not how they react.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When the person finds the child, they

call --, because there is a chance

that that child might live.

And what if a person finds an obviously drowned body

that's so obviously deceased, what then?

No matter how stiff that body is, they always call --.

In the past years, we've had over cases of kids

under six drown in pools.

They're all transported.

They're all calling --.

I've had mothers on cr*ck cocaine that kids die,

and they're still devastated.

They're screaming.

Because you don't know how long that kid was in the water,

and you want to try to save it.

Nothing fits a drowning.

There's not one shred of evidence that that occurred.

NARRATOR Then the defense rips apart the prosecution's

theory that Casey looked up how to make

chloroform on the computer.

They assert that the search was actually done by her mother.

Cindy was looking up chlorophyll,

a green pigment found in plants.

I started looking up chlorophyll,

and then that prompted me to look up chloroform.

NARRATOR The defense points to the fact
[ … ]

that Dr. G and the toxicologist, Dr. Goldberger,

found no trace of chloroform or any dr*gs in Caylee's remains.

We found nothing.

We found no volatiles.

NARRATOR But Dr. G is not given the chance

to make it clear to the jury that traces of chloroform

in the body dissipate in less than a few days,

so it would be impossible to find after six months.

We couldn't find dr*gs, and couldn't find

even products of decomposition.

It was just nothing there.

Does that mean that there was never a drug in her?

No.

It can't be found anymore.

Things break down.

I'm not saying it was never there.

I'm saying it couldn't be found.

Is that still a possibility of how she d*ed?

You bet.

NARRATOR Next, Baez suggests the duct tape could just as

well have been used to bind the bags

Caylee was put it, and never used

to cover her mouth or nose.

And you have no idea as to whether this tape was

used to wrap Caylee's remains.

NARRATOR Although the defense tries to contradict Dr. G's

scientific findings, she knows that the duct tape was put

on Caylee's face before or during the early stages

of decomposition.

During decomposition, the jaw bone

falls off, because it's heavy.

But this one was together.

And the only explanation is that tape protecting it.

It was a horrendous piece of information

when you think of already this child had been put

in a bag, put in another bag, thrown into a canvas bag,

tossed behind a riding log, and also had

duct tape attached to the face.

There is no child that should have duct tape on its face

when it dies.

There is no reason to put duct tape on the face

after they die.

NARRATOR Next, the defense, set on proving that Caylee was not

a victim of homicide, begins to chip away at Dr. G's autopsy

by calling in their own medical examiner, Dr. Verner Spitz.

Dr. Spitz, who did his own autopsy of Caylee's remains,

states that one of his sharpest criticisms of Dr. G

is that she did not open Caylee's skull.

He dwelled on this failure to open

the skull, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Dr. G is not called to the witness stand

after Dr. Spitz, so she never gets the chance

to explain to the jury that in her opinion,

his logic is not only flawed, but also irrelevant,

considering it was a completely dry skeleton.

There was no reason to open that skull.

We could clearly see in the skull.

We looked inside, there was nothing there but dirt

at the base of the skull.

If we had cut the skull, the skull would

have fallen apart in our hands.

NARRATOR Which is exactly what happened

when Dr. Spitz cut open Caylee's skull during his exam.

JEFF ASHTON When you opened the skull, you actually broke it,

didn't you?

He broke it.

He caused a fracture and it fell apart,

and then he has the nerve to call my work shoddy?

NARRATOR But the defense doesn't

let up on its contention that Caylee d*ed by accident.

And in order to convince the jury,

they att*ck the very foundation of Dr. G's findings.

Dr. Jan Garavaglia.

You would think that you can get a medical examiner

to come and talk to you about medicine, about science.

A person on the street riding a bicycle

could give you these same facts and say the same thing.

This is not science.

I don't know what they're talking

about with the examination of the body.

The conclusions were scientifically defensible.

That is not a principle that I make up.

It's not because this was a high-profile case that I

wanted to do a thorough job.

This is a two-year-old little girl

that was found in the woods.

NARRATOR Coming up, Dr. G reveals how

she knows Caylee was m*rder*d.

The circumstances tell a tremendous amount.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

REPORTER Of course, we're outside the courtroom here.

NARRATOR The defense in the Casey Anthony m*rder trial

is doing everything they can to tear apart the prosecution's

contention that two-year-old Caylee Anthony

was m*rder*d by her mother.

Now, they are attacking Dr. G's ruling.

JEFF ASHTON Do you have an opinion

as to the manner of death?

Homicide.
[ … ]

NARRATOR The defense relentlessly hammers home

the fact that Dr. G can't come to a conclusion

as to how Caylee was k*lled.

Despite the investigations, the toxicology,

the anthropologist, all of these things,

there is no scientific or medical evidence

to establish the cause of this child's death.

I believe we can reliably say it's a homicide,

but I don't know the means for which that homicide occurred.

CHENEY MASON So the bottom line is, when you say and you place

a label homicide by indeterminate means,

you're saying that circumstantial evidence to you

says that it probably was a homicide.

The circumstances of death did not

fit anything but a homicide.

CHENEY MASON The circumstances?

Yes.

It is modern practice of forensic pathology

to look at all the situations.

You cannot make an anatomic diagnosis

as far as the manner of death.

It's always based on everything, the body,

the scene, the history.

In this case, the circumstances tell a tremendous amount.

First of all, not reporting her missing for days,

and then coming up with a story that she's kidnapped.

None of that fit on why this child was found down the street

from her house in a plastic bag, hidden,

with duct tape over its face.

There is no reason for a two-year-old child

to decompose in a field in a plastic bag

with duct tape over its face.

It was clearly a homicide.

The defense was unable to shake her on that point.

We just felt that the evidence was

so overwhelming that the jury would find her guilty.

NARRATOR The trial draws to a close

as the nation anxiously awaits a verdict.

CROWD [SHOUTING]

People drove to downtown Orlando

just to be outside the courthouse to hear

the verdict being rendered.

It was chaotic.

People were screaming.

NARRATOR They don't have to wait long.

On July , , after deliberating just hours,

the jury reaches a verdict.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As to the charge of first degree m*rder, we, the jury,

find the defendant not guilty.

NARRATOR Casey Anthony is convicted

of only four misdemeanor counts of lying to law enforcement.

It was just unimaginable to me that

people could look at that evidence

and not find her guilty.

I don't understand people who think Elvis is still alive.

I don't understand people who think that we

never landed on the Moon.

I don't get those people.

So I don't get these people either.

I think this jury was waiting for that CSI moment.

I don't think they had a clear understanding

that a circumstantial evidence case can

be more compelling than a case where

there is eyewitness testimony.

And that misconception, I believe,

in no small part led to the not guilty verdict in this case.

JEFF ASHTON The fact that Dr. G couldn't say, the duct

tape k*lled her, the chloroform k*lled

her, that was all they heard.

That was all they--

that was all that mattered.

If we couldn't say that, then that was the end for them.

How the trial ended up is not something I have control over,

and it's not my job.

And I don't deal with guilt or innocence,

I deal with the facts that we can find.

NARRATOR Many people react to the verdict with disbelief.

A m*rder*r walks free.

NARRATOR And outrage.

AMY PAVUK I think they felt that justice wasn't served,

at least not for Caylee.

Because in all of this, it seems that Caylee got lost.

Everything was about Casey, and nothing was about the toddler.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

REPORTER Casey, when are you going

to tell us anything about--

REPORTER Casey, where's Caylee?

REPORTER Casey, where's your daughter?

Where'd you put Caylee?

You know, the sad part is that people would

like closure on this case.

I wish I could have given it to them.

I wish someday we knew what happened

to little Caylee Marie.

But I can tell you it was a homicide.

[MUSIC PLAYING]