by Jeff Ashton
Cindy had become increasingly exasperated as one thing piled on another: missing money; unauthorized charges on her credit card; either dumping Caylee on her or withholding Caylee from her, whatever suited Casey’s fancy; and generally irresponsible behavior. The only specific rumor that we had heard about that meltdown on the fifteenth was that Cindy had found pictures of Casey at an “anything but clothes” party on Facebook and had lost her last bit of patience. In the photos, Casey was wrapped in an American flag and holding a beer. Cindy was enraged. Our theory held that Casey decided that night of June 15 that she was going to take Caylee from the household for good.
I imagine Casey told herself some lie to rationalize that murdering her baby was best for Caylee. Maybe she told herself that she didn’t want Caylee to grow up with Cindy, as she had. Or maybe she knew that it wouldn’t be long before Caylee began to really talk, and once that happened, the made- up babysitter, the fake job, the whole world would come crashing down. When you are that good at lying to other people, you get really good at lying to yourself. This was all guesswork on our part. What Casey was actually thinking, we will never know.
I would tell the jury that Casey used chloroform to put Caylee to sleep so she wouldn’t suffer, put duct tape over her nose and mouth, wrapped her in her favorite Winnie-the-Pooh blanket, and put her in the trunk to die. She went off to Tony’s and went on with her life with Caylee dead in the trunk. The next day, she went back to her house after George and Cindy had left for work and backed the Pontiac into the garage. She got the laundry bag and garbage bags off the shelves where they were kept, and took Caylee into the backyard to bury her. The shed was locked, so she couldn’t access the tools. She went next door to borrow a shovel from their neighbor, Brian Burner, telling him she was transplanting bamboo.
Back in her own yard, which was protected from view by a six-foot high stockade fence, she laid Caylee’s lifeless body on the grass. It appeared to us that she started a grave, based on the cadaver dog alert, but she got lazy or scared and decided against burial there. She put Caylee back in the trunk, and either that day or the next, snuck out to the woods, walked twenty feet in, and dumped her body.
I don’t think that Casey thought through how she would get away with this in the long run. Her ability to adapt and lie had always gotten her through to this point, so why should it fail her now? It always reminded me of Scarlett O’Hara—“I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
A lot of denial kept Caylee’s disappearance from being known for thirty-one days. A lot of good luck for Casey kept anyone from finding the child for six months. Three pieces of evidence found in the trunk of the Pontiac—the odor of decomposition, the hair with the band of death, and the high level of chloroform—were the keystones of our forensic case. The duct tape over the mouth and nose of the little angel’s skull was our smoking gun. Casey’s lies would fill in the motive: that her new lifestyle had no room for a child.
We were fully prepared for anything the defense wanted to throw our way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OPENINGS
On Tuesday, May 23, at precisely 8:13 A.M., I pulled in front of the Orange County Courthouse like I had so many times before. This morning was different, though. The level of excitement and commotion had reached a fever pitch. One of our investigators was waiting to escort me in. Walking past a line of people waiting to get into the trial, I heard some of them calling my name, which was kind of creepy. Of course the press was all over us, taking camera shots of us walking. I didn’t know why they were so obsessed with capturing that shot, but they were.
Across the street from the courthouse was a five-acre vacant lot owned by a development company. For years it had been slotted as the site of an office building, but for now it was Camp Casey, our nickname for the media zoo. It had been rented by TruTV, which then divided it and rented it out as smaller lots assigned to all the other media outlets, Headline News (HLN), CNN, etc. There was a sprawling overflow of media trucks with satellite dishes attached from all over the country. Stages, tents, and backdrops were built to accommodate the daily bulletins and nightly newscasts of the networks. A second, smaller lot just to the north of our office was converted into Little Camp Casey and rented by two local media outlets.
I had been involved in many cases before that were high-publicity, with a high level of local interest. Once in a while in the past, someone would approach and congratulate me or thank me for my work during or right after a trial. It was very flattering but not intrusive. This case was different. The cameras were on us every time we walked in and out of the courthouse, even for little hearings. There must be a hundred hours of tape of us doing nothing but walking, just walking.
The first time someone asked to take a picture with me outside the courthouse, it freaked me out and I politely declined. The next time it happened I was walking back from lunch and a woman with a small group of teenage girls stopped me. Moments before, they had poked their heads into the restaurant where I was eating, and when I stepped outside, they followed me like I was a sports legend. Finally, they made their move and asked me to pose with them for a photograph.
I realized in that moment that for them this was a thrill, something to tell their friends about. It wasn’t that I was someone special, it was that I was connected to something special. Somehow this made me a minor celebrity.
Nothing about me was different. I was doing the same work in this case that I’d done dozens of times before. From that point on, I took it in stride and just accepted the fact that, as bizarre as it was, I had fans. There were times during the trial when the admiration became difficult. When Linda, Frank, and I would walk to court, we would be cheered, as if we were entering the ring at a sporting event. That never sat right with me. This was a trial for the murder of a little girl, and the celebrity aspect made it seem like a spectacle.
When we got inside the courthouse, Linda, Frank, and I didn’t have to go through the same security checkpoints as the public. Since we were employees with ID, we could enter through a turnstile with a number pad for our PINs, so at least we could skip the metal detectors. The three of us were dressed for the occasion. Linda was wearing the big hardware. She had told us she was going to surprise us with a new addition to her wardrobe. As a rule, she dressed in black, brown, or gray suits—very conservatively. Today, she showed up in a bright chrysanthemum-pink jacket. It looked very nice, and we were all very impressed that she had made herself visible for the beginning of State of Florida v. Casey Anthony. Frank and I were in our regular suits. I, of course, had on one of my signature Jerry Garcia neckties. I was not a Grateful Dead fan, but I liked the ties. We took the elevator to the twenty-third floor of the courthouse. The trial was taking place in the Roger A. Barker ceremonial courtroom, which was also a functional courtroom reserved for grand jury proceedings and special high-profile trials or trials with multiple defendants.
The courtroom was impressive, with a ceiling two stories high and a balcony that accommodated a hundred spectators. It faced south with two big windows looking out on Orlando behind the judge’s bench. It had been built as a largely ceremonial center with little attention paid to acoustics, but over the past ten years, the sound system had undergone some improvements. Judge Perry had just authorized the most recent round, and we were assured that the sound had improved considerably. Even so, it took three or four days before everyone could be heard without strange echoes or feedback. They did a great job of fine-tuning the system, and by the fourth day, we finally got to the point where everybody could hear us.
Along with us were Mario Perez and Arlene Zayas, who were the primary nonlawyers working with us on the case. Both people stayed with us throughout the trial, each with his or her own carved-out role. Mario would be our computer operator during the entire trial. Linda had wanted to hire a professional trial presentation company to come in and help us with the graphics and trial exhibits. Sadly, juries today ex
pect dazzle and high-tech presentations, and Linda thought we really needed the extra polish. She had lobbied hard for it, but in the end the office wouldn’t go for it. Instead, we bought some presentation software that Mario, an invaluable though silent member of the team, learned to use. The software was far above and beyond what we had ever used in the past but still fell short of what Linda wanted.
Arlene, meanwhile, served as our witness manager and secretary, which meant that she was in the unfortunate position of being the one we would yell at for things that were not her fault. Needlessly stressful for her, but that’s the role of the witness manager, to take the grief. She knew we weren’t criticizing her personally. It was her responsibility to have all seventy-five witnesses there when we needed them, which was no small job. Linda, Frank, Mario, Arlene, and I left the office that Monday afternoon knowing everything was in place, but not really knowing just how crazy the trial would be.
Linda, Frank, and I each had our own role to play, too. I was going to be the forensics man and the one who took on George Anthony. Frank was assigned to the “friends of Casey,” plus Lee Anthony. Linda was going to handle all the law enforcement witnesses, Cindy Anthony, and Casey herself, if and when Casey took the stand. We had to anticipate that Casey was going to testify, based on the posturing of the defense and the allegations they we knew they were about to dive-bomb us with. Linda was exceptional at cross-examination and was really looking forward to her marquis moment with Casey.
The courtroom felt different now that it was filled with people. Our team had prepared for this day for three years, and now that it was curtain time, I was feeling the rush. The gallery had filled in a half hour earlier with journalists and citizens who had waited all night for tickets. The court stenographer was at her post, the bailiff was by the jury box, and the clerk was positioned in front of Judge Perry’s bench. The jury was in place, all seven women, five men, and three alternates.
The prosecution team sat at the table on the right, directly facing Judge Perry. I was in the center, flanked by Linda and Frank. Frank sat to my left and Linda to my right, closest to the defense table. The defense had a long table along the right wall; starting from the side closest to the bench, the order was Cheney Mason, then Jose Baez, Casey Anthony, and Dorothy Sims. There were various unnamed assisting attorneys sitting at the table as well. Ann Finnell made an appearance on only one day, when she came to argue that the death penalty was unconstitutional based on a recent ruling by a federal judge. Casey was dressed in a white three-quarter-sleeve button-down shirt, her long brown hair tied back in a high ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she had her puss on, lips pursed like she was annoyed and ready to rail into somebody.
The trial started right on time, with the Honorable Judge Belvin Perry presiding. We promptly went into the opening arguments. As we had planned, Linda started off by saying that it was time to tell the story of a little girl named Caylee. We had previously discussed a way to get the jury thinking about Caylee whenever they thought about the case. It was our hope to bring the jury back to the toddler by humanizing her, to get them to see her as someone they would ultimately care about. They had already been sitting in the courtroom for two weeks during jury selection, and all they had seen was Casey, Casey, and more Casey. Throughout the case’s history, Caylee had largely been a footnote. But she was a real person, a little girl, and hopefully, she would take center stage long enough to make an impact and capture some hearts. Knowing Caylee would help the jury truly understand the case.
We came up with what I thought was a great plan. Linda would show the jury the last photo of Caylee when she was alive, taken on Father’s Day during the visit to her great-grandfather at the nursing home where he lived. She would then display the photo of her remains as they were found off Suburban Drive, a photo that no one in the public had seen before, and describe it as the last photo ever taken of Caylee Anthony. She would say that the story of this case was what happened between those two photographs.
Linda delivered it perfectly. I looked at the jury and expected to see from them in the same shock I had felt the first time I had seen the photo. But, I saw nothing in their faces. They were unmoved. How was this possible? I thought to myself. How could anyone look at that and be unmoved? I shrugged it off. Maybe the jurors were just good at hiding their emotions.
Our plan was to lay out the rest of the case chronologically, as Linda had suggested, giving the jury the story of that six months between when Caylee died and when she was discovered. Linda did a great job of reviewing the history of the crime and very methodically telling the jury about the pattern of lying that Casey had demonstrated. Linda showed how Casey twisted her stories to accommodate new challenges whenever they arose. Our goal was not only to put our case out there, but to convince the jury from the start that Casey’s lying was not merely habitual, it was purposeful. Linda went day by day showing how Casey built her fabrications, laying out each and every one consistently. Their minute, complex details would change only when they reached a dead end, but at that point, Casey would still try to morph and adapt them again to give them the longest life possible. We knew the nuclear lie was coming from the defense in this trial. We wanted the jury to expect it, and we wanted to drill home that the “big one” was going to be just the next step. We couldn’t tell them that they were about to hear a big lie, but we could hope we had prepared them well enough to see it that way.
At one point in the opening I began to think to myself, we need to skip over some of this stuff. A moment later, Linda seemed to sense the same thing, so we left out some of the details in the early July period. We wanted our opening to be full impact, all the way. We didn’t want to lose anyone’s undivided attention. We had originally planned to mention the tattoo, but Linda wisely saved the exact wording for later.
Linda did give a brief overview of the forensic evidence from the Pontiac, but she did not really feature that in her opening. She discussed finding the body, but she skipped over Kronk, since she we knew we would not be calling him. She did a great job connecting the remains to the house. She closed with the observation that Caylee’s death allowed Casey to live the good life for those thirty-one days and that she, Casey, was guilty of murder in the first degree.
Linda was phenomenal. We had talked a lot about the organization of the argument and different things that she should say the months before the trial, and she did it brilliantly. It was just fantastic. In about two hours and fifteen minutes, she laid out everything we’d talked about. She showed the pattern of Casey’s lies and the facts that led to the lie that they were about to hear.
After Linda’s opening, we broke for lunch. Everyone just raved about Linda. She doesn’t like to be the center of attention on a personal level, but when she is performing as an attorney, she really appreciates the adulation and kind words. At lunch, she felt really good. We all did.
When we came back to the courtroom, it was time for the defense’s opening remarks. Jose Baez was to deliver them. The only word to describe his opening is . . . odd. I have never seen a defense that was so scattered. As we suspected, they brought up Casey’s nuclear lie, but it wasn’t as though they centered on that single counternarrative. It was like they couldn’t decide on one defense, so they were throwing out everything, alleging that it was an accident, blaming George for disposing of the body, blaming Roy Kronk for moving the body, throwing in some nasty attacks on the investigation.
Baez opened the defense’s case by saying that he was going to tell the jury exactly what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony. Generally that is considered a pact, if you will, that exists between the defendant and the jury. The defense is going to produce the evidence to tell the jury what actually happened. It is generally thought that specificity is dangerous because juries expect attorneys to come through on their promises, and when they don’t, jurors may hold that against the attorney or the client.
Baez did a good jo
b trying to separate the evidence from the issue of how Caylee actually died. It’s hard to turn the fact that your client is a habitual liar into evidence helpful to that client. He made it seem plausible, even if superficially so, by arguing passionately that his client’s inappropriate actions had nothing to do with how Caylee actually died.
Baez talked about the incredible dysfunction of the Anthony family. I was sure he left the jury expecting to hear psychological testimony describing a complex family history, which, of course, I knew he could not produce, since the two therapists were off the witness list. At the root, I think Jose was relying on the belief that it is almost impossible for people to believe that a mother could just kill her child. They are willing to accept almost any other explanation, no matter how ridiculous. But wouldn’t the jury actually require him to prove the truth of what he was claiming? I must credit Casey; she came up with an explanation that would blame someone else, George Anthony, and make it look like she was the victim—classic Casey. Would the jurors buy it? We knew Baez couldn’t prove it unless Casey testified, and even then it would be about whether the jury would believe her lie.
I noticed that the defense team had lowered Casey’s adjustable chair more than was normal for a person of Casey’s height. Only her head and shoulders were visible above the table. I was sure it was deliberately staged to make her appear smaller and meeker than she was. But wouldn’t the jury see through those ploys? How smart do you have to be to know you are being played?
When Jose talked about Casey’s supposed molestation, Casey was crying at the defense table. I found myself thinking of something that both therapists had mentioned in their depositions with us: when Casey talked about the molestation to them, she had been angry, but she wasn’t crying. Apparently she’d refined her performance since then, so Casey really played it up during this whole trial. She appeared to have been very well coached.