@djjd62,
Quote:actually there was a lot more linking Peterson to the death of his wife than there was in the Anthony case, clearer motive/girlfriend, fishing boat/bodies in water, timeline of bodies in water/Peterson's movements
I think there was a clear motive in the Anthony case, but it just wasn't Casey wanting to be free of the responsibility of the child. The child was her meal ticket in terms of getting her parents to continue to support her--she hadn't had a job in years. But, just before the child's death, it became apparent to family members, outside of just Cindy and George Anthony, that Casey had stolen funds from an account used to pay her grandfather's expenses in a nursing home, and that put external family pressure on Cindy and George to do something about Casey, and a counselor had advised Cindy Anthony to kick her daughter out of the home and get custody of her granddaughter--and Cindy and Casey may have had a huge blow-up about these things the night before Caylee died. I think Casey killed her child impulsively in an act of rage directed toward her mother, and to keep her mother from ever getting custody of the child. And, after killing the child, she wasn't sure what to do with the body, so she just drove around with it in the trunk until she finally dumped it, like trash, not very far from the family home.
If Casey just wanted to party, she could have just given the child to her parents--they were already supporting and caring for their granddaughter--just as Scott Peterson could have walked out on Laci if he wanted to be with his girlfriend. But, both Scott and Casey wanted to be completely free of the people they killed--they wanted them completely out of their lives...permanently--they wanted no further entanglements or burdens from these people.
Casey's lying about her daughter's whereabouts for the 31 days before the police were called, with absolutely no evidence of grief on her part (and, even had the child accidentally drowned, as the defense contended, she knew her child was dead), the odor of decomposition in her car, the presence of chloroform in the trunk of her car, the duct tape on the child's skull, and the blanket and laundry bag found with the skeletal remains, is just as much evidence of guilt pointing to only one person as was present in the Peterson case. No one else but Scott had motive to kill Laci, and no one else but Casey had motive to kill Caylee.
The defense story that Caylee drowned, and that her grandfather helped to cover up an accidental death by making it appear to be a murder, but left Casey to dispose of the body, makes no sense--and no element of that story (or of the alleged incest in the family) was ever presented as evidence during the trial--it was nothing more than a fantasy, and not one a jury should have regarded as casting doubt on the issue of homicide. Cindy Anthony who testified that the pool ladder might have been left up, allowing the child to get into the pool, also committed perjury when she lied about doing the chloroform searches on her home computer, meaning her testimony about the ladder might have been another lie to try to spare her daughter the death penalty. And while Casey Anthony continued her life, and partying, as usual, knowing her daughter was dead, I do not believe, at all, that George Anthony could have concealed his grief for the next month if he knew his granddaughter had drowned in the pool. The drowning theory wasn't enough to raise reasonable doubt,
based on evidence, it was nothing more than unsubstantiated speculation that was not proved at trial.
When jurors feel confident they have done the right thing, there is no reason for them to be "sick to their stomachs" about voting for an acquittal. These jurors, if juror #3 can be believed, did not think Casey Anthony was innocent, nor did they want to take responsibility for finding her guilty--and, in a purely circumstantial case, the jury has to take the responsibly for drawing the inference of guilt from the available evidence. They wanted the prosecutor to hand them direct evidence of
absolute guilt with no unanswered questions. That's pretty unrealistic. I think the prosecutors did an excellent job of connecting the dots in this case, and they all point to the conclusion that Casey Anthony was responsible for the death of her child, and she should have been found guilty of one of the charges in that regard that the jury had to choose from. There was plenty of very credible forensic evidence in this case--evidence of homicide.
