Tot Mom Murder Trial: Defense Opening Statement

Defense attorney Jose Baez had promised that he would answer three years of questions about this case in the first three minutes of his opening statement, so expectations were high when he began by telling the jury that they would be the first people to learn the truth about what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony. He readily acknowledged that it would be insane and bizarre for a mother not to report her child missing for 30 days, as it appeared his client had.

“Something’s not right with this girl,” he admitted.

So why would Casey Anthony wait so long to report Caylee missing? Baez’s answer: because she was never missing. She drowned in the family’s swimming pool on June 16, 2008.

Perhaps more shocking was his explanation for why Anthony did not report this tragic accident to police—because her father George Anthony sexually abused her when she was eight years old. He also alleged that Casey’s brother Lee touched her when she was older but did not go as far (Neither George or Lee Anthony has ever been charged or accused of sexual abuse).

According to Baez, this was a family that kept its secrets quiet and Casey Anthony had learned to hide her pain, so she went to “a deep, ugly place called denial” after Caylee died and pretended nothing was wrong.

Baez told the jury that Casey Anthony had pretended for two years that she had a job and a nanny for her child, dressed up every morning for work and even created fake emails from the office, all because she was trying to protect Caylee. “Casey was raised to lie,” he said. He claimed that the family had even kept Casey’s pregnancy secret for seven months until they were forced to reveal it at a relative’s wedding.

Returning to the morning of June 16, 2008, Baez said Casey and George Anthony searched the house when they could not find Caylee, they split up outside and, when Casey came around to the backyard, she saw her father next to their above-ground pool holding Caylee’s body. He claimed George yelled at Casey that she could go to jail for the rest of her life for child neglect and her mother would never forgive her for letting this happen. Baez admitted that calling 911 would have been the right thing to do at that point, but instead Casey asked her father for help.

Baez then hit on a theme he would repeat several times during his presentation: this was not a murder, this was not manslaughter, this was a tragic accident that snowballed out of control.

He cast suspicion on Cindy Anthony, suggesting she may have left the ladder leading to the pool up the day before, claiming that Cindy even told Detective Yuri Melich about the ladder within 48 hours after Caylee was reported missing in July. He criticized investigators for not looking into this possibility because “they had murder on their minds” from the start.

Baez then focused on the gas cans that Casey allegedly stole from the garage and the photo of the can with the same duct tape that was found on Caylee’s skull. He argued that it was strange that George Anthony reported the cans missing on June 24 but he did not initially mention them to detectives investigating Caylee’s disappearance. He suggested it was too coincidental that the duct tape was only found on the gas can and nowhere else in the house.

He turned his attention to Roy Kronk, the man who found Caylee’s remains in December 2008, calling him “morally bankrupt” and accusing him of hiding Caylee’s body so he could collect the $225,000 reward. Kronk called police several times in August 2008 to say he saw something suspicious in the area off Suburban Drive where the remains were eventually found, but responding deputies did not find anything.

According to Baez, Kronk told his son in November 2008 that he found Caylee’s body and to watch for him on TV. He noted that Kronk’s car broke down and he got a bill for over $1,000 the day before he reported that he found the remains in December. He suggested that Kronk must have had control of Caylee’s remains for months but, since he was never investigated, they will never know where he really found her.

He said the remains were discovered 20 feet off the side of the road in an area that was supposedly searched several times but they somehow had not been seen in those six months. Prosecutors will probably claim the area was underwater for much of that time, Baez said, but the jury will see two videos—taken by a psychic dog handler and by a private investigator—that will indicate it was dry.

“She was placed there to be found, not to be hidden,” he told the jury, but he maintained she was placed there by Roy Kronk.

Baez challenged the strength of the state’s forensic evidence, saying they will get the jury emotionally riled up by criticizing Casey Anthony’s behavior and her “inappropriateness,” they will show pictures of her shopping and partying, but they will not provide any answers. He said investigators found only one hair in the trunk of Casey’s car that showed banding indicative of decomposition, but there were many other hairs there that did not have banding.

Baez claimed the now-retired police dog that alerted on the scent of decomposition in the Anthonys’ yard was not reliable either, noting that the dog was taken out to Suburban Drive after the remains were found and never alerted there. He questioned Dr. Arpad Vass’ decomposition odor testing, which he said has never before been admitted in a court of law. He also suggested that Vass is in a position to profit substantially from patents on the testing equipment if it becomes more widely used.

He closed by listing some of the evidence that the state would not be able to present. They did not find blood on any of Casey Anthony’s clothes, there was no soil on her shoes that matched the Suburban Drive area, no fibers, no fingerprints on the duct tape, no DNA on the duct tape, and most importantly no evidence showing how Caylee Anthony died.

If Casey Anthony was dumb enough to dump Caylee’s body so close to the road, Baez asked, how could she be smart enough to leave so little forensic evidence? He maintained that the state may provide the jury with a wealth of information during the trial, but they will not be able to prove murder, manslaughter or even child abuse.