Caylee Anthonywas an American two year old girl who was reported missing in Orlando Florida, on July 2008, whose remains were found in a wooded area near her home on December 2008. Then her 22 year old mother, Casey Marie Anthony, was tried for the murder of Caylee but was then acquitted. She was, convicted of misdemeanor counts of providing false information to police officers.
Caylee lived with her mother and her maternal grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony. On July 15 2008, Caylee was reported missing by Cindy, who said she had not seen Caylee for 31 days and that Casey's car smelled like a dead body was inside of it. She said Casey had given varied explanations as to where Caylee wasand finally admitted that day that she had not seen her daughter for weeks.Casey created various stories, including telling detectives that her child had been kidnapped by a angry nanny on June 9, and that she had been trying to find her. With Caylee still missing, Casey was charged with first degree murder in October and pled not guilty. On December 11, Caylee's skeletal remains were found with a blanket inside a trash bag in a wooded area near the family home. Reports and trial testimony alternated between duct tape being found near the front of the skulland on the mouth of the skull. The medical examiner had said that the duct tape as one reasons they ruled the death a homicide, but officially listed it as death.
The trial had lasted six weeks, from May to July 2011. The prosecutors wanted the death penalty and Casey murdered her daughter by giving her chloroform, then putting duct tape on her, because she wanted to free herself from parental responsibilities. The defense team led by Jose Baez, countered that the child had drowned accidentally in the family's swimming pool on June 16, 2008, and that Casey had lied about this and other issues because of a rough time living with her family, which they said included sexual abuse by her father. The defense did not present evidence as to how Caylee died, or evidence that Casey was sexually abused as a child, but she had challenged every piece of the prosecution's evidence, calling much of it false. Casey did not testify during the trial.
On July 5, the jury had found Casey not guilty of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but she was guilty of four misdemeanor of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. With credit for time being served, she was released on July 17. The verdict was greeted with public outrage, and was both attacked and defended by media and legal coverage. Some had complained that the jury had misunderstood the meaning of doubt while others said that the prosecution relied too heavily on the defendant's poor moral character because they had been unable to show conclusively how the victim had died.