Anthony prosecutors tell jury they kept promises
George Anthony, left, and Cindy Anthony, parents of Casey Anthony, listen to Asst. State Attorney Jeff Ashton give the final rebuttal in the Casey Anthony murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Monday, July 4, 2011. Anthony has plead not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee, and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge. (AP Photo/Red Huber, Pool)
By KYLE HIGHTOWER, Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. —
Prosecutors in the Casey Anthony murder trial told jurors they kept their promises, alluding to defense claims that never materialized.
Lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick told the jurors during the rebuttal closing argument Monday that she and her colleagues backed up every claim they made in their opening statement six weeks ago. Without saying it, she was pointing out to the jury that the defense never directly backed up its opening statement claim that Anthony's 2-year-old daughter Caylee drowned and that Anthony's father made the death look like a murder.
Prosecutors contend the 25-year-old Anthony suffocated her daughter with duct tape in June 2008 and dumped the body in woods near her family's home.
Anthony is charged with first-degree murder. The jury is expected to begin its deliberations later Monday.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Prosecutors in Casey Anthony murder trial on Monday said it is "absurd" to believe the defense's assertion that her 2-year-old daughter Caylee drowned and that Anthony's father made the death look like a murder.
Prosecutor Jeff Ashton told the jurors during his rebuttal closing argument that no one makes an innocent accident look like a murder. The defense contends that Caylee drowned in the family's pool and when Anthony panicked her father, a former police officer, decided to make the death look like a homicide by placing duct tape over the child's mouth and dumping the body in some nearby woods. George Anthony has denied that.
"That's absurd. Nothing has been presented to you to make that any less absurd," Ashton said. He also spent significant time reminding the jurors about the forensic evidence that he says links Anthony to her daughter's death, including the smell and chemical signature of decomposition in her car.
After Monday's prosecution rebuttal, Judge Belvin Perry will instruct the jurors on the seven separate charges Anthony faces, including first-degree murder.
The jurors, who were chosen from the Tampa Bay area and sequestered in an Orlando hotel, will then begin their deliberations and decide which portrait of the 25-year-old woman to believe.
The state contends Anthony was a party girl who killed Caylee because the toddler got in the way of her love life.
"Something needed to be sacrificed, that something was either the life she wanted or the life thrust upon her. She chose to sacrifice her child," Ashton said during his original 90-minute argument Sunday.
Her attorneys contend that after Caylee drowned, her troubled mother's lies and erratic behavior were brought on by sexual abuse she suffered as a child from her father. George Anthony also denies that allegation. Judge Belvin Perry has ruled that no evidence of such abuse has been presented and struck it from closing arguments.
Defense attorney Jose Baez said during his closing argument Sunday that the prosecutors' case was so weak they tried to portray Anthony as "a lying, no-good slut" and that their forensic evidence was based on a "fantasy." He said Caylee's death was "an accident that snowballed out of control."
Casey Anthony has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. She could face a possible death sentence or life in prison if convicted of that charge.
Anthony also is charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and four counts of providing false information to law enforcement. The child abuse and manslaughter charges each carry a 30-year prison term if she's convicted.
The defense claimed Anthony was hiding emotional distress caused by alleged sexual abuse from her father. Her father has denied that claim.
Baez began his closing argument Sunday with his biggest question: How did Caylee die? Neither prosecutors nor the defense have offered firm proof.
He attacked the prosecution's forensic evidence. He said air analysis of the trunk of Anthony's car, which allegedly showed air molecules consistent with decomposition, could not be duplicated. No one could prove a stain found in the trunk was caused by Caylee's body decomposing there. And witnesses showed maggots found in the trunk came from a bag of trash that was found there, he said.
"They throw enough against the wall and see what sticks. That is what they're doing ... right down to the cause of death," Baez said. He conceded his client had told elaborate lies and invented imaginary friends and even a fake father for Caylee, but he said that doesn't mean she killed her daughter.
Baez also attacked George Anthony as unreliable. He said a suicide note that George Anthony wrote in January 2009 that claimed no knowledge of what happened to Caylee was self-serving and the attempt was a fraud. He said George Anthony claimed he was going to kill himself with a six-pack of beer and some high-blood pressure medicine.
Ashton, the prosecutor, began his closing argument Sunday by showing a video of Casey Anthony playing with Caylee, causing Anthony to apparently choke back tears. But she quickly regained her composure.
He said Caylee's death wasn't an accident because three pieces of duct tape were placed on her face - one on the mouth, one on the nose and one over those to be "thorough."
He then told the jury that Anthony worried Caylee was getting to the age where she would have told Anthony's parents the woman was spending her days and nights with her boyfriend - not going to work and leaving Caylee with a nanny.
"Casey is very bright," Ashton said. "Her lies are very detailed. ... But when Casey wants to do what Casey wants to do, she finds a way."
The prosecutor then described the lies Anthony told her parents, George and Cindy Anthony, about why she couldn't produce Caylee after the toddler was last seen June 16, 2008: that she was with a nanny named Zanny, a woman who doesn't exist; that Anthony and her daughter were spending time in Jacksonville with a rich boyfriend who doesn't exist; and that Zanny had been hospitalized after an out-of-town traffic accident and that they were spending time with her.
The lies only fell apart, Ashton said, a month later when a junkyard employee told George and Cindy Anthony their daughter's car had been towed. When they picked it up, they discovered a foul odor. George Anthony and the tow yard operator said it smelled like human decomposition.
Cindy Anthony then tracked down her daughter. When she couldn't produce Caylee, her parents called police. Casey Anthony then told investigators she worked at Universal Studios theme park as an event planner. She went so far as to take them there, talk her way past security into an office building. She gave up the lie as she was walking down the hall.