Casey Anthony: Judgment Day

State of Florida versus Casey Marie Anthony.

As to the charge of first degree murder,

we the jury find a defendant not guilty. [MUSIC] >> Is it like, oh, we're here, we're here again.

“>> Absolutely shocked, do you think totally kind of wrong?”

>> I cannot believe the verdict today won't. >> You cannot convict some until they've had their day. [MUSIC] >> It began three years ago with a mystery. >> My daughter's been missing for the last 31 days.

>> That turned into, and I'm think of a crime. >> This morning, a bag of bones was found, a skull detached, they believe it to be the body of Kaley Anthony. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> A community out there.

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> She's our criminal. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> A family. >> It's torn apart what we've been through.

>> Shut up, just been hell and a nation. >> A horrific discovery until you rolled Kaley Anthony. >> Focused on one woman. >> People hate it. >> She's been portrayed as an evil person.

>> Tonight, on a special edition of 48 hours, we will take you inside one of the most dramatic murder trials in recent memory. [MUSIC] >> Is the state ready?

Is the defense ready? >> Casey Anthony is guilt of murder in the first degree. This is not a murder case. This is a sad, tragic accident.

>> It's better than any soap opera that the problem is, it's real.

>> 91 witnesses, 30 days of testimony. >> You're looking at a human skull. >> It has a darkened bands at the portion of the hair. >> The claw form was shockingly hot. It's young science and it's never been tested.

>> Stunning, revelations. >> There was a dead body in the back of Casey Anthony's car. >> It smelled like something had died in the car. >> She threw the garbage in the trunk of her car. That's where the smell comes from.

>> And a family accused Casey was eight years old, and her father came into her room and began to touch her inappropriate thing. >> This whole family has been on trial. [MUSIC] >> Have you ever sexually molested your daughter?

>> No sir, disturbing evidence. >> The pelvis and the lower legs more than likely was dragged to this area. It's a fantasy of forensics, is what it is. >> And even more disturbing, behavior.

“>> Did the defendant participate in the High BindConnect?”

>> Yes sir. [MUSIC] >> Think of a typical part of this case is obviously Casey Anthony's behavior. >> There is no evidence linking her to anything you do with a death. >> The death of this child, here you go.

>> Three years of questions. >> Casey did not murder, Kaylee. It's that simple.

>> Finally, I shocking, Verde.

>> My daughter will ask me, what do you do today? And I can say I saved her life. >> Not guilty, so say we all. [MUSIC] >> Madam Clark, you may publish the verdicts.

>> State of Florida versus Casey Marie Anthony. >> Today's verdict was not what most of the impassioned observers outside the Orlando Courthouse were expected. >> We the jury, find a defendant not guilty. [MUSIC]

>> Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder. >> Like a OJ, okay, so you're just ridiculous. >> We the jury, find a defendant not guilty. >> acquitted of manslaughter, acquitted of child abuse. >> She was convicted only of four misdemeanors, all of them about lying to investigators.

“>> I think she probably needs to hide because a lot of people are very angry.”

>> Minutes after Casey's fate was read aloud. The man in charge of her case who sat beside her for the past six weeks spoke out. >> Casey did not murder Kaylee, our system of justice has not dishonored her memory. >> By a false conviction. [MUSIC]

>> It's been three long years since attorney Jose Biles began fighting an uphill battle to see this most notorious crime. >> Here comes Casey Anthony. [MUSIC] >> I admire her greatly.

I think she has courage, strength, intelligence. >> The Orlando Florida woman first became a national obsession in July 2008 when she claimed that her two and a half year old daughter Kaylee had been kidnapped a month earlier, but she didn't report it. While her daughter was supposedly missing, Casey partied and told her family and friends

That October, Casey was charged with murder. [MUSIC]

“Two months later, Kaylee's skeletal remains were found not far from the family home.”

After years of damaging, pre-trial publicity, Biles was practically the only person that defending. >> What can you say, what can you say, go away, go away. >> You can only use flattering terms to describe the true Casey Anthony. [MUSIC]

>> The drama moved to the courtroom in May when the demure looking 25-year-old defendant finally

face the jury. This isn't just a case about Casey, Marie Anthony. It's a story about Kaylee Anthony as well. >> Prosecutor Linda Drain-Berdick argued that Casey Kill, Kaylee, and then concocted elaborate lies to conceal it.

>> No one else lied to their friends, to their family, to investigators. No one else benefited from the death of Kaylee Marie Anthony. The stakes were high. If convicted Casey Anthony possibly faced the death penalty, a harsh reality that undoubtedly weighed heavily when her parents George and Cindy, as they listened to the prosecutors,

opening statement. >> Casey Anthony, appeared to be what her parents thought she was. A loving mother working hard to provide support for her daughter. >> George and Cindy were key to this highly circumstantial case. >> That's good.

>> Casey was 19 and still living with them when Kaylee was born.

She and her child never moved out.

>> I saw her with Kaylee. >> I saw her with the camera on the court every day, and I saw the type of mother she is. She's less likely than I could never harm her hair on any of my children's head. >> In this 2009 interview, the Anthony's told 48 hours that Casey left the house with Kaylee in June 2008, and unexpectedly did not come back home.

“>> I think it was a couple weeks into it when I started really pushing to talk to Kaylee”

because I really missed her. >> In his opening argument, attorney bias and Casey had a reason to lie about Kaylee's wearabouts. And for the first time in public, he revealed it. >> She never was missing, Kaylee Anthony died on June 16, 2008 when she drowned in her

family swimming. >> That awful event he said overwhelmed this deeply disturbed young mother, a woman who had learned to keep secrets because she had been sexually abused by her own father from an early age. >> It all began when Casey was eight years old and her father came into her room and began

to touch her in a appropriate way, and it escalated, and it escalated. >> Jose Bias's opening statement was stunning. >> Wow, wow, wow, wow. >> Linda Kenny Baden was once a member of Casey's defense team, it turned the case on its head.

>> It turned the case upside down what the reason was as to why somebody would not report her beautiful daughter misson. Bias accused George Anthony of being the real villain in this case, a brutal man who intimidated his daughter for years. Bias told George that George found Kaylee in the pool that day and then Casey found him

holding the body of her lifeless child. >> She immediately grabbed Kaylee and began to cry and cry and cry. And shortly thereafter George began to yell at her. Look what you've done.

>> Your mother will never forgive you and you will go to jail for child neglect for

the arrest of your freaking life.

“Bias contended that Kaylee's accidental death became one more ugly family secret, a secret,”

just like George's alleged sexual abuse. >> Casey was raised to lie. She could be 13 years old, have her father's penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened. >> Throughout Bias' accusations, George Anthony remains stoic.

Later on the stand, he would unequivocally deny the allegations against him. >> Certainly the opening statement per pressure on the defense to prove the allegations made against George. >> But defense doesn't have to prove those allegations. They have to give a hint to the allegations.

>> This is not a murder case. This is not a man's lotter case. This is a sad, tragic accident. >> The state insisted on this was no accident.

>> But Bias promised he would discredit the state's forensic experts, police investigators,

and even Roy Crohn, the man who found Kaylee's remains. >> What did Crohn do with her? Why did he place her there that way? >> Can you trust anything this man has to say, I will tell you you can't. >> After nearly three years of relentless publicity, damaging evidence and scandalous

photos. >> It's Casey OK. >> The defense was now on a mission to show that Casey Anthony was in the person everyone thought she was after all.

“>> I think the public still hates Casey Anthony, but I think the public also knows”

that they haven't been given the whole truth. >> What happened to Kaylee? It was the question in the trial of Casey Anthony. A question the prosecution team was convinced the physical evidence would answer. >> The evidence is overwhelming.

>> Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi. >> I think when you add the evidence up, peace by peace, no one else could have murdered little Kaylee other than her mother from the evidence that you hear in this case, there is no other conclusion.

>> One of the first pieces was also one of the most controversial, a foul smell which the

mistake claimed was a clear indication of foul play. >> This something wrong was on my daughter's card today and it's not like this and it's not by her and it's not a card.

“>> Casey's car, which had been abandoned sometime after Kaylee went missing, left an impression”

on everyone who came in contact with it. >> George Anthony goes to retrieve the call and as they approach the vehicle and overwhelming the smell is emanating from it and it's coming from the truck. >> It was an order that could take your breath away. >> I said it smelled like something had died in the car.

>> It was very potent, it was it was eye-opening. >> When investigators tested the air in the truck, they discovered the presence of chlorophyll. The chlorophyll was shockingly high, unusually high. >> chlorophyll is one of the chemicals produced when a body decomposes. >> Do you have an opinion as to whether it was a decomposing human body in the trunk of

that car at some point? >> I can find no other plausible explanation other than that to explain all the results we found.

“>> Also found in the car's trunk, a hair, possibly belonging to Kaylee.”

>> It has a darkened band at the root portion of the hair, and this is consistent with a parenting composition. >> For prosecutor Jeff Ashton, all the expert testimony added up to one conclusion that there was a dead body in the back of Kaylee Anthony's car. But Kaylee Anthony's defense team came to a very different conclusion.

Defense attorney Cheney Mason. >> There is no evidence linking her to anything to do with the death of this child. Period. >> Former member of Kaylee Anthony's defense team, Linda Kenny Bontin. >> The prosecution had to go to novel, unvalidated science to try to get a death penalty.

It's the kind of science that if you went into a hospital, would never be used because

it would not be considered legitimate. >> I want to talk about the forensics, and what is it necessarily science, but more like science fiction, and you'll see that throughout the course of this trial as the state reaches that level of desperation. >> In presenting his case, all right, let's return to your defense attorney Jose Bias

question the analysis of the evidence, and in some cases, the evidence itself. >> It's a fantasy of forensics is what it is. >> She threw the garbage in the trunk of her car, she forgot to throw out the trash. That's where the smell comes from. >> The hair supposedly confirming Kaylee's death.

That one hair is still something that you cannot say came from a dead person. >> I can't say absolutely, that that's the reason the characters six are present correct. >> Hair banding is novel science, it's hardly ever been used. >> The analysis of the air in cases car was especially dubious according to the defense. >> There's not sufficiently reliable scientific method to be able to identify the presence

or absence of human remains or can you find chloroform?

>> But there was one piece of evidence that seemed impossible to dispute.

[MUSIC] >> Oh my gosh. [MUSIC] >> Found in the woods just blocks from her home the skeleton of Kaylee Anthony. >> Examination of that scene revealed that the body of Kaylee for an Anthony had been

wrapped in an Anthony the oblique and stuff and multiple garbage bags shoved into a laundry bag and thrown into a littered swamp like she was just another piece of trash. [MUSIC] >> The details of the crime scene shocked the entire courtroom. You're looking at a at a human skull.

[MUSIC] >> That it's tossed in a field to rot in bags. [MUSIC] >> Being dragged away by some an animal are animals. [MUSIC]

The trunk of the body with the pelvis and the lower legs more than likely was dragged to this area. >> But most shocking of all, a strip of duct tape found loosely attached to the skull.

“>> I believe that is some of the most damaging evidence.”

>> There is no child that should have duct tape on its face when it dies. There is no reason to put duct tape on the face after they die. Based on our experience, we've seen that in cases of homicide. >> The prosecution claim the duct tape was used to suffocate Kaylee. Would the single piece of tape if applied in the position shown on the video?

[MUSIC] >> It's sufficient to have covered the nose and mouth and made breathing impossible. >> Yes. >> But because neither Kaylee's or Kaylee's DNA was found on the duct tape. >> If the duct tape were attached to the face, there would have been DNA from the face on the duct tape.

[MUSIC] >> The defense countered with another theory.

“I think that the duct tape was later, later, event.”

>> After the composition. >> After the composition. This duct tape was perhaps placed there to hold the lodger in place. >> It's the half of the gun. >> And the defense questioned the motives of Roy Kronk.

>> That was a very horrific thing for me to find, obviously. >> The meter reader who first discovered the skull. >> You were choking, you say, about finding this body? >> No, we were joking about the money, sir, right?

Never joked about finding the body, sir.

That's not what I said. That is testimony about you, or. >> Well, it's clear that somehow moved the physical evidence. >> The testimony that you put that stick in the eye socket of their skull and lifted it up to be sure what it was. >> Yes, sir, I apologize for doing so, but like I said, I did not know what it was.

And then you put it back. >> Yes, sir. >> But there was one theory the defense didn't address. Its own. The defense has not yet presented any evidence that Kaley drowned.

>> The defense doesn't have to prove its case. All they have to do is raise a reasonable doubt by showing there was a possibility that she drowned. After a parade of forensic experts testified, neither side could definitively explain exactly how Kaley died. But the jury would have other evidence to consider in reaching their verdict, the behavior of Casey Anthony. >> And it's what she did in the month after little Kaley went missing, that again is the most compelling evidence of all.

“>> Would she or wouldn't she after weeks of speculation as to whether Casey Anthony would tell her own story?”

Is it your decision not to test the fact?

>> While Casey never took the stand, the jury did see her reactions to the drama playing out in court.

Forensic psychologist Louis Slesinger observing her through not only in court, but her behavior prior to the homicide and following it. I see somebody who is immature, egocentric, narcissistic, and very, very shallow.

>> The last documented time to in a half-year-old Kaley was seen was in this video June 15, 2008, a day she spent with her grandmother sending.

>> It was amazing, it was a great day.

>> After Casey left her parents home with Kaley the next day, no one saw the toddler again, that night Casey moved in with her new boyfriend, Anthony Lazaro, alone.

“Did you notice any difference in Casey Anthony's demeanor?”

>> No, no, sir. >> Prosecutor Frank George asked Lazaro about that night together. >> During this time frame, did you ever tell you that her child was missing? >> No, sir. >> A security camera captured Lazaro with his arm around Casey at a blockbuster video store that night, June 16th.

>> How would you describe her demeanor? >> At the way she was every day. Which was happy, happy to see me, having a grand old time.

>> At any time that you saw that night, did she ever cry?

>> No, did she ever act scared? >> Nope, she's back in her arms. >> No. >> Most notoriously, for the next month, Casey spent many nights out with friends. >> Party.

>> Did you witness the hot body context? >> Yes, sir.

“>> Did you defend and participate in the hot body context?”

>> Yes, sir. >> Prosecutors call to the stand a parade of Casey's friends and acquaintances to testify about those nights. >> Did she ever tell you that her daughter was missing? >> No, kidnap? >> No, sir.

>> That was she was upset. >> No, or sad, no, did you ever notice anything wrong with her demeanor? >> No, was there anything when she told you where Kaley was that made you worried? >> Yes, sir. >> Casey didn't appear to be worried either.

Two weeks after Kelly went missing, she got a tattoo that read, Bella Vita, Italian for beautiful life. >> Trial consultant Richard Gabriel worked with Casey's defense and helped pick the jury. Just because her behavior is so different than what we expect. That obviously was a huge challenge for the defense in trying to explain what was going on.

“>> I asked her where Kelly was and what did she tell you?”

>> She told me that she was spending the weekend at the beach with the nanny. >> George also heard testimony about Casey's lies. Most disturbingly, she told everyone including her mother that Kelly was safe with a nanny named Zanny. >> I heard that she just was a beautiful person on the inside as well as the outside and had a great smile. >> Casey told elaborate stories about the fictitious Zanny.

>> She said mom, Zanny's mother is very ill and she's not able to leave. >> And about where Kelly was. >> Were you asking to speak to Kelly on the phone?

>> There was always a reason that Casey wasn't with Kelly.

>> Listen, I'm in front of the cameras all the time. What message do you want me to give to Zanny that she needs to return Kelly? >> This Zanny individual, did you ever find her? No. >> The nanny wasn't Casey's only lie.

She also told her family and police that she worked at universal studios. >> But when detective Yuri Mellish went there with her. >> She turns left, so I was walking down this hallway and about halfway down the hallway. She stops, turns looks at us and says, "I don't work here." >> Enters the building with absolute confidence.

>> Prosecutor Jeff Ashton pointed to that moment in his closing argument. >> Turns around, puts her hands in her pockets and says, "Okay, I don't work here." Casey Anthony maintains her lies until they absolutely cannot be maintained anymore. >> Casey told so many obvious lies that her defense lawyer Jose Bias had no choice but to acknowledge them. >> Now, I told you, in the beginning of this case, that Casey reacts the way she does and lies

because of the environment she was brought up in. The dysfunctional family, the secrets in the lies. She was in some environment that lying was acceptable, that she was taught to lie, that she lied with impunity, and that it also shows that something is obviously wrong with her.

said this was a strategy used to help Casey avoid the death penalty. >> And if you're trying a death penalty case, what you want to do through the guilt phase of the case, is to show that your client has some kind of mental issue. You're planted the siege.

>> The defense team never expected her to walk out of that courthouse, a free woman.

“>> I think the defense team would be happy as long as she doesn't get the death penalty.”

>> And she didn't. She was portrayed as an uncaring mother and a liar. And quite frankly, I'm not sure it's actually that important for a jury. And so as a result, the jury may have decided to have just said, look, let's look at what we can know solidly from the forensic evidence, or from what is lacking in the forensic evidence, as opposed to speculation or guesswork or some soap opera view of who Casey Anthony is.

>> I think the most difficult part of this case is obviously Casey Anthony's behavior, and you really have to get into that family dynamic. >> And until somebody does and until somebody tells us what occurred in that family dynamic

on June 16, 2008, this case is always going to be a mystery.

>> Sometimes it feels like the news is full of things that have never happened before, and that is not exactly true. In fact, it may have happened this very week, hundreds or thousands of years ago. I'm Sally Home, host of the podcast history this week from the history channel. Trade and bar goes, Thomas Jefferson tried them. And right to high, we've been arguing about that for a while. Each episode is proof. The past isn't that far away.

Listen to history this week available now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For the entire time that Casey Anthony's life hung in the balance and court, her family relationships were front and center. As her mother, her father, and her brother, each took the stand. The jury witnessed a family torn apart by unthinkable tragedy. >> I over hurt her, Tally. They can't even come for 31 days in this.

>> The family had taken her. >> You can break her stand. >> No, so I need to get through this. I need to help something inside of me get through this. >> I don't want to be here. I don't want, you know, my sister to be here, my parents to be here. >> To a certain extent, this whole family has been on trial, almost from the inception of this case. >> Defense trial consultant, Richard Gabriel.

>> Casey Anthony, and her family, this whole family portrait is taken in a hall of mirrors. At some point, a jury has to decide which of those images is the true image.

“>> Have you ever sexually molested your daughter, Casey Anthony?”

>> No sir. >> When you heard the accusations against George Anthony, did you think they were credible? >> Anything is possible. I don't think it was credible. >> For a Rensix psychologist, Louis Sessinger, says the tape jailhouse conversations prosecutors played in court between Casey and her father.

>> You know how much I love you, how much I've always loved you.

>> contradict what her lawyer said in his opening statement. >> You've been a great dad and you've been the best grandfather. Don't for a second, think otherwise. >> When you look at the jailhouse video recordings, she seems to have a fairly good relationship with both of her parents.

>> Still, those accusations of abuse were on everyone's mind. And put the Anthony family under even more scrutiny.

“>> I think there's a family dynamic that's hard for all of us to understand that was going on within the Anthony family.”

>> What exactly was going on? >> Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi, agrees those jailhouse conversations are telling. >> Maybe we've all been too domineering. >> The parents seemed to be very deferential to her. >> Maybe we didn't let you be the best.

>> It's you are, it's nobody's fault, but it's all that's going to change. I'm going to listen more. >> She was running the show, even in jail. >> Come on, Casey, hold on, sweetheart, settle down. >> Nobody's letting me speak, I don't know what's going on my entire life has been taken from me.

Everything has been taken from me. >> Casey, from the time almost she was arrested, sees herself as a victim. It's the opposite of what people believe a grieving mother should behave like.

Cindy Anthony broke down on the stand when she heard her own tearful plea on that now infamous 911 call.

>> There's something wrong with my daughter's car today, and it's not like this and it's about dialing into the car. >> Casey's brother Lee broke down too. >> When he was forced to relive the painful memory of Casey's pregnancy, Kelly's birth, and how the whole family shot him out, I was very angry at my mom and I was also angry at my sister, I was just angry at everyone in general that they didn't want to include me.

>> Stay called George Anthony. >> And in six trips to the witness stand, George Anthony fought to keep his composure as he dealt with uncomfortable questions from both the prosecution and the defense.

“>> Will you present in your home when Kelly Anthony died?”

>> No, when I heard that today, it really bad. >> He was questioned about his failed suicide attempt in 2009. >> I needed at that time to go and be with Kelly and you expressed that in the note. >> Yes, I did, because I believe I failed her. >> And he was accused of having an affair with a woman named Crystal Holloway.

>> Did you at any time ever tell her not to say anything about your affair with her?

>> Sir, I never had a romantic affair with Crystal Holloway.

And the defense put Holloway on the stand, and there are only a tent to prove Kelly's death was not a murder. >> He also said it was an accident that's snowballed out of control. >> You never told her this was an accident that's snowballed out of control, never did. >> Being questioned and accused of actually covering up the crime of sexually abusing his daughter of having an affair, I mean it was just nothing but character assassination.

“>> The stakes were high for the Anthony's.”

The new case he was facing the death penalty because investigators found evidence of premeditation in the Anthony home on the family's computer and criminating searches she allegedly made months before Kelly went missing with terms including net breaking household weapons, shovel, and how to make chloroform.

>> These were all internet searches done on the computer that Casey Anthony used three months

before that little girl went missing. So if that doesn't give you premeditation, I don't know what does. >> They don't know if Casey was even home. Much less on the computer. >> So these searches are insignificant.

>> Absolutely. Absolutely.

“If you can't say who ran the searches, how are the searches significant?”

>> Everyone in the house has access to this computer. >> Yes. >> And another moment of high-family drama, Cindy Anthony testified that she was the one who searched for chloroform. >> Do you recall in March of 2008 you doing any types of searches

for any items that might include chloroform? >> Yes. I started looking at chloroform, I mean chlorofill, and then that prompted me to look at chloroform. >> What did you make of Cindy's testimony about the chloroform? Some people suggest she was trying to say for a daughter from the death panel.

>> I think that's probably correct. >> Back in March of 2008, what was Cindy Anthony's job at Gentiba? >> In fact, prosecutors called witnesses who testified that Cindy was at work, when those searches were performed on the Anthony home computer. >> So there is activity on a patient's file starting at 1327-44 central time

by user CM Anthony at a desk terminal. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> It was this back and forth, a family trying to protect its own well forced to face painful allegations that riveted the cord room.

>> You wonder why this case got so crazy? >> I think it's hard for a jury. >> And you look at the situation here, you look at the facts here. >> They're really charged to look at things objectively and rationally. >> To say that there is no evidence to connect Casey Anthony to Kaylee's death,

ignores all of this evidence. They sometimes have to sort of sort their way through a lot of this emotion to try and truly understand what's the evidence here. >> With a defendant rise along with Johnson. Madam Clark, you may publish the verdicts.

>> You must base your verdict.

>> You like to take a break.

“>> Take that was used to kill for the last six weeks.”

But Casey Anthony trial was America's hottest reality show. >> Is it yours for the court? >> I think 20 piece over it. >> As the media invaded Orlando. >> For four hours today, prosecutors continued to

advance claiming that George Anthony was banned. >> It was the hottest ticket in town. One apparently were fighting for it. >> I was the lucky one that broke the fight up. >> There's no reason to bunch out because none of you are getting in today.

>> Housewife Sherry Agy flew from Atlanta to see Casey Anthony with her own eyes.

>> She just didn't say remorseful. She was at like was a big joke and nothing left. And I want to say justice for Kaylee. >> Sherry scored a courtroom seat six times. >> 17, seat number 17.

>> All my tickets, everybody loves seeing these. >> John Shazan, who spent 13 days in court. >> And these are selling on eBay, I've seen them. >> Had just moved to Orlando when Kaylee was reported missing. He was so moved by the story that he joined the search for her and even attended her memorial.

>> Those are from her memorial. She was a beautiful little girl. I can't even say Kaylee was a beautiful girl. >> We met Matthew Bartlett online to get a ticket last Wednesday. I just want to be a part of it.

Support, you know, the defense. I believe she's innocent. And some ways, I mean. [MUSIC] >> And we have a, one Thursday Bartlett made an obscene hand gesture.

In the direction of prosecutor Jeff Ashton. Then Judge Belvin Perry made a spectacle of Bartlett. >> And what does that mean, sir? >> The F word to someone. >> I was sent at you to six days in Orange County, jail imposed a fad of $400.

[MUSIC]

>> As to the charge of first degree murder as to count one,

we the jury, find a defendant not guilty. [MUSIC] >> Today's stunning verdict virtually assures that the spectacle, the Casey Anthony trial, will linger for a long time. >> It was a prosecution construct in my opinion.

“And I think the jury solved with that, they saw that this was a terrible and horrific accident,”

an accident that was covered up, and that because of the mystery surrounding the family, and the clear dysfunction that seemed to be shown on the jury stand by members of the family, that something else was going on there, and they weren't going to hold Casey Anthony response. [MUSIC] >> Perhaps realizing their verdict was controversial, the entire jury declined to speak at a press conference

afterwards. >> The twelfthers have declined to talk to you. >> But Jose Bias and his defense team didn't pass up the chance to celebrate their unexpected victory. >> I'm very happy for Casey. I'm a static for her, and I want her to be able to grieve and grow and somehow get her life back together.

>> In a tent outside the courthouse, prosecutors Jeff Ashton and Linda Drain-Birdick stood silent as Florida State Attorney, Lawson Lomar, thank them for their work. >> This trial team is world-class in a command of the evidence. >> Two hours later, we learned that Jeff Ashton retired from his job. Cindy and George Anthony slipped out of the courtroom right after the verdict was read.

>> Later, the lawyer issued this statement. Despite the baseless defense chosen by Casey Anthony, the family believes that the jury made a fair decision based on the evidence presented. >> I don't think the Anthony family could win either way. It was going to be difficult day and I can't blame him for leaving the courtroom the way they did. >> In the woods where Kelly's body was found, people left remembrances for her.

Sean says on, "Watch today's shocking verdict on a monitor outside the courtroom." >> And he wasn't alone. >> This is like, "Oh dear, look at her again." >> No regard at all for that baby, one is wrong with these people. >> No justice for that. >> I have a beautiful life now, little child.

>> I'm in time, I'm in time, I'm in time. >> And how can she not be guilty of a child? >> She didn't know her child, boss, but 31 days. >> Even Casey's friends, Dante Salati and Sean Daley were split on the verdict. >> Do you think we'll ever know the truth, Dante?

>> There's only two people that know the truth and I don't think either one of them are going to speak.

“>> Do you have any interest in talking to her again?”

>> I would love the sit-down talk with her. >> Yeah. >> Would I be able to go back to the friendship that I had with her? Probably not, but I would love the sit-down and ask her questions that are probably the question she wouldn't be

>> I don't know what happens to Casey now.

“Obviously, she'll finish serving her time in jail.”

If the lynch mob justice is as it was I saw this afternoon, I'm concerned for her safety.

That people will go after her wherever she goes, she will always be Casey Anthony.

“For her four misdemeanor convictions for lying to investigators, Casey Anthony was sentenced to four years.”

She was released 10 days later with credit for good behavior and nearly three years already served.

In 2013, a Florida appeals court overturned two of those four misdemeanor convictions.