The Caylee Anthony Case: Capital Murder Convictions Without a Body

Caylee Antony:
Famous “No-Body” Convictions

The case of the little missing three-year-old girl in Florida, Caylee Anthony, has riveted the nation. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, has been charged with seven counts of first degree murder even though Caylee’s body hasn’t been found. DBKP takes a look at other similar cases and whether the Florida courts have enough evidence to convict Casey Anthony of first degree murder. Cases that include oil drums, crab traps, and a commercial chipper.

Caylee was first reported missing to the authorities in Orange County, Florida, on July 15 by Cindy Anthony, Caylee’s grandmother. According to CNN, Cindy had to “plead” with her daughter, Casey, to “tell her” where Caylee was. Casey purportedly told her mother that she, Casey, hadn’t seen her 3-year-old toddler for “31 days”.

Caylee’s mother was arrested on October 14th after a grand jury returned seven indictments of capital murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and four counts of providing false information to police.

An amber alert was issued for Caylee who has now been missing since June. Forensics will play a key part in the case against Casey Anthony: cadaver dogs picked up the scent of death in Casey’s car as well as the backyard of her parent’s home. Preliminary testing of air and carpet samples in the trunk of the car found evidence of human decompisition, along with an “an unusually large concentration of chloroform”. Other evidence against Casey include a neighbor who told police that she had asked to borrow a shovel.

Casey’s lifestyle at the time of Caylee’s disapearance may come into play: Casey spent a majority of her time partying in clubs and never mentioned that her daughter was missing. It was only until her mother and brother pleaded with her to tell where Caylee was that Casey gave a convulated story about leaving her with a babysitter. An investigation by the police found that the story Casey gave about the babysitter was false: an address she supplied resulted in an empty apartment, the “babysitter” turned out to be a woman who had never met Casey. Casey Anthony insists that her daughter is still alive. Her mother also maintains her daughter is innocent, even though it was her mother who first reported to authorities that her daughter’s car “smells like a dead body”.

According to FOX New’s Greta Van Sustern, two dates are key to the investigation: on June 18, a neighbor observed Casey back up her car into her parent’s driveway, something the neighbor had never seen before. What’s also important to note is that Casey and Caylee were living with her parents at the time of the little girl’s dissappearance. The same day, Casey borrowed a shovel from a neighbor. The car which Casey drove belonged to her grandparents. On June 24, Casey’s father allegedly wanted to open the trunk of the car and was met with “resistance” from Casey. When he opened the trunk he discovered gas cans that he had thought were “stolen” from a shed in the backyard. On June 27, the car was abandoned and towed to an impound lot. The Anthony family recovered the car on July 15. It was then that Casey’s mother, a nurse, noticed the car smelled like a “dead body”.

The Florida prosecutors that will try Casey Anthony for the first degree murder of her daughter are faced with the task of trying a case without the victim’s body nor any evidence as to the cause of death. Conviction for first degree murder in the Florida courts requires that the prosecution prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Even so, there have been similar cases that led to a murder conviction.

Blood Evidence

In April of 2002, an Arizona jury found David Anthony, no relation to Casey Anthony, guilty of the murders of his wife and her two children who disappeared on July 7, 2001. Even though Anthony had his home professionally cleaned, police found traces of blood at Anthony’s house: on walls, in his wife’s truck, the children’s bed, and beneath the carpets. Anthony had also bought new mattresses, sheets, a washing machine, dryer, and vacuum cleaner. Along with financial transactions the evidence was enough to convict Anthony of first degree murder in the deaths of his wife, 54-year-old Donna, stepson, 12-year-old Richard Romero, and stepdaughter, 14-year-old Danielle Romero.

Despite the fact the none of the victim’s bodies had been found, in 2004, Anthony was sentenced to death row but the convictions were overturned last July. The case was sent back for retrial by the Arizona Supreme Court who ruled circumstantial evidence that Anthony had molested his stepdaughter was used in the trial even though he had never been charged.

The bodies were found in 2005 stuffed in oil drums.

In 1999, then 53-year-old Willie Crain received the death penalty in Florida for the murder of 7-year-old Amanda Hartman. Crain, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty after prosecutors showed evidence of traces of blood in his toilet and underwear matched Amanda’s DNA.

Crain had met Amanda’s mother, Kathy Hartman, at a bar in September of 1998. The next evening Crain was invited into Hartman’s home for dinner where he played tic-tac-toe with Amanda, helped her with her homework and also gave her $2. The three went to Crain’s Tampa trailer home to watch a movie where Crain spent time alone with the little girl. They then returned to Hartman’s house where the mother claimed she fell asleep after ingesting five sedatives and drinking alcohol. When she awoke her daughter was missing. During the death penalty phase, the judge allowed testimony from five girls that Crain was convicted of raping in 1986. Crain was sentenced to the death penalty in 1999.

Amanda’s body was never found: prosecutors theorize Crain had stuffed Amanda into a crab trap.

The Woodchipper Murderer

When a Pan-Am flight attendant Helle Crafts dissappeared November 18, 1986, in Connecticut, investigators were able to piece together, literally, enough evidence to convict her husband, Richard, of murder. Evidence showed Richard had purchased new bedding, bought a chest freezer, and rented a commercial woodchipper.

Luckily, a witness had spotted a wood chipper near the Housatonic River. Forensic evidence included a blood smear along a mattress consistent with Helle’s blood type. Near the river, detectives found an envelope addressed to Helle. Also found on the snow covered riverbank: 2,660 hairs, a fingernail, toe nail, two teeth caps, and five droplets of blood. Dental records showed a match of one of the tooth caps to Helle. In the river, searchers discovered a chain saw and serrated cutting bar embedded with human hair and tissue in the teeth.

The first jury deadlocked. A second trial ended in a murder conviction for Richard Crafts who was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The Caylee Anthony case is interesting: forensic evidence includes preliminary tests using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS, a chemical analysis test. Tests of the air and carpet of the car trunk indicated “five key major compounds associated with human decomposition”. Trace amounts of Chloroform, which can be used to render someone unconscious, were discovered in the car as well as what investigators are claiming is a single strand of Caylee’s hair.

According to WFTV, Casey Anthony’s home computer was used to search for “do-it-yourself” websites which instructed persons on how to make their own chloroform, “around the same time as Caylee disappeared”.

DBKP took a look at the Florida criminal court statutes relating to first degree felony murder. Casey Anthony was charged with seven counts. For the state to prove the crime of first degree felony murder the prosecution must prove:

1. The victim (Caylee) is dead. Will the jury find the evidence presented by the prosecution, of chemical analysis of human decomposition in the trunk, as proof that Caylee is dead?

2. Caylee’s death occurred as a consequence of, and while, Casey was engaged in a commission of another crime or,

3. Caylee’s death occurred as a consequence of, and while, Casey was attempting to commit another crime, such as the trace amounts of chloroform found in the trunk of the car. Will prosecutors prove chloroform was used to “sedate” Caylee, a sort of “unpaid” babysitter for Casey, while she continued to party with friends and at clubs? Or,

4. Caylee’s death occurred as a consequence of, and while, Casey Anthony, or an accomplice were escaping the immediate scene of a crime.

In order to convict a person of First Degree Felony Murder, Florida prosecutors do not have to prove premeditation, that Casey Anthony did not have a premeditated “design” nor “an intent to kill”.

In order to prove a murder was “premeditated”, prosecutors have to show Casey had a “conscious intent” to kill her daughter at the time of the murder. The law does not “fix” the exact time period between the “formation” of the premeditated intent and “killing”. A jury would have to decide whether the prosecution proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that premeditation existed at the time of Caylee’s death.

If Casey Anthony is convicted of Capital Murder she will face a separate court proceeding where a jury will hear testimony in order to determine whether Anthony should get death or life in prison but it is the judge who will ultimately decide, his decision based on the jury’s vote. It is then up to the Florida State Supreme Court, within a sixty day period, to ratify the sentencing court Judge’s decision.

WFTV argued that “without” a body, there probaby wouldn’t be any “push” for a “death penalty qualified” attorney for Casey Anthony. The Casey Anthony case is located in Orlando, Florida. Willie Crain, convicted of murder in the case of the missing 7-year-old Amanda Hartman, whose body was never found, was given the death penalty in Tampa in 1999. The only forensic evidence entered in the Crain trial was blood matching his seven-year-old victim in his underwear and on his toilet.

By LBG

Image – Jury Box
Source – Florida Supreme Court
Source – South Florida Criminal Defence Lawyer Blog

Tags: Amanda Hartman, Casey Anthony, Caylee Anthony, Cindy Anthony, David Anthony, Florida, Florida Death Penalty, Florida Supreme Court, Helle Crafts, missing child, murder convictions without a body, Richard Crafts, Willie Crain