Casey Anthony is Free While Another Mom Serves Jail Time For Her Child’s Death Because She Did Not Use A Crosswalk

By Cynthia Caron

Amid security, Casey Anthony is a free woman. She was escorted into a black SUV by her lawyer Jose Baez and an armed guard and driven away from waiting reporters early this morning. I don’t believe I really have to go into details as to who Casey Anthony is because I believe the entire northern universe is aware that she is the young mom who did not report her daughter, Caylee, age 2 ½, as missing for 31 days back in 2008. However, for those who have been out of touch with the mass media news reporting, I will explain. Yes, a beautiful child is missing for 31 days and her mother was fully aware. Did she report her missing? No. Instead she partied with men, seductively danced the nights away, lied to her family, treated herself to a tattoo with stolen money from her best friends checkbook. Ironically her tattoo were the words “Bella Vita” which means “beautiful life” in Italian. Yes, I believe Casey felt she had a beautiful life now that she no longer had the responsibilities of being a mother and could party the nights away. Somewhere in her warped mind that was a “beautiful life.”
Lying, stealing money to make purchases of clothing, lingerie and grocery items to take to her overnight trysts with her “boyfriend” is what was utmost on Casey’s mind those 31 days and not reporting her daughter as “missing.” She will go down in history as the most “hated mother” in America. She makes “Mommy Dearest” look good.

During the 31 days Casey continually lied to her family and made excuses that Caylee was with her “nanny” at Disney World and other places, or she was sleeping. Whatever excuses she could think to “put off” her family in thinking Caylee was alive and well and that she and Caylee were having a “wonderful time” and would be home to visit soon. Meanwhile, her daughter lay in the hot Florida heat double bagged in rubbish liners with duct tape on her face and securely fastened into her families laundry bag tossed into the hot watery swamp. A beautiful child was dead and nothing remained on her little body except tattered moldy clothing and skeletal remains when she was found 6 months later. Anthony’s defense in court was that her daughter drowned, her father molested her, her brother groped her under the covers at night and the jury found her not guilty of Murder in the 1st degree, which could have brought her to the death chambers, but instead found her guilty of lying to police.

Somewhere in this mess I cannot get past the fact that the jury’s reasoning was because the prosecution couldn’t prove HOW little Caylee died. Doesn’t matter that she was dead and that lies and partying covered up her death, but because the prosecution couldn’t say exactly HOW Caylee died they set her mother free. Apparently the prosecution didn’t explain clearly enough that complete decomposition of a human body, with all tissues and organs gone, and just the mere framework of a beautiful child left wasn’t good enough for the jury. They wanted specifics from a body that could never show exactly what happened. Just too many long hot days went by and any physical evidence was gone. I guess it never occurred to the jury that between the hot Florida sun that little Caylee’s earthly body basically cooked away any evidence as she lay dead and decomposing in her coffin of garbage bags. I guess that was not good enough to charge her mother with manslaughter or even child abuse. Nope. She was found guilty only of lying to the police.

Meanwhile, in Marietta, GA, another young mother named Raquel Nelson, aged 30, busy with trying to keep control of her three children, decided to cross the middle of a street when her four year old son was struck and killed by an under-the-influence driver when he darted out into the traffic. Raquel along with another of her children were also injured and the third child escaped physical injury. Raquel was charged, and convicted, of “homicide by vehicle” in the second degree, “crossing roadway elsewhere than at crosswalk “ and “reckless conduct” for making the choice to not use a crosswalk to get to their bus stop.

Photo courtesy of 11 Alive News

Ironically, Jerry L. Guy, the driver who admitted hitting and killing the child, leaving the scene and hitting two more people, pled guilty to hit-and-run and served only a 6-month sentence. He was released Oct. 29, 2010, and will serve the remainder of a 5-year sentence on probation, according to Cobb court records. He will essentially serve less time than the mother whose child was killed because she did not utilize a crosswalk. Oh, and Casey Anthony is free. A scary judicial system, isn’t it?

Cynthia Caron is Founder of LostNMissing, Inc