10 Years Later: Monster Mom Casey Anthony Lives Free After Little Caylee Killed
July 10 2018, Updated 6:23 p.m. ET
"There's something wrong. I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car!" Casey's mom Cindy Anthony uttered those chilling words during a disturbing 9-1-1 call she made on July 15, 2008. At the time, Cindy's little granddaughter, Caylee Anthony, had been missing for over a month. Cindy's own daughter, Casey, eventually would be tried for murder after the toddler's body was found wrapped in a garbage bag and discarded in a swampy area just steps from the family home. Click through RadarOnline.com's gallery to find out more about the case on the tenth anniversary of little Caylee's death.
Caylee was just 2-years-old when she went missing, but it took her grandparents a month to understand the depth of the crime. Casey's frightening 9-1-1 call sparked an investigation that captured the nation's attention. "Caylee's missing! Caylee's missing! She took her a month ago! She's been missing for a month!" the desperate grandma screamed to the operator.
Casey concocted lie after lie after lie about her missing child's whereabouts. First she said a nanny named Zendaya Gonzalez had kidnapped the little girl, then she was at the beach, and another time she was at a theme park — but she never came clean about what really happened. "I've been looking for her," Casey claimed when her mother called 9-1-1 to report the child had disappeared.
Even though her little girl Caylee was missing for four days, Casey found time to participate in a wet t-shirt contest in a bar on June 20, 2008.
On December 11, 2008, Caylee's remains were found stuffed in a trash bag with duct tape around her skull. Her mother Casey was arrested for murder.
Casey was charged with first degree murder and prosecutors sought the death penalty when her trial started in May 2011. In opening statements, the monster mom's lawyer, Jose Baez, blamed her father, George Anthony, for covering up the death of Caylee, claiming the toddler drowned in the family pool. Baez also alleged to jurors that George sexually molested Casey.
The sensational trial lasted six weeks, and both George and Cindy Anthony took the stand and claimed they did not know anything about their granddaughter Caylee's death.
"The Devil is dancing tonight," acid-tongue TV host Nancy Grace said when the jury found Casey "not guilty" on July 5, 2011.
Casey was released from prison on July 17, 2011 with $500 in cash. She jetted out of state on a private plane and hid from the public for years.
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Casey was hit with a lawsuit by Roy Kronk, the man who found Caylee's remains, for defamation because he believed she and her lawyers made presumptuous statements that implied he was the one who killed Caylee and hid her body.
Casey eventually fled to Florida, where she once protested President Donald Trump outside his Mar-a-Largo home. She also gave a shocking interview in 2017, saying that she had no idea how her daughter died and she didn't care about her critics. "I don't give a s**t about what anyone thinks about me, I never will," she insisted. "I'm OK with myself; I sleep pretty good at night."
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