Casey Anthony: Do tapes show ‘cruelty personified’ or humanize her? - Hal

Casey Anthony: Do tapes show ‘cruelty personified’ or humanize her?
posted by halboedeker on June, 3 2011 10:47 AM

Tapes of Casey Anthony continued to play in court this morning, and TV analysts couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

WFTV-Channel 9 legal analyst Bill Sheaffer saw “cruelty personified” when Anthony talked to her parents in jail. “The way that she keeps lying to her mother is just as cruel as it can be,” Sheaffer said.

Anthony’s loving words to her parents in jail take the wind out of allegations that she was sexually abused by her father, Judge Alex Ferrer said on WOFL-Channel 35. “They show that the defense is really not realistic,” Ferrer said.

But Ferrer added that the tapes humanize Anthony and might make it less likely the jury will recommend death. Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.

Another tape of George visiting Casey in jail showed him professing his love and support for his daughter. In court, Anthony dabbed her eyes as she listened to the old conversation in which George repeatedly showed his compassion. He talked about his concern for missing children, and she agreed it was an important issue. But now we know Caylee was dead, a drowning victim, according to Casey’s defense team.

WKMG-Channel 6’s Mike DeForest highlighted how George Anthony was determined to find Caylee and help missing children. “Casey Anthony now admitting that at this point her daughter was dead – she says by drowning,” DeForest noted. Her conversation on the old tapes show that Casey Anthony was acknowledging “she is allowing her daughter’s disappearance to be publicized and basically knocking out other real missing children.”

Sheaffer said George came across as a caring father in the tape. “I cannot believe that Mr. [Jose] Baez reviewed these tapes and employed the defense he employed… that the child drowned, that it was an accident and implicating the father as a monster rapist of his child,” Sheaffer said. “I just wonder if he viewed these videotapes and did so before he gave that opening.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Dan Abrams said the audio and videotapes that played Thursday in court fit in with the defense’s theory that Anthony is a good liar.

“It’s a tough defense, it’s a long-shot defense,” Abrams said. The tapes suggest that the Anthonys were a close family, Abrams said, but now “it’s not just the state vs. Casey Anthony. It’s now the state and her mother and her father and her brother to some degree against Casey Anthony.”

Why does the defense want George Anthony’s medical records? Nancy Grace told “GMA” she hated to speculate because his health had nothing to do with Caylee’s death but the records would be “embroidered in Tot Mom’s web of lies.”

Grace had a backhand compliment for Casey: “I’ve never seen anyone lie like this with such rich detail.”

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2011/0/casey-anthony-do-tapes-show-cruelty-personified-or-humanize-her.html