Mental Illness May Determine Fate Of Mother Of Missing Caylee Anthony

http://www.local6.com/news/17927572/detail.html

Mental Illness May Determine Fate Of Mother Of Missing Caylee Anthony


Woman Charged With 1st-Degree Murder

POSTED: 9:13 pm EST November 6, 2008
UPDATED: 11:05 pm EST November 6, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The mental health of Casey Anthony, who has been charged with first-degree murder in the disappearance of her daughter, Caylee, could be the key to determining her fate, according to a Local 6 News report.
Anthony, 22, remains jailed and is scheduled to go to trial in January. Caylee was last seen in mid-June but was not reported missing until a month later.
Anthony has undergone two psychological evaluations, but the reports have been sealed by the judge who ordered the tests after Anthony's arrest in July.
Local 6 News investigative reporter Tony Pipitone interviewed Lake Mary psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Hall, who has not examined Anthony and could not comment to her specifically, but he has studied women who have killed and their motivations for the killings.

"You have to look at the motivation -- why they're doing -- why they think they have to (kill their own child)," Hall said. Psychiatrists focus on five general reasons, Hall said. Altruistic, which was explained as the person doing the child a favor. Psychotic, when the killer is having hallucinations or delusions. Accidental, which usually result from abuse. Revenge, getting back at someone, usually a spouse or the child's parent. Unwanted child. Hall said that only in extreme cases can the killer be found not criminally responsible for the death. "You have to have a severe mental illness, and two -- due to the severe mental illness -- you have to not realize what you were doing was wrong," Hall said. Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who is in a psychiatric hospital after drowning her five children because she said she was battling Satan before calmly reporting the deaths to police, is an example of that type of person, Local 6 News reported. Pipitone said the prosecution of Anthony thus far seems closer to that of Susan Smith, who let a car containing her two children roll into a lake, where they drowned. Smith blamed carjackers who never existed, and she's serving a life sentence in South Carolina. "She was interested in an individual, (and) he said he didn't want to be with a single mother. She killed her two kids. There was concealment, it was planned out, she made false statements to police, she was trying to avoid detection (and) she knew what she'd done was wrong," Hall said. Investigators believe Anthony is concealing the location of her daughter's body. "No more lies. No more bull coming out of your mouth. We've been very respectful. We're taking our time and talking to you, but we're tired of all the lies. No more lies. What happened to Caylee?" Orange County sheriff's Detective Yuri Melich said in a July interview at Universal, where Anthony had said she worked. "I don't know," Anthony said. "You do know," Melich replied. "I don't know," Anthony repeated. "What happened to Caylee?" Melich asked. "I don't know where she is. That's the God's honest truth," Anthony said. If Anthony were delusional, she would really believe that she worked at Universal and left Caylee with an imaginary baby sitter, Pipitone said. The state claims that Anthony is lying. Psychiatrists, like Hall, routinely determine whether someone is delusional or simply deceptive. "You have to look at what the motivation is there. Is it that they don't want to admit they're really unemployed? Do they have to let people think they're greater than they are? So there could be personality factors, (a) need for narcissism, needs to seem greater than they are. Or they could be trying to hide embarrassment or shame," Hall said. If Anthony has no severe mental illness, there's no way she can avoid prison, if convicted, Local 6 News reported. "People found insane go to the state mental hospital, but that's reserved for truly psychotic people. Casey just doesn't seem to fit that bill," Pipitone said. "She's not been convicted of anything, but clearly she has issues that could lead to the death penalty being taken off the table or mitigate against a death sentence if she ever were convicted." IBSYS.ad.AdManager.registerPosition({ "iframe": false, "addlSz": "", "element": "ad_N31.50BF", "interstitials": false, "beginDate": "", "endDate": "", "getSect": "", "name": "square", "qString": "", "width": "300", "height": "250", "section": "", "useId": "17927572", "interactive": false, "useSameCategory": false, "topic": "", "swSectionRoot": "", "useZone": "", "containerType": "page", "containerID": "101177", "type": "DOM" });