Casey Anthony Trial

"It is time to tell the story of a little girl named Caylee," said prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick, beginning her opening statement in the murder trial of the young girl's mother Tuesday.
Casey Anthony is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008 and lying about it to investigators.
The trial, which comes after nearly three years of legal twists, turns and delays, has garnered interest outside of Orlando and even Florida.
At 5 a.m., more than 30 potential spectators were lined up to get tickets to get inside the courtroom, according to In Session producer Nancy Leung. In an hour, that number had swelled to more than 50 -- with a full three hours to go before court began.
One woman said she took time off from her job in Chicago and bought a last-minute ticket to be at the trial. Another woman planned her vacation around opening statements, and a third, from England, happened to be in town for a wedding and decided to come.
The first 50 people in line received tickets to get inside. Also in the courtroom were Casey Anthony's parents, George and Cindy Anthony.
Anthony, now 25, wore a loose-fitting white tunic for the first day of her trial. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She chatted with her defense attorneys before court was called to order, as boxes of evidence were carried into the courtroom, but appeared somewhat anxious and subdued.
As she began her opening statement, Burdick described Caylee as a little girl who was much loved by her grandparents and lived an idyllic existence at their home, with their swimming pool and her Winnie-the-Pooh-decorated bedroom.
Anthony, who was 19 when her daughter was born, "appeared to all outward observers to be what her parents thought she was -- a loving mother working hard to provide support for her daughter," Burdick said. "But as the evidence in this case and the investigation into the background of Casey Anthony will show, that was an illusion." Anthony's parents thought she had returned to her job at Universal Studios after maternity leave, Burdick said, and indeed she dressed daily in work clothes and had a Universal Studios ID, but went "who knows where."
Caylee visited her great-grandfather on June 15, 2008 -- Father's Day -- and a photograph was taken of the two together, Burdick said.
"The next time a photograph was taken of Caylee Anthony is on December 11 of 2008," when her skeletal remains were found about a quarter-mile from where Anthony and her daughter lived with her parents, Burdick said. As the prosecutor spoke, Anthony frowned, shook her head and wiped tears off her cheeks.
"The story of this case is not about Casey Anthony. It is about what happened between the photograph taken on Father's Day, June 15, 2008, and the photograph taken on December 11 of 2008. What happened to Caylee Marie Anthony? You will hear, during the testimony in this case, that no one had any idea anything had befallen Caylee Marie Anthony until July 15 of 2008 (when she was reported missing). How can that be? What happened between June 16 and July 15? Where was Caylee Marie?"
In addition to capital murder, Anthony faces six other charges, including aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and providing false information to authorities. If she is convicted by jurors -- seven women, five men and five alternates -- she could face the death penalty.
The jury was seated Friday after the process was moved to Clearwater, Florida, in Pinellas County out of concerns that an impartial jury could not be seated in Orlando, in Orange County, because of the intense media attention the case has generated.
Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and denies harming her daughter or having anything to do with her disappearance. One of her defense attorneys, Jose Baez, has said that once all the facts are known, it will become clear his client is innocent.
Burdick took jurors through each day of the month Caylee was missing before authorities were alerted, detailing Anthony's whereabouts according to cell phone records and her explanations to those, including her parents, who asked where Caylee was.
Those who asked were told Caylee was at the beach, in the care of babysitters -- "Zanny," "Juliet" and "Annabelle" -- while Anthony was at an out-of-town conference or even that Caylee had accompanied her to Tampa and Jacksonville. "Where is Caylee Marie Anthony?" Burdick ended the account of each day by asking.
Burdick discussed Anthony's participation in a "hot body" contest at a local club, where she was photographed partying. All the while, Burdick said, Anthony continued to tell her parents lies regarding the child's whereabouts, as well as her own.
"Casey Anthony's story grows," Burdick said. "There is no Zanny. There is no Juliet. There is no Annabelle." During the time Caylee was missing, Burdick said, Anthony spent most of the time staying with her then-boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro.
Both the prosecution and the defense face hurdles, said In Session correspondent Jean Casarez, who has followed the case from the beginning.
The cause of Caylee's death was homicide by undetermined means, meaning there is no cause of death, she said.
"One of the elements in the statute for murder is that the defendant caused the death," Casarez said. "This is a circumstantial case, so prosecutors will build their building blocks toward that answer, but they don't have a definitive cause of death, and that can be a problem. I have seen cases where there are acquittals because the prosecution does not have a cause of death."
Duct tape was still stuck to the lower facial region of the child's body, authorities have said.
"(Caylee's) killer prepared some substance in advance that would render her physically unable to resist," prosecutor Jeff Ashton said at a December 2009 hearing, "administered the substance, awaited its effect and then methodically applied three pieces of duct tape to completely cut off the flow of air through her mouth or her nose and let nature take its course."

Authorities have said that the amount of decomposition would seem to indicate Caylee died shortly after she went missing.
Prosecutors allege that after killing her daughter, Anthony stashed the body in the trunk of her Pontiac Sunfire before disposing of it. A cadaver dog has alerted to the scent of human decomposition in the trunk, and testing showed the presence of chloroform. Orange County Superior Court Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. ruled last month jurors can hear the chloroform testimony. In addition, investigators have said they found Internet searches of websites mentioning chloroform on Anthony's computer.
Burdick also discussed the odor in Anthony's car in opening statements Tuesday, her explanation that there was a dead animal caught in the frame and her claim that it had problems and had run out of gas. A week later, it was towed to a wrecker yard, where it stayed until July 15.
Anthony's high-powered defense team, fighting to save her life, will likely try to cast doubt on prosecutors' scientific evidence. At pretrial hearings, they have argued that evidence regarding a potential odor of decomposition in the trunk, chloroform and other evidence is not reliable enough for jurors to consider.
Perry has also ruled jurors can hear testimony about a stain in the car's trunk, as well as the decompositional odor. In March, Baez contended that having jurors look at the stain might have a "prejudicial effect," alleging it could have been caused by a wet bag of garbage or gasoline cans. The stain was negative for DNA, as well as for the presence of blood or other bodily fluids, he said. "There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that this is a biological stain," Baez said.
The car and the evidence regarding it poses a huge hurdle for the defense, but perhaps their biggest hurdle is the fact that Caylee had been missing for 31 days before authorities were aware of it, and her mother failed to report it, Casarez said.
In addition, some have alleged that Anthony didn't behave like the worried mother of a missing child during the search for Caylee. She went to nightclubs and sent hundreds of text messages to friends, according to cell phone and text transcripts and investigative reports released by police. Those records show she rarely mentioned her missing daughter.
"She doesn't report her child missing but she actively parties," Casarez said. Perry has allowed pictures of Anthony taken at nightclubs, both before and after Caylee went missing, to be presented at trial. Why before? "Probably (for prosecutors) to show that this was her lifestyle before and after her child was missing, and it's not a reaction to not knowing how to deal with Caylee suddenly out of her life," said Casarez.
Another potential defense hurdle: During the time Caylee was missing, Anthony also got a tattoo on her shoulder reading "Bella Vita" -- Italian for "beautiful life," Casarez said.
Early in the jury selection process, defense attorneys hinted that mitigating circumstances including "a history of sexual abuse" may have explained Anthony's behavior in the days after her daughter disappeared and her failure to alert authorities sooner. Anthony herself told police she had been trying to find her daughter on her own.
Defense attorney Ann Finnell raised a host of potential mitigating circumstances to gauge what would-be jurors might consider if they had to decide whether to sentence Anthony to death. Those circumstances included a "lack of maturity," "lack of impulse control" and "a history of sexual abuse."
Anthony alleged her father and brother sexually abused her in a letter from jail last year. In an interview with NBC News afterward, her father, George Anthony, denied the claims and criticized Baez's judgment in questioning him about the allegations.
Finnell asked potential members of the jury pool whether the assertion her client came from a "dysfunctional family" might factor into their penalty decision.