Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [107]
I looked at them in disbelief and said, “Why don’t you quit playing around and tell us what the story is?”
Jose smirked, and said that the story was going to be that Caylee drowned by accident and Casey trusted someone she shouldn’t have to take care of it. I was dumbfounded by both parts of the premise. They were going to concede that Casey knew Caylee had died from the beginning, and they were going to implicate someone else in the cover-up.
“Who would that be?” I asked.
“George,” he replied matter-of-factly, as if this were somehow an obvious answer.
I looked at him and broke out in laughter. “Just bring it on,” I said. “I can’t wait to cross-examine Casey.” It was not my proudest moment, but it had been an exceedingly long day and my feistiness was showing.
I thought it was a complete crock of crap. For ages I’d assumed that Casey was going to implicate someone beyond herself as a way to deflect blame. Linda, Frank, and I had been debating for years what her next story was going to be. What was shocking was not that she had a new lie, but that this lie contained the combination of Caylee drowning and Casey blaming George. We had considered both separately, but we had never thought she’d put them both together in the same story.
I left the conversation, went downstairs, and called Linda. I got her answering machine and left a cryptic voice message. “I know what her story is,” I said.
Linda called me back right away. “You’ve got to be kidding!” she exclaimed when I told her. Frank didn’t get back to me until the next day, and he had the same response.
Sometime over the next day or two, Linda spoke to Jose and got a little more detail. The story was going to be that Casey had been awakened on the morning of June 16 by her father, saying that Caylee had drowned in the pool. Everything was on George. Casey took no responsibility whatsoever. That was always her position.
The following week, late as usual, we got the reports from the therapists. Dr. Danziger’s report had a psychological evaluation of Casey and generalizations about maternal filicide. Dr. Weitz’s report, also in very general terms, talked about the ideas of molestation, trauma, and denial. All of these allegations were not unusual to justify a crime. It seemed that Casey saw, as we did, that her prior lies weren’t going to work, so it was time to come up with another one.
Although we will never know the genesis of Casey 4.0, since conversations between Casey and her lawyer are privileged, Linda had a theory. During a deposition of our medical examiner, Dr. G, back in September of 2010, Cheney had probed her about the possibility of drowning. Linda’s theory was that he was exploring a potential defense in the case. Of course at that point, Cheney had still been pushing the stranger abduction story, so at the time it appeared to us that Casey 4.0 hadn’t been born . . . yet.
In early 2011, something else had occurred which supported Linda’s theory. Out of the blue one day, Baez called her. He was interested in discussing whether we would consider something called a proffer in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. A proffer is essentially an offer of proof, so in other words, Casey would offer her story to us, if we would consider taking the death penalty off the table.
The conversation was incredibly vague. We had a closed door meeting with the defense during which they were evasive about the specifics of her story, but they felt it would be something that would convince us not to seek the death penalty. We discussed it with Lawson as well to get his take. At that point, we all wanted to hear what she had to say, but I must admit I think our motive was curiosity more than anything else. Much like everyone else, we wanted to know what the next lie would be, but of course we had to do what was best for the case, not what was best to satisfy our own interests.
Still,