Gray Matters: Thoughts Inspired By Casey Anthony - A Psychologically Driven Theory of What Could Have Happened by Cathy DeBuono, MFT
Read Gray Matters: Thoughts Inspired by Casey Anthony Part 1 here.
It isn’t a stretch to imagine a scenario where Casey decided to take back ultimate control from her mother.
Perhaps on that fateful morning Casey encountered George up to his alleged old tricks with Caylee. It stands to reason that that could have been, in a psyche already far gone, the only violation left to suffer before crossing that line.
Perhaps Casey had previously warned her father that if he ever did to Caylee what he did to her, she would kill her child in order to protect her from the same fate. Maybe Casey would have chosen that over a lifetime of alleged incestuous rape. If George blew the whistle on her, she would blow the whistle on him. Check mate. Neither one of them is going to talk.
So, it’s June 16, 2008 and Casey is taking it all back. Faced with the final straw of her mother’s hands around her throat or her father’s molestation of Caylee. It was time for Casey to claim her adulthood. This time she doesn’t ask anyone for help. She knows it’s not forthcoming anyway. This time she “trusts no one but herself.” This time she takes what her parents taught her. Children are objects for their parents to do with as they please. She stepped up to the plate and became the adult her parents created. “With great power comes great consequence. Everyone lies. Everyone dies.”
However, more likely I think is the theory that the death of the child itself was an accident, one that “snowballed out of control.”
That’s how George described it according to Krystal Holloway, aka River Cruz, a local woman who had joined the search efforts for Caylee and subsequently had an affair with George. George has denied the affair, and Cindy has chosen to believe him citing publicly on the Dr. Phil Show, “I’ve seen her and I know he didn’t have an affair with her.” Clearly suggesting that Ms. Cruz simply wasn’t attractive enough for her George.
An accident that snowballed out of control.
It’s possible Casey over-dosed Caylee by accident. Maybe she had been using a method to keep Caylee sleeping so she could have a good time with her friends. Maybe she used chloroform?
In police interviews one friend of Casey’s reports, “that kid slept through anything.” Another friend says Casey had inquired about getting Xanax from an ex-boyfriend, but that it was odd because Casey never took any drugs herself.
“Xanny” is a street name for the anti-anxiety medication, Xanax. Is it possible that being with “Zanny the Nanny” was Casey’s way of describing that Caylee was sleeping one off while she went out? Casey had always woken up from it and survived, right? Maybe this is what she learned about parenting in her family, they Chloroform their little girls so they can do as they please while she sleeps. Maybe on June 16, 2008 Caylee never woke up.
I know what you’re thinking, how does this then explain the duct tape over her nose and mouth? That doesn’t jibe with an accident. But it’s quite possible that Casey wasn’t prepared for the things that happen to a body once it dies. Maybe, just maybe, the tape was applied after death as a solution to other problems. We will probably never know.
Having said all of that, this last theory also fits.
By Casey’s report, once she finally started talking and stopped lying about Zanny the nanny and Caylee having been abducted, she woke up on the morning of June 16th, 2008 to her father, outside, carrying Caylee’s soaking wet and lifeless body. He told her that Caylee had drowned in the family pool.
She said he was irate and accusatory and told Casey she was sure to fry for child neglect. She then collapsed on the ground and sobbed. George swooped in with a “Daddy will take care of it,” and she never saw her daughter’s body again. A classic example, by the way, of a strategy that an abuser may very well employ. First perpetrate, frighten, blame it on the victim and swoop in to save the day. Classic.
Why might George fake a drowning? Why not call the police and say she drowned? Well, probably because she didn’t die that way, there would be no water in her lungs and George, the ex-cop, would know this. No, he’d have to get rid of her.
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It’s possible in this scenario that George killed Caylee on purpose after some sexually inappropriate perpetration upon her. It’s also possible, and more likely in my mind, that he killed her by accident. Maybe he held that chloroform rag over nose and mouth just a little too long this time.
Have you reviewed the jailhouse videotapes? Have you watched the police interviews with George? He seems more like a 10-year-old who got called into the Principal’s office than a man being questioned about his missing grandchild.
He also appears to be actively trying to project a boy-like innocence to anyone he speaks to. This doesn’t seem like a man confidently giving his statement of facts under stressful circumstances. This seems to be a man, who seems to carry an almost debilitating sense of shame and he’s shaking in his boots.
So why would Casey not tell from the beginning? Because that too would be classic. It is classic for children to protect their abuser, especially when it’s one of their parents. As the recently released psych evaluation reports, Casey says she still loves her dad. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.” Again, classic.
But perhaps the single most powerful moment that shifted my focus from Casey and planted my suspicion on George was his comments last month on The Dr. Phil Show. This is a man whose 25-year-old daughter is out there alone somewhere, with no protection, nowhere to go and not a friend in the world. She just barely escaped the death penalty and is now the most hated woman in the country. The blood thirsty masses have been calling for her head on a platter, and her loving and supportive father goes on The Dr. Phil Show and says that he “believes Casey is involved” in the death of his grandchild. I ask you, why would any father purposefully fan the public flames of seething hatred for his daughter unless it behooved him to see her eliminated. Even if he believed she was “involved”... why? Why would a father say that to an angry, blood thirsty mob about his daughter, what is there to be accomplished in that?
The only truth we can be sure of, the only black and white fact in this case, is that we still don't really know what happened or why. No one does. All any of us have are theories. Theories are what you come up with when you sit in objective thought on a thing and allow your consciousness to expand.
What’s fascinating to me is how many theories there are that are just as feasible as the one most people insist on, that she’s a narcissist who killed her baby. There are several theories that include that, but also expand to include some of the why or how she got that way. So few feel that’s important, which is baffling.
I'd like to think the good citizens of our country have the wherewithal to challenge their fears of the unknown and their fantasy that evil can be pinpointed, identified and systematically eradicated. In this case there is no justice in convincing ourselves otherwise. There is a vast amount of gray that still calls out for our comprehension. It’s the only option we have left to achieve any justice for Caylee’s life at all.... the option to grow.
Read Gray Matters: Thoughts Inspired by Casey Anthony Part 1 here.
Cathy DeBuono is a Licensed Clinical Psychotherapist; her online practice is at Cathy Is In. Tune in live to Cathy Is In: The Cathy DeBuono Show Tuesdays at 12:00 pm PST on LA Talk Radio, Transformation Talk Radio and WBLQ 1230AM RI.
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