by Peter and Heather Hyatt
Why didn't Casey Anthony take the stand in her own defense?
Some will point to Jeff Ashton or Linda Drane Burdick. (I agree)
Others will speculate on one reason or another.
Take "innocent" and "guilty" as non-judicial terms for the point of this article. "Innocent" here will mean that the subject didn't do it; and "guilty" will mean the subject did it. When we use these terms, we mostly speak of adjudication, but for the sake of clarity, let's view it as fact of the action, and not conclusion of a court.
Innocent people do take the stand, and telling the truth is not something that the cross examination can destroy, in spite of trickery, and even some deceptive-like devices employed. In fact, truthful people are known to insist on taking the stand. Although the guilty often attempt to imitate the innocent, this usually blows up in the guilty's face as the lies are pulled apart.
Casey Anthony is not the brilliant liar she has been made out to be by some. She is a bold liar, but Statement Analysis shows that her lies are no different than other liars. She is of average intelligence at best, but she is cocky.
Many deceptive people are cocky, that is, over confident.
This comes from either getting away with deception in childhood, or being allowed to get away with deception and lies in childhood. In Casey's life, it appears to be a combination of both.
Casey Anthony is not a brilliant liar. Look at her statement to police, knowing the principles you do of Statement Analysis. It does not take much training to discern:
I got off of work, left Universal driving back to pick up Caylee like a normal day.
And I show up to the apartment knock on door nobody answers. So, I call Zeniada cell
phone and it’s out of service. It says the phone is no longer in service, excuse me.
So, I sit down on the steps and wait for a little bit to see if maybe it was just a
fluke if something happened and time passed and I didn’t hear from anyone. No one
showed up to the house so I went over to J. Blanchard Park and checked a couple of
other places where maybe possibly they would have gone; couple stores, just regular
places that I know Zenida shops at and she’s taken Caylee before. And after about
7:00 when I still hadn’t heard anything I was getting pretty upset, pretty frantic
and I went to a neutral place. I didn’t really want to come home. I wasn’t sure what
I would say about not knowing where Caylee was still hoping that I would get a call
or you know find out that Caylee was coming back so that I could go get her. And I
ended up going to my boyfriend Anthony’s house who lives in Sutton Place.
In this portion of her statement, I have only highlighted a few of the sensitive portions. For regular readers here the deception is easy to spot.
Do you see the present tense language? It is an indication that she is making this up as she goes along?
Do you spot the various "Temperal Lacunae"? This is where periods of time are deliberately skipped over?
Do you see the sensitive use of adverbs? Qualifiers in abundance?
Do you see all that which is stated in the negative? (what she didn't see, what didn't happen, etc)
Do you see the passivity? Do you see the repetition?
Do you see the absence of pronouns in sensitive areas?
In fact, Casey Anthony is a poor liar.
Her affect and voice inflection, and even body language may have been impressive to the detectives, or to the audience who viewed her video taped deposition. She may have impressed them as sociopaths can be charming and come across with confidence.
Statement Analysis, or SCAN (Scientific Content Analysis) is done independent of all other features other than the words the subject chose. It is not done in correlation with body language analysis, or voice inflection analysis. Too many sociopaths are good at manipulation.
Statement Analysis looks only at the words. When a statement is sent to an analyst, other than the allegation, no information is sent. No suspicions, no evidence, no records; nothing. We want the analyst to be influenced by nothing but the statement. It is initially done independent of all external influences.
Later, case evidence and testimonies may be applied and give answers to 'why is this sensitive?' or more importantly, 'what information was withheld here?' is now found. It is in the initial analysis that nothing else is considered.
This was a "missing child" report and the mother lied. This will, immediately, bring the focus of the investigation to the mother. Sound familiar?
Casey got away with lies because her parents looked the other way. They did not correct her for lying and often ignored her lies, as if to magically make them disappear. In this, they did fail Caylee Marie Anthony, just as George said.
Casey's overconfidence led her into a duel with seasoned detectives in which she was strong; very strong. In fact, her boldness likely, in the minds of those present, rivaled hardened criminals, especially in the drive around the neighborhood and the walk down the hallway of Universal to her "office", Casey showed incredible confidence.
This behavior would indicate that she would take the stand in her own defense.
She did not fear detectives, even when being grilled and yelled at. Why didn't she take the stand? If she did not fear detectives, she likely would not fear Jeff Ashton.
So, what happened?
Was it just her narcissism that kept her from the stand? That is, the need for self preservation?
Perhaps.
But perhaps it was something else.
This case was lost from Jose Baez' ridiculous opening statement packed with deception.
Casey knew it was over and that her case was an utter failure.
Could it be that she did not take the stand, not only in narcissistic self-preservation, (not wanting to face the cross) but because she would not give her mother the satisfaction of seeing all the lies exposed?
Casey had nothing to lose. In fact, she had to take the stand to tell the story that Jose Baez told. Baez (and Casey) invented a new theory and wanted the jury to believe that Caylee died by accident, and that Casey sat for 3 years in jail, for not calling 911.
It was ridiculous.
But Baez (and Casey) were not finished.
I believe that this portion of the defense was crafted as a way to punish the family:
George dumped the body.
They could have said Casey dumped the body, as she saw her parents do so, but with hatred, she sought to blame her father, and sought to have her mother testify as well, splitting them up finally.
Casey hates her parents and does not want to see them survive this thing.
But then, it went further:
Casey's celebration was really 'grief' (let's stay away from the flaky grief expert) and that it came from sexual abuse at the hands of her father, George, AND (why was this added?) that Lee, her brother, was "following in his father's footsteps".
Question: Why the need to bury Lee and tag him with the reputation as an incestuous child abuser for the rest of his life?
Answer: Hatred
Casey manipulated and twisted, and even got her mother to perjure herself, claiming to have searched chloroform online (84 times) and will likely be impeached when the State proves she was at work and lied in her testimony, knowingly. (The judge recognized that Baez knew she would perjure when he put her on the stand; this will cost Baez).
Casey Anthony had nothing to lose by taking the stand except her reputation.
Deceptive people are overly concerned about how they are perceived by the public.
We saw this in several examples where liars repeatedly sought out media in attempts to "correct" the public perception. They cared too much, to the point where people would see that they cared more about their own reputations than they did with the victim.
Scott Peterson, Billie Jean Dunn, Tiffany Hartley, George and Cindy Anthony, Drew Peterson, and on and on the list goes.
The deceptive person will often go on television to rehabilitate their image until media asked tough questions, exposing their lies, at which point they stopped.
Deceptive people care a great deal about how others perceive them because they are deceptive and need to be believed. This is the genesis of their often-described personality of "charming" or a "brilliant liar" and highlights why it is so important to separate from the subject and hear ONLY their words, so as not to be manipulated through the emotions.
Casey thinks herself smarter than everyone; this is a very important concept to her, and is something that Casey NEEDS to hold on to. If she took the stand, and was "out smarted" by the Prosecutors, she would no longer be able to comfort herself with the idea of her brilliance. She has enjoyed the image she created as the young woman who stood up to detectives, and it strengthened the contempt in which she holds the world. All of that could have, would have been lost if she had taken on the Prosecution team.
Too many times I have heard the following statement made by young women who exposed their children to imminent danger of a sexual predator:
"I look into his eyes and I know he didn't do it. It was that ***** of an ex wife's fault" even in the face of a police record in their hands.
Do you think you are smarter and above these young women?
I can tell you from experience: the kinder and more trusting the woman, even with great intellect, the more likely she will be deceived by the charming sociopath. This is why Statement Analysis doesn't look into his eyes, nor sees the 'tenderness' in his face, or, in this case, the 'smallness' of Casey Anthony, with her little girl voice.
Sociopaths can be charming.
Casey Anthony did not take the stand for a lot of reasons but one of them is this:
She would not give her mother and her father the satisfaction of seeing her lies fall apart.
In other words, her motive was not only self-preservation but hatred.
Casey hates.
Casey hated Caylee.
Casey hates her mother, father, and brother, and after destroying her daughter, she has now sought to destroy her family.
I believe that Casey wanted River Cruz up there for more than just defensive strategy: she wanted her hated father humiliated even though she knew her father would lie about his cheating. Casey referenced his cheating before and wanted him exposed and humiliated again.
Casey did not take the stand because she is hatred.
Don't, for a minute even, think that we will not hear from Casey Anthony. We will. She will talk.
Casey Anthony will tell her story.
She may talk in the penalty phase, or it may be in the appeals that are coming.
It could even be in a huge, exclusive jail house interview, but she is not done with George, Cindy and Lee.
She is going to get them.
Casey Anthony isn't done destroying...yet.
But Casey preserves herself: She cannot allow herself to be seen as a liar. She must hold on to her contempt; it is her hatred of others, especially her family, that brings her comfort.
She will not allow that to be taken from her.
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