The Caylee Anthony Case-- Thread #3

[chiquen81]

So if there's a cure or a medication for you, that means you ARE insane?

Not really sure where you are going with that one...

[omgsweet]

I don't think you can fix insanity with medication.

[karmenzsofia]

Originally Posted by chiquen81

So if there's a cure or a medication for you, that means you ARE insane? Not really sure where you are going with that one...

Insane is too broad of a term. "Insane" is no longer a medical diagnosis, but a legal definition. In practice, whether or not someone is insane depends on who's making that decision--a doctor, a judge, peers, society. For example, a man jumps of a plane without a parachute. Is he insane? Yes, if he wants to live; no, if he intends to die.

Patients are not officially described as sane or insane. They either have a mood or organic disorder (treatable with medication), a personality disorder (for which not much can be done), a cognitive or behavioral problem, etc. It gets complicated. It's not a black and white issue but one that comes in many shades of gray.

Socio- or psychopaths who plead insanity often lose because in most cases they do know the difference between right and wrong, they're not out of contact with reality, they calculate, have motive, etc.

[guccimamma]

i would guess that animals in the area may have scattered the bones before the decomposition, wasn't it found in a swamp area?

[junebug35]

Originally Posted by guccimamma

i would guess that animals in the area may have scattered the bones before the decomposition, wasn't it found in a swamp area?

It's very crude but entirely possible the head and torso were separated and "dumped" in different areas...?

[AmourCouture]

Originally Posted by karmenzsofia

Planted? I wasn't even thinking about that. Someone asked about the skull and the rest of the bones being separated, and my thought is that if the body was in a bag that was and remained sealed, they would all be together in one place. If indeed the skull fell from the bag, as the guy said, then that indicates the bag was open, ripped, whatever, while exposed to the elements, which means there would be scattered bones in the area.

OIC...I thought that it sounded like you thought the potty guy sounded suspicious. Got it!

[AmourCouture]

I would love to jump in on all of the Psychopathology discussion! But I am studying for my last final exam tomorrow (ironically it is about an investigation into newly proposed neuronal mechanisms involved in fear, anger, and emotion)!!! Maybe tomorrow.
I will say that, in agreement with KZ, Insane is a broad term, and in trials it is usually referring to people being in a state of insanity, where people push to show that they could not be held accountable for their actions because it was not premeditated and instead an impulse, often described as they "didn't know what was happening until it was over". Insanity is a state, where as psychopathology (maldaptive behavior or mental activity) is a condition. So, insanity is completely seperate from mentally ill. The term sociopath refers to someone specifically with antisocial personality disorder. Casey displays many of the characteristics of someone with Antisocial Personality disorder (According to the DSM IV for diagnostics), however I think she is more along the lines of Borderline Personality Disorder.

BPD (I highlighted the ones I thought she fit)
by five (or more) of the following:
1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating
between extremes of idealization and devaluation
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex,
substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria,
irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper,
constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Ok, back to my paper!

[canada's]

andrea yates is a great example of pleading insanity when it's actually appropriate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates

[dusty paws]

oh lord... if its her remains, i hope it gives the grandparents a bit of closure. poor baby girl.. my heart aches for her.

[HauteMama]

I still think the Yates case is arguable. She knew what she did was wrong enough that she planned it for after he husband had gone to work and before her mother arrived. She knew it was wrong in that she called 911 and her husband after the killings. But that is not the case at hand here.

I am always fascinated by the insanity defense. How someone can argue that they didn't know right from wrong amazes me. These people never seem to forget to use the toilet, forget to wear clothes, forget how to lie about their crime and interact with others, yet they conveniently forget that killing small children is wrong? Yes, yes, I know it is much more complicated than that, but premeditated murder just doesn't cut it as insanity to me (i.e. the Andrea Yates case). I've always told my dh that if I ever go off the deep end, he will find me running naked in the snow in the yard, but the kids will be unharmed!

[Lady1mport]

Originally Posted by jan228

Couldn't they match dental records of the upper teeth? Have they confirmed the DNA testing yet?

Children that young don't usually have dental records.

[HOTasFCUK]

^ I was thinking that too....she was only 2 years old so i figured she still hadn't been to a dentist yet. So no new DNA news? Now do we know if it was only a skull found or other remains? I also heard that there was no clothing.

[new.old.bag]

Originally Posted by karmenzsofia

No, it doesn't...but was your kid missing for a month before someone else--not you--reported it? I think it was the combination of suspicious searches, not just the one about chloroform, that tipped the Police. I mean, the computer shows searches on "missing children," "neck breaking," "how to make chloroform," "household weapons," "peroxide acetone alcohol death"...coincidence?

Of course I would never do anything like that. I do search for nefarious things all the time though, because of my interest in true crime as well as my other interests and I have been known to search for basically anything that strikes my fancy and even if I do not know what something is, I will search it to find out.

I am hoping that the combination of all evidence against Casey is enough to convict her in a court of law in the USA. I am hoping they find something really damning against her, in the bag with her daughter's body. Like DNA or fingerprints. Her internet searches alone are not enough evidence, except in the court of Big Brother Is Watching You.

[LegacyGirl]

Is anyone watching Court TV? They're in front of the court house and I was just wondering what's going on.

[Veelyn]

No clue too small in Caylee Anthony case

By Sarah Lundy, Bianca Prieto and Amy L. Edwards / The Orlando Sentinel
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. — For five days, federal and Orange County authorities have toiled away in the woods where a child’s skull was discovered in a plastic bag on Thursday.
Investigators hauled out boxes of brush and dirt. Crime scene technicians combed through debris on their hands and knees. Others shook soil through sifters, searching for any tiny particle that might help determine whether the remains are of missing Caylee Marie Anthony.
Five long days — and yet the work has just begun.
Sheriff’s officials said Monday that the lot, a quarter-mile from the home of the child’s grandparents, could remain a crime scene several more days as the evidence crews and various experts, including an anthropologist, entomologist and botanist, search methodically for more clues.
After that will come weeks of careful laboratory work designed to make sense of what investigators have found. Already, pieces of the remains have been sent to the FBI lab in Virginia. More will follow.
Forensic experts say the process of identifying a decomposed body — especially a child — is not easy, and finding out how that child died can be an even a greater challenge. DNA typing, bone inspections, toxicology tests and trace-evidence analysis are just some of the work to be done in the coming days.
"It’s just like an archaeological excavation in some cases," said Bill Schneck, founder of Microvision Northwest, a forensic consulting company in Washington state.
Investigators want to confirm whether the bones belong to Caylee, who disappeared in June. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, 22, insists her daughter was kidnapped by a baby sitter, but a grand jury has charged her with killing her 2-year-old daughter.