Casey Anthony’s life leading up to and after Caylee’s death has been revealed with such detail that virtually nothing about the woman has not been presented to the public. From her addiction to staying connected via cell phone and myspace, to her commissary orders once jailed, there just isn’t much that hasn’t been made public and discussed – whether there was value in it or not. After one spends the time of reading her friends accounts of her personality, of listening to and watching her jailhouse phone calls and visits, and reading her text messages it is easy to draw the obvious conclusion that she is a chameleon, a poser, a morpher and a mimicker. It is clear she lived her life up until July 16th, 2008, as someone who quickly adapted to situations by creating illusions via facades made real-time and dependent on other’s words, actions and desires. This is most likely why we see the repeated pattern of every guy she was attracted to appearing to quickly become entranced by her. She knew how to reflect to them exactly what they wanted to see and hear. She made the rest of the world fade to gray and out of focus by her perfected skill of being the focal point to her target.
We’ve watched Casey on several occasions fake the tears she knew she needed to show at the moment. Dry-eyed and pretending to try to be strong while wiping away unseen tears, those who apparently accepted their role in her drama years ago react with their own real tears at her showing of “her pain”. The rest of us sit here, mouths a-gape, wondering…what the hell did I just witness? When us semi-normal folks have to view a scene of entrenched dysfunctionality it causes a bit of cognizant dissonance – kind of like seeing a black queen of hearts. It registers, but something feels like it entered our brains like a 12 lb breech baby. Eh…hence the hinky.
But if we pull ourselves out of the dramatic scenes that are being forced on us and refuse to be dazzled by the play and if we decide we’ll look at what the actors do when there is no stage and no audience, we can start to see some things that might be quite telling. Not just for Casey, but for the rest of the Anthony family. But we’ll focus on Casey for just a bit here.
Casey appears to start showing signs of a haunting, if you’ll allow the use of the word, as soon as Tony leaves town for New York on the morning of June 30th, 2008. It is immediately after his departure that we see Casey flit back and forth across the map of Orlando like the ball in her beloved Beer Pong game. Her whereabouts become either uncertain or downright unknown frequently through-out the days and nights. One such time is just before 5 a.m. on July 2nd.
Casey was spending her nights (most nights) with Ricardo and Amy during the time Tony was in New York, and such was the case on the night of July 1st/July 2nd. Casey had been at Miller’s Ale House the evening before, as witnessed by Dante Salati and Brandon Snow. She had arrived back at Ricardo’s apartment sometime right before midnight on the 1st. Casey didn’t appear to sleep well this night. In fact, it appears she may not have slept at all. After texting and avoiding incessant calls from the Anthony home up until 12:46 a.m., she then had a texting session with Tony from 1:33 to 1:42, a brief quiet time and then a phone call with Tony that lasted from 2:50 to 3:45 am. She checked her voicemail once at 4:01 am, and it’s actually unclear why she did so since there is no sign she should have had a message at that point. All of this activity was taking place at or near Ricardo’s apartment. It is most likely safe to assume that is where she was during these hours.
But beginning at 4:48 am Casey does a few things that let us know she is no longer at Ricardo’s apartment. At 4:48 am she sends two text messages to Tony back-to-back. At 4:50 am she calls Ryan Pasley twice. And within the same minute, Ryan returns her call and they have a 14 minute phone conversation. During these cell phone actions, Casey is pinging off a tower south of Curry Ford Road which places her in the general vicinity of the Anthony home, Lee’s home and the location of Caylee’s remains. We have no way of knowing just how long Casey had been in the general area since our window into this journey into the dark is framed by this small set of cell phone actions. It was dark when Casey was out driving that morning. And when I mean dark – I mean as dark as it can get in a big city like Orlando. The moon had set at 8:28 pm the night before and would not rise again until 6:55 am. The skies would not even begin to lighten from the rising sun until 6:05 am. To me the important question about this little jaunt into the darkness is not so much WHAT Casey was doing, or exactly WHERE Casey did it, but WHY? This strange combination of sleeplessness, restlessness, and needing to connect in the darkness – to have some one on the other end of the phone – speaks of a troubled spirit.
The day of July 2nd continues to show signs of true torment. As previously discussed, the majority of actions by Casey tend to fall into the “what do I need to do to draw attention?” or “what do I need to say to build the facade?” So when Casey does something out of character (i.e. without any obvious connection to her audience), it is a true perturbation in her habits and begs attention on a different level. Somewhere around 10:41 am Casey opens a word document on the laptop and she begins to write the poem “diary of days”…
On the worst of worst days.
Remember the words spoken.
Trust no one.
Only yourself.
With great power,
Comes great consequence
What is given,
Can be taken away.
Everyone lies.
Everyone dies.
Life will never be easy.
On the worst of worst days,
Remember the words spoken.
Hold your head high.
Smile.
Laugh.
Love unconditionally.
Tomorrow is a brand new day.
It is easy to assume this poem was to garner some response from some one. Yes, it ultimately ended up on her myspace. But in this instance, it appears this poem was just for Casey. The document was last saved for the day of July 2nd at 10:51 am. And while we can’t say for certain whether she opened it and re-read it in the next 5 days, it appears it set there as something she had to say – in private and shared with no one – until July 7th. That’s the day she finally loaded it onto myspace. But for 5 days, this poem was for no one but Casey.
Another area where Casey stepped out of character, and seemed to be doing something that was not to present to the public is in a couple of pictures that attracted her attention starting on the 13th of July. We’ve all seen the endless icons, tattoo art, etc. that populated Casey’s Photobucket, and we (along with law enforcement) have noticed how she began to focus on skulls, zombies, etc. But what about the pictures she saved to the laptop that never made it to Photobucket, myspace or Facebook? What about the ones that weren’t silly iconic sayings and graphics? Like this one…
“The Apparition” painted by Gustave Moreau ca 1875. A work of art depicting the beheading of John the Baptist. In this work Salome is seen transfixed by the apparition of the head of John. Her gaze has been described by critics as being a combination of success at what she has just accomplished, and fear of what she has just done. Casey first saved this picture on the laptop hard drive on July 13th at 4:02 pm. She would open it again at 12:28 pm on the 14th. Also on the 13th, 26 minutes after saving The Apparition, Casey would save this work of art:
This painting, entitled Mitsukuni defying the skeleton spectre invoked by Princess Takiyasha, was painted by Utagawa Kuniyoshi ca 1845. It depicts the Princess Takiyasha, who was a sorceress, invoking the skeletal spectre to ward off Mitsukuni, the encroacher of the royal palace. This piece of art was saved to the laptop hard drive and, as far as we know, never shared in a public place. Casey would apparently look at this painting one more time at 9:28 pm on the 14th.
Do these rare private moments – where the audience seems to not be important – reflect a soul being haunted? It is easy to fall into the trap that Casey appears to be one that has no conscience, no real soul to her. But in these private moments, where no one was looking and no one else’s perception mattered, we see the appearance of a soul inflicted with fear, guilt and darkness.
Valhall.
Related posts:
- Casey’s ‘Homer Simpson’ moments
- Timeline and Forensics Files Updated 10/29/09
- A Look at the Laptop
- Why Cindy is her own worst Enemy
- Timeline and Forensics Files updated 11/21/09
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