In this article we will compare Casey’s behavior to that of male eraser killers to show that not only does her Dark Triad fit the mold, but her activities surrounding the murder of Caylee strike an eerie similarity to many of these previous killers.
Donald Moringiello, a retired aerospace engineer whose wife, Hattie “Fern” Bergeler, came up missing on the day the two of them had gone to visit his children claims he and his wife were traveling in separate cars and he lost track of his wife on the ride home. He did not report his wife missing for a month. In fact, he did not report her missing until her body was found floating in the bay near his home. After two trials he was convicted of second degree murder.
Christian Longo, who murdered his wife and two children, did not call police after murdering his family, but instead went for coffee and returned rented videos. As Marilee Strong states “the lives of his wife and children of no more consequence than returning a delinquent video.”
Like Moringiello, Casey did not report Caylee missing until after Cindy had done so in a 911 call; a month after her death. On the evening of Caylee’s murder Casey went to rent videos with Tony Lazzaro. Caylee’s life was less important than the next movie.
Some of the most harmful evidence presented during Scott Peterson’s trial for the murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, were tapes of him talking to his girlfriend, Amber, during the critical days in which the authorities and many volunteers were looking for his missing wife. In these tapes Scott shows a total lack of concern over the whereabouts of his pregnant wife, and instead sounds as if he has the perfect life with no worries. Hare and Babiak note in Snakes in Suits
In these audio and visual documents, he [Scott Peterson] shows no apparent concern, empathy, remorse, or even sadness at his wife’s disappearance.
Joseph Romano, convicted of murdering his wife Katherine after her tissue was found in a power saw he used to dismember her body in front of their two-year-old son, Bruno, showed no concern about his missing wife when police began their investigation into her disappearance. In fact, he showed indifference to not knowing where she was. Gerald Miller, convicted of killing two wives, never showed real concern for either wife going missing and never assisted in the search for either.
L. Ewing Scott, convicted of murdering his wife, Evelyn, claimed she went out to purchase some items and never returned. He then claimed he found her car at a cemetery two days later, but instead of reporting her missing, he disposed of the car. L. Ewing Scott phoned his wife’s hairdresser the day after murdering her and stated his wife’s weekly hair appointment needed to be cancelled. When the salon owner asked if he meant that day’s appointment he stated, without emotion, “That’s right, and all the future ones, too.”
Casey partied for 30 days while her daughter was missing and unreported. During her initial interviews she presents no real concern for her daughter. In the first jailhouse phone call home Casey actually shows anger at the fact her friend, Kristina Chester, voices heartfelt concern about the welfare of Caylee. Casey just wanted to get her boyfriend’s phone number, thus, in her mind, the call was a “huge waste”. The jailhouse visits are replete with statements and behavior from Casey showing an absence of true sadness over the loss of her daughter. In fact, her major point of irritation on the first jailhouse visit after what would have been Caylee’s 3rd birthday was that the family had people over and ate chili on that night without her. Casey refused to cooperate in the investigation of Caylee and never assisted in any searches (if not in person at least by providing information helpful to those searches) for her daughter.
Chester Gillette, who is one of the earliest recognized eraser killers and whose murder of his pregnant paramour, Grace Brown, was memorialized in Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy as well as in the movie A Place in the Sun, immediately hopped a train after murdering Grace to join female friends at their lake house for the weekend. At no time during the weekend stay with the friends was he reported to have acted upset or in any other way emotional distressed.
Casey, on the evening of June 16th (the day she claims Caylee was abducted by Zenaida) is seen on surveillance video at Blockbusters with her boyfriend,Tony, picking out movies. She shows no sign of emotional distress. Tony did not notice anything about Casey’s behavior that evening that would have led him to believe anything was wrong.
As Marilee Strong points out in Erased, Scott Peterson had no prior history of violence before the murders of his wife and son and his only real “thrill-seeking behavior” had been that of being what Strong describes as “serially promiscuous”.
On both counts the same can be said of Casey.
Mark Hacking, who was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife Lori, led a double life. Leading friends and family to believe he had a college degree and had been accepted into medical school, he had no degree at all. L. Ewing Scott claimed to have gone to college as well, but there were no records of his attendance at the school he stated he attended. Charles Stuart, who murdered his wife, Carol, claimed to have attended Brown University on a football scholarship. He had never attended Brown and only attended a state college for one semester before dropping out and never returning. Scott Peterson had several phony diplomas on his walls that he claimed had been gag gifts from his wife, Laci. Peterson had a bachelor’s degree which took him eight years to earn.
Casey led people to believe she had been accepted to and/or was attending Valencia College and was an event planner at Universal; both proven false.
Scott Peterson was unable to show an attachment to his unborn son. He referred to him in conversations with Amber as “Laci’s baby”.
Casey refers often to Caylee in jailhouse visits as “that little girl” or “our little girl”, but not so often as “Caylee”, or “my little girl”. We also see the IM’s with Anthony Rusciano in which Casey refers to Caylee as “the little snothead”.
L. Ewing Scott, after evading police for some time, slipped back into the country to buy a car. He was detained by Canadian customs officials when trying to cross the border back to Canada. Almost two years after the disappearance of his wife he held a press conference and decided to plead for his wife’s safe return. According to Marilee Strong he stated during this conference that he was “the goat” in a vast conspiracy and then threatened to sue
certain individuals in authority in Los Angeles as well as other persons for defaming my character and causing me mental anguish by making unfounded and unprovable statements relating to my actions and the disappearance of my wife.
From the first phone call Casey made back home after being arrested the first time, she claimed authorities were not listening her. She then went further in jailhouse visits to claim her words had been “misconshtrood” and how detectives had decided that first day to pin it all on her. Cindy has maintained and even advanced this argument in her many statements concerning the “rush to judgment”. We have heard Casey, Cindy and George speak of the “conspiracies” that surround the whole situation.
Justin Barber, who was convicted of murdering his wife, April, was convicted on evidence that showed six months prior to the murder he had Googled search terms such as “trauma cases gunshot right chest” and “medical trauma gunshot chest”. Barber, in staging the claimed SODDI attack, had shot himself in the same location that the searches were referencing. Authorities also found he had researched “no body murders” and “missing persons being declared dead”. He also researched how to get a death certificate while in Mexico and how to collect on a life insurance policy after a homicide. Additional searches included “how much blood is in the human body” and “how much blood loss is required to be declared dead?”
Christian Longo had downloaded information from “Hitman On-line” on how to murder.
Scott Peterson searched the internet for places to launch his boat and even researched current directions and velocities.
A search of the Anthony home desktop shows that someone had Googled, just 3 months prior to Caylee’s murder, “neck breaking”, “shovel”, “chloroform” (as well as the constituents to make chloroform), and had visited a Google online book on weapons made of household items. Someone is also reported to have visited websites dedicated to missing children cases. And the forensics logs for the computer show some one in the house was signed up for alerts on missing children.
In the trial it was also presented that Barber, just hours before the murder of his wife, played on the internet and downloaded sixteen songs to his computer including Guns N’ Roses “I used to love her but I had to kill her…And now I’m happier this way.”
Casey played on the computer just hours before Caylee was murdered. She uploaded a picture of her and Tony from Fusion Ultra Lounge and briefly IM’d in what is considered to be the last few hours of Caylee’s life. Curiously, Casey was almost obsessed with a song of her own that contains lyrics that point to the erasing of old lives and starting anew. According to Tracey McLaughlin, Casey listened to the song, by Sevendust, entitled “The Past” over and over and over while out on bond. The song speaks of a “soul I’ve left behind” and “I’ve erased the past again”.
Michael White, who murdered his wife Liana, had an issue with stealing. He stole from his family and friends, was prosecuted twice by the military for stealing, and stole from the trucking company for which he eventually worked. Christian Longo forged checks to try to stay ahead of creditors. Scott Peterson was fired from the Morro Bay golf course for stealing.
Casey stole from her parents, her ailing grandparents and her friends…even forging checks against Amy’s account.
Scott Peterson, in his taped conversations with Amber, resorted to “code talk”. At one point, after a dialogue that said nothing and meant less, stated “Because I said what…what I can say and what I need to say…And if that is not enough for you, it’s not enough for me, but it’s right for now.”
Casey repeatedly blathered nothingness in jailhouse visits. Playing off others’ leads (such as Lee’s and Cindy’s) she said nothing, but let them interpret much. Her usual noteworthy statement, as they conjectured based on nothing and then asked her a slightly pointed question, was something to the effect of “I’ll just leave it at that for now.”
Scott Peterson showed little to no concern when there were potential sightings of his wife. However he showed significant concern when reports came out that Modesto police had divers searching with sonar near the Berkley Marina where his wife and son would ultimately surface.
Casey showed no signs of concern when Leonard Padilla had divers in the Little Econ and reportedly found a bag with what appeared to be small bones inside. In fact, the reports from inside the jail were that she silently turned her back to the TV and returned to her cell. She did, however, reportedly have a severe reaction when it was reported that remains had been found at the location where Caylee was discovered.
Michael White also exhibited another trait Casey seems to hold in common. The day his wife went missing, Michael’s mother-in-law came over to stay at the house and await word of her missing daughter. As she paced the night away she could hear Michael in the living room snoring in his recliner. The next day Michael claimed to have been unable to sleep at all.
Casey never seems to have lost her appetite through the whole ordeal of losing her daughter, not knowing where her daughter was for 30 days, being arrested and then bonded out. Robert Dick tells how Casey spoke of large meals she ate at Jose Baez’s office and then of her eating a sandwich he purchased for her one evening. The very next day as they rode between Baez’s office and the Anthony home, Casey lamented how she had been unable to eat for days….only to catch herself and add “except for the sandwich”.
Michael White dumped Liana’s body along side a road where local residents had been dumping garbage for some time.
Casey dumped Caylee’s body along side a street in a swamp where various discarded items had collected.
Mark Hacking’s murdered wife Lori was not found until after authorities spent countless hours at the landfill with bulldozers searching through tons of garbage to find her body. After going to prison, Marilee Strong reports, he got a jailhouse tattoo of a bulldozer on his chest. Strong asks if this tattoo was to represent his own view of himself as someone who “bulldozes” over those around him, or was it to memorialize and mock what had to be done to find his wife’s remains in the garbage.
Casey stole from Amy Huizenga and immediately spent the money on a new tattoo. Just a little over 2 weeks after murdering her daughter, Casey Anthony had a tattoo placed above her left shoulder reading “Bella Vita” (Beautiful Life). She claims the tattoo was for her daughter, but it appears to be more toward memorializing the “beautiful life” of her delusions that she now thought she could obtain free of the obstructions Caylee represented.
Valhall.
References:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11781790/page/6/
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/christian_longo/index.html
http://petersontrial.info/scott-peterson-summary.php
http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/0060837721
http://www.amazon.com/Erased-Missing-Women-Murdered-Wives/dp/0787996394
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8533915.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868087,00.html
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/classics/chester_gillette/7.html
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/mark_hacking/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10150669-38.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,153650,00.html
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