In July last year, a child was reported missing in Florida. What was peculiar about this report was that it was made a month after the mother first found out that her daughter had disappeared. In December, a child?s skull was accidentally discovered by a meter reader and was subsequently proved to belong to the missing child. The mother now faces murder charges and is due to go to trial next month.

The strangest part is that while no trauma had been found on the child?s remains, authorities insist she was a victim of homicide by undetermined means. My jaw dropped when I read that. How does one conclude that homicide had been committed if the manner of death is still unknown? What?s even more mind-boggling is how the authorities skirt the issue. In an article in a Web log in the Discovery Channel Web site (?Child Skeletal Remains Identified as Caylee Anthony? by David Lohr, December 19, 2009) Orange County Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia was quoted in a press conference: 

?My examination of the body and the evidence is complete barring no further bones being found and the anthropologic exam will be finished up shortly. The bones are completely skeletonized, with no visible soft tissue present and no ante-mortem trauma evident, meaning there was no trauma to the bones prior to death. Toxicology testing is still to be completed on the bone and hair. While this analysis may prove to be informative, it will be difficult to interpret levels from these specimens and thus will not be definitive in helping to determine the cause of death. 

?The manner of death though is an opinion based on available information including examination of the body information from the scene as well as circumstantial evidence. Based on all of this, the manner of death in this case is homicide. The cause of death will be listed as homicide by undetermined means. Should other pertinent information become available, the cause of death may be revisited. 

?While I would love to explain the forensic aspects of this case to you, and any of you who know me know I would love to do that, we must remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. This case needs to be tried in a court of law and not the media, thus I will not discuss specifics of this case at this time.? 

No doubt it?s a strange case and not only because the authorities seem to be too quick to point to accuse someone for the death of a child?Casey Anthony, the child?s mother. The authorities have released the case documents to the public, scanned versions are available at Crime Shadows (crimeshadowsnews.com) and I have read them all?including reports by investigating officers, transcripts of Q&As with Casey Anthony, transcripts of telephone calls to the police and sworn statements by people with whom Casey associated at the time of her daughter?s disappearance. I wouldn?t be writing about this if all I had to go on were media reports. 

Casey Anthony is 22 and her daughter, Caylee, had she lived, would have been three in Aug. 9. Caylee went missing in mid-June last year but no report was made until a month later and not after Casey?s mother threatened to go to the police. The nagging question, then and now, is why would a mother wait for a month before reporting that her child is missing? As though that?s not enough for people to easily speculate that Casey must have been hiding something, sworn statements executed by her own friends and family paint a grisly picture of the 22-year-old?a habitual liar who took money from friends and who has a string of arrests for petty crimes.  

Worse, when police officers started investigating the disappearance of Caylee, Casey lied incessantly about when she last saw her child who the child was with at the time. She claimed she left Caylee with the nanny, a Zenaida Gonzalez, but the supposed nanny has never heard nor seen mother or child. And the supposed apartment of Zenaida never had a tenant by that name. Casey showed no emotion all throughout Caylee?s disappearance and the investigating officers noted it on more than one occasion. 

Not surprisingly, what the public saw was a picture of a bad mother. But what most people seems to refrain from commenting is that, in the absence of a motive and, even more importantly, in the absence of clear evidence as to how Caylee Anthony died, what justifies the murder charge against Casey? Is this a move to pacify public outcry? The public wanted to hold someone responsible so someone has to be accused, sent to trial and, possibly, to life imprisonment? Casey Anthony?s trial hasn?t even started yet but there are those who have already decided she is guilty.  

Meanwhile, on eBay (ebay.com), someone is selling voodoo dolls with Casey?s head on them. Then, there?s this sleazy entity called Showbiz Promotions selling Caylee Sunshine Dolls supposedly to create awareness about missing children and promising to donate the proceeds to charity. Media has jumped right onto it, giving free (?) publicity to the Sunshine Dolls project. I can only raise an eyebrow. It?s still exploiting a family?s tragedy. There?s been outrage from some quarters, naturally, including Caylee?s family and Showbiz Promotions has suspended production of the dolls although their website is still very much active and says nothing about the discontinuance of the project. 

What tragedy breeds? if it?s not quick condemnation, it?s exploitation.

The author blogs at http://houseonahill.net, http://pinoycook.net and http://www.sassylawyer.com