2 Deaths in 2 Days of Billionaire's Girlfriend & Son on Coronado Island Baffle Police

by Cathy Scott

A real mystery–and a true tragedy–is unfolding on Coronado Island, a wealthy seaside enclave across the bay from San Diego. And it's gripped this typically quiet tourist town.

On July 13, Rebecca Zaha's nude body was found hanging from a rope tied to a second-floor balcony at the Spreckels 27-room mansion on Ocean Boulevard. Her hands were tied behind her back, her feet bound with orange electrical cord.

At first, suicide was suspected. But that's akin. at least in the 1970s and '80s, to a Las Vegas coroner ruling a known mob hit a suicide when the person was shot twice in the back of the head.

A week after Rebecca's death, police are now saying violence was evident in her death, but the manner–homicide or suicide–had not yet been decided. Results of an autopsy have been sealed, police said.

This typically quiet town of 27,000 residents has seen just two murders in the last decade. Coronado police don't have a homicide unit and asked the San Diego County Sheriff's Department to help with its investigation. "A case like this," Coronado mayor Casey Tanaka told The San Diego Union-Tribune, "would be unusual anywhere."

Responding to reporter's questions about the circumstances under which Rebecca was found, Sheriff's Sgt. Roy Frank said, "Sometimes suicide can look very similar to homicide or vice versa."

Rebecca's death wasn't the first that week. Two days earlier, while she was babysitting her billionaire boyfriend Jonah Shacknai's 6-year-old son Max, the boy fell down a flight of stairs in the mansion built in 1908 and once owned by John D. Spreckels, a surgar baron, owner of the historic Hotel del Coronado and onetime owner of the San Diego Union and San Diego Evening-Tribune. Max was not breathing and did not have a pulse when paramedics arrived. He was in a coma until he died five days later. Police has said there's no evidence thus far tat the two deaths were connected. At the time of Rebecca's death, Max was still alive, on life support at Rady's Children's Hospital until he passed away over the weekend.

Zaha,  32, also known by her married name Rebecca Nalepa, had for two years dated 54-year-old Shacknai, the CEO and founder of an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company, and had left her job in Phoenix last December, moving into the mansion so she could spend more time with Shacknai's three children.

The body of the former ophthalmic technician was discovered by Shacknai's brother Adam, who was staying in a guest house on the property. He cut the rope from which she was hanging, then called police, according to authorities.

The case is unfolding as I write this. Stay turned for more about these bizarre but tragic deaths.

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Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

by Katherine Scardino

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a tough burden for the State to meet. The article written by Andrea Campbell and published on Women in Crime last Friday, which discussed the many different types of evidence that may be presented in a criminal trial in the United States, within the context of the Casey Anthony trial. The State may obtain a conviction based solely on circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence points to the guilt of the defendant, but is not tangible evidence to connect the defendant directly. In other words, there are no crime scene fingerprints, DNA, eyewitnesses to the crime, etc... pointing directly to the accused as the culprit. The jury may render a verdict of guilty based solely on such circumstantial evidence if the jurors believe beyond a reasonable doubt that this evidence is credible and proven. But, I do not want to write another Casey Anthony article. Let’s look at evidence another way.

I wrote an article a few weeks ago about the recent flurry of powerful men who had been accused of, to say the least, low morals - or as I wrote - acting like pigs. Along with others, I mentioned Dominique Strauss-Kahn and even violated my own rule by lumping him in with those other men, mainly politicians, who seemed to have a problem keeping their pants zipped. Mr. Strauss-Kahn was a little different in that he was actually accused of committing a sexual assault against a maid in his hotel. His position rose to a higher level of accountability and a higher level of loss. He was not looking at an angry, vengeful divorce but the possible loss of his freedom and certainly his reputation and stature in the world.

I think the circumstances surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest and subsequent public disclosure in shackles are an embarrassment to the United States. We pride ourselves on the basic tenet that here, in the good old USA, a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty. You hear this constantly. Is that really true? I can answer that as a resounding “No." I can stand in front of a jury and state that each juror must believe that the accused person, standing before you prior to the jury hearing all of the evidence, is an innocent person. But, the mere fact that there is a person accused of misconduct standing in the courtroom around a counsel table with prosecutors, a court reporter, a judge and now a jury, is a weight that bears on the side of the prosecutor. The accused should not be judged in the news media like Mr. Strauss-Kahn was. We should never have arrested him without having done the smallest bit of investigation to at least make the evidence appear credible. 

In Federal court, the general rule is that when a Federal Grand Jury indicts a citizen of the United States, the US Attorney’s office has already conducted an investigation sufficient to believe that the accused is actually guilty. Don’t get me wrong - that does not mean that he is truly guilty, but it should mean that the US Attorney has enough evidence to get in front of a trial jury. 

The New York prosecutor jumped the gun on Mr. Strauss- Khan. The media reported that he was hoping to run for Mayor of New York and wanted the publicity. I do not profess to know his reasons with certainty. My complaint with the manner of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest is that there appears to have been zero work done on the credibility of the State’s evidence prior to his arrest. If the district attorney had done a small amount of investigation, he would have uncovered what he now is stating publicly - that the alleged victim is not a credible person. That does not mean the act did not occur. It simply means that he cannot take his case to a jury because he does not have the right kind of evidence that he can support.

So, what will happen now? The district court judge released Mr. Strauss-Kahn from house arrest. I do not know what other bail restrictions were lowered for him, but the dismissal from the prosecution should be coming soon. Where does that leave the United States? How about red-faced?

Is this a lesson for those of us who appeared so eager to accept the maid’s story as credible? It is easy to jump immediately to a conviction in cases of sexual assault. After all, why would a woman lie about that? In this case it could be money, publicity, attention, a twisted sense of need, or a combination of all of those things. If, in fact, a dismissal of all charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn occurs, as seems likely, we owe this man an apology.

Which brings me back, briefly, to Casey Anthony and the burden of proof. In cases where the State is trying to terminate a parent’s parental rights - the most serious case in the world of Family Law - the burden of proof is “clear and convincing evidence.” That evidence is weighed by the jury and the side who has the greater weight of evidence wins. That is a lower burden of proof than in a criminal case. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a phrase that is not defined in our Penal Code. It is not the CSI phrase that is used in error - “without a shadow of doubt." Each juror must look at the evidence and form his or her own opinion whether the evidence reaches the highest burden of proof in our country, that of beyond a reasonable doubt. It is my opinion that a capital murder trial where death is an option should not be decided on evidence that is loose or circumstantial. Apparently, the Casey Anthony jury agreed.

So, those of you who are amazed at the verdict, think again. The State decided to seek the death penalty against a woman without having evidence that rose to the highest level of proof, and these twelve individuals analyzed this evidence carefully and all twelve, unanimously, agreed that the proper verdict was not guilty. That does not mean she is innocent. It means the State could not give them enough evidence with which to convict, evidence that rose to the highest level of proof, which was their accepted burden. The jury did what they all believed was right.

Let’s put Mr. Strauss-Kahn and Ms. Anthony together. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s case should have been investigated enough for the prosecutor to see whether he had sufficient evidence that could rise to that level of proof. The New York prosecutor has publicly admitted he has a problem with his evidence. The prosecutors in the Casey Anthony trial looked at their circumstantial case and believed that they could convince a jury that their evidence did rise to that level of proof. They just made a serious mistake because they underestimated the citizens who they helped choose to render a verdict.

photo credits: Parti socialiste, billaday

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Why We Dislike Lawyers

by Diane Dimond

Question: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a shark? Answer: Nothing.

Okay, look, right off the bat I want to say that I work with a lot of lawyers and I count many of them as good friends. But we’ve all heard the old jokes, and, let’s face it, the public’s general perception of lawyer’s honesty and integrity is pretty rotten. The latest Harris poll on the subject puts attorneys way down at the bottom of the list with members of Congress, car salesmen, and, yes, journalists.

But since lawyers are the crux of our justice system I think it is important that we take a closer look at the way some of them operate. Why is it so many of us curl our upper lip at the very mention of dealing with a lawyer? Maybe it’s the sheer number of them these days. Maybe because we believe they make so much money on other people’s misery. Or maybe it is that so many of us are forced to turn to lawyers these days to handle things that used to be settled with a hand-shake and someone’s good word.

Despite what we see on TV in dramas like Law and Order and The Good Wife, most lawyering goes on in a stealthy way. It is done out of plain sight – in board rooms and depositions, in front of secret grand juries or in the confines of a prosecutor’s office. When engaged in their profession lawyers speak a different language than we do and they follow a set of rules most of us will never understood. It is human nature not to trust what we don’t know or what we can’t see or hold in our hands.

Casey Anthony Murder Defendant

I’ve spent the last few months closely covering a capital murder trial taking place in Orlando, Florida. And it struck me as I watched the defense lay out its presentation in the case of Florida vs. Casey Marie Anthony that there is another more basic reason why we think the way we do about lawyers. They often destroy innocent people in the name of defending their clients.

To watch defense attorneys Jose Baez and Cheney Mason conduct their case on behalf of Ms. Anthony was painful. Of course, they had every right (and a duty) to do what they could to insure their client got a fair trial, especially since she was facing a possible death sentence. But they did not have the right to vilify and destroy bystanders to the murder of 2 year old Caylee Anthony. The scorched earth, take-no prisoners behavior should not be allowed.

Defense Attorney Jose Baez in Action

During the defense’s opening statement Baez promised the jury they would hear evidence that there was no murder and that the little girl had drowned in the family’s back yard pool. He blamed Grandfather George Anthony for discarding her body. There has been no evidence presented to back up that claim.

Baez told the jurors that repeated sexual molestation of his client by both her father, George, and her brother, Lee, had turned her into a trained liar who naturally kept secrets. He promised evidence to explain why his client let 31 days go by before finally admitting her daughter was gone. At first, jurors heard exactly the opposite – clear denials that any sort of sexual abuse ever took place. The jury also heard testimony from more than a dozen of Casey Anthony’s friends and co-workers that showed she was a known liar and thief long before her daughter went missing.

Roy Kronk Found Caylee Anthony's Remains

Baez’s opening statement also smeared the reputation of a man named Roy Kronk, a county meter reader who found Caylee’s skeleton remains in the woods six months after she was last seen. He reported the tiny child’s skull was still wrapped in duct tape which had snarled in her long hair. The defense lawyer called Kronk a “morally corrupt individual” and promised evidence that would show he had stolen Caylee’s remains after she drowned in the Anthony’s backyard pool and waited for the reward money to grow. Kronk came and went from the witness box and no such evidence was presented against him.

I’ve highlighted the Casey Anthony case, but it is far from the only trial in which lawyers have made reckless claims on behalf of their clients leaving human despair in their wake. Believe me, it happens all the time in courthouses across the country.

The question for all of us–including honorable lawyers who read this now–is what do we as a society do with attorneys who deliberately demolish the reputation of others in their quest for their client’s acquittal? If they make promises to a jury at the expense of others and don’t follow through shouldn’t there be some sort of penalty? If you or I repeatedly lied about important issues at our job, wouldn’t we face consequences?

Most other professions have a code of behavior. I submit that criminal defense attorneys should be held to one as well.

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Sniffing the Air

by Andrea Campbell

Most everyone I talk to is upset or depressed over the Casey Anthony case, which just recently found her not guilty in the death of her child. Since you would have had to been living in a cave to not know about the case, I will assume you are upset as well.

There is a lot to talk about the forensic evidence in this case, and what for me seems like quite a lot of evidence for a case of this type. But almost all of it seems to be controversial in one way or another. Since I write to you in colloquial terms—as if speaking to a friend—I try not to use terminology that is science jargon, and tend to explain things simply and in a way that anyone can understand.

Clipart.com

Types of Evidence
The first important element we can discuss is what types of evidence are used in a court of law. There are more than you may know: direct, circumstantial, biological, reconstructive, associative and, individual or class characteristics.

Direct evidence is thought of as established fact. These are generally eyewitness statements or confessions.

Circumstantial evidence is not absolute proof but provides general knowledge and if you connect the dots, would seem to make sense or act as a logical conclusion. Typically, forensic evidence falls into this latter category. To folks in the criminal justice industry though, forensic science is generally more reliable than direct evidence because eyewitness testimony is sketchy, with people unable to recall events or positively identify suspects.

Biological evidence is anything that comes from a living organism and, in this case, would be the hair found in Casey Anthony’s trunk—this evidence type stems from body functions or fluids shed at the scene.

Of course, physical evidence can be found on inorganic items and some examples are: fingerprints, tool marks, paint, firearms and so on.

Reconstructive evidence helps an investigator figure out the five clues: who, what, where, when and how. The door that was pried open tells us how the perpetrator got into the house for example.

Associative evidence is what ties the suspect to the crime scene. The Casey Anthony case could have been made a lot easier if fingerprints had been found on the duct tape that covered toddler Caylee Anthony’s nose and mouth.

And the typing of evidence, either individual or differentiating is referred to as class characteristics. It follows that anything that is individual, can be narrowed down to one person or calculated as belonging to a very small group of people. The principle used to analyze materials and come to the assumption that it is individual is that no two things are exactly alike. A pair of shoes will exhibit characteristics when worn, unlike any other—so if those shoes leave a print impression at a crime scene and they are later found in the suspect’s closet, that leaves them open for an individual characteristic.

Differentiating class characteristics, on the other hand, could be the type of bullet that came from a gun. The caliber matched to a gun could make for a possible murder weapon. A found .38 caliber bullet means the weapon size is the same, so a .38 caliber bullet differentiates it from a shotgun.

Experts thought the forensic evidence in Anthony's car would be pivotal evidence for the murder trial. The car tested positive for chloroform and human decomposition and a strand of Caylee's hair was found in the car's trunk. Also, a cadaver dog, Gerus,—trained to find human remains—alerted on Casey Anthony’s car, a Pontiac Sunfire, and his handler testified to that occurrence.

Forensic Air Testing
Today we will talk briefly about the air testing in the car trunk. The forensic community has been using air tests for a long time. The science of chemical detection is forensic toxicology and is a means to separate and analyze chemical substances. The best example of common testing is when law enforcement uses a Breathalyzer to determine the blood alcohol content in a drunk driver for example.

The Smell of Decomp
"Once you smell it, you will never forget it." This comment and others comes from a site that has anecdotal comments from police and others whom have all smelled death. Human decomposition is a permeating smell and is often said as “hard to describe” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t distinctive. When Dr. Arpad Vass went on the stand to testify about the air samples taken from Casey Anthony’s car, I assumed that evidence was more than compelling. He spent a lot of time explaining his expertise in research about the smell of human decomposition. Vass works at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee where he analyzes the odor of death by working with cadavers at a 3-acre body farm, specifically used to study death and decomposition.

According to an ABC news report, "He [Vass] is essentially working towards finding a signature for human decomposition that will lead to the creation of an electronic detector that does the work of a cadaver dog. His research is already being used by the FBI to create a database of the chemical compounds found in human decomposition."

Vass said that the air samples taken and preserved in a can from the trunk of Casey Anthony's car had an abundance of chloroform, a sign of human decomposition and a chemical that also can be used to commit murder.

"I essentially jumped back a foot or two… I was shocked that that little itty bitty can could have that much odor associated with it… I would recognize it as human decomposition," Vass told jurors.

The Body in Death
"After we die and the bacteria proliferate in our body and start breaking down our muscles and our fat and organs, vapors, gases, are formed with beautiful names like cadaverine and putrescine that are a particular structure that are easily picked up in the toxicology lab if they’re collected from the area, the air that the body was in," said respected forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden. "If there was a dead body in the trunk of the car and they collected the air sample, they should be able to find those chemicals."

Entomology Report
In addition, flies and fly larvae found in the trunk of Casey Anthony's Pontiac suggest that the body had been decaying there for three to five days, according to testimony by an insect expert. The entomologist believed that Caylee's body had already undergone a brief period of decomposition before it was put into the trunk, and he cited the presence of a gnat-like fly that appears only after a body has started to decompose. This testimony rebutted defense claim that bad smells people reported could have come from garbage, but it turns out the same type of fly is not attracted to household trash.

New Science Questions

Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, head of the Forensic Sciences Department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told TIME. "It's what the state calls 'state of the art.' It's what I call 'not ready for prime time… It's not junk science, but it never should be brought into a courtroom at this stage.”

I disagree. Most cases today are decided on circumstantial evidence. There was enough forensic evidence—dueling experts or not—to come to the correct assumption and connect the dots. Casey Anthony's car was a crime scene. And I think the jury just wasn’t listening and strained (and failed) to understand the principle of reasonable doubt. What do you think?

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Was a Fraud Perpetrated Not Just by Casey but by George and Cindy too?

By Michelle Golland, Psy.D.

I begin this article being very clear that I am not a lawyer and I do not look at cases or tragic situations within families from the perspective of examining evidence for trial.  As a Clinical Psychologist I observe behavior, actions and narrative to get underneath the story that is unfolding before me whether in my practice or as a media psychologist.  I have been working with victims of trauma and sexual abuse for over 2 decades.  My experience and clinical intuition told me as early as September 2008 that there was something deeply and characterlogically wrong not only with Casey Anthony but also with her parents George and Cindy Anthony.

Many solid clinicians have been able to see that Casey Anthony meets all the characteristics of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.  Which is a chronic personality disorder that impairs functionality and has a negative impact on all relationships.  These individuals are manipulative, charismatic, lack empathy and create chaos in their lives as well as those around them.

The question is how did Casey Anthony become the person she is today.  For some by simply asking this question we clinicians are seen as terrible evil people blaming the poor parents of this crazy psychopathic person/murderer.  This is the problem with the media and the sound bite culture that really doesn’t want to hear the long tragic truth of how a vulnerable innocent child becomes the Casey Anthony we have seen in the courtroom.  We want to only pity George and Cindy, who of course are in pain and have tragically lost their granddaughter Caylee.

This is what we, as psychologists, know about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The most critical factor in developing this disorder is poor or uniformed parenting.  These include repeated emotional, physical or sexual abuse by someone within the family or outside the family itself.  Also, inconsistent care and unsupportive care or early separation from one or both parents can contribute to the formation of this personality structure.  We also find a parent who has failed to protect the child from repeated abuse by the other parent, another family member or an outsider.

In watching George and Cindy in front of the media they seemed either coolly detached from their daughter Casey or ragingly connected in a defensive posture.  I had no doubt that Casey Anthony had severe emotional problems when she lied about her daughters disappearance and because of her strange and immature responses around where she was during those notorious 31 days.  I also noted odd behavior by her parents, and it felt to me that they knew more about Caylee’s disappearance than they were revealing.  

The facts that came out in the case regarding George and Cindy’s denial of Casey’s pregnancy, as well as the perfect persona that Cindy Anthony seemed to want to show to people around her, as well as her undercurrent of rage which bubbled to the surface on many occasions showed me that she was a narcissistic mother who was self-involved and lacked empathy.  

The jailhouse letters in which Casey began to reveal the possibility of sexual abuse made sense in the reporting of the incidents and also her hedging around them as well.  Often with victims of sexual abuse when they begin to reveal the shameful family secrets it is let out a little bit at a time to see how they will be responded to before they keep going on to say what the whole truth is for them.  What really made it clear that something was not right in the Anthony home was Cindy’s response to Casey, “So that is why you are a whore?”  This is sadly a classic response by a mother not wanting to face what she may actually already know herself.  This was also reinforced by Lee Anthony’s testimony about the extremely conflictual relationship between Casey and their mother.  Lee’s testimony also reinforced to me clinically that this was a deeply disturbed family with each person struggling for power and control wrapped with rage, anger and confusion.

George and Cindy Anthony's various interviews in the media while “looking” for Caylee felt contrived, confusing and strangely self-focused (but not on their granddaughter) with a martyrdom quality that didn’t sit right with my clinical gut.  In watching the interviews with Tim Miller, who investigated Caylee’s disappearance early on in August 2008, his reactions appear to be the most convincing that something was being covered up and not only by Casey but by George and Cindy as well.

It is my impression that George did know that Caylee was dead close to when either the “accident or murder” occurred in June 2008.  His actions around deflecting Cindy and her brother seem odd and show me a consciousness of knowledge and also a desire to keep distance from the truth of her being dead.  His actions when her car that smelled of a “dead body” at the tow yard, which he testified under oath that he did believe it smelled like a human decomposing body, also seemed suspicious to say the least, and guilty of trying to hide evidence at it’s worst.  George, a seasoned former detective, did not call the police worried and sick that something has happened to his daughter or grandchild.  George drove that car home and parked it in the garage.  It was Cindy who called the police hysterical.  George had gone into work.  

It seems to me from the variety of interviews before and after Caylee’s remains were found in December 2008 that George, Cindy and Casey were all possibly spinning a variety of stories to try to keep themselves and the Anthony name clean of any wrong doing.  George and Cindy appear to be in part fighting for the image of themselves and their family.  As with narcissistic and possibly an incestuous family dynamic within the Anthony home they are doing just what that type of family does, which is to deflect the obvious (like Casey’s pregnancy), protect their own image as good parents all the while trying to maintain that they are actually looking for a live Caylee.  

In part, what the Anthony’s may fear the most at this point is an investigation into the fraud that there daughter perpetrated in keeping the “Caylee is Missing” story going until her remains were found and identified in December 2008.  If my clinical observations are correct about George and Cindy and what seems to be their own knowledge of and active participation in this enormous lie and manipulation upon the police, investigators and the country maybe, just maybe they will be held accountable financially and morally as much as Casey is at this point in the eyes of the public.

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Casey's Future Not As Profitable As She May Think

by Stacy Dittrich

Many are speculating what happens next for Casey Anthony as her date to be set free draws near. I predict they let her out a few days early without alerting the media for security purposes. You can bet your roll of duct tape that this Lord of the Rings fairy (sorry, can’t get past the pointed ears) has her future completely mapped out. I’m pretty confident that the following conversation took place between Tinkerbell Casey and Jose Biased upon the not guilty verdict—or something similar. Just imagine the two of them sitting alone in a room, Casey smiling from pointed ear to pointed ear.

Casey: Jose, I can’t thank you enough (grabs tissue and dabs at a non-existent tear). I knew this would turn out this way, I just knew it!

Jose: You can thank me later, doll face (winks), you know, like you used to back in the old days.

Casey: Gawd, this is really happening. When we decided to throw my dad under the bus, I never thought they’d buy it—I really didn’t! I mean, I knew the jury looked like a bunch of morons, but it turned out they really are! Pinch me. I must be dreaming!

Jose: Ya know, Case, your mom did help you out a little when she lied about the chloroform searches. You really should thank her when you get the chance.

Casey: Oh, please! To Hell with her! The only thing she’s done for me was teach me how to lie like a pro…maybe I’ll send her a card for that? On second thought, no way. I’m famous now; I won’t need their house and money anymore.

Jose: Which brings me to the future…I’ve already got offers coming in. What do you think you’ll do?

Casey: I definitely want to have more children—that’s for sure! But, believe me, I’ve learned my lesson! From here on out, when I go clubbing, I am definitely going to use less chloroform on the kids. I swear I will never going through this again (shudders). Maybe I’ll try using Benadryl first? Definitely no more duct tape—I’ll switch to electrical. So, what are the offers? A million dollar book deal? Movie? I’m so excited!

Jose: Whoa! Slow down there, Superstar! (Laughs) We’ll get to that! You never told me what you thought about the “grief expert” I put on the stand. I can’t even believe I was able to pull THAT one off!

Casey: Where’d you find her?

Jose: She was just a homeless nutcase I found wandering around Jay Blanchard Park mumbling to herself. I cleaned her up, bought her a Mocha Soy Latte—dumped half a dozen Valium into it—and told her what to say on the stand. Voila! It worked! (Slaps knee).

Casey: You truly are a genius, Jose. I mean, attending the third worst law school in the country and having a criminal record, how you pulled this off is simply unbelievable.

Jose: Again, you can thank me later (winks again). Now, let’s get to those offers. I’ve got a book deal from Beaufort Books—they published OJ’s, a guaranteed hit—an offer for a featured stripper tour in Gary, Indiana, a 3-movie porn deal from Murderous Mom’s Porn Company and, “the big one,”…are you ready?

Casey: Tell me! Tell me!

Jose: Charlie Sheen wants you to be his newest Goddess!

Casey: Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Charlie Sheeeeeeen! (Jumps up and dances around). I can’t believe it! (Pauses). Um, what’s a Goddess?

Jose: Oh, I forgot, you’ve been out of touch for awhile. I’ll fill you in on the deets later, but isn’t this exciting!

Casey: Yes! Tell me! How many millions?

Jose: Uh, well, you see, it’s not exactly millions…the total of the offers comes to $8,000.

Casey: (Smile fading, Casey becomes angry and rises in her chair) $8,000!! That’s it! I killed my daughter and all I get is $8,000! What is the matter with you? I’m bigger than OJ! I’m getting letters from millionaires with marriage proposals and all you can do is $8,000! (Picks up nearest chair). 

Jose: Casey, calm down! Put the chair down! Listen! If you knock off another kid in the next year or so, I promise I’ll get you the millions! I promise! Maybe we can get you on Celebrity Rehab for a murder addiction…just please calm down!

Casey: That’s better, (puts chair down). We need to be realistic about this though. I could probably get away with killing just one more—but after that, I might actually go to jail, so you better stick to your word!

... Now, most importantly, where can I find a sperm donor?

Jose: You’re looking at him, sweetheart.

**Okay, so maybe it didn’t happen exactly that way. But, I’ll bet I’m pretty close… sometimes dark subjects require a little humor to make it through.

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Arguments in Favor of the Casey Anthony Verdict

by Pat Brown

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Casey's Freedom May Be The Worst Punishment

by Dr. Lillian Glass

I, along with the rest of the world, am livid that Casey was found not guilty and will be released into the free world. After hearing that juror number three stated that the jurors were sick to their stomach and cried, I felt sick to my stomach hearing what she said. When she said that not guilty does not mean innocent, I realized that the wrong jury was chosen for justice to be served. Not guilty should mean innocent, and if she and the rest of the jury believed Casey was not innocent they needed to come back with a guilty verdict.

Eleven hours is not enough time to weigh all the information in a six-week trial. Juror number three and an alternate said that the Prosecution didn’t prove their case. They did not tell how her toddler Caylee died. I think the juror didn’t look at all the data. I think the prosecution did tell how she died, in my view. If they would have spent more than 11 hours they would have known this.

Based on what the alternate said and now juror number three, they liked defense attorney Jose Baez better. And please stop accusing me of loving Jose Baez and being partial to him. I only report what I see. He has presented himself well since day one, and even prosecutor Jeff Ashton said that on his media tour. Whether you like it or not, Baez came across very likable to the jury as opposed to Ashton. The bottom line is they listened to him and what he had to say and they bought it. In fact, the alternate said that the jury didn’t like it when George Anthony argued with Baez.

People do not realize the power of body language and communication. Well, here it is in action. They liked Jose Baez more and that is why they went with what he said. That is why Casey Anthony is going free on Sunday, July 17. Look at Scott Peterson. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence. Why couldn’t this happen to Casey? The reason boils down to body language and communication skills of the attorneys.

I, along with everyone else, am also livid that Casey will become a millionaire after she is released. But even if she sells photos of herself and Caylee, and even if she appears on shows, there are a lot of people who will rebel and boycott. Apparently Paradigm Entertainment in Beverly Hills signed her and had to drop her immediately because of the public complaints.

Sadly, there will be people who will offer her book and movie deals. She may be offered money for interviews through a third party so it looks like they had nothing to do with paying her for the interview. She may even make money selling Caylee dolls for which her lying mother Cindy got the trademark. Foreign entities may pay her handsomely for her interviews and photo shoots. 

Since Casey loves attention, loves to showcase her body and has no sexual inhibitions, she may very well take a porn company up on their offer. This would no doubt be in the millions of dollars. However, Steve Hirsch at Vivid Entertainment felt the pressure of even possible death threats and loss of his fan and customer base after he offered Casey a million dollars for an XXX Rated movie and quickly reneged on it. I am sure that the public’s pressure will continue with anyone who offers her money.

If mainstream TV shows put her on and interview her, the public will transfer their hatred toward Casey onto them.They will boycott any program or station that has her on television. Even if film projects arise people will boycott them. The public will not stand for her capital gain. There will be protests and threats and they will escalate. Casey will not live in peace for one moment. She may have been better off in prison where there would be more protection for her than there would be on the outside. On death row, there would be even more protection.

Now there are more people to hate her, and anything she does will be met with hatred and protest, and even possible violence. No one will ever hire her. No one will ever buy a book by her because they will boycott a book that is no doubt filled with lies. Even if she goes to the grocery store or shopping for clothes she will be met with protesters and taunts. Anyone with whom she associates or whom she dates will be taunted and regarded as a villain. If her parents are now receiving death threats for their lies and possible perceived involvement, can you imagine what will happen to Casey?

As Baez, Mason and Ms. Simms move on with their own lives and on to other cases, Casey will quickly discover that they are not her friends after all. They will want to distance themselves from her as they too experience harassment.

She can’t travel because she will be followed and harassed. Restaurants will kick her out like they did OJ Simpson. Neighbors will rebel. The clubs she once loved and frequented won’t allow her in them. She will discover that she will be prisoner in her own home. She will never have a moment of peace. People will protest outside her home forever. They may damage her vehicles. No security can stop this. By the time the protesters get through with Casey, she may wish she was sitting in a jail cell.

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Playing Chicken with Arsenic

by Deborah Blum

If I were to pick an element that just about everyone recognizes as a poison, it would be arsenic (As). As a crumbly compound called “white” arsenic or arsensic trioxide (AsO3) it became so popular as a 19th century homicidal weapon – think Mary Ann Cotton and her 20 or so victims - that it eventually earned the nickname “inheritance powder.”

Its murderous qualities have given it a starring role in successful plays or movies (Arsenic and Old Lace), in best-selling stories of murder and betrayal, such as Dorothy Sayer’s 1930 crime classic, Strong Poison, or the more recent best seller, A Reliable Wife, with its wonderfully clinical descriptions of chronic poisoning symptoms.

In fact, a person can survive low-level arsenic poisoning for quite some time. But because of the way it damages cells – breaking apart the structures that allow cellular respiration - it turns out to be a quite dangerous carcinogen.* This has been demonstrated, especially, in countries where elemental arsenic permeates rocks at high levels and seeps into ground water. In Bangladesh, for instance, a program of well-drilling begun in the 1970s, literally created an epidemic of arsenic-related cancers.

And yet, for more than 60 years, the federal regulators have approved arsenic additives to poultry feed in the United States, partly to control parasites and partly because they chemically improve the appearance of packaged chicken and turkey parts, pinking them up for consumer approval. Those of us who prefer less obviously toxic material in our chicken buckets – and this includes me – have been advocating that we rethink this policy.

At the time, I wasn’t really expecting much to change. But as it turns out, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which makes the arsenic-laced additive roxarsone, has decided to suspend its sales. Why, you wonder, after all this time? It turns out that the industry argument for keeping the compound into chicken feed was that it was a better form of arsenic, not the ever-evil inorganic white arsenic, but a less toxic material rather tidily bound up with carbon (so, in this version, an organic compound) and hydrogen.

In fact, organic arsenic is definitely less hazardous than its inorganic (carbon-free) cousin. But tests now indicate that it may convert to the more lethal inorganic form as chickens and other fowl metabolize the compound. We know this because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stepped up and ran some very nicely controlled tests showing that the bodies of birds that ate roxarsone-loaded food were consistently higher in white arsenic than those that ate feed without the additive.

As a result, Pfizer–or more specifically, its subsidiary, Alpharma, will suspend sales of roxarsone in 30 days while further tests are conducted. You’ll notice that no one is acting as if this is a major health emergency–which it isn’t. These are tiny levels of arsenic. Still–there’s a common sense health issue here–it’s always better with a metallic poison like arsenic to keep exposure to a minimum because it tends to stay in the body and could eventually add up to something more troubling.

Also, as it turns out, due to such additives poultry farms have been leaching out arsenic-contaminated wastes. The advocacy position has not been panicky, but it has been–rightly, I think–that this represents the unnecessary addition of a famed poison to the food supply.

So it’s gratifying to see the system work–or at least start to work–toward eliminating this particular additive. The FDA ran the appropriate tests; the pharmaceutical company responded as it should. The New York Times, however, pointed out that it could well be a rare triumph given our current political direction: The roxarsone study is a triumph for agency scientists but one unlikely to be repeated very often. The agency asked for $183 million in additional funds for food safety efforts next year, but House Republicans have instead proposed cutting $87 million.

Not that the House Republicans have ever listened to me, but my vote is for restoring those funds. Not to sound radical here but we need more research to help us navigate the world of industrial chemicals. Not less. And my vote is also that roxarsone stays off the market. Again, not to sound radical, but we need less arsenic in our diets. Not more.

Arsenic is so destructive that, in fact, researchers are considering several different mechanisms for the way it might cause cancer. It may create further destruction by generating reactive oxygen molecules. There’s some suggestion that it inhibits DNA repair enzymes. There may be other damaging pathways. All of which reminds us to approach with caution.

Poultry Farm photo credit  

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Defining Features

by Lisa R. Cohen

For the last two years, I’ve been in and out of prison. I’m out now, and have something to show for it – a documentary film I directed and produced called “Serving Life” that will premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on July 28. I’ll be writing about it in my next few blogs. It’s been two years in the making, and I’m mighty proud of our small production team’s heroic efforts. You can watch the promo for it here.

The film, executive produced and narrated by Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, led us to the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola, aka “the Alcatraz of the South.”

I happen to have been to Angola many times in the past, and I know the place better than many. The 26 mile property, contained on three sides by the Mississippi River (except when it floods the levies there as it did last month) is an unearthly world unto itself, a throwback to a long ago time when Angola actually was a plantation, worked by forced emigrés from the African nation it was named for.

My first visit to the maximum security prison was over 15 years ago, and when I arrived this time around, on a sweltering July day, for a week of preliminary shooting, some things had changed. Since the ‘90s, under the current Warden, Angola has had so many outside visitors, they’ve built guest cottages on the premises. So this time we literally moved into the prison. Every morning we’d leave our cozy four bedroom cabin, overlooking a lake filled with with cedar stumps and sinister looking alligators, and head to the prison hospital.

There, tucked away in a corner of a chronic care ward, a group of inmates staffed the prison hospice. Day after day, these volunteers walked the chain length enclosed path from their dorms to the hospital, to wipe a dying man’s fevered brow, change his diaper, and, finally, to hold his hand while he takes his last breath. It’s a burn-out job. In fact it’s not a job at all, it’s all-volunteer. At Angola inmates work every day; the volunteers come to hospice before and afterwards. So it’s no surprise there’s a constant need for fresh recruits.

Our mission was to follow a new crop of inmate volunteers–watch them get picked, get trained, and then find out whether they were up to the task. If a hardened criminal can be taught to perform the ultimate act of compassion, what excuse do the rest of us have?

By last summer we were in full production. That meant weeks on end watching as these men tested themselves. What they learned about themselves, we did too, and the results were both chilling and life-affirming.

The first day at the hospital, I met probably a few dozen inmates. They all looked exactly the same to me, even though at Angola they dress in street clothes, a kind of informal uniform of jeans and colorful t-shirts that advertise the various prison clubs they belong to. But their faces all blurred together, impersonal, hard-lived, and I could only identify them by their charges–murderers mostly, armed robbers, a heroin-lifer, and multiple drug offenders.

As the days passed, though, personalities emerged, and pretty soon these men defined themselves–by their past criminal acts, their current struggle to redefine themselves, and their hopes for the future. (And they all maintain hope, even the ones who are destined to die at Angola, perhaps in a hospice bed.)

I met their children, their sisters, their brothers (some serving time in another part of the prison). I watched them recoil with disgust as they started training, but then come to embrace the most grueling parts of the work. I watched them make each other laugh– and me too–because that’s what you do in real life even in the darkest times.

I spent this week filming on the start of another venture, just the first days of a long, long haul. On Monday I sat in a room in Nashville and listened as a group of women bared their painful pasts. On Monday they all looked the same to me, just like Robert and "Animal" and Stephen did two years ago.

But by yesterday, as I said goodbye and headed for the airport, I’d begun to know their stories of courage and survival. These women were taking shape to me, and their message was that much more powerful. It made me realize, once again, that this is why I do it. And that getting the chance to pass on those stories can make us all a little more human.

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