Casey Anthony's Case: A Timeline of Her Murder Trial and Life After Acquittal

Mar. 15, 2025

Casey Anthony in court.Photo:El Nuevo Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty

El Nuevo Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty

The story ofCasey Anthonyand her daughterCayleehas captivated the country ever since the toddler wasfirst reported missing in July 2008.

The saga began on July 15, 2008, whenCindy Anthony, Casey’s mother, phoned police to report that her 2-year-old granddaughter, Caylee, had been missing for a month.

With the world watching, that phone call set off a painstaking search for the missing toddler — and an intense investigation into her then-22-year-old mother, Casey. Probes into Casey’s cell phone, computer and vehicle resulted in several damaging findings, including internet searches for chloroform and neck-breaking, as well as traces of chloroform and human decomposition in the trunk of her car. As a result, Caseywas charged with first degree murderin October 2008. Two months later, Caylee’s skeletal remains were found in a wooded area less than one-third of a mile from the Anthony family home in Florida.

Now,George Anthonyis speaking out against his daughter’s allegations — and putting his story to the test. On the new A&E true crime reality showCasey Anthony’s Parents: The Lie Detector Test(which premiered on Jan. 4),George and Cindy take lie detector testson camera — while recounting their version of events surrounding Caylee’s disappearance and death.

From the disappearance of Caylee to Casey’s controversial acquittal, here’s a timeline of Casey Anthony’s case, murder trial and life today.

June 16, 2008: Casey Anthony and her daughter Caylee leave the family’s Florida home

Caylee Anthony. Casey Anthony.Orlando Sentinel/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Getty; Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Getty

Casey’s case began in June 2008, when she left the Anthony family home in Florida with her then 2-year-old daughter Caylee. She didn’t return for 31 days.

Caylee Anthony.Orlando Sentinel/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty

Orlando Sentinel/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty

30 days after Casey and Caylee left the family home, Casey’s mother, Cindy reported Caylee missing to police.

“I’ve found out that my granddaughter has been taken,” Cindy frantically told the dispatcher. “She has been missing for a month. Her mother had finally admitted that she had been missing.”

“There is something wrong,” she continued. “I found my daughter’s car today and it smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car.”

July 16, 2008: Casey Anthony is arrested

July 22, 2008: Casey Anthony is declared a “person of interest” in Caylee’s disappearance

Later that month, police named Casey as a “person of interest” in the investigation surrounding her daughter’s disappearance.

October 14, 2008: Casey Anthony is indicted on first-degree murder charges

Casey Anthony in court on June 9, 2011.Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty

On Oct. 14, 2008, a Florida grand juryindicted Casey on first-degree murder chargesin connection with Caylee’s death (though her body had yet to be found) — charges that carried a potential death sentence.

December 11, 2008: Caylee Anthony’s skeletal remains are found near the Anthony family home

Kronk later testified during Casey’s murder trial and said he had seen a white object in the same location that he was “99.99 percent sure” was a human skull in August 2008 — four months before Caylee’s remains were found. After calling the police the next day and meeting the deputy at the scene, Kronk testified, “The officer looked one way and then the other. Then he berated me for a half hour for wasting his time.”

When Kronk was in the same area in December 2008, he stumbled on Caylee’s remains, recalling on the stand, “I did not know what it was. I never lifted it off the ground. That was a very horrific thing for me to find, obviously.”

His testimony differed from previous depositions where he claimed the skull had fallen out of a bag he lifted four feet above the ground.

May 24, 2011: Casey Anthony’s murder trial begins

Case Anthony in court in 2010.

The prosecution, meanwhile, focused on Casey’s various lies to both her parents and police, as well as mounting circumstantial evidence — including incriminating Google searches for terms like “how to make chloroform” on the family’s computer.

“No one makes an accident look like murder,” Jeff Ashton, then the state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, said to the jury.

July 5, 2011: Casey Anthony is found not guilty of murder but convicted on misdemeanor charges

Casey Anthony on July 5, 2011.Red Huber-Pool/Getty

Red Huber-Pool/Getty

On July 5, 2011, the12-person jury found Casey not guiltyon all serious charges, including first-degree murder, manslaughter and child abuse. She was convicted, however, on four counts of lying to the police.

July 7, 2011: Casey Anthony is sentenced to four years in prison

Two days after the judge delivered the verdict, Casey was sentenced to four years in prison and a $4,000 fine.

July 17, 2011: Casey Anthony is released from prison

Casey Anthony as she is released from jail in 2011.

2016: Casey Anthony creates a photography business

In 2016, shelaunched her own photography business, Case Photography, but had “done very few projects,” a source told PEOPLE at the time.

PEOPLE’s sources also claimed Casey still resided in Florida at the time and received financial support from some members of the legal team.

“She’s got enough money to live, but not enough to really do anything,” a source said. “She sort of lives like an old person, on a fixed income without much going on in her life. She’s bored, and she complains about boredom all the time.”

March 2017: Casey Anthony speaks for the first time since her acquittal

The following year,Casey broke her silencefor the first time since her acquittal with a series of interviews given to the Associated Press. She continued to assert that she did not know what happened to Caylee in the final moments of her life.

“I don’t give a s— about what anyone thinks about me, I never will,” Casey told the outlet. “I’m okay with myself, I sleep pretty good at night.”

She added, “I understand the reasons people feel about me. I understand why people have the opinions that they do. I’m still not even certain as I stand here today about what happened.”

October 2019: Casey Anthony’s father George says he is “ready to forgive” his daughter

George and Cindy Anthony in 2009.Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty

Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty

TheAnthony family was left fracturedfrom Caylee’s tragic death and Casey’s subsequent murder trial. In 2018 — 10 years after Caylee’s disappearance — Casey was no longer speaking to either of her parents and had limited contact with her brother, Lee. At the time, George revealed in an appearance onDr. Ozthathis relationship with his daughter was irreparably broken.

“We’re not connected anymore,” he said on the show. “And that hurts. I wish I could be part of her life, but I would never feel comfortable around her. I can’t trust her.”

However, in 2019, George appeared to soften his stance towards Casey. In another appearance onDr. Ozin October 2019, he revealed he was“ready to forgive” his daughter.

December 2020: Casey Anthony attempts to create a private investigation business

In December 2020, shefiled paperwork to start her own private investigation businesscalled Case Research & Consulting Services LLC. However, state records revealed that she does not have a Florida private investigator’s license — and as a convicted felon, she will not be able to obtain one.

That wasn’t deterring Casey, though, a source told PEOPLE at the time. Though the company was in the “very early stages,” Casey had “big plans” to help other people facing serious legal charges.

“She knows what it’s like to be accused of something that she didn’t do,” the insider explained. “She wants tohelp other wrongfully accused people, especially women, and help them get justice.”

November 2022: Casey Anthony appears in the docuseriesCasey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies

Casey Anthony during her 2022 docuseries.

Casey’s statements about what happened to Caylee have been inconsistent since the first days of the investigation in 2008 — but she has always maintained that she had nothing to do with her daughter’s disappearance.

But then, in the 2022 Peacock docuseriesCasey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies, Casey provided a detailed account of what she alleges happened when Caylee died. In her first on-camera interviews, Caseyplaced the blame solely on her father, George.

“He was standing there with her,” she said in the docuseries. “She was soaking wet. He handed her to me. Said it was my fault. That I caused it. But he didn’t rush to call 911 and he wasn’t trying to resuscitate her. I collapsed with her in my arms. She was heavy, and she was cold.”

Casey added, “He takes her from me and he immediately softens his tone and says ‘It’s going to be ok.’ I wanted to believe him. He took her from me and he went away.”

According toCasey’s 2022 account, she believed Caylee was alive over the next 31 days and was following her father’s instructions to behave as normally as possible. She also speculated in the interview that George may have staged Caylee’s drowning in order to cover up that he had been abusing his granddaughter — but admitted that she didn’t know for sure. (George, who denied Casey’s claims of abuse in court and was never charged, was“outraged and appalled”at his daughter’s latest allegations.)

The only wrongdoing Casey admitted to in the documentary was being dishonest to investigators.

“I lied,”she said. “My lies always have a kernel of truth in them. But I lied, because that’s what I was told to do.”

Cindy and George Anthony.

Casey’s claims about George in the 2022 docuseriesCasey Anthony: Where the Truth Liesleft him“outraged and appalled," according to a source close to the Anthony family.

“George is keeping a pretty strong exterior, but this tears him up,” the source said. “He still loves his daughter, and he loved his granddaughter. So this is beyond difficult for him.”

In 2022,Alexandra Dean, the producer ofWhere the Truth Lies, revealed toBuzzfeed Newsthat while Casey still does not speak to her father, she does have limited contact with her mother Cindy and brother Lee.

“Casey does talk to her mom and her brother,” Dean said. “She doesn’t talk to them often, and I wouldn’t call their relationship close, but they do communicate.”

January 4, 2024: Casey Anthony’s parents take lie detector tests about their granddaughter’s disappearance and death on camera

Over a year after Casey’s bombshell allegations in the Peacock docuseries, her parents, George and Cindy, put their answers regarding their granddaughter’s disappearance and death to the test.

The couple participated in the A&E seriesCasey Anthony’s Parents: The Lie Detector Test, which premiered on Jan. 4, 2024, where they took polygraph tests on camera.

In one clip, Cindy said she believes her daughter"100%" knows what happened to Caylee. “Yes I believe, 100%. And I kept hoping upon hope that she would confess,” Cindy revealed in the special. “And that’s the only reason I put myself through all of her drama and everything.”

March 1, 2025: Casey Anthony joins TikTok, claiming she’s a “legal advocate”

Casey announced the launch of her TikTok and her Substack newsletter, saying in a video that if she wanted to be a “legal advocate,” she needed to “advocate for myself and also advocate for my daughter.”

“As a proponent for the LGBTQ community, for legal community, women’s rights, I feel that it’s important that I use this platform that was thrust upon me and now look at as a blessing, as opposed to the curse that it has been since 2008," she said.

source: people.com