The prosecution in the Casey Anthony murder trial concluded their closing arguments today by claiming that Casey Anthony sacrificed her daughter, Caylee, to live a life free of the restraints of young motherhood.
"Casey Anthony decided on June 16 [2008] that something had to be sacrificed, that the conflict between the life that she wanted and the life that was thrust upon her was simply irreconcilable and something had to give," Prosecutor Jeff Ashton said.
"She took her child, she took her life and she put her in the trunk and forgot about her. After a couple of days, she couldn't forget any more and she disposed of her body in a swamp," Ashton said.
"She is guilty of murder in the first degree, and that murder was premeditated," Ashton said, elements that would qualify Casey Anthony for the death penalty.
Ashton started his presentation with a video of a giggling Caylee playing with her mother. He then detailed the 25-year-old Florida woman's elaborate lies about working at Universal Studios and having fictional friends and lovers.
When Caylee first disappeared in June 2008, she lied that a fictional nanny was taking care of her. Eventually, Casey Anthony claimed that the nanny had kidnapped Caylee. The prosecution argued that Anthony chose to murder her daughter, Caylee, when she became old enough to talk and might reveal her mother's lies.
"The only way Casey's lies work is if Caylee isn't talking. Caylee is two and a half, almost 3. She's starting to become verbal. She's starting talk. Caylee is not going to cooperate," Ashton said.
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Ashton did not show graphic photos of Caylee's skull, but showed pictures of the things found with Caylee's remains when they were discovered on Dec. 11, 2008 in a wooded and swampy area near the Anthony family home.
Caylee's remains were found in a canvas bag with a Winnie the Pooh blanket, a Gatorade bottle with a syringe, black plastic trash bags, remnants of plaid shorts, the lettering of a shirt that once read "Big Trouble Comes Small," and duct tape. The prosecution argued that the three pieces of duct tape found on Caylee's skull were the murder weapon.
Updated evidence photos from the Casey Anthony murder trial
"There is no good reason to put duct tape over the face of a child," Ashton said. "You need three [pieces of duct tape] because your purpose is not to simply silence the child, your purpose is to make sure the child cannot breathe."
Ashton argued that Anthony also used chloroform to kill her daughter.
"We can only hope that the chloroform was used before the tape was applied so that Caylee went peacefully without feeling, but go she did and she died because she could not breathe. She died becasue she had three pieces of duct tape over her nose and mouth, and she died because her mother decided that the life she wanted was more important," Ashton said.
The prosecution rejected the defense's theory that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family pool and that her body was found by her grandfather George Anthony who then helped dispose of the body. Ashton cited a suicide note George Anthony wrote in a failed attempt to kill himself in January 2009, weeks after Caylee's remains had been found.
"George Anthony was ready to end his life to be with Caylee and that note, when you read that note...there is absolutely no way that man who wrote that note knew anything about what happened to his granddaughter, and that's what was killing him," Ashton said.
Read George Anthony's Suicide Letter
Ashton hammered to jurors the testimony of Dr. Arpad Vass, the renowned scientist who studies the odor of death. Vass said that a carpet sample from Casey Anthony's Pontiac Sunfire reeked so much of human decomposition, it made him step back in surprise.
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