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Casey Anthony's Psych Evaluations Released

By Jennifer Sale on | From justsayjenn.net

Told ya she'd be one of the biggest stories of 2012. Casey Anthony isn't leaving the headlines any time soon.

So rather than a leaked YouTube video or some pictures of her getting her pasta on at the Olive Garden, today Judge Belvin Perry unsealed the psychological evaluations performed on her prior to her trial last year.

Guess, what? She's not crazy. The doctor evaluating her is shocked and puzzled by this...

From The Orlando Sentinel:

Explosive accounts of Casey Anthony's life and her version of what happened to her daughter Caylee Marie almost four years ago were revealed today when a judge unsealed two never-before-seen depositions from doctors who conducted psychological evaluations on the mother before her murder trial.

The depositions of Dr. Jeffrey Danziger and Dr. William Weitz vividly describe what Anthony told her doctors about alleged sexual abuse by her father and the alleged drowning death of her 2-year-old daughter in the summer of 2008.

The experts' statements are significant because they represent the most recent version of Anthony's story about what happened to her daughter.

The Orlando Sentinel, which requested that the depositions be unsealed, is reviewing the documents now and will regularly update this story.

Weitz said Anthony felt "very comfortable" leaving Caylee with her mother, but felt her father George "was a threat to her daughter, based on what had happened to her and that would make her uncomfortable."

Weitz also described "an issue of the pool and swimming." Anthony was always very cautious before she went to sleep to make sure the pool area was secured, he said.

And "she always slept with Caylee and she was highly protective and sensitive to her." But on "the particular date in question…she was sleeping very hard, she awoke, the father was in the room and Caylee was missing."

Weitz said he thought this was June 15 or 16, 2008.

"They went to search for her and look around to no avail, and then father brought Caylee to her and she was wet – in his arms. She was wet, and she appeared to be deceased. He then took her, you know, basically, and he took Caylee out of the room from her, and she said she basically lost it at that point in time."

Weitz said when Caylee was discovered, Casey Anthony recalled her father yelling, "Look at what you did, look at what you did." He then told her "I'll take care of her," and left with Caylee.

Danziger initially was court-appointed to evaluate Anthony for competency, but in October 2010, Baez and Mason met with him about working on the case.

During his deposition with state prosecutors, Danziger explained that this was basically for "reevaluating her, seeing if, essentially, there are any psychiatric or mental health issues that would be helpful towards their defense."

Danziger interviewed Anthony a total of five times, he said.

Anthony also told the doctor a scenario of Caylee dying in the pool, but she said she didn't think the drowning was an accident.

The pool ladder, Anthony said, was too heavy. "I couldn't move it," she said.

Instead, Anthony made another allegation against her father: "I think he held her under water, maybe he was doing something to her and he tried to cover it up."

Danziger said that during the initial evaluation, "I did not find any evidence of an active mental illness. It was my opinion that she was competent to proceed and that an MMPI [a common tool used for psychological evaluation] I did was entirely normal, which was somewhat surprising."

The psychiatrist said Anthony was in a good mood, had no grandiose or paranoid delusions, no homicidal ideas and had no feelings of guilt.

Anthony was, in Danziger's opinion, "surprisingly cheerful."

His initial observation of Anthony:

"Simply this is someone who is sitting in jail. Her child is missing, presumed dead. She's – while she had not yet been charged with murder, obviously, she's charged with crimes and is being accused by the whole world in the disappearance of this child. You would expect that that would provoke some measure of distress, whether someone genuinely did it, whether someone was falsely accused, I mean, it doesn't matter. If my child was missing and I was in jail and being accused of it, I probably wouldn't eat or wouldn't be cheerful and wouldn't be able to read," Danziger recalled of the July 26, 2008 evaluation.

Danziger said he wrote in his notes that "she was not, obviously, in a manic state where she was racing around elated, grandiose and I simply found that puzzling."

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton then asked Danziger if he recalled a conversation he had with fellow Assistant State Attorney Linda Drane Burdick at the courthouse, in which he said words to the effect of, "I have no explanation for this other than she's just pure evil."

Danziger did not recall making the remark, and said his recollection of his impression of Anthony at that time was more of "puzzlement."

Both Danziger and Weitz were originally listed as defense witnesses before Casey Anthony's trial started last May. But the defense later withdrew the mental health experts as witnesses, and neither doctor ended up testifying during the trial.

Meanwhile, Weitz said Anthony "uses lies as a protective measure. She admits to not always being truthful; that for her, it's a protection." He said she was able to "compartmentalize,"

Some things, he said, "she can remain benign and unemotional about it. That's a style she has."

At one point in the Weitz deposition, he says Anthony "admits to having a flirtatious streak…In other words, at times, she's a flirt."

At another point, he said Casey Anthony described being at a party in 2004 and may have had a "spiked" drink because she "backed out."

"She believes that the child – at the time that – that's when that she was impregnated," Weitz said.

Weitz also said Anthony "never considered once she was pregnant having an abortion or having the baby put up for adoption. She wanted the child."

Sexual abuse allegations discussed

Portions of the story the doctors said Casey Anthony told them ended up being a part of defense attorney Jose Baez's shocking opening statement to jurors.

In his bombshell opening, Baez told the jury that Caylee Marie drowned in the family pool in mid-June 2008. He also said that George Anthony knew of the drowning and blamed his daughter for the child's death. Finally, Baez also claimed that Casey Anthony had been sexually abused by her father.

Those claims made in the infamous Baez opening were never substantiated at trial.

However, the substance of the Baez opening matched — to some extent — the accounts relayed during the Weitz and Danziger depositions.

Danziger told prosecutors he was "deeply troubled" by disclosing the sex abuse allegations Anthony made against her father and brother because they were not substantiated by law-enforcement.

"I am very troubled about being a vector by which statements she made may accuse others of crimes past and present. I don't know what to do," Danziger said. "I am just deeply worried that I'm doing the wrong thing."

"I have lost much sleep, lost weight, and I don't know – I want to do the right thing, and I don't know what the right thing to do is except I know we're here in the deposition and my understanding is you're entitled to it, but I feel troubled," Danziger said.

The doctor, said accusing an innocent person of sex abuse is a "terrible burden to lay on someone."

Danziger said he knew he needed to disclose what Anthony told him, but that didn't make it easier.

"I probably won't sleep for the next week," said Danziger, who then proceeded to tell attorneys what Anthony told him about her father and brother allegedly abusing her.

During his deposition, Weitz said Anthony told him "her father had physical/sexually abused her back to the age of childhood," Weitz said during one point in the deposition. "Began, basically, the age range, from eight to twelve."

"She described physical touching. She described physical touching and involvement all the way to sexual intercourse," Weitz said.

When asked about Anthony's demeanor when describing these things, Weitz said, "She was presenting it to me in a very cognitive, intellective manner stripped of almost any affect or emotion. "