Casey Anthony Reveals New Theory for Caylee's Death

Casey Anthony detailed sex accusations against father and brother.

ByABC News
January 11, 2012, 1:08 PM

Jan. 11, 2012 — -- In jailhouse interviews with two psychiatrists, Casey Anthony revealed yet a different theory for how her 2-year-old daughter Caylee may have died.

Anthony, 25, told two doctors in separate interviews that she suspects her father George Anthony took the little girl from the bed mother and daughter shared, had some sort of sexual episode with her, and then drowned her to cover it up.

"She said, 'I think he held her underwater, maybe he was doing something to her and he tried to cover it up,'" Dr. Jeffery Danziger recalled Anthony saying in his deposition that was released today.

Anthony told Danziger that she called her mother Cindy Anthony four times, but could not reach her. It was not until several hours later that her mother called back and, at that point, a shocked Anthony "froze."

"I hoped he'd step up to be my dad and take responsibility," she told Danziger.

Danziger said Anthony implied that her father's eventual suicide attempt was, "his way out of the grief or guilt and I'm left to take the wrap [sic]."

"This was said with a measure of anger," the doctor said, and said she added, "I'll be damned if I take responsibility for this."

George Anthony's attorney Mark Lippman issued a statement today saying that Anthony was "made aware of these statements in the deposition prior to the trial of his daughter in 2011 and no new information has been disclosed today."

"As he has repeatedly said prior to the trial, during the trial and after the trial he never molested any member of his family including Casey Anthony and he had nothing to do with the death of Caylee Marie Anthony including what happened to her remains after she allegedly drowned," Lippman wrote.

Casey Anthony's Other Theory for Daughter's Murder

Anthony conceded to the doctor that she eventually told her mother "everything but the truth," but couldn't explain why. She said that she really didn't know at the time what had ultimately happened to Caylee.

"I was hoping she [Caylee] was somewhere, that she was still okay," Danziger recalled her saying.

For months after Anthony was confronted with Caylee's disapearance, Casey Anthony insisted her daughter had been kidnapped by a fictitious babysitter. At the opening of her murder trial, her lawyer admitted the child hadn't been kidnapped, but had drowned in the family's pool.

Anthony was acquitted of killing Caylee during a sensational trial last summer.

In interviewing Anthony, Danziger was repeatedly struck by her upbeat mood. At one point he said during the deposition, "What puzzled me was why is she so blasted cheerful."

Both psychiatrists noted in their depositions noted Anthony's unusually calm demeanor as she spoke about her daughter's death and her accusation that she was molested by her father and brother.

Danziger recounted his "puzzlement" with Anthony's "nice, sweet and pleasant demeanor" as she sat behind bars as the prime suspect in the death of her daughter.

"Her demeanor, the best way to say it, is she was calm, cooperative and pleasant as if we were discussing someone who had a parking ticket," Danziger said in an April 7, 2011 deposition.

He notes that she was in a good mood, reading books, sleeping fine and had a good appetite.

"No feeling of guilt, not hopeless," he said.

"This is someone who is sitting in jail. Her child is missing, presumed dead," Danziger said. "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 the child. You would expect that that would provoke some measure of distress."

The second psychiatrist who interviewed Anthony, Dr. William Weitz, also noticed her lack of emotion over Caylee disappearance.

He noted Anthony's "complete separation of emotion and affect from the various questions that she's asked to respond to."

"She seems detached from a lot of her feeling and emotion, even in times that one might expect they'd be more reactive and intense," Weitz said.

Weitz said that her reactions could be construed as defense mechanisms, possibly related to her accusations of years of sexual abuse from her father George Anthony and her brother Lee Anthony.

In her interviews with the doctors she detailed accusations of sex abuse that were mentioned during her murder trial.

She said her father molested her from age 8 to 11 which Danziger recorded as "disgusting, demeaning, intercourse, oral, everything."

Although the father reportedly stopped when she was 11 or 12, she claimed her brother Lee molested her from age 12 to 15. "Sometimes wake up to him or wake up bra over my head or unclasped. Wake up once his hands on my chest," the doctor read from his notes from the interview with Anthony.

She claimed that her father assaulted her again when she was 18. "Tried to fight back when I was older. I'm not a big person," the doctor quoted her as saying.

Anthony described to Weitz the years of the alleged sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her father and brother. Anthony told the doctor she never told anyone about her father's abuse, but told her mother about the alleged abuse from her brother.