Casey Anthony Can't Attend Daughter Caylee's Funeral

Dec. 23, 2008— -- Casey Anthony, the 22-year-old accused of killing her daughter, Caylee, is not eligible to attend either a funeral or a viewing of her daughter's remains, the Orange County Corrections Department says.

The department said corrections policy prevented Casey Anthony from attending, based on the severity of the charges against her and safety and security risks.

Casey Anthony was charged in October with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, who was reported missing in July. The child's remains were found Dec. 11, less than a quarter mile from the home she shared with her mother and grandparents.

No funeral has been scheduled for Caylee, who would have turned 3 in August, though her grandparents announced today that they would hold a public memorial service for the girl.

Casey Anthony is being held in the jail in Orange County, Fla.. She has pleaded not guilty.

Caylee's death was ruled a "homicide of undetermined means" by Orange County chief medical examiner Jan Garavaglia last week. The medical examiner has asked for toxicology tests to be performed on the girl's remains.

Missing Caylee Case an 'Open Wound'

The identification brought one tragic answer to a mystery that has gripped the nation since Casey Anthony reported her 2-year-old missing a month after she disappeared in June. It is not clear whether Caylee died before or after her third birthday Aug. 9.

"There's been an open wound in the community," Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said when he announced that the remains had been identified. "We can start putting some closure to those open wounds. The bottom line is, folks, no child should have to go through this."

The remains were found in a wooded area where trash and dead pets were routinely dumped.

Garavaglia said that the child's remains were scattered and "completely skeletonized," but neither she nor the sheriff would discuss what other evidence was found with the bones.

Beary said Caylee's family was notified, including her mother and her grandparents. According to Beary, the sheriff department's focus will now shift toward preparing for Anthony's homicide trial.

"This has been a long case, but it's by far not over with yet," Beary said. "We've got a lot more to do to get it ready to go to trial."

Frustrating, Curious Investigation

The case began with an emergency call from Casey Anthony's mother, Cindy Anthony, in mid-July.

On the tape, she is heard frantically telling emergency operators, "I can't find my granddaughter. ... There's something wrong. ... I found my daughter's car today and it smelled like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Casey Anthony then got on the phone and reported she may have a missing child.

Cindy Anthony later retracted that statement, saying that the smell in the car could have been from garbage.

As investigators would quickly learn, this would be the first of many twists and story changes in the curious case.

CLICK HERE for a timeline of the case of Caylee Anthony.

Casey Anthony: Lies, Half-Truths and Incomplete Information

Since their investigation was launched July 15, some Orange County officers have become well acquainted with the frustrations of following leads based on incomplete information, half-truths and what one officer said were "smoke bombs."

In the original version of events, Caylee's mother reported her missing to police, saying she had dropped the child off at a baby sitter's house June 9. When she went to pick the child up, both the child and the baby sitter had disappeared.

Casey Anthony's parents corroborated the story until a bond hearing July 25 when Cindy Anthony said that the last time she saw the child was not June 9, but June 15, and that she had just been confused.

When police questioned Casey Anthony about her daughter before her arrest, they say she misled them multiple times.

The Phantom Baby Sitter

When she took police to the apartment where she said the baby sitter Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez lived, they found that no one had lived in the apartment for five months.

At that time, lead investigator Yuri Mellich said, "I am not disregarding that this person may or may not exist, but Casey Anthony's friends and family have never met this person."

After an extensive search for Gonzalez, a woman with the same name came forward in September to tell authorities she had never met Casey Anthony or Caylee. Police cleared her of any involvement.

Casey Anthony also claimed to have worked for Universal Studios but admitted later that was not true.

The Forensics Reports

Scientists found evidence of body decomposition and traces of chloroform in Casey Anthony's car trunk, according to forensics reports released in October.

Lab reports from the FBI found that a hair strand in the trunk showed "characteristics of apparent decomposition." The hair is "microscopically similar" to hair strands found on Caylee's brush, but the report said it could not conclusively say the hair in the trunk came from the missing girl.

Casey Anthony had been considered a "person of interest" in her daughter's disappearance since mid-July after police reported in a bond hearing that they believed they found evidence of decomposition in the car.

Casey Anthony's Curious Attitude

But what unsettled investigator Padilla more than Casey Anthony's imprecise information was her overall attitude.

"She has shown no emotion," Padilla told ABCNews in July. "That's unusual. At the time of the interviews ... she didn't seem concerned and that made this case much stranger."

"She spoke to deputies like she was talking about baseball. How do you get through to someone like that?"

But Casey Anthony revealed an entire range of emotion in videos of jailhouse conversations between her and her parents, which were released Dec. 5.

In the more than 300 minutes of video released by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Casey Anthony is shown laughing, crying and growing frustrated with the investigation and her family's questions.

When her mother confronts her with Mellich's suspicions that she had had something to do with Caylee's disappearance, her daughter dodges the issue.

"Yuri [Mellich, the lead detective,] has it set in his mind. He thinks you've done something to Caylee," Cindy Anthony tells her.

At that point, her daughter gets up and, when she returns, steers the conversation in a different direction.

Casey Anthony also says that she knows the conversations are being recorded and says, "There are things [she] directly needs to say" to each of her parents.

And to her missing daughter, Caylee, Casey Anthony asks her mother to pass along a message that "Mommy loves her very much, and that she's the most important thing in this entire world to me. And to be brave."