lI don’t intend this blog to deal only with child deaths, so don’t read too much into this first blog, other than the fact that all aspects of human behaviour interest me and how people interact with their children is one of those aspects.

Obviously I’m not the only one with an interest in this. Opening up the digital version of the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, the main story was this

http://www.smh.com.au/world/casey-anthony-found-not-guilty-of-killing-daughter-20110706-1h14z.html

the story of Casey Anthony who has now been found not guilty of killing her two year old daughter, Caylee, three years ago. While the jury found Casey not guilty of murdering Caylee, they did find her guilty of at least four counts of lying to police. Each of these counts has the potential for up to 12 months of jail time and she is due to be sentenced by the judge on Thursday.

As usual in a trial of this kind it seems impossible to separate out the truth from the fiction – both the prosecution and the defence put forward their own “stories” which were just that – stories. The only facts we can be sure of are that Caylee is dead and it appears from Casey’s actions (including getting a “dolce vita” tattoo and continuing to party hard after her daughter’s death) that she wasn’t too distraught about that.

Thrown in to the mix is the Defence’s claim that Casey was traumatised as a result of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  When I follow events like this, I can understand why people are so interested in true crime stories. Who needs fiction?!