Casey Anthony walked free today after spending three years in an Orlando, Florida, jail having been acquitted of the murder of her two-year-old daughter Caylee Marie Anthony, as well as aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter.
Psychic links in Caylee murder case
Although she escaped the death penalty, Casey was found guilty of four misdemeanour counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer, for which she received a one-year jail sentence and a fine for each count. With credit for time served and good behaviour, Casey – who has been described by some as “America’s most hated woman” – was released in the early hours this morning, under very tight security.
Psychics, inevitably, claimed to know the whereabouts of Caylee soon after her disappearance was reported by her grandmother, Cindy Anthony, on 18 July, 2008 – a month after she had last been seen.
In fact, the help of a Virginia psychic, Ginette Matacia Lucas (left), who uses remote dowsing to locate missing people, was apparently enlisted by the defence team to search for the child and appears to have been accurate enough to take them to within 50 yards of where Caylee’s remains were eventually discovered,
According to Ginette, the grandmother sent her a teddy bear that belonged to Caylee, which she placed together with a pendulum beside her bed. She then dreamed about the location of the child’s body and phoned in the early hours of the morning to convey this information to those hired by the family to assist with the investigation.
Ginette then says she spoke with Dominic Casey (right), the family’s private investigator, on his cell phone while he searched the area she had indicated. This search was filmed by Jim Hoover, a private investigator who had volunteered his help. Dominic Casey had called Hoover on 14 November, 2008, telling him that Caylee was dead and he knew where her remains were. He did not say how he knew.
All of which indicates that Ginette Lucas came close to leading the private detectives to Caylee’s remains. In a high profile and very complex case that will be very familiar to American readers of this Blog, the psychic’s involvement may not be as clear-cut as it seems. Speculation has even suggested that Dominic Casey was not speaking to Ginette when he was searching (see Fox video below), but possibly to the person who either murdered her or disposed of her remains.
Hoover said that Dominic Casey never said who he was speaking with on his mobile phone the 15th and 16th when they searched. He has also testified that there was a close bond between the fellow private detective and Caylee’s grandmother. There is also the question why, if the remains were where the psychic indicated, they were not found by the searching investigators, but were discovered in the area a few weeks later.
In an interview with Nancy Grace, CNN Justice presenter, Ginette has publicly testified to her role in the case. It can be heard here. Gale St John, another psychic who worked with the Anthony family, led a team of psychics who drove ‘blindly’ around Orlando looking for the missing child and was subpoenaed to give evidence in court. She also claims to have come close to Caylee’s remains.
It’s a puzzling case, in which Caylee’s mother’s defence indicated that the child may have died in her grandparents’ pool and implicating her father (the girl’s gransdather), George Anthony, in disposing of the body. While the jury found there was not enough evidence to charge either Casey, the American public are clearly angry with the verdict.
I suspect it’s a case we’ll be hearing a lot more about in the future, though whether that sheds any more light on the involvement of psychics remains to be seen.