Sorry but putting duct tape on a kids mouth, driving around with the dead body in a car for nearly a month while partying and whoring as the body decomposed and then burying her corpse near her parents house are not the actions of an "accident" or "panic". Waiting 31 days to file a missing child report is beyond neglect or abuse. The defense lawyer did a great job using smoke and mirror tactics to shift the focus of these heinous acts. The Prosecution team was incompetent. The media coverage only served further to break down the process of true justice being served for the only person that mattered in this case, the innocent dead child whose body was treated with less respect than last weeks trash.
Sorry as well. But nobody knows who put the duct tape on the child's mouth. The defendant's DNA was not on the tape, nor were her fingerprints. Nor was there solid proof a dead body was ever in the defendant's car. There was a lot of doubt on those points. There were other factors introduced at trial regarding these points, making it very difficult to decipher anything let alone the truth.
As for the prosecution being incompetent, that's a stong statement and likely coming from something other than your head. Like many many other comments being made all over the country, emotion is overtaking the brain.
Unless you, and those like you, are an attorney and/or watched every second of the trial from the jury box - in their shoes, condemning the prosecution and/or jury is not called for. Have an opinion, yes. Absolutely. But a level head trumps emotions nearly always.
As for my own opinion, I believe the defendant is guilty of murder. She was likely responsible, but the leap to premeditated murder is too difficult to call. I believe the coroner or another expert claimed there was no DNA from the victim - and no Chloroform on the duct tape. This indicated the duct tape was placed on the victim after the child was dead. If this is true, then it changes things dramatically as to reasonable doubt regarding premeditation.
The likelyhood it was an accidental drowning is very very unlikly. Connecting all the dots to come up with a complete understanding is extremely difficult in a case such as this. I didn't see all the evidence, and what I did see was confusing as hell. My opinion is the defendant should have gone down for the lesser charge. I would have liked to see Murder 2 on the table.
I believe the Jury simply was not able to connect the many dots they were charged with connecting. I can't blame them so much. The testimony was horrifically confusing where nothing made sense. They did what they thought was right under the law. I believe they took that job seriously and unfortunately they were not able to be convinced or add up the mathmatics, that had a million possible answers, and come to the decision most of us wanted. They were likely not evil people, and I don't think anyone thinks this was a jury nulification scenario. They don't deserve the backlash they are getting.
The whole thing is such a damn shame. Talking out of our rear ends, so to speak, doesn't help anything though.
