Casey Anthony acquitted of daughter’s murder

A jury has found Casey Anthony not guilty of first degree murder in the 2008 death of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. Prosecutors had alleged Anthony suffocated her daughter and left her to die in the trunk of her car, while Anthony’s lawyers claimed Caylee wasn’t murdered but accidentally drowned in the family pool. Anthony’s apparent heartlessness—prosecutors said she didn’t tell anyone about Caylee’s disappearance and partied at nightclubs rather than search for her—became the central focus of the case, transfixing American news audiences for three years. While Anthony would have faced the death penalty had she been convicted of first-degree murder, she will now face up to a year in prison for each of the four misdemeanor counts of lying to police for which she was found guilty.

CNN