The Case Against Kronk is a Crock

After watching the direct examination of Roy Kronk, the utility meter reader who found the remains of little 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in a Florida woods, I don’t know why any citizen would ever report such a discovery to the police.

Kronk stopped in the woods located within a mile of defendant’s home to relieve himself on August 11, 2008.  Although a lot of the swampy terrain was underwater from a recent tropical storm, Kronk saw something about 25 to 30 feet in the distance that caught his attention.  Later that night Kronk called the local police to report what he saw:  something white that didn’t look like it should have been there.” 


On each of the next two days, Roy Kronk made a follow up call to police to see if they found what he had seen in the woods.  On the third day, an officer met Kronk at the site.   According to Kronk’s testimony during the murder trial of Caylee’s mother Casey, the officer stood in one place, looked left, then right, took a step and slipped down into the muddy mire.  For the next 30 minutes, according to Kronk, the officer “chewed him out” for making him come out to that location made muddy by Tropical Storm Faye.
Exactly four months later, Roy Kronk again went into the same woods to relieve himself.  This time he came across the skull and skeletal remains of a young child.  They belonged to Caylee Anthony.

After watching every minute of Mr. Kronk’s testimony, I believe the man is telling the truth.  In the age-old no-good-deed-goes-unpunished tradition, instead of being credited for his tenacity while attempting to aid in the solution of the Anthony mystery, Kronk became a scapegoat and a suspect.  The defense team’s theory of defense for Casey Anthony alleges Kronk stole the child’s body from they-don’t-know-where; kept it stored in an unknown place; and dumped the remains in the woods so that he could “find” it and claim the $225K reward offered by something called the Never Lose Hope Foundation.  In my opinion, the defense failed to support the allegation.

I am reminded of the case of Richard Jewell, the man who discovered the backpack containing the pipe bomb that detonated at the 1996 Olympic Games here in Atlanta.  Jewell saved many lives and injuries that night by attempting to clear the area around the bomb before it exploded.  Wikipedia summarizes Jewell’s “reward:”

Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell later was considered a suspect.  Despite having never been charged, he underwent what was considered by many to be a "trial by media" with great toll on his personal and professional life. Eventually he was exonerated completely: Eric Robert Rudolph was later found to have been the bomber. [2][3] In 2006, Governor Sonny Perdue publicly thanked Jewell on behalf of the state of Georgia for saving the lives of those at the Olympics. [4]

It wasn’t until Eric Rudolph pled guilty to the Centennial Olympic Park bombing that Mr. Jewell was fully exonerated.  By then, it was too late for him to have any semblance of a normal life.

Richard Jewell died at the early age of 44 from so-called natural causes, but it is difficult to believe the ordeal he was put through by the FBI and the national media didn’t have everything to do with his physical and emotional ruin.  

In my opinion, the same thing has happened to Roy Kronk.  My hope is for him to find a way to go on with his life and put the grisly accusations against him behind him.  Is it any wonder that anonymous tip lines have become de rigueur in today’s criminal justice?

Photos:  cbs news

Casey Has Her Head Examined...Again

Lead defense lawyer Jose Baez halted the Orlando-based Casey Anthony trial last Saturday when he requested and got a court order from Judge Belvin Perry to have his client examined by three court-appointed psychiatrists to determine her competency to stand trial.  Hmmmm.

Feeling a lot like Angela Lansbury in an episode of the erstwhile television series “Murder, She Wrote,”  my mind’s wheels went to work to guess at the reason Mr. Baez would make such a move, and more interestingly, why the judge granted the request. 

I am no attorney – never spent five minutes in a law school classroom– but it would seem logical to me that such examinations would ordinarily take place before the trial began.  The court has put the details of these weekend events under seal, meaning we will never know definitively.  I, however, have come up with a few possibilities.

Maybe the defense has finally noticed that their case is disjointed and as full of holes as a colander.  Although in the opening statement Baez asserted that Caylee Anthony, the victim in the case, was not murdered by her mother Casey, but had accidentally drowned in the family’s swimming pool.  There was no mention, however, of how the child’s body -- which Baez claims was found and carried out of the pool Casey’s father George—got from the pool to the woods located less than a mile from the Anthony home.  There was no mention, either, of why neither George nor Casey called 911 when Caylee was found floating face-down and pulse-less in the pool.

Maybe the defense team has concluded that their strategy has no hope of succeeding unless they put Casey Anthony on the stand to testify in her own defense.  Baez alleged in the opening statement that his client has become a pathological liar, capable of fabricating non-existent nannies and bogus jobs at Universal studios because her father and her brother sexually abused her for many years.  She copes by telling well-constructed, but false stories.  If they put her on the stand, they need to be reasonably assured she understands the meaning of the oath she takes, and she can participate in her own defense.

Maybe Casey made a failed attempt at suicide on Friday night, after her brother’s testimony had the entire family in tears.  It turns out Casey Anthony was examined by psychiatrists and psychologists prior to trial.  The abrupt insertion of new examinations seems to indicate an emergent development that caused her attorneys to question her current mental status.  If not a suicide attempt, perhaps her general affect and private comments are the reason for their concern.

Whatever the cause, the examinations were made.   Based on the reports from the three professionals, the judge declared Ms. Anthony competent to stand trial.  The trial goes on…

Would You Lie Under Oath to Save Your Kid's Life?

 abc news photo

Cindy Anthony might have just fallen on the sword to save her daughter’s life.

Cindy is the grandmother of Caylee Anthony and the mother of Casey Anthony.  Casey is charged with the first degree murder of little Caylee, her own daughter.  The State of Florida believes that Casey murdered her daughter to free herself from the responsibilities of motherhood in order to freely pursue her preferred party-girl life.  The State of Florida believes Casey sedated Caylee using chloroform and subsequently suffocated the child using duct tape over her mouth and nose.

It appeared from the highly circumstantial evidence amassed by the prosecution that the deck was seriously stacked against the defendant – until this afternoon.

Cindy took the stand on behalf of the defense -- after having testified several days ago for the prosecution -- and blew the roof off the trial.   The prosecution was blindsided big time when Cindy Anthony testified it was she who in March 2008 had conducted the damning internet searches on the family desktop computer, not her daughter.  A series of searches for topics such as “how to make chloroform” “household items used for making weapons” and “neck breaking,” among others was presumed by observers of the trial to be the basis upon which the prosecution would establish the pre-meditation required to support the death penalty.

There was something about Cindy’s totally reversed demeanor on the witness stand that gave me immediate pause.  Whereas before this testimony, Cindy was an emotional mess most of her time on the stand, today she was quick to respond, almost too quick.  There was no emotion when the prosecution, visibly furious with what they say is a new twist on Cindy’s story, drilled her with references to her deposition, in which she said she had only looked up “chlorophyll.”  Today she claimed to have looked up “chloroform” but she never typed “how to make chloroform” into the search engine.  Her voice didn’t waiver.  She spoke with few fillers like um, aaaa, etc.  I thought she appeared to have been coached.

Never mind that she failed to make that distinction in her deposition.  Never mind those pesky work records that indicate Cindy was at works at the precise times that those searches were conducted on the home computer.  Cindy had an answer for everything and clearly felt she had explained all the discrepancies away.
Here’s what I want to know, from myself and from you the reader.  If you found yourself in this identical Catch22; i.e., your grandchild is lost and it appears you might lose your child to lethal injection, would you commit perjury in a capital murder case to save your kid from death row? 


There is one more bit of information you should have:  yesterday (Wednesday 6/22/11) Cindy and her husband George’s attorney let it slip to the press that Cindy and George do not believe their daughter is innocent!  It is not clear if the attorney leaked this knowledge with or without the Anthony’s permission, but today they released a clarifying statement, saying they are interested in justice, but they don’t want their daughter to be executed.

I can’t be sure how I would behave under the same circumstances, but I suspect I would risk my own fate with charges of perjury to save my son’s life, no matter what he had done.  Sure, I can say all the right things about justice being required regardless of my personal feelings.  But honestly, I would, if nothing else, consider lying under oath to save my kid’s skin.
What would you do?