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Casey Anthony Breaks Her Silence and Iterates her Innocence

Casey Anthony has addressed the public, for the first time since the trial, about the death of her two-year-old daughter. The Florida woman, who made headlines when for nearly a month she failed to report that her daughter was missing, and claimed to have not been involved with her death, nevertheless avoided charges of murder on the defense that she did witness the death of her daughter in their pool, and she and her husband, in order to avoid misunderstandings from police, disposed of the body. Her husband denied the veracity of the account.

“Obviously I didn’t kill my daughter,” Anthony said to CNN’s Piers Morgan, on an interview he later related second hand. “If anything, there’s nothing in the world I’ve ever been more proud of, and there’s no one I loved more than my daughter. She’s my greatest accomplishment.”

Though acquitted of her murder charges, Anthony was convicted of four counts of lying to investigators, rendering a sentence that was already paid for by the time she had already spent in jail. As of July 17, she was a free woman, leaving the jail amidst a crowd crying out that she was a “baby-killer,” to later slip into seclusion for, as she says, concern for her personal safety.

“I’m 26 now, and I’ve gone through hell,” she said, also saying, “The caricature of me that is out there, it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Looking back on her life before the incident, she said, “I’m ashamed in many ways of the person that I was. Even then, that wasn’t who I am.”

As for the heavily publicized images of her partying recklessly, the defense made a claim that this was her way of handling her feelings, after having been sexually abused by her father — charges that were also vehemently denied, this time by her father, George Anthony.

She is also serving a year of probation related to a check fraud conviction in 2010 — but otherwise intends to stay in her seclusion.

Daniel June: Daniel June studied English literature at Michigan State University, graduating in 2003. Working a potpourri of jobs since, from cake-decorator to proofreader, his passion has always been writing, resulting in books of essays, novels, and children’s novellas.