Closing arguments in the Jason Young trial

I did not want to get too busy by following the Casey Anthony trial to not bring back the story of beautiful Michelle Young. Today the closing arguments against her husband Jason Young have been completed and I believe at 2:30 pm the case will go to the jury.

The defense's closing was very technical and a shake off of the evidence.

But the prosecution came back strong with the full story and the DNA on the rock that Jason used to prop open the exit door of the motel he was staying at so that he would not be seen returning in the early morning hours after driving home to murder his pregnant wife.

Below was my latest blog post on this case.



It has been 3 years since the brutal murder of Michelle Young and her unborn son Rylan on the night of November 3, 2006.

Jason Young's life since that night has been filled with bad luck and has not been what I imagine he planned it would be after killing his wife and unborn baby. I bet he thought he would be free to frequent gay bars and continue to sleep with Michelle's college friends while at the very same time spend the insurance money he had placed on Michelle and was waiting to collect.

Instead he has spent the last few years almost in hiding. He lost custody of his now 5 year old daughter to his in laws and was found responsible for Michelle's death in civil case where he was ordered to pay Michelle's family millions of dollars.

It is so gratifying to read that Jason has finally been arrested and charge with the murder of Michelle Young.

On Monday, December 14th it took one of two investigators just 20 minutes to convince a grand jury to charge Jason Young with the premeditated murder of his wife. This tells me that investigators spent three years building a solid case against this monster and it will finally be worth the wait.

No bond has yet been set which confirms that he will spend Christmas behind bars where he belongs.

Three years ago Michelle was found bludgeoned to death on her bedroom floor by her sister who was urged by Jason Young to go over to the home. It was always clear to me he did so in order to have Michelle's body discovered and to get his then 2 year old daughter rescued from an empty house and bloody crime scene.

The unbelievable notion that this man killed his pregnant wife so violently while his little daughter was at home is simply cruel and warrants the death penalty. He then left his baby girl in the house with his beaten lifeless wife on the floor.

Jason claimed he was traveling on a business trip and left his home while Michelle had company, instead he drove to a hotel a few hours away and checked in, changed his clothes and drove back to his home, where he entered, possibly surprising Michelle and then beating her. At some point his daughter entered the bloody room leaving her footprints in several areas.

It is suspected Jason cleaned his daughter's feet off, changed her clothes and gave her a heavy dose of Tylenol hoping she would sleep through the night (she was found the very next day with clean clothes and feet). He then fled the home and began his drive to his parent's house.

The very next morning Jason Young called his sister in law and left her several messages to go over to his home to retrieve a fax detailing a gift for Michelle that he wanted to keep a surprise. Michelle's sister did not understand his urgency and took her time getting there, and when she did she found her sister murdered and her niece alone.

Jason Young refused to cooperate with police from the very beginning.

I look forward to seeing the other evidence against Jason and seeing him finally pay the piper.

Read Previous Blog Post on this story:

Jason Young Unraveling of a Murder

The Murder of Michelle Young

Caylee Marie Anthony

Three years ago tomorrow, June 16th, Caylee Marie Anthony died. Her mother Casey Anthony is currently on trial for the first degree murder of Caylee. Today the prosecution rested it's case against the defendant.

It is disturbing that the defense will present their case on the very day both the prosecution and defense agree Caylee died.

After the prosecution rested I was disappointed about the amount of detail their case left out. I know more than I'd like to admit about this case, some may say I became obsessed with it after seeing the first pictures of Caylee in the news. It doesn't feel like it has been three years. The details that were left out in retrospect seemed important, but after some thought I realized the reasons for omitting them were clear.

It is the claim/theory of the defense that on June 16th 2008 both Casey and George Anthony were home alone with Caylee. At some point George asked Casey,"Where is Caylee?" After searching the home, both father and daughter found themselves in the backyard where to their horror they found Caylee floating it the pool. The defense claims in their opening statement that Casey took Caylee into her arms and "cried and cried and cried" while George screamed "Look what you did! Your mother will never forgive you! You will go to jail for child neglect"

The defense doesn't claim either one of them tried CPR on the child, none of them attempted to call 911 or call anyone for help. Actually the defense ends their tale there, no explanation of what came next. They alluded to the theory that George Anthony took the body and "handled it" by placing duct tape on it to stage something of a kidnapping, then they jump to Roy Kronk, the meter reader who found Caylee's body and claim he at some point gained possession of Caylee's body and hid it until a reward was announced for Caylee's recovery. It is fair to write here as fact that there was NO reward for the recovery of Caylee's remains, there was ONLY a reward for recovering a LIVE Caylee. To make this fact seem insignificant the defense suggest Roy Kronk didn't read the "fine print" about Caylee having to be alive.

I think if a man goes through the trouble of stealing the dead corpse of a child with amazing intel on where that child was secretly placed, that he would read and reread the reward specifics.

To explain Casey's many many lies (she lied 90 times during detective questioning at universal- yes I counted) they came up with sexual abuse by her father. That he was abusing her from the age of 8 and because of this Casey was "taught" to lie.

Jurors are not supposed to take opening statements as evidence and opening statements cannot be referred to as fact during the trial, lawyers have to introduce evidence in order to bring in the information.

I now understand why the state left out some of the witnesses and details I so wanted to see, such as:

Witness Roy Kronk - I thought why not bring Kronk up to address the defense claim that he stole the body, hid it and then placed it in the woods, called 911 in order to claim the reward? The state was brilliant here. Since the defense's opening statement is not fact, had the prosecution referred to it, then it would have opened the door for the defense to openly address the Kronk connection during their cross examination and further their claim. Instead the defense will be forced to call Kronk as their own witness and when they do they can't refer to their opening statement and will not be able to asked those key questions.

Witness Jesse Grund - I thought Jesse would have been a great witness he was Casey's fiancé who she lied to and named the father of Caylee. Jesse Grund wanted a paternity test and found out he wasn't the father. Casey lied to him many times. However, Casey did tell Jesse that she was abused by her brother Lee. She also told Jesse that she found a nanny named Zanny who would take care of Caylee after the Grund's could no longer babysit, which was when Caylee was a year old. The state was wise to avoid Grund as they would have again introduced the abuse mentioned in the opening statement.

Another item not mentioned:
Casey's diary of days - from her Myspace
“On the worst of worst days, remember the words spoken
Trust no one, only yourself.
With great power, comes great consequence.
What is given can be taken away.
Everyone Lies.
Everyone Dies.”
- I think this could not be introduced as Casey would have to explain what it meant.

The syringe found at the body site: this syringe was in a Gatorade bottle and had chloroform in it, it also had testosterone. I wonder why this was not introduced as evidence, this to me was huge. I guess explaining the testosterone would have been difficult.

The prosecution's evidence is overwhelming even without these tidbits and I look forward to their rebuttal of the defense's case. Today we learned the motive was the Casey vs. Cindy Anthony relationship. I daughter who did not want her own mother to have the satisfaction of taking custody of her child but also did not want her child to be a burden on her lifestyle. So she did what she had to do to avoid both.

Below are my thoughts on some evidence that folks are saying the prosecution lacked or were weak on.

No fingerprint on the duct tape?: - well since the tape was on the face of the decomposing child the "sticky" part was completely gone as was testified in court. No sticky part to preserve the fingerprint. The lack of the print isn't surprising and it doesn't mean it wasn't there at one time.

Only one Caylee hair in the entire trunk?: Considering little Caylee was bagged three times I am surprised and impressed that they found that one hair. That one hair was identified as having the death band from a decomposing Caylee.

No cause of death or proof of chloroform poisoning: the body was in the woods for 6 months, during which a storm came through Florida, the body was reduced to bones, there was no tissue to test for poisoning, no lungs to test for drowning, no neck to show strangulation and no internal organs. As Dr. G stated gathering information on poisoning from dry bones is rare and difficult. However extremely "shockingly" high levels of chloroform were found in the defendant's trunk along with coffin wax, paper towels drenched with adipose and coffin flies. Not to mention her over 30 visits to the chloroform page from her search for how to make chloroform in google.

I believe the defense will call Casey Anthony to the stand. I hope they do.