Casey Anthony looked wistfully at her one time boyfriend Tony Lazzaro as he
described in an Orlando court today how their burgeoning relationship began on
Facebook just weeks before her daughter Caylee disappeared.
Lazzaro was the last of eight witnesses to testify in the second day of
Anthony’s first degree murder trial. Ex-roommates and a group of women who
worked at a nightclub that Anthony frequented also testified. Prosecutors
entered into evidence several photos of Anthony at the nightclub, creating a
veritable scrapbook of Anthony’s clubbing during the month that her daughter was
missing.
Anthony, 25, faces a battery of charges related to the disappearance and
death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. She faces first degree murder,
aggravated manslaughter of a child, aggravated child abuse and providing false
information to law enforcement. She is facing the death penalty if convicted of
the most serious charge.
Lazzaro, a college student and party promoter in 2008 when Caylee
disappeared, said Anthony was a “pretty girl” and said that the two “hit it
off.” He said he would sometimes play hooky from school and hang out with
Anthony in the early days of their romance.
“[We] stayed in my bedroom,” Lazzaro said.
Photos of the couple submitted into evidence show a beaming Anthony sitting
on his lap at a nightclub days after Caylee disappeared, although authorities
had not been alerted that the girl was missing.
Lazzaro said Anthony never said Caylee was missing and her disposition never
changed.
Lazzaro testified that on one of their first meetings, Caylee and Casey
Anthony went to the pool at his apartment building. He said that Anthony
disciplined Caylee like “any mother would do” when she got too close to the
pool.
Witnesses Testify Casey Anthony Was a Party Girl
The testimony came a day after the
bombshell claim by Anthony’s lawyer who abandoned the story that Caylee had
been kidnapped by a babysitter and said Caylee drowned on June 16, 2008 in the
family pool. The lawyer said that Anthony hid that fact in a bizarre emotional
quirk that was the result of alleged sexual abuse by her father.
Lazzaro was about to say that the two became close enough that she shared
secrets about her family, but when defense lawyer Jose Baez started to ask
whether those secret involved Anthony’s father, Judge Belvin Perry cut off
questioning on that point. Anthony’s defense team claims that she was sexually
abused by her father, George Anthony, and brother, Lee Anthony. Lazzaro has
previously stated in a deposition that Anthony spoke of being physically abused
by her father.
Size
Mason for her trial at the Orange County Courthouse, Wednesday, May 25, 2011 in
Orlando, Fla. Anthony is on trial for the murder of her 2-year-old daughter
Caylee in 2008.
Casey Anthony moved in with her boyfriend and his roommates in the month that
her daughter Caylee vanished, partying
with them, even competing in a hot body contest, while telling them Caylee
was at Disney World and a beach with her babysitter, witnesses testified.
“She seemed like a fun party girl, someone that would probably get along well
with our group of friends,” said roommate Roy “Clint” House of his first meeting
with Casey Anthony.
The prosecution questioned the roommates along with women who worked as “shot
girls” at a bar frequented by Anthony. The testimony appeared intended to depict
Anthony as a woman who exhibited no remorse over Caylee’s death or
disappearance, and instead reveled in no longer having to care for Caylee.
Ashleigh
Banfield’s Live Tweets From Casey Anthony Courtroom
The prosecution does not have a cause of death for Caylee and its case will
consist largely of circumstantial
evidence that includes Anthony’s behavior during the days after Caylee died
and forensic evidence of human decomposition in Anthony’s car.
Casey Anthony would frequently cook for the three men and do laundry, the men
testified. She’d party with them at night, helping to promote the club two of
them worked with called Fusion.
“She would come home sometimes and be drunk,” said Cameron Campana, one of
the roommates.
They said that Anthony competed in the hot body contest at Fusion four days
after Caylee died or disappeared. Prosecutors also admitted as evidence photos
of Anthony at the club with the roommates and women who worked handing out shots
at the club. The women described Anthony as nice and said that she acted as a
manager of the “shot girls.”
“She always made sure that we were OK, that we were taken care of and that we
weren’t in harm’s way at all,” said Jamie Realander.
Erica Gonzalez testified that Anthony compared how protective she was with
them with how she mothered her daugther, Caylee.
“She was normal…she was like us…she had a great time. She was always happy.
She always treated everyone with kindness,” said Erica Gonzalez.
The three former roommates said that they never heard Casey Anthony talk to
2-year-old Caylee on the phone or to Caylee’s alleged babysitter once she moved
into the roommates’ building called Sutton Place Apartments.
The roommates said that Anthony never appeared anxious and said that Caylee
was with a nanny. When Casey Anthony got a phone call, she’d take it outside of
the apartment.
“When she started staying with us regularly, we stopped seeing Caylee,” House
testified.
Remnants of the toddler’s things, a Pink Panther DVD and book, littered the
apartment, Campana testified.
Another roommate, Nathan Leziewicz said that Anthony claimed to work as an
event coordinator for Universal Studios, but the roommates never saw Anthony get
ready for work and tickets to a “Batman” movie premiere that Anthony promised
never materialized.
Casey Anthony’s elaborate stories about working at Universal Studios and
having a nanny were determined to be false, according to the prosecution.
A neighbor of the Anthony family said that Casey Anthony borrowed a shovel
from him two days after Caylee was last seen alive.
“She said she wanted to borrow a shovel to dig up a bamboo root,” said Brian
Burner.
Burner also said he noticed that Anthony backed her car into the garage on
June 16, 2008, the day the defense claims Anthony drowned.
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