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Casey Anthony was found not guilty Tuesday of killing her two-year-old daughter three years ago in a case that captivated the U.S. as it played out on national television from the moment the toddler was reported missing.
Anthony wept after the clerk read the verdict, which jurors reached after less than 11 hours of deliberation over two days. The 25-year-old was charged with first-degree murder, which could have brought the death penalty if she had been convicted.
Instead, she was convicted of only four counts of lying to investigators looking into the June 2008 disappearance of her daughter Caylee. The girl's body was found in the woods six months later and a medical examiner was unable to determine how she died.
Anthony will be sentenced by the judge on Thursday and could receive up to a year in jail for each count she was convicted on. She has already spent almost three years in jail awaiting trial.
Prosecutors contended that Caylee was suffocated with duct tape by a mother who loved to party, tattooed herself with the Italian words for "beautiful life" in the month her daughter was missing and crafted elaborate lies to mislead everyone from investigators to her own parents.
Captivated observers camped outside the courthouse to jockey for coveted seats in the courtroom gallery, which occasionally led to fights among those desperate to watch the drama unfold.
After the verdict was read, Casey Anthony hugged her attorney, Jose Baez, and later mouthed the words "thank you" to him.
Prosecutors sat solemnly in their seats, looking stunned. Prosecutor Jeff Ashton shook his head slightly from side to side in apparent disbelief. Across the room, Anthony's father wiped tears from his eyes. Without speaking to their daughter, he and his wife left the courtroom escorted by police as the judge thanked the jury.
"While we're happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case," Baez said at a news conference afterward. "Caylee has passed on far, far too soon. And what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey, because Casey did not murder Caylee. It's that simple."
He added: "This case has brought on new challenges of all of us. Challenges in the criminal justice system, challenges in the media, and I think we should all take this as an opportunity to learn and to realize that you cannot convict someone until they've had their day in court."
Anthony's attorneys claimed that the toddler drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool, and that her seemingly carefree mother in fact was hiding emotional distress caused by sexual abuse from her father.
Prior to the verdict on Tuesday, the judge said: "To those in the gallery please do not express any signs of approval or disapproval upon the reading of the verdict."
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