Why Casey Anthony Lies

An Expert Liar - Until The Truth Prevails?

Psychologists says everyone lies several times a day, but Casey Anthony may be on the way to a "Guinness" World's Record in lying. 

A key survival trait is the ability to manipulate the expectations of others. Most of us do it in small ways all the time. Casey Anthony is the master of lying about everything. 

Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts  discovered the most effective liars were often the most popular. Witnesses in the Casey murder trial unanimously tell prosecutors she is outgoing and happy, a "normal" fun-loving girl, not to mention an attractive female.

Pathological liars tell a lot of lies, but end up getting caught eventually. Prisons are full of bad liars. Anthony may be one of those, she lied every time she opened her mouth, pundits are fond of saying. 

To be a successful liar one must save the lie until it will get them something they really want. The more one lies, the more difficult to make the fabrications believable. Anthony just told too many lies.

The best liars tell the truth, but only a half truth. It's harder to get caught that way. Casey's stories about her job as an event planner at Universal Studios, tales about Zanny the nanny, the "friends" she told investigators about, and visits to other cities as told to her family, were all just completely false. And eventually detectives were able to show the stories as total fabrications.

Good liars have to get inside the head of the listener. Casey did a fairly good job of that. She could get away with lying about her whereabouts to family. But she did an awful job after professional investigators got involved. Orange county Sheriff's detectives were not fooled for long after being told fantastic stories of Anthony's whereabouts, and where daughter Caylee was supposed to be.

Great liars do a good job of keeping the "facts" straight. Casey was pretty good at spinning detailed stories including names and relationships among her fantasy friends and colleagues. She seemed to keep things straight by using cues of real names and locations, using real details inside her made-up stories, helping her remember the details of the fabricated stories she told. 

She is also good at "quick thinking," making up new details on the spot when questioned. Her family and friends seemed fairly gullible, but the detectives were not, as she added explanations for things that just didn't seem right.

Successful liars keep their composure, staying committed and steadfast to their stories. No matter what even experienced detectives said to Anthony, she stuck with her story no matter what proof was shown she was lying.

Manipulation is a key skill for an expert liar. Anthony easily got her family, and strangers to search for the missing daughter, notwithstanding there seemed to be no Zanny the nanny to be found anywhere. The Anthony family was making multi-state investigations, and raising money to find the child and only gave up looking for the mysterious babysitter 8 weeks ago. 

Casey Anthony was ultimately able to convince a legal defense team to work on her behalf pro bono. And presumably they were convinced the child accidentally drowned, and was not murdered as the prosecution charges. They also presumably believe Anthony was a sexual abuse victim. 

It may be that Anthony learned her skills as a teenager, to escape punishment for misbehavior or to get something her parent's or others forbid. She learned to get out of trouble or obtain something by a lie.

And liars will blame others when cornered. Anthony's defense is her father and brother abused her as a child, her mother was controlling, and father was a "cop" not a father.

When Caylee dies by "accident," it relieves her of responsibility. She says didn't call the police because she was afraid of the resulting anger from parents, choosing to look for Caylee on her own so she couldn't be blamed by her parents.

And she blames the police for not looking hard and far enough for Zanny the babysitter, and blames them  for failing to examine the family swimming pool for evidence of the accidental drowning she claims happened.

Casey Antony, a liar that made too many mistakes. Whether the result of a dysfunctional family, sexual abuse, or habits of lying picked up while an adolescent, the lies have finally caught up with Anthony, causing great pain to everyone around her.