REAL PLAYERS: Casey Anthony and Jeff Ashton
RE-OPENED: Rob Lowe, as prosecuting attorney Jeff Ashton in Lifetime’s “Prosecuting Casey Anthony,” examines the evidence of the case. (
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It’s been a year and a half since Casey Anthony was acquitted on all counts in the murder of her little daughter, Caylee, and yet the case still rivets.
Next week, two separate but intense looks at the case and the trial appear within days of each other. First, on Investigation Discovery, we have “True Crime With Aphrodite Jones,” and then “Prosecuting Casey Anthony,” a Lifetime movie with Rob Lowe as prosecuting attorney Jeff Ashton.
The first is an in-depth look at the case — with reenactments and interviews with many of the key players — taken from the point of view of Jones, an investigative reporter who covered the case.
The second is a made-for-TV movie that is taken from the book of the same name by the prosecuting attorney (now Florida state attorney), Jeff Ashton.
It has been reported that Anthony, who is still in hiding and is still considered the most hated woman in America, is terrified that the movie will renew all that vitriol against her.
After watching both the movie and report, I think Anthony should be more concerned about Jones’ show than Lowe’s movie.
For one thing, even though the movie is from Ashton’s point of view, he still comes off looking like a bozo. In fact, Anthony, played by Virginia Welch, has such as small part in the movie that she’s not even listed on Lifetime’s movie Web site.
It’s all about Ashton and his backup team, played by Elizabeth Mitchell and Oscar Nunez.
The fact that Ashton’s team screwed the case up as royally as Marcia Clark and Chris Darden did in the O.J. case, can’t be whitewashed, despite the fact that the movie is taken from the bestseller that he wrote, nor that Ashton has managed to rewrite history by blaming the former state’s attorney for the disastrous outcome.
In both, however, you will discover that despite the fact that the world, the prosecutors and the cops know, just know, Anthony is guilty as original sin, the evidence just wasn’t there to convict her.
Yes, she was as nutty as a bag of almonds, no, she didn’t report her child missing until a month later, and yes, she got a tattoo after Caylee’s disappearance that said “Bella Vita” (beautiful life) and entered a hot-body contest.
I know, hard to fathom that she got off the hook, but she did.
At the end of the “True Crime” episode, Jones (who did some reporting for The Post during the trial) admits that, with the evidence presented, she, too, would have had to acquit — despite the fact that she pulls no punches about her belief that Anthony is guilty.
Ashton, on the other hand, blames the then-state’s attorney for his loss.
Don’t miss either if you still can’t figure out how Anthony got off the hook and how Ashton, like Marcia Clark in the O.J. case, parlayed his loss into a huge win for himself.