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commentsORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Casey Anthony told a psychiatrist that she became pregnant with her daughter, Caylee, after passing out at a party when she was 18 years old, according to depositions in which the doctor said tests gave no indication that Anthony was mentally ill as she faced her murder trial.
The 25-year-old Anthony was acquitted last July of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in a trial that captured the nation's attention. Anthony didn't know who fathered Caylee, the psychiatrist, Jeff Danziger, recounted in a deposition that was unsealed by a Florida judge and released Wednesday. Danziger interviewed Anthony five times over two years but never testified at her murder trial.
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"Two beers, possibly given another drug. Woke up passed out," said Danziger, reading from notes he took during an interview with Anthony in November 2010. "Don't remember anything at a party, age 18. This is how she said she got pregnant."
Anthony is serving a year of probation at an undisclosed location in Florida on a check fraud charge.
Anthony showed no evidence of mental illness and had normal results on a psychological test, Danziger said in the deposition. He described that as surprising, given her circumstances in the Orange County Jail as a suspect in her daughter's slaying. Her temperament was calm, cooperative and pleasant, he said.
"You would expect that would provoke some measure of distress, whether someone genuinely did it, whether someone was falsely accused," Danziger said. "If my child was missing and I was in jail being accused of it, I probably wouldn't eat and wouldn't be cheerful and wouldn't be able to read."
Danziger said he was reluctant to recount all the information Anthony told him during his interviews with her, especially allegations that she had been sexually abused and her contention that her father played a role in covering up Caylee's death. Anthony told the psychiatrist that her father had found Caylee's drowned body in the family's swimming pool, helped disposed of it and then covered it up. During the trial, George Anthony denied playing any role in Caylee's disappearance or death.
Defense attorneys said during the trial that Anthony's father molested her when she was young, and Anthony told Danziger the same thing. George Anthony vehemently denied the allegation on the witness stand and defense attorneys provided no evidence to support it.
"As he has repeatedly said prior to the trial, during the trial and after the trial he never molested any member of his family including Casey Anthony," George Anthony's attorney, Mark Lippman, said Wednesday. "He had nothing to do with the death of Caylee Marie Anthony including what happened to her remains after she allegedly drowned."
Danziger didn't want to become "a vector" of her allegations of crimes against individuals who may not have done anything wrong, he said.
Caylee Anthony went missing in summer 2008, and her disappearance wasn't reported to authorities until a month later. Hundreds of volunteers searched for the missing girl. Anthony lied repeatedly to detectives, claiming a babysitter had kidnapped the toddler.
Transcripts of the depositions had been sealed. But the Orlando Sentinel asked the court to make them public and Judge Belvin Perry agreed.
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