Death of 3-year-old Caylee Anthony and trial of her mother Casey Anthony is examined on ID

Investigation Discovery is providing us with another 3-part miniseries of Young, Hot, and Deadly this week. This time they focus on the death of Caylee Anthony, a 3-year-old from Orlando, Florida, who was found dead near her home in the summer of 2008.

In a case that played out in the public eye, Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, was eventually put on trial for the murder only to be sensationally acquitted.

Caylee’s grandmother dialed 911 on July 15, 2008, informing operators that her granddaughter hadn’t been seen alive in over a month. She also told operators that her daughter’s car smelled like someone had died in it.

Caylee’s 22-year-old mother, Casey, was soon arrested on a charge of child neglect. She claimed that she didn’t know what had happened to Caylee and had been desperately trying to find her. She said she didn’t report her daughter missing because she was scared.

Police took an air sample test from Casey’s car and determined that human remains had been kept in the trunk. In December, Caylee’s remains were found by a utility worker in a wooded area near the Anthony family home.

Casey Anthony was charged with murder

In 2009 Casey was accused of murder, and prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty. She tried to blame the disappearance on a babysitter called Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez; however, after 3-years of maintaining this lie, Casey’s lawyer finally admitted at the trial that such a babysitter never existed.

However, Casey’s defense lawyers then methodically picked apart the prosecution’s.  In July 2011, the jury found Casey not guilty of first-degree murder, not guilty of aggravated child abuse, and not guilty of aggravated manslaughter of a child.

She was found guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement and sentenced to four years in prison; she was given credit for time served and was released. The verdict caused consternation among many of the public.

Casey Anthony has remained in the public spotlight

Since the verdict, Casey has attempted to maintain a low profile and to stay out of the public eye. In an interview in 2017, she said she “sleeps pretty good at night.”

This case received massive media coverage and has been regularly discussed and profiled on TV, including on Investigation Discovery, and in newspaper articles and books and magazines. Yet it remains unclear if we’ll ever discover what happened to Caylee Anthony.

More from Young, Hot, and Deadly

In another bizarre case profiled on Investigation Discovery, Jodi Arias was arrested for murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in his home in 2008. She had stabbed him over 30 times. The case was known for its salacious details surrounding the couple’s sex lives.

In another crime profiled on ID involving young killers, teenagers Bobbi Jo Smith and Jennifer Jones went on the run across several states after killing their roommate Bob Dow. The pair saw themselves as a real-life Thelma and Louise or Bonnie and Clyde.

All three episodes of Young, Hot, and Deadly can be seen from 9/8c on Friday on Investigation Discovery.