The Shock, Horror and Tragedy That Holds Us in Thrall

I have corresponded with more strangers about the Casey Anthony trial in the past few weeks than about any other ten topics combined. Mostly on Twitter. There are the few disturbing voices: Like Bizarro Guy who thinks Casey is "hot." Like the Lynch Mob: Say one harsh word about the prosecution (their case, not the wrongness of their position!!) and you shall be accused of following Satan. But many more, if not most, are educated, smart, funny and, well, smart --

I feel a bond with these fellow Casey Anthony trial watchers I can't fully explain. NO one is kinda watching it. You're either waking at 6 or 7 because you live on the Left Coast, tweetikg 20 to 30 times a day about it, and in between Googlimg Florida's statutes, its new federal death penalty ruling or Judge Perry's appellate record-- OR you're just barely aware the trial is happening and you have no idea what has people so riveted!!

I think I know. This trial is Biblical. There's the temptress. A pregnancy. A baby girl and young Grandms and Grsndps Good folks . A nurse and a cop for God's sake!

There's a word for killing your Mom (matricide), your Dad, and your sibling, but no word for killing your child. One can understand why. And who is this enigmatic sulky stone-faced thing sitting at the defense table. I have this feeling Cindy and George suddenly see how evil she is. And it must be unbearable. Biblical. Archetypal.

So cruelly unfair that soon they go home, these two, without the granddaughter they loved, and with knowledge that they once sheltered a monster: their daughter. They go home, too, accused of heinous things. Accused of defending a monster (they did not), of pedophilia (doubtful) adultery (unlikely). And finally -- accused of somehow being to blame. Of being so foolish and blind, so in denial that they could not see.

I'm just not sure thst anyone really could have seem more than that their daughter was disappointingly selfish, narcissistic and vacant. I know therapists are supposed to blame the parents. But it doesn't always work that way. Besides, it's not a matter of blame, but of understanding. Yet here -- in the midst of a family that seems pretty normal in its dysfunction -- I do not thus far see anything, not in Cindy or in George, that accounts for creating a monster. Their sins-- and we all have them-- not mortal merely venial. In the nature or nurture debate, this time around, Nature most definitely wins.

I understand that to those not engrossed, it may seem that we're all voyeurs. But I beg to differ. The Casey Anthony trial is making its mark on our collective psyche. It will change us separately and as a whole. Yet until it is done I'm not sure we'll really know how for quite some time. --Claudia Miles