Despite her acquittal on murder charges, when Casey Anthony is freed from jail Sunday in Orlando she'll face an uncertain future, and may always be blamed for the death of her toddler daughter, her lead defense investigator said this week.
"Everywhere she goes, five years from now, 10 years from now, there's going to be somebody yelling 'baby killer' to her," said Jeremiah "Jerry" Lyons, of Port St. Lucie, a private investigator hired in 2009 by Anthony's attorney Jose Baez, of Kissimmee.
"No matter where she goes and no matter what she does, she's always going to be Casey Anthony and everyone, or someone, will always associate her with this case, and believe that she had something to do with the death of her daughter, Caylee."
Anthony, 25, is scheduled to leave the Orange County jail Sunday. She was sentenced to four years behind bars following her convictions on three counts of lying to law enforcement officials. She was given credit for time served, and time was cut for good behavior, records show. She's expected to serve a year of probation related to convictions in an earlier check fraud case.
Anthony's legal team expects her to go into hiding Sunday, Lyons said, and he wouldn't reveal details about her immediate future.
"She's in for a rough time," said Lyons. "She can't go home, and nobody is going to tell you where she is going to go. At this point, she needs time and nobody, even if we know, is going to tell anybody where she is."
In his first interview since Anthony's trial ended July 5, Lyons criticized the police investigation into the death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, blasted the media for a nonstop onslaught of coverage and staunchly declared Casey Anthony's innocence.
"When I entered into this case I thought there was a good chance she was guilty," he said. "And when I walk out of it, I know that she is innocent. And I believe her to be innocent, not just 'not guilty.'"
He called the jury's verdict an "excellent decision." It acquitted her of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse.
"I've had happy feelings, but this was a great feeling when the jury came back with not guilty on the top three counts," he recalled, smiling. "There's no manner of death, there's no cause of death, so how do you have murder?"
Lyons insisted he never found a shred of evidence that proved Anthony was a murderer.
Sheriff's investigators, he said, were too quick to settle on Casey Anthony as a killer.
"The Orlando (Orange County) Sheriff's Office, I think they did a great job in investigating Casey Anthony," he said. "I think they did a lousy job of investigating the death of Caylee Anthony."
Lyons, who in 1994 retired after a 20-year career as a major case detective with the New York City Transit Police, said when he met Baez in December 2008, he was drumming up work for himself as a private investigator after moving to Port St. Lucie to join his wife, whom he married in January.
He'd spent a career as a cop putting murderers, rapists and violent offenders behind bars, he said. But now he worked for the other side and he was marketing his business when he met Baez for the first time in Orlando during a "Death is Different" seminar, hosted by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.
"I recognized him and went up and introduced myself and gave him my resume," Lyons recalled. "I told him that I would love to be able to help him out if he thought there was a need."
A few weeks later, Baez called him. He said he's still not sure why Baez selected him.
"He asked me if I could be in his office the next morning," he said, "and I was."
Lyons insisted he didn't take the case hoping to grab headlines, and he didn't expect it to turn into a nearly two-year-long job.
"Once I got this case I said to myself if I do a good job on this case, then maybe it will help me get the next case," he said. "Maybe I'll get more work."
Baez brought him into the case slowly at first.
"He didn't know me; there were a lot of issues," Lyons recalled.
Within months he was the lead defense investigator, he said, inspecting nearly every aspect of the case.
"One of the first things I did was do a background on Roy Kronk, the person who found the body," he said. "We looked at people who searched the area where Caylee was eventually found."
Court records detailing more than $11,000 worth of billing Lyons charged to Baez's law firm, showed he also visited police officials in Daytona Beach and Orlando, made records requests from Orange County Sheriff's Office investigators, and interviewed dozens of witnesses, including Texas Equusearch volunteers who assisted authorities in efforts to locate Caylee Anthony.
He said immediately, those who believed Anthony was guilty of murder tried to derail his work.
"A lot of people had the opinion that Casey was guilty and didn't want to talk to the defense," he recalled. "Witnesses were encouraged not to speak to the defense, and it just made everything a lot harder for the
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