Football: I must improve, says modest Messi






BUENOS AIRES: Barcelona and Argentina star Lionel Messi says he must improve on all fronts even as debate rages as to whether he is the best player ever.

"In everything we do in life we try to improve on all fronts and in football I am no exception," Messi told Clarin daily in an interview published Sunday.

Messi, 25, claims to be mulling how to do even better despite having already won a welter of honours, including a record four straight Ballons d'Or.

Playing for Barcelona keeps his feet on the ground, Messi says, not least because clubmates Xavi and Andres Iniesta were also candidates for his footballer of the year status, conferred on him once again earlier this month.

Messi says remaining humble is part of the Barcelona philosophy.

"It's a dressing room where we are all very similar in outlook. The way we are and our education both within and outside the club gave us that (outlook)," said Messi.

Messi, who saw off Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Iniesta for the Ballon d'Or for 2012, won the accolade in part for breaking Gerd Mueller's 40-year record for the most goals in a calendar year - the Barcelona man finished the year with an astonishing 91 goals in all competitions.

Even so, with Barca he was unable to land either La Liga or the Champions League in a somewhat disappointing campaign, while some observers insist he cannot yet be classed as the greatest player ever, moving ahead of Pele and Diego Maradona, unless and until he lifts the World Cup.

Messi also told Clarin that he would not change his view that the club must come before the individual.

"My goal is not to break records - every season I want to win everything possible with my team - be it Barcelona or the national side," he insisted.

- AFP/de



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233 killed in Brazil nightclub fire
















Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire


Hundreds dead in Brazil nightclub fire








STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • NEW: At least 233 people were killed, Brazil's health minister says

  • Reporter: Shoes, cell phones are strewn amid the charred wreckage of the club

  • The club was about 1,000 people over capacity, a state fire official says

  • Preliminary info indicates security guards may have stopped people from leaving




Are you there? Share your story.


Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN) -- Panicked crowds pushed toward the exits as fire swept through a packed nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday.


Hundreds didn't escape in time.


The blaze at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria killed at least 233 people, Brazilian Health Minister Alexandro Padilha told reporters. Many of them apparently died from smoke inhalation, state-run Agencia Brasil reported. Others were trampled in the rush for the exits, one security guard told CNN affiliate Band News.


More than 90 people were hospitalized, Padilha said, including 14 patients with severe burns.





Deadly blazes: Nightclub tragedies in recent history


About 2,000 people were inside the club when the fire broke out -- double the maximum capacity of 1,000, said Guido de Melo, a state fire official.


Investigators have received preliminary information that security guards stopped people from exiting the club, he told Globo TV.


"This overcrowding made it difficult for people to leave, and according to the information we have, the security guards kept people from leaving the building," he said.


The fire started "from out of nowhere" on a stage at the club and quickly spread to the ceiling, witness Jairo Vieira told Band News.


"People started running," survivor Luana Santos Silva told Globo TV. "I fell on the floor."


There was a pyrotechnics show going on inside the club when the fire started. Authorities stopped short of blaming it for the blaze, saying the cause was still under investigation.


Video from the scene showed firefighters shooting streams of water at the club and shirtless men trying to break down a wall with axes.


Smoke billowed outside the front of the building as the stench of fire filled the air, said Max Muller, who was riding by on his motorbike when he saw the blaze.








Muller recorded video of a chaotic scene outside the club, which showed emergency crews tending to victims and dazed clubgoers standing in the street. Bodies lay on the ground beside ambulances.


Friends who were inside the club told him that many struggled to find the exits in the dark. Muller, who was not inside the club Sunday morning but has been there twice before, said there were no exit signs over the doors. It is rare to see such signs in Brazilian clubs.


Valderci Oliveira, a state lawmaker, told Band News that he saw piles of bodies in the club's bathroom when he arrived at the scene hours after the blaze. It looked "like a war zone," he said.


Read more: How to protect yourself in a crowd


Police told Band News that 90% of the victims were found in that part of the club.


Shoes and cell phones were strewn on the ground in the charred rubble of the club Sunday, said Glauber Fernandes, a reporter from Band News.


"While we were there we saw the cell phones ringing. Parents, friends, trying to know about what was happening," he said. "No one was answering."


The roof collapsed in several parts of the building, Fernandes said, trapping many inside.


Desperate families and friends wept as they searched for information outside a local gymnasium where bodies were taken for identification later Sunday. Inside, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff met with some of them as they waited on bleachers for word of their loved ones.










Rousseff became teary-eyed as she spoke of the fire to reporters in Chile earlier Sunday. She had been attending a regional summit there, but cut short the trip and returned to Brazil early to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy.


"The Brazilian people are the ones who need me today," she said. "I want to tell the people of Santa Maria in this time of sadness that we are all together."


An accordionist who had been performing onstage with a band when the fire broke out was among the dead, drummer Eliel de Lima told Globo.


The fire started around 2 a.m. after the acoustic insulation in the Kiss nightclub caught fire, said Col. Adilomar Silva, the regional coordinator of civil defense.


Police were interviewing witnesses as part of an investigation into what caused the blaze, state-run Agencia Brasil reported.


"There just weren't enough emergency exits," Mateus Vargas, a witness who was inside the club when the fire broke out, told Band News.


The club's license had expired in August and had not been renewed, local fire official Moises da Silva Fuchs told Globo TV.


The incident called to mind a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island where pyrotechnics used by the heavy metal band Great White ignited a blaze that killed 100 people.


Pyrotechnics were also involved in a 2004 nightclub fire in Argentina that killed 194 people and a 2009 explosion at a nightclub in Russia that left more than 100 dead.


The Kiss nightclub is popular with young people in Santa Maria, drawing between 2,000 and 3,000 people a night on the weekends.


The blaze broke out during a weekend when students were celebrating the end of summer. Students at many Brazilian universities return to school on Monday.


Santa Maria is home to the Federal University of Santa Maria as well as a number of other private universities and colleges.


Shasta Darlington reported from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Marilia Brocchetto and Helena DeMoura reported from Atlanta. CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.






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R.I. nightclub fire survivors recall 2003 blaze

Argentina, a year later. Thailand in 2008. Russia in 2009.

For survivors of a 2003 nightclub fire in the state of Rhode Island that was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, the fire in Brazil that killed hundreds Sunday is the latest in a series of reminders that no matter how far away, those who ignore the lessons of their tragedy can pay a horrible cost.

On a cold night in February 2003, the rock band Great White took the stage at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island. During the show, pyrotechnics set fire to flammable soundproofing foam that lined the walls and ceiling, killing 100 and injuring 200.

Over the decade since, survivors have come together time and again over news of similar disastrous fires overseas.

"We're very tight," said Todd King, one of the survivors. "You can't put into words what we saw."

He said he was woken up Sunday morning by a storm of text messages from others who survived the Rhode Island fire, asking, "Can you believe this is happening again?"

"I'm surprised nobody has learned," he said.

Another Rhode Island survivor, Victoria Eagan, said she and others noted that each of three earlier fires was caused by indoor pyrotechnics igniting material in the building. Investigators have just begun their work in Brazil, but witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the fire.

"I had the same reaction as the other three times," Eagan said Sunday. "We're doomed to repeat history and I wish they could learn."

In the year after the Rhode Island fire, a flare ignited ceiling foam at an overcrowded nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 194 people.

Indoor fireworks were blamed for a fire at a club in Bangkok on New Year's Eve 2008 in which 66 partygoers were killed.

And another indoor fireworks display at a nightclub in Perm, Russia, ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches, killing 152 people in December 2009.

In Rhode Island, the Station fire brought about sweeping changes to the state's fire code with one intent: Never again.

Sprinklers are now required in nightclubs and bars with occupancy limits of 100 or more, nightclub workers must be trained in fire safety and more money was set aside for fire safety classes in schools.

Rhode Island also banned pyrotechnics in all but its largest public venues and local fire marshals were enabled to order immediate repairs and write tickets for violations.

Eagan said the changes were necessary in Rhode Island.

"I wish it would spread to other countries," she said.

A deadly blaze overseas does not seem so distant because of the Rhode Island tragedy, Eagan said.

"It's a tragedy that hits close to home," she said. "It's maddening to see it happen again."

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Brazil Nightclub Fire: 232 Dead, Hundreds Injured













Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.



Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the blaze.



Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those trapped inside.



Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."



Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.



"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.



The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.



Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.






Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images








"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."



Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning"



"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.



"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"



He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.



Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, a major university city with about 250,000 residents at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.



An earlier count put the number of dead at 245.



Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.



Brazil President Dilma Roussef arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.



"It is a tragedy for all of us," Roussef said.



Most of the dead apparently suffocated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.



Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity during a party for students at the university's agronomy department.



Survivors, police and firefighters gave the same account of a band member setting the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze, he said.





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Fourth Norwegian dead in Algeria hostage crisis: Statoil






OSLO: Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil on Saturday confirmed the death of a fourth Norwegian employee at the In Amenas gas plant hostage-taking in Algeria this month.

"Today Statoil received the sad news that one more of our dear and highly valued colleagues who has been missing since the terrorist attack at In Amenas in Algeria is now confirmed dead," the group said in a statement.

Statoil identified the man as 43-year-old Alf Vik and said that one other Norwegian working on the site at the time of the attack by Islamist militants on January 16 is still missing.

The Norwegian foreign ministry said on Friday it was "unlikely" the missing man would be found alive.

The updated toll comes after the company on Friday confirmed the death of three other Norwegian employees at the site, including the stepfather of a government minister.

The three victims were identified as Hans Bjone, 55, Thomas Snekkevik, 35, and Tore Bech, 58, who is married to International Development Minister Heikki Holmaas' mother.

According to preliminary estimates by the Algerian authorities, 37 foreign hostages and 29 kidnappers died in the Islamist attack against the gas field and in the military operation that followed.

The hostage-takers were demanding the release of Islamist prisoners and an end to France's intervention in Mali.

- AFP/jc



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Gun control advocates march on Washington




People hold pictures of shooting victims during the March on Washington for Gun Control on Saturday in Washington.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • NEW: "I consider myself one of the lucky ones," a Virginia Tech survivor tells the crowd

  • NEW: "How about this? Keep the Bad guy from even getting a gun!" a placard says

  • Demonstrators want a ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines

  • An opposing demonstrator wants more armed personnel in schools




Washington (CNN) -- Thousands of demonstrators rallied Saturday in Washington to demand tougher gun control laws, many describing themselves as first-time capital marchers who've had enough of gun violence.


On a cold day, a vanguard led a blocks-long procession with a big blue banner, declaring "March on Washington for Gun Control: When we stand together, we stand a chance."


The demonstrators want reinstatement of the federal ban on the sale of military-style semi-automatic rifles such as the one used in the recent Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, plus the gunman and his mother. The protestors also want a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines and universal background checks.


Many marchers just carried black-and-white placards bearing the names of victims of gun violence, such as Veronica Soto, a Newtown teacher who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.






Co-organizer Molly Smith highlighted how many demonstrators were ordinary citizens, the organization of whom was assisted by a webpage and Facebook page.


"It's been a remarkable learning experience," Smith told CNN, "the realization that we're citizens and this is an active citizenship, and being a citizen isn't just sitting around and gassing about it."


The march was the first major demonstration since the Newtown mass shooting last month, and it comes two days after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, introduced a bill that would ban some assault rifles, semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.


U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told an assembly of marchers, after they reached their rallying area midway between the White House and the Capitol, that Saturday's demonstration wasn't about the Second Amendment.


"This is about gun responsibility; this is about gun safety; this is about fewer dead Americans, fewer dead children," Duncan told the crowd.


Opinion: In gun control debate, logic goes out the window


He recalled that as the former chief of Chicago Public Schools, he oversaw a system in a city where a student was killed by gun violence every two weeks.


"Far too many of our children are growing up in climates where they are scared," Duncan said. "That has to change."


He added, "This march is a starting point. It's not an ending point. We must act, we must act, we must act."


U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia, asked residents of Newtown, Connecticut, to make themselves known in the crowd.


'We came to stand with you and bear witness with you until we vindicate your children and those who died with them," Norton said.


She urged the assembly to press for gun reform.


The demonstrators started chanting: "Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!"


Without mentioning the National Rifle Association, Norton made a reference to the powerful gun lobby, saying, "It comes down to us because we are immune to their lobbying.


NRA chief: Obama makes 'mockery' of American freedoms


"Only an outraged public can end the gun violence that has enveloped our country," she added. "We the people who did not act before, we the people this time will step forward.


"And this time we will not step back."


Colin Goddard survived being shot four times during the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, one that left 33 people dead, including the gunman, who took his own life.


Goddard, one of the rally speakers, said he was shot above the knee, twice in the hip and once in the shoulder.


"I consider myself one of the lucky ones," he told the gathering.


Then, speaking of subsequent school shootings across the nation, he added: "I kept seeing what happened to me happen to other people."


Goddard now works for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as assistant director for victims advocacy and federal litigation.


One marcher, Lori Bennett, said she wants to make a difference.


"My two older children, of course, are very aware of what's going on and I said, 'I'm going down there, you know, for you, for us, and to make a difference," she said. "Without sounding corny, but I mean, it's just piggybacking on the sentiment of the politicians that are in favor of all this change.


"People as a country, like, we can't keep waiting for all the politicians to make a move," she added.


A small opposing demonstration was held across the street from the gun control advocates' staging area near the Capitol. One gun rights advocate said he thinks people in schools should be armed -- a viewpoint he developed after the Newtown shooting.


"I could not figure out why government employees have armed guards, banks have armed guards to protect the money, but the government, for some reason, thought we don't need armed guards to protect our children," Dick Heller said. "Maybe they're less worthy. I don't know. I don't know what their thinking was. All I can't understand is why didn't they protect their children like the government protects itself?"


The gun control march organizers are also calling on Congress and state legislatures to prohibit the sale of bullets that shatter inside the body and to require gun-safety training for all firearms purchasers.


Among the other placards that demonstrators raised above their heads were: "More guns? More violence" and, in a reference to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre (who has said "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"): "Hey LaPierre. How about this? Keep the Bad guy from even getting a gun!"


CNN's Emily Schmidt contributed from Washington. Michael Martinez wrote and reported this account from Los Angeles. CNN's Laura Koran also contributed.






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Hackers take over gov't website

This screenshot shows the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission after it was hijacked by the hacker-activist group Anonymous, early Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013, to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed." / AP Photo

Last Updated 12:47 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide.

The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."

The message read in part:

Citizens of the world,
Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the "discretion" or prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain."

The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.

Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create Reddit and RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors.

Officials say he helped post millions of court documents for free online and that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles from an online clearinghouse.

By mid-morning Saturday the website was offline.

The FBI's Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, said in a statement that "we were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network."

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Anonymous Hijacks Federal Website Over Reddit Co-Founder's Suicide


Jan 26, 2013 12:27pm







ap commission website hacked 130126 wblog Anonymous Hijacks Federal Website, Threatens DOJ Document Dump

(AP Photo)


Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a federal judicial agency this morning.


In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats to the free flow of information.


The lengthy essay largely mirrors previous demands from Anonymous, but this time the group also cited the recent suicide of Reddit co-founder and activist Aaron Swartz as has having “crossed a line” for their organization. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in prison on computer fraud charges.


Prosecutors said he had stolen thousands of digital scientific and academic journal articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of disseminating them for free.


Read More: Aaron Swartz’ Death Fuels MIT Probe, White House Petition to Oust Prosecutor


Anonymous says Swartz was “killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.”


“There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused,” it reads, also mentioning recent arrests of Anonymous associates by the FBI.


In their statement, the hackers say they targeted the homepage of the Federal Sentencing Commission for “symbolic” reasons.


The group claimed that if their demands were not met they would release a trove of embarrassing internal Justice Department documents to media outlets. Anonymous named the files after Supreme Court justices and provided hyperlinks to them from the defaced page.


As of press time the commission’s site had been taken offline but an earlier attempt by CNN to follow the files’ links yielded dead-ends, mostly offline sites.


The file names use an “.aes256″ suffix, denoting a common encryption protocol. The same system was used to encrypt the Wikileaks Afghan war documents before their release.



SHOWS: Good Morning America World News







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Libya PM says 'exaggeration' over Benghazi threat alert






DAVOS: Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Friday that Western nations had exaggerated by urging their citizens to leave the city of Benghazi due to a specific and imminent threat to Westerners.

Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia have all urged their citizens to leave the city due to the threat, linked to France's military intervention against Islamist rebels in neighbouring Mali.

"I think that there was exaggeration on behalf of some countries, who took some preventive measures and we can understand that," Zeidan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

"But the reality is that these people of foreign nationality live very peacefully in Libya and there are security measures to protect them," he said.

Earlier, officials in Tripoli said the country had not been informed of the evacuation order or given information about the threat.

"There has been no formal notice to us from any other country of its intention to evacuate its citizens from the city of Benghazi," an interior ministry source was quoted as saying by Lana news agency.

"The Libyan deputy interior minister for security, Omar al-Khadrawi, contacted the British embassy in Tripoli to seek clarification on the statement released by the British Foreign Office but no response has been received," ministry spokesman Mejdi al-Arfi said, also quoted by Lana.

Deputy Interior Minister Abdullah Massud expressed "astonishment" at the warnings on Thursday, and said his government would demand an explanation.

"If Britain was afraid of threats to its citizens, it could have pulled them out quietly without causing all the commotion and excitement," Massud was reported to have said on Friday.

"The British Foreign Office statement sparked growing concerns by various diplomatic missions and foreign companies in Benghazi and led them to seriously consider leaving the city," Lana quoted him as saying.

Benghazi was the cradle of the uprising that ousted Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 and also the city where a US ambassador was killed in an attack last September.

The initial alert from London came after British Prime Minister David Cameron warned that last week's deadly attack on a gas complex in Algeria was only one part of what would be a "long struggle against murderous terrorists" around the world.

- AFP/jc



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Two Casey Anthony convictions tossed




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • An appeals court invalidates two of Casey Anthony's convictions, upholds two others

  • She was convicted of 4 counts of giving false information during a missing person investigation

  • Charges arose from statements Anthony made in 2008 after her daughter, Caylee, disappeared

  • Anthony's attorney said his client wants to "keep fighting"




(CNN) -- One of the most infamous Americans in recent years took two big steps Friday toward clearing her name, and she's vowed to "keep fighting."


Florida's 5th District Court of Appeal threw out two of Casey Anthony's four convictions of "providing false information to a law enforcement officer during a missing person investigation," agreeing with her argument that the multiple convictions violated the ban on double jeopardy.


But the appeals judges upheld the other two convictions. According to the court filing, they rejected Anthony's claim that the trial court should have granted her motion to suppress statements made to law enforcement officers before they told her her Miranda rights. And they rejected her argument that the state statute she was convicted of violating is unconstitutionally vague.


Anthony's lawyer, Cheney Mason, said when he called his client to share the ruling, she said, "We keep fighting."


Anthony could appeal the remaining two convictions to the Florida Supreme Court next.


The four charges arose from statements Anthony made on July 16, 2008, to Orange County Detective Yuri Melich, who was investigating the disappearance of Anthony's 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.


Anthony gained notoriety after her mother, Cindy Anthony, called police to arrest her daughter the day before, when she thought Casey had stolen the family car and some money.


During the call, Cindy Anthony told police she was concerned that her granddaughter might be missing, and said, "I found my daughter's car today, and it smelled like there's been a dead body in the damn car."


When questioned, Casey Anthony admitted to police that she hadn't seen Caylee for more than 30 days, and on July 16, she was arrested on suspicion of child neglect, filing false official statements and obstructing a criminal investigation. At that time, she made the statements to Melich, which led to her convictions.


In December 2008, a utility worker found remains in a wooded area near the Anthony home, and about a week later, authorities announced they were Caylee's.


After nearly three years of legal maneuvers, Anthony's capital murder trial began on May 24, 2011.


Prosecutors alleged that she killed Caylee by using chloroform and covering her nose and mouth with duct tape, and that she put her body in the trunk of her car before dumping it in the woods.


Defense attorney Jose Baez argued that Caylee drowned in the Anthony family pool on June 16, 2008, and that Casey Anthony and her father, George, covered up the death.


On July 5, 2011, a jury found Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child, while convicting her on the four "false information" counts.


Anthony was sentenced to four years in jail, to be served consecutively, including time served. She was released 10 days after her sentencing, on July 17. Even though she exited shortly after midnight, about 1,000 people jeered her as police guards and Baez escorted her to a waiting SUV and drove away quickly.


Anthony still faces a defamation lawsuit from Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, of nearby Kissimmee, Florida.


During Anthony's disputed July 16, 2008, statements to Melich, she said the last time she had seen her daughter was when she dropped Caylee off at Gonzalez's apartment.


Gonzalez filed suit in September 2008, claiming that Anthony ruined her reputation.


Last April, a judge ruled that the suit needed to go to trial by jury and denied Gonzalez's request for a summary judgment.


In Session correspondent Jean Casarez reported for this story, and Mark Morgenstein wrote it in Atlanta.






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