Shock and grievance grip people as Casey Anthony is let off
Cathy Cooper (C) reacts in tears screaming "She killed her baby!" moments after hearing the jury's verdict acquitting Casey Anthony of first-degree murder at the Orange County Court House in Orlando, Florida July 5, 2011. REUTERS

Most everybody has wanted to kill their child at one point or another.

That's what they say anyway, I want to kill my child.

Then they laugh, because they don't mean it. It's just the frustration talking.

That's one reason the world turned its attention so aggressively toward the long murder trial of Casey Anthony, found not guilty Tuesday of killing her daughter, Caylee. The mainstream media merely jumped on board following the public's interest, making the part of daily coverage on network newscasts and on the page of respected newspapers.

The child was photogenic.

What kind of monster could kill cute Caylee?

The mother was troubled, and guilty, in one respect or another. Casey Anthony was obviously a liar, and liar's don't fare well in public judgement when the world is watching during a murder trial.

The watching public both empathized with Casey Anthony and loathed her. She was troubled, but also, they concluded, cold-blooded.

We may joke about wanting to strangle our children when managing them amid life's emotional and physical challenges, and we may joke about needing them to go away, but in reality most of us only want to lavish them with love and care, and that's what we do.

In the best of times, and in the worst of times.

Sometimes, though, some people in one deranged state or another cross that line, doing horrible things to undeserving beautiful young boys and girls.

The jury did not agree that Casey Anthony did that, killing her daughter. They had a different change than the rest of the world, since they had to leave emotion if not reasonable judgement out of the equation. We watched and determined in majority, though, that Casey Anthony probably, horribly, did kill her daughter as prosecutors argued, chloroforming Caylee before putting duct tape over the girl's nose and mouth and suffocating her.

Casey Anthony sure looked guitly to me.

And, I'm obviously not alone.

Because of Florida's sunshine laws that make such proceeding's as Casey Anthony's murder trial open to the public, down to cameras in the courtroom, we got to peer in to the proceedings just as we did with the O.J. Simpson trial so many years before.

Other murder trials were going on around the country, and other children were missing or dead during the pubilc's mass obsession with th Casey Anthony trial, but this is the one that got our attention. This is the one that brought us to one conclusion: How could a parent kill such a beautiful child?

That's the most haunting thing about the story, the aspect that will linger darkly with us long after the cameras and the story have faded away.

Even in our worst moments, most of us cannot imagine willfully harming our children. And long after the Casey Anthony trial, we never will.