Casey Anthony blames her father for the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee — claiming in a new documentary that it was to cover up a pattern of violent sexual abuse he also inflicted on her.
In her first on-camera interviews, 11 years after she was acquitted of her daughter’s murder, Anthony, now 36, said she was “still [doesn’t] know what happened to Caylee.
But “it all comes back to my dad,” she said bluntly of ex-cop George Anthony in an upcoming Peacock docuseries seen by The Post.
Anthony accused her father — who became the prosecution’s star witness against her — of raping her repeatedly when she was growing up.
“He put a pillow over my face and smothered me into knocking me out… I’m sure there were times when I was incapacitated as a kid and my body was limp and lifeless,” she claimed.
She burst into tears when she admitted she had “dark” fears that her “pedophile” father had also abused Caylee.
“I know what he did to me – and that was my fear. I had only one job: to protect her,” she said through Caylee’s tears.
“I let her down time and time again, because I was still protecting the person who hurt me,” she said of her father.
“I protected my abuser — and protected her abuser. And that crushes me.”
Her father was never allowed to be alone with her daughter, she said. But the last time she saw Caylee alive was when she was in bed next to her on June 16, 2008, when “the door may have been unlocked” to her room.
“I know my dad was home… I was woken up by him shaking me and asking me where Caylee was,” she said, insisting it “made no sense” because her daughter would “never” leave without her to tell.
After a frenzied search, she went outside and saw her father “standing there with her.”
“She was soaking wet. I can see him standing there in his hands and telling me it’s my fault, that I did that — that I caused that,” she said.
But he didn’t rush to call 911 or try to resuscitate her. And I just collapsed with her in my arms,” she said, recalling that she was “heavy” and “cold.”
“As I sit there with her on my lap, just hysterical — just staring at her not knowing what to do — he takes her off me and he immediately softens his tone and tells me, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ That she would be fine.
“That’s what he told me, and I wanted to believe him—because I wanted her to be okay,” she sobbed.
She still doesn’t know why her daughter was wet, but said the ladder to the pool wasn’t there at the time. “There are too many scenarios of what could have happened, but her drowning in the pool is not one of them. It’s not possible,” she said.
Her father then “took” Caylee away, she said tearfully while claiming, “But I don’t know where she went.” I don’t know what he did.”
“I can tell you how numb I felt and how broken I felt and confused — but also hopeful because I believed she was still okay,” she insisted, saying she had to “live with” the fact that she “failed for my child.”
Anthony claimed she was too “numb” to cope with what might have happened — while insisting that she genuinely believed Caylee was alive until her skeletal remains were found in garbage bags, duct tape wrapped around her head.
“Yes, I was naive. Yes, I was stupid… I thought there was still a chance,” she said.
She also blamed her father for her instinct to lie about what happened, calling him “a man who can never tell the truth” whose behavior she “completely replicated” when her daughter went missing.
Anthony had grown up lying “more than I ever told the truth because the truth was too painful and unreal to ever describe to anyone,” she said of her alleged abuse.
That included lying to police when her daughter went missing, she readily admitted to the only charges she was convicted of, leading to a three-year prison sentence.
“It was the correct guilty verdict – I lied to the police,” she said.
“So I am a convicted liar. It’s the truth.”
She said she waited so long to tell her story because she “spent the past 10 years making sure I knew who I was — that I started to process this loss and that I had something to say to my daughter proud. but also to honor her with dignity.”
“And this is part of that,” she said of sitting for the docuseries.
“It’s hard because there are 1000 questions going through my head. … I still don’t know what happened to Caylee.”
But “I know what I’m afraid of. I know what eats me at night – I know what eats me day in and day out – because I know what I’ve been through,” she said of the alleged abuse.
Even if she found out the exact truth of what happened, Anthony said it would never bring her “complete closure.”
“I didn’t get the ending I wanted because I didn’t get my kid back,” she said of “the most dismal dream” of having “the shortest life” with her “dear little boy.”
That’s the only ending I wanted. And that’s the one thing I’ll never get out of.”
George Anthony did not respond to questions from the filmmakers, the show said. He has repeatedly vehemently denied abusing his daughter or being responsible for his granddaughter’s death.
The Post could not immediately reach him for comment on Tuesday.
“Casey Anthony: Where The Truth Lies” streams November 29 on Peacock.
