You kind of sum it up for me. Caylee was a thing to Casey. She used her to control her parents. She would not intentionally kill her one important asset. I think she thought she could drug her, keep her in the trunk to spend time with her new bf. The use of the word accident may upset some but accident does not mean lack of culpability. Casey is a sociopath in my opinion. she lacks empathy and life is all about her. She was committing felony child abuse, and she showed depraved indifference when she chloroformed Caylee then locked her in the trunk. The prosecution put on a poor case, should never have went for the death penalty, and jurors should never be sequestered for months. I think it makes juries have group-think, more like hostages than 12 impartial individuals. She got away with murder. I understand what the judge means, but maybe he should not say accident.
I agree that Caylee was a thing to her and also an asset to aid her in manipulating her parents.
However, this asset was starting to get troublesome. First of all, this asset was starting to talk and so she wouldn't be able to continue living her party life and telling her parents that she was at work.
Second, her mother was threatening to get custody of this asset and to kick Casey out of the house. I think Casey genuinely hated Cindy and the way Cindy was constantly trying to control their family. Cindy constantly put her down, told her that Caylee was "the best mistake she ever made, but she was still a mistake."
The final factor, IMO, is that Caylee was getting more attention than her. Casey reacted with rage in the jailhouse phone call, saying that "all anyone cares about is Caylee. That's all they care about." Casey also called off her engagement to Jesse Grund mainly because she felt like he "loved Caylee more than her."
Caylee became more trouble than Casey felt she was worth.
When she took those factors into account, I think Caylee stopped being an asset.
I actually think Casey was thinking about killing Caylee for a while before she actually did it, hence the strange searches, the visits to missing childrens' sites back in March.
I can't see Casey as anything other than an eraser killer.
1) Eraser killers are masters of deceit. Killing is carried out in secrecy and the crime scene is highly staged.
2) Eraser killers (who are usually men who kill their spouses) kill because their victim has become inconvenient to them. The victim is not allowed to leave or take away anything the eraser killer holds dear, like their home or the lifestyle they have come to enjoy. (Hence why Casey would not just give up custody of Caylee and why she never exhibited any hate or violence towards Caylee, she just wanted her out of the way. )
3) The eraser killer will exhibit neither mourning, nor real signs of emotional loss, and will almost always exhibit strangely inappropriate behavior and speech after the mysterious death of his wife or girlfriend.
4) The eraser killer usually attempts to direct any inquiries or police investigation toward fictitious threats and other suspects.