Amanda R. Smith & Casey Anthony have a lot in common

Amanda Reagan Smith & Casey Marie Anthony have a lot in common.

Amanda was 26, and Casey 22, when their children were murdered
during the summer months. Caylee Anthony in June, and Devon Epps
in August, almost a year apart.

Both are behind jail cell bars charged with the murder of their children.

They each have blamed someone who doesn't exist for the death of their
child.

Amanda and Casey each went out partying without much
thought for their children, alive or dead. Or for their grieving
families.

Neither gave a thought about anyone, except themselves.

Thinking only that they wanted a singles party life, they parked
their children on family or friends, and recorded their lives
upon facebook. Yet each was quick to erase entries and remove
photos during the police investigation.

Now they're separated from the rest of the world by iron bars
and will experience this Christmas as just another day in the life
of an inmate while their families gather at home.

Casey Anthony hung out with a set of regular friends who say that
the Casey they knew isn't the one they see in the party photos,
that she had withdrawn from them and "changed." The Casey they
knew loved her daughter and would never have killed her.

Amanda Smith's former friends said the same. The Amanda they
knew, the one studying to be a nurse couldn't, wouldn't have
done such a heinous act.

Yet after young Devon's death she withdrew from them and "changed,"
partying with a newer, younger set of friends who'd never known she
had a son, much less one who had died.

It's true. Neither of them were the people their friends had known. In
fact, they presented whichever "face" or persona they chose to portray
at any given moment to whomever they were with.

Casey Anthony lied and stole. Amanda racked up traffic tickets and then
borrowed her grandparents car and wrecked it.

Behind jail bars they're practicing how to be prison convicts because each
knows the likelihood of a conviction is high.

This year the Epps and Smith families are missing the boisterous Devon
who would have been celebrating his 9th Christmas. Instead they're
experiencing a second Christmas without him.

Little Caylee Anthony would have celebrated her second Christmas, and
the Anthony family, the grandparents who practically raised her are
beginning the first of many Christmas' without her bright smile and
bubbly presence.

Although each has been charged, the investigations are still ongoing.

They are similar in another way, their trials are due to begin next year,
2009, and many of us will be watching.