They got away with it... but went on to punish themselves

Casey Anthony's acquittal brings to mind earlier cases in which the seemingly guilty walked, only to subsequently self-destruct:

--- O. J. Simpson: His year-long televised soap-opera of a trial still overshadows ANthony's briefer time in the limelights. Watching the face from time to time, what struck me was that the lead prosecutor's skirts got shorter and shorter as the proceedings dragged on. Simpson was acquitted by a mixed-race LA jury in the criminal case, where the standard of proof placed on the prosecution was "beyond a reasonable doubt." In a subsequent suburban wrongful-death civil trial, the all-white jury found him liable and imposed a crushing money judgment. Simpson's judicial woes were far from over, however. His attempt to publish a book about how he would have done was blocked by a judge, who apparently had more ethics than the NY publisher which proposed to bring the book out. And, finally, he ran afoul of the criminal justice system yet again in a matter involving sports memorabilia. This last episode finally landed him where he probably belonged all along... in prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson

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--- Sam Sheppard In 1954 Sam Sheppard was a young, successful doctor, living in suburban Cleveland, when his wife turned up dead in their home. He claimed he tussled with, and was knocked unconscious by, a "bushy haired man." He was convicted and spent 10 years in prison, before a young, feisty lawyer named F. Lee Bailey won him first a new trial and then an acquittal. Whether guilty or innocent of the crime, Sheppard was never the same man. He became a drunk and for a time earned his way in professional wrestling under the monicker of "Killer Sheppard." His compelling case was the inspiration for the TV show and movie of "The Fugitive."
http://www.answers.com/topic/sam-sheppard

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--- Michael Jackson The rock idol --- perhaps the best song-and-dance man ever to appear in a music video --- was tried twice, in 1993 and again in 2005, on child-abuse charges. He escaped conviction both times. But Jackson seemed to be punishing himself. Down the decades, stories emerged about the creepy goings-on inside his palatial Neverland. In his infrequent public appearances, Jackson himself seemed transformed from the debonair, handsome man of the music vids into a sort of death's head atop an emaciated, creaky body. He dropped dead while rehearsing what he hoped would be a come-back tour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson

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The ways in which Simpson, Sheppard and Jackson self-destructed reminds me of Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment
in which the murderer, Raskolnikov, who probably could have gotten away with his crime, is so tortured by his guilt that eventually he voluntarily goes to the local police station and confesses.
If tackling a Russian novel is more than you can contemplate, there are alternatives:


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