Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story (2 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WANT TO THANK all of the people who supported me on this journey beginning with our defense team, both past and present: Dorothy Clay Sims, Cheney Mason, Michelle Medina, William Slabaugh, Lisabeth Fryer, Ann Finnell, Linda Kenney Baden, Andrea Lyon, Todd Macaluso, Pat McKenna, Jack Weiss, Jeanene Barrette, Katie Delanie, Mort Smith, Michael D. Walsh, Jonathan Kasen, Diana Marku, Coreen Yawn, Audrey Paul, Jim Lucas, and Tyler Benson; Legal GraphicWorks; and all of our wonderful and talented interns from Florida A&M University College of Law, George Paul Lemieux and Robert Haney; all of our wonderful and talented expert witnesses, Werner Spitz, Jane Bock, Ken Furton, Barry Logan, Kathy Reichs, William Rodriguez, Larry Daniels, Josh Restrivo, Larry Kobilinsky, Nick Petreco, Richard and Selma Eikelenboom, Timothy Huntington, Henry Lee, Richard Gabriel, and Sally Karioth; my law partners, Ronald J. Manto and Juan M. Gonzalez, for supporting me and believing in the cause to serve our clients in the search for justice.

Also a very special thanks to Howard Messing. If it weren’t for his unbelievable acts of kindness, I wouldn’t be a lawyer today. And to Professor Tim Chinaris, who always made sure that everything we did was done ethically and professionally.

Also to Glenn Yeffeth, for believing in me; Michael Wright, for his expertise and his friendship, and his partner, Leslie Garson; Frank Weimann for arranging the deal; and a special thanks to Peter Golenbock for being my partner in this endeavor.

And finally, to Casey Anthony for giving me the permission to tell my story. May you find the strength and peace in God to mourn and move forward in your life.

—J
OSE
B
AEZ

I WISH TO THANK Frank Weimann, for insisting that I get involved with this project; Jose Baez, an inspiration and a man I am proud to call my friend; and to all my friends in St. Pete who have supported me over the years.

—P
ETER
G
OLENBOCK

When I see hatred that faces the accused in high-profile cases I am reminded of a passage in
A Man for All Seasons
that reads in part:

W
ILLIAM
R
OPER
: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

S
IR
T
HOMAS
M
ORE
: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

W
ILLIAM
R
OPER
: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

S
IR
T
HOMAS
M
ORE
: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

That is what justice requires …

CHAPTER 1

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

T
HE POSTMAN ambled up the cement walkway toward the front door of the peach ranch-style home at 4937 Hopespring Drive in Orlando, Florida, and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he duly filled out a form, dated it July 7, 2008, and stuck it to the door. The orange notice requested that the homeowners, George and Cynthia Anthony, go to their neighborhood post office and pick up a certified letter. Even though the notice went unanswered for more than a week, the postman failed to leave a second and final notice, per post office policy, according to George Anthony.

It was July 15, 2008, one week after the arrival of that notice, when George, a well-built man in his early fifties with a full shock of neatly kept white hair, drove to the post office to pick up the letter. In the letter, Johnson’s Wrecker Service informed him that it had possession of his 1998 Pontiac Sunfire. The letter gave the address where he could come and claim the vehicle.

The title of the Pontiac was in George and Cynthia’s names, but was being driven by their twenty-two-year-old daughter, Casey. George drove a black 2007 Chrysler PT Cruiser, while Cindy drove a dark green 2005 Toyota 4Runner.

George called Cindy at work and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but I got a notice from a towing company that they have Casey’s car.”

This caused immediate concern for Cindy, because Casey had supposedly driven that car to Jacksonville. She demanded loudly that George go and pick up the car immediately. But they agreed to go together to pick up the vehicle. They drove together to Johnson’s Wrecker Service. Before leaving, George went to a shed in the backyard, grabbed a cylindrical gas can filled with gasoline and threw it in the trunk of his PT Cruiser.

When they arrived at the tow yard, Cindy, a middle-aged, tanned blonde, spoke to an employee through bulletproof glass. She demanded to know why it had taken so long for the company to notify her about the car.

“We have policies that we have to follow,” replied the employee behind the glass. “We have to send out a certified letter on the third business day to the registered owner.”

Cindy, an intelligent and strong-willed woman, wasn’t satisfied. The employee politely explained that the problem could have occurred because the letter was sent during the Fourth of July holiday. Cindy stated she and her husband had been out of town for a few days. (Her telephone records and later testimony would show otherwise.)

George and Cindy went to a nearby ATM and withdrew $500. After paying the bill, George walked with the manager of the tow company, Simon Burch, to the gated lot that held George’s Pontiac Sunfire.

They discussed how long the tow yard had held the car.

“Three weeks,” Burch said.

George replied, “The car had been at the Amscot for three days before you towed it.” Burch fleetingly thought to himself,
We had no idea how long the car had been there before we towed it. How did he know?
He also wondered how George knew it had been picked up at the Amscot Financial store parking lot.

As they walked toward the car, George apologized for Cindy’s rude behavior.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re having a rough time. Our daughter had the car. And our granddaughter is missing. And she told us lies. We’ll probably get divorced over this.”

Burch felt sorry for the man but felt awkward about a stranger divulging such private family details. He didn’t engage him further but instead offered his condolences, saying, “Okay, I’m sorry. No big deal.”

The car was locked, and there was no key in the ignition. George reached into his pocket, brought out a set of keys, opened the driver’s side door, and got in. As soon as George opened the door, Burch was struck by a terrible, overpowering odor coming from the inside of the car.

“Whoa, that stinks,” said Burch.

“Yeah, that’s pretty rough,” said George.

George put the key in the ignition but thought better about starting the car. He asked Burch, “Can you open the trunk with me?”

George would later tell the cops that as he was opening the trunk under his breath he said, “Oh God, please don’t let this be Casey or Caylee.”

At the same time, Burch was thinking to himself,
I know what that smell is, and I don’t want to think about it.
The yard had once held a car that had a corpse in it, and it seemed like a very similar smell was coming from the Pontiac.

When George opened the trunk, Burch looked inside, half expecting to see a body. Instead there was a large white kitchen garbage bag, pulled tight at the top. Burch told George that it was obvious that the garbage, left in the summer heat to cook for three weeks, was the source of the smell. George reached into the trunk, opened up the garbage bag, and looked inside. Inside were some three-week-old pizza remnants, a crumpled pizza box, and other garbage.

“You want me to get rid of this?” asked Burch. George did. The bag wasn’t very heavy, and Burch tossed it over the chain-link fence near a Dumpster and slammed shut the trunk.

George sat in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac, opened the driver-side window, and turned the key. The engine turned over, but it wouldn’t start. Burch, who had a world of experience with cars that had run out of gas, leaned over and noticed that the gas gauge was on “E.”

“It’s probably out of gas,” Burch said.

“Yes, it’s out of gas,” stated George.

Burch, having been told of the stress George was under, felt bad for the man. He was fighting with his wife, his granddaughter was missing, he had paid a small fortune to get his impounded car back, and now the car wouldn’t start. Burch was about to offer one of his gas cans so George could walk to the nearest gas station and get some gas, but George surprised him by saying, “I’ve got gas with me.”

Under the procedures of the impound lot, Burch had to accompany George back to his PT Cruiser. George opened the trunk, pulled out the metal gas can, and took it back to the Pontiac. He poured the gas from the can into the car.

George got back in the Pontiac, and the car roared to life after three or four cranks of the engine. Burch walked to the gate and pushed a button to open the gate. When George reached the exit, he thanked Burch for his help.

“Sorry about the wife,” Burch said.

“No big deal,” said George, driving off.

A
FTER
G
EORGE AND
C
INDY
arrived home, Cindy opened the trunk of Casey’s Pontiac and sprayed an entire bottle of Febreze air freshener into the trunk in an attempt to kill the foul odor. Both then headed to their respective places of employment. When Cindy arrived at her job at Gentiva Health Services, Inc., where she was a clinical supervisor, her coworkers were waiting for her with a barrage of questions.

Cindy is a talker, and the entire office was a hothouse of gossip, so her coworkers all knew that Cindy hadn’t seen her granddaughter Caylee for a month. During that period, Casey would call and tell her mother where she was. For a time, Casey said she was in Jacksonville visiting a boyfriend by the name of Jeff Hopkins. Another time she said she was in Tampa. On the days Casey didn’t call, Cindy would call her. Each time, Cindy would ask about Caylee’s whereabouts, and every time Casey would come up with a different excuse why she couldn’t put Caylee on the phone. Casey would say Caylee was with Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the nanny, at the beach, or sleeping, or at Walt Disney World. Casey would tell her mother that she felt Caylee and her mother were too close and that she wanted to keep her out of the picture while she bonded with her daughter. Day after day Cindy called Casey trying to talk to Caylee, and every day for a month she was rebuffed. Cindy would wring her hands and tell her coworkers that Casey was lying.