Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story (3 page)

Miserable because her daughter wasn’t allowing her to see or talk to her granddaughter, Cindy had gone on Myspace and vented, railing about the way Casey was treating her. The subject of the post was “My Caylee Is Missing,” and it was posted on July 3:

Now she is gone, and I don’t know why. All I am guilty of is loving her and providing her a safe home. Jealousy has taken her away. Jealousy from one person that should be thankful for all of the love and support given her. A mother’s love is deep, however there are limits when one is betrayed by the one she loved and trusted the most. A daughter comes to her mother for support when she is pregnant, the mother says without hesitation it will be ok. And it was. But then the lies and the betrayal began. First it seemed harmless, as, love is blind. A mother will look for the good in her child and give them a chance to change. This mother gave chance after chance for her daughter to change, but instead more lies, more betrayal. What does the mother get for giving her daughter all of these chances? A broken heart. The daughter who stole money, lots of money, leaves without warning and does not let her mother now speak to the baby that her mother raised, fed, clothed, sheltered, paid her medical bills,
etc.
Instead tells her friends that her mother is controlling her life and she needs her space. No money, no future. Where did it go? Who is now watching out for the little angel?

With the discovery of Casey’s car, Cindy couldn’t face the possibility that Casey or Caylee or both of them might be dead. After Cindy returned to work, her coworkers wanted to know what was going on.

“We found Casey’s car,” said Cindy. “We took it home, and the baby’s car seat was in the back, and a backpack and her favorite doll.”

“Where’s the baby?” asked Debbie Polisano, her boss.

“I don’t know,” said Cindy, who was becoming agitated.

“I want you to go home,” said Polisano.

Cindy then said, “There was a very terrible odor in the car.”

“Did you open the trunk?” asked Polisano.

Cindy didn’t answer. She paused.

“It’s a very, very bad odor,” said Cindy. “George said it smelled like a dead body had been in the car. I’m a nurse and I know that smell.”

“Call the police,” said the coworkers.

“I want to give Casey a chance to explain,” said Cindy.

Polisano went to her supervisor and said, “You need to tell Cindy to go home and take care of her personal business, because something bad is going on, and she needs to be home.”

“Cindy, I’m ordering you to go home,” said Nilsa Ramos, the woman in charge.

“Okay,” Cindy said and, in tears, she packed up and left.

Sent home from work, Cindy now had to confront the reality of her situation. She searched Casey’s Pontiac. She found Casey’s purse inside and a slip of paper with the phone number of Amy Huizenga, one of Casey’s girlfriends. She called her.

“Amy, this is Cindy,” she said, “and I’m very worried. Have you seen Casey?”

“Yes,” Amy said. “She just picked me up at the airport. She’s at her boyfriend’s house.”

“I don’t know where that is,” said Cindy. “Can you take me there?”

Amy, hearing the agitation in Cindy’s voice, agreed.

Cindy drove to The Florida Mall, picked up Amy, and together they drove to the apartment of Tony Lazzaro in East Orlando.

Amy knocked on the door, while Cindy hid around the corner. When Casey came to the door, Cindy rushed up to confront her.

“Where’s Caylee?” Cindy asked.

“She’s at the nanny’s house,” said Casey.

“You’re taking me to her right now.”

“No, I’m not,” said Casey. “She’s sleeping. I’m not going to do that.”

“You’re going to take me right now,” said Cindy. “You’re coming with me right now.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re coming with me right now or I’m calling the cops.”

Inside the apartment, Tony sat in the living room with several college friends watching the All-Star baseball game on television. Tony was a college kid studying musical production at Full Sail University. He worked part-time as a club promoter for an Orlando nightclub called Fusion Ultra Lounge.

Casey finally agreed to go with Cindy. Before she left, Cindy stuck her head in the door and screamed to Tony, “I hope you’re rich, because she’s going to rob you blind.”

No one said very much during the car ride to take Amy back home. All Cindy wanted to know from Casey was, “Where’s Caylee?” She demanded, “Take me to her.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“All right, I’m going to call the cops.”

Cindy drove to a police substation on Pershing Street, only to find it closed. She parked the car, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed 9-1-1. Her first question was, “Where can I find out where to take someone to the police department?”

“What are you trying to accomplish by bringing them to the station?” was the reply.

“I have a twenty-two-year-old person that has, um, grand theft, sitting in my auto with me.”

“So the twenty-two-year-old person stole something?” the dispatcher asked her.

“Yes.”

The dispatcher asked if the person was a relative.

“Yes,” Cindy said.

“Where did they steal it from?”

“Um, my car, and also money.”

“Okay, is this your son?”

“My daughter.”

Cindy then related the saga of the impounded car.

“My car was stolen. We’ve retrieved it today. We found out where it was at and retrieved it. I want to bring her in. I want to press charges.”

“Where did all of this happen?” asked the dispatcher.

“Oh, it’s been happening,” said Cindy.

“I know,” said the dispatcher, “but I need to establish a jurisdiction.”

“I live in Orlando,” Cindy said, and she gave her address, 4937 Hopespring Drive.

The dispatcher told her that was the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department, not the Orlando Police Department.

“All righty,” said Cindy.

While the dispatcher was transferring the call to the sheriff’s office, Cindy threatened to get a court order to force Casey to give Caylee to her.

“That’s not the way I want to do it,” said Casey. “Give me one more day.”

“No, I’m not going to give you another day,” said Cindy. “I’ve given you a month.”

Cindy, frustrated, hung up, and she and Casey drove to the Anthony home. Prior to arriving, she called George’s cell phone, but there was no answer. George, after seeing the missed call, dialed his son, Lee, age 26, and told him, “I need you to go to the house immediately and check on your mother. Something is terribly wrong.” Lee did so immediately. When Cindy and Casey arrived, Lee was already waiting in the garage by the Pontiac Sunfire, which had the trunk open to air out the smell that Lee would later describe as something that “hit you like a wave as soon as you walked in the garage.” Casey got out of Cindy’s 4Runner and briskly walked past him, saying nothing as Cindy explained to Lee what was going on. Cindy then asked him to go and try to talk some sense into his sister.

Lee walked into Casey’s room and began to ask her where Caylee was, but Casey wasn’t talking. Since Lee was not getting anywhere with Casey, Cindy made another call to 9-1-1, and when she was connected to someone in the sheriff’s office, she informed them, “I have someone here that needs to be arrested in my home, and a possible missing child. I have a three-year-old that’s been missing for a month.”

“A three-year-old?”

“Yes,” said Cindy.

“Have you reported that?”

“I’m trying to do that now, ma’am.”

“What did the person do that you need arrested?”

“My daughter.”

“For what?”

“For stealing an auto and stealing money.”

“So she stole your vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“When did she do that?”

“On the 30
^th
[of June]. I just got it back from the impound. I’d like to speak to an officer. Can you have someone come out to my house?”

“What’s her name?”

“My name?”

“Her name.”

“Casey Anthony.”

“And your name?”

“Cynthia Anthony.”

“Casey’s there right now?”

“Yes, I got her. I finally found her after a month. She’s been missing for a month. I found her, but we can’t find my granddaughter.”

“Does she have any weapons on her?”

“No.”

“Is Casey not telling you where her daughter is?”

“Correct.”

The dispatcher promised to send out a deputy as soon as one was available.

Lee continued to try to persuade Casey to tell him where Caylee was. She was hemming and hawing, and finally Lee said to her, “This is futile. Mom has called the cops. And when the cops get here the first thing they are going to do is say, ‘Miss Anthony, can you please take us to where your daughter is?’ Then you’re going to have to take them. Why are you taking things this far? Why would you let the police get involved? You should just tell me so I can tell her, and we can go get Caylee.”

“All right,” said Casey. “You want me to tell you the truth?”

“Yes.”

“The truth is I haven’t seen Caylee in thirty-one days.”

And just as Casey was telling Lee this, Cindy walked within earshot.

“Oh my God,” said Cindy. “What have you done? Why didn’t you tell me? We could have done something before.”

Flipping out, Cindy made a third 9-1-1 call to the police, this time in tears.

“I called a little bit ago,” she said. “I found out my granddaughter has been taken. She’s been missing for a month. Her mother finally admitted that she’s been missing—admitted that the babysitter stole her. I need to find her.”

“The baby is where?” asked the dispatcher.

“The babysitter took her a month ago. My daughter’s been looking for her. I told you my daughter was missing for a month. I just found her today, but I can’t find my granddaughter. And she just admitted to me that she’s been trying to find her herself. There’s something wrong. I found my daughter’s car today and it smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car.”

“Okay, what is the three-year-old’s name?”

“Caylee—C-A-Y-L-E-E—Anthony.”

“Is she white, black, or Hispanic?”

“She’s white.”

“How long has she been missing for?”

“I have not seen her since the 7
^th
of June.”

When the dispatcher asked Cindy the date of Caylee’s birth, she became distraught and began to cry hysterically. Right at this moment, George entered the scene.

“George, Caylee’s missing,” cried Cindy.

“What?” George responded softly.

“Casey has admitted Zanny took her a month ago. She’s been missing for a month.”

George, composed and stoic, said nothing.

Cindy was crying so hard that the dispatcher asked her to give the phone to Casey, who told her, “My daughter’s been missing for the last thirty-one days. I know who has her. I’ve tried to contact her. I actually received a phone call today now from a number that is no longer in service. I did get to speak to my daughter for a moment, about a minute.”

The dispatcher then asked about the stolen vehicle.

“No, this is my vehicle,” said Casey. “It’s a ’98 Pontiac Sunfire.”

The dispatcher, who could not have possibly figured out what in the world was going on, told her a deputy was en route to her home.

The dispatcher asked Casey more questions, and Casey told her that the name of the babysitter who took her baby was Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez.

“She’s been my nanny for about a year and a half, almost two years,” said Casey.

“Why are you calling now?” asked the dispatcher. “Why didn’t you call thirty-one days ago?”

“I’ve been looking for her and have gone through other resources to try to find her, which was stupid, but …”

Casey was still on the phone when the officers arrived.

The first officer to arrive at the scene, Corporal Rendon Fletcher, thought the call was about a stolen car, which was what the dispatcher’s printout said. When Fletcher arrived at the home, he noticed that Cindy was yelling at Casey, “ranting and raving,” as he put it. Cindy was pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room.

When Fletcher asked Casey what was going on, she paused and then said, “My daughter is missing.”

Once he realized there was a missing child involved, he called his supervisor, Sergeant Reginald Hosey. Shortly thereafter, several more officers, including Deputies Adriana Acevedo and Ryan Eberlin, arrived at the Anthony home. All the officers would later testify that Cindy and Lee were visibly upset while George and Casey were remarkably calm.

It was around nine in the evening. At first the police weren’t sure it was a case about a missing child. They figured this was a domestic issue, and that, for some reason, Casey didn’t want to bring her child home. After talking with Casey, the thinking was that there was a rift between Casey and her mother, and that Casey was using the baby as a pawn in a power struggle with Cindy. Cindy was also telling the officers that Casey had stolen some credit cards and money from her and that she wanted to press charges since Casey would not tell her where Caylee was. Hosey instructed Eberlin to handcuff Casey and place her in the back of his squad car.

When a suspect has her freedom curtailed by law enforcement—meaning a reasonable person feels no longer free to leave—the legal process begins, and if the police choose to question that suspect, they must read that person her Miranda rights. But they didn’t.

Hosey then spoke on the phone with Detective Yuri Melich, the detective on call. Cindy asked Hosey, “What’s going on?”

“We’re taking the handcuffs off her because a detective is coming to talk to her,” said Hosey. They opened the squad car door, let her out, and took off the handcuffs. In effect, they were “unarresting” her. (There’s no such thing as “unarresting” someone though.)

From the moment of Casey’s arrest, the police demonstrated an unbelievable degree of carelessness. As you will see, Casey’s arrest and unarrest was only the beginning.

Casey then told the police that she had dropped Caylee off at the Sawgrass Apartments in Orlando. The police asked Casey to take them there. Casey said the apartment was on the second floor.