Mommy's Little Girl (27 page)

“Right.” Lee nodded.

“It's just that she recalled originally that's the first time. You believe, though, that may have influenced your sister picking the ninth as . . .”

“A hundred percent,” Lee interjected.

“. . . when the abduction occurs?” Edwards finished.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, which is a red flag as far as what her thought
process may have been—in my mind, anyway. We cruise on through—we get to the fifteenth. You know from talking to Mom that they went and visited Granddad in Mount Dora?”

“Um hum.” Lee nodded.

“When they came back, you believe from talking to Mom, that your sister, Casey, was at the house and actually [uploaded] the video and the pictures onto MySpace?”

“Yes.”

“Or onto the home computer?”

“And MySpace, yes.”

“And MySpace? Okay. And that being the forensics stuff that we know of, the last time any digital recording or any photographs were taken or existed of your niece . . .”

“Exactly.”

“. . . Was on the fifteenth?” Edwards continued.

“Yes,” Lee affirmed.

 

Judge Strickland's decision to permit audio and video recordings to be admitted into the record earlier that day was on Lee's mind when he talked to his sister on the telephone. “Here's an FYI for you, so you can conduct yourself accordingly,” Lee warned. “Everything is public record, including this phone call, including the visitation video, all that stuff is going to end up being released at some point.”

“I know it is,” Casey said.

“I had no knowledge of that whatsoever,” Lee complained.

“They told me about that yesterday.”

“They told me after we did that. There are obviously things I may have asked in a different way.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“I don't want you, you know, to feel for any reason we are not on your side about anything, because we are, about everything. We are completely behind you . . .”

“I know.”

“. . . and being completely behind you, our entire focus,
our entire days—every second of every day is consumed by what we can do to find Caylee.”

“Of course,” Casey acknowledged.

He then asked her if she had anything she could tell him that would help them find Caylee, but Casey said that nothing came to her mind.

“Do you think Caylee is okay, right now?” Lee asked.

“My gut feeling, as Mom asked me yesterday, and as the psychologist asked me this morning, that I met with through the court: In my gut, she's still okay. And it still feels like she's close to home.”

On July 29, Cindy and George came to the jail again to visit their daughter. They sat in the hard, uncomfortable chairs staring at an empty screen, waiting for their daughter's arrival on the other end. Finally, personnel informed them that Casey had been taken to court. They joined her there, and then came back for a visit the next day.

After exchanging greetings and news, Casey sighed, sniffled and wiped her eyes. “I'm being as strong as I can—considering the situation. It's hard—it's just very hard.”

“I know. I know,” Cindy commiserated.

“I just wanna go home,” Casey sobbed. “Every day I wake up, I'm just hoping and praying I get to go home. I just want to be with you guys. I just wanna help find her, because I feel a little hopeless, I feel a little helpless here.”

Cindy reassured her that everyone was being supportive and sending love her way. When the conversation turned to Caylee, Cindy said, “I want her home so that we can celebrate her third birthday as a family again.”

“Every day I can feel it, Mom. I know I'm going to be home with you guys. I know she's going to be home with us. Everyone just has to keep that faith, because mine's growing stronger every day.”

George offered his reassurance, too, and apologized for not being a better dad and grandpa. Casey rebuffed that, saying, “Dad, I can't say this to you enough: You've done everything you possibly can, and you're the best
father and by far, the best grandfather I ever met . . . I mean that with all my heart. Don't think otherwise for a minute.”

When Cindy returned to the phone, her voice was stretched thin and high from the stress and tears. “I want you both home so bad, Casey. I'm trying to stay so strong for you.”

“You're doing such a great job, Mom. I want you to know that . . .”

“I'm trying so hard, but it's getting harder every day . . . She's not going to hurt Caylee, is she, Casey? She's not going to hurt Caylee?”

“I told you, in my gut, I know she is okay. I can feel it, Mom; I know she's still okay. We're going to get our little girl back, and she's going to be just as she was.”

“Don't ever let anybody outside the family . . .” Cindy began.

“No. Trust me. I've said the same thing. I'm going to be the crazy, over-protective mom at that point, but I don't care. I think it's well deserved.”

“You've always been a protective mommy.”

“Well, like I said, ‘the crazy . . . ,' ” Casey said with a chuckle. “I won't let her out of my sight. So, I'll do whatever I have to. We'll figure it all out when it comes to it. I mean, I've been thinking about jobs and schedules and what I can do . . .”

“You won't have to work. You won't have to work. We'll figure everything out.”

Casey said, “I'm kind of glad I haven't been crying every day—inside, of course, yeah, but I'm keeping my wits about me and staying as strong as I possibly can. This is the strongest I've ever been. Because even when I want to break down, I've been able to calm myself quickly, without doing much of that. It's hard, considering where I am, considering the situation, but I just keep thinking about you guys, ‘cause that's the thing that makes me feel okay about not crying, and not being so emotionally distraught I can't even think straight.”

“I know,” her mother said. “It's the same way with me. I mean, I could curl up in a ball and be so absorbed with her not being there, which is—There are moments I'm like that—but I know that's not going to bring her home.”

“I know it.”

“Someone has to be her little voice out there.”

“Exactly. But you aren't a ‘little voice' by any means,” Casey said with a laugh.

“Well, you know me . . .”

“Exactly. And it's funny. I'm going to say this, and you're going to laugh—I think it's hilarious. Everyone says that—you guys have always said I'm the loudest in the family, then it's you, then it's Lee and then Dad, because Dad is quiet and reserved, we know that. But I've been told by many sources that it is your son that's the loud one,” Casey grinned. “Then it's you. Then it's me. So, hah!” Casey laughed.

Cindy was not amused. She answered seriously, “That's okay. I don't want to be the loud one. I don't want to be . . .”

“Oh, you're still the middle one. So, you're still the moderator. We know that Dad will always process things thoroughly before having any reaction or saying anything. He's very choosy about his words. He always has been. Which is good. 'Cause I think within our family, we need someone like that. 'Cause little Caylee is like you and I.”

When Cindy asked Casey about the letter to the family that she'd promised Lee, Casey said that she had been too busy to write it. But later in the conversation, Casey contradicted herself when she said that she liked visitors because she had nothing to do but read and take naps. Although she'd said she wanted to talk to Ryan Pasley, she was declining any visits outside of family and her attorney. She said she'd rather see friends after she got out of jail.

When they left the visitation, George told reporters, “You want to reach out and touch them and give them a hug and make her feel the love that we have, to know we
love her daughter unconditionally. We want our granddaughter back.”

For his part, Ryan didn't sound as if he were beating down any walls to speak to his childhood friend, when interviewed by law enforcement that day. He said he'd thought about visiting her in the hopes he could get information from her, but decided not to go. He knew she wasn't saying anything, because “she's lawyered up.” He added, “I'm sure . . . her lawyer is telling her just shut up, and hopefully they won't find anything . . . I guess that's what I'm going to assume, because he actually called me and asked me questions.

“I answered whatever questions he had and then he ended up asking me, ‘Do you think you'd be a good person . . . as a character witness or a reference for Caylee?' And I said, ‘To be honest with you, from the truth that I've told you, I'm not going to be . . . I mean, I'm going to be a big detriment to your case.' He's like, ‘Yeah, you're probably right,' and he even hung up the phone,” Ryan chuckled.

“Really?” Yuri Melich asked. “When was this conversation?”

“Two or three days after . . . the incident got reported . . . José actually called me . . . on his cell phone . . . because Casey had given him my number and said go ahead and give me a call . . . And I told him, ‘You know I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I just don't think it's going to help your case.' ”

Melich said, “I understand, based on what you're telling me, and not only you, a whole bunch of other people, she's just a pathological liar.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.

Melich asked what it would take to get Casey to talk.

“It's really going to take the fear of God, to be honest with you. Because that's the type of person she is. She's not going to do anything for anybody unless there's something in it for her . . . And she has to be scared.”

He asked about Casey's drug use and Ryan said, “She
started telling me that she was, you know, smoking pot and this and that.”

“Well, what other ‘this and that? Because I'm trying to make sense of what her friends are telling me down here.”

“But that is literally what she would say . . . I would ask her specifically, and she said, ‘Well, you know, just pot and, you know, whatever else is around,' is the . . . way she put it.”

“Do you know if she was rolling? Was she doing Ex, popping pills?”

“It's a very good possibility, to be honest with you, because, you know, just the fact that she actually released to me that she was smoking pot—she's always known that I've been against it completely . . . She felt very apologetic after she even told me that. She was trying to explain herself over and over again.”

 

The state attorney general sent a message to justices at the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach that morning, informing them that Casey Anthony was a person of interest in the disappearance of Caylee. He argued that the bail was not unreasonably high because Casey was the key to finding the little girl.

The three-judge panel responded by denying José Baez's request to lower Casey's bond to $10,000. Baez announced his intention to file an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Cindy walked into the Orange County Sheriff's Office clutching a black loose-leaf binder for a meeting with the FBI on July 30. There, she launched into a litany of the wrongs committed by local law enforcement and a passionate protestation of her daughter's innocence.

She expressed irritation with investigators for not seriously considering the airport sighting of Caylee. She complained that Yuri Melich had told Lee, “We wasted a lot of time checking out that lead.” She griped that an
investigator talking to Wanda Weiry, the woman who'd reported the sighting, said, “I don't know why we're doing this, 'cause this little girl is dead.”

Cindy wanted the FBI to focus on following the leads to locate Zenaida and recover Caylee, rather than persecuting her innocent daughter. Cindy said she would do anything to get Caylee back, proclaiming that “If someone called and said, ‘Ms. Anthony, take a butcher knife and put it in your heart,' I would do it. I would do it without hesitation.” She added that Casey would do the same thing.

“I trust my daughter. I still trust my daughter for her decisions for Caylee.” She's the “kind of Mom that's just perfect . . . She was a loving mother.” Cindy also said that she was certain that Casey would have cracked by now if it were an accident.

Cindy aired her suspicions about Amy and Rico, saying that neither one of them had volunteered to distribute fliers as Casey's other friends had, and that Zanny might really be Amy. She also shared a new version of the abduction scenario that Casey had supposedly told to Lee: “Casey said that she was in Blanchard Park with Zanny and . . . Zanny's sister . . . When they were getting ready to leave, Zanny's sister . . . took Caylee. And Casey said, ‘Where are you guys going?' And Zanny pushed Casey to the ground . . . and threatened her. ‘Listen, bitch,' this is what she said, ‘I'm going to teach you a lesson . . . You're not getting Caylee back.' ”

Throughout the interview, she kept returning to her criticism of the investigation conducted by Orange County. The FBI assured her that they thought everything was being done right. Cindy was not mollified by their opinion and carped again on the wasted three days when they'd concentrated on proving Casey's guilt. The agent reminded her, “We lost the first seventy-two hours before we even knew Caylee was missing.”

 

Public perception of Casey had never been great from the moment it was learned that she had not reported her
daughter missing for thirty-one days. The emergence of pictures showing Casey partying in a bar on June 20, less than a week after the alleged abduction of Caylee, sent Casey's image plummeting like a rock.

It was hard to believe it could sink any lower. Then along came Travis Nichols. Just released from prison, he claimed that he'd talked briefly with Casey while in the holding cell at court. “I was asking her where the baby was. She said, ‘I don't have the baby, Travis, my boyfriend has the baby,' and she started smiling.”