Presumed Guilty

by Jose Baez

“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 30th [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 7th 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.

  “You go straight over one speed bump, and it’s the first building on the right-hand side. There’s a welcome sign. There’s a little shed close to the building, maybe ten yards away.”

  Casey rode in the back of Acevedo’s squad car. Fletcher followed in a second squad car.

  Acevedo lowered Casey’s backseat window, and Casey pointed out the apartment. Fletcher knocked on the door, but no one answered. He then went to the management office of the apartment complex, where he learned Casey wasn’t telling him the truth. No one had lived in the apartment for almost six months.

  Detective Melich arrived at the Anthony home around 1:00 A.M. After being briefed by Hosey, Melich was pulled aside by George, who informed him that he was a former law enforcement officer in Warren, Ohio. George told Melich that Casey was not being truthful and that her car smelled of human decomposition. Melich, ignoring George, concentrated on reading Casey’s statement about Zenaida taking her baby rather than going to inspect the car.

  “This sounds very suspect,” Melich said to Casey. “Are you sure, before we go any further, that you don’t want to change anything in here?”

  Casey didn’t.

  “Okay,” said Melich, “Let’s take your sworn statement.” So Casey regurgitated the same story about Zenaida, her nanny of two years, taking her baby, Caylee. She described the directions to Zanny’s apartment in great detail. She said she met Zanny through a mutual friend, Jeffrey Hopkins.

  “She was his son’s nanny at the time,” she said. She described how Hopkins had moved to North Carolina and then back to Jacksonville. When asked for his telephone number, Casey said she didn’t have it on hand. She said Hopkins had a four-year-old son named Zack. She said that her nanny before Zenaida was a woman by the name of Lauren Gibbs.

  In an effort to make headway, Melich asked Casey if she knew where Zenaida’s mother lived.

  “She lived off of Michigan,” Casey said. “It’s not a very well-marked neighborhood. It crosses over Conway. It’s one of the big stretches of neighborhoods.”

  When asked if she could find the house, she said she thought so.

  Melich asked Casey what she remembered about June 9, the day she dropped her child off with the nanny, and the last day she said she saw Caylee.

  “I got off work,” Casey said, “left Universal, driving back to pick up Caylee like a normal day. And I show up at the apartment, knock on the door. Nobody answers. So I called Zenaida’s cell phone and it’s out of service. So I sit down on the steps and wait for a little bit to see if maybe it was just a fluke or if something happened. And time passed. I didn’t hear from anyone. No one showed up to the house, so I went over to Jay Blanchard Park and checked a couple other places where maybe possibly they would have gone. A couple stores, just regular places that I know Zenaida shops at and she’s taken Caylee before. And after about 7:00 P.M., when I still hadn’t heard anything, I was getting pretty upset, pretty frantic. And I went to a neutral place. I didn’t really want to come home. I wasn’t sure what I’d say about not knowing where Caylee was. Still hoping that I would get a call or, you know, find out Caylee was coming back so I could go get her … and I ended up going to my boyfriend Anthony’s house, who lives in Sutton Place.”

  When Melich asked Casey whether she told any of this to her parents, she said she didn’t. Did she tell anyone? She said she had told Jeffrey Hopkins and Juliet Lewis, another coworker at Universal Studios, and said she attempted to call Zenaida’s mother, Gloria.

  “Do you know Gloria’s telephone number?”

  She didn’t.

  When he was done, Melich said to her, “I asked you this at the onset, and before we went on tape, and I’ll ask you again just to make sure we’re clear. Is there anything about this story that you’re telling me that’s untrue?”<
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  “No.”

  “Is there anything that you want to change or divert from what you’ve already told me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you hurt Caylee or leave her somewhere and you’re …”

  “No.”

  “… worried that if we find that out that people are gonna look at you the wrong way?”

  “No, sir.”

  He then asked whether she had any problems with drugs, narcotics, cocaine, ecstasy, meth, anything like that.

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Have you ever been to Lakeside?” he asked, referring to a local mental health facility.

  “No.”

  Melich said, “You said Zenaida had family in New England or New York or something.”

  “Yes, she has family down south. Her mother, her sister, and her brother are in New York. She’s originally from New York.”

  “And where down south?”

  “Miami area.”

  “Where’s she originally from?”

  “New York.”

  “She was born and raised in New York?” asked Melich.

  “As far as I know, she pretty much grew up there, moved down here, went to the University of Florida.”

  “She Puerto Rican, Dominican, or white?”

  “She’s mixed. She’s black and Puerto Rican.”

  Melich asked Casey, “Does Juliet Lewis still work at Universal?”

  “Yes, she does,” said Casey.

  “And what does she do there?”

  “She’s an event coordinator.”

  “Can I have her phone number?”

  “Oh,” said Casey, suddenly changing direction, “she moved up to New York two months ago.”

  “So she doesn’t work at Universal anymore?” asked Melich.

  “No, she does not.”

  Melich asked if he had forgotten to ask her anything.

  Casey told him that Caylee had very distinctive features and that even if someone had cut her hair, people would recognize her dark hazel eyes. “They’re brown and green. She has a birthmark on her left shoulder.”

  “What kind of birthmark?”

  “It’s just like a small line. It almost looks like a small little beauty mark.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I just want my daughter back.”