by Jeff Ashton
AS MELICH WAS COMING TO understand just how unreliable and suspect Casey was, a different part of the investigation was taking place at the Forensics Garage on Colonial Drive, part of the Orange County Sheriff’s Central Operations Building. The facility housed the department’s administrative offices, investigative units, and a state-of-the-art forensics section where the Pontiac that Casey had been driving when Caylee went missing was being examined.
George had given the police permission to process the vehicle, so they didn’t need a search warrant to proceed. The car had been brought into the garage by Johnson’s Wrecker Service, the same tow company that had removed it from the Amscot check-cashing lot on June 30. Crime Scene Investigator Gerardo Bloise was there to receive the car, along with a black plastic bag containing items that Cindy had removed from the car when it was at the house.
Bloise inventoried the contents: a doll, a backpack, a child’s toothbrush, a black leather bag, various papers, a dinner knife, a blue plastic crate, and plastic clothes hangers. The contents of a white plastic garbage bag were also inventoried. When George had picked up the car, the bag was in the car’s trunk, and the tow yard manager had removed it and hurled it into the Dumpster exactly as he had found it. Police had gone back to the Johnson’s Wrecker Service yard, and the bag had been recovered in its entirety from a Dumpster there. Inside the bag were a can of Copenhagen chewing tobacco; an empty bottle of Arm & Hammer laundry detergent; aluminum foil; part of a plastic hanger; a big pile of paper products; empty Sprite, Cherry Cola, Dr Pepper, Pepsi, and Mountain Dew soda cans; an empty Milwaukee’s Best Light beer can; one hairpin; three plastic tie wraps; an empty Oscar Meyer plastic container; several dryer sheets; empty containers of Crystal Light; a cut-up pizza box; a receipt from the Fusian Ultra Lounge; a document from Full Sail University; an empty plastic bottle of Coke; a Crystal Light plastic bottle containing brown liquid; a cherry Coke carton; and a cardboard Velveeta container, among other things. There were maggots crawling on a plastic dinner tray.
Next, Bloise moved on to the car itself, photographing the exterior of the Pontiac, which was clean but not remarkably so. He then opened the sealed driver’s-side door and was immediately blasted by a smell he described as the “odor of decomposition,” quite startling in light of the physically well-maintained vehicle. The interior was tidy and vacuumed, although a few personal items were found on the seats. The right rear passenger seat had a car seat buckled in. The left rear passenger seat contained two pairs of black women’s shoes. On the front passenger seat were a brown belt, sunglasses, and a black case containing CDs.
Bad as the smell in the car was, the absolute worst of the odor was in the trunk. A dryer sheet found inside was not disguising the stench. The truck had been vacuumed but still had some type of dirt residue. Noting a stain on the right side of the trunk, Bloise cut two pieces from the D-shaped particleboard spare tire cover, surfaced with the same carpet as the trunk. He also collected a hair from that area, a hair from the middle area of the trunk liner, four hairs from the left side of the trunk area, and another from the directional light wire of the vehicle.
With a smell as potent as this, it was decided that a K-9 unit should be brought in, and so Detective Jason Forgey and his cadaver dog, Gerus, came for an inspection. Law enforcement has long recognized the superior olfactory abilities of canines, and they use different dogs for different purposes. Some are trained to separate the subtle differences between the body odors of individual humans and track those scents through the air. Others are trained to detect the presence of certain drugs or the chemical components of explosives. Still others are trained to detect the distinct odor of a decomposing human body: Gerus was such a dog. Normally Human Remains Detection Canines, or cadaver dogs as they are commonly referred to, are called in to find human remains; this call was a little different.
After circling the car just once, Gerus started showing interest by sniffing aggressively at it. Forgey opened the car door, and Gerus tried to get into the trunk from the backseat. Gerus then exited the car and ran another pass around it and alerted on the trunk for a second time. When the trunk was opened, Gerus tried to climb in, indicating to Forgey that the source of the odor was in the trunk.
The K-9 team then went to the Anthony residence on Hopespring Drive to continue working. George had discovered a newly dug shallow hole near the shed, five inches deep and about twelve inches long, that concerned him. Gerus didn’t care about that, but showed special interest in the playground and playhouse areas. A second K-9 unit was brought in from neighboring Osceola County to confirm Gerus’s findings. The second cadaver dog was interested in three areas of the backyard, the same ones Gerus had alerted us to, plus the ground near the patio porch. Investigators checked all three locations for human remains but found nothing.
The house next door to the Anthonys’ on’ the left was 4929 Hopespring Drive. It belonged to Brian Burner, and was where investigators headed next. They had been made aware of a potential piece of evidence there. The owner had a shovel in his garage that Casey Anthony had borrowed on June 17, the day after Caylee was last seen alive. Burner said that Casey had told him she wanted dig up some bamboo in her yard, although an hour later, when she returned the shovel, it did not appear to have been used much, if at all.
WITH MELICH SIFTING THROUGH CASEY’S lies and the crime scene investigators taking apart the car, the case began to take shape. For most of the next week, investigators continued to piece together what they knew and the story of how Casey had spent the thirty-one days that she did not report Caylee missing. Meanwhile, everyone in Orlando seemed to be on the hunt for little Caylee. Nothing brings a community together like a missing child, and though confidence still seemed high that they would be able to find her, the results from the cadaver dogs were concerning.
The investigation had a bit of a split personality. On the one hand the sheriff’s office was aggressively following every possible lead in an attempt to find Caylee alive, but at the same time they were investigating what was coming to look like a homicide. While the Anthonys were eager to do whatever they could to assist in the missing child investigation, they were less thrilled when the investigation turned to murder and their daughter’s possible involvement in it.
Such was the state of affairs for Casey’s bond hearing on July 22. Jose Baez was in court representing Casey before Judge Stan Strickland, while Linda was on the other side representing the state of Florida. I had worked with Judge Strickland in 2001 as the lead prosecutor assigned to his division, and during that time I’d found him very easy to work with. He was one of those judges who encouraged lawyers to work out cases rather than take them to trial; we all liked him, but he didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of attorneys who appeared before him. On the bench, he was pleasant and usually made the correct ruling, but he didn’t have much experience with big cases or with capital homicides. To my recollection, he had handled only one other high-profile case before Casey stepped into his courtroom.
At the hearing, Detective Melich and canine handler Jason Forgey were called to testify about their findings. Melich explained the circumstances that had led law enforcement to be called to the Anthony home on July 15, 2008, the tale Casey had woven that night, the trip to Universal Studios, the lies she told, and the attempts made thus far to confirm any of the details Casey had given. Forgey testified as to the background and qualifications of Gerus, his examination of the car, and the significance of Gerus’s alerts on the trunk and in the backyard.
Cindy, George, and Lee all took the stand to testify about Casey’s life history. They all testified that she was a good mother to Caylee. If she couldn’t post bond, they would do it for her. Cindy broke down in tears when she saw her daughter for the first time since her arrest. During her testimony, Cindy defended her daughter: “I know Casey as a person. I know what she is as a mother. I know there is only one or two reasons why Casey would be withholdi
ng something about Caylee, and I believe it’s something someone is holding over her and threatening her in some way.”
These words were a surprising turnaround for a woman who less than ten days earlier had seemed ready to have her daughter declared an unfit mother. In truth, it was during this time that Cindy Anthony seemed the most ambivalent in her feelings about Casey’s behavior. There had certainly been enough to justify her original feelings. As Cindy had alluded to in her 911 call, Casey had been stealing from her parents for months in amounts totaling several thousand dollars, but more recently they’d learned that she’d been stealing from Cindy’s mother as well. The theft was uncovered before Casey had left with Caylee. Combine this with Casey’s lies over the thirty-one days, and Cindy’s anger on July 15 was understandable. That resentment had probably spilled over into that 911 phone call. A couple of days after Casey’s arrest, however, Cindy was far more protective and defensive of Casey’s actions. She had changed course. No longer did she suspect that Casey had been involved in something nefarious. Instead, she justified Casey’s not coming forward. According to Cindy, Casey’s behavior made sense.
“No one can imagine why you wouldn’t go to the police. Well, I can imagine a reason,” Cindy Anthony later said to the press. She said that Casey’s lack of emotion and odd, conflicting stories only supported the idea that Casey was doing everything she could to protect Caylee and her family from danger. It was a strained logic that neither the court nor the media seemed eager to embrace.
The difficulty for Linda at the hearing was that since Casey was only arrested for child abuse, she was entitled to bond. Under Florida law, generally only persons charged with offenses punishable by life imprisonment or death can be held without bond, and while this was trending toward becoming a murder case, it wasn’t there yet. Linda argued that Casey’s knowledge that this might someday be a murder charge gave her a reason to flee, and thus argued for an extremely high bond.
At the end of the three-hour hearing, Judge Strickland set bond at $500,000 on the felony child neglect count. He also ordered that Casey be placed on home confinement with electronic monitoring, be evaluated by two psychiatrists, Jeffrey Danzinger and Allen Burns, and that she surrender her passport upon her release from jail. Casey’s attorney called the half-million-dollar bond “outrageous,” saying it was more than the Anthony family could afford. That afternoon, Casey was returned to the Orange County Jail, where she remained. No one had $500,000.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JAILHOUSE CONVERSATIONS
In the days following Casey’s arrest, the split personality that the Anthonys had displayed at the bond hearing continued. They wanted to believe Casey, as she held the only clues to finding Caylee, but no one—not George, Cindy, or Lee—seemed convinced that she could be trusted.
Between Casey’s lies and the groundless theories sprouting up around Orlando, the only certain thing about the case was that it was exploding in the media. From the local papers to the national news, everyone, it seemed, had taken up the cause of finding Caylee. It put additional strain on Cindy and George, and as the fervor built around them, made it harder and harder for them to deal with the twenty-four-hour news circus outside their front door. The strange disappearance of Caylee had become a story around the country, and as Caylee’s most public and determined advocates, Cindy and George became the face of the campaign to find her—a role that, understandably, neither of them took to well. Every few days it seemed as if they floated a new possibility about where Caylee was, which would send the media into a frenzy, but they never offered any possibilities of real substance. In truth, they were as clueless as the rest of us. Casey wasn’t giving them much to go on either.
But their difficulties in managing the media did little to discourage their search for their granddaughter. Cindy, more than anyone, was desperate to believe that Caylee was alive, and she thought Casey was only lying and holding back to protect Caylee’s life. Having my own six children, some about Casey’s age, I no doubt have engaged in my share of denial. But to hypothetically put myself in Cindy’s shoes, to determine how many fabrications I would believe in such an unbelievably horrific scenario, is absolutely impossible for me.
Still, in spite of all the evidence that Casey was lying, Cindy continued to believe her. When Cindy would speak to law enforcement about the events of the month before her 911 calls and leads in finding Caylee, she was unreceptive to either the possibility of Caylee being dead or her daughter having any role in the matter.
George, however, was a different story. Early on, he was willing to speak more frankly with law enforcement about the possibility of Casey’s involvement. On July 24, he reached out to investigators and asked for a meeting outside the presence of his wife. He agreed to come to police headquarters and sit down with Corporal Melich and Sergeant Allen. Their ensuing conversation was surreptitiously recorded.
“Well, I need to set the record straight between you guys and me,” George began. “You guys are doing what you can. I know that. Deep in my heart and my gut and my brain, I know it. I know how you guys, at least I have a rough idea of how everything’s put together. Granted, it’s been years since I’ve done my stuff, but I know the basic techniques . . . are still there. I understand all that good stuff.
“Where this is leading I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about that, but I had bad vibes the very first day when I got that car,” George said, referring to the day he retrieved the Pontiac from the tow yard. “I can be straight with you guys and I hope it stays in the confines of us three. I don’t want to believe that I have raised someone, brought someone into this world that [sic] could do something to another person. I don’t want to believe that. And if it happens, all I can do is ask that you guys can please call me, so I can prepare my wife, because it’s going to kill her.”
George acknowledged that if they had lost their granddaughter, they had also lost their daughter. “But I guess the reason why I’m here today is I, I’m just having a hard time grasping what my wife is doing to you guys and I apologize.” Shifting direction, George then admitted that he had issues with Casey’s defense attorney Jose Baez.
“I don’t like this freaking attorney that she has. I can tell you that right now from personal experience, I don’t like the guy.” According to George, Casey had told him that she supposedly had at least $1,400 of Baez’s $5,000 retainer. The fact that there was money changing hands, along with the fact that she’d only heard about Baez because of a fellow inmate, both seemed to make George all the more skeptical.
“We did not contact this man,” George explained, speaking for himself and his wife. “When he came to our, called us, we thought he was a court-appointed attorney. Because my daughter does not, I don’t think she has any money. If she does . . . Well, besides stealing from me, my wife . . . other people . . .”
Changing the subject away from Baez, Melich reminded George of the smell in the Pontiac he had mentioned during their first conversation at Anthony house after Cindy had called 911. “Do you remember what you told me?”
“I believe that there’s something dead back there,” George replied without hesitation. “And I hate to say the word human. I hate to say that . . . I’ve been around that. I mean the law enforcement stuff that I did, we caught people out in the woods, in a house, in a car. So I know what it smells like. It’s a smell that you never get rid of.
“When I first went there to pick up that vehicle, I got within three feet of it I could smell something. You look up and you say, please don’t let this be. Please don’t let this be. Because I’m thinking of my daughter and my granddaughter first. I glance in the car on the passenger side, I see [Caylee’s] seat’s there and I see some other stuff around in it. And as I walk around to the driver’s side and put the key in it, I said, ‘Please don’t let this be what I think it is.’
“The wrecker, I don’t know what the gentleman’s
name [is]. I still don’t know. But he and I opened up the door and he said, ‘Whoa, does that stink.’ I sat in the car for a second. I opened up the passenger door because I was trying to vent that thing.
“You know and I smell and I’m like, ‘Oh, God.’ I tried to start the car for a second and I said, ‘No, George, if there’s something wrong. You got to find out now. You can’t take it away.’ I told the guy, I said, ‘Will you please walk around to the back of this car and look inside this with me?’ As I walked around, I don’t believe I said to him, you know, aloud, and I think I whispered out to myself, ‘Please don’t let this be my Caylee.’ That’s what I thought. That’s what my heart was saying. I opened it up and that’s when I seen that bag. I did see a stain. I think it’s right about where the spare tire was at.”
“The guy said, ‘Sir, I’ll take care of it. I’ll get rid of it.’ But the smell never went away. When I drove around I told my wife, I said, ‘This car stinks so bad I can’t, I don’t know how I can drive it home.’ It’s raining outside. Oh, well, I have the windows down in the car probably about this much,” he explained, gesturing about halfway. “I couldn’t freaking breathe. The air conditioning and stuff . . .”
Melich asked if Cindy had noticed the smell.
“Oh, after we pulled inside the garage she said, her exact words were, ‘Jesus Christ, what died?’ That’s exactly what she said. But then she said it in a way, she says, ‘George, it was the pizza, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it was the pizza.’ And I let it go at that, but I’m sitting here, as the grandfather, as the father, as George Anthony, and as a guy who smelled the smell before years ago, and you just never forget it. I even stuck my nose down on it and I’m concerned.”
Melich let that thought sink in before continuing, “Do you think the reason your daughter doesn’t want to tell us what happened is for fear of what her mom might do? Might say I told you so, or something along that? Do you think that it would be so disappointing to mom and that’s why [Casey’s] taking this to the bitter end?”