Mommy's Little Girl

by Diane Fanning

Cindy shouted, “Who took her? Who took her?”

  “Uhm, the nanny did. She was kidnapped, Mom,” Casey cried.

  Cindy slammed her fist on the bed. “We could have found her a month ago. Why did you wait?”

  Casey’s tears dried as if they’d never been shed, and her eyes turned as cold and sharp as shattered crystals. Lee ran from the room and into the kitchen to get a pad of paper and a pen. He wanted to get information from his sister so that he could search for Caylee. When he returned to the bedroom, Cindy held a telephone to her ear while she talked to her daughter. “We’ll have a court order to get her. If that’s how you want to play, we’ll do it, and you’ll never . . .”

  “That’s not how I want to play,” Casey objected.

  “Well, then you have . . .”

  Casey cut her off. “Give me one more day.”

  “No, I’m not giving you another day. I’ve given you a month . . .”

  The operator interrupted. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

  “I called a little bit ago,” Cindy said. “The deputy sheriff’s not here. I found out my granddaughter has been taken. She’s been missing for a month. Her mother finally admitted she’s been missing.” While she talked, Cindy walked up the hall, out of the house and into the garage.

  “Okay. What’s the address you’re calling from?”

  Ignoring her question, Cindy said, “We’re talking about a three-year-old little girl. My daughter finally admitted that the baby-sitter stole her. I need to find her.”

  “Your daughter admitted that the baby is where?”

  “That the baby-sitter took her a month ago. That 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. She just admitted to me that she’s been trying to find her herself. There’s something wrong,” Cindy’s voice strained with emotion. “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.”

  “Caylee Anthony?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Is she white, black or Hispanic?”

  “She’s white.”

  “How long has she been missing for?”

  “I have not seen her since the seventh of June,” Cindy wailed as she watched from the open garage door as George returned from work and pulled into the driveway.

  “What is her date of birth?”

  “Um. Eight . . . Eight/Nine/two thousand . . . Oh God, she’s three. She’s . . . Two-thousand-five.” Cindy turned to her husband. “George, Caylee’s missing.”

  “What?”

  “Caylee’s missing. Casey says she [the nanny] took her a month ago,” Cindy shrieked.

  The dispatcher interrupted. “Okay. I need, um. I understand. Can you just calm down for me for just a minute? I need to know what’s going on. Okay?”

  Cindy mumbled and the operator continued, “Is your daughter there?”

  “I’m on the phone with them,” Cindy told George.

  “Is your daughter there?” the dispatcher repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I speak with her? Do you mind if I speak with her? Thank you.”

  Cindy talked to George as she walked into the house and down the hall to Casey’s room. “I called them two hours ago, and they haven’t gotten here. Casey finally admitted that [Zenaida, the nanny] took her a month ago and [Casey] has been trying to find her.”

  Not sure of what was going on, the dispatcher attempted to get Cindy’s attention. “Ma’am? Ma’am?”

  Cindy reached the bedroom where her son was jotting down notes. She told her daughter, “It’s the Orange County sheriff’s department. They want to talk to you. Answer their questions.”

  Casey grabbed the phone and greeted the operator.

  “Hi. What can you tell me about what’s going on, a little bit?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Casey said, not understanding the awkwardly posed question.

  “Can you tell me a little bit what’s going on?”

  “My daughter’s been missing for the last thirty-one days.”

  “And you know who has her?”

  “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 about a moment. About a minute.”

  “Okay. Did you guys call and report a vehicle stolen?”

  “Uhm. Yes, my mom did.”

  “Okay. So is the vehicle stolen, too?”

  “No,” Casey said. “This is my vehicle.”

  “What vehicle was stolen?”

  “Um, it’s a ’ninety-eight Pontiac Sunfire.”

  “Okay. I have deputies on the way to you right now for that. So now your three-year-old daughter is missing? Caylee Anthony?”

  “Yes,” Casey answered without any apparent emotion.

  “White female?”

  “Yes. White female.”

  “Three years old? Eight/nine/two thousand five is her date of birth?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you last saw her a month ago?”

  “Thirty-one days, been thirty-one days.”

  “Who has her? Do you have a name?”

  “Her name is Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzales.”

  “Who is that?” the dispatcher asked. “Baby-sitter?”

  “She’s been my nanny for about a year-and-a-half. Almost two years.”

  “Why are you calling now? 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.”

  CHAPTER 5

  After learning about Casey’s habitual theft, Amy grew concerned about her own bank account. She went on line to check her balance. She’d thought she had a little more than $600 remaining. The bank thought otherwise: Her balance was zero.

  She made a conscious effort to avoid panic and to still the automatic response that was making her hyperventilate. The last time she’d seen her checkbook, it was in the car. Casey had driven her car.

  She sent her roommate, Rico Morales, down to look in her vehicle while she called the Bank of America. As she explained the situation, Rico came back upstairs with the bad news. Her checkbook was not in the car. The bank told her that nothing could be done that night.

  Curious about the unfolding situation, Tony Lazzaro sent a text message to Casey. He heard the tone from Casey’s cell and realized that she hadn’t taken the phone with her. He dumped out the contents of Casey’s different bags. Inside one of them, he found the cell phone and a checkbook belonging to Amy Huizenga.

  He scrolled through Casey’s contact information until he located Amy’s number. Amy was glad he’d found her checkbook, but she warned him that he and his roommate needed to check their bank accounts, because Casey had stolen money from hers.

  Tony folded and repacked Casey’s clothing in the duffle bag, still confused about what was happening with Casey.

  Deputy Ryan Eberlin, the first officer to arrive at the Anthony home on Hopespring Drive, met Lee Anthony outside. Lee ran through the situation he’d discovered at home and the backstory about the suspected kidnapper. He agreed to provide a written statement.

  Eberlin then spoke to Cindy Anthony. She explained that she had requested the return of the car and a visit with her granddaughter three weeks ago. Casey had told her she couldn’t return the car, since she was in Jacksonville. Although she’d harbored suspicions about Casey’s stories for a month, Cindy had believed her daughter until they got the notice that the car had been towed in Orlando. George spoke to Eberlin next, confirming the statements of his wife and son.

  While Eberlin spoke to Lee’s parents, he sat out in the garage with his sister. The atrocious stench from the car drove him back into the house. When he returned, he asked his s
ister about the smell.

  “Well, it actually started around Mom’s birthday [June 5]. It started around the time when two squirrels crawled up under the hood of the car and died in there.”

  Lee knew his parents had seen Caylee the weekend after that date, and questioned her timeline. “Well, either Mom or Dad would have smelled that.”

  “That’s when it started,” Casey insisted. “It started at that time and got progressively worse.”

  Lee asked her what she’d done to find Caylee, and Casey told him about her stake-out of Zenaida’s apartment, when she sat there in her car watching the front door. It was, she said, the day she dropped Caylee off at the complex, but she began to mix up the date, saying it was June 9 and then June 15. When Lee called her on the contradiction, she said she’d watched the apartment on a number of occasions.

  Finally, Officer Eberlin took Casey aside to get her statement. She claimed that the last time she had seen her daughter was on the 9th of June, when she’d left her with the baby-sitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, at 2863 South Conway Road and then went to her job at Universal Studios. In her statement, she wrote:

  I have spent every day, since Monday, June 9, 2008, looking for my daughter. I have lied and stolen from my friends and family to do whatever I could, by any means, to find my daughter. I avoided calling the police or even notifying my own family out of fear.

  I have been and still am afraid of what has, or may happen to Caylee. I have not had any contact with Zenaida since Thursday, June 12, 2008. I received a quick call from Zenaida. Not once have I been able to ask her for my daughter or gain any information on where I can find her. Every day, I have gone to malls, parks, anyplace I could remember Zenaida taking Caylee.

  . . . On Tuesday, July 15, 2008, around 12 pm, I received a phone call from my daughter Caylee. Today was the first day I have heard her voice in over four weeks. I’m afraid of what Caylee is going through. After thirty-one days, I know that the only thing that matters is getting my daughter back. With many and all attempts to contact Zenaida and within the one short conversation . . . I was never able to check on the status or well-being of my daughter. Zenaida never made an attempt to explain why Caylee is no longer in Orlando or if she is ever going to bring her home.

  She described Caylee as three feet tall, weighing thirty-five pounds, with hazel eyes, light brown hair and a small birthmark on her left shoulder. When Casey had seen her last, she said, her daughter was wearing a pink shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers.

  One officer went to South Conway Road, only to discover that the apartment number given by Casey was vacant and had not had a tenant for 142 days. Another policeman went to the apartment of Tony Lazzaro and his roommate, who consented to a search for Caylee and any evidence that might help find the little girl. He left with Casey’s cell phone. A third officer was sent to North Glenwood Avenue in hopes of getting information about Caylee from residents there, but he came up empty handed.

  Cindy was outside when the deputy returned with Casey’s cell. She stood by his side providing relationship commentary as he scrolled through her list of contacts, calling every one of them.

  A tearful, hysterical-sounding Cindy called Amy at 11 o’clock that night. She told her Casey’s story about the kidnapping of Caylee. Amy said, “Casey emptied out my bank account.”

  After getting a few more details, Cindy excused herself from the call and then returned in a couple of minutes. “Casey is with the cops, but I asked her if she did this and she said she wrote all those checks.”

  Lee Anthony called Tony Lazzaro and explained the situation with Casey and Caylee. He then asked if he could come over to pick up the rest of Casey’s things, including the laptop Casey used, which actually belonged to Cindy. Tony agreed.

  Lee arrived around 2 in the morning. He got a leopard print duffle bag, a white backpack, a large purse filled with toiletries and cosmetics, and a slender black bag containing paperwork. He placed the computer in that bag. He was surprised at the neatness of his sister’s possessions. She usually was very sloppy about her packing.

  Tony pointed to a checkbook sitting on his dresser, telling Lee that it belonged to Amy. “I talked to Amy. She’s going to come get this tomorrow. Do you want it?”

  “No,” Lee said. “If Amy’s going to come get it tomorrow, you go ahead and keep it and just have her do that.”

  When he returned to his parents’ home, Casey was outside in a circle of police officers. Lee carried all the items into the house. George Anthony complained that everything reeked of cigarette smoke. Cindy looked up at the officer. “I want to go through that stuff.”

  The officer said, “Dump it out on the ground.” After the contents were spread out onto the floor, the officer left. Cindy rooted around through the contents and was surprised by what she didn’t find. There were a couple of diapers and a few baby wipes, but usually the backpack was brimming with books, toys and clothing for her granddaughter. None of that was there. There were no little Baggies of pretzels or Cheerios. No tiny containers of juice.

  Cindy pulled Casey’s wallet out of the pile. She pulled out the cash—about $140—and stuck it in her pocket, saying, “It’s probably mine or Amy’s.”

  The officer returned. Cindy held up a credit card. “Look,” Cindy said. “This is my JC Penny card that she took from me. Look,” she said holding up another one from Sears, “this is another card that she took from me.” Cindy then started to pull Casey’s identification from the clear sleeve, but before she could see what was behind the driver’s license, the officer reached down and plucked something out.

  Cindy continued searching. She found a car key that did not look familiar. She made the assumption that it was Amy’s, and set it aside. She pulled out multiple receipts, and Lee counted them—twenty-two in all, dated from June 20 to July 15. In going through them, Lee didn’t find a single receipt containing purchases for Caylee—not for diapers or anything a small child would need.

  Child abuse investigator Yuri Melich responded to the Anthony home and took over the investigation. He looked the part of a detective, with his stiff posture, close-cropped hair, sharp nose and pointed chin. He wore a serious, no-nonsense expression as he reviewed Casey’s written statement and sat down with her apart from other family members. “Is this your version of what happened?”

  “Yes,” Casey said.

  He explained that the incident was suspicious, and her version of events was questionable. He gave her the opportunity to correct, amend or walk away from the words she had written. When she demurred, Melich started the tape recorder.

  CHAPTER 6

  Again, Melich asked, “Are you telling me this is the story you want to stick with?”

  “That’s the truth,” Casey insisted. “It’s the story I’m gonna stick with, yes.”

  He asked where she’d dropped off her child, and Casey said, “At the Sawgrass Apartments on Conway and Michigan.”

  “Do you remember the address?”

  “I don’t remember the address, no.”

  “Do you remember the apartment number?” he asked.

  “Two ten.”

  “Okay,” Melich said as he jotted down the information on the location.

  “It’s on the second floor,” Casey volunteered.

  “If you were to pull into the Sawgrass Apartments, would the building be the one closest to the road, furtherest back, half way?”

  “As soon as you go straight, you go over one speed bump and it’s the first one on the right-hand side.”

  “Okay, is there a pool next to it? Or is there anything about the apartment that stands out?”

  “There’s a welcome sign, um, I guess there’s a little shed close to the building, maybe about ten yards away.”

  “How long have you known Zenaida?”

  “Almost four years,” Casey said. “It’ll be four years Christmas this year.”

  “Where did you meet her? And who did you meet her through?”


  “A mutual friend named Jeffrey Michael Hopkins. I met him at Nickelodeon [an operating television studio and attraction] at Universal. I met her through him. She was . . . his son’s nanny at the time.”

  “Does Jeffrey still work at Universal?” Melich asked.

  “No he does not.”

  “How long has it been since he left?”

  “About nine, ten months, give or take.”

  “Did he move back to Jacksonville?”

  “He moved up to North Carolina for a short time and moved down to Jacksonville within the last three months.”

  “When was the last time you spoke with him?”

  “About a week-and-a-half ago,” Casey said.

  When Melich asked for his phone number, Casey explained that she didn’t have it because she’d lost the phone that contained his contact information. She said she still had her SIM card, but his number was saved on the phone itself. When she’d moved the card to another phone, his number was not transferred with it. She had no idea of where her phone could be. “I know I left it on my desk. And I haven’t been to work for at least three or four days.”

  “And you said you made the report to Universal or . . .”

  “Yes, with Security.”

  “When was that?”

  “Nine days ago.”

  “Nine days ago?”

  “Yes,” Casey confirmed.

  “Okay. So you met Zenaida through Jeffrey Hopkins?”

  “I did.”

  “And his son Zack Hopkins, I guess, Zenaida used to watch over Zack?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you say you’ve known Zenaida for about four years?”

  “Almost four years, yes.”

  “So, you knew her before you had your child?” Melich asked.

  “Well, I met her just before I was actually pregnant at the time, so . . .”

  “And when did she start watching over your child?”

  “Um, it’s been within the last year-and-a-half, two years, that she started watching Caylee. I had another friend watch Caylee that I’ve known since middle school. When she went back to school, I was looking for a new nanny. Jeff offered to have Zenaida watch both kids. She agreed, and it kind of went from there.”