Mommy's Little Girl

by Diane Fanning

  First it seemed harmless, ah, 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, or betrayal.

  What does the mother get for giving her daughter all of these chances? A broken heart. The daughter 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 she go? Who is now watching out for the little angel?

  That day, Troy Brown dropped off his visiting out-of-town girlfriend, Melissa England, to spend time with Casey while he went to work. Melissa didn’t know Casey, but Troy gave her some background, including the fact that Casey was a single mother. Melissa thought it was odd that Casey only made a single reference to her child and that was in an overheard cell phone conversation. They were in Target when Cindy called. Casey’s tone of voice made her irritation toward her mother obvious. In response to a question, Casey snapped, “The kid is with the nanny.”

  That night, Troy, Melissa and Casey went to the Dragon Room off of Orange Avenue. Casey was there partying when she answered a cell phone call from her brother Lee. With panic and distress in her voice, Casey told her friends that she had to leave the club right away. “My brother is coming here to get me.”

  Troy agreed to leave, but thought that the whole week had been a strange roller coaster ride with Casey. Most of the time, she seemed more carefree and happier than he’d ever seen her; but as soon as she was contacted by a family member, she went into instant distress. He couldn’t figure it out.

  Jesse Grund received a text message from Casey that sounded like a reaction to Cindy’s post. “There’s something going on in my family right now. If my mom or dad try to call you, don’t answer, but for right now, just stay out of it. I’ll take care of it.”

  The next day Casey contacted him asking what he was doing for the Fourth of July. He said that he was spending the day with his family and asked for an explanation of her text message. Casey didn’t offer one, she just said, “It’s a long story, and I will probably call you when I get drunk to tell you.”

  Amy provided something for Casey to do on the holiday when she invited her to go to Will Waters’ house for a party. They had to leave early because Amy had promised to put up the decorations. Casey didn’t know Will, but volunteered to help anyway.

  They finished dressing up the back deck and went with Will to pick up beer and food. They purchased a keg, made multiple stops in search of a place that still had ice in stock on this holiday weekend and then went to Target, where they picked up a kickball and a football.

  While most of the partygoers celebrated outside, Casey was in the house, sweeping, cleaning, straightening up the place and taking care of any problems. Will came inside when he got a cut on his face and Casey was there with a cold towel and sympathy. Will was fascinated. Her energy amazed him. Her personality intrigued him. His friends noted her generosity on Will’s behalf, and kidded him. A couple of them cocked their heads in her direction, and expressed their awareness of his good fortune for latching onto a good-looking woman who cleaned, bandaged and performed other domestic chores, with one word: “Dude!”

  After taking care of Will’s minor injury, the two of them stood on the back porch watching a game of kickball. Casey said, “You know I have a daughter?”

  “Yeah,” Will said. “Amy told me.” It wasn’t a big deal to Will. It seemed to him that every girl his age had a kid around.

  The party packed up at 8:30 and headed over to Lake Eola to watch the fireworks. At 9:10, Tony called Casey. He said that his dad wanted him to stay in New York.

  “Well, why would you bring this up now?” Casey asked.

  He told her that his dad said that he could send for his car and stuff so that he wouldn’t have to go back to Florida at all.

  “Well, I don’t want to talk about this now. It’s not a good time to be talking about negative things while I’m watching fireworks,” Casey retorted.

  Casey told Will that she didn’t know what was going to happen. Her boyfriend was supposed to return the next day, but right now that looked like a 50/50 proposition. The party returned to Will’s place when the fireworks ended. Amy and Casey left that night at 1:30 A.M.

  The next morning, Casey got up early and jumped right to her laptop. She was clicking away at the keys when Amy arose. Revved up and giddy with excitement because she now knew Tony was returning that day, she got on Amy’s nerves.

  Will wrote Casey a text—“Are we going to hang out again?”—and then went into the bathroom and took a shower. He checked his cell when he got out of the shower at 9:30, but there was no response. For a moment, he was deflated, but looking outside, he spotted Casey coming up his steps.

  He greeted her with a grin. “So, what are we going to do?”

  They decided to go to Ikea. Will had already planned a shopping trip there and Casey said she was getting a new place soon and she needed some things, too. They had lunch at Zaxby’s chicken, where Casey told Will her daughter was with the nanny. She shared her plans to get an apartment with a friend who also had a child. They’d both hire the nanny as a live-in. They stopped at Target for some bubble gum and coffee before spending three hours in Ikea. Will picked up what he needed for his redecoration, and Casey window-shopped for the new place she claimed she was getting near Valencia Community College.

  After leaving Will’s, Casey headed out to pick up Tony. She stopped at a car wash near the airport to clean off the road dirt on Tony’s Jeep. She called Will from there and kept him on the phone as she drove away, parked in the lot and ascended on the escalator. Finally, Will said, “Alright, bye. I’ve got things to do. I got my motorcycle to work on.”

  Five minutes later, Casey called again. “Well, Tony’s not here yet.” At the time, Will didn’t mind talking to her. Some people got annoyed because she talked so much, but not Will. On reflection, he realized that her need for constant connection was probably not a good sign—an indication that Casey needed more attention than was healthy.

  Tony noticed nothing amiss when Casey met him at the airport. She pointed out the car wash where she’d taken his Jeep as they drove past it. Then they stopped at Winn-Dixie to pick up groceries before going to Tony’s apartment.

  The two of them went to Buffalo Wild Wings at Waterford Lakes for a late dinner. They sat at a long table with a bunch of Casey’s friends whom Tony met for the first time. Casey saw old beau Christopher Stutz, across the room with a woman she didn’t know. She sent a text: “Hey, I hope you’re enjoying your date.”

  He looked around, didn’t see her and typed back, “What do you mean?”

  By the time he hit “send,” Casey was standing beside him. “Hello,” she said. They chatted for a few minutes and then she excused herself to go back to her friends.

  Even though Tony was back in town, Casey maintained contact with Will, accepting him as a MySpace friend and exchanging messages nearly every day. Will appreciated one in particular. It arrived on his cell on July 7. In it, she said he was the sweetest guy she’d ever met.

  She called or texted him often, during the day while Tony was at school. She asked him a couple of times to meet her for lunch at Houlihan’s, but he said that he was at work and couldn’t get there. “Don’t you ever go to work?” he asked.

  “They email it to me and I work with the photography on the computer,” she explained.

  On July 7, Casey ran into Matthew Crisp, her high school acquaintance, at Subway. They sat together, ate lunch and chatted about what they did for the Fourth of July.

  Matthew asked, “How’s the little munchkin?”

  “She’s good. She’s actually at a play date out in Sanford.”

  They talked through Matthew’s lunch hour and ended only when he had to
get back to work. Matthew thought she seemed a little bit needy or lonely. He attributed it to Tony being out of town, as Casey told him—though he’d actually been back in Orlando for two days.

  At 6 A.M. on July 8, Amy’s cell phone rang. It was Casey, but this time, she didn’t wake her friend. Amy was across the street from Tony’s Sutton Place apartment at a 7-Eleven pumping gas into her car. Casey was going to drive Amy to the airport for her flight to Puerto Rico. In exchange, Casey got the use of Amy’s car while she was gone. Amy wanted to leave Casey with a full tank of gas.

  That morning, Cindy’s mother Shirley sent an email message to her sister Mary Lou expressing her concerns about Casey’s extended visit to Jacksonville. Mary Lou wrote back:

  I am with you thinking something might be amiss with Caylee. I can’t believe she would be that upset to speak to and hear her grandmother on the phone??? I just hope that little girl is OK. I wonder how much of Caylee’s clothes and toys Casey took when she left??? How much of her own things did she take??? Seems to me, they would be running out of things to wear, etc. Of course, I guess Casey could be buying things as time goes along?

  They exchanged other thoughts about Cindy’s situation through the next day, both commenting on how good it was that Cindy and George were getting along, because Cindy needed his support during this trying period of time with Casey.

  Mary Lou wrote:

  I know Cindy is between “a rock and a hard place” with this “Casey affair.” Even though Casey has been supported in everything she has done, by her folks, she is an “ingrate” and for some reason has turned her back on the people who care the most for her.

  Rico was scheduled to return to Orlando from a trip to Boston on the same day that Amy flew to Puerto Rico, but at a later time. Casey sent him a text, asking for his arrival time and offering to pick him up. He told her that picking him up didn’t make much sense, since he had a flight to Puerto Rico just five hours later. “But if you want to come and get me and we can chill at Chili’s and then you can bring me back to the airport.”

  By the time Casey got his response, she had already made other plans. Casey told him to send her a text when he got in. He did. But she didn’t acknowledge his message. Rico was not surprised.

  Throughout the day, Shirley and Mary Lou continued emailing about the pros and cons of Casey having a new love interest in Jacksonville, including the possibility that the result would be a second child for Casey—one that Cindy would be forced to raise. Mary Lou added:

  I smiled when you said Cindy says she doesn’t think Casey is PG [pregnant]. I don’t think she thought Casey was PG the last time around either??? Something is keeping Casey from facing her mother??? (I was so devastated last time when Casey was pregnant. It was almost like it was my own child.) I just felt terrible and I could imagine how letdown Cindy felt.

  CHAPTER 25

  Late on the night of July 8, Casey posted an image file on line. It was a picture of a sad little girl looking up at a noose wrapped around the neck of a teddy bear that has x’s for eyes. Beside the little girl were the words: “Why do People Kill people, who kill people, to show people that To Kill People—is Bad?”

  Casey woke up in a cold sweat three or four nights that week. Tony asked what was wrong. Casey said she’d had a nightmare and blamed it all on the uncertainty in their relationship.

  Will got off work at 5 P.M. on July 10. Casey was supposed to meet him at 6:30 for a helicopter ride to Saw Island. When she was ten minutes late, Will called. No answer. He sent a text. She didn’t respond right away, as she usually did. He texted again: “I need you to reply so I can cancel the helicopter trip.”

  Still nothing. He sent another message: “I need to know something. I’ve got reservations and people are on hold.”

  Twenty minutes later, she acknowledged his messages: “I can’t make it. Sorry.”

  Cindy had taken more vacation days the week after the Fourth of July holiday, counting on Casey’s promises that she’d have a chance to visit with Caylee. Every day, Casey opened up her bag of excuses and doled out another to her mother. On July 10th, Casey claimed she had come by the house. She said she’d seen her dad while Cindy was out running errands. Cindy questioned George, who denied seeing either Casey or Caylee.

  Cindy sent a despairing email to her daughter:

  I can’t sleep, stupid hot flashes wake me up then I start thinking about you and Caylee. Dad said he went to work at 9 am and got home at 6:30 pm, he said he did not come home in between. I don’t know who or what to believe anymore.

  You’ve told me every day that you were going to call me and you haven’t but you choose to call when you know I won’t be home. What the hell is going on? I’ve tried not to bug you to death but I still haven’t gotten to see pictures of Caylee or gotten to speak to her. It’s been over a month now.

  Am I ever going to see her again? Are you still with Jeff? Are you going back to work? . . . I’m not sure how much longer I can continue on this day to day course. I’m going freakin’ nuts not knowing what’s going on with you. I’ve had a breakdown at work, can’t take much more stress.

  Casey posted a poem by rap artist Tupac Shakur on her MySpace page on Friday, July 11. The words encouraged people to stop trying to make sense of a bad situation and instead, to walk away from your problems and move on with your life.

  The postman walked up to the front door of the Anthony home on Friday and stuck a piece of mail in the crack of the door when no one answered. The family always went in and out of the house through the garage. No one noticed the letter.

  Casey called Will and told him she was working with the “shot girls,” the girls who serve shots, at Fusian and invited him to join her there that night. Will was flabbergasted. “No. Why would I want to hang out with you when Tony is supposed to be there. . . . Why would I want to hang out with you and Tony if you know I have a crush on you? Why would I put myself through that?”

  It was not a good night for shot girls. One was grabbed and scratched on the stomach by a rowdy customer. They all went home early. On Saturday, Casey was supposed to hang out with Will. She begged off once again.

  That Sunday and Monday, Casey exchanged instant messages with Iassen Donov, the Army buddy of a former boyfriend. Innocuous on the surface, the dialogue revealed a lot about Casey’s state of mind and her willingness to go to great lengths to protect her lies. On Sunday, she told him that she was tired because she hadn’t been sleeping well.

  “You should exercise more,” Iassen wrote.

  “This is true. I can’t wait to get my new place.”

  “When is that happening?” Iassen asked.

  “Probably within the next week.”

  “Oh, true, you and Tony?”

  “No sir. Just me and the kid.”

  “Where?”

  “Possibly in the Winter Park Villas.” She explained that she really didn’t want to live in an apartment, but getting a house didn’t seem to be a good idea at that time.

  “So what do u do when u work? With the kid that is.”

  “I have a nanny. I love her,” Casey wrote.

  Iassen asked her why she wasn’t moving in with Tony, and then wrote, “Where’s the other guy? The Spanish guy?”

  “Ricardo and I aren’t really even friends anymore.”

  “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “We stopped dating in March right around my birthday.”

  “Still have feelings for him?”

  “Ha, definitely not. The other way around actually.”

  “Oh. How did u get over him so quickly?”

  “I didn’t have the same feelings. He said I led him on. I never really ever saw him as more than a friend. It sucks but I was honest.”

  “I thought u were the one who wanted a relationship,” Iassen wrote.

  “I did, for a little bit, but he wanted to wait.”

  “And it bit him in the ass. Are u happy now?”

  “I am very happy now.”


  While Casey chatted away, her parents worked in their front yard. George planted plugs to restore a couple of dead patches in the lawn. Cindy weeded the flower beds near the house. She noticed something stuck in the front door and got up to retrieve it. “George, we got a certified letter from somebody by the name of Johnson’s.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Can you pick this up?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it Monday.”

  That day, though, George was called into work early and didn’t get a chance to get to the post office until Tuesday, July 15.

  On Monday, Casey took Iassen’s advice and worked out at the fitness center at Tony’s complex, and reconnected to let him know and continue their IM conversation. She asked him to go to the beach with her.

  “Ok u wanna go on a date with me to the beach while u have a boyfriend, that looks grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreaaaaaat.”

  “Hahahaha. It wouldn’t have to be a ‘date.’ But you need a friend. I miss my friend. It’s a win, win.”

  “Lol. I wanna know, have I ever hurt you? Like emotionally.”

  “Most definitely not. You seriously are one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Hands down . . . I’ve had a consistent crush on ya for a long time.”

  “Nuts. We didn’t even hang out that much.”

  “It’s one of those things. You get a good vibe from someone, it sticks,” Casey wrote.

  “I’m sure u wouldn’t want anything with me right now, I’m in the worst state of mind to commit to somebody.”

  “Even outside of a relationship, I’m probably not in the best spot either.”

  “Why?” Iassen asked.

  “I’m pretty much hung up on Tony, and realistically, if he moves back to New York next year, my relationship will end. Sucks to know that inevitably, unless I were to drop everything, I’m going to lose someone close to me.”