Mommy's Little Girl

by Diane Fanning

  He spotted a black plastic bag with a round, dome-like protrusion. He tapped on the bulge. It thudded like a hollow hunk of plastic. He grabbed the bottom of the bag with the meter-box-pulling tool. A human skull with some hair, wrapped with duct tape, rolled onto the ground.

  He called his route supervisor Alex Roberts. “I just found a skull. I need the police.” He described his location.

  David Dean heard the exchange and remembered the spot where they’d found the large rattler. He pushed in the button and said, “I told you she was in there.”

  Roy replied, “No. I told you.”

  Belatedly, David realized it was stupid to say something like that over an open radio channel, and he did not respond.

  Two deputies reported to the scene immediately. They went down into the woods with Roy to view his discovery. They secured the area with crime-scene tape and called for homicide investigators.

  Detective Yuri Melich reported to the scene. He looked into the opening of the black garbage bag and saw additional bones. Beside it was a tan laundry bag with a wire-enforced rim and additional trash bags inside. Next to the skull, he spotted a garment with white and pink vertical stripes.

  He felt pretty certain that these were the remains of Caylee Marie Anthony, but that determination was not his to make.

  All the items in the immediate vicinity of the skull were collected and taken to the medical examiner’s office. There, pathologist Gary Utz laid out the contents. The skull, bones and clothing obviously belonged to a small child. The Winnie the Pooh blanket matched other items found in Caylee’s bedroom.

  There were no signs of trauma to the skull, but no hair remained on top of it. The hair on the sides was held in place by layers of duct tape across the mouth. The hair was carefully cut to avoid damaging the tape. In the middle of the piece of tape was the faint shadow of a heart-shape. The bag containing the bones had been open and under water for some time, making it possible that some of the evidence had floated away.

  Back in the woods, blue tents popped up surrounding the area to protect recovered evidence from the falling rain. Dozens of reporters and onlookers formed a crowd around the outer perimeter in no time. Hidden Oaks Elementary School released students through a back exit, keeping them as far from the unfolding scene as possible.

  Melich sought and received a new search warrant for the Anthony home. Crime-scene investigators found a laundry bag of the same brand and design as the one found in the woods. The detective spotted a photograph of Caylee wearing a pair of striped shorts that looked just like the ones he’d found at the recovery scene earlier that day. They also found and retained sheets of red-and-white heart-shaped stickers in a shoe box in Casey’s room. In the shed, the red gas can with duct tape was confiscated once again.

  The tape would prove to be the same brand as was found on the skull.

  They also collected garbage bags, pool chemicals, vacuum cleaners, diapers, pull-up pants and recipes and containers for making chloroform. Since Cindy had not provided investigators with the right hairbrush in the summer, they made sure they took custody of every hairbrush and toothbrush in the house.

  At the Orange County Jail, Lieutenant Tammy Uncer and Sergeant Billy Richardson escorted Casey Anthony to the medical area to view television and see what was happening before her attorney arrived. They wanted to have her near medical and mental health professionals, should they be needed. She already was a little upset. She’d heard a snippet of news on her personal radio—just enough to know something was going on in her case, but not enough to know what that was.

  She entered the area and her eyes went immediately to the television broadcasting Channel 9’s coverage of the breaking news. She recognized the location and collapsed into a chair and began hyperventilating. She lost her breath. Lieutenant Uncer told her repeatedly to breathe deep—but her breathing remained shallow and rapid.

  Her palms were red, blotchy, warm and sweating profusely. She rubbed them together incessantly. “These chains are getting tighter on me,” Casey complained about her cuffs. “Please loosen them.” The deputies did not comply. They’d already checked the bracelets and knew that they were close to coming off her wrists.

  Her eyes seemed drawn to the television, but at the slightest glimpse of the screen, she’d turn away again. She bent over at the waist. “I’m feeling sick to my stomach. I’m going to throw up.” Now red blotches rose on her chest and neck as she listened to an announcer describe the find of a small child less than a quarter of a mile from the Anthony home.

  After ten minutes, Lieutenant Uncer decided she’d had enough. She took Casey into a medical room to speak to a psychologist. His main concern was to make sure Casey was not going to do any harm to herself. He warned her not to discuss the case with him, since there was an officer in the room.

  “No, no,” she said. “I won’t hurt myself.” She asked for a sedative—the first drug of any kind she’d taken in jail.

  “Have you taken drugs outside of the jail, for stress or anything like that?”

  “No, the most I’ve ever taken is a muscle relaxant.” When the psychologist left to consult with the doctor about medication, Casey asked Lieutenant Uncer, “Is my attorney coming?”

  “We assume he’s on his way. I don’t know for sure. I’ll get one of the C.O.’s to find out.”

  “Will you sit in the room with me? ’Cause I don’t want to be alone,” Casey pleaded. Her talking and breathing both ran at a rapid pace. “This is surreal. I can’t break down and cry, because this isn’t real.” She then started to talk about the national football championship.

  José Baez arrived and was left alone with his client. Casey now broke down and cried. She held her forehead in her hands. Baez stuck his head out the door to ask for tissues. Medical knocked on the door, bringing her a sedative.

  Casey was shaking when she left her attorney. She told Lieutenant Uncer that the sedative had settled her stomach. Back in her cell, officers cleared her area of all belongings except reading material, in compliance with her psychological observation status. Casey asked to take a shower, saying it should make her feel better. She appeared calmer after she’d had ten minutes under the water. A mental health counselor came to talk to her. At the end of shift, Lieutenant Uncer stopped by to let Casey know she was leaving and to gauge her disposition. Although she was still crying as she spoke to the counselor, her breathing had returned to normal.

  Casey was a puzzle to Uncer. The Lieutenant had always found it weird to talk to her, because before that day, Casey had to shown no signs of distress, and had always seemed devoid of emotion. Now, she was falling apart because a body had been found—a body that had not yet been identified. To investigators, the meaning of her reaction was clear: It was consciousness of guilt. They believed that when she’d seen where the remains were found, she knew it was Caylee—because she knew that was where she’d left her daughter’s body.

  José Baez got busy in court, filing an emergency motion:

  If the body found is determined to be that of Caylee Marie Anthony, then the defense would request that their own experts be permitted to be present during any forensic testing done, including but not limited to DNA testing or autopsy.

  A hearing was set for Friday.

  When the news broke, George and Cindy were flying in from the West Coast, where they had appeared on the Larry King show the night before. Their new attorney, Brad Conway, said, “They want to be left alone. They want to grieve and go through the process without the publicity that’s been focused on them so long. They are realistic about the possibilities and about the fact that this is likely Caylee, but they continue to pray that likely it’s not.”

  As their plane touched down in Orlando, police rushed them off and into a van. The van and another police vehicle pulled up behind a nearby Bennigan’s restaurant, where Jim Hoover sat in his car and a limousine waited.

  George, Cindy and their luggage transferred into the limo, and Dominic climbed
in with them. Jim followed the luxury car to the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where rooms go for about $300 a night. ABC provided three rooms—one for Cindy and George, an adjoining room for Dominic and Jim and a room on another floor for spokesperson Michelle Bart.

  They dined in the restaurant that night—where dinner can cost more than $100 per person. They were also joined by Lee and his girlfriend Mallory, and Caitlyn Folmer, from ABC, who ordered appetizers for the table. Everyone selected their entrees individually, except for Lee, who got nothing for himself, but requested a steak for José Baez, who had not yet arrived. No one had much of an appetite. Caitlyn used her credit card to pick up the tab. Soon, this network-paid getaway would instigate motions and arguments in the courtroom.

  After dinner, Dominic asked Jim to meet outside the hotel. Cindy Anthony was with him. She gave Jim the keys to the house and asked him to lock up the house once the FBI and Orange County law enforcement were done with the search.

  The next morning, Jim sat with George in the lounge sipping coffee. George was very distressed. He talked about the problems he and Cindy were having in their relationship. He didn’t think they’d be together once this was all over. He said that the two of them had thrown each other, and Casey, too, underneath the bus with some of the comments they’d made. He confided that he’d been so depressed in September that he’d contemplated suicide.

  CHAPTER 48

  José argued his motion that the defense be present at the autopsy on Friday. The medical examiner’s office objected to their presence, saying that the procedure was private, not a spectacle for lawyers, and that Florida’s public policies didn’t allow it.

  Baez also argued for immediate access to the crime scene: “Photographs, video and schematic drawings are required, so that the defense will, at the bare minimum, have an idea of what the crime scene might have looked like before it was processed and possibly contaminated.”

  The Orange County sheriff’s department objected to having the defense team on the crime scene while they were processing it. Their attorney said, “It’s not an excavation site, it’s an active crime scene. We are preserving what needs to be preserved. We are doing the job we are supposed to do.”

  The judge sided with the state, saying it would be “pure folly” to grant that kind of access to the defense team. “I can’t assist you in interfering with a murder investigation.”

  He added that they could have access to the site as soon as it was cleared by the investigators. “There is no time clock on an investigation, and if law enforcement doesn’t do an exhaustive job, defense will argue that it was shoddy and inadequate.”

  Jim drove George and Cindy to the house to pick up more clothes. Dominic went with them. They drove by Lee’s home to pick him up to go to Brad Conway’s office for fingerprinting, but Lee refused to go. He said that when he’d given his DNA sample, he’d been held against his will, and he wasn’t going to risk that again.

  At the attorney’s office, Cindy called Lee several times. He finally relented and the whole family gave their fingerprints to the FBI. According to Jim, George sat alone on a small sofa. Dominic and Cindy sat side-by-side, in chairs, holding hands, patting and rubbing each other’s arms. Cindy said, “You are my rock. Without you, I couldn’t get through this kind of thing.”

  Jim put himself in George’s place and knew he’d be angry and embarrassed if his wife had ever done that to him. It made him question the relationship between the private investigator and his client.

  Jim didn’t spend Friday night at the hotel, but returned Saturday in time for dinner. During the day, George and Cindy relaxed with Dominic, strolling around the golf course and trying to accept the new, ugly reality they faced.

  Lee stopped by his parents’ home on Saturday. He found a makeshift memorial to Caylee on the edge of the front yard—a cross with “Rest in Peace” on it, draped with a shirt bearing the words, “Remember me.” It was more than he could bear—he swooped down and scooped it all up while reporters shouted questions. He walked toward the garage. “Do not follow me onto my property or I will call law enforcement.”

  Sunday morning, George and Cindy ordered room service, and Dominic and Jim joined them for breakfast. Then Jim drove them all to Eastside Baptist Church for services. Afterwards, they stopped by the house. Cindy was dismayed at the condition of her home after the search. She walked through, getting more and more distressed. She headed for the garage, where she found the cross Lee had plucked out of the yard. She carried it outside and set it beside Caylee’s play house. She went back into the garage.

  She was wielding a baseball bat when she returned. She used it to whale away on the cross, cursing Sergeant John Allen, Leonard Padilla, Sheriff Beary, José Baez—anyone who came to mind. She broke one arm off the cross, then the other. She kept swinging the bat, obscenities flying from her mouth.

  Jim approached her. “Yo, okay, calm down. Calm down.”

  “Oh, this is therapy,” Cindy said, turning to him with a look that made him back away. She kept beating the cross until she wore herself out.

  José Baez and assistant counsel Linda Kenney-Baden came to the house. At first there were a lot of overlapping conversations going on at once. Jim said, “Dominic, do they know that we searched that area?”

  When Dominic said they did, Jim still wasn’t sure. He asked George directly, who said he knew about the search, adding that he’d walked down there once himself.

  José spoke up, getting everyone’s attention: “George, you have to hear this. This is going to be hard for you to hear. I have to tell you, Quantico [the FBI] wants to deflesh the bones.” Although a gruesome concept for the loved ones of a victim, forensic anthropologists value this technique in helping determine the circumstances of death.

  A look of disgust crawled across George’s face. Cindy dropped her head. “We can’t let them do that,” she said. “I want her cremated. I want to keep her ashes.”

  Linda and José talked about the possibility of getting an injunction.

  Shirley Cuza had not spoken to her daughter Cindy since their explosive encounter in early November. When she heard the news of the discovery in the woods near their home, she knew her daughter had to be in pain. She picked up the phone to break the silence. “Cindy, I am so sorry for your loss. And I’m sorry I cut you off. I do want you back in my life.”

  Cindy agreed to be reunited with her mother on one condition—they would never talk about Casey or Caylee again.

  From December 11 through December 20, crime-scene investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement scoured every inch of the wooded area. They cleared out sections of trees and undergrowth. Out on Suburban Drive, one investigator crawled on her knees examining all the uprooted plants placed on white sheets looking for any possible evidence caught in the foliage or the roots. Other investigators worked at sifting tables, running every bucket of dirt and leaves through screens to catch anything of any significance.

  While they worked, groups of people stopped by to watch or to drop off flowers, stuffed animals and other mementoes. Many needed to make the pilgrimage to get a sense of closure. They may not have known Casey, but their hearts still ached.

  The crime-scene investigators recovered more of Caylee’s bones, along with a lot of others that belonged to animals. They unearthed pieces of plastic bags and fabric, shreds of pull-on pants, discarded soda cans, a busted Winnie the Pooh helium balloon, legs for a Barbie doll, a disposable camera, a piece of the same brand of duct tape found on the skull and the gas can, a tattered book that appeared to be one they’d seen Caylee reading in a video and, most heart-wrenching of all, a small heart-shaped sticker—the same size as the adhesive shape on the duct tape attached to the little girl’s face.

  A somber Dr. Jan Garavaglia, Orange County medical examiner, stood before a bank of microphones on December 19. “With regret, I’m here to inform you that the skeletal remains found on December eleve
nth are those of the missing toddler, Caylee Anthony . . . The remains are completely skeletonized, with no visible soft tissue . . . and no trauma to the bones prior to death.

  “. . . The manner of death in this case is homicide. The cause of death will be listed as homicide by undetermined means.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Yuri Melich returned to the Hopespring house on December 20 with yet another search warrant. George was furious. He raved about the ceaseless intrusion into his life, even referring to the investigators as “fucking flunkies.”

  Cindy was upset. She felt she’d finally gotten the house cleaned up from the last search and now here they were, ready to mess the place up again. She surprised Melich when she said, “One of Caylee’s Winnie the Pooh blankets is missing.” He knew she didn’t know that they’d found one at the recovery scene.

  She told Detective Edwards that she’d had people walk that area a month ago, and there was nothing there. She didn’t seem to be considering the possibility that it was overlooked. Her belief was that the remains had been deposited there sometime after mid-November.

  In January 2009, the case took some strange turns. There was the recovery of the snake from David Dean’s freezer. The autopsy of the diamondback found a clear cause of death: blunt force trauma, in all likelihood caused by being run over by a motor vehicle. Nothing was found to tie the snake to Caylee Anthony’s murder.

  The Florida Bar, investigating José Baez since October, announced that they were not seeking further disciplinary action regarding faxes sent out by Press Corp Media representative Todd Black on behalf of his public relations client, Attorney Baez. In one, Black alleged that State Attorney “Lawson Lamar is facing tough opposition and having a missing baby is a perfect springboard for free commercial time.” Another one claimed that “the prosecution has manipulated and shamelessly used the media in the reporting of false, distorted . . . evidence.” Baez denied seeing or approving of the faxes before their dissemination. The bar continued to look into allegations that Baez violated advertising rules.