The state attorney’s office also received a complaint about Baez, accusing him of making secret entertainment deals to pay for Casey’s defense. The judge had to determine if there were such agreements, including the rumored $200,000 deal with ABC News, and if they did exist, whether or not they created a conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, Todd Black finally admitted to the Orlando Sentinel that Todd Black was not his legal name. He declined to say what his real name was. His company sent the newspaper an email: “In general, we can tell you that it’s been standard procedure for many years to have our company’s story reps utilize abbreviated names for security purposes.” Reporters at the Sentinel took this bit of news as a challenge. They pursued that story until they uncovered his real identity—a felon who’d tried to extort money from a TV reporter in California.
In what seemed to Orlando court observers to be a tit-for-tat move, Baez filed a motion with the court asking the judge to remove the prosecutors from the case. He also requested that Texas EquuSearch turn over all their records—including the names, addresses and phone numbers of all their volunteers. The judge denied the latter motion, saying that he did not have jurisdiction to order a subpoena and that the defense had failed to show the importance of this information or to prove that the organization worked as an agent of the state.
January also marked the announcement of an “Inspirational Caylee Sunshine Doll.” Eighteen inches high and cute as a button, this doll even sang “You Are My Sunshine,” just as Caylee did in the bittersweet video shown incessantly on television. This new creation was from Jaime Salcedo of Showbiz Promotions, whose other products included a Michael Vick Dog Chew toy, Sarah Palin red-white-and-blue boxers and a tee shirt proclaiming belief in Bigfoot. The absurdity continued when an even more macabre doll popped up on eBay the next week: the Casey Anthony Voodoo Doll, created by an artist in New Orleans.
This only took the focus off the real human tragedy of the case. The events that unfolded on January 22 brought the spotlight back to the seriousness of the crime and its effect on those involved.
George Anthony spoke off-camera to Fox 35 News at the end of December. He said, “There is a hole in my heart big enough for a truck to drive through. I don’t think I’ll ever have closure. At this point, I’m just hoping to someday be able to accept that Caylee is gone.”
Acceptance came at a very high price. On January 22, just before 11 P.M., Brad Conway called the police to report that George was missing. He told the responding officer that Cindy had last seen her husband that morning when he’d left for a job interview. George did make it to the job fair, but his search was unsuccessful, in part because of the negative publicity he’d received.
Cindy told the officers that George had been depressed and upset about Caylee’s death. Throughout the day, George had missed meetings—including one at their home with Brad Conway—and did not respond to her calls or text messages. She said that she’d probably added to her husband’s despondency when she’d sent him to go shopping the day before to purchase jewelry for Caylee to wear during her cremation.
She noticed that George’s medications were missing, along with a photograph of Cindy and Casey, and another one of Caylee, but none of his clothing or personal belongings were gone.
Around 10:45 P.M., George surfaced. He sent out text messages to friends telling them he wanted to be left alone, he wanted to make sure Caylee was in God’s arms and he didn’t want to live anymore. He would not provide his location to anyone.
Orange County law enforcement tracked the GPS on George’s cell phone to Daytona Beach. Officers filled the area where the pings originated, and spotted George’s vehicle in the parking lot of the Hawaii Motel. The motel owner said that George had arrived at 7 P.M. with a pillow and a blanket.
Once in the room, George had washed down sleeping pills with beer and started writing a letter. Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood and several officers approached the door of the room and knocked. George answered and told the chief, “Hey. I needed to get away. I needed to think. I needed to clear my head. I’m fine. You guys can leave.”
Leaving him in peace was not an option. He needed to be seen by mental health professionals. Chief Chitwood convinced George to come with him to the hospital. At 2 A.M., George checked into Halifax Regional Medical Center, involuntarily committed for psychological observation. A three-day stay was mandatory, but George stayed at the facility for eleven days.
CHAPTER 50
José Baez released a statement from his client on Monday, February 9:
I miss Caylee every day and every minute of every day. I can’t be there for Caylee’s funeral, but some day, I want to go visit her grave and tell her how much I miss her. I allowed my parents to be in charge of the funeral for Caylee. I told them I wanted her buried in a casket and I wanted there to be a gravestone so I could go visit her. I asked them if there could only be a private funeral for just the family.
I know they cremated her. I still don’t want a public event with cameras and everybody around for Caylee’s service, but I can’t stop my parents from doing what they want. I truly hope that it will help them.
In the obituary Cindy wrote for the newspaper, she emphasized that the family requested “that those with only the purest of hearts and truly honorable intentions attend the service for their beloved child.”
A dark cloud nearly rolled over Orlando. The West-boro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, announced that they were coming to protest at the service. Labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, this was the same organization that had garnered attention for picketing military funerals to communicate their belief that U.S. troops killed in combat are suffering God’s punishment for a nation harboring homosexuals. Fortunately for the family, the church demonstration did not happen.
Security for the February 10 event was tight, with private and public security present. They carried a list of people to exclude from the event—including Leonard Padilla, Richard and Jesse Grund, and Amy Huizenga. Mourners had to pass through metal detectors and were not permitted to carry bags into the church. Lines started to form outside of the church two hours before the scheduled service.
More than 1,200 people attended the ceremony. It began with a medley of Caylee’s favorite songs, including “Jesus Loves Me” and “You Are My Sunshine.”
What should have been a tearful farewell to a lost life turned into yet another controversial episode in the Anthony saga. Cindy made a lot of people uncomfortable with her comment about her daughter: “It breaks my heart that Casey isn’t here to honor her child, who she loved so much. Casey, I hope you’re able to hear me today. I love you and I wish I could comfort you right now. I wish I could take away all of your pain and wipe away your tears.”
But it was Lee who lit up the blogosphere by talking in code. Instead of using his niece’s name, he used the initials shared by Caylee Marie Anthony, Cynthia Marie Anthony and Casey Marie Anthony. “C.M.A., I miss you. C.M.A., I am so proud of you. I hope you are proud of me, too.” Bloggers judged the message’s content and were nearly unanimous in thinking that Lee had directed his comments to his sister.
Casey missed the message, since she did not watch the televised service. José Baez visited with her throughout the two-hour ceremony.
On Suburban Drive at a spontaneous memorial to Caylee, a hundred people gathered for the alternative service. They arrived with flowers, teddy bears and dolls, and placed them on a colorful pile that marked the woods where Caylee’s body had been found.
On February 18, the state attorney’s office released hundreds of pages of documents, including a page from Casey Anthony’s journal. The June 21 date at the top of the page made it explosive:
I have no regrets, just a bit worried. I just want for everything to work out okay. I completely trust my own judgment & know that I made the right decision. I just hope the ends justifies the means.
I just want to know what the future will hold for me.
I guess, I will soon see—This is the happiest that I have been in a very long time.
I hope that my happiness will continue to grow—I’ve made new friends that I really like. I’ve surrounded myself with good people—I am finally happy. Let’s just hope that doesn’t change.
Traditional news sources and bloggers alike grabbed that page and ran as hard and as fast as they could, reporting that Casey had written this passage just days after murdering her daughter. For hours, everyone seemed to overlook the fact that on the opposite page, in the upper left-hand corner, Casey had written “ ’03”—if that was an indication of the date, it had been written two years before Caylee was even born. With no certainty of the timing of the entry, the story went from blazing hot to frosty cold before the late night news.
While Roy Kronk’s attorney was threatening to sue Leonard Padilla over his unfounded speculations about his client, the defamation case pitting Zenaida Gonzalez against Casey Anthony moved into its deposition phase. George, Cindy and Lee were all served with subpoenas. Attorney Brad Conway got a temporary reprieve for Cindy and George on the grounds that his clients weren’t mentally or emotionally equipped for questioning at that time. Lee, on the other hand, wanted to be done with it as soon as possible.
He said that he had never heard of Zenaida Gonzalez until the night his mother called 9-1-1, and that the woman who was suing his sister was not the nanny Casey blamed. He laughed a lot during the interview, as if he weren’t taking it seriously. Everyone was shocked when Lee contradicted his previous testimony to the police. He’d told law enforcement that Casey was a habitual liar and a thief. During this deposition, though, he said, “To this day, I believe everything my sister tells me.” That mistake exposed Lee to the risk of perjury charges.
He didn’t answer two questions: whether he believed Casey had anything to do with Caylee’s death, and who the father of Caylee was. After the interview, John Morgan asked that a judge force Lee to answer. Lee’s attorney, Thomas Luka, responded to the judge that the purpose of those queries was simply to embarrass and annoy the Anthony family.
Morgan wanted Casey for a deposition, too. Because of her status in criminal court, her attorneys objected. As a compromise, he sent twenty-nine written questions. To all but one question, Casey had the same response:
Upon advice and counsel of my attorney, I am invoking my right to remain silent pursuant to the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The last question was simple and straightforward:
Were you involved in the death of Caylee?
Casey replied:
The defendant would object to the question and would move to strike it. This question is being sought solely to embarrass, harass and brought in an attempt to implicate the defendant in an ongoing criminal prosecution for first-degree murder. The question is without merit and totally improper.
Zenaida’s legal team asked the judge to force Casey to answer the questions. Casey civil attorney Jonathan Kasen maintained that the deposition should be delayed until after the criminal trial, because every question was “inextricably intertwined” with her murder case.
The defense team of eight attorneys and a long list of experts did not come cheap, and the state wanted to know where Casey Anthony got the money—how she “went from pauper to princess.” The state asked the judge to force the defense to reveal details on the financial arrangements for all members of the defense team. They were concerned that if Casey were convicted, she could appeal on the grounds that her attorney had a conflict of interest that prevented him from working in her best interests.
The defense fired back that the state was using tabloid news rumors to embarrass and harass his client. Casey submitted a sworn affidavit avowing that her retainer agreement did not grant rights to her attorney to sell her story or the story of her daughter. She added a handwritten note:
I believe that Mr. Ashton [assistant state attorney] is angry because I have refused to take a plea agreement for a crime I did not commit.
With Casey’s statement to the contrary and no proof to uphold the state’s concerns, the judge ruled in favor of the defense. The public may never know how Casey managed to afford her pricey defense.
The plot of woods where Caylee’s remains had been found went up for sale. The asking price was $89,000. Leonard Padilla made a $50,000 offer for the land. He wanted to build a permanent memorial to Caylee to replace the hodgepodge of handmade signs, flowers, stuffed animals and other mementoes. The neighborhood association was not pleased with this idea, nor were the parents who traveled the road to take their children to Hidden Oaks Elementary every day. The owner quietly pulled the lot off the market.
Deputy Richard Cain’s lack of action in August led to an Internal Affairs investigation. He lost his badge in December, but still had a job working in an administrative capacity. His position with the county became more precarious when he lied about his performance during questioning in January. By the end of March, he was unemployed.
CHAPTER 51
On April 7, the state made a mistake. In a release of documents to the public, they accidentally included the audiotapes of interviews with the jailers who’d been with Casey when she learned about the discovery in the woods. The judge had not yet ruled on the release of that evidence, but once it was out, there was no taking it back.
Two days later, George Anthony sat down to provide his deposition in the defamation case against his daughter. He bristled early in the interview, accusing attorney Keith Mitnik of putting words in his mouth. Like his son, he said that he’d never heard the name Zenaida Gonzalez before July 8, but had heard the name Zanny for a year before that. He also believed today that there really was a woman named Zanny who’d baby-sat Caylee.
“Were there incidences in the year leading up to the disappearance where your daughter had taken money, to your knowledge, that didn’t belong to her?” Mitnik asked.
“Not going to answer that,” George said.
Brad Conway added, “That’s irrelevant. There are criminal charges pending against her. It’s going to affect the ability of her to get a fair trial, so we’re not going to answer that question in this forum.”
“Just so we’re clear, so you can think of the wisdom of taking that position,” Mitnik said, “the relevance here is that if she’s having to take money from others, then how in the world does she have money to pay for a baby-sitter once a week or every week? And it is highly relevant to this case. So, I am going to ask one more time and see if you want to answer the question, so we don’t have to come back on another day, because I know you’d probably rather not on a motion to compel.
“Was your daughter taking money that did not belong to her from others, to your knowledge, in the year leading up to this?”
“I’m not answering that,” George said.
“You refuse to answer it?”
“Take it any way you want to take it. Refuse it. I’m not answering it. It’s no concern about this lady down here, sitting down here. It’s no concern.”
Further along, George accused the attorney of flipping him the bird when the lawyer used his middle finger to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Later, George blew up at him over semantics: “If you say ‘the remains’ one more time, sir, I’m walking out of this room. How dare you say that about my granddaughter? How dare you? How dare you?”
For an hour the contentiousness continued, with George threatening to leave on four separate occasions. Finally it peaked. They took a break and Brad Conway spoke to his client alone. When they returned, George was more cooperative.
That afternoon, Cindy sat in the hot seat, and the level of hostility rose even higher. Pain and anger etched furrows in Cindy’s face. Her eyes blazed, her mouth formed a tight horizontal slit. With the first question out of the chute, Cindy was combative: “Explain to me the relevance of the question.”
Attorney John Dill asked, “Is there any other person besides your daughter that has told
you that they have met or seen Zanny?”
“No, but Caylee talked about Zanny’s dog.”
“We’ll get to that in a second.”
“She’s another person,” she said with a sharp jut of her chin.
“I appreciate that,” Dill said. “I just want to be clear.”
“If there’s a dog that belongs to Zanny, then there must be a Zanny.”
“Fair enough,” the attorney conceded. “Besides your daughter and Caylee saying that about the dog, okay, is there any other adult that has said to you, ‘I have met Zanny’ or ‘I know who she is’?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
After Dill and Conway had a battle of legal wills over which questions were acceptable, Cindy said, “Listen, bottom line is, I shouldn’t be answering any questions that is not relevant to Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez that has a civil lawsuit against Casey Marie Anthony. And I am graciously answering these ridiculous questions, that have nothing to do with Mr. Morgan’s client that is the Zenaida Gonzalez. Okay?” Cindy seemed to think there were no relevant questions.
“I understand what you want, if I may, Ms. Anthony? I appreciate it and I have a job to do here and I understand that you want to short-circuit the process.”
“I’m not trying to short-circuit anything, and I object to that characterization.”
Later on in the interview, Cindy complained about the body language of Attorney John Morgan. “He’s shaking his head when I’m answering a question. That’s exactly what the sheriff’s department did to my daughter. They never let her speak. You guys are doing the same thing to me.”
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