Imperfect Justice

by Jeff Ashton

  Part of this display seemed rooted in the way the media’s coverage focused on the anger at Casey. From the beginning, cable TV’s Nancy Grace was the primary person pushing this case, featuring it nightly on her Headline News (HLN) Nancy Grace show. The situation was further enflamed by Jose Baez’s decision to appear on the show himself. That Casey was not telling the truth was the headline and frustration over her lies was eagerly stoked. Soon a lot of the anger toward Casey was spilling into the front yard of the Anthony house on Hopespring Drive. The media was there to oblige the irate bystanders. Anyone who wanted to be on TV could come to the residence and start ranting.

  Inside the house, the Anthonys were trying to hold it together. Cindy did most of the talking, especially after George became incensed at the protesters, even pushing someone off his lawn who called his daughter “trash.” Much as the Anthonys frustrated me, I felt for them in this situation. At the end of the day their granddaughter was missing and their daughter was accused of child abuse with the possibility of more on the way. Going through this situation was hard enough, but doing it in front of hostile protesters—well, no one deserves that.

  The media frenzy became a magnet for anyone looking for a bit of limelight. With the public uniquely fixated on the case and a general sense of desperation in the search for credible information about Caylee, anyone craving a bit of media attention could grab the spotlight for a day. To that end, one of the more bizarre events of the circus surrounding those early days was Jose Baez’s decision to involve Leonard Padilla in the case. Padilla, a cowboy-hat-wearing publicity hound and “bounty hunter” from Sacramento, California, rode into the case with the purpose of arranging for Casey’s $500,000 bond.

  Padilla offered to arrange the bond for the avowed purpose of getting her out and making her reveal Caylee’s true whereabouts. It always perplexed us why Jose would have allowed this character within one hundred feet of his client. Padilla’s condition for this largesse was that Casey would live at the Anthony home under the watchful eye of his associates. Casey accepted, and on August 20, Padilla’s brother, a bondsman, posted the $500,000 bond and she was released from jail to home confinement.

  Needless to say, Padilla was no more successful than the police had been in getting any useful information out of Casey. Casey was rearrested on August 29, charged with check fraud and theft related to the $110 purchase she had made at Target on her friend Amy Huizenga’s checking account. However, she was immediately released after being bonded out by Padilla for a second time. Strangely enough, the following day he gave up trying to get anything out of her, revoked her bond, and delivered her back to jail.

  The whole episode was an unproductive distraction, one that made me question just how well thought out the defense’s approach was. This choice seemed so reckless, so unhelpful. Perhaps the greatest irony of involving Padilla was that it made Casey seem more guilty. Ever since her arrest, she’d been saying to her parents, the police—anyone who would listen—that if only she were released, then she could help find Caylee. So what happened when she finally got released? All that happened was that more people—Padilla’s cohorts—related their personal experiences in the Anthony home to whoever would listen, adding to the general opinion that Casey was doing nothing to help find her daughter. The lack of progress upon her release demonstrated just how self-serving she really was. Not only did it make her look worse, it made the defense look as if they didn’t know what was in the best interests of their client. Jose Baez’s lack of experience was showing.

  Making matters worse, Jose’s decision to include Padilla saddled us with him for the duration of the case. Like some freeloading distant cousin, once he moved in, you couldn’t get rid of him. He kept hanging around, hoping to be the one to break the case and keeping his mug in the news. He caused a stir with a media-hyped search of a small river in the area, calling a press conference when something was found, which he declared was a bag containing human remains. Turned out to be nothing. Of all the opportunistic clowns I came across in this case, he was the most offensive to me.

  Not even a week after Casey was reincarcerated, an anonymous person stepped in and posted her bail. We knew who the bail bondsman was, a local guy, but we never learned who had put up the collateral for her release. There was a lot of guesswork, but nothing conclusive.

  Because Casey’s release hadn’t resulted in turning up anything new, the authorities began to search for Caylee’s body in different ways. Tim Miller of the nonprofit organization Texas EquuSearch brought in his team of mounted search and recovery volunteers, and they actively searched central Florida, focusing on the area near the Anthony home. They looked in the overgrown, uninhabited areas on Suburban Drive, a street that first intersected with Hopespring Drive and eventually dead-ended a short distance away at an elementary school. Curtains of air potato vines made visibility from the road into the swamps behind virtually impossible. Not only that, but the swamps were filled with water and poisonous snakes at that time of year, and dozens of EquuSearchers were warned to stay out of areas with potentially dangerous water hazards.

  Other leads came from different sources. On August 11, a meter reader for Orange County named Roy Kronk called 911 from his home to say he had been working in the Chickasaw Oaks neighborhood and, after reading all the meters on Hopespring and Suburban Drives, had entered a few feet into a vacant swampy area to relieve himself. In the swamp, not very far from the road, he saw a partially submerged, suspicious-looking gray vinyl bag with a white object nearby that resembled a human skull. The 911 operator thanked him and said she would pass on the information.

  The next day, Kronk called again from his home, repeating everything about the location and his sighting. He further detailed exactly where he saw the bag. Again the operator thanked him for calling and suggested he also pass the information on to the TIPS line, as they were coordinating all kinds of details such as his.

  On August 13, he called 911 for the third time. This time he said he was confirming a rendezvous with someone from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. The operator told him that if someone was planning on meeting him, to stay put and the deputy would certainly be there. He said he’d be waiting in his blue four-door Chevy Cavalier, right at the edge of the swamp. When the deputy arrived, Kronk pointed to the area where he had seen the suspicious item.

  Kronk later described how the deputy walked toward the waterline, looked around, and then turned to walk back, slipping on the slope while doing so. He recalled that the deputy got to within six feet of the object but never touched or manipulated it. Kronk said he told the deputy he thought he saw a human skull, but the officer started bickering with him about whether the missing child’s remains would be skeletal by then. The deputy then accused him of wasting the county’s time. Kronk said he felt belittled.

  Kronk said a second deputy arrived at the location after the two had already walked out of the swampy area. He told the newly arrived officer what he thought was in the woods but said the second deputy didn’t even bother to go into the swamp. Both officers were under the impression that the area had already been cleared by crime scene investigators. Deputy logs reported the suspicious findings as “trash only,” writing off the scene as just one of the many false leads that had come their way since mid-July.

  AS THE MOSTLY BOGUS STREAM of tips flowed in from personalities big and small who all wanted to help solve the mystery of Caylee’s disappearance, investigators did their best to stay focused on the stories that appeared likely to help. As a result, the investigative team continued to interview Casey’s friends, especially those who had seen her during the thirty-one days when Caylee was unaccounted for. The team spent most of August through October trying to acquire a clearer picture of Casey, her relationship with Caylee, and her seemingly fraught relationship with Cindy.

  Since the beginning, rumors had been circulating about difficulties between Cindy and Casey. After seeing tha
t Cindy’s brother, Rick Plesea, had been posting unflattering information about the Anthony family on the Internet, Detective Melich called him to see if he could provide some insight into the case. Rick spoke by phone with Yuri and three FBI agents: Nick Savage, Scott Bolin, and Steve McElyea. The call was put on speakerphone and the conversation was recorded.

  It was immediately clear that Rick had a lot he wanted to get off his chest about Casey Anthony. He told the story, already familiar to the police, of how Casey had stolen a lot of money from her mother, and he also mentioned Casey’s theft from her grandmother, in which she had apparently forged one of her grandmother’s checks for $354 to pay an AT&T cell phone bill. When Shirley Plesea, Casey’s grandmother, found out that Casey had done this, Casey claimed she used the money to buy a new work phone for Universal Studios.

  “My mom wasn’t buying that at all,” Rick told the detectives. “She said, ‘That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.’ . . . If you knew Casey’s propensity to lie, then you would know that was a lie right off. You know she don’t work at Universal.”

  Shifting gears, Rick began to elaborate more on the strained relationship between Casey and Cindy. He said that Cindy had sought the advice of a counselor through work because of the troubles she had been having with Casey, who had been stealing money, lying, and acting irresponsibly.

  “The counselor,” Rick said to the police, “had told Cindy, ‘Just kick them out on the street,’ and Cindy wouldn’t do that. She goes, ‘Uh, what about Caylee?’ She says, ‘I can’t kick my granddaughter out on the street, because Casey would try to take her.’ And finally, the counselor said, ‘Well, if you need to, file for custody.’ ”

  It was tough advice, but according to Rick, Cindy took it to heart. Through his mom, Shirley, Rick had learned that Cindy indeed threatened to throw Casey “out on the street” if she didn’t behave, and even threatened to file for custody of Caylee. When asked about the friction between the two, Rick did not hesitate. “I would describe it as Casey resented Cindy,” Rick replied. “She resented Cindy to the point where she could see that Caylee likes Cindy way better than she likes her. And to me, that was normal for a baby to like the grandma, because grandmas always like to spoil kids, you know?”

  As Rick explained it, the family had learned for the first time that Caylee was missing on the day Casey got arrested. Cindy had called their mother on July 16 to tell her that the toddler had disappeared, fearing that Shirley might see it on the news. Their mother then e-mailed him with this information. After watching the news and hearing the stories that Casey had been telling investigators, Rick said he had tried to speak with his sister, but Cindy became upset with him for questioning her. “I talked to my sister once on the phone after all this happened, and then I e-mailed her probably six or seven times. And she wouldn’t listen to me anymore. I was telling her, I said, ‘Cindy you got to wake up. Casey is telling so many lies.’ And I said, ‘You’re right in the center of it. You can’t see what’s going on. You’re in complete denial.’ ”

  To hear Rick tell it, Cindy’s denial when it came to Casey was nothing new. Going back a couple of years, Rick informed investigators about an incident that had occurred at his own wedding on June 4, 2005, which Cindy, George, and Casey had attended. Until Casey showed up at his door with her parents that day, he hadn’t thought she was coming.

  “I looked up and Casey was at the door. And I go, ‘Oh, Casey, I didn’t know you were coming.’ And when I looked down she had a tight-fitting top on and her stomach was protruding, all right? And her belly button was sticking out at least a half inch,” he recounted.

  “So I invited them all in. And we’re all talking because I hadn’t seen them for a long time. And when I got Cindy and George alone I said, ‘Cindy, George, what’s up with Casey? You got something to tell me? What’s going on here?’ And they go, ‘What?’

  “And I said, ‘She’s expecting?’ And they looked at me like I was crazy. I looked over at my wife-to-be, and she just rolled her eyes, you know. And I said, ‘Cindy, she looks like she’s pregnant. Come on.’ And Cindy goes, ‘Oh, no, she’s not. She’s just putting on weight.’ I said, ‘Cindy, I’ve seen a lot of pregnant girls. I’m not an expert, but man—she looks pregnant.’ And everyone on my wife’s side said, ‘Who’s the pregnant girl?’ You know, every time they would see her, or they saw pictures of our wedding, ‘Who’s the pregnant girl?’ ”

  Rick said that his parents, who were also in attendance at the wedding, agreed with him that Casey looked pregnant. But said that Cindy swore she wasn’t.

  “Cindy’s a nurse. And I’m going, ‘Mom, she’s a nurse, for crying out loud. She can’t see it?’ And so I said, ‘Cindy, come on. You’re kidding me? Now tell me, is Casey pregnant?’ And Cindy says, ‘Casey told us that she’d have to have sex first in order to have a baby and that she did not have sex with anyone.’ So I’m thinking, okay, then, if it’s not a baby, then it’s a tumor, and she’s only got a short time to live, because it’s big. Here she was seven months pregnant, because she had [the baby] on August 9.”

  His story spoke volumes. This was the same kind of denial that we witnessed in Cindy whenever we spoke to her. The same denial that we’d witnessed in the jailhouse conversation between Cindy and Casey when Cindy had been seemingly incapable of calling her daughter out on the lie about the photograph of Zanny’s apartment. The fact that Cindy’s denial about Casey had apparently been going on for so long was incredible, but it also made me realize just how hard it would be to get Cindy to see her daughter for what she really was.

  As he was winding down, Rick also said something interesting about Casey, something that vindicated what we in the prosecutor’s office had been witnessing on our own as we’d sifted through her various lies: “If she sees something or hears something, she will spin it into her own little world to make it work for her, whatever kind of lie it is.” It seemed that Casey’s amazing talent for lying had been mastered after years of practice. The trouble was, none of this was likely to be admissible in court.

  After Rick, Sergeant Allen, Agent Bolin, and Detective Melich went to speak with Cindy’s mother, Shirley Plesea, at her residence in Mount Dora, about thirty miles northwest of Orlando. They called her en route and she agreed to speak with them. Their conversation was recorded without her knowledge.

  Shirley greeted the officers warmly and invited them inside. It didn’t take long for her to confirm that Casey had stolen money from her. The first time had been on Caylee’s second birthday, August 9, 2007. Shirley noticed one of her checks missing and found out that Casey had cashed it at a local Publix supermarket for $54. Shirley was mad at her granddaughter, but said she forgave her.

  A couple of months later, however, she noticed $354 missing from her bank account. It was this theft that Rick had told the investigators about. Shirley had again confronted Casey, who admitted to the theft but used the excuse about needing a phone for her job at Universal Studios. As in Rick’s version of events, Shirley didn’t buy Casey’s story. Shirley said that she would have pressed charges, but for Caylee’s and Cindy’s sake she didn’t.

  When asked if she knew anything about Casey’s supposed nanny, she said she had heard the name Zanny for more than a year, although she had never seen, met, or spoken to the woman. She also confirmed that Cindy had acted as if she didn’t know that Casey was pregnant at her son Rick’s wedding in 2005.

  Shirley knew that Casey and Caylee had left the house in mid-June. Initially, her daughter had told her that Casey and Caylee were “going to bond.” But the story later changed to their going on a vacation and then to their going to Tampa. Shirley admitted that she thought the stories her daughter was telling her were “a lot of bull on Casey’s part.” During the month Casey was gone, she said that Cindy would talk to Casey on the phone, but every time she’d ask to speak with Caylee, Casey would say they’d be home “tomorrow.” And tomorrow never
came.

  ON SEPTEMBER 5, DETECTIVE MELICH received a phone call from Richard Grund, the father of Casey’s former fiancé, Jesse. Richard agreed to meet with Melich and Sergeant Allen later that day. Although Richard and George Anthony were not really friends, Caylee’s disappearance had brought them back into contact. Richard told the detectives that after Caylee was reported missing, he had offered to help the Anthony family in their search efforts. On the second Sunday that the family was holding a vigil for Caylee, Richard called George, but he got voice mail, so he left him a message. “Why aren’t you doing what ex-cops do?”

  According to Richard, George called him back immediately and said, “Here’s my answer to your question as to why I’m not doing what you think I should be doing: because my wife doesn’t want me to.”

  Richard went on to explain to the police that Cindy ruled that household. “Whatever Cindy wants is what Cindy gets,” he remarked. Adding to Richard’s sense of unease was a recent conversation with Cindy in which she told him, “You know, I could lose both my girls on this one.” This was the first time he believed that Cindy knew something was wrong.

  He also had some interesting things to add about Casey, Caylee, and the nanny. He explained that while Jesse was engaged to Casey, she had claimed to be working full-time, but she didn’t have a babysitter. Richard said that his son decided to give up his only day off from work to watch Caylee on Mondays. Soon other people in his family were watching the child two other days a week.

  “So now Caylee’s at our house three days out of the week during work,” he said. “I think Casey was there at night and on the weekends. I don’t have a problem with that because Caylee’s a wonderful little girl. But I work out of my house, and this was a severe disruption to me. So I began to press Casey, ‘Have you found anybody yet?’ And then when she finally said she found someone, it was really odd. Rather than just saying, ‘Yeah, I’ve got that worked out,’ she said, ‘Yeah, I found this lady, Zenaida Gonzalez, and she watches my friend Jeffrey Hopkins’s son, Zachary. And Zachary and Caylee play together, and they love to be together. So this’ll work out great.’