Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story

by Golenbock, Peter; Baez, Jose

  It was disgusting.

  And that was just the beginning.

  After Casey was freed, the craziness of the “Casey Anthony Reality Show” escalated. The cops, through the media, had declared that Casey was guilty of killing her two-year-old child, so once the public learned that she was out of jail, its outrage against her grew to the point where self-appointed crusaders demanding justice for Caylee began to camp out on the sidewalk in front of the Anthony home.

  It started one day shortly after we had gotten Casey out when Ed Phlegar, one of my paralegals, came into my office and said, “The bloggers are saying they’re going to organize a protest in front of the Anthony home. They’re carpooling to bring in more people and asking those with vans and busses to volunteer their vehicles.”

  “Don’t these people have jobs?” I asked Ed.

  “Apparently not,” he said. “You should see what they’re doing.”

  I hadn’t paid attention to bloggers before.

  “You should take a look at this,” he said to me. “These people are out of control.”

  I went online and started to read what these bloggers were saying and couldn’t believe the anger and hatred that was developing against Casey and me. I also couldn’t believe the number of armchair detectives out there who were trying to solve the case. There was a website called Websleuths, and in it they had gone through the public records and researched my entire career. The “sleuths” talked about me as though they knew me. Much of it was insulting, even cruel, and scary. The prosecution, through the media, was inciting these people to act out, and there was nothing that the Anthonys, Casey, or I could do about it.

  Yuri Melich was even blogging—under the name Dick Tracy Orlando. I don’t know if a lead detective in a high-profile case was ever caught blogging before, but this was certainly the case. I had every intention of cross-examining him about this in front of the jury.

  I wondered, not for the first or last time, What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Apparently, in the age of social media, Casey’s constitutional rights were being thrown to the wolves.

  Every night, around ten trucks with long antennae sat up and down Hopespring Drive. The Anthony home became Orlando’s second-most popular tourist attraction.

  Some protesters brought signs. One day a woman brought her baby with her and had her hold up a sign that said, “Would you kill a baby like me?” Another lady brought her dog with a sign that said, “I would report my dog missing after 30 seconds, not 30 days.” It was despicable, but the cameras were there to film them, and they could watch themselves on the local news. The more that these people got on camera, the crazier it would get.

  Cindy, who could never keep quiet, became a star of the reality show outside the Anthony home. Incapable of just ignoring them, she would go out and argue with the protesters while the cameras filmed the mayhem. People would yell all sorts of nasty things at her, and she would yell right back at them, trying to convince them that Caylee was still alive and that the nanny had her. One day she went out and hammered “No trespassing” signs on her lawn. The TV crews were filming her, and she began yelling at the media with the hammer in her hand, which the media loved, as millions looked on.

  Another time a woman got into an argument with Cindy. The woman had brought her young son with her, and during their argument the woman called Casey a “bitch.” Cindy said to her, “If you call Casey a bitch again …” and in her anger the woman accidentally slammed her car door on her nine-year-old son. The little boy fell on the ground sobbing. His mother ignored him, more concerned with yelling at Cindy. They took the kid to the hospital. It made for some dramatic TV. The boy was fine, but this was some of the crazy shit that went on in front of the Anthony home.

  One night protesters threw rocks at the Anthonys’ windows and began banging on their front door. That’s when the Anthonys started to lose it. Cindy came out of the house with a bat, and George pulled out a water hose and began spraying the protesters on the sidewalk. Five young adults—I hesitate to call them that—picked a fight with George, and they were pushing and shoving each other. From the living-room window, Casey saw the melee and called 9-1-1, a call that became big news. Leading the news that night was Casey’s voice on a 9-1-1 call.

  Every night outside the Anthony home it was as festive as the Florida State Fair. From inside the house, you could hear the protesters screaming, “Baby killer! Baby killer!”

  Finally, the neighbors started to get angry because the commotion and the noise were ruining their peace and quiet. The neighbors wanted the protesters to go away, and fights would break out.

  The cops just stood there, doing nothing. Around the same time, the son-in-law of Sheriff Kevin Beary had been arrested for domestic violence. I remember his statement, “We ask that you respect our privacy,” and I thought, Who’s respecting the privacy of the Anthonys?

  If the protesters had been outside the sheriff’s home, you can be sure those people would have been thrown in jail in a heartbeat. But because this reality show in front of the Anthony home played into the public-relations plan of the prosecution—to poison the public’s attitude toward Casey—the cops just let it happen.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GRAND JURY INDICTS

  I WAS SURE THE PROSECUTION was going to indict Casey for murder at some point. The prosecution’s case was forming, and since every shred of evidence against Casey was being heralded in the media, I knew exactly what they would be presenting before a grand jury.

  I knew they would parade Detective Yuri Melich in front of a grand jury to testify that Casey was lying through her teeth about her and Caylee’s whereabouts, but they had no idea why she was lying, and quite frankly, it seemed to me that they really didn’t care. Her story on its face was very odd. For two years she had talked of Zanny [Fernandez-Gonzalez], the nanny, a woman no one ever saw and who obviously never existed. She told everyone she worked a job when she didn’t. Like clockwork, for two years, five days a week, Casey would get up, get herself and Caylee dressed, go to a job that didn’t exist and drop her child off at a nanny’s house that did not exist. And not a soul noticed. Clearly she was masking her web of deep, dark secrets that she was too afraid to reveal.

  Here was a young person who seemed able to keep her secrets for a long time. Didn’t the police and prosecutors want to know why she was keeping secrets? They didn’t; the prosecution had made the determination early on that, because she was caught lying to them, Casey had killed Caylee, and they weren’t interested in any facts or theories that might clash or weaken their main hypothesis.

  I knew they’d march forensics experts to the stand to testify as to the smell in the car, a stain they said they found in the trunk, the positive reaction from a cadaver dog who sniffed in the trunk of the car, their scientific “proof” of decomposition, and one single long strand of Caylee’s hair that their expert said showed “post-mortem root banding.” Another expert would testify about the air samples in the car that had revealed the presence of chloroform. As a result, the prosecution’s computer people checked to see whether Casey had looked up the term chloroform on the computer, and what do you know, they found two hits, proof to the prosecution she had intended to kill her daughter.

  The cops’ most damning “proof” that Casey had murdered her daughter were pictures they had of Casey partying at a nightclub, having a grand time, during the time Caylee was missing. They said this was evidence that, at best, Casey was insensitive and cold-blooded or, at worst, she was a remorseless killer. To the prosecutors and the public following the case, this “evidence” all added up to murder in the first degree.

  They had paraded a lot of this before Judge Stan Strickland at the bond hearing, and the judge had hit Casey with a bond for $500,000. I had no illusions. Based on the same evidence, I knew Casey would be indicted.

  October 14, 2008, was the day the grand jury convened. How did I know that? The prosecution announced it to the world, shockingly en
ough. Ninety-nine point nine times out of a hundred, the existence of a grand jury is kept secret because you never want your target to know it’s being convened. But in this case, it was announced to the media, and on the twenty-third floor of the Orange County Courthouse in front of nineteen grand jurors, the prosecution marched six witnesses to testify against Casey Anthony: Melich, FBI Special Agent Nick Savage, canine handler Jason Forgey, FBI hair analyst Karen Lowe, computer forensics investigator Sandra Osborne Cawn, and Casey’s father, George Anthony. You might wonder why a father wouldn’t resist going before a grand jury to testify against his daughter. I certainly did. To this day we do not know what George testified to at the hearing, though we do know what he didn’t say.

  I have a theory why they convened this grand jury before finding Caylee’s body. It was an election year, and it was the first time State Attorney Lamar Lawson was being challenged. It was three weeks before the election, and voters might have seen him as weak if his office hadn’t indicted Casey by Election Day. So when I heard that the grand jury was convening, my first reaction was: This has got to be a political move.

  That day I asked Cindy to bring Casey to my office. I was 100 percent sure the grand jury was going to indict her and that she was going back to jail, and I wanted to prepare Casey for that. What struck me as odd was that after she arrived, for some reason she kept holding out hope.

  I told her point-blank, “You’re going to be indicted and we need a plan to surrender you.”

  “Let’s wait and see,” she said.

  I couldn’t understand her optimism.

  The media were beginning to mass in front of my office. Media trucks had followed her from the Anthony home. As it got later in the day, I could hear the whap-whap-whap of the rotors of the helicopters flying overhead. They all knew she was going to be arrested and wanted the footage for their TV news shows.

  “Casey,” I said to her, “Let’s go early, and I’ll turn you into the jail before this thing gets out of hand.”

  “No, I want to wait it out,” she said. “I want to make sure this happens.”

  After George testified, he held a press conference with his lawyer present. It was on TV, so Casey and I were able to watch it. His lawyer did all the talking, but it was obvious he had testified against her.

  When the press conference was over, I could see a change in her. She seemed deflated and defeated.

  Looking back, knowing what I now know, she was thinking that her loving father would tell the police what he knew, and they would let her go. But I didn’t know any of this at the time so I didn’t ask her about it. What I do know for certain is this: After that day, Casey never wanted to speak to her father ever again. And from that day on, she never has.

  I DECIDED WE SHOULD also have a press conference because I didn’t want the last public images of Casey to be in jail clothes or behind bars. If there was going to be video footage of Casey, I wanted the public to see a free Casey. And that’s what we did.

  She stood by me while I conducted a press conference. I basically said, “She is innocent. We’re going to fight these charges. She’s the mother of a missing child, and she’s someone’s daughter, and she’s human.” Casey broke down and cried, and after the media left, we found out that the grand jury had indeed come back with an indictment.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to handle this. I figured it would be best to turn Casey over to her bondsman, who would drive her to the jail, turn her in, and revoke the bond. That way she could just go straight to jail.

  I began to drive to the bondsman’s place to pick him up when I got a call to come back to the office. He called to say it was just as easy for him to meet us at the Orlando airport, where Casey would get out of Cindy’s car and go with the bondsman. By switching cars at the airport, Casey would avoid the helicopters, which couldn’t fly there because it would have been in violation of the airport’s airspace. The bondsman would then take her to the jail.

  I made a U-turn to go back to the office and could see a car following me, obviously a cop car. He wasn’t a very good tail because I picked him up right away.

  Back at the office, Casey left for the airport with Cindy, and I headed over there in my car. We kept in touch via cell phone. I saw Cindy pull up and could see the news vans drive up right behind her. I watched as Casey got out of the car and jumped into the bondsman’s car, and they took off. I made a U-turn and followed right behind them.

  It was a one-lane road, and I had news vans right behind me so I went really slowly to give the bondsman enough distance to lose the news vans, which made the people in the news vans go nuts. They were trying to get around me. They’d go to the left, and I’d swerve to block them, and then they’d try the right side, and I’d swerve back to block. I felt I was driving in a NASCAR race until something—common sense—overcame me.

  I said to myself, You’re a lawyer. This is not what a lawyer does. If the media wants to follow her, that’s their business. Your job is in the courtroom. You have to stop.

  I pulled off to the side of the road and let them all pass. I remember feeling ashamed that I had lost my dignity.

  It was a very low point for me. I asked myself, What are you doing?

  Just as I pulled off to the side of the road, Corporal Edwards of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office pulled up and said, “That’s some pretty fancy driving, counselor.” A second police officer was in the backseat, and she looked over at me and snapped my picture, and they took off. To this day I have no idea what that was all about. Maybe she wanted a souvenir.

  Soon thereafter the police pulled over the bail bondsman and arrested Casey on the way to the jail. They didn’t even have the decency to let her surrender at the jail. They read Casey her rights in the police car.

  “I don’t want to speak unless I have my lawyer,” she said. But on the way to the jail, she had a change of heart. She told them, “You know what, I do want to talk, but I want my lawyer to be there.”

  And I think what Casey was going to do at that moment was tell the police what she knew about George’s involvement in Caylee’s disappearance.

  At the jail they told her, “We’re not going to play any tricks. We’re going to get your lawyer here and we’re going to sit down and talk.”

  I was back at the office when the police called. I was told, “Your client is here. She has decided she wants to talk, but she wants you present.”

  “What?” I said. “What the … Put her on.”

  They put Casey on the phone, and she said, “Yeah, can you come here? I want to talk.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way.”

  I went to the sheriff’s office. Edwards took me upstairs.

  “Right now we have her in the interrogation room,” he said.

  “So this is going to be recorded?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “If you want to speak to her privately before we all go in there, we’ll put you in another room where there won’t be a recording.”

  “I do want to speak to her before we all sit down,” I said.

  Even though they took us to another room, I still didn’t trust that they weren’t listening in and recording us, so I took out my cell phone, opened my iPod, and played Bob Marley’s “Everything’s Going to Be All Right” loud enough to drown out our whispered voices.

  Casey walked in, and I put my finger over my mouth for her to keep quiet. I whispered in her ear, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “They want us to cooperate,” she whispered, “and maybe we should talk to them.”

  I said, “Until you tell me what you want to tell them, you can’t do this. You need to tell me first, and then we can talk about it and think about the best way to go about it, so we can protect you and your interests.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “This is not the way to do it,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, but it’s definitely not the way to do it. We need to make sure we sit down and discuss things thoroughly b
efore we ever sit down and talk to them.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I understand.”

  “So we’re in agreement?” I asked. “You’re going to go in there and tell them you’re going to go into the jail?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I told the detectives, “She and I need to talk first. We’re not going to say anything today. Please take her to the jail.”

  They were very professional and they did as I asked.

  Later on, again looking back with much greater knowledge, I am quite certain that Casey was sure on that day that George would come clean and take responsibility for his role in Caylee’s disappearance. When it didn’t happen, she got agitated and angry and wanted to tell what she knew about her father’s role in it. And for some reason, when she got back to the jail, she changed her mind and decided to stay mum.

  The moment had passed. In the end, on that day at least, Casey couldn’t bring herself to tell me about it.

  Not yet.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE CAR

  AFTER CASEY WAS INDICTED and taken into custody, I knew, based on the bond hearing and some of the discovery that I was getting, that the whole case was going to revolve around evidence found in her car.

  At this point, all the evidence was coming from the prosecution, and I knew I would need a good criminalist, and there’s none better than Dr. Henry Lee, one of the stars of the O. J. Simpson trial. Lee, who has been involved in thousands of criminal cases over a forty-year career, has testified in most of the important criminal trials in recent American history. In addition to the Simpson case, he testified about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the suicide of Vince Foster (Bill Clinton’s close friend), the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, the murder of Martha Moxley, the murder of Laci Peterson, and the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.