Mommy's Little Girl

by Diane Fanning

  In her response, Cindy told Rick that he got the story on Greta wrong, cadaver dogs were unreliable and Brian Burner, the neighbor with the shovel, kept changing his story. Again, she came to her daughter’s defense:

  Lying does not make someone a murderer. I am not in denial.

  . . . The Sheriff’s Office thought Casey would crack being in jail this long. She hasn’t because she is protecting Caylee. We have a lot of people working to prove Casey’s innocence. We cannot come out with evidence until Caylee is safe. You need to keep an open mind. If you don’t you are just as bad as the media. Why don’t you spend your energy helping us find Caylee. What have you done to put the word out?

  . . . I could go on all night, but I refuse to waste my energy justifying any of this to anyone, especially to my own family. I am not mad. I am disappointed. It’s bad enough you have little faith in Casey, but George, Lee and I are busting our asses out here every day to find Caylee. I do not see any support for her from my own family. We get more support from complete strangers. Thank God for all of them.

  Frustrated with Cindy’s stubborn defense of Casey’s lies, Rick gave rein to his anger:

  I have seen enough of Casey’s actions after the fact to know she is full of crap! . . . You can believe her all you want, but I don’t buy it for one second. She lied to you in front of me about being pregnant. She was seven months! It was so obvious, it was ridiculous.

  Her own friends said she is a liar and a good, decent person does not steal from their parents and grandparents. If it was you that was in trouble, I would believe YOU. I do not believe anything that Casey says . . . Casey is the only person that really knows where Caylee is and what really happened to her. She is playing you, George and Lee like a bass fiddle and has for years. You need to wake up.

  Rick challenged Cindy to prove the sitter existed and question why anyone would not step forward to claim the reward if Caylee was still alive:

  This is a made up story by Casey to get the police to take the heat off of her. You have enabled Casey to lie and steal for years. As long as you support her, you won’t find out what happened to Caylee.

  The “word” is already out. The “word” is Casey is a pathological liar and only she knows what happened to Caylee. No parent would be at a night club every Friday after their daughter is kidnapped . . . She has no remorse or doesn’t care about anyone except herself.

  Get real, Cindy. This is hard for me but you have to face the facts here. You are so far out in left field on this you have lost touch with reality. There is nothing that anyone can do here or anywhere without Casey coming clean and telling the truth for once in her life . . . I know you want to believe that Caylee is still out there alive, but . . . the reality should have set in after Caylee wasn’t home for her third birthday. I would want to choke the life out of Casey.

  You have my deepest sympathy. I truly am sorry for you guys and want this to have a happy ending. I am praying for you all.

  Cindy was angry now:

  This is why I am no longer going to reply to you again. You did not read a word I wrote. I cannot tell you everything that is going on. I am getting real. I know who is in my corner and it is not my family. We do not want or need your sympathy, or even pity. Please do not reach out to me again. Use your contacts to get Caylee’s face out there because she is alive. I believe that, as I believe there is a God. You need more faith. Please do not destroy our relationship. I forgive your ignorance at this point.

  Rick was now enraged. He responded in all caps:

  . . . YOUR IGNORANCE IS INTOLERABLE. I AM YOUR BROTHER AND I DEMAND TO KNOW IF ANYONE OTHER THAN CASEY HAS SEEN THIS STUPID SITTER. IF YOU CAN’T ANSWER THAT SIMPLE REQUEST, THEN YOU ARE ALL BY YOURSELF ON THIS. YOU NEED TO GET SOME PSYCHIATRIC HELP!

  For five hours, Rick cooled down while waiting for an email from Cindy. When it didn’t come, he wrote to his sister again:

  No babysitter. No kidnapping. Case closed. Mom never heard Caylee on her phone. It was a wrong number. Don’t bother Mom and Dad anymore. Bother Casey. Put the blame where it goes. It makes me sick to see you guys going through this because of Casey. I won’t bother you anymore. You couldn’t give me an answer if anyone other than Casey could verify a babysitter. Your silence is very loud and clear. There is nothing I can do for you if you can’t see reality. All the faith in the universe won’t bring Caylee back. It will take a long time for you to “heal” if you ever can. I know you are grieving, so I will let you have your peace.

  All I wanted was a STRAIGHT answer which no one seems to be able to give. I have heard all the BS I can take. I would believe in the tooth fairy or ET or Santa before I trusted and believed in Casey. After I heard what she did to Mom and Dad and you guys, I wouldn’t donate a nickel to bond her out if I won the lotto.

  That is the disdain that I have for her . . . I know you hate me right now but that is the risk I have to take to get you back to reality. You can hate me, but some day, you will see I was trying to help you.

  CHAPTER 40

  On August 11, the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Daytona Beach denied Casey Anthony’s motion for a rehearing on the bond. The same day, Cindy and George were driving around town, towing a portable billboard with photos of Caylee.

  By this point, the public had submitted more than 1,300 leads to the investigators. On this day a forensic unit responded to a site 4-and-a-half miles by road from 4937 Hopespring Drive. A tip alerted the sheriff’s office to a square-shaped spot of dirt in a field next to a wooded area.

  The unit found small pieces of bone and hair on its surface. An investigator probed the dirt, finding nothing. Carefully, one inch at a time, they removed the soil searching for bones or any additional evidence. They uncovered a wood beam, but in the surrounding dirt, roots were undisturbed. The hair and bones were not human. Another dead end.

  That day, county meter reader David Dean helped new employee Roy Kronk with his route on Hopespring and Suburban. They stopped in a shady area by the swamp on Suburban to take a break. David thought about the close proximity to the Anthony home and said, “You know, Roy, I think that little girl is in the swamp back there.”

  Roy agreed it was possible, and they talked about Casey’s remark to her parents that Caylee was nearby. Roy got out of the truck and went into the woods a little ways to relieve himself. When he returned to the truck, another meter reader, Chris Gibson, was with David. Roy said, “Hey, guys, I saw a bag down there.”

  David thought Roy was kidding around because of his earlier comment, and didn’t pay any attention. Roy walked away from the truck and along the swamp line. He shouted, “Hey, guys, I see a skull in here.”

  David still didn’t take him seriously, but walked back that way to see what he’d seen. Halfway there, he nearly stepped on the largest rattlesnake he’d ever seen. He let out an involuntary yelp. Then, he realized the snake was dead. They all marveled at it. David picked it up with his shovel, put it in the back of his truck and took it back to the office. The find was a big hit with the other meter readers. They all gathered around, snapping photos with their cell phones.

  All but Roy forgot about what else had been seen in the swampy woods.

  Roy made his first telephone call to the police. With some difficulty he described the location on Suburban Drive near Hidden Oaks Elementary School and the Anthony home. “There’s, like, a big swamp area there, and we found a dead, four-foot eastern diamond rattle back, but that’s not the real thing. There’s, like, two little ‘in’ areas you can go and there’s a big, long tree laying down and there’s a lot of swamp back in there. Well, back behind one of the trees down there was a gray bag and then a little bit further up than that, I saw something white. But after I saw that four-foot eastern diamond rattlesnake, I’m not going in that property.”

  He called back the next day to report his discovery one more time. The third day, he called again to report that he was at the location waiting for them to dispatch an officer. Deputy Rich
ard Cain responded first. Roy pointed out what he described as “a bag of bones”. Cain went into the mucky woods and poked around with his baton, flipping a small piece of a plastic bag, but not seeing anything but leaves and sticks.

  While Cain checked out the site, Deputy Keithlin Cutcher arrived on the scene. Roy spoke of his suspicion that he might have found Caylee’s remains. “[Casey] said she was very close. She was really close.”

  Cain walked out of the woods and Cutcher asked, “What’s going on?”

  Cain said, “Oh, it’s nothing. It was just a bag of trash.” He turned to Roy and argued that the remains would not be skeletal yet. Then he said, “You’re just wasting the county’s time.”

  On August 12, crime-scene investigators were gathered at another location 16 miles from the Anthony home to a brush line bordering a lake. They collected potential evidence—a faded pink baseball cap emblazoned with “V.I.P. Very Important Princess,” along with the dirt and debris found with it. The next day, they brought out cadaver dog Gerus to search the scene. He did not alert to anything.

  Detective Appie Wells met with Kiomarie Torres Cruz at the wooded area near Hidden Oaks Elementary School. From this interview, another piece of confusion entered the case. Kiomarie told the investigator about hearing a child in the background when she’d had a conversation with Casey Anthony on July 9. It turned out that Kiomarie was mistaken—she’d actually received a call from another Casey, and was confused about the source.

  Kiomarie, however, provided new insight into the suspect. She said that Casey was a nice girl except for when she drank, “but I have a very strong feeling she is bipolar . . . She has called me before, back in the day, I remember after she had the baby, when we were actually talking a lot . . .

  “She would call, ask me a couple of questions and then call back the next day and I’d have the answers to the questions. She’s like, ‘I never asked you that.’ ”

  Detective Wells probed further, “She wasn’t just trying to trip you up?”

  “This is what drives me insane, because Casey was never like this when we were in high school or middle school. She was perfectly fine, and it was after she had the baby when the issue started. I mean, the boyfriends—I don’t want to get started on that. I cannot keep track of who she was dating and who she was with.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know what she would do in spite of her mother, because her mother did—I don’t know how you say it—but push her really, really hard, like, to do the right things.”

  “Right. She had a lot of high expectations.”

  “To be the perfect all-American girl.” Kiomarie continued, “. . . her mother does not like Hispanic people, and most of the guys she was with were either Hispanic or of a different race.”

  Rick sent an email to his mother, describing his exchange with Cindy, and said he’d forward it all to her to read.

  I did my best to talk some sense into her but to no avail . . . When the facts are known, Cindy will have to face them. Right now she is in denial.

  Shirley wrote back to her son:

  I read all the letters. I agree with most of what you said. I know she won’t believe any of us until she sees that little body or Casey says where she’s at.

  I made her upset with the last note that I wrote . . . George told a reporter that he lost his job, so now his job is to drive Caylee’s billboard around. I’m asking where he got money for gas.

  . . . I’m afraid Cindy will mess around and lose her job. Maybe she will lose her credibility and they might not want her back. She should go back to work and let the police handle it from here. But, she won’t.

  Rick replied to his mother:

  . . . How can they possibly believe a lying snot that has never told the truth? How can they not see that all of Casey’s actions are not of someone that cares that Caylee is missing? . . . She is guilty as hell, Mom. Cindy and George . . . need to blame themselves for enabling Casey to steal and lie and get away with it. They created her and bought in to all her lies and excuses for way too long. They are still doing it. It absolutely amazes me. They both need to get counseling before they go off the deep end, but I think they already have lost their minds.

  Fired up after communicating with his mother, Rick tried one more time to batter through Cindy’s shell of denial:

  You guys need to quit making statements on TV. You have both lost your minds. People want to hurt you for being so stupid. Casey could give a rat’s ass about Caylee. Her boyfriend can’t even stand her for what she did. There was no kidnapping and you know it. This charade has gone on long enough. How could you believe a ridiculous story like this? You guys look like the stupidest people on the planet. The more George opens his mouth, the more asinine he sounds. You guys need counseling right away.

  After the police spoke today and said that there is not one speck of evidence that points to a kidnapping, you said something really stupid. You said that since Casey does not have Caylee then she must have been kidnapped.

  Cindy, Caylee is dead. Casey will lie to her own grave. Bet on it. She is a sociopath and cannot tell the truth. Caylee may have died in an accident but Casey will lie to the end.

  You just need to quit talking to the media. You are not helping your cause. People that used to sympathize with you now hate you for being so ignorant. I have to be blunt because you aren’t listening to the facts here. There is no supporting evidence to Casey’s story. NONE.

  She is going to prison for a long time and there is nothing anyone can do. You probably hate me but deep down you know I am right . . . Please get some counseling before it is too late. I didn’t want to meddle in your business, but this is way too important to let go. You guys need help. Mom thinks so, too. Please come back to reality.

  Rick did not hear back from his sister for six long days.

  CHAPTER 41

  Casey cancelled two scheduled visits with her brother Lee, but, on August 14, she agreed to meet with her parents. Reporters jostled George and Cindy Anthony as they approached the jail. The Anthonys were in no mood for the media. George said, “You don’t want to be knocked down, get out of my way. I’m done with you guys. Leave me alone. Do not come past here. Please, do not come past here. Out of respect for these other people, for a change. Honor them.”

  A reporter shouted, “Do you have anything to say about the new theory that Caylee might be dead and it might be an accident?”

  Cindy snapped, “Frickin’ quit publicizing that stuff! She’s out there!”

  George screamed, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Leave us alone, please. Do not follow us in the gates. Do not bother us when we’re standing in line. Let’s go. Let us go. Let’s go.”

  His anger contrasted with the message on the matching tee shirts worn by George and Cindy. The Never Lose Hope Foundation had made them for the couple with a butterfly and the message “Fly Home Baby. We Miss You!”

  They entered the visitation area and sat in uncomfortable chairs. On the video monitor, Casey smiled and greeted her parents. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, beautiful. I love you.”

  “Hi. I love you, too,” Casey responded.

  Cindy threw her hands over her mouth trying to quell her sobs.

  “Why is she crying already?” Casey sneered.

  “Because we haven’t seen you,” George said. “How’s your day going so far?”

  “I was asleep,” Casey said rubbing her eyes. “It’s okay. I got up at five and stayed awake for about an hour and went to bed for a little bit. So my eyes are red. I’m a little tired.”

  “So what else is going on with you?” George asked.

  “Nothing,” Casey said with a laugh. “The usual. Just waiting around.” Casey asked about their tee shirts and told her father that she liked them.

  George handed the phone to his wife. Cindy choked on her words as she said, “Hi, sweetie.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Casey said and wiped at her eyes. Laughing, she said, “Well I laste
d a minute. How are you feeling?”

  “Not—We’re not doing well, Case,” Cindy cried. “None of us. Lee’s been sick. Dad’s boiling up at the media.”

  “I heard,” Casey snickered.

  Cindy’s face screwed up with pain. “Someone just said that Caylee was dead this morning—that she drowned in the pool. That’s the newest news out there.”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “It’s very hard,” Cindy sniffled.

  “Yeah, I know,” Casey said, her voice turning harsh. “Trust me, I know that. Someone just sent me some of the stuff on line—the comments that people have been leaving, blogs—articles, I guess, that people have been writing. It was very upsetting last night to see that.”

  “You know, it’s terrible, Casey. We get hate mail, threatening letters.”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten anything like that, thankfully. All the letters I’ve gotten are positive . . .”

  “We need to have something to go on,” Cindy pleaded.

  Casey widened her eyes and flared her nostrils. With a toss of her hair, she snapped, “Mom, I don’t have anything. I’m sorry. I’ve been here a month. I’ve been here a month today. Do you understand how I feel? I mean, do you really understand how I feel in this? I’m completely, completely out of the loop with everything. The only information I get is when I see my attorney. That’s it. Outside of that, I have nothing to go on. I just have to sit here and wait and wonder. Wonder if something’s going on—wonder if something’s new.”