Mommy's Little Girl (25 page)

Gerus sniffed out the suspicious patch, but showed no interest in it. Bones came in for a secondary search, finding nothing to merit an alert. The forensic techs probed and excavated the ground, uncovering a small yellow bucket with the remains of a tiny dead animal inside.

 

William Rivera, founder of the Never Lose Hope Foundation of Orlando, got the idea of using an automatic telephone system through his telemarketing firm to help in the search for missing children. George Anthony took advantage of the set-up, sending a message about his granddaughter to hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Florida counties of Orange, Seminole, Lake, Osceola and Volusia: “Please help my family to bring her home for her third birthday.”

Rivera planned more calls for Thursday, July 24. All the resulting tips, he said, would be turned over to the investigators in the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

 

Tony Lazzaro met detectives behind Target, where they wired him for sound. He then drove to Subway at the corner of Goldenrod Road and University Boulevard to meet with Lee Anthony. He turned on the radio while he waited for Lee to arrive. Detectives called and asked him to turn it off.

They exchanged pleasantries as Lee slid into Tony's Jeep. Then Lee griped about the release of video of jail visits and the audiotapes of phone conversations, as well as the media chasing him. He told Tony about a highway high-speed escape from pursuers that had caused him to take extra precaution the next time he went to the jail to visit Casey. “I parked two roads over behind these construction guys. I told them what was up and said I'd be
back in an hour. And they said, ‘I got you.' So, I snuck in—like seriously snuck in—I was hugging the wall, behind the bushes, I had my hat down like this,” he said, pulling down his cap over his eyes.

After visitation, he said, he slipped out the side door, thinking he would avoid the media. But there was a reporter and a camera guy, so he took off running.

“I've been wanting to reach out to you since that night,” Lee said. “We're not any closer than we were on the fifteenth.”

“She's not saying anything else?” Tony asked.

“No. Well, here's the problem. Because I haven't been able to talk to her until this last Saturday,” he said, “I'm worried that her attorney is not giving her everything. I mean, he's supposed to protect her.” He thought that she wanted to reach out, but her attorney was blocking it.

“I am concerned that the police are not looking at Caylee as a missing person, but trying to build a case against my sister for something else—for a homicide or whatever—and I'm really worried about that. It's not Casey's nature. It's not something she would do—not something she would knowingly do. I don't know if there was ever an accident or what the situation is. You know what I mean?” Lee asked.

When Tony indicated his understanding, Lee continued, “But I'm really worried that they put innocent people away all the time. You know what I mean? And I just feel like I need to be doing more to make sure that doesn't happen to my sister—and when that happens, that people don't stop trying to help us find Caylee.”

Lee explained that his parents wanted to meet someone close to the case every two days to talk about their ideas and get updated on what was occurring in the search for Caylee. Yuri Melich's response to that request, Lee said, was that every hour spent talking to the family was an hour they weren't able to follow up leads.

He then asked Tony about his impression of Jesse.

“He seemed all right. He was a quiet guy.

“. . . I'm just worried about him in a way. Some of the stuff that he tells me, some of the stuff he doesn't tell me . . . kind of rubs me the wrong way, you know. Like, he used to be engaged to my sister for over a year and, like, for a while there, my sister led us to believe he was the father of Caylee. So there's a lot of history there. And, she's always told my parents, ‘Yeah, Jesse's still trying to get with me, but I'm not gonna let that happen.' And Jesse tells his parents, ‘Casey's still trying to get with me, and I'm not letting it happen.' When in reality, they're still seeing each other on a semi-regular basis at least a couple of times a month, like it's not anything new.”

“It's like a recurring thing that they do?”

“Absolutely. Absolutely. They don't ever really get serious but . . . it seems like he's always the one that's right at the start or right at the end of when a relationship would start or end. He's in the picture there. It's almost like, for whatever reason, Casey will see Jesse.” Lee talked about Rico and Jesse both being suspects in the disappearance of Caylee, and his concerns about Casey. He said that he went through Casey's cell phone records and discovered that when she'd said she was staking out the nanny's apartment, there were phone calls to a pizza place after midnight. “But if Casey's telling me she's staking out and she's not staking out—She's lying to me like that.”

Tony asked, “Does she really like to lie a lot?”

“My sister, since middle school and high school, she's been—If she's deceitful, she's doing it for—You know, I can't even say that. I'm trying to think: Does she really do it just to better herself, or does she say a white lie just to do it? I'm really trying to think now. 'Cause sometimes it seems she lies just to lie . . . I want to figure out what Casey I'm dealing with, you know. I know there's the Casey that would—that doesn't care about anyone but herself and her daughter. And then there's the Casey that will put her daughter in front of everybody else. And that's the Casey I'm trying to get to open up to me, but, like, I don't know.”

Lee ran into the Subway to use the restroom. While he was gone, Tony talked to detectives on his cell and got instructions on where to direct the conversation. “I've got to ask you a question,” Tony said. “She talked as if everyone knew this nanny. Have you talked to her?”

“That's the key here. My sister has used ‘Yes, she's with the nanny,' or ‘Yes, she's with the sitter.' I had never heard my sister say the word ‘Zanny' or ‘Zenaida' before. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, because I also haven't been living at home for maybe the past three years. You know what I mean, around the time Caylee was born? So I'm not an expert when it comes to that.”

Lee brought up the abrupt change in Casey's friends. Lee said that at Casey's birthday party in March, all the attendees were girls. Tony said that he didn't think that Casey had any girlfriends—that all her friends were guys. Then Lee moved to her drug use, saying that he didn't think she'd even smoked pot until she started dating Rico.

Tony said that he didn't think she used anything more serious than pot, but “I don't know if I can believe what Casey tells me.”

“Whatever she's telling you about drugs, I think you can take it on face value,” said Lee. But he couldn't guarantee the honesty of anything else she said.

Over the next two days, detectives continued to interview Casey's friends, talking to Brittany Schrieber, Rico Morales, Troy Brown and Jeffrey Hopkins. Jeff told officers that the last time he'd seen Casey was a couple of weeks ago at Miller's Ale House at Waterford Lakes. “She was with some other people I recognized from high school. About five or six other guys. She was the only female there.” He said it had been at least a year since he'd seen her before that last encounter.

They asked when he'd last seen Caylee. “I don't think I've seen her baby besides in pictures, actually.”

“You never met the little girl?”

“No, I don't think I've ever come in contact with the little girl.” He also told them that he did not have a son named Zack—he actually had no children.

Cindy met again with a group of Casey's friends, searching desperately for answers that pointed to anyone other than her daughter. Patrick Bourgeois, an acquaintance from high school, was Casey's first visitor when he came to the jail on July 24. He wanted to let her know that he and others from high school were behind her, and would help her in any way they could.

Initially, Casey did not recognize him, and blew him off with a short, uncommunicative exchange. Later she told family members that she'd really appreciated his visit.

The next day, Casey got more visitors—the first visits from Cindy, George and Lee. All their meetings were by
video feed, without any face-to-face contact through a screen or a Plexiglas divider. Visitors sat in a different room—a telephone connection provided the audio and the images were relayed on a video monitor.

Lee visited first. He focused on his own investigation in the search for Caylee. He suggested that Casey needed to communicate by letter since everything was recorded. He explained to her that José Baez was not obligated to follow her wishes regarding communication with family or with law enforcement if he believed it was not in her best interest. “I have nothing against him, but you need to know that if you reach out through him, he may not be giving us the same information. He's told us his number-one focus is you, that his secondary focus is Caylee. The truth is—it's a business. The truth is, the most important thing is himself. Then you. Then Caylee.”

Lee continued, “My first focus is Caylee. My second focus is you. My third focus is Mom, then Dad, then me . . . I need you to tell me if my focus should be anything different from that—if any of my priorities should be in different order or if anyone else should be in that.”

“No,” Casey said. “I think your priorities are where they should be, and that's exactly where mine are, so, honestly, I'll sit here as long as I have to. My only concern is Caylee.”

He told her that José Baez had not been returning phone calls from the investigators. Lee encouraged her to reach out to law enforcement to correct any mistakes she'd made in her original statement. Casey, however, did not want to speak to them. She wanted to put it in writing so they could not misconstrue what she said. Lee agreed with her and told her to send it by regular mail and to also send a copy to him, and one to her lawyer. When he asked how she'd chosen Baez for her attorney, she explained that another inmate had recommended Baez, and four others had seconded that suggestion.

Lee said, “I need to know who I can trust out here. I'm going to read you some names and give you the
opportunity to respond if you want. If I can trust them, don't say anything.”

Casey laughed and Lee started his list. “Myself.” There was no response from Casey and Lee realized his set-up wasn't working. “Well, tip me off somehow.”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile.

Lee listed names one-by-one for Casey's response. She told him he could trust Amy, Ryan, Mom and Dad, but shouldn't even bother with Annie, Melina, Jesse or Jeffrey. She said that she hadn't known Will long enough to be certain, and that Lee would have to decide about Rico on his own. As for Tony, she said, “I'd like to say yes. But I'm kind of on the fence about that one, unfortunately.” She complained that he hadn't even attempted to visit her.

When Lee asked where he should start in finding Caylee—should he focus on searching, following tips or talking to people?—Casey said, “Check locally, Lee. In all honesty, places that are familiar to us, our family. Ask Mom for specific places I've mentioned when we've spoke over the last period of time, the last few weeks.” Lee asked her if she'd received any letters from him or from her mom. When Casey said she had not, Lee said that they had been writing since July 16 and giving the letters to José, but apparently, he was not passing them along.

Casey hinted that there were clues to the mystery of what happened to Caylee in the passwords for her MySpace and Facebook pages, and said there were a lot of answers in the cell phone that she'd lost. It was all vague, but Lee dutifully took notes. He asked what she wanted him to do.

“If you can speak to the media, directly yourself, coming from me, my concern is Caylee, that's all I want. No one has once said anything for me, voiced that I love my daughter, that I want her safety, that she and my family are my only concern.” Casey paused to allow her brother to catch up on his note-taking. Tears glistened in her eyes, she sniffled and her face reddened. “All I want is to see her again,” she continued. “To see her laugh, to see her
smile and to just be with our family. Nothing else matters to me at this point.”

“Understand that we all feel this way—every one of us. Okay?”

“I know, but again, they've been hearing that from you, from her uncle, her grandparents, but not from,” Casey paused, sighed and exhaled, “her mother.”

George and Cindy made their first visit of the day at 9
A.M.
Casey spoke first to her mother, giving her details about Zanny's family and geographical connections. Cindy handed the phone over to George, who said, “Hey, gorgeous, how you doing?”

“I look like hell,” she sobbed.

“You really need to keep your spirit high through all of this,” her father urged.

“I have. I've not really been crying. I read books and do other things to keep my mind off of stuff.”

“You know I want to reach out and hug you—give you the big Papa Joe hug.”

Casey sniffled and wiped her eyes.

“You know we gotta get that little girl back. Any way we can, and we're doing everything we can.” When her father asked her about the cities she may have visited with Caylee, Casey admitted that the last time she'd been to Jacksonville was in March. The only time she'd left town, she said, was on a day trip to Cocoa Beach in May.

Cindy got back on the line and said, “Listen, I'm in front of the cameras all the time. What message do you want me to give to Zanny and Caylee?”

“Tell Zanny that she needs to return Caylee.”