Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony Read Online Free PDF Page A

officer to go up the home’s cement walkway. His knock was answered by Cindy Anthony, and he was surprised to find her sobbing and distraught. Based on the 911 calls, Fletcher had thought he was responding to a stolen vehicle report, but from the moment he walked through the door, Cindy didn’t say a thing about the car. She looked like a wreck. Her short blondish hair was as combed as it could be at that hour, but she was pale, her blue eyes bloodshot and swollen.
    In between sobs, Cindy explained to the officer that she had just learned that her two-year-old granddaughter, Caylee, had been missing for thirty-one days. Choking out the words, Cindy said that her daughter, Casey, had dropped Caylee with her babysitter a month earlier and had not seen the little girl since. As Cindy told it, for the past few weeks whenever she’d called Casey, Casey had said that she and Caylee were vacationing in Jacksonville. But Cindy had dreaded that something was wrong when her requests to speak with Caylee were met with excuses every time. Cindy then went on to tell Fletcher about retrieving the Pontiac at the tow yard and confronting Casey at her boyfriend’s apartment. What seemed odd to me was that Cindy failed to mention to the officer the sickening smell emanating from the Pontiac’s trunk, which she had described with horror in her 911 call, although later on George would share that detail with another detective.
    George’s demeanor that night was in stark contrast to his wife’s. Standing behind her in the living room with his gray hair groomed back, he appeared calm and in control. Investigators later learned that he had been a detective in Ohio and had been involved in a few homicide investigations before the family moved to Orlando in 1986. His stoicism had been learned from years on the job, but he was just as devastated as his wife. Yet, ever the cop, George had already moved into investigation mode. Emotions would get in the way of finding the facts, and finding Caylee was all that mattered at that moment. He had to be the strong one, since clearly Cindy could not.
    George agreed with his wife that Casey had been very vague about why they couldn’t speak to Caylee. He said the last time he’d seen the child was on June 16 around 1 P.M . He had no idea she was missing until he’d come home, just minutes before Corporal Fletcher arrived, to find his wife crying in the garage. The Pontiac he had picked up at the impound was parked there, where he had left it, but Cindy had found Caylee’s favorite doll in the still-buckled car seat, which put her over the edge. She had tried to reach him at work, but he had missed her call. When George had called her back, there was no answer, so he called their son, Lee, who lived about a half mile away and told him to go to the house and check on everybody.
    As Corporal Fletcher interviewed Cindy and George Anthony, other police officers began to arrive. Though the precise order was not totally clear, Deputy Adriana Acevedo, Deputy Ryan Eberlin, still in training, and his sergeant, Reginald Hosey, showed up on the scene within minutes of each other. The sergeant instructed his officers to take written statements from everyone at the house. Eberlin began with Lee, interviewing him in the living room. Lee was almost four years older than Casey, tall and stocky, with dark brown hair and bushy eyebrows. He told the deputy that he had his own place now, but he knew his sister had not been around for the last couple of weeks. When his father had directed him to stop by the house to check on his mother and sister, he’d learned for the first time that something was wrong.
    Lee had arrived at the house minutes before Cindy and Casey. When they came in, they were in the midst of a heated argument. Casey didn’t stop to explain but blew by him, heading straight for her room and leaving him alone with their mother. Despite her rage and frustration, Cindy told Lee everything she knew,