After learning about Casey’s habitual theft, Amy grew concerned about her own bank account. She went on line to check her balance. She’d thought she had a little more than $600 remaining. The bank thought otherwise: Her balance was zero.
She made a conscious effort to avoid panic and to still the automatic response that was making her hyperventilate. The last time she’d seen her checkbook, it was in the car. Casey had driven her car.
She sent her roommate, Rico Morales, down to look in her vehicle while she called the Bank of America. As she explained the situation, Rico came back upstairs with the bad news. Her checkbook was not in the car. The bank told her that nothing could be done that night.
Curious about the unfolding situation, Tony Lazzaro sent a text message to Casey. He heard the tone from Casey’s cell and realized that she hadn’t taken the phone with her. He dumped out the contents of Casey’s different bags. Inside one of them, he found the cell phone and a checkbook belonging to Amy Huizenga.
He scrolled through Casey’s contact information until he located Amy’s number. Amy was glad he’d found her checkbook, but she warned him that he and his roommate needed to check their bank accounts, because Casey had stolen money from hers.
Tony folded and repacked Casey’s clothing in the duffle bag, still confused about what was happening with Casey.
Deputy Ryan Eberlin, the first officer to arrive at the Anthony home on Hopespring Drive, met Lee Anthony outside. Lee ran through the situation he’d discovered at home and the backstory about the suspected kidnapper. He agreed to provide a written statement.
Eberlin then spoke to Cindy Anthony. She explained that she had requested the return of the car and a visit with her granddaughter three weeks ago. Casey had told her she couldn’t return the car, since she was in Jacksonville. Although she’d harbored suspicions about Casey’s stories for a month, Cindy had believed her daughter until they got the notice that the car had been towed in Orlando. George spoke to Eberlin next, confirming the statements of his wife and son.
While Eberlin spoke to Lee’s parents, he sat out in the garage with his sister. The atrocious stench from the car drove him back into the house. When he returned, he asked his sister about the smell.
“Well, it actually started around Mom’s birthday [June 5]. It started around the time when two squirrels crawled up under the hood of the car and died in there.”
Lee knew his parents had seen Caylee the weekend after that date, and questioned her timeline. “Well, either Mom or Dad would have smelled that.”
“That’s when it started,” Casey insisted. “It started at that time and got progressively worse.”
Lee asked her what she’d done to find Caylee, and Casey told him about her stake-out of Zenaida’s apartment, when she sat there in her car watching the front door. It was, she said, the day she dropped Caylee off at the complex, but she began to mix up the date, saying it was June 9 and then June 15. When Lee called her on the contradiction, she said she’d watched the apartment on a number of occasions.
Finally, Officer Eberlin took Casey aside to get her statement. She claimed that the last time she had seen her daughter was on the 9th of June, when she’d left her with the baby-sitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, at 2863 South Conway Road and then went to her job at Universal Studios. In her statement, she wrote:
I have spent every day, since Monday, June 9, 2008, looking for my daughter. I have lied and stolen from my friends and family to do whatever I could, by any means, to find my daughter. I avoided calling the police or even notifying my own family out of fear.
I have been and still am afraid of what has, or may happen to Caylee. I have not had any contact with Zenaida since Thursday, June 12, 2008. I received a quick call from Zenaida. Not once have I been able to ask her for my daughter or gain any information on where I can find her. Every day, I have gone to malls, parks, anyplace I could remember Zenaida taking Caylee.
. . . On Tuesday, July 15, 2008, around 12 pm, I received a phone call from my daughter Caylee. Today was the first day I have heard her voice in over four weeks. I’m afraid of what Caylee is going through. After thirty-one days, I know that the only thing that matters is getting my daughter back. With many and all attempts to contact Zenaida and within the one short conversation . . . I was never able to check on the status or well-being of my daughter. Zenaida never made an attempt to explain why Caylee is no longer in Orlando or if she is ever going to bring her home.
She described Caylee as three feet tall, weighing thirty-five pounds, with hazel eyes, light brown hair and a small birthmark on her left shoulder. When Casey had seen her last, she said, her daughter was wearing a pink shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers.
One officer went to South Conway Road, only to discover that the apartment number given by Casey was vacant and had not had a tenant for 142 days. Another policeman went to the apartment of Tony Lazzaro and his roommate, who consented to a search for Caylee and any evidence that might help find the little girl. He left with Casey’s cell phone. A third officer was sent to North Glenwood Avenue in hopes of getting information about Caylee from residents there, but he came up empty handed.
Cindy was outside when the deputy returned with Casey’s cell. She stood by his side providing relationship commentary as he scrolled through her list of contacts, calling every one of them.
A tearful, hysterical-sounding Cindy called Amy at 11 o’clock that night. She told her Casey’s story about the kidnapping of Caylee. Amy said, “Casey emptied out my bank account.”
After getting a few more details, Cindy excused herself from the call and then returned in a couple of minutes. “Casey is with the cops, but I asked her if she did this and she said she wrote all those checks.”
Lee Anthony called Tony Lazzaro and explained the situation with Casey and Caylee. He then asked if he could come over to pick up the rest of Casey’s things, including the laptop Casey used, which actually belonged to Cindy. Tony agreed.
Lee arrived around 2 in the morning. He got a leopard print duffle bag, a white backpack, a large purse filled with toiletries and cosmetics, and a slender black bag containing paperwork. He placed the computer in that bag. He was surprised at the neatness of his sister’s possessions. She usually was very sloppy about her packing.
Tony pointed to a checkbook sitting on his dresser, telling Lee that it belonged to Amy. “I talked to Amy. She’s going to come get this tomorrow. Do you want it?”
“No,” Lee said. “If Amy’s going to come get it tomorrow, you go ahead and keep it and just have her do that.”
When he returned to his parents’ home, Casey was outside in a circle of police officers. Lee carried all the items into the house. George Anthony complained that everything reeked of cigarette smoke. Cindy looked up at the officer. “I want to go through that stuff.”
The officer said, “Dump it out on the ground.” After the contents were spread out onto the floor, the officer left. Cindy rooted around through the contents and was surprised by what she didn’t find. There were a couple of diapers and a few baby wipes, but usually the backpack was brimming with books, toys and clothing for her granddaughter. None of that was there. There were no little Baggies of pretzels or Cheerios. No tiny containers of juice.
Cindy pulled Casey’s wallet out of the pile. She pulled out the cash—about $140—and stuck it in her pocket, saying, “It’s probably mine or Amy’s.”
The officer returned. Cindy held up a credit card. “Look,” Cindy said. “This is my JC Penny card that she took from me. Look,” she said holding up another one from Sears, “this is another card that she took from me.” Cindy then started to pull Casey’s identification from the clear sleeve, but before she could see what was behind the driver’s license, the officer reached down and plucked something out.
Cindy continued searching. She found a car key that did not look familiar. She made the assumption that it was Amy’s, and set it aside. She pulled out multiple receipts, and Lee counted them—twenty-two in all, dated from June 20 to July 15. In going through them, Lee didn’t find a single receipt containing purchases for Caylee—not for diapers or anything a small child would need.
Child abuse investigator Yuri Melich responded to the Anthony home and took over the investigation. He looked the part of a detective, with his stiff posture, close-cropped hair, sharp nose and pointed chin. He wore a serious, no-nonsense expression as he reviewed Casey’s written statement and sat down with her apart from other family members. “Is this your version of what happened?”
“Yes,” Casey said.
He explained that the incident was suspicious, and her version of events was questionable. He gave her the opportunity to correct, amend or walk away from the words she had written. When she demurred, Melich started the tape recorder.