Eventful Weekend As Search For Caylee Anthony Is Temporarily Suspended
There's been a lot happening over the past few days in the continuing story of missing toddler Caylee Anthony, so let's try and summarize as best we can.
First, EquuSearch has temporarily called off the hunt for Caylee due to the rough weather:
The team of volunteers — which numbered in the thousands Saturday — is disbanding due to flooding conditions which director Tim Miller said has been preventing them from being able to properly search for the missing toddler. During a 3 p.m. news conference with Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary, Miller he feared the searchers' vehicles could possibly run over the body of Caylee Anthony if she was submerged under flood waters. Miller said he did not want to compromise any evidence. Miller also stressed that the suspension of the search is only temporary, and that the group would return to find Caylee as soon conditions improve. "We second guess our own selves, what did we do wrong? What could we have done different? And nothing...It just wasnt God's time. Its our time, but just not the right time…very emotional, very emotional." Sheriff Beary thanked all the volunteers who helped. "I applaud all these volunteers who gave up their time over the last 10 days. So God bless you and we will not give up."I was hoping they would find something before the weather got too bad, but it seems that the body (and it is very widely assumed at this point that they are searching for a dead body, not a live child, regardless of what Cindy Anthony wants to think) is hidden entirely too well to be found quickly. However, if you think back to the case of Lori Hacking, it took searchers two months to find her after tediously poring over a landfill, and the bodies of Laci and Connor Peterson finally washed ashore of their own accord despite the best attempts of Scott Peterson to hide them. So don't give up yet, this is just a minor setback. And Tim Miller gets huge props in my book for even continuing to search for Caylee in light of an ungrateful Cindy Anthony's blistering attack on him (which our own intrepid Dawn broke down for us). Instead of getting up off her duff and joining the search for her granddaughter herself, she instead chooses to sit and rag on those who are. After all, why did she call EquuSearch to start with, if Casey already knows who has her daughter?
There's also been a bit of drama with Casey's father George, as he not only was woken at 2:30 AM by police who confiscated a gun from the wheelwell of his vehicle (which could have landed Casey right back in jail but they can't prove she knew about it, darn), but he was involved in a bit of a shoving match with a couple of protesters at his home:
While several people protested outside the family's home, officials with the Orange County Sheriff's Office said George Anthony pushed one man and then pushed a woman, 65, while yelling "get off of my property." Authorities said Lee Anthony, Casey's brother, also tried to rip a sign out of the hands of the woman.And I will say it again...if you're going to protest at the Anthony home (which has become somewhat of a macabre tourist attraction), then realize that you are going to feed into the martyr complex that the Anthonys have. "Nobody loves us, everybody hates us, why don't you go out there and find Caylee, our daughter is innocent and you guys are all just idiots, blah blah blah." Not only are you giving them more ammo, but you are possibly breaking the law if you trespass on their property and you will probably be given a ticket if you are honking your horn or blocking the road. Is this truly the best use of the police in that area? If I were the victim of a crime or needed police help, I'd be plenty ticked if the police I needed were tied up at the Anthony home because a bunch of protesters decided to hinder an investigation. People say that they are mad at the waste of taxpayer dollars spent on the Anthonys...well, what do you call this? A good use of taxpayer money? And don't forget, there are people living in that area who had nothing to do with the disappearance of Caylee, so why make their lives hell? Take your energies and search for Caylee. I realize there is a bit of an emotional attachment at work here, I understand the frustration, and there's often a feeling of wanting to just do something in cases like this...but the something to do is to look for Caylee.
Also, some new alleged details that Casey just thought up have emerged, details that concern Zanny the Nanny and told to Leonard Padilla, who finally realized that Casey is faking:
VAN SUSTEREN: What is your current relationship with Casey, Casey's parents, and Casey's lawyer? PADILLA: Casey never talked to me after we had that one minute discussion where she tried to run the Zenaida game on me again. And I told her I didn't want to have anything. I never talked to her about that. I have not talked to Lee or [George] or Cindy since I left. VAN SUSTEREN: When you spoke to Casey, how long ago was that? PADILLA: That was the day after she was out of jail. I was in the living room with Cindy and Rob Dick, and she came in and sat down and started talking, my baby, Zenadia took her at the park and left me a script to tell the cops these lies for 30 days. And I told her I did not want to hear that. That was bunk. We had already checked out on the Zenaida thing. She is just hardheaded and will not give up the truth. She is never going to give up the truth. VAN SUSTEREN: This script, what is this script about? PADILLA: She said that Zenaida and her older sister Samantha took the baby from her, held her down. And then when they were about to drive out in a 2008 silver Ford Focus, Zenaida handed her a list and said, "Here--if you do not want your baby hurt, this is what you tell the cops for the next 30 days." VAN SUSTEREN: Did you see this script? PADILLA: No, absolutely not. VAN SUSTEREN: And Samantha is the older sister to Zenaida? PADILLA: That is what she says. The thing about it is, the nanny and all of that, none of her friends ever saw that woman, nobody ever met her. VAN SUSTEREN: I do not doubt it. I am just trying to square on these details. Did she say where she had met Samantha, because Samantha is at least new to me tonight? PADILLA: No. Samantha is supposed to be Zenaida's older sisters. I only heard the story that one time from her.Dang, I need a script myself, just to keep up with the changes. If they do find enough evidence to put Casey in jail, she could make some cigarette and bribe money writing cheap crime fiction books. The plots wouldn't be plausible but they'd be simple reading for passing some time. All this amid new findings of "significant amounts" of chloroform in Casey's car, and searches for chloroform and how to use it on one of her computers. I'm sure one of the Anthony family lawyers will try to explain away the presence of the chloroform as the byproduct of two other compounds coming together, such as bleach and ethanol, although it is highly unlikely. The last I knew, it wasn't 1892, and chloroform isn't widely used any longer to knock people out for surgery or medical procedures. And frankly, if Casey wanted to put Caylee to sleep so that Casey could go party undisturbed, there are easier ways to do it. NyQuil or cold medicine or Benadryl (the active ingredient of which is used in medications such as Tylenol PM for adults, to help them sleep) would work, although perhaps not for as long a time, and they are much easier to obtain than chloroform. (A practice that we at GlossLip do NOT recommend.)
To my mind, if there was chloroform found in the trunk of Casey's car, it would be there for one purpose only...to kill whomever it was administered to, not for cleaning or any other purpose. I don't know about you, but I don't normally drive around with a dangerous and difficult-to-obtain solvent in my trunk just waiting for a cleaning opportunity to jump up and present itself. This information, coupled with the DNA findings in the trunk, lead me to one conclusion...Casey allegedly killed her daughter, purposefully, and at some point placed the body of little Caylee in the trunk of the car to be transported to an as-yet-unknown destination. She then attempted, after a month, to blame a fictitious nanny for the disappearance and explained her partying over this time frame as "looking" for her missing daughter and following a "script" given to her by the kidnappers.
All this time, Cindy Anthony has flipflopped from calling 911 three times concerning Caylee's disappearance and the disappearance of Cindy's money into Casey's pocket, to publicly lashing out at media and searchers for not believing the family's far-fetched stories of Caylee being alive. It is unknown at this point what part, if any, Casey's parents have played in the disappearance of Caylee and/or coverup of the alleged crime, or if Casey possibly killed little Caylee to get back at her parents somehow...at the very, very least, they are guilty of not possessing even a modicum of common sense concerning their daughter. They just don't realize that the shortest distance between Point A and Point B, in cases like this, is all too often simply a straight line.
And lastly...I've been thinking about that tattoo Casey Anthony got while her daughter was "with the nanny":
On July 2, more than two weeks after Caylee was last seen, and two weeks before Cindy Anthony reported the little girl missing, Bobby Lee Williams gave Casey Anthony a tattoo. Williams said he did not get a sense that Casey Anthony was looking for a child or worried. For a half hour, Williams told investigators he drew a design on Casey Anthony's shoulder that read, "bella vida" or "beautiful life."I first thought it was in Italian, but turns out it is a Spanish phrase...which makes sense, with Florida's large Hispanic community, Casey would have lots of exposure to that. So I thought, what does this mean, if anything? Turns out there are a few "Bella Vida" things in the Orlando area:
- BellaVida Resort, about five miles from Disneyworld
- Bella Vida Construction, located on...
- Bella Vida Boulevard
- Bella Vida, a gated community in the Orlando area
- La Bella Vida, condos
It's time for this farce to end. It's been long enough, and little Caylee deserves better. Cindy and George, do the right thing. Convince your daughter to tell where Caylee is. At the very least, stop believing her lies and take care of the granddaughter whom you profess to love so much. Because the only love you're showing is towards yourself.
You can follow GlossLip's continuing coverage of this story here. Both Dawn and I have written extensively about this case.
(video of protesters and George; warning, NSFW, language)
UPDATE: Dawn just did a great article focusing on revenge as a possible motive...revenge against Cindy Anthony by Casey. She reminded me of something I had read earlier but had forgotten (easy to do in a convoluted case like this), that Casey had stolen money from her grandparents. In short, a therapist suggested that Cindy kick Casey out, but Casey used Caylee as a manipulative tool since grandma and granddaughter were so close. Cindy threatened, Casey left, Caylee disappeared.
Now that Dawn jogged my memory, I am going with the revenge against grandparents theory, and they probably are desperately holding on to the thought that Caylee is still alive. Does NOT excuse Cindy’s actions or words against Tim Miller and others, however. IMO, Cindy is as bad as Casey…look at her MySpace message, full of passive-aggressive statements. If Cindy acts like that, then the apple don’t fall far from the tree…Casey obviously learned manipulation at her mother’s knee. ALL involved need serious help.
When I found that photo above, I thought to myself then that she looked awfully smug for a woman who's toddler daughter has been missing for quite some time. Now that Dawn has put some more of the pieces together, it makes sense.
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