Suburban Drive – Four Years After

What it looks like today…

The End Is Near . . . For Whom?

 Finally, the Casey Anthony trial is near an end. Today, the defense is expected to rest its case, a moment that should elicit a collective sigh of relief out of everyone who has been following the proceedings.  I feel as if I’ve been watching a train wreck in slow-mo over the last week, knowing full well that  I should turn my head to avoid seeing the carnage. But like everyone else I couldn’t take my eyes off witness stand.

What do you think?

Click the image

Feel free to add your thoughts.

THANK YOU!

Creepy Cryptic Casey, Part 2 Revisited

TO READ, PLEASE CLICK HERE

Jailhouse Confections, Part 1

Confections [kənˈfɛkʃən]  – Informal anything regarded as excessively elaborate or frivolous

Maya Derkovic and Robyn Adams

Venting through the ventilation system

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

– Joseph Heller, from Catch-22

That’s one of the problems with the letters released yesterday, letters written by Casey’s own hand. Damned if you believe her and damned if you don’t. Here, we have 258 pages of, as criminal defense attorney Richard Hornsby stated, drivel. We also have several interviews to pore over and Detective Yuri Melich’s synopsis of what Maya Derkovic and Robyn Adams told him and other members of law enforcement about conversations they had with Casey. The words of two jailhouse snitches allegedly coming from a confirmed liar.

Herein lies a dilemma. In her interview, inmate Maya Derkovic talked about Casey using something to knock Caylee out, but she was not specific about what drugs she used to do that. Melich wrote, “Casey Anthony never mentioned what she used to put Caylee Anthony to sleep.”

But also in his investigative summary, Melich reported something completely different coming from inmate Robyn Adams. “Caylee Anthony had trouble sleeping and she had to use chloroform to put her to sleep. Casey Anthony implied her mother may have brought the chloroform home when she worked at a local clinic.”

Those are contradictory words written by Melich. Generally, prosecutors rely on sworn testimony and not on what a detective writes in a summary, but now the possibility exists that the defense could exploit the detective’s credibility at trial. In the movie Cool Hand Luke, starring the late Paul Newman, the prison captain said, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” Was it chloroform or wasn’t it, according to Melich? Did Casey tell one person about using this trihalomethane, but not the other? Can we trust anything coming from the mouths and hands of an established prevaricator, a convicted murderer and a convicted drug trafficker out to strike a deal with the State?

Without addressing the Melich implications any further, I will focus on Casey’s jail-bird friends. Melich is a matter for legal dissection.

What happens when convicts are called to the stand is simple. The defense has the option to cross-examine, and when they do, a whole can of worms spills out about that person’s criminal past. Yes, the defense will do that and because of the Sixth Amendment, Casey will have the right to be confronted with the witnesses against her, shackles and all.

Maya Derkovic, now 21, was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl, Harriet “Jackie” Curtis, in February of 2008. Dear Maya is spending her best years at Lowell Correctional Institution. She was a member of a gang, the 3rd World Rolling Sixties, a spinoff of the West Coast Crips. While incarcerated at the Orange County Jail, she decided it was time to come clean with what she did, so she opened up to a jailer, and later, to detectives. She and two other gang members lured Curtis to a retention pond on Goldenrod Road with the sole intent to kill. The other two, Amiri “Sin” Lundy and Dominique “D” Tolbert, held Curtis down while Derkovic choked her to death.

A pertinent point Casey’s defense would bring up is the conflict that’s arisen since Derkovic’s confession. In trying to find peace, she decided to come clean. In October of 2007, she told Orlando Sentinel reporters Henry Pierson Curtis and Sarah Lundy, “What I did was terribly wrong. It’s time to fess up to what I did and do the right thing.”

That sounds all chivalrous and everything. Good for her. She saw the light. Praise the Lord, but there’s a problem with it. She appealed her conviction. For the record, she is now incarcerated for these felony offenses: (1) Carjacking Without Felony Assault/Deadly Weapon – 2 years; (2) Aggravated Flee/Alluding a Law Enforcement Officer – 2 years; and (3) 2nd Degree Murder, Dangerous Act – 30 years. Why would Ms. Derkovic appeal her conviction if her inner conviction was to come clean and seek redemption?

Robyn Adams is married to a former police officer. Orlando Sentinel reporters Jim Leusner and Vincent Bradshaw wrote on July 23, 2008 that “Clay Adams lived two lives: one as an Altamonte Springs cop, the other as a painkiller-addicted, marijuana grow-house operator who was scheming to kill a former supervisor.”

Courtesy of WFTV

I live right around the corner from Altamonte Springs and there’s no way I don’t remember the story of one of the city’s finest from July 2008. According to a complaint filed by Agent Timothy Gunning of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Robyn Adams, then an employee at a surgeon’s office, obtained illicit prescriptions for her husband and marijuana seeds from the Netherlands via the Internet. They both ran the grow-house.

According to the Sentinel article, the complaint gives this account of the probe:

Adams approached an informant to partner in a marijuana-growing operation. That person tipped off CCIB agents, who brought the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and ATF into the case.

During the next two weeks, the informant secretly recorded meetings and phone calls with Adams and his wife while agents monitored them. Adams bragged about previous marijuana-growing operations and driving the pot to Tallahassee distributors.

Adams provided the informant with drivers-license photos, undercover aliases and real names of drug agents and CCIB officers, along with the descriptions of their vehicles. Adams also supplied weapons and prescription drugs to the informant, a convicted felon.

He told the informant that he joined CCIB earlier this year to learn investigative methods on how to detect marijuana-growing operations, Gunning wrote.

Adams was “extremely upset” when a supervisor’s reprimand led to his removal from the task force, the agent wrote.

“Clay advised [the informant] that he will let the issue cool off for a couple of months and then ‘take [the supervisor] out’ when he least expects it, utilizing a .308-caliber rifle equipped with a silencer,” Gunning wrote.

After the informant rented a home for the operation, Adams and his wife set up hydroponic equipment in the residence last weekend and provided marijuana seeds, the complaint read.

Adams is a master patrolman who has served as a uniformed officer and detective for Altamonte Springs police. He has been suspended without pay, police Chief Robert Merchant said at a news conference Tuesday.

Adams’ actions “disgraced the honor of the badge,” he said.

“I am extremely upset,” Merchant said. “We work very, very hard to build our reputation only to have it brought down by [Adams’] actions.”

This is a despicable couple who conspired to deal in illicit drugs and (allegedly) have a police officer murdered. Clay Adams owned an arsenal of handguns, rifles and shotguns¹.  She will stay locked up inside the Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) until April 6, 2017, while he will remain up close and personal-like with Big Bubba at the Beaumont FCI until October 17, 2023. When interviewed, Bubba said he “don’t like cops gone bad.” No one does. Robyn Adams kept those letters from Casey after promising to dispose of them. Flush after reading. She tried to work out a plea deal over them. In my opinion, once a cop’s wife, always a cop’s wife, no matter how rotten to the corps. It’s a mindset thing and if you can’t trust a cop – or his wife – who can you trust?

I don’t know what is truth and what is fiction from the documents released yesterday. What I can and will say is that there are huge differences between being raised up with a strong religious faith and the kind that comes in prison, called jailhouse religion. I’m not going to say that either of these women picked up an honesty trait suddenly, and I’m not going to deny that they may have had epiphanies – the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something – a Come to Jesus moment so to speak, but I sure as hell wouldn’t put any stock in what they had to say. Any more than I would put in Miss Anthony’s letters. Again, let me refresh your memories… “Not a bit of useful information has been provided by Ms. Anthony as to the whereabouts of her daughter,” Circuit Court Judge Stan Strickland said. “And I would add that the truth and Ms. Anthony are strangers.”

What we have to be very careful of is selective believing. If you don’t trust Casey, how can you believe any of it is true? If you do believe any of it, you must believe Casey is telling the truth. So are the snitches.

A veritable Catch-22. Plus 2.

OCSO Supplemental Report on Casey’s Letters

x

An unbiased look at news slants

Because of the nature of news and personal opinions based on what happens in the world of current events, it’s sometimes good to remind people periodically to stay focused on facts and to understand the implications involved in news reporting and how it balances out with how we think. Should Casey die? Is universal healthcare the answer? Should more American troops be sent to Afghanistan? Is Obama a good president? The ideas and opinions of people run incredibly strong and deep, and it’s just plain human nature to be this way. Here on blogs, we grow by engaging each other in comments. In the news, it’s not readily distinguishable because the brain doesn’t always comprehend what’s been absorbed, especially when it fits the bill on a particular topic. For example, FOX goes one way and MSNBC goes the other and seldom the twain shall meet. Rest assured, if one network is agreeable, that one is perceived as being fair and balanced and the other is up to no good.

This is an article I originally wrote in college back in the early 70s. I have updated it a couple of times and published it on the blog in 2005 and 2008. This is a new approach to an old post…

Every day in the news media we are bombarded by reports that lean one way or another. Pro-this, anti-that, so to speak. Very rarely do we read, see or hear any type of news that isn’t slanted. Even your relatives, friends and co-workers have said the coverage of a particular news item was so biased for or against a particular issue, they felt compelled to tell you about it. You may have sat there and thought, “Hey, I saw the same thing, on the same station, and I didn’t feel it was as bad as what they just told me.” Of course, each one of us has an opinion on just about everything, and sometimes we run into people who are just so animated over how the news is reported, they seem to lose track of exactly what they heard, saw or read, and, by inflection, they inject their own personal views that create a slant on the slanted news. Those who do the reporting tend to be pariahs in the minds of these viewers and they misconstrue what was actually said in the first place. A lot of it has to do with wishful thinking. As is the case now with Barack Obama, people either like him or they hate his guts with a vengeance, so out of their mouths come some pretty nasty words. Of course, kinder and gentler words come out of his supporters.

A lot of times, someone believes deeply in a cause. Save the Whales! Causes can be twisted into political agendas because conservatives interpret conservation and animal rights organizations and issues as being liberal, for instance. It works both ways. Over time, too many issues have been highly distorted and twisted into one’s own way of thinking, when, in reality, that should not be the case. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican president and he is regarded as the founder of environmental conservation in America; a true protector of flora, fauna, and land. Was he a liberal tree hugger? Good question, but for some odd reason, we seem to get confused and downright mean over issues that may or may not impact us, depending on points of view. Just yell GLOBAL WARMING! in a room full of Democrats. Do the same in a room filled with Republicans. You’ll never hear so much passion, along with a heavy dose of bias and self-serving interpretations of science.

Slants take on many forms, not always of a political nature. They can delve into the philosophical or religious views of the author, too. They could be based on one’s own experiences. How many movie and restaurant critics have written bad reviews? Clearly, there’s nothing political about those. Maybe you saw that movie and ate at that restaurant and you liked both. Who is right here? You or the critic? Below are three different takes on the same fictitious event. One is a straight forward report and the other two are slants. Each slant will infer something different. Read between the lines.

(1) A two vehicle accident occurred on Wednesday, at the intersection of Main Street and Vine Avenue, in downtown Podunk around 11 PM. One person did not survive. Dennis Walker, 15, of Ruralville was pronounced dead at the scene. His father Michael Walker, also of Ruralville, was transported to Podunk Medical Center, where he was treated and released. The driver of the other vehicle, Scott Wilson, 22, of Podunk, and his passengers, suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene. The cause of the accident is pending a police investigation.

(2) A 15 year old boy died in a two car accident on Wednesday here in Podunk. The accident occurred at the intersection of Main Street and Vine Avenue. Dennis Walker, of Ruralville, was pronounced dead at the scene. His father, Michael Walker, also of Ruralville, was flown by helicopter to the trauma center at Podunk Medical Center. The driver of the other vehicle, Scott Wilson, 22, of Podunk, and his passengers, suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene. Mr. Walker had just pulled out of the parking lot of the First Baptist Church of Podunk, where he had picked his son up from a Boy Scout meeting. An officer at the scene was quoted as saying, “I can’t say for sure what happened, but empty beer cans and bottles were found in the other vehicle.”

A witness said that the other car had just pulled out of Bill’s Tavern, less than a block away, and was exceeding the posted speed limit of 35MPH. Blood alcohol levels have not been released and an official report will not be disclosed until the investigation is completed.

(3) An accident which caused the death of one person occurred at the intersection of Main Street and Vine Avenue in Podunk. Dennis Walker, 15, of Ruralville, died at the scene. His father, Michael Walker, also of Ruralville, was transported to Podunk Medical Center. The driver of the other vehicle, Scott Wilson, 22, of Podunk, and his passengers, were treated for minor injuries. There have been many accidents at this intersection over the past 10 years, according to state statistics. A witness at the scene said, “This is ridiculous. We’ve protested to state, county and city officials about this problem for years. We’ve signed petitions. We need a traffic light here now! No one heeds the 4 way stop signs. At least two others have died in the past three years.” An investigation is pending and weather did not seem to be a factor.

Do you see how easy it is to write a slant? You can slant a story any way you want to suit your own opinion and to get your message across. We see, read and hear it every day on the news. It’s not just news outlets, either. Today, the Internet is a bastion of unlimited free speech and there are millions of bloggers around the world who exercise that right, except for China, but it certainly doesn’t mean it’s all straightforward and true. It’s not just bloggers. There are tons of Web sites waiting to sink their fangs into our brains. It’s not just Web sites, either.  Governments love to indoctrinate their citizenry. Of course, I could go on and on and on, but I won’t.

You, the reader, watcher and listener, have to distinguish between what is real and what is a twist and even if you agree, it still doesn’t make it true. Remember that.

Of course, that’s my unbiased opinion.

The Wisdom of Solomon

“I’ve done what I thought is fair based on what I know.”

– The Honorable Judge Stan Strickland

When I awoke Monday morning, I still believed the Anthony trial was at 10:00 am, with a plea of some kind, and a hearing Tuesday afternoon. Somewhere along the line that changed. Had it been at 10, I wouldn’t have been able to go. Because it was changed to 1:30 pm, it posed no problem and I made it a point to arrive at the Orange County Courthouse at least a half hour early, fully expecting there to be a huge crowd fighting to get in. There wasn’t. Is interest waning? As I walked toward the entrance, I asked a cameraman if he knew what floor it was going to be held on. He told me the 23rd, but he didn’t know which room. I thanked him, without missing my stride, and I walked through the main doors into the awaiting arms of security guards and metal detectors.

Once in, I took the elevator all the way to the top. I had never been there before, although Bob Kealing from WESH told me some of the earlier hearings were held in this particular courtroom. He was the first friendly face I spotted as I approached the sparse crowd sitting and standing idly by behind the stanchions and velour ropes that kept us from the entrance. Nearby were George and Cindy, who remained relatively out of reach while we waited for the courtroom doors to open. Bob also told me it was a huge courtroom and reporters were sometimes told to go upstairs to the loge/balcony area that overlooked the room. He said it was very difficult to hear some of the conversations going on because of the room’s scale. Soon after, Kathi Belich arrived and I told her I caught her cold from the last hearing. She apologized and I said I was kidding and that my folks had been sick, too. She said her cold lingered for almost another month after we sat next to each other and she had already had it for a month at that point.

A bench sat outside the courtroom and several people filled it. Among those people were two women. One looked at me and smiled. She asked if I was Marinade Dave. I said, yes, I am. Gee, I almost felt like a silly-ebrity. We had a nice little chat and I asked her how she knew about me, not out of vanity, but because she recognized me. “We’re on Websleuths.”

“Oh, yes, I go there sometimes.” I try to go to all of the sites to read and learn, and when a cluster of hits come into my blog from a particular site, I like to see what the commotion is all about, good or bad. I am quite familiar with Websleuths and it was nice to meet a real sleuther, even if there is no such word. She goes by the name littlemisslegal. Unfortunately, I neglected to mention Tulessa, a very nice person I am familiar with. There may be more, but sometimes I get forums mixed up. Anyway, there’s more I could write, but enough of the informalities. I just wanted you to get the feel of the small crowd while we waited with anticipation to enter the courtroom.

As a guard unlocked the door for the prosecution and defense attorneys, we were let in soon after. Bill Sheaffer was allowed to follow the team of lawyers and he was all smiles as I approached him and shook his hand. This time, the State sat on the left, with the defense on the right. As I said in the past, you sit where you find a seat and this time, I parked directly behind Bill Sheaffer and Kathi Belich on the prosecution side. When I sat down, I did not pay particular attention to where the case attorneys were.

The room was vast compared to the other hearings I attended, and it had a high ceiling that was three stories tall. In bold, deep and perfectly chiseled letters were the words EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW set high above the judge’s bench. This was, no doubt, the county’s trophy room and I have no question this will be the room where Casey will sit when she is brought to trial for murder. Though not too opulent or magnificent, it had a very commanding presence that told you this was not a simple traffic court.

Suddenly, a side door opened and Casey walked in, flanked by a sheriff’s deputy and the now familiar court bailiff, the same one who called me in front of the judge. I heard no clink, clank of shackles as she walked to her seat where Jose and Andrea waited patiently. With constant whispering back and forth for the fleeting moments we all had, it came to a halt as those two big words were spoken, “ALL RISE.”

Judge Strickland reminds me of the type of guy who would, outside of a courtroom, hush people and tell them not to make a big fuss over him, but such are the formalities of his position as a circuit court judge; all judges, actually. He has such a nice demeanor and he goes out of his way to excuse himself and apologize for minor interruptions he might cause, although it is his court. He would probably correct me and say this is the people’s court. He exudes nothing of the sort that gives pause to believe he is overtly in charge, but you would want no other captain of the court ship he commands. He is a natural and it is he, the man, that garners such respect, and all attorneys I have spoken to have nothing but praise for him. Today was going to be a testament to his fairness.

As soon as we sat back down, court was in session. I should point out that these were individual seats, not benches, and each one was cushioned. I had no problem with hearing Judge Strickland, but Bob had warned me that it was tough to hear in there, and when State Attorney Frank George spoke, none of us could hear a word. Whatever he said went by the wayside until after I got to watch the videos. Some things I could distinguish between the 13 counts Casey was charged with, but that was about it. Jose Baez was clear, Andrea Lyon was clear, and so were Linda Drane Burdick and Jeff Ashton. I heard Casey loud and clear, too. Casey entered wearing a loose fitting light blue dress shirt and gray slacks. Her longish dark brown hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail. One of the first things I noticed was that her face looked gaunt. Quite clearly, she had dropped enough pounds since the first hearing I attended. I turned to Drew Petrimoulx, a WDBO Radio journalist, sitting to my right and quietly asked him what he thought. Yes, he agreed, she looks like she dropped more than just a few pounds. When she spoke, it was the first time I ever heard her soft and feminine voice. On the street, you would never think by the sound of her that she could possibly be facing horrendous charges like she is. Her voice was delicate and frail, not like the monster she is made out to be.

Judge Strickland called Casey and her two attorneys to the podium. Jose told him that she was ready to plea to the court, and plea she did. Prior to Monday, Casey had filled out a plea form and the judge had it in his possession. From that point, it was up to the defense and prosecution to argue over elements of the 13 third-degree felony charges before the judge would ultimately decide her fate. After a few more words from Jose, Casey was sworn in. Judge Strickland made sure she understood all of the charges she had decided to plead guilty to, that she was in complete control of her faculties, and that she did so freely and voluntarily. She also said she was completely satisfied with the services of her attorneys and that she was aware of the minimum and maximum sentences for all of the offenses she was charged with. She said yes to everything, including waiving her right to a trial.

State Attorney Frank George stood up at his respective podium and began to speak. On July 8, 2008, Casey wrote a check in the amount of $111.01 that accounted for charges 2, 3, and 4. She wrote this check at Target.  On July 10, she passed a check at Target in the amount of $137.77 that accounted for charges 5, 6, and 7. Also on July 10, she passed a third check at Target for $155.47 and that took care of counts 8, 9, and 10. Counts 11, 12, and 13 took place on July 15 when she wrote a check for $250 at the Bank of America. He then brought up count 1 which referred to a deliberate scheme of conduct overall. She planned on writing checks until they bounced off the walls, I would guess. Good thing we live in the information age, where account balances are instantaneous almost everywhere we go. Here, one thing perplexed me. Where was the Winn-Dixie check? Unless George misspoke, I don’t know.

Judge Strickland gave the defense an opportunity to challenge the charges. We can discuss the lack of brevity or the levity of the arguments, but let’s cut to the chase – it came down to the judge. First, it should be noted that Casey had no prior convictions and she did make full restitution and  Baez did bring up “equal justice” for his client. He asked for one year of probation and credit for time served, rather than the five years of incarceration the State sought. In the end, His Honor sentenced the 23-year-old Casey to (jail) time served – 412 days – plus $5,517.75 in investigative costs and $348 for court. The amount may be discussed and negotiated at a later motion hearing because the defense found the investigative charge too high and not justifiable. He also adjudicated Casey guilty on six of the fraud counts and withheld adjudication on seven, plus he tacked on a year of supervised probation, which could be problematic and complex later on, given that she still faces a huge mountain of charges ahead. He said that he had given this a lot of thought prior to sentencing.

“There was not an even number of offenses, so I withheld in seven, I adjudicated in six. If that seems Solomon-like, it is.

On each and every count, Casey must submit a DNA sample because she is now a convicted felon. There it is, the words everyone has been waiting for… convicted felon. Time to move on to the next chapter, but first, Casey apologized to Amy Huizenga.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I’d like to sincerely apologize to Amy. I wish I would have been a better friend.”

Photo courtesy of RED HUBER, ORLANDO SENTINEL / January 25, 2010

Two motions were heard after Casey’s plea. The defense wanted to question Jill Kerley under oath. Kerley is Roy Kronk’s ex-wife. Anthony’s attorneys claim that testimony from her will introduce evidence that suggests he could have been a suspect in the murder. The defense states that Kronk should not be looked at as a suspect today, but he should have been last year and it is meant to impeach his material as a State witness. In this respect, whether anyone likes it or not, this is the way defense strategies work. I spoke to Bob Kealing about this before we entered court. I explained that everyone thinks the defense is trying to point the finger at Kronk. No one in the media really believe that’s the case. It is to ruin his testimony as a credible witness. In court, Andrea Lyon explained that Jill Kerley is much too ill to travel to Orlando from Tennessee and a means to interview will be made, something like Skype, most likely. Judge Strickland granted that request.

In the final motion, prosecutors wanted Strickland to order Anthony’s defense attorneys to provide the names and addresses for any and all witnesses they intend to call into subsequent hearings and at trial. Linda Drane Burdick explained that the prosecution has a lot of names, but they need addresses, too.

The judge asked that both sides meet after the hearing to come up with a schedule and possible trial date. Earlier, Burdick said a murder trial this summer was highly unlikely because of the slow pace of depositions and motions. Baez said he was anxious to get the trial underway, too. (Later  in the day, the judge denied the defense’s motion to stop jail visits from being videotaped.) Alas, we will not see a trial this summer, sad to say.

By the way, what was it about those latent prints that were mentioned? Linda Drane Burdick stated the defense has already received 90% of discovery documents. What does that last 10% hold?

Finally, I want to say that this was a very friendly crowd of journalists, sleuthers and attorneys. After the hearing ended, I asked Bill Sheaffer if he thought this was a fair judgement and he said, yes, it was. When I left the courthouse, I went to the parking garage to retrieve my video camera. The first person you will see in my video is littlemisslegal. The second part is the press conference which is impossible to hear because I don’t have a boom microphone. To watch and hear that from the WFTV Web site, please click the link below. The final part of the video… well, let’s just call that a surprise ending. With that, let me say that I learn more about this case the closer I get to it. As much as I let things had gotten me down, I become invigorated and inspired by doing what I love to do, and that is to bring you my unique side of the story, as up close and personal as possible, where the people are real and the humble judge treats everyone, including Ms. Anthony, with dignity and respect. This was a sign of things to come, and what I saw was a very compassionate man behind the bench.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

WFTV Raw Video Part 1

WFTV Raw Video Part 2

WFTV Raw Video Post Hearing Press Conference

Double Jeopardy

I haven’t seen Ashley Judd in a number of years now, but I’ll readily admit I’ve had a secret crush on her for a long time. In 1999, she starred in a movie titled, Double Jeopardy. According to the IMDB Web site the plot line says “a woman framed for her husband’s murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can’t be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.”

I think that’s what we all think about double jeopardy; that no one can be tried for the same crime twice. So what’s with the Motion to Dismiss Counts 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 for Violation of Double Jeopardy Clause filed by Casey Anthony?

First, we’ll have to take a look at the motions filed by the state. There’s no doubt that law enforcement and prosecutors like to throw the book at people to make some of it stick., and Casey Anthony made herself a perfect target for not only the check fraud charges, but the first-degree murder charge in the death of her daughter. It would seem like fraud convictions would be a walk in the park compared to facing execution, but there are reasons why this particular motion was filed by the defense.

Here are the three charges filed for each forged check written:

1. Fraudulent Use Of Personal Identification Information

2. Forgery Of A Check

3. Uttering A Forged Check

x4=12

Another charge was thrown in for good measure:

13. Grand Theft Third Degree

The motion to dismiss states that Casey is guaranteed double jeopardy protection under the United States Constitution as well as the Florida Constitution on the grounds of duplicative charges. Her defense claims that the additional grand theft third degree charge would be tantamount to punishing her for the same crime covered in the other 12 counts. In essence, Casey’s defense team points out that under law, she should be charged for one crime by one count. The defense also claims that charging her with multiple counts for the same act prejudices her, therefore the counts should be dismissed. In other words, she should be charged once each for all three charges and it shouldn’t matter how many bad checks she wrote. That means she should have only been charged with one count of fraudulent use of personal identification information, one count of forgery of a check and one count of uttering a forged check. No matter how many checks she wrote, they should all fall under the same umbrella of charges.

According to the motion, “Miss Anthony is guaranteed double jeopardy protection by the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Sections 9 and 17 of the Florida Constitution for duplicative charges.” Let’s take a look at what the law says:

Amendment 5 – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment 8

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Florida Constitution – Article 1, Sections 9 and 17

SECTION 9.  Due process.

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, or be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense, or be compelled in any criminal matter to be a witness against oneself.

SECTION 17.  Excessive punishments.

Excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, attainder, forfeiture of estate, indefinite imprisonment, and unreasonable detention of witnesses are forbidden. The death penalty is an authorized punishment for capital crimes designated by the legislature. The prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment, and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, shall be construed in conformity with decisions of the United States Supreme Court which interpret the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment provided in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Any method of execution shall be allowed, unless prohibited by the United States Constitution. Methods of execution may be designated by the legislature, and a change in any method of execution may be applied retroactively. A sentence of death shall not be reduced on the basis that a method of execution is invalid. In any case in which an execution method is declared invalid, the death sentence shall remain in force until the sentence can be lawfully executed by any valid method. This section shall apply retroactively.

The double jeopardy rule of the Fifth Amendment is intended to limit abuse by the government in repeated prosecution for the same offense as a means of harassment or oppression. It is also in agreement with the common law concept ofres judicata which prevents courts from relitigating issues which have already been the subject of a final judgment. There are three essential protections included in the double jeopardy principle, which are:

• being retried for the same crime after an acquittal
• retrial after a conviction
• being punished multiple times for the same offense

Does the defense motion to dismiss those extra charges, something it sees as ancillary in nature, hold any merit? In Solem v. Helm (1983) 463 U.S. 277, a split court found that a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a seventh nonviolent felony was unconstitutional. In Solem, a bare majority of the court held a court’s proportionality analysis under the Eighth Amendment should be guided by objective criteria, including the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty; the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction; and the sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions.

In Harmelin v. Michigan (1991) 501 U.S. 957, a life sentence without possibility of parole for possessing 672 grams of cocaine was upheld. The case produced five separate opinions. While seven justices supported a proportionality review under the Eighth Amendment, only four favored application of all three factors cited in Solem. As one court has concluded, disproportionality survives; Solem does not. (McGruder v. Puckett (5th Cir.’92) 954 F.2d 313, 316.) In Harmelin, Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, determined Solem was wrongly decided and the Eighth Amendment contained no proportionality guarantee. Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices O’Connor and Souter, found the Eighth Amendment encompassed a narrow proportionality principle. In other words, the Eighth Amendment does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence. Rather, it forbids only extreme sentences that are ‘grossly disproportionate’ to the crime. Moreover, in Solem v. Helm, the court focused on the nonviolent nature of both the defendant’s current offense of uttering a ‘no account’ check (one of the most passive felonies a person could commit) and his prior offenses. The majority acknowledged a life sentence for fourth-time heroin dealers and other violent criminals would pass constitutional muster.

What all of this legalese means, in my interpretation of law, is that Casey should be tried once for each of the three charges. If she is acquitted of the first 3 charges, the case should not be allowed to proceed. On the other hand, if she is convicted of the first 3 charges, the additional charges should no longer be relevant and she should be sentenced for just those 3. I understand the logic, but is it really constitutional? Suppose she is convicted on all 13 charges. She faces a long time in prison on each separate conviction. In essence, she could be sentenced to spend her remaining years behind bars. Also, as 13 separate convictions, she would be considered an habitual offender. Could she be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole as such? I believe she could. What we have to consider is not just this case, but prior cases and the issue of extreme sentences for others beyond the State of Florida v. Casey Marie Anthony. As much as many may want the book thrown at her, in its wisdom, the court does not see prejudice. It sees a defendant and the charges against her. She has the law on her side as much as it may or may not help her.

The defense motion cited Florida Statute Section 775.021 (4), which states that, “Whoever, in the course of one criminal transaction or episode, commits an act or acts which constitute one or more separate criminal offenses, upon conviction and adjudication of guilt, shall be sentenced separately for each criminal offense; and the sentencing judge may order the sentences to be served concurrently or consecutively. For the purposes of this subsection, offenses are separate if each offense requires proof of an element that the other does not, without regard to the accusatory pleading or the proof adduced at trial.”

I read that as meaning the offenses are separate from each other. In other words, each of Amy’s forged checks are really the same crime on different dates. As such, they should be charged as one crime because the Fifth Amendment forbids multiple punishments for the same offense. In Blockburger v. U.S., 284 U.S. 299 (1932), the Supreme Court held that punishment for two statutory offenses arising out of the same criminal act or transaction does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause if ‘each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not.’ Separate punishments in multiple criminal prosecution are constitutionally permissible, however, if the punishments are not based upon the same offenses. Are they the same offenses? According to Florida law (Florida Statute Section 775.021 [4][b]), the intent of the Legislature is to convict and sentence for each criminal offense committed in the course of one criminal episode or transaction and not to allow the principle of lenity as set forth in subsection (1) to determine legislative intent. Exceptions to this rule of construction are:

1.  Offenses which require identical elements of proof.

2.  Offenses which are degrees of the same offense as provided by statute.

3.  Offenses which are lesser offenses the statutory elements of which are subsumed by the greater offense.

I think it’s very clear why the defense filed this motion and it’s a very good one. Let’s move on and take a look at Casey’s grand jury indictment last October.

On October 14, 2008, Casey Marie Anthony was indicted by the State of Florida on these separate charges:

1) FIRST DEGREE MURDER (CAPITAL)

2) AGGRAVATED CHILD ABUSE (F1-L9)

3) AGGRAVATED MANSLAUGHTER OF A CHILD (F1-L10)

4) PROVIDING FALSE INFORMATION TO A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER

5) PROVIDING FALSE INFORMATION TO A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER

6) PROVIDING FALSE INFORMATION TO A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER

7) PROVIDING FALSE INFORMATION TO A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER

Yes, she was charged with premeditated first-degree murder under Florida Statute 782.04:

Murder.

(1)(a)  The unlawful killing of a human being:

1.  When perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being

While we ponder the legality of the latest double jeopardy motion, take a look at the above indictment charges. How can a person be charged with murder and manslaughter*? Why are there four separate charges pertaining to providing false information to a law enforcement officer? Mark my words, when the murder case heats up more, we are going to see a slew of motions filed to throw out some of the charges. What will happen? It certainly is within the realm of possibility, but on the other hand, allow me to look at the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people and was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the 9/11 attacks. I don’t need to go into any detail of what transpired. This is purely about the charges, the trial, and the conviction.

On August 10, 1995, Timothy McVeigh was indicted on 11 federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives and 8 counts of first-degree murder. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all 11 counts of the federal indictment. He was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

You may wonder why I chose this particular crime. To be honest, the double jeopardy motion has nothing to do with Caylee’s murder at this time. This is an entirely separate case, but I am looking at legal comparisons and how they could influence each trial, fraud and murder.

My Opinion

Despite killing 168 people, McVeigh was only charged with 8 murders. In my opinion, Casey Anthony will lose her Motion to Dismiss Counts 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 for Violation of Double Jeopardy Clause. Why? If Timothy McVeigh’s attorneys used the same logic and prevailed in a similar motion to dismiss the counts by reducing the eight murder charges to one, that means out of 168 deaths he was responsible for, he would have been tried for one single murder and the entire weight of those deaths would have been reduced from 8 to 1. Would he have been sentenced to death for one murder? With Casey, it’s the same thing in my book, although the charges are not similar. I am merely making an analogy. Each forged check is a separate crime. The only charge I would consider dropping is the Grand Theft Third Degree. I think it’s extra icing on a 12-layer cake. One thing the judge may consider, and only if Casey is convicted on all counts, is to follow maximum sentencing guidelines allowed by the state, but to condense those 12 charges into 3 at sentencing. In other words, allow all of the convictions to stand, but don’t sentence each one individually. Of course, the judge should use his own discretion when deciding the imposition of concurrent or consecutive sentences and I am not concerned with that particular aspect. Regardless of what he decides, Casey will be locked away for a long time if she is convicted of these charges alone. I realize how unpopular my view will be with readers, but we must remember, when Casey stands trial on the fraud charges, she will not be convicted of anything yet and the court will not take Caylee’s death into consideration. Who else, other than Casey, would you want to spend a life in prison over stolen checks that amounted to less than $1,000?

On a final note, I think we’re all Jonesing for the fraud trial to begin. Any trial, actually, and speaking of Jonesing, wasn’t Tommy Lee Jones Ashley Judd’s costar in Double Jeopardy? Yup, he was. Too bad justice doesn’t always work the same way as it does in Hollywood. Casey Anthony’s role would have been written out of the script right after the opening credits. In the real world, that’s not the way it works.

*Amended by Maura on 2009/11/13 at 12:40 pm: According to a lawyer who comments over on Blink’s site, Florida law requires the inclusion of a lesser crime when a person is indicted for a capital offense. That’s why Casey was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child in addition to first degree murder.

On the surface, it appears that the jurors will be allowed to convict Casey of both first degree murder (homicide with premeditation) and manslaughter (homicide without premeditation), which can’t logically both be true relative to the same homicide.

The resolution to that contradiction will be in the instructions to the jurors.

 

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!

“It was my honor, your pleasure…”

For those of you waiting for an important breaking story, I showed that in the video of Joy Wray with her statements about searching the exact location and not finding Caylee where her remains were later found. Because I wanted you to see and hear it, I got the video up as soon as I could. For sure, the interview showed why WESH television journalist and reporter Bob Kealing is the best in central Florida.

There are no revelations in this post. It is just about my experience and observations in the courtroom. There are reasons why I did not put this post up right away, too. Other than for my own personal reasons, I am not really one to grandstand. Most people know by now that Judge Stan Strickland called me up to talk after the hearing ended. Yes, I was the guy in the second row he asked for. What the judge and I discussed was not “breaking news” and, therefore, not something that needed to be released immediately after the event. Sorry, but it was never my intent to rush home and turn my blog into an outlet to publicize myself. I was not seeking my fifteen minutes of fame as some have suggested. I needed to wait until things settled down. What transpired at the end of the hearing was something I will remember for the rest of my life. I am not one to sensationalize. I do not love to blow my own horn. Not too loudly, anyway.

♦

No doubt, I try to be independent, but I will always have a soft spot for the whims of a good woman. It’s definitely one of my traits, as anyone who knows me will probably agree. Stubborn, yes, but a softie at heart. At the same time, it’s very important to point out that there are a lot of good – dare I say great – women who frequent this blog and I am often thrust into acquiescing to some of their strongest wishes or suffer in the ensuing quagmire of “reader’s block” and harsh words if I don’t. Fortunately, we all know how to bend and it’s, more or less, just a way to vent and express how passionate we all are about the Anthony case.

When I mentioned I was going to do my best to go to the latest hearing, I was asked specifically that I not sit on the side of the defense. A lot of folks just don’t like any of the Anthonys. What difference does it make which side of the court I sit on, I wondered? I mean, this wasn’t going to be like a wedding where you tell the usher whether you’re a friend of the bride or groom. Oh, it makes all the difference in the world, I was corrected. Well, I continued, what if I have an opportunity to speak to George or Cindy or anyone else, like Brad Conway? If I am to consider myself a journalist of any kind, shouldn’t I be allowed to write about both sides of a story? I realize we all have bias here, but isn’t it a fact that I have been more than fair and protective of all sides, defense and prosecution? How can I get both sides of a story if I only listen to one? One of the reasons why people come to this blog is because, deep down inside, they are more than fair, too. It’s just tough sometimes, given the evidence we’ve pored over and the fact that emotions do run deep.

As I drove toward downtown Orlando on Friday morning, I wondered what sort of day I would have. Would I even be able to get into the courtroom?

When I got to the courthouse, I went through security and walked straight ahead to the information desk. I wanted to make sure the hearing wasn’t moved from 19-B. Good thing I did, because the nice man behind the desk said it was moved to 10-A. As I entered the courtroom, I glanced left and right. The right side was booked solid. I had to make a decision and I wanted to sit down before the judge walked in. The only seat left was right next to Holly Bristow – someone out to get a story. Obviously, the story was more important to her than where she sat, and later, I heard no complaining about her.

While waiting the long five or so minutes, the courtroom remained silent. There was no friendly banter. I think, like a church, there’s a certain reverence, but instead of God, it’s for the law, courtrooms and judges. It did not stop me from looking around. On the right side, I spotted Bob Kealing in the front row and Kathi Belich a few rows behind him. I sat in the second row on the left, in an aisle seat. Right away, I saw Jose Baez and Andrea Lyon, but where was Casey? Had they not brought her in yet? And where were George and Cindy? I peered around the left side of the person directly in front of me and there was Casey, flanked by her two attorneys. Her neatly combed hair flowed about six inches below her shoulder. Throughout the proceeding, I noticed she would often take her left hand to brush her hair back. Meanwhile, I began to wonder why George and Cindy weren’t there.

ALL RISE

Suddenly, a small entourage of people, including Judge Strickland, entered through a door at the front of the courtroom, to my right. He walked along the wall, between a four foot high partition, and took his seat behind the bench. When Casey stood, I noticed she was wearing a green top with a wide black belt. It appeared the belt came with the blouse. As much as I wanted to look at all of these people as celebrities, I couldn’t help but think they were in this courtroom because of one person. As the proceeding began, I still wondered why George and Cindy weren’t there. I did my best to look all around without it being so awkwardly apparent. Finally, there they were, two seats directly to my left. Sandwiched between Holly and the Anthonys was Jim Lichtenstein, a producer for the NBC Today Show. I chatted with him later. Jim was visible in the Bob Kealing video interview with Joy Wray, standing on the left side of the camera view. He had a very friendly demeanor.

Just as the proceeding began, George and Cindy’s attorney, Brad Conway, entered the courtroom and parked his wheelchair directly to my right. Early into it, Judge Strickland questioned whose courtroom it was because there was hand lotion all over the place. That brought laughter from the crowd, including Casey. Whatever you think about her, it was a comical moment and it seemed to me that it was a simple way for the judge to help the entire courtroom to relax a bit. Judge Strickland apologized and the proceeding continued. Of course, we all know the outcome by now. Casey lost the battle to get her murder case thrown out.

“It’s a farce. It doesn’t even come close to the legal requirements necessary for the court to even entertain a motion to dismiss,” state prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick argued Friday. “The entire motion, from top to bottom, it is replete with errors, it’s insufficient as a matter of law.”

“It cannot be the intent of the Florida legislature that a person swear to something that they do not have personal knowledge of,” Lyon argued.

“The content of the motion, as well as Ms. Anthony’s brief affirmations, are not enough to carry the day under Florida Rules of Pleading,” Judge Strickland wrote in his order. He ruled (read his order) that Casey had not sworn to the proper and legally required facts to even ask for him to consider dropping the murder and child abuse charges against her. (read motion | state’s response to strike) There is nothing that stops the defense from refiling the motion.

One thing I observed was Andrea Lyon’s very strong voice while arguing against the state’s c4 motion, which was the response to the defense motion to dismiss counts 1 and 2 of the indictment against their client.

Another aspect of the hearing concerned the time the defense argued against turning over evidence yet that showed someone else having dumped Caylee’s body in the woods last year. The judge said he realized that discovery was a rolling process as new witnesses are added, but if Todd Macaluso hadn’t opened a can of worms to begin with, there would be no issue. Because he did, the state should be allowed to see it. You said you have proof. Put up or shut up. The judge gave a deadline of February 1 to turn the evidence over to the state by granting the motion to compel witness list and reciprocal discovery.

As I watched and listened to what was transpiring before me, I tried to glance to my left at Holly without looking like a peeping Tom. I was trying to see how she was making notations. I had brought along my little pocket notebook and I seemed to be writing down information at the same time the real journalists were. She had a legal size pad and what appeared to be a Palm Pilot, where she diligently and quickly entered text. Pretty nifty, I thought. At some point, the judge brought up the Richardson Hearing, of which I had absolutely no knowledge. I still don’t, but it has something to do with defense depositions.

Part of the hearing dealt with those persnickety autopsy photos the defense has yet to see. The judge and prosecutors were mostly concerned with sending them out of state to be viewed by the defense team’s forensic specialists. How could the defense be certain that someone in another state, where Florida laws and court orders don’t apply, wouldn’t release any images to the public. If the photos leave the jurisdiction of the state, the judge said, no court would have jurisdiction over them. He also wondered how anyone could guarantee the images wouldn’t be lost or stolen in transit. It was during this part of the hearing that an idea popped in my head. I wrote it down on my pad and tapped Brad Conway on his arm to show him.

UPLOAD TO SECURE FTP SITE

We briefly exchanged a few very quiet words. What the defense said was that the photographs on the server were unmanageable to print because their experts were “technically challenged.” In other words, too old to learn new computer tricks. They didn’t know, for instance, how to place 2 images side by side for comparison. Don’t laugh, I know a lot of people like that. They may know everything about plant decomposition, but nothing about how to operate sophisticated imaging software. In the end, the state was granted discretion over how and when they would be sent.

Casey will go back to court in December. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled in her check fraud case for December 18. The judge set the trial date in that case to begin on January 25. Her defense team has asked that the trial be moved out of Orange County, but the court has yet to rule on that.

♦

I must be honest with you. As much as you may despise these people, George and Cindy Anthony are a very attractive couple in real life. When the hearing ended, Casey turned around and I saw her face to face as she walked in my direction. No matter how ugly you feel she is inside, she is still a pretty girl. She was short, no doubt, and and not as chunky as her latest jail photos show. She’s still quite petite. I wanted to get an up close and personal look at her and I did. Did she look like a cold-hearted baby killer? I can’t say. Is there a certain look? Did I miss something? All I can tell you is that she was there, and without these charges, she would still be Casey. It didn’t appear that over a year in jail has hardened or aged her.

I turned to Brad Conway again to mention a newspaper article I had read recently. It was Florida Today and it chronicled his past and what compelled him to become an attorney. It was complimentary and well written. I also told him I had something to give him from a private source, something that was sent to me. We discussed it and I had to tell him that I, unfortunately, left it in the car by mistake. He gave me his card and asked me to mail it, which I will do today. I excused myself and turned to George, who was now directly to the left of me. I offered my condolences for his and Cindy’s loss and we exchanged a few pleasantries. I don’t know exactly when and how it happened, but a court bailiff stopped me from leaving. I thought it was protocol, like I was leaving out of turn, similar to a wedding. After it’s over, you leave row by row. She told me to stop and wait. I did. This is the account of my experience. It may not be verbatim, but it is real and true.

“The judge wants to see you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hold on. Yes, I’m sure the judge wants to see YOU.”

“Uh, uh, no… I don’t think so. I think you got the wrong guy. Are you sure it’s me and not someone else? I mean, why would the judge want to see me? I don’t think I did anything wrong.” I was completely perplexed and I began to get a little nervous.

“Hang on, I’ll check.” She never left my side and I was almost oblivious to what was going on around me. I must add that at no time did I want to dart from the courtroom, making a hasty escape. But the thought did cross my mind.

Another bailiff came over to her and said yes, HIM. I kept looking at the bailiff and the judge, who was now gesturing for me to step forward. The bailiff opened the gate and I tiptoed my way over to him. He had moved away from the bench, but was still behind that retaining wall, about 4 feet tall.

“Here? Or over at the side?” I asked. I followed him as he moved to my right, nearing the exit door at the front of the courtroom, where he had entered earlier.

We stood looking at each other, with only a mere two feet separating us. Neither one of us had a problem making eye contact. The first thing I noticed was a real sincerity in his eyes.

“Are you Dave?”

“Yes sir, I am.”

“Marinade?”

“Yes sir, that’s me.” I thought that, perhaps, he had tried my marinade years ago and remembered me from one of the many food demos I had done. It turns out, that wasn’t it at all.

Now, some of you may choose not to believe me and you can think whatever you want, but I have absolutely no reason to lie or embellish my story. It’s not going to change my life or yours, but I would appreciate it if you don’t make up stupid stories. I also would be risking my credibility if the judge decided to publicly denounce this in the future. I value my honesty way too much and that was one of the things he addressed.

He told me he was not a computer person, nor was he very good on the Internet. I told him he didn’t need to be. After all, it was not a computer that qualified him to sit on the bench.

“Needless to say, I do go on the Internet and read about this case.” I see no reason whatsoever for him to remain blind to what the outside world, meaning outside of the court system, has to say. Should he cancel his subscription to the Orlando Sentinel and remove all TVs from his house? Would you expect him to sequester himself from the outside world? “I must say that you have the best Web site regarding this case. You investigate and you are very fair to everyone.”

“I thought you were going to ask me to never come back because the glare off my head kept you from concentrating.”

“No, I just wanted to tell you that.”

“I thought, maybe, you had used my marinade years ago.”

“No, you are very good as a writer and you stick to facts. You are very fair and I’m impressed.” WOW! That was impressive. I impressed HIM.

I thanked him to no end. I was in awe of the man. I, we, have watched him in action. His demeanor. His fairness. His elegance on the bench. Let me tell you all something, Judge Strickland is a very humble man. To think that I impressed him was the best compliment I could ever get about my blog. He did not look down upon me. He treated me as a person and that’s the way he looks at Casey and everyone else related to this case; something we have ALL seen in him – his fairness on the bench. I think he looks at blogs and forums the same way. He looks for fairness. After all, he must listen to both sides or he wouldn’t be a good judge at all, would he?

I told him about a friend of mine who was also a judge, but one who heard workman’s compensation cases. When I mentioned his name, he said he knew him. With that, I thanked him again and turned to leave. At that point, I was floating on air and I was bouncing off the walls. I told my story to several people standing outside. That was when I met Michelle. She said, “Wow, I’ve finally met a real celebrity.”

That brought me back down to earth again. I am no celebrity and I told her so. It was a real honor, but I am just a regular old guy. Nothing else.

♦

I left the courtroom and went back to that information desk. I told that same nice man I first spoke with about my great adventure. I was still floating and I must admit, I did a little gloating. I asked him where Casey came out. He said in the basement. They have holding cells and prisoners leave from that location. Can reporters go down there? No, no one is allowed access and she’s already on her way back to the jail. I thanked him and walked toward the front. When I walked out the door, reporters and cameras were waiting. I walked right up to Bob Kealing and told him what had just transpired. He said they all saw me getting called up to the bench. I was not expecting to be interviewed by anyone. Instead, I asked him what they were waiting for. He said the defense team. They’ll walk out this door. I said I didn’t want to miss it. Did I have time to go to the parking garage and retrieve my video camera? He said yes, he was sure.

As I walked to the garage, I was stopped by a woman. “Are you Dave? Marinade Dave?”

“Yes, I am!” I said, proudly. Here I was almost living in the moment of my celebrity world that did not ever exist.

“I’m Joy Wray.” I knew immediately who she was. I told her I was going back to my car to get the camera. We walked together and chatted. We also walked back to the courthouse and a few moments later, Baez & Company walked out. The rest is captured on my video.

After it was all said and done and the morning was winding down, I walked with Bob Kealing to the television trucks, the ones with the towering antennae.

He said, “You’re the one that got James Thompson to open up. I read that. That was really good work. As a matter of fact, we all read your site. You are always fair and honest.”

Yup, that was me, or at least, that’s what I had always hoped people would look at me as. I still do and it’s reassuring to know media people follow blogs. We should all know that, too. He asked me for my card. I told him I ordered some last week, but they weren’t in yet. Instead, he offered one of his. Drats, my cards came in the mail this morning. If only I had ordered them earlier. Anyway, it’s time to get back to work. In the end, I’m still the same old Dave and I noticed I still put my pants on the same way as every other morning. The only thing that’s different? There are a lot more people out there who hate me now. Just remember, like Judge Strickland, I read what others are saying, only I am VERY Internet savvy.

Watch the Video Feed

x

James Thompson Responds

Every person should have the opportunity to state their case. I encourage it. This is James Thompson’s response to my Does not compute article, published on Thursday, October 8, and that includes many, many of your comments. It also appears in comments on that post. Please take the time to read it because he explains a lot. I told you he was a good person. You decide for yourself, but try to think before you cast any more stones his way.

This is exactly the way he wrote it…

I don’t have a tv because I don’t like to watch all the bad news. Low and behold the one story I click on the internet to read about in November 2008 is about some girl who looks familiar to me for some reason and when i read the story to find out why it is hearbreaking. I didn’t wait a year to tell my story. I called the numbers we were supposed to call several times, left my information several times and no one called me back. I finally had to go to the local police department to make a statement just to get the pressure off my chest. There is a lot of good and bad in this blog. There are a lot of good and bad people in this blog … just like life. I would like everyone who reads your blog to know we should all be putting Caley first in our thoughts and prayers because no one else did when she was alive. Maybe we can help prevent this from happening again … or at least reduce the number of times it happens in the future. Regarding this specific post, and the obsession with details about Walmart, everyone who reads your blog should know I told you that there was someone who was killed in a walmart somewhere … i wasn’t sure why, when, how or where … and it was shortly thereafter they changed the doors at WalMarts throughout the country … all of which was after Caley dissappeared. They pulled out the manual doors and put in blowers where the foyer doors used to be and fully automatic doors on the outside as a matter of course and standard proceedure like WalMart always does. Fundamental research on the internet indicates Jdimytai Damour, 34, a temporary worker, was crushed as he and other employees tried to unlock the doors of the Wal-Mart at Green Acres Mall … and maybe another or two elsewhere … not Casselberry! Also, there is one woman in particular who has made a living suing Walmart over 6 times where she was trampled or stampeded by other Walmart customers … I think in the New York area … but it doesn’t matter. The Casselberry building inspector may have info on the updates. Also, you must also realize the Casselberry walmart also upgraded its grocery store, main entrance, and other areas shortly after Casey’s visit, and you can’t rely on asking the senior citizens who work there for their opinion because they simply don’t know. Remember, I was an Officer in the Military and completed over 185 JAG investigations myself so I have an excellent memory and attention to detail better than most. My vision is 20/20 or better and I am smart so I know what I saw no doubt. However, irregardless of the door details, which truly do not matter, nothing will ever change the fact I saw Casey Anthony walking about 10 feet in front of Caley Anthony with a zombie and distant look on her face as her daughter desperately trailed behind her looking hot, distraught, abandoned, sweaty and flustered. The entire time I saw Casey and Caley at WalMart Casey never once looked back to check on her daughter. Yes, I stopped in my tracks turned around and watched because that is how unusual it was and why I remember it so vividly. I might add that Casey was dressed nicer than she was the day she was in my computer store the week before, and what gets me upset when I remember this event, or have nightmares about it on a regular basis, is although Casey had done herself up to look her best, poor Caley really looked like crap and that is unexcusable. When Casey came into my store she was wearing a white halter type top and tan shorts. I remember this because my first thought when this girl came in working her cleavage was she was up to something and was trying to use her looks and cleavage to sell me something or scam me. I am older than Casey and she didn’t realize us old dogs have seen this trick before, can recognize it quickly and are immune to it. So show your cleavage all you want but I ain’t buying what you’re selling. When I saw Casey at Walmart I remember a nicer looking white/cream blouse with a type of frill on it (that still showed cleavage … though not as much as when she was in my store) and a type of black or dark gray pants, hot pants, or hot shorts. I want to say I vaguely remember some type of pin stripe but I can only say that it is possible her pants had a stripe on them, but cant be sure. As soon as I saw Caylee struggling behind her I focused on Caylee and not on Casey’s rear end as she was walking out. I rember that whatever pant type she was wearing they were tight and showed off her figure as much as she could but do not remember the pants she was wearing in Walmart as vividly as I do the shorts she wore in my store because I focused my attention on Caley. Caley in my store was wearing some type of jean skirt/shorts and a purplish shirt, and at Walmart Caley was wearing some type of jean skirt/shorts and either a pink shirt or a white shirt with pink flowers on it. I also seem to remember there were some stripes somewhere but honestly cant remember at this time from what … mayber her socks? She did seem to have on some type of white sneakers which seemed normal. I do briefly remember thinking she didn’t match very well and most moms take a lot more pride and care in dressing their daughters in cute outfits. Caley’s hair was pulled up in the back with some type of band and her hair was sweaty just as she was all sweaty … but her mom wasn’t. Although I had originally wanted to asked Casey if she had purchased a monitor for her laptop yet, when I saw how she treated her daughter it made me sick and I decided not to bother with her. I really despise bad mothers and don’t want anything to do with them … even moreso after meeting Casey. To this day, and each and every day since I wish I had stopped her and asked Casey about that monitor … just so I could have looked into why she was letting her daughter walk so far behind and why her daughter was so hot, flustered, determined, and frustrated … and possibly saved that little girl from being possibly drugged and put in the trunk of Casey’s car … perhaps right in the Walmart parking lot right after I saw her. Any caring parent such as myself notices these things and it was obvious Casey did not. Regarding cell phone pings and towers and all of that, as a technician I know that cell phones usually work off of 3 towers at anyone time and one of the 3 may be the primary one at the time for any reason, one of them being distance, another one being traffic load and problems. Casey wasn’t on her cell phone when she came out of Walmart otherwise I would not have thought about bugging her about the monitor because that would have been rude. But I have no way of knowing what cell phone towers are in the area and can’t testify to that … just the fact I witnessed Casey and Caley in Walmart on the day after Father’s Day. Either way, I saw what I saw and I am 110% certain I saw Casey coming out of the Casselberry Walmart the day after Father’s Day. Unfortunately nothing will ever change that. I wish Caley was still alive and none of this ever happened, but I can’t change the past. Father’s Day means alot to me and to me father’s day is not about fathers, but instead is a day to love and appreciate our children. That is why I noticed Caley so much this particular day, why I noticed more about Caley and the way her mother mistreated her more than I normally would. If Casey hadn’t already been in my store and acted crazy jealous and pissy towards Caley I wouldn’t have recognized her at WalMart. Also, if it hadn’t been the day after Fathers Day, I probably would have noticed Caley who looks so much like me and my own daughter it made me notice and remember her. Caley looks so much like me should could be my own kid. I wish she had been so she would be safe today. One of the reasons I took the time to be nice to Caley in my store and try to put a smile on her face is because she looks like my own daughter and I love children. But let’s leave it at that as I want to keep my family out of this issue and away from all of the mean people on the internet and in this case who do not have the best of intentions. Regarding the time line, what I saw is what I saw regardless of the time. I stated approximately 4pm as my best guess for the time of the day because I had a Rotary meeting until 2pm so I knew it was after that. It takes me 15 minutest to get back to my store from Rotary, then say an hour to take care of issues, 30 minutes to handle a client on the way, then 15 minutes to get to WalMart … at least 2 hours to get from my Rotary meeting to Walmart. I donate all of my spare time and money to community and charity work and have no time for myself. When I work at my store during the night shift I take lunch whenever things get a little slow and I like to go before the late afternoon / early evening traffic as a matter of habit. Plus, I only shop at the Casselberry Walmart so it couldn’t have been anywhere else. The sun was going down and it was no longer the hottest part of the day, but it was not down yet and it was still light so around or after 4pm seems like a reasonable estimate on my behalf. Regarding publicity, my phone rings off the hook with crank calls, harrassers, mean people, questions, reporters and tv shows and I do my best to politely turn them all down. I have already turned down the Today and other shows and money as well. Justice for Caley is what matters, not publicity or money. God decided he wanted me to be where I was when I was for a reason, and if it wasn’t to save Caley, then it must be to help her get justice and be her Champion if no one else will be. You try sleeping at night when you have a reoccurring nightmare of seeing Casey and Caley walking out of Walmart every night and you desparately try to figure out ways to go back in time and save that little girl. I certainly don’t see her grandparents or any other family members or friends doing what they should to set things right. It seems Casey’s parents and others are lying and conspiring and doing everything they can to protect Casey instead of doing what is right. I hope and pray God will work on the hearts of Casey and her parents and have them come clean. I am willing to endure all of these hardships and questions of my integrity for Caylee and testify on behalf of Caylee because she is worth it and deserves honest and decent people standing up for her … and not all the scumbags out there trying to get some fame off of her because all those people are just sick! I just want anyone else who may have also seen Casey and Caley around this timeframe to come forward too. The purpose of this blog should be to help build a stronger case. Period. She had to eat, get gas, wait in line, whatever. Someone had to be around her in Walmart when she was shopping. Someone had to be behind her in line when she purchased something. When Casey came out, I noticed she purchased something small in the bag she had in her hands … a small box or bottle, but of course couldn’t tell what it was … but she held it close to her chest in her hands like you do when you don’t want anyone to see what you purchased …. and I was hoping the detectives could go to walmart and have them look up the security camera footage and register purchases that day for benadryl or other medications which make you sleepy, duct tape, condoms, or some other type of contraceptive. My opinion based on my first hand sighting just before Caley disappeared is Casey was eager to make her relationship with her new boyfriend work and she didn’t want Caley getting in the way of her having sex with him so she could use all of the tools at her disposal to make it work. Remember, I saw her first hand and this girl was hot to trot and on the prowl. I was keen enough to observe this for my own protection and stay away. Shortly after I saw her and Caley leaving Walmart Casey probably did whatever was easiest and laziest and drugged up Caley and left her in the car or the trunk while she was consumating her relationship with her boyfriend. Maybe she had done this alot before. Maybe when she was done having sex with her boyfriend and went to check on Caley that she discovered too late that Caley was dead due to an overdoes of whatever drug she gave her … so she panicked and put her in the trunk and over the course of time concocted her crazy story. However, this is the job of the prosecuters and we have no way of knowing how she truly killed Caley. I would assume the security cameras in her boyfriends apartment complex or housing subdivision have already been checked? What about the security cameras around his neighborhood? What does the boyfriend say???

Below is my response to his comment. Please feel free to say something, but keep in mind, this is not a question and answer session. He may read your comments – or he might not.

James – Thank you for taking time out to write your comment. I want you to know that I would not consider any of what you stated as untruths. From meeting and talking to you, I found you to be quite honest and forthright, and I said so in the article and in subsequent comments. All sorts of terrible things and accusations were flung your way as comments continued to mount.

You must understand that my intent was to substantiate what you said. I had no reason to disbelieve you or tear your version of events apart. If you contend that it could have been much later than 4 pm, then that opens the window and could readily justify your story. I am well aware of cell phone pings and how they work. I even wrote that the two of them could have been in your store on 9 June. My problem is based on the lunchtime to 4 pm window and those interior doors that every employee I spoke to said did not exist. I’ll tell you what I would be very happy to do; I will call the building inspector next week and let his documents have the final say on those doors. I would ask you to go back to that store and see how two independent lessee’s, square footage, McDonald’s at the grocery entrance, and a beauty supply (?) store on the other, extend out in such a way that by their design, no doors could have been there unless they underwent expansions within the last 1 year, 4 months.

Like I said, my article was not written to debunk your story in any manner. You are on the state’s witness list for a reason and you definitely gave me the impression that you are an honest man, and I said so. I tried to also give you the benefit of the doubt about seeing Casey and Caylee on a different day, but no matter what, I couldn’t get beyond those doors. Come next week, I will get to the bottom of it and I will be more than happy to report on it either way. Just like you, we all want justice for Caylee and your testimony could certainly help.

Thank you very much for writing. I hope every person here takes time out to read and understand what type of soul you really are – the one I saw that shows a man of integrity.

The reason why I am reprinting it in a separate article is because I want his thoughts to be read and understood. I encourage you to say something here or on the original post.

REMEMBER… THERE ARE 2 SIDES TO EVERY COIN

x

Baez Beats Bar

I was always puzzled by rumors that Dominic Casey knew where Caylee’s body was all along and he was instructed by Cindy Anthony to get rid of it. Well, he never did find it and Cindy said nothing of the sort. Where he got that tip is anyone’s guess, but I think it came from Kiomarie Cruz, Casey Anthony’s childhood friend. She met with a police investigator at Hidden Oaks Elementary School last July and said that she and Casey used to play in the nearby woods and that’s where they buried their dead pets. Having been to the crime scene many times, I can state with authority that the spot where Dominic Casey looked, while Jim Hoover videotaped, was 150 to 200 feet east of the actual site, closer to the school. That puts him much nearer to the area where Kiomarie said to take a gander.

Another aspect of this case has perplexed me for some time, too, and that is the silly rumor that José Baez, George & Cindy, Casey Anthony and Dominic Casey were (and still are) in bed together, conjuring up tales to cover-up the murder. Throw in Brad Conway for good measure. For one thing, if Cindy knew where the body was all along and she sent her PI lapdog into the woods to fetch it, why was it found a month later by an unsuspecting meter reader who turns out to be part of Leonard Padilla’s daisy chain theory? (Does anyone still believe that one?) Why wasn’t it collected and thrown into the ocean, a scant 45 minutes away? Why did the PI look in all the wrong places? What really confuses me is why did he accuse José Baez of wrongdoing if they slept in the same bed? Do they still? Sure, if you choose to believe it.

What happened was something that confounds me to this day because it makes absolutely no sense at all if the above names were part of some sort of sinister love fest bound together by one common cause: to protect Casey Anthony at all cost. If so, why did Dominic Casey complain about Baez to the Florida Bar, launching an investigation? He was the one who tattled. One concerned a discussion he “allegedly” had with Casey Anthony’s attorney about what to do if he found Caylee’s body. Do not call 911! Call me and I’ll take care of it! The other issue dealt with payment for his services back when he was employed by Baez, prior to his involvement with George & Cindy.

In the end, members of the Bar’s Grievance Committee found “insufficient evidence” that Baez did anything wrong. Impossible, you say! Well, the Bar committee reviewed documents and interviewed a lot of people, including Baez, before coming up with its conclusion. One thing the esquire said was that he did not recall any such conversation with the PI and he never would have instructed him to walk away and call him instead of 911 if he found the missing toddler. Will this put the rumor of an alleged conversation to bed? Not a chance. He is a liar. Rumors against him will never die and Andrea Lyon is fat. The Florida Bar is wrong!

Meanwhile, Baez advised the Bar that he would review all of Dominic Casey’s invoices for services rendered and discuss them with the investigator. Yesterday, Baez said that he was pleased with how the investigation ended. “I think we’ve had plenty of unsubstantiated accusations in this case,” he said. “And it only motivates me to fight harder.”

What happened to Judge Stan Strickland’s involvement in the complaint? Beats me. Wasn’t he supposed to be in on it? I guess it goes to show you that you can’t always believe what you hear in the media because his name was not mentioned by the Bar. Not to kick start another old rumor, mind you, but where are George and Cindy these days? Quietly writing a book? Let’s ask Kathi Belich. She’s the one who told us the BREAKING STORY of the Simon & Schuster book deal, signed on the dotted line! Also, when will the Florida Bar investigate Brad Conway? And that fat lawyer, too. The crybaby.

Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr – “Little Black Boy”

(Don’t let the title fool you)

Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. is the chief judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit. As such, he is Judge Stan Strickland’s superior. Judge Jose Rodriguez’s, too. You remember him. He’s the presiding judge in the Zenaida Gonzalez defamation lawsuit case against Casey. As the Casey Anthony case moves closer to trial, you will most likely be hearing more about him. In March of 2006, I wrote and published an article about one of my experiences while working for an ad agency in Orlando. The following is a reprint of that post with a few minor changes. I still haven’t met Judge Perry, but I hope this gives you an insight into my years in this town, how I have grown as a person, and why I maintain a keen awareness and interest in the saga of Caylee Marie Anthony.

 

In 1989 I was working for Stonebrook Advertising in Orlando. We created ads for the Belk Lindsey department store chain. The Stone in Stonebrook represented half of the agency. The other half was for Doug Middlebrook, who ran the Tampa agency. My boss was Glenn Stone. One afternoon, he called me into his office. “Dave, come on in here and sit down. This here is Judge Byrd. He’s running for re-election and he needs some artwork done.”

I recognized the gentleman and graciously said hello and shook his hand. I knew right away that he and Mr. Stone were old friends. It was quite obvious they both were from the same good ol’ boy mold. Mr. Stone explained that Judge Byrd needed campaign designs including ads for newspapers, bumper stickers and  bulk mailer pieces. Mr. Stone decided that I would do the work for Judge Byrd. Hailing from New Jersey, I had a few inherently stereotypical issues with southern judges and politicians. Nothing major; it was just a slight amount of apprehension.

We sat there and discussed what kind of strategy would help in his bid to retain his seat. We went over design ideas. Judge Byrd was running against someone I had never heard of until a few weeks before when Belvin Perry announced his candidacy to unseat Judge Byrd in the Osceola County Circuit Judge race. I don’t recall that party affiliation had anything to do with it, but I was immediately rooting for Belvin. I can’t say for sure why, but I just didn’t particularly care all that much for Judge Byrd. Although it was nothing personal, it probably had more to do with the southern thing and an air of  that persnickety white male privilege that was never as evident in the New York/Philadelphia corridor, from whence I came.

After going over the plan of attack and some talk of his opponent, Judge Byrd was ready to leave, confident in the knowledge that we would deliver exactly what he needed. As he walked out of Mr. Stone’s office, he proudly exclaimed something that I found quite shocking and highly offensive…

“I’m gonna kick that little black boy’s ass.”

Mr. Stone was all excited. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I said nothing in return. As a matter of fact, I didn’t respond at all. How could a sitting judge display blatant racism like that? All of a sudden, I had a real problem. Personally, I wanted to do everything I could to help Judge Byrd lose the election, but professionally, I had to do everything in my repertoire of artistic talents to get him re-elected or face losing my job. I was very confused. It was a lose/win, win/lose proposition. I didn’t want him to win, but I had to do my professional best to design winning ads, bumper stickers and flyers. Why me, dear Lord, why me?

I called an attorney friend of mine and told him I really needed to talk about something. We met after work and I explained my moral and professional dilemma.

“My personality is split in half on this, Bill. I don’t want to do it, but I don’t want to lose my job. Since I’m obligated to do it, I’ve got to give it my all as a professional. I have to help get the guy re-elected.”

He was familiar with the judge and pretty much felt the same way. “Boy, Dave, I’ve been an attorney a long time now and that’s a new one on me. That’s a real mess and I don’t envy you at all. If you want my professional advice, you have to do it unless you have another job lined up somewhere and I’m sure you don’t.” He was right, I didn’t.

I went to work on a strategy I thought would benefit Judge Byrd. I set up a slate of ads that would run at certain times throughout the campaign. They had to be laid out in different sizes, too, since all newspapers are not alike. I worked on demographics so I could recommend where I felt mailing the flyers would benefit him the most. And the bumper stickers. Oh, yes, those things. They looked nice, but I cringed when I got behind a car that bore one, and I saw quite a few. I wanted to say, “Hey! That’s my design. Oh, never mind.”

Judge Byrd lost his bid for re-election. It was a bittersweet victory for me, wondering if there was somewhere I went wrong. I’m glad he did and I knew in the end it did not hurt me professionally. There was no blame. Judge Byrd took his loss well. All politicians know one day they will lose an election. Bill asked me how I felt. I told him, very relieved. I wondered if there was something subconscious that held me back from really giving it my all? Oh well, it was over and I was glad.

Judge Belvin Perry has been on the bench since 1989. He has been the Chief Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit since 2001 and is well respected in the area. Judge Byrd? I saw him years after that. He remembered me and we had a very nice chat. He went back into private practice. My friend Bill is now a workmen’s compensation judge for the state of Florida, appointed by then governor, Jeb Bush. I always told him what a fine, fine judge he’d make one day and he did. He’s always been a very humble guy.

I like to think that I was partly responsible for Belvin Perry’s win, but then again, I probably wasn’t. In the end, it was the will of the people that unseated Judge Byrd. One thing is certain, Judge Perry never looked back and fortunately, I was never asked to do anything like that again.

x

Guilty as CHARGED?

When Casey Anthony’s friend, Amy Huizenga, went on vacation last year she loaned Casey her car. When she returned, she learned her checks were missing from the car. Soon after, she found out her bank account was cleaned out and her balance was zero. Casey was charged with check fraud soon after her daughter was reported missing and now prosecutors want that case to go to trial within the next two months.

Casey is charged with more than a dozen fraud charges. Those include fraudulent use of personal identification, forgery of a check (1) and uttering a forged check (2). Authorites say that Casey used her former friend’s checks to purchase more than $400 worth of clothes and groceries at Target and Winn-Dixie stores around the area where she lived. She also withdrew $250 in cash from Amy’s bank and tried to pay a $574 phone bill, but at that point there wasn’t enough money in the account to pay the bill.

Recently, Linda Kenney Baden said the murder trial probably won’t start until June of next year and prosecutors don’t want to wait that long to resolve the fraud case. Assistant State Attorney Frank George said, “Given the complexities of the two cases, it is unreasonable to allow the forgery case to languish another year without a resolution.”

No date for the fraud charges has been set yet and Orange Circuit Court Judge Stan Strickland has not yet responded to the request.

Also, prosecutors want a picture of Anthony’s tattoo  of the words “Bella Vita,” which is Italian for “Beautiful Life.” She got the tattoo about two weeks after Caylee disappeared. Assistant State Attorney Frank George said a picture of the tattoo “would be relevant and material in evaluating issues to be presented in connection with the upcoming trial.”

The first-degree murder charge was filed separately.

(1) 831.01  Forgery.–Whoever falsely makes, alters, forges or counterfeits a public record, or a certificate, return or attestation of any clerk or register of a court, public register, notary public, town clerk or any public officer, in relation to a matter wherein such certificate, return or attestation may be received as a legal proof; or a charter, deed, will, testament, bond, or writing obligatory, letter of attorney, policy of insurance, bill of lading, bill of exchange or promissory note, or an order, acquittance, or discharge for money or other property, or an acceptance of a bill of exchange or promissory note for the payment of money, or any receipt for money, goods or other property, or any passage ticket, pass or other evidence of transportation issued by a common carrier, with intent to injure or defraud any person, shall be guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

(2) 831.09  Uttering forged bills, checks, drafts, or notes.–Whoever utters or passes or tenders in payment as true, any such false, altered, forged, or counterfeit note, or any bank bill, check, draft, or promissory note, payable to the bearer thereof or to the order of any person, issued as aforesaid, knowing the same to be false, altered, forged, or counterfeit, with intent to injure or defraud any person, commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

Casey Anthony must die!

From the Florida Department of Corrections Web site, here are some fun facts:

The case of Furman vs. Georgia was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in June 1972. In that landmark case, the Court held that capital punishment was unconstitutional and struck down state death penalty laws nationwide. As a result, the death sentences of 95 men and one woman on Florida’s Death Row were commuted to life in prison. However, after the Furman decision, the Florida Legislature revised the death penalty statutes in case the Court reinstated capital punishment in the future. In 1976 the Supreme Court overturned its ruling in Furman and upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the case of Gregg vs. Georgia. Executions resumed in Florida in 1979 when John Spenkelink became the first Death Row inmate to be executed under the new statutes.

In January 2000, the Florida Legislature passed legislation that allows lethal injection as an alternative method of execution in Florida. Florida administers executions by lethal injection or electric chair at the execution chamber located at Florida State Prison. The three-legged electric chair was constructed from oak by Department of Corrections personnel in 1998 and was installed at Florida State Prison (FSP) in Starke in 1999. The previous chair was made by inmates from oak in 1923 after the Florida Legislature designated electrocution as the official mode of execution. (Prior to that, executions were carried out by counties, usually by hanging.) The apparatus that administers the electric current to the condemned inmate was not changed. It is regularly tested to ensure proper functioning.

Old Sparky - made of oak constructed by inmates

OR

Gurney used for lethal injections

Since the middle of July of last year, the name Casey Marie Anthony has permeated the airwaves, earwaves and print media of this country and many parts of the civilized world on a daily basis. Every day, something must be reported on the case against Casey, and no one has titillated more than Nancy Grace. All of her loyal followers must be tickled pink since the State Attorney’s Office of Florida announced last week that the prosecution will seek the death penalty against her for the murder of her daughter, Caylee Marie. State Attorney Lawson Lamar’s office said they want to kill Casey because, as the official explanation says, “sufficient aggravating circumstances” have come to light. Please take note that Lamar did not ask for the same thing against George, Cindy and Lee and some of you won’t sleep until the entire family is dead by the wheels of justice. How ironic that nearly 2,000 years ago and for hundreds of years, the idol worshippers of Rome demanded the heads of Christians as they begged for their lives. Now, it is the Christians making the same kinds of demands. There should be no trial. Casey Anthony must die! I am not going to delve into the pros and cons of this sort of punishment and I don’t really want to hear opinions one way or the other. This article is meant to just give you a taste of things to come.

Sentencing Casey to death might be what minions of people from around the globe are hoping for, but Lamar knows it’s no easy task. Here is a case I remember well: On November 25th 1998, police were called to the Central Florida home of Kayla McKean and told that she was missing. They began a search and as the story hit the news, hundreds more people gathered to help. Countless people spent Thanksgiving Day searching and continued through the weekend to no avail. On Monday, November 30, searchers were ready to begin again when Kayla’s father, Richard Adams, came forward and confessed that he had killed her the previous Tuesday in a fit of rage because she had soiled her underpants. In his confession, he told the police where her little battered body was buried. Kayla’s stepmother, Marcie Adams, took police to the Ocala National Forest where Richard buried her. He was immediately arrested on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, tampering with evidence and medical neglect. Like Casey, he faced the death penalty, but on May 15, 2000, Adams was sentenced to life without parole, plus 28 years. Because of her death, Florida enacted the Kayla McKean Child Protection Act.

Casey’s team will go to trial with a credible cast of legal experts, something Adams did not have. Although you may scoff at Jose Baez’s credentials, he’s got some strong talent behind him, including New York defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden, famed criminologist Dr. Henry Lee, forensic scientist Dr. Larry Kobilinsky and Todd Macaluso, who excels at cross-examining technical experts. This will make the death penalty a tough win for Lamar, and he’s got to be concerned.

Some people feel this is nothing more than an old prosecutor’s trick. Well known law professor Alan Dershowitz, of Harvard Law School, claimed that Texas prosecutors used the same ploy to get a conviction against Andrea Yates, who drowned her 5 children in 2001.

“The prosecutors… never really expected, nor even wanted, the jury to return a death sentence,” Dershowitz wrote. “They manipulated the death sentence processing order to get a pro-prosecution jury, more likely to reject the insanity defense and return a verdict of guilt. This tactic, well known to those who practice criminal law, is becoming more widespread in states which authorize the death penalty.”

In Yates’ case, her conviction was overturned on appeal and she was ruled not guilty by reason of insanity. Because of the nature of choosing juries in death penalty cases, a potent problem exists for the defense. The selection process may give potential jurors an impression of guilt by merely asking for death instead of a lesser penalty. Ultimately, the State Attorney’s Office may be looking for a plea deal now that Casey faces being strapped down on a gurney to one day be fed intravenous shots of killer medications. No doubt, this will be a very long and costly trial since it doesn’t look like Casey is readying herself for some sort of confession. With this in mind, let’s examine how the death penalty works in Florida.

First off, death penalty trials are not cheap. The stakes are much higher because we are talking about taking a life. Because of that, more motions are filed, more interviews are conducted and lots more research is performed. The possibility of execution will prolong and complicate this trial and make it 10 times more expensive for the prosecution and defense than a maximum life in prison sentence.

Capital punishment cases need a very select type of person to sit in the jury box because they must be willing to sentence someone to die. Also, cases like these are two-parted: the guilt/innocence phase and the penalty phase, and that could almost double the length of the trial. Time costs money.

Unlike non-death penalty cases where potential jurors are questioned in groups, these jurors are interviewed individually. Sometimes, a process like this can take weeks. Once a jury is seated, the trial begins with the guilt/innocence phase, and like any other criminal trial, the state presents its case and the defense does its best to poke holes in the evidence presented against their client. After that, the jury decides guilt or innocence and if found guilty, the trial moves into the second stage, the penalty phase.

You’ll notice that in the State Attorney Office’s explanation of why it asked for the death sentence, “sufficient aggravating circumstances” was cited. These aggravating factors, all outlined by law, must outweigh the mitigating circumstances as put forth by the defense. Aggravating factors would include whether the killing was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner. Mitigating circumstances would encompass areas such as whether the defendant acted under duress and why this life should be spared. It becomes a second trial within the trial and it is where the costs really start to add up.

Most of the time, it’s the defense that has to work harder and spend more time working out the reasons to spare their client’s life. To prepare for this phase, they must do extensive research into that person’s background. They must dig up every school record, medical record, where they were born and what doctor delivered them. If mental health issues never factored into the main trial, they will here. Mitigator specialists may be called in. I’ll bet you never even knew this type of career exists. All of this is very time consuming and expenses can soar into the 100s of thousands of dollars for this phase alone, just to pay for experts.

As of today, with the trial set for mid-October and more likely to be a year or two away, it’s impossible to say how much it will cost the state, but the bill will rise tremendously now that it has asked for the death penalty. Prosecutors’ spokesman Randy Means said that death penalty cases are not budgeted separately from other cases, but because they take longer, they cost more. Anywhere from 3 t0 10 times more effort is put into this type of case. If the defense puts many experts on the stand during the penalty phase, the state must counter those arguments.

Many of those aggravators have already been shown during the guilt/innocence phase and the mitigating circumstances will need to be fought again, with new testimony. We, the taxpayers, must fund the state. The money set aside to prosecute cases has already been budgeted and because of this, it takes away from other trials. That means someone else might not be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Keep this in mind as the state readies itself because prosecutors had better be sure they know what they are doing. Before you throw any “Lawson Lamar lament” my way, this is not meant to argue the pros and cons of the death penalty, nor is it to trash Casey for not fessing up. This is just to let you how the process works.

If she is found guilty and sentenced to death, she will go to the Lowell Correctional Institution Annex in Lowell, FL, outside of Ocala in Marion County. Her cell will be 6 x 9 x 9.5 feet high. She will be served meals three times a day, at 5:00 am, from 10:30 am to 11: am and from 4:00 pm to 4:30 pm. All food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. Prior to execution, she will be able to ask for a last meal and the cost to prepare it must cost no more than $40.00 and all ingredients must be purchased locally. As for the final cost of arrest, trial, incarceration, appeals and execution, the price will run into the millions, a lot more than just a life sentence, and in the end, Lawson Lamar knows that a death sentence in Florida may end up being more about dying of old age in a stark jail cell than anything else.

To those of you so hellbent on Casey’s execution, I ask you where you were when Kayla McKean’s father sat on trial, charged with her brutal murder. I ask you where you were when he was sentenced to life instead of death. I guess you didn’t care. Perhaps that’s not it at all. Ten years ago, this precious child, every bit as beautiful and angelic as Caylee Marie, didn’t have Nancy Grace fighting for her. No Geraldo, no cable shows and no public. Who cried for Kayla? Think about it.

x

A HARD CELL

I’ll be the first one to tell you that there have been plenty of arguments over what day Casey allegedly killed Caylee. Personally, I got into a dispute with a (once) regular commenter here on this blog and let me tell you, it was unsettling. What I have noticed is that more arguments and bitter fights have been started over this case than when brother fought against brother during the American Civil War. I’ve felt the sting of several people, but this one person in particular really boiled my blood. For the life of me, I don’t have a clue why a few hours would have made all that much of a difference and in retrospect, I think it was to prove me wrong, nothing more, nothing less.

On March 24, I published a post I thought would assuage those naysayers who insisted on the 15th as the date of death, while law enforcement, most armchair slueths and myself have believed that death occurred the following day. I wrote my thoughts on a post titled, June 16-19: Crucial Days. Well, it still wasn’t enough. Soon after that article ran, I published another piece titled, Anatomy of a Filicide, which chronicled my fictional account of how the murder might have happened based on research I had done, including cell phone pings. That still wasn’t enough to break the spirits of the few who chose to stand their ground.

This time, I will try to show exactly why I am so sure that Casey spent the night of June 15th at home and didn’t leave the house until early the next afternoon, as George said and as Cindy verified by making one little observation, whether she knew it at the time or not. She stated that she heard Casey and Caylee in the bedroom that morning before she left for work. The door was closed. George stated that Casey and Caylee left at 12:50 pm that day. Now, you can call George a liar. You can call Cindy a liar. You can even call Jose Baez a liar, but I’d really like you to call a cell phone tower a liar. Three of them, actually, and the only ones that pinged back and forth with Casey’s one and only cell phone. If you want to conclude Casey had a hidden cell phone somewhere, be my guest, but facts are facts, and Casey used her cell phone throughout the night of the 15th and into the 16th. Without much fanfare, I bring you data, raw data that only speaks the truth.

CELL PHONE TOWER #1 – S. GOLDENROD ROAD – Latitude 28.5028444/Longitude -81.2863333

2860 S Goldenrod Rd (Lat: 28.502778 Lon: -81.286111), Type: Pole, Structure height: 33.8 m, Overall height: 33.8 m – Registrant: Florida Power Corporation, 2600 Lake Lucien Dr Ste 400, Maitland, FL 32751, Phone: (407) 475-2231

CELL PHONE TOWER #2 – S. GOLDENROD ROAD – Latitude 28.4691667/Longitude -81.2916667

MUAYYAD MUSTAFA, 6767 South Goldenrod Road (Lat: 28.469083 Lon: -81.284028), Type: Tower, Structure height: 42.7 m, Overall height: 44.2 m – Registrant: At&t Mobility LLC, 5601 Legacy Drive, Ms: A-3, Plano, TX 75024, Phone: (469) 229-7422, Email: ka8805@att.com

CELL PHONE TOWER #3 – NARCOOSSEE AREA – Latitude 28.4547222/Longitude -81.2636111

Jerri L Janjua, 7777 Narcoossee Rd (Lat: 28.454722 Lon: -81.263611), Type: Pole, Structure height: 42.6 m, Overall height: 45.7 m – Registrant: Verizon Wireless, 1120 Sanctuary Pkwy, #150 Gasa5reg, Alpharetta, GA 30004, Phone: (770) 797-1070, Email: network.regulatory@verizonwireless.com

These are the decimal coordinates for those three towers. Just below this text is a map I designed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The red stars designate the location of each tower that bounced Casey’s cell phone pings back and forth. The blue star signifies the Anthony residence. Please take special notice because the house falls within the range of those three towers and you’ll observe the common overlap follows southwest of the residence. If you look closely, Casey would have been restricted to that area on the night of the 15th because her phone didn’t ping off any other towers. Either she left the house to drive across Chickasaw Trail – only to drive into a very similar neighborhood to commit the crime – or she stayed home. You’ll notice it’s tough to escape that area southwest of her house. The end result is whether she spent the night at home or in her car, parked along a residential street. You judge for yourself, but I’m convinced the crime was committed the next day. So is law enforcement.

Click on the map to enlarge it.

To see the AT&T cell phone usage printout, please click HERE and go to page 16/25. Also, the range of the towers is greater than depicted. To show the actual range of all towers in the vicinity would only prove more true, that her movement was greatly restricted on the night of the 15th because her phone would have pinged off more towers.

The next map shows an overview of towers in the immediate area of the Anthony residence. You’ll note that since no other towers picked up her signal the night of the 15th, she was stationary throughout the night. She did not head north, south or east. She either remained at home or she drove across Chickasaw Trail into another residential neighborhood very similar to her own, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

The blue dot in the center signifies the house. Click to enlarge.

In a typical cell-phone system in the United States, the cell-phone carrier receives about 800 frequencies to use across the city. The carrier chops up the city into cells. Each cell is typically sized at about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers). Cells are normally thought of as hexagons on a big hexagonal grid. Because cell phones and base stations use low-power transmitters, the same frequencies can be reused in non-adjacent cells. The two purple cells can reuse the same frequencies. Each cell has a base station that consists of a tower and a small building containing the radio equipment.

To read more about how cell phones work, please click HERE.

Reference: FCC Registered Cell Phone and Antenna Towers in Orlando, Florida

x

Anatomy of a Filicide

CAUTION! CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITED FOR ALL AGES

It’s a perfect day for a murder

Dear Diary,

Last night I had a terrible fight with my mother. I hate her guts. It’s the worst fight we’ve ever had. Sometimes, I can’t decide who I hate the most, her or Dad, but I am so pissed off, I wish she was dead. Him too. Why, oh why, does she think I am a bad person when it is her? She sucks. I want her out of my life. I need to get away from this house and these people forever.

If Tony would only take me away. He must. He’s got to help me. Why do I feel my life is such a mess? If only I didn’t have the brat. She is nothing more than a pain in my ass. Today, I will start my life all over again. With Tony. Or Ricardo. Or… OK, Jesse. If not Jesse… and SHE will never be with us, whoever I’m with. Jesse? If only you didn’t love her so much, we might still be together. Maybe not.

Mom? You think you can take her away from me, but I will never let you. She would make you so happy because she could be the daughter you’ve always wanted. It was never me. You never loved me. What do you think I should do with her? It’s too late. You can’t have her and I don’t want her. I’ve made my mind up and today is it. That little shit will never, ever ruin my life again. She is dead. Screw you all and you will never find out about her. You think I’m crazy, do you? I’ll show you what crazy is all about. You got it. I’ll get even with you. You won’t ever be able to spoil her again.

Dad? Eff you, you weak son of a bitch. You are such a pussy. You let Mom run all over you. I’ve had enough of you and you think you were such a hotshot cop. Oh yeah? You are nothing and you will never figure out what I did with her because I am way smarter than you. You can rot in Hell. Besides, you always loved Lee more than me. You both did.

Lee? Just go on living in your simple little world. God, if you only knew how much I’ve used you over the years, you’d realize just how stupid you are. So’s your girlfriend. Too bad you’re not here to say good bye.

Brat? Today is the day. You will never see me again. Better yet, I will never see you again. Even better still, your grandmother is going to really, really suffer and in the end, I will laugh at you all. Sleep late. I don’t want you seeing Ci Ci before she goes to work. That’s why our door is shut. OK, here, take Mommy’s nanny Zani pill.

I’ve been planning this day for a long time. It didn’t have to be today, but after last night, this is it. It had to come sometime, because I was going nuts. Today, I feel liberated. My mind is made up. What? You wonder why Mommy is in such a good mood? Quick, go see Grandpa Jo Jo before we go. I need to get ready.

OK, Baby, let’s get going. I’ll see you later, Dad. I’ve got some errands to run. C’mon, let’s go. Say good bye to Jo Jo. Tell him you love him. Yes, we’ll see you later. Wave to him as we drive away. Go ahead, Sweetheart.

12:40 pm

She didn’t really need to go anywhere early that afternoon. She just wanted to get out of that house, away from the pain of the night before, so she drove around, chatting endlessly on her cell phone with her boyfriend, Tony, her ex-boyfriend Jesse, and her then-best friend, Amy, never paying any attention to her daughter. She headed down Chickasaw Trail to Lee Vista Boulevard, where she killed some time, about a half hour, at the shopping plaza; then she took off up Narcoossee to Goldenrod. From there, she headed north to Curry Ford and turned into the Winn Dixie shopping center just to kill more time until her father left and the coast was clear. OK, let’s go home for a minute. Mommy forgot something. It was easy to tell her toddler that they needed to go back home. Besides, the little girl always felt safe and secure in that house. Maybe, she messed her pants and Mom forgot the pull-up diapers and the pack of Nice’n Toddler wipes and that angered her. Oh, Come on. You’re too old for this. Whatever, this was the day she had been planning for a long time. She was starting to feel happy again, something she hadn’t been since before the day her daughter was born. She started the car and drove east on Curry Ford until she turned south on Chickasaw to return to the neighborhood where she grew up.

3:00 pm

When they got back to the house, they went into the bathroom where she cleaned the little girl and dried her off . Then, she led her into the bedroom. Mommy will be right back.  She went out to the garage to get the duct tape and a couple of trash bags. Then, she walked back in, took the bags into the bedroom and began peeling a swath of tape off the roll. Here, Mommy wants to play a little game. Come on, you little brat. She started to stick the tape around her head, from the left side of her face and far into her hair.

Mommy, what are you doing? the little girl wondered, unable to really speak like an adult and too tired too fight. Mommy, Mommy, Murfurlbalbl… The tape was now wrapped around the toddlers head and Mommy tore it off the roll, making sure it was stuck firmly to her mouth. She picked the small child up, who was lightly kicking and breathing through her nostrils, wimpering like crazy, as if begging for her life, but the pill had begun to take its toll.

Stop kicking, you little shit! Tears of fear were rolling off the little girl’s face as she struggled to free herself, but she was no match for her mother, as slight of build as she was. Finally, the Xanax she had given her earlier kicked in and the precious bundle of joy gave up. She set her daughter down and hurried into the bathroom to grab a bottle from under the sink. She poured the homemade chloroform onto a wad of folded up toilet paper, returned and held it against her daughter’s nose, just to make sure. All of the faith and trust this girl had in her mother was as weak as her now shallow breaths. What was so different this time as her mother picked her up, was how much heavier she seemed. I guess she never knew much about dead weight. Well, she was never as bright as she thought she was.

She carried her out into the back yard and walked up to the above ground swimming pool. The body made a light splash as it was dropped in. She held her under water until the bubbles stopped. It didn’t take long. The child-like breaths that once smelled like a field of fresh flowers on a breezy Spring day were forever silenced. The life she brought into this world was now dead by her own hands. To her, it was the most exhilarating, the most liberating feeling in a long, long time – until she tried to lift the child out of the water. Wow! This kid is heavy. She hadn’t thought about how much the water would log her down. She propped her little body against the edge of the pool, pulling her arms out and over the side. That gave her a chance to go get the pool ladder that would act as leverage as she struggled to pull the girl out of the water.

One of the things she’s known for is that she doesn’t like to follow directions. She’s never been good at finishing jobs, either. If her mother hadn’t been around to lecture and complain, her bedroom would have been a mess. When she pressed the ladder against the swimming pool, she never attached it firmly. That’s why the ladder was left next to the pool and it explains why she never closed the gate behind her. She never followed up on anything unless someone like her mother was behind her every step of the way and that angered her so.

3:30 pm

Fortunately for her, the pet dogs were napping when she re-entered the house. Casey always demanded that her parents stay out of her room. They always granted her wish for privacy. She was, after all, an adult woman and she needed her space. She walked into the bedroom, dropped her daughter onto the floor and put her soiled clothes into one of the bags. She dried the body and opened the other bag to put her little girl inside. Then, she pushed her under the bed, grabbed the bag of clothes and walked out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She had to be very careful about making sure the door was properly closed. For one night, her bedroom was to be Caylee’s mausoleum. When she walked out the front door with bag in hand, she took one more brief look inside the house before locking the door. Good bye, she thought. Eff this house. No more fights. No more nagging. I am free, but she knew she had to come back tomorrow. This was enough work for one day.

Bedroom Door

Bedroom

This article is a work of fiction. It is not intended to imply actual characters and/or events.

©2009 – David B. Knechel – All rights reserved

Caylee shrine property for sale – Owner ID’d

For New Documents Released This Morning, See Post Below This One

Exclusive Story

News surfaced on Wednesday that the wooded lot where Caylee Marie Anthony’s skeletal remains were found is up for sale. It was put on the market this week at the ridiculously inflated asking price of $89,900. Both the prosecution and defense teams performed highly sophisticated and very thorough forensics work on that property and I decided to do some investigative digging of my own. Who owns it and what is it really worth?

I will say upfront that none of the media outlets have been able to confirm the actual identity of the property owner, just that his name is Thomas Hendricks and he has a Winter Park, Florida P.O. Box address. In other words, there is no physical address linking one particular Thomas Hendricks to the piece of land. If you Google the name, you’ll find lots of listings. How does one go about isolating this one person out of the many that share the same name? In the following paragraphs, I will explain what I found out, who he is and where to find him; right down to his FCC amateur radio call letters.

First of all, this is not the order in which I made my discovery. It just makes more sense to explain it this way and besides, I do not wish to give away all of my tricks of the trade. Secondly, I found all of the information on the Internet. Let’s take a look at some documents…

(All images may be clicked on to enlarge)

Here is a copy of the defense team’s motion to inspect the crime scene, filed by Casey’s attorney, Jose Baez. This was requested after the state’s team of experts had meticulously combed through the area.

If you read through the document, you will see that Jose Baez had a tough time locating Thomas Hendricks, too. Next, I took a look at the property from public records available at the Orange County government website. From this site I was able to reference the property’s parcel number:

13-23-30-1290-00-021

If you have sharp eyes and a mind to go along with it, you’ll also notice that Mr. Hendricks owns the land on the north side of Suburban Drive, right across the street from where Caylee’s memorial shrine is. To be more precise, he owns 25 properties in Orange County alone. One of the things I found out while searching through media websites is that he is, indeed, a very difficult person to track down. No one could find him and his only address is P.O. Box 4602, Winter Park, Florida  32793. That is not all. Here is a property he owns in Bucks County, PA, and it gives as his contact information the same Winter Park address. This guy moves around. Coincidentally, Bucks County is right across the Delaware River from Hunterdon County, NJ, where I grew up.

You’ll notice I highlighted the information in gray. From there, I begin to get down to the nitty gritty. I was hoping that by digging deeper into this land’s property tax information, it would yield more than a post office box. I was hoping for a real address of some kind, plus an idea of what the property is worth.

Along the way, I did find something of interest. Having been to that area several times, I couldn’t see that particular tract as being worth much. The property’s code description has it classified as vacant home owners association (019). It’s not very large and I don’t think it could be developed for anything, like putting up a house. As a matter of fact, in my research, I discovered it’s not worth much at all, according to the amount of taxes Mr. Hendricks paid on it in 2008.

OK, so the property is only appraised at a mere $100. Sure, and up until Caylee’s body was found, that’s all it was probably worth. You’ve probably heard of those schemes to sell Florida land and when you finally get the chance to visit your new homestead, it’s a swamp. This is almost the same thing and until history changed it, that’s all it would probably ever be worth. Remember, after T.S. Fay came through in August, this land was under water for months and it confounded all search efforts until Roy Kronk came along on December 11. Now, you can second-guess all you want about the property’s value today and be my guest, but is it really worth almost 90 grand or is the owner greedy? What would a potential buyer do with it but keep it as a shrine and charge admission?  How can anyone justify that price? For that reason and that reason alone, I am going to share the name, address and phone number of the owner for being nothing more than a money hungry bottom feeder off this Caylee Anthony affair. Sure, Tom, join the bandwagon. Me? I’m going back to work to find you.

I had the name of Thomas Hendricks and a box number. I looked up his name on a website I utilize for this sort of purpose. I find it very revealing at times and no, you can’t have it. There are certain secrets I must keep. Along with his name, I put a Winter Park location, just the name of the city. Now, I had no idea whether he lived in Winter Park or not, but I figured I had to start somewhere. Of course, in Central Florida alone, more than one Thomas Hendricks appeared. One of the things that caught my eye was that one of them is a ham radio operator with the call sign, N4HTH. Hmm, another coincidence is that one of my grandfathers was a ham operator and he worked for years for a company called Hendrick’s Appliances as a repairman in Stockton, NJ, directly across the river from Bucks County. Interesting, I thought, but unrelated. Here is what I found:

Alright, so none of this information is private property. This list of names came off of a website that anyone can find and research, but right there, in living RGB color and B&W, was one particular guy with the same name who lives in Winter Park. Had I hit the mother lode? Fat chance, I thought, because there was nothing linking that physical address to the post office box number any more than any other Thomas Hendricks would link to it and I really had no idea what state he even lived in. I could be looking for hours, I thought, but in cases like this, I like to write things down. By the way, there’s a clue in that directory somewhere.

After extensive work, searching through records, I still had a few more ideas up my sleeve. The next one I tried struck gold and I got myself a positive match. Where everyone else seemed to have failed, doing my homework paid off.

Look carefully at the Quit Claim Deed below. Do you see his name there, near the top? Underneath it, you’ll see Post Office Box 4602, the numbers that stuck in my head, but keep scrolling down, because this is where this particular piece of public property yielded the biggest clue and an on the mark ID. Some might say it’s right on the money.

There. See it? In the middle of the deed is the name of his wife and it matches the name of his Successor Trustee, Faye M., on the White Pages Winter Park address. The mystery is solved. I lucked out, but I have always had a pretty good nose for scoping out information and knowing how to manipulate key search terms helped tremendously.

Under normal circumstances, I would not disclose private information, but at the same time, the asking price of this land is so grossly out of touch with reality, it unnerved me. Ouch! He paid $1.64 in taxes in 2008 on a piece of land he now claims is worth $89,900. That is terrible and it is a sure sign, in my opinion, of someone trying to get richer off this dead girl. Remember, everything I found was available on-line. To those of you not all that familiar with Florida’s open-government laws, also known as the Sunshine Law, you just saw it in action. To Mr. Hendricks: I know you have to go with the flow, right? Take the money and run. Please remember one thing – I didn’t try to peddle this story to the highest bidder because everything I found was free for the taking. No bones about it. I hope I rattled a few.

The land where Caylee Anthony’s remains were found is for sale. Bounty hunter Leonard Padilla said he wants to buy the property. (RED HUBER, ORLANDO SENTINEL / March 20, 2009)

Leonard Padilla offered $50,000 for the land to keep as a permanent memorial.

©2009 David B. Knechel. All rights Reserved.

see next post (below) for updated transcripts 3/20/09

New documents: The name that scares Casey the most

State Attorney’s Office releases about 500 pages of legal and investigative documents and photographs in the case

Daily updates are posted at the bottom of this article

UPDATED FEB.18

UPDATED FEB. 19

UPDATED FEB. 20

“I hope I made the right decision. I just hope the end justifies the means…This is the happiest I have been in a very long time.”

The date puts it a few days after Caylee was last seen alive, assuming it was written in 2008. Read the Diary Entry.

Photo shows ’03 in upper left corner

Several weeks ago, I began writing an article about one person in particular, Annie Downing. She was Casey’s best friend until late in 2007, when she decided she couldn’t handle Casey’s lies any longer. Why I picked her out of the crop of friends and acquaintances was because her name was consistently mentioned in many of the interviews with others, but her conversations with police were conspicuously left out. I found that a bit odd, or was it revealing? By not saying a word about her, were law enforcement officials saying something? That is exactly what I believed and that was my angle. Here is a report of released documents as I know them now, approximately 1:15 today.

As I wrote in yesterday’s post about the lack of fingerprints being found on the duct tape, that turned out to be correct. No fingerprints of Cindy, George, Lee or anyone else were present. The silver-colored duct tape found on Caylee’s skull is consistent with tape found on one of the gas cans, a red one. The report released today states that the duct tape “originated from the same source roll.” A piece of “Henkel Consumer Adhesives” duct tape was found wrapped around the skull and was attached to a gas can at the house, according to the report.

Investigators have amended initial reports that determined the body was thrown into the woods on June 18 and was in the trunk of the car for two days. They now say that Caylee died between June 16 and June 27 and detectives believe the body was stored in the Pontiac for an undisclosed period of time, but was removed before the 27th.

“Evidence on the body suggests that the child’s death was not accidental but an intentional act,” Detective Yuri Melich wrote Feb. 5. “As of this writing, there is nothing to suggest that anyone but Casey Anthony is responsible for the death and disposal of Caylee Anthony.”

Lee Anthony’s former roommate and long-time Anthony family friend, Michelle Murphy, stated that Casey often complained about having a very bad relationship with her father. On two occasions, George and Cindy told Murphy that they were considering trying to get custody of Caylee. Casey allegedly had a miscarriage in Februay of 2007 from a man named Brandon Snow. She told Downing and Murphy, but neither of them believed her. In March of that year, Casey called Murphy and told her she was feeling “crazy” and was considering having herself committed. She had imagined a life with Brandon and the baby, due in October. She told her she didn’t feel she was a good mother to Caylee. When Murphy called her the next day, she blew her off.

When Casey was released from jail last year, Annie Downing went to visit Casey at home several times and spent the night once. Casey told her, “When this is all said and done, I have so much to tell you.”

While visiting the home, Casey found Cindy on the computer using Casey’s e-mail address and signing her name. They argued, but Cindy said that “if this can find us Caylee, then you know I’m going to do whatever I can.”

When Downing confronted Casey about the chloroform found in the trunk, Casey shrugged it off by saying she had stored cleaning supplies there. Besides, she eluded, ex-fiancé Jesse Grund had a key to the car and he might have done something to it after it was abandoned. Downing told investigators that Casey wasn’t smart enough to have acted alone if she had harmed Caylee, but that was strictly her own opinion.

In late 2006 or early 2007, Casey visited Downing at work and told her she needed to talk to someone. She said, “she needed to get away and felt like she was having a breakdown.” She added that she wanted to go to “an institution” and told her that Caylee could stay with Cindy, but when Downing called her later that night, she said she was fine, she’d had a good talk with her mother. The friendship really unraveled around August, 2007. They remained friendly, but it never was the same again.

During an interview with Downing, she told detectives Casey was jealous of her mother’s relationship with Caylee. Casey told her that Cindy wanted Caylee to call her “Mom” instead of “Grandmom.” On Caylee’s 2nd birthday, Casey told Downing, “Oh my God, this is supposed to be Caylee’s Day. I’m her mom. She’s not her mom.” Cindy was helping Caylee open presents.

Annie Downing received a phone call from Lee Anthony in October, after Casey was re-arrested and information had been made public about Casey telling a friend she could get Xanax from Annie. Downing said that Lee told her, “We all know Casey’s done bad things but you need to protect yourself. You need to …if they call you. You need to tell them the truth. You need to tell them anything you know because if you know something you need to tell them…. Don’t protect Casey.” Both Downing and Murphy told investigators that Casey had an emotional breakdown at one time and wanted to be committed.

Document PDFs:

All documents can be accessed HERE

♦

A sticker missing its heart. A sheet was found with similar hearts, some missing.

 

Heart found at crime scene stuck to cardboard

Click HERE to link to some of the images

The Discovery Documents also include lists of dozens of all relative personnel who had been working at the crime scene, including FBI agents, Orange County Sheriff’s Office detectives, crime-scene technicians and prosecutors. Included is a letter requesting the FBI to compare items taken from the Anthony house in December, when a search warrant was executed. Some of the items taken from the house are multiple garbage bags, a Bissel steam cleaner, Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner, a Bissel spot cleaner and one red gas can with duct tape.

The sheriff’s office asked the FBI to compare the black plastic bags found with Caylee’s remains to the garbage bags taken from the Anthonys’ home, to compare the duct tape found on the remains to the duct tape on the gas can from the Anthony residence, and to examine vacuums and cleaners for potential decomposition materials and/or other related items.

Detectives noted that the body was found in the wooded area and not far from the road. The skull was near a plastic bag. There was no flesh on it, but quite a bit of hair. “I immediately noticed that there appeared to be a piece of silver duct tape across the mouth area of the skull,” Detective Yuri Melich wrote. “The tape appeared to have been purposely placed there.”

The remains were found inside of two black plastic bags and a canvas laundry bag. There was a stained Winnie the Pooh blanket, a pair of size 24 month pink and white stripe shorts, a pink size 3T shirt with the words “BIG TROUBLE comes small” written on the front and what was thought to be pieces of a child’s pull up.

Investigators combed the crime scene where Caylee was found with a metal detector but found nothing of note. A cadaver dog, the same one that reacted to decomposition in Anthony’s car, searched the scene but did not hit on anything. John Schultz, a University of Central Florida assistant professor, was called in to work with investigators. He specializes in biological anthropology and recently co-authored a book titled, Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches. Also called in was Neal Haskell, a forensic entomology expert and professor at St. Joseph’s College in Indiana. He asked for soil samples to be taken to examine bugs at the scene.

Here is a partial list of what was found:

• Several bones, including human teeth and animal bones

• Numerous pieces of plastic bags

• A pregnancy test – Several discarded soda cans

• A broken Winnie the Pooh helium balloon

• Barbie doll legs

• A disposable camera

• A piece of “Henkel Consumer Adhesives” duct tape

• World of Disney bag near Caylee Anthony’s remains. Inside the bag was a Gatorade Cool Blue bottle with an unknown liquid and white sediment.

• A syringe in a wrapper was found inside a toilet paper roll that was in the bottle.

Investigators conducted a search warrant at the Anthony’s Hopespring Drive home immediately after Caylee’s remains were found. Here are some of the items seized:

• Nine pair of women’s shoes from Casey Anthony’s closet

• A white/red heart-shaped sticker backing with sticker removed that was found in a shoe box in Casey Anthony’s dresser

• A sheet for red heart-shaped stickers with the three remaining on the page found in a red folder in her dresser

• A sheet for multi-colored heart-shaped stickers in a black binder in her dresser

• Two white-rimmed plastic children’s sunglasses

• Two pair of children’s denim shorts — size 24M

• Three denim children’s skorts – one 3T and two 24M

• Miscellaneous doll clothing

• Five pairs of children shoes

•  One black garbage bag found inside a suitcase in the garage area

– Two handwritten notes from a chest in Caylee’s room

• Some muscle-relaxers and anti-anxiety medications were taken from the master bathroom that were prescribed to Cindy Anthony

Lawyers for Casey Anthony released this statement today:

“The State’s forensic report on duct tape, plastic bags and other items is a one-sided law enforcement-generated report and is biased and speculative. It uses ‘junk science,’ the kind of flawed comparative analysis that the two-year study by National Academy of Sciences released today.”

♦

Jose Baez Should Be Your Friend

Don’t laugh until after you read this. In light of this new and revealing information, let me say a word about a name you may not be familiar with: Jonathan Kasen. He is Casey Anthony’s second best friend. He wasn’t before she was arrested, but he is now. And here you thought that Jose Baez is the only non-family friend she has left. You know, Baez, the guy you love to hate. Jose Baez is a criminal attorney. Jonathan Kasen is a civil attorney and he is representing Casey in the defamation lawsuit filed on behalf of Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the woman who has the same name as Anthony’s alleged nanny.

Through the grapevine, whispers among lawyers in O-town, also known as O’do, say that Baez is really stupid. I know you all agree, but he should be your friend, not your enemy. You know why? If Baez really had any smarts, he would have insisted on the right to a speedy trial. That’s right. Because any good lawyer will say that without a body, it would have been tough to convict, in spite of the charge and evidence on hand. By now, Casey would be free and could never be tried again for her daughter’s murder, so you see? Baez turned out to be your biggest ally because today, the state has overwhelming evidence to send her away for life with no chance of parole. To be frank, they can ask for the death penalty now, but in my opinion, they won’t. It’s tough for a jury to send a crazy person to their death.

What happened that fateful day of June 16, 2008? George Anthony watched Casey carry Caylee out to the car, put her in her car seat and drive away, never to be seen again. Not by George or anyone else in the family, and no one else has come forward in defense of Casey. I wonder how much longer George, Cindy and Lee can do the same thing?

As more information comes in, I will update this article. Please stay tuned…

ADDENDUM 2/18/09

• Cindy told detectives in December that Caylee’s Winnie the Pooh blanket was missing.

• Lee went to a nightclub looking for Casey when she made it a point to avoid the family. When she got word he was on his way, she sneaked out before he arrived.

• The defense team got the documents last week. No member of the defense has visited her in jail since receiving the documents. That is 9 days, and it’s the longest she’s been with no one visiting her. This had to have been a devastating blow to the defense. In my opinion, it says Casey lied to Baez all along. No wonder he checked himself into the hospital.

• Casey Anthony hyperventilated and needed medications to calm her down after she got word that Caylee’s remains were finally found. Her reaction could be analyzed by both sides and I wouldn’t factor her demeanor in so much. On one hand, the prosecution will say that her reaction proves her guilt. “Oh, no! My goose is cooked. They found her!” On the other hand, the defense could easily say that any mother would respond that way when her daughter’s body is discovered. She went into a state of shock knowing that she would never see her again.

ADDENDUM 2/19/09

• In December, Cindy told investigators she sent someone to those woods in November, to take a look around. Nothing was found at the time. Could this have been the phone call to Dominic Casey the phony psychic took credit for that was captured on Jim Hoover’s video? In any event, it was most likely a hunch on Cindy’s part because she knew that was a favorite hangout for Casey and other neighborhood children.

• Investigators found mysterious stains on patio furniture and a rug at the Anthony home, along with a jug and bottles of pool chemicals. Those items are being tested.

• It was revealed that the potentially damaging duct tape found at the crime scene and in the Anthony home could have come from the homes of thousands of other people. It is commonly sold at Walmart and Ace Hardware stores.

• Investigators found a Whitney Design canvas laundry bag wrapped in a black plastic bag on the top shelf above the washing machine in the Anthony home. That was the same kind they recovered from the crime scene.

• Defense spokeswoman Marti Mackenzie said in an e-mail, The state’s forensic report on duct tape, plastic bags and other items is a one-sided law enforcement generated report and is biased and speculative.”

• Defense attorney Jose Baez said in a statement: “It is just as important to focus on the fact that there are no fingerprints on the duct tape and there never was any red sticker of any shape or size found on the tape.”

• Casey’s defense team visited her in her cell today, the first time in 10 days.

• 1,000 pages of documents will be released next week, including interviews with Jim Hoover.

ADDENDUM 2/20/09

• The Orange County Jail secretly taped Casey Anthony when she was told a body was found in the woods that was similar to Caylee. She hyperventilated and asked for medications to calm herself down. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office refused to release a copy of the videotape, saying it was evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation, Deputy Carlos Padilla, a sheriff’s spokesman stated. If the tape is turned over to the State Attorney’s Office as part of the prosecution’s case, it could then become a public record.

• Dominic Casey, the Anthony’s private attorney once worked for Casey and Jose Baez. He entered the woods in search of Caylee a month before she was discovered. He claimed a psychic told him where to look and even directed him while he was there.

There are conflicts of interest at play here because he specifically went to those woods. Who really told him? Did Casey? I doubt it because had it been her, he would have found the toddler, for sure. Was it Cindy? It could have been, but I assert that if she did, it was on a hunch because it was a favorite spot for Casey and other neighborhood children when they were younger. Was he lying about the psychic? Was he lying about talking to his sick daughter on the phone? He is a person of interest, but for what?

Caylee’s murder: premeditated and pretty stupid, too

I was the only father Hannah ever knew. I remember when she used to come up with every excuse in the book. She was about 10 or 11 when it all began and, God knows, how hard she tried to gey away with murder. Her mother and I were much too quick, despite the fact that she never believed it. When children are around 13 years of age, they suddenly turn 30. Not all children, mind you, but Hannah sure felt that way. Some children are so confident at this stage of life, in spite of hormonal imbalances, they think they are unmatched in the smarts department. Perhaps it is nature’s way of attempting to create a balance. In any event,  it seems to be around this time that they begin to hone their manipulative skills and think they are way superior to their parents. They rebel and lose interest in cleaning their rooms and stop helping with the chores. We call them lazy. To make matters worse, they become obsessed with learning more about the opposite sex. It is a natural rite of passage and most children outgrow it by their late teens. Some, much later. Casey never did and because of her complex feelings of superior intellect combined with inferior power and confidence, she resented her mother and hated her father all of her teen and adult life. She overcompensated and never came back down to earth. “Mom and Dad are so stupid,” she’s thought for so long now. “I should be in charge.”

Casey’s goose began cooking years ago

Dissecting Casey’s youth is difficult. None of us were there to witness the treatment she got from her parents, but looking from the outside in, what seems to unfold are a whiny, demanding mother who Casey readily outsmarted, and a father bombarded by inner conflicts with moral correctness and the wont of punishment for her lack of respect, especially towards her mother. Oh, how many times he wanted to slap her hard across that foul mouth that also spewed despicable lie after despicable lie. Sometimes, he felt worthless and powerless to stand up to this little wench, watching and waiting to pounce if not for the wall of protection Cindy built around her. Out of frustration, he gave up and looked the other way. Cindy was never any help, but oh, how he loved her so.

George Anthony told law enforcement that the last time he saw Caylee was on June 16, when Casey put her in the Pontiac and drove off. That was the day she made a lot of cell phone calls to family and friends that no one seemed to want to answer and it was the day police think something happened to Caylee. No one saw her after that fateful Monday. Except Zani.  Later that night, Casey went to see her boyfriend who, when later interviewed, told police she acted as if nothing was wrong. From forensic reports, it was determined that the body was in the trunk for 2 days. Of course, the defense will adamantly disagree, but plant and bug specialists brought to the scene of where Caylee was found have determined the date she was placed in the woods to be June 18, from those analyses. I contend the body was stuffed into the laundry bag and placed in the vehicle until Casey found fluid leakage in the trunk. It was then that she put the cloth bag into the plastic garbage bag and decided it was time to get rid of the goods.

Why Casey would stash the trash bag coffin of her daughter in the same woods where she used to play as a child somewhat eludes me. Sure, I understand the “nearby” angle, so Caylee is never too far, as she may have inferred in cryptic messages, but all it proves is her own stupidity and laziness. She was too lazy to drive it somewhere else, she was too lazy to dig a hole after she borrowed a neighbor’s shovel, and she was too stupid to realize that little Caylee would eventually be found in such a convenient location. Had she dug a hole in those woods like she may have begun to do in her own back yard, Caylee might never have been found. (Maybe, she was smart enough to figure that the back yard is the first place the police would look.) In an odd twist, the cruel method of taking her daughter’s life was nearly matched by her complete lack of thought and concern that other children would one day play in there and find her little skeleton. She didn’t care because she was too lazy to walk even a few feet into those woods, so she just gave the bag a heave. See ya, you little bitch. Good riddance. Time to party!

Out to party she went with her friends, but were they really friends? No. By the looks of the photographs found on her computer and elsewhere, none of those people thought of her as anything more than just another dumb party girl willing to do just about any dumb thing to maintain her dumb party girl image. She seemed to enjoy the reputation of a girl willing to allow others to party with her body, too. For party favors, of course. (To set the record straight, I am basing this on evidence of public record, not on anything I personally know about or from any inside information, but even her father said he didn’t want to describe some of the disgusting photographs found on her computer.) What prompts a girl to be that way? By the sound of things, it wasn’t because she never got attention as a child. Though not wealthy, her parents fed and clothed her. They sent her to school and it was her decision to quit. No, I think it was of her own accord because she wanted to escape a world she thought was mediocre. She wanted to live the flamboyant lifestyle with lots of socializing and boyfriend after boyfriend who would spoil her silly. She lived in a fantasy world where she held a good job at Universal, home of glamorous movie stars. They all knew her there. But, they didn’t. This almost sounds like a psychopath. Psychopaths tend to be low in self-esteem and social cognition. When her party friends take the stand at her trial, they will probably describe her as whimsical, self-centered and always wanting to be the center of attention. Look at me! Whee! Psychopaths sometimes have a violent side. They have a terrible time keeping a job and stink in long term relationships, including friendships. They are shallow. They are impulsive, and that may lead to why she killed Caylee. Something finally ticked her off, but it was a festering anger and lack of conscience that may have triggered her into doing it. She had finally had enough. The foundation was set soon after Caylee was born, when she was no longer the star she had to be. It was now Caylee, and her fantasy world was crumbling away as reality tried to force itself in. No way. Something’s got to give and it wasn’t going to be her. Everything was now conceivable, even murder.

A premeditated crime is one that is plotted out beforehand. Things are set in motion so when it’s time to do the crime, everything runs smoothly. After Caylee’s body was found, several search warrants were issued to look for evidence in the Anthony home. Police told the press that plenty of items were taken that strongly incriminated Casey, evidence that could have come from no where else. Caylee was found inside a plastic garbage bag, the kind you use in your home. Inside that bag was duct tape and some of that tape was covering Caylee’s mouth. I don’t know if her hands and feet were bound or not, or whether it sealed the bag, but that’s not the most important thing to prove premeditation. All it proves is hatred for the deceased and hatred usually means that the victim and murderer were a lot closer in life than mere strangers. What may prove premeditation are the search terms on her computer and whether Casey walked out of that house with duct tape, most likely planted in the trunk, prior to taking Caylee that fateful and final time. Prior. What a chilling word it becomes in this case and it may be a key piece of evidence proving premeditation.

There is speculation about the duct tape. Word leaked that Casey borrowed some from her party friend, Amy, to hold up the sheet she wore at a naked party with her and some of her other naked party friends. Wherever the tape came from is not of importance if the tape holds evidence, such as Casey’s DNA and/or fingerprints. Where there may be a problem with premeditation, and an avenue the defense will not want to travel down, is how Casey never did quite think things through properly. OK, she planned how to kill her, but it may have been something that made her snap in the end. Planning something doesn’t necessarily prove premeditation because we all plan things on impulse and never follow through. What is the piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit is that she stopped at the killing level. After that, she didn’t have a clue what to do next, so she haphazardly plotted how to deal with the mess she created and never let on what she had done. She did a lousy job of cleaning up that mess, too, as the police will prove by the abundance of evidence against her.

The goose is cooked

Whether premeditated or not, which I believe it was, Casey acted like nothing happened the entire month before her mother called 911 to report her grandchild missing. The state will prove to the court just what her state of mind was from the middle of June leading up to her arrest through key testimony from friends, relatives and mainly, by her own actions. She did not act like a mother in distress. She did nothing out of desparation to find her daughter, instead, partying night after night. She lied to her parents and brother about Caylee’s whereabouts. She lied at every turn to law enforcement officials, trying to confuse them at every turn. She has never shown an ounce of remorse. There are no pictures of Caylee in her jail cell and the only time she burst into tears was when Caylee’s body was discovered. They were tears of fear. Fear that her hiding place was no longer a secret and afraid that more evidence would be found and an odd fear that the party was over. Premeditaion or not, at the end of her trial, when the jury walks back into the court room, her goose will be cooked. The state will say “well done!” and the judge will sentence her. Good bye and good riddance. She will become a footnote in history; another murderer who deserved her just dessert – to eat candy for the rest of her life in the confines of prison and to party no more.

In the end, it was freedom from responsibility that Casey wanted. No work, all play, and Caylee’s death was her way of returning to the carefree days of her childhood. She never wanted to grow up and this was her chance to punish her parents for taking it away from her for denying an abortion. I don’t want her and you can’t have her. Free at last! Soon, the only freedom she will ever have again is the freedom to reminisce about her past, to dream about what might have been and to think about why she didn’t get away with it. After all, she’s still way smarter than her parents. Right?

Casey Anthony’s Christmas Tree

Look for the 100th episode of One Tree Hill (additional link here) and you may find out where Casey Anthony got her idea. The plot includes a nanny who is suspected of kidnapping Jamie, a young character on the series. That was one of the searches law enforcement found on her computer. Although circumstantial, it looks damning, especially along with other searches like cyanide, chloroform and neck breaking. The defense will most likely try to counter by saying Cindy wasn’t home when police executed the search warrant and that George was unemployed at the time and preoccupied. Someone within the sheriff’s office could have easily typed the search terms in to implicate Casey. Thin, to say the least, but it is the defense’s job to plant doubt.

Body of Caylee Marie Anthony Found

CLICK ON MAP TO ENLARGE

Sheriff’s Office: “We’ve got her!” Investigators said they were “very optimistic” they had found the missing girl.

The remains of a small child, including a skull, were discovered around 9:30 this morning near the intersection of Chickasaw Trail and Suburban Drive by an Orange County water meter reader about 20-30 feet off the sidewalk when he went into a wooded area to relieve himself. The remains were found in a black trash bag sealed with duct tape about 3/10 of a mile away from the Anthony home where she lived with her mother and grandparents on Hopespring Drive. Apparently, the worker spotted the bag and for no reason, poked it with a stick. It was then that a skull tumbled out. A police spokesman said the remains seem to be rather well preserved. Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said he didn’t think any clothing was found with the body, but that remark was later amended. How much evidence was gathered remains a closely guarded secret, but Beary did admit, when questioned, that his gut feeling was that this is the body of Caylee Anthony.

(I live in the Orlando area and I am familiar with the vicinity. To access the neighborhood where the Anthony’s live, you can only enter from Chickasaw Trail or Suburban Drive as the map shows.)

When Texas EquuSearch went there earlier in the search, it was under water. The water has since receded. Subsequently, a chain link fence was erected, restricting access to that particular area. Residents said duct tape was found around the mouth area of the skull, but those reports have not been confirmed by law enforcement officials and police have not positively identified the body, but look at the facts:

• The remains were found very near the Anthony home.
• The Orange County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed the remains are from a young child.
• No other children have been reported missing in the vicinity*.
• Lead investigator John Allen called Cindy Anthony (Caylee’s grandmother) soon after the body was found. She and her husband, George, were ready to return home from California, after being interviewed by Larry King last night.
• Casey Anthony spent time in the wooded area with her friends when she was in high school. Nearby neighbors all along told police to look there, that Casey liked the spot.
• “I know in my heart she’s not far,” Casey told her mother from jail.
• The search for Caylee has been called off. Done. Over. The end.

It is highly unlikely the remains are not Caylee. From hearsay on the street level, word is rapidly spreading that they are of a homicide victim (duh?) of the same age, size, and approximate date of death. No doubt where that information came from. The FBI has also stated it will work feverishly to determine the identity through DNA analysis. My educated guess is that Dr. G: Medical Examiner will do the autopsy to try to determine the cause and forensics experts will try to solve the mystery surrounding poor Caylee’s death.

No doubt, too, that jailers will be keeping a close watch on Casey’s reaction, but as far as I’m concerned, the body of Caylee Marie Anthony has been found. Casey Closed.

*Two year old Trenton Duckett disappeared on August 27, 2006 and has never been located. Today’s discovery is not that of Trenton Duckett, police have determined.

See Also: The search for Caylee takes a nose dive

See Also: No doubt – bones are Caylee’s

ADDENDUM (All times Eastern Standard Time)

12/11 – 6:52pm –  News reports are surfacing that Casey sobbed uncontrollably and was given a sedative after hearing about the discovery from her attorney, Jose Baez.

12/12 – 10:00pm – News sources report that lead Casey Anthony defense attorney Jose Baez will soon name Linda Kenney Baden as his co-counsel. She is the wife of noted forensic pathologist Dr. Michael M. Baden. She is known for getting a hung jury in the murder trial of famed record producer Phil Spector in Los Angeles in August 2007.

12/13 – 9:15am – The NBC Today Show announced that duct tape was, in fact, found over the mouth of the skull. This could infer cause of death as suffocation or that it was used to quiet the child prior to death. If tissue around the area exists, it may show signs of inflammation.