Mommy's Little Girl Read online

  Shirley stopped next at the police station. She showed her statement to an officer, who found the cancelled check in question. It had a license number on its back. He ran it on the computer. “Do you know anybody in Orlando?”

  “Yes,” Shirley said.

  “Do you know a Casey Anthony?”

  “That’s my granddaughter,” she gasped. She expressed confusion over the theft. “I would have gladly given her some money if she asked.” It was difficult for Shirley to accept that her granddaughter had stolen money from her. Her thoughts drifted back a few years to the time she’d wondered if a missing bottle of nail polish had slipped into Casey’s pocket. She wondered no longer—she was sure of it.

  Shirley confronted her daughter and granddaughter with the ugly news. Casey said she was sorry. Shirley accepted her apology, but added, “Don’t let it happen again.”

  Later that month, on the day that Annie graduated from the University of Central Florida, Casey dropped by her place for a visit. Cindy called and demanded that Casey come home immediately. Casey said that her mother was upset because she hadn’t registered at Valencia Community College. Annie learned the real reason later: Cindy had found a credit card statement with exorbitant charges run up on her bill by Casey.

  It may have been Cindy’s bill, but it was the last straw for Annie—she was tired of all of Casey’s lies.

  It was still Caylee’s birthday month when Casey told Melina that her daughter’s father Josh had died in an automobile accident. She had told her parents about the car crash the year before, but in that version, Caylee’s deceased father was named Eric.

  Melina thought they didn’t need a man in their lives; Casey and Caylee were simply adorable together. Sometimes they called her and sang duets on the phone. She occasionally joined them on outings to Target and Chick-fil-A, their favorite. Melina never heard Casey raise her voice to Caylee, even when the little girl got fussy, and she never saw her hit her daughter or mistreat her in any way. Melina didn’t have children of her own yet, but she hoped that when she did, she would have a mother–daughter bond just like the one Casey had with Caylee.

  Caylee had her own bedroom, filled with stuffed animals, in her grandparents’ house on Hopespring Drive, where she lived with her mother. Scattered around the room were lots of caps, hats and sunglasses—Caylee loved to wear her headgear and specs. She also was crazy about music. She had two little keyboards, but what really got her excited were drums. She loved to pound on them, and was surprisingly good at keeping a steady beat. Her grandparents were trying to decide if they should get her a drum set for her 3rd birthday or if they should wait until she turned 4.

  Caylee developed a cute habit that tickled her grandparents: Every night before she went to bed, even if it was rainy or cold, Caylee always wanted to step outside and see the moon and the stars before she went to sleep.

  She’d formed affectionate relationships with many people in her orbit. She adored her “Unca E” and “Mau-Wee”—her mother’s brother Lee and his girlfriend Mallory Parker. In the backyard, she loved to swim in the above-ground pool. The adults made sure the ladder was never left beside the pool—they didn’t want her climbing up unsupervised and falling into the water.

  Another big attraction behind the house was a white plastic play house with her own little phone and kitchen set. Jesse Grund said that whenever he’d played in the backyard with Caylee, in October and November 2007, she’d run straight to the play house. Her grandparents and Casey played with her a lot there, too.

  Jesse and Casey resumed dating in November. It didn’t last long.

  CHAPTER 17

  On November 8, after a night of hard drinking, Casey had a medical crisis. Jesse grabbed the phone and punched in 9-1-1. “My girlfriend just had a seizure . . .”

  “What address are you at?” the operator asked.

  “Uh, my girlfriend . . .”

  “What address are you at?” the operator repeated. Jesse gave the street address and apartment number. “Hold on for Medical.”

  A couple of rings later, the connection went through. “Fire Rescue.”

  Jesse repeated his address when asked. Then the operator asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “She just had a seizure. Her pupils are dilated. Her pulse is racing right now.”

  “Okay, listen,” the operator said. “I have some help on the way, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Alright, I need you to do a few things for me before we hang up, please.”

  “Okay.”

  “What is your name, please?”

  “My name is Jesse Grund.”

  “Jesse, I need you to check and see if she’s still breathing for me.”

  A minute-and-a-half after the initial call, the dispatcher informed the medics in the ambulance that the patient was still shaking and unresponsive. Thirty seconds later, an important piece of information came to the emergency vehicle en route to the scene. “She’s been nauseous all day and was drinking heavily last night.”

  She had classic symptoms of alcohol poisoning—a condition that, if ignored, can lead to irreversible brain damage or death. But help arrived less than eight minutes after Jesse had picked up the phone.

  Jesse was attending the Orlando police academy that fall. In November, after spending time at the firing range, he, Anthony Rusciano and a few of his fellow trainees went to Subway. Casey and Caylee joined them there.

  Anthony, meeting them for the first time, asked, “Is that your little sister?”

  To his surprise, Casey said, “No, it’s my kid.”

  The next time he saw Casey was when he was working as a bouncer at Latitudes, a bar on Church Street in Orlando. She and Jesse came in and were all over each other. Jesse seemed to be showing off, flaunting his newly reconstituted relationship. At the end of the evening, Casey was so sloppy drunk, Jesse had to carry her out to the car.

  Although still dating a girl in Tampa, Anthony was intrigued by Casey. He became “friends” with her on MySpace and Facebook shortly before Christmas. By New Year’s Day, his relationship with his Tampa girlfriend was history and his pursuit of Casey had begun in earnest.

  A few days into 2008, he had Casey in his apartment for a sexual encounter. Five minutes after it was over, Casey was out the door. Anthony said, “That’s when, you know, you kind of feel like the girl. You’re, like, Damn, man, I just got used.”

  It was the same way each time they hooked up. As soon as the act was complete, Casey was pulling on her clothes and saying goodbye.

  While Casey was casually entwined with Anthony, her renewed relationship with Jesse was in free fall. For months, Casey told Jesse, with great emotion, that she didn’t want to be anything like her mother. “I want to be a different person,” she said.

  In January, Jesse noted a contradictory entry on her MySpace page: “I can’t wait to be like my mother when I grow up. I want to be just like her. I love her so much.”

  He asked Casey about it and she had nothing but positive comments to make about her mom. Cindy, she said, was her confidante.

  Casey’s feelings for Jesse had also changed—but in the opposite direction. Casey broke it off, leaving Jesse perplexed.

  Rico Morales ran into Casey again at a barbeque at mutual friend Troy Brown’s house. They started seeing each other, and at Rico’s birthday party, on January 23, things got intense and intimate between the two of them.

  She sent Rico a note through Yahoo! Messenger a couple of weeks later: “My life sucks—I can’t do anything because of the kid.” She went on, griping about not being able to participate fully with her friends because she was a mother.

  Rico wrote: “You do have more responsibilities than everyone else ’cause you’re a mother. But we do get to hang out with you a lot and see you pretty often. So it’s not that bad.”

  Beginning the second week of that month, Casey spent four or five nights a week at Rico’s. Caylee was almost always with her, and slept in bed with him
and Casey. Early in the relationship, Caylee hit her head on a table and bruised her eye in his apartment. Caylee’s photograph, showing that injury, later raised questions about child abuse.

  Rico worked till 8 most nights, so when he got back home, Caylee was usually in bed or getting ready for bed. Caylee had about four teddy bears and a favorite little doll named Momma; one of them was always with her when she slept.

  Rico thought Casey was a good mother, very attentive to Caylee—feeding her, giving her juice, changing her diaper, making sure she had her teddy bears when she went to bed.

  Most nights, Casey and Rico didn’t go out. They just relaxed on the couch watching movies and talking. He said he thought Casey was a nice person—sweet, agreeable.

  However, Casey seemed rather volatile to her friend Amy. “When something ticks her off, it definitely ticks her off—not violently, but she definitely gets worked up about it. I’ve never seen her strike out at anyone or anything, but she definitely gets a little riled up.”

  Her relationship with Rico bore the imprint of Casey’s “emotional, headstrong” personality. “They would either be super-duper-duper happy, or she would just be pissed off at him,” Amy said. “She was really mad that he smoked . . . or she’d get pissed if he drank too much beer . . . Never physically violent angry, but just, like, so pissed off, she’d have to go into another room.”

  Rico played and interacted with Caylee, but he was a bit awkward with kids, since he hadn’t spent much time around them. But Caylee was always willing to give him a hug. Rico thought she was an average kid, with occasional tantrums like any 2-year-old, but not a problem child.

  Casey’s friend Amy thought Caylee was better behaved than the average 2-year-old. “She can get a little into stuff, but she’s two . . . every two-year-old does. She’s normal, happy and way less bratty . . .” than most children that age.

  Amy thought Casey and Cindy were consistent with the little girl, making Caylee very good at recognizing that “no” meant “no.” Amy wasn’t always comfortable with Casey’s parenting, though. “I didn’t like that she’d bring her over when we’d be drinking or having a party or having a poker night . . . but she’d put her to bed on the couch and the kid slept through anything . . . it was amazing.”

  One weekend, Rico went to Tampa for a Sunday wedding. Casey met him up there on Saturday, hung out all day and came back that night.

  Throughout the spring, Casey frequently dropped Caylee off at Gentiva Health, where her mother worked, at 5, with the excuse that she needed to go to work. She wore an employee I.D. on a string of Mardi Gras beads when she did this.

  Rico believed she had worked at Universal for the past four years. She talked about it a lot, about her boss Tom and her friend Julia. She had a great schedule. She could work from home whenever she wanted. Sometimes with events, she had to work early in the morning, sometimes late at night. She tried to set up friends to attend concerts for free, but it always fell through because the concerts sold out, making it impossible for her to get passes.

  In February, Casey told her friend Melina about her event-planning job. She said that she worked downtown and had her own office. Melina was envious. She was currently going to school to get her certificate in event planning—and there was Casey with the job Melina wanted, without going to school at all.

  After learning about Melina’s education efforts, Casey told Rico that she was taking classes at Valencia to get her certification. Her classes were on Thursday, she said, but explained her presence at home on that weekday by saying that she frequently had the day off from class.

  On St. Patrick’s Day, just two days before her birthday, police believe she accessed the Internet and made several searches: “chloroform,” “alcohol,” “acetone,” “peroxide,” “inhalation,” and “death.” Four days later, they believe she did the same. This time the computer searched blogspot.com, druglibrary.org and instructables.com for “shovel,” “making weapons out of household products” and “how to make chloroform.”

  At her birthday party, Casey took Melina aside to complain about her mother. Cindy, she said, was “overbearing,” and they had frequent “extreme” arguments, usually about Caylee.

  One night in early April, Caylee was there when Rico went to sleep, but not there when he woke up. Casey told him that her mother had called during the night and wanted her to bring Caylee home. Rico didn’t quite know what to think of that.

  Casey and Rico split up on April 14. According to him, it was his idea. Although it was a fun relationship, it wasn’t getting serious. His feelings for her weren’t growing, and he believed they should be. He said that Casey felt the same way. Casey told her friends that Rico was scared of commitment and because of that, the relationship was going nowhere. They didn’t fight over the break-up, though. And later, when Rico was sick, Casey came over and cooked chicken soup for him.

  But their relationship did not become purely platonic. Their sexual intimacy continued into early June. She came by often and hung out with Rico after their break-up—sometimes with Caylee, sometimes not. She once said that Caylee was with Zanny, her nanny. “Zanny?” Rico asked, “What does that stand for?”

  “Zenita,” Caylee said.

  Rico accepted the existence of the babysitter, but never once met her, and never talked to anyone who had seen or spoken to the mystery caregiver.

  CHAPTER 18

  According to her family, Casey had by then made a habit of stealing. She slipped cash out of her mother’s purse, stole her father’s coin collection, pillaged Caylee’s piggybank, ran up charges on her mother’s credit cards and even wiped out her daughter’s emergency bank account. George thought the account was growing, as $30 came out of each of his paychecks for deposit in Caylee’s name. When he checked the balance in 2008, only $5 remained.

  George had long suspected that Casey wasn’t working, because every time he turned around she was asking for $5, $10 or $20 to pick up diapers or gas. George was convinced when he found a résumé with Casey’s employment information. Beginning in 2006, Casey wrote, she’d been a nanny. He asked Casey, “What’s this?”

  “Well, that’s something I was thinking about doing.”

  “Why would you put it down on a résumé? That makes no sense. If you’re going to be taking an occupation doing that, you don’t put it down unless you’re already doing it.”

  George couldn’t win that battle, though. Whenever he said anything to his wife or daughter, they both insisted that Casey was working. Casey often claimed her check was locked up in her boss’s desk. On one occasion, she even forged three deposit slips for her mother’s account—a total of $4,400—and ceremoniously turned them over to her mother, saying that she’d finally gotten her back checks, and believed in paying back money she owed.

  Cindy thought the money was in the bank, and spent accordingly. It wasn’t until her $700 house payment check bounced that she learned the ugly truth.

  That spring, Cindy discovered another way her daughter was stealing money from her. Casey had hacked into her mother’s checking account on line to send payments of $300 to $450 per month to AT&T for her cell phone. Cindy demanded that she stop, and Casey did. Next time she needed money to pay her cell phone bill, she extracted $354 from the account set up for her grandfather’s care after he went into the nursing home. The two small checks he got each month were directly deposited into an account without check-writing privileges. Shirley transferred it to her checking account when she needed to pay bills or the balance got too high.

  Shirley was surprised when she saw the transaction on her statement. She went into the bank, where a manager tracked down the expenditure to Casey. “I don’t know what you want to do about it,” he said.

  Her patience this time had expired. “You can do whatever you want to. If you want to arrest her, arrest her. Press charges.”

  The bank, however, did not take any action. Shirley emailed Casey because she didn’t want to talk to her. Casey wrot
e back: “Dear Grandma, I’m so sorry. I apologize. I’ll come down and do some cleaning for you.”

  Shirley responded: “Casey, I don’t want you down here.”

  Shirley called her daughter and told her about everything. Cindy said, “Mom, I’ll pay you back.”

  “No, the bank paid me back,” Shirley said. “But if the bank wants to arrest her, they’re going to, because I told them they could.” Shirley didn’t want to file a complaint herself—Casey deserved it, but she couldn’t do that to Caylee and Cindy.

  Cindy demanded an answer from Casey. Casey explained that she’d been transferred into a brand new department at Universal, and the budget had not yet gone through. She and all the employees were asked to buy their own telephones. They would be reimbursed for the expense when the financials were all in order. Then, Casey claimed, she was going to pay her grandmother back.

  Shirley didn’t buy this explanation when Cindy relayed it, but she didn’t get on her daughter’s case about it. Casey was in the wrong, not Cindy. Shirley later figured out that she’d gotten off easy. By her estimate, Casey had taken her own parents for as much as $45,000.

  Cindy went to see a counselor through a service provided at her place of employment. She later related the conversation to her mother. The counselor said she should not be supporting her adult daughter. “You should kick them out on the street.”

  “What about Caylee?” Cindy asked. “I can’t kick my granddaughter out on the street.”

  “Then just kick out Casey.”

  “Casey would try to take her.”

  “Well, you need to file for custody.”

  Cindy told her mother she was going to look into the possibility. She said that she wanted Casey to still be part of Caylee’s life, but she thought that she—not Casey—should be making the decisions about what was best for Caylee’s welfare. She planned to pursue custody, she told her mother.