Read Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony for Free Online

girl would be brought home safely. They just had to be patient.
    In keeping with this protocol, Eberlin took down all her information in his report. He listed the case as a possible kidnapping of a child, and Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez as the prime suspect. Ten minutes before midnight, Sergeant Hosey, the supervisor on the scene, instructed Deputy Acevedo and Corporal Fletcher to escort Casey to the Sawgrass Apartments on South Conway Road so she could point out the location where she last saw her daughter with Zenaida. Casey, dressed in a pale blue short-sleeved football hoodie sporting the number “82” and tight blue jeans, was in the back of Acevedo’s patrol car, and Fletcher was in his vehicle following behind. She directed them ten minutes away to an appealing and well-maintained three-hundred-unit apartment community with all the amenities—a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a small private lake with a fountain. Each building had three floors, and the units had small terraces with sliding glass doors that opened on a view in one direction or another. Casey directed the deputy over a speed bump and pointed to the first building on the right, just past the WELCOME sign. She did not get out of the patrol car, but simply indicated a unit on the second floor, saying it was Apartment 210.
    Corporal Fletcher walked alone up the stairs to the second floor. He knocked on the door of the apartment, but no one answered. Looking in the window, he saw no furniture or personal belongings anywhere inside. The unit was completely vacant. While Deputy Acevedo took Casey back home about twenty minutes after they arrived, Fletcher remained at the complex to investigate further.
    When Casey and Acevedo arrived back at the Anthony house, sheriff’s deputies were still taking statements from the other family members. Cindy had not calmed down at all, while George remained grim and quiet, and Lee, confused. Sergeant Hosey had now been at the house for two hours, and in that time he’d witnessed a lot of drama.
    There was unmistakable tension between Casey and her mother. Casey was making accusations that Cindy wanted to take Caylee away from her, while Cindy was incredulous and frustrated about her daughter’s behavior. Sergeant Hosey was of the opinion that some undercurrent of a custody battle was playing out, so he invited Casey to walk privately with him, out of earshot of Cindy and the rest of the family. He wanted to reassure her, in case she was hiding Caylee, that no one was going to take her daughter from her. In fact, he was hoping that she was hiding Caylee. The other possibilities were awfully dire.

C HAPTER F OUR
    FOUR LIES
    A phone ringing in the middle of the night is never a good sign, but Yuri Melich was used to it.
    A detective with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Melich had been working cases in Orange County for more than ten years. In that time he’d had his share of calls in the hours before dawn. Earlier in his career with the sheriff’s office he’d been in the homicide unit, but it wasn’t long before he’d been promoted to his current role as a missing persons corporal, a position he’d been in for seven years when his phone rang in the early morning hours of July 16.
    Answering the phone, he got the specifics of the situation and where he’d be headed. A two-year-old child was missing. The dispatcher instructed him to report to the Anthony home on Hopespring Drive, where officers were already on the scene. Melich hung up and started getting ready.
    Melich has the look of a seasoned lawman, with close-cropped hair and a chiseled face. Though he joined the homicide unit after I left it in 2000, I’d known him for a while, having met him through my occasional work on cases in later years. Melich’s wife, Sam, was also a detective in the sheriff’s office. It was on the murder of Deputy Michael Callin, the son of an old friend and former homicide detective, that I’d first met Melich. I’d