Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [30]
Still, in spite of all the evidence that Casey was lying, Cindy continued to believe her. When Cindy would speak to law enforcement about the events of the month before her 911 calls and leads in finding Caylee, she was unreceptive to either the possibility of Caylee being dead or her daughter having any role in the matter.
George, however, was a different story. Early on, he was willing to speak more frankly with law enforcement about the possibility of Casey’s involvement. On July 24, he reached out to investigators and asked for a meeting outside the presence of his wife. He agreed to come to police headquarters and sit down with Corporal Melich and Sergeant Allen. Their ensuing conversation was surreptitiously recorded.
“Well, I need to set the record straight between you guys and me,” George began. “You guys are doing what you can. I know that. Deep in my heart and my gut and my brain, I know it. I know how you guys, at least I have a rough idea of how everything’s put together. Granted, it’s been years since I’ve done my stuff, but I know the basic techniques . . . are still there. I understand all that good stuff.
“Where this is leading I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about that, but I had bad vibes the very first day when I got that car,” George said, referring to the day he retrieved the Pontiac from the tow yard. “I can be straight with you guys and I hope it stays in the confines of us three. I don’t want to believe that I have raised someone, brought someone into this world that [sic] could do something to another person. I don’t want to believe that. And if it happens, all I can do is ask that you guys can please call me, so I can prepare my wife, because it’s going to kill her.”
George acknowledged that if they had lost their granddaughter, they had also lost their daughter. “But I guess the reason why I’m here today is I, I’m just having a hard time grasping what my wife is doing to you guys and I apologize.” Shifting direction, George then admitted that he had issues with Casey’s defense attorney Jose Baez.
“I don’t like this freaking attorney that she has. I can tell you that right now from personal experience, I don’t like the guy.” According to George, Casey had told him that she supposedly had at least $1,400 of Baez’s $5,000 retainer. The fact that there was money changing hands, along with the fact that she’d only heard about Baez because of a fellow inmate, both seemed to make George all the more skeptical.
“We did not contact this man,” George explained, speaking for himself and his wife. “When he came to our, called us, we thought he was a court-appointed attorney. Because my daughter does not, I don’t think she has any money. If she does . . . Well, besides stealing from me, my wife . . . other people . . .”
Changing the subject away from Baez, Melich reminded George of the smell in the Pontiac he had mentioned during their first conversation at Anthony house after Cindy had called 911. “Do you remember what you told me?”
“I believe that there’s something dead back there,” George replied without hesitation. “And I hate to say the word human. I hate to say that . . . I’ve been around that. I mean the law enforcement stuff that I did, we caught people out in the woods, in a house, in a car. So I know what it smells like. It’s a smell that you never get rid of.
“When I first went there to pick up that vehicle, I got within three feet of it I could smell something. You look up and you say, please don’t let this be. Please don’t let this be. Because I’m thinking of my daughter and my granddaughter first. I glance in the car on