Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [39]
By 7 P.M. that evening, Casey was in the area around the home of her boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro, and at 7:45 P.M., Casey and Tony were captured on video at a Blockbuster renting a movie, strolling with their arms around each other. There was no sign of Caylee on the camera footage. When Tony later recalled that evening, he said that the two watched a video, went to bed, and—wink-wink—didn’t leave the bedroom until late the next day. According to Tony, he did not see Caylee that day. In fact, he hadn’t seen the little girl since June 2, which was when she had come to his complex to swim in the pool.
The next thing the phone records confirmed was that Casey left Tony’s place around 2 P.M. the following day, Tuesday, June 17, and drove back home. This was supported by a neighbor, Brian Burner, who saw the Pontiac Casey had been driving parked at the Anthony’s house and backed into the garage. At that point George would have just left or would just be leaving the house for work, and Cindy, a nurse, was working until five. No one knows what Casey did there that afternoon.
What we do know is that Casey called Cindy later that day to tell her mom that she and Caylee were going to spend another night at Zanny’s, even though cell phone records indicated that she was already back at Tony’s when the call was made. Cindy wasn’t the only recipient of a lie from Casey on June 17. Casey also sent a text message to her best friend and confidante, Amy Huizenga, saying that she couldn’t wait to get Amy moved into the Anthony family home. Casey had previously told her friend that her parents were moving out and giving the house to her, and that Amy was welcome after that occurred.
All of that, it turned out, was a lie; Casey’s parents had no such plans to vacate the house.
At 12:30 the next afternoon, June 18, Casey called her parents’ house from Tony’s. The length of the call indicated that no one answered the phone, leading investigators to speculate that Casey was calling to confirm that the house was empty. An hour later, the same neighbor noticed Casey’s Pontiac again backed into the garage. Sometime between 1:30 P.M. and 2:30 P.M., Casey borrowed the neighbor’s shovel, saying that she needed it to dig up some bamboo in her backyard. Less than an hour later she returned the shovel, but it did not appear to have been used. After she was done at her parent’s house, Casey went back to Tony’s, where she spent her third consecutive night, once again confirmed by phone records.
That evening Casey began spinning bigger and more elaborate lies. She called Cindy to tell her that she had to attend a work-related conference at Busch Gardens Theme Park in Tampa. Since Casey had been leading her parents to believe that she was an event planner at Universal Studios for some time, the trip made sense to them. As Casey explained it, she was taking Zanny, Zanny’s friend Juliette Lewis, Juliette’s daughter, Annabelle, and Caylee to Tampa with her. Annabelle was Caylee’s age, and would therefore be a perfect playmate for her. She told her mother that the group would be there until Friday, June 20.
Putting aside the scene with the detectives at Universal Studios, it was clear from these early stories alone that Casey was a skilled, habitual liar. Whatever her audience, she would pad the lie with elements that would appeal to that person. In telling Cindy that Caylee would have a playmate in Tampa, she knew her mother would be much more amenable to the idea. In adding Juliette, she would eliminate questions about why Zanny would want to travel all the way to Tampa. As I would come to see, most of Casey’s