Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [7]
Cindy picked up Amy at the mall, and the two drove together to Tony’s apartment. Amy did the knocking, and when Casey answered, Cindy surprised her by popping out from around the corner, ordered Casey into the car, and demanded to be taken to Caylee. Finding Casey’s responses regarding the little girl’s whereabouts grossly unsatisfactory, Cindy dropped Amy back home and started for a satellite office of the Southeast Community Police on Pershing Avenue. However, the satellite office had closed at 5 P.M., three hours earlier. Without another clear option, Cindy called 911.
CINDY ANTHONY: Hi. I drove to the police department here on Pershing, but you guys are closed. I need to bring someone in to the police department. Can you tell me the closest one I can come into?
DISPATCHER: What are you trying to accomplish by bringing ’em to the station?
CINDY ANTHONY: I have a twenty-two-year-old person that has grand theft sitting in my auto with me.
DISPATCHER: So, the twenty-two-year-old person stole something?
CINDY ANTHONY: Yes.
DISPATCHER: Is this a relative?
CINDY ANTHONY: Yes.
DISPATCHER: Where did they steal it from?
CINDY ANTHONY: My car and also money.
DISPATCHER: Okay, is this your son?
CINDY ANTHONY: Daughter.
DISPATCHER: So your daughter stole money from your car?
CINDY ANTHONY: No, my car was stolen, we’ve retrieved it today, we found out where it was at, retrieved it, I’ve got that and I’ve got an affidavit from my banking account. I want to bring her in, I want to press charges.
Reading the transcript of this first 911 call after knowing so much about the case, I was impressed by the omission of significant details, like the trunk odor and the amount of time that had elapsed before Cindy reported the “grand theft auto.” To me, Cindy’s call presented like an annoyed mother hell-bent on consequences for her unruly daughter. Since Cindy was in the car with the person she was accusing, the dispatcher tried to establish in what jurisdiction the alleged crimes had occurred. Cindy explained that the car had been taken from her home, and provided an address on Hopespring Drive in southeast Orlando.
The dispatcher told Cindy that she needed the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and he patched her through. During the transfer, the 911 recording machine picked up bits of a conversation between Cindy and her passenger:
CINDY ANTHONY: . . . ’cause my next thing . . . we’ll be down to child . . . and we’ll have a court order to get her. If that’s the way you wanna play, we’ll do it.
Casey’s voice was heard in the background, but it was unclear exactly what she said.
CINDY ANTHONY: . . . No, I am not giving you another day. I have given you a month!
The operator at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office instructed Cindy to go home and call back from there. Deputies would be dispatched once the call was made. There seemed to be no urgency to any of it, since no “suspect” was at large. Cindy did as instructed, only this time when she called, the crime she was reporting seemed to have mushroomed into something bigger than a car “borrowed” without permission. I noticed that Cindy was finally mentioning her granddaughter.
CINDY ANTHONY: I have someone here who I need to be arrested in my home.
911 OPERATOR: They are there right now?
CINDY ANTHONY: And I have a possible missing child. I have a three-year-old who has been missing for a month. [Though Cindy said Caylee was three in this phone call, Caylee was still technically two. Her third birthday was to be in early August.]
911 OPERATOR: A three-year-old? Have you reported that?
CINDY ANTHONY: I’m trying to do that now.
I sensed that Cindy was bringing Caylee into the conversation not so much to alert the operator to a dire, potentially tragic situation, but more to let Casey know she meant business. She wanted to