Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [75]
It was a story that would have fit nicely in an episode of CSI, but the facts at the crime scene made it unbelievable. This version in which he takes a leak in the woods, sees a bag with bones in it, picks at the bag with his meter stick, and watches a skull roll out could not have happened. The physical evidence showed that the skull had vines and vegetation growing through and around it when it was collected. The forensic biologist would address that in his report. Kronk seemed to be embellishing his story, for whatever reason. Personally, I don’t believe that the skull was touched or moved at all; I just wish he had been more candid in his story about what really happened on December 11.
This flawed version of events, along with the fact that he hadn’t informed investigators about his trips to the same spot in August, became hugely problematic for everyone. Things grew only more confusing a few days later when Kronk finally admitted that he had been the one to make the three 911 calls to police that past August. When Kronk came clean about what he’d seen in August, he also voiced frustration that the deputy who had met him, Richard Cain, had barely taken him seriously and in fact had berated him, making him feel that he was wasting the officer’s time.
On December 18, Deputy Richard Cain had some explaining to do. During Cain’s interview with Corporal Yuri Melich and Sergeant John Allen, he claimed that Kronk told him he saw a bag in the woods and that it had bones in it.
“So, we enter the woods, I saw a bag, it was not a big bag, it was like a trash bag, like a leaf bag.”
“What color?” Melich asked.
Cain said it was a black plastic bag. He then said he went into the woods, careful of his footing, stepping where he could without falling in the water. “I reached down, lifted the bag up. It was pretty heavy. But when I lifted it up, it tore, you know, the bottom. All leaves fell out, some sticks.
“I took my baton out, I kind of poked around. I didn’t see anything. And I went back to Suburban.” Cain claimed that Kronk was right behind him when he entered the woods.
That was not the way Kronk told it. On January 6, 2009, Corporal Mike Ruggiero talked to Kronk with the objective of evaluating Cain’s conduct. There was a disconnect between Cain’s and Kronk’s stories about what happened when they met by Suburban Drive that day. Cain’s account had both men traveling into the marshy area together to look around. Kronk’s version had neither man venturing in, scared off by a six-foot diamondback rattler Kronk had photographed two days earlier. Kronk said that Cain gave him the brush-off, was doubtful that there was a skull, threw a cursory glance into the woods, and somewhat rudely dismissed Kronk and his find.
A second deputy, Kethlin Cutcher, was also questioned that same day about Kronk’s August 13 call to police. He confirmed Kronk’s story, saying that Deputy Cain was already exiting the swamp when he arrived and that Cain had told him it was just a bag of trash in the swamp. Deputy Cutcher never entered the wooded area, but he was able to see some “black plastic bags around.” At first it was hard to know for sure what happened that day in August, but eventually, too many discrepancies in Cain’s story made his account unravel. He finally agreed that neither he nor Kronk had gone into the swamp the day he met the meter man by his work truck on the afternoon of August 13. He was suspended from his duties for not investigating a lead properly, and had a disciplinary investigation pending when he put in his resignation with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
EVEN THOUGH IT SEEMED AS if Kronk