While I have posted crime stories off and on since I started blogging in the nineties it was the Natalee Holloway disappearance that really intrigued me and got me interested in crime blogging. It would be a few more years before I would make the switch and write about crime exclusively but Natalee and Joran van der Sloot turned on that little light bulb for me.
Van der Sloot has been in the news and on this site many times over the last five years, most recently when the German news agency RTL managed to get another confession out of him in 2009. He claimed to have dumped Holloway’s body in a marsh. Personally I think he just wanted another payday and that’s all the interview was about.
Anyway, Joran has apparently confessed to murdering 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez in Lima, Peru. According to most of the news sites I’ve come across since MSNBC posted this late last night Flores apparently saw information on his laptop about his involvement in Natalee Holloway’s murder or that tied him to it when she went snooping after he stepped out for coffee. When he was her on his computer Joran became enraged.
Van der Sloot reportedly said “I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life… she didn’t have any right.” I suppose as far as he was concerned that was enough for him to beat Stephany Flores to death and break her neck. Asshole.
Flores was found on June 1st by a receptionist at the hotel. A call had come from someone looking for van der Sloot and after she forwarded it nobody answered. About an hour later the receptionist noticed that he still owed money for two nights and went up to the room. Her knocks went unanswered and the television was blaring.
The receptionist’s boss told her to go back to the room and enter it using the spare key. She made a gruesome discovery at that point, finding Flores dead, clad only in a t-shirt and panties. Van der Sloot was nowhere to be found, having fled the hotel, and the country, about 8:30 that morning.
Van der Sloot was found in Chile on Thursday and arrested. He was returned to Peru on Friday.
He is slated to participate in a reenactment of the murder for the police in Lima today and could also be formally charged today as well.
On June 3, 2010, Van der Sloot was charged in the U.S. District Court of Northern Alabama with wire fraud and extortion for the amount of US$250,000 in exchange for information on the location of Natalee Holloway’s body and the circumstances surrounding her death. The criminal complaint filed with the court reveals that an advance amount of $15,000 had been wired from Alabama to the Netherlands on May 10, 2010. This followed a cash payment on the same day to Van der Sloot of $10,000 that was videotaped by undercover investigators in Aruba. Authorities determined the information that Van der Sloot provided in return turned out to be false. Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the extortion plot for the money, which was used by Van der Sloot to finance his trip to Lima, Peru. U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance issued an arrest warrant to go through Interpol in an effort to prosecute Van der Sloot in the United States. On June 4, at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, authorities raided and confiscated items from two homes in the Netherlands, one of them belonging to reporter Jaap Amesz who had previously interviewed Van der Sloot and claimed knowledge of his criminal activities. Police in Aruba are preparing to launch new searches on the island for Holloway’s remains near a hotel where she was last seen and a dam at Monserat.
I started getting into writing about crime back around the time that Natalee Holloway disappeared and have posted about the case a handful of times over the last five years. The most recent was probably the video of Joran confessing to an undercover reporter a couple of years ago. Here’s the video”
Of course the bastard and his friends are still running free, so you can see how much good that did…
Now he’s gone and done it again. This time Joran Van der Sloot has confessed again, according to the German news agency RTL. According to them Van der Sloot confessed to dumping her body in a swamp after she accidently fell off of a balcony and died after hitting her head.
Personally I think he’s full of shit and just enjoys the attention, although with most lies there is a grain of truth in them.
Back at the beginning of September I wrote about something that I had run across at Diario as well as on Greta Van Susteren’s show notes/blog. Basically a witness had come forward who could place Joran Van Der Sloot as well as his father near the Monserrat Dam around 4AM on the morning that Natalee disappeared. The witness felt that the Aruban police had just blown him off and had been very hostile toward him, which is why it had taken him so long to come forward with the information again. The news has been picking up steam over the last couple of months and now they are thinking about reopening the investigation again.
That new witness coupled with the videotaped confession from Joran earlier this year may just be enough information to get them to reopen the case. If that’s not enough apparently an ex-girlfriend has also come forward with some suspicious sounding comments that Joran made at the time as well. CNN has some of the information up on both of these witnesses.
The lead Aruban prosecutor Hans Mos says that they hope to make a decision by the end of the year as to whether they are going to arrest van der Sloot again or not. That’s if they can find him of course.
Updated 10/14/08 – Casey Anthony has been indicted by a grand jury on seven counts including 1st Degree Murder and is in police custody. More info here.
Updated October 10th 2:15pm – Jose Baez held a press conference earlier this afternoon along with Casey Anthony and announced that if the Grand Jury indicts her with homicide charges she will turn herself in to authorities. How nice of her.
Updated October 10th 2008 9:00am – This is an extremely long post so I have moved the older stuff to the extended entry. The latest update is here at the top, older stuff down below and there are 40+ posts concerning the Caylee Anthony case over the last few months that can be found in the Caylee Anthony archives if you are really bored and want to see what I have posted. I have not been updating this case lately, partly because it’s the same old drama from her family with nothing new and partly because I’ve been on vacation for the last week. This is one of the first posts I wrote about the case back in July, which explains why I am using it for the update.
Anyhow, what’s new with the case?
Well, the Grand Jury meets today and may be deciding whether or not to indict Casey Anthony on Murder charges or anything else more serious than the bullshit she’s already charged with. The State Attorney, Lawson Lamar, will be questioning witnesses in front of the Grand Jury which is allowed to ask witnesses questions and can also call specific witnesses. The state can’t force anyone to testify that doesn’t want to and prosecutors also have to question any witnesses that can offer evidence that might clear Casey Anthony. It’s expected that George Anthony, Casey’s father, will be called to testify before the Grand Jury, as well as detectives in the case. Grand Juries are not open to the public, nor is the media allowed in the proceedings. When a Grand Jury is called they can also choose to deal with issues other than the one at hand although that rarely happens. Also, since there is no statute of limitations for Murder, the grand jury could indict Casey Anthony on murder charges and the State of Florida wait to pursue them whenever they are ready.
While I have always been interested in crime news and the freakish things that people will do it was the Natalee Holloway disappearance back in 2005 that really started getting me interested in crime blogging, although it would be three years before I started doing it to the exclusion of other stuff. Over the last three years our eyes and ears have been filled with images of Natalee, Joran van der Sloot and a myriad of characters, not unlike the Caylee Anthony disappearance/murder.
Over the last three years we have also been treated to the musings of a pathological liar who enjoys being in the spotlight. I am referring of course to Joran van der Sloot.
There are a few shows I try my best not to watch on television. Not difficult considering I watch very little TV anyway but I avoid Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren like the plague along with all the other talking heads. At least on the Internet I don’t have to ‘listen’ to the incessant shrieking.
It appears that van der Sloot has decided to ‘come forward’ now that he’s in the news again and give an interview with Greta. This time he’s claiming to have sold Natalee as a sex slave. That’s actually one of the stories that was circulating back in 2005 which might lend it some credence but come on. Is there really anyone alive that seriously believes a thing that creepy boy Joran van der Sloot has to say?
This is one unsolved mystery that I think is likely to stay unsolved forever.
Updated 10/14/08 – Casey Anthony has been indicted by a grand jury on seven counts including 1st Degree Murder and is in police custody. More info here.
Texas EquuSearch is officially going to Florida to help on the Caylee Anthony search. Caylee’s grandmother called our director, Tim Miller and Tim agreed that we could assist on the search. Beth Holloway, Natalee Holloway’s mother will be with us assisting this weekend. We need everyone’s special prayers on bringing Caylee home safely. Our children make up 25% of our population, but 100% of our future.
Texas EQ has been looking for missing persons since 2000. Tim Miller’s daughter Laura Miller was abducted and murdered in 1984 and the team is dedicated to her memory and is composed of volunteers. If you will remember, they were involved in the search for Natalee Holloway in Aruba after her disappearance as well. For more information on Texas EQ check out CourtTV’s Crime Library “A Profile of Tim Miller and Texas EquuSearch“.
AMW has the story up now at this link. According to them Ernesto is know to the police as a substance abuser.
Police are still searching for Giovanni and today targeted the search on the Pine Grove Cemetary using long poles to probe the underbrush as well as K-9 cadaver dogs, although the State Police said that the hunt continues as a search-and-rescue mission rather than a body recovery exercise. Right now they are trying to cover all of their bases and rule out areas where he might be.
Over the weekend searchers aided by the FBI were stopping cars and handing out flyers that described Giovanni. They are also using roadblocks in Lynn to hand them out as well and are hoping that the flyers will jog someone’s memory that might have seen him on Saturday, the last day that anyone saw him.
He may also be featured on America’s Most Wanted this week, although we won’t know about that until tomorrow.
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Update – August 24th 2008
According to the Dreamin’s Demon a mop and a bottle of Lysol that were found in the apartment belonging to Ernesto Gonzalez has tested positive for the presence of blood. Law enforcement has also taken some other stuff as evidence from the home including a belt, trash bags, a couple of knives, a computer and a cell phone.
I mentioned below that Ernesto was claiming that he hadn’t seen Giovanni since the prior weekend but apparently he took the boy to a behavioral therapist on Saturday from 11AM until 12:30PM. The therapist did see father and son together at that time. Other than neighbors who claim to have seen them Saturday afternoon it’s the last corroborated sighting of Giovanni.
America’s Most Wanted, also has a report up about the case which includes only the actual facts thus far.
Bad Breeders has a post up which asks a question that got me in trouble a couple of years ago. The disappearance of Giovanni is amazingly like what’s going on with Caylee Anthony yet it’s not getting the same airtime from Greta, Nancy, FOX news or anyone else for that matter, and Trench Reynolds wants to know why. Actually I am pretty sure he, like me knows why (does that make any sense?) but is just putting the question out there.
It’s because most of the main stream media are racist, mainly due to the fact that the people that watch them 24 hours a day are as well. Giovanni is a handsome young kid and while I am pretty sure his father killed him he still deserves as much respect and attention as Caylee Anthony. So where the fuck is the media on this?
It’s called Missing White Woman Syndrome. I’ve mentioned it here before on occasion as far back as 2005 when Natalee Holloway went missing and I was blasted in my comments because I mentioned it. I was accused by black people of being a racist, accused by white people of being black, it was ridiculous. All in all there were about a hundred and forty four comments (some my own) and it really shows what a bunch of fucking racists people really are.
Here’s another one for ya’. This story has had 22 page views since I posted it yesterday morning. The Caylee Anthony posts have over 50,000 in the last month. Some of those will be repeats but it damn sure shows something, and it’s not anything good. Nobody cares about Giovanni and that sure as hell sucks.
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Daisy Colon dropped her son, Giovanni Gonzalez, off with his father Ernesto Gonzalez for a supervised visit last weekend. That was on Friday afternoon, August 18th. On Sunday she went to pick him up and he wasn’t there. Gonzalez claims he ever saw him over the weekend and denies he was ever there, although the neighbors say that they saw both the father and son outside the apartment building on Saturday afternoon.
Ernesto is a native of Puerto Rico and is employed as a machine operator at Old Neighborhood Foods (a meat packing company?) in Lynn, Massachusetts. He is currently being held in the Essex County House of Corrections in Middleton charged with child endangerment. He is being extremely uncooperative and refusing to help police find his son.
Giovanni Gonzalez is described as a Hispanic male, weighs 40 pounds, is about 4-foot-2 and has a slight birthmark on his inner left ankle. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a red shirt and “Spiderman” sandals. He was also holding a black “Transformers” backpack.
Monday, August 18, 2008
LYNN, Mass. — The Massachusetts State Police and Lynn Police issued an endangered child advisory for a missing 5-year-old boy on Monday.
Giovanni Gonzalez was last seen on Friday, August 15 at 4 p.m. in the area of 2 Brightwood Terrace in Lynn.
He weighs approximately 40 pounds and is 49 inches tall with black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing blue denim jeans, a red T-shirt, a silver braided chain and black Spiderman sandals.
He was carrying a black backpack that had the Transformers robot character on it, and which contained some on his clothes and toys. He has a faded skin pigmentation mark on the lower right side of his chest and a small scare above his eyebrow.
The child’s father, Ernesto Gonzalez, 36, was arrested Monday and charged with child endangerment in connection with the boy’s disappearance. Despite the arrest, Giovanni’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or Lynn Police at 781-595-2000.
The vibe I am getting around the forums and web sites I frequent lean in one of two directions; one that he has sent his son to Puerto Rico and the other, well, let’s just say he works at a meat packing plant…The problem with the first assumption is that he doesn’t own a car, have many known friends and just doesn’t have a ton of resources to hide a missing child.
Police ARE still operating on the presumption that Giovanni is alive. They have searched all manner of businesses in the area as well as dumpsters, a nearby cemetary and a pond near the apartment as well. Investigators also say that Ernesto refuses to explain a cut on his hand and how he got it.
The FBI has also joined in the investigation now and are helping in the search.
Casey Anthony will be getting out of jail tomorrow. More info here.
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Update – August 18th 2008 9:01 pm
I am now posting any updates to the case on the main page of the site. You can find them by clicking the home link, subscribing to my RSS feed, or if you just want Caylee news you can check the Caylee Anthony category page. Although I won’t update this particular entry except in the case of extremely important breaking news I will leave the comments open.
Update – August 15th 2008 7:30PM
I just shot an email off to Leonard Padilla requesting an email interview. I doubt he will respond, particularly as I have been pretty snarky about the whole family but you never know. I do have a couple of questions in mind but if any of you guys have specific questions you would like asked, leave them in the comments and I will ask them should he or one of his staff provide the interview. Thanks…
Leonard Padilla and Robert Disk have a pretty cool site about what they do and some of the fugitives over here.
Update – August 15th 2008 7:15PM
I knew I recognized the name Leonard Padilla from something other than Julie Padilla. He’s on a show called Bounty Hunters on National Geographic Channel. I wonder if they will be filming while they are with Casey. Seems like even more of a PR ploy now.
Padilla has said though that they are doing this because they want to find the baby. As I mentioned earlier there is always the off chance that Casey is telling the truth or even if she’s not they might be able to find the location from her.
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Update – August 15th 2008 5:45PM
Police have discounted local media reports that they had traced cell phone calls made by Casey to a remote area near the airport according to FOX news. Orange County detectives says that the reports of mobile phone calls made by Casey Anthony from a remote area around the time that Caylee was last seen are bullshit.
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Updated – August 15th 2008 5:30PM
I’ve been waiting on this. Apparently Casey Anthony is finally going to make bail after all. Leonard Padilla is a bounty hunter from California and his nephew Tony Padilla is a bail bondsman. They are hoping to have Casey Anthony out on bail by Monday. Thanks for the info Jane. I appreciate you guys helping to keep me apprised of new events in the case.
ORLANDO — A California bounty hunter and a bail bondsman are expected to be coming to Central Florida to bail out Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, 22.
News 13 spoke with bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, and his nephew, Tony Padilla, who is a bail bondsman.
They said they’ll be flying into Orlando International Airport Sunday afternoon, and will try to schedule a meeting with Casey’s lawyer, Jose Baez.
They said they are hoping to post the $500,000 bond on Monday.
The Padilla’s said they’re doing this to “find the baby.”
It means that the Padilla’s think they can find Casey and recover the reward as well as get back their bond. I am assuming they plan on sticking to Casey like flies on shit. It’ll be a bitch if she can ditch them and get away…There’s always the extremely remote and unlikely chance that she’s actually telling the truth about at least one thing and that Caylee is alive and she knows who has her…
Then again monkeys might fly out of my ass at any time. It’s certainly more likely than Casey Anthony telling the truth about anything even remotely related to the disappearance of her three-year-old daughter.
According to the Orlando Sentinel Tony Padilla Bail Bonds is affiliated with a Houston Texas based company, Financial Surety, which is licensed in Florida. That’s how it’s legal for the California company to assist with her bond.
Leonard Padilla’s family has been in the bail bond business for three decades and handled several high profile cases. He believes the child is alive and that Anthony is not a flight risk, he said.
“We want to see Caylee found,” Leonard Padilla said.
The Anthonys also have a spokesman now. Larry Garrison is speaking on behalf of the Anthonys. He was a spokesperson in the Natalee Holloway case as well as in the John Mark Carr case. Carr was the guy that lied and said he had killed JonBenet Ramsey.
I did a quick search and it has nothing to do with this case whatsoever but apparently Tony Padilla made a $4800 donation to the Julie Padilla for Congress campaign in 2006 so they are obviously no strangers to the media.
Keep on sending me updates. I appreciate it and will repost them here for you folks!
Updated August 15th 2008 1:55PM
Police have been using Casey Anthony’s cell phone records to zero in on where she was spending time, particularly in the three day period from June 16th-18th. Here is the log of calls that has so far been released:
Casey’s cellphone calls on June 16th, 2008
3:03pm – George Anthony’s Cell (67 min to the next call) *Casey’s father
4:10pm – Cindy Anthony’s Work (1 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother
4:11pm – Cindy Anthony’s Cell (2 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother
4:13pm – Cindy Anthony’s Cell (1 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother
4:14pm – Cindy Anthony’s Work (5 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother
4:19pm – Anthony Lazzaro (2 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s Boyfriend
4:21pm – Jesse Grund (3 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s ex-Boyfriend
4:24pm – Cindy Anthony’s Cell (8 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother
6:32pm – The Anthony Home (1 minute to the next call) *Casey’s mother and father’s house
6:33pm – Voicemail (33 minutes to the next call) *
7:06pm – The Anthony Home (14 minutes to the next call) *Casey’s mother and father’s house
7:20pm – Amy Huizenga (? anymore calls after that) *Casey’s close friend at the time
June 17th’s Tuesday’s records were not revealed
June 18th Casey’s Call Log
12:33pm – The Anthony Home
12:34pm – Cindy Anthony’s Cell
12:35pm – The Anthony Home
12:36pm – George Anthony Cell
1:09pm – Cindy Anthony’s Cell
1:11pm – The Anthony Home
Obviously if there is anything LE thinks is pertinent they are going to leave out, such as the calls from the 17th.
I’ve been hanging out over at WebSleuths Forums and the links below pertain to official documents and information in the case. Thanks to LoraKai for posting them over in the forums. I have blatantly stolen them and reposted here. Head over to WebSleuths and take part in the discussion if you have anything good to share.
Eyewitness News Reveals Remote Area Casey Anthony Made Call From
POSTED: 5:11 pm EDT August 14, 2008
UPDATED: 5:23 pm EDT August 14, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. — Woods and water are the perfect place to hide a body and the one place no one reported Casey Anthony ever visited until now. Channel 9 uncovered what could be a major break in the Caylee Anthony case.
June 17 is the day after little Caylee was last seen alive and it’s the same date that Eyewitness News tracked Casey Anthony’s location to an area near the Orlando International Airport. From a satellite map the dense woods and ponds around the airport. The more information investigators get, the more locations come into the picture.
Channel 9 has learned that the day after Caylee disappeared, Casey was in a somewhat remote area just a few miles from the Anthonys’ home. Channel 9 has learned doc uments show that, for some reason, Casey Anthony came to the area less than ten minutes and less than five miles from her parents’ Lee Vista home. There are acres of woods and scrub and there’s lots of water. By day, there’s very little traffic that comes through the area and not much lighting at night.
Channel 9 has obtained maps showing how many AT&T cell phone towers there are in two key areas investigators are focused on. There are 15 cell towers within a ten mile radius of Caylee Anthony’s grandparents’ house, where Caylee’s grandfather said he last saw her alive on the afternoon of June 16.
There are 37 AT&T cell phone towers within ten miles of the apartment where Casey said she last saw Caylee alive on June 9, sometime between 9:00am and 1:00pm when she dropped Caylee off with the babysitter on her way to work.
It’s known that Casey had no job and that Caylee did not disappear on June 9. Caylee’s grandmother had stuck with Casey’s version about June 9 until detectives confronted Cindy Anthony with video she herself had taken of Caylee during a visit with her great-grandfather in Mt. Dora on Father’s Day, June 15.
“I couldn’t remember going on father’s day because I go almost every week but I don’t take Caylee that often,” Cindy Anthony said during Casey’s bond hearing.
“Are you lying to investigators? Purposely misleading them?” WFTV reporter Kathi Belich asked Cindy on Thursday.
Also thanks to whomever anonymously posted it here in the comments.
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Update – August 14th 2008 5:55 AM
Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday afternoon.
Law Enforcement must be growing tired of the Anthony’s efforts to spin the media in their conspiracy theories and lies. They came out yesterday and announced that if the information doesn’t come from them it’s not true. So far that has seemed to be the case.
“The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is not going to put information out there that’s not going to benefit finding the child,” Chief Mark Strobridge said. “We are not going to try this case everywhere else but in a courtroom.”
In what has become her usual fashion Cindy Anthony had a response to that announcement.
Asked about Thursday’s statement, Caylee’s grandmother, Cindy Anthony, said that her family is as trustworthy a source of information as the Sheriff’s Office.
“Unless you hear it from us or the police, it’s not true,” Cindy Anthony said. “We are only going to state the facts. Anything else is speculation.”
I came across a story yesterday evening over at WESH in Orlando. A couple that lives in an apartment complex in the area claims to have pictures of Caylee Anthony and says that just as soon as they contacted the police the people disappeared.
According to the Moseleys two men, a woman and a little girl were staying two doors down from them in the apartment on Anderson Street. They last saw the girl on July 17th.
“What happened there, I don’t know, but he came back and told my wife that the child is identical to Caylee, and that the only difference was her nose,” Ronnie Moseley said.
Orlando police called this a false sighting, meaning that the hair and some facial features do not match Caylee.
Grandmother Cindy Anthony went to Moseleys house to look at the photos.
“I don’t know. The police have the pictures. It looks like it could be, but we never saw her face. The shape and everything looks like her, but she had a hat on so it was hard to see,” she said told WESH 2 News.
LYNX said the video for the particular bus route on July 10 has been recorded over.
Later on Wednesday, Cindy Anthony said the Orange County Sheriff’s Office told her that the child in the Moseleys’ photos had been located and she is not Caylee.
Investigators urge the public not to get discouraged by this sighting that turned out to be false, and to continue to report any information.
So was it a real sighting or are the Moseleys mad because police told them it was not Caylee and so they decided to get their fifteen minutes of fame in the media?
Police are also still combing through Casey Anthony’s cell phone records hoping to track where she was during the time when Caylee disappeared. Sometimes the records will show where a person was, for instance if you are in the middle of a call when it’s handed off to a new cell tower.
Investigators called Casey’s parents and brother victims in this case. That’s why they were careful when addressing George Anthony’s claims on Tuesday that Caylee was kidnapped and that the family may even be watching the people responsible. Investigators said if they receive any credible information that would help them find Caylee they would bring it to the public immediately.
Cindy Anthony said the family is out doing its own investigation and looking into tips and leads, including possible tips about the missing baby sitter who, Casey Anthony said, has Caylee.
The story over at WESH has quite a bit of information as well as an updated timeline.
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Update – August 12th 2008 3:05PM
According to Randi Kaye on Anderson 360 George and Cindy Anthony want Casey out of jail so that she can give them whatever information it is that she’s holding back. Bullshit. That’s as bad as the damned psychics that are looking for Caylee. George Anthony and Cindy Anthony say that they have an idea of who has taken Caylee and they are watching them. Whatever.
Lee Anthony was scheduled to meet with his sister this morning at 9AM and in a turnaround he has canceled his visit with her but gave no reason. According to a jail supervisor his visit may be rescheduled for later in the week. According to WESH in Orlando Jose Baez says that the family is just trying to protect Caylee because tapes of the video visitations are made public.
Sounds like even more horsecrap to me.
I’ll try and post more of the day’s updates this evening.
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Update – August 11th 2008 9:30PM
There are several items I want to post from today, let’s go through the list:
1. Jose Baez, the attorney for Casey Anthony says that the disappearance of Caylee Anthony is “eerily similar” to the disappearance of Maddie McCann in May of 2007. I got the info over at Local 6 News in Orlando. Sure, they are similar in that they were both toddlers that disappeared but that’s pretty much where the similarities disappear. At least in Portugal while they don’t have a suspect there was a man seen leaving the area carrying a girl that looked like Maddie. Although they might have been at a resort or apartment, the parents were remiss in leaving their children at home and they are both due a serious smackdown for being so fucking stupid. Since they recklessly endangered their child I guess maybe the cases are somewhat similar. The big difference is that the McCanns, while being irresponsible didn’t kill or cause their child to disappear. It’s pretty clear that Casey Anthony either killed, caused to be killed or allowed her child to be taken from her and has lied about it ever since. Jose Baez is just trying to spin it to garner some goodwill for his client so that when she goes in front of the jury there will be some reasonable doubt.
2. The Orange County jail has released the contents of a new phone call from Casey Anthony to her brother Lee:
“Hey Case,” Lee Anthony said.
“Hey, I need a favor,” Casey Anthony said.
“Sure,” Lee Anthony said.
“Can you get a hold of Jose and have him come see me as soon as he can, like today at some point?” Casey Anthony said.
“Yeah, let me give him a call,” Lee Anthony said.
“Yeah, if you could do that, I would greatly appreciate it,” Casey Anthony said. “You know, give my love obviously but I only have a minute to talk so…”
“OK, yeah, I’ll do that right now,” Lee Anthony said.
“OK, I appreciate that,” Casey Anthony said.
“All right, love you,” Lee Anthony said.
“Love you too,” Casey Anthony said
3. The motion before the 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach to lower Casey Anthony’s bond has been denied for a second time. Her lawyers filed the motion last week trying to seek a re-hearing for Casey. The court did grant Anthony’s lawyer’s request to keep the motion sealed. I would be interested in finding out exactly what is in the motion that her attorneys want to keep from the public eye.
4. George and Cindy Anthony were back at the sheriff’s office again today to speak to investigators. According to Cindy Anthony the visit had been scheduled last week.
5. Casey is scheduled to have another visit from her brother at 9AM tomorrow morning. I wonder if she is going to cancel this one too? She has already canceled two family visits in the last week.
6. The psychics are starting to come in the case now. Gale St. John has a team called the “Body Hunters” that have been featured on CourtTV, Discovery Channel and Larry King Live and they were supposed to be blind driving around the area today to try and find Caylee. Seems like a lot of fucking mumbo jumbo to me. They also took two search dogs with them. Apparently Ms. St John has a couple of TV shows so this kind of heavily reported case should be good for her ratings. Whatever. I don’t necessarily disbelieve in stuff like that. I am a big believer in the fact that some people just can sense stuff that the rest of us can’t but I tend to be skeptical about folks involved in the public eye I suppose.
In her defense, they did help to solve the Stacey Hendrickson murder but then again you can’t be wrong all of the time. I don’t really know enough yet about this group of people to judge them but I do know that most of the forums I read don’t have a lot of good things to say about the Body Hunters and won’t even post the link to their site.
7. The Body Farm up at the U of Tenn is going to be testing some air samples from Casey’s car. There is some pretty cool research that goes on at the body farm and they have really helped out in a lot of cases with new technology such as being able to find evidence of human decomposition from air samples.
That’s it right now. I haven’t had the chance to check the comments for new info yet but will be shortly. If you have any other links and info please feel free to share them with us there.
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Update – August 10th 2008 9:30 PM
For the second time this week Casey Anthony has canceled a visit at the jail from her family. Her parents were scheduled to visit her at 9PM this evening and she has not given a reason for canceling the meeting. It’s pretty obvious though. Everyone is seeing through her lies and maybe she is accepting the facts of what she has done now.
The hair and DNA samples are complete now and have been turned over to law enforcement agencies.
I don’t normally post these but someone from Websleuths put up a Caylee tribute on YouTube yesterday so I thought it deserved a link.
Casey apparently had quite a web presence. It’s not that uncommon. Heck, you can find me all over the web myself. Luckily I haven’t killed anyone yet I guess. Here are some of the links:
It seems as though whenever anyone on the major forums posts a link to photos they are being taken down very quickly…
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Update – August 9th 2008 8:45PM
Happy Birthday Caylee, wherever you are.
Kind of sucks. Caylee Anthony is three years old today. If she’s still alive and that’s a pretty long shot.
Cathy posted a link over to WESH in Orlando in the comments. I don’t think they mind, it just means more traffic for them I’m sure. Anyhow, they have updated their story here.
Casey’s boyfriend, Tony Lazarro, spoke to WESH 2 on Friday.
Lazarro is the one person that Casey pleaded to speak with when she called her family’s home from jail.
His cell phone now has a message on it saying that he has no comment for members of the media.
When Lazarro spoke to WESH 2, he said he is surprised by the amount of media attention he is getting. He said he hasn’t spoken to Casey at least since her arrest, and that he is considering filing a lawsuit for protection against the media
More updates tomorrow. I will actually get home at a decent time tomorrow afternoon (he crosses his fingers).
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Update – August 8th 2008 2:40PM
I’ve had a busy couple of days and thus have not been updating the story on this case so there is quite a bit of new information but nothing that would be good news for Caylee. Quite a bit of it has been posted in the comments in one form or another thanks to several commenters including Cathy. Keep letting us know about new leads in the case as you folks hear them.
According to the Orlando Sentinel Casey Anthony’s attorneys filed a motion this morning for another hearing in the 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach. They are asking the appellate court for a reduction or reconsideration in the $500,200 bond that was set by Circuit Court Judge Stan Strickland. The court file is still with the judges so I don’t have any other information on that.
Lee Anthony, Casey’s brother went to visit her in jail today and she refused to leave her cell and see him. She’s been in jail for a few weeks now and this is the first time she’s refused to see one of her family members. Possibly because of all of the new damning evidence that’s turning up. It may all be circumstantial but once there is a ton of it things start looking bad.
There is a retention pond near the Anthony’s house on Hopespring Drive and right now Orange County Sheriff’s divers are searching it. Supposedly they haven’t had any tips or evidence but they are doing it as part of their monthly training. I guess one of them must have said “Hey guys, instead of our normal training lets go looking for dead little girls” WTF?
Here’s a map of the area. The retention pond sits just north of Lee Vista Blvd and judging by the photos from the street view at Google Maps there are houses or town homes that sit between the road and the retention pond.
The retention pond is just south of the Anthony’s home, which looks to be right in the same neighborhood, just a few streets over as a matter of fact.
Orange County detectives also released some more details yesterday concerning the search warrant executed at the house earlier this week. They took around a dozen articles of clothing from the closet as well as stuff Caylee had used such as toothbrushes, a comb and an oral thermometer. They also collected court ordered DNA samples from Casey Anthony in jail the same day. I don’t understand why it’s taken them so damn long to take the samples in the first place.
In addition to the clothes taken by Orange County the second visit to their home by the Crime Scene Technicians was because Cindy Anthony had called them to turn in a pair of pants and two pairs of shoes that she had removed from the car and washed because they stank like the car before reporting Caylee missing.
On a weird side note authorities from Orange County met with former lawman Mark Fuhrman for about a half an hour “meet and greet”. They won’t release any further details in that but Fuhrman was a highly decorated detective with the Los Angeles Police Department prior to the O.J. Simpson debacle.
He was on Greta Van Blustery’s show Wednesday and said he had learned about a “flurry” of phone calls made from Casey Anthony’s cell phone to her parents and friends on June 16th when she would have been alone at the house with Caylee.
Cathy and others have mentioned several items that I have also posted about Casey Anthony and the web of lies that has been spun. Among them are some of the following,
Casey Anthony told investigators she received a brief call from 2-year-old Caylee about noon July 15, the day the child was reported missing. Investigators subpoenaed Anthony’s cell-phone records and found no such call. The two closest incoming calls came from her boyfriend at 12:13 a.m., and from someone named Kyle about 3:35 p.m.
Anthony told investigators that Caylee’s baby sitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, lived with a woman who worked as a hostess at a T.G.I. Friday’s. Investigators spoke with a T.G.I. Friday’s corporate representative who told them they had no employee by the name Anthony gave.
Anthony said she told two people about Caylee’s disappearance, both of whom supposedly worked with her at Kodak for Universal Studios. Detectives learned Kodak had no employment records for either person.
Detectives obtained some of Anthony’s e-mails and found one that appeared to be from a worker at Universal Studios, where Anthony said she worked as an event planner. The supposed sender of the e-mail, about an upcoming Universal event, does not work for the company and the e-mail domain of the sender’s address was invalid.
I did finally see a copy of the subpoenas to Facebook and Myspace, which you can view in PDF format
here. It asks for “Any and all internet usage activity of record, whether current or deleted from the internet user’s page, including but not limited to: private messages, page comments, friends, friend requests, blogs, bulletins, IP addresses from visitors viewing profile, etc., which pertain to CASEY MARIE ANTHONY. (Profile URL: www.myspace.com/kayseeomaree).
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Updates – August 7th 2008
Orange County detectives as well as a crime-scene technician have been back out at George and Cindy Anthony’s house again. They spent about an hour and left just before noon with another large bag of evidence. They aren’t commenting on what it is that they found and removed from the house but things certainly aren’t looking good for the Anthonys right now.
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Just got home from Open House at the kid’s school and saw a report where the crime lab technicians went back out to Caylee Anthony’s grandparent’s house this afternoon. Being as how both of the other posts were getting a bit long I am going to close comments there and start updating this thread instead with any new information. According to the Orlando Sentinel:
Crime scene technicians and investigators working the Caylee Anthony disappearance just arrived at the Anthony’s home. A couple of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office crime scene vans pulled up to the house on Hopespring Drive shortly after 2:40 p.m. The technicians walked out wearing blue gloves and carrying a box resembling a tackle box. They also carried a roll of black paper or fabric into the home. When asked what they were looking for, one of the detectives told reporters, “We’re working on it.”
Not a lot to work with but it sure does give one plenty to think about. Either they are just fishing for evidence or they have reason to believe there is more evidence at the house we don’t yet know about. The story has been updated at the Sentinel and according to Sgt John Allen of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department they had just finished executing a search warrant and left with five or six bags about half an hour ago.
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If you want more information then the Sentinel is a good place to start. Don’t stop there but there is a wealth of information over at their site for anyone interested.
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I was torn this evening. Watch the news channels while blogging or let the kids watch the new Spongebob. Spongebob and Patrick won out and now I am having a hard time holding my attention on what I am doing. Doh! Yeah, my level of humor is right around the fifth grade. Besides, I sat watching the news channels last night and it’s the same old crap anyway. It’s like a flashback from when Natalee Holloway went missing. Greta Van Susteren and Nancy Grace running their yaps showing the same old tired crap over and over. Nancy Grace sucks anyway and the thing is, they are just regurgitating stuff that’s been on the Internet and local news channels for days or weeks now. I was reading a really well-written commentary at the Orlando Sentinel by Scott Maxwell earlier this afternoon and I felt like it really pointed a few things out that I mentioned during the Natalee Holloway case. I was really interested in that one and posted several times over the months about it. What I really found interesting was the fact that the post that got the most attention was one I wrote entitled “What if Natalee Holloway Was Poor and Black?” It wasn’t even really a post. More like two sentences but it garnered more hits and comments than anything I have ever written on any of my web sites. People were calling me a racist, calling each other racists and just generally carrying on. A bunch of trolls and asshats is what most of them were. Basically Scott just points out that all of the media hullabaloo isn’t really helping anything. His very first line says “I’m watching Nancy Grace — and having trouble understanding why anyone else would do the same“. Damn, that says it all don’t it? When my wife walked through the room and saw what was on she was amazed that I was even watching the moron but there I was watching the “experts” and talking heads all discussing the case. Shit, the commenters and myself apparently know more about the case and have a greater understanding of what’s going on than most of them do. He also mentions that we are participating in a media circus. To that I will agree and I guess I’m guilty of it just as much as he was when he was writing the commentary in the first place. The he writes something that brings a tear to my eye:
Yet, all I can think about is little Caylee’s birthday. She’s supposed to turn 3 this Saturday. Right now, Caylee should be deciding which princess dress she wants to wear. She should be pressing her nose against the glass of the bakery counter, trying to figure out which cake has the most icing. She should be holding big crayons in her tiny hands to color invitations. But Caylee doesn’t even seem to be the focus anymore. Rather, this is crime as entertainment. A simple-minded distraction.
He’s right you know. Does that mean I am going to stop writing about? Hell no. If we keep the case in the public eye long enough and there is any slim chance in hell that Caylee Anthony is still alive then I want every damn person in America to know her face and call when they see her. I don’t think she’s alive though unfortunately. As I mentioned in my other posts, I think Caylee is worm dirt now. If there are angels then she is with them and if Casey Anthony had anything to do with it I hope she rots in jail to a ripe old age. Killing’s too good for her. I’ve emailed Scott Maxwell. Just to thank him for the article. It really points out some things about today’s media. Are we (bloggers) imitating the media or is it the other way? Loose accusations and statements with no backup information are a couple of examples. I expect that from non-paid normal folks but I guess I am a bit old fashioned and expect the truth from the “descendants” of Walter Kronkite, Tom Snyder and other folks like that.
Updated 10/14/08 – Casey Anthony has been indicted by a grand jury on seven counts including 1st Degree Murder and is in police custody. More info here.
Casey Anthony will be getting out of jail tomorrow. More info here.
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Not yet but it’s apparently happening as soon as early next week. A bail bondsman from California that has ties to a company license to operate in Florida will be bailing Anthony out of jail on Monday or Tuesday if his plans go well.
Will Anthony lead the bail bondsman to little Caylee? Is the bondsman just in it for the reward or does he really think that Caylee is alive and that Casey isn’t full of shit? I really see this as a PR effort on the part of the bondsman Padilla but maybe I am just too cynical.
The Anthony family also has acquired a professional spokesperson, which should cut down seriously on the media gaffs by Caylee’s grandparents.
More information and current discussion is going on here.
Apparently a dutch company has plans to make a movie “loosely based” on the disappearance of the Alabama girl who disappeared and was most likely killed in Aruba in 2005.
The Hollywood Reporter
AMSTERDAM — Dutch producer Hans Pos (Shooting Star Film Company) has announced plans for a Dutch feature film loosely based on the disappearance, and possible murder, of the U.S. student Natalee Holloway in 2005 on Aruba, one of the islands in the Dutch Antilles.
The case attracted a lot of publicity in the Netherlands and the U.S., as the main suspect was filmed with a hidden camera by crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, for a program for SBS Broadcasting of the Netherlands, which was subsequently nominated for an Emmy Award.
Pos will base the film, which he will also direct, on the crime novel “Vuurkoraal,” written by Dutch journalist Annet de Jong. Screenwriter Simon de Waal is currently working on the adaptation. Pos plans to release the film in 2009.
It’s only been a matter of time before they did it, I think everyone knew that. At least they waited three years. It would be nice if they would donate a portion of the proceeds to something like Texas Equusearch or one of the Missing Children networks.
Hopefully they will portray Joran as the scum-sucking piece of shit that he is as well.
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