http://www.wftv.com/news/17058741/detail.htmlFather Visits Casey Anthony In Jail, Leaves Without Answers
POSTED: 5:56 am EDT August 1, 2008
UPDATED: 6:45 pm EDT August 3, 2008
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- George Anthony visited his daughter in the Orange County jail, Sunday, to try to get more answers about the disappearance of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony.
Casey Anthony, Caylee's mother, is behind bars. She's charged with child endangerment and obstructing justice as deputies search for her daughter. Caylee has been missing for more than a month.
When George Anthony emerged from the emotional visit he said he had learned nothing new, but he did say that Caylee had given her attorney a letter that possibly contained clues about Caylee’s disappearance.
However, when Chanel 9 talked to Casey Anthony’s attorney, he said all of the talk about the letter is absurd. He said the letter doesn’t exist and he never asked for one in the first place.
It is still unclear if Casey is writing letters to her family. Casey’s father seemed frustrated and said he asked Casey tough questions. He also admitted his daughter had made mistakes.
Still, George insists his granddaughter is alive. He’s so confident she will return, he’s planning a birthday party for Caylee in just six days.
VIGIL: Anthony Family Raising Money For Search
EVIDENCE REMOVED: See Images | Watch Raw Video
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ARCHIVE: Read Previous Reports Related To Anthony Case
Friday, investigators went to the Anthony family home and removed gas cans. The cans were reported stolen in late June around the time Caylee may have disappeared. George Anthony said the cans were taken by a neighbor but admits his daughter had stolen gas from his home in the past. Sources close to the investigation say they don't believe the cans were used to burn or destroy evidence. But investigators do want to test the cans to see if they were near Caylee before she disappeared.
"We're passing information on that we get," said George Anthony. "What they do with it, I have no control over."
Anthony also reacted to a recent People Magazine article he believes took a negative view of his family.
"We've gotten blindsided," he said. "My wife and I cried when we read that article. What they told us of how it was going to be put together was totally different."
GROUP HELPS TO RAISE FUNDS
George Anthony appeared at a Publix shopping center Saturday to help pass out fliers with his granddaughter's picture on them. He said he plans on Monday to have a giant moving billboard with her image near where a car involved in the case was found a few weeks ago.
Anthony choked back tears, Friday night, as he looked out on a crowd of friends and strangers, leaving it to his son to explain what the family is feeling.
"Frankly every day is as hard as the first day," said Lee Anthony.
Carole Bernhardt understands. Eight years ago, someone snatched her then eight-year-old grandson, Zachary , from his bed in Clearwater while his family was sleeping.
"Everybody says, and they're wrong if they say it, 'We know how you feel,'" said Bernhardt.
She met the Anthonys for the first time and immediately connected with fellow grandmother, Cindy Anthony.
"As soon as she looked at me she hugged me and said, Thank God, you're here. You understand,'" said Bernhardt.
"They've had a child missing for eight years," said Cindy Anthony. "I don't know if I can go that long"
Both families have turned to the Kid Finder Network, a company Sheri Milstead and her husband founded to keep missing children in the public eye. It's already helped design and donate more than 60,000 fliers, almost a thousand T-shirts and several massive billboards with Caylee Anthony's photography.
And while the Milsteads say they've never experienced the loss of a child, they were touched by the high profile disappearance of Trenton Duckett two years ago in Lake County. They started their company after seeing that case.
MORE EVIDENCED SEIZED FROM HOME
Orange County sheriff's investigators took more evidence out of the Anthony home Friday morning as they continue their investigation into the disappearance of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. Deputies showed up at the house around 10:00am and left with two brown evidence bags which contained the gas cans..
"During the conversation with the Anthonys, things do come up sometimes, and then there was a need to go back there and retrieve these items," said Carlos Padilla of the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
George Anthony, the grandfather of missing Caylee Anthony and father of the missing girl's mother Casey, arrived at his home around 10:00am Friday with two detectives in a car and a Crime Scene Investigation van. George opened the garage door and allowed the two CSI investigators in.
Less than five minutes later, the two CSI investigators came out of the garage holding two oversized brown paper evidence bags.
George Anthony and the two detectives then got back into the car they arrived in and both them and the CSI van left the scene. Eyewitness News learned George Anthony returned to the sheriff's office where he and his wife Cindy were questioned until around 1:00pm.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office will not say how close detectives are to finding 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, but according to one investigator they need more hard evidence.
"Anything that we can get, any new information at all, whether it is from the lab or tips, that helps us find Caylee that much quicker," Padilla said.
Caylee's grandmother has her own theory about where her granddaughter might be, but she will not reveal it.
"I think with all agencies working forward and going as a team we will bring her home a lot faster," said Cindy Anthony.
NEW JAIL PHONE CALL MENTIONS "LETTER"
The family has been concerned about the Orange County jail releasing Casey's phone calls. In a new jailhouse phone call that was released late Thursday afternoon between arrested mother Casey Anthony and her brother Lee, he asks Casey about a letter she's supposed to write to help her family find Caylee.
Cindy said she doesn't know what will be in the letter, but she wanted to make sure the public won’t have access to it.
"If she writes something, we want to make sure it gets in the right hand too, we don't want someone reading something who has no authority reading it," said Cindy.
Casey told her brother Saturday that she'd send letters to the family and to her attorney, assuring her brother that the attorney couldn't stop the information from getting to the Anthonys. Thursday, five days later, she gave her brother an update on the letters.
"You know, how was the, uh, that letter thing?" Lee asks in the July 31 call.
"Um, well, when I get a chance to actually write a little bit more, I should be able to do that within the next little bit because I have, I guess, quote, rec time," Casey says.
FAMILY SAYS THEY'RE WORKING WITH INVESTIGATORS
Casey Anthony's attorneys plan to ask the Florida Supreme Court to step in and lower her $500,000 bond, but the state's highest court rarely gets involved in such cases. There could also soon be a decision as to whether Casey will be charged with the counts she's being held on, child neglect, obstruction of justice and making false official statements.
The investigation has gone from a search in Caylee Marie Anthony's grandparents' backyard, after cadaver dogs alerted detectives to an area, to the Amscot where Caylee's mother abandoned her car. Investigators are chasing down every sound lead they get and trying not to waste any time.
Investigators are analyzing phone and credit card records to trace Casey Anthony's tracks over the month that she and Caylee were separated from the family. Casey's mother said she has the phone records, too, but won't talk about them or whether she's found evidence that Casey really did get a call from Caylee the day Caylee was reported missing.
"Our whole family spent the entire day yesterday sharing things with the authorities. So, again, we cannot impede their investigation," Cindy said Thursday. "I cannot give you names of people potentially linked to this thing."
Casey's brother tried recently to get the phone number for the mysterious babysitter from Casey, but he got the same thing investigators have gotten, the runaround.
"It was through a private call," Casey told him during a jailhouse phone call.
A private number is one that you can't trace or automatically redial, but that's different than what she told a 911 dispatcher two weeks ago.
"I actually received a phone call today, now from a number that is no longer in service," she told the 911 dispatcher.
Sources also told Eyewitness News that it's believed that Casey and her brother are talking in code during phone conversations, because they know they're being recorded and it may be partly because they were trying for some reason to circumvent Casey's attorney in getting information to investigators.
It's unlikely that Casey Anthony would be granted total protection from prosecution, if that's in fact what her attorney is looking for. If the case turns out to be a homicide, as prosecutors have said is very possible, Casey Anthony could be prosecuted even if Caylee is not found, investigators said.
