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Casey Journal ink
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Phone call-threat to Amy H
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April 2010
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Miscellaneous Interview Transcripts

Robyn Adams Interview, Part 1 | Part 2

Thank you, Jonathan!

“I saw her eyes and they looked evil.”

- Laura Buchanan (hearsay)

This is what Buchanan’s friend, Anne W. Pham, told OCSO Corporal Yuri Melich in a lengthy transcript released today. Dated October 10, 2010, she said  that she and Buchanan searched Blanchard Park in September 2008. Buchanan claims she saw Casey after her release from jail on bond. Pham also remembered Buchanan telling her that searches off Suburban Drive were called off because “the water levels are really high.”

Pham told Melich that Buchanan told her Jose Baez only called her one time. Later, she claimed Buchanan said, “After all this [CENSORED] that I’ve heard after I wrote that statement…I could care less what they do to her…You know? All I did was tell the truth. Did not mean I was on her side… I simply feel sorry for, for George and Cindy.”

Pham also told Melich that she found it a little odd that Buchanan “was so interested in being a part of, you know, being on CNN and, um, the Nancy Grace show or whatever.” She described her as being a sensationalist. Buchanan had told the defense that she searched the area off Suburban Drive where Caylee was found. This was contrary to what Tim Miller of TES told searchers; that the water level was too high and to leave it alone. So far, everyone else who searched the woods also said the precise spot was too flooded to look, and Buchanan may have changed her tune when the State Attorney’s Office questioned her in a deposition.

“We would signal to each other, talk to each other, through hand gestures.”

- Robyn Adams

Adams figures prominently in today’s release in the form of audio recordings of a February 10, 2010 interview with an FDLE investigator. If you recall, she is the wife of a former Altamonte Springs police officer. In 2008, they were arrested after they were discovered to be operating a marajuana growing operation in Chuluota, a small community east of Orlando. Transcripts of her interviews were made public earlier. She was sentenced to 10 years inside a federal prison in Tallahassee.

In a series of recorded jail conversations between Adams and a friend, the friend asked her if she was still rooming with Casey and wondered how she was doing. Adams told her she didn’t seem good.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Adams said Anthony didn’t seem good.

“I’m praying for her every day,” she said.

The friend asked if Anthony is a basket case. “Pretty much,” Adams said.

The woman told Adams authorities found a body and believe it to be Caylee.

“I had a feeling that it might be, but nevertheless, it’s not my place to judge her,” Adams said.

“I’ve had a complete change of heart Mel since I’ve been here.”

In another conversation with her dad, Adams asked her father to pray for Anthony and her parents.

“They really need it,” Adams said.

 

Many of the released photos show shots taken from a helicopter over search areas after the toddler’s disappearance. Some of the other photos show TES ground searches.

 

A threatening phone call was made to Casey’s former friend, Amy Huizenga. Most of the call is inaudible.

“You need to listen and listen good,” a male voice threatens. “Those charges need to get dropped.” This was in reference to the check fraud charges she brought against Casey.

UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY AS INFORMATION COMES IN

Hot off the grill...

It's been almost two years since my friend Rick died. He drank himself to death. No matter how much I tried to rescue him from the bottle, he wanted no help, and in the end, it was alcohol that pushed him to an early grave. Years earlier, Rick ran an NCAA Basketball Tournament betting sheet where you pick 32 of the 64 team field, eliminating each bracket until only 2 teams remain to play the championship game. In this particular bet, there were two winners to split the pot. I was one of them. When it came time to collect, Rick made every excuse in the book. He forgot to bring the money. He forgot where he put it. After several weeks of this, I hit him with the truth, "You don't have the money. You spent it on booze."

Yup, he wasted money that didn't belong to him. Such is the life of an alcoholic. Of course, we now know where Todd Macaluso stands in the legal community after stepping down from Casey's defense team for writing worthless checks from a client’s trust account. It reminded me so much of Rick. I'm glad Todd entered the Alternative Discipline Program, which addresses the substance abuse and mental health problems of attorneys when disciplinary action is taken in the California State Bar Court.

304 days ago, Todd Macaluso stood before the Ninth Circuit Court of Florida, in front of Judge Stan Strickland, and made this blanket statement:

“There is substantial evidence that we’ve found … that the body or remains of Caylee Anthony were placed there after Casey Anthony was locked up. It proves that somebody else placed the remains in the area.”

For ten months, we were led to believe this would be the tack the defense would take at trial, based on statements made by TES searchers, off-record, who said the land where Caylee was found three months later was not flooded in September when they searched. What made this so senseless was the undisputed fact regarding summer weather in Central Florida. Roy Kronk said under oath that the woods were too flooded to enter in mid-August of 2008. Soon after he reported his sighting, T.S. Fay rolled into town, adding over 12" of rain to an already flooded and low-lying location. Come September, no one could go in there to search, and TES leader Tim Miller instructed his teams to keep away from areas under water; that it may destroy evidence.

I believe Cheney Mason was smart enough to recognize that, because yesterday, he did an abrupt about-face. Huh? What's this all about? In a post-hearing press conference, Mason said:

"They did not search the exact areas where the body was found. So everything they said before that is not relevant."

Did Brother Cheney speak out of school? Is he spanking the numero uno defense attorney, Jose Baez, by taking the lead, or is it part of an orchestrated effort because of one simple truth - the area was too flooded to search and the State has the proof to back it up? I think the answer is yes. The area WAS flooded and the statement of Macaluso past must be erased from the memory bank of future defense maneuvers. Of course, we won't discuss plant and insect forensic evidence at the moment. That comes later.

On July 16 of 2009, Jose Baez and Andrea D. Lyon filed two motions. One was to certify Tim Miller as a material witness and/or to subpoena him for documents in the possession of TES. The motion makes several claims:

1. "This area [8750 block of Suburban Drive] was searched by several individuals, including Orange County law enforcement and TES volunteers, between July and December 2008."
2. "Several searchers have made statements to Orange County law enforcement and to the media stating either that they searched the 8750 block of Suburban Drive with TES, or they encountered TES searchers in that area."
3. "... that Orange County law enforcement provided TES with documents identifying the area in question as an area of interest; that witnesses have made various statements (including in a sworn interview) to the effect that they searched the area in question on behalf of TES or saw TES searchers in that area..."

In another defense motion filed November 23 of 2009, the defense had this to say:

"The Defense, through its own independent investigation, has interviewed several TES searchers who not only searched the area where the remains were found, but who were not among the thirty-two (32) identified by TES."

This was the now famous motion containing the statements of Joseph Jordanand Laura Buchanan, in which the bold claim was made that:

"The signed statements from Joe Jordan and Laura Buchanan, included with this Memorandum of Law, indicate that there were several people who searched the Suburban Drive neighborhood but were not among the thirty-two (32) names disclosed by TES.

Why did the defense decide to run diametrically opposed to previous statements and motions? Clearly, this is something Cheney Mason conjured up because Jose Baez and Andrea Lyon filed motions that are contrary to this new revelation. They are also motions this defense did not win, and there lies the crux. Since this didn't work, let's try something else. Gone with the old, in with the new, and most certainly, Mason is not naive to the ins and outs of criminal defense strategies. Here's the brand new slant:

“What do you have that shows she was not there in June?” WFTV reporter Kathi Belich asked him.

“That's when Caylee was missing. We don't know when she disappeared,” he replied.

AHA! The linguistic switch! No one knows when Caylee disappeared. As President Clinton once responded, "It all depends on what your definition of isis," there are discrepancies in the meanings of missing and disappearing. I guess we could establish the fact that my keys may be missing if I lost them, but they certainly didn't disappear because they would have to be where I left them, unless, of course, they were taken by someone else. Then, they would have disappeared and they are missing. Got that? You see, it's all in the semantics. Instead of admitting it can't win the flooding argument, the defense concedes by manipulating the verbiage. What it will attempt to prove in court is that Casey lost Caylee, but she didn't disappear. It was precisely like losing a set of keys, only she wasn't where Casey last left her. Let's see... was that at Sawgrass, or was it at Jay Blanchard Park? Oh. She lost her at Sawgrass, but she disappeared from Blanchard. Today, Casey misses her more than anything else. Gotcha!

No matter what twist the defense tries, the prosecution is going to present evidence that shows Casey never lost her. She never went missing or disappeared in her mind because she knew exactly where she left her all along; in the woods on the southern side of Suburban Drive, 8750 block. What interests me now is one simple question about why the defense still needs those TES documents. If Cheney Mason has concluded that no one searched in those woods, what difference should it make? Has someone else, another TES member or an independent searcher, stepped forward; someone who looked inside at an earlier or later date when the ground was dry enough? Or is there a slim possibility that a searcher joined the TES team in order to conveniently dispose of a body? If that's the defense plan, then I could almost justify wanting to go through those records, especially now that Roy Kronk is no longer under a defense microscope as a suspect, as Cheney said. That's whole different story, too.

Whatever it is, it's a pickle. When Judge Belvin Perry denied the defense access to the illegal tape recording made by Joe Jordan, Mason knew it would have to shift gears. Jordan's defense statement was unreliable and would hold no credibility in court. Would Laura Buchanan's words be enough? I doubt it, but hopefully, we'll know more answers after the July 15 hearing, when the issue of TES records is heard, or by August 31, when the defense must present its list of witnesses. Most likely, what Mason uttered yesterday is just a new way to create an element of doubt; another soft-shoe shuffle. Personally, I think it's nothing more than hot air, something Mason and the summer months of Florida are famous for. And, they're all wet.

Caylee Marie Anthony

There are no public memorials scheduled for today that I am aware of, so in honor of Caylee, here is what I wrote last June 16.

"As much as you love Caylee, please... just don't forget the others."

- Richard Grund

Caylee loved butterflies, so it was no surprise that at the end of the memorial held on June 16 at Jay Blanchard Park, a basket holding butterflies was released to the skies along with balloons - with each balloon honoring a missing or murdered person. One of the butterflies flew right to the floral arrangement at the front of the pavilion.

In the beginning, Richard Grund said he was asked to hold the memorial on Suburban Drive but he said no, that was where something happened to Caylee and it's not how he wants to remember her. He wants to remember her running around and swinging, just like in that park. Then, he spoke of Caylee. He mentioned those who could not attend and he read a message from Marc Klaas, father of Polly Klaas and now a child advocate who established the KlaasKids Foundation. He spoke of his son, Jesse, who loved Caylee like his own daughter, even when he found out he wasn't her father. Most of all, he spoke of all children and how we must do everything we can to stop the innocent murders and crimes against our youth, here and around the world.

Children are born as babes in the woods. They are free from sin. How can anyone harm a child? This was his message to the few who came to listen; some who were a part of Caylee throughout her short life. They were friends, neighbors and strangers, but on this day, we were all together to remember the little angel named Caylee Marie Anthony and her presence was felt by all of us.

I'd guess there were about 40 people; not a big crowd, but a very comfortable one. Everyone was nice. One of the things I noticed was that these were ordinary people, the types you'd sit next to in church or at a casual restaurant, the ones you'd feel very comfortable with and easy to strike up a conversation with as you mill about. I had a chance to thank Richard for his dedication to Caylee and her memory. I spoke with Lois Peter and told her we had met the day Leonard Padilla was with the dive team. "As a matter of fact," I said, "you were at the top of my first blog post about this case. You were wearing your Caylee t-shirt."

"Back then," she responded, "I was coming to the park every day."

I spoke to a friend of hers who told me that her son was messed up on drugs and she had the chance to adopt his child, now four years old. She said she lives near the Anthonys and that place where she still cannot bring herself to drive by to this day. I thought about how her child will never get to meet Caylee now. She said another son went to school with Casey and no one would have believed this.

When the basket of butterflies was opened, only one flew out, the one that went to the flowers and stayed even when everyone was invited to take a rose. In the end, I took a carnation I will keep in a book with a note explaining where it came from. Dakota Skii wondered why the other butterflies were staying still. Were they dead? she wondered? No, I responded. They were a little shocked and dormant. That's their way of defending themselves and it was calming to her, reassured that the frail and beautiful creatures were safe from harm.

In the end, I was reassured, too, because everyone there was no different from anyone else. These were people who were moved by Caylee and it was a love fest of sorts. Everyone gathered to pay homage to her and to greet each other with open arms. It was not the largest crowd, but every heart was huge and I could feel it.

The memorial was organized by In Memory of Caylee Marie Anthony.

The following photographs were taken by me. I shot 72 pictures and selected many to show you. I hope each one tells a little story about what it was like and how comforting each person in attendance was. If you have any questions, please ask me. Each picture can be enlarged by clicking on it. It will open in a new page. Click it again. Thank you for taking the time to read this and take a look.

The images are in descending order - the way I took them.

The originals can be found HERE.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Photos © David B. Knechel 2009 – All rights reserved