Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story Read Online Free Page A

was missing. And Lewis wasn’t found in the company’s database.
    Melich called Casey from Universal and asked for the name of her supervisor.
    “Tom Frank,” she told him.
    He also asked for Casey’s number at work and her extension.
    Melich checked the database. No supervisor by the name of Tom Frank existed, and though she knew the main number for the Universal Studios switchboard, extension 104 didn’t exist. Melich asked for the building number. Casey said she couldn’t remember it.
    Melich told her, “I’ll have an officer pick you up, and you can meet me here at Universal. We’ll go find your office and we’ll talk to some people here to see if we can find Jeff Hopkins or Juliet Lewis.”
    She cheerfully agreed.
    Around noon Allen drove over and picked her up with Officer Appling “Appie” Wells. Casey had not slept all night . During the early morning, Casey and Cindy had been building Facebook and Myspace pages in their attempt to spread the word about Caylee’s disappearance. They were texting hundreds of people trying to organize a search for Caylee.
    Casey and the two cops arrived at Universal. When they arrived at the gate, the security officer asked for her ID.
    “I lost it,” Casey said.
    The police asked if he would please let them in so she could show them the location of her office.
    He agreed.
    Casey led them into an office building in the back area of Universal Studios. She made a left turn, kept on walking, began to walk down a hallway, and then stopped.
    “Okay,” Casey said, “I don’t work here.”
    The detectives, growing more incredulous by the moment, took her into a conference room and began to question her. They hit her with her lies.
    Talk about going around in circles. It was such a red flag. I don’t know how Melich didn’t realize right then and there that he was dealing with someone with serious mental health issues. Why didn’t he see this was a clear sign that something just wasn’t right? She gave such vivid details from her imagination. This was a bit more than just lies.
    Though confronted with the fact she had been lying, Casey stubbornly stuck to her story: the scenario, in effect, that her nanny had taken Caylee and she didn’t know where she was.
    The police pounded away at her. As the interrogation was coming to a close, Melich received a phone call from Cindy.
    What Cindy wanted Melich to know was that on the day Caylee disappeared, the ladder on the outdoor above-ground swimming pool was up, meaning Caylee would have had access to the pool.
    “We’re religious about taking that ladder down,” Cindy said, “and it was odd that it was still up. Something is not right, and we are very concerned. We just don’t understand what’s going on.”
    What Cindy was telling Melich was that her suspicion was that Caylee had drowned in the swimming pool that day. Armed with this new information, Melich returned to question Casey. Did he ask her about the ladder? Did he ask her anything about the swimming pool? Not a word. Focusing in on the missing nanny, he asked more questions about her and asked Casey to look at some photographs to see if perhaps the faces in the photos were Zenaida.
    It was clear to me that Melich didn’t ask Casey about the ladder and the pool because he had already made up his mind that she was a prime suspect in a possible murder case. He knew there was a missing child, who was presumed to be dead, and he knew Casey was lying, and probably figured that after a night in jail she would come forward and confess. Don’t give her an out, was probably his thinking. Confessions are the quickest way to close a case. Let’s get an incriminating statement and we can pack up and go home.
    After showing Casey the pictures of women at the police station, none of which she identified as Zenaida, they told her, “We’re arresting you. Unless you come clean and tell us the truth, we’re arresting you now.”
    “I am telling the truth,” she said