Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony by Jeff Ashton

Universal offices with nothing in it but a white plastic couch and armchair, and Turtora said the investigators could use it for speaking to Casey. Melich wanted to get to her while she was vulnerable, before she had time to think. Whether because of her guilt over being caught in a lie or her fear of arrest because of the lie, experience told him that her defenses should be lowered, and this was probably his best opportunity yet to get at the truth. There was no way she would be able to maintain her story once such a large part of it had given way beneath her; they’d have Caylee back home by the end of the day.
    Casey and Melich sat on the couch, and the two detectives perched on either arm of the chair. The ensuing conversation was taped.
    “I know and you know that everything you’ve told us up to now has been a lie. Correct?” Melich began.
    “Not everything I told you.”
    “Okay, uh, pretty much everything, including where Caylee is right now.”
    “That I still . . . I don’t know where she is.”
    “Sure you do.”
    “I absolutely do not know where she is.”
    Detective Melich asked Casey about Caylee’s father. She told him that he had died in a car accident. When Melich asked if she had proof, she said she had an obituary from the newspaper in her bedroom.
    “Let me explain something,” the detective continued. “Together, combined experience in this room, we have thirty years of doing this. Both myself and Sergeant Allen worked in the homicide division for several years. We’ve dealt with several hundred people and conducted thousands of interviews, the three of us. . . . I can tell for certainty that right now, looking at you, I know that everything you’ve told me is a lie, including the fact that your child was last seen about a month ago and you don’t know where she is. I’m confident you know where she is. We have to get past that. We can sit here and go back and forth with ‘I don’t,’ ‘I do,’ ‘I don’t,’ ‘I do.’ It’s pretty obvious that you know where she is.”
    If Casey was surprised by his words, her face didn’t show it. Collected as ever, she allowed the detective to continue.
    “Now, my question to you is this: We need to find Caylee. I understand that right now Caylee may not be in very good shape, you understand what I’m saying? She may not be the way you and your family last saw her. We need to understand right now, from you, where Caylee is. This has gone so far downhill and become such a mess that we need to end it. It’s very simple. We just need to end it.”
    “I agree with you, but I have no clue where she is,” Casey replied.
    “Sure you do.”
    “If I knew in any sense where she was, this wouldn’t have happened at all. It wouldn’t have happened whatsoever.”
    The fact that she was still sticking to the same story, even after being caught in a lie, was frustrating. Changing course, Melich decided to show his hand a bit. Maybe if he showed her that more of her stories were lies, the dominoes would all fall.
    “Listen, this stuff about Zanny the caretaker, the nanny, is not the truth, because I went to the apartment complex and no person that’s ever lived there went by that name. The apartment’s been vacant since March, that same apartment. Now, the apartment you pointed out to me, the two-story apartment, that’s an old folks’ home. It’s right across the street from your ex-boyfriend’s house, who you never mentioned. And you said you wrote the address down because it was across the street, that’s a lie, because I’ve already talked to him, and we’ve already been by the house, and, you know, we’ve looked at everything we could look at over there.”
    “Um-hmm.”
    “Everything you’ve told us is a lie.”
    And yet, when she was confronted with these facts, they seemed to do little to sway her. Shifting directions once again, Melich tried to give her an out and allow her to admit to something, something that would help