I turned the television on a little bit before noon Thursday to watch the local news while I made lunch. Instead of seeing the tail end of The View I saw our local ABC affiliate already on the air. I found out that the reason for their early broadcast was that the Orange County Sheriff's Office had discovered the remains of a small child. The bones could be those of Caylee Anthony a missing Central Florida three-year-old who has made national attention now that her mother was indicted last month for her suspected murder.
For the next two hours I watched the reports, ate lunch and began planning my next move. If I was going to cover this as a one-man band I needed to form a plan of action instead of just rushing to the scene.
I've covered enough of these types of news events to know that it will move very slowly and since it was raining there was no need to get out there just to stand in the rain. Around 2pm I decided to drive over to the scene which was down the street from the Anthony's house which was kind of near the airport. I could get my crime scene pictures, roll over to shoot stock images of the family home and then head to the airport in the hopes of getting pictures of the grandparents as they returned from the west coast where they were interviewed on the Larry King Show the night before.
It wasn't hard to find the area with all of the traffic, news helicopters and police flooded in to this suburban neighborhood. The sheriff's deputy checked my media badge and told me I'd have to park on a side street.
I grabbed my long lens and other gear from the back and walked to the police tape to set up shop. I stood next to my friend Red Huber who's been covering this story for the Orlando Sentinel since it broke in July. Red got me up to speed with the who and what and I updated him on what I had heard on television before I left.
It wasn't long after I arrived that the rain stopped and the real images were made. The Medical Examiner was easy to spot as he kept walking back and forth underneath a tent where he was collecting forensic evidence.
I got pictures of the ME carrying out brown paper bags from the tent and putting them in the back of his van. Then came the real pictures.
The ME descended in to the wooded area with a smallish, white bag. In my experience this was a small "body" bag. He came back up a few minutes later with a fuller bag and made his way to the van. That was the shot.
I made some other pictures of the players in this story. Sheriff Beary, Lead investigator Sgt. Allen and others before heading down the street to the Anthony house.
The house was a very quick shoot. I got some overalls of the home as well as some shots of the deputies who were placed in front of the house to secure it before the search warrant was issued.
After getting my house pictures I headed to the airport to meet the media herd I knew were already there waiting for George and Cindy Anthony. I really didn't expect that the grandparents were going to walk through this gauntlet of media and airport spectators in order to retrieve there checked bags.
And they didn't. The plane was met by police who took the Anthonys off the plane at the gate and drove them off in a squad car.
I felt bad for George and Cindy who found out about the discovery as they were boarding their five-hour flight back from LA. That had to be torturous for them. Finding out that remains of their missing granddaughter had been found close to their home and then being out of touch with developments for five hours. The flight must've felt like an eternity.
This case has been a very strange one in deed. I'm not surprised that it's so strange as I've always said weird stuff happens in Florida. But this story is just plain sad.
As the case has ridden it's roller coaster over the last five months I've had opinions about it. But today knowing that the skull found is likely Caylee and watching those videos of her makes me sad.
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That's the way our judicial system works. But I will say this that if a jury decides, based on the evidence, that she did in fact decide that her partying was more important than being a parent than she should be left to rot in a prison cell until she dies. Given the fact that she's 22-years-old, that's a pretty long time to think and have nightmares about researching chloroform and neck-breaking on her computer, putting tape over her daughter's mouth, putting her dead body in the trunk of her car and then tossing her in a wooded area like unwanted trash.
Makes want to hug Benjamin that much closer so he knows how much he's loved.
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