Caylee Anthony: The Untold Story
It is a case that has captivated the country.
In the summer of 2008, Orlando, Fla. toddler Caylee Anthony disappeared, only to be discovered six months later a short distance from her home, her skeletal remains stuffed in plastic bags and her mouth sealed with duct tape. Her mother, Casey Anthony, was charged with the horrific crime after not reporting her daughter missing for a month, and allegedly lying to police.
As Casey, now 23, faces a murder trial and the possibility of the death penalty, her parents, Cindy and George Anthony, are standing by their daughter as they search for the truth.
And, for the first time, three of Casey's defense lawyers discuss the case in an exclusive interview with CBS News' "The Early Show" anchor Maggie Rodriguez.
"In a moment's notice, our lives can change. We went through probably the worst tragedy that one could face," said Cindy Anthony.
For Cindy and George Anthony and their entire family, that moment came suddenly in the summer of 2008, when their precious 2-year-old granddaughter, Caylee, who lived with them, disappeared. Their lives have been a horrendous nightmare ever since."What we've been through in a year has been hell," George told Maggie Rodriguez. "It's changed us dramatically in our faith, in our belief in God."
It was bad enough that Caylee had disappeared. But what's made it even more devastating for the Anthonys is that their daughter, Casey, has been charged with murdering her."Casey would not hurt Caylee," said George. "She wouldn't do that.
"But Casey Anthony had become a suspect because she had lied repeatedly to detectives and waited a month before reporting that her daughter was missing.In December 2008, six months after her disappearance, the search for Caylee ended with a gruesome discovery just blocks from the Anthony home. The little girl's remains were found in a wooded area; her mouth was sealed with duct tape and her body stuffed in two plastic bags.
Now, Caylee's 23-year-old mother is in jail awaiting trial. Casey Anthony could face the death penalty.
"I pray every night that when I wake up the next morning, that it would be just a nightmare. And Caylee would come in the morning and wake me up," Cindy told Rodriguez. "But you know - that prayer can't be answered."
For a grandmother and grandfather, the questions are almost unimaginable about what really happened to Caylee. And is it even remotely possible that their daughter could have done this?
"It's been a tough year. And I miss my girls," said a teary-eyed Cindy.
George and Cindy's own attorney, Brad Conway, said the family wants only one thing.
"They brought me on this journey to help them find the truth" he explained. "They want the truth. But it's gonna be difficult, very difficult when we get there."
And what if the answers lead to Casey? "Then I'll have my answers," said Cindy.
The investigation of Caylee's disappearance and murder has been perhaps the nation's biggest crime story for over a year and the frenzy shows few signs of letting up. Diane Fanning has just written a book on the Caylee Anthony murder.
"Sometimes it just matters if it hits somebody right in the media. And this one did," Fanning said. "Probably 90 percent of the country had been following that case from the first day."
People seem transfixed by every minute development - like the work of thousands of volunteers who flooded central Florida on foot, on horseback and by boat - all looking for Caylee in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom.
"She lived in a place that's considered a mecca for children. And this beautiful little child disappears from here. It just is jarring," Fanning said. "And it makes for a good story."
A morbid fascination stalks the Anthonys and even their neighbors; so do belligerent protesters.
"There has been no privacy from the inception of this case," Conway said. "Their home was invaded by people that live in Orlando, protesting. Protesting the fact that Casey was still living there."
The protests began in late summer 2008, long before Caylee's remains were found, as details of the case began leaking out and Casey went in and out of jail, arrested for lesser crimes like child neglect and making false statements.
"People hate her. I think it's almost like a hangman's type mentality for some of these people," said George.
In early August 2008, after one of her arrests, Casey was openly defiant, complaining to her parents about the public's outrage with her:
"I don't care about the media; I don't care about what people have been saying about me. That doesn't matter. Because I know it's not true. And everyone that knows me knows that isn't true," she said from jail.
Listen to excerpts of the Anthonys' jailhouse visits
But protesters refused to leave, often dragging little children with them, screaming obscenities and pushing and shoving at all hours of the day and night.
"How are you supposed to feel when you're being called particular names? It just gets to you after a while. It needles you. It eats at you," George explained. "If you get spit on... and you get stuff thrown at you, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to stand back and just not let it bother you?"
Conway said George and Cindy Anthony have been unfairly targeted and "that needs to stop."
The protests died down when Casey was arrested for the murder in October 2008. The media frenzy never really subsided, and for Cindy, it eventually became too much.
"I've asked you guys to respect my privacy," she said, addressing the reporters and protesters outside her home at one point. "All of you leeches, all of you parasites, all of you maggots out here. OK? That's true. Because that's exactly what you guys are. All of you guys!"
George Anthony finally reached a breaking point, too. In January 2009, he was hospitalized after
threatening to commit suicide. Sheriff's deputies found him in a Daytona Beach motel after he'd sent family members text messages saying he didn't want to live anymore.
"Knowing that my granddaughter was gone, knowing where my daughter's at and what she's facing for the possibility of her life, how much it's hurting Cindy... I couldn't take it no more," George told Rodriguez. "I wanted to join Caylee. I miss her so so much."
These days George says he's doing much better, but is still struggling with the overwhelming loss and an uncertain future - all of it under the watchful eye of an insatiable public.
"People drive by every single day, get out and take photographs... people just driving by... It happens all the time," he pointed out to Rodriguez as he spotted someone taking a photo outside his home during their interview.
"They have made themselves part of the story," said John Morgan, a prominent attorney and businessman in Orlando. "It's out of the movies! Like I said, great looking guy, beautiful family... [a] little house in a great subdivision. But you would never have imagined what we've now discovered that was going on inside that place."
Something friends of Casey say was going on for a long time.
"Casey Anthony... she's a habitual liar... a troubled human being," explained Pam Bondi, an assistant state attorney in Tampa, Fla., who is familiar with, but has no connection to the Anthony case. "Clearly she needed help."
"It erupted," Morgan said. "It was Mount Vesuvius.""Caylee was just... she was such a beautiful little girl, even when she was born," according to Jesse Grund.
Grund said he and Casey Anthony dated for about six weeks in early 2005, and that he was shocked when she told him in June of that year - months after they had broken up - that she was pregnant with his baby.
"I was completely, I guess, flabbergasted for a better choice of words," he told "48 Hours Mystery."
"The math just didn't add up," he said - especially when a full-term baby was born in early August. While he went ahead assuming the role of Caylee's father, Grund decided to have a paternity test done.
What he hadn't planned on was how attached he'd quickly become to the little girl.
"Caylee was a really easy baby, I gotta be honest... so wonderful," he said. "I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her."
His feelings for the baby made the test results particularly difficult for him to accept. "...it said zero-percent probability that I was the biological father. It was relieving and heartbreaking at the same time. I didn't want anybody else to be that little girl's father except for me."
Casey never publicly revealed the identity of Caylee's real father, which was just fine with Grund.
"I could have just jumped ship and left," he said. "But that was never my intention."
Instead, at the very end of 2005, he proposed.
It didn't matter that Caylee wasn't his; Grund was in love with his new family. But just five months after she said "yes," Casey called off the engagement.
"She claimed I loved Caylee more than I loved her," he explained, calling Casey's reasoning "bogus."
Grund is sure he knows the real reason Casey dumped him: pressure from her mother, Cindy Anthony. Casey and her baby were living in her parents' home.
"She was scared I was gonna take Casey and Caylee away, 'cause, let's be honest... we get married [and] we're moving out of the house," he said.
Grund said Casey wanted to leave home and one big reason was that she deeply resented her mother for trying to play "mommy" to the baby.
"It wasn't Casey's child. It was our child. She belonged to all of us," said Cindy.
"Did you ever get the sense she was jealous of your relationship?" asked Maggie Rodriguez.
"Not really," Cindy replied.
"Do you feel she resented you at all?"
"No... I don't think that there was ever resentment there."
Others who know Casey told investigators that Cindy thought she was irresponsible, called her an "unfit mother" and even threatened to seek custody of her granddaughter.
"I never said she was an unfit mother. I never said that," Cindy told Rodriguez. "She was my best friend."
When asked why Casey's friends would say the two didn't get along, Cindy answered, "I don't know. I don't know."
"So everyone who says that was a contentious relationship is lying?" asked Rodriguez.
"They're not telling the truth," she said.
But in mid-June 2008, Casey left home with her daughter, never to return with her. Jesse Grund said that Casey's brother, Lee, told him his sister and mother had had a big fight the night before.
"Cindy confronted Casey about Casey stealing money from Cindy's mother," Grund explained. "And a shouting match ensued, which then had Cindy wrapping her hands around Casey's neck and choking her."
"It's not true," Cindy said. "Mr. Grund has come up with a lot of statements that are not true."
"You described her as a homebody. She had never left for that length of time. She was staying there for free. You were caring for Caylee. Why would she leave?" asked Rodriguez.
"I don't know. That's what we're still trying to find out," replied Cindy.
"So, when they didn't come home that night, were you worried?"
"She called me. She had told me that she was going to stay with a friend that night. Her and Caylee."
But one night turned into many. Cindy said she and Casey spoke by phone each day. Cindy said she started getting concerned after a few weeks of having no contact with her granddaughter.
"It seemed like every time that Casey and I were on the phone, she wasn't where she was with Caylee," Cindy told Rodriguez.
"What would she say to you when you asked to talk to Caylee?"
"That she was with one of her friends or one of her friends' mothers," Cindy replied.
Up to that point, George Anthony said the longest they had gone without seeing their granddaughter was "a day, if that."
In mid-July, a month after Casey left home, the Anthony's picked up her car. It had been found abandoned in an Orlando parking lot around the same time Casey was claiming to be out of town staying with a friend.
Cindy told Rodriguez, "I knew at that point that she wasn't in Jacksonville and, you know..."
"She's been lying to you?"
"Yeah."
When they opened the trunk of the car, they were startled by a strong, terrible smell. George described it as "an odor that could take your breathe away."
In a panic now, Cindy tracked Casey down at a boyfriend's apartment in Orlando. When her mother showed up, Casey claimed Caylee was at her nanny's - a woman the Anthonys had been told about since Caylee was a baby, but someone they'd never actually met.
When Casey refused to take her mother to the nanny, Cindy said she threatened to bring the police into it. "I told her, 'I said I wanna see Caylee and I wanna see her now!' I'm angry. I'm panicked. I knew something was wrong."
It was getting late and the nearest police station was closed for the night. So they went home and that's where Cindy says Casey finally broke down, saying she hadn't seen her daughter since they'd left a month earlier and that her nanny had kidnapped Caylee.
Now desperate, Cindy called 911, telling the operator: "I found out my granddaughter has been taken. She has been missing for a month. Her mother finally admitted that she is missing."
Listen to excerpts of the 911 call
"I yelled at her for the first time," Cindy said. "That's the first time that I remember screaming at her and saying 'What do you mean she's been taken? Why didn't you tell me?'"
"In that moment, did you think something terrible could have happened to her?" asked Rodriguez.
"I didn't know. I didn't know. I was in shock...," she replied. "And all I wanted (crying) was someone to walk through the door that could help me find Caylee."
Sheriff's deputies responded immediately and took Casey out looking for her daughter. They went to three buildings where Casey claimed her nanny lived: one was an apartment building, another turned out to be a seniors' home. All proved to be dead ends. There was no evidence the nanny ever lived in any of those places or that she even existed.
As a prosecutor in neighboring Tampa, Pam Bondi has been following the Anthony case from the beginning.
"She even said she worked at Universal Studios and really had the nerve to walk them in Universal Studios as her place of employment," she explained.
But when police confronted Casey about the job, she finally had to admit it was a lie. Casey had worked at Universal two years earlier, but had been fired. Yet she never told her parents, pretending to leave home each day for a job that didn't exist.
Excerpt: Police question Casey Anthony | July 16 and Oct. 14, 2008
"According to her friends, she is a habitual liar," said Bondi.
When asked if he ever confronted his daughter about her lies, George replied, "We had some discussions different times. But then again, I just wanted to believe that what she was telling me was the truth."
When asked what he thinks happened to Caylee, Jesse Grund said, "Honestly, I don't know. The Casey that I knew was incapable of hurting a hair on Caylee's head... But this person - this dark, selfish, remorseless individual that sits in jail right now - I'm not sure what she's capable of."Meanwhile, the Anthony home has become a shrine to their dead granddaughter.
"We're not gonna get rid of anything of hers," said George Anthony. "Most everything we've held on to. We just can't let it go. We can't let it go."
And everywhere you look, there are pictures of Caylee and Casey.
"You never saw them apart. Casey was always taking pictures of Caylee," Cindy said as she and Maggie Rodriguez walked though the Anthony's Orlando home.
In Caylee's room, Cindy said, "There's days that it brings me smiles and there's days that I just come in here and I just cry."
The Anthonys have kept her furniture, her clothing and her toys - even refusing to clean away Caylee's handprints from a mirror.
"...I can't even wipe the dust off cause I'm afraid I'm gonna take a smudge off of her," Cindy explained.
Laying out in the open is the saddest reminder of what has devastated this family: Caylee's death certificate.
"It's very difficult to look at. It's not something that I ever thought I would see in my lifetime," a crying Cindy said. "She should be here. I shouldn't have this piece of paper."
Publicly, including to Rodriguez on "The Early Show," the Anthonys say they remain convinced there is no hard evidence linking their granddaughter's murder to Casey.
Watch "The Early Show" interview
And their own lawyer, Brad Conway, agrees, saying there are a lot of holes in the state's case.
"There's no fingerprints. There is no DNA. There are no eyewitnesses, there is no confession. There's no cause of death. It's been ruled a homicide by unknown means. That's a problem for the state," he said.
Investigators say the body, found six months after Caylee first disappeared, was just too decomposed to determine what killed her.
"By the time they found her body... it was completely skeletonized," said Bondi.
Orlando, Fla. Medical Examiner's report
"How can a medical examiner rule it a homicide if she couldn't figure out the cause of death?" asked Rodriguez.
"Well, they look at circumstances surrounding how the body was found," Bondi replied.
And in this case, detectives say they found duct tape wrapped tightly around Caylee's mouth and skull.
According to Bondi, "The only reason to duct tape someone's mouth is to keep them from breathing or speaking or crying or screaming."
As a prosecutor in a neighboring county, Bondi is familiar with, but not part of, this case. She sees the duct tape as a real challenge for Casey's lawyers. "I believe that is some of the most damaging evidence. And I think that's one of the reasons that they are able to seek the death penalty."
For the first time, three of Casey's lawyers - Jose Baez, Linda Kenney Baden and Todd Macaluso - agreed to discuss the case in an exclusive interview with "48 Hours Mystery."
They say they're going to challenge the duct tape.
"The state had led you to believe that there's duct tape around the mouth," Kenney Baden told Rodriguez.
"Oh, you're saying there's not?"
"All we can say is that's going to be a disputed issue."
In fact, Casey's lawyers call into question the entire case against their client, who they insist is completely innocent.
"There's no evidence where the body was found that links the body to the Anthony home," said Macaluso.
Kenney Baden added, "...and there is no link to Casey Anthony."
Casey's lawyers are sharply critical of the state's conduct.
"I think they botched this from the very beginning by arresting Casey Anthony without fully investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding this child's disappearance," said Baez. "Let's arrest her first and worry about getting the evidence later. And that's what happened in this case."
Casey's lawyers also charge some key evidence in the case has been compromised by investigators.
Hear more from Casey Anthony's defense team
"It was ruined and spoiled in a lot of ways," according to Kenney Baden. "For instance, the most important piece of evidence that the state thought they had, which is this demonizing duct tape, was contaminated by the FBI."
A lab technician's DNA was found on the duct tape, along with DNA belonging to an unidentified person.
"Another party that did not belong to the FBI, did not belong to law enforcement, did not belong to Casey or any of her family members that is on that duct tape," said Kenney Baden.
"A stranger. It was a stranger involved," said Macaluso.
Could it be the DNA of Caylee's killer? Prosecutors have declined to speak with "48 Hours Mystery," but they say they have the killer and it's Casey Anthony.
Said Baez, "They want you to believe that this 22-year-old girl is a master forensic sleuth who could outwit and outsmart the entire FBI and still be dumb enough to leave her child's body off the side of the road.... a block from her house."
Holly Gagne is a close friend and former neighbor of the Anthonys, and a fierce defender of Casey's.
"I never saw anything that would define the monster that people have made her out to be," she said. "And I just can't imagine that she could pick her up, her lifeless body and place her child into a bag and just dispose of it in the woods as if it was trash!"
The defense claims that Caylee's remains were dumped there by someone other than Casey. But authorities say they have evidence that Casey premeditated the crime, conducting incriminating research on a family computer three months before her daughter disappeared. The subjects included "neck breaking," "household weapons," "shovel," and "how to make chloroform" - a volatile and potentially dangerous anesthetic.
"She was the only one who had access to that computer during that timeframe," Bondi explained. "We then learn that chloroform was, in fact, found in the trunk of the car and in several places throughout the trunk."
Once again, Casey's lawyers plan to challenge all of that in court.
"You just assumed that Casey was conducting those searches," Kenney Baden told Rodriguez.
"No, I didn't assume," countered Rodriguez. "That's what the state says in their evidence."
"They're absolutely mistaken," said Kenney Baden.
"So you don't deny that the searches happened, but you say it wasn't Casey?" Rodriguez asked.
Baez replied, "Correct."
But ultimately, for many court watchers, the most damning evidence in the case may very well be Casey's own behavior over the month-long period that she failed to report her daughter missing.
According to detectives, Casey was partying at nightclubs as if nothing was wrong. Their evidence: photographs of Casey they said were taken at the same time Caylee supposedly was missing.
"Those photographs are going to be the most damaging evidence for a jury to see," Bondi explained. "She did not tell any of her friends... she didn't tell her family that the little girl was missing. She made up lie after lie after lie. [She] showed no sorrow."
Does it seem odd to George and Cindy that Casey would be out dancing when Caylee was missing?
"If I'm not mistaken, Casey told us she was trying to find where Caylee was at. There's some kind of a connection there somewhere," said George.
"A lot of people following this case think, that at some point, you made a decision as a couple to cover up for your daughter," said Rodriguez.
"I'm not covering up for Casey," said Cindy. "What kind of parent would I be if I totally turned my back on my own child?"
"Do you think there's a chance that you could be in denial about what really happened because you don't want to believe it?" Rodriguez asked Cindy. She replied, "Never. Never."
As for Casey's lawyers, while quick to criticize the state's investigation, they're reluctant to talk very much about their client's behavior.
"Things are not always as simple as they seem," said Baez. When asked if he cared to elaborate, he replied, "No."
"We have photographs that show Casey was out partying while her daughter was supposedly missing," said Rodriguez. "How will you explain to a jury how a good mother who's worried about her daughter is capable of doing that?"
"Everything will come out at its proper time and place," said Baez.
What also needs explaining is the extremely foul odor coming from the trunk of Casey Anthony's abandoned car. The defense says it came from rotting garbage. Authorities believe it came from Caylee's decomposing body.
The child's grandmother, Cindy, first revealed the smell in her frantic 911 call for help: "There's something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in that damn trunk!"
Listen to excerpts of the 911 call
Cindy's own words may come back to haunt her. Those who have followed the case say it may help convict her daughter of murder.
"That's so incriminating," explained Bondi. "It doesn't get much worse than that."
Cindy now has a different explanation for that smell, telling reporters, "There was a bag of pizza for what - 12 days - in the back of the car full of maggots. It stunk so bad."
"Isn't it impossible now to take it back and say it was actually rotting pizza or garbage?" Rodriguez asked Cindy.
"No, in fact it's not," she replied. "I said whatever it would take to get the police there quicker."
"That could be potentially devastating to Casey's case," said Rodriguez
"Yeah, it could be. It could be," Cindy agreed.Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Anthony case is the mysterious nanny who may not exist, yet who Casey Anthony accuses of abducting her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
Casey says the babysitter's name is Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez or Zanny.
"I can't fathom that this is someone that Casey would all of a sudden make up," Cindy told Maggie Rodriguez.
"You can't fathom it, but you've never met Zanny? You've never talked to her?" Rodriguez asked.
"No, I never met her. But you know what? There's a lot of people I've never met," said Cindy.
On July 16, 2008, the day after Caylee was first reported missing, Casey told detectives she left her daughter with the babysitter a month earlier and never saw Caylee again.
Investigators immediately brought Casey on a manhunt for Caylee and Zenaida Gonzalez.
"She knocked on every door in the neighborhood. No one knew Zenaida Gonzalez," explained Pam Bondi.
With no evidence there even was a nanny, detectives arrested Casey that very same day and even told Cindy Anthony - point blank - that her daughter was a liar.
Cindy's support never wavered. During a jailhouse visit, she pressed Casey for details about Zanny.
Cindy: OK. How tall is she?
Casey: Oh, 5'7"-ish. She's just like maybe an inch or two shorter than that. Very thin, maybe a little bit more meat than me... about 140.
Cindy even offered to send Zanny the nanny a message.
Cindy: Listen, I'm in front of the cameras all the time. What message do you want me to send to Zanny and Caylee?
Casey: That she needs to return Caylee.
Listen to excerpts of the Anthonys' jailhouse visits
Cindy broadcast Casey's message to the supposed "nanny" on local television the very next day:
"She forgives her and she knows she needs to bring her home, bring her back safely... Caylee, mommy loves you. She says to stay brave, be tough. We love you very much and we will get you back."
On the day of Casey's arrest, authorities seemed to catch a break. They found Zenaida Gonzalez, a single mother of six, living in Kissimmee, Fla.
"If somebody calls you and tells you you're a suspect in a kidnapping and you know you've never done anything wrong... I was kinda shocked," Gonzalez told "48 Hours Mystery."
The Zenaida Gonzalez authorities located fully cooperated and proved to them she didn't have Caylee.
"'Talk to my kids, walk around, look inside,'" she said she told police. "And that's exactly what they did. They went in, they looked around - they even checked the bathroom to make sure she wasn't there."
Gonzalez insisted she'd never even met Casey Anthony and had never worked as a nanny. "I've never met her - never seen her face-to-face."
Police reports show Casey couldn't identify the Zenaida Gonzalez they located in a photo, either. So authorities quickly ruled her out as a suspect. But under Florida law, her phone records became public and she says she lost her job and her home as a result of being involved in the case.
"I got phone calls from everywhere," she said. "They started threatening me, calling me names."
Well-known personal injury attorney John Morgan had followed the Anthony case closely from the outside, so when Zenaida Gonzalez called his 24-hour hotline for help, he jumped right in and sued Casey Anthony for defamation.
"You're a suspect in a murder-kidnapping, you're under attack by strangers who say they're coming to get you and they're coming to get your children," Morgan said of Gonzalez.
"She took everything away from me," Gonzalez said. "I lost my life. I have no privacy. The only thing I have to say to her is, 'Why would you do that to somebody? Why? How can you cause so much harm?'"
Just how did Casey come up with the name Zenaida Gonzalez? Police believe they found the answer at the Sawgrass Apartments.
"Zenaida Gonzalez went into that apartment complex looking for a place to live. She had to fill out information about herself," explained Morgan.
Morgan said Casey may have obtained the personal information from the registration card while visiting a close friend at the very same apartment complex a month before Caylee was first reported missing
"That's where Casey was. And that's where Casey was hanging out," he said. "And that's where Casey's cell phone was pinging from."
Morgan subjected Cindy and George Anthony to two days of intense depositions.
"She came into the courtroom like a Doberman on a lunge-line," Morgan said of Cindy. "She was rabid and it was like 'Here we go.'"
George: You guys have torn apart my family so much, every single one of you...
Cindy: Ask me a yes or no question, and I'll answer yes or no. But if you ask me an open-ended question, I'm gonna answer the question.
"And I'm looking at her, and it was like, 'Come on. Give me your best shot,'" said Morgan.
Morgan: You knew when you went on TV that night that this woman was not Zenaida Gonzalez and you did not clear her name, did you? Yes or no. If you dare.
Cindy: No
Morgan: Thank you.
At one point, Cindy even threatened to walk out.
Cindy: I'm done! I'm done. (ripping off microphone) I've already answered the question.
Morgan: Brad, if she walks out, we're going to find her in contempt of court.
Cindy: Ask me the last question. Ask me the last question. I'm sitting in the seat.
Morgan: We need to mic up.
Cindy: I'm not mic'in up. If someone touches me, I'm filing harassment charges!
The Anthonys' own attorney, Brad Conway, said there's no proof Zenaida Gonzalez was hurt by this in any way.
"She wasn't arrested. She wasn't harassed. She was excluded as a suspect in the case," he said.
Cindy and George say it's all just a simple case of mistaken identity. They believe Caylee's alleged nanny, the real Zenaida Gonzalez, is still out there and they say they've hired investigators to find her.
"We will never stop. We have people out there looking for her. Hope she'll do the right thing and come forward," George told Rodriguez.
But with Casey's murder trial looming, time is running out for the Anthonys.
"How horrible would that be if Caylee's mother was wrongly convicted," Cindy asked. "And how sad would that be to have someone be sentenced to death on something that they didn't do?"On Aug. 9, 2009, more than a year since their granddaughter disappeared, George and Cindy Anthony celebrated what would've been Caylee's 4th birthday by releasing dozens of balloons into the sky.
George says Caylee's spirit follows him wherever he goes.
"I can hear her. I can smell her right now. I can visualize her...There's a presence inside of our house that we can feel...we can see."
Caylee's playhouse sits empty, while another little girl, whom Cindy babysits, plays quietly in her old room.
These days, the Anthonys cling to their faith.
"I pray to God every day that I will get the answers, no matter what," Cindy said. "I pray to God every day that I will get the answers."
And they're trying to make the best out of a terrible situation by establishing a foundation in their granddaughter's name to help prevent the abduction of children.
But it will be a long time before George finds closure. Even today, he can still hear little Caylee calling him "Jo Jo."
"'Jo Jo, I need you. Jo Jo, I love you. Jo Jo, hold me. Jo Jo, take me outside,'" George said, overcome with emotion. "Man, I miss her so much. I don't wanna cry."
Cindy Anthony said she will never turn her back on her only daughter. "I would sit and rot in jail if it was meaning to protect my child. I would do it."
Attorney John Morgan predicts a day of reckoning for Casey Anthony when her trial begins sometime in 2010.
"Her kid was missin', where she's boozin'and partyin'. When the jury starts to connect those dots, all those dots are gonna spell out one word - guilty," he said.
For now, the most the Anthonys can hope is that the jury in this well-publicized case will be open-minded.
When asked if she believes that her daughter will be convicted, Cindy relied, "No. Not if we're able to find a jury that will actually listen to the evidence."
Casey's lawyers insist the evidence to convict her simply isn't there.
"The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt this young woman... intentionally murdered her daughter. They have to prove it with evidence," explained Linda Kenney Baden. "People lie to law enforcement all the time; people lie to their husbands; people lie to their kids, kids lie to their parents. That does not make them killers."
"But why would they lie to someone who's trying to help them find their missing daughter?" Rodriguez asked.
"People do funny things under stress," Kenney Baden replied.
Rodriguez asked Jose Baez, "You believe that she didn't kill her daughter either on purpose or by accident?"
He responded, "Let me be as clear as I possibly can. We believe Casey Anthony is innocent and we are gonna lay that out in trial as best we can. And we plan on fighting this to the very end and fighting it with everything we've got."
"What's more important, justice for Caylee or justice for Casey?" Rodriguez asked the Anthonys.
"Justice for Caylee," said Cindy. "I think justice for Caylee will be justice for Casey. It'll be the truth that will set Casey free."
Casey Anthony's lawyers are requesting a change of venue for her trial. They claim Orlando is too hostile to select a fair jury.
Her trial is expected to begin in the summer of 2010.
Produced by Ira Sutow, Taigi Smith and Adrienne Wheeler