Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony by Jeff Ashton Read Free Book Online Page B

card. He took her name and ran it through the computer. When he informed her that they had no record of her, she persisted, stating emphatically that she worked there. The guard requested the name of her supervisor, which she dutifully provided. He ran that name and again was unable to find it in the computer.
    The three cops and Tutora watched the scene unfold, each intrigued to see how and when Casey would relent. She had completely committed to a lie that had no chance of being true—she knew it, and they knew it. Even if she made it past the security guard, what then? There was nothing she could show them that would make her an actual employee of Universal Studios. Their experience, not to mention simple logic, told them that sooner or later Casey would have to admit the truth.
    As a prosecutor, I’ve spent a lot of time around people who aren’t telling the truth and have gotten caught. I’ve seen good liars and I’ve seen bad liars, but regardless of whether they’re good or bad at it, most people, when confronted with such an obvious lie, simply give in. Yet it was clear, even then, that there was something different about Casey. She was completely unwavering. She insisted to the security guard that she worked there, and she refused to accept his answer that neither she nor the supervisor she’d conjured up was in the system. She was adamant that what she said was true. If she wasn’t admitting to the lie now, when would she?
    When this scene had gone on for long enough and everyone’s patience was becoming exhausted, Turtora presented his identification and instructed the guard to allow her to enter under his supervision. But even though she was beyond the gate, that did not make it any easier for her. The cops looked at her and at each other, their eyes speaking the question that no one would say aloud: “Now what?”
    To their surprise, Casey strode confidently through the maze of office buildings that housed the business side of Universal Studios. She took a left at the first building, walked to the end of the roadway, and took them left again. At the next intersection, they crossed to the opposite side of the street through a parking lot, passed the first of two connected buildings, and entered the door of the second. Turtora knew that the building did not contain the event planning division, where Casey claimed she worked.
    By this point, the cops’ curiosity had morphed into incredulity. As they went through doors and turned corners, each of them silently tried to figure out how far she was going to take this. Somehow, the charade that should have ended back at the security gate was still going on, and no one, perhaps not even Casey, could predict when or how it would stop. What kind of person would do this—and to what end? It was no longer a mystery whether she was lying; the real mystery was why.
    Just as confident as she had been when she left the security gate, she led them halfway down the building’s main hall, and then she stopped suddenly. Shoving her hands in her back pockets, she turned to them, flashed her cutest shy-girl grin, and said the words they’d been waiting to hear ever since she’d arrived: “Okay, I don’t really work here.” Four lies.
    No one was shocked by the revelation itself. Indeed, more than anything they were confused by why she’d chosen that moment to fess up. Only in retrospect would the answer become clear: she’d backed herself into a corner. She’d reached the end of the hall, and with literally nowhere else to take the lie, she gave up on it. It was the same thing that had happened with Lee the night before, shifting her story just before the police arrived, from Caylee being with the babysitter to Caylee being kidnapped. It was the second time in as many days, and it would not be the last. It was a pattern that we would become all too familiar with over the next three years.

C HAPTER F IVE
    CAUGHT
    T urtora found Detective Melich a room inside the