Deputies back at home of Caylee Anthony's grandparents

Bianca Prieto and Walter Pacheco

Sentinel Staff Writers
August 7, 2008

Detectives and a crime-scene technician just left the house of missing 2-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony carrying a large bag of evidence.Earlier today, the lead investigator and a CSI agent working the case returned to the grandparents' house on Hopespring Drive at Cindy Anthony's request, said sheriff's Sgt. John Allen.

Investigators today spent close to an hour at the home of Casey Anthony's grandparents. They were also there Wednesday for more than two hours, collecting evidence in their quest to find her missing toddler. This is now the fourth time investigators have searched the home since the girl disappeared.

Detectives would not comment on what they found and removed from the house today or Wednesday.

Officials said divers will be searching waterways in east Orange County near the home where missing toddler once lived. They did not specify the areas, but said it would be near the Anthony home.

The dive has nothing to do with the missing child case, but is a scheduled dive training exercise, Deputy Carlos Padilla said this morning.

"Nothing has led us to believe [Caylee] would be in the water," Padilla said. Detectives do not have specific information about where 2-year-old Caylee Anthony could be, but remain hopeful that she is alive.

Her mother says Caylee disappeared with a baby sitter in June, but the child was not reported missing until July 15.Wednesday's search came a day after the case took a turn on TV.

Caylee's grandfather, George Anthony, said during a Tuesday night interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News Channel that his daughter stole two gasoline cans from a shed at the house several weeks before reporting the child's disappearance.

Investigators recovered those gas cans from the Anthony home Friday.In the interview, George Anthony said he found the gas cans in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car on June 24, the day he reported them stolen.

George Anthony later told his daughter he needed a tool from her trunk, but she refused at first to let him open it.

"As she opened up the trunk of the car, guess what? The gas cans were there," George Anthony said. "[Casey's] the one that took the gas cans.

"Investigators earlier found a stain and hair in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car.