Where's Caylee Anthony? Web sleuths on case

Bianca Prieto Sentinel Staff Writer
September 21, 2008

Something about 3-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony has struck a nerve.

Thousands of Web sleuths, bloggers and concerned citizens captivated by the missing Orange County child are lighting up the Internet with their thoughts, theories and suggestions on the continuing investigation. Across the world, millions of words rehash the case on countless sites each day.Was the toddler sold? Did her mother kill her? Was there a tragic accident? Or did a mysterious baby sitter run off with her?

The lack of answers only encourages armchair detectives to try to solve the case. They quiz each other about DNA and other evidence, debate motives and morals of the main characters and wonder why justice seems to move so slowly. Most have never met Caylee or her family.

"It's huge all over the world," said Tricia Griffith, a Utah resident whose Web site, websleuths.com, has more than 1,200 conversation topics and nearly 270,000 postings concerning Caylee.

"It's one big spitballing session where you have a bunch of fresh eyes looking at the same thing the police are looking at."Griffith said the Caylee mystery has attracted more topics, comments and posting than any other high-profile case in recent memory, including the unsolved 1996 JonBenet Ramsey murder in Colorado and the 2002 killing of Laci Peterson and her unborn child in California.

"Everyone on websleuths.com wants to talk to her [the mother, Casey] and say, 'What is going on?' " Griffith said. "It's very frustrating."

At briansprediction.com, psychics are posting their visions and dreams about Caylee. Pictures of handwritten notes, maps of neighborhoods throughout Orlando and e-mails to the moderator are posted and updated several times a day.

A search of Caylee's name on Google returns more that more than 671,000 references. Her plight has attracted more than 6.5 million page views to OrlandoSentinel.com. Stories about the case on the newspaper's Web site routinely attract several thousand comments in a day.

Few would have predicted this when Caylee's disappearance was announced in July. Almost immediately, online observers began questioning the honesty of her mother, Casey Anthony, 22, who said that a baby sitter kidnapped the little girl. Since then, detectives have charged Anthony with child neglect, filing false information and check fraud -- part of a drawn-out legal marathon that focused a media spotlight on her family.

Bloggers and others online have commented on every development in the case, from hair and chloroform found in the trunk of a family car to protesters who taunt Anthony and her parents, George and Cindy Anthony, from the sidewalk outside their east Orange County home.

"There are a lot of missing kids, but some stories just catch fire," said Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado. "We live in a world of tabloid news values. This kind of story gets the juices flowing."Tracey knows how a local crime can turn into a national sensation. He was at the center of the Ramsey murder mystery when the girl's supposed killer began communicating with him. The conversation pushed both into the international limelight at warp speed in August 2006, until the man's story turned out to be untrue.

Internet users have a history of posting about Orlando cases, including the January 2006 disappearance of 26-year-old Jennifer Kesse, who failed to show up for work. Hundreds of messages full of suggestions and theories were posted to the Sentinel's Web site and another set up by Kesse's family.The popularity of blogging has increased since Kesse's disappearance, creating an anonymous forum for the public to voice opinions instantly.

"It seems almost like therapy if you can become absorbed with these stories and become righteous about it," Tracey said. "Getting involved makes them feel better about themselves."Candace Andrews diligently follows the latest Caylee developments online because local TV stations in Meridian, Miss., don't cover it closely, she said."It's almost like a soap opera for me," the 33-year-old mother and nurse said. "This is the only way that I get my news -- over the Internet."

Like may others, Andrews has theories about the disappearance and questions she desperately wants answered."Did she [Casey] snap? Is she not the person she used to be?" Andrews questioned. She wonders if the child died accidentally in a hot car or a drowned in a swimming pool.Either way, she and thousands of others are convinced Caylee's mother knows where she is.