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Anthonys Greet Volunteers, Ask For Funds At Kid Finders Event

Posted: 3:34 pm EST November 14, 2008Updated: 11:56 am EST November 15, 2008

George and Cindy Anthony were the main attractions Saturday morning as they met volunteers wanting to search for their missing granddaughter, Caylee.

The Anthonys attended an event for Kid Finders, the organization that is trying to find Caylee Anthony, who has been missing since early in the summer and whose mother is jailed on first degree murder charges in connection with the disappearance.


CASEY SUES ZENAIDA: Read Full Details
PADILLA TALKS: Has Theory On Caylee's Death
TEAM COVERAGE: Casey Sues Zenaida Gonzalez
CINDY TALKS: Says Padilla "Crossed The Line"
PADILLA RESPONDS: Calls Out Anthony Family
SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Says Nothing "Credible" At Scene
MESSAGE BOARD: Case Against Casey Anthony
ARCHIVE: Previous Reports On Anthony Case

At Saturday's function, the Anthonys were helping Kid Finders gather a list of volunteers they can contact at a later date and determine how those volunteers can help in the search for Caylee, who the Anthonys maintain is still alive.

In an interview, Cindy stressed that the effort requires more donations so that Kid Finders can keep up the search.


BOUNTY HUNTER KICKED OUT OF PARK

Meanwhile bounty hunter Leonard Padilla has been ordered out of Blanchard Park for the weekend, where he had organized a team of divers this week to search the Little Econ River for Caylee's remains. There were no divers in the park Saturday.

Leonard Padilla had his paid scuba divers back in the water searching for Caylee Anthony's body Friday. A day earlier, Padilla's team set off a huge false alarm when they claimed they found bones in the Little Econ River (see map). It was so bad, the Orange County Sheriff's Office still wants Padilla to take a lie detector test.

Eyewitness News spoke at length with Padilla on Friday (watch full interview) and said, despite Thursday's drama and the fact that they found nothing Friday, he is more convinced than ever that Casey dumped Caylee's body in the river at Blanchard Park.

As gators circled below and vultures soared above, volunteering Blackwater Divers spent another day in water bounty hunter Leonard Padilla insists is Caylee's current resting place

"The day after we got [Casey] out, she sits down and she's talking to me and says, 'I went to Blanchard Park and Zenaida and her sister Samantha were there and they took the baby away from me,'" Padilla told Eyewitness News on Friday. "In the reports, she mentions Blanchard Park eight times."

Plenty of the curious were camping out at Blanchard Park, which has turned into the new Hopespring Drive, where the Anthony family lives.

A hodgepodge of postal packing tape, leftover crime scene tape and ski rope marked the makeshift staging area Friday where Thursday divers handed detectives a dud of a lead. Now they want Padilla to take a polygraph.

"What do they want to ask you? Did you set up some evidence in the middle of the water so you could go out there and have all the cameras in America focused on you? Do you think they think you did that?" WFTV reporter Steve Barrett asked Padilla.

"That's what I think, yeah," he replied.

FBI agent are supposed to contact Padilla to schedule the test and Friday wondered out loud about why others in the case declined lie detectors.

"It would have been great if Casey, Lee, Cindy and George would have taken a lie detector test," he said (watch full interview).

Also Friday, Padilla dropped a whole new theory involving the Anthony family pool. He believes, after Caylee die from a chloroform overdose, Casey put her body in the swimming pool to test the buoyancy of her body and then used the neighbors shovel to fish Caylee out of the pool before putting her inside a garbage bag.


CASEY'S ATTORNEY INSPECTS HER CAR

The Orange County Sheriff's Office allowed Casey Anthony's attorney access Friday to her Pontiac Sunfire, the car investigators believe Caylee was inside and dead.

According to Jim Solomons with the sheriff's office, Jose Baez arrived at the sheriff's office Central Complex late Friday morning to meet with investigators and then examine the vehicle.

Baez had asked weeks ago to have access to the car for an inspection. He brought his own team of experts to the sheriff's office Friday.

Among the experts Baez is working with is Dr. Henry Lee, a nationally-known and self-proclaimed "legendary" forensic investigator. According to his website, Lee has "solved a murder without a body" and "assisted in the investigations of more than 6,000 cases, including war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia, the suicide of President Clinton's former White House attorney, Vince Foster, review of the JFK assassination, and the death of JonBennet Ramsey."

Baez's team examined the car with a magnifying glass and took photos and examined parts of the car that were removed. Baez had wanted to inspect the carpet that was in trunk and held a stain, the spare tire well, and tire cover, but they were removed to be tested by the FBI and are no longer in the car. Media was not allowed to film the inspection of the car.

Eyewitness News has also learned that the car still smells of decomposition.


ANTHONYS REACT TO PADILLA SEARCH RESULTS

A furious Cindy Anthony told Eyewitness news that Leonard Padilla knew right away that the items pulled from the water weren't related to her granddaughter's case, despite the display he put on for the cameras (watch full interview).

Cindy is adamant that Padilla put on a show for the media because someone in his crew sent her a text message right away to tell her it wasn't Caylee's remains that were found.

"He's said it's been about Caylee, but obviously his true colors are truly shown," Cindy said.

Padilla claims a cross found in the park could've been made with materials seen in Casey's room, but the Anthonys said he knew the sheriff's office had already ruled that out because they learned it was part of a memorial left for Nicole Ganguzza, the jogger murdered this summer.

"Someone's exploiting our family, exploiting our granddaughter, and that's wrong," George Anthony said.


EQUUSEARCH FOUNDER CLAIMS PADILLA TALKED ABOUT PROFIT

EquuSearch founder Tim Miller claims that Leonard Padilla talked about how they both could make money if they found Caylee's body. However, when the two men appeared on CNN's Nancy Grace show Thursday night, Padilla remembered the conversation very differently.

"I begged Tim to send his divers down because we only had one. I asked him on Sunday and I even went back by his headquarters and asked him, 'Please Tim, we can't pass up this opportunity if you've got the divers,'" Padilla told Nancy Grace.

Padilla went on to say the conversation ended with both men agreeing to send divers into the lake, but he said Miller's dive team never showed up last Monday.

Tim Miller, the founder of EquuSearch, a group that organized a massive weekend search for Caylee's remains, was very critical of Padilla.

"What a disgrace to society this man is for doing this kind of stuff," Miller said.

Miller said during the weekend search, Padilla had begged Miller to use his own divers to search the river. Miller recounted the conversation, saying Padilla said to him, "Tim Miller's divers out here, news cameras out here ... think how much money we could make, Tim."

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