The skeletal remains of a small child were found Thursday near the home of missing Orlando girl Caylee Anthony's family.
There was no immediate word on whether the bones, reportedly discovered wrapped in a plastic bag and bound with duct tape, were those of a boy or a girl.
"All we know is that remains of a child have been found," a police spokeswoman told FOXNews.com.
Orange County sheriffs and forensics teams were working at the scene at the intersection of South Chickasaw Trail and Suburban Drive, on the edge of the Anthonys' neighborhood about 10 miles southeast of downtown Orlando.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Jim Solomons said that a utility worker found the body at 9:32 a.m. EST Thursday in a wooded area less than a half-mile from the house Caylee lived in with her grandparents and mother.
The water meter reader reportedly picked up the bag and a small skull rolled out that sources say strongly resembled that of a little girl.
There were reports of duct tape around the mouth area of the child's skull. Related
Police said the Anthony family has been notified of the discovery and no one is being allowed in their house. Sheriffs were preparing a search warrant for the Anthony home, MyFOXOrlando.com reported.
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Caylee has been missing since June, two months shy of her third birthday.
Her mother, Casey Anthony, 22, has been charged with first-degree murder of her daughter, child abuse, aggravated manslaughter and four counts of lying to investigators about Caylee's disappearance.
Anthony faces life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors said last week they won't seek the death penalty in the case.
Orange County Capt. Angelo Nieves wouldn't say whether the bones seemed to be those of the missing little girl.
"At this point, it would be reckless to conclude that," Nieves told FOX News. "We do have skeletal remains consistent with a small child. We will work with the medical examiner to make a proper identification."
Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said his deputies were investigating with the FBI.
"We're all working on this case together," he told reporters at an afternoon press briefing. "We've got a lot of lab work to do, a lot of DNA work to do, a lot of crime scene work to do. We may be here all night."
Todd Black, the spokesman for Casey Anthony's defense attorney, told the Orlando Sentinel he hoped the discovery was not related to their case.
"If it is, it is a sad day," he said.
The medical examiner declined to offer details about its involvement.
"We have been advised to do a recovery, but until our investigator comes back with the information we have no comment," said Sheri Blanton, senior program manager for the Orange County Medical Examiner's office.
It is more difficult to identify a child's body than an adult's, experts say.
Dr. Lee Jantz, coordinator of the forensic anthropology center at the University of Tennessee, said the first thing medical examiners will do is compare photos of the child with the skull, in hopes of making a bone structure comparison. In high-profile cases the DNA of the bones will also be tested.
Mandy Albritton, a member of EquuSearch — one of the groups that searched for the missing toddler — said their volunteers did not check the location in early September because it was submerged in water. When they returned in November, the site had been fenced off.
One of EquuSearch's volunteers, Deborah Smith, searched the area three times and said "she had a bad feeling" because Anthony had said her daughter was nearby.
"It's really wet and steep and there's lots of snakes back there," she said.
"I do believe it's (Caylee Marie)," Smith said.
Earlier Thursday, Ninth Circuit Judge Stan Strickland complied with a request by defense lawyer Jose Baez to put off the start date of her trial from Jan. 5 until March. He set another hearing for Jan. 15.
Baez also asked for a change of venue.
Also this week, Baez said he was seeking a court order for surveillance video from a local mall taken the day of a reported sighting of Caylee.
He is asking the Florida Mall be ordered to turn over the footage captured in November in a play area of the Orlando shopping center, where an employee says she snapped a photo of a Caylee look-alike on Nov. 16.
"I took my last cell phone picture as the woman (accompanying the little girl) tried to cover her head with her arm to hide from me taking her picture," mall employee Halima Solomita told MyFOXOrlando.com.
Caylee's mother and grandparents did not report her missing until July, about a month after she was last seen.
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Re:Caylee Miller found??
Date: 2008/12/20 14:35
By: KatiePery
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Pieces of a tiny skeleton found in swampy woods belong to a 3-year-old who disappeared but provide few clues about what happened to her, a missing link that could make it harder for prosecutors to convince a jury her death was a homicide.
Casey Anthony, 22, has been charged with murder in the death of daughter Caylee, a case that has captivated the Orlando community where they lived.
Authorities said at a news conference Friday that DNA tests conducted on remains found by a utility worker last week less than a half-mile from where the child lived matched Caylee's genetic profile. But the only clue they give about her death is that her bones didn't suffer trauma, said Orange County medical examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
"Bottom line is, folks, no child should have to go through this," said Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary.
Without a definite cause of death, a defense lawyer can suggest to a jury that labeling Caylee's death a homicide is only speculation, said A. Russell Smith, a Jacksonville attorney and immediate past president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"Juries are particularly conscientious in homicide cases because the penalties are so severe," Smith said. "So, to the extent that there are gaps in critical evidence, it makes the prosecutor's job much more difficult."
The discovery of the child's remains came after months of searches, twists and turns in the investigation. Casey Anthony was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even though no body was found. She has insisted that she left the girl with a baby sitter in June, but she didn't report her missing until July.
A search team said they did not check the wooded area sooner because it was submerged in water from the summer's heavy rains. But the utility worker who made the tip, Roy Kronk, said he had contacted the Orange County Sheriff's office in August to report that he had seen "something suspicious, a bag, in the same area."
The sheriff's office said he first called Aug. 11 to report the bag. A deputy responded but didn't find anything and was unable to locate him. Kronk called a crime hot line the following day and the information was passed on to the sheriff's office criminal investigation division. On Aug. 13, he called the sheriff's office a third time. He met a deputy, but authorities cleared the area as a place of interest in the search a short time later.
Beary said his department was investigating its response.
"If we missed a window of opportunity, we don't know," he said. "I'm not throwing anybody under the bus because we don't know."
It took authorities several days to analyze the remains since they were found last Thursday, and some are still undergoing tests. Some of the bones were as small as pebbles and had been scattered. Excavators searching on their hands and knees had a hard time finding the fragments.
Garavaglia — the star of cable TV's "Dr G: Medical Examiner — said authorities concluded Caylee was killed through DNA tests and "circumstantial evidence." She said she was certain this was a homicide, not an accidental death, and didn't expect further testing to reveal a specific cause.
"I wouldn't have issued the report if I wasn't sure," she said.
A jail chaplain told Casey Anthony that the remains were her daughter at the Orange County jail just before the news conference began. Her attorney, Jose Baez, was with her shortly after.
"This is her private moment," Baez said. "This is her life she's trying to battle through right now."
Caylee has been a staple on national news as her grandparents pleaded for tips, promising the girl was still alive.
Volunteers and investigators mounted several search through the summer and fall, looking at wooded areas near Orlando International Airport, local parks and even the grounds where the bones were found.
Caylee's grandmother first called authorities in July to say she hadn't seen the girl, whose third birthday passed shortly after her disappearance, for a month. Her daughter's car smelled like death, she said.
Police immediately interviewed Anthony and soon said everything she told them about her daughter's whereabouts was false. The baby sitter was nonexistent and the apartment where Anthony said she had last seen Caylee had been empty for months. Anthony also lied about where she worked, they said.
Other troubling details emerged: Photos surfaced of Anthony partying after her daughter disappeared. Friends said she was a habitual liar, but also a good mother.
Last month, the Orange County State Attorney turned over almost 800 pages of documents showing someone used the Anthonys' home computer to do Internet searches for terms like "neck breaking" and "household weapons."
Brad Conway, an attorney who represents George and Cindy Anthony, Casey's parents, said they will cooperate with investigators.
"They know now their precious granddaughter is safe and can serve as a guardian angel to protect missing children and their families," Conway said.
In mid-March, someone searched Google and Wikipedia for peroxide, shovels, acetone, alcohol and chloroform. Traces of chloroform, which is used to induce unconsciousness and a component of human decomposition, were found in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car during forensic testing, the documents say.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Anthony faces an automatic life sentence as prosecutors have announced they will not seek the death penalty. Her trial is scheduled for March.
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