A FORMER friend of Casey Anthony has recounted the moment he found out her two-year-old daughter was missing and says he remains haunted by the warning signs he may have missed.
Cameron Campana told The U.S. Sun he had just returned home to his Orlando, Florida, apartment in July 2008 when he was warned by two of his roommates that "something weird is going on with Casey."
8
8
8
One of those roommates was Tony Lazzaro, Casey Anthony's boyfriend at the time, who said Casey's mom had stopped by the apartment earlier that afternoon in a frantic state asking if he'd seen her daughter.
For the last month, Casey, a then-22-year-old mother-of-one, had been staying with Lazzaro and Campana.
Casey's mom, Cindy Anthony, had last seen Casey on June 16.
She had stormed out of her parent's home after an apparent argument, driving away with her daughter Caylee after rebuffing her parents' attempts at reconciliation.
Read More True Crime
As Tony was describing the unsettling interaction with Cindy, there was a knock at the door. They opened it to find a police officer standing outside.
Recounting what happened next, Cameron said: "[The officer] said: 'We just found out that Caylee has been missing for 31 days.'
"And our jaws just hit the floor. I'd been holding my bag, which had my laptop in it, and it just slipped out of my hand and smashed down onto the ground.
"We were all just completely shocked and wondering how something like this could happen."
Most read in The US Sun
Cameron said he immediately told the officer to come inside the home and look around whatever he needed to.
"He told me: 'I don't have a warrant,'" added Cameron, "but I just said: 'I don't care, a child is missing. Come and search this entire place and just make sure everything is OK.'"
RED FLAGS
Throughout the month that Casey had been living with Lazzaro and his roommates, Cameron said he'd seen her almost every day - but there was no sign of Caylee.
Every time he'd asked where Caylee was, Casey reportedly had a number of excuses primed to explain her daughter's prolonged absence.
"At one point, I remember [my roommate] and I asked Casey: 'Oh, we haven't seen our little friend Caylee around in a while,' and she had an excuse right off the bat," remembered Cameron.
"She'd be like: 'Oh, yeah, her and the nanny are going to Universal [Studios] this week, then they're going to Epcot one day, and the Magic Kingdom another day.
"And it was believable, it wasn't like she had to think about it or whatever," he added.
"Being a 20-something mom at the time who supposedly had a nanny, that wasn't unbelievable during the summer.
"There was nothing that would make us be like: 'Is there something weird going on here?'"
The hardest thing is thinking about those 31 days. You start thinking about, well were there signs something was wrong that we could have been paying attention to, or that we should've caught? It used to drive me crazy.
Cameron Campanafriend of Casey's
During that month, Cameron said Casey appeared to be her normal self and "more relaxed" than she had been in prior interactions.
The only thing he ever saw, which sits strangely with him now, Cameron says, is that she was frequently receiving phone calls that she'd often step outside to take.
Casey told Cameron has his other roommates that it was her parents "driving her crazy" about something.
"She would tell me her parents were driving her crazy, which didn't seem at the time to be out of the ordinary for an angsty 20-something," recounted Cameron.
"I remember she would always say something about her mom being a control freak. She would always say it was her mom calling her, and she would go out to the pond behind our apartment to talk with her, and just pace around."
Cameron says he quizzed Casey once on what the calls were about and why she was always walking around the pond when she spoke with her mom.
"She told me: 'Oh my mom and I get on each other's nerves, and it's my time to vent.'
"I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now I wonder who it was that she was talking to."
'A FUN-LOVING KID'
Cameron and his roommates had met Caylee a handful of times before her disappearance, even babysitting her on one occasion while Casey and Lazzaro went out to dinner.
He described the two-year-old as rambunctious, funny, and incredibly smart for her age.
A natural-born performer, Caylee would also get a kick out of making him and the other guys laugh, he says.
Remembering one such interaction, Cameron recalled: "Caylee would always be goofin' and trying to show off for the guys.
"We'd all be watching TV or playing video games and she'd get in front of the screen and say: 'Look at me, guys!'
"She was just a fun-loving kid and she was really smart.
"I remember Casey would always laugh and tell us: 'This girl is going to be trouble when she's older.'"
Cameron described Casey as a good mom who was always attentive to her daughter when in their company, reading to her or helping her with her numbers.
He said she was incredibly protective of the young girl and they appeared to be best friends.
They spent time in the summer around the pool in their apartment block.
Cameron remembered once that Caylee had got too close to the water without her water wings on.
Casey immediately grabbed the girl by the arm as she approached the water's edge.
"Don't get so close to the water without your wings on," warned Casey. "It's dangerous and you could hurt yourself."
TRAGEDY STRIKES
Caylee Anthony was last seen alive on June 16, 2008, leaving the Orlando, Florida home of her grandparents, Cindy and George Anthony, with her mother.
Police were alerted to the disappearance of Caylee shortly after George received a notice that Casey's car had been impounded.
While frantically trying to track down Casey, Cindy reported Caylee missing the same day, having not seen her granddaughter for 31 days.
A distraught-sounding Cindy told a 911 operator: "There is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."
In a string of 911 calls, Casey would confirm to police that her daughter was indeed missing, alleging the girl had been kidnapped on June 9 by her babysitter, Zenaida Gonzales-Fernandez, who had also since disappeared.
8
8
8
Casey never mentioned to Cameron anything about her daughter being kidnapped during the time she'd been staying at his home.
The claim was later found to be a red herring.
A woman named Zenaida Gonzales-Fernandez was tracked down by police, though she told investigators she'd never even met Casey nor any of her family.
Casey was arrested in mid-July 2008 and charged with child neglect, lying to investigators, and interfering with a criminal investigation.
At a bond hearing later that month, she was declared a "person of interest" in connection with Caylee's death.
The designation came after a cadaver dog alerted to the odor of human decomposition in the trunk of her car and in the Anthony family's backyard.
A strand of hair "microscopically similar" to Caylee's was also found in the trunk and showed "characteristics of apparent decomposition."
No additional trace of the young girl would be found for several months until a utility worker named Roy Kronk found a bag of bones in a swampy, wooded area less than half a mile from the Anthonys' home on December 11, 2008.
The remains were confirmed to belong to Caylee.
A strip of duct tape was found on a strand of hair connected to her skull.
A heart-shaped sticker had been placed over the tape at one stage but had since fallen off, investigators said.
Caylee was confirmed to have died from homicidal means, though a specific cause of death could never be determined because her remains were so severely decomposed.
Casey was charged with first-degree murder, manslaughter, child abuse, and four counts of lying to police.
MORE QUESTIONS, ZERO ANSWERS
Cameron said he blacked out when he was informed that Caylee's body had been found.
It would've taken a "f**king monster" to harm that little girl, he said, and he couldn't imagine in a million years that Casey was capable of such a despicable crime.
But by the time her case went to trial in May 2011, Casey had been dubbed the most hated mom in America.
Six weeks of tumult would follow, culminating in Casey's shock acquittal.
The ruling sent shockwaves around the world, and Casey receded from the spotlight.
However, she return to the limelight late last year with the release of a docu-series on Peacock, in which she protested her innocence and blamed her father George for killing Caylee.
8
8
More than a decade on, Cameron says he has more questions than ever about what may have happened to Caylee.
All the while, he remains haunted by the red flags or warning signs he may have unwittingly missed, hinting that all may have not been what it seemed with the Anthonys.
"The hardest thing is just like thinking about those 31 days," said Cameron in an exhale of frustration.
"You start thinking about, well were there signs something was wrong that we could have been paying attention to, or that we should've caught?
"It used to drive me crazy thinking about the what-ifs. It still bothers me.
Read More on The US Sun
"All I've ever wanted is to know what happened so we can get some justice for Caylee. That's all I care about."
