Remains Of Missing Toddler Believed To Be 3 Year Caylee Anthony Were Found

Unfortunetly this case has made the mother to missing Caylee a celebrity. This story is so heartbreaking!

Investigators hurried to identify the skeletal remains of a small child found in a wooded area near the home of missing Florida girl Caylee Anthony's family.

A team of medical examiners and detectives hoped the bones, discovered by a water meter reader on Thursday, would help them solve the 6-month-old mystery of the child's whereabouts.

Caylee, who would have turned 3 in August, was last seen in June. Her mother, 22-year-old Casey Anthony is behind bars and charged with her murder.

Lawyers on both sides of the case were heading to court Friday morning in an effort to preserve the evidence collected Thursday and in a bid to be present during testing.

Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary told a morning show Friday that detectives found a connection between the remains and the Anthonys' house.
Another search warrant for the home was executed early Friday morning after the medical examiner found "some clues that came out of the remains" that "linked it to the house," Beary told NBC's "Today" show.

Asked if he believed the remains were Caylee's, Beary replied: "My gut says yes, but I have to wait seven to 14 days for the DNA analysis to absolutely make sure."

There are also no other similar missing-child cases in the area.

Beary said his investigators and the FBI would work around the clock and through the weekend to identify the child.

"Now the investigation continues," Beary said. "There is a lot of lab work to do. There is a lot of DNA work to do. There is a lot of crime scene work to do."

The worker stumbled upon the bones in a bag bound with duct tape less than a half-mile from where Caylee lived with her mother and grandparents in Orange County, Fla., near Orlando.
There were reports that a skull with duct tape around the mouth area rolled out of the bag when the utility worker picked it up. He had apparently gone into the woods to relieve himself.
Casey Anthony was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even without a body. She has insisted that she left the girl with a baby sitter in June, but she didn't report her missing until July.

For the past several months, Anthony's family, police and volunteers from around the country have searched for the little girl. They had overlooked the wooded lot where the skull was found first because it was flooded after heavy rains and later because it was fenced off.

Allen Moore, a spokesman for the Orange County jail, said Casey Anthony was told about the discovery. She was placed under psychological observation, not suicide watch, and remains under protective custody.

Sheriff's spokesman Angelo Nieves said officials told Caylee's grandparents about the find.
A spokeswoman with the state attorney's office said it would reserve comment until the investigation was complete.

The child's grandmother first called authorities in July to say she hadn't seen Caylee for a month and her daughter's car smelled like death.

Police interviewed Anthony and 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.

Last week, prosecutors announced they would not pursue the death penalty for Anthony. Earlier Thursday, before the remains were discovered, a judge had delayed her trial from January to March.