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EXCUSES, EXCUSES

Roommate of Casey Anthony’s boyfriend tells all about her strange behavior in 31 days before Caylee was reported missing

CASEY Anthony was "relaxed" and offered an abundance of excuses for where her daughter was during the 31 days before the two-year-old was reported missing, according to a roommate of her then-boyfriend.

Anthony, who was once dubbed "America's most hated mom", was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee after a highly publicized and incredibly controversial trial in Clearwater, Florida, in 2011.

Casey Anthony protested her innocence in a documentary series that aired on Peacock this month
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Casey Anthony protested her innocence in a documentary series that aired on Peacock this monthCredit: Peacock
Caylee Anthony was just two years old when she was murdered and her remains discarded in a swamp behind the Anthony family home
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Caylee Anthony was just two years old when she was murdered and her remains discarded in a swamp behind the Anthony family homeCredit: AP
Cameron Campana, pictured during Casey's 2011 trial, told The U.S. Sun that she was relaxed during the 31 days Caylee was missing
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Cameron Campana, pictured during Casey's 2011 trial, told The U.S. Sun that she was relaxed during the 31 days Caylee was missingCredit: Court TV

Caylee was last seen alive leaving her grandparents' home in Orlando, Florida, with her mother in June 2008.

She was reported missing by her grandmother Cindy 31 days later, who 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."

During that time, Casey had been living with her boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro, and his three roommates.

One of those roommates, Cameron Campana, told The U.S. Sun that Casey seemed "completely normal" and relaxed throughout the month Caylee was missing.

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Cameron said: "I saw Casey almost every day throughout those 31 days because she was practically living with us at the time ... we never saw Caylee but Casey was there.

"But I would just assume Caylee was either with her nanny or one of the grandparents.

"Casey just seemed normal, same old Casey. It was actually during those 31 days that I got to know her much better because she was around all the time.

"I didn't notice anything out of the normal at all, in fact, she was more relaxed than she had been with us because we knew her better and it felt like the was a part of the group and the apartment."

Whenever the subject arose of where Cayley 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?'"

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Casey and Lazzaro started dating in the spring of 2008, having first met on Facebook while he was studying at college and working as a club promoter on the side.

The pair, Lazzaro would later tell a courtroom, immediately hit it off and soon he developed a close bond with Caylee too.

It wasn't long before Lazzaro introduced his new girlfriend to Cameron and his other roommates.

As Cameron remembers it, Casey arrived at their apartment with Caylee in tow.

"She was just very nice and very sociable," Cameron recounted.

"Casey was just cracking jokes and playing with Caylee.

"And Caylee, she was pretty much the same every time I saw her, she was just a fun-loving child who just loved having fun and was really smart for her age.

"She was two and knew how to count to 10 in Spanish - and I couldn't even do that at the age of 20.

"It was a very good first impression," he added.

"To think that just five months later how everything would drastically change just blows my mind.

"I would have never imagine that in my wildest dreams."

To do something to that innocent little girl, for lack of a better word, you'd have to be a f**king monster

Cameron Campana

Over the next few months, Cameron would see Casey and Caylee at the home a handful of times, even babysitting the young girl while Casey and Lazzaro went out for dinner one night.

Casey, as Cameron understood, worked at Universal Studios and was taking an online college course.

He said she appeared to be a good mom who was attentive and engaged with Caylee.

"They seemed like they were best friends," he said, "and Casey seemed very protective of her.

"I never once heard Casey raise a voice to her or grab her by the arm or anything.

"There was one time that we went to our local swimming pool in our apartment block and Kaylee almost got a little too close to the water without her water wings.

"Casey ran over and picked her up and told her, 'remember what I told you - don't get too close to the water without your wings on.'"

A LIVING NIGHTMARE

Cameron's perceptions of Casey would be shattered five months after their first meeting with a knock at the door from a police officer in July 2008, kick-starting a shocking chain of events that would culminate in one of the most famous murder trials in US history.

The officer told Cameron, Lazzaro, and their other roommates that Caylee had been missing for more than a month.

The announcement, Cameron said, left him slack-jawed with shock. The bag he'd been holding in his hand, containing his laptop, also slipped from his grasp and crashed down onto the floor.

"I was just so shocked, I kept wondering 'how can this happen?'

"I told the cop right there and then, 'come in sir and do whatever you need to do.'

"He told me he didn't have a search warrant but I said, 'I don't care. There's a child missing. Come in and search the entire place to make sure everything is okay.'"

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.

Casey, then 25, had allegedly got into a fight with her parents the day before and fled the home with Caylee after rebuffing George and Cindy's efforts to reconcile.

Caylee was last seen alive leaving her grandparents' home in Orlando, Florida, with her mother in June 2008
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Caylee was last seen alive leaving her grandparents' home in Orlando, Florida, with her mother in June 2008Credit: AP:Associated Press
Casey Anthony is pictured with her mom Cindy. Cindy was the first person to report Caylee missing in July 2008
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Casey Anthony is pictured with her mom Cindy. Cindy was the first person to report Caylee missing in July 2008Credit: Peacock
Tony Lazzaro (above) was dating Casey Anthony at the time Caylee vanished
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Tony Lazzaro (above) was dating Casey Anthony at the time Caylee vanished

Two days later, as Cameron desperately waited for updates, Casey's brother Lee Anthony stopped by the apartment to pick up some of Caylee's belongings.

Lee reportedly asked Cameron, "So, what has my sister told you about herself and our family?"

Cameron responded that Casey told him she worked at Universal and was studying online for her college degree.

"Well, my sister never even graduated high school," Lee informed him. "And she's known to steal money from our family and lie about everything."

Reflecting on that conversation 14 years later, Cameron said: "That's when the first set of lies started coming out.

"And then we were finding out all these other things, like that she didn't really work at Universal.

"It was surreal; it was almost like you were in a bad dream.

"But almost fifteen years later, we're still living in it."

ENDURING MYSTERY

Police were alerted to the disappearance of Caylee shortly after her dad, George Anthony, 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.

Casey never mentioned anything about her daughter being kidnapped to Cameron 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."

Casey was arrested in mid-July 2008 and charged with child neglect, lying to investigators, and interfering with a criminal investigation
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Casey was arrested in mid-July 2008 and charged with child neglect, lying to investigators, and interfering with a criminal investigationCredit: AP
She was later charged with murder, manslaughter and child abuse but was acquitted of all counts
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She was later charged with murder, manslaughter and child abuse but was acquitted of all countsCredit: Getty

No additional trace of the young girl would be yielded 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.

By the time her case went to trial in May 2011, the world was watching on with keen eyes.

LINGERING QUESTIONS

Throughout the tumultuous six-week trial, Casey was painted by the prosecution as a pathological liar and raging party girl who no longer wanted to bear the burden of motherhood.

Casey's legal team hit back with a bombshell of their own, claiming for the first time that Caylee had drowned in the family's swimming pool and that George, in a state of panic, had tried to cover up evidence of the accidental death by discarding of her remains in the woods.

Without evidence, Casey's lawyers also accused George of sexually abusing her as a child. They would later claim he also abused Caylee.

George vehemently denied the sexual abuse claims. He also denied having any involvement in Caylee's death.

After the trial's close, it took the jury less than 11 hours of deliberation to acquit Casey Anthony of all charges.

Explaining their decision in the months after, though many of the 12 jurors didn't believe Casey was innocent, they believed the prosecution lacked concrete evidence to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Torn, too, was Cameron, who today still remains unsure as to whether or not Casey had any involvement in her daughter's death.

"I never wanted to believe that she was capable of doing something to Caylee just because of how great of a mom she seemed - she just didn’t seem like someone who would do that based on my interactions with them," he said.

"But after all the lies and everything that happened, you have to question whether I really knew her at all."

He added: "To do something to that innocent little girl, for lack of a better word, you'd have to be a f**king monster.

"I only knew Casey for five months, but I just never thought in a million years that she would be capable of doing something like that."

WAITING FOR THE TRUTH

Having largely stayed out of the headlines in the 11 years since her controversial acquittal, Casey Anthony returned to the limelight this month following the release of a new docu-series on Peacock, in which she protests her innocence.

In the three-part series, she shocking claims that her father George may have accidentally killed Caylee when smothering her with a pillow during an alleged sexual attack.

She reiterates her allegations that George was sexually abusive to her growing up and believes he may have also been abusing Caylee prior to her death.

While George has vehemently denied her claims, Casey alleges in the documentary that her dad abused her between the ages of 8 and 12.

She claims he would come into her room and molest her, and if she tried to resist, he'd smother her with a pillow until she passed out.

Theorizing that something similar may have happened to her daughter, Casey claims her dad staged her death to look like a drowning and later stashed Caylee's body in the woods to cover up evidence of her death and the alleged abuse.

The allegation differs from the claims she made against George during her trial

Appearing in the series too is Cameron, who learned about Casey's latest version of events for the first time on camera.

Having to walk off set to process the newest claims, Cameron called Casey's bombshell allegations "mind blowing."

"I'm not fully convinced by what she said, but I'm leaning towards the idea that maybe she didn't do it," he said.

"If she was traumatized and abused growing up, all the lies and going about as if everything was normal makes sense.

"I've got to re-watch it again because it was all very emotional the first time around. There were parts when I was angry, when I was sad and other parts that made me cry.

"I didn't know her for long enough to read her properly, but she was convincing in what she was saying.

"Either she is telling the truth or she had fooled all these psychiatrists and psychologists and should be nominated for an award for acting.

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"All these years later, there might be even more questions about what happened.

"I just hope the truth comes out soon. I want to get justice for Caylee."

Casey Anthony has long protested her innocence of any involvement in her daughter's death
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Casey Anthony has long protested her innocence of any involvement in her daughter's deathCredit: AP
She now claims her father George (left) killed her during an attempted sex attack
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She now claims her father George (left) killed her during an attempted sex attackCredit: Getty
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