Casey Anthony Trial: Cindy Anthony Crumples in Court While Listening to 911 Call

Caylee's grandmother buried head in hands.

ByABC News
May 31, 2011, 10:25 AM

ORLANDO, Fla. May 31, 2011 — -- A distraught Cindy Anthony buried her head in her arms and slumped on the witness stand as she listened to a tape of her daughter, Casey Anthony, calmly tell 911 operators that 2-year-old Caylee, had been missing 31 days.

Casey Anthony can be heard spinning a fresh lie about her daughter's disappearance on the July 15, 2008 call.

"My daughter's been missing for the last 31 days. I know who has her. I've tried to contact her. I actually received a phone call today…I did get to speak to my daughter for about a moment," Casey Anthony can be heard saying on the call.

The 911 call was played by the prosecution as part of Cindy Anthony's testimony in her daughter's first degree murder trial. Casey Anthony, 25, is accused of killing her toddler daughter.

On the 911 call, Casey Anthony told the operator that her nanny, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, took her daughter.

"I've been looking for her and have gone through other resources to try to find her which is stupid," Casey Anthony said.

Casey Anthony's lawyer opened the emotional trial last week by admitting that the babysitter did not kidnap Caylee and that her daughter actually drowned on June 16, 2008 in the family pool.

The prosecution, however, claims Caylee died from duct tape on her nose and mouth, although a medical examiner has never been able to determine a cause of death.

Emotional Testimony in Casey Anthony Murder Trial

Three 911 calls, all placed by Cindy Anthony on July 15, 2008, were played for jurors this morning. After the final call in which Casey told the operator that her nanny had stolen Caylee, an emotional and exhausted looking Cindy Anthony asked for a break.

The calls to the police were placed after she and George Anthony picked up Casey Anthony's abandoned car that smelled of human decomposition from a tow yard. Each call shows Cindy Anthony becoming more emotional and alarmed for her granddaughter, Caylee.

Before calling 911, a frustrated Cindy Anthony called her daughter's friend, Amy Huizenga, and asked for help finding Casey.

Casey Anthony had told her family that she'd be returning from Jacksonville to Orlando with Caylee and a former boyfriend. That turned out to be a lie. Casey Anthony had just picked up Huizenga from the airport and was never in Jacksonville, Cindy Anthony testified.

Huizenga led Cindy Anthony to the apartment of boyfriend Tony Lazzaro where Casey had been staying for much of June and July.

"I just asked her what she was doing there…I told her that she needed to talk to me, that we needed to talk," Cindy Anthony said.

Casey said that she would take her mother to the nanny who Caylee was staying with, but Cindy Anthony testified that they drove for some time and Casey Anthony started to make excuses about why they shouldn't visit the nanny.

Cindy Anthony spotted a police substation and pulled into the parking lot.

"I told her that if she wasn't going to give me the answers that I was going to get someone to help me get them," Cindy Anthony said.

When she realized the station closed at 5 p.m., she dialed 911 from her car, accusing her daughter of stealing money and her car. But the dispatcher said she needed to call the sheriff's office instead.

Cindy Anthony made the second 911 call from her home, and this time she said that she couldn't find her granddaughter.

While waiting for the authorities, Cindy Anthony overheard her daughter telling her son, Lee Anthony, that Casey had been missing for a month.

"I overheard her tell Lee that Caylee had been gone for 31 days and that Zany had taken her...I lost it and just went into the room and started yelling at Casey…I swore at her, hit the bed and ran out and called the police again," Cindy Anthony testified through tears.