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Tags: caylee anthony bones,caylee anthony found,caylee anthony search,leonard padilla search
Updated information from WFTV. Turns out Padilla may be a bit shady.
ORLANDO, Fla. – For a few hours Thursday afternoon, searchers thought they’d found bones that could have been part of the remains of Caylee Anthony. But detectives quickly determined the evidence found by bounty hunter Leonard Padilla’s dive team was nothing but sticks and mud.
The detectives also cast suspicion on the find by asking Padilla to take a lie detector test.
Early Thursday afternoon, the dive team confirmed to Eyewitness News it had located several children’s toys inside a plastic bag in the Little Econ River including a plastic shamrock toy. The divers also claimed to have found three or four bones.
But Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigators said, in fact, there were no bones and the bag had nothing to do with the Caylee Anthony case. Additionally, the shamrock toy turned out to be a Gumby toy.
“There is nothing … at the scene that is credible or of a significant find,” said Capt. Angelo Nieves of the Sheriff’s Office (watch full statement). “Nothing that was discovered has been retained by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.”
FBI agents and sheriff’s office detectives arrived on the scene Thursday afternoon and sifted through the remains (video).
Padilla, who organized the dive search, said the bag appeared to have been weighted down by bricks. After the FBI and sheriff’s detectives looked over the find, their attention turned to Padilla.
“Mr. Padilla has been requested to take part in a polygraph that will be conducted by the FBI. We believe it is an important thing to do,” Nieves said.
Nieves said Padilla had agreed to take the test and then commented on Padilla’s decision to inform media of the discovery before deputies.
“Law enforcement should have been the first call regarding this find, not the media,” Nieves said.
Padilla indicated he hadn’t even seen what his divers had found.
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen any of it because they’re over there and I’m over here,” Padilla said.
When asked why detectives wanted him to take a lie detector test, he said, “They don’t believe anybody about anything.”
Tim Miller, the founder of EquuSearch, a group that organized a massive weekend search for Caylee’s remains, was very critical of Padilla.
“What a disgrace to society this man is for doing this kind of stuff,” Miller said.
Miller said during the weekend search, Padilla had begged Miller to use his own divers to search the river. Miller recounted the conversation, saying Padilla said to him, “Tim Miller’s divers out here, news cameras out here … think how much money we could make, Tim.”
Padilla organized Thursday’s search in the Little Econ River because of a cross that was discovered on a nearby tree. Searchers have said they do not expect to find the child alive.
The group of highly-trained divers headed into the Little Econ River in Blanchard Park just after 9:00am Thursday.
The divers are part of Orlando-based Blackwater Divers. The group expected to have more than 30 divers search a 1-mile stretch of the river.
The group used underwater communications and dragged large nets to scrape the river’s bottom. But searching dark waters was just one challenge. The divers also dealt with several alligators.
“I’ve been certified for 26 years and it’s the worst conditions I’ve ever dived in,” diver Spyder Dalton said.
The divers searched all day Thursday and it was believed they would be back to search again Friday.
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even though the sheriffs dept. discounted the bones they found, did they actually send them out to be tested or did they just look at them themselves, even though they are not trained to do that and just say they are not caylees?