We were on vacation out west and happened to turn the news on for the first time in a week. It was Fox news with a story about a missing girl. I didn’t really pay attention, but my dad commented that it looked like a Florida policeman in the court room. Sure enough – it said “Orlando, FL” in the text. Great! Chris even joked “maybe they live on our street” since all kinds of activity seems to happen on our road.
Fast forward to the end of July when we get home to Orlando. There is a news truck outside a house on our street and the truck in the driveway has shoe polish painted on it saying “help us find Caylee” or something like that. Again – we didn’t think much of it. We really don’t watch the news anymore since it is all so negative.
After the Olympics tonight (Michael Phelps rocks, by the way!) the news came on and they were talking about Caylee. I decided to do some internet searching and figure out how the house down the street is related. Apparently, the people that live there are somehow related to a “Jesse Grund” that is an ex-boyfriend of Casey. They are saying he could be Caylee’s father. Hmmm…the plot just thickened – you mean to tell me they don’t know who this little girl’s father is? Wow (I won’t say another word because I am judgmental and I will get nasty blog comments from random readers as you will see in the post I relate to in a moment). So I do some searching with this Jesse character’s name and then I find articles about Jesus Ortiz being the father. I keep saying the name “Jesus Ortiz” in my head – where do I know that name?
Is that the boy that was just killed on our road while we were gone? No, that was Ricardo Prado Iudice (see THAT story below). OH MY GOSH – I know who it is! It is my sorority girl Sarah’s boyfriend – the one that was killed and nearly killed Sarah. I posed a brief bit about that accident in May of last year and I got slammed in the comments for my judgment on them not wearing seatbelts. Long story short – I used to be an advisor for Chi O out at UCF and I was in chapter right after the accident. They were not sure Sarah would survive. She did – but it was (and I am sure it still is) a long road for her. So Caylee’s mom Casey (gosh I sure hope I have this story right – it is hard to find a FULL news story when you are not constantly on top of the news – all you find is updates) is claiming that Ortiz is the father. Odd since he is dead and so they can’t really go anywhere with that lead. But they do still have his blood from the accident and can test the DNA. Anyway – I just think this whole web is odd and I hope that it all ends with them finding Caylee alive – that is what is most important.
But the secondary story I mentioned about – Ricardo Prado Iudice. We have accidents on our road all the time. The speed limit is 25, but people fly down our road. I’ve been passed a number of times, and Chris was swinging it wide to pull into our driveway one day when someone had started to pass him – they swerved and landed on top of our neighbor across the street’s mailbox. They couldn’t get free – so the police were called. The guy was TICKED – so much that Chris ran inside and locked the door in fear of his safety! Another time we were packing to leave for Dallas and a girl hit a parked car. Then just a few months ago we went to walk the dogs after a late wedding and there were lights all down the road – a car hit a tree. I am not sure if they lived – but the next day there was blood all over the road. Two oak trees are pretty scarred up from it. So we get home from out west and two more oak trees are all scarred up – this time with flowers all over the base of the tree. That is not a good sign. So I called the neighbor to find out what happened. A 16 year old boy was driving 120 miles an hour at 4:18am. He didn’t make the turn and hit the first oak, spun into the second oak and died. Hmmm…was he late for his 4:20am curfew? I know my curfew at 16 was 4:20am. His 2007 Lexus didn’t even look like a car when I saw the photos in the Sentinel. Oh and you know what else? He had been drinking! Oh I am on a soap box tonight. But this is my blog and I can be judgmental if I want to. Speeding, an unreasonable curfew (if one at all), drinking and driving, driving under age – If I were the parents I would be so embarrassed. It is all so sad. The thing that angers me the most is this is OUR road – we walk on it and I am going to be ticked if some jackass ever hits me, Chris or any other innocent person for that matter!