I too was struck by Casey's phrasing with her father. "She's close. She's close" and "I want to be home for her birthday." Neither indicate that Caylee's even alive, and even the implication there would be hedgy.
I'm also fascinated by the dichotomy of the parents. I believe that both of them desperately want Caylee to be found alive, but are they doing good cop-bad cop or is George on a slightly different bent? Cindy goes in with nothing but "support" (to enable) her daughter, and George goes in prepared to ask her "tough questions." Now, the extent of that might have been "Oh, honey, have you found out where Caylee is today?" but the public front on it is interesting. It seems like George and Lee both give off a vibe of "Casey's unbelievable, but we have to be unified in hopes that Caylee is alive." Cindy is more along the lines of "Of course Caylee is with the imaginary babysitter! My daughter is a pathological liar, but I have no reason not to trust her!" The former seems realistic while the latter seems like pure denial. Cindy's media front with the whole "It's all coming together now!" line of commentary really frustrates me and cements my view of her in a wholly negatlve light.
And I know this seems obvious and heresay like, but my sister and her husband live in east Orlando and one of their best friends works for county LE. He told them that the pervasive belief within is that Caylee is dead. I was like "Well, what else is new?" but when I started really thinking about it, being on the other side of the media, we deal in speculation and interpretations and hear each others' views all day long. We have to go on what they tell us and what we can dig up on our own. Here is a LE official who believes it and might very well have hard physical evidence by now. It was just a bit jarring to me, even if it changes nothing. Poor Caylee.