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ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Florida grand jury issued a sealed murder indictment Tuesday in the disappearance of a 3-year-old girl, and the attorney for the child's mother said she would turn herself in if she was the one charged.
Prosecutors did not immediately say if Casey Anthony was the person named in the document, but investigators have called her a suspect and questioned why she didn't contact authorities even though her daughter Caylee had been gone for a month.
A few hours before the indictment was issued, Casey Anthony stood silently, sometimes crying, as her attorney told reporters his client is innocent.
"Casey is going through a nightmare," Jose Baez said. "I sincerely believe that when we have finally spoken, everyone, and I mean everyone, will sit back and say, 'Now, I understand. That explains it."
Anthony, 22, so far has only been charged with child neglect, lying to investigators and some unrelated fraud and theft counts.
Casey Anthony's father, George, testified Tuesday behind closed doors to the 19-member grand jury along with a detective, a cadaver dog handler and an FBI agent.
The child's grandmother first called authorities in July to say that she hadn't seen Caylee for a month and that her daughter's car smelled like death.
Casey Anthony told authorities that she had left her daughter with a baby sitter in June, and that the two were gone when she returned from work. She says she spent the next month trying to find her daughter and didn't call authorities because she was scared.
Investigators immediately started poking holes in her story. The apartment where Casey Anthony said she had left her daughter had been vacant for months, they said. They said she also lied when she told them she had been working at an area theme park as a photographer.
Investigators also accused her of stealing checks from a friend and cashing them. She was charged with felony child neglect and making false statements along with forgery and theft. She was released on $500,000 bail and confined to her parents' home.
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