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Utility Worker: I Had Nothing To Do With Caylee's Death

Associated Press photo

Authorities remove evidence in an area where the skeletal remains of Caylee Anthony were found in December.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 13, 2009

Roy Kronk, the utility worker who found Caylee Anthony's bones last month, says he wants to set the record straight: He had nothing to do with the child's death, and nobody told him where the body could be found.

Kronk, who found Anthony in a swampy area less than a half-mile from where the girl lived, appeared today on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"No good deed goes unpunished," he said of informing authorities about the bones. "All the speculation that there was tips. … I found this out by myself."

The skeletal remains were found a three-minute walk from the Orlando home of Casey Anthony, the missing child's mother. Caylee's skull was underwater during previous searches for the toddler, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Casey Anthony insists that she left the girl, who was 2 years old when she disappeared, with a babysitter in June. The child's grandmother reported to law enforcement in July that she had not seen Caylee for a month and that her daughter's car smelled like death.

Caylee's mother has since been charged with first-degree murder.

Today, Kronk said he first spoke to law enforcement several times in August to report he had seen something suspicious in the swampy area.

"If you were going to get rid of something like that … it would have been a great place to hide it," he said on "Good Morning America."

The sheriff's office said he first called on Aug. 11 to report a bag. A deputy responded but didn't find anything and was unable to locate him. Kronk called a crime hot line the following day and the information was passed on to the sheriff's office criminal investigation division.

On Aug. 13, he called the sheriff's office a third time. He met a deputy, but authorities cleared the area as a place of interest in the search a short time later.

"There was water there in August, and I guess the deputy didn't want to go out in the water to look at the bag," Kronk said.

Kronk said that some people speculate he had something to do with the child's death, but he said today that he is innocent and has never met the Anthony family.

In the early 1990s, Kronk said on the show, he was arrested on kidnapping charges. Kronk said he was never tried and that the charge has since been expunged.

"The only reason that I came forward with it was, I have nothing to hide," he said. "I didn't want this to happen, what's already happening."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691.

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