The Megyn Kelly Show - Casey Anthony： A Megyn Kelly Show True Crime Special ｜ Ep. 226

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.040 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and our true crime Christmas week here on the program.

00:00:19.000 Going to take you back now to July 15th, 2008, when Cindy Anthony of Florida first reported her granddaughter Kaylee missing, a fact she only learned one month after the child had disappeared.

00:00:36.020 Cindy had no idea that her grandchild was missing because that child, she believed, had been with its mother, Casey Anthony.

00:00:43.560 Casey Anthony had been claiming that she and her little girl were on a trip together.

00:00:48.500 When Grandma called, she just kept telling Grandma that little Kaylee couldn't talk. 0.92

00:00:54.220 But then a fateful event took place.

00:00:56.580 You see, the car that Cindy, that's the grandma, had lent her daughter, Casey, wound up in an impound lot.

00:01:06.160 Cindy and her husband, George, the parents of Casey, were called by the towing company.

00:01:10.580 They thought Casey was off on vacation with little Kaylee.

00:01:13.540 They didn't understand why she'd be separated from the car.

00:01:16.380 But they went to the lot, they examined the automobile, and suddenly their minds were flooded with questions.

00:01:22.740 A few phone calls later, and they realized Casey had been lying to them.

00:01:27.520 She had not been on a vacation somewhere.

00:01:30.600 She had been staying with some boyfriend.

00:01:33.860 But where was Casey's child?

00:01:36.460 Their granddaughter, Kaylee.

00:01:38.080 The answer to that would take another five months and would end in a dark and gruesome discovery.

00:01:45.980 Two-year-old Kaylee was dead by homicide, and Casey had known that she'd been dead for weeks.

00:01:54.940 My guests today to discuss this case are Cheney Mason and Beth Karras.

00:01:59.140 Cheney is an attorney who served as co-counsel on the Casey Anthony defense team

00:02:03.460 and who wrote the book Justice in America, how the prosecutors and the media conspire against the accused.

00:02:11.880 And Beth is a former prosecutor and journalist who covered this trial from 2008 to 2011 for True TV.

00:02:18.860 Welcome, Cheney and Beth.

00:02:20.040 So good to have you both here.

00:02:21.880 Thank you.

00:02:22.340 Hello.

00:02:23.020 Bye.

00:02:23.220 So first, let me tell you this, Beth, I'm so happy to see you because I remember being a young reporter at Fox News

00:02:30.400 and following you and following your coverage on Court TV, now True TV, whatever.

00:02:36.680 And I just always admired you and thought you were such a straight shooter and really smart of the law.

00:02:40.200 So it's fun to have you on.

00:02:41.960 Thank you for being here.

00:02:43.460 Well, thank you very much.

00:02:44.740 Thank you for that introduction.

00:02:45.940 Of course.

00:02:46.660 And Cheney, you're the man.

00:02:47.980 You and Jose are the ones who tried this case and managed to get this acquittal, which shocked the nation.

00:02:54.220 And I'd love to get into all of it because I'd love to take an honest look at, you know, what's real and what's not.

00:02:59.400 We just went through this with, for example, Amanda Knox and compared what was real in her case to the way the media covered it.

00:03:06.040 And there was a very wide delta.

00:03:08.500 Right.

00:03:08.680 So I understand your point, Cheney, that you can't just go by media reports.

00:03:13.260 So we'll get into all of it.

00:03:14.340 OK, so let's start at the beginning.

00:03:17.700 We're at the point where Cindy, I mean, it's confusing for the audience that doesn't know the case forward and backward.

00:03:22.400 But Cindy's the grandma, Casey's the daughter, and Kaylee is the little two-year-old granddaughter.

00:03:27.640 Cindy, Anthony, is the matriarch, and she's letting her daughter, who was only 22 at the time this all went down, live with her.

00:03:35.520 She's an unwed mom. 1.00

00:03:36.920 She's a single mom.

00:03:37.740 She's got little Kaylee with her.

00:03:39.840 And they tell her, Casey tells her that she's going off on vacation.

00:03:42.920 She's going to go to a couple towns, going to take the daughter, the granddaughter. 1.00

00:03:46.140 OK, fine.

00:03:46.760 Then we talk about how she discovers that wasn't true.

00:03:50.100 She goes to the car impound lot and she winds up calling the 911 operator.

00:03:59.260 At first, what she really thinks this might be about is maybe there was a stolen car, and then she realizes that it's worse than that, that something smells wrong with that car and she doesn't know where the granddaughter is either.

00:04:14.920 Here's soundbite one.

00:04:16.140 My daughter finally admitted that the baby's in the store.

00:04:20.580 I need to find her.

00:04:22.260 Your daughter admitted that the baby is where?

00:04:24.820 But the baby said it took her a month ago that my daughter's been looking for.

00:04:28.400 I told you my daughter was missing for a month.

00:04:30.340 I just found her today, but I can't find my granddaughter.

00:04:33.560 She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find her herself.

00:04:37.460 There's something wrong.

00:04:41.420 I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the car.

00:04:46.060 OK, what is the three-year-old's name?

00:04:48.020 Kaylee.

00:04:48.680 C-A-Y-L-E-E. 1.00

00:04:50.440 Anthony.

00:04:50.840 And I'll start with you on this, Beth.

00:04:54.060 So that's, we were off to the races, because now what we learned on that day is that you've got a young mother who hasn't, by her own admission, hasn't seen her child in a month, who tells investigators she decided to handle it herself and was only caught because the mother was called to that impound lot.

00:05:10.980 Go from there.

00:05:13.000 Right.

00:05:13.400 So I know when we look back in hindsight, we know what the defense explanation for that was at that time.

00:05:20.180 But when we were looking at this unfolding in real time, people who were following it, and I started following it with court TV from the very beginning, it looked really suspicious.

00:05:32.840 Like, why is she looking for this child herself?

00:05:36.400 Why isn't she calling the authority?

00:05:38.280 She ultimately tells the police she didn't trust them.

00:05:40.880 She wanted to look for her daughter herself.

00:05:44.160 But we learned that what she's doing in this 30-day period from June 16th to July 15th was, I mean, what's documented, photos of her and other memorializations and text messages, whatever, don't seem to be consistent with looking for her daughter.

00:06:02.220 Right?

00:06:02.440 She's partying. 0.99

00:06:03.440 She got a tattoo.

00:06:04.820 She's in a hot body contest. 1.00

00:06:06.560 And it's like, really, is this woman grieving her daughter?

00:06:08.720 Is she in a panic?

00:06:09.420 Is she looking for this toddler who was two years old and 10 months at that time?

00:06:14.060 So it was very suspicious.

00:06:15.500 And she ultimately gets charged with child neglect, like failure of crime.

00:06:20.820 Well, Cheney will have to tell us the exact crimes, but it was like failure to report her child.

00:06:25.360 It was like neglect charges.

00:06:26.840 Nothing to do with homicide.

00:06:27.980 That would be down the road.

00:06:29.600 But that seemed to be right because it didn't make sense what she was saying.

00:06:34.460 And she's lying to the police. 0.59

00:06:35.840 She's sending them in all these tangents that were going nowhere because she knew the truth and she wasn't telling the police the truth. 0.94

00:06:43.100 Let me ask you this, Cheney, one of the questions, and we'll get into it with the audience, what your defense was and how that went.

00:06:49.820 But at this point in the case, under your theory of the case, when Casey's confronted by her mom, Cindy, you know, where's Kaylee?

00:06:58.840 What's the deal with the car?

00:07:00.480 You know, this is July 15th.

00:07:02.820 Under your theory, Casey knew at that point that her child was dead, correct?

00:07:11.300 No.

00:07:12.200 And your facts about how the car was found are wrong.

00:07:16.180 The car was found in a parking lot of a shopping center.

00:07:21.840 George found the car.

00:07:24.540 George drove the car home. 0.99

00:07:26.360 Cindy, at some point after that, made the call, the infamous call, it smelled like a damn dead body was there. 1.00

00:07:36.540 Five deputy sheriffs responded to the house, to the car on the same day, inspected it, trunk opened, doors opened, and every single one of them testified under oath that they did not smell anything. 0.91

00:07:50.560 So that's another one of these examples that made it imaginary.

00:07:55.000 It's not true.

00:07:55.600 But wait a second, Chaney, wait a second.

00:07:59.000 George drove the car home from the pound.

00:08:01.960 It was towed from the lot.

00:08:04.000 It was towed from that parking lot where she left at the end of June, June 26th, I think.

00:08:09.000 And by the time that Anthony's got the paperwork from the pound where it was, it was already July.

00:08:14.840 It may not have been the 15th, but it was early July.

00:08:17.760 It was July.

00:08:18.640 And then they go to the pound.

00:08:19.840 And that's where George, as he approached the car, he said he really feared.

00:08:25.960 He smelled something that was very familiar to him because he's a former police officer.

00:08:29.600 He really feared when the trunk was open he was going to see something he didn't want to see.

00:08:33.160 But that didn't happen.

00:08:34.180 But the man at the pound said to him, oh, yeah, I know that smell.

00:08:37.120 Because somebody else, there was an abandoned car there.

00:08:39.940 It may be it was a salvage yard.

00:08:41.140 I can't remember a pound salvage yard.

00:08:42.680 But there was an abandoned car that had a dead body in it.

00:08:45.440 He said it was a similar smell.

00:08:47.320 I know that I know what you say is they didn't smell anything.

00:08:50.620 That's true.

00:08:51.300 But there's other evidence of odor closer in time to the car being claimed by the Anthony's.

00:08:58.680 Once again, we'll disagree.

00:09:00.760 That's not the fact.

00:09:02.300 The car was found.

00:09:04.800 And George said they had thrown garbage over the fence to a dumpster.

00:09:11.840 OK.

00:09:12.320 That was not the impound lot.

00:09:14.520 And they came and they did not smell anything other than garbage.

00:09:19.700 Then the car was taken.

00:09:20.840 After they had the car to the home and they had the statements from Cindy, the sheriff's department took it and they kept it.

00:09:29.400 And it never was returned.

00:09:30.800 It was kept in the sheriff's department for forensic evidence the whole time.

00:09:35.420 Even thereafter, months later, I was in the case.

00:09:40.140 It's not like it's all that important.

00:09:42.020 The bottom line is there was an initial claim by Cindy.

00:09:47.100 There's no dispute about that.

00:09:48.920 And the state tried to buttress her statement because she was a nurse and she knew what bodies smelled like. 1.00

00:09:55.860 That was ridiculous because nurses don't know what bodies smelled like because they don't keep them in the hospital. 1.00

00:10:01.220 OK, but we're getting hung up. 0.83

00:10:02.780 I mean, there's no question Cindy said on that 911 call. 0.99

00:10:05.240 She she that it smelled like there had been a damn dead body in the trunk. 0.98

00:10:08.820 We all heard that. 0.98

00:10:10.000 I've heard George give interviews.

00:10:11.520 I've heard George give interviews where he says it smelled like a dead body.

00:10:14.740 He's he has said that on camera.

00:10:16.360 And the the head of the tow lot, it was the towing company and the man's name was Simon Birch.

00:10:21.720 That's the company that impounded Casey's car in June, testified that he hadn't encountered multiple vehicles with dead bodies during his three decades in the business and that the smell from Casey's car was consistent with those past experiences.

00:10:32.200 So let's not get too hung up.

00:10:34.340 We don't know whether it was, in fact, the Kaylee Anthony that created the smell in that car.

00:10:41.020 And I understand that the authorities would argue that.

00:10:43.760 But we don't need to get too hung up on whether people said it because they did say it.

00:10:48.660 Whether or not that was the smell would have to be proven at trial.

00:10:52.380 Go ahead.

00:10:53.240 Saying it is one thing.

00:10:54.560 There is no forensic evidence to support that it is in a unique order to the decomposition of a human body.

00:11:02.200 So when they took a look at the trunk, there was not a dead body inside of it.

00:11:08.560 The grandparents open up the trunk and there is no dead body.

00:11:12.300 There is, however, large amounts of trash.

00:11:15.200 And it's the hot Florida sun. 0.81

00:11:17.420 Right.

00:11:17.580 I mean, I've seen the garbage bags.

00:11:18.680 Are you disputing that, too, Cheney?

00:11:19.840 Why are we getting so contentious?

00:11:20.620 No, no.

00:11:20.940 It had had been in there before she had any contact with it.

00:11:25.300 The garbage bags were thrown out of the car over the fence to a public dumpster site.

00:11:33.720 There's no question that Cindy said what she smelled.

00:11:37.940 And that made it a very, very alluring claim about the case.

00:11:42.720 And all I'm saying is we established there is no forensic evidence to do that.

00:11:47.220 And as a matter of fact, that's when they had the air sample test and the forensic scientists testify that what was and was not.

00:11:56.560 It's not really important to the turn of the case, in my opinion, other than it led to causing the attention to the case right from the beginning.

00:12:08.140 Exactly as you said.

00:12:09.920 And it could very well be under any theory of the case that that Kaylee's body was was either not in that trunk at any point or was not in that trunk for long or was there and was removed.

00:12:22.680 I mean, what we do know is Kaylee was killed.

00:12:26.320 The Kaylee is dead and that ultimately her body would be found not in that car.

00:12:30.060 But we'll get to that that point in the story.

00:12:32.020 But when we learned about Casey Anthony's version of the story was at the opening argument, the opening statement at trial and and we'll get to all of that.

00:12:41.360 But under her version, under her version of the case, she, George, her dad killed.

00:12:50.460 Well, didn't kill, but it was with little Kaylee when she drowned.

00:12:53.820 OK, she drowned.

00:12:55.600 So, well, that's not correct.

00:12:58.220 That's not correct.

00:12:59.300 George found her.

00:13:00.640 OK, there's no evidence that George was with this child when she drowned.

00:13:06.900 He found her and brought her in from the pool and confronted Casey.

00:13:12.400 Look at what you did.

00:13:13.820 There is no evidence that he did anything.

00:13:17.120 Right.

00:13:17.340 I know.

00:13:17.800 I'm aware because most of us don't think he did.

00:13:20.200 But when when did that allegedly happen?

00:13:23.840 Well, I'd have to go back to the specific dates that you probably have.

00:13:27.700 Well, you just told me it hadn't happened at the point she said, I've been with her for a month and I've been out.

00:13:33.320 You said it hadn't happened at that point.

00:13:35.080 So when did it happen?

00:13:36.800 I don't know.

00:13:38.240 Well, then why are you telling me that it hadn't happened yet at the point?

00:13:42.140 Yeah, go ahead.

00:13:42.740 What I'm telling you is when you said that George was with the child when she died, there is no evidence.

00:13:48.900 No, no, but you're disputing.

00:13:49.800 I'm going back to my first point.

00:13:51.460 So you don't know.

00:13:52.880 My point is when she was out dancing and getting the tattoos and Bella Vida and doing all the crazy stuff for that 30 day period.

00:13:59.940 Did she or did she not know that her child was dead?

00:14:02.360 In my opinion, she did not know.

00:14:05.100 In my opinion, that child had been found and had been disposed of in some capacity long before she was ever brought into any kind of inquiries of whatever.

00:14:19.860 Casey, this is where, and you justifiably, and so many other people believe, Casey, you would think, would have known immediately about her daughter.

00:14:33.120 I don't think she did.

00:14:35.500 Our experts didn't think she did.

00:14:37.580 And the jury didn't either.

00:14:38.880 The bottom line is that Casey went into what I have previously characterized as Casey Wall.

00:14:46.040 She was in a total, some sort of state, psychotic state, not acknowledging the child was gone, dead, and just fabricating whatever she had to fabricate about it.

00:14:59.920 And it was clear to me, I can tell you, whoever watched the trial besides the jury, when we had a grief expert testifying about how people grieve differently in different circumstances.

00:15:13.340 And she talked about it during the trial, the last part of the trial, Casey broke down, I was sitting right next to her.

00:15:20.620 That, in my opinion, was the first time that she absolutely clearly accepted and knew that this child was dead.

00:15:30.740 How did, I mean, she realized that her child wasn't with her for a month, right?

00:15:35.520 You know, I don't know what she realized.

00:15:37.600 That's what I'm trying to tell you.

00:15:38.660 We know from facts and videotapes of witnesses, as you described, she was out on a couple of occasions to a young people's club and doing shopping and going around and just kind of in another world.

00:15:54.320 And so what she actually knew, I guess none of us will ever know.

00:15:57.820 Well, I mean, her mother asked her that day that they were reunited, where is Kaylee?

00:16:01.160 And she said, she's missing.

00:16:02.520 The babysitter took her and I've been looking for her on my own.

00:16:05.100 So she clearly knew that she was missing.

00:16:08.120 I'm sure she, yes, that she knew something, but it wasn't connecting in her brain.

00:16:13.380 It didn't connect in her brain until we were in trial, at the end of the trial.

00:16:18.400 That's the problem with it.

00:16:19.820 And it's hard to understand that.

00:16:21.900 And most people don't want to understand that.

00:16:24.400 Wow.

00:16:24.520 I mean, you can understand it and just not believe it, right?

00:16:28.120 I mean, that's secret option number two.

00:16:30.580 Right.

00:16:31.720 I think the normal, most expected reaction from people was if you found your child drowned, you would call 911.

00:16:41.960 Or you do something.

00:16:42.980 That's the normal and reasonably normal expectation of people.

00:16:48.340 Would be for me.

00:16:49.820 Would be for you.

00:16:51.080 But this is such a weird and unique situation.

00:16:55.480 But are you now saying that she found her, that she found her child drowned?

00:16:59.080 I did not say that at all.

00:17:02.200 Okay.

00:17:02.680 You said the normal expectation would be if you found your child.

00:17:05.960 And that's not the posit here.

00:17:07.220 The posit is that George, the granddad, found her.

00:17:10.220 If I found a child and or if you found a child, probably the first reaction like that would be a call for help.

00:17:20.020 I agree.

00:17:20.520 I know, but we were talking about Casey and then you jumped to George's state of mind.

00:17:25.120 And we're talking about Casey's state of mind.

00:17:28.000 I'm not talking about George's state of mind.

00:17:29.920 There's no evidence about his state of mind.

00:17:31.820 Other than the position was that George found the child on that Saturday morning.

00:17:38.540 She was drowned.

00:17:39.820 Which Saturday morning?

00:17:40.960 Which Saturday morning?

00:17:42.620 I don't remember the dates.

00:17:44.400 Are you talking about the beginning of the 30-day period or the end of the 30-day period?

00:17:47.980 At the beginning, at the beginning.

00:17:51.160 Beth may know the dates, but, you know, from looking at June something, wasn't it?

00:17:55.980 Yeah.

00:17:56.260 So the last photos of Kaylee are on Father's Day, 2008, which I think was June 15th.

00:18:04.880 And then the 16th, she had a fight with her mother the night before, and then she left the next day.

00:18:09.780 And George saw them walking away.

00:18:11.720 He remembers what they were wearing.

00:18:12.980 That's Father, Kaylee's grandfather.

00:18:15.240 And so that was a Monday.

00:18:16.280 She's walking away with them.

00:18:17.500 And my understanding is that the defense position was that the drowning of Kaylee was right around that, like, very short time after that.

00:18:28.920 Either the night, early morning, night, we had the photographs of the child being able to go out to the pool by herself and do that.

00:18:36.180 And so all that we know, our position, look, I wasn't there.

00:18:41.060 You weren't there.

00:18:41.920 We don't know who was really there to know this, but you never do in any part of your life.

00:18:48.880 The bottom line is that our position has been from the beginning through the end.

00:18:55.340 It still is.

00:18:56.480 George found this little child.

00:18:58.840 She was drowned.

00:18:59.800 She was deceased.

00:19:00.700 He brought her into the house.

00:19:02.660 He confronted Casey because Casey, he was still asleep.

00:19:06.120 She had been out the night before or whatever the case would be and told her, look what you've done.

00:19:12.660 Your mother is going to be really mad at you. 1.00

00:19:15.520 And that is it.

00:19:17.100 And she left.

00:19:18.020 And we don't know what happened.

00:19:19.720 See, this is where there's a big gap and a jury found a gap as well.

00:19:23.760 Did George dispose of the body?

00:19:26.380 I don't know that.

00:19:27.760 I can't prove he didn't.

00:19:29.060 I wouldn't accuse him of it.

00:19:30.260 But something happened, and both of you know that something happened contrary to what the ordinary experience would have been.

00:19:37.240 The ordinary experience would have been call 911.

00:19:40.740 Ordinary experience would have made the whole thing write down and resolve.

00:19:44.900 And for whatever reason, it didn't happen.

00:19:46.780 And all I can tell you is that I doubt that the case will never be solved any more than it has been.

00:19:54.680 That's why you're still interested in it.

00:19:56.720 And people will be and will continue to be for a long, long time.

00:20:02.320 I don't know what else to do about that.

00:20:04.080 Well, sure.

00:20:04.620 I mean, this has been – it was a very salacious trial.

00:20:07.060 It happened at an interesting time in our country's history.

00:20:09.600 And, you know, it involves an unthinkable crime that we genuinely sincerely do not wish to even think about.

00:20:16.560 But when it happens, those, you know, responsible must be held to account.

00:20:21.560 In this case, no one ever has been.

00:20:24.200 Beth, I know you want to say something.

00:20:25.540 I'm going to get to you right after this quick break.

00:20:27.220 Pay a bill and back to our guests in two minutes.

00:20:30.720 Don't go away.

00:20:37.860 Beth, you were itching to get in there.

00:20:39.540 At the end, go for it.

00:20:41.460 Well, yeah, I was – wanted to point out, I just looked at my notes, and June 16th, 2008, was a Monday.

00:20:47.060 So Father's Day was the day before it.

00:20:48.780 So it was – that Monday was the last time George saw her.

00:20:52.600 And it was the defense position that the drowning was that day, I believe, later that day.

00:20:58.760 The other thing, I just wanted to look at the big picture here because I know we're going to go through the timeline, Megan.

00:21:04.020 But, you know, Casey does get charged with murder in October, and Kaylee hasn't been found yet.

00:21:09.540 And then she's found in December.

00:21:14.180 The remains are found, and within a few months, the prosecution decides to up to ante and charge her with capital murder, right, seeking death.

00:21:22.480 So for the next three years, there are all kinds of pretrial hearings and lots of motions were being filed.

00:21:29.280 And all the while, Casey is sitting in a jail cell.

00:21:32.780 So for three years to her trial in 2011, 2008 to 2011, she's locked up.

00:21:38.500 And I don't understand, if this was an accidental drowning, maybe there's some sort of negligent theory of some kind of crime that Casey could be charged with, but nothing like capital murder, if the facts are what you say, Cheney.

00:21:53.040 I don't understand why you wouldn't go to the prosecutors and say, look, this is an accident.

00:21:56.840 We approved this is an accident.

00:21:58.040 Why let her sit in jail for three years? 0.95

00:21:59.840 Or am I being naive?

00:22:01.000 I've never been a defense attorney, but it just seems like, you know, prosecutors are not unreasonable.

00:22:07.360 At least in my experience, we do justice.

00:22:10.240 We do not just seek convictions.

00:22:11.960 We want to do the right thing.

00:22:14.000 You shouldn't overcharge if you, you know, you should never overcharge.

00:22:17.920 I should put it that way.

00:22:18.700 Well, I know you don't believe that all prosecutors are the same way, because we know better than that.

00:22:25.220 The bottom line in this situation is that this case was ongoing for a long time before I was brought into it.

00:22:35.480 I was a citizen of Central Florida all the time with all the news medias.

00:22:41.920 And, you know, every night or every day, all the channels said, you know, more about Casey Anthony, news at six, pictures at six or whatever like that every day for a long time.

00:22:55.180 I was a citizen like everybody else until Mr. Baez asked me to come in.

00:23:00.920 I don't know, and you may have a better time of when the charge was.

00:23:07.020 I happened to have been in an NBC studio on a totally unrelated matter when the people there got all excited because the sheriff was there doing something, got a call.

00:23:22.240 And he came into the studio and he like like they found a baby with tape all around her head.

00:23:29.740 And we believe that's going to be Kaylee.

00:23:32.280 And that was the first time there was any ability to prove that there was a death.

00:23:38.260 So there could not have been any any criminal charge of homicide against her at that time.

00:23:43.780 They had no proof of death.

00:23:44.940 But they had other things.

00:23:47.880 And I don't remember what they were.

00:23:49.020 No, no, just just to jump in and set the record straight.

00:23:50.900 According to my my timeline here, it was October.

00:23:53.920 As Beth points out, she was charged with not with murder, but with child neglect and some other small charges first.

00:24:01.320 So that's kind of how they got her into into custody.

00:24:05.200 She was declared a person of interest with respect to Kaylee, but she was not yet yet charged.

00:24:10.720 That's when she posted her bond and the bounty hunter Leonard Padilla came in and all that happened.

00:24:16.000 And then on October 14th, 2008, she was charged with first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter, four counts of providing false information to law enforcement and so on.

00:24:26.240 And then it wasn't until December 11th, 2008, two months later, that the skeletal remains of Kaylee were found.

00:24:35.980 So two months after she was charged with murder.

00:24:38.580 Yeah.

00:24:39.100 And then they seek death after that, because of that was the change circumstance.

00:24:43.260 We now have a body.

00:24:44.900 We believe tape was around her mouth and nose.

00:24:47.380 And that was the change circumstance that would just and we'll get we'll get to what how the condition in which they found the remains, which is which was the part of the prosecution's case.

00:24:55.780 But let's just go back to the days, the 30 day period that she was not with Kaylee and not with her parents and lying to her parents and out and about as we all would wind up seeing.

00:25:07.140 I mean, I remember seeing it on Greta Van Susteren show every night.

00:25:09.940 You know, the pictures of that would be on Earth from her social media. 0.82

00:25:13.260 You know, her dancing, her looking like I have a great time.

00:25:16.180 She's got the big smile on. 0.75

00:25:17.780 And people looked at this in retrospect and said that is that she must be a sociopath. 1.00

00:25:22.120 You know, her daughter's missing.

00:25:23.880 She's not she's clearly not looking for her.

00:25:26.040 She's having the time of her life.

00:25:27.360 And that was the prosecution's theory that she was she got pregnant at 19. 0.99

00:25:30.540 She didn't want this baby. 0.51

00:25:31.560 She didn't want to be a mother. 0.73

00:25:32.360 And she wound up either neglecting the child or intentionally getting rid of the child to the point of death. 0.97

00:25:39.260 So what she takes the police during this time, Cheney, on some wild goose chases that I want you to help me understand.

00:25:47.320 If we're if we're going into why are you shaking your head?

00:25:50.020 Yes, she did.

00:25:51.340 Well, you said wild goose chases.

00:25:53.460 Plural.

00:25:53.880 That's not true.

00:25:55.580 OK, so did she or did she not?

00:25:57.680 Did she or did she not take them to the fake apartment of some nanny who never existed? 0.96

00:26:02.360 There was one.

00:26:05.860 The beginning occasion.

00:26:07.500 Yes.

00:26:07.920 Did she or did she not take them to Universal and pretend to work there when she, in fact, hadn't worked there for two years?

00:26:15.040 That was the one that so-called chase.

00:26:20.800 The police knew she didn't work there. 1.00

00:26:23.620 They picked her up at six o'clock in the morning at the Anthony Renaissance.

00:26:28.260 They drove her to Universal.

00:26:29.740 They checked in Universal.

00:26:31.080 They already knew from security that she didn't work there. 0.99

00:26:34.760 They walked from there about 700 feet down the sidewalk and around the corner into an office building.

00:26:41.020 And she was still carried on going to show them her office.

00:26:44.000 And they took her into the building and got to a small office.

00:26:49.060 And she turned around and said, OK, I don't work here.

00:26:52.620 All right.

00:26:52.780 And then they put her in question.

00:26:54.940 I am correct.

00:26:56.120 That's at least two.

00:26:57.240 Those are wild goose chases.

00:26:58.680 You need to slow your roll, sir, because I've got my facts.

00:27:01.520 And you and I are not going to do that.

00:27:02.940 This is not that kind of show.

00:27:04.160 OK, trust me.

00:27:04.980 I've done my homework.

00:27:05.980 So she took them on a couple of wild goose chases. 0.69

00:27:09.360 And you tell me why this young mother with no consciousness of guilt whatsoever, because she's in this confused fugue state, not realizing her kids, not with her would do those things.

00:27:18.820 You tell me, I don't know why she would do it.

00:27:23.360 She did not know, I believe, at this time that this child was deceased.

00:27:28.960 She still had in her mind this myth of where the child was.

00:27:33.780 And that's why the police didn't do anything else at that time to arrest her or charge her or anything, because they couldn't other than to prove the child was missing and they didn't believe her.

00:27:43.960 So why was she making up that she worked at Universal and making up that there was a nanny and taking them to the fake apartment of the said nanny? 0.98

00:27:52.820 I'm not sure that I know she had worked at Universal.

00:27:56.360 She did work up there to a few months before this occurred.

00:28:00.620 I can't tell you.

00:28:02.360 This is one of the things that we'll never know as to what went in through her brain to do that.

00:28:07.680 It was so obvious to the law enforcement officers, they knew damn well that she did not work at Universal.

00:28:14.900 They had already, through the night, confirmed that.

00:28:18.320 And so when she said she did, they said, OK, we'll go along for this little charade.

00:28:23.520 And that's what they did.

00:28:24.980 They weren't fooled.

00:28:25.980 They weren't surprised whatsoever.

00:28:27.580 And that's when we got into a whole issue about whether she was Mirandais or not, whether her statements could be used and how the appellate court dealt with that and and reverse two of her misdemeanor convictions.

00:28:42.740 Beth, why don't you tell us about the wild goose chase involving Zanny the nanny, who was the one you heard on that very first day that her mother and she called what her mother called the police and put her on with police.

00:28:55.220 She was an unwilling participant.

00:28:56.520 She was like, why would I want to talk to them?

00:28:58.500 But she gets on and she claims that she left the daughter with the babysitter and you take it from there.

00:29:04.620 Right.

00:29:05.240 So in opening statements, Linda Drain Burdick does recount almost every single one of those 30 days.

00:29:12.300 There is something, whether it's a text message, an email, a MySpace posting, some communication, something, a photo that will document what she was doing during that time.

00:29:21.720 During those 30 days, she does she does tell the police that, you know, Zanida Gonzalez.

00:29:30.140 There is really a Zanida Gonzalez.

00:29:31.840 There's really a person.

00:29:33.320 There are a lot of Zanida Gonzalez. 1.00

00:29:34.460 Right. But I mean, there's a person by that name who applied for an apartment, for a vacant apartment in that complex.

00:29:41.920 And so there's a, you know, a theory.

00:29:44.620 I don't know if it's ever been proven true that that Casey may have seen that application, may have seen that form, you know, and got the name from it because there's a woman who who did apply to live there.

00:29:53.760 But, um, and not a nanny and not Casey Anthony's nanny working to protect Casey.

00:29:59.980 No, there's no connection between them.

00:30:00.920 There's no connection between them.

00:30:02.140 But like where Casey was telling her parents that she was going to work.

00:30:06.280 They did believe that there was a nanny, Zanida the nanny.

00:30:09.460 They did believe that.

00:30:10.500 So it's very curious.

00:30:11.500 Like where, where was this little girl?

00:30:13.320 Like was she accompanying Casey and where was Casey going?

00:30:17.620 She wasn't working.

00:30:18.220 You mean prior to the 30 day period.

00:30:20.000 That's prior, but even during the 30 day period.

00:30:21.940 Now during the 30 day period, Casey is saying a couple of things, right?

00:30:25.320 She's up in Jacksonville or she's, um, like in Tampa and then her car broke down and she was in a car wreck or maybe there was a hospital at some point.

00:30:34.360 I can't remember exactly.

00:30:35.780 I don't remember that.

00:30:36.400 Yeah, everything she, she relates, but, um, Cindy, Casey's mother is really getting frustrated because she's, you know, she wants to see her granddaughter.

00:30:45.180 She needs to see proof.

00:30:46.320 The two of them had fought, as I said, the day before, uh, you know, on Father's Day that night they had fought and, you know,

00:30:51.880 there was some talk about, you know, Cindy saying, if you don't get in better shape as a, you know, take care of this child, uh, you know, I'm, I'm going to file, um, to adopt her.

00:31:01.880 Let me say though, that at trial, there was the only evidence about Casey as a mother was good evidence.

00:31:08.320 Like she was a very doting, good mother.

00:31:10.660 However, Cindy may have begged to differ only because I think that, that Kaylee was left with her grandmother a lot that Casey was gone, especially closer in time to when the child disappeared because Casey had a new boyfriend and it was sort of a new life and he was working at a club and, you know, it was kind of a new life and she, maybe she wanted her freedom.

00:31:29.380 That was part of the prosecution.

00:31:30.420 Well, and didn't, didn't he testify that she, that he said he did, he was, had no interest in becoming the father, a father.

00:31:36.520 Correct.

00:31:37.140 Right.

00:31:37.500 Also.

00:31:38.060 Right.

00:31:38.600 Now around July 5th or so is she got a Bella Vita, uh, tattoo, beautiful life tattoo, which also is something that the prosecution pointed out, you know, their theory being, look, you know, maybe she knows her daughter's dead.

00:31:51.680 And, uh, she's celebrating her daughter's, uh, life through this tattoo.

00:31:56.000 She's in a hot body contest. 1.00

00:31:57.620 I seem to recall around the June 20th, something, uh, the hot body contest.

00:32:02.140 She's wearing that short blue dress.

00:32:03.780 So, um, these are the things she's doing that she says, but if I can just jump back, I'm actually looking for my daughter.

00:32:10.460 Let's just jump back to the, to Zanny, the nanny, because what she did, she told the police, I left her with the Zanny, the nanny, and then I went to pick her up and she was gone.

00:32:19.540 And, um, I, you know, I've been looking for her.

00:32:22.980 And so the cop said, do you know where Zanny, the nanny lives?

00:32:25.940 And she says, yes.

00:32:26.780 And they said, okay, would you take us there?

00:32:28.360 And she took them to an apartment.

00:32:29.700 They went to an apartment and it was empty and it hadn't been leased for months.

00:32:34.200 There wasn't a stitch of furniture in there.

00:32:35.620 So there, there had been no Zanny, the nanny living there in that apartment and nobody had been living there for months.

00:32:43.320 So, you know, this is not, none of this is consistent with a woman who in fact had the experience she was claiming to them.

00:32:49.940 Um, then they, she told them that she'd been working at universal, as I mentioned, and they said, okay, let's go.

00:32:57.100 I think she said she needed her keys or something from universal.

00:32:59.540 So they said, okay, let's go, let's go to universal and we'll, we'll get them.

00:33:02.440 Okay, fine.

00:33:03.500 But she didn't work at universal.

00:33:05.140 So she managed to talk her way through the front security guards, um, with the, with the police, with her, they get through, they get in.

00:33:12.480 She gives them all sorts of names.

00:33:14.080 I worked with this guy.

00:33:14.940 I worked with that guy.

00:33:16.040 These are made up names.

00:33:16.960 They would later find out she was making up names. 0.99

00:33:18.420 Um, and then she got past a couple more people and said, oh yeah, where's my office?

00:33:23.740 She gets turned around.

00:33:24.540 And then as Cheney points out, she was at one point where she got lost.

00:33:27.300 She went down a corridor.

00:33:28.160 There was no way out.

00:33:28.860 She turned around and she gave it up and said, I don't work here.

00:33:31.740 And yes, they knew.

00:33:32.640 But the point is lies, lies, lies, lies, lies at every turn.

00:33:38.260 And this is what one of the many reasons.

00:33:41.080 It's not just, I smelled a dead body.

00:33:43.320 It's, it's, it's her behavior, her deceit, her throwing the police into the wrong direction time after time, her total seeming lack of empathy or concern for her child, who you're telling me she may or may not have known was dead or alive at that point.

00:34:01.760 Right. So all of this goes into our perception on the outside Cheney of Casey Anthony, um, and is, you know, I don't, so far, I don't see where we're going wrong.

00:34:12.820 I'm open mind.

00:34:13.980 I'm wanting you to walk me through it because I'm, much as I think she did it, I'm open minded to a different story.

00:34:18.920 I'm not saying that your perception is wrong because I saw it nationwide, if not worldwide, people believe the same sort of things about her.

00:34:30.140 There's no question about that.

00:34:32.040 Uh, there's no question that she, uh, did not tell them the truth about a lot of things.

00:34:36.900 The question is, is why and how, uh, conscious was she of that?

00:34:42.680 Uh, the, you said something I want to correct about going into universal, the universal people had already been involved.

00:34:48.920 Informed by the sheriff, they knew what they were doing.

00:34:51.340 They were waiting for him to come out there and do that.

00:34:53.880 What I'm always, you'd raised earlier is another coincidence.

00:34:56.840 I've never understood.

00:34:58.040 Zaneda Gonzalez, where do you get a name like that? 1.00

00:35:01.520 And then, and then have a coincidence that there was a person by that name that, uh, had applied for an apartment at this place.

00:35:10.540 Of all of them, that never made any sense to me at all.

00:35:13.720 Well, there's a whole lot of things that make sense to me, uh, all these things.

00:35:18.180 Well, why are you even raising that?

00:35:20.080 Are you suggesting still to this day that there was a Zaneda Gonzalez who had babysat Kaylee and then what, George, then Kaylee went home and drowned in the pool after that?

00:35:30.100 Like, what, what are you, why are you even mentioning that?

00:35:31.960 How is that relevant?

00:35:32.600 Well, I'm not saying it for that reason.

00:35:37.020 I just thought that when you raised the issue about this Zaneda Gonzalez, if nothing else, it's a hell of a coincidence.

00:35:44.100 There is no evidence that she ever had that baby.

00:35:46.600 It actually turns out to be a very common name.

00:35:49.300 No, my point is we know that's a lie.

00:35:51.760 We, like, you don't have to dispute, debate me on whether that's a lie.

00:35:54.940 We know, we know that's a lie.

00:35:56.160 Even according to your side, that's a lie.

00:35:57.940 The child was killed, according to you, in the swimming pool.

00:36:00.920 She drowned and George found her.

00:36:03.100 I said in the intro died by homicide because that is what the medical examiner said.

00:36:06.800 But according to you, she died in the swimming pool.

00:36:08.860 So, like, there was no Danny, the nanny who ran off with little Kaylee, right?

00:36:13.140 Yes, but it's not proper for you to keep saying she was killed.

00:36:17.200 She died.

00:36:17.940 She died by homicide is what the ME said.

00:36:21.760 Homicide by indeterminate means.

00:36:25.620 What?

00:36:27.300 By indeterminate means, correct.

00:36:29.280 But what I said, once again, Cheney, was 100% correct.

00:36:33.060 She died by homicide.

00:36:34.160 Check the report.

00:36:34.740 Much more with Cheney and Beth Karras coming up.

00:36:37.320 We're going to get to the trial, this infamous trial that would rock the nation for a long time.

00:36:42.960 This is one of those things where people could tell you the names of the attorneys.

00:36:45.660 We're dying for information about the jury and so on and so forth.

00:36:48.500 We'll pick it up there in a minute.

00:36:50.040 And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111

00:36:54.180 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips

00:36:57.260 by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:37:01.160 If you prefer an audio podcast, subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher

00:37:06.640 or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:37:09.740 Let's go to the day that they Casey Anthony is in jail and she's charged with first degree 1.00

00:37:22.200 murder, but they haven't yet found a body.

00:37:24.460 And then they do.

00:37:26.040 Beth, can you take us to because, you know, weirdly, the man who found the body, who was

00:37:33.940 a meter reader, would wind up becoming a central figure for a time in this case.

00:37:39.840 There were all these reports about him and it was like, I remember asking myself, why

00:37:44.400 is he anything other than the man who found the body?

00:37:47.940 Like, how did he become more interesting than that?

00:37:50.860 So can you explain that?

00:37:52.300 Explain how he found little Kaylee's remains?

00:37:55.420 Yes, indeed.

00:37:56.040 I'm pulling a lot of this from memory.

00:37:57.760 So you might have to fill in a couple of facts here.

00:38:00.720 But his name is Roy Cronk.

00:38:02.220 Now, that day was December 11, 2008.

00:38:05.360 There was a hearing in the Casey Anthony case that day.

00:38:08.120 In fact, I seem to recall that was the day that Jose Baez waived speedy trial.

00:38:14.740 And not unusual, you know, for the defense to do that.

00:38:18.480 I mean, in my experience.

00:38:20.420 But we were all in Orlando, like the media was at the courthouse because it was yet another

00:38:24.560 hearing.

00:38:24.900 I remember being at a, you know, like a little cafe next to the courthouse where all our satellite

00:38:30.540 trucks were.

00:38:32.120 And there was a TV monitor on the wall.

00:38:34.800 And all of a sudden, like a breaking news story comes on, a body found.

00:38:39.780 And we all turn around, we're staring at it.

00:38:42.680 I was with Kerry Sanders from NBC.

00:38:46.800 And they're like, Katie may have been found.

00:38:49.360 We all went racing out of that place.

00:38:51.740 I couldn't up and leave with our satellite truck.

00:38:54.700 We were parked there.

00:38:55.340 So I had to wait.

00:38:56.160 Everyone else and NBC and others are on their way to the scene as close as they could get

00:39:02.820 to where the tents were being set up and a grid was being created.

00:39:07.920 And it would be days of sifting through this property, this wooded area, a quarter mile

00:39:14.100 from where Casey Anthony lived with her parents.

00:39:17.160 And that's where the remains were found.

00:39:19.080 Now, the man who called it in, this meter reader you're talking about, Roy Cronk, claims

00:39:25.460 that he had actually found the body in August or a skull or something in August.

00:39:32.360 And he called it in a couple of times in August.

00:39:35.340 And he wasn't being taken seriously.

00:39:37.220 Like a deputy showed up and did a cursory search.

00:39:39.860 This is like a really dense wooded area, which, by the way, had been, they had been a storm

00:39:45.220 that summer of 2008 and that area had been flooded at one point, but it was no longer

00:39:49.660 flooded by December.

00:39:51.520 And, um, and Roy Cronk, you know, goes back there.

00:39:54.860 He says to relieve himself because there was an elementary school just down the street,

00:39:58.240 across the street, but down from where the body was found.

00:40:01.000 Um, and so he now has reported again, having found a skull and it's now taken more seriously.

00:40:08.800 Um, I'm not quite sure why there wasn't a more thorough search before.

00:40:12.320 It might've been because it was flooded.

00:40:14.100 Maybe the deputy was afraid of the snakes or whatever, but, um, she should have been found

00:40:19.280 a lot earlier than December 11th.

00:40:21.780 So Roy Cronk, it's suspicious.

00:40:24.360 I mean, he does call it in months earlier and finally get, it calls it in again on December

00:40:29.120 11th.

00:40:29.820 So that's a little weird, but there is evidence.

00:40:32.760 The body wasn't actually moved that there were scattered remains.

00:40:36.260 I mean, she's skeletonized and they're just, she's in pieces, um, regrettably, but, um, she

00:40:41.960 had been in a couple of bags.

00:40:44.320 The loss of evidence, like the DNA and so on over that time, it would have been much more

00:40:48.360 useful to have it in hand earlier.

00:40:51.780 And her remains were spread because of animal activity and, but there was a, there was a

00:40:56.740 laundry bag, a cloth laundry bag with her that matched one, because it had been a set

00:41:01.020 of two that matched another one in the Anthony home.

00:41:03.740 So it came from the home.

00:41:05.240 And I don't think anyone's really, um, disputing that.

00:41:08.660 In fact, you know, the defense facts that they, or their, their, their version, uh, that

00:41:13.640 they, they, uh, put forth from openings on was that, um, you know, yes, she died at home.

00:41:19.580 It was an accidental drowning and her body was disposed.

00:41:22.940 So not really refuting that the bag, you know, belonged to the home, but that was pretty

00:41:27.000 clear.

00:41:27.500 So, I mean, but there was something else much more important that they found on the body

00:41:30.920 than, than the bag, which was the duct tape.

00:41:33.800 Get to that.

00:41:34.340 The tape.

00:41:34.840 Yeah.

00:41:35.160 So, so, you know, when Chaney described how the, the, um, somebody from the sheriff's

00:41:39.920 department came to the local TV station that said it was wrapped around the head.

00:41:43.360 I mean, it really wasn't like wrapped around the head like that.

00:41:45.780 I only saw photos.

00:41:46.940 I didn't see the actual, you know, skull, but I only saw photos, but the, her hair was 1.00

00:41:53.180 in the back.

00:41:53.900 She had long hair.

00:41:54.560 Her hair was in the back of the skull and there was like the, the lower jaw should have 1.00

00:41:59.500 come up, should have been separated from the rest of the skull.

00:42:03.460 Right.

00:42:03.880 Cause everything is, is, but it wasn't.

00:42:07.720 And the tape was kind of holding, holding it together.

00:42:10.860 It seemed like the tape and the hair was all stuck together there.

00:42:13.760 So it was in the front, you know, but there's a lot of slippage, but like, why is there tape

00:42:19.580 there?

00:42:20.000 You know, like that, that was what really got the, they're like, prosecution was like, yeah,

00:42:25.040 there's no reason to put tape on a skull.

00:42:27.080 And wasn't there a heart sticker?

00:42:30.160 No.

00:42:30.560 Yeah.

00:42:31.300 I mean, well, there was a criminalist who was looking at the, uh, at the tape and saw

00:42:37.280 the shape, but this heart shape, but then it like went away.

00:42:41.460 Right.

00:42:42.040 It was like, it was like seen and, but not captured in a photo or anything.

00:42:46.100 So it was just the testimony is my recollection.

00:42:48.440 And I think that it, it was never like, I don't know if it was proven, I don't know,

00:42:52.740 somehow it was disposed, you know, disintegrated or something.

00:42:55.320 I can, I can tell you about that.

00:42:58.360 The heart shaped sticker was found on a piece of trash about 40 feet from the remains and

00:43:05.500 more closely across the street from the elementary school.

00:43:08.840 It was never connected to this forensic scene, but other than it was found and talked about.

00:43:15.860 And the, and Beth is right about the slippage and the duct tape was not all around the head.

00:43:22.260 Uh, the duct tape had been on the top of the bag.

00:43:25.860 And when the, the decomposition happened in the skin material, the hair, there was a part

00:43:33.820 of the, uh, hair that had tape, duct tape on it, but there wasn't any actually on the skull.

00:43:43.020 And Dr. Werner Spitz testified about all of that and about the body.

00:43:48.120 One thing that you said wasn't important.

00:43:50.240 And I think, I think both of you are pointing out was why was Mr.

00:43:54.260 Kroc not taken seriously about founding, finding a body?

00:43:58.600 He did.

00:43:59.680 Uh, I think Beth, it was three times.

00:44:01.980 If I remember correctly that he called and reported and said, Hey, uh, I'm out here.

00:44:07.260 I found this, uh, looks like a skull to me.

00:44:10.440 And they just ignored him.

00:44:12.740 And it was like the second or third time they finally sent a deputy.

00:44:17.880 I don't remember his name.

00:44:19.540 And I don't think it's in my book, but a deputy came out to meet him.

00:44:24.160 Beth, you'll remember this.

00:44:25.560 The deputy slipped on the wet grass and he fell down and he sold his uniform.

00:44:30.940 And he was mad about that.

00:44:34.060 And that was the end of that investigation.

00:44:37.160 That exact spot, just so you'll know, was 17 feet and nine inches from the curve of Suburban Drive.

00:44:44.760 And that's a very short distance to, to, to not been found.

00:44:49.100 It had been searched by horseback people, as we call the Kissimmee boys on, uh, four wheel drives, numerous, uh, volunteer walkers and searches had covered that area and every square inch of it for a long time.

00:45:06.940 But can I, I mean, I see the point you're making Cheney, which is like, what, why wasn't it found if it had been there the whole time?

00:45:11.580 But what the reports were that they had, that, that, that they had massive flooding during that period that we're talking about that four months and that there was as much as four feet of water in which the body might, may have been immersed for a lengthy period of that time.

00:45:26.400 Well, that was suggested, but that wasn't the testimony.

00:45:31.760 I believe the hydrology expert that the state had from the university of Florida came and had tested all around all of that geographical area and did not find that we don't know.

00:45:43.680 And I'm only 78 years old and I'm still don't know, and I'm not going to know, uh, how that body was there.

00:45:51.840 If it was there all that time, there's a certain reason to believe that the body had been moved and brought back there.

00:45:59.120 Can they ever prove that? No, because in order to be able to prove that, you'd have to have evidence of who did it and how they did it.

00:46:06.140 Can't do it. All I can say is it's unreasonable to expect that the body was 17 feet, nine inches from the curve of the road, which was a half a mile from the Anthony house.

00:46:17.700 It was searched by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people during that whole circus event and didn't find her.

00:46:24.360 My recollection was that there was actually like plant material growing up through the skull, which indicates it was there the entire time, but it had not been moved.

00:46:34.220 I, I don't remember that that is the case.

00:46:37.140 I remember Dr. Spitz talking about how there was at the base of the skull inside, there was some, uh, dirt.

00:46:44.320 There may have been some, I don't think there's anything going through the skull.

00:46:49.400 Well, I could be wrong about that, but there was some growth around it.

00:46:53.980 So let me just back up and say this on behalf of the sheriff's department.

00:46:57.720 Um, there, they have basically suggested they were, they were overwhelmed with tips from, you know, this case is getting national attention.

00:47:05.060 They had tons of people calling, they had kooks calling, they had legitimate people calling.

00:47:09.680 And this guy says, Hey, I work for the city.

00:47:11.480 I'm a meter reader.

00:47:12.360 You should be listening to me when I call in.

00:47:14.620 Um, obviously it would have been much more helpful to have the remains earlier rather than later, but it's just, it's a piece of this case now.

00:47:20.900 And, uh, you know, for better or for worse, that's when they did ultimately find her.

00:47:24.660 Um, the, uh, so they go to trial and can we just spend a minute talking about Jose Baez?

00:47:30.700 Because I had not seen him on the national stage.

00:47:34.660 I don't, I was pretty young in my reporting and legal, uh, well, older, my legal tenure, but young in my journalistic tenure.

00:47:41.480 And, um, my understanding is maybe Cheney, you can speak to this, but my understanding is when he got on the Casey Anthony case, he, he wasn't one of the most storied criminal defense attorneys in town.

00:47:53.120 Like what put Jose Baez in perspective for us then at the moment he, he came on to represent her.

00:48:00.700 Jose was a young lawyer.

00:48:03.680 I think he had only been a lawyer about five years.

00:48:07.560 It may have been, I think that's accurate.

00:48:09.540 He had worked at a public defender's office in South Florida.

00:48:13.540 He was up here and he was, uh, working.

00:48:16.500 He was taking cases and going to court.

00:48:19.260 You know, that's all like young lawyers do, uh, routinely.

00:48:22.900 I had never heard of him, never met him, never knew anything about him, uh, until he started calling me for, uh, suggestions and strategies and questions and so forth.

00:48:36.420 And that evolved into finally asking me to get in the case.

00:48:40.240 And, you know, I've made mistakes before in my life, but I agreed to do this.

00:48:45.600 And I thought it was a good one.

00:48:47.020 Uh, when I met this young lady, I didn't believe she was guilty.

00:48:50.440 I've seen her several times since then.

00:48:52.900 You did or did not?

00:48:54.020 Did not.

00:48:55.180 And I know her well enough to some extent like that.

00:48:58.060 Uh, she came to my wife's funeral a few months ago and, uh, I spent some time talking with her.

00:49:04.900 Uh, my attitude has not changed about her.

00:49:07.440 My explanations are never going to satisfy you and millions of other people.

00:49:11.860 And I got it.

00:49:12.520 And I can live with that.

00:49:12.920 Well, no, listen, I, I have my beliefs having covered it and having, you know, had some experiences as a journalist and a lawyer, but I'm, I'm, I'm giving you an open mind to convince me.

00:49:21.500 That's why we're doing these stories.

00:49:22.800 Um, so you have somebody who's probably more open-minded than most of the people you're going to get in the journalist chair.

00:49:28.000 And I appreciate you doing this.

00:49:29.220 We're going to pick it up on the opposite side of this break.

00:49:30.880 Much, much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Karras.

00:49:33.060 Don't go away.

00:49:38.640 So you, you get brought in by Jose Bias Cheney and you, um, you actually were very well known.

00:49:45.120 You were former president of Florida Association of Criminal Lawyers, um, had been selected by Florida Monthly Magazine as one of Florida's topics.

00:49:52.800 Lawyers and you, uh, I read were disgusted by the local media coverage about the relatively inexperienced Jose Bias saying that you had been offended by it.

00:50:05.060 It was one of the reasons why you want to get involved.

00:50:07.040 Why?

00:50:07.420 What, what was wrong?

00:50:08.640 Well, I detailed that by the way, in my book, because the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, uh, had published a story and expose on Jose's, uh, personal life.

00:50:22.000 Uh, uh, being behind in alimony payments or something and criticize him.

00:50:27.640 I thought it was very unfair.

00:50:29.300 I didn't know him.

00:50:30.260 He was just a young lawyer and I'm a senior lawyer.

00:50:33.220 And, and, uh, I felt like the, what, it just simply wasn't fair.

00:50:36.680 So I, I said, wait a minute, let me, let me respond to this.

00:50:41.100 Because at that point in time, the prosecutor being alleged as the lead prosecutor was Jeffrey Ashton.

00:50:48.400 In reality, the lead prosecutor was Linda Drain-Burdy.

00:50:52.000 But, uh, Mr. Ashton, uh, uh, they were talking about how he was, you know, Mr.

00:50:58.060 Mr.

00:50:58.500 Good guy and all these sorts of things.

00:51:00.060 Well, uh, I pointed out to them that he had been personally criticized in several appellate court opinions, reversing convictions because of his, uh, misconduct professionally.

00:51:14.960 And Beth will tell you that appellate courts don't mention the names of the lawyers when they reverse them.

00:51:20.380 It's pretty rare, uh, that they'll actually identify the person they say did wrong.

00:51:25.260 So, so I wanted to press, you know, treat this, treat this kid fairly.

00:51:28.700 That's all.

00:51:29.620 He's one of my people, you know, treat him fairly and go to trial.

00:51:33.420 Well, I mean, what's so extraordinary about it is he wasn't that well known.

00:51:37.740 It wasn't like, uh, you know, Robert Shapiro or, you know, whatever.

00:51:41.880 Alan Dershowitz, it was like, who is this Jose Baez representing this defendant on the biggest case in the country at the time.

00:51:49.280 And as we now would, well, as we all now know that he managed to secure in a quill, which left the nation slack jawed.

00:51:57.940 I mean, speaking of Robert Shapiro, that was the other case that was probably of equal notoriety, like where somebody got found not guilty in the country.

00:52:04.660 Just couldn't get over it.

00:52:07.260 Couldn't accept it.

00:52:08.420 Couldn't believe it.

00:52:10.100 Beth, can you, I'll give you this one.

00:52:11.580 Cause I want to, then I want to get, um, Cheney to sort of put some meat on the bones, but take us to the moment of Jose's opening statement.

00:52:18.460 Because that's the, that was the moment.

00:52:21.800 I mean, that was the moment I would say the case was one for him lost for the prosecution that they never seem to recover their footing.

00:52:30.300 Right.

00:52:30.940 Um, it's my understanding the prosecution got word about maybe six weeks before the opening statement about what their position was going to be.

00:52:37.020 Maybe not quite that much time, but, um, that it was going to be an accidental drowning.

00:52:42.140 Jose Baez, the whole defense team played their cards very close to their vest.

00:52:45.660 So many people did not know, uh, where they were going.

00:52:49.520 You know, this was a case that where there weren't many surprises because the law is so liberal, open about documents being made available to the public.

00:52:59.600 Right.

00:53:00.160 It's the sunshine state.

00:53:01.540 So, so we knew we, the media, we all had like 25,000 pages of discovery.

00:53:07.200 There were, there weren't going to be any surprises from the prosecution's team because we knew what the investigation was.

00:53:13.040 So the surprise came from the defense when Jose said she wasn't murdered, that she drowned, that it was an accident.

00:53:20.740 And George found her and then, and, and, and people were like, what's like, where is this coming from?

00:53:26.560 And that's when I was like, there's no way he's going with this.

00:53:29.140 Like, cause she's been sitting in jail for three years. 1.00

00:53:31.180 There's no way he would have, you know, he's going to go with an accident defense, but, um, you know, what do I know?

00:53:36.320 Um, and I have to say, you know, Jose could not have tried this case alone because I don't think the law allows it in any state, you know, in a capital case, you have to have two lawyers, but also he wasn't, he wasn't credentialed enough, right?

00:53:47.840 Five years, three, five years as a lawyer, you have to practice longer, um, in some States to, uh, handle a capital case, but you can tack onto your team, some more experienced people, which is why Cheney was critical.

00:54:00.300 I credit Cheney with the acquittal and his summation, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

00:54:06.240 Um, but when, when, um, Jose said in the opening that it was an accident on drowning, and then he started talking about Casey being sexually abused by her father.

00:54:18.360 Now, wait, cause the audience at home is like, wait, what?

00:54:20.680 Right?

00:54:20.880 Like they took a, it was a huge turn.

00:54:24.160 Our audience at home just had the same turn we all had at the time, which is a, wait, what?

00:54:27.720 But, but, and that's, no, that's what the prosecution got word of in advance, a few weeks in advance.

00:54:34.420 And I, I, I, I think that they were considering, you know, you know, was, is it too late for them to file any charges against George?

00:54:41.740 Probably, probably it was, but, um, if this, you know, were the truth.

00:54:46.180 Um, but yeah, so we hear that George has been sexually abusing Casey since she was a little girl. 0.99

00:54:51.460 And that, I mean, he said this in opening, uh, he said like she would be a little girl and she would have his penis in her mouth and then she'd get on the school bus and, and that she learned how to live a life of lies. 0.99

00:55:05.960 She learned how to be a really good liar because of that. 1.00

00:55:08.500 Okay. So he's like opened this whole can of worms.

00:55:13.140 And I remember speaking to him when he was speaking to me that night saying, wow, you're putting Casey on the stand, you know, because how are you going to get this stuff in?

00:55:23.000 Cause you know, George was the first witness right after openings and he denied it.

00:55:25.840 And he's like, well, no, not necessarily. I'll put it on to the psychiatrist. I say, yeah, no, you won't. You got to put Casey on.

00:55:32.340 So anyway, um, I never reported any of that, but that was a discussion I had with him because based on his opening statement, I was sure that Casey was going to testify.

00:55:40.880 We've seen defense attorneys say certain things and openings and then not follow through because they have a right to do, you know, not to call their client and you can't comment on it, you know, as a prosecutor at the end,

00:55:51.560 because a defendant has a right to, to remain silent. And that's what happened here. He made us think that Casey was going to testify and then maybe Shane talked him out of it or something, but she didn't testify in the end.

00:56:07.460 And that proof of sexual abuse was never put before the jury, sexual abuse by George. He denied it on the stand and the judge said, you cannot sum up on that because you didn't put on proof of it.

00:56:18.820 Even though you rang the bell and opening statements. And as they say, you can't really unring the bell.

00:56:24.440 And that taint was there on the prosecution case on George Anthony throughout the trial.

00:56:29.500 I don't, I suspect jurors didn't like him because they had just heard Jose's opening and then George gets on the stand.

00:56:35.460 Did the prosecution move for a mistrial after that? I mean, I realize normally it's the defense that does that, but the prosecution can do it. Did they?

00:56:43.180 I, I don't recall that now. No. Okay. And at that point, they're still thinking, maybe you're going to put Casey on the stand and she's going to bring it together.

00:56:50.260 I don't know. And they're still thinking they're going to win. I mean, they're, they're thinking like most of us are thinking it's a slam dunk case and they're going to win.

00:56:55.200 They don't want to mistrial. They they're fine with this one.

00:56:58.220 A wins up something. I mean, there are a lot of counts and there were lessers. I mean, maybe not capital murder, but maybe some lesser degree of a homicide.

00:57:05.960 But, um, I just remember on that first day thinking, wow, cases for them to put this stuff on. I mean, Casey's got to testify. How else are they going to get it in?

00:57:15.440 Yeah. And there was no, so just to be clear, a lawyer's opening statement is not an lawyer's closing argument. They're not evidence. That's not, that's just sort of a directional, uh, offering for the jury. It's not considered evidence.

00:57:27.360 And so technically the jury shouldn't have been thinking about that when they went back into the deliberation room, but you know, the seed had been planted as Beth says, it's hard to unring that bell.

00:57:35.800 Now I know Cheney that, um, you, you wrote, I think a story in your book about telling George, I got to give you a heads up. We saw some, cause there were some letters.

00:57:46.320 I think Casey wrote to like some guards in jail accusing him. And he later said, George gave an interview saying he, he claimed it was Jose bias who said, I'm going to throw you under the bus. Um, so did you guys, what's your recollection of the, what you said to George about it's coming.

00:58:03.540 I told George in my office with the permission of his lawyer. And in a few minutes later, also Cindy gave them notice that what was going to happen, that George is going to be accused of sexually molesting his daughter. I wanted to see his reaction.

00:58:27.980 I can tell you that if someone accused me of molesting my daughters or all my granddaughters, there would be a real issue. It would be me bonding out of jail for having gone across the desk and kicked her ass. 1.00

00:58:44.580 But, so I felt the need to tell him. All George did was just look and sigh, put his hands on his legs and no other response. I thought there was a peculiar response for a father having been accused in some situation like this by a lawyer of, you know, kind of officially, you know, this is what's going to happen. 0.99

00:59:08.340 I want to let you know this. And, uh, I did, I thought it was the ethical thing to do. And I did. Um, I don't know what impact the whole thing had or didn't have.

00:59:22.060 I will tell you that when Jose made the opening statement, the way he did, I was surprised. I guess I was pretty good at keeping my old face calm, but I was, I wasn't surprised as many people because I did the same analysis that both you and Beth have.

00:59:40.160 You make that kind of, you make that kind of accusation, you got to prove it somewhere. And, and, and, uh, it's, it's a really bad situation for a defense lawyer or either side to make promises to a jury that they cannot deliver on jurors.

00:59:55.620 Remember it. And while you can say, uh, uh, that, that, uh, opening statements and closing statements are not evidence, that's all book BS because jurors listen to it.

01:00:07.800 They do a lot of things they're not supposed to do. And they do it on every trial. Hello.

01:00:13.920 Yeah. Sorry. I was just adding in the lawyers have authority. They have a relationship with the lawyers. 0.82

01:00:17.540 Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and the, the, the point is that we give in, if we really, really wanted to have pure jury verdicts that were reliable, every juror would be sequestered in every case.

01:00:31.860 And they wouldn't have any access to any of the information except what was in the courtroom. Well, we can't do that. I mean, I, you know, I, I, I've tried a long, a whole bunch of cases, but probably no more than a half a dozen out of 350 plus that were sequestered.

01:00:50.760 So, but it's ideal.

01:00:52.140 And you have to sequester them right from the moment of the crime all the way through to the beginning of the trial. Because that's when they take in all the spin.

01:00:58.740 Yeah. Well, you're never going to get that. Not already. So we do the best we can with trying to, uh, uh, give instructions. And I mean, if you went back, you went back to the selection of the jury in this case, it was an interesting process.

01:01:15.400 The 600 people we interviewed, there was a lot of, a lot of bias and prejudice and all kinds of stuff that we had to weed out to get a jury at all. So, yeah, I don't know that it's a perfect system. I don't know how to do it.

01:01:28.740 So let me ask you this, because I've talked to a lot of the lawyers in OJ and other cases, but the OJ case, I watched a lot of it was going down while I was in law school.

01:01:36.440 And, um, I think OJ Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman. But I can see how that jury reached its verdict, separate and apart from a nullification issue. I can see how they could have honorably, honestly found that the prosecution did not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't agree, but I can see it.

01:01:56.440 What do you think it was, Janie, about this case that had the same effect on this jury, right? Like, what do you think your best facts were or your best pointing, poking holes in the prosecution's facts were?

01:02:09.760 Well, I don't know. I can say there was a major difference. 1991, the OJ case, there was no internet, Facebook, on all the social media, was there?

01:02:25.600 It was just starting, yeah.

01:02:26.980 You get to Casey Anthony, and it was dominating the news basically all day of every day for a very long time. And so people were focused on it. I've been asked so many times why this case is opposed to others.

01:02:48.980 This was because there was a young, cute mother with an absolutely adorable little baby victim, and they were white. And all the improper things to say or not do, I'm telling you that I know from my 51 years of trying cases that had major impact on this case.

01:03:15.600 If it probably had been a young African-American mother and child, it may have been in the newspaper, and it may not have been. It never in hell would have been what this case is.

01:03:28.780 I also think class matters. I think that if it's a family of means or a family that you can see sort of has its act together overall, people are more interested.

01:03:42.420 If you see a family that's got a lot of criminals in it, white or black or any other race, it's like, oh, it's unfortunate, but okay, I think we all know what happened here.

01:03:50.200 This one seemed to be a nice family. The dad was a former sheriff's deputy, the granddad, I guess.

01:03:58.320 It seemed to be a loving set of parents to Casey. She looked like an all-American girl in terms of smiley and bubbly and hadn't been a career criminal anyway.

01:04:08.840 So I was like, okay, there's a real mystery here because the daughter's missing, right?

01:04:13.060 It was like, we all need to pull together to find the daughter.

01:04:15.260 So it had a lot of elements that would attract news coverage, you know, and I understand the whole missing white woman syndrome arguments, and they're not totally wrong, but I do think class plays a lot into it as well.

01:04:28.520 And these people, they weren't lower socioeconomic class.

01:04:32.260 They were sort of middle class and not at all the kind of family that you normally see enveloped in this sort of a deep crime.

01:04:37.940 I want to talk to you about that moment, right, because we all watched it.

01:04:43.200 It was like the O.J. Simpson, you know, we, the people, find that case of Orinthal J. Simpson, and she stumbled on it.

01:04:49.100 I can remember where I was.

01:04:50.660 This one, I actually was in the newsroom, but the moment this happened, and they read it, I'll just take the top of This is Soundbite number four.

01:05:00.780 It's kind of long. I'll cut it off after the first one, but let's take a look back at that moment.

01:05:04.700 As to the charge of first-degree murder, verdict as to count one, we, the jury, find the defendant not guilty, so say we all, dated at Orlando, Orange County, Florida, on this 5th day of July, 2011, signed for person.

01:05:21.840 As to the charge of aggravated child abuse, verdict as to count two.

01:05:23.580 And you can see the relief, you know, flood over her face, obviously, as anybody would be.

01:05:29.180 What was going through your mind at that moment, Janie?

01:05:30.880 Were you shocked?

01:05:34.700 No, I really wasn't, and because I have some secrets about looking at jurors when they come in the courtroom.

01:05:41.840 I've been there so many hundreds of times that there are certain things they do or don't do that are pretty revealing to some old coots like me.

01:05:50.380 What'd they do?

01:05:50.980 Well, they look at the defendant.

01:05:56.060 They won't look at the defendant if they're guilty.

01:06:00.800 One or two of them might, but when they come in and do that, you can say, I certainly wasn't confident about it.

01:06:10.120 But when the, before the jury verdict was read, remember, it's handed to the clerk who hands it to the judge, and the judge read it, and I'm reading his face, and it was very clear that he wasn't real happy about this verdict.

01:06:26.160 He spoke out about it later.

01:06:27.280 He was on Dr. Oz saying he definitely thinks she's guilty.

01:06:29.760 Well, he said a lot of things he probably shouldn't have, but like he said, when the defense lawyers were like car salesman or something, I don't know where the hell he got that, but the bottom line is that the clerk, you didn't play all of it, because of course you can't.

01:06:48.220 But the first thing, when she first started reading it, she stuttered over the not guilty part of it.

01:06:54.660 Oh, my Lord.

01:06:56.120 Yeah.

01:06:56.740 And briefly, but you don't, you're so tense there.

01:07:00.600 I mean, look, I'm not sure of the statistics.

01:07:06.240 My wife had kept a calendar on stuff, and I remember her best estimate was I had tried something in excess of 350 criminal jury trials in state and federal court.

01:07:21.360 That's a lot.

01:07:23.120 And fortunately, I've done pretty well.

01:07:26.300 The bottom line was that I was not shocked at the verdict, but I sure wasn't cocky about expecting it to be that way.

01:07:36.920 When they first, first, I kept thinking, well, maybe one of the others, maybe one of the others.

01:07:41.660 And then, and then, you know, three, boom.

01:07:44.220 And then, of course, the, the four counts of lying to the police, you know, who cares?

01:07:50.240 I mean, at that point, four misdemeanors, and she'd already served three years in jail.

01:07:56.300 Yeah, so that was done.

01:07:57.780 And the jury came to its verdict quickly.

01:08:00.160 For them, it was an easy decision, though they are now speaking out.

01:08:05.320 That's where I want to pick it up after this break.

01:08:07.540 What the jurors are saying, it's fascinating to me, and also what she is up to now.

01:08:13.920 I'll leave you with this thought.

01:08:15.340 It's very bad to stumble on the word not when reading a not guilty verdict.

01:08:19.420 Indeed, but that, that clerk is in good company.

01:08:21.940 I'm thinking about Chief Justice John Roberts when he messed up the oath for Barack Obama.

01:08:27.400 Remember, they had to do it again privately behind the scenes.

01:08:31.020 It happens to the best of us.

01:08:32.860 Okay, stand by.

01:08:33.720 Much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Garris coming up two minutes away. 0.94

01:08:36.660 So I guess I should ask you, too, Beth, for your, your best take on what was the evidence

01:08:46.860 you felt like the jury either ignored, refused to see, didn't get to hear that the rest of

01:08:51.680 us did, because the vast majority of America is convinced that she did it, right, and does

01:08:57.300 not agree with this verdict.

01:08:58.700 Right.

01:08:58.960 So, you know, we asked jurors to use their common sense, right?

01:09:04.500 And really, when you can't, I understand where the prosecution was coming from, because it

01:09:08.540 sure looks like Casey is responsible for something. 0.80

01:09:12.060 She should not have been acquitted of everything, even neglect.

01:09:15.220 I mean, I think one of the charges was neglect or a lesser.

01:09:18.420 So that, that was surprising to me.

01:09:20.860 So I think the jurors simply ignored this mother who didn't report her daughter missing.

01:09:26.300 You know, there's, there's something in there besides those four misdemeanor lying to police

01:09:31.120 officers.

01:09:31.680 I think there was a lower level felony she could have been convicted of. 1.00

01:09:34.940 But what was insurmountable for the prosecution was this allegation of sex abuse by George, which

01:09:41.700 was never proven, and the jurors were told not to consider it, but that was there.

01:09:45.640 That was the elephant in the room.

01:09:47.360 But also, Cheney's summation to the jury was very effective, because he wasn't talking

01:09:54.680 about the defense poop.

01:09:55.900 He was talking about the prosecution's proof, because that's what mattered.

01:09:58.580 Did they prove every element of every crime beyond a reasonable doubt?

01:10:02.280 And he kept hammering to the jury that the prosecution did not give the jury evidence of

01:10:08.240 how Haley died, where she died, when she died, who was with her when she died.

01:10:16.040 But really, it was how she died, and when she died, and where she died.

01:10:20.240 And he just kept hammering that.

01:10:21.780 And that had to have been effective with the jurors.

01:10:23.820 I never spoke with the jurors.

01:10:25.340 But the other thing I wanted to say, two more things, is that a finding of not guilty is

01:10:30.940 not a finding of innocence.

01:10:32.540 It just simply means the prosecution did not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

01:10:36.580 Secondly, I was sitting in the balcony of the courtroom.

01:10:39.920 There was a balcony in that courtroom.

01:10:41.200 It was a courtroom at the top of the courthouse, I think, that's sort of designed for media

01:10:46.880 coverage and high-tech stuff to present to the jury with evidence.

01:10:51.840 And so we were relegated to the upstairs, a small balcony.

01:10:55.180 So I'm there, sort of craning my neck, watching the jury on the left, and Casey and the defense

01:11:00.200 team on the right, the judge straight in front of me, but from a bird's eye view.

01:11:03.680 So, and I didn't, you know, I couldn't, I didn't have Cheney's point of view, so I couldn't

01:11:09.320 see jurors, you know, but I was aware that the man who became the jury for a person, he

01:11:13.660 had connected with Casey.

01:11:15.120 I'd seen that on a prior day as jurors were filing on a courtroom.

01:11:18.420 He was in the back row, and he stood there, and he stared at her, and he lingered looking

01:11:22.180 at her.

01:11:22.680 And I thought, uh-oh, that doesn't bode well for the prosecution.

01:11:26.240 Anyway, when I heard the first not guilty, I thought, surely there's going to be a guilty

01:11:30.300 somewhere, and I just leaned back and took a deep exhale and thought, oh my God, I was

01:11:35.140 as surprised as everyone, that there wasn't some guilty of a, some level of felony.

01:11:41.800 Can we just round back to two other points I neglected to mention, which get raised on

01:11:46.960 why people think she's guilty?

01:11:49.440 The chloroform, there was testimony that the guy who tested the trunk found the odor of

01:11:57.580 decompensation, found one hair that was consistent at the edges with Kaylee's hair, and may have

01:12:08.240 had some decomposition on it.

01:12:10.580 And then there was an allegation that there had been Google searches on the family home.

01:12:16.500 I mean, I've heard everything from a whole litany of searches of like, how do you kill

01:12:19.800 somebody?

01:12:20.200 How do you make homemade weapons?

01:12:21.160 For sure, they testified that there was a search done for chloroform, for chloroform.

01:12:27.280 You know, there was a search on chloroform.

01:12:29.200 And to the point where Cindy Anthony had to take the stand and say, it was me, it was I

01:12:32.740 who searched for the chloroform.

01:12:35.740 And I don't know if the jury bought that or not.

01:12:37.320 But can you just speak to the evidence of like the forensics?

01:12:40.000 I'll give it to you, Beth, and then I'll let you respond, Cheney, which I can see you

01:12:42.340 want to.

01:12:43.200 So this was a faux pas, I think, on the part of the prosecution.

01:12:45.820 Not that they introduced this, that they didn't do enough, because only after the trial, I

01:12:51.220 think it was in Jose's book, but I heard Jose talking about it.

01:12:54.520 He knew, the defense team knew that there were a lot more searches for chloroform than

01:12:59.320 what the prosecution knew, because the prosecution only checked one search engine.

01:13:02.900 It didn't check Firefox, only checked Mozilla or vice versa.

01:13:06.180 And Jose, and I assume you too, Cheney, knew that there were a lot of searches for chloroform,

01:13:12.020 but it didn't come in, because they didn't, the Sheriff's Department did not search all

01:13:17.560 of the search engines on Casey's computer.

01:13:21.300 And when Cindy got on the stand and said, I was searching because, I don't know, one

01:13:25.420 of my tree, something chlorophyll, chloroform, it was, it just sort of defaulted to the wrong

01:13:30.180 word.

01:13:30.660 I recall her saying, it didn't make sense, because she was punched in at work at the time

01:13:35.280 she says, at the time of the search, she was actually at work.

01:13:38.020 So, you know, that, that didn't fly, you know, with some people, but then they found

01:13:43.100 some, didn't they bet they found some chloroform in the back of the trunk?

01:13:48.780 No, I don't remember.

01:13:50.740 Okay.

01:13:51.000 I don't recall that.

01:13:52.020 No.

01:13:52.340 Okay.

01:13:52.640 I thought that there was, there was some evidence.

01:13:54.880 I'll look it up.

01:13:55.700 There's something to that effect in the record.

01:13:57.120 I'll, I'll pull it up for you.

01:13:58.160 Go ahead.

01:13:58.720 Go Cheney.

01:13:59.160 What, what handle the chloroform and the searches?

01:14:01.700 As far as the searches are concerned, you're talking about computer stuff, and I'm not

01:14:07.840 the best guy to do that.

01:14:09.240 I like my generation to deal without them. 0.54

01:14:12.120 The bottom line is, as in my book, I have made it very clear that the man who was in

01:14:18.660 charge of all that corrected the error that the state had made and said there was only

01:14:24.540 one church, one, for chloroform.

01:14:27.860 Secondly, the odor of the trunk or whatever it was from that, not only did I go and sit

01:14:39.220 in the trunk and smell it and do as, as rest of my experts did.

01:14:44.580 Um, I hired a forensic expert, college professor, PhD, who did, uh, studies of the air samples

01:14:56.880 that had been taken and what they found on the, on the graphs, uh, uh, of, of the analysis

01:15:05.500 was not chloroform.

01:15:08.200 It was surprisingly gasoline.

01:15:11.020 There was no detection of chloroform.

01:15:14.920 Now there was this, this, uh, guy who studies roadkill, uh, what was, uh, I know his name.

01:15:22.800 I'm not going to repeat this in the book that, that had, uh, talked about how he had all

01:15:27.520 these, uh, body farm issues.

01:15:30.740 And, uh, we went up to go through all that in Knoxville, Tennessee, um, and what odors

01:15:37.280 were.

01:15:37.740 And they captured odors and they tried to show us that there was a, a graph, uh, produced

01:15:44.280 that showed spikes of, uh, chloroform or something.

01:15:48.640 And that turned out not to be accurate.

01:15:50.980 And, uh, there was never any chloroform found in any way residual or otherwise anything to

01:15:59.660 do with this case, no matter how many, uh, labs and government officials tried to do so.

01:16:07.040 And the reason they did, but can I just ask you if we're talking about the same thing?

01:16:10.260 This is where I got it from.

01:16:11.440 Uh, this is an ABC news report, June 22nd, 2011, a forensic chemist.

01:16:16.200 I think this is your guy.

01:16:17.420 Uh, you, you were whose name you were searching for it.

01:16:20.760 Michael Sigmund.

01:16:21.880 Uh, yeah, he testified in the Casey Anthony trial.

01:16:26.200 He said today the car belonging to the mom accused of murdering two year old Kaylee did

01:16:30.360 not test positive for human decomposition.

01:16:33.040 He is a chemist at the national center for forensic science.

01:16:35.580 He said that air samples from Casey Anthony's car trunk tested positive, mainly for gasoline,

01:16:41.120 chloroform, and two other chemicals were present.

01:16:44.820 So there was chloroform, but the question is from what, and what does that tell us?

01:16:49.880 Okay.

01:16:50.460 So what it did tell us there was such a minimum amount.

01:16:53.180 They used a, another car that was bought at random, uh, from the prosecution.

01:17:00.020 Uh, I can't remember where it was now.

01:17:02.400 Uh, same make bottle of the car year.

01:17:05.480 And they brought it in and they tested it and they cut out carpet from the trunk, the

01:17:11.040 same, and they got the same readings from this random car as they were in Casey's car.

01:17:16.600 So unless there's just a lot of people hauling bodies around in old Fords, it just, it just was not, it was not reliable.

01:17:24.780 Did the owner of that car do searches for chloroform on the, on the internet?

01:17:30.060 No.

01:17:31.620 The government, the government did.

01:17:33.620 Can I add about what, what, what Cheney said, um, about the searches on the computer?

01:17:39.400 He's right that, um, a witness got on the stand to correct the, the record.

01:17:46.000 And it was actually one search, but that was on one search engine.

01:17:49.120 There was another search engine that the prosecution didn't discover that Jose Baez talked about after the trial that had a lot of, a lot more, um,

01:17:57.320 Um, how do we explain that, Cheney?

01:18:00.680 How do we explain the multiple, multiple searches for chloroform?

01:18:04.620 Well, there weren't.

01:18:05.740 That's why she's trying to tell you.

01:18:06.980 Yes, there were.

01:18:07.640 No, she's saying there were.

01:18:08.760 Yes, she's, no, she's on my side.

01:18:10.140 Another search engine.

01:18:11.180 On another search engine.

01:18:12.720 Yeah.

01:18:13.000 There were, um, more searches.

01:18:14.920 More, there might've been for more things too.

01:18:17.500 Yes.

01:18:17.760 Homemade weapons. 0.51

01:18:18.900 Breaking a neck or something.

01:18:19.900 Yeah. 0.86

01:18:20.200 Breaking a neck.

01:18:21.260 It's a, hold on.

01:18:22.080 I wrote it down.

01:18:23.220 Something like, uh, how to chloroform, how to make.

01:18:27.320 Breaking a neck, suffocation, undetectable, how to make homemade weapons.

01:18:31.460 That's pretty good evidence for the prosecution.

01:18:34.380 Pretty speculative evidence, but no forensic connection whatsoever.

01:18:38.360 They had first claimed there were 84 searches for chloroform on this computer.

01:18:44.120 I know you said that, but.

01:18:45.540 I think that was the number.

01:18:46.720 And then the people that did that correctly said, no, there wasn't.

01:18:50.080 There was only one.

01:18:51.580 And when you put it up.

01:18:53.000 On the one search agent, but you can get multiple search engines on one computer.

01:18:56.380 That's what that's trying to say.

01:18:57.160 So on the one, they had overstated it on this one search engine and they had to take

01:19:00.840 it back down to just, oh, sorry, just one on the one search engine.

01:19:04.120 What she's saying is according to Jose's book, and I've read this in news reports as well,

01:19:08.600 there were multiple searches for chloroform on the other search engines on that computer.

01:19:14.060 They were very interested in that house in chloroform and other ways of killing somebody.

01:19:18.320 And they never found any chloroform anywhere.

01:19:21.800 That's the important part.

01:19:22.960 Except the trunk of the car.

01:19:24.880 She's saying, I know, I know your point about the other car, but this one, this one has extra

01:19:29.140 circumstances.

01:19:29.640 All right.

01:19:30.100 I get it.

01:19:30.540 Listen, I get it.

01:19:31.400 Let me talk to you about this juror.

01:19:32.640 I found this fascinating, fascinating.

01:19:36.020 A male juror spoke with People Magazine, I think it was.

01:19:39.500 Yeah.

01:19:39.600 People Magazine right after the trial.

01:19:41.460 And then the trial was the verdict was in 2011.

01:19:44.240 And then they just spoke with him again, 10 years later in 2021.

01:19:48.460 And just let me read part of it to you guys and to the audience, because I'm sure not everybody's

01:19:53.220 seen this.

01:19:54.260 A month after, he said to people, look, none of us liked Casey Anthony at all.

01:19:59.220 She seems like a horrible person, he said.

01:20:01.160 But the prosecutors did not give us enough evidence to convict.

01:20:04.840 They gave us a lot of stuff that makes us think she probably did something wrong, but

01:20:08.920 not beyond a reasonable doubt.

01:20:10.760 10 years later, writes People, the same juror has been rethinking the case.

01:20:14.800 Quote, I think of the case at least once every single day.

01:20:17.460 It was such a strange summer.

01:20:19.980 I knew that there was public interest in the case, but it wasn't until after I was sequestered

01:20:24.040 that I realized the whole world was watching.

01:20:28.300 Then it says the juror said he found the prosecutors to be arrogant.

01:20:33.800 They did not like the prosecution.

01:20:35.720 Man, it really is important what the lawyer's relationship is with the jury.

01:20:39.040 While lead defense attorney Jose Baez was the one in the room who seemed like he cared.

01:20:45.020 They said the other lawyer, Cheney, can be argumentative at times, but winds up being a charmer.

01:20:50.900 No, that was me, Cheney.

01:20:56.080 He goes on.

01:20:59.860 His focus now is on little Kaylee.

01:21:02.640 Every time I see her face or hear her name, I get a pit in my stomach.

01:21:05.860 It all comes flooding back.

01:21:07.160 I think about those pictures of the baby's remains they showed us.

01:21:10.260 I remember Casey.

01:21:11.240 I even remember the smell of the courtroom.

01:21:13.520 And then says this, the enormity of the acquittal bothered them in the jury room. 0.85

01:21:18.620 And then we sat there for a few minutes and we're like, holy crap, we're letting her go 0.93

01:21:21.840 free. 0.65

01:21:22.840 Everyone was just stunned at what we were about to do.

01:21:25.080 One of the women jurors asked me, are you okay with this?

01:21:27.580 And I said, hell no.

01:21:29.100 But what else can we do?

01:21:30.100 We promised to follow the law.

01:21:31.340 Now this juror says he might have done things differently.

01:21:34.700 This is your point, Beth.

01:21:36.300 My decision haunts me to this day, he says.

01:21:39.140 I think now if I were to do it over again, I'd push harder to convict her of one of the

01:21:43.280 lesser charges like aggravated manslaughter, at least that, or child abuse.

01:21:47.820 I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I didn't stand up for what I believed in at

01:21:52.580 the time.

01:21:53.960 Whoa.

01:21:55.100 What do you make of that, Cheney?

01:21:58.460 I'm not surprised.

01:21:59.600 Because people rethink, question themselves about things they do in their daily life

01:22:06.280 all the time.

01:22:08.080 Oh, I wish I had said that, or I wish I had thought of this, or something.

01:22:11.760 Well, the other thing is, then he gets out and there's all sorts of blowback, I'm sure.

01:22:16.160 You know, the jurors remain anonymous, but they get all this blowback and you're thinking,

01:22:20.000 oh my God, maybe I got it wrong.

01:22:22.180 And we see more evidence and different evidence and experience these cases in a different way

01:22:28.460 than the jury does, which is why we have to respect their decision.

01:22:31.880 You can't, you can, you can second guess it for yourself and say, well, I don't agree

01:22:35.100 with it.

01:22:35.340 That's fine.

01:22:35.820 But you have to be, treat the jury with honor because unlike the rest of us, they sat there

01:22:40.040 and had the experience, the best we can offer as a justice system.

01:22:44.620 I have yet to see one that does it better than we do.

01:22:46.700 Okay.

01:22:47.140 Stand by because we're going to have an update after the break on what Casey Anthony's doing

01:22:50.880 now, what her parents are saying about her now.

01:22:54.700 And you'll, you'll never, you'll never believe what she's now saying about how she looks back

01:22:59.700 at this case.

01:23:00.320 Stay tuned.

01:23:00.840 More of the Chaney and Beth next. 1.00

01:23:06.940 Want to hear something interesting?

01:23:08.440 We took a look at cases to go back over one time at NBC and people we wanted to book.

01:23:15.160 And of course, Casey Anthony is on virtually every reporter's list of who they would like

01:23:20.160 to interview, right?

01:23:20.940 They would love, love to interview her.

01:23:22.440 And she doesn't really sit down with people and go over this case.

01:23:24.840 She gave one interview to the AP not long ago about her new job.

01:23:30.680 But what we found was that the audiences don't want to hear from her.

01:23:37.060 You can, you can sort of gauge it.

01:23:38.260 And I know they have those focus groups and so on.

01:23:40.200 They don't want to hear from her because they're angry at her.

01:23:44.140 Like they, they like hearing about a case where the bad guy goes away.

01:23:47.800 They do not like hearing about a case where the person they believe is the bad guy gets

01:23:51.740 off.

01:23:52.800 And, um, to me, it's really interesting because even though I, I remain convinced that she

01:23:58.100 did this, um, I appreciate the intellectual exchange and I appreciate like the willingness

01:24:03.100 Chaney of you to let me poke holes in the case and then you to give me back what you've

01:24:06.560 got.

01:24:06.880 I think that's worthwhile.

01:24:07.980 And I think it's worthwhile for people who are even convinced one way or the other to let

01:24:11.880 themselves hear it and like, maybe it'll shore up your opinions.

01:24:14.420 Maybe it will give you a pause, but it's important to hear directly from, I hope ideally the,

01:24:19.180 the participants involved as opposed to just press.

01:24:22.380 And I, you know, include myself in that though.

01:24:24.100 I think I do a pretty good job of hewing to what actually takes place in the courtroom.

01:24:28.960 Um, can I, I'll tell, I'll deviate from that for one second.

01:24:32.960 Cause this is a weird thing that came up in the news Chaney and I don't know what to make

01:24:37.100 of it.

01:24:37.580 This is in 2016.

01:24:39.080 Um, the New York daily news is the report I have in front of me though.

01:24:41.980 Others had it and they were citing the in court affidavit by a private investigator hired

01:24:48.580 by Jose Baez during the case named Dominic Casey, who came out with all these bombshells.

01:24:55.160 I mean, it was like, she admitted to killing Casey.

01:24:57.280 She did kill Casey. 1.00

01:24:59.100 She and Jose were having a sexual, it wasn't like, and he denied that by the way, but what's 0.99

01:25:04.100 the story with this guy, this guy is a nut. 1.00

01:25:07.020 He's a liar. 0.99

01:25:07.880 And we have a complete record of taking his deposition after he made these allegations, 0.98

01:25:15.300 uh, and, and which he was effectively destroyed.

01:25:19.360 Uh, all on every, every one of those things about, about the fair of Casey or doing this

01:25:26.640 or this, this, this guy was, uh, uh, and thoroughly discredited, uh, not allowed to testify

01:25:33.660 by a federal judge.

01:25:34.900 I mean, it's, yeah, good to know.

01:25:38.500 Okay.

01:25:38.760 I want to raise it because I saw it.

01:25:40.340 It's out there.

01:25:40.900 And I was like, well, that's, those are, those would be big admissions for a defense lawyer

01:25:44.260 to make to his private investigator.

01:25:45.660 But, uh, okay.

01:25:47.300 I, I have, I, I received, you'd be amazed.

01:25:51.040 I get emails, not daily or even weekly, but probably monthly from people advising me that

01:25:59.420 they have cited Kaylee.

01:26:01.300 They know where she is and she's alive and she, I mean, it goes on and on.

01:26:07.140 I, I continue to have, uh, uh, periodic threats, uh, and not much I can do about that.

01:26:18.160 If I go somewhere and I'm recognized and, you know, I, I'm very careful about where I go though.

01:26:23.620 I, if I go out anywhere, which is pretty rare anyway, but I go places where I'm known and

01:26:29.940 friends and, uh, anybody comes up to talk to me, uh, first thing I do is look at their

01:26:34.980 hands and, and, and, and, and it's hard to imagine.

01:26:38.840 I mean, I, I, uh, I'm sure I've angered people with results of cases.

01:26:45.420 Uh, I've been a board certified nationally and state criminal trial lawyer for over 50 years.

01:26:53.620 And so, you know, damn well, that's not, everybody's been my friend, but I'm done.

01:26:59.040 You're done now? 0.66

01:27:00.820 Yeah.

01:27:01.760 You're retired?

01:27:03.520 I just lost my wife and I can't, I can't do anymore.

01:27:09.520 Oh, I'm sorry.

01:27:11.540 And I'm sorry for all the harassment you're, you've received.

01:27:14.480 It's absurd.

01:27:16.100 You know, I talked about this with Alan Dershowitz, do people not understand how the criminal justice

01:27:20.280 system works?

01:27:21.620 It's to our, all of our benefit that we have smart, strong defense attorneys there to test

01:27:27.560 the system, whether the defendant's guilty or innocent.

01:27:31.120 And we don't have people who don't understand anything about the law in this country or the

01:27:35.800 constitution or elections.

01:27:38.180 Look at what's going on.

01:27:39.800 I won't get you in that because I know you, what you told me you used to do.

01:27:43.760 I won't hold that against you.

01:27:45.660 But the bottom, what did I do?

01:27:50.620 I've done a lot, Cheney.

01:27:51.800 You got to be more specific.

01:27:53.660 Oh, listen, I'm sorry about your loss.

01:27:55.740 That's, that's awful.

01:27:57.260 And I know you've had a faithful service as a lawyer and the reviews of your performance

01:28:01.700 are stellar, including from our own Beth here today.

01:28:05.080 So listen, we appreciate it.

01:28:06.620 I, I want to ask you about your former client and what she's doing now.

01:28:10.400 The only thing I've heard from her is this interview she gave to the AP.

01:28:14.740 She talked about how, well, we'll start with this one, the sound by six, talking about the

01:28:19.560 work she's performing right now.

01:28:21.760 Take a listen.

01:28:22.180 One of the reasons I'm so good at my job is because I'm taking everything that the state

01:28:26.920 tried to use against me, like my Facebook and pictures and all that stuff that they distorted.

01:28:33.240 I now go through and research people's backgrounds and put everything together in a good way.

01:28:40.400 She's a private investigator, right?

01:28:42.540 I mean, she's basically, she's using, she's doing photography and other skills for a private

01:28:46.020 investigator.

01:28:46.620 Well, she, I don't, I don't think that it would necessarily be appropriate if she's a 1.00

01:28:56.040 private investigator, because I think that requires a license that she does not, cannot 0.88

01:29:00.580 have.

01:29:02.080 She has done a lot of computer research investigating for several lawyers and she's apparently pretty

01:29:09.660 damn good at it.

01:29:11.480 She's got the search engine thing figured out. 0.99

01:29:14.380 Sorry.

01:29:14.780 Go ahead, Jeannie.

01:29:16.620 That wasn't her, but that's okay.

01:29:19.800 I, uh, she's, as far as I know, uh, she's just going on with her life.

01:29:24.520 I, I've only seen her once this year.

01:29:27.220 So I said, she came, she came to my wife's funeral.

01:29:31.060 Hmm.

01:29:32.840 Yeah.

01:29:33.340 I mean, and I get that.

01:29:35.600 I get that.

01:29:36.360 And you found a personal bond with her.

01:29:38.960 Um, she got that made that article made, or that interview, Beth made a lot of headlines

01:29:44.080 because I think it was in that interview.

01:29:46.520 She said she was, she was, she would like to have another baby.

01:29:51.460 And, um, I mean, her parents reacted and said, the parents have turned on her.

01:29:56.760 They, they gave an interview saying she might be a sociopath. 0.96

01:29:59.440 Um, the mother said she'd still in touch with her.

01:30:02.060 The father said, no, not me.

01:30:04.520 Um, they think that she did kill Kaylee, though.

01:30:07.300 They think it was an accident.

01:30:08.400 They don't think that she would have intentionally killed her child.

01:30:10.580 And then she was asked the old, how do you sleep at night question?

01:30:14.700 And this is how that went.

01:30:17.800 You're understanding.

01:30:18.740 How did she die?

01:30:19.920 I don't know.

01:30:20.800 You don't know something about drowning possibly.

01:30:24.260 Everyone else has their theories.

01:30:26.760 I don't know. 0.99

01:30:27.520 Give a shit about what anybody thinks about me. 0.99

01:30:29.760 I don't care about that. 1.00

01:30:30.800 I never will.

01:30:32.160 I'm okay with myself.

01:30:33.500 I sleep pretty good at night.

01:30:36.720 Hmm.

01:30:37.580 What do you make of that, Beth?

01:30:38.420 She's one lucky young woman and she should, you know, count her blessings every day that

01:30:44.800 she's not sitting in a prison cell because that jury could easily have hung and she could 1.00

01:30:49.860 have been retried with a little bit different strategy, maybe a lower charge on the part

01:30:53.520 of the prosecution.

01:30:54.740 Uh, she could have been convicted of some lower level homicide, even if it wasn't capital 0.70

01:30:58.940 murder.

01:30:59.780 So, um, you know, she should, she should just, you know, dedicate her life to, you know, helping

01:31:05.880 others and to counting her blessings.

01:31:08.420 Hmm.

01:31:08.920 And I may be getting some help, like some sort of like, even if you go with Cheney's and

01:31:13.300 Jose's theory of the case, if you accept that as the truth, this person needs help.

01:31:19.640 If she is going to have a child to come into her future, this is not somebody who should

01:31:24.500 reproduce again.

01:31:26.420 I mean, I would say period, but certainly not without getting some assistance in dealing

01:31:31.240 with her demons, whatever they may be.

01:31:33.360 Would you agree with that Cheney, that piece of it?

01:31:35.220 Um, I think everybody needs help for you start, start with headlines or work your way down.

01:31:43.560 Um, I have never heard her talk about her suggesting or having children.

01:31:48.740 And I know some of the media was out talking about how she was living with me and, and, uh, uh,

01:31:56.960 they just failed to realize that I have a big house, but my wife was there and, uh, uh, that,

01:32:05.720 that, uh, she was, uh, having twins and I'm, I, for every, every kind of BS you can imagine.

01:32:13.500 Somebody, somebody has grabbed on it, repeated it.

01:32:16.720 And as we know now from the, some politicians, they believe you tell a lie three times.

01:32:24.700 It's okay.

01:32:25.320 Cause then it's the truth.

01:32:26.540 What do you make of now looking, I mean, you've been practicing the system a long time, but

01:32:32.540 as a journalist, we always love the cases out of Florida because of that sunshine law.

01:32:36.520 You've got elements, right?

01:32:37.900 Beth, it's like, you can see, you can see the witnesses for yourself.

01:32:41.320 And this is the disadvantage.

01:32:42.300 I think a lot of us in the press have, we're looking at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial right

01:32:46.020 now.

01:32:46.200 It's like, well, I can't tell you whether the witnesses were credible or not.

01:32:49.080 I didn't get to see them or hear them or size them up.

01:32:51.460 It's so difficult to just read the transcript and say, Oh, it went well for her or, or went

01:32:56.280 terribly for her.

01:32:57.440 I love the Florida sunshine law for that reason, but I'm a member of the press.

01:33:01.620 I'll start with a fellow member of the press.

01:33:03.520 Who's probably just as biased as I am, but what do you make of that law and the, the total

01:33:08.000 access you get in places like Florida, Beth?

01:33:10.240 Well, I know I, you know, I was at core TV for 19 years.

01:33:13.120 I had a couple of names, you know, in session on true TV, but it was all core TV for 19 years.

01:33:17.960 We loved Florida because cameras are allowed.

01:33:21.000 There's a, there's basically a presumption cameras are allowed unless there's a darn good

01:33:24.500 reason not to allow them.

01:33:26.020 And those reasons are very few.

01:33:27.840 So, um, if there was a, you know, a good case and I covered a lot of low profile cases

01:33:32.400 that were really quite compelling, not just high profile cases.

01:33:35.980 Um, you know, we, we were there in Florida, there were a handful of other States that were

01:33:40.320 fairly easy as well, but Florida, it was great.

01:33:43.140 And in criminal cases is great from a media perspective.

01:33:46.400 In criminal cases, the lawyers get to depose the material witnesses on, you know, on the

01:33:52.740 other side.

01:33:53.380 So that was enough.

01:33:54.680 And then that, those deposition transcripts get released before trial often.

01:34:00.720 So we just know so much about a case.

01:34:03.880 And for somebody like me who used to have to write a memo for the anchors and sort of

01:34:07.880 lay out the case and every little line I wrote had to be checked and, uh, repeatable on air

01:34:13.400 so that we wouldn't get sued.

01:34:14.700 I mean, I had to know the law.

01:34:16.900 I would talk to lawyers, you know, in the States, but the law and the issues in the case

01:34:20.380 and what we knew about the defense and what the prosecution's proof was.

01:34:23.580 And I had to sort of lay it out for the anchors because they couldn't watch a trial from morning

01:34:28.740 to night.

01:34:29.300 I was the one in the field doing that with a producer.

01:34:31.660 And then we were feeding them the information.

01:34:33.800 So it was, uh, Florida is a great state.

01:34:36.360 However, I have frizzy hair.

01:34:38.200 And so I always wanted to have in my contract that I did not have to do live shots outside

01:34:43.960 in Florida in the summer because my hair didn't look the same.

01:34:48.980 It's a problem.

01:34:50.160 It's serious.

01:34:50.640 Men don't understand, um, you know, Cheney, I, I, I was thinking about it recently because

01:34:55.740 when the Kyle Rittenhouse was just trial was, I think it was, it had just ended or it was

01:34:59.940 about to end, but the judge had made a comment openly in the courtroom.

01:35:03.060 I don't know if I want cameras in the courtroom again, you know, he'd been doing it for a long

01:35:07.320 time.

01:35:07.740 He's the, I think the oldest sitting circuit court judge there.

01:35:11.160 And he was like, he was most unhappy with how the press would take a snippet and bastardize

01:35:15.900 it and so on.

01:35:16.900 I don't know.

01:35:17.540 You had another lawyer on here who said I would make exactly the opposite argument.

01:35:20.640 It's like the best way of showing, like the country's going to do what it's going to

01:35:24.740 do, but at least the other half has the actual proof of what happened in there to show the

01:35:31.140 world.

01:35:31.540 What are your thoughts?

01:35:32.840 I think the news media is very, very important in trying to keep things honest and truthfully

01:35:40.940 exposed.

01:35:41.540 The problem I have is when the media, and this is a broad brush, okay, when media takes a position

01:35:49.240 of determining claims of facts that are not necessarily accurate or they don't have the

01:35:55.420 basis to do it, that's wrong.

01:35:57.320 I think if I had the power to control some things, I would never allow these microphone and camera

01:36:06.360 assaults on suspects walking out of jails or courtrooms and stuff.

01:36:12.240 I was physically assaulted several times in this case.

01:36:15.820 And so were members of my staff or, you know, our team having to tell, you know, you get

01:36:22.820 away.

01:36:23.460 They don't have a right to physically enclose your space and stick a microphone in your

01:36:27.760 mouth.

01:36:28.240 If I had the ability to control legislation, it wouldn't be allowed.

01:36:32.620 You'd have a right to have an area for the media to be.

01:36:36.880 And if the person wanted to talk to you to come out there, fair shot, answer the questions.

01:36:42.500 But these perp walks and all the things that are done with that don't do anybody any good.

01:36:48.320 And I'm very much against it.

01:36:50.520 At the same time, I can tell you that before cameras were allowed in the courtrooms in Florida,

01:36:56.900 I probably had tried 20, 30 murder cases and then many afterwards.

01:37:03.280 And I've had televised trial dozens and dozens of times, and it doesn't bother me.

01:37:09.640 What it does do, however, it undisputed, in fact, it causes an artificial error amongst

01:37:16.440 the jurors, even when they're told they cannot be seen.

01:37:20.640 Still yet, they put on what we used to refer to as they put on their Sunday best to come

01:37:25.920 to the courthouse and do that. 1.00

01:37:28.120 I've watched judges do it.

01:37:29.620 I've watched judges go out and get makeovers because they knew the cameras were going to 0.87

01:37:35.620 be there in the courtroom.

01:37:36.980 Oh, boy.

01:37:37.780 Oh, that's a bridge too far.

01:37:39.400 Well, I have to say, I do love them, but I see they're fraught as well.

01:37:43.660 I'd choose them more than I'd reject them.

01:37:45.480 But the press are never as vultury as they are around those leaving a high profile trial.

01:37:51.660 I'll give you that one.

01:37:52.860 Chaney, a pleasure to meet you.

01:37:53.980 Beth, so nice to see you as well.

01:37:55.520 Thank you both so much for being here.

01:37:57.020 And thanks to you, our audience, for joining us today as we revisited the case of Casey

01:38:01.760 Anthony 10 years later.

01:38:04.580 Don't forget to download The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher.

01:38:07.920 Also, check us out at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

01:38:11.120 Thanks for listening.

01:38:13.060 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:38:15.480 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:38:19.020 Thank you.

01:38:20.020 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 21, 2021

Casey Anthony： A Megyn Kelly Show True Crime Special ｜ Ep. 226

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