The Megyn Kelly Show - Disturbing Jared From Subway Story, Casey Anthony Trial, Deep Dive Into Cults - Megyn's ＂True Crime＂ Mega-Episode

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00:01:00.740 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:01:06.300 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:01:14.180 Welcome to today's Sunday Mega Episode, bringing you some of our true crime show highlights from the archives.

00:01:19.920 Today we have a deep dive on, oh, this one's so disturbing.

00:01:23.820 Jared from Subway.

00:01:25.320 If you have not heard this, you've got to listen to this, all right?

00:01:29.780 Even if you have heard it, listen again.

00:01:31.700 It is a truly disturbing firsthand account, okay?

00:01:35.820 From someone who knew him well, was undercover working with the FBI.

00:01:40.320 I, the depths of this guy's depravity are deeply alarming.

00:01:45.920 You'll hear it in a minute.

00:01:47.440 Also, I'll look back at the wild Casey Anthony case from both sides in a very interesting interview with her lawyer that is one of the few that is sort of seared in my memory, and you'll see why.

00:01:59.200 And also, I'll look at cults like you've never seen before.

00:02:02.040 I mean, who doesn't like a good cult story?

00:02:04.960 Enjoy, and we will see you on Monday.

00:02:07.140 Today, we bring you the case of convicted sex offender and pedophile, Jared Fogel.

00:02:14.880 You may remember this guy as Jared from Subway.

00:02:18.420 Subway sandwiches?

00:02:20.160 Jared was a popular spokesman for Subway for 15 years.

00:02:24.500 While the world watched Jared talk about his weight loss and his favorite sandwiches on TV,

00:02:29.600 one woman, Rochelle Herman, was working tirelessly behind the scenes to put Jared behind bars. 0.55

00:02:37.560 She knew something the rest of us did not.

00:02:41.000 And this is the story of how she learned it and worked to expose him.

00:02:46.380 Rochelle joins us today to walk us through the Jared Fogel case

00:02:49.340 and to share how she helped take down the now disgraced Subway spokesman.

00:02:54.340 Rochelle Herman, so good, good, good, good to have you here.

00:03:02.920 Thank you so much for being on.

00:03:05.160 You're very welcome.

00:03:06.240 I appreciate the invitation.

00:03:07.760 Thank you.

00:03:08.820 Oh, I'm so awed by what you did, your whole role in this.

00:03:13.820 I've watched the whole series and you are a heroine and just an incredibly courageous, ballsy person.

00:03:23.200 I mean, the number of things you did to advance the case against this guy, it's a long list

00:03:31.160 and at extraordinary peril to yourself, your family.

00:03:35.720 All right, so we're going to go through it.

00:03:36.980 And I knew this story.

00:03:38.460 I was in news, but I didn't know anything about you, Rochelle, prior to seeing this.

00:03:43.580 So I'm grateful for this Investigation Discovery production and to get to know you.

00:03:51.080 All right, so let's start at the beginning.

00:03:53.340 You're down there in Florida.

00:03:54.520 You're minding your own business.

00:03:56.240 You're building your radio show.

00:03:58.640 You're doing well.

00:04:00.140 And that job as a journalist, as a public person, brought you within the orbit of Jared Fogel,

00:04:08.040 the Subway guy, for what reason?

00:04:10.320 How?

00:04:10.540 He was working with the American Heart Association for talking with children, motivating them

00:04:18.540 because of childhood obesity.

00:04:20.060 So he was a guest on my show because I always gave time to, you know, organizations such as

00:04:26.980 the American Heart Association.

00:04:28.280 So you met him and on that first meeting, what did he seem like?

00:04:34.460 The first time that I met him, he was about 20 minutes late, but he seemed very, he was very nice.

00:04:45.100 He was very low key, very pleasant, and he wanted to help children.

00:04:51.000 That was the whole process for the interview.

00:04:55.720 I think we like to tell ourselves we would be able to tell if we were in the presence of a child predator,

00:05:02.460 just to make ourselves feel better, you know, as moms, as humans.

00:05:07.000 And that's why it is important that before you started to spend more time with him, he seemed, quote, normal to you.

00:05:14.220 We can't tell, like, just ask anybody who's in the Catholic Church, you can't tell.

00:05:20.440 That's a very important point that you bring up, Megan, is you can't tell.

00:05:24.960 And that's why I worded it the way that I did, because he was very nice, very cordial, polite,

00:05:32.120 and he was really focused on wanting to help children with childhood obesity.

00:05:38.940 So you can't tell who a predator is.

00:05:42.340 Most people have no idea when they're sitting right in front of them.

00:05:46.180 Although, I mean, in so many instances, they create a job or a situation around them that brings children into their orbit.

00:05:55.780 I mean, it's such a push-pull because they do that.

00:05:59.200 And yet, we all know so many great educators and coaches who are wonderful,

00:06:06.660 who had never hurt a child, who make it their mission to help children as a profession,

00:06:10.680 who we don't want to scoop up into that perverted, sick thing.

00:06:16.020 But it's no accident, right, that it's probably no accident that Jared created this charity having to do with children.

00:06:22.180 No, it's no accident at all.

00:06:23.780 And, you know, when we're talking about, you know, across the country,

00:06:28.740 I think it's about 80% or more where the predator is known, whether it's family-related,

00:06:37.560 but they do happen to know that they're familiar with the child.

00:06:42.640 They are, whether they're friends or, as you had mentioned earlier, educators, they could be clergy.

00:06:49.460 I've received a number of messages from people around the world that have been victims.

00:06:57.120 They have fallen victim to being, you know, having sexual abuse as a child through these individuals.

00:07:07.560 And they run the whole gamut of who you think would be safe.

00:07:12.360 I should say up front, the FBI does not want you to be doing this interview.

00:07:18.200 Is that true?

00:07:20.480 Yes, but let me, please let me clarify.

00:07:23.280 The FBI, I was approached recently and they asked me to fall back.

00:07:29.840 And the reason why is for my own safety.

00:07:32.100 It's not because I have brought a voice to what is happening.

00:07:36.160 And I'm giving my voice to help anyone who has been subjected, whether it's Jared's victims or otherwise,

00:07:43.620 to childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, whatever.

00:07:48.440 And they don't want me to put my life at risk.

00:07:53.140 And apparently I have angered a certain demographic.

00:07:55.900 There's a number of people.

00:07:56.860 I have received some emails, messages from individuals, not very many.

00:08:03.920 I would say maybe 2%, very angry with what I did.

00:08:09.260 And they're in defense of Jared.

00:08:12.760 Oh my gosh.

00:08:14.260 Yes.

00:08:14.960 It's really sick in my opinion.

00:08:18.120 All right.

00:08:18.420 So we'll get to why and all of that.

00:08:20.600 But it's absurd.

00:08:21.760 Thank you for, I mean, again, putting yourself at risk and coming on to tell the story.

00:08:26.320 It is important.

00:08:27.660 It's not just about Jared, though we do need to watch him too,

00:08:31.180 because he's getting out of prison in the not-too-distant future.

00:08:35.400 But there are, sadly, many, many Jareds out there. 1.00

00:08:38.800 And Rochelle's become a bit of an expert in how to spot them and how to keep kids safe. 1.00

00:08:43.380 So there's a lot baked into your story.

00:08:45.520 All right.

00:08:45.740 So that was meeting number one, rather unremarkable.

00:08:49.160 And then tell us about the second time you met him.

00:08:51.780 Well, it was actually shortly after that.

00:08:56.520 I had met him because we were scheduled to do radio first.

00:09:02.700 I did radio and TV as a show host.

00:09:05.360 And we did the radio interview first.

00:09:08.460 And then I met him at a local middle school in Sarasota.

00:09:16.140 And it was then that he said something to me.

00:09:20.160 When we were alone in the auditorium, we were setting up for the influx of the children to come in.

00:09:27.100 And they were all very excited to meet him.

00:09:29.940 And so we were setting up.

00:09:31.480 And my cameraman was across the way preparing the cameras.

00:09:35.580 And our mics were hot.

00:09:36.760 Jared didn't know that.

00:09:37.760 And he had leaned over to me.

00:09:40.080 He was very flirtatious and very friendly and was just in general chatting with me.

00:09:46.920 And I asked him if he was excited about meeting the kids.

00:09:51.340 And then he leaned over.

00:09:52.600 And he said, just above a whisper, how hot he thought middle school girls were. 1.00

00:09:58.800 This is so bizarre.

00:10:00.820 This happened at the beginning of your second meeting?

00:10:05.620 Like he's saying?

00:10:07.160 The same day.

00:10:07.780 It's so confusing.

00:10:10.080 Right?

00:10:10.380 That he would right off the top say something.

00:10:13.160 Do you think it's because he didn't realize how inappropriate that sounded to someone who's normal?

00:10:20.880 I can only speculate why he said that to me.

00:10:27.140 But he was very interested in me.

00:10:30.080 And maybe he wanted to say something to me to see whether I would be on board and don't waste his time.

00:10:37.520 But what happens is I kind of shut down inside.

00:10:41.800 When someone says something that inappropriate, I just, I have a blank expression.

00:10:47.880 And I think that is, you know, my reaction to situations of this nature or similar is that I don't lash out.

00:10:58.800 I'm internalizing everything.

00:11:00.640 And I was thinking to myself, did I really just hear what he said?

00:11:05.720 Was that accurate?

00:11:07.560 And I looked across.

00:11:08.540 I glanced to my cameraman.

00:11:10.080 And his mouth hit the floor.

00:11:12.140 And I could tell, yes, that's exactly what I heard.

00:11:14.880 Now, most of us, I got to be honest, would have said, so Jared's a freak. 0.92

00:11:21.200 My God, what the hell's up with Jared from Subway? 0.71

00:11:24.180 And moved on.

00:11:25.600 I mean, that's truly what most people would have done. 0.98

00:11:28.580 Like, he's a freak.

00:11:29.600 But, like, there's no evidence that he's more than just a weird freak who thinks about these things. 0.88

00:11:34.480 Not you.

00:11:35.480 This is what makes you different.

00:11:36.440 Like, the people who make a difference on this earth are the people who just go the extra mile,

00:11:40.880 who don't just move on.

00:11:42.480 And so, while you were thrown, you were, you know, you said you sort of internalized.

00:11:49.380 You started to come up with a plan.

00:11:52.780 Well, I did.

00:11:53.800 And if I may, what I did, I thought anybody would do.

00:11:59.860 And I was told down the line by one of the agents that I was working with, they told me,

00:12:06.140 Rochelle, what you have done, the initial steps and everything that I did, most people would not do.

00:12:15.140 And I was really perplexed by that.

00:12:18.180 I was like, what do you mean most people wouldn't do that?

00:12:20.680 That is the right thing to do.

00:12:22.080 It's a moral and public obligation.

00:12:25.060 And no, apparently, most people wouldn't.

00:12:29.600 No, and it's usually the instinct is, oh, my God, get away, right?

00:12:35.040 Like, usually it's like the guy's, something's off.

00:12:37.720 Let me get out of here. 0.99

00:12:38.740 But you went the other way.

00:12:40.380 You went in and created a relationship with him that would prove very important and is ultimately one of the reasons why he's behind bars for as long as he is.

00:12:50.920 I want to run a clip from the show that sort of takes us a little bit into some of that.

00:12:58.940 It's called Jared from Subway, Catching a Monster.

00:13:01.800 And it's you talking about your decision making about what to do next.

00:13:07.660 Saw three.

00:13:09.660 I can be completely honest with you about everything.

00:13:14.040 I can't wait for you.

00:13:15.320 What do you want to do?

00:13:17.480 You.

00:13:17.800 I had to play a role with Jared that I was interested in him personally, romantically.

00:13:29.220 This was, in essence, a honey trap.

00:13:32.280 I was going to use his flirting with me, interest in me to my advantage.

00:13:37.020 Absolutely.

00:13:37.880 Why would I not?

00:13:38.880 That was my leverage.

00:13:41.020 I think you're incredible.

00:13:43.700 I think you're amazing, baby.

00:13:45.200 Everything I could imagine in a woman. 1.00

00:13:49.320 Everything I could imagine in a mate.

00:13:50.840 Everything I could imagine in a friend.

00:13:52.720 Everything I could imagine in everything.

00:13:53.860 So you got close to him, and this was in the midst of you two getting closer as, quote, friends, but you were doing it for a reason.

00:14:06.160 I did.

00:14:06.920 And I will tell you, I would lay my life on the line to help protect, especially a child, anyone that, you know, is in need.

00:14:15.500 It's just my natural instinct to dive right in.

00:14:19.100 But for what I had to do and what I was subjected to hearing is nothing in comparison to what these children go through.

00:14:29.720 It's so disturbing.

00:14:31.540 My producer, Natasha, cut a bunch of clips from the show, 80% of which we're not going to run.

00:14:38.200 It's too dark.

00:14:39.360 It's too disturbing.

00:14:40.240 And we talk about dark things sometimes on this show, too dark, too disturbing.

00:14:44.760 In the context of the film, it's okay.

00:14:47.320 It works, and you need it to be in there.

00:14:49.820 In the context of this interview, it would be too much for people to hear these actually just dark, graphic desires of Jared as spoken to you.

00:14:57.840 I mean, you're the reason we have them.

00:14:59.020 But we'll play a couple, enough so the audience gets it.

00:15:01.460 But you went through a lot having to hear that.

00:15:03.940 It's like stumbling upon child pornography.

00:15:07.940 Like, imagine if you've stumbled upon a magazine of child pornography just as you're cleaning your house and reading the most vile discussion.

00:15:16.720 That's what you were forced to endure in these conversations with him.

00:15:22.800 It was even worse than that, Megan.

00:15:24.760 Again, the fact is, is that he was telling me what he was doing, what he did, the children's reactions.

00:15:32.060 And one thing that was not addressed, there's a number of things that were not revealed, addressed in the docuseries.

00:15:39.320 There's only three hours out of five years, 24-7 work that I had been able to acquire.

00:15:47.260 So there's more to it, of course.

00:15:51.080 But there's a difference when what you see in a magazine and a story that you read, then when somebody is telling you what they're doing and the reaction.

00:16:04.460 And there, he was, he actually defined how he was grooming the children, which ultimately led to the rewriting of the playbook for profiling pedophiles within the FBI.

00:16:19.480 Right.

00:16:20.260 And the grooming is all over the news, that word these days.

00:16:23.300 And I confess, it was looming large in my own mind as I watched the docuseries, because you hear some of it in his exchanges with you, what he wants you to do to help get children, you know, in his mind, ready to visit him.

00:16:39.660 Of course, this would never happen.

00:16:40.760 And you were, of course, working with the FBI.

00:16:42.900 But it was illuminating.

00:16:45.300 And I think we can draw some lessons from it.

00:16:47.400 But I'm getting ahead of myself because I want to lay the foundation first.

00:16:50.140 So you decide to start befriending him.

00:16:53.700 But as you point out, it's more of a honeypot operation, like lure him in.

00:16:56.520 He was obviously attracted to you and get him to start talking, get him to say more about the hot middle schoolers.

00:17:03.060 But you didn't know whether he would.

00:17:04.820 I mean, it's tough to know whether that was a passing comment. 0.98

00:17:07.420 He's just a weird guy or this is an actual pedophile. 0.57

00:17:09.940 And he's going to actually confess it to me, a public figure.

00:17:15.040 So how confident were you that you could get him to do that?

00:17:20.140 Well, I wasn't very, it wasn't about confidence, to be honest with you.

00:17:25.400 It was just about strategy, what to say, how to say it.

00:17:29.620 But really what he was saying to me wasn't what he wanted to do.

00:17:33.860 He described in such detail what he did and the responses from the children, their reactions, what they would say, how to be able to really wade through and find the right specific child,

00:17:53.180 which was typically from a, you know, from a broken family, possibly have some kind of, you know, mental health issues, depression or, or otherwise.

00:18:08.060 I mean, he wanted the week to pray on.

00:18:10.460 You start just using your dictaphone, been there, sister.

00:18:17.660 I was that person too, many years ago before we had the iPhone.

00:18:21.500 I was a lawyer back then.

00:18:23.160 But yeah, you started to tape him using a dictaphone.

00:18:26.300 And the vast majority of your relationship was over the phone, right?

00:18:30.660 Like where was home base for him?

00:18:32.620 You were in Florida and he was where?

00:18:34.100 Well, his home is in Indianapolis or was in Indianapolis.

00:18:40.740 So that's his home base.

00:18:43.340 And that, but he traveled so much.

00:18:45.300 I mean, majority of the time he was always on the road and not just in the United States.

00:18:51.180 He was abroad in a number of other countries and he would be on the phone with me and I would be on the other, on the other end of the phone.

00:18:59.780 And I could hear the crowds and the excitement.

00:19:02.880 Oh, you're the subway guy.

00:19:04.620 The kids screaming.

00:19:06.120 He said to me once that he was as popular as Michael Jackson in Australia.

00:19:13.620 You know, what's crazy?

00:19:15.240 The docuseries does a good job of showing that he really was.

00:19:18.480 I lived it.

00:19:19.880 I was a human on this earth at the time.

00:19:21.940 Everyone knew him.

00:19:23.060 I knew him, but he was hugely popular.

00:19:26.820 It was beyond your normal, oh, there's that guy from the ad.

00:19:32.260 He became just ubiquitous.

00:19:34.980 He was everywhere.

00:19:36.180 He was subway.

00:19:37.420 He was in every ad.

00:19:38.820 I mean, like, was it 300 ads for subway?

00:19:42.640 Yes, I believe so.

00:19:43.760 He was just an everyday, ordinary guy.

00:19:46.020 And people really supported him because of his quick rise to stardom and for losing weight and, you know, doing his diet with specific sandwiches from subway.

00:20:00.180 So it was like, you know, for the average person, for anyone really looking at him, he was just like an all American hero because of how he reached, you know, that level of stardom.

00:20:13.360 And then the movie points out he made millions.

00:20:18.640 I mean, he became very rich, very famous, well-traveled, beloved, with a lot of access to power players.

00:20:28.000 So all of this happened over the course of some 15 years.

00:20:31.260 And I think that's about the span, all based on that one article in his University of Indiana, where he was going to school and lost 245 pounds in a year by eating two subway sandwiches a day.

00:20:45.400 And they did an article on him.

00:20:47.980 Subway heard about it, made him their spokesperson, and boom, off to the races.

00:20:52.960 So you're in the midst of this phone relationship with him, and he is starting to say incriminating things.

00:21:00.620 So the first time, this was something that was unclear to me from watching the series.

00:21:04.700 He made the comment about the middle schoolers.

00:21:06.560 Then you're on the phone with him, and you can hear in that last clip I played how it's getting kind of sexy between the two of you.

00:21:11.480 But then, and you were clearly in some of the clips trying to push it to, like, so on the kid's subject, because you were on a mission, how hard was it to extract the admissions that you would ultimately get from him in that phone relationship?

00:21:28.260 It was interesting, because it was a phone relationship, because I was never allowed during the time that I enlisted with the FBI to meet with him in person.

00:21:40.020 Although I wanted to, because I felt as though that the case could move, you know, much more swiftly, and I could gain, you know, deeper information, more hands-on, if you will.

00:21:54.000 And he, it was, to me, baffling that somebody would entrust another person with a phone conversation as a relationship and share in detail everything that he did.

00:22:09.580 When I think about it, I'm thinking perhaps he was lonely, didn't have, because he was so busy with his schedule at Subway, he really didn't have time to make friends.

00:22:20.760 And he was, he had his friends, but not being all over the world, anyone that he could trust like that.

00:22:26.800 So perhaps it was just something that, a necessity for him.

00:22:30.820 Hmm, so maybe easier than you expected at first.

00:22:34.700 Now, wait, before you brought in the FBI, I love how you're, you're, you're moving the pieces.

00:22:39.540 But before that, you did have one meeting with him, and it was scary, right?

00:22:45.520 Can you tell us about that?

00:22:47.420 Yes.

00:22:47.740 Um, he said he was coming into Palm Beach, and, uh, he was going to be there for a couple of days.

00:22:55.280 He had to do some work with Subway, and asked if I would come up.

00:22:59.120 And, you know, here I am, based out of Sarasota, and I really wanted to get this information.

00:23:05.980 So I did.

00:23:07.020 I agreed to, and he told me where he was, and that's when I took the drive, and I went there.

00:23:13.020 And, um, he opened the door, welcomed me in, um, hi, how are you doing?

00:23:18.740 Um, and then almost immediately became very flirtatious and hands-on, and I kept pushing him aside and just trying to continue with the conversation,

00:23:28.220 because I had my dictaphone in my handbag, and it was recording.

00:23:33.140 So I wanted to get as much information as quickly as possible, because I was very uncomfortable being there.

00:23:38.880 And it wound up in you fleeing, right?

00:23:42.960 Like he, he left the room, and you, you fled, which must have been very, you must have been very scared to just kind of jeopardize your operation by just peacing out.

00:23:53.460 I, I was.

00:23:54.700 I will tell you, I, I replay that time over and over in my head, and I was so grateful when he did excuse himself, um, from the room for a few minutes,

00:24:07.580 because that was my opportunity.

00:24:09.960 Other than that, I don't know how I would have gotten away, because I don't, I'm not sure he would have let me.

00:24:17.300 And you think back now, think of all he had to lose.

00:24:21.800 What if he had found your dictaphone?

00:24:24.080 What if your purse had spilled?

00:24:25.960 Well, that was definitely top of mind, but I will say I raced to my car as soon as he, as soon as that door shut, I, I quickly and very quietly exited and raced to my vehicle.

00:24:41.500 And then the entire drive home, uh, which is about three hours, I was crying.

00:24:48.380 I was so upset, um, because of what I just put myself at risk of, but I still needed more information.

00:24:56.980 I was very disappointed that I didn't get anything, um, concrete.

00:25:01.680 It was inaudible, but there had to be another way.

00:25:05.800 And I knew that, that he was interested enough that, that another opportunity would arise.

00:25:11.020 You just told me you had a phone call from your kids and you had to get out of there when he called to say, Hey, where'd you go?

00:25:15.520 So one of the things that's interesting to me, just from a human perspective and watching your story is you talk about how you cried on the way home.

00:25:23.140 And there's another point at which you admit you threw up after one phone call.

00:25:27.080 And just, you're very open about how this was actually really, really difficult on you emotionally.

00:25:33.280 And I have to say, Rochelle, I like that.

00:25:35.400 It's, it's almost a more interesting story because you are very vulnerable in that way.

00:25:39.920 You're not this, you know, tough as nails. 0.97

00:25:42.440 Like I was going to nail him and I got him and it was, yeah, screw him. 0.90

00:25:46.380 You were very fragile at times in this thing, but you kept at it. 0.95

00:25:53.840 That is such a hopeful story, I think, to everyone out there.

00:25:58.140 And even if you are a crier, even if you're emotional, even if it's really hard, if you keep at it, whatever it may be, you could accomplish something hugely important.

00:26:09.620 You certainly can.

00:26:11.020 Now, I would like to point out, Megan, if you don't mind, that this really tore me apart.

00:26:16.320 It was very emotionally draining psychologically.

00:26:19.100 It was, it was just a disaster because of everything that I heard.

00:26:25.440 I do not want, in my mind, to share with other people.

00:26:29.740 And that's why it took me quite a while before I came out to even share, you know, a portion of what had transpired.

00:26:38.840 But, and I thought after the docuseries was aired, it would make me stronger.

00:26:45.860 And it did, but it was a grueling two years piecing this together.

00:26:50.340 And after the airing, and I can't, can't go into detail too much, but there was an attack on, on family member of mine.

00:27:01.880 And that is what made me very strong.

00:27:07.140 I'm, I'm different now than I was when, you know, before that happened.

00:27:12.800 And that's only been a couple of months, but it just put everything into perspective for me in the sense that, you know, you're, you have to stand up and, and do what is right.

00:27:26.980 Because these, it's not, it's not something that anybody should stand down.

00:27:33.400 It's something that I believe everyone, you can make a serious difference if you make an effort to stand up and do what's right.

00:27:44.900 That's crazy.

00:27:45.800 I didn't realize there was a contingent of Jared defenders out there.

00:27:50.040 How is this even remotely controversial for what you did or what he's been exposed for?

00:27:55.840 I don't know.

00:27:56.980 There, there was a couple that I read.

00:27:59.040 Um, they felt as though my recording him was illegal, which actually there was a gray area.

00:28:06.680 So, and the FBI knew that because that's what I shared with them.

00:28:10.940 It's public broadcasting entity.

00:28:13.140 He knew that I was a known talk show host.

00:28:16.720 He called into the same telephone number, the same studio line.

00:28:20.520 He knew it was the studio number.

00:28:22.420 There was no expectation of privacy.

00:28:25.440 Exactly.

00:28:25.560 I didn't realize that.

00:28:26.360 Wait, these are, these phone calls are on your studio line?

00:28:30.300 The initial ones before I agreed to work with the FBI, before I presented the case to the FBI, I reported everything within the studio. 0.98

00:28:39.740 He's a lunatic. 0.94

00:28:41.680 I mean, talk about risky. 1.00

00:28:45.520 Okay.

00:28:45.800 So you'll get these tapes and he does start saying very inappropriate and incriminating things.

00:28:51.120 And you go to the FBI.

00:28:53.780 And I mean, as soon as they hear what you have, they've got four agents in the room with you.

00:28:57.340 It's like, you know, I'm sure that at first they were like some lady from Sarasota is here.

00:29:01.580 She's like, but then it becomes very real, very fast.

00:29:04.720 And they, and you become a confidential informant for the FBI.

00:29:08.580 You start working with them.

00:29:09.940 You start, what, was it wearing wires or how would you work with the FBI on the phone calls?

00:29:15.100 Yes.

00:29:15.420 24-7.

00:29:16.300 And, you know, I had, I, there, there is protocol for when you make an outgoing call, if I were to call him and when you receive and from, you know, beginning to end, different things you need to say just for legalities.

00:29:29.580 And also once I had those tapes, once I had that recording, you, I needed to bring them and do a drop immediately for the integrity of the, the information.

00:29:42.620 It's like something out of a movie. You're going to like the dark parking lot, doing the quick drive by, you know, handoff.

00:29:50.760 And they say that's for your own safety. So nobody, if he were watching you, you know, he wouldn't see anything.

00:29:57.440 Well, that's exactly right. That's why they do it in, you know, the darker corners.

00:30:02.220 They'll do it at, you know, under night, you know, in alleyways.

00:30:07.960 And they do it where they pull up alongside me and it's always the dark, you know, the black suburbans, very dark tint. 0.98

00:30:15.720 You do the handoff. It, it was really very surreal, very creepy.

00:30:20.640 I wanted to have further conversation with the agents when I made drops at certain times, but they did, they could not, they did not do that.

00:30:28.880 And I found out later on, the reason why was because they, they did not want to chance anyone seeing this transpiring because it would put me at risk.

00:30:38.880 See, as a CI, CIs, you're given aliases and numbers, and that's what you're referred to, not your real name.

00:30:47.180 But I came out when Jared was arrested and I shared because the public has a right to know.

00:30:53.120 And that is exactly why I'm here today.

00:30:55.360 And there's further information that I'd like to share.

00:30:57.760 And I have a lot of things, you know, that I'm going, that I am pursuing because I think that I can make a big difference.

00:31:05.160 But with the help of others, you know, out there, you know, mostly the victims, because without their stories, you know, they can really share some insight that we don't have personally if we haven't gone through it.

00:31:21.080 Well, you added a piece to it that was very important, which was, it's one thing for the FBI to be saying, we found thousands of images of child pornography on his computer and his hard drive.

00:31:33.380 It is another for us to hear it in his own words, his sick perversions. 0.53

00:31:40.520 There's just no getting around that.

00:31:42.780 One thing you can compartmentalize a little bit more easily, like, oh, God, who knows what was on there? 0.99

00:31:47.860 I guess he's a sick dude.

00:31:49.740 But to hear him, again, we won't be playing the most graphic soundbites here, is a different story. 0.98

00:31:55.440 You just, you know, and you feel very motivated to keep him behind bars forever, ideally.

00:32:01.000 But right now that we're not on track for that.

00:32:03.080 So you're working with the FBI.

00:32:05.280 How long did that period go on, you and the FBI?

00:32:09.960 Actively, just under five years.

00:32:14.060 So this is a great frustration to us and to you.

00:32:17.000 The audience now is saying, five years?

00:32:19.440 What do you mean?

00:32:20.140 He's making these admissions.

00:32:22.860 In the docuseries, you hear him talking about allegedly going to Thailand and what he did to the little children over there who were being sex trafficked.

00:32:31.480 Why wouldn't they go arrest him?

00:32:34.860 What isn't that enough to get a search warrant to see if he does have child pornography?

00:32:39.340 Like, why?

00:32:40.480 And what was the FBI saying?

00:32:41.600 Well, one would think.

00:32:44.320 I was very frustrated because I had given thousands of recordings over the years.

00:32:52.880 And they were so compelling.

00:32:54.680 I even made phone calls to the office out of Tampa, middle of the night, you know, in trying to track down my handlers, my lead agent, to let them know that Jared is boarding a plane.

00:33:07.800 He's going, you know, he's going to this city.

00:33:11.800 And he told me he's, you know, this one particular incident, there was a little girl he was going to see.

00:33:17.860 And he alluded to the fact that the parents knew what he was going to do.

00:33:22.260 So there's more to the story than just that.

00:33:25.900 But that is what he had told me.

00:33:28.800 And I had that all on tape.

00:33:30.280 And I couldn't understand why it was so difficult, you know, working together with other law enforcement agencies to follow him, you know, when he gets when he gets off the airplane and just track him to where he's going to track his cell phone, something.

00:33:48.700 And I still, I don't understand all the inner workings, they have their reasons, but I found that to be very frustrating because I didn't know what else to do.

00:34:04.080 We're going to play two soundbites here of your discussions with him.

00:34:09.140 And this is where it took just a particularly dark turn for poor you, because you're a mom and you had two young kids who are, I think, nine and 10.

00:34:21.080 I mean, it was a period of years, so they were aging, but they were around there.

00:34:25.220 And Jared knew that.

00:34:26.720 And he started to turn the discussion to your own children, which is something very different than the abstract idea, which is awful enough.

00:34:36.160 So we've got a bit of that from the piece.

00:34:38.120 We'll play Sot 4 first.

00:34:40.400 And this is a viewer warning.

00:34:42.420 This is disturbing and not appropriate for children.

00:34:47.480 Will you do anything I tell you to do?

00:34:49.660 Yes, I will.

00:34:51.680 You promise?

00:34:52.800 Yes. 0.90

00:34:53.260 Will you let me see your kids naked? 0.82

00:35:00.140 Oh my God, Rochelle, that is stomach turning. 0.67

00:35:03.560 It really is.

00:35:04.880 How did you maintain your composure?

00:35:06.460 For all those years prior, he really did not bring my children into conversation at all.

00:35:13.420 So now his sights were set on my kids.

00:35:19.120 How did you manage through that?

00:35:23.260 Actually, when that initially happened and he started to zone in on my kids and ask questions, that's when I spoke with my lead agent, Billings, Special Agent Billings.

00:35:36.720 And she, I was going to quit and just walk away.

00:35:42.780 And through conversations, they did not have anybody else to get in.

00:35:48.180 They had tried for quite a while through me to try to introduce an agent to take my place ultimately.

00:35:55.180 But he would never bite.

00:35:56.720 He was just, he was just very stuck on wanting to talk with me.

00:36:02.620 You were it for the FBI, for everyone.

00:36:07.400 Here's a second soundbite.

00:36:09.380 Same vein and same warnings.

00:36:12.740 What's that?

00:36:13.240 Why don't you describe the kids for me?

00:36:15.480 My kids.

00:36:16.720 Oh, gosh.

00:36:18.560 Blue eyes.

00:36:20.040 Blonde hair.

00:36:22.260 That's a girl I've died.

00:36:24.600 So what's your kids? 0.94

00:36:25.340 Do you think I like better seeing naked, your son or your daughter? 0.87

00:36:27.520 Um, I don't know.

00:36:30.140 You seem to like both girls and boys.

00:36:33.200 Oh, so what would you think I like better?

00:36:36.400 I don't know.

00:36:37.940 I really don't know.

00:36:40.880 Oh, my God.

00:36:43.500 That was very difficult for me to hear.

00:36:46.460 Of course.

00:36:47.460 My God.

00:36:48.160 Your strength is superhuman.

00:36:50.900 The FBI, they just weren't doing it.

00:36:54.220 And you ultimately did something extraordinary.

00:36:58.060 Again, another extraordinary act.

00:36:59.880 You went to, was it the local DA to try to get somebody to do something?

00:37:05.440 I went to local law enforcement, Sarasota Police Department.

00:37:09.460 I had my own talk shows, TV, radio, great following.

00:37:14.380 Did it not locally, just not only locally, but nationally as well on a number of different venues.

00:37:21.020 And I was going to and played it out in my mind many times because I felt that there was so much information that I had already shared.

00:37:33.340 I know what he's doing.

00:37:34.520 They know what he's doing.

00:37:37.060 And every minute makes a difference.

00:37:39.960 That's a potential child being violated, being stopped.

00:37:44.380 You know, being harmed.

00:37:46.600 And that is something that I wasn't going to stand down any longer.

00:37:50.800 So I went to the Sarasota Police Department and essentially turned in the FBI.

00:37:57.580 And, of course, you can only imagine the looks that I got.

00:38:02.300 And they were questioning, what did you just say?

00:38:05.220 What are you doing?

00:38:06.400 And you're reporting why.

00:38:07.980 And I said, because, you know, it's I felt as though that they were putting the public at risk for not moving quicker in the case.

00:38:19.540 But I am not.

00:38:21.600 It was great teamwork.

00:38:23.080 And I applaud and commend all of the law enforcement worldwide that really participated in this interval.

00:38:32.740 And because there are so many different countries that were involved.

00:38:35.180 But they wouldn't allow me to leave.

00:38:39.560 I went on my lunch break and I was there for many hours and they had tied in.

00:38:46.700 There was probably about 30 or 40 law enforcement.

00:38:51.300 And then all of a sudden the FBI agents walk in the door and I felt as though I was almost being, you know, quashed not to say anything through intimidation.

00:39:03.000 But I stood my ground and it took them quite a while before they convinced me not to go public.

00:39:10.120 They did say that I would be impeding an ongoing investigation and there would be repercussions legally against me.

00:39:20.020 And and I still did it didn't I didn't care.

00:39:24.740 And they saw that.

00:39:25.920 And it finally took one of the detectives from Sarasota Police Department that pulled me aside.

00:39:32.380 And only by what he shared with me did I agree not to go public because having my own airtime, I wanted to lock the door and then broadcast what what I had been doing, what I had discovered and just warn the public myself.

00:39:48.420 It's a last resort.

00:39:50.280 Right.

00:39:51.060 And and he told me this this detective, he said that what they discovered because they couldn't tell me all the details.

00:39:58.400 And they and I understand that.

00:39:59.840 But they said he said to me what they discovered was that Jared was but a pea in a pod, regardless of how big he was.

00:40:09.580 So well known that he was leading them to even larger individuals, political figures, celebrities, and that a case like this typically takes at least 10 years, if not longer, to get the concrete information.

00:40:28.400 Um, and so it would, it will happen, he will be taken taken down, but it's going to take that time and process.

00:40:37.400 But in the meanwhile, when that does happen, he told me that I would see these others fall from grace really and be exposed for what was really going on.

00:40:48.960 And that leads me to believe Jared pled guilty.

00:40:54.540 I was so grateful that the children and even myself didn't have to go to trial and put anybody else at risk of having to go through that whole ordeal because that's traumatizing again to these children.

00:41:06.900 Um, so I just, I just wonder, you know, I don't know, whatever has been redacted from the reports, um, what he did to steer them in this direction, or if it was only through their own investigative, um, resources of how they found out.

00:41:26.160 But, you know, now we see Epstein, you know, uh, he had fallen shortly thereafter, really in the grand scheme of things, it was only a few years, but, you know, and I can't see why he would not have at some point engaged with Epstein because he, he liked going to Boca Raton.

00:41:49.240 He liked going to Palm Beach and spending time there and, you know, Palm Beach is where, where Epstein lived and that's where his playground was for the most part, aside from his island, of course.

00:42:02.320 But, um, so I think there's a lot more to it and I think a lot more is going to come out.

00:42:09.320 Wow.

00:42:10.040 I hadn't even considered the Epstein connection because I was going to say there was no domino cascade of celebrities and public figures falling for this kind of thing.

00:42:19.240 After Jared, Epstein would be a big one that if there were, if there were a connection there, that would be a very significant one.

00:42:26.880 How long in advance of Jared's arrest did that conversation with you happened where they said all that and urged you not to go on your show?

00:42:38.440 About three or four years, maybe could have been longer, but, but I had, I had been working with them, I think for about three years.

00:42:47.460 And, and, and that's when I went to Sarasota police to turn them in to hopefully, you know, ramp up the operation, uh, and put new, you know, maybe some new eyes on the case.

00:43:03.560 And so it, it was with a few years after, after that, because I had a couple more years in and, you know, that was, that, that's just how all that transpired.

00:43:18.200 So you are, you're going through this.

00:43:22.220 There's, it's very difficult for you.

00:43:24.000 Now, were you a single mom?

00:43:25.220 I couldn't tell whether you had a divorce or.

00:43:26.900 Yes.

00:43:27.740 Okay.

00:43:27.980 We, we were, we were separated obviously first.

00:43:32.040 It's, um, and then, um, ultimately divorced.

00:43:34.560 So I was a single mom raising my children, but we had 50, 50 custody.

00:43:39.860 Um, and it's interesting.

00:43:41.560 My, um, my ex-husband, my children's father, uh, was retired police department from Sarasota.

00:43:48.440 Um, and aside from our differences that anyone would have going through a divorce and being divorcees, um, most people don't get along right away.

00:43:59.200 That takes years to develop, but he removed that aspect of our personal life and he was all hands in all hands on deck, helping me watch the children, taking them last minute, doing whatever he could to provide me the time and the understanding.

00:44:19.540 Cause I would be able to talk to him during these times of duress because I told him what I was doing.

00:44:25.320 I would never do that without telling their dad because he had a right to know.

00:44:30.460 And it was important that he did know, but I, I have to give him a lot of credit because he did what I think is very difficult for most people is to put your differences aside and move forward because he knew what I was doing was very important and risky.

00:44:47.900 Your, your, your son, uh, Thomas is featured in the docuseries and appears very proud of what you did.

00:44:56.300 We pulled just one soundbite, but there are a few that we could have chosen from, um, it's Sot 8.

00:45:01.100 I'm very proud of my mother.

00:45:03.200 She did do something heroic and she, it was selfless because she lost a lot in the process.

00:45:08.460 Your daughter does not appear and there's speculation in the wake of this docuseries that the two of you are estranged, perhaps because of these phone calls, perhaps she held them against you or something else against you.

00:45:24.840 What's the truth on that?

00:45:26.020 Um, the truth on that is she was not, um, she's a very private person.

00:45:33.040 She was all for us doing the docuseries.

00:45:37.840 She thinks it's important, but she just, you know, personally, she doesn't like, like, you know, all the attention.

00:45:45.280 She doesn't like that.

00:45:46.180 She does it.

00:45:46.720 She's very private and tries to keep to herself.

00:45:48.820 Um, but as far as being a strange from her, of course, you know, there was a certain period of time that she was upset with me.

00:45:58.620 She was angry with, um, certain situations because of what she would, you know, perhaps read.

00:46:07.960 And she thinks that I put the, put them at risk, which I never did.

00:46:12.120 And I never would, um, I did, I, I have been able to just share with her exactly through facts, um, factual information, um, exactly how everything transpired.

00:46:26.820 And she sees that now, but, um, what she was most angry with me about was that she lost her mom for all those years.

00:46:35.820 She didn't have the mom connection throughout her childhood for the most part that other kids did, because I always had to be away.

00:46:45.700 I could never tell her why.

00:46:47.680 And still to this day, I think that there's some, you know, animosity there because I didn't have to do that with the kids is what she had said when she was younger.

00:46:59.640 She's an adult now, so she thinks differently.

00:47:01.600 But, um, but, um, but I, her, her whole idea was you didn't have to do that.

00:47:07.920 You needed to spend more time with us.

00:47:10.580 And I get that, but I had, it was a, it was a lose-lose situation in a sense because I lost my ability to be the mom that I always wanted to be.

00:47:22.960 This was that time consuming?

00:47:24.760 Like people out there might be thinking, well, you just had some phone calls every once in a while, a couple of tape drops.

00:47:29.440 Like what, what was so time consuming?

00:47:31.600 About it.

00:47:32.720 Well, I was a single mom.

00:47:34.220 I had to make a living.

00:47:35.400 I did my own shows.

00:47:37.080 Um, I booked, I did everything.

00:47:39.140 So it's, you know, that alone, and especially even back then, it's really a two-income family.

00:47:45.600 So that took a lot.

00:47:46.900 I did not get compensated during my time with the FBI for all those years.

00:47:52.420 And I would have to leave my house, hire sitters, um, if my, you know, if their dad wasn't available.

00:47:58.780 Um, and it was just, it was so time consuming because he would call during the day, but a lot of the calls would come in the evening.

00:48:07.460 Being around the world, he'd be in different time zones as well, and they would be relentless.

00:48:12.080 He would call continuously, and I had to go through the taping, and then as soon as they were done, go meet up with an agent and make the drop.

00:48:19.800 And I really was not getting the sleep that I needed, and it was just very draining on me.

00:48:29.140 How many phone calls would you say there were over all those years?

00:48:33.200 How many phone calls would you say you had taped?

00:48:36.900 Oh, well, if you average it out at the eight to ten per day for all those years.

00:48:46.060 But only towards the very end did they become less and less because he kept wanting to see me in person, and they would not allow that.

00:48:55.980 And that would have really hit the fire.

00:48:57.340 Wasn't he married with kids by that time?

00:48:59.560 At the end there, Rochelle, didn't he get married and have children of his own, like at the end?

00:49:05.400 I believe so, but I don't think that I was working with the FBI at that point.

00:49:09.520 Okay, so there was a period where your phone calls ended, and then there was a gap, and then the arrest.

00:49:14.700 That's correct.

00:49:16.640 Okay, because weirdly, the arrest did not happen as a direct result, as I understand it, of your tapings, though they would become relevant at trial. 0.95

00:49:24.880 He had a guy running his children's foundation who was also a disgusting pervert, as it would turn out.

00:49:33.220 And that guy, his name was Russell, what's his last name? 0.96

00:49:37.740 Russell Taylor.

00:49:38.980 Russell Taylor.

00:49:39.680 That guy, Russell Taylor, would be the reason Jared would ultimately get caught because he had, without getting too graphic, but he and his wife were into some very disturbing things.

00:49:51.680 And there was an email that got circulated of his wife in some sort of very twisted sex act. 0.99

00:49:57.960 And the act itself is unlawful, and they got wind of the fact that Russell was emailing it.

00:50:06.660 Emailing the pictures is not unlawful, but they just decided it's time to investigate Russell and his family situation, what's going on there.

00:50:14.800 And that led them to Russell's computer, which had all these sexual images of children on it, including his own stepdaughters, who we now know whose images we believe were funneled to Jared Fogel.

00:50:33.440 And the young women, who are very young moms, at least one of them is a mom herself now, spoke at length in the documentary.

00:50:42.040 Investing is all about the future.

00:50:46.140 So what do you think is going to happen?

00:50:48.140 Bitcoin is sort of inevitable at this point.

00:50:50.660 I think it would come down to precious metals.

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00:50:55.340 I would say land is a safe investment.

00:50:57.900 Technology, companies.

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00:51:00.060 Robotic pollinators might be a thing. 1.00

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00:51:41.400 When you travel, travel well.

00:51:43.560 They were very put together, I have to say, for girls who have been there.

00:51:51.380 This guy was taping them in their showers, in their beds.

00:51:54.300 It's their stepfather.

00:51:55.420 Put cameras all over their home. 1.00

00:51:57.580 This sick, perverted. 0.97

00:51:58.800 And then using the tapes to, I don't know if he sold them. 0.98

00:52:04.740 He certainly provided them to Jared for people to get off on the images of his own stepdaughters who had no idea he was this way, who thought that he loved them.

00:52:13.500 Here's a little bit from Christian and Hannah, the two daughters, who spoke out in the documentary.

00:52:19.720 After Russell was arrested, we had to talk to the FBI.

00:52:24.140 I was in a very traumatic, frozen state.

00:52:31.220 I couldn't even believe what was happening to me.

00:52:35.600 They sat me down and told me that there were cameras all throughout the house.

00:52:42.080 They were everywhere.

00:52:44.420 Russell, he was watching us. 0.98

00:52:46.880 In the shower, watching us get dressed in our rooms, watching us masturbate. 0.98

00:52:50.540 We were being watched 24-7. 0.98

00:52:56.440 My God.

00:52:58.100 So this leads the police to Jared because they saw Russell had it.

00:53:04.480 Russell had given some to Jared.

00:53:06.480 And then they went to Jared.

00:53:08.480 They got a search warrant for Jared's computers.

00:53:11.840 And then they had him.

00:53:13.200 I mean, they had all the images.

00:53:15.000 God only knows what was on his computers.

00:53:17.780 And by that point, Rochelle, he was definitely married and they had children.

00:53:24.920 It's just terrifying to think that a pedophile can not only molest children, he can make children of his own.

00:53:30.020 And God knows what their future would have been had he not been caught.

00:53:35.860 It was a huge deal.

00:53:37.700 We have video of the raid when the police got to his house and it hit the news like that.

00:53:43.180 That Jared Fogel, the subway guy, has been arrested.

00:53:48.280 His home has been raided.

00:53:49.660 Here's the video back at that time of him coming out of the house.

00:53:54.400 And no one could believe it. 0.98

00:53:55.960 No one could believe that this guy who'd been in our living rooms for 15 years as this sweet guy next door was a sick child molester.

00:54:05.020 So now the day that that happened, you were no longer working with the FBI, but you are the person who's put all these years.

00:54:11.660 What was that like for you?

00:54:14.160 It was very surreal.

00:54:17.740 I thought that I would have received a phone call to, you know, prep me and let me know.

00:54:24.740 I knew while I was working undercover, that was always the plan.

00:54:30.460 If if they had decided that this is the time they were going to arrest him, the plan of action was they were going to send agents to my children's school.

00:54:41.640 The children had to be prepped if this day were to happen.

00:54:44.280 And, you know, that and the schools, all the, you know, the teachers and the superintendent, they all needed to be made aware of this over the years.

00:54:54.600 And they had switched schools from time to time as they were growing up.

00:54:59.760 And, you know, so they were my kids knew that there was something that was happening.

00:55:07.960 They my son had revealed to me that they they knew that I was working with the FBI.

00:55:14.400 There was a bad man I was helping them get.

00:55:16.560 But he said to me he never knew who this person was.

00:55:20.620 And he was actually saying, but he and my daughter because they'd have conversations.

00:55:25.640 And it was worse that they didn't know who it was because they didn't trust anyone.

00:55:31.860 They didn't know.

00:55:33.140 So, honestly, could it be someone that they know, a friend, a family member, somebody at school?

00:55:40.300 I didn't know all these years that that was what they were subjected to.

00:55:45.780 So that really, you know, that that is difficult and, you know, really stomach churning to me to hear what they had to go through.

00:55:57.180 Because everyone's the boogeyman.

00:55:59.460 Everyone's the boogeyman when you don't.

00:56:00.820 But, of course, you weren't at liberty to share any of that.

00:56:04.220 Yeah.

00:56:04.420 So he had two children at the time he was arrested.

00:56:07.320 They were three and five, a boy and a girl.

00:56:10.180 And his wife left him immediately.

00:56:13.820 She had no idea.

00:56:15.160 That was pretty clear from her public statements.

00:56:17.480 She was very angry at him and devastated, devastated. 0.77

00:56:23.440 I cannot imagine finding out this person who you love and are building a family with is a monster. 0.64

00:56:29.160 I mean, a true monster.

00:56:29.940 It's just this poor woman must have had to go through years of therapy and make sure her children were okay. 0.99

00:56:36.520 So at the trial, well, there wasn't a trial, but he got arrested and he winds up pleading guilty.

00:56:42.000 But then we get to the sentencing.

00:56:43.300 And the judge, though, the judge did not give Jared the time you or I would have liked, which could have been up to 50 years, the judge did saddle him with more than the prosecution even recommended.

00:56:57.760 And my understanding, Rochelle, is that that was in part due to your tapes and hearing the years of his admissions on them.

00:57:07.700 Yes, that that's exactly what I had been told.

00:57:13.020 And that really gave me a gratifying feeling that those were not wasted years.

00:57:20.220 It was very disappointing when I separated because I wasn't able to get an agent and he just wouldn't he wouldn't fight no matter what I said.

00:57:28.240 And believe me, you know, we put forth great effort trying to get somebody else to take my place because it did ultimately take a toll on me.

00:57:36.600 But I was willing to move forward.

00:57:38.940 But it just, you know, I couldn't move forward anymore after he started engaging with my children.

00:57:48.140 Right.

00:57:48.860 And honestly, at that point, I'm sure your faith in the FBI's actually making an arrest was waning.

00:57:54.920 It's like, how many years of this I'm going to have to go through?

00:57:57.740 It's going to be my whole life.

00:57:58.660 It's going to be my children's whole life.

00:58:00.440 You did your part.

00:58:01.500 Right.

00:58:01.760 You definitely did your part.

00:58:02.660 So he he cops this plea.

00:58:06.320 He's in prison now till twenty twenty nine.

00:58:09.280 I mean, it's twenty twenty three.

00:58:10.300 That's six years away.

00:58:12.560 He's still going to be a relatively young man.

00:58:15.320 And now he knows he he knows now about you.

00:58:21.160 He knows it wasn't a friendship that you were taping him.

00:58:24.700 So that's got to be scary for you.

00:58:28.400 Um, it well, it is in a sense.

00:58:31.740 It is because I've had all these years.

00:58:33.940 He has enough money if he wanted to do something.

00:58:35.920 He could have easily hired someone.

00:58:38.980 Um, you see that all the time.

00:58:41.740 Um, my I will share with you, my daughter had said to me, um, and I thought that she was,

00:58:47.940 you know, a little, you know, overreacting.

00:58:50.960 But she said to me years ago, she was terrified of Jared with his money.

00:58:55.460 Either he himself would do this or, um, when he gets out of prison that she felt as though 0.96

00:59:01.100 he would rape and murder her and her brother. 0.95

00:59:04.400 And I said, no, I said, why would you think that? 0.99

00:59:07.640 And she said, um, well, you essentially took his, took his children away from him.

00:59:13.840 Why would he not do the same to you?

00:59:15.900 And so I posed that to the agent that I was working with.

00:59:18.960 And the response really took me back.

00:59:22.420 She said, um, she's not far off.

00:59:27.680 And that was the end of it.

00:59:29.460 And I still to this day, it's still very disturbing, but it legitimized my daughter's 0.52

00:59:36.440 feelings that she wasn't, she wasn't far off.

00:59:40.780 So there's a lot of twists and turns that people don't realize that, um, you know, that

00:59:48.080 are still in the shadows that we deal with every day.

00:59:52.740 Forgive me for this question, but I should just ask you for the record.

00:59:55.320 You never did provide any images or access to your children to Jared.

01:00:01.440 Oh, oh no, no, not at all.

01:00:03.760 And when I said, um, moments ago about his, my leaving, you know, cause I couldn't take

01:00:10.840 his engaging with my children that is through referencing his mentioning of my children because

01:00:17.720 I never brought them up and I never gave any accurate names of their friends.

01:00:23.580 I made up every name I ever use referring to a child because one day I knew he would be

01:00:29.440 in court and in hindsight that those, those names being, um, in line with a child that

01:00:38.900 I was referencing, but really didn't have anything to do.

01:00:42.480 They wouldn't have been subjected to going on the stand, being interviewed to make sure

01:00:48.800 everything, uh, you know, was okay that they weren't involved.

01:00:52.380 So I made everything up, um, from the names to everything so that that would never take

01:00:57.560 place.

01:00:58.840 He's 45 now.

01:01:00.380 I guess he'll get out at age 51.

01:01:02.720 That's still a relatively young man.

01:01:04.780 You don't grow out of pedophilia.

01:01:06.840 It does.

01:01:07.480 It's a, it's a lifelong affliction.

01:01:10.400 This is why so many people are like, well, how does he get out?

01:01:13.540 Like, how do we keep him in?

01:01:14.980 How do we make sure he doesn't hurt more children?

01:01:17.340 And when he like, what reason do we have to believe he's not going to just pick back up where

01:01:21.380 he left off when he gets out?

01:01:24.080 First, he, he has no remorse.

01:01:27.120 He never did.

01:01:28.000 And any of his comments, any of the articles that you read, anyone that he speaks to, he's

01:01:33.620 only remorseful because he got caught and he's saying, oh, I made a big mistake.

01:01:39.360 Big mistake.

01:01:40.360 He never talks about what he did was wrong.

01:01:44.040 He never talks about how sorry he feels for his victims.

01:01:48.080 Never.

01:01:48.300 Every, every single person from statistically speaking that, that, um, commits a sexual crime

01:01:59.000 that in their lifetime, they end up committing 179 on average, uh, sexual crimes.

01:02:07.260 And I think he's well over that quota, but when he gets out, he will have a lifetime of

01:02:13.620 supervision until what some, something falls through the cracks.

01:02:18.500 I don't know. 0.99

01:02:19.520 So my, he should be chemically castrated. 0.99

01:02:21.700 There should be a mandatory chemical castration. 0.99

01:02:23.880 Yep.

01:02:24.720 Absolutely.

01:02:25.400 Well, I'll become a lobbyist and be right there to, you know, try to help move that along.

01:02:30.080 Because I, I do believe that somebody, especially like him, needs that, um, if the FBI were to

01:02:37.360 release some of these recordings that you have never heard, you've not heard you, that

01:02:43.360 would undoubtedly be right there on the docket to, um, to go through.

01:02:48.020 There's worse than it's in, than is in the docuseries.

01:02:50.520 Oh, yes.

01:02:53.320 Yes.

01:02:54.060 You have to understand.

01:02:55.320 I gave all of the recordings.

01:02:57.360 It was only these recordings.

01:03:00.700 I didn't save every recording, you know, initially I was just giving them everything.

01:03:05.680 And then I, the reason why I have those recordings was for my own protection, because I didn't want

01:03:11.580 anything to be used against me and be thrown in as though, you know, collateral damage because

01:03:19.040 they couldn't make a case.

01:03:20.340 And then all of a sudden, even though I didn't do anything, you know, use these tapes again,

01:03:24.920 you know, against me for any reason, I, there was nothing that indicated they would do that,

01:03:29.860 but I'm one that thinks ahead.

01:03:31.480 So I had made copies of those tapes for myself and I had every legal right to do so.

01:03:38.740 They just didn't know that I made those copies.

01:03:41.620 Oh, smart.

01:03:43.500 So there's, okay.

01:03:44.680 I didn't realize that.

01:03:45.580 And that was also probably played for the judge, the most, the most graphic pieces of

01:03:50.780 evidence.

01:03:52.840 Possibly.

01:03:53.460 Yes.

01:03:54.300 We don't know.

01:03:55.580 Yes.

01:03:55.980 No, we don't know.

01:03:56.800 And I think there's a lot that's redacted.

01:03:58.520 I think, um, you know, these higher ups, these individuals in society, you know, as I said

01:04:06.660 earlier, political to Hollywood celebrities, who knows around the world, um, that also

01:04:13.660 were friendly with Jared or that would talk maybe online and share ideas and, and children

01:04:21.300 even, because at one point, and this is just before I turned everything over to the FBI,

01:04:26.580 Jared wanted me to meet him in Chicago.

01:04:28.360 He wanted to, as he said, get a couple of kids.

01:04:32.540 And he talked about underground, um, clubs.

01:04:36.060 He knew where to, he knew where to go.

01:04:38.140 And that's when I was asking him, well, how would we get these kids?

01:04:41.180 Where would we find them?

01:04:42.840 Oh, well, we'll, you know, we'll figure it out.

01:04:45.520 So I knew just the way he was saying it and, and leaning towards it.

01:04:49.740 He's done this before.

01:04:50.960 He knows what he's doing.

01:04:53.360 The FBI had told me that a pedophile has different, um, fetishes, if you will.

01:05:00.660 So they're A, B, and C.

01:05:02.920 Jared is truly an anomaly, something they've never seen before.

01:05:06.600 He has the entire alphabet.

01:05:08.720 So that is what prompted them in their review and rewriting of how to profile pedophiles.

01:05:17.820 Can, do you know whether, I know on the phone that recordings we heard in the film,

01:05:24.520 he's saying he went to Thailand and he's pretty explicit about what he allegedly did over there.

01:05:29.360 But then the docuseries also says that as far as we know,

01:05:33.320 they couldn't find any evidence that he actually did go to Thailand.

01:05:36.980 Well, that struck me as odd because that you just look at his passport to find out whether he went to Thailand.

01:05:42.020 And that's, that's knowable.

01:05:43.420 So do we know whether that was true?

01:05:45.540 And do we know whether there were actual children victims as a, I mean, as a, of course,

01:05:51.980 the victims in the photos were, were victims, but I mean, you know, that he laid hands on children, actual children.

01:05:57.800 Is, is there evidence that I do not know?

01:06:03.160 I know what he told me.

01:06:04.320 I know her detail.

01:06:06.440 You cannot make that up.

01:06:08.280 I mean, there's too many minute details, reactions, conversations he's had.

01:06:15.740 Even with this one particular boy, his parents, that this is what they do.

01:06:22.480 This is how they make a living.

01:06:23.860 They don't have a problem with it.

01:06:25.260 Talking about the child.

01:06:26.720 They want to do this.

01:06:28.220 He would tell me they want to.

01:06:30.200 And there is proof that he went to Thailand because there are other production companies that are doing documentaries.

01:06:37.980 Or they were because I was scouted by a number of them over the years and they had called upon me because of my, my work.

01:06:47.760 Um, and there are cases he went to Thailand.

01:06:52.180 He went to, to Asia, different areas around the world.

01:06:55.960 And he would go with the founder of subway.

01:06:59.800 He would go with some of the vendors from subway, um, as a group.

01:07:05.380 So whether they were, uh, conducting business or it was a pleasure trip that I do not know,

01:07:11.980 but there is actual evidence and proof that they did go.

01:07:16.400 I don't know if that's been halted or what, or these doc use, these documentaries will come out here in short order,

01:07:24.320 but they've been working on them for the past two or three years.

01:07:32.120 You mentioned subway.

01:07:34.180 I mean, we haven't even really touched on that piece of it.

01:07:36.420 It's, it's, it's miraculous to me that this brand withstood this controversy, 0.86

01:07:42.100 that the face of the brand turned out to be a serial pedophile. 0.79

01:07:49.140 There's no other kind. 0.61

01:07:50.580 And they're fine.

01:07:52.960 They did fine.

01:07:54.020 There was a question about whether they knew or had reason to know that Jared had this issue with children.

01:08:02.500 The docu-series touches on it a bit.

01:08:06.000 His wife seemed to think that subway had been given a heads up on at least one complaint about inappropriate behavior towards children.

01:08:15.400 Subway denied that.

01:08:17.180 But what do we know about subway's knowledge, if any?

01:08:21.280 I know for a fact subway knows.

01:08:23.300 I wrote them an email during one of my, uh, breaks, if you will.

01:08:30.260 I had an emotional break one night.

01:08:32.440 Um, I remember being curled up on the couch, um, and crying because of what I had just heard.

01:08:39.600 And I said, that's enough.

01:08:41.220 I wrote an email to subway.

01:08:44.080 I went on their corporate website.

01:08:45.560 And once you hit submit, it's, it's, you don't get a coffee because it wasn't through your own email feed.

01:08:52.380 So I sent it to them and I told them that Jared was, um, you know, was a sex offender.

01:09:01.160 That he had made comments, um, about my children, um, and that I know that he's doing these things.

01:09:09.420 I forget verbatim exactly what I said.

01:09:11.360 I do have notes in one of my journals that I could reference.

01:09:14.240 But for a long time, subway said, oh, we never, we never received that.

01:09:19.880 Well, a forensic, you know, investigation revealed otherwise from, by a third party.

01:09:25.760 And then finally subway stood up.

01:09:28.400 Oh, we did find that email, but it didn't say anything about sexual nature.

01:09:33.360 Well, why would I write to subway otherwise to tell them I like their sandwiches?

01:09:37.680 I don't think so.

01:09:39.080 Um, so they did.

01:09:41.160 And that was, um, written in one of the articles.

01:09:44.400 I do have a copy of that, but I'm sure that it can be, we found it easily online.

01:09:49.220 Um, if you look, but you know, it's, it's very interesting.

01:09:53.320 I've had some people approach me, um, you know, through, through messenger or, or whatnot.

01:09:58.960 And, you know, a couple individuals, it was maybe three or four, they thought I did this

01:10:04.680 for the money.

01:10:05.360 Well, I never got paid for my time.

01:10:08.100 And somebody, one person had read, oh, you did this.

01:10:11.800 You, I bet you already are writing your book to make all this money.

01:10:15.720 Well, you know, that's a very small minded person, in my opinion, because if I wanted

01:10:21.380 to make money and that was the way I was going to do it, something so, you know, I don't even

01:10:27.620 have a word to put to that, but why not go to subway and, you know, ask, tell them, you

01:10:34.480 know, well, I have information and I'm willing to settle out or that's a good point.

01:10:38.880 It's not about money.

01:10:40.180 It is absolutely.

01:10:41.600 Or Jared, Jared was a rich man.

01:10:43.300 You could have gone to him.

01:10:45.540 Yes, of course.

01:10:46.340 And that's very clear.

01:10:47.160 If you watch the arc of this story, you're not, but you should write a book because people

01:10:51.400 need to know.

01:10:51.960 I mean, this is a fascinating story and there's a lot to be learned.

01:10:54.620 And that, that leads me to my next point.

01:10:56.040 We mentioned at the beginning, the grooming behavior.

01:11:00.620 So he would say, you know, you were sort of pretending that you were fine with his predilections

01:11:05.280 and, you know, how could you be of assistance to him with it?

01:11:08.220 And you were trying to learn about his methods.

01:11:10.500 And you did learn.

01:11:12.080 So the part of the grooming, as I understood it from the film was he wanted you to make

01:11:16.680 sure like you in grooming kids for him, you talked about inappropriate sexual things in 0.88

01:11:24.560 front of them.

01:11:25.680 So can you talk a little bit about that?

01:11:28.260 Sure.

01:11:28.800 Well, first he was always wanting to make sure I dressed accordingly, which I never did.

01:11:34.180 I let him know that he wanted to know what kind of bathing suits I have.

01:11:37.560 Do I have a really tiny bikini?

01:11:39.520 And to prance around, around the children when they, when they're over and to pick out who

01:11:46.040 I think would be best and their siblings.

01:11:48.640 So my, my children's friends and there's, there's siblings, the younger, the better.

01:11:54.680 And Jared, initially his statement to me was, um, how hot he thought middle school girls

01:12:01.500 were at the end.

01:12:02.700 And it went from there all the way to infants, to prepubescent.

01:12:08.840 And you have them on tape saying the younger, the better wrestling in bed, tickling and

01:12:15.020 wrestling and gradually getting closer to the private parts and then doing like a daring

01:12:21.780 to, so it turned it into a game.

01:12:24.440 Um, he used his popularity, his, um, you know, himself being famous because there was such

01:12:31.640 an allure and, and the children were so drawn, they get to meet someone famous.

01:12:36.020 And I saw that all the time, but he, he says in one of the clips about, um, the, the one

01:12:44.540 from the broken home, he was always, he had it figured out and what he didn't, he would

01:12:50.780 go with it and keep it as something that he just studied children on how to get closer

01:12:58.040 and closer.

01:12:59.880 And, and that's what his focus was.

01:13:03.760 That was so disturbing.

01:13:05.820 So now moms or single dads who are raising kids by themselves now have to worry about their

01:13:14.100 kids being singled out for targeting by a pedophile because they're from a quote, broken home,

01:13:19.960 because they may have an extra sadness in their lives that some sick, twisted effort will 0.73

01:13:26.280 take advantage.

01:13:26.780 And I mean, that's, these are the realities that we have to wrestle with and as exposed

01:13:31.220 by your reporting and this story.

01:13:34.540 Um, but the inappropriate sex talk at a young age, it is relevant, Rochelle.

01:13:39.560 I mean, you know, we're debating this right now on a national level about these books that

01:13:44.120 are coming into the K through 12 education system.

01:13:46.840 And some say, oh, they're banning books, you know, and I think the truth is they're not

01:13:51.480 banning.

01:13:51.780 They're pulling books out of children's school libraries that are not age appropriate.

01:13:58.060 And this is people defending that action of pulling the books will say they're groomers,

01:14:03.620 the people who want this in front of the children.

01:14:05.320 And I see the point inappropriate sex talk before in front of children.

01:14:10.220 Isn't just improper.

01:14:12.660 It can actually lead to very dangerous things in that child's future.

01:14:19.060 Oh, without a doubt.

01:14:20.460 I mean, that's just any, any, you know, base level psychologist counselor will tell you that.

01:14:26.760 I mean, a lot of us don't have a degree in, in, um, mental health, but a lot of it is common

01:14:33.340 sense.

01:14:33.840 And that has been removed too many times over.

01:14:38.460 Uh, it's, it's interesting when you see what they do allow in and, but they are taking,

01:14:45.480 taking some measures to remove this, but is it too far, you know, too, too little too late?

01:14:53.260 I don't know.

01:14:54.120 Now, if you look statistically speaking, um, over the years, homeschooling has grown dramatically

01:15:00.720 as a personal choice.

01:15:02.460 Um, there's a number of reasons that people have made this choice, but from my understanding,

01:15:10.180 a lot of it, because it has to do with, you know, you see not just men, but women also

01:15:16.440 violating children.

01:15:17.660 Um, your educators, clergy, group leaders, uh, politicians, even law enforcement.

01:15:25.640 Um, I know that there's a, just a small amount, but small is not none.

01:15:30.840 And that's where we need to get.

01:15:33.000 Right.

01:15:33.520 So these moms are like, I'm not putting my kid in the school and my kid's not joining 0.99

01:15:37.740 the boy Scouts and isn't going to be an altar boy.

01:15:41.580 I mean, I can relate to some of that to some extent.

01:15:44.040 And it's just, you're so, especially when they're really little and they can't really

01:15:48.240 vocalize and they could be taken advantage of.

01:15:51.140 You have to be so careful.

01:15:53.280 So like, do we know about Jared, how he got this way, Rochelle?

01:15:58.300 Has anybody been able to interview him or, you know, did you ever ask him, like, was he

01:16:03.260 molested?

01:16:04.700 I did ask him.

01:16:06.380 He said, no, he was not.

01:16:07.980 But I think there's a lot of people, if they were, I don't think they're just going to

01:16:13.480 come out and say that, even if he was comfortable with me, that if he was perhaps that, um, that

01:16:21.860 just hit too, too close to home.

01:16:24.140 Um, I can understand that.

01:16:26.100 But I think personally that it's just within his, his genetic makeup.

01:16:32.260 I think that there's a default in, um, how he's wired.

01:16:37.600 I think that's just, uh, whether it's an illness, I kind of think that it is, um, I would hope

01:16:44.080 that it is in the sense that, you know, hopefully we can find a fix for it later or at some point,

01:16:50.620 but he doesn't even acknowledge that there's a problem.

01:16:54.540 And you asked me, you said about anyone interviewing him in this docu-series, I gave the, the producers

01:17:02.140 and directors, the idea I said, well, why don't we close the docu-series with a face-off

01:17:08.040 between Jared and I at the facility, um, that he's in, because I would like some closure.

01:17:14.960 I would like to say a few things to him.

01:17:17.200 Um, but he, they did send the request and, and he, you know, he declined.

01:17:23.680 Um, but that is something that I would have been interested in doing because, you know,

01:17:30.120 there's nothing easier than gauging somebody by their body language.

01:17:35.780 Hmm.

01:17:36.740 Does he have any ongoing relationship with his parents?

01:17:40.080 Do you know what that situation is?

01:17:42.260 I don't, I don't know.

01:17:43.960 Um, I think, I believe his mom was a teacher, his father's a doctor, um, probably retired

01:17:50.160 now, but from all information that has been dispersed out there is he had a very good upbringing,

01:17:59.520 um, you know, prominent family, uh, really no money issues.

01:18:04.180 So they didn't have, have that aspect.

01:18:06.540 So I don't know why Jared has done what he's done, but I have heard, um, and this is second

01:18:13.780 hand.

01:18:14.260 So there, but people that went to school with Jared, um, college, for example, he, he would,

01:18:21.380 I was told that he would sell, um, pornography to make some extra money.

01:18:26.260 Um, and he made quite a business doing that.

01:18:29.860 So they also talked about how he was morbidly obese from a young age that he had no friends

01:18:38.340 in high school.

01:18:39.100 You know, there's a reason he got famous for losing 245 pounds.

01:18:43.420 He had it to lose.

01:18:44.100 And then some had, you know, enough leftover.

01:18:46.200 It's like 245 pounds.

01:18:47.700 What's left a large man.

01:18:49.620 So he was very, very large.

01:18:51.660 And I do think there's, when you're that kind of an eater from a young age, there's an issue.

01:18:56.520 There's an issue there.

01:18:57.420 I don't know what went on in that family.

01:18:58.860 Um, but you know, you see your kid is what, 350, 400 pounds and has absolutely no friends.

01:19:05.080 That's, that's not a good parent.

01:19:06.960 That is not a good set of parents.

01:19:08.700 Something, something was wrong in that house.

01:19:11.200 Um, all right.

01:19:12.580 So a couple of questions for you as now we're thinking about his release is, do we know if

01:19:18.560 there's any chance he's getting out earlier than 2029?

01:19:20.960 No, he cannot.

01:19:21.820 He's not allowed to get out earlier, according to, um, the stipulations, the judge had set down.

01:19:27.280 Is there any chance he could face other charges?

01:19:32.180 You know, I know I've seen you reaching out saying, if you are a victim of Jared Vogel's,

01:19:37.380 reach out to me because there may be children who have been molested by him who haven't yet

01:19:42.460 come forward.

01:19:44.460 Absolutely.

01:19:45.620 In my mind and from my experience, that is an actual fact.

01:19:52.460 There are, they're adults now.

01:19:54.180 Perhaps they're just trying to, you know, keep it in the shadows and the recesses of their

01:20:00.400 mind.

01:20:00.700 That is not healthy.

01:20:01.820 You will not be all you can be.

01:20:04.520 And you won't have a truly fulfilling life unless you address what had happened.

01:20:10.960 And the fact is, is that it did happen.

01:20:13.460 And if you come out and you step forward, you know, I could be and give you my show, my strength,

01:20:22.640 my voice, um, to help to be able to disseminate and, and set this in the, into the, the areas.

01:20:31.920 I know the FBI has a great, um, place that you can go on their website and report things.

01:20:38.220 Um, but if, if anyone is hearing this and they are a victim of Jared Vogel's, please, I, I

01:20:46.260 really, I really must insist that you please step forward and share what happened because

01:20:53.720 it can make a difference.

01:20:56.520 It can keep him behind bars where he needs to be because the day he is released is the

01:21:01.480 day society is going to be in grave danger.

01:21:06.380 And I truly believe that.

01:21:08.500 Me too.

01:21:10.320 So you're, what are you doing now?

01:21:12.200 Are you still doing radio and, and journalism?

01:21:16.280 It seems like some of your work has shifted to advocacy on behalf of kids now and writing

01:21:20.640 books to help sound the alarm for families.

01:21:23.880 Yes.

01:21:24.420 Um, I had stepped away.

01:21:26.620 Um, the FBI had asked me or told me two years ago.

01:21:30.360 I had to leave my business and, um, eliminate all my original contact information so that,

01:21:37.660 uh, cause Jared had that same contact information.

01:21:40.640 So all of that had to go away.

01:21:43.160 Um, when Jared was arrested because they actually, it was before when, before Jared was arrested

01:21:48.620 when I ended my work with the FBI.

01:21:50.820 Um, so everything had to end.

01:21:53.220 Um, and so I went off into a different arena, um, for, for a while.

01:21:59.120 And then I had fallen ill, um, for, for quite a while and was bedridden for about three years.

01:22:04.200 But what, yes, yes.

01:22:07.680 I, I, um, slipped at, at, um, uh, uh, you know, a job that I was doing.

01:22:13.920 I was team leader for Keller Williams in Sarasota and I had slipped, broke my ankle and I came

01:22:19.400 down with RSD, which is, um, now it's, um, reflect sympathetic dystrophy.

01:22:24.560 Um, it's AKA the suicide disease, the world's most painful chronic condition.

01:22:30.860 Um, I've learned to disseminate the pain and, and that's another book that I'm working on

01:22:35.040 actually on how to teach people how to do what I've done.

01:22:38.260 Um, because I still have it to this day.

01:22:40.460 Um, but what I am now doing, and I am going to start doing podcasts and get back on, on,

01:22:49.020 um, terrestrial radio again, because MTV is possible.

01:22:52.900 That's really where I, I did my best work and where I would like to be, um, uh, since this

01:22:59.960 docuseries, um, under contract.

01:23:02.100 So it's one year from the date of airing before I can do any of that.

01:23:05.960 But in the meanwhile, I am writing, I have, um, three, three books pertaining to, um, child

01:23:12.920 advocacy for, for child sexual abuse that goes from, um, it goes one about the story, you 0.73

01:23:20.980 know, uh, you know, in the mind, the mind of a monster.

01:23:26.040 And that's going to be all these other areas that I haven't been able to share because there's

01:23:33.300 just not enough time.

01:23:34.220 So I'm going to be, that's all in that book.

01:23:36.540 Um, and you know, all the behind the scenes and, you know, everything that happened during

01:23:43.880 my time with the FBI, but then the other, another book that I'm writing is for children.

01:23:48.880 Um, and it's going to be, uh, it is actually, cause I'm about halfway through, but it's about,

01:23:55.140 it's a workbook on how to strategically position themselves to be their own superhero.

01:24:04.180 And, you know, with, between knowing the signs of a predator and what good play and bad play

01:24:13.140 is, um, I actually am going to be putting it on my site, just the outline of where I'm

01:24:18.500 at and, and exactly what is happening with my writing so that I, cause I'm still in the

01:24:25.700 process.

01:24:26.040 So I would love feedback from the public.

01:24:28.340 So I will share some of that so that it can be written into the best possible workbook

01:24:32.820 out there that I'm hoping at some point, not just for personal use, but that can also be

01:24:37.960 implemented in, um, in school criteria as well.

01:24:41.420 And then another one is for caregivers and parents to know the warning signs, because when

01:24:47.840 someone is being abused, whether it's the elderly, um, or they're manipulated or a child, they're

01:24:53.580 very silent.

01:24:54.640 Uh, you don't recognize what's really going on.

01:24:58.100 Um, in most cases, a lot of times you do, you just see something that's off.

01:25:02.820 But it's like asking the right questions, looking for certain markers.

01:25:06.900 Are they uncomfortable?

01:25:08.580 Um, when this particular person is approached, do they, do they fight when you say, oh, you

01:25:13.740 get to stay over their house tonight?

01:25:15.780 Uh, there's, there's a lot, um, that I think that can be very helpful.

01:25:20.120 And, and there's a lot of elderly that are not only abused by personal caregivers in their

01:25:26.220 home, but in facilities as well.

01:25:29.000 Trusted employees that, you know, the people are putting hidden cameras in the rooms because

01:25:33.820 they sent something as off.

01:25:35.820 Hmm.

01:25:37.600 Well, this is all great work.

01:25:39.420 I mean, this clearly is your life's work.

01:25:41.440 This is going to make a difference in people's lives.

01:25:43.680 I, I do have to ask you, you know, now with him in jail, with the story out there, any regrets?

01:25:52.260 Like if you had it to do over again, would you?

01:25:57.220 Oh, absolutely.

01:25:58.280 Without a doubt that there's other cases that I'm working on.

01:26:01.580 As a matter of fact, they're not child sexual abuse cases.

01:26:04.520 Um, they're, they're very diverse in nature.

01:26:07.220 Um, but there are other cases that have presented themselves to me.

01:26:10.720 I, I'm all in and, you know, law enforcement has always been, um, you know, open arms with

01:26:18.780 me.

01:26:19.040 And I am so happy that I am received that way because when I came out after Jared was initially

01:26:28.640 arrested, I felt as though, wow, you know, a whistleblower that, you know, they're going

01:26:35.020 to want, keep me at arm's length.

01:26:36.760 They're going to think less of me and years pass.

01:26:39.500 And I have come to find out because they've told me themselves, absolutely not that they

01:26:44.920 greatly respect the work that I did.

01:26:46.820 And, you know, and I still continue my work today.

01:26:52.200 I'm so glad to hear that.

01:26:53.840 And I'm so glad to meet you.

01:26:54.940 Rochelle, thank you for telling your story and for all that you've done.

01:26:58.660 Oh, I appreciate you, Megan, very much.

01:27:01.080 And I want to thank you and all your listeners for the opportunity to be here today.

01:27:04.580 Thank you very much.

01:27:05.940 All the best to you and your family.

01:27:07.920 Thank you.

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01:28:14.620 I'm going to take you back now to July 15th, 2008, when Cindy Anthony of Florida first reported

01:28:26.060 her granddaughter, Kaylee, missing.

01:28:28.720 A fact she only learned one month after the child had disappeared.

01:28:32.740 Cindy had no idea that her grandchild was missing because that child, she believed, had been with

01:28:39.160 its mother, Casey Anthony.

01:28:41.280 Casey Anthony had been claiming that she and her little girl were on a trip together.

01:28:46.200 When Grandma called, she just kept telling Grandma that little Kaylee couldn't talk. 0.92

01:28:50.980 But then a fateful event took place.

01:28:54.280 You see, the car that Cindy, that's the grandma, had lent her daughter, Casey, wound up in an

01:29:01.800 impound lot.

01:29:03.820 Cindy and her husband, George, the parents of Casey, were called by the towing company.

01:29:08.400 They thought Casey was off on vacation with little Kaylee.

01:29:11.360 They didn't understand why she'd be separated from the car.

01:29:14.040 But they went to the lot.

01:29:15.320 They examined the automobile, and suddenly their minds were flooded with questions.

01:29:19.760 A few phone calls later, and they realized Casey had been lying to them.

01:29:25.220 She had not been on a vacation somewhere.

01:29:28.280 She had been staying with some boyfriend.

01:29:31.720 But where was Casey's child, their granddaughter, Kaylee?

01:29:36.380 The answer to that would take another five months and would end in a dark and gruesome discovery.

01:29:43.620 Two-year-old Kaylee was dead by homicide.

01:29:46.920 And Casey had known that she'd been dead for weeks.

01:29:52.380 My guests today to discuss this case are Cheney Mason and Beth Karras.

01:29:56.800 Cheney is an attorney who served as co-counsel on the Casey Anthony defense team and who wrote

01:30:02.100 the book Justice in America, how the prosecutors and the media conspire against the accused.

01:30:08.380 And Beth is a former prosecutor and journalist who covered this trial from 2008 to 2011 for True TV.

01:30:16.380 Welcome, Cheney and Beth.

01:30:17.720 So good to have you both here.

01:30:19.560 Thank you.

01:30:20.000 Hello.

01:30:20.680 Hi.

01:30:20.900 So first, let me tell you this, Beth.

01:30:23.520 I'm so happy to see you because I remember being a young reporter at Fox News and following

01:30:30.340 you and following your coverage on Court TV, now True TV, whatever.

01:30:34.380 And I just always admired you and thought you were such a straight shooter and really smart

01:30:37.400 of the law.

01:30:37.860 So it's fun to have you on.

01:30:39.600 Thank you for being here.

01:30:41.340 Well, thank you very much.

01:30:42.380 Thank you for that introduction.

01:30:43.840 Of course.

01:30:44.180 And Cheney, you're the man.

01:30:45.620 You and Jose are the ones who tried this case and managed to get this acquittal, which

01:30:50.120 shocked the nation.

01:30:51.900 And I'd love to get into all of it because I'd love to take an honest look at, you know,

01:30:56.200 what's real and what's not.

01:30:57.120 We just went through this with, for example, Amanda Knox and compared what was real in her

01:31:01.640 case to the way the media covered it.

01:31:03.700 And there was a very wide delta, right?

01:31:06.320 So I understand your point, Cheney, that you can't just go by media reports.

01:31:10.920 So we'll get into all of it.

01:31:11.980 Okay, so let's start at the beginning.

01:31:15.340 We're at the point where Cindy, I mean, it's confusing for the audience that doesn't know

01:31:19.180 the case forward and backward, but Cindy's the grandma, Casey's the daughter, and Kaylee

01:31:22.580 is the little two-year-old granddaughter.

01:31:25.280 Cindy Anthony is the matriarch, and she's letting her daughter, who was only 22 at the time this 1.00

01:31:31.400 all went down, live with her.

01:31:33.160 She's an unwed mom. 1.00

01:31:34.560 She's a single mom.

01:31:35.380 She's got little Kaylee with her.

01:31:37.500 And they tell her, Casey tells her that she's going off on vacation.

01:31:40.720 She's going to go to a couple towns. 0.99

01:31:41.760 Someone's going to take the daughter, the granddaughter. 0.90

01:31:43.740 Okay, fine.

01:31:44.400 Then we talk about how she discovers that wasn't true.

01:31:47.320 She goes to the car impound lot, and she winds up calling the 911 operator.

01:31:57.360 At first, what she really thinks this might be about is maybe there was a stolen car, and

01:32:04.060 then she realizes that it's worse than that, that something smells wrong with that car,

01:32:10.180 and she doesn't know where the granddaughter is either.

01:32:12.520 Here's soundbite one.

01:32:13.820 My daughter finally admitted that the baby's in the store.

01:32:18.500 I need to find her.

01:32:20.160 Your daughter admitted that the baby is where?

01:32:22.740 The baby said it took her a month ago that my daughter's been looking for.

01:32:26.300 I told you my daughter was missing for a month.

01:32:28.240 I just found her today, but I can't find my granddaughter.

01:32:31.460 She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find her herself.

01:32:35.360 There's something wrong. 1.00

01:32:39.300 I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in a damn car. 0.99

01:32:43.960 Okay, what is the three-year-old's name? 0.99

01:32:45.920 Kaylee.

01:32:46.520 C-A-Y-L-E-E. 1.00

01:32:48.360 Anthony.

01:32:48.720 And I'll start with you on this, Beth.

01:32:52.800 So that's, we were off to the races, because now what we learned on that day is that you've

01:32:56.140 got a young mother who hasn't, who by her own admission, hasn't seen her child in a month,

01:33:00.240 who tells investigators she decided to handle it herself and was only caught because the

01:33:07.560 mother was called to that impound lot.

01:33:09.840 Go from there.

01:33:11.860 Right.

01:33:12.260 So I know when we look back in hindsight, we know what the defense explanation for that

01:33:17.920 was at that time, but when we were looking at this unfolding in real time, people who

01:33:24.260 were following it, and I started following it with court TV from the very beginning, it

01:33:30.640 looked really suspicious.

01:33:31.700 Like, why is she looking for this child herself?

01:33:35.260 Why isn't she calling the authority?

01:33:37.140 She ultimately tells the police she didn't trust them.

01:33:39.740 She wanted to look for her daughter herself, but we learned that what she's doing in this

01:33:46.140 30-day period from June 16th to July 15th was, I mean, what's documented, photos of her

01:33:53.600 and other memorializations and text messages, whatever, don't seem to be consistent with

01:33:59.860 looking for her daughter, right?

01:34:01.280 She's partying. 0.99

01:34:02.300 She got a tattoo.

01:34:03.620 She's in a hot body contest. 1.00

01:34:05.400 And it's like, really, is this woman grieving her daughter?

01:34:07.580 Is she in a panic?

01:34:08.260 Is she looking for this toddler? 0.86

01:34:09.740 Who was two years old and 10 months at that time?

01:34:12.920 So it was very suspicious.

01:34:14.220 And she ultimately gets charged with child neglect, like failure of crime.

01:34:19.760 Well, Cheney will have to tell us the exact crimes, but it was like failure to report her

01:34:23.920 child.

01:34:24.220 It was like neglect charges, nothing to do with homicide.

01:34:26.840 That would be down the road.

01:34:28.820 But that seemed to be right because it didn't make sense what she was saying.

01:34:33.220 And she's lying to the police. 0.59

01:34:34.620 So she's sending them in all these tangents that were going nowhere because she knew the 0.99

01:34:39.340 truth and she wasn't telling the police the truth.

01:34:42.800 Let me ask you this, Cheney, one of the questions, and we'll get into it with the audience, what

01:34:46.400 your defense was and how that went.

01:34:48.680 But at this point in the case, under your theory of the case, when Casey's confronted by her

01:34:55.960 mom, Cindy, you know, where's Kaylee? 0.97

01:34:57.700 What's the deal with the car?

01:34:59.360 You know, this is July 15th.

01:35:03.040 Under your theory, Casey knew at that point that her child was dead, correct?

01:35:08.420 No, and your facts about how the car was found are wrong.

01:35:15.020 The car was found in a parking lot of a shopping center.

01:35:20.700 George found the car.

01:35:23.400 George drove the car home. 0.99

01:35:26.780 Cindy, at some point after that, made the call, the infamous call that smelled like a damn 1.00

01:35:33.340 dead body was there. 0.98

01:35:34.640 Five deputy sheriffs responded to the house, to the car on the same day, inspected it, trunk

01:35:42.560 open, doors open, and every single one of them testified under oath that they did not

01:35:47.940 smell anything.

01:35:49.780 So that's another one of these examples that made it imaginary.

01:35:53.820 It's not true.

01:35:55.000 Wait a second, Cheney.

01:35:56.080 Wait a second.

01:35:57.920 George drove the car home from the pound.

01:36:00.920 It was towed from the lot.

01:36:02.720 It was towed from that parking lot where she left at the end of June, June 26th, I think.

01:36:07.900 And by the time that Anthony's got the paperwork from the pound where it was, it was already

01:36:13.000 July.

01:36:13.700 It may not have been the 15th, but it was early July.

01:36:16.620 It was July.

01:36:17.520 And then they go to the pound.

01:36:19.400 And that's where George, as he approached the car, he said he really feared.

01:36:24.820 He smelled something that was very familiar to him because he's a former police officer.

01:36:28.480 He really feared when the trunk was open, he was going to see something he didn't want

01:36:31.680 to see, but that didn't happen.

01:36:33.100 But the man at the pound said to him, oh, yeah, I know that smell because somebody else,

01:36:37.020 there was an abandoned car there.

01:36:38.860 And maybe it was a salvage yard.

01:36:40.000 I can't remember a pound salvage yard, but there was an abandoned car that had a dead body

01:36:43.960 in it.

01:36:44.280 He said it was a similar smell.

01:36:46.460 I know that.

01:36:47.400 I know what you say is they didn't smell anything.

01:36:49.480 That's true.

01:36:50.140 But there's other evidence of odor closer in time to the car being contained by the Anthonys.

01:36:57.520 Once again, we'll disagree.

01:36:59.620 That's not the fact.

01:37:01.140 The car was found.

01:37:03.660 And George said they had thrown garbage over the fence to a dumpster.

01:37:10.780 Okay.

01:37:11.180 That was not an impound lot.

01:37:13.380 And they came and they did not smell anything other than garbage.

01:37:18.560 Then the car was taken.

01:37:19.640 After they had the car to the home and they had the statements from Cindy, the sheriff's

01:37:26.060 department took it and they kept it.

01:37:28.260 And it never was returned.

01:37:29.640 It was kept in the sheriff's department for forensic evidence the whole time.

01:37:34.200 Even thereafter, months later, I was in the case.

01:37:39.020 It's not like it's all that important.

01:37:40.880 But the bottom line is there was an initial claim by Cindy.

01:37:45.940 There's no dispute about that.

01:37:48.080 And the state tried to buttress her statement because she was a nurse and she knew what bodies

01:37:53.760 spelled like.

01:37:54.720 That was ridiculous because nurses don't know what bodies spelled like because they don't 1.00

01:37:58.780 keep them in the hospital. 0.72

01:38:00.660 Okay.

01:38:00.740 But we're getting hung up.

01:38:01.620 I mean, there's no question Cindy said on that 911 call. 0.99

01:38:04.120 She, she, that it smelled like there'd been a damn dead body in the trunk. 0.98

01:38:07.640 We all heard that. 0.98

01:38:08.860 I've heard George give interviews.

01:38:10.240 I've heard George give interviews where he says it smelled like a dead body.

01:38:13.600 He's, he has said that on camera and the, the head of the tow lot, it was the towing

01:38:18.720 company and the man's name was Simon Birch.

01:38:20.580 That's the company that impounded Casey's car in June, testified that he hadn't encountered

01:38:25.540 multiple vehicles with dead bodies during his three decades in the business.

01:38:28.260 And that the smell from Casey's car was consistent with those past experiences.

01:38:31.380 So let's not get too hung up.

01:38:33.260 We don't know whether it was in fact, uh, Kaylee Anthony that created the smell in that

01:38:39.640 car.

01:38:39.860 And I understand that the authorities would argue that, um, but we don't need to get too

01:38:43.960 hung up on whether people said it because they, they did say it, um, the, whether or not

01:38:48.280 say that was the smell would be, have to be proven at trial.

01:38:51.120 Go ahead.

01:38:51.940 Saying it is one thing.

01:38:53.500 There is no forensic evidence to support that it is any unique order to the decomposition

01:38:58.680 of a human body.

01:39:00.900 So when they took a look at the trunk, there was not a dead body inside of it.

01:39:07.420 The, the grandparents open up the trunk and there is no dead body.

01:39:11.160 There is however, large amounts of trash and it's the hot Florida sun, right?

01:39:16.420 I mean, I've seen the garbage bags.

01:39:17.540 Are you disputing that too, Cheney?

01:39:18.640 Why are we getting so contentious?

01:39:19.740 No, no.

01:39:20.200 It had, it had been in there before she had any contact with it.

01:39:24.580 The garbage bag was thrown out of the car over the fence to a, to a public dumpster site.

01:39:32.480 There's no question that Cindy said what she smelled and that made it a very, very alluring

01:39:39.880 claim about the case.

01:39:41.500 And, and, and, uh, and matter of fact, that's when they had the air sample tests and the forensic

01:39:46.900 scientists testify that what was, what was not, it's not really important to the term

01:39:54.420 of the case, in my opinion, other than it led to causing the attention to the case right

01:40:01.520 from the beginning, exactly as you said.

01:40:03.420 And it could very well be under any theory of the case that, that Kaylee's body was, was

01:40:11.100 either not in that trunk at any point or was not in that trunk for long or was there and

01:40:16.220 was removed.

01:40:16.740 I mean, what we do know is Kaylee was killed, that Kaylee is dead and that ultimately her

01:40:22.340 body would be found not in that car, but we'll get to that, that point in the story.

01:40:26.100 But when we learned about Casey Anthony's version of the story was at the opening argument or

01:40:31.740 the opening statement at trial.

01:40:33.580 And, um, and we'll get to all of that, but under her version, under her version of the

01:40:39.220 case, she, George, her dad killed, well, didn't kill, but it was with little Kaylee when she

01:40:47.000 drowned.

01:40:47.860 Okay.

01:40:48.120 She drowned. 0.56

01:40:49.560 So when, that's not, that's not correct.

01:40:52.100 That's not correct.

01:40:53.340 George found her.

01:40:54.720 Okay.

01:40:56.360 There's no evidence that George was with this child when she drowned.

01:41:00.840 Okay.

01:41:01.200 He found her and brought her in from the pool and, and confronted Casey.

01:41:06.460 Look at what you did.

01:41:07.860 There is no evidence that he did anything.

01:41:10.820 Right.

01:41:11.400 I know I'm aware because most of us don't think he did, but when, when did that allegedly

01:41:16.620 happen?

01:41:19.440 Well, I'd have to go back to the specific dates that you probably have.

01:41:23.460 Well, you just told me it hadn't happened at the point.

01:41:25.740 She said, I've been with her for a month and I've been out.

01:41:29.100 You said it hadn't happened at that point.

01:41:30.780 So when did it happen?

01:41:32.560 I don't know.

01:41:33.980 Well, then why are you telling me that it hadn't happened yet at the point?

01:41:37.900 Yeah, go ahead.

01:41:38.500 What I'm telling you is, and you said that George was with the child when she died, there

01:41:44.060 is no evidence.

01:41:44.680 No, no, but you're disputing.

01:41:45.540 No, I'm going back to my first point.

01:41:47.140 So you don't know.

01:41:48.620 My point is when she was out dancing and getting the tattoos and Bella Vida and doing all the

01:41:53.560 crazy stuff for that 30 day period.

01:41:55.720 Did she, or did she not know that her child was dead?

01:41:58.120 In my opinion, she did not know.

01:42:01.520 In my opinion, that child had been found and had been disposed of in some capacity long

01:42:09.960 before she was ever brought into any kind of inquiries of whatever.

01:42:16.200 Casey, this is where, and you justifiably, and so many other people believe, Casey, you

01:42:23.840 would think would have known immediately about her daughter.

01:42:29.160 I don't think she did.

01:42:31.260 Our experts didn't think she did.

01:42:33.340 And the jury didn't either.

01:42:35.000 The bottom line is that Casey went into what I have previously characterized as Casey Wall.

01:42:41.780 She was in a total, some sort of state, psychotic state, not acknowledging the child was gone,

01:42:49.940 dead, and just fabricating whatever she had to fabricate about it.

01:42:55.960 And it was clear to me, I can tell you, whoever watched the trial besides the jury, when we

01:43:02.240 had a grief expert testifying about how people grieve differently in different circumstances,

01:43:09.520 and she talked about it during the trial, the last part of the trial, Casey broke down,

01:43:15.160 I was sitting right next to her.

01:43:16.220 And that, in my opinion, was the first time that she absolutely clearly accepted and knew

01:43:24.520 that this child was dead.

01:43:26.520 How did, I mean, she realized that her child wasn't with her for a month, right?

01:43:31.320 You know, I don't know what she realized.

01:43:33.360 That's what I'm trying to tell you.

01:43:34.400 We know from facts and videotapes of witnesses, as you described, she was out on a couple of

01:43:41.560 occasions to young people's clubs and doing shopping and going around and just kind of

01:43:48.300 in another world.

01:43:50.100 And so what she actually knew, I guess none of us will ever know.

01:43:53.500 Well, I mean, her mother asked her that day that they were reunited, where is Kaylee?

01:43:56.920 And she said, she's missing.

01:43:58.280 The babysitter took her and I've been looking for her on my own.

01:44:01.080 So she clearly knew that she was missing.

01:44:02.560 I'm sure she, yes, that she knew something, but it wasn't connecting in her brain.

01:44:11.080 It didn't connect in her brain until we were in trial, at the end of the trial.

01:44:16.080 That's the problem with it.

01:44:17.500 And it's hard to understand that.

01:44:19.580 And most people don't want to understand that.

01:44:21.900 Most people.

01:44:22.380 I mean, you can understand it and then not and just not believe it.

01:44:25.540 Right.

01:44:25.740 I mean, it's secret option number two.

01:44:29.180 Right.

01:44:29.380 I think the normal, most expected reaction from people was if you found your child drowned,

01:44:37.020 you would call 911 or you do something.

01:44:40.680 That's the normal and reasonably normal expectation of people would be for me, would be for you.

01:44:48.460 But this is such a weird and unique situation.

01:44:51.900 But are you now saying that she found her, that she found her, her child drowned?

01:44:57.340 I did not say that at all.

01:44:59.900 Okay.

01:45:00.360 You said normal expectation would be if you found your child.

01:45:03.640 And that's not the posit here.

01:45:04.900 The posit is that George, the granddad, found her.

01:45:07.680 If I found a child and or if you found a child, probably the first reaction like that would be to call for help.

01:45:17.380 I agree.

01:45:18.200 I know, but we were talking about Casey and then you jumped to George's state of mind.

01:45:22.820 And we're talking about Casey's state of mind.

01:45:25.700 I'm not talking about George's state of mind.

01:45:27.600 There's no evidence about his state of mind.

01:45:29.580 Other than the position was that George found the child on that Saturday morning.

01:45:36.240 She was drowned.

01:45:37.500 Which Saturday morning?

01:45:38.660 Which Saturday morning?

01:45:40.300 I don't remember the dates.

01:45:42.100 Are you talking about the beginning of the 30 day period or the end of the 30 day period?

01:45:45.680 At the beginning, at the beginning.

01:45:48.840 Beth may know the dates, but you know, from looking at June something, wasn't it?

01:45:53.680 Yeah.

01:45:54.040 So the last, the last photos of Kaylee are on Father's Day, 2008, which I think was June 15th.

01:46:02.420 And then the 16th, she had a fight with her mother the night before, and then she left the next day.

01:46:07.460 And George saw them walking away.

01:46:09.400 He remembers what they were wearing.

01:46:10.620 That's father, Kaylee's grandfather.

01:46:12.840 And so that was a Monday.

01:46:13.800 She's walking away with them.

01:46:15.200 And my understanding is that, that the defense position was that the, that, that the drowning

01:46:22.420 of Kaylee was right around that, like very short time after that.

01:46:26.620 Either the night, early morning, night, we had the photographs of the child being able

01:46:30.660 to go out to the pool by herself and do that. 0.81

01:46:33.440 And so all that we know, our position, look, I wasn't there.

01:46:38.720 You weren't there.

01:46:40.320 We don't know who was really there to know this, but you never do in any part of your

01:46:45.660 life.

01:46:46.460 The bottom line is that our position has been from the beginning through the end.

01:46:52.660 It still is.

01:46:54.160 George found this little child.

01:46:56.520 She was drowned.

01:46:57.340 She was deceased.

01:46:58.380 He brought her into the house.

01:47:00.520 He confronted Casey because Casey, he was still asleep.

01:47:04.160 She had been out the night before or whatever the case would be and told her, look what you've

01:47:10.080 done.

01:47:10.340 Your mother is going to be really mad at you. 1.00

01:47:13.220 And that is it.

01:47:14.800 And she left.

01:47:15.720 And we don't know what happened.

01:47:17.400 See, this is where there's a big gap and a jury found a gap as well.

01:47:21.360 Did George dispose of the body?

01:47:23.980 I don't know that I can't prove he didn't.

01:47:26.840 I wouldn't accuse him of it.

01:47:28.380 Something happened.

01:47:29.380 And both of you know that something happened contrary to what the ordinary experience would

01:47:34.200 have been.

01:47:34.760 The ordinary experience would have been call 9-1-1 ordinary experience would have made

01:47:39.900 the whole thing right down resolved.

01:47:42.380 And for whatever reason, it didn't happen.

01:47:45.280 And all I can tell you is that I doubt that the case will never be solved any more than it

01:47:50.940 has been.

01:47:51.700 And that's why you're still interested in it.

01:47:54.400 And people will be and will continue to be for a long, long time.

01:48:00.000 I don't know what else to do about that.

01:48:01.880 Well, sure.

01:48:02.300 I mean, this has been it was a very salacious trial.

01:48:04.740 It happened at an interesting time in our country's history.

01:48:07.860 And, you know, it involves an unthinkable crime that we genuinely sincerely do not wish

01:48:13.260 to even think about.

01:48:14.060 But when it happens, those those, you know, responsible must be held to account.

01:48:19.260 In this case, no one ever has been.

01:48:21.940 Beth, I know you want to say something.

01:48:23.240 I'm going to get to you right after this quick break.

01:48:24.880 Pay a bill and back to our guests in two minutes.

01:48:28.460 Don't go away.

01:48:34.440 Beth, you would you were itching to get in there at the end.

01:48:36.600 Go go for it.

01:48:37.300 Well, yeah, I was wanting to point out I just looked at my notes and June 16th, 2008 was

01:48:43.040 a Monday.

01:48:43.660 So Father's Day was the day before.

01:48:45.260 So it was that Monday was the last time George saw her.

01:48:49.240 And it was the defense position that the drowning was that day.

01:48:52.260 I believe it later that day.

01:48:53.640 The other thing I just wanted to look at the big picture here, because I know we're going

01:48:59.320 to go through the timeline, Megan.

01:49:00.740 But, you know, Casey does get charged with murder in October and Kaylee hasn't been found

01:49:05.780 yet.

01:49:06.400 And then she's found in December.

01:49:10.760 The remains are found.

01:49:12.080 And within a few months, the prosecution decides to up to ante and and charge her with capital

01:49:17.620 murder.

01:49:18.020 Right. 1.00

01:49:18.420 Seeking death.

01:49:19.100 So for the next three years, there are all kinds of pretrial hearings and lots of motions

01:49:24.920 are being filed.

01:49:25.860 And all the while, Casey is sitting in a jail cell.

01:49:29.360 So for three years to her trial in 2011, 2008, 2011, she's locked up.

01:49:34.800 And I don't understand if this was an accidental drowning.

01:49:39.320 Maybe there's some sort of negligent theory of some kind of crime that Casey could be charged

01:49:43.960 with, but nothing like capital murder.

01:49:45.520 If the facts are what what you say, Cheney, I don't understand why you wouldn't go to

01:49:51.500 the prosecutors and say, look, this is an accident.

01:49:53.420 We have proof.

01:49:54.040 This is an accident.

01:49:54.620 Why let her sit in jail for three years? 0.95

01:49:56.420 Or am I being naive?

01:49:57.580 I've never been a defense attorney, but it just seems like, you know, prosecutors are

01:50:02.660 not unreasonable.

01:50:03.920 At least in my experience, we do justice.

01:50:06.820 We do not just seek convictions.

01:50:08.540 We want to do the right thing.

01:50:10.580 You shouldn't overcharge if you, you know, you should never overcharge.

01:50:14.260 I should put it that way.

01:50:15.960 Well, I know you don't believe that all prosecutors are the same way because we know

01:50:20.560 better than that.

01:50:21.840 The bottom line in this situation is that this case was ongoing for a long time before I

01:50:30.760 was brought into it.

01:50:31.860 I was a citizen of Central Florida all the time and all the news medias and the, you know,

01:50:39.520 every night or every day, all the channels said, you know, more about Casey Anthony news

01:50:47.260 at six, pictures at six or whatever like that every day for a long time.

01:50:51.800 I was a citizen like everybody else until Mr.

01:50:56.060 Baez asked me to come in.

01:50:57.500 I don't know.

01:50:58.980 And you may have a better time of the, when the charge was, I happened to have been in

01:51:06.200 an NBC studio on a totally unrelated matter when the people there got all excited because

01:51:14.400 the sheriff got it, was there doing something, got a call and he came into the studio and he

01:51:21.380 like, like, like it's, they found a baby with tape all around her head.

01:51:26.320 And we believe that's going to be Kaylee.

01:51:28.900 And that was the first time there was any ability to prove that there was a death.

01:51:34.720 So there could not have been any, any criminal charge of homicide against her at that time.

01:51:40.360 They had no proof of death.

01:51:42.220 They had other things.

01:51:44.320 No, no, just, just to jump in and set the record straight, according to my, my timeline

01:51:48.780 here, it was October.

01:51:50.500 As Beth points out, she was charged with, not with murder, but with child neglect and

01:51:55.180 some other small charges first.

01:51:57.880 So that's kind of how they got her into, into custody.

01:52:01.780 She was declared a person of interest with respect to Kaylee, but she was not yet, yet

01:52:06.800 charged.

01:52:07.520 That's when she posted her bond and the bounty hunter Leonard Padilla came in and all that

01:52:11.660 happened.

01:52:12.140 And then on October 14th, 2008, she was charged with first degree murder, aggravated child

01:52:18.060 abuse, aggravated manslaughter, four counts of providing false information to law enforcement

01:52:21.880 and so on.

01:52:22.800 And then it wasn't until December 11th, 2008, two months later that the skeletal remains

01:52:30.020 of Kaylee were found.

01:52:32.620 So two months after she was charged with murder.

01:52:35.200 Yeah.

01:52:36.140 And then they seek death after that, because of that was the change circumstance.

01:52:39.840 We now have a body, we believe tape was around her mouth and nose, and that was the change

01:52:44.640 circumstance that would justify.

01:52:45.980 And we'll get, we'll get to what, how the condition in which they found the remains, which

01:52:49.880 is, which was the part of the prosecution's case.

01:52:52.440 But let's just go back to the days, the 30 day period that she was not with Kaylee and not

01:52:58.100 with her parents and lying to her parents and out and about, as we all would wind up seeing.

01:53:03.680 I mean, I remember seeing it on Greta Van Susteren show every night, you know, the pictures

01:53:07.040 of, that would be on earth from her social media, you know, her dancing, her looking like 0.98

01:53:11.960 I have a great time.

01:53:12.760 She's got that big smile on. 0.82

01:53:14.680 And people looked at this in retrospect and said that is, that she must be a sociopath. 0.97

01:53:18.700 You know, her daughter's missing.

01:53:20.500 She's not, she's clearly not looking for her.

01:53:22.620 She's having the time of her life.

01:53:23.920 And that was the prosecution's theory that she was, she got pregnant at 19. 0.99

01:53:27.120 She didn't want this baby. 0.51

01:53:28.140 She didn't want to be a mother. 0.73

01:53:28.940 And she wound up either neglecting the child or intentionally getting rid of the child 0.99

01:53:33.800 to the point of death.

01:53:35.920 So she takes the police during this time, Cheney, on some wild goose chases that I want you to

01:53:43.100 help me understand if we're, if we're going into, why are you shaking your head?

01:53:46.600 Yes, she did.

01:53:47.900 Well, you said wild goose chases, plural.

01:53:50.440 That's not true.

01:53:52.140 Okay.

01:53:52.340 So did she or did she not, did she or did she not take them to the fake apartment of some

01:53:57.240 nanny who never existed?

01:53:58.940 There was one, the beginning occasion.

01:54:04.080 Yes.

01:54:04.500 Did she or did she not take them to Universal and pretend to work there when she in fact

01:54:09.720 hadn't worked there for two years?

01:54:11.660 That was the one that so-called chase.

01:54:17.680 The police knew she didn't work there. 1.00

01:54:19.880 They picked her up at six o'clock in the morning at the Anthony Renaissance.

01:54:24.840 They drove her to Universal.

01:54:26.360 They checked in Universal.

01:54:27.660 They already knew from security that she didn't work there. 0.99

01:54:31.340 They walked from there about 700 feet down the sidewalk and around the corner into an

01:54:36.640 office building.

01:54:37.640 And she was still carried on going to show them her office.

01:54:40.560 And they took her into the building and got to a small office and she's turned around and said,

01:54:47.160 okay, I don't work here.

01:54:49.260 All right.

01:54:49.540 So I am correct.

01:54:51.480 I am correct.

01:54:52.720 That's at least two.

01:54:53.840 Those are wild goose chases.

01:54:55.260 You need to slow your roll, sir, because I've got my facts.

01:54:57.940 And you and I are not going to do that.

01:54:59.540 This is not that kind of show.

01:55:00.740 Okay.

01:55:00.980 Trust me.

01:55:01.540 I've done my homework.

01:55:02.840 So she took them on a couple of wild goose chases. 0.69

01:55:05.900 And you tell me why this young mother with no consciousness of guilt whatsoever, because

01:55:10.220 she's in this confused fugue state, not realizing her kids not with her, would do those things.

01:55:17.060 You tell me.

01:55:18.440 I don't know why she would do it.

01:55:19.940 She did not know, I believe, at this time, that this child was deceased.

01:55:25.540 She still had in her mind this myth of where the child was.

01:55:30.380 And that's why the police didn't do anything else at that time to arrest her or charge her or anything,

01:55:35.880 because they couldn't, other than to prove the child was missing.

01:55:39.260 And they didn't believe her.

01:55:40.740 So why was she making up that she worked at Universal and making up that there was a nanny 1.00

01:55:46.060 and taking them to the fake apartment of the said nanny?

01:55:48.540 Well, I'm not sure that I know.

01:55:51.180 She had worked at Universal.

01:55:52.880 She did work up there until a few months before this occurred. 0.64

01:55:57.200 I can't tell you.

01:55:58.920 This is one of the things that we'll never know as to what went in through her brain to do that.

01:56:04.580 It was so obvious to the law enforcement officers, they knew damn well that she did not work at Universal.

01:56:11.480 They had already, through the night, confirmed that.

01:56:14.000 And so when she said she did, they said, OK, we'll go along for this little charade.

01:56:20.120 And that's what they did.

01:56:21.400 They weren't fooled.

01:56:22.560 They weren't surprised whatsoever.

01:56:24.660 And that's when we got into a whole issue about whether she was Mirandais or not,

01:56:30.180 whether her statements could be used, and how the appellate court dealt with that

01:56:34.180 and reversed two of her misdemeanor convictions.

01:56:38.940 Beth, why don't you tell us about the wild goose chase involving Zannie the nanny,

01:56:45.200 who was the one you heard on that very first day that her mother and she called,

01:56:49.000 well, her mother called the police and put her on with police. 1.00

01:56:51.820 She was an unwilling participant.

01:56:53.220 She was like, why would I want to talk to them?

01:56:55.140 But she gets on and she claims that she left the daughter with the babysitter. 0.99

01:56:59.000 And you take it from there.

01:57:01.040 Right.

01:57:01.820 So in opening statements, Linda Drain Burdick does recount almost every single one of those 30 days.

01:57:09.060 There is something, whether it's a text message, an email, a MySpace posting,

01:57:13.400 some communication, something, a photo that will document what she was doing during that time.

01:57:18.700 During those 30 days, she does tell the police that, you know, Zenaida Gonzalez,

01:57:26.460 there is really a Zenaida Gonzalez.

01:57:28.420 There's really a person by that name who applied.

01:57:30.100 There are a lot of Zenaida Gonzalez's.

01:57:31.800 Right.

01:57:32.140 But I mean, there's a person by that name who applied for an apartment,

01:57:35.820 for a vacant apartment in that complex.

01:57:38.500 And so there's a, you know, a theory.

01:57:41.200 I don't know if it's ever been proven true that Casey may have seen that application,

01:57:45.460 may have seen that form, you know, and got the name from it.

01:57:47.360 Because there's a woman who did apply to live there. 1.00

01:57:52.120 And...

01:57:52.480 Not a nanny. 0.78

01:57:53.080 And not Casey Anthony's nanny working to protect Casey. 0.89

01:57:56.560 No, no.

01:57:56.580 There's no connection between them.

01:57:57.480 There's no connection between them.

01:57:58.920 But like where, like Casey was telling her parents, you know, that she was going to work.

01:58:02.840 They did believe that there was a nanny, Zanny the nanny.

01:58:06.020 They did believe that.

01:58:07.060 So it's very curious.

01:58:08.160 Like where, where was this little girl?

01:58:09.920 Like was she accompanying Casey?

01:58:12.720 And where was Casey going?

01:58:14.180 She wasn't working.

01:58:14.820 You mean prior to the 30-day period.

01:58:16.480 That's prior, but even during the 30-day period.

01:58:18.560 Now during the 30-day period, Casey is saying a couple of things, right?

01:58:21.880 She's up in Jacksonville or she's like in Tampa. 0.51

01:58:25.860 And then her car broke down and she was in a car wreck.

01:58:28.960 Or maybe there was a hospital at some point.

01:58:30.940 I can't remember exactly.

01:58:32.380 I don't remember that.

01:58:32.980 Yeah, everything she relates.

01:58:34.720 But Cindy, Casey's mother, is really getting frustrated because she's, you know, she wants

01:58:40.500 to see her granddaughter.

01:58:41.740 She needs to see proof.

01:58:42.920 The two of them had fought, as I said, the day before, you know, on Father's Day that night.

01:58:47.000 They had fought and, you know, there was some talk about, you know, Cindy saying, if you

01:58:50.880 don't get in better shape as a, you know, take care of this child, you know, I'm going

01:58:55.460 to file to adopt her.

01:58:58.420 Let me say, though, that at trial, there was the only evidence about Casey as a mother was

01:59:04.340 good evidence.

01:59:04.920 Like she was a very doting, good mother.

01:59:06.700 However, Cindy may have begged to differ only because I think that that Kaylee was left 0.99

01:59:12.680 with her grandmother a lot, that Casey was gone, especially closer in time to when the

01:59:17.660 child disappeared because Casey had a new boyfriend and it was sort of a new life and

01:59:21.300 he was working at a club and, you know, it was kind of a new life and she maybe she wanted

01:59:25.360 her freedom.

01:59:25.960 That was part of the prosecution.

01:59:26.980 Well, and didn't he testify that she that he said he did.

01:59:30.380 He had no interest in becoming the father, a father.

01:59:33.140 Correct.

01:59:33.700 Right.

01:59:34.080 Also.

01:59:34.640 Right.

01:59:34.840 Now, around July 5th or so, she got a Bella Vita tattoo, beautiful life tattoo, which also

01:59:42.700 is something that the prosecution pointed out, you know, their theory being, look, you know,

01:59:46.660 maybe she knows her daughter's dead and she's celebrating her daughter's life through this

01:59:51.580 tattoo.

01:59:52.680 She's in a hot body contest. 1.00

01:59:54.200 I seem to recall around the June 20th, something, the hot body contest.

01:59:58.720 She's wearing that short blue dress.

02:00:00.700 So these are the things she's doing that she says.

02:00:04.260 And but if I could just jump back, I'm actually looking for my daughter.

02:00:07.060 Let's just jump back to the to Zanny, the nanny, because what she did, she told the police, 1.00

02:00:12.060 I left her with the Zanny, the nanny, and then I went to pick her up and she was gone.

02:00:16.680 And I, you know, I've been looking for her.

02:00:19.840 And so the cop said, do you know where Zanny, the nanny lives?

02:00:22.500 And she says, yes.

02:00:23.360 And they said, OK, would you take us there?

02:00:24.860 She took them to an apartment.

02:00:26.320 They went to an apartment and it was empty and it hadn't been leased for months.

02:00:30.900 There wasn't a stitch of furniture in there.

02:00:32.260 So there had been no Zanny, the nanny living there in that apartment and nobody had been

02:00:37.960 living there for months.

02:00:40.280 So, you know, this is not none of this is consistent with a woman who, in fact, had the experience

02:00:44.800 she was claiming to them.

02:00:45.920 Um, then they, she told them that she'd been working at Universal, as I mentioned, and they

02:00:51.400 said, OK, let's go.

02:00:53.680 I think she said she needed her keys or something from Universal.

02:00:56.060 So they said, OK, let's go.

02:00:57.100 Let's go to Universal and we'll get them.

02:00:59.060 OK, fine.

02:01:00.240 But she didn't work at Universal.

02:01:01.700 So she managed to talk her way through the front security guards with the with the police,

02:01:07.620 with her.

02:01:08.040 They get through.

02:01:08.640 They get in.

02:01:09.180 She gives them all sorts of names.

02:01:10.540 I worked with this guy.

02:01:11.460 I work with that guy.

02:01:12.600 These are made up names.

02:01:13.440 They would later find out she's making up names. 1.00

02:01:15.920 And then she got past a couple more people and said, oh, yeah, where's my office?

02:01:20.300 She gets turned around.

02:01:21.120 And then, as Cheney points out, she was at one point where she got lost.

02:01:23.880 She went down a corridor.

02:01:24.740 There was no way out.

02:01:25.420 She turned around.

02:01:25.920 She gave it up and said, I don't work here.

02:01:28.520 And yes, they knew.

02:01:29.220 But the point is lies, lies, lies, lies, lies at every turn.

02:01:35.300 And this is what one of the many reasons it's not just I smelled a dead body.

02:01:39.880 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.

02:01:58.360 Right. So all of this goes into our perception on the outside, Cheney, of Casey Anthony and is, you know, I don't so far.

02:02:07.980 I don't see where we're going wrong.

02:02:09.400 I'm open mind.

02:02:10.560 I'm wanting you to walk me through it because I'm much as I did it.

02:02:13.960 I'm open minded to a different story.

02:02:15.500 I'm not saying that your perception is wrong because I saw it nationwide, if not worldwide.

02:02:22.980 People believe the same sort of things about her.

02:02:26.800 There's no question about that.

02:02:28.640 There's no question that she did not tell them the truth about a lot of things.

02:02:33.460 The question is, is why and how conscious was she of that?

02:02:39.800 You said something I want to correct about going into universal.

02:02:43.240 So the universal people had already been informed by the sheriff.

02:02:46.720 They knew what they were doing.

02:02:47.940 They were waiting for him to come out there and do that.

02:02:50.580 What I'm always, you raised earlier is another coincidence.

02:02:53.420 I've never understood.

02:02:54.620 Zaneda Gonzalez.

02:02:56.580 Where do you get a name like that?

02:02:58.080 And then have a coincidence that there was a person by that name that had applied for an apartment at this place.

02:03:07.140 That never made any sense to me at all.

02:03:10.420 Well, there's a whole lot of things that make sense to me.

02:03:13.720 Of all these things.

02:03:14.920 Why are you even raising that?

02:03:16.620 Are you suggesting still to this day that there was a Zaneda Gonzalez who had babysat Kaylee and then what?

02:03:23.460 Then Kaylee went home and drowned in the pool after that? 0.63

02:03:26.700 Like, what are you, why are you even mentioning it?

02:03:28.540 How is that relevant?

02:03:29.180 I'm not saying it for that reason.

02:03:33.560 I just thought that when you raised the issue about this Zaneda Gonzalez, if nothing else, it's a hell of a coincidence.

02:03:40.660 There is no evidence that she ever had that baby.

02:03:43.180 It actually turns out to be a very common name.

02:03:45.900 No, my point is, we know that's a lie.

02:03:48.400 Like, you don't have to dispute, debate me on whether that's a lie.

02:03:51.520 We know that's a lie.

02:03:52.740 Even according to your side, that's a lie.

02:03:54.640 The child was killed, according to you, in the swimming pool.

02:03:57.500 She drowned and George found her.

02:03:59.240 I said in the intro died by homicide because that is what the medical examiner said.

02:04:03.800 But according to you, she died in the swimming pool.

02:04:05.420 So, like, there was no Zanny the nanny who ran off with little Kaylee, right?

02:04:09.640 Yes, but it's not proper for you to keep saying she was killed.

02:04:14.100 She died.

02:04:14.520 She died by homicide is what the ME said.

02:04:18.340 Homicide by indeterminate means.

02:04:22.040 What?

02:04:23.900 By indeterminate means, correct.

02:04:25.500 But what I said, once again, Cheney, was 100% correct.

02:04:29.640 She died by homicide.

02:04:30.740 Check the report.

02:04:31.680 Much more with Cheney and Beth Karras coming up.

02:04:33.880 We're going to get to the trial, this infamous trial that would rock the nation for a long time.

02:04:39.520 This is one of those things where people could tell you the names of the attorneys.

02:04:42.240 We're dying for information about the jury and so on and so forth.

02:04:45.060 We'll pick it up there in a minute.

02:04:46.100 So, let's go to the day that they, Casey Anthony is in jail and she's charged with first-degree murder, but they haven't yet found a body.

02:05:00.860 And then they do.

02:05:02.660 Beth, can you take us to, because, you know, weirdly, the man who found the body, who was a meter reader,

02:05:11.120 would wind up becoming a central figure for a time in this case.

02:05:16.240 There were all these reports about him and it was like, I remember asking myself, why is he anything other than the man who found the body?

02:05:24.360 Like, how did he become more interesting than that?

02:05:27.280 So, can you explain that?

02:05:28.720 Explain how he found little Kaylee's remains.

02:05:31.060 Yes, indeed.

02:05:32.520 I'm pulling a lot of this from memory, so you might have to fill in a couple of facts here.

02:05:37.200 But his name is Roy Cronk.

02:05:38.620 Now, that day was December 11, 2008.

02:05:41.800 There was a hearing in the Casey Anthony case that day.

02:05:44.520 In fact, I seem to recall that was the day that Jose Baez waived speedy trial.

02:05:51.160 And not unusual, you know, for the defense to do that, I mean, in my experience.

02:05:56.040 But we were all in Orlando, like the media was at the courthouse because it was yet another hearing.

02:06:01.560 I remember being at a, you know, like a little cafe next to the courthouse where all our satellite trucks were.

02:06:08.320 And there was a TV monitor on the wall.

02:06:11.200 And all of a sudden, like a breaking news story comes on, a body found, and we all turn around, we're staring at it.

02:06:19.060 I was with Kerry Sanders from NBC.

02:06:22.820 And they're like, Katie may have been found.

02:06:25.640 We all went racing out of that place.

02:06:28.720 I couldn't up and leave with our satellite truck.

02:06:31.080 We were parked there, so I had to wait.

02:06:32.560 Everyone else, NBC and others, are on their way to the scene as close as they could get to where the tents were being set up and a grid was being created.

02:06:44.320 And it would be days of sifting through this property, this wooded area, a quarter mile from where Casey Anthony lived with her parents.

02:06:53.680 And that's where the remains were found.

02:06:55.640 Now, the man who called it in, this meter reader you're talking about, Roy Cronk, claims that he had actually found the body in August or a skull or something in August.

02:07:08.640 And he called it in a couple of times in August, and he wasn't being taken seriously.

02:07:13.640 Like a deputy showed up and did a cursory search.

02:07:16.280 This is like a really dense wooded area, which, by the way, had been a storm that summer of 2008.

02:07:22.640 And that area had been flooded at one point, but it was no longer flooded by December.

02:07:28.040 And Roy Cronk, you know, goes back there, he says, to relieve himself because there was an elementary school just down the street, across the street, but down from where the body was found.

02:07:37.420 And so he now has reported, again, having found a skull, and it's now taken more seriously.

02:07:45.280 I'm not quite sure why there wasn't a more thorough search before.

02:07:48.800 It might have been because it was flooded.

02:07:50.520 Maybe the deputy was afraid of the snakes or whatever.

02:07:52.800 But she should have been found a lot earlier than December 11th.

02:07:58.540 So Roy Cronk, it's suspicious.

02:08:00.780 I mean, he does call it in months earlier and finally calls it in again on December 11th.

02:08:06.180 So that's a little weird.

02:08:08.160 But there is evidence the body wasn't actually moved.

02:08:11.320 There were scattered remains.

02:08:12.720 I mean, she's skeletonized, and she's in pieces, regrettably.

02:08:17.540 But she had been in a couple of bags.

02:08:20.580 The loss of evidence, like the DNA and so on, over that time, it would have been much more useful to have it in hand earlier versus when they found it.

02:08:29.020 Sure, and her remains were spread because of animal activity. 1.00

02:08:31.780 But there was a laundry bag, a cloth laundry bag that matched one because it had been a set of two that matched another one in the Anthony home.

02:08:40.180 So it came from the home.

02:08:41.860 And I don't think anyone's really disputing that.

02:08:44.980 In fact, you know, the defense facts that they or their their their version that they they put forth from openings on was that, you know, yes, she died at home.

02:08:56.400 It was an accidental drowning and her body was disposed of.

02:08:59.420 So not really refuting that the bag, you know, belonged to the home.

02:09:02.300 But that was pretty clear.

02:09:03.860 So, I mean.

02:09:04.540 But there was something else much more important that they found on the body than than the bag, which was the duct tape.

02:09:10.180 Get to that.

02:09:10.760 The tape.

02:09:11.060 Yeah.

02:09:11.600 So.

02:09:12.200 So, you know, when Cheney described how the the somebody from the sheriff's department came to the local TV station, it said it was wrapped around the head.

02:09:19.820 I mean, it really wasn't like wrapped around the head like that.

02:09:22.180 I only saw photos.

02:09:23.360 I didn't see the actual skull.

02:09:25.240 I only saw photos.

02:09:26.720 But that her hair was in the back.

02:09:30.320 She had long hair.

02:09:30.980 Hair was in the back of the skull.

02:09:32.800 And there was like the lower jaw should have come up, should have been separated from the rest of the skull.

02:09:39.880 Right.

02:09:40.500 Because everything is is.

02:09:41.940 It was skeletal.

02:09:42.900 But it wasn't.

02:09:44.140 And the tape was kind of holding holding it together.

02:09:47.420 It seemed like the tape and the hair was all stuck together there.

02:09:50.180 So it was in the front.

02:09:52.740 You know, there's a lot of slippage.

02:09:54.460 But like, why is there tape there?

02:09:56.420 You know, like that.

02:09:58.000 That was what really got the.

02:09:59.220 They're like.

02:10:00.540 Prosecution was like, yeah, there's no reason to put tape on a skull.

02:10:03.440 And wasn't there a heart sticker?

02:10:06.780 No.

02:10:07.000 Yeah, I mean, well, there was a criminalist who was looking at the at the tape and saw the shape, but this heart shape.

02:10:16.640 But then it like went away.

02:10:17.880 Right.

02:10:18.460 It was like it was like seen and but not captured in a photo or anything.

02:10:22.520 So it was just a testimony is my recollection.

02:10:24.900 And I think that it was never like I don't know if it was proven.

02:10:28.860 I don't know.

02:10:29.160 Somehow it was disposed or disintegrated or something.

02:10:31.700 I can tell you about that.

02:10:34.780 The heart shaped sticker was found on a piece of trash about 40 feet from the remains and more closely across the street from the elementary school.

02:10:45.420 It was never connected to this forensic scene.

02:10:49.180 But other than it was found and talked about.

02:10:51.480 And Beth is right about the slippage and the duct tape was not all around the head.

02:10:59.120 The duct tape had been on the top of the bag.

02:11:01.980 And when the decomposition happened and the skin and the material and the hair, there was a part of the hair that had tape, duct tape on it.

02:11:16.380 But there wasn't any actually on the skull.

02:11:19.800 And Dr. Werner Spitz testified about all that and about the body.

02:11:24.300 One thing that you said wasn't important, I think both of you are pointing out, was why was Mr. Kroc not taken seriously about finding the body?

02:11:35.000 He did.

02:11:36.100 I think, Beth, it was three times, if I remember correctly, that he called and reported and said, hey, I'm out here.

02:11:43.740 I found this.

02:11:45.120 Looks like a skull to me.

02:11:47.380 And they just ignored him.

02:11:48.780 And it was like the second or third time they finally sent a deputy.

02:11:54.320 I don't remember his name.

02:11:55.960 And I don't think it's in my book.

02:11:57.760 But a deputy came out to meet him.

02:12:00.600 Beth, you'll remember this.

02:12:01.980 The deputy slipped on the wet grass.

02:12:04.480 And he fell down.

02:12:05.920 And he sold his uniform.

02:12:07.900 And he was mad about that.

02:12:10.420 And that was the end of that investigation.

02:12:12.780 That exact spot, just so you'll know, was 17 feet and nine inches from the curb of Suburban Drive.

02:12:21.200 And that's a very short distance to not have been found.

02:12:25.720 It had been searched by horseback people, as we call the Kissimmee boys on four-wheel drives.

02:12:33.180 Because numerous volunteer walkers and searches had covered that area and every square inch of it for a long time.

02:12:43.240 But can I, I mean, I see the point you're making, Cheney, which is like, why wasn't it found if it had been there the whole time?

02:12:48.100 But the reports were that they had massive flooding during that period that we're talking about, that four months,

02:12:55.200 and that there was as much as four feet of water in which the body may have been immersed for a lengthy period of that time.

02:13:01.620 Well, that was suggested, but that wasn't the testimony.

02:13:08.360 The hydrology expert that the state had from the University of Florida came and tested all around all of that geographical area and did not find that.

02:13:18.820 We don't know.

02:13:20.380 And I'm only 78 years old, and I still don't know, and I'm not going to know how that body was there, if it was there all that time.

02:13:29.900 There's a certain reason to believe that the body had been moved and brought back there.

02:13:35.920 Can they ever prove that?

02:13:37.040 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.

02:13:42.560 Can't do it.

02:13:43.560 All I can say is it's unreasonable to expect that the body was 17 feet and nine inches from the curve of the road,

02:13:51.040 which was a half a mile from the Anthony house that was searched by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people during that whole circus event and didn't find her.

02:14:01.500 My recollection was that there was actually like plant material growing up through the skull,

02:14:05.900 which indicates it was there the entire time, but it had not been moved.

02:14:09.660 I don't remember that that is the case.

02:14:13.560 I remember Dr. Spitz talking about how there was at the base of the skull inside, there was some dirt.

02:14:22.540 There may have been some.

02:14:23.840 I don't think there's anything growing through the skull, but I could be wrong about that.

02:14:27.300 But there was some growth around it.

02:14:29.720 OK, let me just back up and say this on behalf of the sheriff's department there.

02:14:35.080 They have basically suggested they were they were overwhelmed with tips from, you know, this case is getting national attention.

02:14:42.040 They had tons of people calling.

02:14:43.400 They had kooks calling.

02:14:44.380 They had legitimate people calling.

02:14:46.000 And this guy says, hey, I work for the city.

02:14:47.860 I'm a meter reader.

02:14:48.680 You should be listening to me when I call in.

02:14:51.800 Obviously, it would have been much more helpful to have the remains earlier rather than later.

02:14:55.060 But it's just it's a piece of this case now.

02:14:56.680 Now, and, you know, for better or for worse, that's when they did ultimately find her.

02:15:02.180 The so they go to trial.

02:15:04.540 And can we just spend a minute talking about Jose Baez?

02:15:07.180 Because I had not seen him on the national stage.

02:15:11.080 I was pretty young in my reporting and legal.

02:15:14.000 Well, older, my legal tenure, but young in my journalistic tenure.

02:15:17.940 And my understanding is maybe, Janey, you can speak to this.

02:15:20.760 But my understanding is when he got on the Casey Anthony case, he wasn't one of the most storied criminal defense attorneys in town.

02:15:29.940 Like what put Jose Baez in perspective for us then at the moment he came on to represent her?

02:15:37.000 Jose was a young lawyer.

02:15:40.100 I think he had only been a lawyer about five years.

02:15:43.960 It may have been.

02:15:44.880 I think that's accurate.

02:15:45.940 He had worked at a public defender's office in South Florida.

02:15:49.580 He was up here and he was working.

02:15:52.960 He was taking cases and going to court.

02:15:55.800 You know, that's all young lawyers do routinely.

02:15:59.660 I had never heard of him, never met him, never knew anything about him until he started calling me for suggestions and strategies and questions and so forth.

02:16:12.820 And that evolved into finally asking me to get in the case.

02:16:16.440 You know, I've made mistakes before in my life, but I agreed to do this and I thought it was a good one.

02:16:23.580 When I met this young lady, I didn't believe she was guilty.

02:16:27.120 I've seen her several times since then.

02:16:28.860 You did or did not believe her?

02:16:30.720 Did not.

02:16:31.560 And I know her well enough to some extent like that.

02:16:34.480 She came to my wife's funeral a few months ago and I spent some time talking with her.

02:16:41.360 My attitude has not changed about her.

02:16:43.860 My explanations are never going to satisfy you and millions of other people.

02:16:48.300 And I got it.

02:16:48.960 I can live with that.

02:16:49.680 Well, no, listen, I have my beliefs having covered it and having, you know, had some experiences as a journalist and a lawyer.

02:16:54.700 But I'm I'm I'm giving you an open mind to convince me.

02:16:57.920 That's why we're doing these stories.

02:16:59.740 So you have somebody who's probably more open minded than most of the people you're going to get in the journalist chair.

02:17:04.420 And I appreciate you doing this.

02:17:05.640 We're going to pick it up on the opposite side of this break.

02:17:07.300 Much, much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Karras.

02:17:09.480 Don't go away.

02:17:15.720 The trial.

02:17:16.440 So you you get brought in by Jose Bias Cheney and you you actually were very well known.

02:17:22.900 You were former president of Florida Association of Criminal Lawyers,

02:17:26.440 had been selected by Florida Monthly Magazine as one of Florida's top lawyers.

02:17:31.840 And you, I read, were disgusted by the local media coverage about the relatively inexperienced Jose Bias saying that you had been offended by it.

02:17:42.920 It was one of the reasons why you want to get involved.

02:17:44.660 Why?

02:17:45.040 What was wrong?

02:17:45.900 Well, I detailed that, by the way, in my book, because the Orlando Sentinel newspaper had published a story and expose on Jose's personal life.

02:18:01.120 Of being behind in alimony payments or something and criticizing him, I thought it was very unfair.

02:18:08.460 I didn't know him.

02:18:09.340 He was just a young lawyer and I'm a senior lawyer and I felt like it just simply wasn't fair.

02:18:15.800 So I said, wait a minute.

02:18:18.260 Let me let me respond to this.

02:18:20.180 Because at that point in time, the prosecutor being enlisted as the lead prosecutor was Jeffrey Ashton.

02:18:27.460 In reality, the lead prosecutor was Linda Drain-Burdy.

02:18:30.780 But Mr. Ashton, they were talking about how he was Mr. Good Guy and all these sort of things.

02:18:39.300 Well, I pointed out to them that he had been personally criticized in several appellate court opinions, reversing convictions because of his misconduct professionally.

02:18:53.740 And Beth will tell you that I probably, of course, don't mention the names of the lawyers when they reverse them.

02:18:59.480 It's pretty rare that they'll actually identify the person they say did wrong.

02:19:04.700 So I wanted to press, you know, treat this kid fairly.

02:19:07.780 That's all.

02:19:08.700 He's one of my people.

02:19:09.980 You know, treat him fairly and go to trial.

02:19:12.320 Well, I mean, what's so extraordinary about it is he wasn't that well known.

02:19:16.820 It wasn't like, you know, Robert Shapiro or, you know, whatever.

02:19:20.820 Alan Dershowitz.

02:19:21.860 It was like, who is this Jose Baez?

02:19:24.160 Representing this defendant on the biggest case in the country at the time.

02:19:28.960 And as we now would, as we all now know, that he managed to secure an acquittal, which left the nation slack-jawed.

02:19:37.000 I mean, speaking of Robert Shapiro, that was the other case that was probably of equal notoriety, like where somebody got found not guilty and the country just couldn't get over it, couldn't accept it, couldn't believe it.

02:19:48.340 Beth, can you, I'll give you this one because I want to, then I want to get Cheney to sort of put some meat on the bones. 0.89

02:19:54.160 But take us to the moment of Jose's opening statement because that's the, that was the moment.

02:20:01.020 I mean, that was the moment I would say the case was won for him, lost for the prosecution.

02:20:06.880 They never seemed to recover their footing.

02:20:09.480 Right.

02:20:10.080 It's my understanding the prosecution got word about maybe six weeks before the opening statement about what their position was going to be.

02:20:16.100 Maybe not quite that much time.

02:20:17.960 But that it was going to be an accidental drowning.

02:20:20.880 Jose Baez, the whole defense team, played their cards very close to their vest.

02:20:24.840 People did not know where they were going.

02:20:28.640 You know, this was a case that where there weren't many surprises because the law is so liberal and open about documents being made available to the public.

02:20:38.680 Right.

02:20:39.420 It's the sunshine state.

02:20:41.040 So, so we knew we, the media, we all had like 25,000 pages of discovery.

02:20:46.080 There were, there weren't going to be any surprises from the prosecution's team because we knew what the investigation was.

02:20:52.040 So the surprise came from the defense when Jose said she wasn't murdered, that she drowned, that it was an accident and George found her.

02:21:01.720 And then, and people were like, what?

02:21:04.300 Like, where is this coming from?

02:21:05.660 And that's when I was like, there's no way he's going with this.

02:21:08.320 Like, cause she's been sitting in jail for three years. 1.00

02:21:10.320 There's no way he would have, you know, he's going to go with an accident defense.

02:21:13.900 But, you know, what do I know?

02:21:16.080 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?

02:21:26.920 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.

02:21:39.380 I credit Cheney with the acquittal and his summation, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

02:21:45.340 Um, but when, when, um, Jose said in the opening that it was an accidental drowning, and then

02:21:52.380 he started talking about Casey being sexually abused by her father.

02:21:57.440 Now, wait, cause the audience at home is like, wait, what?

02:21:59.760 Right?

02:21:59.960 Like they took a, it was a huge turn.

02:22:03.140 And our audience at home just had the same turn we all had at the time, which is, wait, what?

02:22:07.560 But, and that's, no, that's what the prosecution got word of in advance, a few weeks in advance.

02:22:12.740 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?

02:22:20.820 Probably, probably it was, but, um, if this, you know, were the truth.

02:22:25.240 Um, but yeah, so we hear that George has been sexually abusing Casey since she was a little girl. 0.99

02:22:30.720 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. 0.99

02:22:40.840 And, and, and that she learned how to live a life of lies. 1.00

02:22:45.100 She learned how to be a really good liar because of that. 0.92

02:22:47.660 Okay.

02:22:47.920 So he's like opened this whole can of worms.

02:22:52.180 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?

02:23:02.080 Cause you know, George was the first witness right after openings and he denied it.

02:23:05.160 And he's like, well, no, not necessarily.

02:23:06.940 I'll put it on to the psychiatrist.

02:23:08.380 I said, yeah, no, you won't.

02:23:09.840 You got to put Casey on.

02:23:11.300 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.

02:23:19.900 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.

02:23:27.080 And you can't comment on it, you know, as a prosecutor at the end, because a defendant has a right to, to remain silent.

02:23:34.460 And that's what happened here.

02:23:36.140 He made us think that Casey was going to testify.

02:23:39.380 And then maybe Cheney talked him out of it or something, but she didn't testify in the end.

02:23:46.520 And that proof of sexual abuse was never put before the jury, sexual abuse by George.

02:23:52.680 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, even though you rang the bell and opening statements.

02:24:01.420 And as they say, you can't really unring the bell.

02:24:03.340 And that taint was there on the prosecution case on George Anthony throughout the trial.

02:24:08.460 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.

02:24:14.320 Did the prosecution, did the prosecution move for a mistrial after that?

02:24:18.720 I mean, I realize normally it's the defense that does that, but the prosecution can do it.

02:24:21.960 Did they?

02:24:23.040 I don't recall that now.

02:24:24.740 No.

02:24:25.020 Okay.

02:24:25.440 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.

02:24:29.320 I don't know.

02:24:29.840 And they're still thinking they're going to win.

02:24:31.100 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.

02:24:34.280 They don't want to mistrial.

02:24:35.080 They they're fine with this one.

02:24:36.780 Well, when something, I mean, there are a lot of counts and there were lessers.

02:24:40.760 I mean, maybe not capital murder, but maybe some lesser degree of a homicide.

02:24:45.440 But I just remember on that first day thinking, wow, Casey, for them to put this stuff on.

02:24:51.560 I mean, Casey's got to testify.

02:24:52.760 How else are they going to get it in?

02:24:54.440 Yeah.

02:24:54.740 And there was no.

02:24:55.380 So just to be clear, a lawyer's opening statement is not an lawyer's closing argument.

02:24:59.660 They're not evidence.

02:25:00.940 That's not, it's just sort of a directional offering for the jury.

02:25:05.320 It's not considered evidence.

02:25:06.460 So technically, the jury shouldn't have been thinking about that when they went back into the deliberation room.

02:25:11.280 But, you know, the seed had been planted.

02:25:12.920 As Beth says, it's hard to unring that bell.

02:25:15.220 Now, I know, Cheney, that you you wrote, I think, a story in your book about telling George, I got to give you a heads up.

02:25:23.180 We saw some because there were some letters, I think, Casey wrote to like some guards in jail accusing him.

02:25:29.520 And he later said, George gave an interview saying he claimed it was Jose Baez who said, I'm going to throw you under the bus.

02:25:36.680 So did you guys, what's your recollection of the what you said to George about what's coming?

02:25:42.600 I told George in my office with the permission of his lawyer and in a few minutes later, also Cindy gave him notice that what was going to happen.

02:25:58.560 That George is going to be accused of sexually molesting his daughter.

02:26:05.340 I wanted to see his reaction.

02:26:07.060 I can tell you that if someone accused me of molesting my daughters or all my granddaughters, there would be a real issue. 1.00

02:26:18.540 It would be me bonding out of jail for having gone across the desk and kicked her ass. 0.99

02:26:24.180 But so I felt the need to tell him. 0.99

02:26:27.600 All George did was just look and sigh, put his hands on his legs and no other response.

02:26:34.960 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.

02:26:47.920 Won't let you know this.

02:26:49.820 And I did.

02:26:51.700 I thought it was the ethical thing to do.

02:26:54.400 And I did.

02:26:57.220 I don't know what impact the whole thing had or didn't have.

02:27:01.100 But I will tell you that when Jose made the opening statement the way he did, I was surprised.

02:27:08.700 I guess I was pretty good at keeping my old face calm.

02:27:12.160 But I was surprised as many people because I did the same analysis that both you and Beth have.

02:27:19.620 You make that kind of accusation, you got to prove it somewhere.

02:27:22.860 And it's a really bad situation for a defense lawyer or either side to make promises to a jury that they cannot deliver on.

02:27:34.200 Jurors remember it.

02:27:35.860 And while you can say that opening statements and closing statements are not evidence, that's all book BS because jurors listen to it.

02:27:46.960 They do a lot of things they're not supposed to do.

02:27:49.620 And they do it on every trial.

02:27:51.040 Well, hello.

02:27:53.000 Yeah, sorry.

02:27:53.460 I was just adding in the lawyers have authority.

02:27:55.280 They have a relationship with the lawyers.

02:27:56.820 Oh, yeah.

02:27:57.740 Yeah.

02:27:58.100 Well, and the point is that we give in if we really, really want to have pure jury verdicts that were reliable.

02:28:07.180 Every juror would be sequestered in every case and they wouldn't have any access to any of the information except what was in the courtroom.

02:28:16.820 Well, we can't do that.

02:28:18.060 I mean, I, you know, 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.

02:28:29.480 So, but it's ideal.

02:28:30.820 And you'd have to sequester them right from the moment of the crime all the way through to the beginning of the trial.

02:28:35.820 Because that's when they take in all the spin.

02:28:38.760 Yeah.

02:28:39.220 Well, you're never going to get that done already.

02:28:41.360 So, we do the best we can with trying to give instructions.

02:28:47.800 And, I mean, if you went back, went back to the selection of the jury in this case, it was an interesting process.

02:28:54.880 600 people we interviewed.

02:28:56.760 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.

02:29:03.740 So, yeah, I don't know that it's a perfect system.

02:29:05.980 I don't know how to do it.

02:29:07.860 So, let me ask you this, because I've talked to a lot of the lawyers in O.J. and other cases.

02:29:12.160 But the O.J. case, I watched a lot of it was going down while I was in law school.

02:29:16.220 And I think O.J. Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

02:29:22.060 But I can see how that jury reached its verdict, separate and apart from a nullification issue.

02:29:27.600 I can see how they could have honorably, honestly found that the prosecution did not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

02:29:33.980 I don't agree, but I can see it.

02:29:35.980 What do you think it was, Cheney, about this case that had the same effect on this jury, right?

02:29:41.660 Like, what do you think your best facts were or your best pointing, poking holes in the prosecution's facts were?

02:29:51.000 Well, I don't know.

02:29:52.380 I can say there was a major difference.

02:29:55.760 1991, the O.J. case, there was no Internet, Facebook on all the social media, was there?

02:30:03.360 It was just starting, yeah.

02:30:06.880 I had to get to Casey Anthony, and it was dominating the news basically all day of every day for a very long time.

02:30:20.680 And so people were focused on it.

02:30:22.500 I've been asked so many times why this case is opposed to others.

02:30:29.240 This was because there was a young, cute mother with an absolutely adorable little baby victim, and they were white. 0.94

02:30:41.660 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.

02:30:54.680 If it probably had been a young African-American mother and child, it may have been in the newspaper.

02:31:03.340 That may not have been.

02:31:04.760 It never in hell would have been what this case is.

02:31:08.860 I also think class matters.

02:31:11.160 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.

02:31:21.520 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.

02:31:29.720 This one seemed to be a nice family.

02:31:31.760 The dad was a former sheriff's deputy, the granddad, I guess.

02:31:37.400 It seemed to be a loving set of parents to Casey.

02:31:40.140 She looked like an all-American girl in terms of, like, smiley and bubbly and, you know, hadn't been a career criminal anyway.

02:31:47.900 So it was like, okay, there's a real mystery here because the daughter's missing, right?

02:31:52.120 It was like we all need to pull together to find the daughter.

02:31:54.660 So it had a lot of elements that would attract news coverage, you know, and I understand the whole missing white woman syndrome arguments. 0.57

02:32:03.660 And they're not totally wrong, but I do think class plays a lot into it as well.

02:32:06.920 And these people, they weren't lower socioeconomic class.

02:32:11.380 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.

02:32:17.020 I want to talk to you about that moment, right?

02:32:21.040 Because we all watched it.

02:32:22.280 It was like the O.J. Simpson, you know, we, the people, find that case of Orinthal J. Simpson.

02:32:26.860 She stumbled on it.

02:32:28.200 I can remember where I was.

02:32:29.740 This one, I actually was in the newsroom.

02:32:31.620 But the moment this happened and they read it, I'll just take the top of This is Soundbite number four.

02:32:39.860 It's kind of long.

02:32:40.400 I'll cut it off after the first one.

02:32:41.520 But let's take a let's take a look back at that moment as to the charge of first degree murder verdict as to count one.

02:32:48.620 We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.

02:32:51.340 So say we all did it at Orlando, Orange County, Florida, on this fifth day of July 2011, signed for person.

02:32:59.720 As to the charge of aggravated child abuse.

02:33:02.240 And you can see the relief, you know, flood over her face, obviously, as anybody would be.

02:33:08.020 What was going through your mind at that moment, Cheney?

02:33:10.080 Were you, were you shocked?

02:33:13.820 No, I really wasn't.

02:33:15.600 And because I have some secrets about looking at jurors when they come in a courtroom.

02:33:20.680 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.

02:33:29.500 What'd they do?

02:33:30.060 Well, they look at the defendant.

02:33:35.140 They won't look at the defendant if they're guilty.

02:33:39.880 One or two of them might.

02:33:41.540 But they come in and do that.

02:33:44.620 You can say, I certainly wasn't confident about it.

02:33:49.200 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.

02:33:58.580 And I'm reading his face.

02:34:00.620 And it was very clear that he wasn't real happy about this verdict.

02:34:05.120 He spoke out about it later.

02:34:06.380 He was on Dr. Oz saying he definitely thinks she's guilty.

02:34:08.860 Well, he said a lot of things he probably shouldn't have.

02:34:14.080 But like he said, when the defense lawyer is like car salesman or something, I don't know where the hell he got that.

02:34:19.980 But the bottom line is that the clerk, you didn't play all of it because, of course, you can't.

02:34:27.320 But the first thing, when she first started reading it, she stuttered over the not guilty part of it.

02:34:33.640 Oh, my Lord.

02:34:34.580 Well, yeah.

02:34:35.820 And briefly, but, you know, you're so tense there.

02:34:39.680 I mean, look, I'm not sure of the statistics.

02:34:45.560 My wife had kept a calendar on stuff. 0.94

02:34:47.700 And I remember her best estimate was I have tried something in excess of 350 criminal jury trials in state and federal court.

02:35:00.480 That's a lot.

02:35:01.240 And fortunately, I've done pretty well.

02:35:05.960 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.

02:35:15.900 When they first, I kept thinking, well, maybe one of the others, maybe one of the others.

02:35:20.560 And then and then, you know, three, boom.

02:35:23.320 And then, of course, the the four counts of lying to the police, you know, who cares?

02:35:29.460 I mean, at that point, four misdemeanors and she'd already served three years in jail.

02:35:35.800 Yeah.

02:35:35.940 So that was done.

02:35:36.660 And the jury came to its verdict quickly.

02:35:38.640 Really, for them, it was an easy decision, though they are now speaking out.

02:35:44.220 That's where I want to pick it up after this break.

02:35:46.440 What the jurors are saying, it's fascinating to me and also what she is up to now.

02:35:52.780 I'll leave you with this thought.

02:35:53.540 But it's very bad to stumble on the word not when reading a not guilty verdict.

02:35:58.380 Indeed.

02:35:59.080 But that that clerk is in good company.

02:36:00.960 I'm thinking about Chief Justice John Roberts when he messed up the oath for Barack Obama.

02:36:06.260 Remember, they had to do it again privately behind the scenes.

02:36:09.920 It happens to the best of us.

02:36:11.740 OK, stand by much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Karras coming up two minutes away.

02:36:15.500 So I guess I should ask you, too, Beth, for your your best take on what was the evidence

02:36:26.680 you felt like the jury either ignored, refused to see, didn't get to hear that the rest of

02:36:31.500 us did, because the vast majority of America is convinced that she did it right and does

02:36:37.120 not agree with this verdict.

02:36:39.680 Right.

02:36:40.120 So, you know, we asked jurors to use their common sense.

02:36:44.940 Right.

02:36:45.660 And really, I understand where the prosecution was coming from, because it sure looks like

02:36:50.820 Casey is responsible for something.

02:36:53.220 She should not have been acquitted of everything, even neglect.

02:36:56.380 I mean, I think one of the charges was neglect or a lesser.

02:36:59.640 So that that was surprising to me.

02:37:02.020 So I think the jurors simply ignored this mother who didn't report her daughter missing.

02:37:08.120 You know, there's there's something in there besides those four misdemeanor lying to police

02:37:12.280 officers.

02:37:12.640 I think there was a lower level felony.

02:37:14.600 She could have been convicted of.

02:37:15.900 But what was insurmountable for the prosecution was this allegation of sex abuse by George,

02:37:22.700 which was never proven.

02:37:23.820 And the jurors were told not to consider it.

02:37:25.380 But that was there.

02:37:26.720 That was the elephant in the room.

02:37:28.620 But also, Cheney's summation to the jury was very effective because he wasn't talking

02:37:35.840 about the defense proof.

02:37:37.100 He's talking about the prosecution's proof, because that's what mattered.

02:37:39.320 Did they prove every element of every crime beyond a reasonable doubt?

02:37:43.440 And he kept hammering to the jury that the prosecution did not give the jury evidence of

02:37:49.380 how Haley died, where she died, when she died, who was with her when she died.

02:37:57.200 But really, it was how she died and when she died and where she died.

02:38:01.040 And he just kept hammering that.

02:38:02.940 And that had to have been effective with the jurors.

02:38:05.040 I never spoke with the jurors.

02:38:06.520 But the other thing I wanted to say, two more things, is that a finding of not guilty is

02:38:12.100 not a finding of innocence.

02:38:13.260 It just simply means the prosecution did not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

02:38:17.620 Secondly, I was sitting in the balcony of the courtroom.

02:38:21.080 There was a balcony in that courtroom.

02:38:22.440 It was a courtroom at the top of the courthouse, I think, that sort of designed for media coverage

02:38:28.540 and high-tech stuff to present to the jury with evidence.

02:38:32.920 And so we were relegated to upstairs, a small balcony.

02:38:36.320 So I'm there sort of craning my neck, watching the jury on the left and Casey and the defense

02:38:41.360 team on the right, the judge straight in front of me, but from a bird's eye view.

02:38:45.720 And I didn't have Cheney's point of view, so I couldn't see jurors.

02:38:51.440 But I was aware that the man who became the jury for a person, he connected with Casey.

02:38:56.360 I'd seen that on a prior day as jurors were filing out of courtroom.

02:38:59.580 He was in the back row, and he stood there, and he stared at her, and he lingered looking

02:39:03.340 at her.

02:39:03.840 And I thought, uh-oh, that doesn't bode well for the prosecution.

02:39:07.400 Anyway, when I heard the first not guilty, I thought, surely there's going to be a

02:39:11.260 guilty somewhere.

02:39:12.040 And I just leaned back and took a deep exhale and thought, oh my God, I was as surprised

02:39:16.840 as everyone that there wasn't some guilty of a, some level of felony.

02:39:22.960 Can we just round back to two other points I neglected to mention, which get raised on

02:39:28.100 why people think she's guilty?

02:39:30.600 The chloroform, there was testimony that the guy who tested the trunk found the odor of

02:39:38.740 decompensation, found one hair that was consistent at the edges with Kaylee's hair and may have

02:39:49.400 had some decomposition on it.

02:39:51.460 And then there was an allegation that there had been Google searches on the family home.

02:39:57.640 I mean, I've heard everything from a whole litany of searches of like, how do you kill

02:40:00.960 somebody?

02:40:01.360 How do you make homemade weapons?

02:40:02.800 To for sure, they testify that there was a search done for chloroform, for chloroform.

02:40:08.180 You know, there was a search on chloroform.

02:40:10.140 And to the point where Cindy Anthony had to take the stand and say, it was me.

02:40:13.260 It was I who searched for the chloroform.

02:40:15.260 And I don't know if the jury bought that or not.

02:40:18.480 But can you just speak to the evidence of like the forensics?

02:40:21.140 I'll give it to you, Beth, and then I'll let you respond, Cheney, which I can see you

02:40:23.500 want to.

02:40:24.360 So this was a faux pas, I think, on the part of the prosecution.

02:40:26.960 Not that they introduced this, that they didn't do enough because only after the trial,

02:40:31.780 I think it was in Jose's book, but I heard Jose talking about it.

02:40:35.640 He knew the defense team knew that there were a lot more searches for chloroform than what

02:40:40.660 the prosecution knew because the prosecution only checked one search engine and didn't

02:40:44.300 check Firefox, only check Mozilla or vice versa.

02:40:47.340 And Jose, and I assume you too, Cheney, knew that there were a lot of searches for chloroform,

02:40:53.180 but it didn't come in because they didn't, the sheriff's department did not search all

02:40:58.720 of the search engines on Casey's computer.

02:41:02.500 And when Cindy got on the stand and said, I was searching because, I don't know, one of

02:41:06.640 my tree, something chlorophyll, chloroform, it was, it just sort of defaulted to the wrong

02:41:11.340 word.

02:41:11.820 I recall her saying, it didn't make sense because she was punched in at work at the time

02:41:16.440 she says she, you know, at the time of the search, she was actually at work.

02:41:19.320 So, you know, that, that didn't fly, you know, with some people, but then they found

02:41:24.240 some, didn't they, Beth, they found some chloroform in the back of the trunk?

02:41:29.920 No.

02:41:30.540 I don't remember.

02:41:31.900 Okay.

02:41:32.160 I don't recall that.

02:41:33.100 No.

02:41:33.500 Okay.

02:41:33.700 I thought that there was, there was some evidence.

02:41:36.060 I'll look it up.

02:41:36.860 There's something to that effect in the record.

02:41:38.300 I'll, I'll pull it up for you.

02:41:39.340 Go ahead.

02:41:39.880 Kucheney, what, what, handle the chloroform and the searches.

02:41:43.900 As far as the searches are concerned, you're talking about computer stuff and I'm not the

02:41:49.160 best guy to do that.

02:41:50.380 I like my generation of dealing without them.

02:41:53.340 The bottom line is, as in my book, I have made it very clear that the man who was in charge

02:42:00.140 of all that corrected the error that the state had made and said there was only one church,

02:42:07.180 one, for chloroform.

02:42:10.660 Secondly, the odor of the trunk or whatever it was from that, not only did I go and sit

02:42:20.380 in the trunk and smell it and do as, as rest of the spy experts did.

02:42:27.120 I hired a forensic expert, college professor, PhD, who did studies of the air samples that

02:42:38.260 had been taken.

02:42:39.120 And what they found on the, on the graphs of the analysis was not chloroform.

02:42:49.360 It was surprisingly gasoline.

02:42:53.380 There was no detection of chloroform.

02:42:56.300 Now there was this, this guy who studies roadkill.

02:43:00.000 I know his name, I'm not going to repeat it, it's in the book, that had talked about how

02:43:08.000 he had all these body farm issues and we went up to go through all that in Knoxville,

02:43:15.160 Tennessee, what odors were and they captured odors and they tried to show us that there

02:43:22.520 was a graph produced that showed spikes of chloroform or something and that turned out

02:43:30.660 not to be accurate.

02:43:32.940 And there was never any chloroform found in any way residual or otherwise anything to do

02:43:40.940 with this case, no matter how many labs and government officials tried to do so.

02:43:48.600 And the reason they did.

02:43:49.940 But can I just ask if we're talking about the same thing?

02:43:51.400 This is where I got it from.

02:43:52.880 This is an ABC News report, June 22nd, 2011.

02:43:56.440 A forensic chemist, I think this is your guy, whose name you were searching for, Michael

02:44:02.120 Sigman. 0.95

02:44:03.180 Yes.

02:44:03.980 Yeah.

02:44:04.560 He testified in the Casey Anthony trial.

02:44:07.360 He said today the car belonging to the mom accused of murdering two-year-old Kaylee did

02:44:11.520 not test positive for human decomposition.

02:44:14.380 He is a chemist at the National Center for Forensic Science.

02:44:16.700 He said that air samples from Casey Anthony's car trunk tested positive mainly for gasoline,

02:44:21.520 chloroform and two other chemicals were present.

02:44:25.980 So there was chloroform.

02:44:27.340 But the question is, from what?

02:44:29.360 And what does that tell us?

02:44:31.260 Okay.

02:44:31.580 So what it did tell us, there was such a minimum amount.

02:44:34.340 They used another car that was bought at random from the prosecution.

02:44:40.520 Uh, I can't remember where it was now, uh, same make, model of the car year and everything.

02:44:47.140 And they brought it in and they tested it and they cut out carpet from the trunk, the same,

02:44:52.600 and they got the same readings from this random car as they were in Casey's car.

02:44:58.100 So unless there's just a lot of people hauling bodies around in old Fords, it just, it just

02:45:03.240 was not, it was not reliable.

02:45:05.540 Did the owner of that car do searches for chloroform on the, on the internet?

02:45:11.100 No, the, the, the government, the government did.

02:45:15.420 Can I add about what, what, what Cheney said, um, about the searches on the computer?

02:45:20.740 He's right that, um, a witness got on the stand to correct the, the record.

02:45:27.160 And it was actually one search, but that was on one search engine.

02:45:30.280 And there was another search engine that the prosecution didn't discover that Jose Baez

02:45:34.820 talked about after the trial that had a lot of, a lot more, um, how do we explain that?

02:45:40.720 How do we explain the multiple, multiple searches for chloroform?

02:45:45.780 Well, there weren't, that's what she's trying to tell you.

02:45:48.180 Yes, there were.

02:45:48.800 No, she's saying there were.

02:45:49.920 Yes, she's, no, she's on my side.

02:45:51.280 Another search engine on another search engine.

02:45:53.880 Yeah.

02:45:54.180 There were, um, more searches, more, and there might've been for more things too.

02:45:58.660 Yes.

02:45:58.980 Homemade weapons.

02:45:59.680 Is that breaking a neck?

02:46:00.800 Yeah.

02:46:01.360 Breaking a neck.

02:46:02.340 It's a, hold on.

02:46:03.220 I wrote it down.

02:46:04.380 Something like, uh, how to chloroform, how to make breaking a neck, suffocation, undetectable,

02:46:10.840 how to make homemade weapons.

02:46:12.600 And that's pretty good evidence for the prosecution.

02:46:15.520 Pretty speculative evidence, but no forensic connection whatsoever.

02:46:19.500 They had first claimed there were 84 searches for chloroform on this computer.

02:46:25.020 I know you said that, but.

02:46:26.680 I think that was the number.

02:46:27.880 And then the people that did that correctly said, no, there wasn't, there was only one.

02:46:32.740 And when you put it up.

02:46:34.160 On the one search agent, but you can get multiple search engines on one computer.

02:46:37.540 That's what that's trying to say.

02:46:38.380 So on the one, they had overstated it on this one search engine and they had to take it back

02:46:42.440 down to just, oh, sorry, just one on the one search engine.

02:46:45.120 What she's saying is according to Jose's book, and I've read this in news reports as well.

02:46:49.780 There were multiple searches for chloroform on the other search engines on that computer.

02:46:55.240 They were very interested in that house in chloroform and other ways of killing somebody.

02:47:00.420 And they never found any chloroform anywhere.

02:47:02.960 That's the important part.

02:47:04.120 Except the trunk of the car.

02:47:05.100 She's saying, I know, I know your point about the other car, but this one has extra circumstances.

02:47:11.080 All right.

02:47:11.260 I get it.

02:47:11.700 Listen, I get it.

02:47:12.560 Let me talk to you about this juror.

02:47:14.100 I found this fascinating, fascinating.

02:47:17.180 A male juror spoke with People Magazine, I think it was.

02:47:20.640 Yeah, People Magazine right after the trial.

02:47:22.600 And then in the trial was the verdict was in 2011.

02:47:25.380 And then they just spoke with him again, 10 years later, in 2021.

02:47:29.660 And just let me read part of it to you guys and to the audience, because I'm sure not everybody's

02:47:34.380 seen this.

02:47:35.480 A month after, he said to people, look, none of us liked Casey Anthony at all.

02:47:40.380 She seems like a horrible person, he said.

02:47:42.380 But the prosecutors did not give us enough evidence to convict.

02:47:46.020 They gave us a lot of stuff that makes us think she probably did something wrong, but not

02:47:50.320 beyond a reasonable doubt.

02:47:51.340 Ten years later, writes People, the same juror has been rethinking the case.

02:47:55.960 Quote, I think of the case at least once every single day.

02:47:59.240 It was such a strange summer.

02:48:01.080 I knew that there was public interest in the case, but it wasn't until after I was sequestered

02:48:05.180 that I realized the whole world was watching.

02:48:09.480 Then it says the juror said he found the prosecutors to be arrogant.

02:48:15.240 They did not like the prosecution.

02:48:16.680 Man, it really is important what the lawyer's relationship is with the jury.

02:48:19.980 While lead defense attorney, Jose Baez, was the one in the room who seemed like he cared.

02:48:26.700 They said the other lawyer, Cheney, can be argumentative at times, but winds up being a

02:48:31.560 charmer.

02:48:32.060 No, that was me, Cheney.

02:48:37.180 He goes on.

02:48:41.040 His focus now is on little Kaylee.

02:48:43.800 Every time I see her face or hear her name, I get a pit in my stomach.

02:48:47.040 It all comes flooding back.

02:48:48.320 I think about those pictures of the baby's remains they showed us.

02:48:51.420 I remember Casey.

02:48:52.400 I even remember the smell of the courtroom.

02:48:54.680 And then says this, the enormity of the acquittal bothered them in the jury room. 0.85

02:48:59.780 And then we sat there for a few minutes and we're like, holy crap, we're letting her go 0.93

02:49:02.980 free. 0.65

02:49:04.000 Everyone was just stunned at what we were about to do.

02:49:06.300 One of the women jurors asked me, are you okay with this?

02:49:08.740 And I said, hell no.

02:49:10.260 But what else can we do?

02:49:11.260 We promised to follow the law.

02:49:12.980 Now this juror says he might have done things differently.

02:49:15.840 This is your point, Beth.

02:49:16.780 My decision haunts me to this day, he says.

02:49:20.300 I think now if I were to do it over again, I'd push harder to convict her of one of the

02:49:24.440 lesser charges like aggravated manslaughter, at least that, or child abuse.

02:49:28.960 I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I didn't stand up for what I believed in at

02:49:33.740 the time.

02:49:35.120 Whoa.

02:49:36.280 What do you make of that, Cheney?

02:49:37.600 I'm not surprised.

02:49:41.380 People rethink, question themselves about things they do in their daily life all the time.

02:49:49.580 And I understand that fellow talked about now he would have second guesses.

02:49:54.060 Well, people, like I say, do that about their own personal lives all day.

02:49:59.760 Oh, I wish I had to said that, or I wish I had thought of this or something.

02:50:03.860 Well, the other thing is, then he gets out and there's all sorts of blowback, I'm sure.

02:50:08.280 You know, the jurors remain anonymous, but get all this blowback and you're thinking, oh

02:50:12.180 my God, maybe I got it wrong.

02:50:13.540 And we see more evidence and different evidence and experience these cases in a different way

02:50:20.580 than the jury does, which is why we have to respect their decision.

02:50:24.160 You can't, you can, you can second guess it for yourself and say, well, I don't agree

02:50:27.200 with it.

02:50:27.460 That's fine.

02:50:27.940 But you have to be, treat the jury with honor because unlike the rest of us, they sat there

02:50:32.160 and had the experience, the best we can offer as a justice system.

02:50:36.740 I have yet to see one that does it better than we do.

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02:51:12.200 For today's episode of Hot Crime Summer, we are diving deep into the world of cults with

02:51:19.020 two former cult members.

02:51:20.980 Later, we'll be joined by Dr. Stephen Hassan, one of America's leading cult experts.

02:51:26.700 And as a former cult member himself, we'll tell you how he got recruited.

02:51:29.980 He was a totally normal guy.

02:51:31.200 He was an adult.

02:51:32.040 He was like in his 20s when he got lured in.

02:51:34.200 He now helps individuals and families who have been trapped in cults.

02:51:38.700 But we begin with the story of Michelle Dowd.

02:51:42.080 Michelle was born into the ultra-religious cult called The Field, run by her maternal grandfather.

02:51:48.620 He convinced generations of followers that he would live 500 years and ascend to the heavens

02:51:54.820 when doomsday came.

02:51:56.660 Michelle spent 10 years of her childhood living on a mountain, suffering from all sorts of abuse

02:52:02.180 and severe poverty.

02:52:04.240 There, she was forced to learn skills necessary to survive.

02:52:08.320 Michelle eventually gained the strength to flee the cult at 17 years old and is now a professor

02:52:13.440 and author and totally candid about what life was like for her in that environment.

02:52:20.320 She tells her story in her new book, Forager, Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.

02:52:31.340 I'm fascinated by your entire story.

02:52:34.080 If you don't mind, I'm sure you've told a million times, but if you don't mind, let's start at the

02:52:38.340 beginning.

02:52:39.220 So you were born into a cult.

02:52:43.800 So how did that happen?

02:52:46.160 Well, yes, indeed I was.

02:52:48.100 In fact, my mother was born into the same cult.

02:52:50.820 My grandfather was a young man from Oklahoma, was orphaned in his teenage years.

02:52:57.160 Some debate on how old he was because he often exaggerated the truth or sometimes completely

02:53:04.120 misled people.

02:53:05.320 But in any case, he came to L.A., Hollywood area sometime in his teenage years and began

02:53:10.500 working as a Boy Scout leader when he was unable to have the control that he wanted as

02:53:15.540 a Boy Scout leader.

02:53:16.340 Then he left.

02:53:18.640 He kind of segmented off and created his own organization, which by 1931 started to show

02:53:23.700 up in newspapers.

02:53:24.360 So I was able to look back at that.

02:53:26.840 So for sure, they were an organization by then.

02:53:29.760 And he started taking boys up to the mountains.

02:53:32.140 Then he started a Bible band and he started giving young boys opportunities to, I don't 0.98

02:53:39.960 know, just like to be part of a community if they didn't have a sense of belonging.

02:53:43.420 So in the 1940s, my father was, he came to California with his mother, who was a single

02:53:49.160 mom who was running away from an abusive husband.

02:53:52.440 And she was hiding in California in a chicken coop, actually.

02:53:55.580 And my father joined my grandfather's cult when my mom was a young girl.

02:54:02.320 And so they were married off to each other later.

02:54:04.740 And I came along a couple of decades later, along with, I was the second of four children.

02:54:09.900 So this cult had been around for a very long time before I was born into it.

02:54:14.360 And you were, where did you live?

02:54:16.540 It's hard for me to understand because I know when you were little, I know you lived sort

02:54:20.060 of more in, I don't know if we, if we would say a city environment of, I remember reading,

02:54:23.540 it was like nearby a town dump.

02:54:26.000 So you were with people and things and access to, you know, things that we all know in our

02:54:31.820 towns for some time before you went to this just remote mountainous area.

02:54:37.280 Absolutely.

02:54:37.920 My grandfather actually started the organization in Pasadena, which is just east of LA.

02:54:41.980 Oh, we were living when I was a baby and into my early years until I was seven on the border

02:54:50.100 of El Monte.

02:54:51.220 So there was a dump that we lived next to.

02:54:54.140 And there was also a area that they kind of dug out at the end of a cul-de-sac where even

02:55:00.000 before I was born in the 1950s, my grandfather leased land from a business owner.

02:55:06.580 So it was private land that he leased.

02:55:09.100 And my father was one of the teenage boys who literally constructed the buildings there

02:55:13.800 at a cinder blocks.

02:55:15.260 So I was raised on the border of that until I was seven.

02:55:20.000 So I went to public school when I was five, six, and seven.

02:55:22.900 And then after a fire and some other occurrences, we had nowhere to go.

02:55:27.540 And so my grandfather who had leased a mountain property, I believe in 1947 from the government,

02:55:33.400 then moved our nuclear family up onto the mountain.

02:55:37.220 And I stayed there until I finally left the cult, which you'll have to read the book to

02:55:43.380 find out.

02:55:43.880 Yeah, no, no, right, right.

02:55:44.980 But that was about 10 years later?

02:55:47.500 Well, yeah, I stayed there for 10 years until I got out.

02:55:52.140 It's crazy to me how you lived.

02:55:54.600 You know, part of me, I speak only of the survival skills here, but part of me was envious of all

02:56:01.680 the things you learned about how to take care of yourself.

02:56:04.940 And then there was the sexual abuse and other abuse and lack of love and all the other things,

02:56:09.380 which we'll talk about.

02:56:10.180 But can we just spend a minute on the survival skills and how you did survive up there and

02:56:15.380 how your mother knew all of this to teach you?

02:56:17.900 I want to pay tribute to my mother who passed last year for teaching me how to not only survive

02:56:27.280 in the wilderness, but how to appreciate the great intricacies and interdependencies of

02:56:32.820 the ecosystem that is north of Los Angeles.

02:56:36.100 And that has served me in many ways throughout my life, not because I any longer need to survive

02:56:41.700 in that way, but because I know that the earth can provide for us.

02:56:46.840 And it is also just a wonderful gift to be able to recognize different birds, different

02:56:52.980 animals, and many, many, many plants.

02:56:56.560 My mother's knowledge was self-taught.

02:56:58.820 She was, I guess, obsessed would be the word. 0.98

02:57:05.260 She was obsessed with learning every single thing in our ecosystem.

02:57:08.360 So she was so skilled, in fact, and knowledgeable that government workers at the ranger station

02:57:14.860 that was not too far away, we weren't allowed to go there, but my mother did when the men

02:57:19.160 weren't around.

02:57:20.100 So let me just go back one second and say that it used to be an entirely male organization.

02:57:25.040 And my mother was born into this 100% male organization.

02:57:28.940 She had three older brothers.

02:57:30.440 And so she was very used to figuring out how to get around whatever the rules were.

02:57:35.020 And her father actually did find her unique and intelligent.

02:57:39.780 And he gave her more leeway, I think, than anyone else had in the cult.

02:57:45.660 It's tough for a cult that has only men to survive.

02:57:48.820 So good move.

02:57:50.920 They eventually brought in women. 0.92

02:57:52.620 But yes, you're very astute at that.

02:57:55.040 But let me say that at the beginning, my grandfather just had followers that he demanded be celibate.

02:57:59.400 So in the 1930s, he had some young men who followed him, who stayed with him all the way

02:58:05.920 until his death in the 1980s.

02:58:08.200 And so I know for a fact, because I knew these men, they, I can't attest for sure that they're

02:58:13.760 celibate, but they were alone.

02:58:15.160 And they stayed with him for a very long time.

02:58:17.840 And it wasn't until my mother got into her 20s that I think he recognized that he needed

02:58:22.360 to allow women to be in the organization. 0.62

02:58:24.820 So she married one of his early followers and after she was the very first marriage

02:58:30.000 at the fields.

02:58:31.660 And there were women who then married into the organization afterwards. 0.54

02:58:35.160 And there were lots of girls, still male dominated, but there were girls and women after my mother

02:58:41.420 got married.

02:58:42.740 So how did you live?

02:58:44.700 Were you in a tent?

02:58:45.660 Like describe your living circumstances to us.

02:58:48.040 Well, when we first came to the mountain, which was in the fall, when I was almost eight,

02:58:54.520 we lived in a mess hall.

02:58:56.360 So a mess hall is, you know, that's what it was called, kind of a military quarters, but

02:59:00.460 it was one room and there was a big stone fireplace.

02:59:03.140 So we were not out in the cold.

02:59:05.580 We had an outhouse down the hill.

02:59:07.860 So I don't know how far away the outhouse was, less than a quarter of a mile.

02:59:11.700 And we would walk down to the outhouse and there was a sink.

02:59:14.800 So there was some running water and in the kitchen and the kitchen and the great room

02:59:19.480 and all these army bunks.

02:59:21.280 It was all in one room.

02:59:22.220 And so we slept on army bunks.

02:59:24.780 And what were you eating?

02:59:26.320 Because I know food was always an issue.

02:59:29.500 Well, interestingly, and I have this a little bit in the book, we did forage for acorns and

02:59:35.620 other lots of nuts.

02:59:37.840 We were not killing animals.

02:59:39.020 We were living off of plants, so plant-based diet.

02:59:41.340 But the government actually gave us surplus.

02:59:44.960 So there were times, not immediately, but I don't know exactly how long in, where they

02:59:49.260 would come by and unload from a truck whatever was available.

02:59:53.520 So cans of peanuts or carol syrup, sometimes fruit cocktail, and sometimes blocks of butter

03:00:02.660 and sometimes cheese, depending on, you know, what the government had as surplus at the time.

03:00:06.760 So it's very interesting that we were living on government land, even though the government

03:00:11.720 didn't know what we were doing there.

03:00:14.080 Yeah.

03:00:14.680 And that must have felt like such a delicacy to get some fruit cocktail and some cheese

03:00:19.320 after foraging for acorns.

03:00:22.080 Absolutely.

03:00:22.780 I don't even know if we were supposed to eat it, but we used to go into, there was kind

03:00:26.540 of a dug-in walk-in and my sisters and I would sneak in there and get the food because

03:00:31.380 we had a can opener.

03:00:32.160 So we would, yeah, it was an incredible delicacy and I'm very grateful to the government actually

03:00:36.580 for that program, at least at that time.

03:00:39.260 So it was, we have an army Jeep that my, my father also got from a government surplus.

03:00:43.900 So he had been drafted and he was very militaristic.

03:00:48.860 He, that was the training that he got that he believed helped him become a man.

03:00:52.800 And so he trained all his children, girls, and the one boy that he had to work in a military

03:00:58.600 system, you know, which we were not military, but we were trained to behave as if we were.

03:01:03.620 Well, I was going to say that the deprivation was a feature, not a bug.

03:01:07.020 So can you expand on that?

03:01:08.200 Because it was a life of deprivation.

03:01:11.900 Thank you for noticing that you, you have very astute observations.

03:01:16.240 It was a feature.

03:01:17.240 It was intentional.

03:01:18.260 The deprivation was to help us for one, leave the army of God in the time of the apocalypse.

03:01:23.820 So they believed that there would be a thousand years of a reign of terror on the earth and

03:01:30.060 that we would have to live without.

03:01:32.400 And that as we were hiding in the rocks of the mountains, that if we could survive on

03:01:37.160 very little, then we would be able to outwit the, I mean, honestly, it was, I think a little

03:01:44.820 psychotic because, well, very psychotic, but they, they, both we received things from the

03:01:49.380 government, but they also feared the government.

03:01:50.820 So they thought that whatever political leaders might be coming next would be our enemies.

03:01:56.180 And so we would need to survive without having access to the things that ordinary citizens

03:02:00.980 had access to.

03:02:03.220 Beyond the food, a very strange approach to love, tenderness, affection, even by your parents

03:02:12.980 toward their children.

03:02:16.260 Yes.

03:02:17.080 You know, they would not have called it a cult.

03:02:19.420 They did not call it a cult.

03:02:20.840 They called it a community.

03:02:23.200 And my younger brother, who I call Danny in the book, he came to me after reading this

03:02:28.460 book.

03:02:29.000 He hasn't read a book since he was a teenager and he got a copy in the mail and he read

03:02:34.120 it the first night.

03:02:35.560 And then he drove to my house from Santa Barbara.

03:02:37.760 And he said, you know, the one thing you got wrong is it's not that they would sacrifice

03:02:43.300 us.

03:02:43.780 It's that they did sacrifice us.

03:02:45.960 And so he was able to have a conversation with our father and who is still alive.

03:02:50.540 And our father said, it's not a cult and he won't read the book or have anything to do

03:02:54.660 with me.

03:02:55.080 But my brother stood up and he said, but dad, if grandpa had told you to put us all in the

03:03:00.580 mess hall and set it on fire, you would have done it.

03:03:03.300 And he said, yes, I would have, but I didn't.

03:03:07.780 So it wasn't a cult.

03:03:09.320 So my father knows that he was absolutely at the mercy of whatever our grandfather, which

03:03:16.020 was not his father.

03:03:16.900 Remember, it was his father-in-law who he didn't really call that.

03:03:19.660 He called him Mr.

03:03:20.560 But he really, truly believed that our grandfather would tell him he was the God's prophet and

03:03:27.500 he would tell him how to behave in the world.

03:03:31.660 And my father resigned all forms of critical thinking.

03:03:34.920 He just gave up any sort of alliance to us, any sort of caretaking.

03:03:40.000 And my mother as well, they believed that God was in control and that God's word would

03:03:45.180 be given to them through grandpa.

03:03:49.420 When you're, you spoke a little bit about this, but when your dad arrived into the relationship

03:03:52.960 with your mom, like what was, what had been his background?

03:03:55.800 You mentioned military, but what had been his background that he was, I mean, I suppose

03:04:00.420 we're going to get into this later, but like that made him susceptible to that.

03:04:05.280 Well, first, I think almost anybody is susceptible to the kind of mind control and these high control

03:04:10.460 groups that really charismatic leaders know how to orchestrate.

03:04:16.020 But in my father's particular case, he was 12 years old when he met my grandfather.

03:04:20.360 My father came from the East coast.

03:04:23.580 He came from Connecticut with his mother on a bus.

03:04:26.500 He didn't know where he was going because they were running away from an abusive man who

03:04:30.440 my mother was married or sorry, my grandmother was married to.

03:04:32.800 His father was abusive to him and to his mother.

03:04:36.680 And so they ran away and they came to California and they were living in a chicken shed when my

03:04:42.140 father met my grandfather.

03:04:43.880 So my grandfather provided a father figure and also provided some someplace for my dad to go.

03:04:50.360 Because his mother was working in a factory.

03:04:52.340 She was the only woman working in a post-World War II factory in the 1940s when they arrived

03:04:57.460 here in California.

03:04:58.440 And I don't think she knew what her son was doing.

03:05:01.240 I think she was a wonderful, she did her best to be an attentive mother, but she just

03:05:05.020 didn't have the time.

03:05:05.900 She had an eighth grade education.

03:05:07.160 That's the furthest she ever got in her life.

03:05:09.320 She lived to be in her nineties.

03:05:10.800 And I had the great blessing of being with her during her death.

03:05:14.800 But at the time she just didn't have any resources.

03:05:17.500 And so her son went and joined this cult and she tried to get him out later when she realized

03:05:22.460 it, when he was like 18 or 19, but he wouldn't leave at that point.

03:05:25.420 It was too late.

03:05:26.600 So yeah.

03:05:27.620 And this particular cult preyed on only children.

03:05:31.400 So they didn't, you couldn't be an adult who joined the cult.

03:05:34.080 They culled from at the time only boys, but they had an afterschool program and lots of

03:05:40.440 boys joined.

03:05:41.180 Not all the boys were hurt by the organization.

03:05:43.520 A lot of boys, I think, got training, sports training that was really useful in their lives.

03:05:48.180 But if a parent was capable of seeing that it was a high control group, a lot of times

03:05:52.560 the kid was a play for two or three or four years in, on the sports teams.

03:05:57.120 And then the parents would say, that's enough.

03:05:59.220 Now we're going to go to high school or, you know, whatever they were going to do.

03:06:02.020 And, and they were allowed to leave, but it was the boys who were compelled and who worshiped 0.99

03:06:07.800 my grandfather and who really found their greatest sense of belonging there, who were taken through

03:06:12.560 layer after layer of testing and basically training to be bullies.

03:06:17.740 And they would not be allowed to then, they, they signed a commitment for life forms.

03:06:23.240 They couldn't sign those until they were 18 years old, but nobody could come there at

03:06:27.120 18.

03:06:27.460 They all had to be groomed during their early years in order to get to the point where

03:06:32.280 they really would sign their lives over as adults.

03:06:34.840 I mean, you were born into it, but how are they getting girls? 0.94

03:06:40.220 Well, I, the word I used was groomed, but they, the women were also, they didn't get 0.99

03:06:45.020 girls until my mom was of age.

03:06:46.980 So they would just be celibate.

03:06:48.780 They didn't get married.

03:06:50.460 But my father was the very first boy.

03:06:53.520 They called him.

03:06:54.320 He was almost 30, but he was the very first boy who was allowed to marry at the organization.

03:06:59.140 And so he married my mother, who's the founder's daughter.

03:07:02.600 And that was kind of a Royal wedding.

03:07:05.060 They had it at the fields.

03:07:06.440 My grandfather officiated.

03:07:08.200 I've seen all the pictures.

03:07:09.800 And then I was the second child born out of that marriage.

03:07:13.180 But there were no, there weren't marriages before that. 0.99

03:07:15.940 And so once we were born, then there had to be something there, they had to figure out

03:07:19.900 what to do with the children.

03:07:20.980 And so they allowed marriages then. 0.78

03:07:22.680 And those women were the sisters of the other members.

03:07:25.760 And they were also then groomed to be wives and mothers. 0.96

03:07:30.100 And to be fair, some of those women had access to resources from their parents. 1.00

03:07:36.820 We didn't because my mother, you know, was born there.

03:07:39.840 And then my father didn't have any resources.

03:07:42.200 His mother, after he was 19, I believe, she moved to the East Coast and we didn't see her

03:07:46.400 for decades.

03:07:46.960 But my understanding and my knowledge of the other families were there were families who

03:07:53.360 were there that their parents sometimes, especially if there were children involved, would send

03:07:57.800 the grandkids money for food and other things.

03:08:00.080 We just didn't have access to that.

03:08:02.220 And the other cult members who were raised there, I'll just give you an example.

03:08:06.200 The first nine kids that were born there.

03:08:08.300 So even though I was the second in my family, I was the fourth oldest child who was born into

03:08:13.960 this cult.

03:08:14.560 And of the first nine of us, which were all within two years of age, the other eight are

03:08:20.600 all still there, just to put that in perspective.

03:08:24.000 How many people were in the cult when you were there?

03:08:27.300 So there were about 150 in the inner workings of the cult, but they were culling from about

03:08:33.460 1,500 boys at any given time.

03:08:35.860 So they would bring boys in and they wouldn't stay, you know, and they also would hide what

03:08:40.500 they were doing from their parents.

03:08:41.840 And I, I don't think this is happening anymore, but at the time it had been happening for decades.

03:08:49.880 So this of course helps explain to some extent, some of the sexual abuse.

03:08:55.120 I mean, just the sheer numbers of boys versus girls, and you were one of very few.

03:09:03.660 It's interesting how you write about it and how your mother talked to you about it.

03:09:07.180 I, I, again, there's like a, a tinge of affirming life advice in here, but it doesn't discount

03:09:17.200 the overall trauma of the event.

03:09:19.040 Like you were sexually abused repeatedly from what you write in the book.

03:09:24.560 And tell us how, let's talk about that first.

03:09:27.420 Then we'll talk about your mother's messaging to you on it.

03:09:31.800 So I am aware that I was not the only one who was abused, but I also am aware that it

03:09:37.760 was not something that happened to all the girls. 1.00

03:09:39.920 Um, in our particular case, we were very vulnerable because our mother would go on these trips,

03:09:48.080 which she'd be gone for two to three months. 0.56

03:09:50.520 And she would go with the men.

03:09:52.180 So like all the men would go, but she would go with her husband. 0.83

03:09:54.380 So she was protected on these trips.

03:09:55.980 She was also with her father.

03:09:57.960 And we were often left with, I have since, since I read the book, um, some of the caregivers

03:10:04.140 that I had when I was a baby have, um, come out of the woodworks who left the cult and

03:10:08.380 have written me letters and asked to meet me.

03:10:11.220 I went to coffee with one recently.

03:10:12.660 She was only 15 when she left the cult, but she was my caregiver when she was, you know,

03:10:19.100 12, 13, 14, 15, um, until my mother's, uh, no longer allowed girls to take care of us. 1.00

03:10:26.320 But in any case, um, our particular family was very vulnerable because we just didn't have

03:10:31.940 any other relatives other than the ones who were there and the boys, they called them

03:10:36.480 boys.

03:10:36.920 I believe, I do not believe anyone under 18 ever assaulted me.

03:10:42.180 I believe that the, the youngest one that I know of who I did know very well was 19 at

03:10:47.580 the time I was seven.

03:10:49.220 And I think that they were babysitting us and they had access to our bodies.

03:10:56.960 And I don't know that it was condoned, but I think that it was, it was overlooked.

03:11:03.120 And these, these young men really, honestly, I'm not, I'm not obviously condoning it, but

03:11:07.880 I, they were very unhealthy and they did not have access. 0.96

03:11:11.560 They were not allowed to masturbate. 0.84

03:11:12.760 For example, my grandfather was adamant about that. 0.88

03:11:14.680 So like very strict and like vocal, um, requirements that they stay chased.

03:11:22.560 And then they just sort of like put them around young girls.

03:11:26.920 So again, it was a really unhealthy environment for them.

03:11:29.280 And I feel that, um, you know, they were, I do feel that they were victims too.

03:11:33.660 You know, it was a different kind of, but I think they were.

03:11:36.300 Yeah.

03:11:37.440 May I ask how often this happened to you?

03:11:41.540 Well, I, I went through this frequently for about a year when I was seven.

03:11:47.080 Um, I don't know that it happened, um, before that I don't have memories of really being

03:11:52.780 younger than seven, but the thing about being seven was there was a big fire.

03:11:56.020 A lot of things happened.

03:11:57.240 And this type of abuse ended for me at that point, because we left to go up to the mountain.

03:12:03.800 And when we first got to the mountain, it was just our nuclear family.

03:12:06.340 And my father was not sexually abusive.

03:12:08.500 So my father was very militaristic and, um, could be unkind, but he was not sexually abusive

03:12:14.460 and neither was my grandfather to me at least.

03:12:17.080 So we were separated from that culture. 0.91

03:12:19.960 And then we had a lot of young men living with us and things were, um, I would say inappropriate,

03:12:27.900 but I, I did not get physically violated.

03:12:32.060 I think it was just sort of an emotional thing after that.

03:12:35.020 And I'm very, very, very grateful for, um, spending the time we did on the mountain because

03:12:40.340 it removed me from the really most damaging effects of the cult.

03:12:44.880 Can we talk about what your mom said?

03:12:47.900 Because the reason I said, there's like a tinge of something positive that you could

03:12:52.500 take away if you, you know, God forbid you find yourself in this situation.

03:12:55.940 And it was, it was basically to try not to think too much about it.

03:13:03.700 And I know that sounds absurd.

03:13:05.580 That sounds absurd.

03:13:06.660 I realize, trust me, I know enough sexual abuse victims that it sounds absurd, but if

03:13:11.180 you can do it, it's a very useful coping technique for a lot of people.

03:13:16.480 And I know somebody, a Hollywood star who told me this story about when she was young and she

03:13:24.600 was raped by a few boys in the neighborhood and sexually assaulted, and she didn't really

03:13:32.680 understand what it was fully, you know, she didn't totally understand what had happened 0.94

03:13:36.800 to her.

03:13:37.380 And her mother told her, you just forget about that.

03:13:42.440 Like that, don't, don't give that any mind.

03:13:44.440 You know, that's what boys do.

03:13:45.960 Some boys, whatever, but like, that doesn't have anything to do with who you are.

03:13:49.460 That wasn't nice to them, but don't dwell on it.

03:13:51.660 And I was like, when I heard the story, I'm like, that's terrible.

03:13:54.600 My God, the amount of damage that must've been done.

03:13:57.000 And she was like, no, it actually really, it gave me this box to put it in.

03:14:02.240 I managed to put it in there and I was fine after that.

03:14:06.940 So that's when I was reading your story.

03:14:09.200 I'm sure a lot of people have the same reaction of like, oh my God, that's horrible.

03:14:13.300 But were you able to compartmentalize?

03:14:15.820 Because your mother was very dismissive of this.

03:14:17.720 I definitely compartmentalized.

03:14:22.280 And I think that there is value to that when you need to move on and survive.

03:14:29.420 And so there were, yes, I had compartmentalized, I had boxes for everything, including literally

03:14:35.400 a box where I kept my writing, which I was able to finally break the lock on literally

03:14:41.100 when I was getting ready to write this book and I had not read what I had written in, you

03:14:46.120 know, 35 years or some ridiculously long period like that.

03:14:50.240 But when it comes to, and I'm not going to make a claim for what is healthy for anyone

03:14:54.740 else, but I will say for my healing process, the fact that my mother made it seem as if I

03:15:02.260 was not damaged, but that it was, again, a byproduct, as you said, of sort of what boys

03:15:09.980 will be boys, there is something that is useful about that because you don't blame yourself.

03:15:16.900 Later, I ended up blaming myself because I got very sick and there was a lot of complications

03:15:22.100 about that.

03:15:22.660 But at the time, it really helped me see myself as just kind of a vessel, which sounds horrible,

03:15:32.740 but like I was a vessel for God's will or whatever, but I was like I'm a vessel that

03:15:36.440 the boys used and then, you know, they were done.

03:15:40.060 And so then I became myself again.

03:15:42.680 And even at seven, Michelle, I mean, seven is a baby.

03:15:47.380 Yes, yes, it is.

03:15:48.700 It is.

03:15:49.040 And I'm not saying there was no damage, you know, but at the time I was able to function

03:15:56.160 and it wasn't until later in life that, and stuff that I had memories, I mean, I always

03:16:01.080 have the memories, but I also felt that there was a lot of deprivation and a lot of difficult

03:16:07.380 things and I just put them all in boxes.

03:16:10.060 And I think that it came to me later.

03:16:12.840 And this is a story I know I've written about that I couldn't sit still.

03:16:16.400 I had an inability as a young adult to sit still.

03:16:19.480 I had children very young.

03:16:20.460 I moved through life very quickly, the stages of adulthood.

03:16:24.280 And it wasn't until I first sat still that I had to deal with the ramifications of sexual

03:16:29.940 abuse.

03:16:30.800 Yes.

03:16:31.320 Okay.

03:16:31.560 So that's one of my questions.

03:16:32.960 I did have to deal with that.

03:16:33.340 If you're born into a society that doesn't attach, you know, the obvious negative labels to

03:16:40.140 that and help you understand how wrong it is morally in every other way, does the damage

03:16:45.880 still happen?

03:16:47.580 Do you carry it forward?

03:16:48.980 How does it manifest?

03:16:49.840 Well, you know, I, I did exist in a wider society to some degree.

03:16:58.800 And certainly by the time I was 17 and moving, for example, when I moved into a co-ed dorm

03:17:03.600 in college, then that I was very afraid of men because I did not know, I didn't know men

03:17:11.780 that were strangers in any other way than violent ways.

03:17:15.320 And so it was very scary to me, even though the boys in college did not hurt me.

03:17:20.140 I was scared.

03:17:20.900 That's the irony.

03:17:21.700 This is not something that it's not something boys do. 0.58

03:17:24.320 You know, I mean, some sick criminals do it, but like the most boys would never do it.

03:17:28.800 Right. 0.81

03:17:29.440 Right.

03:17:30.020 And so there were wonderful young men at my college, but I was afraid of them.

03:17:34.480 And so I had all sorts of, um, they called me the ice queen.

03:17:37.920 I was very distant.

03:17:39.200 I was very careful.

03:17:40.580 Um, so there were those ramifications at the beginning, just that I didn't know how to have

03:17:44.020 normal social relationships.

03:17:45.660 My God, were you like, I was raised in a cult.

03:17:47.580 What's wrong with you people?

03:17:48.660 Don't give me such a hard time.

03:17:50.480 It's a miracle I'm here.

03:17:52.460 You know, I didn't talk about it.

03:17:54.040 I was very shamed of where I came from.

03:17:56.320 I mean, there was a lot I didn't know, Megan.

03:17:57.640 There was a lot of things like I didn't know songs.

03:17:59.840 I didn't know pop culture.

03:18:00.820 I didn't know movies.

03:18:01.520 I didn't know the things that other young people knew.

03:18:04.300 So I just listened a lot and started gathering all that information.

03:18:09.340 And I don't know.

03:18:10.080 Was there no schooling?

03:18:11.220 I know.

03:18:11.480 I can see why you had no pop culture.

03:18:12.940 I'm not sure there's no TV, but was there no schooling?

03:18:16.160 So after I was seven, so I went to public school through second grade.

03:18:19.740 And then after that, we were not officially homeschooled, but they did have this, when

03:18:25.100 we would be at the field, they had a seriously one room schoolhouse.

03:18:28.860 It was in the church and they would put kids five through 12 in this room together.

03:18:33.340 The kids that were at the field.

03:18:35.540 And we had some sort of instruction.

03:18:37.680 We had, um, we played a lot of like football.

03:18:40.160 We, um, listened to stories of the Bible.

03:18:43.640 And as I talk about in the book, I read the Bible cover to cover when I was eight.

03:18:47.380 And that is an education in and of itself.

03:18:49.420 You could learn a lot from that.

03:18:51.320 And I did have access to my mom's brothers who I can ask questions about the Bible.

03:18:56.660 And I started cross-referencing as a very young child.

03:19:00.140 And so by the time I got to college, I could understand the language of Shakespeare, for

03:19:03.520 example, really well, because it is the same language of the King James Bible.

03:19:09.160 But is it true you never learned, for example, the presidents?

03:19:12.380 I did not know the presidents.

03:19:14.540 I still don't know the presidents.

03:19:17.540 Wow.

03:19:18.140 Like, do you know the big ones?

03:19:19.420 You know, you probably know the big ones.

03:19:21.140 I know the big ones.

03:19:22.340 I don't really want to be tested on it, but yes, I could, I could tell you the big ones.

03:19:25.720 Right, right, like, like, I'm not going to quiz you on Martin Van Buren because nobody

03:19:30.280 cares.

03:19:31.360 Okay, so I wouldn't answer that as well.

03:19:33.980 So you're living this existence.

03:19:36.100 And, and part of the problem was your mother did not show you really any love.

03:19:41.780 I mean, that was one of the saddest parts of the story, which was, I mean, yes, there

03:19:45.320 was the physical and sexual abuse, not to diminish that.

03:19:47.660 But doesn't a human being come into this world needing affection, a baby, a toddler, a little

03:19:55.120 one needing to be told they're loved and to feel loved.

03:19:59.820 I would say that not having my mother's love was the greatest heartbreak of my life.

03:20:11.600 It was the love I was seeking my entire life.

03:20:14.460 I know a lot of women go around seeking love from men, but I felt that I wanted a mother

03:20:19.280 figure.

03:20:19.700 I wanted a maternal figure.

03:20:20.920 I wanted that kind of affection.

03:20:23.080 And I worked very hard to try to get that from my mother.

03:20:27.400 To be fair to her, she was raised in a very rigid, high control group, right?

03:20:34.280 So this, she was raised in this cult and she gave up her children upon giving birth.

03:20:41.100 She, she handed them over to the group.

03:20:43.360 And I think that she had to put armor on to keep herself from loving what she thought would

03:20:50.660 be taken away from her.

03:20:51.720 My grandfather thought that the world went in, in 1977.

03:20:55.520 So my mother had these babies that she thought she was just going to have to give over in 1.00

03:20:59.280 1977 when they were like little children.

03:21:02.480 And again, she believed this.

03:21:04.980 She really believed it.

03:21:06.200 And so she was not able to attach because attaching, I think would have been wrenching for her.

03:21:12.660 And again, not excusing her coldness, but understanding it.

03:21:17.560 I just don't think she really wanted to risk attaching to something that she thought she had

03:21:24.560 no control over.

03:21:25.900 So she didn't attach.

03:21:27.500 You're 54 now?

03:21:29.800 Mm-hmm.

03:21:30.560 Okay.

03:21:31.200 So you're two years older than I am.

03:21:32.640 So you were born in 68, right around there.

03:21:34.960 Um, so you were alive and cognizant in 1977.

03:21:41.840 And so what happened when the world did not end?

03:21:47.220 Nothing.

03:21:49.180 Nothing changed.

03:21:50.080 That's the interesting thing, right?

03:21:51.220 Um, the, the first thing my grandfather said is that they got the years wrong because he

03:21:55.520 said that when it was all based on when Jesus was born, you know, the understanding when

03:22:00.020 Jesus was born, but because of Caiaphas and, you know, he gave all the, the names of the,

03:22:04.560 the Sanhedrin and, and just, just different people who would have controlled Pontius Pilate.

03:22:09.720 Um, and his understanding then was that the years were off.

03:22:14.000 And so we were on the wrong calendar.

03:22:18.220 Hmm.

03:22:18.860 Okay.

03:22:19.360 That's, I mean, that's how it works.

03:22:20.700 I think in a lot of these cults, um, when, you know, the end of the world doesn't come.

03:22:29.660 Let's talk about how you got out because it's a miracle you got out.

03:22:32.260 I mean, you're talking to you now, you, you, you're perfectly normal.

03:22:34.920 You're dynamic.

03:22:35.700 You seem happy.

03:22:36.760 You, you know, I forgive me for being so judgmental in the, in that implication there,

03:22:40.800 but you know, I would have expected you to appear more damaged given this childhood.

03:22:45.780 So talk, talk to us about how you got out.

03:22:50.980 Well, first of all, thank you for the compliment.

03:22:53.400 Um, I don't know what damage looks like.

03:22:56.160 And also I have had many years, um, in the wider world.

03:23:02.260 To, to not just, I don't know.

03:23:04.980 I haven't spent that much time in therapy really, but I have spent time doing what I

03:23:08.480 would consider healthy work.

03:23:10.220 My, um, profession has been, uh, one of service.

03:23:12.840 And I felt that working with young people has done a world of good for me, understanding

03:23:16.940 the ways that many people are damaged, um, by their upbringing.

03:23:20.700 So not to the same, you know, degree necessarily I was, but there are many people who struggle

03:23:26.020 with upbringings that didn't serve them.

03:23:28.940 So I will say, first of all, that, um, we all have something to recover from and that

03:23:33.640 we are capable of recovery.

03:23:35.620 I will also say that reading books and, um, being in a profession that enables me to talk

03:23:41.980 about those things has been very useful.

03:23:43.820 And as far as how I left, I think that one of the main ways that I got out really was

03:23:52.080 using the advice that my mother gave me.

03:23:54.160 So while she wasn't able to give me the affection I needed, she was able to give me the skills

03:23:59.260 that would help me really scrounge.

03:24:04.320 And I mean, we can use the word forage.

03:24:05.900 It's true.

03:24:06.220 But like I used the forging for words and the forging for, you know, how to find what

03:24:11.540 you need anywhere, if you know what you're looking for.

03:24:14.660 So once I knew that I wanted to get out, I had all the skills to do that.

03:24:18.820 And I owe that to my mother, not, not because she necessarily prepared me for that purpose,

03:24:23.900 but it did indeed serve me.

03:24:27.260 And I'm very grateful.

03:24:27.740 It was a side effect of all the other things she was teaching you.

03:24:30.980 Yeah.

03:24:31.540 And so the book forager, if any of you have a chance to read it, um, does actually go into

03:24:35.360 the details of to some degree, uh, what led to me leaving.

03:24:38.960 Um, but the details of what it was like right after I left, uh, I'll have to say for the

03:24:42.840 next book because, well, I can give a little bit now, but that was a long process.

03:24:46.320 And I felt like it is a story in and of itself because I did not naturally acclimate to, I

03:24:52.280 was very fortunate that a college took me in, that I was living there at 17, that I was

03:24:56.320 able to, um, have the ability to learn and a passion for learning.

03:25:00.920 And I was really grateful that it led me straight to grad school.

03:25:04.280 And that I was able to get a teaching job very young and I was able to support myself,

03:25:08.180 but emotionally, I think I was very stunted and it took me a long time to figure out how

03:25:13.340 to make connections with other human beings who are healthy.

03:25:17.520 And that was, that is all miraculous.

03:25:19.660 I mean, it's truly miraculous that, that this happened.

03:25:21.680 I do recall, um, there, there, there was an injury, not an injury.

03:25:26.120 There was a disease.

03:25:27.000 You, you came down with an autoimmune disease that landed you in the hospital.

03:25:31.020 And I wondered, like, were there big medical problems, um, in quote, the fields, you know,

03:25:37.440 like where you were living that would have required you to go to the hospital?

03:25:42.380 Did, were your, did your family support modern medicine and understand that certain things

03:25:46.560 you're like, you break a femur, you got to go get a cast?

03:25:50.640 Well, to some degree, yes.

03:25:53.200 And to some, no, there's a lot of modern medicine that we didn't have access to.

03:25:56.940 We didn't have insurance, for example, or money to pay for things.

03:25:59.900 Um, we actually didn't break bones, interestingly enough, uh, so that none of my siblings ever

03:26:06.260 broke a bone, uh, neither did I, and we didn't need antibiotics.

03:26:10.720 You know, there's just some kids who get through without that, but I had an autoimmune disease

03:26:14.240 called idiopathic thrombocytopenia prepara, which was, and is still of unknown origin.

03:26:19.520 It doesn't have a genetic component.

03:26:20.820 Um, there is some speculation that perhaps, um, well, I'll just say what the disease is,

03:26:26.600 is your body is coating lots of cells and platelets with antibodies so that your organs,

03:26:35.160 like your spleen, filter the blood and kill off what they perceive as invaders.

03:26:41.460 Um, in the process of killing off what they perceive as invaders, they, um, the spleen and 0.58

03:26:46.000 the liver and kidneys and this filter out, um, the platelets themselves that are necessary

03:26:51.080 to clot blood.

03:26:51.900 So in my case, I really was down to nearly zero platelets.

03:26:55.020 So like even a little cut, I could have bled to death.

03:26:58.180 Now what this comes from is very uncertain, but when I got to the hospital, they didn't

03:27:02.120 know what it was.

03:27:03.160 And I've had, you know, some public, a little bit critique and just saying that wouldn't

03:27:07.300 the hospital have recognized that I was a victim of abuse.

03:27:09.660 And I would say, no, not in the late seventies and the early eighties.

03:27:13.420 Um, those questions weren't being asked of young children.

03:27:16.040 And once I was in the hospital, our, my parents were very busy.

03:27:20.420 And that was also normal that if you had a working mother and if you had other children

03:27:24.880 in the family, I was in a children's hospital and there were other children, not all, but

03:27:29.040 there were other children who were left without their parents during their duration of their

03:27:32.620 stay.

03:27:33.180 And the nurses and the doctors were working on our bodies and helping us understand what

03:27:37.380 was going on while we were present in the hospital, but not necessarily, um, concerned

03:27:43.460 with our mental health.

03:27:44.380 I just don't think that that was something people talked about in those days to children.

03:27:48.940 You were, it was very tough love.

03:27:50.720 Uh, I know you wrote your, your mother was like, there'll be no crying period.

03:27:55.800 Um, and again, you know, I think a lot of us can look at some of these little hints and

03:27:59.700 say like, well, you know, you, you do want to raise tough children.

03:28:03.300 You want your children to be resilient.

03:28:05.480 You don't want them licking their wounds and feeling sorry for themselves all the time.

03:28:09.640 But as with all of these examples, it just, it was next level.

03:28:13.940 And it was at a place, you know, if you get really hurt, you're going to cry. 0.94

03:28:17.920 If you get raped, you're going to cry.

03:28:19.640 If you've got the right context for what's happening to you. 0.97

03:28:21.900 So how do you see that now?

03:28:24.660 That sort of very tough love, I guess.

03:28:27.080 I went through, um, I would say about 14 years from the age of 11 to into my twenties

03:28:36.860 without crying ever.

03:28:38.240 And my mother strongly believed you do not cry when you get hurt. 0.99

03:28:41.640 You do not cry when you get raped.

03:28:43.060 You do not do those things that you act like nothing happened because then you will not

03:28:47.660 become a perpetual victim.

03:28:49.340 There was also mental illness, um, in her family that I later found out from her and the,

03:28:54.400 my editors didn't want me to, um, reveal medical things about the family because, you know,

03:28:59.100 that could be a violation of their privacy.

03:29:00.440 But, um, my mother knew that there was mental illness, not, not her own or her father's, but

03:29:07.420 other members of the family.

03:29:09.200 And when I asked her later in life, why she didn't let us know this, if, if we were really

03:29:15.020 honestly being put in danger.

03:29:16.120 And she said, well, I didn't want you to worry that that would happen to you.

03:29:21.060 And she's, and she just really, truly believed that you wouldn't become mentally ill if you

03:29:24.900 didn't, um, know that it was possible.

03:29:27.380 And so she thought that kind of toughness kept you.

03:29:30.440 And I think it's really old school, but I think she just felt that being really tough,

03:29:33.780 which again, I'm not advocating.

03:29:35.180 I'm just putting it in the context that I don't think she saw that as being abusive.

03:29:38.580 I think she saw it's kind of an interesting experiment.

03:29:41.080 I mean, it's, I'm not recommending it, but you know, now that you've been through it,

03:29:44.800 it is interesting to ask, you know, like I was saying about abuse.

03:29:48.140 If you, if, if, if you don't know what file to put it in, is it less damaging in some way?

03:29:55.780 If, if, you know, she doesn't tell you about mental illness, is she right? 0.95

03:29:58.680 It can't manifest.

03:29:59.900 That doesn't sound, none of this sounds right, but you were part of an experiment.

03:30:07.020 Yes.

03:30:07.560 And Southern California, by the way, was a mecca of small cults.

03:30:12.920 This one was particularly successful, honestly, but there were a lot of people in California

03:30:18.060 who were experimenting in communities with what would happen if you lived alternatively

03:30:22.960 to the wider culture.

03:30:25.140 And a lot of those cults were religious, but not all.

03:30:27.740 There were just people who had very strong ideologies.

03:30:30.300 And what made them cults is that they had a high control group mentality led by a charismatic

03:30:35.640 leader who would then make mercurial decisions about what was or wasn't allowed within said cult.

03:30:41.120 So yes, we were very experimental.

03:30:42.880 And I think after my grandfather's death, it got a little bit more rigid, which just happened

03:30:47.800 to be really vulnerable years for me.

03:30:49.520 But then the cult softened because it couldn't continue to maintain that.

03:30:54.220 And since we were the very first children born there, it was an experiment and it was kind

03:30:59.120 of a failed experiment.

03:31:01.540 And I don't think, for example, my mother would not have told you that I turned out well.

03:31:05.300 She would have said that I was like a bad seed and that I had made choices to leave and to

03:31:14.080 leave the calling that she believed I was always meant to be, which is to be a leader

03:31:18.780 at the field.

03:31:19.740 And she thought the work that I do, I teach college, that I work in a secular field.

03:31:24.020 And that is negative for, she thinks it's just very negative to teach people secular worldviews.

03:31:30.240 And so she was not ever proud of what I did and she couldn't bear to hear a word of it.

03:31:36.860 You started to stray a little in your behaviors and beliefs and it just led to, as I understand

03:31:42.480 it, irreconcilable differences where they didn't want you and you didn't really want

03:31:47.320 to be there and you left at a relatively young age.

03:31:49.780 I mean, how did you get into college?

03:31:51.240 Like, how did you even know to pick up an application, you know, that there could be,

03:31:55.760 you know, a dormitory and a food and beverage service?

03:31:59.780 But you're like, how did all of this come to you?

03:32:02.960 Well, I was a house cleaner.

03:32:04.280 So because we didn't have any money, I started house cleaning when I was very young.

03:32:09.480 Right when I got out of the hospital, by the time, before I even turned 14, I was cleaning

03:32:13.980 a lot of houses and I went by word of mouth and I started working in wealthier areas because

03:32:21.160 I got paid more.

03:32:22.800 Were you coming down off the mountain at this point?

03:32:25.380 What do you mean?

03:32:25.720 Were you still, where were you when you were doing the house cleaning?

03:32:29.560 Okay.

03:32:29.800 So my family still lived at the mountain.

03:32:31.920 We had no other home, but my parents would go away on these long trips.

03:32:36.320 And so I would sometimes stay down with my grandmother, especially after our grandfather

03:32:39.580 died.

03:32:40.380 She was alone.

03:32:41.280 She was a widow and I would stay at her house on the couch with all her dogs. 0.99

03:32:46.060 And then I borrowed one of the girls. 0.99

03:32:48.820 I knew one of her bike.

03:32:50.700 I bought it.

03:32:51.060 I wasn't one of her bikes was probably her only bike, but I borrowed a bike and I would

03:32:54.620 ride secretly and nobody really was around.

03:32:57.300 My grandmother had Alzheimer's and that wasn't diagnosed as Alzheimer's.

03:33:00.960 She later went into a home.

03:33:02.320 Uh, not that much later, uh, she was sort of just pushed aside out of the field, but

03:33:08.640 at the time she had Alzheimer's, she was alone.

03:33:11.180 I slept on her couch and I took a bike and I went and did house cleaning jobs and I stored

03:33:16.560 the money.

03:33:17.300 I got cash and I put it in this cup and I like put it up on the top of her shelf and

03:33:22.000 she couldn't reach it.

03:33:22.800 And I just was very secretive about it.

03:33:25.880 So I did house cleaning as much as I could.

03:33:28.180 So I couldn't always, you know, once my parents were in town and we were up on the mountain,

03:33:31.760 I couldn't house clean, but it was something that I was very good at.

03:33:35.220 And one of the women whose houses I cleaned and I'd been working for her for quite a while,

03:33:39.700 she gave me a college application and I filled it out in pencil and it just so happens that

03:33:44.900 yeah, it's so interesting.

03:33:47.380 Um, but anyway, but the end result was I went to a very experimental college.

03:33:51.340 It's called Pitzer college and they started in the sixties and they didn't have general

03:33:56.240 ed, for example, they, I mean, they, they were an accredited institution, but they were

03:34:00.980 private and they really liked that.

03:34:03.700 I had an alternative education and they did test me on things.

03:34:07.720 Um, but I was a wonderful writer.

03:34:10.120 I went to an event recently.

03:34:11.560 One of my college professors was there and she was said, Oh no, for the moment I met you,

03:34:15.280 you were just, you know, a wonderful writer.

03:34:17.080 I didn't teach you a thing that can't be true, but it is true that I tested out.

03:34:21.340 Of writing.

03:34:22.300 And I had very strong math skills from all the stuff I did was selling and from astronomy

03:34:26.240 and, um, from building because we would weld and we would build, you know, buildings and

03:34:31.500 it's a lot.

03:34:32.520 You can learn a lot with hands-on education.

03:34:34.620 Sure.

03:34:35.000 Well, that's how it used to be done in this country.

03:34:37.400 So can I just ask you, so now you're, are you married now?

03:34:41.020 I know you've, you've got a family of your own now.

03:34:43.760 Yeah.

03:34:44.340 My family is, um, so no, um, I, I, I have my, I got married to a guy who was at the cult.

03:34:55.340 I had all my children with him and then, um, they are now, um, so we stayed married when

03:35:01.760 we raised our children, but then they are now, um, just, I just, uh, launched my youngest

03:35:07.140 daughter and all of my children now are in their twenties and partnered actually my oldest

03:35:12.420 just, I have twins that are my oldest, um, and they're 30 now.

03:35:16.140 So they are, um, you raised them outside of the cult.

03:35:19.400 Like the husband came with you.

03:35:21.900 He did.

03:35:22.640 Yeah.

03:35:23.500 Well, we got married outside of the cult.

03:35:25.580 Um, and, but we knew each other.

03:35:28.420 We grew up together.

03:35:29.220 He's older than I am, but we, um, he was one of the boys.

03:35:32.640 He used to stay at our house and take care of us.

03:35:34.540 So it was kind of, you know, a brotherly figure to me, but I was young.

03:35:39.120 I was with him, um, starting, let's see when I turned 18 and I was with him after that.

03:35:44.780 And we had a lot of, you didn't, you didn't stay married. 0.58

03:35:49.600 No, we wanted to, um, possibly where you look at that, you think there's no way more than

03:35:55.320 50% of marriages end in divorce, just like the odds or we're against you anyway, but

03:35:58.920 then with all this and your background, but I was just wondering what it would be like,

03:36:03.200 you know, now to, to meet somebody who wasn't in the cult and try to fall in love and try

03:36:07.200 to trust.

03:36:08.120 And I assume you've had other, you know, boyfriends and so on after your marriage.

03:36:12.120 Has that been strange to you or you were living enough sort of in the real world with

03:36:18.260 your first husband that you got used to that before you had to date strangers?

03:36:22.460 So I only had one husband and he, um, we stayed together for a very long time and we are still

03:36:31.480 close because we have, um, really shared experiences and, um, we have shared family and we have nieces

03:36:38.900 and nephews and we have, you know, our, our children.

03:36:41.280 So we also really understand, um, our various forms of trauma.

03:36:46.760 And he would say, and has said to me, he's so grateful for the book, um, that his trauma

03:36:51.940 that he experienced there was more psychological abuse.

03:36:54.360 Uh, he was not born and he was, he came there at age seven.

03:36:58.300 So since then I have had, yes, I've had difficulty with, um, understanding, uh, necessarily how

03:37:05.940 relationships are.

03:37:07.540 Um, I can understand short-term relationships really well, but longer term relationship, it's,

03:37:12.440 it's difficult for me to trust.

03:37:15.080 And, um, that's something I'm working through.

03:37:18.120 Why is it awkward when I ask you if you are married and have a family?

03:37:23.440 I, I just think that one of the things that I said when I was coming into this, um, I guess

03:37:28.980 this, I don't know if you call it tour, but the talking about the book is that I would keep

03:37:33.660 my, um, personal life private.

03:37:35.560 That was just something I made for a boundary for myself and also for, um, the man I married

03:37:40.380 and also for my children, because they, they do feel really awkward about, um, our, our

03:37:46.340 past.

03:37:46.860 I think that it's just maybe an area we didn't explore a lot.

03:37:50.440 And so, um,

03:37:51.980 But the children had a traditional upbringing, like you, you raised them outside of the cult.

03:37:57.040 Yes.

03:37:57.580 Um, all my children went to public school.

03:37:59.600 They've done very well.

03:38:00.640 They all got out of college, um, rapidly.

03:38:02.640 They've been, um, they're all partnered.

03:38:03.980 Um, two of them are married.

03:38:06.080 Two of them are-

03:38:06.600 That's funny how you keep saying that.

03:38:07.680 That's from the cult, right?

03:38:08.700 The part, they're all partnered.

03:38:10.040 Like we, we say married.

03:38:13.140 Okay.

03:38:13.580 Well, they're not all married.

03:38:15.320 So some of them, um, my children have long, they're, they're in relationships.

03:38:20.240 I could say it that way, but they're not all married.

03:38:22.540 Um, and I don't mean to belittle it, but it's just, it's like I said, you're just, you seem

03:38:27.320 like such a powerhouse.

03:38:28.180 So it's, there's something kind of sweet, these reminders of all that you've overcome in the

03:38:33.080 way you speak and so on.

03:38:34.120 It's just, there's something endearing because you're, seem like a, just a very strong person

03:38:38.200 and you must be.

03:38:39.700 So like, you know, that, that resilience is still in you.

03:38:42.540 Um, I did read that you can't see your sisters, like that seeing your family of origin brings 1.00

03:38:51.880 it all up for all of you.

03:38:54.220 So can you talk about that?

03:38:55.520 Are they, are they out of the cult and are in, what's that like when you're all together?

03:38:58.760 Um, so we're not all together really anymore, except for we were at our mom's, um, services.

03:39:04.380 So that was honestly wonderful.

03:39:07.100 Um, I, I don't know if it was something I'd written earlier.

03:39:10.140 I think we all had really difficult times being together for most of our adult lives,

03:39:15.360 but especially since the book came out, my younger brother and my younger sister, and

03:39:19.060 all four of us are, we're all born within five years of each other total.

03:39:22.900 So we're all the same age.

03:39:24.820 Um, my younger brother and sister came to the book opening.

03:39:27.760 Um, they come and stayed at my house.

03:39:29.500 My sister flew in from my younger sister from the East coast.

03:39:32.680 And, um, so we have had wonderful long conversations and I have, uh, I already had a relationship

03:39:40.500 with my younger sister.

03:39:41.320 We never really broke relationship, but she's lived on her East, on the East coast ever since

03:39:44.880 college.

03:39:45.220 So we haven't lived in the same town, um, any time during our adult life.

03:39:49.020 And, uh, my younger brother also, um, came and just, just talked about the book, said

03:39:55.800 that he is unable to talk to it.

03:39:57.860 He was unable to talk about it during his own marriage and that it has been so healthy

03:40:02.740 for him to be able to, um, be part of this conversation.

03:40:06.720 So I've spent a great deal of the time with my younger brother and sister since this book

03:40:10.760 came out, which is very recent.

03:40:12.360 And then, um, our older sister is the only one who chose to stay in the community.

03:40:17.100 And she would say the community is very different, um, but they don't, um, welcome outsiders.

03:40:25.800 Packages by Expedia.

03:40:27.600 You were made to occasionally take the hard route to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

03:40:33.180 We were made to easily bundle your trip.

03:40:36.080 Expedia made to travel.

03:40:37.800 Is it still going up?

03:40:45.080 Is it, I mean, are there children being raised in this right now who are underweight and possibly

03:40:49.460 getting abused?

03:40:51.420 No, I mean, there are still children there, but that organization has changed and it is

03:40:55.760 certainly, I mean, physically, I think that the children are very healthy.

03:40:59.300 I am not there.

03:41:00.260 And it was very difficult for me to understand how to put the parameters on my conversation

03:41:04.940 because I don't really know all the details.

03:41:08.040 Um, but it certainly doesn't exist in the form.

03:41:10.380 There's nobody who is being raised the way I was raised.

03:41:12.920 That is for sure.

03:41:13.860 Certain.

03:41:14.280 But our sister, my sister, um, does, I call it our sister cause she's all of our sister,

03:41:18.920 but she is the one who then now has a school, but it is accredited now.

03:41:23.020 And she runs the school that raises, um, the kids there.

03:41:26.400 And she says, it's a really different place than it used to be.

03:41:29.080 And I do know that they have, um, you know, accreditation people come in.

03:41:32.920 So people are checking on it in a way that did not happen when we were young.

03:41:36.840 Accreditation.

03:41:37.320 But what about division of child and family services?

03:41:39.240 I mean, are there, is there anything and what, and how are people living now at, at the

03:41:43.680 field?

03:41:43.960 Are they living in mess halls still, or what, you know, what's the facility like?

03:41:48.500 So my understanding is that, um, families are now allowed to have regular jobs and that

03:41:55.840 they are allowed to, so it is more of a church now and they do have a strong faith system.

03:42:00.720 I think that many churches believe different kinds of interpretations of the Bible.

03:42:05.100 I'm not justifying their particular interpretation, but they do use, um, the traditional Judeo-Christian

03:42:10.720 Protestant version of the Bible.

03:42:13.200 And, um, my understanding is that the families have their, they are now allowed to be nuclear 0.77

03:42:19.600 families.

03:42:20.580 And I will also say that my sister is married to a boy that, or a man that grew up with

03:42:25.660 us as a boy.

03:42:26.360 Uh, she's been married her whole life to him and I knew him all growing up and that they

03:42:31.100 have two children, uh, my niece and my nephew who seem by all accounts, they're, um, they

03:42:36.300 went to college.

03:42:37.080 They're in, you know, they're in their twenties now.

03:42:39.000 So it seems that it is a place where it is still a real tight community, um, but that

03:42:45.820 it would be no longer abusive.

03:42:48.220 Is it up on a mountain?

03:42:49.600 Is it still in the same location up on the mountainside in California?

03:42:52.720 So they have the mountain location, but they rent it out now to outside groups so that they

03:42:57.920 can make money.

03:42:59.380 Okay.

03:42:59.880 It is not being used in that same capacity, but they do still have that lease.

03:43:03.940 How are you still religious?

03:43:05.400 No, I would consider myself a spiritual person.

03:43:10.500 And I did raise my children in, um, a faith community in a United Church of Christ congregational

03:43:16.260 church, because I thought it was really wonderful for them to get the opportunity to see healthy

03:43:20.200 people who are, um, have a faith and, um, believe in something.

03:43:25.520 And I thought it was really great.

03:43:26.820 And I did teach church school there.

03:43:28.380 I know the Bible very well.

03:43:29.980 So I raised them there, but I don't identify, um, directly anymore because I feel that for

03:43:35.400 me, it is a source of, um, a lot of anxiety and tension.

03:43:41.440 So, yeah, I mean, this is where now I, I'll quiz you on Martin Van Buren, you won't know

03:43:45.940 much and you quiz me on the Bible and I won't know much either.

03:43:48.560 So that, you know, one of us has studied a certain area and one of us has studied the

03:43:52.160 others.

03:43:52.380 Like we all have our deficiencies in how we're raised and what we focus on.

03:43:55.860 And though my mother would not be happy to hear me admit this about the Bible, um, I

03:44:00.360 won't tell her.

03:44:01.040 I, yeah, I wish I'm, she's probably not listening.

03:44:03.580 So I think we're safe.

03:44:05.680 Um, so can, can you just explain to me, like, because one of the things we're going to talk

03:44:11.260 about is getting out of a cult, like whether it's possible and how, how many challenges

03:44:15.840 it poses, you know, listening to you here, it sounds like it was kind of easy, but that's

03:44:20.560 probably not true.

03:44:21.520 So I think it's certainly possible to get out of any cult.

03:44:27.600 It is always a process though.

03:44:30.080 I do not think anyone, because it's, I feel like it's a little bit like leaving an abusive

03:44:33.420 relationship.

03:44:34.320 You can leave the relationship and still have the behaviors that put you in that abusive

03:44:40.020 relationship.

03:44:40.520 And, um, a lot of people enter another abusive relationship.

03:44:43.660 So, um, I, I, I guess I, I didn't know that I was making it look easy.

03:44:48.640 I think that I was trying really hard, um, with the book and not to just focus on the

03:44:52.860 negative aspects and not to just sort of pummel people with the pain of the experience,

03:44:57.680 because, um, I do think that we, we do all have a need for belonging.

03:45:02.460 And the reason cults are so attractive to people is because they do provide a source of

03:45:07.560 belonging and, um, not that they do it in a healthy way, but that that need is something

03:45:12.200 that is, um, innate and that we do need each other and we do need community.

03:45:16.380 Um, leaving was excruciating for me.

03:45:19.020 I, I married far too young.

03:45:20.560 I was not an adult.

03:45:22.300 I wasn't able to think clearly for myself when I had my own children.

03:45:25.860 I did tons and tons and tons of research to figure out how to raise them, but it did

03:45:29.940 not feel natural to me.

03:45:31.340 I felt the love was extremely natural.

03:45:33.320 I did all the things, you know, breastfed and was very into attachment parenting and,

03:45:37.140 um, was there with them.

03:45:40.120 Even, um, when I worked, I would bring them on my belly. 0.74

03:45:42.840 You know, I put my baby on my back or whatever.

03:45:44.760 I mean, after your mom, never hugging you, this must've been so special for you.

03:45:51.000 It, it really was.

03:45:52.460 And I think that I was very fortunate that I was able to give birth to them in a hospital

03:45:56.840 and to have, um, I was in Boulder, Colorado, where I was in grad school and I was able to,

03:46:01.960 um, you know, just have, there was just like patient consultants and things like that around.

03:46:06.160 So then by the time I, you know, became a mother a few times, like I was just really,

03:46:10.980 really good at it.

03:46:12.700 You know, at least the parts that were, um, about physically caring for them and being

03:46:16.740 able to be emotionally present.

03:46:18.040 It was just, um, a wonderful to be able to give them that.

03:46:21.960 That is a miracle that you had that to give despite not having received it.

03:46:27.340 Michelle, I mean, so few people have that story.

03:46:30.120 There's, you know, something in you that, that made that happen.

03:46:33.120 And hard work, determination, the sparks of knowledge and certainly your resilience, but

03:46:38.240 it, your story is a testament to human resilience and strength, despite many odds against you.

03:46:45.840 Thank you.

03:46:46.900 I think sometimes we teach what we most need to learn, you know, and I think that being

03:46:51.520 able to offer my children that kind of attachment really gave me the attachment that I needed

03:46:57.180 so much.

03:46:57.800 And even at my mom's death, I was able to physically be present for her and lie down

03:47:02.280 with her and even giving her, she was in a hospital bed, but she died at home, um, on

03:47:06.580 hospice.

03:47:07.240 I was able to physically be present with her through the whole process of dying.

03:47:10.480 And I was able to give her the same sort of comfort I needed from her in the hospital.

03:47:15.260 And I think it was like that with my kids too.

03:47:17.260 Like I gave them what I needed.

03:47:18.700 And I think because I needed it so badly, I knew, you know, I just knew how important it

03:47:23.740 was.

03:47:24.640 Do you ever have a moment where you're like, stop crying?

03:47:27.800 Like, do you know the remnants?

03:47:29.660 Yes.

03:47:30.740 You know, my oldest daughter is a marriage and family therapist.

03:47:33.820 And she tells me, she said, um, you, you had a problem with crying.

03:47:37.220 And I said, I tried not to.

03:47:38.480 And she said, wow, you know, it's really healthy for children to cry.

03:47:41.420 And I said, I'm so sorry.

03:47:42.640 I probably, probably was not as welcoming of that as I could have been.

03:47:48.500 I mean, not that I forbade them from crying, but I do not think I was that tolerant.

03:47:52.420 No, well, it's understandable.

03:47:54.720 Yeah.

03:47:55.280 But they were very close.

03:47:56.440 They are very, all very close to each other.

03:47:58.140 And I think that's another wonderful thing.

03:47:59.680 And they have not been victims of abuse, which I'm also very proud of.

03:48:04.200 And when my twins were little, I was breastfeeding both of them.

03:48:07.340 They never took a bottle.

03:48:08.040 And I just felt so deeply committed to really just being a hundred percent there.

03:48:13.020 So I'm just like, Michelle, when you go, now you're a successful writer and would teach

03:48:17.220 you to college.

03:48:17.660 Like when you go to a cocktail party for the first time and you're meeting people and they're

03:48:21.060 like, Hey, where'd you grow up?

03:48:22.200 I mean, how do you short form this?

03:48:25.840 I have never been good at this.

03:48:27.400 I think that's why I wrote a book because I hate that question.

03:48:30.340 So I just hear, read this.

03:48:32.540 And even in the book, I didn't really cover it because I really ended up focusing on my

03:48:35.980 story and not really fleshing out the community entirely.

03:48:38.520 So maybe I'll do that later, but I just say I had an unconventional childhood or complicated.

03:48:44.020 Yeah.

03:48:44.600 It's, it's really not an easy question to answer.

03:48:47.800 Yeah.

03:48:48.360 Wow.

03:48:48.840 Well, I thank you so much for telling your story and for being so open.

03:48:53.360 I'm grateful to know you.

03:48:54.860 And I'm so grateful that you're out there as an example to others who may be struggling

03:48:58.340 with childhood issues that somehow they believe are going to define the rest of their lives.

03:49:03.800 And maybe not.

03:49:04.960 Maybe if you read Forager field notes for surviving a family cult, it might be helpful

03:49:10.360 to you, even if you weren't in a cult, right?

03:49:12.200 Even if you just had some massive challenges that you don't think you can get past.

03:49:15.840 Michelle, all the best to you.

03:49:16.880 Thank you for coming on.

03:49:18.760 Thank you so much for having me, Megan.

03:49:20.400 It's been a pleasure.

03:49:22.000 I appreciate all your insights.

03:49:24.600 Oh, thank you.

03:49:25.560 It's a pleasure for me too, to be continued.

03:49:27.260 So I know that you were listening to Michelle's story and I thought it was a very astute observation

03:49:40.160 and one I know is true from your writings that there's, there's something about a cult

03:49:44.160 that provides a sense of belonging.

03:49:47.140 It's a sense of community.

03:49:48.800 There is a reason people are attracted to these organizations.

03:49:51.460 It's because you hear about the abuse, you hear about psychological torture and so on.

03:49:56.380 You think, why?

03:49:57.440 Well, it doesn't start off like that and it does provide some pluses that are alluring.

03:50:04.380 Yeah.

03:50:04.860 So I want to just comment that there are some real differences then with people who are

03:50:11.420 born into a authoritarian cult as Michelle was versus someone like myself who was recruited

03:50:19.580 at age 19 while I was a college student through deceptive means into a cult, the Moonies.

03:50:26.560 And, um, and I'd say as a generalization, the public tends to look too much at the person

03:50:36.440 who's involved, uh, and too little at the deception and the control of social influence variables.

03:50:45.600 Um, but as you correctly said, there are always positives, even in the worst of situations.

03:50:53.240 Mm-hmm.

03:50:54.340 Right.

03:50:54.800 And well, I'm fascinated by your story too.

03:50:57.440 So you, you seem to have had a relatively normal childhood and you seem to have been

03:51:03.880 a rather well-adjusted young man and yet you got lured in.

03:51:09.160 And I remember growing, I remember hearing about the Moonies and they sounded like a bunch

03:51:13.120 of kooks.

03:51:14.040 So I don't know much about them, but looking at you now thinking, you were in the Moonies?

03:51:18.120 What?

03:51:18.380 Explain.

03:51:18.660 Yeah, so I should say that I was, um, dumped by my girlfriends, um, in 1973 in the Christmas

03:51:29.960 time.

03:51:30.620 And I got recruited in February of 1974 at Queens College.

03:51:36.980 Um, and that was the same month, by the way, that Patty Hearst was physically abducted by

03:51:42.080 the Symbionese Liberation Army.

03:51:44.120 Just for your listeners who are of an age, uh, to remember that.

03:51:49.400 But when I got recruited, nobody knew anything about the Moonies.

03:51:53.180 They didn't really get public until later that year when the group was fasting for Nixon during

03:52:00.140 Watergate.

03:52:01.080 And I was part of that fasting that God wants to forgive, love, and unite no matter what

03:52:07.500 Nixon did at Watergate.

03:52:09.000 And then, um, um, the, the media dubbed them the Moonies and some young moon who claimed

03:52:15.640 to be 10 times greater than Jesus Christ or any other religious leader loved that we were

03:52:22.200 being called Moonies.

03:52:24.100 Um, and I was promoted, uh, to a pretty high rank as an American leader.

03:52:31.120 And not that I had any power at all, but I was kind of a front person who was used to recruit

03:52:36.580 and indoctrinate people.

03:52:37.920 Well, wait, before we got to your promotion, we, there was the luring in, uh, this college

03:52:44.720 student, Queens College.

03:52:45.840 Women flirting and lying and pretending that they were students and, and complimenting me 0.99

03:52:52.220 and doing what's called love bombing. 0.90

03:52:54.540 And I, um, I had bicycled cross country when I was 16.

03:52:59.980 I should say I was raised in a middle, middle class family.

03:53:03.960 My father had a hardware store.

03:53:06.280 My mom was an eighth grade art teacher.

03:53:08.340 I have two older sisters.

03:53:09.720 We lived in the same house in the same community, uh, conservative Jewish upbringing.

03:53:16.100 I had bicycle cross country when I was 16.

03:53:18.980 I was very anti-group, anti-authoritarian.

03:53:22.840 Uh, I, I skipped eighth grade, uh, cause I, you know, was deemed a good tester or whatever.

03:53:31.100 Um, so yeah, I hadn't, I had no belief that anyone could con me or brainwash me.

03:53:39.360 It didn't enter my mind that anyone could brainwash me, but I became a, a fascist.

03:53:45.300 I became a total fanatic that needed, uh, a formal deprogramming intervention after a

03:53:52.180 near fatal van crash.

03:53:54.280 Um, before I started going, what, how can I believe who was the greatest man in human

03:54:00.300 history?

03:54:01.320 You went to the first meeting where they just said, Hey, come on over.

03:54:04.280 Let's hang out.

03:54:04.840 And you went fine.

03:54:05.900 And, and as I understand it, you had an instinct, this is a little off.

03:54:09.340 And you said, is this a religious group?

03:54:10.740 What is this?

03:54:11.320 No, no, no, no, no.

03:54:12.340 And you left kind of determined not to go back.

03:54:16.300 And then they all ran outside and the love bombing went, kicked off in earnest.

03:54:22.440 And most of us are, we're susceptible to flattery and compliments and that kind of love from people

03:54:29.900 who want to accept you, especially if it's coming from a beautiful member of the opposite 1.00

03:54:32.980 sex.

03:54:33.960 Exactly.

03:54:35.100 We're, we're all human beings and, uh, we all love to believe that we're special.

03:54:42.340 And, uh, that we're smart and that we, uh, can contribute to, uh, to the world and make

03:54:50.000 the world a better place.

03:54:51.280 Um, but if I, I said, I did ask them, are you part of a religious group?

03:54:57.160 Oh no, not at all.

03:54:59.080 Uh, and they claim to be students, which they weren't, but this was part of heavenly deception

03:55:05.380 because members believe the world is controlled by Satan and therefore we need to use deception

03:55:12.780 to trick Satan's children into doing God's will is the, and just justify the means.

03:55:19.500 Yeah.

03:55:20.120 What were, what were the Moonies about and what did, uh, Mr. Moon get out of all this?

03:55:25.220 Um, so the Moonies, uh, well, I should say that the stereotypical cult leader playbook is

03:55:33.960 they all want power, money, and sex, and it's always power. 1.00

03:55:38.840 Usually money brings more power and often they're sexual perverts. 0.98

03:55:43.520 Um, the teachings varied based on who the cult was trying to influence to recruit, uh, as 0.90

03:55:55.620 a recruiter, I was taught to categorize potential recruits in terms of thinkers, feelers, doers,

03:56:03.920 or believers.

03:56:04.500 So if somebody represented the spirituality and religion as something important, then we

03:56:12.000 would shape the recruitment that way.

03:56:15.360 If they were someone who was a feeler, then we talk about how we're one unified family and

03:56:22.380 we're brothers and sisters, and we have this idyllic view of the restoring the earth to the

03:56:28.560 garden of Eden, uh, et cetera.

03:56:31.020 So, um, and the idea with, with influence and mind control is if you think about the influencer

03:56:38.400 and the influencee, uh, there's this relationship of someone has a vulnerability and everybody

03:56:45.880 wants to improve themselves, it seems, or make the world a better place.

03:56:51.380 Some, some human need, um, if you're schizophrenic, cults will not want to recruit you.

03:56:59.260 Or if you have, uh, uh, uh, or you're absolutely apathetic, they don't want you either.

03:57:05.320 They want people with talent and abilities and passion who can work long hours for little or

03:57:11.280 no pay.

03:57:12.320 Try to raise money and give it to the cult.

03:57:15.300 So power, money, and sex. 0.84

03:57:17.460 So for me, I was mostly recruiting and doing public types of, of influence things, but they

03:57:24.500 had full-time fundraisers who were bringing in around $30 million a year cash, lying to

03:57:32.300 people saying they were recruiting for drug Christian drug programs or whatever.

03:57:38.060 Uh, and the money was then used to buy property and then loans were taken out against the property

03:57:43.760 to buy more and then invest in businesses.

03:57:46.340 And, um, um, there was, uh, uh, a congressional subcommittee investigation in the seventies that

03:57:54.040 I wound up being an expert for, uh, looking into Korean CIA activities in the U S and as

03:58:02.340 they were researching the moonies, because they were part of that plan, uh, the researchers

03:58:08.160 said, this is a group with hundreds of front groups.

03:58:11.180 Let's just call them the moon organization because they're all following Sun Myung Moon.

03:58:17.040 And Sun Myung Moon was best known at that time for mass weddings where he would assign men

03:58:22.720 and women to marry. 1.00

03:58:24.520 They often didn't know each other or even speak the same language, but they believe that he,

03:58:30.200 he was God's greatest man on earth, sinless, and he had the power to match you with your ideal

03:58:37.360 mate.

03:58:38.480 And, uh, so he had the, uh, I think the Guinness book of records of 30,000 couples at one time.

03:58:47.380 Uh, in this, were you, were you, did you believe that?

03:58:50.780 Did you think he had these powers and believe in his ability to just find the right mate

03:58:54.840 with people who had never met?

03:58:56.140 A hundred percent.

03:58:57.860 I was trained to not allow negative thoughts because I was programmed to believe negative

03:59:05.120 thoughts were coming from demons and we were literally taken to see the exorcist movie when

03:59:11.840 it came out.

03:59:13.420 And then Moon gave a lecture how God made this movie.

03:59:17.060 And it was a prophecy of what would happen if we left.

03:59:20.400 So one thing I want to explain to you and your listeners is that mind control is best understood

03:59:27.460 as a dissociative disorder.

03:59:29.620 So the old Steve Hassan, son of Milton and Estelle Hassan got replaced by Steve Hassan,

03:59:38.460 son of some young moon and Hak Jahan, the true parents of the universe.

03:59:42.660 I was still in there, but I was being suppressed.

03:59:46.640 Think about a computer virus that hacks your computer and takes over your operating system.

03:59:52.520 That's an easy analogy for what it's like.

03:59:55.780 And in my case, because I almost died in a van crash due to sleep deprivation and was

04:00:02.580 away from the cult and then wanted to prove to my family I wasn't brainwashed, I agreed

04:00:07.580 to meet with ex-members and learn about Chinese communist brainwashing, et cetera.

04:00:14.660 The real me popped out and I had all these memories of things that should have made me run

04:00:20.960 from the cult, but again, this cult identity that had been programmed into me was in executive

04:00:29.120 control.

04:00:30.880 The people think maybe this is just a small niche thing.

04:00:35.240 It's not.

04:00:35.960 There are a lot of cults in America, even today.

04:00:39.760 And I know, I mean, I've talked a lot about Scientology on this show and the other shows

04:00:44.940 I've had, but they have a lot of the features where you buy in at this level and then you

04:00:50.880 have to pay all this money to advance to the next level.

04:00:54.040 And that's also, I know, a feature of cults.

04:00:57.540 Moreover, them learning what your weaknesses are in these little sessions that they have

04:01:02.000 where you've got to like pour your heart out through these little Campbell's, you know,

04:01:07.860 cans.

04:01:08.740 The soup cans through the string like we used to do when we were kids.

04:01:11.820 And then the other person knows all your vulnerabilities, which get used against you.

04:01:16.360 But like the cult Michelle talked about, like the Moonies, there's something for you in there.

04:01:22.140 There, the Scientology messaging of don't associate with the negative people.

04:01:27.480 They're suppressive people.

04:01:28.620 Move on.

04:01:29.500 There's no reason to bask in that negativity.

04:01:31.560 You just, you get rid of them.

04:01:33.220 You know, there's something attractive and there's something positive about it.

04:01:36.820 So there's always something, right?

04:01:38.280 They do have something good to reel you in until you learn about all the other stuff.

04:01:43.080 But by that point, they're hoping it's too late.

04:01:46.320 So I want you to be clear and understand and your listeners that people don't understand

04:01:53.420 what the group is and what the beliefs are, what's going to happen to them.

04:01:58.520 If there was actual informed consent, where people understood what the beliefs were, people

04:02:06.640 wouldn't get involved in the first place.

04:02:09.040 In my work and in my doctoral dissertation that I did, I talk about behavior control, information

04:02:17.440 control, thought control, and emotional control variables.

04:02:22.180 I call it the BITE model of authoritarian control.

04:02:27.040 And I go through a laundry list of the most common techniques that all types of cults, political

04:02:33.540 cults, therapy cults, religious cults, cults, one-on-one cults even, use on people.

04:02:40.840 And what's missing for the public is to have an understanding that influence exists on a

04:02:48.080 continuum from ethical influence to unethical and what to watch out for.

04:02:54.680 So preventive education, and that's why I'm so grateful that you had Michelle on your show

04:03:00.180 and that I'm able to do this show, is because people don't want to be lied to.

04:03:05.620 They don't want to be tricked.

04:03:06.800 They don't want to be mind-controlled and abused or trafficked.

04:03:11.440 And if they understood how to reality test for themselves, whether they're in a mind-control

04:03:17.080 environment, then they won't join or they'll get out if they're already in.

04:03:22.140 Yes.

04:03:23.000 So I've had a long interest in this, including interviews in depth with Catherine Oxenberg,

04:03:28.340 who's, she was a famous star. 0.67

04:03:30.040 She is a famous star and was very big in the 1980s.

04:03:33.580 And her daughter, India Oxenberg, who was lured into this cult, NXIVM, which is from my

04:03:40.300 hometown, Albany, New York.

04:03:41.960 You wouldn't have thought, I wouldn't have thought it could happen in an upstate New York

04:03:44.980 community.

04:03:45.560 People are very sensible.

04:03:46.820 You kind of always think it's not going to be me.

04:03:48.500 It's not going to be my hometown.

04:03:50.260 Where to sense?

04:03:51.360 No, wrong.

04:03:52.340 It can happen anywhere.

04:03:53.040 And here she is, this glamorous, absolutely stunning woman, you know, very well-known

04:03:58.220 and her beautiful daughter.

04:03:59.340 And they went for a like self, like female empowerment. 1.00

04:04:03.520 That's what they were told it was going to be about, you know, start a business for female 1.00

04:04:06.980 leaders.

04:04:07.680 And her daughter thought that was attractive.

04:04:09.520 And Catherine thought, sure, I'll go, I'll support you.

04:04:12.120 And they went and then they took like maybe another seminar and then maybe a third.

04:04:15.940 And then Catherine was like, ah, I'm good.

04:04:17.500 And India was getting more and more into it. 0.95

04:04:19.480 And of course, you did need to buy up to the next level of courses.

04:04:22.480 And it had all the features, right? 0.95

04:04:24.440 It was like they revered the one guy, Keith Raniere, this short, unattractive, disgusting 0.99

04:04:30.600 man. 0.99

04:04:31.280 They always are.

04:04:32.220 It's never the Robert Redford, Brad Pitt type who's at the center. 0.88

04:04:37.240 All the women, as it turns out, were having sex with him. 0.77

04:04:40.340 The women wound up being branded within this weird little sex cult that was like baked into 1.00

04:04:46.980 the cult.

04:04:47.400 Anyway, it was such a story.

04:04:49.480 As Catherine tried to get her daughter out of this, thank God, successfully. 0.52

04:04:52.780 But the pulling out is so much harder than the pulling in.

04:05:00.080 Yeah, exactly.

04:05:01.160 I would say that I knew about Keith Raniere when he got busted by 20 attorneys general for

04:05:07.780 his multi-level marketing cult, Consumers Byline.

04:05:12.260 Multi-level marketing cults, you know, promise the pie in the sky, you'll make a fortune.

04:05:18.160 But it's all about behavior, information, thought, and emotional control to make people

04:05:23.700 dependent.

04:05:24.780 He was forbidden from doing an MLM.

04:05:27.380 He recruited Nancy Salzman to be the front person and did an MLM for coaching.

04:05:33.200 And so the whole NXIVM program, I have a lot of information on my freedomofmind.com website

04:05:40.020 about NXIVM and all the techniques they've used.

04:05:43.420 And I'll also add, after my deprogramming in 1976 from the Moonies, I befriended ex-Scientologists

04:05:50.680 and started learning.

04:05:52.060 I befriended Paulette Cooper, who was unmercifully attacked by Scientology, and I got labeled a

04:06:00.900 suppressive person.

04:06:02.660 And I'm very close friends with John Atak, who's written the best books on Scientology,

04:06:09.380 being a former member himself, and brilliant.

04:06:12.140 Man, people need to understand it can happen to anyone, and it makes a lot of sense for

04:06:21.520 preventive education, consumer awareness.

04:06:24.940 Again, why I'm so grateful, Megan, that you're doing this show.

04:06:29.940 Well, how do you know, right?

04:06:31.160 Like, I know lots of people who pay to go to a self-help workshop, or I don't know, you

04:06:38.400 learn how to do some sort of stress management techniques, what have you.

04:06:43.020 There's all sorts of things out there.

04:06:45.540 And they bounce from one to another, but they never get drawn into a cult.

04:06:51.060 Like, they don't wind up giving their money.

04:06:52.660 They just sort of test different things.

04:06:54.460 But is there a personality type who is more likely to be susceptible to this?

04:07:01.440 A personality type?

04:07:03.400 I would say probably if you're oriented to being a people pleaser, and you haven't been

04:07:10.620 taught how to be assertive to say no, you're going to be more likely susceptible to being

04:07:18.940 manipulated, especially by trained recruiters who know a lot of social influence techniques.

04:07:26.120 But I want to state categorically that everyone is situationally vulnerable, death of a loved one,

04:07:34.600 an illness, a breakup in a relationship, losing a job, moving to a new city, state, or country

04:07:41.360 that throws you off balance, where somebody can come in and start telling you with certainty

04:07:49.460 how much your life can get better or how you can be helped to save the world and make the world a better place.

04:07:59.240 With Scientology, it's more about power than saving the world.

04:08:03.640 There's an element of clearing the planet and getting rid of all the evil mental health professionals.

04:08:09.280 I'm one of those.

04:08:11.360 But mostly, it's a situational vulnerabilities and lack of awareness that it could happen to you. 1.00

04:08:20.760 So if you're walking around thinking, oh, it only happens to weak people or stupid people or uneducated 0.99

04:08:27.260 people, then you're really very, very vulnerable. 1.00

04:08:31.200 Think again.

04:08:31.880 What is it about Keith Raniere or Sun Yon Moon or L. Ron Hubbard and now his disciple, David Miscavige of Scientology?

04:08:42.340 What is it about them that makes them so good at persuasion?

04:08:46.400 That makes them, you know, you talk about Keith Raniere. 0.99

04:08:48.780 He's just some loser. 0.98

04:08:50.160 I mean, this guy never accomplished anything in his life. 0.99

04:08:52.260 So how does he have these enormous powers of persuasion to get so many people to follow him?

04:08:57.700 That's a really good question.

04:08:59.320 So I want to cite Eric Fromm, who was brilliant, wrote in the 40s.

04:09:05.740 He talked about malignant narcissists.

04:09:09.060 And I have said in my books that this is the stereotypical profile of cult leaders, the grandiosity,

04:09:18.480 the certainty, the need for attention, but the lack of empathy, but also thinking that they're

04:09:26.100 above the law, the pathological lying.

04:09:29.580 And there's a whole list that I have on my website.

04:09:32.800 So certainty is something that the average person tends to go, hmm, they're so sure.

04:09:42.740 Maybe they know something I don't know.

04:09:45.080 As opposed to, this person has a personality disorder. 0.98

04:09:49.620 They're a narcissist. 0.88

04:09:52.200 And I should be more skeptical of anyone with that level of certainty and such.

04:09:58.280 But I also want to comment that I just finished two chapters for a textbook on hypnosis about the dark side of hypnosis.

04:10:06.520 And I wrote about Hubbard being a hypnotist and that the entire system is based on hypnosis.

04:10:14.980 And Croneri learned neurolinguistic programming, which was based on the work of Milton Erickson,

04:10:22.660 who was the penultimate hypnotherapist, psychiatrist.

04:10:27.440 So what I want to say to your listeners is that human beings go in and out of altered states of consciousness all day long.

04:10:38.640 And hypnosis is not sleep.

04:10:41.160 It's about a focusing and narrowing of your attention, which makes you more suggestible to ideas.

04:10:49.640 And this is a great superpower for people who are super successful to enter into this kind of flow state where they're able to super concentrate.

04:11:01.860 But if you're in an environment with someone with a hidden agenda who can start putting in beliefs and ideas like you've lived before,

04:11:10.800 or that the world is filled with body thetans, which is part of Hubbard's sci-fi ideology.

04:11:19.640 And the critical mind gets bypassed.

04:11:23.720 So again, the critical thing always to protect yourself is look at the source, look for credibility, look for credentials,

04:11:35.500 and always be open to listening to critics and former members.

04:11:40.100 And if you're in a group that says, don't ever listen to X members or critics, automatically you should be going, that's information control.

04:11:50.900 I'm an intelligent human being.

04:11:53.280 Let me hear what the critics and former members have to say, and I'll decide for myself whether or not that has validity or not.

04:12:00.680 This is why I say when I was in Fox News, I was in a cult.

04:12:05.020 And it's not to say it wasn't a real cult, but there were cultish elements in that once you leave, you are otherized.

04:12:13.180 That is it.

04:12:13.680 You don't leave.

04:12:14.540 Like once you're out, you are banished.

04:12:17.660 You're shunned.

04:12:18.560 And when I was there, it was all about the reverence to dear leader, who was Roger Ailes, who ran that place with an iron fist and would absolutely be telling you not to listen to anything the Libs said.

04:12:31.820 You know, that was his political bias, but also there was something different about it.

04:12:36.080 And just the way, like the people would talk about Roger, like I hear remnants of it when I hear stories about Scientology, about how, you know, well, Roger approves of this.

04:12:48.220 Well, Roger likes that.

04:12:49.480 Well, Roger thought this, you know, as if he was this deity that somehow had, you know, greater divine knowledge than the rest of us.

04:12:57.140 And so where do you, where do you draw the line between, well, they just love the guy because he was a genius and he built a really powerful news organization.

04:13:03.860 And this is getting culty, right?

04:13:07.380 Like I still don't know exactly where that line is.

04:13:10.600 So it's a really important point.

04:13:13.020 I just put up on my podcast an interview with a leadership professor of business about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

04:13:22.000 And he did a journal article talking about corporate cults and the qualities to evaluate.

04:13:28.920 And it comes back to the charismatic figure who cannot be criticized, who is held up and not accountable, not transparent, doesn't apologize and say that they're wrong.

04:13:43.780 But the control of behavior, information, thoughts and emotions in order to make people dependent and obedient.

04:13:52.500 And so to stay in your job, you need to adopt the corporate identity, keep your thoughts to yourself and follow the rules or be ostracized and criticized.

04:14:06.080 And that's the opposite of healthy corporations and healthy groups where they want dissent.

04:14:11.900 They want to hear other points of view that the leaders, if they screw up, they say sorry and they really make policy changes.

04:14:20.700 But if you're an authoritarian, you want total power and control.

04:14:24.580 Well, the NBC might be a cult, too, because they didn't want opposite points of view from what they're, you know, that's a news problem.

04:14:30.920 That's a media.

04:14:31.560 So the important thing about my work is I'm against authoritarianism on the left and the right.

04:14:38.340 I'm against I want human rights for all.

04:14:41.640 I want I want to support human rights, women's rights, gay rights.

04:14:46.660 I want people to be free to think and not just conform and follow in lemming like fashion, whatever they're being told. 0.93

04:14:56.640 You know, I would say my own experience, and this may be one of the reasons why I'm so interested in this subject, is it took years after leaving Fox for really that second skin to come off. 1.00

04:15:08.660 You know what I mean?

04:15:09.540 Like, yeah, it took a long time.

04:15:12.580 Even to be honest with you, I was a knee jerk defender of Fox News for a long time.

04:15:17.700 Like, no, they didn't know that you're wrong.

04:15:19.420 Well, don't criticize them like that.

04:15:20.520 Well, that's not true.

04:15:21.140 And to this day, I have some fear in criticizing them because I was there for some 14 years.

04:15:30.220 Like, I have a bit of a emotional hangover from these problems.

04:15:37.840 So this is a really important point that you make.

04:15:41.320 And when I talk about the bite model and the E is emotional control, emotional control includes feeling awe and reverence and feeling special and chosen.

04:15:52.420 But mostly it's about fear and guilt.

04:15:55.020 And the universal mind control technique is what I call phobia indoctrination, which is the inculcation of irrational fears that if you ever leave the group or criticize the leader, terrible things are going to happen to you.

04:16:12.080 And the way to get out of phobia programming is to think back who you were before you got involved and to use your critical frontal cortex to evaluate what's an actual danger where you should have fear and what's an irrational fear.

04:16:32.360 And I deal with traffickers, sex traffickers, pimps, as well as labor traffickers.

04:16:39.100 And unfortunately, with some of these criminal enterprises, people should be afraid of speaking out against them because they can be harassed or harmed physically.

04:16:51.060 But most religious cults, most cults, I would say, in the United States, it's a psychological imprisonment.

04:16:59.420 And why it took time for you is time brings perspective through experiences outside of the totalist environment.

04:17:09.960 The more contact you have with normal people and other frames of reference.

04:17:15.520 And also, I would suspect your interest in Scientology and NXIVM and other things, that gave you some tools to start thinking and getting perspective on Fox would be my guess.

04:17:27.140 No, I remember I was at NBC, we were covering NXIVM, I was up neck deep on that story, and I was doing an interview on what a cult is and what are the defining characteristics.

04:17:37.940 And I said on camera, oh my God, I was in a cult.

04:17:41.800 It was the aha moment.

04:17:43.400 I think I watched that interview, actually.

04:17:45.900 Yeah, it was.

04:17:47.580 And truly, I don't mean to be completely, this isn't my cult hangover, but I don't mean to be completely disparaging of this place that gave me all these opportunities and I made a lot of money there.

04:17:55.480 But it's more than just a normal news organization.

04:17:58.800 There's just no question about it.

04:18:00.880 And it's not that, and the more is not healthy.

04:18:04.420 So, all right, enough about me.

04:18:05.860 How do we extract somebody who we know?

04:18:11.100 I mean, like this actually happened to my friend, Catherine Oxenberg.

04:18:13.860 She had to extract India. 1.00

04:18:15.780 And India did not want to hear anything negative about NXIVM or Keith Raniere from Catherine.

04:18:23.100 Catherine had been otherized.

04:18:24.460 Catherine had been made the outsider and a threat.

04:18:27.920 So, it's a very ginger, delicate process for someone like Catherine or a loved one like your family trying to extract a loved one.

04:18:38.880 Right.

04:18:39.480 So, I want to say that I was extracted after a near-fatal van crash in 1976, and I got involved for a year with extracting other people from the Moonies called deprogramming. 0.97

04:18:55.160 And I realized this is not healthy.

04:18:58.300 This is traumatizing.

04:19:00.540 And then it became illegal when judges stopped giving conservatorships to parents.

04:19:06.440 So, I just turned my back on that approach.

04:19:10.000 But I still wanted to help people involved with cults.

04:19:13.140 So, I embarked, and now it's 47 years later, but I embarked on a process of wanting to understand the programming elements and what are the patterns that have helped people to get out and to reality test.

04:19:28.460 And that's why I've written four books on the subject and have a course that I've just put up for mental health professionals, especially to help their clients.

04:19:37.900 And what works the best is empowering people to reflect and reality test for themselves versus trying to persuade them that the group is wrong or bad or the leader is wrong or bad.

04:19:52.780 And it's about warmth, respect, asking questions, and understanding the methodology involved with creating this dual identity or dissociative disorder to get the person back in time before they join to start remembering what did they think their life was going to be when they went to that first session.

04:20:15.920 And if you knew then what you know now, if you could go back in time, and you were being arrested as India was under threat of arrest, you can start to activate the person's core identity.

04:20:33.960 And as you educate them about Chinese communist brainwashing or pimps or traffickers and explain the influence continuum and the bite model, you're asking them questions and pointing out these other areas or other cults that they would say are brainwashing people.

04:20:53.520 And people exit themselves is what I'm trying to say, Megan, but if you can create a team of family members, friends, former members.

04:21:04.880 And that's why I loved Michelle is doing this book forager. 0.90

04:21:09.660 There are so many other former members who were born in cults or recruited in cults writing books. 0.97

04:21:15.300 What I love about this is it's people sharing their stories will help to destigmatize the idea that only weak, stupid people are in these groups, right?

04:21:26.720 And that many people have life after cult or life after group so they can have a future in their mind where that's happier. 0.62

04:21:37.640 Yeah, so what percentage of attempted extractions work, would you say?

04:21:46.020 Like, what's the success rate?

04:21:48.280 So again, I don't think of extractions.

04:21:51.580 I have what I call the strategic interactive approach.

04:21:55.800 And unfortunately, it's labor intensive and time intensive.

04:22:00.760 So families who want to just write me a check and tell me to go get their loved one, I don't take those clients.

04:22:07.820 I work with people who love their son or daughter or their husband or wife or their mother or father.

04:22:14.200 And I coach them on how to interact.

04:22:16.960 So it happens over time.

04:22:19.500 And I would say the earlier you can start in this project to the person's recruitment, the faster they're going to exit.

04:22:28.360 If you start this process 10 years later or 20 years later, in a way, it's easier to get them to think critically because they've had a long body of negative experiences that have been suppressed.

04:22:43.080 But it's harder to re-socialize.

04:22:46.200 And again, you want a face-saving exit for people to say, we love you.

04:22:52.600 We want you in our life.

04:22:54.260 And again, the idea isn't to try to control them or to tell them what to think or to tell them what they're doing is wrong, but to ask them to think over what it is they're doing and persuade you, perhaps, to, you know, why it's so good that you might consider to get involved yourself.

04:23:15.420 It's a very powerful frame.

04:23:17.260 Oh, I hope you enjoy this show as much as I did.

04:23:20.840 Cults are fascinating.

04:23:22.280 They're so fascinating.

04:23:23.640 Are they fascinating to you?

04:23:25.000 They probably are if you're sitting here listening to this.

04:23:28.680 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

04:23:30.860 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

04:23:47.260 And when the last song fades, welcome aboard KLM Royal Dutch Airlines crew is here to ensure your journey home hits all the right notes.

04:24:04.780 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

04:24:06.740 When you travel, travel well.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 08, 2026

Disturbing Jared From Subway Story, Casey Anthony Trial, Deep Dive Into Cults - Megyn's ＂True Crime＂ Mega-Episode

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