00:01:47.440Also, 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.
00:01:59.200And also, I'll look at cults like you've never seen before.
00:02:02.040I mean, who doesn't like a good cult story?
00:12:40.380You 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.
00:12:50.920I want to run a clip from the show that sort of takes us a little bit into some of that.
00:12:58.940It's called Jared from Subway, Catching a Monster.
00:13:01.800And it's you talking about your decision making about what to do next.
00:14:40.240And we talk about dark things sometimes on this show, too dark, too disturbing.
00:14:44.760In the context of the film, it's okay.
00:14:47.320It works, and you need it to be in there.
00:14:49.820In 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.
00:14:57.840I mean, you're the reason we have them.
00:14:59.020But we'll play a couple, enough so the audience gets it.
00:15:01.460But you went through a lot having to hear that.
00:15:03.940It's like stumbling upon child pornography.
00:15:07.940Like, imagine if you've stumbled upon a magazine of child pornography just as you're cleaning your house and reading the most vile discussion.
00:15:16.720That's what you were forced to endure in these conversations with him.
00:15:51.080But 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.
00:16:04.460And 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.
00:16:20.260And the grooming is all over the news, that word these days.
00:16:23.300And 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.
00:17:04.820I mean, it's tough to know whether that was a passing comment.
00:17:07.420He's just a weird guy or this is an actual pedophile.
00:17:09.940And he's going to actually confess it to me, a public figure.
00:17:15.040So how confident were you that you could get him to do that?
00:17:20.140Well, I wasn't very, it wasn't about confidence, to be honest with you.
00:17:25.400It was just about strategy, what to say, how to say it.
00:17:29.620But really what he was saying to me wasn't what he wanted to do.
00:17:33.860He 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,
00:17:53.180which was typically from a, you know, from a broken family, possibly have some kind of, you know, mental health issues, depression or, or otherwise.
00:18:08.060I mean, he wanted the week to pray on.
00:18:10.460You start just using your dictaphone, been there, sister.
00:18:17.660I was that person too, many years ago before we had the iPhone.
00:18:45.300I mean, majority of the time he was always on the road and not just in the United States.
00:18:51.180He 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.
00:18:59.780And I could hear the crowds and the excitement.
00:19:43.760He was just an everyday, ordinary guy.
00:19:46.020And 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.
00:20:00.180So 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.
00:20:13.360And then the movie points out he made millions.
00:20:18.640I mean, he became very rich, very famous, well-traveled, beloved, with a lot of access to power players.
00:20:28.000So all of this happened over the course of some 15 years.
00:20:31.260And 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.
00:20:47.980Subway heard about it, made him their spokesperson, and boom, off to the races.
00:20:52.960So you're in the midst of this phone relationship with him, and he is starting to say incriminating things.
00:21:00.620So the first time, this was something that was unclear to me from watching the series.
00:21:04.700He made the comment about the middle schoolers.
00:21:06.560Then 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.
00:21:11.480But 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?
00:21:28.260It 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.
00:21:40.020Although 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.
00:21:54.000And 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.
00:22:09.580When 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.
00:22:20.760And he was, he had his friends, but not being all over the world, anyone that he could trust like that.
00:22:26.800So perhaps it was just something that, a necessity for him.
00:22:30.820Hmm, so maybe easier than you expected at first.
00:22:34.700Now, wait, before you brought in the FBI, I love how you're, you're, you're moving the pieces.
00:22:39.540But before that, you did have one meeting with him, and it was scary, right?
00:23:07.020I agreed to, and he told me where he was, and that's when I took the drive, and I went there.
00:23:13.020And, um, he opened the door, welcomed me in, um, hi, how are you doing?
00:23:18.740Um, and then almost immediately became very flirtatious and hands-on, and I kept pushing him aside and just trying to continue with the conversation,
00:23:28.220because I had my dictaphone in my handbag, and it was recording.
00:23:33.140So I wanted to get as much information as quickly as possible, because I was very uncomfortable being there.
00:23:38.880And it wound up in you fleeing, right?
00:23:42.960Like 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.
00:23:54.700I 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,
00:24:25.960Well, 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.
00:24:41.500And then the entire drive home, uh, which is about three hours, I was crying.
00:24:48.380I was so upset, um, because of what I just put myself at risk of, but I still needed more information.
00:24:56.980I was very disappointed that I didn't get anything, um, concrete.
00:25:01.680It was inaudible, but there had to be another way.
00:25:05.800And I knew that, that he was interested enough that, that another opportunity would arise.
00:25:11.020You 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?
00:25:15.520So 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.
00:25:23.140And there's another point at which you admit you threw up after one phone call.
00:25:27.080And just, you're very open about how this was actually really, really difficult on you emotionally.
00:25:33.280And I have to say, Rochelle, I like that.
00:25:35.400It's, it's almost a more interesting story because you are very vulnerable in that way.
00:25:39.920You're not this, you know, tough as nails.
00:25:42.440Like I was going to nail him and I got him and it was, yeah, screw him.
00:25:46.380You were very fragile at times in this thing, but you kept at it.
00:25:53.840That is such a hopeful story, I think, to everyone out there.
00:25:58.140And 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.
00:27:07.140I'm, I'm different now than I was when, you know, before that happened.
00:27:12.800And 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.
00:27:26.980Because these, it's not, it's not something that anybody should stand down.
00:27:33.400It'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.
00:29:16.300And, 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.
00:29:29.580And 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.
00:29:42.620It's like something out of a movie. You're going to like the dark parking lot, doing the quick drive by, you know, handoff.
00:29:50.760And they say that's for your own safety. So nobody, if he were watching you, you know, he wouldn't see anything.
00:29:57.440Well, that's exactly right. That's why they do it in, you know, the darker corners.
00:30:02.220They'll do it at, you know, under night, you know, in alleyways.
00:30:07.960And they do it where they pull up alongside me and it's always the dark, you know, the black suburbans, very dark tint.
00:30:15.720You do the handoff. It, it was really very surreal, very creepy.
00:30:20.640I 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.
00:30:28.880And 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.
00:30:38.880See, as a CI, CIs, you're given aliases and numbers, and that's what you're referred to, not your real name.
00:30:47.180But I came out when Jared was arrested and I shared because the public has a right to know.
00:30:53.120And that is exactly why I'm here today.
00:30:55.360And there's further information that I'd like to share.
00:30:57.760And 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.
00:31:05.160But 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.
00:31:21.080Well, 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.
00:31:33.380It is another for us to hear it in his own words, his sick perversions.
00:32:22.860In 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.
00:32:54.680I 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.
00:33:07.800He's going, you know, he's going to this city.
00:33:11.800And he told me he's, you know, this one particular incident, there was a little girl he was going to see.
00:33:17.860And he alluded to the fact that the parents knew what he was going to do.
00:33:22.260So there's more to the story than just that.
00:33:30.280And 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.
00:33:48.700And 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.
00:34:04.080We're going to play two soundbites here of your discussions with him.
00:34:09.140And 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.
00:34:21.080I mean, it was a period of years, so they were aging, but they were around there.
00:34:26.720And he started to turn the discussion to your own children, which is something very different than the abstract idea, which is awful enough.
00:34:36.160So we've got a bit of that from the piece.
00:35:23.260Actually, 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.
00:35:36.720And she, I was going to quit and just walk away.
00:35:42.780And through conversations, they did not have anybody else to get in.
00:35:48.180They had tried for quite a while through me to try to introduce an agent to take my place ultimately.
00:38:39.560I went on my lunch break and I was there for many hours and they had tied in.
00:38:46.700There was probably about 30 or 40 law enforcement.
00:38:51.300And 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.
00:39:03.000But I stood my ground and it took them quite a while before they convinced me not to go public.
00:39:10.120They did say that I would be impeding an ongoing investigation and there would be repercussions legally against me.
00:39:20.020And and I still did it didn't I didn't care.
00:39:25.920And it finally took one of the detectives from Sarasota Police Department that pulled me aside.
00:39:32.380And 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.
00:39:59.840But 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.
00:40:09.580So 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.
00:40:28.400Um, and so it would, it will happen, he will be taken taken down, but it's going to take that time and process.
00:40:37.400But 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.
00:40:48.960And that leads me to believe Jared pled guilty.
00:40:54.540I 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.
00:41:06.900Um, 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.
00:41:26.160But, 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.
00:41:49.240He 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.
00:42:02.320But, um, so I think there's a lot more to it and I think a lot more is going to come out.
00:42:10.040I 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.
00:42:19.240After Jared, Epstein would be a big one that if there were, if there were a connection there, that would be a very significant one.
00:42:26.880How 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?
00:42:38.440About 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.
00:42:47.460And, 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.
00:43:03.560And 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.
00:43:18.200So you are, you're going through this.
00:43:41.560My, um, my ex-husband, my children's father, uh, was retired police department from Sarasota.
00:43:48.440Um, 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.
00:43:59.200That 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.
00:44:19.540Cause I would be able to talk to him during these times of duress because I told him what I was doing.
00:44:25.320I would never do that without telling their dad because he had a right to know.
00:44:30.460And 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.
00:44:47.900Your, your, your son, uh, Thomas is featured in the docuseries and appears very proud of what you did.
00:44:56.300We pulled just one soundbite, but there are a few that we could have chosen from, um, it's Sot 8.
00:45:03.200She did do something heroic and she, it was selfless because she lost a lot in the process.
00:45:08.460Your 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.
00:45:46.720She's very private and tries to keep to herself.
00:45:48.820Um, 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.
00:45:58.620She was angry with, um, certain situations because of what she would, you know, perhaps read.
00:46:07.960And she thinks that I put the, put them at risk, which I never did.
00:46:12.120And 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.
00:46:26.820And she sees that now, but, um, what she was most angry with me about was that she lost her mom for all those years.
00:46:35.820She didn't have the mom connection throughout her childhood for the most part that other kids did, because I always had to be away.
00:46:47.680And 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.
00:46:59.640She's an adult now, so she thinks differently.
00:47:01.600But, um, but, um, but I, her, her whole idea was you didn't have to do that.
00:47:07.920You needed to spend more time with us.
00:47:10.580And 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.
00:47:46.900I did not get compensated during my time with the FBI for all those years.
00:47:52.420And I would have to leave my house, hire sitters, um, if my, you know, if their dad wasn't available.
00:47:58.780Um, 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.
00:48:07.460Being around the world, he'd be in different time zones as well, and they would be relentless.
00:48:12.080He 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.
00:48:19.800And I really was not getting the sleep that I needed, and it was just very draining on me.
00:48:29.140How many phone calls would you say there were over all those years?
00:48:33.200How many phone calls would you say you had taped?
00:48:36.900Oh, well, if you average it out at the eight to ten per day for all those years.
00:48:46.060But 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.
00:48:55.980And that would have really hit the fire.
00:48:57.340Wasn't he married with kids by that time?
00:48:59.560At the end there, Rochelle, didn't he get married and have children of his own, like at the end?
00:49:05.400I believe so, but I don't think that I was working with the FBI at that point.
00:49:09.520Okay, so there was a period where your phone calls ended, and then there was a gap, and then the arrest.
00:49:16.640Okay, 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.
00:49:24.880He had a guy running his children's foundation who was also a disgusting pervert, as it would turn out.
00:49:33.220And that guy, his name was Russell, what's his last name?
00:49:39.680That 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.
00:49:51.680And there was an email that got circulated of his wife in some sort of very twisted sex act.
00:49:57.960And the act itself is unlawful, and they got wind of the fact that Russell was emailing it.
00:50:06.660Emailing the pictures is not unlawful, but they just decided it's time to investigate Russell and his family situation, what's going on there.
00:50:14.800And 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.
00:50:33.440And the young women, who are very young moms, at least one of them is a mom herself now, spoke at length in the documentary.
00:51:58.800And then using the tapes to, I don't know if he sold them.
00:52:04.740He 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.
00:52:13.500Here's a little bit from Christian and Hannah, the two daughters, who spoke out in the documentary.
00:52:19.720After Russell was arrested, we had to talk to the FBI.
00:52:24.140I was in a very traumatic, frozen state.
00:52:31.220I couldn't even believe what was happening to me.
00:52:35.600They sat me down and told me that there were cameras all throughout the house.
00:54:17.740I thought that I would have received a phone call to, you know, prep me and let me know.
00:54:24.740I knew while I was working undercover, that was always the plan.
00:54:30.460If 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.
00:54:41.640The children had to be prepped if this day were to happen.
00:54:44.280And, 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.
00:54:54.600And they had switched schools from time to time as they were growing up.
00:54:59.760And, you know, so they were my kids knew that there was something that was happening.
00:55:07.960They my son had revealed to me that they they knew that I was working with the FBI.
00:55:14.400There was a bad man I was helping them get.
00:55:16.560But he said to me he never knew who this person was.
00:55:20.620And he was actually saying, but he and my daughter because they'd have conversations.
00:55:25.640And it was worse that they didn't know who it was because they didn't trust anyone.
00:56:43.300And 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.
00:56:57.760And my understanding, Rochelle, is that that was in part due to your tapes and hearing the years of his admissions on them.
00:57:07.700Yes, that that's exactly what I had been told.
00:57:13.020And that really gave me a gratifying feeling that those were not wasted years.
00:57:20.220It 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.
00:57:28.240And 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.
02:01:29.220But the point is lies, lies, lies, lies, lies at every turn.
02:01:35.300And this is what one of the many reasons it's not just I smelled a dead body.
02:01:39.880It'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.
02:01:58.360Right. So all of this goes into our perception on the outside, Cheney, of Casey Anthony and is, you know, I don't so far.
02:05:02.660Beth, can you take us to, because, you know, weirdly, the man who found the body, who was a meter reader,
02:05:11.120would wind up becoming a central figure for a time in this case.
02:05:16.240There 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?
02:05:24.360Like, how did he become more interesting than that?
02:06:28.720I couldn't up and leave with our satellite truck.
02:06:31.080We were parked there, so I had to wait.
02:06:32.560Everyone 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.
02:06:44.320And it would be days of sifting through this property, this wooded area, a quarter mile from where Casey Anthony lived with her parents.
02:06:53.680And that's where the remains were found.
02:06:55.640Now, 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.
02:07:08.640And he called it in a couple of times in August, and he wasn't being taken seriously.
02:07:13.640Like a deputy showed up and did a cursory search.
02:07:16.280This is like a really dense wooded area, which, by the way, had been a storm that summer of 2008.
02:07:22.640And that area had been flooded at one point, but it was no longer flooded by December.
02:07:28.040And 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.
02:07:37.420And so he now has reported, again, having found a skull, and it's now taken more seriously.
02:07:45.280I'm not quite sure why there wasn't a more thorough search before.
02:07:48.800It might have been because it was flooded.
02:07:50.520Maybe the deputy was afraid of the snakes or whatever.
02:07:52.800But she should have been found a lot earlier than December 11th.
02:08:20.580The 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.
02:08:29.020Sure, and her remains were spread because of animal activity.
02:08:31.780But 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.
02:08:41.860And I don't think anyone's really disputing that.
02:08:44.980In 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.
02:08:56.400It was an accidental drowning and her body was disposed of.
02:08:59.420So not really refuting that the bag, you know, belonged to the home.
02:09:12.200So, 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.
02:09:19.820I mean, it really wasn't like wrapped around the head like that.
02:10:34.780The 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.
02:10:45.420It was never connected to this forensic scene.
02:10:49.180But other than it was found and talked about.
02:10:51.480And Beth is right about the slippage and the duct tape was not all around the head.
02:10:59.120The duct tape had been on the top of the bag.
02:11:01.980And 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.
02:11:16.380But there wasn't any actually on the skull.
02:11:19.800And Dr. Werner Spitz testified about all that and about the body.
02:11:24.300One 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?
02:12:10.420And that was the end of that investigation.
02:12:12.780That exact spot, just so you'll know, was 17 feet and nine inches from the curb of Suburban Drive.
02:12:21.200And that's a very short distance to not have been found.
02:12:25.720It had been searched by horseback people, as we call the Kissimmee boys on four-wheel drives.
02:12:33.180Because numerous volunteer walkers and searches had covered that area and every square inch of it for a long time.
02:12:43.240But 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?
02:12:48.100But the reports were that they had massive flooding during that period that we're talking about, that four months,
02:12:55.200and 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.
02:13:01.620Well, that was suggested, but that wasn't the testimony.
02:13:08.360The 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.
02:13:43.560All I can say is it's unreasonable to expect that the body was 17 feet and nine inches from the curve of the road,
02:13:51.040which 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.
02:14:01.500My recollection was that there was actually like plant material growing up through the skull,
02:14:05.900which indicates it was there the entire time, but it had not been moved.
02:14:09.660I don't remember that that is the case.
02:14:13.560I remember Dr. Spitz talking about how there was at the base of the skull inside, there was some dirt.
02:15:52.960He was taking cases and going to court.
02:15:55.800You know, that's all young lawyers do routinely.
02:15:59.660I 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.
02:16:12.820And that evolved into finally asking me to get in the case.
02:16:16.440You know, I've made mistakes before in my life, but I agreed to do this and I thought it was a good one.
02:16:23.580When I met this young lady, I didn't believe she was guilty.
02:16:27.120I've seen her several times since then.
02:17:16.440So you you get brought in by Jose Bias Cheney and you you actually were very well known.
02:17:22.900You were former president of Florida Association of Criminal Lawyers,
02:17:26.440had been selected by Florida Monthly Magazine as one of Florida's top lawyers.
02:17:31.840And you, I read, were disgusted by the local media coverage about the relatively inexperienced Jose Bias saying that you had been offended by it.
02:17:42.920It was one of the reasons why you want to get involved.
02:17:45.900Well, 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.
02:18:01.120Of being behind in alimony payments or something and criticizing him, I thought it was very unfair.
02:18:20.180Because at that point in time, the prosecutor being enlisted as the lead prosecutor was Jeffrey Ashton.
02:18:27.460In reality, the lead prosecutor was Linda Drain-Burdy.
02:18:30.780But Mr. Ashton, they were talking about how he was Mr. Good Guy and all these sort of things.
02:18:39.300Well, I pointed out to them that he had been personally criticized in several appellate court opinions, reversing convictions because of his misconduct professionally.
02:18:53.740And Beth will tell you that I probably, of course, don't mention the names of the lawyers when they reverse them.
02:18:59.480It's pretty rare that they'll actually identify the person they say did wrong.
02:19:04.700So I wanted to press, you know, treat this kid fairly.
02:19:24.160Representing this defendant on the biggest case in the country at the time.
02:19:28.960And as we now would, as we all now know, that he managed to secure an acquittal, which left the nation slack-jawed.
02:19:37.000I 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.
02:19:48.340Beth, 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.
02:19:54.160But take us to the moment of Jose's opening statement because that's the, that was the moment.
02:20:01.020I mean, that was the moment I would say the case was won for him, lost for the prosecution.
02:20:06.880They never seemed to recover their footing.
02:20:10.080It's my understanding the prosecution got word about maybe six weeks before the opening statement about what their position was going to be.
02:20:17.960But that it was going to be an accidental drowning.
02:20:20.880Jose Baez, the whole defense team, played their cards very close to their vest.
02:20:24.840People did not know where they were going.
02:20:28.640You 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.
02:21:16.080Um, 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?
02:21:26.920Five 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.
02:21:39.380I credit Cheney with the acquittal and his summation, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
02:21:45.340Um, but when, when, um, Jose said in the opening that it was an accidental drowning, and then
02:21:52.380he started talking about Casey being sexually abused by her father.
02:21:57.440Now, wait, cause the audience at home is like, wait, what?
02:22:03.140And our audience at home just had the same turn we all had at the time, which is, wait, what?
02:22:07.560But, and that's, no, that's what the prosecution got word of in advance, a few weeks in advance.
02:22:12.740And 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?
02:22:20.820Probably, probably it was, but, um, if this, you know, were the truth.
02:22:25.240Um, but yeah, so we hear that George has been sexually abusing Casey since she was a little girl.
02:22:30.720And 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.
02:22:40.840And, and, and that she learned how to live a life of lies.
02:22:45.100She learned how to be a really good liar because of that.
02:22:47.920So he's like opened this whole can of worms.
02:22:52.180And 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?
02:23:02.080Cause you know, George was the first witness right after openings and he denied it.
02:23:05.160And he's like, well, no, not necessarily.
02:23:11.300So 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.
02:23:19.900We'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.
02:23:27.080And you can't comment on it, you know, as a prosecutor at the end, because a defendant has a right to, to remain silent.
02:23:36.140He made us think that Casey was going to testify.
02:23:39.380And then maybe Cheney talked him out of it or something, but she didn't testify in the end.
02:23:46.520And that proof of sexual abuse was never put before the jury, sexual abuse by George.
02:23:52.680He 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.
02:24:01.420And as they say, you can't really unring the bell.
02:24:03.340And that taint was there on the prosecution case on George Anthony throughout the trial.
02:24:08.460I don't, I suspect jurors didn't like him because they had just heard Jose's opening and then George gets on the stand.
02:24:14.320Did the prosecution, did the prosecution move for a mistrial after that?
02:24:18.720I mean, I realize normally it's the defense that does that, but the prosecution can do it.
02:25:06.460So technically, the jury shouldn't have been thinking about that when they went back into the deliberation room.
02:25:11.280But, you know, the seed had been planted.
02:25:12.920As Beth says, it's hard to unring that bell.
02:25:15.220Now, 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.
02:25:23.180We saw some because there were some letters, I think, Casey wrote to like some guards in jail accusing him.
02:25:29.520And 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.
02:25:36.680So did you guys, what's your recollection of the what you said to George about what's coming?
02:25:42.600I 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.
02:25:58.560That George is going to be accused of sexually molesting his daughter.
02:26:27.600All George did was just look and sigh, put his hands on his legs and no other response.
02:26:34.960I 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.
02:27:58.100Well, and the point is that we give in if we really, really want to have pure jury verdicts that were reliable.
02:28:07.180Every 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.
02:28:18.060I 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.
02:30:22.500I've been asked so many times why this case is opposed to others.
02:30:29.240This was because there was a young, cute mother with an absolutely adorable little baby victim, and they were white.
02:30:41.660And 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.
02:30:54.680If it probably had been a young African-American mother and child, it may have been in the newspaper.
02:31:11.160I 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.
02:31:21.520If 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.
02:33:15.600And because I have some secrets about looking at jurors when they come in a courtroom.
02:33:20.680I'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.
04:10:41.160It's about a focusing and narrowing of your attention, which makes you more suggestible to ideas.
04:10:49.640And 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.
04:11:01.860But 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,
04:11:10.800or that the world is filled with body thetans, which is part of Hubbard's sci-fi ideology.
04:11:23.720So again, the critical thing always to protect yourself is look at the source, look for credibility, look for credentials,
04:11:35.500and always be open to listening to critics and former members.
04:11:40.100And 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.
04:12:18.560And 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.
04:12:31.820You know, that was his political bias, but also there was something different about it.
04:12:36.080And 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.
04:12:49.480Well, Roger thought this, you know, as if he was this deity that somehow had, you know, greater divine knowledge than the rest of us.
04:12:57.140And 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.
04:13:13.020I just put up on my podcast an interview with a leadership professor of business about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.
04:13:22.000And he did a journal article talking about corporate cults and the qualities to evaluate.
04:13:28.920And 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.
04:13:43.780But the control of behavior, information, thoughts and emotions in order to make people dependent and obedient.
04:13:52.500And 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.
04:14:06.080And that's the opposite of healthy corporations and healthy groups where they want dissent.
04:14:11.900They want to hear other points of view that the leaders, if they screw up, they say sorry and they really make policy changes.
04:14:20.700But if you're an authoritarian, you want total power and control.
04:14:24.580Well, 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.
04:14:31.560So the important thing about my work is I'm against authoritarianism on the left and the right.
04:14:38.340I'm against I want human rights for all.
04:14:41.640I want I want to support human rights, women's rights, gay rights.
04:14:46.660I want people to be free to think and not just conform and follow in lemming like fashion, whatever they're being told.
04:14:56.640You 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.
04:15:21.140And to this day, I have some fear in criticizing them because I was there for some 14 years.
04:15:30.220Like, I have a bit of a emotional hangover from these problems.
04:15:37.840So this is a really important point that you make.
04:15:41.320And 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.
04:15:55.020And 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.
04:16:12.080And 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.
04:16:32.360And I deal with traffickers, sex traffickers, pimps, as well as labor traffickers.
04:16:39.100And unfortunately, with some of these criminal enterprises, people should be afraid of speaking out against them because they can be harassed or harmed physically.
04:16:51.060But most religious cults, most cults, I would say, in the United States, it's a psychological imprisonment.
04:16:59.420And why it took time for you is time brings perspective through experiences outside of the totalist environment.
04:17:09.960The more contact you have with normal people and other frames of reference.
04:17:15.520And 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.
04:17:27.140No, 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.
04:17:37.940And I said on camera, oh my God, I was in a cult.
04:17:47.580And 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.
04:17:55.480But it's more than just a normal news organization.
04:18:39.480So, 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.
04:19:00.540And then it became illegal when judges stopped giving conservatorships to parents.
04:19:06.440So, I just turned my back on that approach.
04:19:10.000But I still wanted to help people involved with cults.
04:19:13.140So, 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.
04:19:28.460And 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.
04:19:37.900And 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.
04:19:52.780And 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.
04:20:15.920And 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.
04:20:33.960And 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.
04:20:53.520And people exit themselves is what I'm trying to say, Megan, but if you can create a team of family members, friends, former members.
04:21:04.880And that's why I loved Michelle is doing this book forager.
04:21:09.660There are so many other former members who were born in cults or recruited in cults writing books.
04:21:15.300What 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?
04:21:26.720And that many people have life after cult or life after group so they can have a future in their mind where that's happier.
04:21:37.640Yeah, so what percentage of attempted extractions work, would you say?
04:22:19.500And I would say the earlier you can start in this project to the person's recruitment, the faster they're going to exit.
04:22:28.360If 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.
04:22:54.260And 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.