Crime Weekly - S3 Ep282: Crime Weekly News: Casey Anthony on TikTok & Adnan Syed's Sentence Reduced

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

 Casey Anthony, acquitted in 2011 for the death of her daughter Caylee, has resurfaced on TikTok, announcing a new role as a "legal advocate." Through her Substack newsletter, she aims to advocate for women, the LGBTQ community, and her late daughter. This move has sparked outrage and criticism, with some questioning her motives and the authenticity of her advocacy efforts... Adnan Syed, whose case gained national attention through the "Serial" podcast, has been formally resentenced to time served for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee. Under Maryland's Juvenile Restoration Act, Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer determined that Syed, who was 17 at the time of the crime, is no longer a danger to the public. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.OneSkin.co - Use code CWN for 15% off! 

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Valid through 6-15. While supplies last. Selection varies by location. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And as you can tell by the title, we're going to be talking about our friend Casey Anthony. Now, many of you already know who Casey Anthony is. I would say 99% of you do. But for the 1% that do not, Casey Anthony was on trial in 2011 for the death of her daughter,

Kaylee Anthony, who passed away in 2008. We did a whole series on this. To summarize it for you, we both believe that Casey Anthony was involved with the death of her daughter. The specifics of what happened- As does anybody with a brain, sorry. Most people are in agreeance on that, but that's not why we're talking about her today because Casey Anthony has reemerged with a new TikTok account where she's now posted her first video saying she's going to be a legal advocate. And as you can imagine, a lot of people, including us, are not happy about this. I mean, we're not losing sleep over it, but just talk about being tone deaf

and not reading the room. But Stephanie, what else do we have here? What are the details on Casey Anthony's TikTok appearance? I too would not say I'm technically losing sleep over it. Yeah, we're not sitting here writing books about it. But the first day that it happened and I saw her stupid face when I was scrolling through TikTok, which is my relaxing time. Okay.

That's my – And I saw your Instagram. Yeah. It's my funny TikToks. It's when I like just laugh and giggle and try to find the lighter side of life. And then Casey Anthony's stupid face pops up and I'm like, is this a joke? Is this a joke? Like is this AI?

I literally thought it couldn't possibly be true. I didn't, like, I know she's got balls. I know she's got the audacity, but she has popped her head up so many times and been smashed down by the public so many times you would figure that she'd have some self-awareness and have the self-awareness to be like, hey, I got away with murder, allegedly, just my opinion. I got away with murder. I should just fade to black, maybe be grateful that I'm not behind bars and just try to keep my face out of the public, but not Casey because now she is a legal advocate for the LGBTQ community and women, which is rich because her daughter, a female child, did not have her legal advocacy. Her daughter, the person who needed her

protection and attention the most, never got that. So I'm kind of disgusted. I clearly think that this woman, she says she wants to live a private life. She says she doesn't want people to bother her, but she never stops putting herself in a place where she is not living a private life. She's consistently putting herself out there. And every time she pops up, it's a new reason, right? A few years back, it was because she had this new docuseries coming out where she was going to tell her side of the story, which was laughable. Now she's a legal advocate.

I obviously think that it's disgusting. A lot of people think it's a money grab. A lot of people think it's just to get attention. And yeah, I do too. I don't understand the point of this. I think it's incredibly insulting to her daughter's memory. And in her first TikTok that she kind of introduced what she was going to do, she talked about, she's like, hey, I'm not here to talk about, you know, my parents, Cindy and George, although I may talk about some things that they've said. And it's like, leave those people alone too, okay? Like I'm not a, Derek knows. You guys know if you saw our Casey Anthony series,

I'm not a fan of George and Cindy Anthony. I don't think these are upstanding citizens, the best people ever. I don't think that they are faultless in this. But at the same time, they are doing what they should be doing, which is disappearing, okay? They're not out there putting their face on the news, putting what they should be doing, which is disappearing. OK, they're not out there putting their face on the news, putting their face on social media.

They are disappearing. And I saw another creator talk about this and was saying, you know, at this point, Kaylee Anthony would be in her 20s. She should be the one getting on TikTok. She should be the one doing silly dances with her friends and, you know, enjoying the social media aspect that she grew up with. But she's not, and Casey Anthony is, and there's just something deeply, deeply wrong about that. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. You said a couple of things in there. So first off,

there are people who have been through some legal processes and ultimately come out better on the other end and have shared their story like an Amanda Knox, right? Those people you want contributing to the community because they have an experience, a perspective that they can only properly tell. But with Casey Anthony, let's just say for a second that Casey was not responsible for Kaylee Anthony's death. I think even she would agree that her behavior before, during, and after is egregious and just the behavior that we know to be true. And a lot of that probably led to whatever happened to Kaylee.

If she wasn't responsible, which in my opinion, as in your opinion as well, we believe she was involved. But let's just say she wasn't. Is she the person that needs to come out and be a legal advocate for others? No. No, there's plenty. We don't need you, Casey. We don't need you coming out and speaking on behalf of anybody. Now you had said something in your comments there, as far as if she wants to come out and have a private account where close friends and family are able to follow because she's moving on with her life because in a world somewhere she didn't do this. No problem. Do you think, but we don't need your opinion. You have no expertise. You had a great

lawyer, regardless of what you personally think about Baez. He's a great lawyer. And he got you off. He got you off due to some technicalities and also a lot of mistakes by law enforcement. So you skated by. Go on with your life. Nobody needs to hear from you. We're not looking for you. I'm not Googling what Casey Anthony thinks about any legal cases that I'm talking about. It's never crossed my mind. And I don't think it's crossed the mind of many people. So I don't really care to talk about her. We're only talking about her because she's out here and now everybody's covering it. And we probably got 30 DMs with the social media posts saying, hey, what do you think about this?

No, we don't want to talk about her. What we want to do is make sure that our voices are heard along with the rest of the true crime community when we're saying, Casey, we don't want you. We don't want this. Right. That's that's why we're talking about her. It's kind of like signing a petition with your voice and your platform. We're saying this is not what we want. You're not welcome here. And at the end of the day, Brad Conway, he's a lawyer. He actually represented George and Cindy Anthony back in the day.

But he even came out and he was like giving legal advice without a bar card isn't even legal in the state of Florida, right? Like, you can't be, like, I guess you could be a legal advocate in a way where, all right, you can direct people to licensed attorneys. You can offer, you know, logistical support on non-legal matters. You can direct people to the right advocates, like people who can do things. But you can't give legal advice without having a license, a law license in Florida. And all the things that Casey could do, like, oh, I can help you find a licensed attorney. Oh, I can help you get the right numbers.

We have Google. We have Google. We have Google. We have ChatGBT. We have the internet for that. We have plenty of options. Exactly. You are coming out and you're jumping on a platform that I have never had any knowledge

of you being interested in, the LGBTQ community, okay? You're jumping on something that right now is in the news. It's obviously prevalent. It is part of today's society and something important to a lot of people to make sure that the LGBTQ community, the people in it have rights. Are you like this LGBTQ warrior and we just didn't know about it? It's not your wheelhouse, Casey, but because it's prevalent, because it's what's needed, you're trying to fill a void, but we don't want you there. We want people who actually care

about that community, who are a part of that community, who have the expertise and the knowledge to speak on that community. And that's not you at all. Now, if you want to talk about, you know, the psychological impact of killing somebody close to you and getting away with murder and how that might affect somebody, we're all ears. But you'd have to admit that you actually did something wrong at that point. Yeah, if I had to guess, and I don't know for certain, I'm not in her head, but you'd have to admit that you actually did something wrong at that point. Yeah. If I had to guess, and I don't know for certain, I'm not in her head, but just based on what we do know about her and how she acted during that whole process with Kaylee and everything appeared to be about Casey and had some self-serving purpose to it. You know, the fact that she started this TikTok and also a sub stack, by the way, I would, I would guess that down the

road in her mind, there would be some monetary value to this for her. She would find a way to monetize this. I mean, to call it what it is, just the numbers are the numbers. It, that, that video that we're discussing has over 4 million views, uh, at, at the time that I were recording this and it's been shared 64,000 times. So whether you love her or hate her, she is polarizing and people are going, it's going to get engagement. But it's not going to help anybody, which is what she claims she wants to do.

Other than her. Yes. I don't even think it's going to help her. Once again. Well, she thinks it is. Yeah, but Casey, this is not, you are not a loved figure, okay? Polarizing some, yes.

Are there a handful of people out there who are supporting her, defending her? I'm sure because unfortunately, not everybody is smart. However, the majority of people do not like you. And the more you continue putting yourself out there and the more polarizing you get, and I'm not saying like, oh, I hope this happens to her, but you're putting yourself in danger. You're putting yourself in danger because people are, we're not in a good place in society right now. People are

not happy. People are on, you know, just everybody's got a lot of pressure on them. You just don't know. And not everybody's mentally well either. So you just never know what's going to happen. Once again, not saying I would like this to happen because to my worst enemy, I would never want that. But this is why sometimes read the room, read the room. And Casey has a message, Derek, for you and I and everybody else. Let me get comfortable here. Yeah, she has a message for you and I and everybody else who has an opinion about this because apparently Casey's the only one who can get on the internet and say whatever she wants. So she says, quote, for everyone speaking, good, bad, or otherwise, heed your words. Make sure you're saying something of substance, okay?

And then- Okay, hold on, I'm writing this down. Yeah. Substance. Then she said, here's the law in florida about threats libel and slander etc you don't have to be a florida resident to be charged jurisdiction is where the crime was committed usually if it's over the internet you're saying

something hateful slanderous libel threatening bullying etc the recipient party can request the jurisdiction be in the state where they live not the state where you committed the act the internet is not a protected place end quote and then she she included a link to Florida's law on defamation, libel, threatening letters, and similar offenses. Well, Casey, you may live in Florida. Derek may live in Rhode Island. I may live in New York. But we all live in the United States where we have a little something called freedom of speech. And we can absolutely give our opinion and we can say that we believe based on the evidence, the evidence that was seen, and like Derek said, your behavior before, during, and after,

we believe that you were probably involved. And we also believe that whether or not you were, you acted like a horrendous, selfish, garbage heap of a person. Okay. That's just our opinion. Yeah. At minimum, you're a terrible mother and we don't like you. Yes. We don't like you. Go away. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. That's it. But the internet is not a protected place, Casey. That means we can tell you we hate you. And by the way, Stephanie and I just went through a whole bunch of defamation and libel and all this stuff for our insurance. So we're experts on this. Yes. We're ready to go. We got it. And overall, Casey,

you know, listen, we don't wish any harm on you. That's that would be a crime. We're not going to say that. We just don't want to hear from you. And we don't value your opinion as a legal expert. And I would I would offer my opinion to all of you listening and watching. If you do need legal advice, do not go to Casey Anthony's TikTok. Do not go to her sub stack. There are much more reputable people. There is a difference between a lawyer and an attorney. Casey Anthony is neither. So don't go to her, but that's really all we have to say on Casey Anthony. And speaking of people getting away with murder, we're going to cover our other friend Adnan Syed right after this break. All right, we're back. And as I mentioned before the break, another one of our favorite people, Adnan Syed. A lot of you have already heard of it,

but if you haven't, last Thursday, a Baltimore circuit court judge, Jennifer Schiffer, reduced Syed's sentence under the Juvenile Restoration Act. Essentially what this act says is that after the convicted person has served 20 plus years, they can then be re-sentenced or their sentence can be reduced. So in this case, Syed was 17 years old at the time when he allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend, Hayman Lee, and he had served 20 years behind bars. So he was basically resentenced to time served with five years probation. But the important thing here is that his murder conviction was upheld. So yes, as he is now out as a free person, he is a convicted murderer. And I think that's important. So.

Hey, I have a question. Okay, question, question, hit me with it. What's the Juvenile Restoration Act? Is it like 18 and under? Yes. So if you're 18 and under at the time of your crime and you've served over 20 years for that crime, you can be resentenced under the Restoration Act. So basically they're saying, hey, you were a child at the time.

You didn't know what you were doing. You made a mistake. Should you be in prison for the rest of your life? Maybe, maybe not. Let's re-evaluate it and see where we're at. So this is just an absolute clusterfuck because what you have here is that basically Mosby pulled this political act, got him out of prison. What are you going to do? He's been out all this time. You're going to put him back in prison? Yeah, exactly. You can't do that either. It doesn't look good for her. It doesn't look good. And so there was a couple people talking about this. I know the prosecutors weighed in on it. They love Adnan Syed as much as we do, but Brett actually said he didn't disagree with this decision, but there are some things that are under a lot of heat right now. One being Georgetown University still working with Adnan Syed, who, as I just said, is a convicted murderer.

This is a very polarizing case. There are a lot of people who believe he's innocent. Yeah, they're going to die in that hell. So legally, he is a convicted murderer. I believe he did it. I think I speak for you. You believe he did it. Yeah, I'm not as certain as Casey Anthony.

Yes. But based on the evidence and based on just like that, you know, that gut kind of feeling that you have, it's definitely leading me more in the direction that he did it. Yes. Stephanie, I will go out on a limb myself and say that I am as sure in this case, if not more sure, that he killed Haman Lee than Casey Anthony killed Kaylee. You're more sure? It may be. There was literally nobody else who could have done it in that time window. And all the things that he did, the guilt knowledge, I'm not going to go over all of it. I'll get all fired up again. The text messages, what he did once his quote unquote co-conspirator was caught.

Yeah. How he was driving by the area when he thought that that dude was in prison. Yeah. It's a mountain of evidence. Yeah. Do we have him up there burying her body? No. But everything else, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, which clearly the court agrees with that that shows he is responsible for her death. Well, I mean, I think with even with both cases, Casey Anthony and Adnan Syed, it's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but it's one of those very, very, very strong circumstantial evidence situations. Most cases are circumstantial, right? You don't usually have the guy committing the murder. Yeah. You don't have a surveillance video of,

of it happening. Right. Right. And there's so many things like you got to go back and watch our series. If you haven't, I think we did what six or seven parts on it. It's, it's incredible. And, and I know that a lot of you are watching this right now and you're probably getting fired up because you're like, Oh, he didn't do it yet. He had, we, we, you know, where we stand on it. We believe he did where if, if that's okay, if you disagree with us, you're entitled to your opinion based on what we just said in our first case, freedom of speech, right? Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it is my opinion and the opinion of the justice system that Adnan did in fact kill Heyman Lee. And now he's out. And let me ask you that question. Let's put all that other stuff

aside for a second, Stephanie. How do you feel about the actual decision separating how you personally feel about Adnan and what he did to Heyman Lee? It's probably a good law, the juvenile law. Agreed. I have a hard time looking at a 17-year-old and considering that they're drastically different from a 19-year-old, to be honest. I don't think that they are. I think that, yeah, you do stupid things when you're a kid, but I still believe that you understand at 17 that death is permanent, that you're taking somebody's life, and they're not going to come back. You're not an 8-year-old. You're not like, oh, what is death?

You know you're killing her, and she's going to be gone, and you're taking her from the world and her family and her loved ones. So in my opinion, I've always felt this way. If you purposely and intentionally take somebody's life, you should never have one of your own. I honestly don't care how old you were at the time that you did it because you were old enough to know that this person was not coming back and that you stole their life from them. And so I don't believe that you should have a life. Completely agree. I understand where it comes from.

I understand the science and the thinking behind it. Like, oh, their brains aren't developed. Your brain's developed enough to know that when you die, you don't come back, right? Because if you're able to protect yourself and do certain things, like get in your car and put a seatbelt on, because if you get in a car accident, you don't want to die. If you can do that for yourself, but you can take somebody else's life, you're of the intelligence level and the maturity level to understand that death is permanent. And you're doing something that's not only morally wrong, but legally wrong. And you do it enough to cover it up so you know it's wrong.

Yeah, of course. If you knew it was wrong and you tried to hide it, I don't think that you should ever see the light of day again. A life for a life. An eye for an eye. Hammurabi, kicking it old school. Yeah. And like you said, there's a science behind it as far as the brain development. He's 17 years old. Is that much different than a 19-year-old? Competency at the time, like you said, the ability to cover it up and make steps to avoid apprehension. I think that's all there. And I know this is a very simplistic way of looking at it, but it goes back to what you said. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. There's a simple question we can all ask when deciding whether a person should be let out. Does the victim have the ability to go on and live their life in some capacity? The answer in this case is no. Heyman Lee is dead. And obviously, like, let's say it's a 17-year-old and maybe they had a few drinks, got in the car. All those circumstances would matter.

Did not intend to take anyone's life. And then you could say, oh, this is a 17-year-old. So they're impulsive and they drank and they drove, but they did not go out there like, I'm going to kill someone today. You know, in that case, I could totally see, okay, you've served 20 years. I think you've paid your price.

You reenter society. But if you intentionally took somebody's life because you were mad because they don't want to be with you and they started dating somebody else. Nah, dude. Nah, you don't. You don't. Would it change your opinion if you could see if you were a fly on the wall or a fly on the window in that car that Adnan didn't intend to kill Heyman Lee that day, but during an argument in the car over something, it became heated. And in the moment he killed her, not intending to do so. How was he doing that? How was he killing her? Strangling her, choking her,

holds on a little too long. I'm posing this question. I'm not saying I believe it, but I think it's a great question to ask. Would that change your opinion? I have a big problem with men who put their hands on women knowing they're bigger and stronger and you don't put your hands around somebody's neck or throat to cut off their air or their blood to their brain and then say like, oops, I went too far. No, I mean, maybe it would change my opinion a tiny fraction of a bit, but no, I have a big problem with men that think that they can just put their hands on women and then like, oops, they went too far. No, no. And just, just so it's clear on my end, I posed a question, but I completely agree with your, I wouldn't change

the opinion for me either, but back to what I was saying. Okay. Does Heyman Lee have the ability to move on with her family in some capacity, even though she may have been traumatized by the incident? Does she have the ability to go on and live her life? What's the answer to that question? No, she does not. So neither should the person responsible for taking her life. That's my simplistic look at it. It's probably narrow-minded, but let's expand it a little bit to talk about this specific incident. As I just said a couple minutes ago, they botched this case. There's a lot of questions about the investigation itself as far as the prosecution. Then you had a lot of political agendas taking place where you had Marilyn Mosby come in.

She wanted to make a political statement. She used Adnan Syed to do that. She released him when she shouldn't have. So now you have this person who's out there and I think it's fair to say, and we've said this before, more than likely, he's not going to go out there and re-offend. He has way too many eyes on him. So I feel like that's what the judge says. He's not a danger to society. Like, okay, I get it. I get it. But

so he's not a threat in that sense. And I get that. So based on the restoration act, I understand it. And in certain circumstances, like you said, I think you gave a great example, drunk driving incident or a party where there's a fight, you punch someone and they fall backwards and they crack their head open and they die from their injuries. Something of that nature, I get. Should they be behind bars for the rest of their life? No. But then I also counteract that by saying, what if I'm Heyman Lee's father? Would I be okay with it? No. And they are victims as well. And they're still here. So I go back and forth on it. But overall, with this specific case, based on everything that's happened for this judge, I think they made the right decision. At this point, you can't now put

him back in prison. She's basically trying to satisfy both sides by saying, hey, does the facts of the case suggest he did it? Absolutely. We're going to uphold the conviction. However, he's been in prison for more than 20 years. He's been out for a couple of years now. He hasn't done anything. He's still on probation. We're going to let him move on with his life. And I think this is trying to appease both sides.

So although I don't personally like it, I do understand it. Yeah. I mean, I understand it because it, even in the, because I'm reading the decision even in the decision it's kind of like the defendant's in a unique position like in september unique is one way to describe it in september 2022 following the vacator decision

the defendant was released so one does not have to speculate about the defendant's maturity and fitness to reenter society because he has succeeded in the two and a half years since his release like yeah what is she saying there she's saying basically like we let him out and what are we supposed to do now? Put him back? He hasn't done anything since he's been out. She's not saying she agrees with that. She's just saying he's been out. What do you want me to do? Yeah, I know. Is he a danger to society? Probably not. I think it's the right call. And I think this judge is coming in late in the game she's got to go with what she has i don't know if he's a danger to society because i don't know if his

inability to emotionally regulate and his inability to control his anger was because he was young or because it was part of his personality that's the thing i don't know that hopefully we never know but if we do and if something happens and let's say he does kill another woman this job that's That's on their, that's on their hands. Their blood is on their hands. No, it's not. Cause nothing's going to happen to judge Schiffer. Cause she has. I wouldn't put it on Schiffer's hands. I wouldn't put it on Schiffer's hands, but everybody else involved with that process, specifically people like Mosby. Absolutely. I would put it on her hands. I would put it on all their hands. She could have said, no, she could have said, put him back. She could have, she puts him back. Would you have put him back though? Me? Yes.

Would you? No. Really? Because you have to go by the law and how it's designed. And also the fact that he's proven, he's been out there, whether I like it or not for two years, and he's proven not to be a danger to society. And at the end of the day, prison is not supposed to be about the crime committed. It's supposed to be about rehabilitation. And can that person? I get it. I'm not saying I agree with it.

So we're basing our decisions on a justice system that doesn't exist, like this ideal utopic justice system that we came up with, but that doesn't actually function in that way? Listen, that's why I'm not a judge. Because like I said, mine would be very simple. Judges have done things all the time outside of the law. And so she technically could have. I would have asked Heyman Lee's family, what do you guys think? Oh, I'm sure they would have disagreed with this. I know. That's what I'm saying, though. They are the ones affected. Not Schiffer, not Mosby, not like Georgetown. These people don't give a shit because they were not personally affected. So ask the people that are personally affected what they think.

Do they think he's served enough time? Yeah. I'm in agreeance with you. I'm in agreeance with you. I guess that's why we're not judges. That's why we're not judges. But overall, that's where we are. Yeah.

It's a justice system, but it's definitely flawed. And with Adnan's case, I can only hope at this point that for the sake of everybody, he goes on with his life he does not start a tiktok no please don't and and because his would be even more popular than hers probably please don't do that um and we just he just goes on with his life lives his life quietly and we never hear from him again i would be perfectly fine with that maybe him and casey can hang out yeah well remember casey and oj we're gonna do a reality show together once i wouldn't be surprised and i know this is coming from a quote unquote reality person. I wouldn't be surprised

if we see them in some capacity, which is anybody who cares about Adnan would let not let him be associated with Casey. Yeah. That'd be a good call. Yeah. That'd be a good call. He has a lot more people on his side than Casey does. And I'm sure some people get mad at us. Oh, you're comparing Casey and Adnan. Yes, I am personally. Yes. One's convicted of murder. One isn't, if we're being fair. Yeah.

Putting it out there. Wow. Damn. You know, let's just put it what it is. Any final words from you? No, I think we're good. Wrap it up. And hopefully we never have to say Casey Anthony's name again.

And let's add Adnan to that list as well. Let's add Adnan. Yeah. We're done with these people. Guys, we appreciate you being here. Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you this week with a new case. We're not going to talk about it now.

We're going to let you know later in the week. But this may be a case that you're familiar with if you've been to CrimeCon before. That's the hint. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye.