Law&Crime Sidebar - Casey Anthony to Break Silence on Infamous Daughter Death Case

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

More than a decade after Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her daughter, Caylee, she's granting her first on-camera interview about the case to producers of a docuseries. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy and defense attorney Jonna Spilbor look back at the case that garnered international attention and discuss why Anthony would decide to talk about it after so many years.GUEST:Jonna Spilbor: jonnaspilbor.comLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Casey interview? A, B, C marker, saw sticks. Why talk to me now when you're not getting creative control? That was Casey Anthony, who was acquitted of murdering her daughter Kaylee back in 2011, sitting for her first interview on TV about the case. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and welcome to this latest edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. The disappearance of Kaylee Anthony was one of those cases that really captivated the nation,

if not the world. People were trying to figure out what happened to this little girl. There was a lot of suspicion of surrounding. Casey Anthony because this little girl, her almost three-year-old daughter, had been apparently missing for 31 days before she was ever reported missing. And so Casey Anthony was ultimately charged with first-degree murder, child abuse, manslaughter, and lying to law enforcement. She was ultimately acquitted of the most serious charges at her trial back in 2011. It was somewhat shocking to a lot of people, as was the defense in this case. So why would Casey Anthony,

after all of this time, now after nearly a dozen years, come out and sit for an interview for a three-part docu-series? Jonna Spilbore is a criminal defense attorney, and she is here to talk with me about this. Jonna, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. Jona, I know you followed this case. I followed this case. I remember when this trial was on. I was working an early morning shift in local news and I would race home from work every day around 1230 just so I could watch to see what was going on in this trial. People really wanted to know what was going to happen. And I think it was a pretty stunning case because of what came out in the opening statements in that case. People may not remember this. But Casey Anthony said that her attorney, I guess did Jose Baez at the time,

said that basically that little Kaylee drowned in the family's swimming pool and that her dad, George Anthony, tried to help cover this up by hiding the little girl's body. It wasn't found for many months and there were skeletal remains. There were claims of incest that George Anthony denied. He denied abusing Casey Anthony. It was a stunning, stunning verdict, I think for a lot of people. What were your thoughts on the verdict? Yeah, you know, precisely the same.

This was one of those cases I think that had the country riveted. for a number of reasons, but we had such an innocent victim, right? There's no more innocent victim than a small child. And then we had her mother who was a villain, who in everybody's eyes, but for her defense attorneys, was a true villain. I mean, we saw the evidence that the prosecution put up that, you know, here you have a child who is allegedly missing, although most of us thought that she knew that she had met her demise,

it's missing and you have a mother that's out getting pictures and partying and having a grand old time. And normal human beings could not wrap our minds around that under any circumstances. And then when you fast forward to the end of the story and she's acquitted, I think we had a collective, you know, mouth dropping to the floor as a society on this one. And it still stings to this day. It still stings. It does sting. And there was a lot of talk even back then. She was released from jail. She had gotten credit for time served or what have you. I should mention children's services believed she was ultimately responsible for her daughter's death. She is the one that that's not a criminal charge, but the children's services department believe she was ultimately responsible.

It's your daughter. You're in charge of her. You're responsible for her well-being and her care. But she's acquitted. She walks out of the jail with Jose Baez. She kind of goes into hiding. There was all this talk even back then. Will she do an interview? Who will the first interview be with? there was all this speculation and gossip. And a lot of news organizations really looked at this interview, a possible interview with Casey Anthony as something that is not a good idea, was not a good idea, and that it was like too hot to handle. So I don't, I don't understand what could possibly have changed with the passing of 10 or 11 years. Oh, I'll tell you, two words. Money, honey, because we have such, this country has such a voracious appetite for all

things true crime. And I'm a fan of true crime too, except when the victim of the true crime is a child. Like we, we've, we've had other podcasts, right? The serial podcast, for example, where we tune in and we love, we love to hear about people who are accused of crimes who may be innocent. I mean, we love to dig into this. And now there's other things that we consume in the media where we try to dissect a crime ourselves. And we eat that. Casey Anthony is in a position now. Because she's been acquitted of basically everything, I think maybe one little charge stuck after her appeal, but that's all said and done, that she really has nothing to lose by coming out and telling her story. And I'm sure that she's not, well, I'm not sure she's not

doing it for free. If I had to guess, I'd say she's not doing it for free. There's a totally a double jeopardy argument to be made that she can't even put a foot in her mouth. She was legally acquitted So there's no harm, no foul in her profiting from telling her story. It's kind of like O.J. Simpson all over again. Yeah, it kind of is. And it was on that level almost. It was a huge case for people who don't recall this, but I think a lot of people probably do. And this docu series, it's going to be three parts.

It's called Casey Anthony, Where the Truth Lies. It's going to come out on Peacock later this month. And there's so much backlash against this on Twitter. people saying that they're going to cancel their peacock subscriptions. There was a journalist, Ryan Gorman, a former journalist, I should say, this is morally bankrupt, just canceled my peacock subscription. Who else is with me? Hashtag cancel peacock.

Another person, a true crime podcaster said something to the effect of, well, yeah, I'll watch this. I'll watch her lie, her, you know, ASS off for a few hours or what have you. So there's a lot of backlash against this, and a lot of people saying they won't watch it. I don't understand why, yes, money, honey, I get the point there. This is supposed to include personal archives, according to the director, personal archives of Casey Anthony, and for her to tell her story, things of that nature. So how much do you think that she might be getting paid all in all? Quite a bit, again, because I do think there's a big appetite.

Now, maybe that might change. The narrative might change if the people who are paying her are also going to get canceled, which sidebar, okay, I'm probably not going to watch it. I don't believe in the whole cancel culture thing. If you disagree with it and you don't want to watch it, well, then, of course, don't watch it. But there will be people who will want to watch it. If for no other reason, then, you know, they want to watch her lie some more.

Now, she did not testify in her own defense at the trial, and this might be her 15 minutes, another 15 minutes for her, and that might be very selfishly motivated. But again, everybody is entitled to make up their own minds as to whether she should be talking, shouldn't be talking. But it'll get, they'll be eyeballs on this. There will be eyeballs on this for whatever reason. Yeah, there definitely will be. And the director is Alexander Dean. She says this series will allow people to look at the case in a new light.

I don't see what new light we could view this case through. We had a trial back in 2010, 2011, 2011. It was when the trial was held and she was acquitted. We basically know all of the facts according to her defense and then according to the prosecution. This is somebody who took off and partied for a while while her daughter was missing. And let's not forget, Jonna, Zanny the Nanny. Remember Zanny the Nanny? She said that she left Kaylee with Zanny the Nanny and everybody was thinking,

does that mean Xanax? Like there was no Zanny the Nanny. So apparently Casey Anthony had no creative control over this or no editorial control, according to the director. So, I mean, yes, you cannot watch it if you don't want to. But as a criminal defense attorney, do you see anything good coming out of this for Casey Anthony? You know, I really, I really don't. I really don't because we've kind of already made up our minds as a society about her. There's nothing that she's going to be able to say.

there's no new light quote unquote that's going to have anybody sitting there going oh yeah you know what i guess she really is not guilty oh darn in all these years nobody is going to do that and i think it's disrespectful on some level to kaley anthony to be honest with you not to mention the fact that her own father who she tried to throw under the bus unsuccessfully on on a certain level and you know what does hose bias have to say about this is he going to be featured in this too too, because that's another thing. He needs to walk a very, very fine line here between patting himself on the back and interjecting in something like this. I would be very careful if I were him. Well, we don't know if Jose Baez is taking part, but I can tell you that we reached out to him

for this segment to see if maybe he'd want to come on and he declined and really said nothing about it. So that's where Jose Baez stands as far as we can tell from this. And the tease, this is quite the teaser for this trailer. You know, they basically ask her why she's doing this and then it goes to silence. So they're really banking on people watching this. So Johnis Spilbore, a criminal defense attorney, trial watcher, thanks so much, as always, for coming on and offering your time and your expertise. Oh, thank you very much. Hope to see you soon. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Logan Harris, Michael Dininger, and Sam Goldberg. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings and Kiera Bronson does our social media.

You can download and listen to Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. You can also watch it, as always, on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Janette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Spotify.