RedHanded - Episode 226 - Casey Anthony: Web of Lies - Part 2

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

This week, in the concluding part of our Casey Anthony series - Hannah and Suruthi head into a courtroom full to the brim with bulldog lawyers, yet more lies, accusations of incest and forens...ic fuck-ups. In a case that just gets stranger and stranger, the shocks really do come right at the end... Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh3RbxU8v https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePs5TjFmk4c https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/25/casey-anthony-suffocation-google/1725253/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sruti.
Starting point is 00:00:38 And I'm Hannah. For the last time in 2021. Yes, this is, as Hannah has given away. Sorry, started me a thunder starting the thunder there sorry final episode of red-handed for 2021 what a year it's been what a year what a dish what a dollar as mega says in hercules we said it all last week we did yeah we're recording these back to back it's mega casey day at red-handed hq today sir and I just went to go grab some lunch and actually spoke to each other for the first time
Starting point is 00:01:07 in about two weeks hello you, how are things? what's going on with you? there's very important life things I'm just like you just come into the office and I just look up grunt at each other and then get back to work so no today has been a double Casey day which is why we kind of said everything we wanted to say
Starting point is 00:01:23 at the top of last week's episode thank you for being here being loyal, being listeners, being lovely. We love you. We most certainly do. And because we love you, we are not going to leave you hanging. Before we get to that, just to point out some things that people were probably concerned about after last week's episode. I know I'm still in the past, but I presume this is what's happened. This is the last episode of 2021. But if you are a patron, do not worry. $10 and up patrons, you are going to be getting your December bonus episode next week on the Sodder Children. So do not worry. If you'd like to listen to that, head on over to patreon.com slash red handed and become
Starting point is 00:01:59 a patron. And if you're a $5 and up patron, we won't be doing under the duvet for the next two weeks because we need a break, guys. We really do. But you will still be getting in the news the week after. So the last week of December. And that will hopefully keep you going. And if that's just not enough, and if you're not a patron and you don't want to become one, that's absolutely fine. We still love you.
Starting point is 00:02:18 What you might want to do then is head on over to Spotify and listen to our Spotify exclusive show, Sinister Societies. It's just me and Hannah, and it's kind of just like Red Handed, but we only talk about cults. Yeah, exactly. What more could you want? It's for free. It's on Spotify. Bop on over there. Yeah, and if you haven't listened to it at all yet, there's a big fucking back catalogue. So go listen to that, and we'll be back in January. And if you also haven't listened to part one of the Casey Anthony Red Handed Speciale, go back, because this probably isn't going to part one of the Casey Anthony red-handed speciale, go back because this probably isn't going to make sense anyway, but it will double not make sense if you haven't listened
Starting point is 00:02:49 to part one. So please go back and do that if you haven't already. This case is already enough as it is. So when we left you last week and where we left Casey was she was in custody having been arrested in connection to the disappearance of her daughter, three-year-old Kaylee. Even after the arrest, and by this stage, months of scrutiny and time in jail, Casey was sticking to her nonsensical story of Zanny the Nanny having stolen her child. And we've got a police interview for you where Casey gives a detailed history for Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the lady she claims is her permanent private nanny. Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the lady she claims is her permanent private nanny. Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, Zanny the Nanny, doesn't exist. Just a reminder in case anyone forgot, she never existed.
Starting point is 00:03:33 So let's have a little listen, shall we? Yeah. If we find out that people don't look at you the wrong way. No, sir. You're telling me that Zenaida took your child without your permission and hasn't returned her? The last person that I've seen with my daughter, yes. You're telling me that Zenaida took your child without your permission and hasn't returned her? She's the last person that I've seen with my daughter, yes.
Starting point is 00:03:48 Is she Puerto Rican? Is she Dominican? Is she white? She's mixed. She's black and Puerto Rican. Is there any underlying cause to why Zenaida would have taken your child? Nothing that... She ever make any statements to you about... Only how much she loves Kaylee and how great of a kid she is. And when you talk to Jeffrey afterwards, I'm assuming that Jeffrey's child is still with him? His child is still with him.
Starting point is 00:04:13 You said Zenaida had family up in New England, up in New York? Yes, she has family down south. Her mother and her sister, her brother's in New York. She's originally from New York. Pretty much grew up there moved down here went to the university of florida new york is quite famously not in the south well she has family down south her mother and her sister live there but her brother's in new york and she's originally from new york but she went to union just the rate of making it up is great
Starting point is 00:04:40 she didn't skip a beat no she's black she's half black she's half puerto rican yeah what's next what's next you want a family history sure what what is their ancestry.com profile mate god it is it's unbelievable again just in case anyone's forgotten zenaida doesn't fucking exist but the police obviously don't know this yet they don't know that zenaida doesn't exist and they have to whatever they might think they they have to follow up on Casey's story. They have to look for this person, right? And interestingly, they did actually find a Zenaida Gonzalez living about 20 miles south of Orlando in the town of Kissimmee. It's Kissimmee. And do you know why I know that?
Starting point is 00:05:22 Oh, I was listening to an American say it and he said Kissimmee. Anyway, Kissimmee. What did he say? Anyway, whatever. That place. Sorry. That's where my mum's houses are in Florida. So I have spent seven Christmases.
Starting point is 00:05:32 How do I say it? We've always said Kissimmee. And that's what the agency say. Okay. It never comes up again. It's, um, there's fuck all. Honestly, it's like, it's closer to Tampa than it is to Orlando. And Tampa is Tampa.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Full stop. No concept of what's happening. But yes, so they find a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez living in this town. Again, like I said, 20 miles south of Orlando. So very close, very close. But this woman, she was middle aged, not 25 25, like Casey had said, about her nanny. Really good Walmart. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:06:08 I mean, I've never been in a Walmart I didn't like. I don't think I've ever been in a Walmart. It's like Costco, but crazy. I've been in a Target. I have been in a Target. I've been in a Target with you. You had a bad time. Oh, it's very, it's very much, it's very much too much.
Starting point is 00:06:21 This woman, Zenaida, when the police went and interviewed her, she denied knowing Casey, Kayleigh, or anyone connected with the Antonis at all. And the police quickly released this Zenaida, after it became clear to them that she had nothing to do with anything. And maybe you're thinking, well, you know, that's only one Zenaida Gonzalez that they found. Maybe they should have kept looking. They only ruled this person out. Well, apparently, there were only around 200 women in the whole of the United States at the time with the name Zenaida Gonzalez. That's a nation of 330 million people.
Starting point is 00:06:55 She shot herself in the foot a bit with the name Zenaida. This is the thing. It's like, do you go Susan Smith or do you go Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez I think given how rare a name it was as a combo name the fact that the police found anyone with that name living nearby was frankly unbelievable you know again some people might be like how did they rule this woman out that easily she was only 20 miles away she's got the right name well Casey Anthony couldn't pick her out of a lineup so she's probably not a fucking nanny right I'm gonna guess and then whenever they confront her with the fact that they can't find anyone by this name
Starting point is 00:07:27 she's like they're not searching the full name they're only searching Zenaida Gonzalez she goes by sometimes Zenaida Fernandez sometimes Zenaida Gonzalez sometimes all three names and they're just not looking for her properly is Casey's argument all the time you couldn't make it up so yeah like I said the fact that they found anyone by this name at all nearby was frankly unbelievable given those statistics and now i know that we've already revealed to you the fact several times that there is no zanny the nanny but if you think that is the end of the intrigue surrounding the name zenaida fernandez gonzalez then you would be incorrect but we're going to put a pin in it for now and come back to it later on this episode because it's even weirder than you think what we need to focus on now is that the police by this stage were completely convinced that casey not only had
Starting point is 00:08:15 something to do with the disappearance of her daughter they were convinced that casey anthony had killed her daughter kaylee yeah they've got the banding in the hair they've got the smell they're convinced that kaylee is dead and that if she's dead that Casey's the one that did it. And the people of Florida felt pretty much the same way. Every single night Nancy Grace was hitting the screens across the states screaming, tart mom! Yep, this was her like catchphrase, this was her nickname for Casey Anthony. I don't get it. I don't know. Every mom is a top mom. Yeah, don't know. Maybe it stands for something.
Starting point is 00:08:47 Maybe, I don't know. Too old to mom. I don't know. Sorry, Nancy Grace, you've lost me. You lost me a long time ago, to be honest. She's out in full force on the Casey Anthony case. Oh, yeah, sure. We'll come back to her later.
Starting point is 00:08:59 But yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. And since public record laws in Florida are very, very open under the Sunshine Act, it means that the public and the media are given access to all 911 calls, all interviews, all videos from prison visits that pertain to even the tiniest corner of Casey Anthony's case. And obviously, when people saw these, they freaked out and protesters actually began turning up outside the Anthony home every day.
Starting point is 00:09:26 If you're even cursorily aware of this, Cakes, you will have seen the videos of this. They're very easy to find. It's full of very weird scenes of people going on banging on the Anthony's family home, screaming at them, physically fighting with lovely George. It's madness. It really is. There's no other word for it. I'm just like, whatever your opinion is of what's happened, even if you think that the Antonys, like as in George and Cindy are involved, why you would take it upon yourself to turn up at their? Yeah, 100%. If I'm the one that knocks lovely George out, then I've helped. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Starting point is 00:10:10 It's fucking terrifying. So in the meantime, while all this is going down, the police, believing that they had enough evidence from what they had found in the car, given the hair and the stain, et cetera, and believing that they had sufficient probable cause, charged Casey Anthony with murder in October 2008, two months after her initial arrest.
Starting point is 00:10:33 By this stage, Casey had engaged the services of a then little-known defense attorney named Jose Baez. Jose Baez is going to become another key addition to our cast of crazy characters. A major player. A major player in this. So Baez, how can I describe him? He's like a smarmy bulldog. He's good at what he does.
Starting point is 00:10:55 Right. And if I ever get charged with murder, I would like you to call Jose Baez. Okay, done. Right. I hate him, but he's very good at his job. Okay. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.
Starting point is 00:11:23 But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:12:00 You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe
Starting point is 00:12:29 and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. So as soon as Jose Baez took over as Casey Anthony's lawyer, he began severely restricting her communication with investigators. Because up until this point,
Starting point is 00:12:49 we could just make a 10-part series of us playing clips of Casey Anthony and being interviewed by the police. She just talks to them constantly. She says nothing, but she constantly talks to them and incriminates herself. Jose Baez puts a stop to that. And the police knew, despite everything they thought they had on Casey, if they were going to get anywhere with this case, especially on a murder conviction, they needed a body. And enter my favourite name of 2021.
Starting point is 00:13:12 On the 11th of December 2008, a city maintenance worker named Roy Cronk, wrong letter Cronk, pulled not a lever, but he pulled over onto the side of the road and headed into the woods to relieve himself naughty crunk and that was when he spotted scattered bones lying in the undergrowth police could hardly believe it the location was less than a quarter of a mile from the anthony's home i am more familiar with this particular area of Florida than I would like to admit. I have spent a lot of time there. And when they're saying woods, they mean jungle. Like it is so dense, like you literally cannot see more than two feet. Like it's the trees start and they don't stop. They flip-flop between the terms woods and swamp. Yeah, it's, I can see it in my mind's eye. It's not somewhere you want to be. You just do not go in there, especially if you aren't me. So this wood swamp jungle forest was literally down the road and basically the first spot, if you left the Anthony's Place, where there were no houses.
Starting point is 00:14:20 This discovery spot also becomes very interesting later on, but just like with Zenaida Gonzalez's name, we're going to leave it on the pin cushion. When forensics teams arrived, alerted by Roy Cronk, they were led by the chief medical examiner, Dr. Jan Garavaglia, or, as she's known on her hit TV show, Dr. G. The remains were totally skeletonised and spread over an area of a few feet in the swampy jungle forest trees. It appeared to Dr G that at one point the body had been inside two plastic bin bags and a large canvas bag. The remains had clearly been disturbed by animals and the body
Starting point is 00:15:01 also seemed to have been at one stage wrapped in a winnie the pooh baby blanket that was also found at the scene that bit just makes me so fucking sad yeah it's not it's not great it's just so sad so a week after the discovery of the body dr g confirmed in a press conference that the remains were indeed those of kaylee anth. She also stated that the means of death, in her opinion, her professional opinion, she was ruling it a homicide. Dr. G admits in interviews that given the state of the remains,
Starting point is 00:15:33 because remember, it's just bone. It's just dry bone. It's six months after Kaylee went missing. We know no one saw her after she went missing. I think it's safe to say she died as soon as she went missing. So she's been dead for six months. Because of the state of the remains, there wasn't much that Dr. G could do in terms of toxicology tests or identifying some sort of real cause of death.
Starting point is 00:15:55 The bones showed no physical trauma and there was no soft tissue left to examine. She stated that she had ruled it a homicide given the other surrounding circumstantial evidence which a lot of people like criticize but that is literally the job of the medical officer like the chief medical officer's job or the coroner here is to look at the other circumstances the way in which the body is discovered where the body is discovered all of these things and to come to a conclusion that they think is the most reasonable conclusion it's not her job to be like well i don't know i've just got a bunch of bones what you're looking at me for so she doesn't like overstep the mark she rules a homicide based on what she sees
Starting point is 00:16:35 and she says that the key pieces of evidence for the homicide theory were how well hidden the body seemed and crucially the discovery of three pieces of duct tape stuck to Kaylee's skull. The duct tape was found attached to her mandible or lower jaw and Dr. G theorized that the duct tape was the murder weapon and that the cause of death had most likely been suffocation. According to Dr. G the duct tape must have been on Kayleigh's face when she died because the mandible was still attached to the rest of the skull. Normally when decomposition starts, the lower jaw falls off pretty quickly because it's not attached by bone. Oh, I don't like thinking about that. Yeah, but it makes sense, doesn't it? If the mandible's still there, it wasn't put on afterwards or it didn't just end up stuck there afterwards.
Starting point is 00:17:26 It must have been there before the decomposition process started. So what is holding it there? Like ligaments? Yeah, like ligaments. Ligaments and muscle. I saw a really horrible tweet the other day that's going to make you feel really uncomfortable, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Excellent.
Starting point is 00:17:39 I'm so glad I just ate. It was like one of those threads of like, what makes you feel the most uncomfortable? And one person tweeted that your bones are wet. All the time. They're wet all the time. Stop it. You're welcome. I'm leaving.
Starting point is 00:17:58 Dr. G was also surprised to find that all of Kayleigh's teeth were still in place. Typically, with the remains of children that young, the baby teeth, since they don't have roots, fall out by that stage of decomposition. The duct tape having been wrapped around Kaylee's face at the time of death, or very shortly after her death, so pre-decomposition, would have been the only way to explain the mandible and the baby teeth still being in place.
Starting point is 00:18:22 It seemed like there could be no explanation for why someone would tape up the face of a child that was already dead. So it makes sense to theorise that the tape was therefore used to kill, not as anything to do with body disposal or something after the fact. This is the thing. Basically, people will argue that the tape was just found at the scene of the crime and it got stuck to the skull because the skull gets tossed about by animals oh yeah there's fuck loads of animals in those woods yeah so some people will say well how do you know that the tape just wasn't in the woods and when a fox or whatever you wish you wish it was foxes my
Starting point is 00:18:58 friend whatever a fucking alligator came and like tossed this skull about how do you know that the skull didn't fall on the duct tape and that's when it got stuck to it yeah and dr g's point is it must have been their pre-decomposition so at the point or shortly after death for the mandible and the teeth to still be in place right so that is her evidence for why she is saying or that's her reasoning for why she is saying that the duct tape was the murder weapon because it's over the mouth and the nose. Dr. G also pointed the finger at Casey Anthony being the killer and she did that by strongly suggesting that a stranger murder seemed highly unlikely.
Starting point is 00:19:33 For example, the Winnie the Pooh blanket that was found at the body discovery site matched the theme of Kayleigh's bedroom. The canvas laundry bag, the one found at the scene which it was assumed that kaylee was kept in was sold in pairs from a local store and the other half of that pair was found in the anthony house the duct tape also matched the type found at the anthony residence so they're not trying particularly hard and this is the thing you're saying she was kidnapped by somebody else
Starting point is 00:20:02 somewhere outside of my house again it's just it's none of i know none of this is like smoking gun but it's pointing more and more at the fact that this happened inside the anthony household so following these findings casey was charged with first degree murder and she spent the next two years in county jail awaiting trial and it was the trial that everyone was waiting for it would be the trial of the century as the papers reported people were queuing up around the fucking block like all night like camping out to get tickets to get inside i don't even tickets is that the right word to get in just some guy like selling tickets on the side, like touting these fake tickets. Like, it's crazy.
Starting point is 00:20:47 It's crazy. Like watching the people queue up. And also, fun fact, 40 million people watched it on TV. Wow. The population of the UK is like 66 million. That is crazy. Yeah, that's fucking crazy. Three quarters of the population of the UK watched the Casey Anthony trial.
Starting point is 00:21:06 And as you would expect with such a high stakes case, the difficulties started straight away. The defence argued that there was no way that Casey could get a fair trial in Orlando. Everyone in the area had already decided her guilt. It was far too emotional. And there was no way that a jury picked from there would be impartial. So the judge decided, and I've never seen this before, maybe it's more common, but I don't know, the way that it's kind of spoken about makes it seem like it's kind of a weird move. Instead of moving the trial somewhere else, the judge decided to bring a jury in from out of town. From, I think it's Pinellas County? Let's go with that. From Pinalas County, Florida, to be exact, which is
Starting point is 00:21:46 over 100 miles away from Orlando. So again, I think it's worth mentioning because 100 miles is not an insignificant distance. I don't know that people 100 miles away haven't heard about this case or watched everything just in the same way people in Orlando have. But also what you're then saying is these people can't even go home that night after jury duty. No, no. They're now living there as long as this first degree murder trial takes. Yeah. So all they have to do is turn on the TV. And also what I'm saying is like,
Starting point is 00:22:15 that's another level of stress that you're adding to an imported jury. Yes, true. Yeah. And this is actually really funny. In some of the documentaries, there were, for all the people that wanted to get into the trial, there were some jurors that were like, I'm not fucking doing this because I don't want to be involved in so i don't want to go live a hundred miles away
Starting point is 00:22:26 from my house so there's this one guy that gets interviewed and he's like i didn't want to do it so i just started talking about it and then they were like you're getting fined in contempt of court and you're you're chucked off the jury and he paid i think it was like four thousand dollars he paid in fine and they actually said to him did you do this on purpose because you don't want to do it and he was like yeah and then he went home you didn't want to do it? And he was like, yeah. And then he went home. I wouldn't want to do it. No. Even with this jury situation, as we've outlined it, the fact that these jurors are being imported in,
Starting point is 00:22:52 they're probably very unhappy about this, given the fact that most people know about this case. The prosecution, I think, still thought that this case was going to be a slam dunk. But they had no idea what they were up against with the dream team that was Jose Baez and Casey Anthony. In court, Casey, this is the oldest trick in the fucking book, turned up dressed very conservatively, hair up, no makeup, looking very plain. This image was clearly to contrast what she knew would be coming first right out the gates from the prosecution. The jury were shown a string of photos and videos from the time that Kaylee was missing. They were all of Casey Anthony out at bars and clubs and seemingly having the time of her life. These images, which you can find very easily, Casey is wearing very little.
Starting point is 00:23:35 She's grinding about and looking pretty smashed. And apparently during the month when she thought that Kaylee had been abducted by her nanny, Casey even took part in a hot bod contest. Probably a That's So Dope Fridays or whatever the fuck it was called. Tony Lazzaro, her now ex-boyfriend and club promoter behind the nights out that Casey was pictured at, testified that Casey had seemed absolutely fine during the month. She never cried. She never said that Kaylee was missing.
Starting point is 00:24:03 She'd never been unhappy. The prosecution also played the court CCTV that showed at 7.45pm on the day that she months she never cried she never said that kaylee was missing she'd never been unhappy the prosecution also played the court cctv that showed at 7 45 p.m on the day that she claimed kaylee had vanished casey was with tony in a blockbuster casually just choosing films and that's the night that she says she tried to go pick kaylee up and there was no one at the house blockbuster does it again i'm so sad it's such a societal loss yeah i i can't tell you why tony and i won't tell you why until i'm eventually arrested for this fact but i really feel like what i need to do is go to a blockbusters with you just to take my mind off some things that
Starting point is 00:24:34 i can't talk about it's fucking ridiculous so you can understand with shit like this and how much casey lied that the prosecution think it's a open and shut case but i really do do get frustrated with them because I feel like, as good as Jose Baez is, I feel like the prosecution really dropped the ball. During this fateful month when Kayleigh was missing, Casey also decided to get herself a tattoo on her shoulder that read, Bella Vita. Just in case your Italian isn't totally brushed up. Bella Vita translates to beautiful life. She's such a fucking twat. So the prosecution actually managed to track down the tattoo artist
Starting point is 00:25:14 who gave her this beautiful artwork. And this tattoo artist testified in court that while Casey was getting the tattoo, remember, during the month that her child is missing, apparently all she talked about during that tattoo session was her boyfriend, Tony. Yikes. It's like, and I feel like this is quite obvious
Starting point is 00:25:32 when you listen to Casey speaking, it's like a 16-year-old. It's like she's not 22. Oh, yeah. She's very arrested in her development. Very, very immature. And prosecution also found an old friend of Casey's, a woman named Keo Marie Cruz,
Starting point is 00:25:44 who told the court that apparently Casey had never wanted Kaylee. She said that she'd wanted to give the baby up for adoption, but the Cindy had forbidden it and made Casey keep the baby. And the prosecution also had a diary entry from Casey's journal. This diary entry was dated the 21st of June, which would have been just five days after Kaylee was last seen, and probably five days after Kaylee was last alive. The diary entry read, quote, I have no regrets, just a little worried. I just want for everything to work out okay. I completely trust my own judgment, and I know that I made the right decision. I just hope that the ends justify the means. This is the happiest I've been I made the right decision. I just hope that the ends justify
Starting point is 00:26:25 the means. This is the happiest I've been for a very long time. I just hope my happiness continues to grow. Pretty suspect, right? Yep. Problem is, the year wasn't noted. So that could have been the 21st of June any year and she could be talking about literally anything. And Jose Baez obviously used that piece of information to tear through this evidence like a piece of wet toilet paper my frustration again with the prosecution here is you didn't just find scraps of paper it was in a diary could you not tell from other things she's talking about and they're probably like fucking tony what year it was from yes that's extremely true i think you that's one of those things you can't take without the context.
Starting point is 00:27:07 Yeah. So I feel like they're probably right that this wasn't 2008. Because otherwise it would have been... We know if there's one thing that Casey Anthony talks about, it's Tony. And if it's no mention of Tony in this diary or on the pages next to this entry, then it's not 2008. So don't fucking bring it up in court because you're going to get torn apart. And it's going to look really bad. Yeah. And she's only 22 like how many diaries can there really be i went to school today and drew a picture of a horse okay it's not that one
Starting point is 00:27:33 i mean like again this is my frustration at the prosecution i'm like leave it leave it out if you can't back it up because jose baez is going to tear you apart and it's going to make the jury be like oh uh so yeah all of the evidence is pretty circumstantial but circumstantial evidence is evidence but unfortunately for a first degree murder charge the prosecution needed a little bit more than that which brings us very neatly onto the forensic evidence the prosecution's case was this kaylee had died some sort of asphyxial type death, probably involving drugs. So they're saying that Casey had administered the drugs and then once Kaylee was passed out,
Starting point is 00:28:12 Casey had taped her daughter's mouth and nose shut with three pieces of duct tape and then Kaylee had died. And the drug that the prosecution settled on was chloroform. And this was because when expert in human decomposition Dr. Arpad Vass tested the gases from the carpet in the boot of the car, he found very high levels of chloroform. He actually said, and this is a quote, it was shockingly high, the highest levels I've ever seen in my 20-year career. But the defense hit back at the chloroform and said the chloroform is also present in many cleaning products and that it could simply have been there because of that. Also, the way in which Dr Arpad Vass does his analysis hadn't been really used in court before, so it was very easy for Jose Baez to be like, where's the evidence for this? Like,
Starting point is 00:29:03 where's the precedent for this? Like, we haven't seen this before. His favorite thing Baez to do is to undermine the scientific capabilities of every expert put in front of him. He also goes after Arpad Vass, who is not like some random guy they pulled off the street. He worked at like that body farm and stuff. Like he's the real deal. But he's just like, what's your actual field of expertise? And Dr. Arpad Vaz was actually an anthropologist, but he had taught himself chemistry and come up with these experiments himself on how to do this. So Jose Baez just tears him apart. I'm not saying it's not true, but again, the prosecution kind of leave themselves open to this. And also the other thing was the toxicology on Cayleigh's bones also showed no
Starting point is 00:29:45 signs of chloroform, which the prosecution obviously made a big deal about. However, chloroform in the body disappears after just a day or two. And so finding chloroform in soft tissue after a few days would have been hard enough, let alone finding it in dry bones after six months. But the problem is is this point was never made clear to the jury buyers just says it and then it really frustrates me because in all the documentaries they're like we never got a chance to rebut that and i'm like how do you what do you mean you never got a chance to rebut that i don't understand i don't think i know enough about how the american justice system works to like make that call but can can't they cross examine? Like, surely?
Starting point is 00:30:25 I don't know. But this is the thing you need to know is that Baez makes these claims that, yeah, all right, you found chloroform, chloroforms in cleaning products. You already said that somebody had tried to clean out the boot and you didn't find any in her bones. Can't find it in the bones, but nobody hears that bit. The jury don't hear that bit. And I don't know, perhaps the state thought that their other finding would be proof
Starting point is 00:30:46 enough of their chloroform theory. Because Google searches had been found on the Anthony's household computer on chloroform. And apparently, someone had searched for chloroform online a whopping 84 times on that computer. And not just chloroform how to make it this is things some places says how to make it some places it says chloroform it's something like that but the word chloroform is searched for and they're also saying it was done 84 times but once again cindy anthony enabling mom of the year swings in to save the day cindy took the stand and stated that she had been the one to search for chloroform. Apparently, the Anthony's dog had been eating some bamboo leaves in the back garden and getting a little bit sick.
Starting point is 00:31:33 So Cindy had googled chlorophyll and Google had showed her suggestions that included chloroform. And out of pure curiosity, the nurse clicked on it. Cindy was adamant though, she'd only searched for chloroform the once. In an aha moment, the prosecution questioned Cindy on how she could have been the one at home googling chloroform when her logins and time cards at work showed that she had been there at the time and not at home cindy said she didn't know but it was definitely her you can't answer that one officer um just but it was just so you
Starting point is 00:32:10 know the important thing is it was definitely me it was definitely even though literally all of the hard evidence points to the contrary i can promise you yeah me the trustworthy cindy anthony can say that i definitely was at home and not at work. Precisely. But then it was the defence's turn for an aha moment. Because apparently, the software that the prosecution had used to check the number of times that chloroform had been searched had had a glitch. And instead of 84 times, as the state had said, chloroform had actually only been searched for once from the Anthony computer. And some people say, oh, look, that's consistent with what Cindy said. Because Cindy stuck her guns on the stand. She said, I only did it once. I did not search 84 times. I was searching for
Starting point is 00:32:54 chlorophyll, saw chloroform, clicked on it one time. And people make a big deal about that. But I'm not saying it wasn't Cindy.y but obviously obviously jose baez had the information that there was a glitch with the software and it don't even search for once yeah yeah and obviously he would have told cindy you go up there you tell them it was you and say it was only searched for once and then i'll come out and say and we know it was only searched for once she goes out there and said yeah i searched for chloroform 84 times by accident then he come then he can't use this evidence about the glitch he obviously would have fucking told her in any case all of this really really hurt the prosecution byers also just dismissed the hairs that have been found in
Starting point is 00:33:37 the boot saying that the kind of dna the state had so mitochondrial only couldn't even definitively prove whose hair it was and then he just sort of shrugged off the banding that we discussed in last week's episode this again undermined the state's way of showing that kaylee's dead body had been in the back of casey's car at one point byers really really goes after dr g even going so far as to claim that her methods were unscientific, said the lawyer to the scientific doctor. In court footage, the judge even looks a bit confused, but everyone just sort of lets it happen. This is the thing, when he's saying, making these accusations
Starting point is 00:34:16 at Dr. G and at Dr. Arpad Vass, you can see the judge in the background being like, what? Like, he looks like, is it a state? Are you going to do something about it? It's just shocking. It's shocking. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life.
Starting point is 00:34:39 You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place
Starting point is 00:35:11 where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time if all goes to plan we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows,
Starting point is 00:36:01 uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And then the defense, Jose Baez, brings out the big guns. He brings out Dr. Werner Spitz. And that name probably sounds familiar to many of you true crime fans out there because Dr. Spitz was and is
Starting point is 00:36:48 a highly recognisable and respected medical examiner, having been involved in cases like the OJ Simpson trial and the JFK assassination. It doesn't get much bigger than that. Not really, and it doesn't get much bigger than Dr. Werner Spitz in this world. No, unless it's Nuremberg. There isn't any bigger criminal arena he could be in no and
Starting point is 00:37:07 spitz actually did a second autopsy on kaylee's remains and he refuted dr g's duct tape theory which was after all the main element that the prosecution could point to to say that the death was a homicide without the duct tape there's no way of proving it was murder obviously apart from the fact that the body was fucking hidden inside three bags in the fucking swamp woods. Spitz pointed out that his reasoning for saying that the duct tape wasn't valid evidence was that there was no DNA on the duct tape to prove that it had ever
Starting point is 00:37:34 been over Kaylee's mouth. Remember, Dr. G was saying that it had been over Kaylee's mouth because of the mandible and the lower teeth still being there. He said, like many other people, that it could have just been in the swamp and got stuck to the skull when it had been tossed about by animals the prosecution hit back that the tape had been in 90 degree heat that's fahrenheit in celsius that's 32 degrees hot hot hot humid as shit oh yeah it's in a fucking swamp and like the body had been submerged underwater for various
Starting point is 00:38:02 points because like the water level had dropped and risen in that area so many times during the six months it had laid there so yeah they say obviously there'll be no DNA left to find
Starting point is 00:38:11 it was out exposed for so long but remember and this is the key thing that Baez just loves to fucking say the defence don't have to prove
Starting point is 00:38:20 anything they just have to poke enough holes in the prosecution's story to introduce beyond reasonable doubt and that's what he does very well prove anything. They just have to poke enough holes in the prosecution's story to introduce beyond reason or doubt. And that's what he does very well. He proves nothing.
Starting point is 00:38:30 He's just there with a stick. He should poke it. And speaking of sticks, Fares also brought up the main man, my favourite, who had found Cayley's remains, the glamorous Roy Cronk. Roy, when he had found the remains, had made a huge mistake.
Starting point is 00:38:48 Yeah. Learn from Roy. Don't be Roy. What we're about to tell you next, if you are in this situation, don't do it. Don't do this. Because Cronkers had picked up a stick and put it in the skull's eye hole and lifted it up. So that means he's contaminated the crime scene. and put it in the skull's eye hole and lifted it up. So that means he's contaminated the crime scene.
Starting point is 00:39:09 And Baez made the case that because of this, all of the forensic evidence that the prosecution had presented was completely out the window. Which I think, when you consider how long the body has been exposed, I really don't think you can put that on Kronk's shoulders. No. His broad shoulders. But he does testify in court and he says, I knew it was a skull says i knew it was a skull
Starting point is 00:39:25 he knew it was a skull he wasn't like it's a rock and let me poke it he was like i knew it was a skull and i shouldn't have picked it up my bad cronk like don't do that if you find a fucking skull in the woods don't do it call the police go do that instead because this case could be made you could be made to say you contaminated you did. I'm not saying it's fair or right. And this didn't actually happen. The forensic evidence wasn't thrown out. But Byers again was able to just poke another little hole and say how secure is what we're even looking at. That duct tape, maybe it was stuck to fucking Roy Cronk's boot and he stomped in there and got it stuck to the face.
Starting point is 00:40:01 You just don't know. So let's leave the forensics in Cronk's completely incapable hands and move on to the easily provable lies that Casey had told police throughout the process. And these were, of course, the front and center of the prosecution's case against her. And so much of it was so incredibly damning. And even though Baez brought in dozens of Casey's friends who all said that Casey was a great mum, they all had to admit that Casey had seemed fine during the month that Kaylee was missing. And she hadn't told a single one of them that she had been taken. So Jose Baez had to find a way to explain all of the lies
Starting point is 00:40:39 and odd behaviour that had come from his client. Like, why did she not tell anyone as soon as Kayleigh disappeared? Why did she lie about everything from working at Universal Studios to all of the made-up people? Why did she not call the police for 31 days after Kayleigh supposedly vanished? And to counter the sheer weirdness of it all, Baez was going to have to go hard and create an equally shocking reason to counter Casey's actions.
Starting point is 00:41:06 And yeah, fucking hell did he drop an atomic bomb on proceedings. Here's what he did. Baez told the court that Kaylee had never even been missing, but that she had in fact died on the 16th of June 2008 in the family home. According to this new statement, the three-year-old Kaylee had got into the garden and someone had left the stairs down to the above ground pool. Kaylee, who loved to swim, got into the pool and tragically she drowned. Apparently when Casey had woken up, she found Kaylee missing and she and George searched everywhere. Eventually it had been
Starting point is 00:41:44 George who found Kaylee's lifeless body in the water. George screamed at Casey that she was going to go to jail for the rest of her life and that Cindy would never forgive her. Byers continued that Casey begged her father for help, and finally he agreed to help her and hide the body for Cindy's sake. So George took Kaylee's body, wrapped it up, and told Casey he'd handle it. Then apparently, former police officer George Anthony took his beloved granddaughter's body and dumped it in the woods a quarter of a mile from his own front door,
Starting point is 00:42:15 wrapped up in very recognisable things from his own house. Yep. George, leave George out of it. Oh, it gets so much worse. I know, I know, I know, I've read it. So the pool theory was Baez's way to explain what had happened to Kayleigh. Since the Zanny the Nanny stuff was so obviously a non-starter, and they had found Kayleigh's body a quarter of a mile from the house,
Starting point is 00:42:38 he had to find some way to explain what had happened to Kayleigh. And since no physical evidence was present to explain a real cause of death, because remember there's no soft tissue, no trauma to the bones, drowning could have been plausible. Baez, however, when he offers up this theory in court, offers not one shred of evidence for the drowning story. In fact, he finds a weird way,
Starting point is 00:43:00 and I haven't put this in the notes because it felt like my brain was melting, but I'll tell you about it. It's talked about quite at length in one of the documentaries he finds a way to blame Dr G for the fact that he has no evidence for the fact that Kayleigh Anthony drowned is this like a Piers Morgan Meghan Markle situation where maybe Dr G just once didn't text Baez back and now his entire career is based around bringing her down and just talking smack. Oh mate, Baez is, like I said, he wasn't really well known when this case happened, but he got to be Casey Anthony's defense lawyer. If I can get her off, I'm it. I am it forever. I will hire him. This was his case to
Starting point is 00:43:40 make his career. The way he blamed Dr. G for the fact that he didn't have any evidence of the drowning was he said that a way that you could tell about drowning is checking for diatoms in the body of a victim. Diatoms are like single cell algae that live in water, but they also live like elsewhere, just like in fucking mud and shit. And he said that if you had tested her body for diatoms, we could have told whether she had drowned. This is absolutely fucking nonsensical you test for diatoms in the liver or in the bone marrow they just got bone they just got dry bone and also diatoms can come from anywhere like i said and also for you to test for diatoms you would also need a sample of the water to test against that right by this point it's been two and
Starting point is 00:44:27 a half years because the trial takes place two years later but it'd been six months since after kaylee had died when her bones were found so where are you getting the sample of pool water that's not been refreshed for almost three years and even if they had found the diatoms even if you'd found liver and tested it and tested it against a sample and found a match, we already know she fucking swam in that pool anyway. She could have swallowed it. And that's how it could have got into her body. Again, I feel like the jury are not told this part. They're just told, well, we could have had it,
Starting point is 00:44:55 but we don't because you didn't test for diatoms. She drowned. I rest my case. It's remarkable. Wow. So yeah, he offers no shred of evidence for this drowning story. But obviously, this plotline hit everyone in court like a ton of bricks. It was completely unbelievable. And I honestly think that it was all the more shocking because Baez was the one saying it all. And in
Starting point is 00:45:15 the court footage, of which there are hours and hours and hours and hours on YouTube that you can watch, Casey just sits there, staring silently. She does this thing where her eyes are constantly darting. It's like she's like between this person, this person, she's like watching buyers and she's like, how are they taking it? How is this coming across? She's a mega blank face as well. She has like the blankest expression in court the entire time. Ah, blank face, son of blank face. Absolutely. Completely blank face. Rarely shows any emotion in court. Again, I know that's not particularly indicative of something, but you have to look at this case like with everything together the worst part there's so many bad parts one of the worst parts is when jeff hopkins everybody
Starting point is 00:45:54 remember him from last week's episode he comes to court and he's like i don't know her we didn't even work together yeah and i said i don't know who's anida gonzalez is i don't have a nanny i don't even have any children. And Casey Anthony's just sat there with a blank face. I would have died of embarrassment. Oh my God. She just sits there. She's like...
Starting point is 00:46:12 She doesn't have the embarrassment gene, I don't think. No, zero. So the state took hold of this drowning story and pushed back on it. Dr. G took the stand and said that in her 20 years of experience with dealing in accidental deaths, parents and families just don't act like the Anthonys. She said, quote, No matter how stiff the body,
Starting point is 00:46:35 they always call 911 when it's an accident because there is still, in their minds, a chance. Of the 120 cases I've seen in the last few years, even when a mum's on crack cocaine, she calls 911. And that makes sense. If it's an accident, I feel like you would think, I just, there is a way, there is a way. But if the jury were surprised by this new revelation from the defence,
Starting point is 00:47:01 it was about to get even more crazy, because buyers now needed to explain away all of Casey's lies. And this was the reason he came up with. We are what we are because of who brought us into this world and how we were raised. Casey was raised to lie. This child, at eight years old, learned to lie immediately. She could be 13 years old, have her father's penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened. Nothing's wrong. That will help you understand why no one knew that her child was dead.
Starting point is 00:47:49 That's the most important thing you must keep in the back of your mind, is that sex abuse does things to us. It changes you. Some people are fortunate to live with it. Others are not. And in this sad tragedy, it had to happen to Casey. So, yeah. Jesus Christ doesn't quite cover it.
Starting point is 00:48:22 Yeah. It's so graphic. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's beyond graphic, and it's even worse cover it. Yeah. It's so graphic. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's beyond graphic, and it's even worse because it's George. And Baez is not a man of half measures. He goes the full hog. It's like he picks a story that is so out there, it's too crazy not to be true. And Baez, the smarmy git that he is, unfortunately, is just one step ahead.
Starting point is 00:48:44 He is just better than the prosecution yeah i mean if you break down the way in which byers tackles this case it's really smart he picks apart every single thing how do i explain the fact that she didn't tell anybody okay it's because she drowned in the pool and it was like a family secret they covered it up and how do i explain the lying because of the sexual abuse she's scared of her dad like it all ties together he paints a much better picture and tells a much better narrative even for something that makes absolutely no fucking sense than the prosecution did and that's the way in which again i don't want to be like oh yay go bias but i'm like he did it very well yeah so the entire time
Starting point is 00:49:20 bias is talking about the abuse incredibly graphically, like we said. Casey is sat there crying. And George, oh my God. Please, I'll leave links again. Go watch the court footage. George is sat in the courtroom with absolutely no expression on his face at all. Now he's blank face. Blank face George. And apparently, Byers had told George and Cindy just that morning that he was going to throw George under the bus in court. Apparently, Byers told him, according to George, you're going to have to fall on your sword for this. But George didn't play along. Or if it was true, if the sexual abuse was true, I don't personally think it is. Because there is, once again, no evidence whatsoever or any history of this or any accusations. And Cindy and George, to this day, are still together. And in interviews, they sit there holding hands. And I'm not saying mums don't enable abusive fathers or anything like that,
Starting point is 00:50:09 but it's just none of it makes any sense. So yeah, George doesn't play along with it. Or if it's true, he doesn't admit it. When he took the stand for the prosecution, he was asked, have you ever sexually molested your daughter, Casey Anthony? And again, he's asked this by the prosecution. He replies, no, sir, I'd never do anything like that when he was asked were you present in the home when Kaylee Anthony died he replied no and when I heard that today it hurt really bad the whole time Casey just sits there as her dad is humiliated and mauled in court it's unbelievable
Starting point is 00:50:44 and I know that's the prosecution they're not trying to maul him but it's emotionally mauling as her dad is humiliated and mauled in court. It's unbelievable. And I know that's the prosecution, they're not trying to maul him, but it's emotionally mauling. And like I said, I don't believe the abuse story for a second. Byers and Casey would have and did say anything they had to. When the defence questioned George, everyone was expecting them to hit him with the abuse claims and tear apart his denial. But Baez didn't even bring it up.
Starting point is 00:51:10 Why? Because he had no evidence whatsoever. He just brought it up once to plant the idea in the jurors' minds. And then he never mentions it again because he knows a seed is enough. He knows not to keep digging because then it's going to get pulled apart. And if people keep seeing George deny it, they might believe him. So don't bring it up again. Just leave it. So when Byers had his turn with George at the stand, he took another, arguably even more malicious route. He brought up George's suicide attempt from January 2009.
Starting point is 00:51:38 After Kayleigh's body had been discovered, George found himself unable to cope. And one day he drove to a hotel in Daytona Beach, took 70 pills and drank as much beer as he physically could. He even left a note to his family that read, I miss Kaylee, I want to be with her, I love you Cindy, but Kaylee, here I come. George was found and he was resuscitated and he says in interviews that he just couldn't go on because when they found Kaylee, she'd been so close to home the entire time that he did blame himself. Every jail visit, Cindy tells Casey, your dad's been out all night looking for Kaylee. He didn't know where she was.
Starting point is 00:52:17 Yeah, because in all those jail visits, we hear Cindy and George coming in looking exhausted. And Cindy always says to Caseyy your dad's been out all night all day looking for him and that's why george can't live with himself because kaylee was found so close to home and he was looking everywhere just don't believe for a second he knew she was there no oh my god no no so when bias brings up the incident of george's attempted suicide he listens to george say that it was because he was sad but Baez says to the jury it wasn't because he was sad it was because of the guilt. Again that's all you need. It's all you need to just apparently that's what you need. Well I think when you're a piece of shit fucking
Starting point is 00:52:58 murder defense lawyer like Baez is you'll just go that I mean he's done a clearly very good job but he's got no shame. No that's why him and Casey are like the perfect match. So when Byers accuses George of having done it and having tried to kill himself because of the guilt, George breaks down on the stand. And it's honestly, I found it one of the most stomach-churning parts of this case to watch. And speaking of stomach-churning to watch, itindy in the interviews after like i said they're still together when the interviewers in one of the documentaries i watched asked cindy about this incident about buyers bringing up george's suicide attempt she just says it must have been one of the
Starting point is 00:53:37 hardest things for him to go through i feel like you've got to watch it in the context to understand how callous it sounds because she makes it sound like an inevitability. She makes it sound like, well, that's just what he had to do. You know, I had to say the shit about the fucking chloroform. Like, it was just what he had to do. It's kind of the subtext I took away from it. Not instead being angry at the fact that Bias did it or the fact that Casey obviously went along with it. Because, yeah, she's not the one saying it, but she's there.
Starting point is 00:54:02 Yeah. I just feel so, so sorry for george and throughout the trial casey never takes the stand she never ever testifies which i think again is another very smart move from bias because i think casey had taken the stand opened her mouth the jury would have fucking hated her and finally after a painful trial it was time for the closing arguments. Judge Belvin-Perry actually forbade the allegations of sexual abuse from being mentioned in the closing arguments, as the defence had shown absolutely no evidence for it. On that grounds, I have no idea why it wasn't struck from the record, but it wasn't.
Starting point is 00:54:37 But even if it had been struck from the record, the jury still heard it. Byers didn't even bring up the pool drowning theory in his closing remarks either, because again, he didn't even bring up the pool drowning theory in his closing remarks either because again he didn't have any evidence and he actually says we might never know how Kaylee died after you literally proposed a theory of how she died saying this is what happened not even a theory he says Casey has admitted this is what happened Casey has admitted to me that Kaylee drowned in the pool wasn't a theory he was saying that is what categorically happened. And then in his closing arguments, he says, we might never know what happened. Honestly, this is filling me with joy for my jury duty that starts on Monday.
Starting point is 00:55:16 Oh, yeah. Shit. That's it. We're actually, like, trying to take two weeks off after this. Pan has got true surface. Yeah. Hopefully only two weeks. Do you know what the real tree surface yeah hopefully only two weeks do you know what the real shitter they've moved it from the old bailey oh no i think it's still an old
Starting point is 00:55:29 bay they because they so apparently they're called nightingale courts where like so it's still in the city it's still in the south it's on like east cheap or something so it's a lower court but it's an old bailey case because it's a covid thing they can't have too many people in the building so i think it's still an old bailey case but it's fucking a bit of a shitter i can't even go in the old bailey oh that is a bit of a shitter and also this just makes me sound like the work misogynist that i am that i'm like oh east cheap's actually really close to here so if we need to come into work after it's really easy yeah because we're not actually off no no no no so many moving cogs so many levers being pulled
Starting point is 00:56:02 by crocs so baez doesn't directly say the pool theory in his closing statements but he does hint at it by showing a picture of kaylee opening the french doors at the back of the anthony house all on her own and within this shot you can see the pool in the background just suggesting a way just reminding he's basically saying look proof she can open the door on her own and go out into the pool like subliminal advertising buyers then told the jury to base their verdict on evidence not on emotion even though he has literally provided none and he said all the state was doing was trying to slut shame casey but they had no evidence for what happened even though they
Starting point is 00:56:45 presented loads of evidence yeah and this is the thing in interviews with buyers like he goes on the dr phil show obviously sorry the phil mcgraw show shade and he like after he stops representing casey and talks about the case the thing that really infuriates me and maybe i'm wrong maybe you can correct me the thing that irritates me is he constantly keeps saying when phil is like you talked about because phil is very much like he thinks george didn't sexually abuse casey anthony like most people in the world are and when he said you know you were saying that george had sexually abused casey as a child where was your evidence where was your evidence where was your evidence for this and you said
Starting point is 00:57:23 that lee had sexually abused her where's the evidence byers was your evidence? Where was your evidence for this? And you said that Lee had sexually abused her. Where's the evidence? Byers keeps saying, as the defense, I don't have to prove anything. I just have to create beyond reasonable doubt. But my understanding is, that's what you have to do with the overall charges of the case. Not that you can just say whatever fucking crazy shit you want with no evidence. Yeah, it seems pretty unreasonable
Starting point is 00:57:43 that the defense can just stand up and chat shit for days on end and no one can pull them up on it because you don't have to prove anything i feel like that's not what that means no i i also think that that's not what that means i'm sure him and phil mcgraw get on really well yeah both fucking snake oil yeah merchant i really feel like all that means is when the defense don't have to prove anything is like, they don't have to prove that Casey Anthony didn't kill Casey. They just have to create beyond reasonable doubt as to the prosecution's case. But you can't just say whatever shit you fucking want. Like her dad sexually abused her, offer no evidence and then say,
Starting point is 00:58:16 well, I need defense. I don't have to prove anything. Like what? Anyway, I thought that was like quite an interesting part of his defence about himself. So the state closed by saying that Casey had killed Kaylee because she'd wanted a new life. One with her 22-year-old club promoter boyfriend, Tony Lazaro. They said that she wanted to have a life and be out there and be free. But she knew she'd either have to sacrifice herself or her child.
Starting point is 00:58:44 And I think it's safe to say that after the trial, after the closing arguments, even despite Baez's performance, I think most people were expecting a guilty verdict. But when the jury returned, they unanimously found 25-year-old Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, of aggravated child abuse or aggravated manslaughter. And honestly, from Casey herself to the judge, everyone in that courtroom looked shocked. The reporters looked like they can't fucking believe it. It's unbelievable. After this, Casey was only convicted of providing law enforcement with false information,
Starting point is 00:59:27 for which she was sentenced to a year in prison. But she was let off with time served and good behaviour, given she had spent about three years at this point in a county jail. And so she actually walked out of jail just ten days after sentencing. Everyone in the whole world was making that noise. People were furious. And they were as angry at the jurors as they were at Casey herself. There were protesters
Starting point is 00:59:52 outside the courthouse with signs that read, jurors 1 to 12 guilty of murder. I don't want to go on Monday. I mean, guys, like, fucking... I understand there was anger, but I but i'm like again you can't just start saying whatever you fucking want no no no you're not jose bias
Starting point is 01:00:10 jurors even got death threats one guy said he got 1000 emails a day from people raging at him the members of the jury have said in interviews that most of them actually believe that she did do it but they felt that the state just didn't have the evidence to back up how, when and where Kayleigh had died. But there are a few things that didn't come out at trial that we think are worth discussing. Again, prosecution, if they had done their job better, instead of, I don't think they did a bad job in court, I do think that they were complacent in their case building. So firstly, fact that didn't come out.
Starting point is 01:00:50 Or not fact, thing that didn't come out at court, at trial. The drowning story. Well, when that came out, it sounded awfully familiar to another young woman out there named April Whelan. April had been Casey's jailhouse neighbor and in 2007 her 15 year old son Isaiah had tragically drowned in their family pool and April's father had been the one to find him. And April's like I'm pretty definitely sure I told Casey Anthony about that when we basically lived together. Not enough? Okay I've got more. On the 16th of June 2008, the day that Kayleigh vanished,
Starting point is 01:01:26 Casey had been on the Anthony's computer, scrolling through Facebook for hours. She had looked through hundreds of pictures of her friends partying, and we know it was her because she also MSN chatted with her friends. Those were the days. Uh-huh. Then, she had googled, Shotgirl costumes. A few hours later, there was a more ominous search
Starting point is 01:01:45 for suffocation. Shortly followed by foolproof suffocation. And then, Casey Anthony clicked on an article about suicide that had discussed taking poison and putting a bag over one's head. All these searches and internet activity
Starting point is 01:02:00 were on a Firefox browser. Cindy and George are old, so they obviously always used Internet Explorer. So guess who used the younger, hipper, better version? I'm guessing it wasn't Kayleigh. No, no, it was not. It was Casey. So when police analysts collected information from the family computer, they only vaguely looked for anything connected to chloroform on Internet Explorer. And they did that because they were so sure about what they had found in the car, they didn't think they would need anything else.
Starting point is 01:02:30 And once more, the state didn't ask for it either. But Baez, Baez knew about these searches. In fact, in an interview after he stopped representing Casey, he said that he thought the state were going to hit him hard with these in court, but they didn't, because they totally overlooked Firefox. This is the thing. Bahia's fucking nude that she had done these searches. And the prosecution didn't.
Starting point is 01:02:52 Mmm. Yep. All right, time to get the pins out of the big cushion. Because it's time to talk about Zenaida Gonzalez. Okay. So remember we told you last week to put a pin in that name, and we also told you to put a pin in the location of where Kaylee's body had been found, in the swamp woods. Well, now it's time to remove those pins.
Starting point is 01:03:11 Remember that we said Kaylee's body had been found about a quarter of a mile from the Anthony's home. It was found in a wooded clearing between two houses. One house was number 4,000... No, wait. 4701? Sure. And 4709. Guess who lived in these two houses? The person who lived at 4701 was Zenaida Elia.
Starting point is 01:03:39 And the person who lived at 4709 on the other side of this gap was Peter Gonzalez. It's like, I can't remember, there's a magician who has a trick for remembering a pack of cards. And he's like, you visualize a walk that you do often and you put the card in your mind on the gate of the house that you pass first. And that's a memory technique. So it's the same walk and then you just change the things that you like put on the hook. It's like she's done that. Yeah. Just by pure instinct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the hook. It's like she's done that. Yeah. Just by pure instinct.
Starting point is 01:04:06 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think she's been doing brain training. She's just pulled this one out of her ass. I don't know if it's got anything to do with it, but come on.
Starting point is 01:04:17 Come on. I know it's Florida, but yes, it is Florida, but it is one fuck of a coincidence, even for the sunshine state, my friend. Jesus. Okay. So none of this matters, despite how hot and heavy we're getting about it it doesn't matter also this is all very
Starting point is 01:04:31 well known i didn't like dig this out from super sleuthing this is all very well known there's like a million fucking ap articles about it i'll leave links below but none of this matters in a legal sense at least because thanks to double jeopardy case, Casey Anthony cannot be retried for the murder of Kayleigh Anthony. She's free. And I do have to wonder, like, if they hadn't gone for first degree. But then she doesn't even get convicted of aggravated child murder. I think... Aggravated child, whatever it was, manslaughter.
Starting point is 01:04:59 Like, I don't know. Even the judge afterwards is, like, shocked. I'm amazed that they didn't overturn the jury's verdict, because they can do that. I don't know why the judge didn't, because he has gone on record and said that he thought that the state showed enough evidence for a conviction of one of the homicides, if not first degree for one of the homicides.
Starting point is 01:05:18 I don't know why he didn't overturn it. I guess that goes some way to, like, maybe you don't want to do that all the time because, like, it undermines, and maybe with a high-profile case like this this maybe it undermines confidence in the jury system but it's not just us saying it and it's not just you it's a fucking high profile like everybody knows this case but you yeah the whole thing seems completely unbelievable and the defense were probably not as thorough as they should have been but even still there's no way you can watch the footage of Casey Anthony being interviewed and not think she's completely guilty.
Starting point is 01:05:48 We will talk theories at the end, but we have a little bit to get through before we get to that stage. So let's talk about Casey's personality and what might have been going on with her mental health. Like we said, if you watch her being interviewed, she spends most of her time laughing and joking with the police officers. She's never furious like you might expect a parent who is innocent to be. I'd imagine I'd be pretty seething at the police for wasting my time talking to me rather than looking for my missing child and her abductor after 30 days. But Casey is very chill. She shows no emotion.
Starting point is 01:06:21 She even presents very open body language. It's very believable if you don't know the context you'd be forgiven for thinking that she was being honest but once you actually listen to what she's saying you realize it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever so for a better understanding of you know what maybe personality disorder is going on with Casey or whatever it might be, we went to Dr. Grande on YouTube. I will leave a link to his video analysis below. And he makes the point that it's almost counterproductive for Casey to be so together. And Jim Can't Swim also says something very similar.
Starting point is 01:06:59 Again, we'll leave a link below. If you were in this situation, you would expect somebody to actually be pretending to be upset, pretending to be frantic. Why does she pretend or why is she appearing like everything is fine? It's like it's a facade that she can't take off. It's like she can't stop pretending that everything is okay all of the time. It's like she can't change her behavior. And of course, a question becomes, what's going on with Heather?
Starting point is 01:07:29 Because whether you believe she did it or not, she never seems bothered by the disappearance of her child. Even if you think she didn't kill Kayleigh, why isn't she fucking terrified then? Mm-hmm. Why isn't she terrified of being labelled a literal child murderer and then going to prison? Being a cop isn't fun in prison, but being a child murderer in a women's prison is horrendous. It's the worst of the worst. I bet. So whether you think she did it or not, her behavior doesn't match up to the circumstances that she's in because she's got a missing and then a dead child.
Starting point is 01:07:54 Yeah, yeah. So is she a psychopath? Is she a sociopath? What's going on? Interestingly. And again, we don't often kind of get this level of information. It's once again, thanks to Florida Sunshine Laws that we have all of this information. Two mental health professionals assessed Casey using what's known as the MMPI which is a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
Starting point is 01:08:15 If you've read the book you will read about us talking about Carla Homolka's MMPI in there. Basically it is the gold standard for personality assessment. Both of these mental health practitioners who assessed Casey using this assessment tool found that she had normal results, which means that there was no evidence of any sort of mental or personality disorders, which makes me want to scream, how? In a way, that's more terrifying. Yeah. I'm baffled. I'm absolutely baffled by this case. I will say, MMPI is the gold standard.
Starting point is 01:08:56 But as we saw with Carla Homolka in the book, it can turn out incorrect results if it's not done properly. These assessments were looked into by other experts and it was said that it was done properly. So, like, I can't repeat it. I'm at a loss. Yeah. So, basically, these two mental health professionals found that casey anthony had no psychopathy she had no sociopathy and that she only had a normal level of narcissism for her age which at 25 would have been 22 at the time but you know they're assessing a person in their mid-20s they're like it's pretty normal the level of narcissism she has
Starting point is 01:09:20 they also pointed out that casey anthony had nothing in her history, which indicated that she would be likely to commit a violent crime like this. Which again, as we know, is a pretty strong indicator. So where is Casey Anthony now? Well, after the trial, she moved in with one of her attorneys. And now it seems that she lives in Palm Beach with a guy called Patrick McKenna. He was the 73-year-old lead investigator for her defence. We actually talked about this on in the news a few months ago. Apparently Patrick McKenna is helping Casey with her photography business and becoming a PI. I'm sure that's all he's helping her with. Yep I'm sure she's not helping him out at all. No I'm
Starting point is 01:10:02 sure she's not trading any favours For anything With his dick I mean it's despicable When she gets interviewed about becoming a PI She's like I'm just going to do what they did to me But in a good way Show me the person who would hire Casey Anthony Because what do PIs do They find people and they watch people
Starting point is 01:10:23 Yeah no you're right And that's the two things Casey can't do. In her first ever interview as a free woman, which she gave in 2017, this is what Casey had to say for herself. I don't give a s*** about what anybody thinks about me. I don't care about that. I never will. I'm okay with myself.
Starting point is 01:10:41 I sleep pretty good at night. Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. And there's a documentary where, after she gives this interview, they play it to George and Cindy, where she's saying, I sleep okay at night. George just looks heartbroken. He's like, we haven't slept in years. And also, she compares her case for murdering her child, she compares it to the case of OJ Simpson.
Starting point is 01:11:09 Even going so far as to say that she sees many parallels between the two cases. Which, Casey, maybe pick a case where the popular opinion of the globe isn't that they did it. And their autobiography is called If I did it like try harder even amanda knox would be better than that yeah i don't know what she's thinking i don't know what she's there's no way there's not something incredibly wrong with her i'm sorry like i know i don't know what it is though because the mmpi were like no she's fine maybe she's got some new fucking hybrid personality disorder that no one else has she's got the dennis nilsons is what she's got. She's got a touch of the Dennis Nilsons. So as for the Anthonys, what's going on with them? Well, George says now, thankfully, that he wants nothing to do with Casey anymore. He says he's done. Lee
Starting point is 01:11:56 also has nothing to do with Casey. He has his own child and he's like, I don't want her anywhere near us. But Cindy seems a little bit weaker on it in these interviews I've watched so many it's all just like blurred into one and they're all from like quite a similar time period like recent like as in 2015 to 2017 2018 sometimes in the same breath she'll say that she thinks Casey did it and then she'll pause and be like oh I don't know and I'm just like, ugh. So, as we reach the end of 2021, dragging ourselves into the new year. Kicking and screaming. Kicking and screaming. At least we can look forward to it not being fucking nighttime at four o'clock in the afternoon anyway.
Starting point is 01:12:37 What do we think, your loyal hosts? What have we decided well probably we think that casey gave kaylee something like xanax which we know casey had access to and she probably used it to knock the little girl out for long stretches of time so she could do what she wanted and there is some corroboration for this again it's not solid we can't test kaylee's toxicology can't test anything to see but people like tony and his housemate and other people that were friends with her did say that kaylee would just sleep for a really long time sometimes and wake up and still look really tired she was fucking i know sometimes we call her two and sometimes we call her it's like she's like two and three quarters you're just giving a child that young fucking Xanax again it just speaks to the immaturity and irresponsibility
Starting point is 01:13:27 of Casey Anthony so was this an accidental killing or was it a calculated murder the duct tape seems to suggest that it was premeditated once Kaylee was dead Casey moved her body into the boot of her car. And then we think, and this is just our opinion, so don't be afraid of a differing opinion. It won't bite you. We think that Casey then put Kaylee in the car and just tried to forget about it for a bit because she's incredibly immature. That was how she would have dealt with it.
Starting point is 01:14:00 Then when Casey couldn't ignore the smell anymore, that's when she dumped Kaylee's body in the woods. And then she ditched the car after trying to clean the boot out and filling it with rubbish to try to mask the smell of her decomposing daughter. And I think that, you know, how could she do all of this? How could she do all of this? Well, I think there's one thing that we have learned about Casey Anthony. She's very, very good at compartmentalizing and rationalizing her way out of situations. From her past, things like with the graduation, her pregnancy, the lies that she told police, like walking them around Universal Studios. We know that she's the kind of person to just ignore things as long as she humanly, possibly,
Starting point is 01:14:39 physically can. And then she is like, oh, okay, fine. the whole crime is so immature as well it really reflects casey's personality and behavior i think and that is also the fact that kaylee's body is dumped a quarter of a mile from her own fucking front door is what makes me think no one else was involved in this and also just going back to the calls that we listened to at the start the jail visits where the parents are like you don't need to protect anybody you don't need to protect me you don't need to protect your dad you don't need to protect just tell the truth why would the parents say that if kaylee had drowned in the fucking pool and they'd all covered it up and you think casey's the kind of person i'll be protecting her dad in prison after what she watched happen to him in court i don't know did she do it on purpose did she not
Starting point is 01:15:20 i don't know i think the duct tape if we believe that the duct tape was on the face, then I think it was on purpose. Because why is there duct tape on a child's face? If we believe Verna spits and the idea that there's no proof or that the duct tape wasn't attached to the face and the mandible and the teeth isn't good enough evidence and it just maybe was part of the rubbish of the scene, then I could believe that it was an accident. And that Casey basically kills Kay yeah and that casey basically kills kaylee and then just tries to get on with it i think a problem for the prosecution in court a reason that they didn't win they blame the jury not in the sense of like oh this jury was stupid
Starting point is 01:15:55 they blame the jury for being like well we could only pick the people who didn't confess to the fact when they were being vetted for the jury that they had already made up their minds so because of florida sunshine laws they'd already seen all the evidence that was there so if they still weren't convinced of her guilt there was nothing we could say to convince them but as a cop out man yeah it is your job and also most people out there thought she was fucking guilty yeah you had a pretty easy run of it actually so i don't know i i don't think that's good enough really i don't know i think the problem think that's good enough, really. I don't know. I think the problem for the prosecution was that they repeatedly tried to say, and this is because the prosecution don't have to prove a motive. They don't have to prove a motive. But I feel
Starting point is 01:16:32 like they repeatedly tried to say that Casey had wanted to be free and that the reason she killed Kaylee was that reason. I think they didn't paint a good enough picture of the situation like, you know, like Baez did. And I think the problem with them trying to point to this as the motive was that Baez and the defence were quite easily able, pointing at Cindy and George, her loyal parents who were in court every day, to say that motherhood wasn't really that hard for Casey. She had a place to live. She had parents look after her. Their parents would even have taken Kayleigh away from her and happily raised her as their own which I think is true I yes I agree so then it became hard I think for people to believe that Casey's only way out of this situation where she was trapped with a child
Starting point is 01:17:13 was to kill this child and I think that was maybe the downfall I don't know I think there's also something interesting to be said in why then did if we say that she did it on purpose if we say it wasn't an accident she did it on purpose why then did Casey we say that she did it on purpose if we say it wasn't an accident she did it on purpose why then did casey anthony kill kaylee because like i said cindy would have taken that child part of me does wonder given the relationship between that mother and daughter whether casey anthony didn't do it in some way to punish cindy and to decouple herself from her mom you have a baby with somebody and no it's not cindy's baby you're tied to that person forever oh yeah and the way in which cindy overreaches her responsibility as a
Starting point is 01:17:51 grandmother i'm not blaming her i just think casey clearly was very irresponsible i think it was a way for casey to punish her and also to find a way to try and cut that tie a bit maybe yeah i mean i also think she's you know immature enough to have seen it in that light and be like i've got a problem how do i get rid of it i'll never be free as long as kaylee is here because you'll always be on my back yeah but that is assuming she did it on purpose i don't know but whatever happened the way in which she deals with it after is absolutely fucking bonkers do you think here's my theory theory about Zanny the nanny. So Xanax is referred to by the kids on the street as Zanny.
Starting point is 01:18:35 So could it be that Casey would make a little joke about it? Because she didn't have a real in-life person nanny, but she did have a pharmaceutical nanny. Oh, absolutely. So she probably called it Zanny the nanny. She's gone off to Zanny. Yeah. I do think that that is a very, very likely possibility. Yes, I agree.
Starting point is 01:18:49 That is also... Again, this is one of those cases where I feel like, how much do we have to add to it? A lot of this is out there already. It's a case that is very old. It's very well covered. But it's one that you guys have requested. And I'll be honest, I have... Is enjoyed the right word? I have...
Starting point is 01:19:03 I found it very interesting yeah and you probably feel like you've liberated yourself from the chains yes that have been holding you down for years all of the years that people have been asking for this absolutely it was a beast it was a beast of a case but there you go guys that is the mammoth story of Casey Anthony and Kaylee Anthony I think again like Kaylee gets quite lost in this case there's loads of pictures and videos and she is a fucking adorable little kid, actually. I'll give her that. I'll give you that, Kayleigh.
Starting point is 01:19:29 And it's just heartbreaking. She'd be 16 years old now if she was alive. Yeah. So on that big fat bummer. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. And a happy new year.
Starting point is 01:19:38 Goodwill to all men. Joy to the world. The Lord is come. I was just reeling them off. Silent night, holy night. Round yon virgin, mother and child um have an amazing christmas guys it's been a tough year and an amazing year at the same time and you've been there for us every step of the way and we couldn't be more grateful so make sure you look after yourselves this christmas have a wicked new year and we'll see you in 2022
Starting point is 01:20:00 yeah bloody hell stay safe and hopefully next year we'll bring more positive things. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Bye. you hey there it's aaron and justin from the generation y podcast and we're here to tell you that tickets for crimecon uk 2022 are on sale now we had a great time back in september and it's all happening again next year when CrimeCon UK returns to London on June 11th and 12th, 2022. You'll be able to get up close and personal with your favorite podcasters, true crime TV stars, documentary makers, forensic experts, criminal psychologists, and law enforcement professionals. To take advantage of the early bird ticket discounts, visit CrimeCon.co.uk now, and hopefully we'll see you in London next year.
Starting point is 01:21:27 He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.
Starting point is 01:22:05 Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle,
Starting point is 01:22:40 the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.