The Megyn Kelly Show - Casey Anthony: A Megyn Kelly Show True Crime Special | Ep. 226

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

It's a Casey Anthony episode of The Megyn Kelly Show's True Crime Christmas week. Megyn Kelly is joined by Cheney Mason, former defense attorney for Casey Anthony, as well as Beth Karas, journalist and legal contributor to Court TV, to talk about the Casey Anthony case and trial, how the media became obsessed with the case, what Casey Anthony did while her daughter was missing, the moment Caylee Anthony was found, the significance of the defense opening statement, the truth about the computer searches, what Casey Anthony is doing now, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and our true crime Christmas week here on the program. take you back now to July 15th, 2008, when Cindy Anthony of Florida first reported her granddaughter Kaylee missing, a fact she only learned one month after the child had disappeared. Cindy had no idea that her grandchild was missing because that child, she believed, had been with its mother, Casey Anthony. Casey Anthony had been claiming that she and her little girl were on a trip together. When grandma called, she just kept telling grandma that little Kaylee couldn't talk. But then a fateful event took place. You see, the car that Cindy, that's the grandma, had lent her daughter, Casey, wound up in an impound lot.

Cindy and her husband, George, the parents of Casey, were called by the towing company. They thought Casey was off on vacation with little Kaylee. They didn't understand why she'd be separated from the car. But they went to the lot, they examined the automobile, and suddenly their minds were flooded with questions. A few phone calls later, and they realized Casey had been lying to them. She had not been on a vacation somewhere. She had been staying with some boyfriend.

But where was Casey's child, their granddaughter, Kaylee? The answer to that would take another five months and would end in a dark and gruesome discovery. Two-year-old Kaylee was dead by homicide, and Casey had known that she'd been dead for weeks. My guests today to discuss this case are Cheney Mason and Beth Karras. Cheney is an attorney who served as co-counsel on the Casey Anthony defense team and who wrote the book Justice in America, How the Prosecutors and the Media Conspire Against the Accused. And Beth is a former prosecutor and journalist who covered this trial from 2008 to 2011 for TruTV. Welcome, Cheney and Beth. So good to have you both here. Thank you. Hello. Hi. So first, let me tell you this, Beth, I'm so happy to see you because I remember being a young reporter at Fox News and following you and following your coverage on Court TV,

now True TV, whatever. And I just always admired you and thought you were such a straight shooter and really smart on the law. So it's fun to have you on. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for that introduction. Of course. you very much. Thank you for that introduction. with, for example, Amanda Knox and compared what was real in her case to the way the media covered it.

And there was a very wide delta, right? So I understand your point, Cheney, that you can't just go by media reports. So we'll get into all of it. Okay. So let's start at the beginning. We're at the point where Cindy, I mean, it's confusing for the audience that doesn't know the case forward and backward, but Cindy's the grandma, Casey's the daughter, and Kaylee is the little two-year-old granddaughter. Cindy Anthony is

the matriarch, and she's letting her daughter, who was only 22 at the time this all went down, live with her. She's an unwed mom. She's a single mom. She's got little Kaylee with her. And they tell her, Casey tells her that she's going off on vacation. She's going to go to a couple towns, going to take the daughter, the granddaughter. Okay, fine. Then we talk about how she discovers that wasn't true. She goes to the car impound lot and she winds up calling the 911 operator. At first, what she really thinks this might be about is maybe there was a stolen car.

And then she realizes that it's worse than that, that something smells wrong with that car. And she doesn't know where the granddaughter is either. Here's soundbite one. My daughter finally admitted that the baby's in the store. I need to find her. Your daughter admitted that the baby is where? It just sort of took her a month ago. My daughter's been looking find her. Your daughter admitted that the baby is where? The baby sitter took her a month ago. That's what my daughter's been looking for.

I told you my daughter was missing for a month. I just found her today, but I can't find my granddaughter. She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find her herself. There's something wrong. I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the car. OK, what is the three year old's name? Kaylee. C-A-Y-L-E-E. Anthony. And I'll start with you on this, Beth.

So that's we were off to the races because now what we learned on that day is that you've got a young mother who hasn't by her own admission, hasn't seen her child in a month who tells investigators she decided to handle it herself and was only caught because the mother was called to that impound lot. Go from there. Right. So I know when we look back in hindsight, we know what the defense explanation for that was at that time. But when we were looking at this unfolding in real time, people who were following it, and I started following it with Court TV from the very beginning, it looked really suspicious. Like, why is she looking for this child herself? Why isn't she calling the authorities? She ultimately tells the police she didn't trust them. She wanted to look for her daughter herself. But we learned that what she's doing in

this 30-day period from June 16th to July 15th was, I mean, what's documented, photos of her and other memorializations and text messages, whatever, don't seem to be consistent with looking for her daughter, right? She's partying. She got a tattoo. She's in a hot body contest. And it's like, really, is this woman grieving her daughter? Is she in a panic? Is she looking for this toddler who was two years old and 10 months at that time? So it was very suspicious. And she ultimately gets charged with child neglect, like failure of crime. Well, Cheney will have to tell us the exact crimes, but it was like failure to report her child. It was like neglect charges, have to tell us the exact crimes, but it was like failure to report her child. It was like neglect charges, nothing to do with homicide. That would be down the road.

But that seemed to be right because it didn't make sense what she was saying. And she's lying to the police. She's sending them in all these tangents that were going nowhere because she knew the truth and she wasn't telling the police the truth. Let me ask you this, Janie. One of the questions and we'll get into it with the audience, what your defense was and how that went. But at this point in the case, under your theory of the case, when Casey's confronted by her mom, Cindy, you know, where's Kaylee? What's the deal with the car? You know, this is July 15th. Under your theory, Casey knew at that point that her child was dead, correct? No. And your facts about how the car was found are wrong. The car was found in a parking lot of a shopping center. George found the car. George drove the car home. Cindy, at some point after that,

has made the call, the infamous call, and it smelled like a damn dead body was there. Five deputy sheriffs responded to the house, to the car on the same day, inspected it, trunk open, doors open, and every single one of them testified under oath that they did not smell anything. So that's another one of these examples that made it imaginary as not true. But wait a second, Cheney, wait a second. Georgia drove the car home from the pound. It was towed from the lot. It was towed from that parking lot where she left at the end of June, June 26, I think. And by the time that Anthony's got the paperwork from the pound where it was, it was already July. It may not have been the 15th, but it was early July.

It was July. And then they go to the pound. And that's where George, as he approached the car, he said he really feared he smelled something that was very familiar to him because he's a former police officer. He really feared when the trunk was open, he was going to see something he didn't want to see. But that didn't happen. But the man at the pound said to him, oh, yeah, I know that smell because somebody else, there was an abandoned car there. Maybe it was a salvage yard. I can't remember, a pound salvage yard. But there was an abandoned car that had a dead body in it. He said it was a salvage yard. I can't remember a pound salvage yard. But there was an abandoned car that had a dead body in it.

He said it was a similar smell. I know what you say is they didn't smell anything. That's true. But there's other evidence of odor closer in time to the car being obtained by the Anthonys. Once again, we'll disagree. That's not the fact the car car was found and george said they had thrown garbage over the fence to a dumpster okay that's not was not the impound lot and they came and they did not spell anything other than garbage then the car was taken after they had the car to the home

and they had the statements from cindy the sheriff's department took it and they kept it and it never was returned it was kept in the sheriff's department for forensic evidence the whole time even thereafter months later i was in the case it's not like it's all that important the bottom bottom line is there was an initial claim by Cindy. There's no dispute about that. And the state tried to buttress her statement because she was a nurse and she knew what bodies smelled like. That was ridiculous because nurses don't know what bodies smell like because they don't keep them in the hospital okay but we're getting hung up i mean there's no question cindy said on that 911 call she she that it smelled like there had been a damn dead body in the trunk we all heard that i've heard george give interviews i've heard george give interviews where he says it smelled like a dead body he's he has said that on camera and the the head of the tow lot it was the towing company and the man's name was simon birch that's the company that impounded casey's car in june testified that he hadn had encountered multiple vehicles with dead bodies during his three decades in the business and that the smell from Casey's car was consistent with those past experiences. So let's not get too hung up. We don't know whether it was in fact Kaylee Anthony that created the smell in that car. And I understand that the authorities would argue that. But we don't need to get too hung up on whether people said it because they they did say it um whether or not

that was the smell would have to be proven at trial go ahead saying it is one thing there is no forensic evidence to support that there's any unique order to the decomposition of a human body so everyone is different i got it when they took a look at the trunk there was not a human body. Everyone is different. I got it. When they took a look at the trunk, there was not a dead body inside of it. The grandparents opened up the trunk and there is no dead body. There is, however, large amounts of trash and it's the hot Florida sun, right? I mean, I've seen the garbage bags. Are you disputing that too, Cheney? Why are we getting so contentious? No, no. It had been in there before she had any contact with it. The garbage bag was thrown out of the car over the fence to a public dumpster site. There's no

question that Cindy said what she smelled. And that made it a very, very alluring claim about the case. And all I'm saying is we established there is no forensic evidence to do that. And as a matter of fact, that's when they had the air sample test and the forensic scientists testify that what was and was not. It's not really important to the term of the case, in my opinion, other than it led to causing the attention to the case right from the beginning, exactly as you said. And it could very well be under any theory of the case that Kaylee's body was either not in that trunk at any point or was not in that trunk for long or was there and was removed. I mean, what we do know is Kaylee was killed,

that Kaylee is dead and that ultimately her body would be found not in that car. But we'll get to that point in the story. But when we learned about Casey Anthony's version of the story was at the opening argument or the opening statement at trial. And we'll get to all of that. But under her version, under her version of the case, she, George, her dad, killed, well, didn't kill, but was with little Kaylee when she drowned. Okay, she drowned. No, that's not correct. That's not correct. George found her. Okay?

There's no evidence that George was with this child when she drowned. He found her and brought her in from the pool and confronted Casey. Look at what you did. And when was that? There is no evidence that he did anything. Right. I know. I'm aware because most of us don't think he did.

But when did that allegedly happen? Well, I'd have to go back to the specific dates that you probably have. Well, you just told me it hadn't happened at the point. She said, I've been with her for a month and I've been out. You said it hadn't happened at that point. So when did it happen? I don't know. Well, then why are you telling me that it hadn't happened yet at the point?

Yeah, go ahead. What I'm telling you is, and said that george was with the child when she died there is no evidence you're disputing i'm going back to my first point so you don't know my point is when she was out dancing and getting the tattoos and bella vida and doing all the crazy stuff for that 30-day period did she or did she not know that her child was dead in my, she did not know. In my opinion, that child had been found and had been disposed of in some people believe, Casey, you would think would have known immediately about her daughter. I don't think she did.

Our experts didn't think she did. And the jury didn't either. The bottom line is that Casey went into what I have previously characterized as Casey Wall. She was in a total, some sort of state, psychotic state, not acknowledging the child was gone, dead, and just fabricating whatever she had to fabricate about it. And it was clear to me, I can tell you, whoever watched the trial besides the jury,

when we had a grief expert testifying about how people grieve differently in different circumstances, and she talked about it during the trial, the last part of the trial, Casey broke down, was the first time that she absolutely clearly accepted and knew that this child was dead. How did, I mean, she realized that her child wasn't with her for a month, right? You know, I don't know what she realized. That's what I'm trying to tell you. We know from facts and videotapes of witnesses, as you described. She was out on a couple of occasions to a young people's club and doing shopping and going around and just kind of in another world. And so what she actually knew, I guess none of us will ever know. Well, I mean, her mother asked her that day that they were reunited, where's Kaylee? And she said,

she's missing. The babysitter took her and I've been looking for her on my own. So she clearly knew that she was missing. I'm sure she, yes, that she knew something, but it wasn't connecting in her brain. It didn't connect in her brain until we were in trial at the end of the trial. That's the problem with it. And it's hard to understand that. And most people don't want to understand that. Most people- Wow. I mean, you can understand it and just not believe it, right? I mean, it's secret option number two. Right. I think the normal, most expected reaction from people was if you found your child drowned, you would call 911.

Or you do something. That's the normal and reasonably normal expectation of people. Would be for me. Would be for you. But this is such a weird and unique situation that... But are you now saying that she found her? That she found

her child drowned? I did not say that at all. Okay, you said a normal expectation would be if you found your child, and that's not the posit here. The posit is that George, the granddad, found her. If I found a child and or if you found a child, probably the first reaction like that would be a call for help. I know, but we were talking about Casey, and then you jumped to George's state of mind. We're talking about Casey's state of mind.

I'm not talking about George's state of mind. There's no evidence about his state of mind. Other than the position was that George found the child on that Saturday morning. She was drowned. Which Saturday morning? Which Saturday morning? I don't remember the date. Are you talking about the beginning of the 30-day period or the end of the 30-day period?

At the beginning. Beth may know the dates, but from looking at June, something. The last photos of Kaylee are on Father's Day, 2008, which I think was June 15th. Then the 16th, she had a fight with her mother the night before, and then she left the next day. And George saw them walking away. He remembers what they were wearing. That's father, Kaylee's grandfather.

And so that was a Monday. She's walking away with them. And my understanding is that the defense position was that the drowning of Kaylee was right around then, like very short time after that. Either the night, early morning, night, we had the photographs of the child being able to go out to the pool by herself and do that. And so all that we know, our position, look, I wasn't there. You weren't there.

We don't know who was really there to know this, but you never do in any part of your life. The bottom line is that our position has been from the beginning through the end, and still is. George found this little child. She was drowned. She was deceased. He brought her into the house. He casey because casey he was still asleep she had been out the night before or whatever the case would be and told her look what you've done your mother is going to be really mad at you and that was it and she left and we don't know what happened see this is where there's a big gap and a jury found a gap as well did george dispose of the body i don't know that i can't prove he didn't i wouldn't accuse him of it something happened and both of you know

something happened contrary to what the ordinary experience would have been the ordinary experience would have been called 9-1-1 ordinary experience would have made the whole thing right down resolved and for whatever reason it didn't happen and all i can tell you is that i doubt that the case will never be solved any more than it has been that's why you're still interested in it and people will be and will continue to be for for a long long time i don't know what else to do about that well sure i mean this has been, it was a very salacious trial. It happened at an interesting time

in our country's history. And, you know, it involves an unthinkable crime that we genuinely, sincerely do not wish to even think about. But when it happens, those, you know, responsible must be held to account. In this case, no one ever has been. Beth, I know you want to say something.

I'm going to get to you right after this quick break, pay a bill and back to our guests in two minutes. Don't go away. Beth, you were itching to get in there at the end. Go for it. Well, yeah, I was wanting to point out, I just looked at my notes, and June 16, 2008 was a Monday. So Father's Day was the day before. So that Monday was the last time George saw her. And it was the defense position that the drowning was that day, I believe, later that day. The other thing, I just wanted to look at the big picture here, because I know we're going to go through the timeline, Megan. But Casey does get charged with murder in October October and Kaylee hasn't been found yet.

And then she's found in December. The remains are found. And within a few months, the prosecution decides to up to ante and charge her with capital murder, right? Seeking death. So for the next three years, there are all kinds of pretrial hearings and lots of motions were being filed. And all the while, Casey is sitting in a jail cell. So for three years to her trial in 2011, 2008 to 2011, she's locked up. And I don't understand if this was an accidental drowning, maybe there's some sort of negligent theory of some kind of crime that Casey could be charged with, but nothing like capital murder. If the facts are what you say, Cheney, I don't understand why you wouldn't go to the prosecutors and say, look, this is an accident.

We approved this accident. Why let her sit in jail for three years? Or am I being naive? I've never been a defense attorney, but it just seems like, you know, prosecutors are not unreasonable, at least in my experience. We do justice. We do not just seek convictions. We want to do the right thing. You shouldn't overcharge if you, you know, you should never overcharge. I should put it that way. Well, I know you don't believe that all prosecutors are the same way because we know better than that.

The bottom line in this situation is that this case was ongoing for a long time before I was brought into it. with all the news medias and the, you know, every night or every day, all the channels said, you know, more about Casey Anthony, news at six, pictures at six, or whatever like that, every day for a long time. I was a citizen like everybody else until Mr. Baez asked me to come in. I don't know, and you may have a better time of when the charge was. I happened to have been in an NBC studio

on a totally unrelated matter when the people there got all excited because the sheriff was there doing something, got a call, and he came into the studio and he, like they found the baby with tape all around her head, and we believe that's going to be Kaylee.

And that was the first time there was any ability to prove that there was a death, so there could not have been any criminal charge of homicide against her at that time. They had no proof of death. They had other things, and I don't remember what they were. No, no, just to jump in and set the record straight, according to my timeline here, it was October. As Beth points out, she was charged with, not with murder, but with child neglect and some other small charges first.

So that's kind of how they got her into custody. That's right. She was declared a person of interest uh with respect to kaylee but she was not yet yet charged that's when she posted her bond and the bounty hunter leonard padilla came in and all that happened and then on october 14th 2008 she was charged with first degree murder aggravated child abuse aggravated manslaughter for accounts of providing false information to law enforcement and so on and then it wasn't until december 11th 2008 two months later that the skeletal remains of kaylee were found so two months after she was charged with murder yep and then they seek death after that because that was the changed circumstance we now have a

body we believe tape was around her mouth and nose and that was the changed circumstance we now have a body we believe tape was around her mouth and nose and that was the changed circumstance that would just and we'll get we'll get to what how the condition in which they found the remains which is which was the part of the prosecution's case but let's just go back to the days the 30-day period that she was not with kaylee and not with her parents and lying to her parents and out and about as we all would wind up seeing. I mean, I remember seeing it on Greta Van Susteren show every night, you know, the pictures of that would be on earth from her social media, you know, her dancing, her looking like you have a great time. She's got the big smile on and people looked at this in retrospect

and said that is that she must be a sociopath. You know, her daughter's missing. She's not, she's clearly not looking for her. She's having the time of her life. And that was the prosecution's theory that she got pregnant at 19. She didn't want this baby. She didn't want to be a mother. And she wound up either neglecting the child

or intentionally getting rid of the child to the point of death. So she takes the police during this time, Chaney, on some wild goose chases that I want you to help me understand. If we're going into... Why are you shaking your head? Yes, she did. Well, you said wild goose chases, plural.

That's not true. Okay. So did she or did she not take them to the fake apartment of some nanny who never existed? There was one beginning occasion beginning occasion, yes. Did she or did she not take them to Universal and pretend to work there when she, in fact, hadn't worked there for two years? That was the one that so-called Chase,

the police knew she didn't work there. They picked her up at six o'clock in the morning at the Anthony Renaissance. They drove her to Universal. They checked in Universal. They already knew from security that she didn't work there. They walked from there about 700 feet down the sidewalk and around the corner into an office building. And she was still carried on going to show them her office. And they took her into the building and got to a small office. and she was still carried on going to show them her office. And they took her into the building and got to a small office and she's turning us. Okay. I don't work here. So I am correct. I am correct. That's at least two. Those are wild goose chases. You need to

slow your roll, sir, because I've got my facts and you and I are not going to do that. This is not that kind of show. Okay. Trust me. I've done my homework. So she took them on a couple of wild goose chases. And you tell me why this young mother with no consciousness of guilt whatsoever, because she's in this confused fugue state, not realizing her kids not with her, would do those things. You tell me, I don't know why she would do it. She did not know, I believe, at this time that this child was deceased. She still had in her mind this myth of where the child was. And that's why the police didn't do anything else at that time to arrest her or charge her or anything, because they couldn't other than prove the child was missing and they didn't believe her. So why was she making up that she worked at Universal and making up that there was a nanny and taking them to the fake apartment of the said nanny? I'm not sure that I know. She had worked at Universal.

She did work up there to a few months before this occurred. I can't tell you. This is one of the things that we'll never know as to what went in through her brain to do that. It was so obvious to the law enforcement officers, they knew damn well that she did not work at Universal. They had already through the night confirmed that. And so when she said she did, they said, okay, we'll go along for this little charade. And that's what they did. They weren't fooled.

They weren't surprised whatsoever. And that's when we got into a whole issue about whether she was Mirandized or not, whether her statements could be used and how the appellate court dealt with that and reversed two of her misdemeanor convictions. Beth, why don't you tell us about the wild goose chase involving Zannie the nanny, who was the one you heard on that very first day that her mother and she called, well, her mother called the police and put her on with police. She was an unwilling participant. She was like, why would I want to talk to them? But she gets on and she claims that she left the daughter with the babysitter and you take it from there. Right. So in opening statements, Linda Drain Burdick does recount almost every single one of those 30 days. There is something, whether it's a text message, an email, a MySpace posting,

some communication, something, a photo that will document what she was doing during that time. During those 30 days, she does tell the police that, you know, Zenaida Gonzalez, there is really a Zenaida Gonzalez. There's really a person. There are a lot of Zenaida Gonzalez. Right. But I mean, there's a person by that name who applied for an apartment, for a vacant apartment in that complex. And so there's a, you know, a theory, I don't know if it's ever been proven true that that Casey may have seen that application may have seen that form, you know, and got the name from it, because there's a woman who, who did apply to live there. And not a nanny, not Casey Anthony's nanny working.

No connection between them. There's no connection between them. But like where a Casey was telling her parents that she was going to work. They did believe that there was a nanny, Zanny the nanny. They did believe that. So it's very curious, like where was this little girl? Like was she during the third day period, Casey is saying a couple of things. She's up in Jacksonville or she's in Tampa and then her car broke down and she was in a car wreck or maybe there was a hospital at some point. I can't remember exactly everything she relates. But Cindy, Casey's mother, is really getting frustrated because she wants to see her granddaughter. She needs to see proof. The two of them had fought, as I said, the day before Father's Day that night, they had fought. And, you know, there was some talk about, you know, Cindy saying, if you don't get better shape as a, you know, take care of this child, you know, I'm going to file to adopt her. Let me say though, that at trial, there was the only evidence about Casey as a mother was good evidence. Like she was a very doting, good mother. However, Cindy may have begged to differ only because I think that, that Kaylee was left with her grandmother a lot, that Casey was gone, especially closer in time to when the child disappeared because Casey had a

new boyfriend and it was sort of a new life and he was working at a club and you know it was kind of a new life and she maybe she wanted her freedom that was part of the prosecution well and didn't didn't he testify that she that he said he did he was had no interest in becoming the father a father correct right also right now around July 5th or so is she got a Bella Vita tattoo, beautiful life tattoo, which also is something that the prosecution pointed out, you know, their theory being, look, you know, maybe she knows her daughter's dead and she's celebrating her daughter's life through this tattoo. She's in a hot body contest. I seem to recall around the 20th, something, the hot body contest, she's wearing that short blue dress. um these are the things

she's doing that she says but if i can just jump i'm actually looking for my daughter let's just jump back to the to zanny the nanny because what she did she told the police i left her with the zanny the nanny and then i went to pick her up and she was gone and um i you know i've been looking for her and so the cop said do you know where Zanny the nanny lives? And she says, yes. And they said, OK, would you take us there? And she took them to an apartment. They went to an apartment and it was empty and it hadn't been leased for months.

There wasn't a stitch of furniture in there. So there had been no Zanny the nanny living there in that apartment and nobody had been living there for months. So, you know, this is not none of this is consistent with a woman who, in fact, had the experience she was claiming to them. Then they she told him that she'd been working at Universal, as I mentioned, and they said, OK, let's go. I think she said she needed her keys or something from Universal. So they said, OK, let's go. Let's go to Universal. We'll get them. Okay, fine. But she didn't work at Universal. So she managed to talk her way through the front security guards with the police, with her. They get through, they get in.

She gives them all sorts of names. I worked with this guy. I worked with that guy. These are made up names. They would later find out she was making up names. And then she got past a couple more people and said, oh yeah, where's my office? She gets turned around.

And then as Janie points out, she was at one point where she got lost. She went down a corridor. There was no way out. She turned around. She gave it up and said, I don't work here. And yes, they knew. But the point is, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies at every turn. And this is what one of the many reasons it's not just I smelled a dead body. It's it's her behavior, her deceit, her throwing the police into the wrong direction time after time. Her total seeming lack of empathy or concern for her child, who you're telling me she may or may not have known was dead or alive at that point. Right. So all of this goes into our perception on the outside Cheney of Casey Anthony. Um, and is, you know, I don't, so far I don't see where we're going wrong. I'm open mind. I'm wanting you to walk me through it. Cause I'm much as I think she did it. I'm

open-minded to a different story. I'm not saying that your perception is wrong because I saw it nationwide, if not worldwide. People believe the same sort of things about her. There's no question about that. There's no question that she did not tell them the truth about a lot of things. The question is, is why and how conscious was she of that? You said something I want to correct about going into Universal. The Universal people had already been informed by the sheriff. They knew what

they were doing. They were waiting for them to come out there and do that. What I'm always you raised earlier is another coincidence. I've never understood. Zanata Gonzalez? Where do you get a name like that? And then have a coincidence that there was a person by that name that had applied for an apartment at this place.

That never made any sense to me at all. Well, there's a whole lot of things that make sense to me of all these things. Why are you even raising that? Are you suggesting still to this day that there was a Zenaida Gonzalez who had babysat Kaylee and then what, George? Then Kaylee went home and drowned in the pool after that? Like, what do you, why are you even mentioning it? How is that relevant? I'm not saying it for that reason.

I just thought that when you raised the issue about the Zenaida Gonzalez, if nothing else, it's a hell of a coincidence. There is no evidence that she ever had that baby. It actually turns out to be a very common name. No, my point is, we know that's a lie. You don't have to debate me on whether that's a lie. We know that's a lie. Even according to your side, that's a lie. The child was killed, according to you, in the swimming pool. She drowned and George found her. I said in the intro, died by homicide because that is what the medical examiner said. But according to you, she died in the swimming pool.

So there was no Danny the nanny who ran off with little Kaylee, right? Yes, but it's not proper for you to keep saying she was killed. She died. She died by homicide, is what the ME said. Homicide by indeterminate means. What? By indeterminate means, correct. But what I said, once again, Cheney was 100% correct. She died by homicide. Check the report. Much more with Cheney and Beth Karras coming up. We're going to get to the trial, this infamous trial that would rock the nation for a long time. This is one of those things where people could tell you the names of

the attorneys were dying for information about the jury and so on and so forth. We'll pick it up there in a minute. And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. Let's go to the day that they, Casey Anthony is in jail and she's charged with first degree murder, but they haven't yet found a body.

And then they do. Beth, can you take us to, because, you know, weirdly, the man who found the body, who was a meter reader, would wind up becoming a central figure for a time in this case. There were all these reports about him. And it was like, I remember asking myself, why is he anything other than the man who found the body? Like, how did it become more interesting than that? So can you explain that? Explain how he found little Kaylee's remains? Yes, indeed. I'm pulling a lot of this from memory. So you might have to fill in a couple of facts here. But his name is Roy Cronk. Now, that day was December 11, 2008. There was a

hearing in the Casey Anthony case that day. In fact, I seem to recall that was the day that Jose Baez waived speedy trial. And not unusual, you know, for the defense to do that, I mean, in my experience. But we were all in Orlando, like the media was at the courthouse because it was yet another hearing. I remember being at a, you know, like like the media was at the courthouse cause it was yet another hearing. I remember being at a, you know, like a little cafe next to the courthouse where all our satellite trucks were. And there was a TV monitor on the wall. And all of a sudden, like a breaking news story comes on, a body found and we all turn around, we're staring at it.

I was with Carrie Sanders from NBC. And they're like, Katie may have been found. We all went racing out of that place. I couldn't up and leave with our satellite truck. We were parked there. So I had to wait. Everyone else, NBC and others, are on their way to the scene as close as they could get to where the tents were being set up and a grid was being created. And it would be days of sifting through this property, this wooded area, a quarter mile

from where Casey Anthony lived with her parents. And that's where the remains were found. Now, the man who called it in, this meter reader you're talking about, Roy Kronk, claims that he had actually found the body in August, or a skull or something, in August. And he called it in a couple of times in August, and he wasn't being taken seriously. Like a deputy showed up and did a cursory search. This is like a really dense wooded area, which by by the way, had been full. They had been a storm that summer of 2008. And that area had been flooded at one point, but it was no longer flooded by December. And Roy Kronk, you know, goes back there. He says to relieve himself because there was an elementary school just down the street, across the street, but down from where the body was found.

And so he now has reported again, having found a skull and it's now taken more seriously. I'm not quite sure why there wasn't a more thorough search before. It might've been because it was flooded. Maybe the deputy was afraid of the snakes or whatever, but she should have been found a lot earlier than December 11th. So Roy Cronk, it's suspicious. I mean, he does call it in months earlier and finally calls it in again on December 11th. So that's a little weird, but there is evidence the body wasn't actually moved. There were scattered remains. I mean, she's skeletonized and they're just parts and pieces, regrettably, but she had been in a couple bags. The loss of evidence, like the DNA and so on,

over that time, it would have been much more useful to have it in hand earlier versus when they found it. Sure. And her remains were spread because of animal activity. But there was a laundry bag, a cloth laundry bag with her that matched one, because it had been a set of two, that matched another one in the Anthony home. So it came from the home. And I don't think anyone's really disputing that. In fact, the defense facts or their version that they put forth from openings on was that, yes, she died at home. It was an accidental drowning and her body was disposed of.

So not really refuting that the bag belonged know belonged to the home but that was pretty clear so i mean but there was something else much more important that they found on the body than than the bag which was the duct tape get to that the tape yeah so so you know when cheney described how the the um somebody from the sheriff's department came to the local tv station that said it was wrapped around the head i mean it really wasn't like wrapped around the head like that. I only saw photos. I didn't see the actual skull. I only saw photos.

But her hair was in the back. She had long hair. Her hair was in the back of the skull. And there was like the lower jaw should have come up, should have been separated from the rest of the skull, right? Because everything is is but it wasn't and the tape was kind of holding holding it together it seemed like the tape and the hair was all stuck together there so it was in the front you know but there's a lot of slippage but like why is there tape there you know like that that was what really got the they're like

prosecution was like, yeah, there's no reason to put tape on a score. And wasn't there a heart sticker? No. Yeah. I mean, well, there was a criminalist who was looking at the,

uh, at the tape and saw the shape, but this heart shape, but then it like went away. Right. It was like, it was like seen and, but not captured on a photo or anything.

So it was just the testimony is my recollection. And I think that it was never like I don't know if it was proven. Somehow it was disposed of, disintegrated or something. I can tell you about that. The heart shaped sticker was found on a piece of trash about 40 feet from the remains and more closely across the street from the elementary school. It was never connected to this forensic scene, but other than it was found and talked about. And Beth is right about the slippage. The duct tape was not all around the head. The duct tape had been on the top of the bag. And when the decomposition happened in the skin and the material in the hair, there was a part of the hair that had duct tape on it, but there wasn't any actually on the skull.

And Dr. Werner Spitz testified about all of that and about the body. One thing that you said was important, I think both of you are pointing out, was why was Mr. Kroc not taken seriously about finding the body? He did. I think, Beth, it was three times, if I remember correctly, that he called and reported and said, hey, I'm out here. I found this. Looks like a skull to me.

And they just ignored him. And it was like the second or third time they finally sent a deputy. I don't remember his name. I don't think it's in my book. But a deputy came out to meet him. Beth, you'll remember this. The deputy slipped on the wet grass and he fell down and he sold his uniform and he was mad about that. And that was the end of that investigation.

That exact spot, just so you know, was 17 feet and nine inches from the curb of Suburban Drive. And that's a very short distance to to not been found it had been searched by horseback people as we call the kasumi boys on four-wheel drives numerous uh volunteer walkers and searchers had covered that area and every every square inch of it for a long time. But can I, I mean, I see the point you're making, Cheney, which is like, why wasn't it found if it had been there the whole time? But the reports were that they had massive flooding during that period that we're talking about, that four months, and that there was as much as four feet of water in which the body might may have been immersed for a lengthy period of that time well that's undiscovered that was suggested but that wasn't the testimony the hydrology expert that the state had from the university of florida came and had tested all around all

of that geographical area and did not find that we don't know know. And I'm only 78 years old and I still don't know. And I'm not going to know how that body was there, if it was there all that time. There's a certain reason to believe that the body had been moved and brought back there. Can you ever prove that? No. Because in order to be able to prove that, you'd have to have evidence of who did it and how they did it. Can't do it. All I can say is it's unreasonable to expect that the body was 17 feet 9 inches from the curve of the road, which was a half a mile from the Anthony house. It was searched by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people during that whole circus event and didn't find her. My recollection was that there was actually like plant material growing up through the skull, which indicates it was there the entire time, but it had not been moved. I don't remember that that is the case.

I remember Dr. Spitz talking about how there was at the base of the skull inside, there was some dirt. There may have been some, I don't think there's anything going of the skull inside, there was some dirt. There may have been some. I don't think there's any going through the skull. Well, I could be wrong about that. But there was some growth around it. Okay. Let me just back up and say this on behalf of the Sheriff's Department.

They have basically suggested they were overwhelmed with tips. This case was getting national attention. They had tons of people calling. They had kooks calling. They had legitimate people calling. And this guy says, hey, I work for the city. I'm a meter reader. You should be listening to me when I call in. Obviously, it would have been much more helpful to have the remains earlier rather than later. But it's just it's a piece of this case now. And, you know, for better or for worse, that's when they did ultimately find her. So they go to trial. And can we just spend a minute talking about Jose Baez? Because I had not seen him on the national stage. I was pretty young in my reporting and legal,

well, older, my legal tenure, but young in my journalistic tenure. And my understanding is, maybe Janie, you can speak to this, but my understanding is when he got on the Casey Anthony case, he wasn't one of the most storied criminal defense attorneys in town. Put Jose Baez in perspective for us then at the moment he came on to represent her. Jose was a young lawyer. I think he had only been a lawyer about five years. It may have been. I think that's accurate. He had worked at a public defender's office in South Florida. He was up here and he was working.

He was taking cases and going to court. You know, that's all young lawyers do routinely. I had never heard of him, never met him, never knew anything about him until he started calling me for suggestions and strategies and questions and so forth. And that evolved into finally asking me to get in the case. And, you know, I've made mistakes before in my life, but I agreed to do this, and I thought it was a good one. When I met this young lady, I've made mistakes before in my life, but I agreed to do this.

And I thought it was a good one. When I met this young lady, I didn't believe she was guilty. I've seen her several times since then. You did or did not believe? Did not. And I know her well enough to some extent like that. She came to my wife's funeral a few months ago. And I spent some time talking with her.

My attitude has not changed about her. My explanations are never going to satisfy you and millions of other people. And I got it. I can live with that. Well, no, listen, I have my beliefs having covered it and having, you know, had some experiences as a journalist and a lawyer, but I'm giving you an open mind to convince me. That's why we're doing these stories. So you have somebody who's probably more open-minded than most of the people you're going to get in the journalist chair. And I appreciate you doing this. We're going to pick it up on the opposite side of this break. Much, much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Karras. Don't go away.

So you you get brought in by Jose Bias Cheney and, you actually were very well known. You were former president of Florida Association of Criminal Lawyers, had been selected by Florida Monthly Magazine as one of Florida's top lawyers. And you, I read, were disgusted by the local media coverage about the relatively inexperienced Jose Bias saying that you had been offended by it. It was one of the reasons why you wanted to get involved. Why? What was wrong? Well, I detailed that, by the way, in my book, because the Orlando Sentinel newspaper had published a story in Exposé on Jose's personal life, being behind in alimony payments or something and criticizing him. I thought it was very unfair.

I didn't know him. He was just a young lawyer. And I'm a senior lawyer. And I felt like it just simply wasn't fair. So I said, wait a minute. Let me respond to this. Because at that point in time, the prosecutor being alleged as the lead prosecutor was Jeffrey Ashton. In reality the lead prosecutor was Linda Drain-Burdy. But Mr. Ashton,

they were talking about how he was, you know, Mr. Good Guy and all these sort of things. Well, I pointed out to them that he had been personally criticized in several appellate court opinions, reversing convictions because of his misconduct professionally. And Beth will tell you that appellate courts don't mention the names of the lawyers when they reverse them. It's pretty rare that they'll actually identify the person they say did wrong. So I wanted to press, you know, treat this kid fairly. That's who's this jose baez representing this defendant on the biggest case in the country at the time and as we now would will as we all now know that he managed to secure an acquittal which left the nation slack-jawed i mean speaking of robert shapiro that was the other case that was probably of equal notoriety like where somebody got found not guilty and the country just couldn't get over it, couldn't accept it, couldn't believe it.

Beth, can you, I'll give you this one because then I want to get Cheney to sort of put some meat on the bones. But take us to the moment of Jose's opening statement, because that was the moment. I mean, that was the moment I would say the case was won for him, lost for the prosecution. They never seemed to recover their footing. Right. It's my understanding the prosecution got word about maybe six weeks before the opening statement about what their position was going to be, maybe not quite that much time, but that it was going to be an accidental drowning. Jose Baez, the whole defense team, played their cards very close to their vows. People did not know where they were going. You know, this was

a case where there weren't many surprises because the law is so liberal and open about documents being made available to the public, right? It's the sunshine state. So so we knew we the media, we all had like twenty five thousand pages of discovery. There were there weren't going to be any surprises from the prosecution's team because we knew what the investigation was. So the surprise came from the defense when Jose said she wasn't murdered, that she drowned, that it was an accident. And George found her. And then and people were like, what? Like, where is this coming from? And that's when I was like, there's no way he's going with this. Like, cause she's been sitting in jail for three years. There's no way he would have, you know, he's going to go with an accident defense. But you know, what do I know? And I have to say, you know, Jose could not have tried this

case alone because I don't think the law allows it in any state, you know, in a capital case, you have to have two lawyers, but also he wasn't also he wasn't credentialed enough, right? Five years, three, five years as a lawyer, you have to practice longer in some states to handle a capital case, but you can tack onto your team some more experienced people, which is why Cheney was critical. I credit Cheney with the acquittal and his summation but i'm getting ahead of myself um but when when um jose said in the opening that it was an accidental drowning and then he started talking about casey being sexually abused by her father now wait because the audience at home is like wait what right like they took it wait what it was it was a huge turn our audience at home

just had the same turn we all had at the time, which is, wait, what? But, and that's, no, that's what the prosecution got word of in advance, a few weeks in advance. And I, I, I think that they were considering, you know, you know, was it too late for them to file any charges against George? Probably, probably it was, but, um, if was, but if this were the truth. But yeah, so we hear that George has been sexually abusing Casey since she was a little girl.

And that, I mean, he said this in opening. He said she would be a little girl and she would have his penis in her mouth and then she'd get on the school bus. And that she learned how to live a life of lies she learned how to be a really good liar because of that okay so he's like opened this whole can

of worms and i remember speaking to him when he was speaking to me that night saying wow you're putting casey on the stand you know because how are you going to get this stuff in because you know george was the first witness right after openings and he denied it and he's like well no not necessarily i'll put it on to the psychiatrist i say yeah no you won't you gotta put casey on so anyway um i never reported any of that but that was a discussion i had with him because based on his opening statement i was sure that case was going to testify we've seen defense attorneys say certain things in openings and then not follow through because they have a right to do, you know, not to call their client. And you can't comment on it, you

know, as a prosecutor at the end, because a defendant has a right to remain silent. And that's what happened here. He made us think that Casey was going to testify. And then maybe Shane talked him out of it or something. but she didn't testify in the end, and that proof of sexual abuse was never put before the jury, sexual abuse by George. He denied it on the stand, and the judge said, you cannot sum up on that because you didn't put on proof of it, even though you rang the bell and opening statements, and as they say, you can't really unring the bell, and that taint was there on the prosecution case on George Anthony throughout the trial. I don't I suspect jurors didn't like him because they had just heard Jose's opening and then George gets on the stand. Did the prosecution move for a mistrial after that? I mean, I realize normally it's the defense that does that, the prosecution can do it did they i i don't recall that no no okay and at that point they're still thinking maybe you're going to put casey on the

stand and she's going to bring it together i don't know and they're still thinking they're going to win i mean they're thinking like most of us are thinking it's a slam dunk case and they're going to win they don't want to mistrial they they're fine with this one or win something i mean there are a lot of counts and there were lessers. I mean, maybe not capital murder, but maybe some lesser degree of a homicide. But I just remember on that first day thinking, wow, cases for them to put this stuff on. I mean, cases got to testify. How else are they going to get it in? Yeah. And there was no. So just to be clear, a lawyer's opening statement is not a lawyer's closing argument. They're not evidence. That's not that's just sort of a directional offering for the jury. It's not considered evidence. So technically, the jury shouldn't have been

thinking about that when they went back into the deliberation room. But, you know, the seed had been planted. As Beth says, it's hard to unring that bell. Now, I know, Cheney, that you you wrote, I think, a story in your book about telling George, I got to give you a heads up. We saw some, because there were some letters, I think Casey wrote to like some guards in jail, accusing him. And he later said, George gave an interview saying he claimed it was Jose Baez who said, I'm going to throw you under the bus. So did you guys, what's your recollection of the, what you said to George about it's coming. I told George in my office, with the permission of his lawyer, and then a few minutes later, also Cindy, gave him notice that what was going to happen,

that George is going to be accused of sexually molesting his daughter. I wanted to see his reaction. I can tell you that if someone accused me of molesting my daughters or my granddaughters, there would be a real issue. It would be me bonding out of jail for having gone across the desk and kicked her ass. So I felt the need to tell him. All George did was just look and sigh, put his hands on his laps

and on his legs and no other response. I thought there was a peculiar response for a father having been accused in some situation like this by a lawyer of you know kind of officially you know this is what's going to happen won't let you know this and uh i did i thought it was the ethical thing to do and i did um i don't know what impact the whole thing had or didn't have i will tell you that when jose made the opening statement the way he did i was surprised i guess i was pretty good at keeping my old face calm but i was i wasn't surprised as many people because i did the same analysis that both you and beth have you make that kind of accusation you got to prove it somewhere. And it's a really bad situation for a defense lawyer or either side to make promises to a jury that they cannot deliver on.

Jurors remember it. And while you can say that opening statements and closing statements are not evidence, that's all book BS because jurors listen to it. They do a lot of things they're not supposed to do. And they do it on every trial. Hello? Yeah, sorry. I was just adding in the lawyers have authority. They have a relationship with the lawyers.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and the point is that if we really wanted to have pure jury verdicts that were reliable, every juror would be sequestered in every case. And they wouldn't have any access to any of the information except what was in the courtroom. Well, we can't do that. I mean, I, you know, I've tried a whole bunch of cases, but probably no more than a half a dozen out of 350 plus that were sequestered. And you have to sequester them right from the moment of the crime all the way through to the beginning of the trial. That's when they take in all the spin. Yeah.

You're never going to get that. None are you. So we do the best we can with trying to give instructions. I mean, if you went back to the selection of the jury in this case, it was an interesting process. The 600 people we interviewed, there was a lot of bias and prejudice and all kinds of stuff that we had to weed out to get a jury at all. So, yeah, I don't know there's a perfect system. I don't know how to do it. So let me ask you this, because I've talked to a lot of the lawyers in OJ and other cases, but the OJ case, I watched a lot of it was going down while I was in law school.

And I think OJ Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. But I can see how that jury reached its verdict, separate and apart from a Ronald Goldman. But I can see how that jury reached its verdict, separate and apart from a nullification issue. I can see how they could have honorably, honestly found that the prosecution did not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't agree, but I can see it. What do you think it was, Janie, about this case that had the same effect on this jury, right? Like, what do you think your best facts were or your best pointing poking holes in the prosecution's facts were well i don't know i can say there was a major difference 1991 the oj case there was no internet facebook on all this social media, wasn't there?

It was just starting, yeah. You get to Casey Anthony, and it was dominating the news basically all day of every day for a very long time. And so people were focused on it. I've been asked so many times why this case is opposed to others. This was because there was a young, cute mother with an absolutely adorable little baby victim. And they were white. And all the improper things to say or not do I'm telling you that I know from my 51 years of trying cases that had major impact on this case if it probably had been a young African American mother and child it may have been in the newspaper. That may not have been.

It never in hell would have been what this case is. I also think class matters. I think that if it's a family of means or a family that you can see sort of has its act together overall, people are more interested if you see you know like a family that's got a lot of criminals in it white or black or any other race it's like oh it's unfortunate but okay i think we all know what happened here this one seemed to be a nice family you know the the dad was a former sheriff's deputy the granddad i guess um yeah they seem to be a loving set of parents to casey she seen she looked like an all all-American girl in terms of like smiley and bubbly and, you know, hadn't been a career criminal anyway. So I was like, OK, there's a real mystery here because the daughter's missing. Right. It was like we all need to pull together to find the

daughter. So it had a lot of elements that would attract news coverage. You know, and I understand the whole missing white woman syndrome arguments. And it's not they're not totally wrong, but I do think class plays a lot into it as well. And these people, they weren't lower socioeconomic class. They were sort of middle class and not at all the oj simpson you know we the people find that case of orange all ornithol jay simpson she stumbled on it i can remember where i was this one i actually was in the newsroom but the um the moment this happened uh and they read it i'll just take the top of the uh this is soundbite uh number four it's kind of long i'll cut it off after the first one but let's take a let's take a look back at that moment. As to the charge of first degree murder verdict as to count one, we the jury find the defendant not guilty. So say we all did it at Orlando, Orange County, Florida, on this fifth day of July 2011, signed for person. As to the charge of aggravated child abuse, you can see the relief you know flood over her face obviously as anybody would be what was going through your mind at that moment jenny were you

were you shocked no i really wasn't and because i have some secrets about looking at jurors when they come in the courtroom i've been there so many hundreds of times that there are certain things they do or don't do that are pretty revealing to some old like me what they do well they look at the defendant they won't look at the defendant if they're guilty one or two of them might but they come in and do that, you can say, I certainly wasn't confident about it. When the, before the jury verdict was read, remember it's handed to the clerk who hands it to the judge and the judge read it and I'm reading his face. And it was very clear that he wasn't real happy about this verdict. He spoke out about it later.

He was on Dr. Oz saying he definitely thinks she's guilty. Well, he said a lot of things he probably shouldn't have. But like he said, when the defense lawyers went car sales, there was something, I don't know where the hell he got that.

But the bottom line is that the clerk would you didn't play all of it because of course you can't but the first thing when she first started reading it she stuttered over the not guilty part of it oh my lord yeah and it briefly but you don't you're so tense there i mean uh look i'm not sure of the statistics. My wife had kept a calendar on stuff. And I remember her best estimate was I have tried something in excess of 350 criminal jury trials in state and federal court. That's a lot. And fortunately, I've done pretty well. The bottom line was that

I was not shocked at the verdict, but I sure wasn't cocky about expecting it to be that way. First, I kept thinking, well, maybe one of the others, maybe one of the others. And then, you know, three, boom. And then, then you know three boom and then of course the uh the four counts of lying to the police you know who cares i mean that at that point four misdemeanors and she'd already served three years in jail yeah so that was done and the jury came to its verdict quickly for them it was an decision, though they are now speaking out. That's where I want to pick it up after this break. What the jurors are saying, it's fascinating to me.

And also what she is up to now. I'll leave you with this thought. It's very bad to stumble on the word not when reading a not guilty verdict. Indeed. But that that clerk is in good company. I'm thinking about Chief Justice John Roberts when he messed up the oath for Barack Obama. Remember, they had to do it again privately behind the scenes. It happens to the best of us. OK, stand by much more with Cheney Mason and Beth Karras coming up two minutes away. So I guess I should ask you, too, Beth, for your your best take on what was the evidence you felt like the jury either ignored, refused to see, didn't get to hear that the rest of us did?

Because the vast majority of America is convinced that she did it right and does not agree with this verdict. Right. So, you know, we asked jurors to use their common sense, right? And really, I understand where the prosecution was coming from, because it sure looks like Casey is responsible for something. She should not have been acquitted of everything, even neglect. I mean, I think one of the charges was neglect or lesser. So that was surprising to me. So I think the jurors simply ignored this mother who didn't report her daughter missing. You know, there's something in there besides those four misdemeanor lying to police officers. I think there was a lower level felony she could have been convicted of. But what was

insurmountable for the prosecution was this allegation of sex abuse by George, which was never proven and the jurors were told not to consider it, but that was there. That was the elephant in the room. But also, Cheney's summation to the jury was very effective because he wasn't talking about the defense proof. He was talking about the prosecution's proof, because that's what mattered. Did they prove every element of every crime beyond a reasonable doubt? And he kept hammering to the jury that the prosecution did not give the jury evidence of how Haley died, where she died, when she died, who was with her when she died, but really it was how she died and when she died and where she died. And he just kept hammering that. And that had to have been effective with the jurors. I never spoke with the jurors. But the other thing I wanted to say, two more things, is that a finding of not guilty is not a finding of innocence. It just simply courtroom at the top of the courthouse, I think, that's sort of designed for media coverage and high-tech stuff to present to the jury with evidence.

And so we were relegated to upstairs, a small balcony. So I'm there sort of craning my neck, watching the jury on the left and Casey and the defense team on the right, the judge straight in front of me, but from a bird's eye view. And I didn't have Cheney's point of view, so I couldn't see jurors, but I was aware that the man who became the jury foreperson, he connected with Casey. I'd seen that on a prior day as jurors were filing on a courtroom. He was in the back row and he stood there and he stared at her and he lingered looking at her. And I thought, oh, that doesn't bode well for the prosecution. Anyway, when I heard the first not guilty, I thought, surely there's going to be a guilty somewhere. And I just leaned back and took a deep exhale and thought, oh, my God, I was as surprised as everyone that there wasn't some guilty of a some level of felony.

Can we just round back to two other points i neglected to mention which get raised on why people think she's guilty um the chloroform the the there was testimony that the guy who tested the the trunk test uh found the odor of decompensation found one hair that was consistent uh at the edges with kaylee's hair and and may have had some decomposition on it. And then there was an allegation that there had been Google searches on the family home. I mean, I've heard everything from a whole litany of searches of like, how do you kill somebody? How do you make homemade weapons to for sure? They testify that there was a search done for chloroform for chloroform you know there was a search on chloroform and to the point where cindy anthony had to take the stand and say it was me it was i who searched for the chloroform um and i

don't know if the jury bought that or not but can you just speak to the evidence of like the forensics i'll give it to you beth and then i'll let you respond cheney which i can see you want to so this was a faux pas i think on the part of the prosecution. Not that they introduced this, that they didn't do enough because only after the trial, I think it was in Jose's book, but I heard Jose talking about it. He knew, the defense team knew that there were a lot more searches for chloroform than what the prosecution knew because the prosecution only checked one search engine. It didn't check Firefox, only check Mozilla or vice versa. And Jose, and I assume you too, Cheney, knew that there were a lot of searches for chloroform, but it didn't come in because they didn't, the sheriff's department did not search all of the search engines on Casey's computer. And when Cindy got on the stand

and said, I was searching because because i don't know one of my tree uh something chlorophyll chloroform it was it just sort of defaulted to the wrong word i recall her saying it didn't make sense because she was punched in at work at the time she says she you know at the time of the search she was actually at work so you know that that didn't fly you know with some people but then they found some didn. But then they found some. Didn't they, Beth? They found some chloroform in the back of the trunk. No. I don't remember. I don't recall that.

Okay. I thought that there was some evidence. I'll look it up. There's something to that effect in the record. I'll pull it up for you. Go ahead, Guccini. Handle the chloroform and the searches. As far as the searches are concerned, you're talking about computer stuff, and I'm not the best guy to do that. I like my generation of dealing without them. The bottom line is, in my book, I have made it very clear that the man

who was in charge of all that corrected the error that the state had made and said there was only one church, one, for chloroform. Secondly, the odor of the trunk or whatever it was from that, not only did I go and sit in the trunk and smell it and do as the rest of my experts did. I hired a forensic expert, college professor, PhD, who did studies of the air samples that had been taken. And what they found on the graphs of the analysis was not chloroform. It was surprisingly gasoline. There was no detection of chloroform. Now, there was this guy who studies roadkill.

I know his name. I'm not going to repeat it. It's in the book that had talked about how he had all these body farm issues. And we went out to go through all that in Knoxville, Tennessee, what odors were, and they captured odors. And they tried to show us that there was a graph produced that showed spikes of chloroform or something, and that turned out not to be accurate. And there was never any chloroform found in any way residual or otherwise anything to do with this case,

no matter how many labs and government officials tried to do so. And the reason they did. But can I just ask you, we're talking about the same thing. This is where I got it from. This is an ABC News report, June 22, 2011. A forensic chemist, I think this is your guy, whose name you were searching for, Michael Sigman. Yes. Yeah. He testified in the Casey Anthony trial. He said today the car belonging to the mom accused of murdering two-year-old Kaylee did not test positive for human decomposition.

He is a chemist at the National Center for Forensic Science. He said that air samples from Casey Anthony's car trunk tested positive mainly for gasoline, chloroform, and two other chemicals were present. So there was chloroform, and two other chemicals were present. So there was chloroform, but the question is from what and what does that tell us? Okay, so what it did tell us, there was such a minimum amount. They used another car that was bought at random from the prosecution. I can't remember where it was now.

Same make, model of car year and everything. And they brought it in and they tested it and they cut out carpet from the trunk. And they got the same readings from this random car as there were in Casey's car. So this is just a lot of people hauling bodies around in old Fords. It just was not reliable. Did the owner of that car do searches for chloroform on the on the internet no the the government the government did can i add about what what what cheney said um about the searches on the computer he's right that um a witness got on the stand to correct the record.

And it was actually one search, but that was on one search engine. There was another search engine that the prosecution didn't discover that Jose Baez talked about after the trial that had a lot more. How do we explain that, Cheney? How do we explain the multiple, multiple searches for chloroform? Well, there weren't. That's why she's trying to for chloroform well there weren't that's why she's trying to tell you there were no she's saying there were yes she's no she's not not my side another search engine on another search engine yeah there were um more searches more

and there might have been for more things too yes homemade weapons breaking a neck yeah breaking a neck it's uh hold on i wrote it down. Something like how to chloroform, how to make. Breaking a neck, suffocation, undetectable, how to make homemade weapons. That's pretty good evidence for the prosecution. Pretty speculative evidence, but no forensic connection whatsoever. They had first claimed there were 84 searches for chloroform on this computer. I know, you said that,, but I think that was the number. And then the people that did that correctly said, no, there wasn't, there was only one.

And when you put it up on the one search agent, but you can get multiple search engines on one computer. That's what that's trying to say. So on the one, they had overstated it on this one search engine and they had to take it back down to just, oh, sorry, just one on the one search engine. What she's saying is according to Jose's book, and I've read this in news reports as well, there were multiple searches for chloroform on the other search engines on that computer. They were very interested in that house in chloroform and other ways of killing somebody. And they never found any chloroform anywhere. That's the important part. Except the trunk of the car.

Just saying, I know your point about the other car, but this one has extra circumstances. All right, I get it. Listen, I get it. Let me talk to you about this juror. I found this fascinating, fascinating. A male juror spoke with People Magazine, I think it was. Yeah, People Magazine right after the trial. And then, and the trial was, the verdict was in 2011. And then they just spoke with him again 10 years later in 2021. And just let me read part of it to you guys into the audience because not give us enough evidence to convict. They gave us a lot of stuff that makes us think she probably did something wrong, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. Ten years later, writes People, the same juror has been rethinking the case. Quote, I think of the case at least once every single day. It was such a strange summer. I knew that

there was public interest in the case, but it wasn't until after I was sequestered that I realized the whole world was watching. Then it says the juror said he found the prosecutors to be arrogant. They did not like the prosecution. Man, it really is important what the lawyer's relationship is with the jury. While lead defense attorney Jose Baez was the one in the room who seemed like he cared they said the other lawyer cheney can be argumentative at time but winds up being a charmer no that was me cheney he goes on um his focus now is on little kaylee every time i see her face or hear her name i get a pit in my

stomach. It all comes flooding back. I think about those pictures of the baby's remains they showed us. I remember Casey. I even remember the smell of the courtroom. And then says this, the enormity of the acquittal bothered them in the jury room. And then we sat there for a few minutes and we're like, holy crap, we're letting her go free. Everyone was just stunned at what we were about to do. One of the women jurors asked me, are you okay with this? And I said, hell no. But what else can we do? We promised to follow the law. Now this juror says he might have done things differently. This is your point, Beth. My decision haunts me to this day, he says. I think now if I were to do it over again, I'd push harder to convict her of one of the lesser

charges like aggravated manslaughter, at least that, or child abuse. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and I didn't stand up for what I believed in at the time. Whoa. What do you make of that, Jeannie? I'm not surprised. People rethink, question themselves about things they do in their daily life all the time. Oh, I wish I had said that or I wish I had thought of this or something. Well, the other thing is then he gets out and there's all sorts of blowback, I'm sure. You know, the jurors remain anonymous, but get all this blowback. And you're thinking, oh, my God, maybe I got it wrong. And we see more evidence and different evidence and experience these cases in a different way than the jury does, which is why we have to respect their decision.

You can second guess it for yourself and say, well, I don't agree with it. That's fine. But you have to treat the jury with honor because unlike the rest of us, they sat there and had the experience, the best we can offer as a justice system. I have yet to see one that does it better than we do. Okay, stand by because we're going to have an update after the break on what Casey Anthony's doing now, what her parents are saying about her now. And you'll never believe what she's now saying about how she looks back at this case. Stay tuned. More with Cheney and Beth next. Want to hear something interesting? We took a look at cases to go back over one time at NBC and people we wanted to book. And of course,

Casey Anthony is on virtually every reporter's list of who they would like to interview, right? They would love, love to interview her. And she doesn't really sit down with people and go over this case. She gave one interview to the AP not long ago about her new job. Um, but what we found was that the audiences don't want to hear from her. You can, you can sort of gauge it. And I know they have those focus groups and so on. They don't want to hear from her because they're angry at her. Like they, they like hearing about a case where the bad guy goes away. They do not like hearing about a case where the person they believe is the bad guy gets off. And to me, it's really interesting because even though I remain convinced that she did this, I appreciate the intellectual exchange.

And I appreciate the willingness, Cheney, of you to let me poke holes in the case and then you to give me back what you've got. I think that's worthwhile. And I think it's worthwhile for people who are even convinced one way or the other to let themselves hear it. And like, maybe it'll shore up your opinions, maybe it'll give you a pause. But it's important to hear directly from, ideally, the participants involved as opposed to just press. And I, you know, include myself in in that though i think i do a pretty good job of hewing to what actually takes place in the courtroom um can i i'll tell i'll deviate from that for one second because this is a weird thing that came up in the news cheney and i don't know what to make of it this is in 2016 um the new york daily news is the report i have in front of me though others had it and they were citing the in-court affidavit by a private investigator hired by Jose Baez during the case named Dominic Casey, who came out with all these bombshells.

I mean, it was like she admitted to killing Casey. She did kill Casey. She and Jose were having a sexual. It was like and he denied that, by the way. But what's the story with this guy? This guy is a nut. He's a liar. And we have a complete record of taking his deposition after he made these allegations and which he was effectively destroyed. uh, all on every, every one of those things about, about the fair or Casey or doing this award. This, this guy was,

uh, and thoroughly discredited, uh, not allowed to testify by the federal judge. I mean, it's, yeah. Good to know.

Okay. I want to raise it because I saw it. It's out there. And I was like, well, that's, those are, those would be big admissions for a defense lawyer to make to his private investigator but uh okay i i have i i receive you'd be amazed

i get emails not daily or even weekly but probably monthly from people advising me that they have cited kaylee they know where she is and she's alive. I mean, it goes on and on. I continue to have periodic threats and not much I can do about that. If I go somewhere and I'm recognized and I'm very careful about where I go though. If I go out anywhere, which is pretty rare anyway, but I go places where I'm known and friends and anybody comes up to talk to me, the first thing I do is look at their hands. And it's hard to imagine.

I mean, I'm sure I've angered people with the results of cases. I've been a board-certified national and state criminal trial lawyer for over 50 years. So you know damn well that not everybody's been my friend. But I'm done. You're done now? Yeah. You're retired? I just lost my wife, and can't i can't do anymore

oh i'm sorry and i'm sorry for all the harassment you're you've received it's absurd and i talked about this with alan dershowitz do people not understand how the criminal justice system works it's to our all of our benefit that we have smart, strong defense attorneys there to test the system, whether the defendant's guilty or innocent. We don't have people who understands anything about the law in this country, or the Constitution, or elections. Look at what's going on. I won't get you in that, because I know what you told me you used to do. I won't hold that against you. But the model of Fox.

Fox's law? What did I do? I've done a lot, Cheney. You've got to be more specific. Well, listen, I'm sorry about your loss. That's awful. And I know you've had a faithful service as a lawyer, and the reviews of your performance are stellar, including from our own Beth here today. So listen, we appreciate it.

I want to ask you about your former client and what she's doing now. The only thing I've heard from her is this interview she gave to the AP. She talked about how, well, we'll start with this one, the soundbite six, talking about the work she's performing right now. Take a listen. One of the reasons I'm so good at my job is because I'm taking everything that the state tried to use against me, like my Facebook and pictures and all that stuff that they distorted. I now go through and research people's backgrounds and

put everything together in a good way. She's a private investigator, right? She's basically, she's using, she's doing photography and other skills for a private investigator, right? She's basically, she's using, she's doing photography and other skills for a private investigator. That's crazy. You can't make it up. I don't think that it would necessarily be appropriate if she's a private investigator because I think that requires a license

that she does not, cannot have. She has done a lot of computer research investigating for several lawyers, and she's apparently pretty damn good at it. She's got the search engine thing figured out. Sorry, go ahead, Janie. That wasn't her, but that's okay. As far as I know, she's just going on with her life. I've only seen her once this year. So I said she came to my wife's funeral. Yeah, I mean, and I get that. I get that. And you found a personal bond with her.

She got that made that article made or that interview. Beth made a lot of headlines because I think it was in that interview. She said she was she was she would like to have another baby. And her parents reacted and said the parents have turned on her. They gave an interview saying she might be a sociopath. The mother said she's still in touch with her. The father said, no, not me. They think that she did kill Kaylee, they think it was an accident they don't think that she would have

intentionally killed her child and then she was asked the old how do you sleep at night question and this is how that went you're understanding how did she die i don't know you don't know something about drowning possibly everyone else has their theories i don't know. You don't know. Something about drowning, possibly. Everyone else has their theories. I don't know. I don't give a shit about what anybody thinks about me. I don't care about that. I never will. I'm okay with myself.

I sleep pretty good at night. What do you make of that, Beth? She's one lucky young woman. And she should, you know, count her blessings every day that she's not sitting in a prison cell because that jury could easily have hung and she could have been retried with a little bit different strategy, maybe a lower charge on the part of the prosecution. She could have been convicted of some lower level homicide, even if it wasn't capital murder. So, you know, she should she should just, you know, dedicate her life to, you know, helping others and to counting her blessings. And maybe getting some help, like some sort of like even if you go with Cheney's and Jose's theory of the case, if you accept that as the truth, this person needs help if she is going to have a child to come into her future. This is not somebody who should reproduce again, I would say, period, but certainly not without getting some assistance in dealing with her demons, whatever they may be.

Would you agree with that, Cheney, that piece of it? I think everybody needs help. You start with headlines, so work your way down. I have never heard her talk about or suggesting having children. I know some of the media was out talking about how she was living with me. And they just failed to realize that I have a big house, but my wife is there and that she was having twins. And I for every every kind of BS you can imagine, somebody somebody has grabbed on it, repeated it. And as we know now from the some politicians, they believe you tell a lie three times.

It's OK, because then it's the truth. What do you make of now looking, I mean, you've been practicing this system a long time, but as a journalist, we always love the cases out of Florida because of that sunshine law. You've got elements, right, Beth? It's like you can see the witnesses for yourself. And this is the disadvantage I think a lot of us in the press have. We're looking at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial right now. It's like, well, I can't tell you whether the witnesses were credible or not. I didn't get to see them or hear them or size them up. It's so difficult to just read the transcript and say, oh, it went well for her or it went terribly for her. I love the Florida Sunshine Law for that reason, but I'm a member of the press. I'll start with a fellow member of the press who's probably just as biased as I am. But what do you make of that law and the total access you get in places like

Florida, Beth? Well, I know, you know, I was at Core TV for 19 years. I had a couple names, you know, in session on True TV, but it was all Core TV for 19 years. We loved Florida because cameras are allowed. There's basically a presumption cameras are allowed unless there's a darn good reason not to allow them. And those reasons are very few. So if there was a good case, and I covered a lot of low profile cases that were really quite compelling, not just high profile cases. We were there in Florida. There were a handful of other states that were fairly easy as well, but Florida, it was great. And in criminal cases, it's great from a media perspective. In criminal cases,

the lawyers get to depose the material witnesses on the other side. So that was enough. And then those deposition transcripts get released before trial often. So we just know so much about a case. And for somebody like me

who used to have to write a memo for the anchors and sort of lay out the case and every little line I wrote had to be checked and repeatable on air so that we wouldn't get sued. I mean, I had to know the law. I would talk to lawyers, you know, in the States, but the law and the issues in the case and what we knew about the defense and what the prosecution's proof was. And I had to sort of lay it out for the anchors because they couldn't watch a trial from morning to night. I was the one in the field doing that with a producer. And then we were feeding them the information. So it was, Florida is a great state. However, I have frizzy hair. And so I always wanted to have in my contract that I did not have to do live shots outside in florida in the summer because my hair didn't look the same it's a problem it's serious men don't understand um

you know cheney i i was thinking about it recently because when the kyle rittenhouse was trial was i think it was it had just ended or was about to end but the judge had made a comment openly in the courtroom i don't know if i want cameras in the courtroom again you know he'd been doing it for a long time he's the i think the oldest sitting circuit court judge there and he was like he was most unhappy with how the press would take a snippet and bastardize it and so on i don't know you had another lawyer on here who said i would make exactly the opposite argument it's like the best way of showing like the country's going to do what it's going to do, but at least the other half has the actual proof of what happened in there to show the world.

What are your thoughts? I think the news media is very, very important in trying to keep things honest and truthfully exposed. The problem I have is when the media, and this is a broad brush, okay, when media takes a position of determining claims of facts that are not necessarily accurate, or they don't have the basis to do it, that's wrong. I think if I had the power to control some things, I would never allow these microphone and camera assaults on suspects walking out of jails or courtrooms and stuff. I was physically assaulted several times in this case, and so were members of my staff or our team having to tell, you know, get away.

They don't have a right to physically enclose your space and stick a microphone in your mouth. If I had the ability to control legislation, it wouldn't be allowed. You'd have a right to have an area for the media to be, and if the person wanted to talk to you, they'd come out there, fair shot, answer the questions. But these perp walks and all the things that are done with that don't do anybody any good.

And I'm very much against it. At the same time, I can tell you that before cameras were allowed in the courtrooms in Florida, I probably had tried 20, 30 murder cases and then many afterwards. And I've had televised trial dozens and dozens of times. And it doesn't bother me. What it does do, however, an undisputed fact, it causes an artificial error amongst the jurors. Even when they're told they cannot be seen, still yet they put on what we used to refer to as they put on their Sunday best to come to the courthouse and do that. I've watched judges do it. I've watched judges go out and get makeovers because they knew the cameras are going to be there in the courtroom. Oh, boy. That's a bridge too far. Well, I have to say I do love them, but I see they're fraught as well. I'd choose them more than I'd reject them.

But the press are never as vultury as they are around those leaving a high profile trial. I'll give you that one. Cheney, a pleasure to meet you. Beth, so nice to see you as well. Thank you both so much for being here. And thanks to you, our audience, for joining us today as we revisited the case of Casey Anthony 10 years later. Don't forget to download The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Also check us out at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.