The Megyn Kelly Show - Pathological: The Casey Anthony Story — The People Who Do Not Exist — Ep. 2 | MK Confidential

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

"MK Confidential" opens on the front door of Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. Sheriff’s deputies knock on the door and ask to search her house for a missing toddler. She has never met Casey Anthony, or her daughter Caylee. She's cleared by the police that same day — and then her phone number gets out, the threatening calls start. She loses her job and her reputation. All for sharing a name with someone Casey Anthony invented.Megyn traces that invented nanny back to 2006, two years before Caylee disappears. Casey describes a babysitter her family never meets, attached to a man Casey barely knows and a little boy who does not exist. On June 16, 2008, Casey tells her father that Caylee will be staying overnight with “Zanny.” It the last day George sees his granddaughter.Thirty-one days of excuses follow, as Casey empties a friend's checking account, tattoos “Bella Vita" on her shoulder, and parks a white Pontiac beside a dumpster, with the car seat still in the back. Finding the car is just the beginning, as Casey’s lies begin to fall apart. This is Episode 2 of the Casey Anthony story.OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MEGYN at https://www.oneskin.co/MEGYN #oneskinpodHome Title Lock: Go to https://hometitlelock.com/megyn and use promo code MEGYN to get a FREE title history report and a FREE TRIAL of their Triple Lock ProtectionFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: https://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: https://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: https://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Casimi, Florida, about 20 miles south of Orlando. Middle of July, 2028. It's 95 degrees and humid. A 37-year-old woman named Zanida Fernandez Gonzalez lives here with her six children. She works and pays her rent herself. Until this week, no one outside her neighborhood had any reason to know her name.

Then police find her name in the records at Sawgrass Apartments, the complex where Casey Anthony says, her missing daughter's babysitter lives. Zinida had been to the complex three months earlier looking for an apartment. She filled out a guest card and left her phone number. That is enough to send investigators to her home. Sheriff's deputies from Orange County

knock on her door and ask if they can come in and look for a missing two-year-old girl. Zanida is shocked, but she lets them in. She has nothing to do with the kidnapping, as she tells CBS, so she tells police to check the house. Talk to my kids, walk around and look inside, and that's exactly what they did. They went in, they looked around,

and even checked the bathroom, make sure she wasn't in there. The deputies are searching for Kaylee Marie Anthony, who has been missing for a month. The night before, Kaylee's mother, Casey, gave detectives the name of the babysitter, whom she says has her daughter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. Deputies go to Zenaida with the obvious question. Does she know Casey Anthony?

Does she know Kaylee Anthony? Anthony. Has she ever babysat for them? Zanida shakes her head and says she's never met Casey Anthony, never seen her before, and never worked as a nanny, which pretty much ends the conversation. Investigators still have one more way to check. That afternoon in a parking lot at Universal Studios, Sergeant John Allen is going through pictures with Casey Anthony. He has run the name Zanida Gonzalez through the state driver's license database and pulled the photos of every woman in Florida who matches the age range Casey has given them. Sergeant Allen asks Casey to find her nanny.

She goes through the pictures, but none of them is the woman. So Alan draws her attention to the woman sheriff's deputies interviewed that morning. He shows Casey Zanida's picture. Casey Anthony looks at a photograph and says, she's too old. Police rule Zanida out. She has nothing to do with the missing little girl. But as records from the investigation drip out to the public, Zanida's phone number is among them, and that creates a problem.

I got phone calls from everywhere. And they started threatening me, calling me names. The calls keep coming. She says she loses her job and then her home. She took everything away from me. I lost my life. You know, I have no privacy. And know anything else?

I just said to her, why would you do that to somebody? What I tell you, can you call so much harm? Being cleared by the police does not put her life back together. She had done nothing except share a name with someone Casey Anthony invented. I'm Megan Kelly. This is M.K. Confidential. Founded by four PhD longevity scientists, one skin is different. They focus on the actual cause of aging and not just the surface signs of it. After years of research, they developed OS01, their proprietary peptide,

which is the foundation of every product they make. The OS01 face moisturizer has become a favorite of so many people who say their skin feels firmer and looks healthier. The fact that it is backed by real peer-review clinical science rather than just marketing trends is a huge selling point. These peptides are all the rage. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, one skin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age.

For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code Megan at OneSkin.co slash Megan. That's 15% off, oneskin.com with code Megan. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Support our show and tell them that we sent you and using our name will also ensure you get your 15% off. It is the year 2006 when the invented Zanida Gonzalez first appears in Casey N. Anthony's life. That is two years before Kaylee goes missing. Casey Anthony is 19. Her daughter Kaylee is a few months old, and she has just gotten engaged to a man named Jesse Grund. Jesse's family watches her three-month-old daughter, Kaylee, three days a week as a favor. His father, Richard Grund,

is a Pentecostal minister. He remembers the overshare when Casey tells him she found a sitter. I found Zanida Gonzalez, and she watches my friend, Jeffrey Hopkins' son, Zachary. And Zachary and Kaylee play together. They love to be together, so this will work out great. Jeffrey Hopkins is real, but the story Casey built around him is not. He grew up in Orlando. He knows Casey's brother Lee from school.

He and Casey know each other, but barely. When they passed each other in the hallways in high school, she always had a big smile for him. The Jeffrey Hopkins invented by Casey lives in Jacksonville. He's a widower with a widower. little boy named Zach and Zanny, the nanny, watches Zach and Kaylee together at Jeffrey's house while Casey is at work at Universal Studios or whenever she needs child care. Casey also says Jeff is romantically interested in her.

Her family is supposed to meet Jeff and little Zach more than once. But they never do. Casey always has a reason why. She keeps using Jeff's name to explain where the nanny came from. She does so even after being fired. from Universal Studios in April 2006. Casey keeps getting up and leaves the house for work. By the middle of 2006, Casey has a nanny, no one has met, tied to a man she barely knows,

while she keeps leaving home for a job she no longer has. She keeps it up for the next two years. But where is Kaylee going all these days, if not to the babysitters? Monday, June 16, 2008. Cindy Anthony leaves for work as a nurse before her granddaughter is awake. George gives Kaylee breakfast around 7.30 a.m. At lunchtime, George is on the recliner with the television on. At 12.50 p.m., Casey comes through the living room with her daughter.

She tells her dad that she has a work meeting and that Kaylee will be staying over at the nannies and that she has already cleared it with her mom. None of this is true, which George does not know. A commercial comes on TV and he checks his watch for the time. What George does next, per his own account, is walk both of his girls out to the car. Jojo is what Kaylee calls her grandpa. George says he holds the car door open while Casey buckles Kaylee into the back seat and he blows her a kiss, telling her that he loves her. He says, Jojo will see you later.

And Kaylee says, bye, Jojo. George leaves for his security job at about 2 o'clock that afternoon. What happens over the next few hours has never been firmly established. That afternoon, someone on the Anthony family computer uses Firefox to search the phrase, Full-proof suffocation. Firefox is the browser Casey primarily used. The search came from a password-protected user account on the computer. no one can establish who actually types the search.

Casey's phone pings off of the towers near her parents' house for most of the afternoon. Then, a little after four, Casey Anthony makes a flurry of calls. Her mother, her father's office, her boyfriend, Tony Lazaro, Jesse Grunned, about 10 calls in 15 minutes, six of them within about four minutes, and almost no one picks up. At 4.18 p.m. in the middle of all that calling, her phone stops using the tower by the Anthony house and starts using a different one, suggesting she is on the move. The next time anyone sees her, three and a half hours have passed. At 7.45 p.m., Casey Anthony and Tony Lazaro are seen on a blockbuster video store security camera renting a movie. He has his arm around her. Kaley is not with

them. During the trial, Lazaros asked how Casey seemed that night. How would you describe her demeanor? The way she was every day. Which was? Happy. Happy to see me. Having a grand old time. On this date, at any time that you saw her that night, did she ever cry? Did she ever act scared? Nope.

Tony Lazaro shares an apartment on Sutton Place with two other guys, Clint House and Cameron Campana. They are DJs who throw parties on Friday nights. Casey starts coming around that spring and three weeks in, she brings her daughter. Kaylee's welcomed and loved there, as Clint later tells, investigation discovery. Kaylee was just the cutest two-year-old little girl that you could possibly imagine. The first time she came in, she came walking through the front door, wearing some big sunglasses, and she just looked up at us, and she was like, what's up, dudes? Kaylee was extremely intelligent for a two-year-old.

She knew how to count up to 10 in English and in Spanish. She knew her colors. She knew her shapes. Kaylee comes over three times a week, sometimes more. Then the week of June 16, 2008, she stops. Clint tells investigation discovery they, asked Casey about Kaylee. The middle of June, it just came Casey coming over.

Whenever we asked Casey where Kaylee was, she either said she was with the nanny or with the parents. But there was nothing that stood out that made me think that something may have happened. Tony's other roommate, Cameron Campana, notices something that summer he will later think was strange. Every time Casey's phone rings, she steps outside to take the call, never in the apartment.

He watches her through the window, pacing around in the grass. He has no idea who she's talking to. Many of those calls are from her mother, asking where Kaylee is. Casey always has an answer, and it is never to bring Kaylee to see her grandmother. Friday, June 20th, four days since her father watched her drive away. Casey has told Cindy that she and Kaylee are in Tampa at the Bush Gardens theme park for a work-related conference. She says she's with Zanny and Zanny's friend Juliette Lewis and Juliette's little girl Annabel. They are supposed to be home already.

Now the conference has run an extra day. That night, Casey is photographed at Fusion Ultra Lounge in Longwood, just north of Orlando. She's wearing a short blue dress and tall black boots, and she is out on the dance floor. Cindy keeps calling. The excuses keep changing. Monday, June 23rd. It's been a week since George said goodbye to Kaylee in the backseat. Casey promises to be home.

Instead, she calls to say, The nanny has been in a car accident and is in Tampa General Hospital with a concussion and that she and the other girls and the kids are staying there until Zanny's family arrives. Friday, June 27th, Casey is supposed to come back. Instead, she is allegedly now in Jacksonville, seeing whether she and her dear friend Jeff Hopkins have a future,

and her car has developed problems as well. She claims Jeff does not want her driving be 141 miles to Orlando in it, so he has put it in the shop. That same Friday, the White Pontiac Sunfire registered to Casey's parents runs out of gas on East Colonial Drive in Orlando. Casey, who is not in Jacksonville, pulls the car into the lot of a payday loan store called Amscot, parks it next to a dumpster, and leaves.

She tells Tony her father will come and get it. She does not tell her father about it. Three days go by. Amscott decides the car has been abandoned and calls for a tow. Kaylee's car seat is still in the back. The following weekend, Casey tells her mom she, yet again, cannot come home. Good old Jeff Hopkins' mother, as it turns out, is remarrying, and there is a brunch on Sunday that she must attend. Cindy stops asking to see Kaylee and starts asking just to speak to her.

But it is never the right time. Kaylee's napping. Kaylee's getting ready for bed. Wednesday, July 2nd. 16 days since anyone in the Anthony family has seen Kaylee. Casey goes to a tattoo parlor on South Orange Avenue in Orlando. called Cast Iron Tattoo, where she's irregular and has two words put on her left shoulder blade. Bella Vita, Italian for beautiful life.

Hours after the tattoo, Casey posts on her MySpace page writing, quote, On the worst of days, remember the words spoken. Trust no one, only yourself. With great power comes great consequences. What is given can be taken away. Everyone lies. Everyone dies. Life will never be easy. That night, Casey is out at a bar on the east side of Orlando called the Waterford Lake Alehouse. And as coincidence would have it, standing in that bar is the actual Jeff Hopkins. They recognize each other. They catch up. They trade phone numbers. Jeff has no idea this woman has spent weeks describing his imaginary life and her role in it. to her mother. Cindy calls Casey seven times that night and again the next morning. She hears nothing back. On July 3rd, Casey finally picks up. She tells her mother Kaylee is at Universal Studios at an event for the

children of employees. Casey would love to invite her, but it's only employees who are invited. Cindy shows up anyway and calls Casey from the Universal parking lot. Casey tells Cindy the plan has changed and that she and Kaylee are on their way to Jacksonville to see Jeff Hopkins and his son, Zach. That day, Cindy creates a post on MySpace. She titles it, My Kaylee is missing. She writes, quote, she came into my life unexpectedly, just as she has left me. This precious little angel from above gave me strength and unconditional love. Now she is gone and I don't know why. All I am guilty of is loving her and providing her. a safe home. Jealousy has taken her away. Jealousy from the one person that should be thankful for all of the

love and support given to her. The jury will only hear about Cindy's MySpace post. When she takes the stand to trial, the judge will bar Cindy from reading her daughter's posts aloud. They will not hear Casey's Everyone Lies, Everyone Dies, Post from the previous day. Later that night, on July 3rd, Casey's brother Lee hops from bar to bar in downtown Orlando looking for his sister on a quest to help find Kaylee. He's using Casey's friends online posts to figure out where they are. Someone tips Casey off. Lee misses her by minutes. Tuesday, July 8th, Casey drives her friend Amy Huizenga and Amy's roommate to the airport for a trip to Puerto Rico. Amy leaves her checkbook in the car. Over the next week, Casey writes a number of checks on that account.

She buys groceries, clothing, lingerie, cherries, orange juice, and a six-pack of beer among various other things. But nothing for a toddler. As Casey shops, Kaylee is nowhere to be seen in any of the surveillance footage. Tuesday, July 15th, Amy flies home. That morning, Casey cashes one more of Amy's checks. $250 made out to herself. Then she drives Amy's car out to the airport to collect her, and on the way back, she tells Amy that she spoke to Kaylee that morning.

Amy does not yet know her friend has drained her bank account. That same day, George Anthony is at the post office, picking up a certified letter from Johnson's Wrecker Service. George and Cindy drive out to the tow yard together. George gets within about three feet of the one. white Pontiac and stops. The stench is awful. It is also familiar from his police days. He opens the driver's door. Kaylee's car seat is still in the back. George wants to call the police from the tow yard, but Cindy refuses. She wants to find her daughter first and give her a chance

to explain what's going on. That night, going through what was left in the car, Cindy Anthony finds a phone number for a young woman named Amy. She has never met. met. Amy tells her where Casey is. Before the night is over, Cindy Anthony will call the police several times. It is now July 16th. Kaylee has not been seen in a month. Detectives start checking Casey's changing story, piece by piece. Early that morning, Detective Yuri Melik takes a recorded statement from Casey Anthony and asks her to describe the woman who has her daughter. She, Puerto Rican, Is she Dominican? Is she white? She's mixed. She's black and Puerto Rican.

Is there any underlying cause to why is an idol of taking your child? Nothing that. Should ever make any statements to you about? Only how much she loves Kaylee and how great of a kid she is. The imaginary caregiver named Zanny is 25, 5 foot 7, 140 pounds, dark curly hair and brown eyes. She has two roommates and she babysits a second child in addition to Kaylee. And she has an address. Detective Mellick goes there only to find the apartment that has been vacant since February. AI can clone your voice, forge your signature, even create fake documents that fool experts.

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So you can make sure you're not already a victim. That's hometitlelock.com promo code, Megan, or use the link in the description. Later that afternoon, detectives bring Casey to Universal Studios. They have visited every address she gave them, and they follow her around the park on a brisk walk to a non-existent office where Casey finally admits this has been a wild goose chase. She does not work there. Soon after, Casey Anthony is under arrest. That same day, Sheriff's deputies knock on the door of boyfriend Tony's apartment on Sutton Place. Tony is there, and so is his roommate,

Clint House. Clint describes the shock of that moment to investigation discovery in 2017. It was very nerve-wracking to have, you know, 20 Orlando PD inside of your home asking you about the disappearance of a missing child.

Tony was just absolutely surprised. He had no idea where Kaylee was. He was just as shocked as the rest of us. Hours later, Casey calls home from the Orange County Jail. She has seen her mother on television talking about the case. The jailhouse recording is later played aloud in court with Cindy in the witness box. Casey? Mom.

Hey, sweetie. Well, I just saw your nice little cameo on TV. Which one? What do you mean, which one? Which one? I did four different ones, and I don't know. I haven't seen them all. I've only seen one or two so far. You don't know what my involvement is in stuff? Casey Mom

What? No I don't know What your involvement Is sweetheart You're not telling me Where she's at Because I don't fucking know

Where she's at Are you kidding me Casey Don't waste your call No No, I'm in The jail In where bunks are

Whose fault is you're sitting in the jail You're blaming me that you're sitting in the jail Blame yourself? Not my fault? You mean it's not your fault What do you mean It's not your fault sweetheart, if you had told him the truth and not lied about everything, they wouldn't.

Do you me a favor, just tell me what Tony's number is. I don't want to talk to you right now. Forget it. Cindy wants to find out whether Casey is really hiding Kaylee somewhere to punish Cindy. She's not the only one who thinks so, and it would mean the little girl is alive. Casey can receive visitors at the Orange County Jail. They can sit in separate rooms, look at each other over a video feed, and speak over a wired telephone. Everything Casey and and her guests say, is being recorded. Some of it will be released to the press and broadcast nationwide. Lee, George, and Cindy come to see Casey nine days after she's arrested.

Lee goes first, and George and Cindy speak to Casey together. What's that T-shirt? I didn't get a chance to ask him, you know, other things besides. Kaylee's pictures on the back. Is it? Can Dad show me the shirt? Turn around so you can see. It's the hope.

Never lose hope. foundation. Do you see it? I can see your picture. Have you seen me and then it has the information on how to contact? Okay. Casey, you don't realize that whole United States is looking for Kaylee. I know that mom. Her cover's going to be on People magazine a few days. Okay. Everybody is looking for her. Everybody is looking for her. Are we going to be able to find her, do you think? I hope we can, Mom. Cindy goes on to ask Casey about pictures of Zanny's apartment, anything they can find that would help find Kaylee. This is more than a week after police found the real Zanita Fernandez Gonzalez and quickly realized she was not involved.

On tape, Cindy presses her daughter and then gives her an out. I know the pictures with Kaylee in Zanny's apartment. Is Zanny apartment the one with the drug? She had a drum set, yes. The one in the picture. I think there are even other pictures. I told Lee to look through everything. Okay.

Is that Zanny's apartment? Because I know whose apartment it is. Is it Zanny's apartment? That exact apartment. No, that was Ricardo's apartment. It was set up a lot like Zanny's apartment. Do we have any pictures of Zany's apartment? Mom, Elaine and I already talked about this.

I don't know it could be on. They do not find any because Kaylee has never been to Zanny the Nannies apartment. It does not exist. On October 14, 2008, three months after Kaylee was last seen, a grand jury sits for two hours of testimony and two hours of deliberation. George Anthony is one of six witnesses to speak. The grand jury indicts Casey Anthony for first-degree murder,

plus aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and four counts of lying to law enforcement. No one is arguing that Kaylee is still alive. No one has found her body either. That is exactly why on the 3rd of December, the state decides not to seek the death penalty in the case against Casey Anthony. Florida law requires aggravating factors

beyond the murder itself to put the death penalty on the table. Without a body or a reasonable assessment of how Kaylee died, the state did not have a strong argument. for it. That's according to one of the prosecutors on this case, Jeff Ashton, who will later write about the experience at length. The one aggravating factor his team has in hand is that Kaylee was, quote, a child in the care of a caregiver when she was killed. While this is horrific, it does not typically push a crime into death penalty territory, not on its own. On December 11, 2008, eight days after the state attorney's decision on the death penalty,

in Orlando, a meter reader named Roy Kronk steps into a swamp. He is working in the suburb where Cindy and George live. He notices a black plastic bag. Curious, he taps on it with a long tool he uses to open meter boxes. It makes a hollow thud sound. Then he moves the bag a little. A small human skull rolls onto the damp ground. He calls the police. Detective Mellick responds to the scene. he finds a few more bones in the black plastic bag. Over the next several days, investigators will find others scattered around the swamp by weather and wildlife. Malik sees the skull lying in a mat of hair

with duct tape across the lower part of the face. Two items are on the ground nearby, a canvas laundry bag and a faded Winnie the Pooh blanket. The laundry bag matches one currently inside the Anthony family, home. Their front door is only a short walk from the swamp. Kaylee's bedroom is still decorated with Winnie the Pooh bedding. That afternoon, two officers walk Casey Anthony down to the medical wing of the Orange County Jail. A television is tuned to Channel 9 news. Casey has heard there's something new about her case on the radio, but does not know what it is. Channel 9 broadcasts

the update in real time. According to writer Diane Fanon, Kacey recognizes the swamp. She sinks down in a chair and begins hyperventilating. Her palms turn red and blotchy. She rubs them together aggressively. She bends forward at the waist and says she is going to be sick. On the TV, a reported describes the remains of a small child found less than a quarter of a mile from her parents' home. A little over a week later on December 19th, the district medical examiner, Dr. Jan Garavalia, stands up in front of a bank of microphones. With regret, I'm here to inform you that the skeletal remains found on December 11th are those of the missing toddler, Kaylee Anthony. The remains are completely skeletonized with

no visible soft tissue present and no antimortem trauma evident, meaning that there was no trauma to the bones prior to death. The manner of death in this case is homicide. The cause of death will be listed as homicide by undetermined means. The manner and cause of death are two separate findings and the difference between them will define much of the trial. The manner of death is homicide. Her death was caused by another person. The cause of death is undetermined. The medical examiner cannot say how she died. A medical examiner can rule a death a homicide based solely on how a body was handled afterward, and that's exactly what happened here. A two-year-old cannot wrap herself up in a blanket, seal herself inside a laundry bag, put a garbage bag over that, and carry herself out to a swamp.

But manner and cause are not the same. A ruling of homicide by undetermined means indicates someone killed this child, an official simply cannot say how it happened. Such is the case with the body of little Kaylee Marie Anthony. The next day, detectives returned to Hope Spring Drive with another search warrant for the Anthony House. George loses his temper about it. Cindy is upset for a different reason. She has just finished cleaning up after the last search. Author of Mommy's little girl, Diane Fanning, quotes Cindy Anthony as saying something. something revealing during the search, quote, one of Kaylee's Winnie the Pooh blankets is missing. This takes Detective Mellick by surprise.

Cindy does not know what he already has bagged in evidence from the swamp. She also tells a detective that she had people walk that swampy stretch of suburban drive a month ago and that there was nothing there. She believes the remains were put in that swamp sometime after the middle of November. Cindy seems to be still looking for a version in which her daughter did not commit this crime. On April 13, 2009, the prosecution reverses course and announces they will seek the death penalty against Casey Anthony. Prosecutor Jeff Ashton says that finding Kaylee's body changes everything. Now prosecutors have the remains, the duct tape over her mouth, the bags. But while the medical examiner rules the death a homicide, she still cannot say how Kaylee died,

which gives Casey's defense attorney, Jose Baez, an opening. To Baez, the state appears to be building its own theory of death by suffocation, a cause of death the medical examiner herself cannot give. The two sides now agree on almost nothing. Kaylee Anthony is dead. Someone caused her death. and no one can say how she ended up in that swamp. I'm Megan Kelly.

Next time on MK Confidential, the state finally has Kaylee's body. Internet searches for chloroform, duct tape, and a meter reader who had been trying to send police into those woods for months.