[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-Casey Anthony held her head high
after being arrested yesterday,
charged with child neglect and lying to the authorities.
-We all believed that we arrested the right person.
-What?!
-She has completely removed herself
from any normal emotion of a mother missing a child.
And that is the most disturbing part for me.
[ Horn honks ]
-There was a lot of anger at Casey Anthony.
How could she not call the police for 30 days?
-Soft sticks.
-Why talk to me now?
-I just need someone to be willing to listen.
Growing up...telling the truth
to anyone in the outside world didn't happen.
When I was 8 years old,
my father started to come into my room at night.
I can't tell Mommy.
She'll get mad at me. That's what I was told.
Protecting the family at all costs.
That was the only goal.
I admitted that I lied.
But no one asked why.
-Why were you lying to the cops?
-I was doing what I was told.
-By? -My father.
**
[ Exhales forcefully ]
**
-Despite intense searches,
there's been no sign of Caylee since June.
Officials have said they believe the girl is dead,
although, the child's body hasn't been found.
Her mother faces charges, including first-degree murder
and lying to investigators.
-The young woman remains behind bars.
Casey Anthony's attorney says
the mother believes Caylee is still alive.
-The whole United States
is looking for our Caylee.
Are we going to be able to find her, do you think?
-I hope we can, Mom.
[ Crying ] I believed that she was still okay.
So, I know you want to ask me about the last day she was here,
the last day that I saw her, the day she disappeared.
[ Sniffles ]
I know that's what it's all leading up to.
[ Crying ]
[ Sniffles ] I can tell you about what
I remember from the morning.
It's not much.
**
The night before was a normal night.
Got Caylee to bed.
Woke up the next morning, got her breakfast.
I wasn't feeling that great and I wanted to lay down.
Put on the TV. The door was closed.
[ Sniffles ]
And I had her lay in bed with me.
I've been a light sleeper my entire life.
Because I'm used to someone
opening the door while I'm asleep.
I'm used to being on alert,
especially with my child next to me.
It's part of the reason she slept in bed with me so much,
in my bed, with pillows stuffed against the wall,
with the bed up against it so she couldn't fall,
so the bed couldn't move.
-Were the doors unlocked to your bedroom?
-I thought that I had locked it, but maybe not.
It's possible that the door was unlocked.
I know my dad was at home.
But I fell asleep.
And was asleep for a while.
And I was awoken by him shaking me...
...and asking me where Caylee was, which didn't make sense
because I look next to me and that's where she was.
TV was still on.
She would never even leave my room without telling me,
even if she had to go to the bathroom.
She'd never just leave me there.
She knew she wasn't allowed
to just be in the house by herself.
And I immediately start looking around the house --
her room, what used to be my brother's room,
in the bathroom, my parents' room, the garage.
I go outside and I'm looking to see where she could be.
She's not in her playhouse.
Where is she? Why is she not here?
Didn't make sense. Still doesn't make sense.
She'd never done that before. Why that day?
-Did you look inside the pool?
-Didn't have to.
By the time I came back around
from the left side of the house,
I came back around towards the front porch,
he's standing there with her.
She's soaking wet.
**
[ Sighs ]
I can see him standing there with her in his arms.
And hand her to me.
And telling me that it's my fault,
that I did that.
That I caused that.
And I just collapsed with her in my arms.
-What did she feel like?
-She was heavy.
She was cold.
**
[ Sighs ]
As I'm sitting there with her on my lap,
I was hysterical.
Just staring at her, not knowing what to do.
He takes her from me and he immediately softens his tone
and tells me it's going to be okay.
That she was going to be okay.
That's what he said to me.
[ Sniffles ] I wanted to believe him.
Because I wanted her to be okay.
**
And I don't know how long I sat outside.
I don't know where he went.
He took her from me and he walked away.
I know he went back in through the screen doors
and he went back into the house.
But I don't know where she went and I don't know what he did.
I just want her back.
[ Sniffles ]
It's all I've wanted this entire time.
**
I can tell you about how numb I felt
and how broken I felt, and confused,
but also hopeful
because I believed that she was still okay.
And I know people are going to question,
well, why didn't I make a phone call,
why didn't I call 911,
why did I even wait to tell my mom anything?
But I didn't tell her anything.
Why lie?
Why not do a hundred things, a hundred different ways?
I have to live with that,
knowing that I failed to protect my child.
And that I kept failing her, even after that.
I failed her again and again and again
because I still protected the person who hurt me.
**
It was like I was brainwashed.
And it wasn't until much later
that I started to really realize why.
**
This is a living embodiment of hell for me.
Yeah, this is not entirely one of those places I'd like
to go back and try to walk back through memory lane.
-How long were you in the Orange County Jail?
-Three years.
I was indicted on October 14th of 2008
and I was released after the verdict,
a few days after the verdict, in July of 2011.
-What did you hear in the cell?
-Screaming, yelling.
It's never quiet.
The doors are metal and they clink and they're loud.
-What do you smell?
-Feces.
Other people's body odor
because it's a recycled air system.
Pepper spray, if they had
to pepper spray someone inside of the unit
or sometimes even from the neighboring unit.
I was waiting in jail,
being accused of a crime that it didn't commit.
[ Crying ] I'm remembering feeling alone
and helpless
and having literally no one in my corner.
**
During that period of time, I needed someone to talk to.
**
-Both of these boxes are from when I was in jail.
I've never --
I've never gone through them.
So, let's have a look-see.
My name is Robyn McDonnell.
I was indicted under the name Robyn Adams.
I came to meet Casey Anthony in the Orange County Jail
after I was arrested for conspiracy
to drug trafficking marijuana.
When I was transported to Orange County Jail,
I went into solitary confinement.
You're locked down for 23 hours a day.
It's a box. It's a shoe box. It's Tupperware.
The lid only comes off when they take it off.
Casey was put into solitary confinement as well.
I kept seeing this young girl,
short black hair, just really petite
and, um...
**
...one time, I just waved to her.
[ Laughs ]
Just a little wave.
Looks like these are pictures. Wow.
These are all letters.
I saved everyone's letters.
One day, Casey used sign language
to tell me that she wrote to me and put it in a book
and we started writing back and forth.
We started to get to know each other through letters.
[ Chuckles ]
It's her handwriting. [ Laughs ]
It says, "Cookie."
She called me Cookie.
"I'm an emotional wreck.
I've gotten good at hiding how I feel with most people,
but I can't with you.
We have so very much in common,
both the good and the bad.
I know how it feels to be physically, emotionally,
and mentally abused,
and I also know how it feels to be sexually abused."
**
-I think that I wrote to Robyn Adams
and told her what had happened to me
because I was really just starting
to come to grips with what had happened.
-"My own brother walking into my room at night
and feeling my breasts while I slept."
**
[ Sighs ]
-I don't really remember Robyn's response to anything, but...
...it felt like there was actually someone who understood.
-"Over the past few months,
I've been really having vivid dreams
and it's obvious that they are dreams
of things that have already happened.
I think my dad used to do the same thing to me,
but when I was much younger.
I can see him in my room, exactly the way it was
when I was in elementary school.
And everything gets fuzzy.
But I wake up feeling both sore and sick to my stomach,
the way I used to feel growing up."
-Long before I had ever been arrested,
I had memories of the abuse...
...but it wasn't until I was isolated from my family in jail
that I started to remember more of the details.
I started to have very clear images and flashbacks,
nightmares and seizures,
all because of things that I was reliving
from what happened with my father.
**
Even with trying to suppress those feelings
and those memories,
I was remembering very specific details.
It wouldn't take much for me to close my eyes
and to hear the sound of my door opening
in the middle of the night.
I'm just a kid laying in my bed
and it was a white daybed with white eyelet bedding.
Everything was white.
And I could smell my father's cologne
before I even opened my eyes.
That cologne. Halston Z-14.
**
And I could feel him as he
kind of slid me over in my daybed.
And slid himself underneath the covers.
I'm still laying there, acting like I'm asleep.
And he starts to touch me.
Slowly move my hair off of my neck.
[ Exhales forcefully ]
Run his hands down my back...
...underneath my shirt.
I remember the first time he put his hands down my pants.
Slid from the back, first, and then went around the front.
I was being told that I was safe, that I was okay.
So hard when you're being told, you know,
"This is that special time.
You're Daddy's special little girl."
And talking to you so gently
and starting off being so kind and so nice.
God forbid I fought back.
A few times I do remember trying to fight back.
I was never able to push him off of me.
Pillow goes over my face.
-What do you mean by "pillow goes over my face"?
-He smothered me several times.
-Smothered you so you would pass out?
-Several times.
If I asked for it not to happen.
"Not tonight, please. Not tonight.
I just want to go to sleep."
Wake up the next morning, or even hours later,
knowing that it had happened again.
I was forced to grow up so quickly.
I was no longer allowed to be a little girl.
Could be a little girl sometimes.
But at night, I had to be Daddy's special little girl.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-So, at that time, you're talking
to Robyn Adams in the jail?
-Yes. -Had you told your defense team
about the abuse? -No.
It was still really hard to talk about the abuse.
There was so much anger and grief and sadness and shame.
So, I hadn't talked to my team about it yet.
I hadn't said anything to them.
-The media was portraying Casey as this young mother
who was out partying for 30 days while her daughter was missing.
How could that possibly happen?
-Not once has she showed any remorse for her child.
-To go to the nightclubs and dirty dance
with anybody and everybody and then just lies,
just mind-boggling.
-It is the burden of Jose Baez on the defense
to come up with some logical, reasonable explanation,
you know, for her bizarre behavior.
Why did she wait 31 days?
-Part of my role was putting together the puzzle
to bring understanding to Casey's life.
I started working with Casey in July of 2009.
At minimum, we would spend two hours together each visit
and we are, and were, unpacking a lot.
-During the time that I was in jail,
I remember talking to Jeanene about a lot of things.
It was a very slow process because my guard had been up.
But Jeanene was so disarming.
She allowed me to see her and it made it easier for me
to at least start to open up a little bit more
and let my guard down a little bit.
-In one of the interviews,
Casey shared with me that her dad had abused her.
Everything made sense.
I mean,
I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse as well, so.
In that moment, I understood her.
When you've been a victim of sexual abuse,
you pretend that nothing is wrong.
It's the separation of the mind from the actions, right?
That's how Casey can show up,
as if she had no troubles in the world,
during the 31 days where she's lost her baby, Caylee.
**
Finding evidence,
which is part of my job, as a mitigation specialist,
any evidence of abuse is very difficult,
especially with the passing of time.
But Casey did tell people about being abused,
even before any of this happened.
-Good afternoon, Mr. Grund.
-Good afternoon.
-Jesse was her fiancé.
She trusted Jesse and so
she did disclose to him
about being abused by her brother.
It's something that was shared,
even before Caylee passed in 2008.
-She told me, at one point in recent years,
that she woke up one night
with Lee standing over her in bed,
staring at her sleeping.
And, in another instance,
was groping her in the middle of the night.
-Casey telling Jesse about being abused by her brother,
it doesn't mean that she wasn't abused by her father.
It wouldn't be surprising that she would test the waters.
It's, for whatever reason,
a little bit easier to say, "Oh, my brother."
I think the abuse by her father was a much bigger deal.
-It was always easier to talk about the abuse with my brother.
Because I had already forgiven him
and moved past so much of it,
it made it easier for me to talk about.
Years later, I had told my mom,
while we're sitting on the floor in Caylee's room
and Caylee is just an infant.
And I finally gained the courage to tell her.
-About your brother? What did she say?
-She called me a whore.
Her exact words were, "So that's why you're a whore."
-You feel angry about that?
-I feel hurt. Disgusted.
And, yeah, ashamed.
Still.
How was I going to tell her about...
...the things that were a thousand times worse
that my father did?
I had never told anyone about my father touching me.
Of course I couldn't tell her.
I didn't want anyone to know that I had been abused,
but I had no choice.
-We have been digging all day
and News 13 continues to uncover new, explosive details
in the hundreds of letters written between Casey Anthony
and another inmate at the Orange County Jail.
-In Florida law,
any bit of evidence that had been collected in the case
was released to the public.
One of the times there was a document dump.
-From a letter right here.
-They were letters that Casey had written
to another inmate in jail.
And it was news for days.
-She says her brother, Lee, began sexually abusing her
when she was 12 years old.
She also writes she thinks her dad
also "used to do the same thing."
-The trauma that she experienced,
I feel like it was sort of glossed over.
We didn't look at trauma the way we do now,
so, it felt like it was a lie.
-Where's Caylee?!
[ Indistinct conversation ]
-Yeah, where's Caylee at?!
-Like my sign?
-Everything was against her.
The world was against her.
The way she was being portrayed in the media.
-At that point, Casey had not
told anyone working on the team
about the abuse, except for me.
She had not told Jose.
And so I said to Casey,
"Be open and transparent, Casey," right?
I helped the team identify psychologists
who speak to grief, who would speak to PTSD.
**
-Of all the doctors,
Harry was the the easiest to talk to, Dr. Krop.
He was the most disarming, I think.
He the easiest delivery.
There was no pressure of anything.
-I'm Harry Krop.
I saw Casey four times
at the request of the attorneys on the case.
Initially, I evaluated her
to assess her psychological status.
Because of her pattern of deception,
I had to ask myself, in this case,
whether she was telling me the truth.
The media portrayed her
as a psychopath, a psychopathic liar.
-I could see, with my experience, into her mind
and I found her to be very narcissistic and a sociopath.
-You said that you think she's a psychopath, right?
-Absolutely.
-The second appointment I had with Casey, I gave her the MMPI,
which is a commonly used psychological test.
There's actually scales for psychopathy on the MMPI.
There was no diagnosable psychiatric disorder
or any diagnosable personality disorder,
including being a psychopath,
which I think the other psychologists
and mental health professionals who evaluated her
certainly also discovered.
-There was no sign of psychosis.
I mean, we could go down the list.
There just wasn't any sign of anything.
-Not a sociopath?
-Not remotely.
-I'm joined by Harry Krop.
He is a forensic psychologist.
Does she have what we call
borderline traits or sociopathic traits?
-No, she doesn't have those traits, either.
-That's impossible! I can't believe that!
Wait a minute, Doctor. I can't believe it.
She's created a vortex.
She's a chronic liar.
She's engaging in criminal behavior.
How is that possible?
-We had a little bit of a combative back-and-forth
when I was on that show.
But bottom line, she didn't have those type of disorders.
She indicated that her father sexually abused her
extensively as a child.
And I did believe that Casey was sexually abused,
which is what the other psychologists heard.
**
The testing shows these intrusive images
that she has under stress
or when she talks about the sexual abuse.
She was fairly detailed.
**
-And what about this allegation that George molested Casey?
What did you think of that?
-I don't think that's true.
I think there have been a lot of things, you know, said
that were just made up for whatever reason.
We never found any evidence of that.
There was never anything to suggest that,
other than these letters from Casey.
[ Scoffs ] Would you believe her,
I mean, given the story that she's told?
[ Birds chirping ]
-Thirty-one days, no Caylee.
No report to law enforcement that, "My daughter's missing."
Like what the hell?
I was like, "Where was Casey?
Where was the mother of this child?"
-What are you looking at there?
-I guess to some, this would be
a photograph of a grieving mother trying
to find her missing daughter.
[ Laughs ]
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-Tell me about your behavior --
leaving the house and then the 31 days.
The media and the public have used this,
again and again, as a hammer to hammer you with.
-Yeah.
**
[ Emergency brake cranks ]
This is the building where Tony Lazzaro, Clint House,
and his other roommates used to live.
Tony and I had been seeing each other a couple of months.
The day my father took Caylee away,
this is where I came after I left my house that afternoon.
I think I stayed here about three weeks out of the 31 days.
I just tried to...
[ Sighs ]
...be as normal as I could around him
and even around his roommates.
That was part of the main instruction from my dad
was just to be as normal as possible.
-Nothing was out of the ordinary during the 31 days.
She just seemed like her totally normal self.
-I couldn't show that there was anything going on
to anyone else.
All of the photos that people see of me out
during those 31 days, I wasn't out partying.
You don't see drinks in my hand.
I was there actually working.
I was there helping Tony promote.
-But you weren't going through the cycles of grief.
-No. During the 31 days,
I genuinely believed that Caylee was still alive.
My father kept telling me she was okay.
I just had to keep following his instructions.
There were no threats.
I just knew that I had to do what he wanted me to do,
in the same reason that I knew that since the time
I was 8 years old.
Just do what he wants.
It worked before. Do it now.
-So when you shut down, you became robotic.
-I did what I needed to do to survive.
People also don't know when you're crying
in a bathroom alone,
trying to pull yourself together.
You can never see behind closed doors
unless someone chooses to let you in.
**
I was in contact with my father daily,
but whether or not I saw him at the house
or we talked on the phone...
Check my cellphone records.
The phone records --
my phone pings had me calling Hopespring Drive
again and again and again when my mom was at work.
-And what were you saying to him?
-I just wanted answers. When am I going to see her?
How much longer are we going to keep doing this?
Is she okay?
That I remember.
-And what would he say? -He would tell me she was fine.
"Just keep doing what I'm telling you to do.
You guys will be reunited soon."
That's what sticks with me.
He told me at one point, we would be reunited soon.
-Did he describe where Caylee was or what she was doing?
-No. Wouldn't tell me anything.
I would ask if he knew where she was,
and he would just tell me she was safe.
When you're physically afraid of another human being
and you were conditioned to say and do
what they wanted you to say and do, even as an adult,
you're still going to revert right back to it.
-So you really believed he would have kidnapped her from you
and put you through all of that?
That made sense to you that he would do that?
-At the time it did.
-It just seems incredible.
For 31 days, you're still in that space of...
-I was still in that space even a couple of weeks later
when I was in jail.
Hopeful.
-What's your gut telling you right now?
-My gut's telling me that she's okay.
-Okay. And your gut tells you that she's close or some--
She's -- She's hiding.
-She's not far.
I know in my heart, she's not far.
I can feel it. -Okay.
Okay.
Alright. -Oh, God.
My mom is asking me if I think Caylee's okay,
and I tell her yes, but I'm looking at my father...
...because I wanted to believe it so bad.
[ Crying ]
I really wanted to believe him.
Maybe that's the disassociation.
Maybe that's the...
trying to protect myself from the pain
of having known deep down [sniffles] all along
that something happened and I didn't want to confront it.
I don't know.
I regret every day
that I didn't come forward about what he did to me.
I regret every day that I lied to my mom during that time
because I didn't know what to say, too.
I wish it were a simple answer and a simple explanation.
Nothing about trauma or abuse is ever simple
because you're just trying to survive.
I was convinced that she was okay...
until December of 2008.
-This morning at approximately 9:30 a.m.,
we had a call to the sheriff's office regarding a discovery
that was made by an Orange County meter employee
who had gone into the woods.
A bag was found there.
-We recovered this human skull.
It appears to be that of a small child.
Now the investigation continues.
-Skeletal remains discovered 15 houses away
from the Anthony home.
-They sent a couple officers to come into the room
that I was staying in.
So they walk me down the hall, I walk into the nurse's station.
Still have me handcuffed.
And set me down in the waiting area.
They have a TV on, though, in the far corner,
and it's the live footage.
And all you see across the bottom is "Body found."
And I'm listening to them start to say...
And I lose it.
Couldn't breathe.
That was the confirmation that she wasn't coming home.
Because all of that time, I still held on
to that shred of hope that she'd be okay.
**
-The officer let me talk to her.
It was the first time we held hands.
And we just cried together.
Her eyes were just bloodshot. Her face was red.
**
It was horrible.
At that point, all hope was gone.
-Sheriff Beary, Joyce Dawley,
Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
-With regret, I'm here to inform you
that the skeletal remains found on December 11th
are those of the missing toddler, Caylee Anthony.
This identification was made by nuclear DNA
taken from a portion of the remains
and compared to a known profile of Caylee Anthony.
-We're told that a jail chaplain informed Casey Anthony
that her daughter's remains have been identified.
-She is behind bars right now at the Orange County Jail.
She is charged with murder.
**
-[ Sniffling ]
Yes, I was naive. Yes, I was dumb.
Clearly, no matter how smart I was, I was dumb.
This whole time leading up to that,
I thought that there was a chance
she could still be alive.
I was telling the truth about...
I thought there was still a chance.
It's an instinct you're supposed to have as a parent to know
something is wrong with your child.
I should've known.
**
[ Sobbing ]
**
-This is a major, major development.
Now the test will be, do the forensics match
the circumstantial evidence?
-They know where the child was, how she was disposed of.
Hopefully, there is a lot
of forensic evidence they can use here.
-This is completely a forensic story now.
**
-So down here on Suburban Drive is where the recovery was made,
just down around the corner from the Anthony home.
**
Looks much different than it did on the day of the discovery.
**
Eric. -John, how are you?
-Good. You? -Good. Thanks.
**
Definitely in the ballpark location where when we came out,
you know, we made our first entry to go down there.
She would have been right down in here in the flagged area.
We're not very far from that location right here.
-Kind of standing about where -- where it was.
When Caylee's body was found,
there was duct tape wrapped around her head.
I remember seeing the duct tape.
-Yeah, the duct tape.
I remember how her hair kind of rolled around
and made almost like she was resting
in a bird's nest of hair.
She would have been in two black plastic bags
and a large laundry bag,
and there was a Winnie the Pooh blanket with the remains.
-Right.
-Those are items that jumped out at me.
-There was a big effort on the part of law enforcement
to try to trace items found at the crime scene
there where Caylee's body was found back
to items recovered at the Anthony home.
-The bag that she was in,
the laundry bag was part of a set.
And we found the other part of the set at the house.
The duct tape wrapped around her head
was a specific brand of duct tape.
That same duct tape was found at the Anthony home.
-The Winnie the Pooh blanket matched the bed sheet
from the child's bedroom.
-It turned out there were a lot of things at the scene
that linked to the home.
-So what happened?
-It appeared that a person from the Anthony home
taped her face up with duct tape,
stuffed her in a trash bag,
dumped her in the woods down the street from the house.
-Based on available information,
including examination of the body,
information from the scene,
the manner of death in this case is homicide.
-There was, in fact, some tape on the mouth of Caylee Anthony.
That changes the game. -Well, sure, it does.
I think it shows that the child incurred suffering
and they'll go after her for the death penalty now,
mother or no mother.
-There was no question in their minds
about whether or not I did anything.
I wasn't the only one living at home.
But they didn't go and ask anyone in the family
about garbage bags and duct tape.
-Tonight, a big breaker,
a shocker in the case against Casey Anthony.
Prosecutors announced they will --
Yes, they will seek the death penalty
against the 23-year-old for the murder
of her precious 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
**
-One thing that those of us who do death-penalty work,
what we know is, even though our clients might be innocent,
there is a very high likelihood
that there can be a guilty verdict.
I had those conversations with Casey.
"We have to really be able to tell your story."
-Can you talk to me about the process of deciding
to tell your defense team about what happened with Caylee?
-It's still not a conversation I've really had in depth
with any of them to this day.
And the desire was to never again open those boxes
to never have to relive those things that happened.
**
-I got involved in the Casey Anthony case
on the day Caylee's remains were found.
She was facing the death penalty.
So I was going to start an investigation.
We're trying to find out what happened here.
The second day I was in Orlando,
I was brought over to Hopespring to meet the family,
and Cindy was on the phone as I'm being introduced,
telling George, the husband,
"Geraldo's on the phone, wants us at 9:00,
but we're already booked for the 'Today' show."
They had a guy on the floor with a computer saying,
"Well, we raised $27,000 for our foundation
to help other parents find their children when they go missing."
It hit me like, "Wow, that's not how I would be acting."
The dynamics of what's happening that day and, you know,
this is after the remains have been found.
Caylee's gone. I'd have been a mess.
It just was kind of crazy to me.
I went to Casey's room and saw this monument to Caylee.
These pictures all over the wall
told me a story of a very loving mother.
Casey took 20 a day of her daughter.
The next weekend, I had to come back.
I said, "I'll be back, and I'd like to talk to Cindy."
She showed up late Sunday night with George
and...they were towing a -- like, a bass boat
that was totally tricked out, freshly painted,
"Call 1-800 missing children" on the side of it.
-It's the SS Caylee Marie.
That's my granddaughter. In honor of my granddaughter.
-They get out. Cindy's sunburnt.
They've been out on this boat all day long.
They said, "We want to do a sea trial for this boat"
that they must have got through their foundation.
And I'm again thinking, "Well, if I was in their shoes,
it was my daughter, my granddaughter,
I doubt if I'd be go getting a boat
to go look for other missing children on a frickin' lake."
It made no sense.
It just was more of that insanity
pulling me into the case.
And I remember coming out and Jose Baez, Casey's attorney,
and he says, "What did you think, Pat?"
I said, "You know, I still don't have enough information
because I can't connect that girl killing that baby.
But there's something really fucked up about this family."
**
-Pat McKenna was part of my defense team.
After everything was done with my case, after the trial,
long after July of 2011, my defense team,
they truly became my family.
And we've chosen to still stay banded because
we truly do look at one another as --
as not just colleagues and war buddies,
but as -- as family and friends.
And I love these people so much --
Liz, Pat, Dorothy, Cheney.
So we are on our way now to Liz's house.
It just gives me so much peace seeing them.
**
Hi!
[ Laughs ]
-Hi, honey. How are you?
-Hi. -Hi.
-[ Sighs ] I've been crying all day.
[ Sniffles ] -Oh, my God.
-Oh, I'm tired.
-When I first met Casey Anthony,
I was struck by how small she is.
This small, very young woman is brought into a room
to meet her attorneys.
And as she's sitting there,
you realize she's in a cage alone all day
in solitary confinement at the Orange County Jail.
I think what struck me is she's got a sense of strength.
There's just such a survivor in her.
-I'm okay.
You know me.
It'll be alright.
-Casey, at the time, wasn't one to really share every aspect
of her difficulties and pain.
She's become much more comfortable with that over time.
**
At the beginning of the Casey Anthony case,
I was really behind the scenes reviewing evidence
and doing motion work for Cheney Mason.
Jose Baez had been her attorney for an extended period of time,
and he was required
to get a death-qualified attorney on that.
And that's where Cheney came in.
Do you want to sit up at the counter
and I'll get you a drink?
-It's too early to start drinking.
[ Laughter ]
Mr. Baez started calling my office
and I went to meet Casey.
And after I met her in the jail, whatever,
my instincts or intuition are, from being an old man
and a long-term lawyer,
I decided that I would step in and help her.
I took some pictures.
There's a mama deer and a baby deer.
-Oh, there they are.
Right up against your screened-in porch.
-Yeah.
-Wow.
-Casey -- her phone number is on my phone.
She can call me any time she wants to.
I have tried something in excess of 350 jury trials.
Of all of the people that I have defended of serious crimes,
I can't think of any other that I've invited into my home.
I've spent well over 2,000 hours on this case,
well over $1,000,000.
But once we were in it, we were in it.
There wasn't -- There was no quitting.
-We really didn't know what we were stepping into.
I had no idea about the enormity of the case.
-The sources close to the case say investigators now
have overwhelming evidence that there is no question
Casey killed her 3-year-old daughter, Caylee.
-There was so much public outcry.
-Justice for Caylee.
-There are people that are fully in favor of eye for an eye
because there's a greatly intensified seriousness
about the case.
We, on more than one occasion,
as we are required to do by federal law,
discussed with Casey the possibility
of engaging in a plea bargain.
-I'm a catastrophizer about these things,
so I think you at least have to have a conversation about offers
and what that's gonna look like and can we keep you alive?
The deal on the table
was 20 years in the Department of Correction,
and she would have to accept guilt and responsibility
for her daughter's death.
-Anything you want to tell us?
-I'll talk afterwards. -Okay. Thanks.
-I laughed Jose Baez out of the room that we were meeting in,
telling him there was no fucking way.
-She was not having it.
The last thing that she would even entertain is the idea
that she would take credit for hurting the only one pure,
true thing she ever had.
-It takes a lot of courage and belief in some way
to, you know, be facing the death penalty,
turn down an offer.
Casey would have nothing to do with it.
-I would rather have been found guilty and spent my life --
the rest of my life on death row,
fighting for my life and my innocence
than to have ever pled to something I didn't do.
I lied to the cops. I wrote those checks.
I admitted guilt on each of those.
That was it.
-The national spotlight is now focused on Orlando.
The satellite trucks are hooked up to feed,
the generators are topped off with fuel,
and the 70-foot risers are ready for reporters.
-It's happening -- the most closely watched case
maybe ever or certainly since O.J. Simpson.
-I will never forget what happened
inside of those courtrooms.
I will never forget the anxiety
and the dread going to walk through those doors,
to get off of those elevators.
**
-It's taken almost three years to get to today.
We are now just minutes away from opening statements
in the murder case of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony.
-Does the state care to make an opening statement at this time?
-Yes, Your Honor. -You may proceed.
-Linda Drane Burdick is a very skilled prosecutor.
-Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Orange County.
As difficult as it may be for anyone to accept
that a mother
would intentionally kill her own child,
from the evidence that you will hear in this case,
there is no other conclusion that could be drawn.
-This case was full of purported evidence against Casey.
-Duct tape covered the nose and mouth area
of that tiny human skull.
-Evidence of duct tape found over the mouth
of the child's skull,
high levels of chloroform found in the trunk of Casey's car.
-But a lot of it was really this junk science
that was used to pad over
the lack of actual facts in the case.
I don't think anyone's better than Dorothy Clay Sims
at being able to get to the bottom of that.
-I was in charge of the forensics with the defense team.
I do a lot of work with motions to exclude unreliable science,
and I was very concerned about some of the science
that the state was producing.
For example, they took a position that Casey somehow
was going to try to make chloroform
and murder her child with chloroform.
-Dr. Ross will also tell you
that he found something unexpected.
His instrumental analysis
found the highest concentration of chloroform
that he's ever seen.
-They've got the chloroform.
They've got the tape over the mouth.
Those are major problems.
-But when they did some testing on the remains,
no chloroform was found in the hair, no drugs.
And then the duct tape.
What everybody saw on the news was, "Oh, the child's remains
were found with duct tape over the mouth."
-No child deserves to die with duct tape around their face.
Well, there was no evidence
that that's the way that Caylee died either.
There was duct tape, some part attached to her hair
hanging down on the left side
and the lower mandible on the right side.
-There was no DNA at all on the duct tape.
How did it end up that way?
Do I think that the duct tape could've come
from the exterior of the bag? Absolutely.
In fact, there were witnesses that talked about
how it could've slid down from the bag.
To me, it was pretty clear that the duct tape
had never, ever been on Caylee's skin.
That duct tape was not ever around her face
when she was still alive.
I was concerned about the hair banding.
-When I examined that trunk, I found 15 hairs.
And this one, this hair, it's a long hair...
right here.
They sent it to the FBI.
They found the dark band near to the root area of the hair,
which is an indication
that that hair came from a decomposed body.
This hair is identify with the DNA from the mother's side.
So we have Cindy, we have Casey both alive.
The only person that is missing is Caylee.
**
-There are other causes for hair banding.
Not just that it came from a body
that was already deceased.
You can have hair banding even on people who are alive.
Things like moisture and dirt, et cetera,
can cause hair banding.
And then there's a problem with the cadaver dogs.
-The first pass he started indicating in the --
in the rear of the vehicle.
I could tell he was working something,
looking, um, to the back-seat, trunk area.
-The cadaver dogs came back and didn't alert a second time.
That is a symptom of the whole problem with the case
because people would latch on to a cadaver dog alerting
but completely ignore evidence of a cadaver dog
that doesn't alert.
You can cause a cadaver dog to alert.
And if you can rely on a cadaver dog,
which are you gonna rely on?
That's the problem. It's inexact.
It's inexact science.
And then the decompositional odors.
The state said that their expert
could quantify the molecules
that were in the air in the trunk
and determine if they were consistent
with decompositional odors.
-And what that does is
essentially condenses and freezes
all the odor molecules into a small, little pellet.
-I'm not aware of any trial that this methodology
had ever been accepted in.
It's very questionable.
The lack of true, reproducible science is shocking.
It's really shocking.
-There wasn't any evidence that Casey ever hurt her child,
let alone that she was responsible for her death.
This child that she loved so much, by all accounts,
by all the witnesses that knew her.
The crux of this case and the anger was
it appeared to be that she was behaving incorrectly.
The type of discovery, the evidence
that the state was sharing with the defense
really was more about painting her
as a young, scandalous woman without a care in the world.
And according to their theory,
only a murderer would be able to compartmentalize
and enjoy themselves when their child was missing.
I really realized the gravity of the situation we were in.
You never know what a jury is gonna do.
Casey was in for the fight of her life
-News 13's Jacqueline Fell has information
on today's deposition.
-We were covering the case every day.
While there's an enormous amount of evidence
for the 12 jurors to process,
they're also trying to process this --
Just what to make of the 25-year-old
accused of killing her daughter.
They say she went to clubs, got her nails done,
got a tattoo that said "Good life."
And according to one friend was giddy about her new boyfriend.
-This really was sort of like the first big case
playing out on social media.
The news station had a Twitter account
created for this case.
People just were constantly talking about it online.
In the court of public opinion, Casey was already guilty.
-It was the first trial by social media.
The public was weighing in on this,
and I'm sure the prosecutors
had to be reading what they were saying
and tailoring what they were doing
to what was coming in.
-Caylee's death allowed Casey Anthony
to live the good life,
at least for those 31 days.
-Shot girls, music, dancing.
Young people doing what young people are supposed to do,
and I want to say that clearly.
There's nothing wrong with young people being young people.
There's nothing with young people drinking
and dancing and having fun.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But that's not the life that Casey has,
because Casey is a mom.
-That's in the entire prosecution as,
"Well, explain yourself.
I mean, that's not the way
a grieving mother is allowed to act."
-I think that the best way to explain Casey's behavior
is through the words of Dr. Sally Karioth.
Sally Karioth was the grief specialist
that came in and talked about what it's like for young people
when they have a traumatic event.
She had over 30 years' experience in the field.
-They are reluctant grievers.
Young adults are reluctant grievers,
and they will often say nothing has happened.
They will demonstrate risky behavior.
-The behavior that Casey engaged in
was absolutely consistent with grief.
It just wasn't what we typically understand grief to look like.
-I read psychological experts, their depositions,
and I conferenced with them.
The lying that Casey was engaging in
wasn't for manipulation or self-gain.
-Pathological lying is not a diagnosis.
It's a pattern of behavior often shown to occur
as a result of developmental issues, family issues.
-People react differently to trauma.
It depends on their background, how they're raised.
Casey's behavior was a behavior of someone
that is not inconsistent with abuse.
-Based on my experience in working
in the sexual-abuse area, after the sexual abuse stops,
there's still this dynamic of feeling like the father,
the perpetrator, has control.
She told me what happened to Caylee.
It helped me understand why she would go along
with what he told her to do
and not disclose what happened to Caylee.
-That was so important for our understanding.
I mean, not just the defense teams,
but the jury as well,
that Casey has been through significant trauma.
-Good afternoon, members of the jury.
Mr. Baez, you may proceed.
-Come with me to 4937 Hopespring Drive.
It looks like the all-American home.
In fact, you can drive by any home in the United States
and never know what goes on behind closed doors.
You never know what secrets lie within.
You see, this family must keep its secrets quiet.
And it all began when Casey was 8 years old
and her father came into her room
and began to touch her inappropriately.
And it escalated.
-[ Sighs ] -And it escalated.
-Did you know what he was gonna say?
-No.
-Did you know he was gonna bring up the abuse?
-No.
-You didn't know? -He didn't tell me.
He did not even come to see me before we went into court.
He didn't tell me anything.
He wanted to make sure my reaction and my response
was as real and raw as possible.
So he didn't want me to be prepped for this.
**
What I'm feeling in that moment
listening to Jose Baez tell the world...
...about the abuse that I suffered...
it was absolute shame.
I remember that feeling like it was yesterday.
There's always going to be that part of me that's...
going to feel like I'm not enough because of what happened.
Not good enough
because of all of the things that have happened to me.
-Not good enough for what?
-Just not good enough,
that I'm...tarnished...
tainted.
That's a really, really, really hard moment.
-It was the deepest, darkest secrets that she held,
laid out bare in front of the public.
Her chin started to shiver.
I could see the tears coming.
And it was the first time I saw that whatever defense mechanism
she had built over the years
were not gonna be working for her anymore.
-The jury understood the relevance
of the innocent until proven guilty standards
and that Caylee's death was shocking.
Casey was -- was stunned.
Young people who are not trained on how to deal with trauma
simply shut down and pretend it didn't occur.
If someone can't deal with a trauma like that
because they are so close to their child
and they love their child so very much,
that says that they are a good mother,
not a bad mother.
-It just resonated with me
that this was a very loving mother.
We don't think that girl killed that baby.
So what happened?
I think that an accident could have happened.
And I just want to see the facts, the evidence,
talk to witnesses.
I want to find out more.
-Pat McKenna did the hard work of showing up,
talking to people who don't want to get involved,
seeing what their stories are and what their truth is,
and figuring out if there's evidence
that supports this case.
He located Krystal Holloway.
-What do we know about this woman?
They claim she had an affair with George Anthony.
-During this whole fiasco,
George has an affair with this woman, Krystal Holloway.
-I'm told that he visited her many times
at her gated community.
-He's unburdening himself to this woman,
figuring this will never come out anywhere.
So when I go to talk to her,
I learn from Krystal what really happened to Caylee.
-She had information that was important.
She said George told her
that this was an accident that spiraled out of control.
-When Krystal Holloway took the stand
and told her story,
it was really clear that she was doing her level best
to tell her truth,
even though it was so far outside of anything
she was actually comfortable with.
Without Krystal Holloway coming in,
I'm not sure where we would have ultimately landed.
Casey has never told me what happened with Caylee,
but I think the evidence and the science support
that it was most likely an accidental drowning
that really did snowball out of control, where no one acted
like you're supposed to act when an accident happens.
-I mean, look at the facts.
This child was found without shoes.
The remains had no shoes.
She could clearly open the door to get out to the pool.
We have the photograph. She can open the door to go outside.
Cindy mentioned something like that to the people at work
and to the police a few days later.
I believe the most likely thing that happened in this case
is that the child accidentally drowned.
That's what I believe.
-Mr. Baez, you may proceed.
-Caylee Anthony died on June 16, 2008,
when she drowned in her family's swimming pool.
Unfortunately, it's far too common.
In fact, in the state of Florida,
it is the number-one way that children die,
is drowning in swimming pools.
We hear about it every day.
We hear of a story on the news or we'll see a little blurb
on the newspaper about some poor child
who accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool.
-A bombshell revelation from Casey Anthony's lead attorney,
who now claims 2-year-old Caylee Anthony
drowned in her family's swimming pool in June of 2008.
-You know, the defense made the argument
that she drowned in a pool, which is interesting,
because we gave her that as an option.
But she was adamant that that didn't occur.
Look, I'm not a psychologist, but you're gonna tell me
that what really happened was,
after my child drowned in the pool,
I stuck her in a laundry bag and dumped her in the woods
and spent the next month partying?
-There are too many scenarios of what could have happened
but her drowning in the pool is not one.
It's not possible.
In most scenarios, it would be plausible.
Not in this one.
The ladder wasn't on the pool.
It's the only way in or out for her or for me.
-So why let Jose Baez and your defense team
make that argument again and again?
-My mom was the first one that floated the theory
that she could have drowned in the pool.
He went with what my mom said.
He had to explain something.
You can't just tell the jury, "She doesn't know."
-So what was your thought on why she was wet?
-It's something I still can't piece together.
I wasn't the only one home.
I'm not outright accusing him of murder,
but it wasn't an accident in the pool.
**
-I don't believe my daughter could hurt anyone.
I really don't believe that.
-In this interview,
my father's telling the truth of my innocence,
that law enforcement went after me.
But yet, he testified in front of the grand jury
almost two months before this.
He was the state of Florida's first witness against me.
-He's telling the media that Casey's innocent,
but then he's going to the police
and telling them that Casey's guilty.
This is something that nobody ever noticed.
-George Anthony was the first witness on the stand.
-George testified a handful of times.
Why didn't the media notice the differences?
-I'm sitting there staring daggers at this man
'cause I'm one of the only people
who knows the truth about who and what he is.
It took so long for me to get to that point.
It's like you have Stockholm Syndrome.
Why didn't he call 911?
I wasn't the only one that was home.
And why after all this time,
keep blaming me for something I didn't do?
Why?
[ Crying ]