The Curious Case Of...With Beth Karas

Summary

Barely Famous Podcast Episode Summary
Title: The Curious Case Of... With Beth Caris
Host: Kail Lowry
Guest: Beth Caris
Release Date: February 21, 2025

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1. Introduction to Beth Caris

Kail Lowry warmly welcomes Beth Caris to the show, highlighting her extensive experience as a legal analyst and correspondent. Beth is renowned for her work on high-profile cases such as JonBenet Ramsey, Natalia Grace, Casey Anthony, and Jodi Arias. With a robust educational background—a Bachelor's in Political Science and Spanish from Mount Holyoke and a Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School—Beth has been a fixture in the courtroom and on television since her admission to the New York State Bar in 1987.

Kail Lowry [00:31]: "You may recognize Beth Caris from legally analyzing cases like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalia Grace, Casey Anthony, Jody Arias."

2. Career Journey and Transition to Media

Beth details her career trajectory, beginning as an Assistant District Attorney in New York City under Robert Morgenthau, where she prosecuted a range of cases from robbery to political corruption. In 1994, she transitioned to Court TV as an on-air legal analyst, a role she maintained for nearly two decades. This move allowed her to cover significant criminal cases nationwide, establishing her as a trusted voice in legal analysis.

Beth Caris [03:11]: "I'm excited to talk about my career, the shows I've been in, the latest series, whatever you want to talk about."

3. The Curious Case Of Series

The conversation shifts to Beth's latest project, "The Curious Case Of...", a documentary series streaming on Max. The series features standalone episodes, each delving into unique and often underreported criminal cases. Beth shares insights into the show's structure and her personal connection to the cases, emphasizing the depth of research required.

Beth Caris [03:14]: "Curious Case of... depends on that episode. The Curious Case of Natalia Grace was an ongoing story that lasted three seasons."

4. Investigative Process in True Crime Media

Beth elaborates on her investigative approach, emphasizing the collaborative nature of her work. She explains how stories are selected based on their uniqueness and the availability of compelling storytellers from all sides of a case. Access to public records and firsthand accounts is crucial to crafting an accurate and engaging narrative.

Beth Caris [04:30]: "We look everywhere. We look at podcasts, we look at articles, we look at books. We sometimes just get emails from people with their own stories."

Kail Lowry [04:14]: "What is your investigative process when you are looking into cases?"

5. Comparative Insights: Legal Practice vs. Media Analysis

Drawing parallels between her former role as an ADA and her current media endeavors, Beth discusses the transferable skills between legal prosecution and investigative journalism. She highlights the challenges faced when transitioning to a civilian role, such as limited access to legal tools like subpoenas.

Beth Caris [05:59]: "I found that the skills that I developed as an assistant DA in Manhattan translated well into my next job as a journalist at Court TV."

6. Discussion on Notable Cases

A significant portion of the episode delves into various high-profile cases Beth has covered. She shares personal anecdotes, such as her interaction with O.J. Simpson during a lunch meeting, and provides professional opinions on cases like Scott Peterson’s trial.

Beth Caris [20:09]: "He's where he belongs. I never felt strongly about Scott getting the death penalty."

7. Understanding Evidence and Legal Standards

Beth offers a comprehensive explanation of different types of evidence—direct and circumstantial—and how they influence jury decisions. She emphasizes the importance of cumulative evidence in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Beth Caris [21:32]: "Convictions are obtained by prosecutors. Jurors return convictions based on circumstantial evidence. Sometimes it can be stronger than direct evidence because eyewitnesses can be wrong and confessions can be false."

8. Insanity Defense and Its Complexities

The conversation transitions to the intricacies of the insanity defense, referencing historical cases like John Hinckley and Andrea Yates. Beth discusses the legislative changes post-Porter Hinckley and shares her experiences covering Andrea Yates' trials, highlighting the challenges jurors face when interpreting expert testimonies.

Beth Caris [37:40]: "Andrea Yates was first convicted and sentenced to life without parole. It was reversed on appeal because of incorrect testimony regarding a TV episode."

9. Current and Future Projects

Beth touches upon her ongoing and upcoming projects, including her work on the podcast "Unrestorable" with iHeartRadio and Anonymous Content. She provides a glimpse into the themes of Season Two, which examines the sole female defendant on Tennessee's death row.

Beth Caris [66:15]: "Unrestorable Season Two is about the only woman on Tennessee's death row who killed when she was 18."

10. Reflections on Justice and Juror Responsibilities

In concluding the discussion, Beth reflects on the role of jurors in seeking truth within the constraints of legal procedures. She underscores the notion that a "not guilty" verdict does not equate to innocence but rather indicates that the prosecution failed to meet the burden of proof.

Beth Caris [53:02]: "A not guilty finding does not mean innocence. It just means the prosecution did not prove every element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt."

Kail Lowry [57:19]: "It has to be false."

Beth Caris [57:25]: "The evidence wasn't, it just wasn't there."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Beth Caris [20:09]: "He's where he belongs. I never felt strongly about Scott getting the death penalty."

• Beth Caris [21:32]: "Convictions are obtained by prosecutors. Jurors return convictions based on circumstantial evidence."

• Beth Caris [37:40]: "Andrea Yates was first convicted and sentenced to life without parole. It was reversed on appeal because of incorrect testimony regarding a TV episode."

• Beth Caris [53:02]: "A not guilty finding does not mean innocence. It just means the prosecution did not prove every element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt."

• Beth Caris [57:25]: "The evidence wasn't, it just wasn't there."

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode of Barely Famous, Beth Caris offers a profound exploration of the intersection between law and media. Through her extensive experience and thoughtful analysis, she sheds light on the complexities of criminal cases, the intricacies of evidence evaluation, and the nuanced responsibilities of jurors. Listeners gain a deeper understanding of how high-profile cases are investigated, presented, and adjudicated in the public eye.

For more information on Beth Caris and her work, visit her website or follow her on her upcoming projects, including the "Unrestorable" podcast.

Transcript

[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

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[Kale]

But what if things were different?

[Beth Caris]

Monday.com is different. No lengthy onboarding, beautiful reports in minutes, custom workflows you can build on your own. Easy to use prompt, free AI. Huh. Turns out you can love a work management platform. Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.

[Kale]

Welcome to the Shit show. Things are going to get weird. It's your fave villain Kale, and you're listening to Barely Famous. All right, you guys, my next guest is Beth Harris. You may recognize Beth Harris from legally analyzing cases like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalia Grace, Casey Anthony, Jody Arias. She's covered all of these cases on shows, on documentaries, docu series, Deep Dives. Throughout her career, Beth has provided legal analysis on different cases and she's very knowledgeable. She does the deep dives and I absolutely love her. I think I first saw Beth on ID channel. So that's where know her from. She got a bachelor's degree in political science and Spanish from Mount Holyoke and she graduated with a Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School. Those are her credentials to start. In 1987, she was admitted to the New York State bar. And from 1987 to 1994, she actually worked as an ADA, an assistant district attorney in New York City under the legendary District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. They were prosecuting cases ranging from robbery and rape to racketeering and political corruption. And in 1994, she actually joins Court TV later True TV as an on air legal analyst and correspondent. She begins covering high profile criminal cases across the United States. And so that's where she transitions to, you know, covering all of these cases. And in 2003 into 2004, she covers the Scott Peterson trial, which we talk about in this episode. And as you guys know, that's one of the most sensational murder cases in the US and then in 2011, and I followed this case so closely, she provides analysis of the Casey Anthony trial, a case that obviously captivated the nation. The interest is still ongoing today. From 2012 to 2013, Beth covers the Jody Arias murder trial which became one of Court PBS most widely followed cases. And she also covers Conrad Murray, Drew Peterson and Phil Spector. So if you're familiar with any of those cases, you might recognize Beth from her legal analysis on these cases. All right, today we have Beth Caris on Barely Famous podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Beth Caris]

Well, my pleasure.

[Kale]

I'm so excited because I have seen you on so many docu Series and things like that, especially on ID Channel. So I'm so happy to have you.

[Beth Caris]

Well, I'm excited to talk about my career, the shows I've been in, the latest series, whatever you want to talk about.

[Kale]

So the latest series is the Curious Case.

[Beth Caris]

Curious Case of. And then there's six episodes. And the rest of that phrase, the Curious Case of depends on that episode. The Curious Case of the Girl who Died Twice. That was the second episode. I don't know all. I don't have the. All the names memorized, but each one. Curious Case of, you know, Bam Margera.

[Kale]

Or the Curious Case of Natalia Grace.

[Beth Caris]

Curious Case of Natalia Grace. But that was one ongoing story that lasted for three seasons, right? Six episodes for the first two seasons and then four episodes. And the new series that I'm in, it's just one standalone story each episode. It's not the deep dive. I mean, I felt like I was living with Natalia Grace for, like, two years.

[Kale]

Yeah, I can imagine.

[Beth Caris]

And so I knew a lot about that story. And with the ones now that are airing, I know a little about each one. Yeah, not a lot, because there's just no time to learn each story the same way we took that deep dive in Natalia Grace.

[Kale]

Well, if anyone wants to watch the Curious Case of that streaming on Max, and you guys can watch it over there, and we'll talk more about some of the cases that are on there as well throughout this episode. But before we get into that, what is your investigative process when you are looking into cases?

[Beth Caris]

So I am just part of a team of people. So when we come up with cases, we'll present them to the network and they'll, you know, choose the ones they want. But we look everywhere. We look at podcasts, we look at articles, we look at books. We sometimes just get emails from people with their own stories. So we can get a story through various sources, and that's what everybody does. And then it's a matter of determining exactly what the issues are. And do we have access? Because you can't really tell a story visually, at least. I mean, you can sit and talk about it and, you know, in a podcast, for example. And a lot of people do talk about a case. They read about it, they learn about it, and they're good storytellers as an individual.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But not for television. You got to have the visuals. So we get people who will tell the story for us. Right. The players. So we have to have access. That's key. So the next. Once you decide on the story, you're Also looking for who the storytellers are. Can you get people from both sides of the story? For example, if somebody's been under arrest, you want both sides, family members, victims, you know, families of the accused, lawyers, whatever. So it's getting the access that's critical. Right. And then, of course, you file public records requests to get any documents. If it's a case that's been filed, you want to get police records, you can't. Court records, whatever. You can. So you gather as much material as possible, and then you start putting it together, telling the story.

[Kale]

Is that similar in law, you know, not on tv. Do you. Were you kind of doing the same thing before you transitioned?

[Beth Caris]

So it's a good question. I found that the skills that I developed as an assistant DA in Manhattan, which is where we are today, translated well into my next job, which was starting out as a journalist at Court TV. And I was there for 19 years at the original Court TV.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

Talking to a jury, talking into the camera, making sure that I don't talk down to the jury, but explain things in terms that they understand, not talking legalese. It's something I would do to the audience as well. Right. And so I found that skill translated well. But also, once I got into what I'm doing, because, you know, when I was at Court tv, it was like the case was there in court. There wasn't going to be any more investigation. It was investigated. Sometimes I do some digging around, but I was on the air, you know, morning tonight. There wasn't a lot of time to do my own investigation beyond what was being presented in court. When I left Court tv, because it actually went off to air, it came back under new management. It's a little different today, but it's still a Court TV channel. Then I started doing my own digging. People would come to me with issues, and I would start doing what I maybe would do as a prosecutor. But the problem is, when you're a civilian investigator, you don't have the tools that a police officer or prosecutor have. You can't subpoena somebody. You can't get the records. You. You can't get phone records unless maybe a lawyer and one in the case will give it to you, or it's been introduced as evidence in a trial. So now you can have it maybe in a civil case, and now you can look at it. Maybe there's a criminal matter, you know, it's relevant to. So your hands are a little bit tied compared to what you can do as a public servant with police powers.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

To put somebody in a grand jury or get a subpoena. But still, I mean, there are great investigative journalists.

[Kale]

Yeah.

[Beth Caris]

Who do some great work. So it's not impossible.

[Kale]

Do you always recommend for investigative journalists to have a law, a law background or do you mean like, you know, the people on the Internet that are looking into cases?

[Beth Caris]

So here's what I used to always say when I was at Court tv, that if you're going to be on a network that holds itself out as the place to go to watch trials and get analysis, you really should have people telling you about the process who have been there in the trenches. I firmly believe that it's not really a rule that's followed. But back in the day, in the early, the first Court tv, it was followed. You want somebody telling you because they've been there. Oh, well, I remember, I tried a case once. I remember a judge did this to me. You can draw on your memory, but there are plenty of great journalists, great reporters who have covered trials who don't have that background. It's just that if you were the legal network, you should have lawyers. Now, to answer your question more directly, it is not necessary that you have a legal background. But there are some schools that, like Yale Law School, for example, has a one year course for law for journalists. You can find these courses. It doesn't hurt, especially if you're digging into criminal cases to. Even if you can audit a class in criminal procedure or evidence or something, or pick up a book or just talk to as many people as you can. Because I do find that when I listen to true crime podcasts and I get that there are people who just absolutely are like, love the challenge of an investigation. Loved that deep dive, have a good brain for minutiae and putting things together. But sometimes they make mistakes because they're misinterpreting the law. They may say something to family trade. They can get themselves sued. If you don't have journalism educate editor to say to you, you better not say that. You know, somebody said, like, do a legal review, right. You can get in trouble. And I don't know how often podcasters are sued, but back in the day, bloggers were getting sued and they were losing because they were putting out defamatory things. And now and then they'd come to me, you know, for advice. I'd say, take that down right now. You got to see some desist letter.

[Kale]

Take it down, right.

[Beth Caris]

You know, so it's just a matter of learning, learning maybe, you know, through practice. But I, I recommend just continuing. I mean, life's a journey, right? I mean, we're constantly learning. You don't stop learning with when your formal education ends, right? So if you're really into true crime, then learn as much as you can about evidence and the rules and stuff.

[Kale]

Well, I think if people put in half as much energy as they do to spreading false information, they could put that same energy into getting a degree in something. So they have the credentials. You know what I mean?

[Beth Caris]

Oh yes, I do know what you mean. I'll just leave it at that.

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[Beth Caris]

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[Unknown]

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[Kale]

Have, you were admitted to the New York State Bar and then you worked as an ada, and you worked as an ADA in New York and then you transitioned to Court tv.

[Beth Caris]

Yes.

[Kale]

And then your Is it true that your first major, you know, big coverage was the Scott Peterson trial?

[Beth Caris]

Actually Scott Peterson was tried in 2004. I had been at Court TV for 10 years at that point. I had covered OJ's road rage case, which was a few years after he was acquitted of murder and it was in Miami, actually. I, it was a felony. He got mad at a man who was tailing him on a, not a very busy road street in south of Miami and he got out in a rage, it was road rage. And he put his, put his fist through the, or his hand through the window of the man's car and like grabbed at his hat or his glasses or something. That was considered a burglary of an occupied vehicle. So that because a part of his body went through the open window and scratch the man's face. So that was a felony. He was acquitted of that. Not a bad verdict if he just was angry. And his kids were in the back seat of the car and they were little at the time, his two youngest that he had with Nicole. So I had covered that. But at the time 911 had just happened and the anthrax scare was going on.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

I remember all the media were in Washington, at the Pentagon or in lower Manhattan or in Boca Raton where a man at American media had just died from inhaling anthrax. So no one's covering this case, but it was OJ on the stand criminal case and you know, like People magazine was there a few places like that, but it was Court tv. So I had lunch with OJ early on, his lawyer, he had two lawyers, they invited me to lunch. I've told this story before, but maybe some of your listeners haven't, haven't heard it. So we're sitting at a roundtable at a Chinese restaurant that was, you know, fast so because we had to get back to court, it was lunch and my food came first and everybody, yeah, O.J. is sitting right to my left and my food came first and OJ's sitting there. He reached over and he started to eat off my plate. And I very rude. I tell everybody, when O.J. simpson is sitting next to you with a fork and a knife in his hand, you let him eat as much as he wants, right?

[Kale]

Might as well just scoot the plate over and let him have it there.

[Beth Caris]

Go ahead. I mean, his food came soon enough, but it's like, ugh. But I would talk to him periodically through the trout. Now, it wasn't high profile like Scott Peterson, but Scott Peterson's was probably one of the biggest ones in terms of like national or international press. But David Westerfield was kind of big. I mean, that was two years earlier. It was big in that in San Diego, he kidnapped a little girl out of her bed at home. 7 year old girl sleeping in the middle of the night. He broke into the home and kidnapped her as a neighbor, killed her. She was found three weeks later, probably raped her. But she was too decomposed to tell if she was raped.

[Kale]

Oh my gosh.

[Beth Caris]

And I just remember in that case thinking, God, if your child isn't safe in her own bed, where's your child safe? This is a beautiful neighborhood called Sabre Springs in, you know, outside of the city of San Diego, but in San Diego county, that I remember, we had monitors out on the street when the verdict was coming in and there were crowds of people who came down the courthouse because we were waiting for the verdict.

[Kale]

Girl.

[Beth Caris]

And when he was convicted, because there was a camp, it was televised, right? There were cheers just like there were cheers at Jodi Arias and there were cheers at Scott Peterson. The people wanted. And, and there were not cheers at Casey Anthony. People were outraged at Casey Anthony because she was acquitted. But people want to be a part of the process. People would take their summer vacation because a lot of these trials are in the summer. Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias, Scott Peterson, all.

[Kale]

In the summer just by coincidence or is there, is there a rhyme or reason for.

[Beth Caris]

No coincidence. And because, but they're long, you know, there's a couple, couple months or more. So people would actually do like a destination vacation. We're going to Phoenix for vacation. We'll do, you know, go to Sedona, Scottsdale, whatever. But we're going to go to the trial for a day, right? And they, and so we always had big crowds at these big televised cases. And a lot of them were female defendants. Or the wife is murdered. Right. Lacey, Casey, Nicole. Nicole. Yeah.

[Kale]

That's. So do you think any of those cases would be. Ever be on the Curious Case of.

[Beth Caris]

We are looking at cases that haven't been told. I was told. Or haven't been told so much. I can't say they never would be.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But there'd have to be a new angle because we're looking at stories that either aren't widely told, aren't necessarily murders. I've actually spoken to a few men, too, last Friday who said that they don't really like to watch all the murder stories.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But they like Curious Case of because they're twisted crime stories that kind of make your head spin, some of them. But there's no dead body and there are no. There's no autopsy report. They do have some dead bodies.

[Kale]

Why do you. Why do you think that women are more interested in, like, the murder over men? Because my partner also feels the same way. He thinks I'm nuts for watching the ID Channel as much as I do.

[Beth Caris]

You're not alone and he's not alone. Okay. Like, that's very common. And back in the day at Core TV, we were told like 70% of our viewerships, like the eastern half of the U.S. but that's probably different today. But. But also it skews female. You know, I know in Scott Peterson. I remember the New York Times reporter or somebody telling me that the New York Times didn't routinely cover a case like Scott Peterson. It's on the other coast.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But they were doing it a couple times a week or so because the readers wanted it, women wanted it, there was a demand for it. Because I think a lot of women were saying, is my husband the next Scott Peterson? I mean, there was no sign he had no criminal. He wasn't abusive to her. I mean, he was cheating on her. But she. And she did know it early on in their marriage, but it wasn't, you know, she was willing to make it work and believe that it was going to work.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

So a lot of women just wonder because a lot of cases we covered and I read about and even dabble in a little bit now, are spousal murders, generally the husband killing the wife and divorce or pregnancy. Those are the triggers for the most part in spousal murders. And men will either make it look like an accident, make it look like suicide, disappear the body, or sometimes they're in a rage, but a lot plotted out, like Scott Peterson plotted out and plan it. So that it'll look like she was abducted, you know, just disappeared.

[Kale]

There are mixed reviews now, I feel, about the Scott Peterson. Do you. Do you think he was guilty? Do you think that he is where he belongs?

[Beth Caris]

He's where he belongs. I never felt strongly about Scott getting the death penalty.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

In fact, I kind of thought, you know, it's brutal. Been fine if he didn't. If he always, you know, faced a life sentence. And he got life for killing his son, he got death for killing Lacey. You know, there were two murders, but.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

The jury looked at it like, you know, the second death was collateral, which is the little ones. That's why he killed her. I don't believe he's innocent.

[Kale]

And when it comes to circumstantial evidence. You and I were just talking before we started rolling about what that actually is, but pretty much all evidence seems to be circumstantial.

[Beth Caris]

Well, direct evidence would be like an eyewitness. I saw it. And another example of direct evidence is a confession, not a false confession. You want to make sure the confession is voluntarily made and it's done properly. But if somebody admits to it, in lieu of. Take death off the table, and I will plead guilty, or I'll give you the confession you want in advance of a trial. But a lot of evidence is circumstantial. Fingerprint evidence and DNA and just. Oh, my God, the footprints, the tire marks, the bite marks. Bite marks is controversial evidence, but that's all circumstantial evidence. Cases are tried across the country every day.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

And convictions are obtained by prosecutors. Jurors return convictions based on circumstantial evidence. Sometimes it can be stronger than direct evidence because eyewitnesses can be wrong and confessions can be false.

[Kale]

Right. But the evidence, the circumstantial evidence could be.

[Beth Caris]

Well, you have to look. When you look at circumstantial evidence, the jurors get a. Get an instruction about, like, if there's an. An. An interpretation of the evidence that is consistent with innocence and another one, it consistent with guilt, you got to give the benefit to the defendant. You got to go with the innocent explanation. But when you start piling the evidence together, then you kind of like, okay, this is. There's no way that tire tracks, you know, matching the car. And, you know, fingerprints. Fingerprints is pretty good. He's in a place where he hasn't ever been in his life that we know of. It's not unusual. Say Scott Peterson's house is full of fingerprints. That's useless evidence. Right. Hair evidence in his own house is useless evidence. But if Scott Peterson's fingerprints were found, I mean, I don't want to say he did take the boat out, so on the boat ramp. I don't even know how to speculate. You know what I'm talking about. It's like, in a place where, like, a burglar is coming in on a window and his fingerprints are on a window at a home he's never been in before. Hello.

[Kale]

Right. So I think even I can say that I have been misinformed about circumstantial evidence then. Right? Because, I mean, I could. I argued on another podcast saying that I could see how Scott Peterson maybe could have been acquitted because it was all circumstantial. But you're right, once you add on, like, you pile it on top of one another, it's no longer circumstantial, or it shouldn't be looked at as circumstantial.

[Beth Caris]

It's. It when you look at the sum total and all those little pieces fit together, and it's like, well, wait a second. It excludes every other explanation for innocence. You know, kind of says, it's gotta be him.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

So, I mean, I was at that trial. I mean, I heard that evidence in Scott's case, and I know there's a whole new young generation of people. You're a part of that, who are doing a second look at it, and it's revisionist history. And, you know, in my opinion, and his family, you know, God bless them, they have been relentless in fighting for Scott's freedom. They got him off death row. I mean, he had an excellent. Cliff Gardner's an appellate attorney out in the Berkeley, California area. Excellent appellate attorney and prevailed in that appeal to get him off death row.

[Kale]

Yeah, I don't think I have strong feelings about him on death row, but I definitely have gone back and forth. But now that I know about the circumstantial evidence basically being puzzle pieces, it makes sense that he is where he is and that's where he needs to stay. But when you were talking about covering cases on the curious case of. I thought of a woman that I interviewed a couple weeks ago. Her name is Sarah Turney, and her father, allegedly unalived. Sarah's sister, her own dad unalived. Her sister killed. Her sister never found a body. And they're still sort of fighting for justice. And I feel like that case doesn't get as much coverage as it should. So I. That would be cool for you to look into.

[Beth Caris]

So was he charged, he was, I.

[Kale]

He was charged not for the murder. I don't think he was charged for her murder.

[Beth Caris]

So, you know, I get a lot of stories that come to me where people are looking for assistance because they believe a murder has happened and the authorities aren't looking at it. As a journalist, I mean, I can't give, I cannot give legal advice.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

I mean, sometimes they come to me as a lawyer. It's like I'm licensed in New York, but I cannot give legal advice. I can operate as a journalist.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

I can recommend a lawyer to you. But it breaks my heart because I'm just me, you know, And I cannot do the deep dive that a lot of these people deserve and need. And, you know, what you're telling me now sounds like something I might have been contacted about. Oh, I just, I'm not, I'm not sure. But there was. I had a couple people contact me, different stories just this week, desperate for help. And you know, the Natalia Gray series has led a lot of people with special needs children who are not getting proper care or are being abused or they know of somebody who special needs or somebody who was adopted and is not getting. Those stories have been coming to me as well, but I can't always do something about it.

[Kale]

Do you get to pick any of the stories that come on?

[Beth Caris]

The curious case of actually the network makes the ultimate decision so I can be like participate and if I, I don't know that I did this first season, but I keep, I, I give the producers the production company that makes it stories, but it's not my decision.

[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

In the Curious Case of Story or in my career?

[Kale]

In your career?

[Beth Caris]

Oh, I don't know that there's any one case, but there have been defendants that have fascinated me really. And people who've changed their identities fascinate me. One of them is in the Curious Case of series and it's man named Nick Rossi, currently in Utah facing rape charges in two separate counties in Utah. But he had, he had faked his death in Rhode island and fled to the uk, settling in Scotland with a new name, a new identity, marrying a woman. And then there was his obituary was published in Providence, Rhode Island. He had been a page in the State House and they were singing his praises, thinking he's dead of how he was a young man on the rise who was going to be someone. In fact, he was actually alive. And now he's in Utah facing these rape charges. So that's, that's fascinating story, but also it's so fascinating. Yeah, you gotta. That was the third episode I just.

[Kale]

Saw that on the list.

[Beth Caris]

But there was another man whose case I covered in 2009 in Boston. He had kidnapped his daughter when he was having his first supervised visit with her after divorcing the mother. Right. They had one child and she was, she was like four. This is a man who called himself a Rockefeller for 10 years or so, married a Harvard business graduate woman who believed her husband was a Rockefeller. She dated him, then they married and he was actually somebody who had come from Germany years earlier as an exchange student when he was 18. And he lived in Berlin, Connecticut, German, loved the Gilligan's island show and learned how to speak with the accent of Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island. You're too young, but some of your listeners, your viewers will know what I'm talking about. And he took on this affect. Anyway, he goes eventually to California and takes on ant identity, claiming he's a relative of Lord Mountbatten. He actually has a public access show for a little while, claiming to go to school at USC film school or something. He had a public access show. Anyway, he murders somebody in Pasadena area in California and flees and goes underground and surfaces in Connecticut under a different name and then goes underground and surfaces as Clark Rockefeller. So this guy, he's murdered at least one he's convicted of now today. But I covered a case, his kidnapping before he was Indicted for murder. It's like, a crazy story. There's been a book about him, maybe a couple documentaries. I don't know if there's been a movie about him, but Clark Rockefeller, his real name is Christian Carl Gerhard's writer. He's one of my favorite defendants because I was like. He became, like, an art expert, but he was dealing in fraudulent art, like fake art. He had this Harvard Business School educated woman fooled for a decade because when he kidnapped their child and the FBI was questioning her, they're like, where did your husband keep his money? Where's the bank? He says his money's tied up and family issues. I don't know. I don't know. Well, what's his Social Security number? I don't know. What about his driver's license? Do you have his driver's license number? No, he doesn't have one. She knew nothing about her husband. She was the breadwinner, and they would eat at, like, private clubs in New York. He never wanted to go out in public because he was well wanted. Man. It's a crazy story.

[Kale]

I'm just so. To be fair, though, I don't know my partner's Social Security number or his license number.

[Beth Caris]

Fair enough. But she was married. I don't know if you're married.

[Kale]

No, I'm not.

[Beth Caris]

She was married, and they had been together for 10 years. But she should have been able to make fine paper. Right?

[Kale]

I can get it for you.

[Beth Caris]

Right, right.

[Kale]

Wow, that's absolutely fast. So nothing? No murders that have, like, absolutely consumed you?

[Beth Caris]

Well, you know, like, Jodi Arias, I just, like, why. Why that was that? You know, like, why. Why did she have to kill Travis?

[Kale]

You know? Yeah.

[Beth Caris]

She was living in California. He was on his way to Mexico with another woman. He just, you know, he was a good guy. And, like, she dyed her hair and, like, turned her phone off when she entered Arizona and had all those gas cans full of gas so she didn't have to stop at a gas station. I mean, that was really thought out. So that one, I mean, it stays with me every June. June 4th is when he died. Every June 4th, I think of him. There are others murders or disappearances on that date that. On June 4th. I mean, Kyron Horman, who's never been found, disappeared in, like, Portland, Oregon, as a little boy. His stepmother was the last one to see him. No one's. You know, she's never been charged. She's always been under a cloud of suspicion. But she's, you know, says she left him at school and then he disappeared from school. It was the last day of school that year. It was a science fair. Kyron orman. That's a June 4th also date. Anyway, there have been stories over the years. I could probably pick one every year of the 19 years I was at Core TV. That resonated with me, that stayed with me. David Westfield in San Diego was one, too.

[Kale]

And I am absolutely consumed by the Idaho 4. And I can't stop watching any of that stuff. I'm like, I wish that there was going to be a trial way sooner than there is.

[Beth Caris]

When is the trial date?

[Kale]

I believe It's August of 2025.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. So, I mean, I. I followed that certainly when it first happened. I, like everybody, I was just fascinated. And, you know, they were telling him, authorities were telling him across the country. Remember, he got. He got stopped a few times speeding, you know, before he ended up getting arrested, I think in Pennsylvania. Right. He had driven across the country with his father. But I mean, the standard to arrest somebody is probable cause. Probable cause that they committed the crime. But to prove at trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, every element of every crime is a much higher standard. So I really want to believe that the authorities have felt they had a provable case before even arresting him, even though you continue investigating, of course. But you want to make sure you have good, solid evidence even before arresting him. So they probably feel that they've got approvable case.

[Kale]

When you say probable cause, is that the same thing as motive?

[Beth Caris]

No. Probable cause is a standard of proof. Right. There are a few standards of proof. Probable cause is very low. It's just. It's probable. Right. We have a reasonable suspicion or probability that you committed this, but then the next one up is preponderance of the evidence. That's a civil standard. More likely than not. 51% versus 49%. That's civil. When you go to civil, that's what O.J. and Robert Blake were found liable in civil court for killing their wives. But they were found not guilty in criminal court because it was a higher standard. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and then there's clear and convincing evidence. That's not something jurors deal with. That's something like the lawyers and judges will deal with. And then there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But a motive. Motive is not an element of the crime unless it's a bias crime, unless it's a hate crime. Then you have to. To prove somebody was motivated because of someone's sexual orientation or religion or race or whatever. But motive is not Something prosecutors have to prove. Okay, okay. If you can give jurors something to seek their teeth into, like why this would happen, you can argue it, but it's not an element of the crimes. Okay, okay. The elements would be like, I don't know, intent, you know, that you have to prove that it is the person. Right. That they were in the county jurisdiction and that they had the state of mind, you know, negligent, reckless, intentional, whatever, knowingly with malice aforethought, whatever. That each state has little variations on the elements, depending on the degree of the crime and then, you know, did cause, you know, the injury, death, or whatever, using a. Whatever the weapon is, you know, so that's kind of what elements are.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But you have to prove that that person with that state of mind. And sometimes you get hung up on that state of mind because a person's not in their right state of mind.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

And that's the insanity defense. If at the time of the crime, they didn't know right from wrong, that's general. Generally you don't know right from wrong, or you can't conform your conduct to the. To the law, or at the time of trial, they're incompetent to stand trial. Like, they don't. They don't understand the nature of the proceedings. They can't assist in their own defense has nothing to do with the state of mind at the time of the crime. It's at the time of trial. So insanity and competency have two very different ones. Insanity is at the time of the crime, and incompetency is whether they can even go forward.

[Kale]

I wrote my high school graduation paper on the insanity plea. And at the time I graduated in 2010 from high school. So that one. At the time, I think in my paper, it was most of the time, the insanity plea did not work. I think was the conclusion correct.

[Beth Caris]

And you would be right to reach that conclusion, because when John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan In March of 1981, I was living in D.C. i remember hearing the ambulances, the sirens, because I was working as a paralegal at a law firm. I'm dating myself now. Don't do the math. Anyway, he got off on insanity defense, right? Not guilty about reason of insanity. And that really upset legislators, federal, state, around the country. And as my understanding is that state legislators started really shoring up their insanity defense, saying, okay, we're going to make it really hard. We don't want it to be so easy to get off and go to a civilly committed Facility. Right. But there are, I think, four states that don't even have an insanity defense, and Idaho is one of them. Oh, my recollection is Idaho doesn't even have an insanity defense.

[Kale]

I think the only case that I'm familiar with off the top of my head is Andrea Yates. I think she.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, I was at her second trial. That was in Houston. She killed. She drowned her five kids. Well, let me just say, because in Idaho, because Lori and Chad Daybo tried in Idaho, and the doomsday. The killing of her kids and his wife and whatever. And I just remember researching it, like they didn't have an insanity defense. They could still. You could still introduce evidence to someone's mental state, but it's not a defense. Okay. So Andrea Yates, that woman, was first convicted and sentenced to life without parole. And it was reversed on appeal because of something the psychiatric witness, the psychiatrist for the state, the expert, said that there had been a law and order episode where a woman had done just that, drowned her kids and used an insane defense and got off. Well, that episode hadn't aired before she did this. He was mistaken. He was wrong. He said it aired. It had nothing to do with her drowning her kids. And she got a new trial because of that. And I was at her second trial. She's a very, very sick woman.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

When she was married to a man who was like a NASA scientist, and they were living in a Trailways bus, like, made over into a home, when they didn't have five kids yet, there were two or three, and she had to homeschool the children. And then they upgraded to a little, which was nice. And then by the time she had her fifth child, she was, like, very bad, like postpartum. But she was also psychotic. She thought the television was talking to her and sending her signals. And when she drowned the kids, her husband Rusty had gone. His ex husband had gone to work, and she. She drowned the kids in the bathtub in the same water. Right. So she's chasing the kids around the house because, you know, they realize what's happening. They're old enough, some of them, even though there was an infant. I don't remember all the ages, like 8, 6, 5. You. And she was so tired after drowning four of the five, that by the fifth child, she couldn't even lift him out of the tub. And I just remember seeing a photo of him floating face down in the tub, and it's all feces and urine because the children are, you know, going to the bathroom as they're being killed. And she lined up the other four in her bed with the infant in the arms of the oldest dead. And then she called Rusty and said, I hurt the kids. I'm paraphrasing something like that. She called and said, I did it. I hurt the kids, or something like that. So she was very, very sick. And between her two trials, there had been another woman in Texas who had killed. I don't remember her name, but she had killed her kids. But she believed, like God had told her to when she hit him with a rock, their heads with a rock, outside of the rock. And it's almost like, like jurors in Texas, they. They learned that she was really sick, too, that they were not going to put Andrea Yates in prison. They're going to put her in a facility and she can be there for the rest of her life. Right. This was a woman who needed help. What should not have had to homeschool all these little kids, didn't have enough help.

[Kale]

Right, right.

[Beth Caris]

Not just the psychiatric help, but just physical help around the house, 100% to Andrea Yates.

[Kale]

Oh, that's heartbreaking. That is heartbreaking. But I know also, I think what I wrote in my paper, this was, how old am I now? Like, 15 years ago. Something about it being so hard to prove insanity, too, because you have like a psychiatrist or a psychologist on the defendant side, but also have maybe an opposite opinion on the prosecution side, which is so hard because they're both supposed to be professionals with the same sort of education. Right. And so how are these two opinions differing for the same person?

[Beth Caris]

They're looking at the same facts and they're coming up with different opinions, and it's a battle of the experts. You're absolutely right. That is an issue with experts. And jurors are also instructed. Well, in New York, and I think probably in most places that, you know, you've just heard, you've heard expert testimony from, you know, three witnesses. You are. Well, they told this with all witnesses, you're free to accept all the testimony, some of it, or reject it all. I mean, it's up to you. Jurors can. If they find that experts neutralize each other, it's like, oh, please, you know, we're just going to look at other things. You know, I'm sure they do that sometimes. And, you know, there's a lot of criticism of experts who will testify mainly on one side, you know, or the other, because they could be bought. I mean, those are allegations. I don't know that it's actually true, but I've Seen prosecutors really go at some experts in the courtroom and challenge the science. I mean, it's happening in the Karen Reed case right now with cell phone evidence and whether or not. Do you know what I'm talking about? Cell phone and a laptop. Karen Reed. Okay, well, she's got, she's getting a re. She's getting a new trial was a mistrial. She's accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend by leaving him in a snowbank, hitting him and healing in a snowbank in Massachusetts in January 2021.

[Kale]

Like she hit him with her car.

[Beth Caris]

She says she didn't, but they say she did and that she did it intentionally, that they were having a fight and then he froze to death in the car. And the defense is saying, no, no, he made it into the house. It was a party that she wasn't going to, he was going to on. And he was killed in there by people who didn't like him. And then they put him in the snow. They planted him in the snow and framing her. Those are the arguments. Karen Reed R E A D so anyway, there's testimony. I mean there's argument right now with experts on how to interpret some of the searches on Google searches on a phone. And those experts, like, one says one thing, one says another, and it's pretty damning evidence. Imagine an app designed to make you use it less.

[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

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[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

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[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

Place and more time doing you apartments.com the place to find a place.

[Kale]

How much weight does a Google search hold in. In a courtroom?

[Beth Caris]

Well, I have to have somebody who can ex it will it carries weight.

[Kale]

Yeah, sure, sure.

[Beth Caris]

But I mean, this is a Google search that was either made at 2:27 in the morning or 6:27 in the morning. His body isn't found till like 5 or 5:30. And yet somebody on the, on the defense side, I mean on the prosecution side is googling how long for a body to Freeze in the cold or something like that. And it was either made at 2:27 or 6:27. So the prosecution is saying, oh, no, that was a window that was open and it was a search within a window that was open at 227, but it was made much later. It was made at 6:27, but it was opened much earlier. And the defense expert is saying, no, no, no, that window was open for that search at 227, three hours before his body was found.

[Kale]

I don't know whose computer or whose phone.

[Beth Caris]

Oh, it was a witness who's, who's brother in law. It was at his house. Who's another.

[Kale]

But they can't prove who did it. It.

[Beth Caris]

Well, they know it was her phone, she did it, but she says, I did it after we found his body. And they're like, no, no, no, you did it before and you were helping to cover up. Oh, it's a very involved story. I'm sorry to even bring it up.

[Kale]

Oh, no, I'm fascinated now because I hadn't even heard of this case.

[Beth Caris]

Oh, yeah, Karen Reed. It's, it's in, it's being tried in Dedham, Massachusetts, and it happened in Canton. It happened in Canton, Massachusetts, but south of Boston.

[Kale]

People colluded on like there was multiple people involved or they think it was just. Just Karen. Is it Karen?

[Beth Caris]

No, just Karen Reed is, is charged. But the defense thinks multiple people covered it up, what they did.

[Kale]

It's so fascinating to me when I hear of cases where there are multiple people involved in a murder or a disappearance or anything like that, because just to picture knowing one person that is capable of that seems so unfathomable. To think of two or more people that would be in on something is so fascinating to me.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, but the more people involved, the less likely it happened. Right? Because, I mean, you have to have a really good little conspiracy for a lot of people to be involved and no one to break and talk about it.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

Have their conscience, get the better of them and tell the truth or, you know, I'm not saying it's, it's impossible, but the more people you can stand up there as a prosecutor and say, come on, what is the likelihood that these, I mean, they can list seven people would have to be up here lying under oath to you jurors.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

In order for this to be true.

[Kale]

Well, I wish that the, the officials that were on Amanda Knox's case felt that way.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, Amanda, yeah, she, she got a real bad rap.

[Kale]

Her real story, her true story should, should Shine. And I, I feel bad that she went through everything that she went through.

[Beth Caris]

I feel bad for the family of her roommate, her British. Absolutely.

[Kale]

Family.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. Because they, they deserve justice. But there just wasn't the forensic evidence. Wasn't it like Rudy, good day or there was somebody who was found washing blood off himself in a fountain that morning and there was an open window.

[Kale]

Yes, Rudy. And he was, he went to prison for a long time. But for some reason they still, I mean they were slut shaming Amanda and making her out to be, you know, something that she wasn't. And so I just think that's so fascinating because to your point, I mean, if it was her and Raphael colluding to murder Meredith and Rudy was involved in that as well, you know, somebody would have broke, somebody would have said, you know, it was, it was them, it wasn't me or you know what.

[Beth Caris]

I mean, I seem to recall that somebody did save. And maybe it has been widely reported somebody did say she had nothing to do with it. Not really someone else. But I, I haven't looked at that story in a long time. However, it was a real IO the book Monster of Florence written, it's a co authored by Doug Preston and I think his name is Mario Spezzi. But I want to say Mario Spezzi, a journalist in Italy, may have passed away. Anyway, they talk about the criminal justice system in Italy and the end of the book is about Amanda's case when it first came out. I mean, a later edition talks about Amanda's case. She hadn't been exonerated yet. Probably editions today have her as, you know, exonerated. But it is the investigation into a serial killer, Monster of Florence, who hadn't been caught, okay. And had been killing just viciously women couples, you know, like on Lovers Lane, if I recall. It's been a long time since I read it, but it's awful. And at one point, like Mario Spencey was arrested because he, he did such a good investigation as a journalist that they thought you must be part of it. You might, you know something, you must somehow be part of it. He wasn't, you know, held forever, but ye. It was a real eye opener to the Italian criminal justice system and it helped me understand more of what Amanda went through.

[Kale]

Was that before or after Amanda?

[Beth Caris]

It was before. I mean, I think the first murders were in the 60s or 70s or something. But the last, like a, like a last chapter of the book deals with Amanda since it was a high profile Italian prosecution, high profile American. And. But the edition I read she hadn't been exonerated yet.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

So I think probably later printings had have an update and then she was.

[Kale]

Reconvicted a second time.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. But wasn't like on appeal. Couldn't they.

[Kale]

And then it was eventually I think overturned and so I would never go.

[Beth Caris]

To Italy if I were she.

[Kale]

No, I. Absolutely not. So when you, when, when you are investigating a certain case, what, what helps you decide what cases you're going to invest in for a TV show, for commentary, for anything.

[Beth Caris]

It's usually it's not my decision, but it, it's. But I believe that some of the issues they look at is where was it, when was it like what happened? What's the story here? Is it a clear cut case? Is it a little bit open ended? Like maybe. We don't know. I know for curious case we like to find these stories where you're not really quite sure, like what is going on here? Do you have a good storyteller? Who do we believe? I mean Natalia, Grace, we were flip flopping all the time. Like what's going on here? Flip flopping. So. And sometimes the public will tell you what a good story is because there's just a story that's out there that the public is like responding to. They want more of like the Idaho four, right?

[Kale]

Yeah. Or Gabby Petito even. We know what happened, but we still want more for some reason.

[Beth Caris]

So. You know, that's interesting. That reminds me of another point I like to make, which is that the stories that fascinate me often the most are not the ones where it's who done it.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

It's like, we know who did it.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

We know what happened. We know Brian Laundrie killed her. It's like a why?

[Kale]

Right. What was the motive here? What?

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, why motive? Why do you do this?

[Kale]

Yeah.

[Beth Caris]

What went wrong? Could it have been prevented? Of course it could have been prevented. But you know, and that's kind of.

[Kale]

How I feel about the Idaho four with Bryan Coburger. It's just like what was the purpose? What were you getting at? What was your end game?

[Beth Caris]

What was thrill kill?

[Kale]

Yeah. What is this? I think there were theories that I've seen online and obviously this is alleged for safety purposes, but I, I saw theories online that it was, you know, he wanted to prove that he was smarter than everybody else. Could he get away with this?

[Beth Caris]

Yeah.

[Kale]

And so I just want to know why and if they'll ever admit it.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. Just feeding his own ego that he could. He was studying criminal justice or something.

[Kale]

Yeah, I saw that.

[Beth Caris]

Psychology, criminal criminology, something like that. Yeah. He had. Didn't he have, like, a questionnaire that he was sending to criminals or serial killers, maybe? About. About criminals? About, like, how they went about it?

[Kale]

Was it to criminals or was it to just people? About if they could commit cries? I think it might have been criminals.

[Beth Caris]

Maybe if it was just. If they could. I thought it was the criminals.

[Kale]

You might be right. I just. I think it's so fascinating. I'll be curious to see what happens with that. I'm fascinated by Natalia Grace, too. And I think watching some of the. Some of the things that I've seen and reading online, I think maybe parts of both sides could be true.

[Beth Caris]

See, this is what jurors have to deal with. And a lot of times, like at Court TV, we used to say that the viewer was the 13th juror. And we'd often put up like, a 13th juror question for the day. Like. Like, which witness today did you believe most? Whatever. It would be a 13. Because this is what jurors have to deal with. Like, jurors are the triers of the fact. Right. The judge is just there to deal with the legal issues. Triers of the fact. You have to determine, like, what the truth is. The truth. People believe the truth will come out at trial. You've got people under oath. Yeah. Like, they never lie. And, you know, many people say a trial is a search for the truth. Yeah. Okay. It's a search for the truth under the rules of evidence. Because judges will keep out evidence a lot. They'll say, oh, it's too remote, it's too prejudicial. I'm not. All evidence is prejudicial. That's why it's being introduced. Because it hurts the defendant.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

But some judges will leave it out if it's just too inflammatory. Too long ago. Whatever. Harvey Weinstein's getting a new trial in New York because the judge did let in some evidence that was, like, remote.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

And jurors convicted in it. And the appellate court said, yeah, they probably shouldn't have heard that. So he's getting a new trial in New York, but he's not going anywhere. He's here in New York.

[Kale]

I actually didn't know that he was getting a new trial. That's.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, but I think he's got something pending in la, too, and some new charges. I mean, he's never. He's never getting out.

[Kale]

But what do you do as a juror when you think, okay, both sides can be True. And does the truth ever actually come out? Because they feel like defense and prosecution can both paint a really good picture. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that is exactly how it happened.

[Beth Caris]

Well, I mean, jurors are told to vote with their conscience. And if you can't decide, then I would say it's a, it's a not guilty. Because if you can't decide, if you really don't know what happened and you just flip flop, I mean, you have, you have to give the benefit of doubt to the defendant. Right? But most of the time, jurors come up with a verdict one way or the other. I mean, they feel like they've been able to resolve a case. A not guilty finding, by the way, is not innocent. It does not mean innocence. That just means the prosecution did not prove every element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt. I, I remember covering a case in Springfield, Missouri, years ago where a father, a school teacher, a man was accused of killing his wife and his two children. One was a toddler and the other one maybe four or something. I mean, bashed in his son's head, strangled the baby with the cord from the drapes or, or blinds or something. Strangled and then bludgeoned mom and turned up the heat on the waterbed, positioned her body face down so she decomposed really fast, accelerated the decomposition because he turned up the heat. Then he drove in the night. These were the allegations. He drove in the night back to a conference where he had been. He had been at a teacher's conference. And he was acquitted and continued to live in this Springfield, Missouri community. I don't know where he is today, John Feeney, but that's what he was accused of doing. And the jurors told me later we think he probably did it, but we just couldn't place him in Springfield. The prosecution had had a witness to say, oh, yeah, he stopped, you know, to get gas. And it turns out that that worker who saw him in the car wasn't working that night. His. He was working a different night. So he was wrong about the night. And that was the evidence that had placed him in Springfield. That was the linchpin of the case that had placed him in Springfield. They couldn't place him there. So the jurors like, there's just reasonable doubt. We just don't know if he actually drove back.

[Kale]

One of the hardest parts about getting older and feeling like something is wrong with your body, but not really knowing what, when everything just feels off. And I've come to realize that it's probably not just aging, it's also hormones. Women's hormones are so complex that if anything goes off balance, my entire body suffers. And that's why, listeners, I have to tell you about Happy Madness Hormone Harmony. Hormone Harmony is an herbal formula that fine tunes the hormonal system. Like a musician fine tunes their guitar. It doesn't just help with estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. It also helps stress hormones such as cortisol. A little troublemaker that can contribute to so much like weight gain and losing sleep. Happy Mammoth is the company that created Hormone Harmony. It only uses science backed ingredients that have been proven to work for women and they make no compromise when it comes to quality. And that shows the results are impressive. There are over 40,000 reviews on their website and women can't stop talking about it on social media. A bottle of Hormone Harmony is sold every 24 seconds. And that's because Hormone Harmony can help with a lot of things like hot flashes, night sweats, racing thoughts, low mood, poor sleep, lack of energy, occasional bloating and gas. And then no, no desire to bed someone, if you know what I mean. That is amazing. So we love Hormone Harmony. And according to a survey, 86 of women started losing weight, 77 say it improved their mood. And the biggest benefit is that 100 of the women surveyed said that they're feeling like themselves again. For a limited time, you can get 15 off the entire first order@happy mammoth.com just use the code famous at check out. But. So when you say that a juror's job is to give, give the verdict with their conscience. But so their conscience is telling them that they did it, that he did it.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, but, but, but, but the ev. But the evidence wasn't, it just wasn't there. That's true. That's good.

[Kale]

But it has to be false.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, yeah, you, that's a very good question because it sounds like I'm talking on both sides of my mouth, but I'm not. You have to. It has to be the evidence.

[Kale]

So evidence plus using your conscience.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, you got to vote with your conscience on what you believe the evidence shows you. But these jurors, enough of them believe, but we can't place him. Once they learned later, late in the trial that that worker actually wasn't working on the night of the murders. They're like, oh my gosh, we think he probably did it, but we can't place him here. There's not enough evidence.

[Kale]

Do you think the same happened for the Casey Anthony trial? They couldn't place Casey?

[Beth Caris]

No. What happened in Casey Anthony was Kaylee wasn't found for like six months. By the time she was found only a quarter mile from her house, I remember she had been in a swamp. She was in a garbage bag and then in a laundry bag. And she had, she had been, she was completely decomposed with, through animal activity and the swamp and all that. Like her bones were scattered everywhere. So they couldn't determine how she died or when she died. And that was the problem. Now there are cases, there are convictions with no body, but it was just.

[Kale]

That, that there was no, like, I.

[Beth Caris]

Think that's what it was primarily. I mean, I didn't understand the verdict. I thought she should have been. I was, it knocked the wind out of me. I was sitting in the courtroom when they, when they.

[Kale]

You were in the courtroom?

[Beth Caris]

I was in the courtroom and I just remember sitting. There was a balcony for the media and I was looking down the jury here, Casey's over there, they were facing each other and the judge was over there. And the defense had put her in a lower seat so she looked very diminutive. You know, they lowered her seat so she, you know, the table came up to here or something. They put her in these high collar things and hair was not like the case. Casey who, you know, the way she acted a year earlier when with the first not guilty, I thought, okay, but it's going to be something less, something because there were other crimes, not just the four misdemeanors of lying to police officers, but there were other, other, other crimes like child neglect and maybe manslaughter or something. And it went not guilty, not guilty. I leaned back in my, my seat and I just like exhaled and I was like, what? And then she's found guilty of the misdemeanors. Only misdemeanors, which she's done her time on. She'd already been in for three years and I thought not even child neglect. She didn't report her 2 year old, 2 years, 10 month old child missing for a month. And you don't even convict her of child neglect. So I just didn't understand it. But the defense really hammered the prosecution for seeking death. I mean, they were seeking death and maybe they shouldn't have done that, I don't know. But I just remember Cheney Mason, the defense attorney up there, saying, we don't know how she died, we don't know when she died. And then they had that argument that it was an accidental drowning. And the grandfather George, you know, found her and you know, they just had. They had a. They had a story that enough jurors bought that they couldn't have resolution. They just said, we're gonna let her go.

[Kale]

Do you think personally and professionally that George had anything to do or either of the grandparents had anything to do. To do with it?

[Beth Caris]

No, I. I don't believe that.

[Kale]

I don't either. I. That case will haunt me, I think, for the rest of my life, because I. I had just had my first child when that case was happening or when she was being tried for it, and I remember seeing a lot of it on tv, and I just could not believe it. Especially with the mom making, you know, when she made the call, talking about.

[Beth Caris]

It smells like a dead body died in the car. It's a dead body.

[Kale]

And then there was. Was some evidence or whatever in the.

[Beth Caris]

Trunk of a hair, something, Some decomposition. Yeah.

[Kale]

Yeah. And so I just. And I. As a mom, I have seven kids, so I. You have seven children, and they're all four.

[Beth Caris]

Seven children?

[Kale]

Yes.

[Beth Caris]

You've only been out of high school for 15 years, so you started right away. You had one every other year.

[Kale]

My oldest is 15, so I had them right my senior year. Yeah. And then it took me seven years to get my undergrad. But we're here. We made it.

[Beth Caris]

We. Congratulations. That's fascinating. Now, I want to interview you.

[Kale]

Oh, anytime, anytime. I'll be the coffee runner on anything you're working on. I'll be the pa. Whatever you need.

[Beth Caris]

We should talk about a curious case of.

[Kale]

Yes.

[Beth Caris]

Now there's six episodes, all streaming on Max.

[Kale]

Yes.

[Beth Caris]

And we talked about some of them. And Bam Margera, Nick Rossi, the guy who faked his death, the girl who died twice as the second episode. Then there's the funeral parlor guy who told people he would cremate their loved ones and never did. Kept the money, let the bodies decompose, and then would give the family someone else's ashes or cement us.

[Kale]

How does he get caught?

[Beth Caris]

Oh, you could have watched the episode. I'm not telling.

[Kale]

That's so crazy. We. On another podcast I was talking about, we were talking about animal cremation. And, you know, sometimes. Or we've heard rumors that they sometimes put multiple animals in there for cremation, and you have to pay extra or ask for your animal to be cremated separately. But.

[Beth Caris]

But.

[Kale]

And we know that animals are a part of the family. Right? But a human being, you're giving them some, like, just ashes.

[Beth Caris]

Like, if you'll see in the trailer, one of the women, the victims, you Know, her son died. Says, I believe those are human ashes, just not my human. Because there were some. Like, there's some hardware in there. Like, you know, like somebody who maybe had a knee. You know, some knee replacement or something. And like, her son didn't have any of that. She got someone else's ash. But another person said she took a little bit the ashes, put it in water, and yeah, it hardens. So cement dust. And there's a lot of cement dust found at the place. Gotta watch that one. That's number four.

[Kale]

Absolutely be watching that.

[Beth Caris]

And Jody Hildebrandt, that's the curious case of this, the Mormon with Frankie Ruby Frankie. But you know, Ruby Frankie's story's been told. But we go in telling Jody Hildebrandt, the therapist who that met Ruby along the way, but she was like a marriage counseling therapist and was actually driving couples apart part on purpose. Sure seems like it. I mean, she's in prison today. It sure seems like it. Because she was telling the women, of course it. The religion does see adultery as, like, as bad as murder. And I guess, like, masturbating and looking at porn is really right up there also. Very simple. And so some of these men were doing what's quite natural, and their wives were icing them out because they had masturbated or looked at porn and admitted it. So that's. That's an interesting story too, but that's the way in. But we also tell the Ruby Frankie and the child abuse story toward the second half.

[Kale]

I started following the Ruby Frankie story sort of early on. I didn't really know who she was outside of, like, one really viral TikTok. And so that's sort of where I did the deep dive. Once the allegations came out about what she was actually doing to her children, I couldn't watch it anymore. I couldn't do. I couldn't watch the TikToks. I didn't want to hear about. Like, it literally broke me. So I was like, I cannot get behind this. But I would be curious to know how Jody Hildebrandt, where. How she got where she is.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. So that this is sort of Jody's story, but Ruby is in it because once the two of them get together and they start their own YouTube page, and then Ruby's younger children, two of her younger children, end up living with Jody and they're abusing. Abused.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

And very, very severely abused. So, like, malnourished and tied up and sores and this. And I mean, and Ruby's aware of what was happening with her children. They're both in prison.

[Kale]

Well, that's why I knew that and I know that Sherry, her, Ruby's daughter, just wrote a book, a memoir. The House of My Mother. The House of My mom, something like that. This kind of goes back to what I said about two people willing to or being capable of murdering someone. It's the same sort of thing with Ruby and, or yeah, Ruby and Jody is. How do you have two people willing to abuse a child? Like I just cannot fathom and not.

[Beth Caris]

See it as abuse.

[Kale]

Oh, they just didn't see it as.

[Beth Caris]

They don't, they don't, they don't see what we saw.

[Kale]

I can't wrap my head around, not that I expect it from men, but a mom like a mother like you birthed this child. You know what I mean? That's heartbreaking. Yes, that is absolutely heartbreaking.

[Beth Caris]

So that, that is the fifth episode and the last one is basically a cat cult. A woman who is a self proclaimed prophet and has a following. Small, but she has a following. She started in the Pacific Northwest. She's in the Tennessee area now. Tennessee, maybe Kentucky now. Been moving around. And she has people believing that cats are the vessel to the afterlife and that you have to take care of these cats. And her followers will. They'll adopt like 30 cats from a shelter. And you have to care for the cats cat before you care for yourself or your children or whatever. I mean the cat comes first and you know that's a lot of food at their own expense, you know, so. And it's smelly and it's just like. So that's one part of it, right? Cat cult. But there were also some pretty dark things that were happening because she, she, Cheryl Ruthven is her name, had been a very conventional mother, wife married to a man in the Pacific North, I think Oregon, Washington, Washington. And they had a couple kids and, and, and she then she went to church and she kind of got taken in by this female pastor and then decided she wanted to start her own church. And things just went downhill from there. And you know, she got divorced from the husband and tried to keep him from his kids and wanted him dead. And so there's that whole thing that's a two hour show. The last one, episode six is actually two hours.

[Kale]

Would that be something like a psychotic break or what is that?

[Beth Caris]

No, I mean, I don't know. It's not a psychotic break, I don't think. I'm not a psychiatrist, but not a psychologist. But this is just somebody who is like maybe narcissist who's getting. Gets off on the power of controlling people and having them do her. Her. I mean, these are what cult leaders do.

[Kale]

But they're so bizarre. It's not like it's something that is normal.

[Beth Caris]

True.

[Kale]

It's. It's such a bizarre. It's sort of. What was the. Did you see the. The docu series on. I think her name was Mother of God or something, where. Where she had people believing that aliens were going to come down and get them. And then she had her cult follower. I don't know what the politically correct term is. They essentially assisted her. Like she was drinking. She was drinking silver.

[Beth Caris]

Oh, no, I don't know that one. But there's so many. I mean, I just can't. I don't understand vulnerable people who just want to feel like they belong and are being saved and this is the right way and this is what, what they need to do to get to a better life, even in the, you know, on this earth. And yeah, there are a lot of. A lot of people who get off on the power of controlling others.

[Kale]

I don't understand it. I'm like. I just want. I would like my kids to listen to me, but that's where it goes. That's where it ends. You know what I mean? Like, I just. I'm good with that, you know, do good, be a good person and, you know, work hard. I don't know. So the Curious Case of that season one, Those, those episodes. Episodes. And then are you allowed to say if there's a season two?

[Beth Caris]

I don't know.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

So I. I hope so. I would imagine, but I don't know yet. I haven't heard. We have a lot of. We have a lot of cases, you know, to, to pick from.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

Hoping for it. So I hope there'll be an announcement, but I don't know yet.

[Kale]

So the Curious Case of is an ID series that you can stream on Max. And where can people find you? You said you were working on a website?

[Beth Caris]

Yeah, I mean, I have my website, bethcarras.com or I just, you know, that's sort of a static resume, but there's a contact on there. So a lot of people reach me through my website, bethjerris.com and I, you know, I have some stuff about. About myself on there a little bit. I. I do podcasts as well. I'm in. In production for season two of a podcast called Unrestorable with iHeartRadio and this company in LA called Anonymous Content. And I Work with. And Unrestorable Season one did well. That was a story of a woman in Maryland who killed, allegedly killed her two toddler children, ages 2 and 3. Their bodies were never found. She was arrested. She was the last one with them. And she had never married the father, but they. They were together. They had a third child also, and. But they were divided. They were separating because things were not going well. And maybe that's what she did in retaliation, I don't know. But she was found incompetent to stand trial. Trial and never that. After five years, they had to dismiss the charges. She was charged with murder, double murder, but never found competent to stand trial. And you can only hold someone in Maryland for so long before you have to dismiss the charges. And she was found unrestorable. She could never be restored to competency, hence the name of the series. Unrestorable Season 2 is about the only woman on Tennessee's death row who killed when she was 18. And she's 40, 48. She'll be 49, I think, in March. And she, you know, basically they're saying she's not. She's not restorable. I mean, she's not worthy of living. And Tennessee just. They just approved a new lethal injection protocol because they had a hiatus on. On executions.

[Kale]

Okay.

[Beth Caris]

Because of the lethal injection issues and the drugs and stuff. And so they. They're going to start executing again.

[Kale]

So she is on death row and she is getting executed.

[Beth Caris]

Well, she doesn't have a date, but she's the only woman on Tennessee's death row. I believe there are. And so we're just telling her story, like, and examining what is justice.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

You know, she's not the same person she was when she was 18.

[Kale]

Right.

[Beth Caris]

And killed a person she supposedly perceived to be a love rival and then like, bash your head in and kept a piece of the skull.

[Kale]

I actually think I heard about that case.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. Krista Pike.

[Kale]

Yeah.

[Beth Caris]

You probably know it. It's. The story's been told. But we're, like, looking at it from a justice point. Like, what is justice?

[Kale]

Right. I mean, sort of similar to Menendez brothers. Right? Like, what is justice? Do you think that they've served their time and they are. Are accountable for their actions, or do you think that they, you know, should be free?

[Beth Caris]

Are you asking me?

[Kale]

I mean, I can. How do you.

[Beth Caris]

I mean, I. Based on what I know today, I mean, at the time, at the time, I was a prosecutor when they were first tried, I was like, abuse, excuse. I wasn't buying it. I Buy it today.

[Kale]

Yeah.

[Beth Caris]

I don't know that it justifies, like, the circumstances under which they killed their parents, but they have served 35 years. That's a long. That's a lot of time.

[Kale]

Like, they can't have children now. Now, you know, we don't know.

[Beth Caris]

I mean, I. I think that they probably have. Have served their time.

[Kale]

I would agree with you. I mean, I'm not in the law.

[Beth Caris]

But, you know, I don't know that they'll ever get out, but they were.

[Kale]

I thought they were going to get exonerated.

[Beth Caris]

Well, then the new D. A.

[Kale]

Came in and he said that he didn't have time. Adequate time to prepare for the case. It was the last thing that I read.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. But I think it's been. And it's been postponed, the hearing. Right.

[Kale]

Yeah, because it. As far as I know, they were maybe going to be released in December of 2024, and then the new DA came in around the same time and said he wasn't. Didn't have, you know, enough knowledge or research done on the case, so.

[Beth Caris]

Right. And a judge wanted to hold off and wait for the new D.A. yeah, that's right. See, never a loss for words in conversation when you're talking about crime. Right.

[Kale]

Never. I mean, I feel like every single thing that we've talked about led into something else.

[Beth Caris]

Yeah. Yep. And we probably could do this for two more hours.

[Kale]

Well, if you ever need me for anything, let me know. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to help you out. I mean, I don't know what I could offer you, but, you know, you never know. I loved having you on Barely Famous podcast. I appreciate you.

[Beth Caris]

Well, I loved being here. Really. We're good conversational.

[Kale]

I agree.

[Beth Caris]

Right?

[Kale]

Yes, I agree.

[Beth Caris]

Do it again anytime. Okay.

[Kale]

At Pluto tv, we're celebrating Black History.

[Beth Caris]

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[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

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[Kale]

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[Beth Caris]

Brilliant black entertainment intentionally curated and all free this month and always on Pluto tv. Stream now pay never.

[Kale]

To sing along.

[Unknown]

I'm Kaitlyn Bristowe, host of off the.

[Kale]

Vine podcast, where I get real, maybe a little too real sometimes with my friends and celeb guests from Bachelor franchise and beyond. I'm talking guests like Jonathan Van Ness.

[Beth Caris]

Na na na na na na na.

[Kale]

Na na na na na na na. Nikki Glaser, Wells Adams, Elise Meyers.

[Beth Caris]

Just like in this, like, business jacket. Like, I would love some tacos.

[Kale]

Heidi D'Amelio, Big Brother's Taylor Hale I have to bring it up because it happened and we're going to get through it. What I do and so many more. So come hang out with us. Hear ridiculous confessions and get a little vulnerable. Because you know what? We're all just floating on this weird little planet together. Follow rate and review off the Vine Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts.