FROM THE VAULT - Casey Anthony: Web of Lies - Part 2

Summary

RedHanded: FROM THE VAULT – Casey Anthony: Web of Lies – Part 2

Date: March 5, 2025
Hosts: Hannah and Suruthi
Podcast: RedHanded by Wondery

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Overview

In this highly requested vault episode, Hannah and Suruthi take a deep dive into the infamous case of Casey Anthony, focusing on her web of lies, the media frenzy, forensic evidence, the dramatic trial, and the enduring questions left in the wake of a verdict that shocked the world. Picking up from Part 1, this episode zeroes in on the investigation, the courtroom drama, the defense’s controversial tactics, and the personalities and family dynamics at the heart of the tragedy surrounding Caylee Anthony’s death.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fiction of "Zanny the Nanny"

• Casey’s Fabricated Story: Casey Anthony sustained the story that her daughter Caylee was kidnapped by “Zanny the Nanny,” a supposed permanent caretaker, Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez. (03:40)
  • Memorable Quote:
    Suruthi: "Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez – Zani the nanny – doesn’t exist. Just a reminder in case anyone forgot, she never existed." (03:34)
• Police Investigation: Despite the implausibility, police followed up on her leads, even locating a real Zenaida Gonzalez living nearby, who turned out to have no connection. There were only about 200 women in the US with that name, demonstrating the unlikelihood of the name being random. (05:46-07:02)
  • Hannah: "She [Casey] shot herself in the foot a bit with the name Zenaida." (07:02)

2. Mounting Evidence and Media Frenzy

• Evidence in the Car: Forensic evidence in Casey’s car—odor, hair, body decomposition—led the police and public to suspect she had killed Caylee. (08:27)
• Media Reaction: Public access to records under Florida’s Sunshine Act resulted in enormous media attention, with protestors camped outside the Anthonys’ home and Nancy Grace coining the phrase “top mom” in her coverage. (09:01)
  • Suruthi: “I can’t get into the mind of those people... It’s a vigilante justice thing. Sort of quasi vigilante justice.” (10:03)

3. The Body is Found – Roy Kronk’s Discovery (14:36-16:34)

• Discovery: On Dec 11, 2008, utility worker Roy Kronk found Caylee’s remains less than a quarter mile from the Anthony home, wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket and stuffed into bags.
  • Suruthi describing Florida woods: “...when they’re saying woods, they mean jungle. Like it is so dense, like you literally cannot see more than two feet.” (15:23)

4. Forensic Findings and Theories

• Dr. G’s Autopsy: Dr. Jan Garavaglia (Dr. G) concluded it was a homicide due to the circumstance and, crucially, the duct tape covering Caylee’s lower face—thought to be the murder weapon. There was no trauma on the bones. (16:37-20:41)
• Defense Objections: The defense challenged the duct tape theory, arguing it could have accidentally come into contact with the remains after death. (20:07-20:41)

5. Tying Evidence to the Anthony Home

• The blanket, laundry bag, and duct tape found with Caylee all matched items from the Anthony household, undermining claims of abduction. (21:26)

6. The Trial Begins – Media Event of the Decade

• Jury Logistics: Due to the publicity, a jury was brought from 100 miles away (Pinellas County), not relocated, leading to logistical and psychological complications. (22:20)
• Prosecution Strategy: Photos, videos, and witness testimony documented Casey’s carefree partying during Caylee’s disappearance, including participation in a “hot bod contest.” (25:14)
  • Suruthi on Casey: “It’s like she doesn’t have the embarrassment gene, I don’t think.” (47:26)
• Tattoo as Evidence: Casey got “bella vita” (“beautiful life”) tattooed during the month Caylee was missing. (26:55)

7. Questionable Forensics and Internet Searches (29:10–34:36, 62:52–64:00)

• Hair and Chloroform Evidence: High levels of chloroform were detected in the car, but the defense questioned the methods and relevance, arguing it could be from cleaning products and the toxicology on the bones didn’t confirm presence. (30:08)
  • Hannah: “He [Baez] proves nothing. He’s just there with a stick, just poking, poking.” (39:48)
• Computer Searches: Prosecution’s claim of 84 “chloroform” searches on the home computer was debunked—due to software error, it was just one search. (33:49–34:36)
• Missed Evidence: The most damning searches—“suffocation,” “foolproof suffocation”—were made on Firefox, missed by investigators focusing on Internet Explorer. Baez was aware, but prosecution overlooked it. (62:52–64:00)

8. The Defense’s Tactics – A Web of Counter-Theories

• Alternative Narrative: Baez argued Caylee drowned accidentally in the family pool and that George Anthony (Casey’s father) helped cover it up, introducing accusations of sexual abuse as the explanation for Casey’s lies and behavior. (42:25–49:32)
  • Byers’ quote to explain Casey’s lying (49:08):
    • “We are what we are because of who brought us into this world and how we were raised. Casey was raised to lie. This child at 8 years old, learned to lie immediately. She could be 13 years old, have her father’s penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened.”
• Impact: This shocking, evidence-free accusation was made to plant doubt, then not followed up in cross-examination—knowing that the suggestion alone might influence jurors. (52:13)

9. Holes in the Prosecution

• Circumstantial Case: All evidence was circumstantial; the prosecution could not definitively show how, when, or why Caylee died. (29:10, 61:52)
• Prosecution’s Weak Motive: Argument that Casey murdered Caylee to free herself for partying was not strong enough, particularly as her parents could have taken over her care. (77:28–79:01)

10. The Verdict and Aftermath

• Despite near universal expectation of conviction, the jury acquitted Casey Anthony of all major charges on July 5, 2011. She was only convicted of providing false information and was freed after time served. (60:57–61:16)
  • Suruthi: “Everyone in the whole world was making that noise. People were furious.” (60:57)
• Juror Reactions: Many believed Casey was guilty but felt the evidence was insufficient for conviction. (61:24)

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Additional Notable Moments & Quotes

• Cross-examinations and Bias:
  • Hannah on Baez’s effectiveness: “He paints a much better picture and tells a much better narrative, even for something that makes absolutely no fucking sense, than the prosecution did.” (50:01)
  • Baez’s philosophy: “As the defense, I don’t have to prove anything. I just have to create beyond reasonable doubt.” (58:02)
• Psychological Assessments: Despite bizarre behavior, Casey’s MMPI (personality inventory) returned “normal” results—no personality disorder, no psychopathy. (69:09–70:47)
  • Suruthi: “In a way that’s more terrifying.” (69:57)
• Coincidences:
  • The real homes bordering the place Caylee’s body was found belonged to a Zenaida Elia and a Peter Gonzalez, the supposed namesake combination for “Zenaida Gonzalez.” (64:00)
• “Zanny the Nanny” Theory:
  • Suruthi: “Could it be that Casey would make a little joke about it because she didn’t have a real in-life person nanny, but she did have a pharmaceutical nanny.” (79:40)
  • Hannah: “I do think that that is a very, very likely possibility.” (79:59)

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Theories & Final Reflections

• Hosts’ Theories:
  • Casey likely drugged Caylee (possibly with Xanax/"Zanny"), and either accidentally or intentionally caused her death, later disposing of the body close to home. The immature, irrational, and compartmentalized actions fit Casey’s known character. (73:37–75:31)
  • The motive might have included a desire to break away from her domineering mother, Cindy, rather than just to enable a party lifestyle. (78:21)
  • The “Xanny the nanny” name likely originated from Casey’s use of Xanax as an illicit babysitter. (79:39)
• Legacy: Despite the public’s enduring outrage and scrutiny, Casey Anthony remains legally cleared of the most serious charges and lives out of the public eye, reportedly pursuing a private investigator business. Family relations remain fractured. (70:47–73:37)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• The Zanny the Nanny Allegation: 03:40–08:15
• Discovery of Caylee’s Body: 14:36–16:34
• Dr. G’s Autopsy & Forensic Debate: 16:34–21:26
• The Blockbuster Video Footage & Party Behavior: 25:14–25:46
• Tattoo and Diary Testimony: 26:55–29:10
• Chloroform & Internet Forensics: 30:08–34:36, 62:52–64:00
• Defense’s Shocking Abuse Story: 49:08–49:32
• Baez’s Closing Tactics: 55:40–56:27
• The Verdict & Media/Public Reaction: 60:57–61:24
• The "Zanny" = Xanax theory: 79:39–79:59

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Memorable Quotes

• “She shot herself in the foot a bit with the name Zenaida.” – Hannah (07:02)
• “If you find a skull in the woods, don’t do it. Call the police, go do that instead.” – Hannah on Roy Kronk (40:03)
• “It’s like she doesn’t have the embarrassment gene, I don’t think.” – Suruthi (47:26)
• “We might never know how Cayley died.” – Jose Baez, defense argument (56:10)
• “Everyone in the whole world was making that noise. People were furious.” – Suruthi on the acquittal (60:57)
• “In a way, that’s more terrifying.” – Suruthi on Casey’s ‘normal’ personality test (69:57)
• “She probably called it Zanny the nanny... She’s gone off to Zanny.” – Suruthi and Hannah (79:54–79:59)

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Tone & Style

True to RedHanded’s style, Hannah and Suruthi blend meticulous research, skepticism, sarcasm, and dark humor ("Mega Casey Day", "it hit everyone in court like a ton of pricks") throughout their analysis. Their conversational back-and-forth highlights their disbelief at the defense’s tactics and the seeming emotional flatness of Casey Anthony, as well as exasperation at prosecution missteps and the system's failings.

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Conclusion

This exhaustive coverage of Casey Anthony’s case by RedHanded explores not just the infamous lies, media circus, and forensic controversy but also the underlying failures and uncomfortable truths about justice in the face of doubt, media, and “beyond reasonable.” The hosts leave listeners reflecting on the unsettling reality that some high-profile mysteries remain unresolved despite global scrutiny—a chilling epitaph for Caylee Anthony.

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Transcript

[Hannah]

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[Hannah]

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[Lawless Planet Host]

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[Hannah]

I'm Surruti.

[Surruti]

And I'm Hannah. For the last time in 2021.

[Hannah]

Yes, this is as Hannah has given away.

[Surruti]

Sorry, stalling your thunder there.

[Hannah]

Sorry. The final episode of red handed for 2021. What a year it's been.

[Surruti]

What a year. What a dish. What a dollar. As Megara says in Hercules. We said it all last week.

[Hannah]

We did.

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

We're recording these back to back. It's Mega Casey Day at Red Handed HQ today, sir.

[Surruti]

And I just went to go grab some.

[Hannah]

Spoke to each other for the first time in about two weeks. I was like, oh, hello you. How are things? What's going on with you? Those Very important life things. I'm just like, you just come into the office and I just look up, grunt at each other, and then get back to work. So, no, today has been a double Casey day, which is why we kind of said everything we wanted to say at the top of last week's episode. Yes.

[Surruti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hannah]

Thank you for being here, being loyal, being listeners, being lovely. We love you.

[Surruti]

We most certainly do. And because we love you, we are not going to leave you hanging out. So when we left you last week and where we left Casey was, she was in custody, having been arrested in connection to the disappearance of her daughter, 3 year old Cayleigh. Even after the arrest and by this stage, months of scrutiny and time in jail, Casey was sticking to her nonsensical story of Zanny the nanny having stolen her child. And we've got a police interview for you where Casey gives a detailed history for Zinaida Fernandez Gonzalez, the lady she claims is her permanent private nanny. Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez Zani, the nanny doesn't exist. Just a reminder in case anyone forgot, she never existed.

[Hannah]

So let's have a little listen, shall we, Mia? If we find that out that people don't look at you a wrong way. No, sir. You're telling me that Zenida took your child without your permission and hasn't returned her? The last person that I've seen with my daughter, yes. She Puerto Rican. Is she Dominican? Is she white? She's Mexican. She's black and Puerto Rican. Is there any underlying cause to why Zinaida would have taken your child? Nothing. That she ever make any statements to you about? Only how much she loves Kaylee and how great of a kid she is. And when you talk to Jeffrey afterwards, I'm assuming that Jeffrey's child is still with him. His child is still with him. You said Zenida had family up in New England? Up in New York, yes. She has family down south. Her mother and her sister. Her brother's in New York. She's originally from New York. Pretty much grew up there, moved down here, went to the University of Florida.

[Surruti]

New York is quite famously not in the South.

[Hannah]

Well, she has family down south. Her mother and her sister live there, but her brother's in New York. And she's originally from New York, but she went to Union.

[Surruti]

Just the rate of making it up is great. She doesn't skip a beat.

[Hannah]

No, she's black. She's half black. She's half Puerto Rican. Yeah. What's next? What's next? You want a family history?

[Surruti]

Sure.

[Hannah]

What?

[Surruti]

Here's their Ancestry.com profile, mate.

[Hannah]

God, it is. It's unbelievable. Again, just in case anyone's forgotten, Zinaida doesn't fucking exist. But the police obviously don't know this yet. They don't know that Zinaida doesn't exist. And they have to, whatever they might think, they have to follow up on Casey's story. They have to look for this person, right? And interestingly, they did actually find a Zenaida Gonzalez living about 20 miles south of Orlando in the town of Kissimmee.

[Surruti]

It's Kissimmee. And do you know why I know that?

[Hannah]

Oh, I was listening to an American say it and he said Kissimmee. Anyway, Kissimmee. What did he say? Anyway, whatever that place, sorry, that's where.

[Surruti]

My mum's houses are in Florida. So I have spent seven Christmases.

[Hannah]

How do I say it?

[Surruti]

We've always said Kissimmee and that's what the agencies say.

[Hannah]

Okay? It never comes up again.

[Surruti]

It's. There's fuck all. Honestly. It's like it's closer to Tampa than it is to Orlando. And Tampa is Tampa, full stop. No.

[Hannah]

No concept of what's happening. But yes. So they find a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez living in this town. Again, like I said, 20 miles south of Orlando. So very close, very close. But this woman, she was middle aged, not 25 like Casey had said about her nanny.

[Surruti]

Really good Walmart.

[Hannah]

Oh really?

[Surruti]

I mean I've never been in a Walmart.

[Hannah]

I didn't like, I don't, I don't think I've ever been in a Walmart.

[Surruti]

It's like Costco, but crazy.

[Hannah]

I've been in a Target. I have been in a, I've been.

[Surruti]

In a Target with you. You had a bad time?

[Hannah]

Oh, it's very, it's very much, it's very much too much. This woman Zinaida. When the police went and interviewed her, she denied knowing Casey, Kaylee or anyone connected with the Anthony's at all. And the police quickly released this Zenaida after it became clear to them that she had nothing to do with anything. And maybe you're thinking, well you know, that's only one Zinaida Gonzalez that they found. Maybe they should have kept looking. They only ruled this person out. Well, apparently there were only around 200 women in the whole of the United States at the time with the name Zinaida Gonzalez. That's a nation of 330 million people.

[Surruti]

She shot herself in the foot a bit with the name Zinaida.

[Hannah]

This is the thing is, like, do you go Susan Smith, or do you go Zinada Fernandez Gonzalez? I think given how rare a name it was as a combo name, the fact that the police found anyone with that name living nearby was frankly, unbelievable. You know, again, some people might be like, how did they rule this woman out that easily? She was only 20 miles away. She's got the right name. Well, Casey Anthony couldn't pick her out of a lineup, so she's probably not a fucking nanny, right? I'm gonna guess. And then whenever they confront her with the fact that they can't find anyone by this name, she's like, they're not searching the full name. They're only searching Zinaida Gonzalez. She goes by sometimes Zinaida Fernandez, sometimes Zinaida Gonzalez, sometimes all three names. And they're just not looking for her properly is Casey's argument all the time. You couldn't make it up. So, yeah, like I said, the fact that they found anyone by this name at all nearby was frankly unbelievable, given those statistics. And now I know that we've already revealed to you the fact several times that there is no Zanny the Nanny, but if you think that is the end of the intrigue surrounding the name Zinaida Fernandez Gonzalez, then you would be incorrect. But we're going to put a pin in it for now and come back to it later on this episode, because it's even weirder than you think.

[Surruti]

What we need to focus on now is that the police, by this stage, were completely convinced that Casey not only had something to do with the disappearance of her daughter, they were convinced that Casey Anthony had killed her daughter Cayleigh.

[Hannah]

Yeah, they've got the banding in the hair. They've got the smell. They're convinced that Cayleigh is dead and that if she's dead, that Casey's the one that did it.

[Surruti]

And the people of Florida felt pretty much the same way every single night. Nancy Grace was hitting the screens across the state screaming, top mom.

[Hannah]

Yep. This was her, like, catchphrase. This was her nickname for Casey Anthony. I don't get it.

[Surruti]

I don't know.

[Hannah]

Every mom is a top mom.

[Surruti]

Yeah. Don't know. Maybe it stands for something.

[Hannah]

Maybe, I don't know.

[Surruti]

Too old to mom. I don't know. Sorry, Nancy Grace, you've lost me. You lost me a long time ago.

[Hannah]

To be honest, she's out in full force on the Casey Anthony case. Oh, I imagine we'll come back to her later. But, yeah, it's a lot It's a lot.

[Surruti]

And since public record laws in Florida are very, very open under the Sunshine act, it means that the public and the media are given access to all 911 calls, all interviews, all videos from prison visits that pertain to even the tiniest corner of Casey Anthony's case. And obviously, when people saw these, they freaked out. And protesters actually began turning up outside the Anthony home every day. If you are even cursorily aware of this case, you will have seen the videos of this. They're very easy to find. It's very full of very weird scenes of people going and banging on the Anthony's family home, screaming at them, physically fighting with Lovely George. It's madness.

[Hannah]

It really is. There's no other word for it. I'm just like, whatever your opinion is of what's happened, even if you think that the Anthonys, like as in George and Cindy are involved, why you would take it upon yourself to turn up at their house and scream at them? I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It's super common. I can't get into the mind of those people.

[Surruti]

No. But it's a vigilante justice thing. Sort of quasi vigilante justice. Like, what am I doing? How do I make this about me?

[Hannah]

Yeah, 100%.

[Surruti]

If I'm the one that knocks Lovely George out, then I've helped.

[Hannah]

Yep, definitely. Definitely. It's fucking terrifying. So in the meantime, while all this is going down, the police, believing that they had enough evidence from what they had found in the car, given the hair and the stain, etcetera, and believing that they had sufficient probable cause, charged Casey Anthony with murder in October 2008, two months after her initial arrest. By this stage, Casey had engaged the services of a then little known defence attorney named Jose Baez. Jose Baez is going to become another key addition to our cast of crazy characters.

[Surruti]

A major player.

[Hannah]

A major player in this. So Baez, how can I describe him? He's like a smarmy bulldog. He's good at what he does.

[Surruti]

Right.

[Hannah]

And if I ever get charged with murder, I would like you to call Jose Baez.

[Surruti]

Okay. Done.

[Hannah]

Right. I hate him, but he's very good at history.

[Surruti]

Okay.

[Hannah]

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[Surruti]

And enter my favourite name of 2021. On 11 December 2008, a city maintenance worker named Roy Cronk. Wrong lever. Cronk pulled not a lever, but he pulled over onto the side of the road and headed into the woods to relieve himself. Naughty Kronk. And that was when he spotted scattered bones lying in the undergrowth. Police could hardly believe it. The location was less than a quarter of a mile from the Anthony's home. I am more familiar with this particular area of Florida than I would like to admit. I have spent a lot of time there. And when they're saying woods, they mean jungle. Like it is so dense, like you literally cannot see more than two feet. Like it's the trees start and they.

[Hannah]

Don'T stop, they flip flop. Between the terms woods and swamp.

[Surruti]

Yeah, I can see it in my mind's eye. It's not somewhere you want to be. You just do not go in there, especially if you are me. So this wood, swamp, jungle, forest was literally down the road and basically the first spot if you left the Anthony's place, where there were no houses. This discovery spot also becomes very interesting later on. But just like with Zenaido Gonzalez's name, we're going to leave it on the pin cushion. When forensics teams arrived, alerted by Roy Kronk, they were led by the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Jan Garavaglia, or as she's known on her hit TV show, Dr. G. The remains were totally skeletonised and spread over an area of a few feet in the swampy jungle forest trees. It appeared to Dr. G that at one point the body had been inside two plastic bin bags and a large canvas bag. The remains had clearly been disturbed by animals and the body also seemed to have been at one stage wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh baby blanket that was also found at the scene.

[Hannah]

That bit just makes me so fucking sad.

[Surruti]

Yeah, it's not, it's not great.

[Hannah]

It's just so sad. So a week after the discovery of the body, Dr. G confirmed in a press conference that the remains were indeed those of Caylee Anthony. She also stated that the means of death, in her opinion, her professional opinion, she was ruling it a homicide. Dr. G admits in interviews that given the state of the remains, because, remember, it's just bone. It's just dry bone. It's six months after Cayleigh went missing. We know no one saw her after she went missing. I think it's safe to say she died as soon as she went missing. So she's been dead for six months because of the state of the remains. There wasn't much that Dr. G could do in terms of toxicology tests or identifying some sort of real cause of death. The bones showed no physical trauma and there was no soft tissue left to examine. She stated that she had ruled it a homicide, given the other surrounding circumstantial evidence, which a lot of people like criticise, but that is literally the job of the medical officer. But the chief medical officer's job, or the coroner here, is to look at the other circumstances, the way in which the body is discovered, where the body is discovered, all of these things, and to come to a conclusion that they think is the most reasonable conclusion. It's not her job to be like, well, I don't know. I've just got a bunch of bones. What are you looking at me for? So she doesn't, like, overstep the mark. She rules a homicide based on what she sees. And she says that the key pieces of evidence for the homicide theory were how well hidden the body seemed, and crucially, the discovery of three pieces of duct tape stock to Cayley's skull. The duct tape was found attached to her mandible or lower jaw, and Dr. G theorised that the duct tape was the murder weapon and that the cause of death had most likely been suffocation. According to Dr. G, the duct tape must have been on Cayley's face when she died because the mandible was still attached to the rest of the skull. Normally, when decomposition starts, the lower jaw falls off pretty quickly because it's not attached by bone.

[Surruti]

Oh, I don't like thinking about that.

[Hannah]

Yeah, but it makes sense, doesn't it? If the mandible's still there, it wasn't put on afterwards. Or it didn't just end up stuck there afterwards. It must have been there before the decomposition process started.

[Surruti]

So what is holding it there?

[Hannah]

Like ligaments? Yeah, like ligaments. Ligaments and muscle.

[Surruti]

I saw a really horrible tweet the other day that's Going to make you feel really uncomfortable, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

[Hannah]

Excellent. I'm so glad I just ate.

[Surruti]

It was like one of those threads of, like, what makes you feel the most uncomfortable. And one person tweeted that your bones are wet all the time. They're wet all the time.

[Hannah]

Stop it.

[Surruti]

You're welcome.

[Hannah]

I'm leaving.

[Surruti]

Dr. G was also surprised to find that all of Cayley's teeth were still in place. Typically with the remains of children that young, the baby teeth, since they don't have roots, fall out by that stage of decomposition. The duct tape having been wrapped around Cayley's face at the time of death or very shortly after her death. So pre decomposition would have been the only way to explain the mandible and the baby teeth still being in place. It seemed like there could be no explanation for why someone would tape up the face of a child that was already dead. So it makes sense to theorise that the tape was therefore used to kill, not as anything to do with body disposal or something after the fact.

[Hannah]

This is the thing. Basically, people will argue that the tape was just found at the scene of the crime and it got stuck to the skull because the skull gets tossed about by animals.

[Surruti]

Oh, yeah, there's fuckloads of animals in those words.

[Hannah]

Yeah. So some people will say, well, how do you know that the tape just wasn't in the woods? And when a fox or whatever.

[Surruti]

I don't know. You wish. You wish it was foxes, my friend.

[Hannah]

Whatever. A fucking alligator came and, like, tossed this skull about. How do you know that the skull didn't fall on the duct tape and that's when it got stuck to it?

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And Dr. G's point is, it must have been their pre decomposition. So at the point or shortly after death for the mandible and the teeth to still be in place.

[Surruti]

Right.

[Hannah]

So that is her evidence for why she is saying. Or that's her reasoning for why she is saying that the duct tape was the murder weapon because it's over the mouth and the nose.

[Surruti]

Dr. G also pointed the finger at Casey Anthony being the killer. And she did that by strongly suggesting that a stranger murder seemed highly unlikely. For example, the Winnie the Pooh blanket that was found at the body discovery site matched the theme of Cayley's bedroom. The canvas laundry bag, the one found at the scene, which it was assumed that Cayley was kept in, was sold in pairs from a local store, and the other half of that pair was found in the Anthony house. The duct tape also matched the type found at the Anthony residence. So they're not trying particularly hard.

[Hannah]

And this is the thing. If you're saying she was kidnapped by somebody else somewhere outside of my house, again, it's just, it's none of, I know none of this is like smoking gun, but it's pointing more and more at the fact that this happened inside the Anthony household.

[Surruti]

So following these findings, Casey was charged with first degree murder and she spent the next two years in county jail awaiting trial.

[Hannah]

And it was the trial that everyone was waiting for. It would be the trial of the century. As the papers reported. People were queuing up around the fucking block, like all night, like camping out to get tickets to get inside. I don't know. Tickets? Is that the right word? To get in? Tickets? Just some guy, like, selling tickets on the side, like touting these fake tickets like, it's crazy. It's crazy, like watching the people queue up. And Also, fun fact, 40 million people watched it on TV.

[Surruti]

Wow.

[Hannah]

The population of the UK is like 66 million. That is crazy. Three quarters of the population of the UK watched the Casey Anthony trial. And as you would expect with such a high stakes case, the difficulties started straight away. The defence argued that there was no way that Casey could get a fair trial in Orlando. Everyone in the area had already decided her guilt. It was far too emotional and there was no way that a jury picked from there would be impartial. So the judge decided. And I've never seen this before, maybe it's more common, but I don't know, the way that it's kind of spoken about makes it seem like it's kind of a weird move. Instead of moving the trial somewhere else, the judge decided to bring a jury in from out of town from, I think it's Pinellas County. Let's go with that. From Pinellas County, Florida, to be exact, which is over 100 miles away from Orlando. So again, I think it's worth mentioning because 100 miles is not an insignificant distance. I don't know that people 100 miles away haven't heard about this case or watched everything just in the same way people in Orlando have. But also what you're then saying is these people can't even go home that night after jury duty. No, no, they're now living there. As long as this first degree murder trial takes.

[Surruti]

Yeah. So all they have to do is turn on the tv.

[Hannah]

And also what I'm saying is, like, that's another level of stress that you're adding to an imported Jury. Yes.

[Surruti]

True. Yeah.

[Hannah]

And this is actually really funny. In some of the documentaries, there were, for all the people that wanted to get into the trial, there were some jurors that were like, I'm not fucking doing this because I don't want to be involved in, so I don't want to go live 100 miles away from my house. So there's this one guy that gets interviewed and he's like, I didn't want to do it. So I just started talking about it. And then they were like, you're getting fined in contempt of court and you're chucked off the jury. And he paid, I think it was like $4,000 he paid in fine. And they actually said to him, did you do this on purpose because you didn't want to do it? And he was like, yeah. And then he went home.

[Surruti]

I wouldn't want to do it.

[Hannah]

No. Even with this jury situation as we've outlined it, the fact that these jurors are being imported in, they're probably very unhappy about this, given the fact that most people know about this case. The prosecution, I think, still thought that this case was going to be a slam dunk, but they had no idea what they were up against with the dream team that was Jose Baez and Casey Anthony.

[Surruti]

In court, Casey, this is the oldest trick in the fucking book. Turned up, dressed very conservatively, hair up, no makeup, looking very plain. This image was clearly to contrast what she knew would be coming first right out the gates from the prosecution. The jury were shown a string of photos and videos from the time that Cayley was missing. They were all of Casey Anthony out at bars and clubs and seemingly having the time of her life. These images, which you can find very easily, Casey is wearing very little. She's grinding about and looking pretty smashed. And apparently during the month when she thought that Kayleigh had been abducted by her nanny, Casey even took part in a hot bod contest, probably a that's.

[Hannah]

So Dope Fridays or whatever the fuck it was called.

[Surruti]

Tony Lazzaro, her now ex boyfriend and club promoter behind the nights out that Casey was pictured at, testified that Casey had seemed absolutely fine during the month. She never cried, she never said that Cayley was missing. She'd never been unhappy. The prosecution also played the court CCTV that showed at 7:45pm on the day that she claimed Caylee had vanished, Casey was with Tony in a blockbuster, casually just choosing films.

[Hannah]

And that's the night that she says she tried to go pick Caylee up. And there Was no one at the house.

[Surruti]

Blockbuster does it again. I'm so sad it's such a societal loss.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I. I can't tell you why, Tony, and I won't tell you why until I'm eventually arrested for this fact. But I really feel like what I need to do is go to a blockbusters with you just to take my mind off some things that I can't talk about. It's fucking ridiculous. So you can understand with shit like this and how much Casey lied, that the prosecution think it's a open and shut case. But I really do get frustrated with them because I feel like as good as Jose Baez is, I feel like the prosecution really dropped the ball. During this fateful month when Cayley was missing, Casey also decided to get herself a tattoo on her shoulder that read bella vitta, just in case your Italian isn't totally brushed up. Bella vita translates to beautiful life. She's such a fucking twat. So the prosecution actually managed to track down the tattoo artist who gave her this beautiful artwork. And this tattoo artist testified in court that while Casey was getting the tattoo, remember, during the month that her child is missing, apparently all she talked about during that tattoo session was her boyfriend Tony.

[Surruti]

Yikes.

[Hannah]

It's like. And I feel like this is quite obvious when you listen to Casey speaking, It's like a 16 year old. It's like she's not tattoo. She's very arrested in her development. Very, very immature. And prosecution also found an old friend of Casey's, a woman named Keo Marie Cruz, who told the court that apparently Casey had never wanted Cayleigh. She said that she'd wanted to give the baby up for adoption, but the Cindy had forbidden it and made Casey keep the baby. And the prosecution also had a diary entry from Casey's journal. This diary entry was dated 21 June, which would have been just five days after Cayley was last seen and probably five days after Cayleigh was last alive. The diary entry read, quote, I have no regrets, just a little worried. I just want for everything to work out okay. I completely trust my own judgment, and I know that I made the right decision. I just hope that the ends justify the means. This is the happiest I've been for a very long time. I just hope my happiness continues to grow. Pretty suspect, right?

[Surruti]

Yep.

[Hannah]

Problem is, the year wasn't noted, so that could have been the 21st of June, any year. And she could be talking about literally anything. And Jose Baez obviously used that piece of information to tear through this evidence like a piece of wet toilet paper. My frustration again with the prosecution here is you didn't just find scraps of paper, it was in a diary. Could you not tell from other things she's talking about? And they're probably like, fucking Tony. What year it was from.

[Surruti]

Yes, that's extremely true. I think that's one of those things you can't take without the context.

[Hannah]

Yeah. So I feel like they're probably right that this wasn't 2008, because otherwise it would have been. We know if there's one thing that Casey Anthony talks about, it's Tony. And if it's no mention of Tony in this diary or on the pages next to this entry, then it's not 2008. So don't fucking bring it up in court because you're going to get torn apart and also look really bad.

[Expert/Guest]

Yeah.

[Surruti]

And she's only 22. Like, how many diaries can there really be? I went to school today and drew a picture of a horse. Okay. It's not that one. Do you know what I mean?

[Hannah]

Like, again, this is my frustration at the prosecution. I'm like, leave it. Leave it out if you can't back it up because Jose Baez is going to tell you apart and it's going to make the jury be like, oh.

[Surruti]

So, yeah, all of the evidence is pretty circumstantial, but circumstantial evidence is evidence. But unfortunately for a first degree murder charge, the prosecution needed a little bit more than that. Which brings us very neatly onto the forensic evidence. The prosecution's case was this. Cayley had died some sort of asphyxial type death, probably involving drugs. So they're saying that Casey had administered the drugs and then once Cayley was passed out, Casey had taped her daughter's mouth and nose shut with three pieces of duct tape. And then Cayley had died. And the drug that the prosecution settled on was chloroform. And this was because when expert in human decomposition, Dr. Arpad Vas tested the gases from the carpet in the boot of the car, he found very high levels of chloroform. He actually said, and this is a quote, it was shockingly high, the highest levels I've ever seen in my 20 year career.

[Hannah]

But the defence hit back at the chloroform and said the chloroform is also present in many cleaning products and that it could simply have been there because of that. Also, the way in which Dr. Arpad Vas does his analysis hadn't been really used in court before. So it was very easy for Jose Baez to be like, where's the evidence for this? Like, where's the precedent for this? Like, we haven't seen this before. His favorite thing Baez to do is to undermine the scientific capabilities of every expert put in front of him. He also goes after Arpad Vass, who is not like, some random guy they pulled off the street. He worked at, like, that body farm and stuff. Like, he's the real deal, but he's just like, what's your actual field of expertise? And Dr. Arpad Vaz was actually an anthropologist, but he had taught himself chemistry and come up with these experiments himself on how to do this. So Jose Baez just tears him apart. I'm not saying it's not true, but again, the prosecution kind of leave themselves open to this. And also, the other thing was the toxicology on Cayley's bones also showed no signs of chloroform, which the prosecution obviously made a big deal about. However, chloroform in the body disappears after just a day or two. And so finding chloroform in soft tissue after a few days would have been hard enough, let alone finding it in dry bones after six months. But the problem is this point was never made clear to the jury. Baez just says it. And then it really frustrates me because in all the documentaries, they're like, we never got a chance to rebut that. And I'm like, how do you. What do you mean you never got a chance to rebut that? I don't understand.

[Surruti]

I don't think I know enough about how the American justice system works to, like, make that call. But can't they cross examine, like, surely.

[Hannah]

I don't know. But this. This is the thing you need to know, is that Baez makes these claims that. Yeah, all right, you found chloroform. Chloroform's in cleaning products. You already said that somebody had tried to clean out the boo. And you didn't find any in her bones. Can't find it in the bones. But nobody hears that bit. The jury don't hear that bit. And I don't know, perhaps the state thought that their other finding would be proof enough of their chloroform theory, because Google searches had been found on the Anthony's household computer on chloroform, and apparently someone had searched for chloroform online a whopping 84 times on that computer.

[Surruti]

And not just chloroform how to make it.

[Hannah]

This is the thing some places says how to make it. Some places it says chloroform. It's something like that. But the word chloroform is searched for and they're also saying it was done 84 times.

[Surruti]

But once again, Cindy Anthony, enabling mom of the year, swings in to save the day. Cindy took the stand and stated that she had been the one to search for chloroform. Apparently, the Anthony's dog had been eating some bamboo leaves in the back garden and getting a little bit sick. So Cindy had googled chlorophyll and Google had showed her suggestions that included chloroform. And out of pure curiosity, the nurse clicked on it. Cindy was adamant, though. She'd only searched for chloroform the once.

[Hannah]

In an aha moment, the prosecution questioned Cindy on how she could have been the one at home googling chloroform when her logins and timecards at work showed that she had been there at the time and not at home. Cindy said she didn't know, but it was definitely her at home.

[Surruti]

You can't answer that one officer just. But it was definitely. Just so you know, the important thing is it was definitely me.

[Hannah]

It was definitely me, even though literally.

[Surruti]

All of the hard evidence points to the contrary. I can promise you, yeah, me, the trustworthy Cindy Anthony can say that I definitely was at home and not at work.

[Hannah]

Precisely. But then it was the defence's turn for an aha moment because apparently the software that the prosecution had used to check the number of times that chloroform had been searched had had a glitch. And instead of 84 times, as the state had said, chloroform had actually only been searched for once from the Anthony computer. And some people say, oh, look, that's consistent with what Cindy said, because Cindy stuck to her guns on the stand. She said, I only did it once. I did not search 84 times. I was searching for chlorophyll, saw chloroform, clicked on it one time and people make a big deal about that. But I'm not saying it wasn't Cindy, but obviously, obviously Jose Baez had the information that there was a glitch with the software and it had only been searched for once.

[Surruti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hannah]

And obviously he would have told Cindy, you go up there, you tell them it was you and say it was only searched for once. And then I'll come out and say, and we know it was only searched for once. She goes out there and said, yeah, I searched for chloroform 84 times by accident. Then he can't use this evidence about the glitch. He obviously would have fucking told her. In any case, all of this really, really hurt the prosecution.

[Surruti]

Byers also just dismissed the hairs that had been found in the boot, saying that the kind of DNA the state had, so mitochondrial, only couldn't even definitively prove whose hair it was. And then he just sort of shrugged off the banding that we discussed in last week's episode. This again undermined the state's way of showing that Cayley's dead body had been in the back of Casey's park car. At one point, Byers really, really goes after Dr. G, even going so far as to claim that her methods were unscientific. Said the lawyer to the scientific doctor. In court footage, the judge even looks a bit confused, but everyone just sort of lets it happen.

[Hannah]

This is the thing when he's saying making these accusations at Dr. G and at Dr. Arpad Vass, you can see the judge in the background, like, being like, what? Like he looks like State. Are you gonna, you know, do something about, like. It's just shocking. It's shocking. It's all a lighthearted nightmare. On our podcast, Morbid, we're your hosts. I'm Elena Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

[Surruti]

The stories we cover are well researched.

[Hannah]

Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group with a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists. Throughout the years, there's been like eight of them.

[Surruti]

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished.

[Hannah]

A bit with a little bit of cursing. That motherf er is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a crazy, creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or.

[Surruti]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hannah]

You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Mr. Ballin]

You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries should be your new go to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

[Hannah]

And then the defense. Jose Baez brings out the big guns. He brings out Dr. Werner Spitz. And that name probably sounds familiar to many of you true crime fans out there because Dr. Spitz was and is a highly recognisable and respected medical examiner. Having been involved in cases like the O.J. simpson trial and the JFK assassination doesn't.

[Surruti]

Get much bigger than that.

[Hannah]

Not really. And it doesn't get much bigger than Dr. Werner Spitz in this world.

[Surruti]

No. Unless it's Nuremberg. There isn't any bigger criminal arena he could be in.

[Hannah]

No. And Spitz actually did a second autopsy on Cayley's remains and he refuted Dr. G's duct tape theory, which was, after all, the main element that the prosecution could point to to say that the death was a homicide. Without the duct tape, there's no way of proving it was murder. Obviously, apart from the fact that the body was fucking hidden inside three bags in the fucking swamp woods. Spitz pointed out that his reasoning for saying that the duct tape wasn't valid evidence was that there was no DNA on the duct tape to prove that it had ever been over Cayley's mouth. Remember, Dr. G was saying that it had been over Cayley's mouth because of the mandible and the lower teeth still being there. He said, like many other people, that it could have just been in the swamp and got stuck to the skull when it had been tossed about by animals. The prosecution hit back that the tape had been in 90 degree heat. That's Fahrenheit in Celsius. That's 32 degrees.

[Surruti]

It's a hot humid as shit.

[Hannah]

Oh yeah, it's in a fucking swamp. And like the body had been submerged underwater for various points because, like, the water level had dropped and risen in that area so many times during the six months it had laid there. So, yeah, they say, obviously there'll be no DNA left to find. It was out exposed for so long. But remember, and this is the key thing that Baez just loves to fucking say, the defense don't have to prove anything. They just have to poke enough holes in the prosecution story to introduce beyond reasonable doubt. And that's what he does very well. He proves nothing. He's just there with a stick, just poken poking.

[Surruti]

And speaking of sticks, players also brought up the main man, my favourite, who had found Ceilie's remains, the glamorous Roy Cronk. Roy, when he had found the remains, had made a huge mistake.

[Hannah]

Yeah, learn from Roy, don't be Roy. What we're about to tell you next, if you are in this situation, don't do it, don't do this.

[Surruti]

Because Kronkers had picked up a stick and put it in the skull's eye hole and lifted it up. So that means he's contaminated the crime scene. And Byers made the case that because of this, all of the forensic evidence that the prosecution had presented was completely out the window, which I think when you consider how long the body has been exposed, I really don't think you can put that on Cronk shoulders, his broad shoulders.

[Hannah]

But he does testify in court and he says, I knew it was a skull. He knew it was a skull. He wasn't like, it's a rock and let me poke it. He was like, I knew it was a skull and I shouldn't have picked it up. My bad. Cronk, like, don't do that. If you find a fucking skull in the woods, don't do it. Call the police, go do that instead. Because this case could be made, you could be made to say you contaminated, you did whatever. I'm not saying it's fair or right. And this didn't actually happen. The forensic evidence wasn't thrown out, but Byers again was able to just poke another little hole and say, how secure is what we're even looking at that duct tape? Maybe it was stuck to fucking Roy Kronk's boot and he stomped in there and got it stuck to the face. You just don't know.

[Surruti]

So let's leave the forensics in Cronk's completely incapable hands and move on to the easily provable lies that Casey had told police throughout the process. And these were, of course, the front and center of the prosecution's case against her. And so much of it was so incredibly damning. And even though Baez brought in dozens of Casey's friends who all said that Casey was a great mum, they all had to admit that Casey had seemed fine during the month that Cayleigh was missing and she hadn't told a single one of them that she had been taken.

[Hannah]

So Jose Baez had to find a way to explain all of the lies and odd behaviour that had come from his client. Like, why did she not tell anyone as soon as Caylee disappeared? Why did she lie about everything from working at Universal Studios to all of the made up people? Why did she not call the police for 31 days after Cayley supposedly vanished? And to counter the sheer weirdness of it all, Byers was going to have to go hard and create an equally shocking reason to counter Casey's actions. And yeah, fucking hell, did he drop an atomic bomb on proceedings?

[Surruti]

Here's what he does. Byers told the court that Cayley had never even been missing, but that she had in Fact died on 16 June 2008 in the family home. According to this new statement, the three year old Cayley had got into the garden and someone had left the stairs down to the above ground pool. Caylee, who loved to swim, got into the pool and tragically she drowned. Apparently when Casey had woken up, she found Cayley missing and she and George searched everywhere. Eventually, it had been George who found Cayley's lifeless body in the water. George screamed at Casey that she was going to go to jail for the rest of her life and that Cindy would never forgive her. Byers continued that Casey begged her father for help and finally he agreed to help her and hide the body for Cindy's sake. So George took Cayley's body, wrapped it up and told Casey he'd handle it. Then apparently former police officer George Anthony took his beloved granddaughter's body and dumped it in the woods a quarter of a mile from his own front door. Wrapped up in very recognisable things from his own house. Yep. George, leave George out of it.

[Hannah]

Oh, it gets Sam.

[Surruti]

I know, I know, I know, I've read it.

[Hannah]

So the pool theory was Byers way to explain what had happened to Cayley since the Zanny the nanny stuff was so obviously a non starter and they had found Cayley's body a quarter of a mile from the house. He had to find some way to explain what had happened to Cayleigh. And since no physical evidence was present to explain a real cause of death, because remember, there's no soft tissue, no trauma to the bones. Drowning could have been plausible. Baez, however, when he offers up this theory in court, offers not one shred of evidence for the drowning story. In fact, he finds a weird way. And I haven't put this in the notes because it felt I was fucking, my brain was melting. But I'll tell you about it. It's talked about quite at length in one of the documentaries. He finds a way to blame Dr. G for the fact that he has no evidence for the fact that Caylee Anthony drowned.

[Surruti]

Is this like a Piers Morgan, Meghan Markle situation where maybe Dr. G just once didn't text Byers back and now his entire career is based around bringing her down and just talking smack?

[Hannah]

Oh, mate, Baez is. Like I said, he wasn't really well known when this case happened, but he got to be Casey Anthony's defense lawyer. If I can get her off, I'm it. I am it forever. I will hire him. This was his case to make his career. The way he blamed Dr. G for the fact that he didn't have any evidence of the drowning was he said that a way that you could tell about drowning is checking for diatoms in the body of a victim. Diatoms are like single cell algae that live in water, but they also live, like, elsewhere, just like in fucking mud and shit. And he said that if you had tested her body for diatoms, we could have told whether she had drowned. This is absolutely fucking nonsensical. You test for diatoms in the liver or in the bone marrow. They just got bone. They just got dry bone. And also diatoms can come from anywhere, like I said. And also for you to test for diatoms, you would also need a sample of the water to test against that.

[Surruti]

Right?

[Hannah]

By this point, it's been two and a half years because the trial takes place two years later. But it'd been six months since, after Cayley had died, when her bones were found. So where are you getting the sample of pool water that's not been refreshed for almost three years? And even if they had found the diatoms, even if you'd found liver and tested it and tested it against a sample and found a match. We already know she fucking swam in that pool. Anyway, she could have swallowed it and that's how it could have got into her body. Again, I feel like the jury are not told this part. They're just told, well, we could have had it, but we don't because you didn't test for diatoms. She drowned. I rest my case. It's remarkable.

[Surruti]

Wow.

[Hannah]

So, yeah, he offers no shred of evidence for this drowning story, but obviously this plotline hit everyone in court like a ton of pricks. It was completely unbelievable. And I honestly think that it was all the more shocking because Baez was the one saying it all. And in the court footage, of which there are hours and hours and hours and hours on YouTube that you can watch, Casey just sits there staring silently. She does this thing where her eyes are constantly darting. It's like she's like between this person, this person. She's like, watching buyers and she's like, how are they taking it? How is this coming across? She's a mega blank face as well. She has the blankest expression in court the entire time.

[Surruti]

Ah, blank face. Son of blank face.

[Hannah]

Absolutely, completely blank face. Rarely shows any emotion in court. Again, I know that's not particularly indicative of something, but you have to look at this case, like, with everything together. The worst part, there's so many bad parts. One of the worst parts is when Jeff Hopkins, everybody remember him from last week's episode, he comes to court and he's like, I don't know her. We didn't even work together. Yeah. And I certainly don't know who Zinaida Gonzalez is. I don't have a nanny. I don't even have any children. And Casey Anthony's just sat there with a blank face. I would have died of embarrassment. Oh, my God. She just sits there.

[Surruti]

She's like, she doesn't have the embarrassment gene, I don't think.

[Hannah]

Zero.

[Surruti]

So the state took hold of this drowning story and pushed back on it. Dr. G took the stand and said that in her 20 years of experience with dealing in accidental deaths, parents and families just don't act like the Anthonys. She said, quote, no matter how stiff the body, they always call 911 when it's an accident, because there is still in their minds, a chance. Of the 120 cases I've seen in the last few years, even when a mum's on crack cocaine, she calls 911.

[Hannah]

And that makes sense if it's an accident. I feel like you would think I just. There is a way. There is a way.

[Surruti]

But if the jury was surprised by this new revelation from the defence, it was about to get even more crazy, because buyers now needed to explain away all of Casey's lies. And this was the reason he came.

[Expert/Guest]

Up with, we are what we are because of who Brought us into this world and how we were raised. Casey was raised to lie. This child, at 8 years old, learned to lie immediately. She could be 13 years old, have her father's penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened. Nothing's wrong. That will help you understand why no one knew that her child was dead. That's the most important thing you must keep in the back of your mind, is that sex abuse does things to us. It changes view. Some people are fortunate to. Some people are fortunate to live with it. Others are not. And in this sad tragedy, it had to happen to Casey.

[Surruti]

So, yeah, Jesus Christ doesn't quite cover it.

[Hannah]

Yeah. It's so graphic.

[Surruti]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's beyond graphic. And it's even worse because it's George. And Baez is not a man of half measures. He goes the full hog. It's like he picks a story that is so out there, it's too crazy not to be true. And Baez, the smarmy git that he is, unfortunately, is just one step ahead. He is just better than the prosecution. Yeah.

[Hannah]

I mean, if you break down the way in which Baez tackles this case, it's really smart. He picks apart every single thing. How do I explain the fact that she didn't tell anybody? Okay. It's because she drowned in the pool and it was like a family secret. They covered it up. And how do I explain the lying? Because of the sexual abuse, she's scared of her dad. Like, it all ties together. He paints a much better picture and tells a much better narrative, even for something that makes absolutely no fucking sense than the prosecution did. And that's the way in which, again, I don't want to be like, oh, yeah, go buyers. But I'm like, he did it very well.

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

So the entire time, Byers is talking about the abuse incredibly graphically. Like we said, Casey has sat there crying, and George. Oh, my God, please. I'll leave links again. You go watch the court footage. George is sat in the courtroom with absolutely no expression on his face at all. Now he's blank face. Blank face.

[Surruti]

George.

[Hannah]

And apparently Byers had told George and Cindy just that morning that he was going to throw George under the bus in court. Apparently, Bias told him, according to George, you're going to have to fall on your sword for this. But George didn't play along. Or if it was true, if the sexual abuse was true. I don't personally think it is because there is, once again, no evidence whatsoever. Or any history of this or any accusations. And Cindy and George to this day are still together. And in interviews, they sit there holding hands. And I'm not saying mums don't enable abuse of fathers or anything like that, but it's just none of it makes any sense. So, yeah, George doesn't play along with it, or if it's true, he doesn't admit it. When he took the stand for the prosecution, he was asked, have you ever sexually molested your daughter, Casey Anthony? And again, he's asked this by the prosecution. He replies, no, sir, I'd never do anything like that. When he was asked, were you present in the home when Caylee Anthony died? He replied, no. And when I heard that today, it hurt really bad. The whole time, Casey just sits there as her dad is humiliated and mauled in court. It's unbelievable. And I know that's the prosecution, they're not trying to maul him, but it's emotionally mauling. And like I said, I don't believe the abuse story for a second. Byers and Casey would have and did say anything they had to.

[Surruti]

When the defence questioned George, everyone was expecting them to hit him with the abuse claims and tear apart his denial. But Byers didn't even bring it up. Why? Because he had no evidence whatsoever. He just brought it up once to plant the idea in the jurors minds and then he never mentions it again because he knows a seed is enough.

[Hannah]

He knows not to keep digging because then it's going to get pulled apart. And if people keep seeing George deny it, they might believe him. So don't bring it up again. Just leave it.

[Surruti]

So when Byers had his turn with George at the stand, he took another, arguably even more malicious route. He brought up George's suicide attempt. From January 2009. After Cayley's body had been discovered, George found himself unable to cope. And one day he drove to a hotel in Daytona beach, took 70 pills and drank as much beer as he physically could. He even left a note to his family that read, I miss Cayley. I want to be with her. I love you, Cindy, but Cayley, here I come. George was found and he was resuscitated. And he says in interviews that he just couldn't go on because when they found Cayley, she'd been so close to home the entire time that he did blame himself. Every jail visit, Cindy tells Casey, your dad's been out all night looking for Cayley. He didn't know where she was.

[Hannah]

Yeah, because in all those jail visits, we hear Cindy and George coming in looking exhausted. And Cindy always says to Casey, your dad's been out all night, all day looking for him. And that's why George can't live with himself because Cayleigh was found so close to home and he was looking everywhere. Just don't believe for a second he knew she was there.

[Surruti]

No. Oh, my God, no.

[Hannah]

No. So when Baez brings up the incident of George's attempted suicide, he listens to George say that it was because he was sad. But Baez says to the jury, wasn't because he was sad, it was because of the guilt. Again, that's all you need. It's all you need to just. Apparently that's what you need.

[Surruti]

Well, I think when you're a piece of shit fucking murder defense lawyer like Baez is, you'll just go. I mean, he's done a clearly very good job, but he's got no shame.

[Hannah]

No. That's why him and Casey are like the perfect match. So when Baez accuses George of having done it and having tried to kill himself because of the guilt, George breaks down on the stand. And it's. Honestly, I found it one of the most stomach churning parts of this case to watch. And speaking of stomach churning to watch, it's Cindy in the interviews after, like I said, they're still together. When the interviewers in one of the documentaries I watched asked Cindy about this incident, about Byers bringing up George's suicide attempt, she just says it must have been one of the hardest things for him to go through. I feel like you've got to watch it in the context to understand how callous it sounds, because she makes it sound like an inevitability. She makes it sound like, well, that's just what he had to do. You know, I'd say the shit about the fucking chloroform like it was just what he had to do. It's kind of the subtext I took away from it. Not instead being angry at the fact that bias did it or the fact that Casey obviously went along with it because, yeah, she's not the one saying it, but she's there.

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

I just feel so, so sorry for George. And throughout the trial, Casey never takes a stand. She never, ever testifies. Which I think, again, is another very smart move from Baez, because I think Casey had taken the stand, opened her mouth, the jury would have fucking hated her. And finally, after a painful trial, it was time for the closing arguments.

[Surruti]

Judge Belphin Perry actually forbade the Allegations of sexual abuse from being mentioned in the closing arguments, as the defence had shown absolutely no evidence for it on that grounds. I have no idea why it wasn't struck from the record, but it wasn't. But even if it had been struck from the record, the jury still heard it. Byers didn't even bring up the pool drowning theory in his closing remarks either, because, again, he didn't have any evidence. And he actually says we might never know how Cayley died. After you literally proposed a theory of how she died, saying this is what happened.

[Hannah]

Not even a theory. He says he has admitted this is what happened. Casey has admitted to me that Cayley drowned in the pool wasn't a theory. He was saying that is what categorically happened. And then in his closing arguments, he says we might never know what happened.

[Surruti]

Honestly, this is filling me with joy for my jewelry duty that starts on Monday.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah, shit, that's it. We're actually, like, trying to take two weeks off after this pan has got a resurface.

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Hopefully only two weeks.

[Surruti]

Do you know what? The real shitter, they've moved it from the Old Bailey. Oh, no, I think it's still an Old Bailey because so apparently they're called Nightingale Courts, where, like. So it's still in the city. It's still in the sense it's on.

[Hannah]

Like, Eastcheap or something.

[Surruti]

So it's a lower court, but it's an Old Bailey case because it's a Covid thing. I can't have too many people in the building. So I think it's still an Old Bailey case, but it's fucking a bit of shitter. I can't even go in the Old Bailey.

[Hannah]

Oh, that is a bit of a shitter. And also, this just makes me sound like the work misogynist that I am, that I'm like, oh, Eastcheap's actually really close to here. So if we need to come into work after, it's really easy. Yeah. Because we're not actually off.

[Surruti]

No, no, no, no. So many moving cogs, so many levers being pulled by crogs. So Baez doesn't directly say the pool theory in his closing statements, but he does hint at it by showing a picture of Cayleigh opening the French doors at the back of the Anthony house all on her own. And within this shot, you can see the pool in the background, just suggesting a way, just reminding.

[Hannah]

He's basically saying, look, proof. She can open the door on her own and go out into the pool.

[Surruti]

Like subliminal advertising. Byers then told the jury to base their verdict on evidence, not on emotion, even though he has literally provided none. And he said all the state was doing was trying to slut shame Casey. But they had no evidence for what happened, even though they presented loads of evidence.

[Hannah]

Yeah, and this is the thing. In interviews with Byers, like he goes on the Dr. Phil show, obviously, sorry, Thelma Graw show. And he like, after he stops representing Casey and talks about the case, the thing that really infuriates me, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe you can correct me. The thing that irritates me is he constantly keeps saying when Phil is like you talked about, because Phil is very much like, he thinks George didn't sexually abuse Casey Anthony like most people in the world are. And when he said, you know, you were saying that George had sexually abused Casey as a child, where was your evidence? Where was your evidence? Where was your evidence for this? And you said that Leigh had sexually abused her. Where's the evidence? Byers keeps saying, as the defense, I don't have to prove anything. I just have to create beyond reasonable doubt. But my understanding is that's what you have to do with the overall charges of the case. Not that you can just say whatever fucking crazy shit you want with no evidence.

[Surruti]

Yeah, it seems pretty unreasonable that the defence can just stand up and chat shit for days on end and no one can pull them up on it.

[Hannah]

Because you don't have to prove anything. I feel like that's not what that means.

[Surruti]

No, I also think that that's not what that means. I'm sure him and Phil McGraw get on really well. Yeah, Snake oil merchant.

[Hannah]

I really feel like all that means is when the defense don't have to prove anything is like they don't have to prove that Casey Anthony didn't kill Casey. They just have to create beyond reasonable doubt as to the prosecution's case. But you can't just say whatever shit you fucking want like her dad sexually abused her, offer no evidence, and then say, well, I'm the defense, I don't have to prove anything. Like what? Anyway, I thought that was like quite an interesting part of his defense about himself. So the state closed by saying that Casey had killed Cayleigh because she'd wanted a new life. One with her 22 year old club promoter boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro. They said that she wanted to have a life and be out there and be free, but she knew she'd either have to sacrifice herself or her child. And I think it's safe to say that after the trial, after the closing arguments, even despite Byers performance, I think most people were expecting a guilty verdict. But when the jury returned, they unanimously found 25 year old Casey Anthony not guilty of first degree murder of aggravated child abuse or aggravated manslaughter. And honestly, from Casey herself to the judge, everyone in that courtroom looks shocked. The reporters look like they can't fucking believe it. It's unbelievable. After this, Casey was only convicted of providing law enforcement with false information for which she was sentenced to a year in prison. But she was let off with time served and good behaviour given. She had spent about three years at this point in a county jail. And so she actually walked out of jail just 10 days after sentencing.

[Surruti]

Everyone in the whole world was making that noise. People were furious and they were as angry at the jurors as they were at Casey herself. There were protesters outside the courthouse with signs that read, Jurors 1 to 12 guilty of murder. I don't want to go on Monday.

[Hannah]

I mean, Kai, it's like fucking. I understand Bill's anger, but I'm like, again, you can't just start saying whatever you fucking want.

[Surruti]

No, no, no, you're not.

[Hannah]

Jose bae.

[Surruti]

Jurors even got death threats. One guy said he got 1,000 emails a day from people raging at him. The members of the jury have said in interviews that most of them actually believe that she did do it. But they felt that the state just didn't have the evidence to back up how, when and where Cayley had died. But there are a few things that didn't come out at trial that we think are worth discussing again.

[Hannah]

Prosecution. If they had done their job better instead of, I don't think they did a bad job in court. I do think that they were complacent in their case building. So firstly, fact that didn't come out or not fact thing that didn't come out at court, at trial, the drowning story, well when that came out, it sounded awfully familiar to another young woman out there named April Whelan. April had been Casey's jailhouse neighbourhood. And in 2007 her 15 year old son Isaiah had tragically drowned in their family pool and April's father had been the one to find him. And April's like, I'm pretty definitely sure I tell Casey Anthony about that when we basically lived together. Not enough. Okay, I've got more. On 16 June 2008, the day that Cayley vanished, Casey had been on the Anthony's computer scrolling through Facebook for hours. She had looked through hundreds of pictures of her friends partying. And we know it was her because she also MSN chatted with her friends.

[Surruti]

Those were the days. Then she had Googled shotgirl costumes. A few hours later, there was a more ominous search for suffocation, shortly followed by foolproof suffocation. And then Casey Anthony clicked on an article about suicide that had discussed taking poison and putting a bag over one's head. All these searches and Internet Activity were on a Firefox browser. Cindy and George are old, so they obviously always used Internet Explorer. So guess who used the younger, hipper, better version?

[Hannah]

I'm guessing it wasn't Cayleigh.

[Surruti]

No. No, it was not. It was Casey. So when police analysts collected information from the family computer, they only vaguely looked for anything connected to chloroform on Internet Explorer. And they did that because they were so sure about what they had found in the car, they didn't think they would need anything else. And what's more, the state didn't ask for it either. But Baez. Baez knew about these searches. In fact, in an interview after he stopped representing Casey, he said that he thought the state were going to hit him hard with these in court. But they didn't, because they totally overlooked Firefox.

[Hannah]

This is the thing. Baez fucking knew that she had done these searches and the prosecution didn't. Yep. All right, time to get the pins out of the pin cushion, because it's time to talk about Zinaida Gonzalez. Okay, so remember we told you last week to put a pin in that name? And we also told you to put a pin in the location of where Cayley's body had been found in the swamp woods. Well, now it's time to remove those pins. Remember that we said Ceilie's body had been found about a quarter of a mile from the Anthony's home. It was found in a wooded clearing between two houses. One house was number 4,000. No, wait, 4,701. Sure. And 4,709. Guess who lived in these two houses. The person who lived at 4,701 was Zinaida Elia. And the person who lived at 4,709 on the other side of this gap was Peter Gonzalez.

[Surruti]

It's like, I can't remember. There's a magician who has a trick for remembering a pack of cards, and he's like, you visualize a walk that you do often, and you put the card in your mind on the gate of the house that you pass first and That's a memory technique. So it's the same walk and then you just change the things that you, like, put on the hook. It's like she's done that.

[Hannah]

Yeah. Just by pure instinct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Surruti]

No, I don't think she's been doing brain training.

[Hannah]

No, she's.

[Surruti]

I think she's just pulled this one out of her ass.

[Hannah]

I don't know if it's got anything to do, but. Come on.

[Surruti]

Come.

[Hannah]

I know it's Florida.

[Surruti]

Yes, it is Florida. But it is one fuck of a coincidence even for the Sunshine State, my friend.

[Hannah]

Jesus. Okay, so none of this matters, despite how hot and heavy we're getting about it. It doesn't matter. Also, this is all very well known. I didn't, like, dig this out as a super sleuthing. This is all very well known. There's like a million fucking AP articles about it. I'll leave links below. But none of this matters in a legal sense at least, because thanks to double jeopardy, Casey Anthony cannot be retried for the murder of Caylee Anthony. She's free. And I do have to wonder, like, if they hadn't gone for first degree. But then she doesn't even get convicted of aggravated child murder. No, I think aggravated child. Whatever it was manslaughter. Like, I don't know. Even the judge afterwards is, like, shocked.

[Surruti]

I'm amazed that they didn't overturn the jury's verdict because they can do that.

[Hannah]

I don't know why the judge didn't, because he has gone on record and said that he thought that the state showed enough evidence for a conviction of one of the homicides, if not first degree, for one of the homicides. I don't know why he didn't overturn it. I guess that goes some way to, like, maybe you don't want to do that all the time because, like, it undermines. And maybe with a high profile case like this, maybe it undermines confidence in the jury system. But it's not just us saying it and it's not just you. It's a fucking high profile. Like, everybody knows this case but you.

[Surruti]

Yeah, the whole thing seems completely unbelievable. And the defence were probably not as thorough as they should have been. But even still, there's no way you can watch the footage of Casey Anthony being interviewed and not think she's completely guilty. We will talk theories at the end, but we have a little bit to get through before we get to that stage. So let's talk about Casey's personality and what might have been going on with her mental health. Like we said, if you watch her being interviewed, she spends most of her time laughing and joking with the police officers. She's never furious like you might expect a parent who is innocent to be. I'd imagine I'd be pretty seething at the police for wasting my time talking to me rather than looking for my missing child and her abductor after 30 days. But Casey is very chill. She shows no emotion. She even presents very open body language. It's very believable if you don't know the context. You'd be forgiven for thinking that she was being honest. But once you actually listen to what she's saying, you realise it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[Hannah]

So for a better understanding of, you know, what, maybe personality disorder is going on with Casey or whatever it might be, we went to Dr. Grande on YouTube. I will leave a link to his video analysis below. And he makes the point that it's almost counterproductive for Casey to be so together. And Jim can't swim. Also says something very similar. Again, we'll leave a link below. If you were in this situation, you would expect somebody to actually be pretending to be upset, pretending to be frantic. Why does she pretend? Or why is she appearing like everything is fine? It's like it's a facade that she can't take off. It's like she can't stop pretending that everything is okay all of the time. It's like she can't change her behavior. And of course a question becomes, what's going on with her then? Because whether you believe she did it or not, she never seems bothered by the disappearance of her child. Even if you think she didn't kill Kayleigh, why isn't she fucking terrified then?

[Surruti]

Why isn't she terrified of being labeled a literal child murderer and then going to prison? Being a cop isn't fun in prison, but being a child murderer in a women's prison is horrendous. It's the worst of the worst. I bet.

[Hannah]

So whether you think she did it or not, her behavior doesn't match up to the circumstances that she's in. Because she's got a missing and then a dead child.

[Surruti]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Hannah]

So is she a psychopath? Is she a sociopath? What's going on? Interestingly and again, we don't often kind of get this level of information. It's once again, thanks to Florida Sunshine laws that we have all of this information. Two mental health professionals assessed Casey using what's known as the mmpi, which is a Minnesota multiphasic Personality Inventory. If you've read the book, you will read about us talking about Carla Homolka's MMPI in there. Basically, it is the gold standard for personality assessment. Both of these mental health practitioners who assessed Casey using this assessment tool found that she had normal results, which means that there was no evidence of any sort of mental or personality disorders. Which makes me want to scream. How?

[Surruti]

In a way that's more terrifying.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I'm baffled. I'm absolutely baffled by this case. I will say MMPI is the gold standard, but as we saw with Carla Homolka in the book, it can churn out incorrect results if it's not done properly. These assessments were looked into by other experts and it was said that it was done properly. So, like, I can't.

[Surruti]

I can't fucking. I'm at a loss.

[Hannah]

Yeah. So basically, these two mental health professionals found that Casey Anthony had no psychopathy, she had no sociopathy, and that she only had a normal level of narcissism for her age, which at 25, would have been 22 at the time. But, you know, they're assessing a person in their mid-20s, they're like, it's pretty normal, the level of narcissism she has. They also pointed out that Casey Anthony had nothing in her history which indicated that she would be likely to commit a violent crime like this, which again, as we know, is a pretty strong indicator.

[Surruti]

So where is Casey Anthony now? Well, after the trial, she moved in with one of her attorneys and now it seems that she lives in Palm beach with a guy called Patrick McKenna. He was the 73 year old lead investigator for her defence. We actually talked about this on in the news a few months ago. Apparently Patrick McKenna is helping Casey with her photography business and becoming a PI. I'm sure that's all he's helping her with.

[Hannah]

Yep. I'm sure she's not helping him out at all.

[Surruti]

No, I'm sure she's not trading any favors for anything with his dick.

[Hannah]

I mean, it's despicable. When she gets interviewed about becoming a PI stuff, she's like, I'm just gonna do what they did to me. But in a good way.

[Surruti]

Show me the person who would hire Casey Anthony. Because what do PIs do? They find people and they watch people.

[Hannah]

Yeah, no, you're right. And that's the two things Casey, she can't do.

[Surruti]

In her first ever interview as a free woman, which she gave in 2017, this is what Casey had to say for herself.

[Hannah]

I don't give a about what anybody Thinks about me. I don't care about that. I never will. I'm okay with myself. I sleep pretty good at night. Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. And there's a documentary where after she gives this interview, they play it to George and Cindy where she's saying, I sleep okay at night. George just looks heartbroken. He's like, we haven't slept in years.

[Surruti]

And also she compares her case for murdering her child. She compares it to the case of O.J. simpson, even going so far as to say that she sees many parallels between the two cases, which Casey maybe pick a case where the popular opinion of the Globe isn't that they did it and their autobiography is called if I Did It. Like Try Harder. Even Amanda Knox would be better than that.

[Hannah]

I don't know what she's thinking. I don't know what she's saying.

[Surruti]

There's no way there's not something incredibly wrong with her. I'm sorry. Like, I know.

[Hannah]

I don't know what it is though, because the MMPI were like, no, she's fine.

[Surruti]

Maybe she's got some new fucking hybrid personality disorder that no one else has. She's got the Dennis Nilssons is what she's got.

[Hannah]

She's got a touch of the Dennis Nilssons. So as for the Anthony's, what's going on with them? Well, George says now, thankfully, that he wants nothing to do with Casey anymore. He says he's done. Leigh also has nothing to do with Casey. He has his own child. And he's like, I don't want her anywhere near us. But Cindy seems a little bit weaker on it in these interviews. I've watched so many, it's all just like blurred into one. And they're all from like quite a similar time period. Like recent, like as in 2015-2017, 2018. Sometimes in the same breath she'll say that she thinks Casey did it and then she'll pause and be like, oh, I don't know. And I'm just like, ugh.

[Surruti]

So as we reach the end of 2021, dragging ourselves into the new year, kicking and screaming, kicking and screaming. At least we can look forward to it not being fucking nighttime at 4 o' clock in the afternoon. Anyway, what do we think, your loyal hosts? What have we decided? Well, probably we think that Casey gave Cayley something like Xanax, which we know Casey had access to, and she probably used it to knock the little girl out for long stretches of time so she could do what she wanted.

[Hannah]

And there is some corroboration for this again, it's not solid. We can't test Cayleigh's toxicology. Can't test anything to see. But people like Tony and his housemate and other people that were friends with her did say that Caylee would just sleep for a really long time, sometimes wake up and still look really tired. She was fucking. I know. Sometimes we call her two, and sometimes we call her. It's like she's like two and three quarters. You're just giving a child that young fucking Xanax again. It just speaks to the immaturity and irresponsibility of Casey Anthony.

[Surruti]

So was this an accidental killing, or was it a calculated murder? The duct tape seems to suggest that it was premeditated. Once Kayleigh was dead, Casey moved her body into the boot of her car. And then we think. And this is just our opinion, so don't be afraid of a differing opinion. It won't bite you. We think that Casey then put Cayleigh in the car and just tried to forget about it for a bit because she's incredibly immature. That was how she would have dealt with it. Then when Casey couldn't ignore the smell any more, that's when she dumped Cayley's body in the woods. And then she ditched the car after trying to clean the boot out and filling it with rubbish to try to mask the smell of her decomposing daughter.

[Hannah]

And I think that, you know, how could she do all of this? How could she do all of this? Well, I think there's one thing that we have learned about Casey Anthony. She's very, very good at compartmentalising and rationalising her way out of situations from her past. Things like with the graduation, her pregnancy, the lies that she told police, like, walking them around Universal Studios. We know that she's the kind of person to just ignore things as long as she humanly, possibly, physically can. And then she is like, oh, okay, fine. The whole crime is so immature as well. It really reflects Casey's personality and behavior, I think. And that is also the fact that Kayleigh's body is dumped a quarter of a mile from her own fucking front door is what makes me think no one else was involved in this. And also, just going back to the calls that we listened to at the start, the jail visits where the parents are like, you don't need to protect anybody. You don't need to protect me. You don't need to protect your dad. You don't need to protect. Just tell the truth. Why would the parents say that if Kayleigh had drowned in the fucking pool and they'd all covered it up. And you think Casey's the kind of person that'd be protecting her dad in prison after what she watched happen to him in court? I don't know. Did she do it on purpose? Did she not? I don't know. I think the duct tape. If we believe that the duct tape was on the face, then I think it was on purpose, because why is there duct tape on a child's face? If we believe Werner Spitz and the idea that there's no proof or that the duct tape wasn't attached to the face and the mandible and the teeth isn't good enough evidence, and it just maybe was part of the rubbish of the scene, then I could believe that it was an accident.

[Surruti]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And that Casey basically kills Cayleigh and then just tries to get on with it. I think a problem for the prosecution in court, a reason that they didn't win, they blame the jury. Not in the sense of like, oh, this jury was stupid. They blame the jury for being like, well, we could only pick the people who didn't confess to the fact when they were being vetted for the jury, that they had already made up their minds. So because of Florida sunshine laws, they'd already seen all the evidence that was there. So if they still weren't convinced of her guilt, there was nothing we could say to convince them. But as a cop out, man.

[Surruti]

Yeah, it is your job.

[Hannah]

And also, most people out there thought she was fucking guilty as fuck. Yeah.

[Surruti]

You had a pretty easy run of it, actually.

[Hannah]

So I don't know. I don't think that's good enough, really. I don't know. I think the problem for the prosecution was that they repeatedly tried to say, and this is interesting, because the prosecution don't have to prove a motive. They don't have to prove a motive. But I feel like they repeatedly tried to say that Casey had wanted to be free and that the reason she killed Cayleigh was that reason. I think they didn't paint a good enough picture of the situation, like, you know, like Baez did. And I think the problem with them trying to point to this as the motive was that Byers and the defence were quite easily able, pointing at Cindy and George, her loyal parents who were in court every day, to say that motherhood wasn't really that hard for Casey. She had a place to live. She had parents look after her. Their parents would even have taken Cayleigh away from her and happily raised her as their own, which I think is true.

[Surruti]

Yes, I agree.

[Hannah]

So then it became hard, I think, for people to believe that Casey's only way out of this situation where she was trapped with a child was to kill this child. And I think that was maybe the downfall. I don't know. I think there's also something interesting to be said in why then did. If we say that she did it on purpose, if we say it wasn't an accident, she did it on purpose, why then did Casey Anthony kill Cayleigh? Because, like I said, Cindy would have taken that child. Part of me does wonder, given the relationship between that mother and daughter, whether Casey Anthony didn't do it in some way to punish Cindy and to decouple herself from her mother. You have a baby with somebody and no, it's not Cindy's baby. You're tied to that person forever.

[Surruti]

Oh, yeah.

[Hannah]

And the way in which Cindy overreaches her responsibility as a grandmother, I'm not blaming her. I just think Casey clearly was very irresponsible. I think it was a way for Casey to punish her and also to find a way to try and cut that tie a bit, maybe.

[Surruti]

Yeah. I mean, I also think she's, you know, immature enough to have seen it in that light and been like, I've got a problem. How do I get rid of it?

[Hannah]

I'll never be free as long as Kayleigh is here, because you will always be on my back. Yeah, but that is assuming she did it on purpose. I don't know. But whatever happened, the way in which she deals with it after is absolutely fucking bonkers.

[Surruti]

Do you think? Here's my theory about Xanny the nanny.

[Hannah]

Oh.

[Surruti]

So Xanax is referred to by the kids on the street as Xanny. So could it be that Casey would make a little joke about it because she didn't have a real in life person nanny, but she did have a pharmaceutical nanny.

[Hannah]

Oh, absolutely.

[Surruti]

So she probably called it Zanny the nanny.

[Hannah]

She's gone off to Zanny.

[Surruti]

Yep.

[Hannah]

I do think that that is a very, very likely possibility. Yes.

[Surruti]

I agree.

[Hannah]

That is also, again, this is one of those cases where I feel like, how much do we have to add to it? A lot of this is out there already. It's a case that is very old. It's very well covered, but is one that you guys have requested. And I'll be honest, I have. Is enjoyed. The right word. I have. I found it very interesting to dig.

[Surruti]

Into it and you probably feel like you've liberated yourself from the chains that have been holding you down for years, all of the years that people have been asking for this.

[Hannah]

Absolutely. It was a beast. It was a beast of a case. But there you go, guys. That is the mammoth story of Casey Anthony and Cayleigh Anthony. I think, again, like Cayleigh gets quite lost in this case. There's loads of pictures and videos and she is a fucking adorable little kid, actually. I'll give you. Give her that. I'll give you that. Kayleigh. And it's just heartbreaking. She'd be 16 years old now if she was alive. Yeah.

[Surruti]

So on that big fat bummer.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Surruti]

Merry Christmas.

[Hannah]

Merry Christmas.

[Surruti]

And a happy New Year. Goodwill to all men. Joy to the world. The Lord has come. I was just reeling them off. Silent night, Holy night Round yon virgin Mother and child. Have an amazing Christmas, guys. It's been a tough year and an amazing year at the same time, and you've been there for us every step of the way, and we couldn't be more grateful. So make sure you look after yourselves. It's Christmas and have a wicked new year and we'll see you in 2022.

[Hannah]

Yeah, bloody hell. Stay safe and hopefully next year we'll bring more positive things. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Bye.

[Lawless Planet Host]

How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

[Surruti]

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our tap.

[Lawless Planet Host]

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

[Hannah]

We call things accidents. There is no accident.

[Surruti]

This was 100% preventable.

[Lawless Planet Host]

They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders and coverups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple podcasts or Spotify.