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Nancy Grace
Casey Anthony Police Interrogation Tapes Released
Aired September 12, 2008 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DIANE DIMOND, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight, just-released tapes of suspect Casey Anthony as she`s confronted by police. Wait until you hear what she said. Meantime, police continue to desperately search for her beautiful 3-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie.
Tonight, bombshell audiotapes as we take you behind closed doors to hear the actual police interrogation of a mother who waited more than a month to tell police her daughter was missing. Listen in as detectives press Casey Anthony for answers, their questions, her admissions as she`s confronted head on, the tapes that capture Casey Anthony spewing lie after lie to police. We`ve obtained every minute of them, and tonight, you hear them right here.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CASEY ANTHONY, MOTHER OF MISSING TODDLER: (INAUDIBLE) at the apartment, at the stairs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So you just walked her -- you dropped her off and...
CASEY ANTHONY: Walked her to the stairs. That`s where I`ve dropped her off a bunch of other times. It wasn`t (ph) just that day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And when you dropped her off, who took (ph) her at that point?
CASEY ANTHONY: Zanny did.
I got off of work, left Universal, driving back to pick up Caylee, like a normal day. And I show up to the apartment, knock on the door, nobody answers. So I call Zenaida`s cell phone and it`s out of service.
After about 7:00 o`clock, when I still hadn`t heard anything, I was getting pretty upset, pretty frantic, and I went to a neutral place. I didn`t really want to come home. I wasn`t sure what I`d say about not knowing where Caylee was. And I ended up going to my boyfriend, Anthony`s, house.
She`s with someone that I absolutely do not trust, and I am absolutely scared that...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That you don`t trust, yet was baby-sitting your daughter for a year?
CASEY ANTHONY: I don`t trust her now because of what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what point did you stop trusting her?
CASEY ANTHONY: The moment that her phone was cut off and I couldn`t get in contact with my daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you thought, Man, something ain`t right.
CASEY ANTHONY: Something is wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when you started thinking that something was wrong, which police agency did you call first, us or the city police? Or who did you call first? Who did you go to first to help try to find her?
CASEY ANTHONY: No one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one. OK. All right. OK. Well, I`m glad we got that straightened out.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: Unbelievable. Good evening. I`m Diane Dimond, sitting in for Nancy Grace. Tonight, breaking news, explosive police interview tapes of Casey Anthony just released.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you talk to anyone about Caylee, about (INAUDIBLE) INAUDIBLE) Caylee, or about that she`s missing?
CASEY ANTHONY: Outside of a couple of people, a couple of mutual friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who did you talk to about it?
CASEY ANTHONY: I talked to Jeff, Jeffrey Hawkins (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who else did you talk to?
CASEY ANTHONY: I talked to Juliet Lewis (ph). She`s one of my co- workers at Universal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She works -- you still work at Universal?
CASEY ANTHONY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you do at Universal?
CASEY ANTHONY: I`m an event coordinator.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What does Julia -- what position does she
CASEY ANTHONY: She`s also an event coordinator. We work in the same department.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You (INAUDIBLE) to Universal, where you said you were in an office to try to help find stuff that will help us find your daughter. (INAUDIBLE) so far, OK? And we get here, we get down to the hall, and they tell us you even don`t work here. You don`t have an office here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: until about two months ago
CASEY ANTHONY: No, he hasn`t worked here for quite a while.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten months? How long?
CASEY ANTHONY: It`s been at least two months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. He got fired in 2002. He hasn`t been an employee since 2002.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the girl?
CASEY ANTHONY: Juliet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. What about her?
CASEY ANTHONY: She left two months ago. That`s exactly what she...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juliet Lewis never worked at Universal Studios.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our purpose of coming here was to do what? Go where?
CASEY ANTHONY: I guess there wasn`t a purpose. There wasn`t a purpose whatsoever to come up here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we`re wasting time, valuable time that ought to be spent looking for your daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unless we start getting the truth -- unless we start getting the truth, we`re going to announce two possibilities with Caylee. Either you gave Caylee to someone and you don`t want anyone to find out because you think you`re a bad mom, or something happened to Caylee and Caylee`s buried somewhere or in a trash can somewhere, and you had something to do with it. Either way right now, it is not a very pretty picture to be painted.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: Sometimes the best thing a show host can do is get out of the way of the material, and tonight is just such a night. We have obtained the tapes police made during their one-on-one interviews with Casey Anthony, the mother of missing 3-year-old Caylee, who`s been missing now for 12 long weeks.
There are two interviews, both recorded on July 16. One early in the morning, about 4:00 o`clock in the morning, and it was recorded at the home of Casey Anthony`s parents. Now, the second interrogation was recorded later that same day, as Casey Anthony takes police to Universal Studios in Orlando.
Now, she told them that she worked there. She didn`t work there, and they knew she didn`t work there. Yet she boldly marched them past the Universal security desk to show police her office. They followed her down long hallways, waiting for her to crack, waiting for her to tell the truth.
Finally, Casey Anthony dropped her shoulders and she admitted, well, no, she didn`t work there. She had been fired in the spring of 2006. So that`s when detectives took her into a nearby conference room and turned on the tape recorder.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But here`s where it needs to end. Here`s where the truth needs to come out, OK? No more lies, no more bull coming out of your mouth. We`ve been very respectful. We`re taking our time and talking to you. We`re tired of all the lies. No more lies. What happened to Caylee?
CASEY ANTHONY: I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do know. What happened to Caylee?
CASEY ANTHONY: I don`t know where she is. That is the God`s honest truth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Where was she last time that you put her somewhere? Where was she?
CASEY ANTHONY: The last time I saw her was on those steps, at that apartment that I took you to this morning, the same apartment that I took the other officers to last night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you didn`t give her to anyone while you were there.
CASEY ANTHONY: Yes, I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen. Listen. Listen to me. We even pulled the surveillance video from the apartment complex. And they have to keep this by law for several days, OK? And we`re not seeing you over there. We`re not seeing you there at all that day. You think that we`re stupid and we`re not going to do this stuff?
CASEY ANTHONY: I know you`re not stupid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, we`re not seeing you there. So now if you`re not there and you`re not being seen there and somebody`s already saying that you`re not there, then everything else you told us is a lie.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: Boy, this is real fly-on-the-wall stuff as those police detectives sit with Casey Anthony inside a closed conference room at Universal Studio, and really, for the very first time, start grilling her.
Parenthetically, I should tell you this is the last time the police ever got to interrogate her.
Let`s go out to our guest, Scott Haines. He is a sheriff`s officer with the Sarah Rosa County, Florida, department (SIC). Scott, I guess you`ve probably had interrogations like this, but this woman is one tough nut to crack.
SGT. SCOTT HAINES, SANTA ROSA COUNTY, FL, SHERIFF`S OFFICER: Absolutely. The investigators did a great job interviewing and interrogating this woman. They used some great tactics. Unfortunately, this woman is sticking to her series of lies and is doing absolutely nothing at all to help investigators find her child.
DIMOND: Sergeant, what do you do with somebody like this? She ostensibly is sitting there because she wants help in finding her missing daughter. Yet she`s lying and lying and lying. What do you do as a police interrogator to try to crack someone like that?
HAINES: Exactly what the investors continue to do. They stayed very focused during that. When she tried to come back with, No, I didn`t, just basic things like that, they stayed on her, stayed focus on their interrogation tactics. And unfortunately, when you have someone that continuously lies and is a pathological liar about everything that she seems to have told law enforcement, there`s nothing that you can do but continue your investigation, try to obtain enough evidence to pursue a case against her without her cooperation.
DIMOND: Yes, it`s pretty tough when she refuses to talk to you anymore. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst on the panel tonight. Bethany, we now hear her. We hear how she dodges and weaves, and when they catch her in one lie, she then begins to weave a tale going in the other direction. What kind of personality are we dealing with here?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, let me first say the investigators were brilliant. And there`s a saying in my field, If you ask a question, all you`ll get is an answer, meaning if you just say, Well, did you kill your child, and, Where is she...
DIMOND: Right.
MARSHALL: ... and you ask rote questions, you get rote answers. They did something very different. I listened to the whole tape. They supplied all the answers before they asked the questions. They spent about 20 minutes in set-up, saying, Look, there`s two possibilities, either you`re an evil monster and you`re a cold-blooded killer and you got rid of your daughter, or there was an accident and now you`re afraid.
DIMOND: Yes, but Bethany...
MARSHALL: Maybe she`s in a dumpster...
DIMOND: ... she didn`t bite on that. In fact, let`s go back to some of this tape. I want to play as much of it as we can today...
MARSHALL: OK.
DIMOND: ... tonight. Here, one of the police detectives starts telling her that it`s like a snowball rolling down a big hill and she`s at the bottom of that hill and is going to get crushed. Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You roll about halfway down that hill, three quarters down that hill, and it`s a pretty big snowball, which means that there`s a lot of stuff going on right now. And I can tell you just for a certainty that everything you`ve told me so far has been a lie. I can tell you that with certainty. And let me explain why. Since I left you this morning, I`ve gone to every address that you told me. I looked up every name. I`ve talked to every person that you`ve (INAUDIBLE) to talk to, or tried to. I`ve reached out. I`ve talked to your ex-boyfriend. I`ve talked to Amy. I`ve talked to Tony. I came over here. I`ve already talked to all the employees and found out all these names that you`ve given me are people that either never worked here or have been fired (ph) here for a long time ago, OK?
So where we are right now is in a position that doesn`t look very good for you. And this is going to be your escape hatch, so to speak. This is going to be the point where you stop all lies and you stop all the fibs and you tell us exactly what`s going on.
I`m just being -- you know, being straight with you.
CASEY ANTHONY: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because obviously, I know and you know that everything you`re telling me is a lie, correct?
CASEY ANTHONY: Not everything that I`ve told you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Pretty much everything that you`ve told me, including where Caylee is right now.
CASEY ANTHONY: That I still -- I don`t know where she is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, you do. And you know...
CASEY ANTHONY: I absolutely do not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, let me -- let me...
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: It gets a little bit heated there. Bethany Marshall, jump back in here. This woman looks right at these police officers as they`re saying, We think you`re lying. You know where your daughter is. And mostly, she just goes, Uh-huh, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: Well, see, but what they are doing is they are supplying the answers. They`re saying, These are all lies. That`s an answer. They`re saying it`s like a big snowball going down a hill. That is an answer that she can bite on or not bite on. Now, think of it like a big multiple choice questionnaire. She can start ticking off the things that apply or do not apply, and then they can begin to see, do the various responses match up? They can go into the various answers, see if one goes with another.
DIMOND: Yes. And that...
MARSHALL: And so it`s a very sophisticated process. It`s not just confronting her on lying, it`s giving the answers and then saying, This doesn`t match up with what you said before.
DIMOND: In 20 seconds, Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, is a woman who could do this also capable of killing someone?
MARSHALL: Well, pathological lying is associated with extreme disregard for the rights of others. So yes, the two do correlate.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you`re more afraid...
CASEY ANTHONY: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So wait a minute. So you`re more afraid of your mom`s reaction than you are if you ever see your daughter again?
CASEY ANTHONY: No, I`m absolutely petrified. Absolutely petrified. I know my mom will never forgive me. I`m never going to forgive myself because there`s that chance that I might not see Caylee again, and I don`t want to think about it.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we found the nanny today and we found your baby, what`s your biggest -- what`s the next biggest hurdle for you in your life as far as maybe explaining something to somebody, or who -- what`s the next biggest concern? I know your major concern now is finding your baby.
CASEY ANTHONY: Honestly, that`s all I care about at this point.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: Good evening, everyone. I`m Diane Dimond, sitting in for Nancy Grace. And we are revealing to you the behind-closed-door interrogations of Casey Anthony just released and bringing them all to you.
The Nancy Grace producer Natisha Lance has been outside the Casey Anthony home. She`s with us now. Now, Natisha, I understand that Casey Anthony has just gotten a visitor? Who is it?
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes, her attorney, Jose Baez, just arrived at the home. Now, there`s also two security guards who are at the home, too. They are backed into the driveway. I`m not sure if you can see over my shoulder here. But these also look just like the two security guards who were with Casey when she was released from jail most recently. They were sitting outside the house when Jose Baez arrived. They went over to the car. One of them escorted him to the door. Cindy Anthony opened the door, let him in. One of the security guards went inside with him and then came right back out and assumed his post right outside house, up against the garage.
DIMOND: OK, now, Natisha, I`ve got to wonder, all these rumors are rampant that she may, indeed, be arrested again on more check forgery charges. Do you think that that might be what`s about to happen there?
LANCE: Well, it could be a possibility because when she was arrested last time, her attorney, Jose Baez, talked about how he was very frustrated with the way in which it went down because he had contacted the police officers and told them that if they were going to arrest her, he would do it in a dignified manner, he would bring her down to the sheriff`s office and surrender her. So this time, he`s saying once again that if they`re going to re-arrest her, which it seems as if they are going to do that very soon, that he wants to do that in a dignified manner and surrender her himself.
DIMOND: Interesting -- on the very day that all of these interrogation tapes of her have been released.
Let`s go out to the phones now, taking your calls on these breaking developments. Shirley in Iowa. How are you, Shirley?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Diane. How are you?
DIMOND: I`m great.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have two questions, ma`am. The first one is, have they found out about the bones and clothing yet?
DIMOND: Oh. OK. And what`s your second question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The knife they found, did they check it for DNA?
DIMOND: OK, two good questions. Nikki Pierce is a local reporter there. Nikki, do you know the answer to either of those? Do we know about the bones and the clothing and the knife?
NIKKI PIERCE, WDBO: We don`t know about the bones and the clothing yet. They were found in a park that is actually mentioned by Casey in one of these tapes, Blanchard Park. And if they`ve been investigated, we don`t have that information just yet. But it could be released any time. What was the second question?
DIMOND: On the knife? A knife has been located?
PIERCE: I`m not familiar with a knife being located.
DIMOND: Yes.
PIERCE: I know that a gun was located in George Anthony`s trunk, and that was taken out. And that was while Casey was out of jail, but it did not affect her status on home confinement.
DIMOND: Right. Now, I try to watch the NANCY GRACE show every single night, but I hadn`t heard about a knife, either, so -- all right, thanks for that.
Lawrence Kobilinsky is our resident forensic scientist. Dr. Larry, let me ask you here. Twelve weeks -- if something horrible, if the worst- case scenario has happened to this little girl, she`s buried somewhere in the wet ground of Florida after all these hurricanes, will there be much left to test?
LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: That`s a good question, Diane. And I think after three weeks, when a body is under the ground for that length of time, I think decomposition is all but complete. Skeletonization can occur in that time. It could be longer. It depends on a lot of conditions, the acidity of the soil, scavengers and whatnot.
DIMOND: Sure.
KOBILINSKY: But the likelihood is that the soft tissue would be expected to be gone.
DIMOND: Now, stand by, Dr. Larry, because I think Andrea in Texas has a question for you, too. Hi, Andrea. What is your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Ms. Dimond. Thank you so much for taking my call.
DIMOND: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So on the chloroform searches that they found on her laptop, can a computer expert look at the laptop and see if -- on the Web site, if she placed an order, if it was billed to a specific credit card, the shipping address, anything to that effect?
DIMOND: Gotcha. Dr. Larry, forensically speaking, I would think that a computer expert would know those things.
KOBILINSKY: There`s no doubt about it. The one thing that we are good at is documents and looking at hard drives on computers. If the search was performed on that laptop, the police know about it. If the order was made on a credit card, they know about it. If the order was delivered, the police know about it.
DIMOND: Yes. Forensically, you leave a footprint.
Let`s squeeze in one more phone call here. Rhonda in Florida. Hi, Rhonda.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello. You`re doing a great job on covering the story.
DIMOND: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is to your psychologist. Has anyone noticed that -- (INAUDIBLE) -- when you get a new baby or a new brother or sister, you`re real jealous. Seems like Casey is maybe real jealous?
DIMOND: Oh, Bethany Marshall, jump in here. Psychoanalyze this in 30 seconds. Do you think maybe that`s what it was?
MARSHALL: Well, I think what Rhonda is referring to is Casey being jealous of Cindy Anthony`s attention towards her own child.
DIMOND: Oh.
MARSHALL: And yes, I think there is a possibility. When you think of criminality, sociopathy, antisocial behavior, that type of personality, they want all the attention for themselves. So they love other people as long as they`re need-satisfying objects, but they`ll slice them and dice them as soon as the attention is turned away. So I think that`s a brilliant question on Rhonda`s part.
DIMOND: All right. More of this tape when we come right back.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zenaida give you any money that day?
CASEY ANTHONY: No. I would not have sold my daughter. If I wanted to really just get rid of her, I would have left her with my parents and I would have left. I would have moved out. I would have given my mom custody.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the main thing you want to do is find your daughter and you don`t think lying to us is going to help us find her, why would you do that?
CASEY ANTHONY: Because I`m scared and I know I`m running out of options. It`s been a month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you scared of?
CASEY ANTHONY: I`m scared of not seeing my daughter ever again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And if you`re scared...
CASEY ANTHONY: And I`m honestly petrified...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you`re scared of not...
CASEY ANTHONY: ... of not seeing her again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... seeing your daughter again, OK, I want you to tell me how lying to us is going to solve that problem and help find your daughter quicker.
CASEY ANTHONY: It`s not.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DIMOND: Yes. Wait until you hear what else Casey Anthony says she`s petrified of. Good evening. I`m Diane Dimond, sitting in for Nancy Grace.
Let`s go to the attorneys. Doug Burns, criminal defense attorney, what do you do with a client like this? You`re Jose Baez. You go over to her house. All these tapes are out now. Can you ever get a fair trial?
DOUG BURNS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it`s very hard and it raises a lot of interesting issues, such as being able to get a fair jury, you`re right, and maybe having to move the case to a different jurisdiction on what we call a change of venue motion. Very, very difficult situation. The case, unfortunately, Diane, is being tried in the media, let`s face it. And it`s very hard to defend against that.
DIMOND: Yes. Joe Lawless, jump in here. You`re also a defense attorney. What do you do with a client like this, who has obviously lied, lied, lied, lied, oh, yes, and lied some more? What do you do to get her credibility back, or do you just wait for the trial?
JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Diane, it`s not a question of the client`s credibility. What you have to do is challenge what the police did here, which is lock a 22-year-old girl in a conference room, aggressively...
DIMOND: Now, now, they didn`t look the door.
LAWLESS: ... brow-beat...
DIMOND: Didn`t lock the door.
LAWLESS: Diane -- Diane...
DIMOND: Just closed it.
LAWLESS: This is the most blatant violation of someone`s constitutional rights I`ve seen in years. This is why the 5th Amendment is there, to protect someone`s rights. And then to leak the tapes, to give the tapes to the media...
DIMOND: This was a Freedom of Information that -- you know, they were...
(CROSSTALK)
LAWLESS: ... to try to taint...
DIMOND: They were sent, I`m presuming, to the defense...
LAWLESS: ... the jury panel to deprive this woman...
DIMOND: ... and then to us.
LAWLESS: ... of a trial, if she`s indicted. Whether or not -- the police have absolutely every right to keep evidence in a criminal investigation to themselves, if they want to. They chose not to. The only reason for it is for shows like this to come on and accuse this woman of "spewing lies" about something that we don`t have any of proof of yet.
DIMOND: Doug Burns, jump in here. Was it OK for them to take her into a conference room at Universal, close the door, not lock it, like Joe said, and question her?
BURNS: Well, I`d rather frame it just in terms of what the legal standard is. The standard is if they create a truly coercive atmosphere, if you put somebody...
LAWLESS: They did that.
BURNS: And Joe knows this. I think he even wrote a book on this. But if you put somebody all the way in the back of a room with people hovering, it`s a question of fact.
DIMOND: But there`s a 3-year-old little girl missing!
BURNS: Yes. I don`t know the exact configuration in the room. But the other point is, is that, you know, you have the case for lying versus the homicide. They have no proof on the homicide. So it`s a mix.
DIMOND: And she hasn`t been charged with anything, folks.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Our purpose in coming here was to do what? Go where?
CASEY ANTHONY, MOTHER OF MISSING CAYLEE: I guess there wasn`t a purpose. There wasn`t a purpose whatsoever to come up here.
ALLEN: So we`re wasting time, valuable time that ought to be used to find your daughter.
C. ANTHONY: I`m trying to think of places where I know she`s been.
ALLEN: No -- you`re not answering my question. Do you want us to help.
C. ANTHONY: Yes.
ALLEN: Do you want us to help find your daughter?
C. ANTHONY: I do want you to help.
ALLEN: Well, then you need to help me. A good starting point would be to answer the questions, OK? If I say you were here because, and then you just ignore that, as if I never asked it and go off in some other direction, is that answering the question?
C. ANTHONY: No.
ALLEN: OK. All right. Let`s go through this again. We`re here because - - we got here how -- to do what?
C. ANTHONY: Because I lied, because I brought you up here. And honestly, I was reaching for another avenue.
ALLEN: And I`ll stop right there. I want you to tell me how lying to us is going to help us find your daughter.
C. ANTHONY: It`s going to.
ALLEN: Huh?
C. ANTHONY: It`s not right.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DIANE DIMOND, GUEST HOST: Boy, she finally got that right. It doesn`t help to lie to the cops, if you need help finding your daughter.
Good evening, everybody, I`m Diane Dimond, sitting in for Nancy Grace tonight.
At one point, the police detectives, who have taken Casey Anthony into a conference room at Universal Studios to talk to her, they flip on the tape recorder, and at one point, I want you to listen to this piece of the tape, they ask her, point blank, if she has hurt her daughter in any way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Did you cause any injury to your child, Caylee?
C. ANTHONY: No, sir.
ALLEN: Did you hurt Caylee or leave her somewhere and you`re worried that if we find that out that people are going to look at you in the wrong way?
C. ANTHONY: No, sir.
ALLEN: You`re telling me that Zenaida took your child without your permission and never returned?
C. ANTHONY: She is the last person I have seen with my daughter, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIMOND: That doesn`t help, at all. We also get some insight into what the police are thinking from some of this tape. They say there are two possibilities with Caylee. Either you gave her to someone that you don`t want anyone to find out about, because they`ll think you`re a bad mom, or something happened to Caylee, and Caylee is buried somewhere, or in a trash can somewhere.
Not even that statement cracks this mother.
Let`s go out to the phones now. Phyllis is calling in from Pennsylvania. Hi, Phyllis.
PHYLLIS, PENNSYLVANIA RESIDENT: Hi.
DIMOND: What`s your question, my dear?
PHYLLIS: I have a question for the psychologist.
DIMOND: OK.
PHYLLIS: I listened to both of these tapes on the Web this afternoon, thoroughly. Toward the end of the second one, Casey refers to Caylee in the past tense. She`s talking about things that she liked to do, and she went to Blanchard Park, and she referred to her in the past tense.
DIMOND: I get you.
PHYLLIS: I wondered if this would be like a show of guilt in itself.
DIMOND: Let`s go out to Sergeant Scott Haines. He`s with the sheriff`s department in Florida there, Santa Rosa County.
What do you think about that, Sergeant? Did you pick up on that?
SGT. SCOTT HAINES, SHERIFF`S OFFICER, SANTA ROSA COUNTY, FLORIDA: I actually did pick up on that count. And that`s a great point that she brought out. Any time that somebody refers to somebody as what they used to like to do, or anything in the past tense, investigators definitely pick up on that.
And that`s basically the subconscious coming out and saying things. There were a lot more things that she said in her interviews like that that she would catch herself when she said and she would try to change it.
In that same interview, she made a statement about, I would never harm my child, or I never dreamed I would harm my child or allow someone to hurt my child. She changed it. There`s all kinds of things throughout that entire interview that definitely, I`m sure, raised a lot of concerns and questions in those investigators` minds.
DIMOND: Yes. And it`ll -- it may come up if this thing goes to court. I say if. I think probably when.
There is another very interesting piece of tape. Rosy, I want you to cue up number six here. In this point, Casey Anthony almost apologizes. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
C. ANTHONY: I`m sorry I`ve given you guys the run-around.
WELLS: Well, we`re not trying to be big, scary guys. We`re just trying to.
C. ANTHONY: Oh, I know.
WELLS: We`re just trying to make sure we get the accurate information, so we have something to work off of.
C. ANTHONY: I understand that. I just wish -- I honestly had more things to help with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIMOND: Yes, well, Bethany Marshall, again, what is it going to take to make her spill all of the beans?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, she certainly doesn`t spill it here. And I think this dove tails with the last caller`s questions, referring to Caylee in the past tense.
What she does towards the end of this interview is she starts to get chummy with them. She says, look, you can look at my computer. Thanks, guys, I hope I didn`t give you a hard time.
It`s like she started to bond with them a little bit. And she`s going to give them a little gift at the end. Give them a little few clues, and people who are disturbed often have what we call context-dependent thinking.
They get wrapped up in the moment of what`s happening and they do not think about the larger picture. So she could have been thinking about how fun it was to be talking to these burly policemen.
DIMOND: Yes.
MARSHALL: . and not thinking about the possibility that this was being taped and she might go to jail.
DIMOND: Well, she almost sounded to me a little bit flirty there.
MARSHALL: Yes.
DIMOND: And I think the spotlight of attention is something that she is not shying away from.
Let`s take another phone call. Shelly is calling in from Tennessee. Hi, Shelly.
SHERRY, TENNESSEE RESIDENT: It`s Sherry.
DIMOND: Oh, hi. I`m sorry. What`s your question?
SHERRY: I was wondering, they said that Casey had used Amy`s car and stole the checks out of it. Have the police department and sheriff`s department checked that car for DNA?
DIMOND: Well, that`s a very good question.
Nikki Pierce is a reporter with WDBO Radio there.
Nikki, what do we know about Amy Huizinga`s car? Did they check it?
NIKKI PIERCE, REPORTER, WDBO RADIO: We don`t have that information on whether or not it`s been checked. But at the time that Casey borrowed that car, it was about a week before she got arrested, which means that she had already abandoned her car at the Amscot.
DIMOND: I see.
PIERCE: It had already been recovered. It had the smell and everything already in it. We do know that Amy Huizinga has been very cooperative with police so if investigators asked to check it, then she certainly allowed them to.
DIMOND: I see. You know, one other piece of tape that I would really like to get to is number eight there, Rosy, if you can get that ready. We think of Casey Anthony as being such a tough cookie, so to speak. And I guess she is for being quiet for so long.
But at one point in this conversation with the police, she starts to talk about what she is really petrified of. And I want to go to Natisha Lance, who is sitting outside the Anthonys` house and that`s where Casey is with her parents right now.
Natisha, before we listen to this, I want to ask you, what kind of relationship do you see that Casey has with her mother?
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, a lot people have asked that question, Diane. And actually, from people who are very close to the family, they`ve said that they were always very close, they were close friends.
However, there was a little bit of a different picture when Cindy Anthony came to pick Casey up from her boyfriend`s house, Tony Lazzaro. They said that Cindy was a little upset. It seemed like they, you know, may have been strained for a short period of time.
When Casey did spend time over there, she never spoke to Cindy over the phone in their presence. She would always leave the apartment and speak to her. So it seemed like there was some type of strained relationship, at least at that point in time. However, in the past, it seemed like they did have a pretty close relationship.
DIMOND: Yes. Well, Natisha, listen to this, and everyone out there, listen to this. When the police start to question Casey Anthony about what she`s really most afraid of.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: So you`re more afraid -- so wait a minute. So you`re more afraid of your mom`s reaction than you are if you ever see your daughter again?
C. ANTHONY: No, I`m absolutely petrified. Absolutely petrified. I know my mom will never forgive me. I`m never going to forgive myself, because there`s that chance that I might not see Caylee again. And I don`t want to think about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIMOND: Yes, well, you know, that -- your mother always has the strings on you, no matter what. And maybe they should get Cindy Anthony more involved in questioning her daughter. That might get it off the dime.
Let`s go to another phone call, real quick here, Diane in Missouri. Hi, Diane. Nice name.
DIANE, MISSOURI RESIDENT: When they checked the trunk of the car -- the cadaver dogs -- did they check the dumpster and the landfill?
DIMOND: Oh, that`s a good question.
Nikki Pierce, do you know the answer to that, the dumpster that was right next to the car when they towed it away?
PIERCE: Actually, they did check the landfill. As it was explained to me the truck that took the garbage from that dumpster had a GPS on it and they knew exactly where to check in the landfill. It had a certain grid where it dumped so.
DIMOND: So they didn`t find anything.
PIERCE: They did check and didn`t find anything.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
C. ANTHONY: My mom flat out told me yesterday, she will never be able to forgive me and I even told her, I`m never going to forgive myself.
Every day, I`ve been beating myself up for this. Every single day.
WELLS: Right.
C. ANTHONY: Not knowing where to go, what to do. Running in circles, literally, because that`s all I can do at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELICH: Remember we had those two people that we were talking about. The person who had an accident or made an accident or made a bad decision? And a person who`s just a cold-blooded callous monster?
That`s telling me that you are the second person, this cold-blooded callous monster.
C. ANTHONY: I`m not.
MELICH: . who doesn`t care and doesn`t want to help, because she`s afraid that something so heinous happened, that everyone is going to look at her and say she`s a monster, she deserves to go away, she deserves never see the light of day. This bad thing should happen to her.
I don`t want to believe that right now. But you`re not giving me no choice. You understand you`re giving me no choice.
This is -- listen, this is going to be the opportunity that you have, right now, no matter how heinous you think that what happened was to Caylee, this is your opportunity to tell us. This is going to be your only opportunity to tell us because what`s going to happen, we`re going to find out. There`s not going to be a question, we`re going to find out, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIMOND: Welcome back. I`m Diane Diamond, sitting in for Nancy Grace.
Let`s go back out to the attorneys, Joe Lawless, Doug Burns. All right, we have been listening all this time to this very explosive audio tape of this woman being interrogated.
Joe Lawless, say it gets to court. Say she is charged with murder. Do you try to get these tapes kept out of court?
JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT": Oh, absolutely. And that`s going to be one of the biggest problems that she faces, Diane, because this is now so emblazoned on the public`s mind. It`s like I`m ringing a bell.
But I think what has to happen is her lawyers will file a motion to suppress and the circumstances under which this interrogation was conducted will be examined. I don`t think the tape is going to help the police in this instance, because it`s a very aggressive, coercive, brow-beating kind of confession over an extended period of time.
And I`ve gotten confessions and statements that were incriminating thrown out for a lot less. And I don`t think these statements would hold up if they were examined by a judge at that point.
DIMOND: Spoken like a true defense attorney.
OK, Doug Burns, let me ask you. This is a serious question now. This woman may be arrested again on some more check forgery charges. She`s been in prison, out of prison, in prison, out of prison.
Don`t the authorities in Orlando run the risk of looking like they`re really picking on her while she is down if they arrest her again?
DOUG BURNS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, I mean, it`s like a ping-pong match, I mean, back and forth, back and forth. Bail bondsman and bounty hunters showing up and bailing her out only to have her go back in. In and out, in and out. So you`re absolutely right.
How the public is going to perceive it, it`s hard to say. But, at this point, my understanding was that, the recent round of charges just formalized the earlier, you know, sort of complaint charges and that she`s still on bail.
But if they arrest her again and she goes in again, I think people are going to say, wait a minute, what is going on?
DIMOND: Yes, make up your mind.
BURNS: Right.
DIMOND: Either charge her or you don`t.
Let`s go out to the phones again. This time, South Carolina, Marge. Hi, Marge.
MARY, SOUTH CAROLINA RESIDENT: Mary?
DIMOND: Oh, Mary, is it Mary?
MARY: Yes.
DIMOND: I`m sorry, Mary in South Carolina. What`s your question?
MARY: I want to know, how does lying make this woman a murderer or even -- I mean maybe she`s telling the truth. Maybe she truly does not know where her daughter is.
DIMOND: Well, you have a point there, Mary.
Bethany Marshall, a liar does not necessarily equate into a killer.
MARSHALL: No, it doesn`t. But she -- I have listened to the whole interrogation. She did not aid at all in the search for her daughter. She didn`t give them one tiny little clue that led anywhere.
Is that a mother who`s concerned about her daughter? And Joe Lawless said that this is a hard-nosed interrogation? They -- this was not that hard- nosed. All they did, consistently, all the way through, was present conflicting realities that did not go together and forced her to make a choice.
For instance, they said, boy, you said you`re really concerned about your daughter, but you`re lying and lying. Now, which is it? So those two things don`t go together.
DIMOND: Yes.
MARSHALL: Or if you lie and lie and lie, and you -- don`t go to jail, you know, people are going to see you as a cold-blooded killer. Which way is it? So they kept contrasting this choice, that choice, this choice, that choice.
I thought it was a really good strategy.
MARSHALL: Sergeant Scott Haines, who is with the sheriff`s department in Florida, jump in here. When you hear attorneys attack the way you interrogate someone when you`re trying to look for a missing child, you get a little angry?
HAINES: I don`t get angry. I`ve dealt with plenty of defense attorneys on very serious crimes before during trials. And that`s their job and we have our job. I don`t think there`s going to be any issue whatsoever. These statements will not get suppressed. I`m sure there was Miranda read beforehand. This was not hard-nosed.
One thing that definitely concerned me during the interrogations was any time an innocent person is innocent and allegations are made that they did something heinous such as killing their child, they will make strong denials that -- to the point where they will get angry and sometimes even combative.
DIMOND: You know, Sergeant.
HAINES: That`s how angry they`d get.
DIMOND: , that is a very good point. And not one time in all of these transcripts that I`ve been reading all day does she get her back up and say, hey, wait a minute, now I am trying to help you. I am not a liar.
One more quick point I want to get out here before we run out of time. Let`s go to Natisha, our producer on the scene there.
Natisha, let me ask you one thing about something she said in this transcript about -- when asked about the baby daddy, the father of Caylee. She talks about having his obituary, well, somewhere at home.
Do we really know if this man is dead or alive?
LANCE: Well, it seems as if police are satisfied with the story that Casey has given that the father of Caylee is, in fact, deceased. His name was never on the birth certificate. She said that this is someone who was a close friend of hers that she had known since she was about 5 or 6 years old.
But then we`ve heard other stories that it may be possibly somebody who she went to high school with. So it`s still kind of unknown. However, police are still satisfied with the story that she has given to them.
DIMOND: Well, maybe. There has been so much said and disproved and, you know, we never know.
All right, Natisha Lance, great job you`re doing out there, by the way, my dear.
Time now for CNN HEROES.
This is CNN rows.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN HEROES.
NINA CHARLSON, MOTHER OF FIREFIGHTER: There was excitement in his voice that his crew was going to be flown out into a remote area.
SCOTT CHARLSON, FALLEN FIREFIGHTER: Hey, it`s Scott. I just got called out to a fire in California. Just calling to let you guys know.
N. CHARLSON: And that was it.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Eight firefighters are presumed dead after a helicopter crashed in northern California.
N. CHARLSON: I don`t think there`s any words of wisdom that you can give somebody when they just found out that their son or daughter has burned to death. There`s a lot of things that need to be done for those families.
VICKI MINOR, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: I`m Vicki Minor, and I take care of injured and fallen firefighters and their families.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Southern California is starting to burn now.
MINOR: It`s not good.
Our firefighters rarely die or get injured in the state they live in. So the foundation raises money to get families to the bedside of those injured to and to help bring other family members in when a firefighter is killed.
JONATHAN FROHREICH, CRASH SURVIVOR: She actually showed up in my hospital room the day after it happened. She`s there to do anything for me.
MINOR: We provide their motels, we give them money. Whatever is needed, we`ll do.
I hope they feel they can go on and fight that fire and know that we`ll take care of their family and their friends.
ANNOUNCER: Get involved. CNN.com/heroes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DIMOND: Well, we have heard some bombshell tapes of Casey Anthony. But then again, it`s been a whole week of dramatic happenings in this case. Time now to take a look back at the week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tot mom Casey Anthony could be arrested at any moment.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The state attorney`s office has just issued 10 formal charges against tot mom Casey Anthony for allegedly forging three checks belonging to a friend.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Whoa, whoa, wait. First I`m hearing of this.
LEONARD PADILLA, BOUNTY HUNTER: Yes.
GRACE: I`ve asked you 50 times what goes on in the house and suddenly, I`m hearing they asked the Anthonys to take a lie detector test and they did not do it?
PADILLA: That`s correct.
GRACE: Mr. Nejame, I -- certainly, you`ve tried to tell your clients, George and Cindy Anthony, the reason the public is having this reaction to them, because they -- many people believe -- have the power to convince Casey Anthony to tell the truth about little Caylee.
MARK NEJAME, ATTORNEY FOR CINDY AND GEORGE ANTHONY: Do you think that there are any people in this earth that want to find Caylee more than they do?
GRACE: No, I do not. Whoa, wait a minute. Wait a minute. So while her daughter was missing, she was picking up dinners for her new boyfriend?
NATE, CASEY`S FORMER ROOMMATE: Yes, ma`am. I think one night she made pasta for everyone. Just you know.
GRACE: Did she ever mention over the pasta dinner that her 2-year-old was gone?
NATE: No, ma`am. She did not mention to us that Caylee was missing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DIMOND: Well, before we go, let`s stop to remember Army Sergeant Timothy Smith, 25 years old, South Lake Tahoe, California, killed, Iraq. Among Smith`s many honors, he was awarded the Purple Heart and the Army Commendation Medal.
He had a big heart, loved snow boarding, four-wheeling and cooking for his wife, Shana. His friends describe him as a young man full of life and energy who could always make you smile. He leaves behind grieving parents, Michael and Patricia, brother Tommy, sister Jackie, and his wife Shana, and his son Riley.
Timothy Smith, American hero.
Well, thanks to all of our guests tonight. And of course, our biggest thank you, always, is to you for being with us and inviting us into your homes. We`ll see you here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Good night and stay safe.
END
