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Joy Behar Page

Casey Anthony Murder Trial; Interview With Ray Romano

Aired June 08, 2011 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: Coming up on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW, more forensic evidence in the Casey Anthony trial. Will the prosecution score points with their groundbreaking techniques? Or will the defense be able to discredit the science like we saw in the O.J. Simpson trial?

Plus Joy sits down with her old stand-up pal, Ray Romano.

That and more, starting right now.

JOY BEHAR, HOST: Another day of testimony in the Casey Anthony murder trial. Today the focus was on Casey`s computer and information found on that computer, including a potentially damaging search for chloroform.

With me now are Mark Geragos, noted defense attorney who has defended Scott Peterson; Michael Jackson and Winona Ryder to name but a few; Stacey Honowitz, Florida prosecutor; plus Jean Casarez, correspondent for "In Session" on TruTV, who was in court today.

A forensic computer analyst was on the stand and talked about what he found on a computer taken from the Anthony. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. KEVIN STINGER, COMPOUTER FORENSIC EXPERT: Detective Osborne observed a search hit for the word "chloroform" on the computer and asked my assistance in identifying in what context that word appeared. It was run from Google. And it was a search that was specific for "chloroform".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: And another expert said that there were searches for the words "head injury", "inhalation", "chest trauma", "internal bleeding", "ruptured spleen", "neck breaking" and "death".

Stacey, this sounds to me like somebody was looking up ways to kill somebody. What is your read on that?

STACEY HONOWITZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: Well, certainly this is something that the prosecutors probably couldn`t wait to put in front of the jury. I mean you have a big puzzle now, and every single day pieces of that puzzle are adding up to the focus of, we`re going to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that she`s responsible for the first-degree murder of her daughter.

And by putting in these Google searches on the computer that talk about "death", "chloroform", things that we`ve already heard about, this is something that the jury is really going to hang their hat on.

BEHAR: Ok. But Mark, can`t the defense just say there`s no way to prove those searches were done by Casey?

MARK GERAGOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s exactly what they`re going to say, number one. Number two, I assume that somebody`s going to go through, take a look at the searches, see how long each of those web pages were up, see if it actually was somebody who was on that web page for a sustained period of time, or see if that just happened to be in a series of web pages that was visited.

And I assume that, you know, clearly the defense must have known about this; that it was turned over in discovery. So one would hope that the defense has an answer to that; that either it`s going to be brought up through this witness, or going to be brought up through some witness.

BEHAR: It just raises reasonable doubt, I would think. Right? Because three or four people lived in the house. It could have been anybody in the house on the computer. Am I right about that?

HONOWITZ: No.

BEHAR: I`m not right. Ok.

GERAGOS: Remember, we do have -- Stacey, if I`m not mistaken, aren`t one of the people who lived in that house a medical professional?

HONOWITZ: Listen, Mark, the bottom line is, you can pick away at little pieces of the evidence, be picky and say, this is not --

GERAGOS: The answer to that question was -- you`re not going to answer -- wasn`t somebody a nurse who lived in that house? Isn`t the mother --

HONOWITZ: You`re telling me --

GERAGOS: I think the mother is a nurse.

HONOWITZ: The mother was a nurse at one time. The father was a homicide detective. I think it`s very nice to be able to sit in front of a jury after all this other evidence has come in and said, you know what? The mother`s a nurse, there`s chloroform in the daughter`s car and the mother was looking up "chloroform", "neck breaking", "chest inhalation".

(CROSSTALK)

HONOWITZ: Like I said, you could get in front of that jury and say all of those things. But after a while, things add up and add up and add up.

BEHAR: Mark, let me get Jean in for a second, because another witness also said the Internet history was manually deleted. Now, that sounds a little suspicious to me. Why would they delete it if it was a legitimate search?

JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": You know, it was deleted but I guess we all can all delete things. But I want to respond to Mark Geragos.

First of all, Mark`s exactly right. Normally what the defense does is attack and cross-examine creating a timeline that -- showing their client didn`t do these searches. We didn`t hear that today. What we heard was fact that the searches were done but number one, it was "self-defense" that was searched for and number two it was like funny, it was a joke that the searches were done for.

So it appears as though the defense is not going to say that Casey didn`t do those searches, number one. Number two, a lot of these searches were genuine searches meaning you actually had to search for the word "neck breaking" and how to make "chloroform".

BEHAR: Stacey, do you want to add to that?

HONOWITZ: Listen, I -- all I can say is I think at the end of the day, and I hate that expression and I`m using it, but when you add everything together and you have these pieces of the puzzle, I think after a while a jury`s going to say is this just a series of coincidences that there`s four people in the house and she didn`t touch the computer, that somebody else was driving her car and there`s chloroform in there.

That there was a hit in the back of house, and I mean all of these things after a while you say it`s not coincidental. We`re going to be able to prove that she is the person responsible.

BEHAR: Ok. All right. Let`s talk about the dogs now. The first witness today was a dog handler whose cadaver dog searched Casey`s backyard. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. KRISTIN BREWER, DOG HANDLER: Nose was down, he spent approximately three to four minutes searching in the backyard. I saw that there was an area of interest that he kept going back to and sniffing pretty hard. He finally came back to that same area after making another lap of the yard and gave a final trained indication in one location in the backyard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: And then here`s a picture of the yard, and where the dog hit. See that? The ground doesn`t seem terribly dug up or anything. Jean, what does the prosecution think was there?

CASAREZ: A body. The body of Caylee. And I think they`re going to put on more evidence that it takes a while for a body to decompose, so it wasn`t that a drowning victim was laid there immediately to try to resuscitate. That`s yet to come. But the defense countered it very strongly by saying look it`s a dog and a dog we can`t cross examine and a dog is very subjective and the handler is subjective. Maybe he wanted his dog to hit right there.

BEHAR: And Mark, you know, can I say the dog hit one day in the yard and then the same dog didn`t hit the next day. So does that help the defense show that the dogs are not consistent necessarily and certainly dogs are not always right?

GERAGOS: Joy, I will tell you, joy, I own dogs, I love dogs. I`ve got two of them that are my favorites. But this is some of the worst evidence, and I even hesitate to call it evidence. I don`t know why this is allowed in courtrooms.

I`ve had this repeatedly in cases. Inevitably if you do the investigation on it you will find that these dog handlers want to believe whatever the dogs are telling them. No matter whether -- in the last case I tried, where there was dog evidence, the dog evidence was completely contradicted by the ATF`s own chemical lab, yet the dog handler would have none of it.

So it`s really a disturbing kind of area of science for them to be injecting into a courtroom for a first-degree murder. I think anybody -- anybody who`s ever tried a case who`s had this stuff I think would be scared by it.

BEHAR: But Stacey, prosecution spent hours talking about the training of the dogs. Do you think the jury will find the dogs credible? Or do you agree with Mark?

HONOWITZ: Well, you know I`m not going to agree with Mark. I can`t even believe you asked me that question. I love him but I`m not going to agree with him.

The bottom line is that`s why the prosecution does lay that kind of foundation. They want the jurors to know that these dogs are going through specific training in order to hit on decomposition. If you have to spend a lot of time going through the training and experience, it`s exactly for that purpose. So that the jury does find their work to be credible.

GERAGOS: And, Stacey, there`s a Florida Supreme Court case as you would know because you`re down there that just came out just recently if I`m not mistaken which says it can be a reversible error if you don`t do it.

(CROSSTALK)

HONOWITZ: It`s the Harris case. That case just came out, it`s the Harris case.

BEHAR: Right.

Ok. Let me talk to you about the smell of the death can. That`s interesting stuff too. This is a brand-new forensic technique. Mark, what do you think about it? Do you think it`s valuable at all or is it too new --

GERAGOS: It`s -- two words. It`s junk science. This is unbelievable to me.

BEHAR: Ok. So the dogs are useless -- wait a second. The dogs are useless, the computer is useless and the death can is useless, according to you.

GERAGOS: Right. You know what this is? I hate to say it. But you notice in this case, Joy, that they started off doing the character assassination block in this case first. So that you would hate her. That you would just think she`s a liar.

Then they get into what I consider to be junk science after junk science. Yet you want to -- as Stacey says, they`re building pieces, I think they`re pieces of garbage. I think they need to get into some real evidence.

And that`s the problem in this case. They don`t have a cause of death, they don`t have a manner of death, they`re just inviting the jury to speculate on the basis of this woman is a pathological liar, so therefore you should hate her and therefore you should convict her. That`s what`s going on.

BEHAR: Stacey, you agree with that? Stacey.

HONOWITZ: Well, of course. They`re going chronologically in a timeline. So to talk about what she was all about, they went from the very beginning, they want the jurors to be aware of this long timeline.

So character assassination -- that`s her. They didn`t make this up. That`s Casey Anthony. That`s her personality. That`s how she reacted. That`s what she did.

Now we`re getting into the forensics, now they`re getting into the meat and potatoes. And so the jury has to understand what she`s all about. This wasn`t an idea to plant evidence to try to do these things, they`re doing it methodically.

(CROSSTALK)

GERAGOS: And tell one thing, Stacey just tell me one thing.

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: Let Jean talk. Go ahead Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ: Here`s the challenge for the defense -- here`s the challenge for the defense. One thing after the other corroborates the other and that`s the challenge for the defense because it all means the same thing.

BEHAR: But the defense doesn`t have to prove anything.

GERAGOS: Right.

BEHAR: It`s the prosecution that has to prove.

GERAGOS: And that`s the problem.

BEHAR: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

GERAGOS: Right and the prosecution is usually --

CASAREZ: Yes, very true, but when you have a dog who corroborates the chemicals, who corroborates what everybody else is saying about the trunk of the car that`s the challenge.

BEHAR: Ok.

GERAGOS: Right and the challenge -- the challenge also is why are you allowing in something that`s never been allowed into a courtroom before in a case like this unless you`re desperate?

BEHAR: Ok. Stacey, last word?

HONOWITZ: Well, of course, they`re not desperate. Mark knows it, DNA and everyone says its DNA at one time was new. Listen, there`s always got to be a first and in this case they found it to be relevant, important material evidence. And I guess if she gets convicted we`ll have to wait and see if it`s an appellate issue and if it comes back.

BEHAR: Ok. Thank you very much, everybody. We`ll have more on the Casey Anthony trial when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: As the Casey Anthony trial continues to explore scientific and forensic evidence, questions still remain about the bizarre dynamics of the Anthony family, particularly the relationship between Casey and her mother. What role did her childhood and her family play in the type of woman Casey ultimately became?

Here to talk about it are, Diane Fanning, author of "Mommy`s Little Girl" a book about Casey Anthony, and Robi Ludwig, psychotherapist and Care.com contributor.

Ok, Diane, you`ve written about the Anthony family. I`m presuming that you did a lot of research and that you can back up a lot of what you say in the book, right?

DIANE FANNING, AUTHOR, "MOMMY`S LITTLE GIRL": Of course.

BEHAR: Yes, of course. Ok. So what was Casey`s childhood like?

FANNING: Casey`s childhood early on was fairly normal. There was the interruption of the move to Florida, but for the most part she had a good relationship with both of her parents before she reached adolescence. And it seems she had a good relationship with her brother as well.

There was a bit of discord in the home off and on but she didn`t seem to be very traumatized by it until she got older.

BEHAR: Well, everybody has a little discord in the family, Diane, so when you say discord, how serious was it?

FANNING: I think off and on, Cindy and George had a querulous relationship. I don`t think it was enough to warp a person into becoming someone who would kill their child.

But once she hit adolescence, things started falling apart. She started lying and that created a distance between her and her parents.

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: Ok but --

FANNING: But yet her --

BEHAR: Sorry, yes.

Well, how would you characterize her relationship with her mother? Let`s talk about that -- or with her parents in general.

FANNING: Her -- her relationship with her mother became strained when she reached adolescence. And there was a sense of competition between them, which you see a lot of times between a teenage girl and her mother. But this seemed to have some malignance to it.

Now, did Casey bring that on her own or was there`s something that -- that she learned from her environment. I`m not sure. There`s a lot in her personality that is responsible for this, as much as anything that happened in her environment.

BEHAR: Ok so Diane Fanning`s book, pretty much indicates what she just said that the girl became a compulsive liar in her teens. Why would someone who had a relatively normal childhood it sounds like with a little bit of a -- a couple of bumps in the road.

ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Yes.

BEHAR: Become a compulsive liar all of a sudden?

LUDWIG: Well, when you think about adolescence, the goal of adolescence is really to separate from the parent.

BEHAR: Yes.

LUDWIG: And one of the ways to do that is via lying. But it sounds like this girl --

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: I see.

LUDWIG: -- had some personality issues that just became apparent at the time that she was an adolescent.

Now, maybe when she was younger there were some minor problems that got dismissed. But during adolescence there`s a lot more opportunity to separate, to have some independence.

BEHAR: Well, you lie a little bit when you`re an adolescent because you say what time are you coming home?

LUDWIG: Right.

BEHAR: And you say 10:00 and then you come home at 1:00. Were you drinking, no, we weren`t drinking; stuff like that. But this sounds like really pathological lying. Right, Diane?

FANNING: Yes, it certainly does. It`s as if she discovered the ability to lie and then couldn`t help but to expand it into an art form. And -- and why did she do that? Well, it seemed like she wasn`t held responsible, that she didn`t get called on her lies that often. And so that empowered her to make her lies even bigger and better.

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: Do you buy --

FANNING: And her brother Lee has said she`d lie about anything and nothing at all.

BEHAR: Well, do you buy that Casey started lying because she was sexually abused by her father and brother, as the defense claims? Do you buy that at all?

FANNING: Not one little bit.

LUDWIG: Yes.

BEHAR: Ok.

FANNING: I know that can be an indicator, but in this case I do not think so. I think it is just more in Casey`s string of lies.

BEHAR: Ok, let me play some of the first phone call that Casey made home to her mother from jail. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CINDY ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY`S MOTHER: Casey?

CASEY ANTHONY, ACCUSED OF MURDERING HER DAUGHTER: Mom.

CINDY ANTHONY: Hi sweetie.

CASEY ANTHONY: Oh, I just saw your nice little cameo on TV.

CINDY ANTHONY: Which one?

CASEY ANTHONY: What do you mean, which one?

CINDY ANTHONY: Which one?

CASEY ANTHONY: You don`t know what my involvement is and stuff?

CINDY ANTHONY: Casey.

CASEY ANTHONY: Mom.

CINDY ANTHONY: What?

CASEY ANTHONY: No.

CINDY ANTHONY: I don`t know what your involvement is, sweetheart. You -- you`re not telling me where she`s at.

CASEY ANTHONY: Because I don`t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) know where she`s at. Are you kidding me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: Ok. What do you think of that conversation? She`s either lying or what is she doing there? She`s telling the truth and no one believes her so she`s frustrated or she`s lying?

LUDWIG: It sounds like there`s a power struggle.

And one of the things that we see is that Casey appears to be stronger than her mother. So she has a mother who can`t keep her in check.

BEHAR: Yes.

LUDWING: And that`s a problem.

BEHAR: I see.

Ok, we`ll have more on this in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: I`m back with my panel, we`re talking about the Casey Anthony trial.

Unlike the strained relationship with their daughter, Cindy and George doted on their granddaughter, Caylee.

Now, Diane, did you find that there was jealousy on Casey`s part; that Cindy and the child were very close and she was jealous of that?

DIANE FANNING, AUTHOR, "MOMMY`S LITTLE GIRL": I think that bothered Casey a lot. I mean before Caylee was born, Casey was the baby of the family. She was the little girl, she was treated like a princess.

And you can`t quite blame Cindy for that, because that`s how Cindy was brought up. She had older brothers, and she was the little girl that finally came along, and she was spoiled and she was treated like a princess. So she just did to her daughter the way she was -- the treatment she received.

BEHAR: Well, you know, a lot of families, but a lot of -- go ahead. I`m sorry.

FANNING: But then when Caylee came along she was supplanted.

BEHAR: Yes.

FANNING: Caylee was now the little girl, the little princess.

BEHAR: But a lot of people treat their younger child that way, Robi, a lot of people in families always treat the new child as the princess. That doesn`t mean that the mother of the child snaps and wants to kill the child.

LUDWIG: No.

BEHAR: So what is wrong with this girl? If she did kill her.

LUDWIG: You know, it sounds like Casey has a character disorder, perhaps she didn`t want any limitations at all, she wasn`t ready to have this child emotionally.

BEHAR: Right.

LUDWIG: And, you know, so you have a perfect storm for not wanting a child, feeling that she can`t get her needs met. And you know, this child was interfering with her living the life that she wanted to live. And during the moment --

BEHAR: Do you think she`s mentally ill?

LUDWIG: I think she`s character disordered. So it is a form of mental illness which sometimes can reveal itself when a person turns 18.

BEHAR: I see.

LUDWIG: They develop clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. So it`s very possible that it just became more obvious during her teen years when there were more limits. That`s what she said. There aren`t going to be any limits for me.

BEHAR: That`s interesting what you`re saying. So that means that this whole idea of the bad seed that people talk about really means that it`s a dormant mental illness probably that a child is genetically born with, right? And then it comes out as they get older. I see.

LUDWIG: Right. So there are certain genetic tendencies; they may get expressed, they may not get expressed. But here`s a situation where you can`t entirely blame the parents. It doesn`t sound like they were bad or abusive people. Maybe they weren`t the right parents for this child, but it sounds like she had a lot going on there and it almost wouldn`t matter who her parents were.

BEHAR: Ok. You know, Diane, she was also alienated from her dad for so long, I -- can I play the tape? Let`s play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASEY ANTHONY: I want to see each and every one of you but at least with dad, honestly the true main reason I want to see him is because him and I have had a broken relationship for such a long time. And we were just finally starting to talk the day that this unfolded. The day that I was brought here.

BEHAR: Diane, tell me about her relationship with her dad. She seems alienated from him also.

FANNING: Well, dad was a little more realistic than mom. And he had been questioning whether she really was working for the last two years. And every time he brought it up, Cindy covered for Casey and said, of course, she`s got a job.

BEHAR: I see.

FANNING: She leaves here, she goes there. So I think George was trying to insert the truth in there and Caylee -- Casey didn`t like it.

BEHAR: I see. So he wanted her to be more accountable for what she was saying and that turned her against him.

FANNING: Yes.

BEHAR: Ok. Thank you, ladies. Interesting stuff.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: Unlike that kid in the movie "The Sixth Sense," James Van Praagh doesn`t see dead people, he talks to them. I say if you want to talk to dead people, try doing stand-up in Boca Raton. His book is "Growing Up in Heaven: The Eternal Connection Between Parent and Child." Welcome, James, to my show.

JAMES VAN PRAAGH: Thank you, Joy. Nice to be here.

BEHAR: We go back, you know, we`ve seen each other--

VAN PRAAGH: A long time.

BEHAR: Yes. And so you`re talking--

VAN PRAAGH: I was in your standup act as a matter of fact.

BEHAR: I know, I have a lot of material on you.

VAN PRAAGH: Thank you.

BEHAR: I find your work rather amusing, let`s put it that way.

(LAUGHTER)

VAN PRAAGH: Me too.

BEHAR: But a lot of people believe that you actually are talking to dead people.

VAN PRAAGH: Sure. Sure.

BEHAR: And why don`t you convince me that you can do that. I mean, I don`t buy it. As you know.

VAN PRAAGH: I don`t have to convince you. Because I always say it`s none of my business what you think of me. That`s true for everybody out there. It`s no one`s business what anyone thinks of you, because you are who you are.

BEHAR: That`s true. I don`t want you to care what I think of you, but do you want to just play along here for a minute?

(LAUGHTER)

VAN PRAAGH: Well, you know, I love you and you love me, so there we go. It`s a hard thing sometimes to, you know, to -- I don`t do this work proving--

BEHAR: What do you do, how do you do it? What do you do? Tell people what you do.

VAN PRAAGH: What I do is just like everybody has a sixth sense, everybody has intuition. You sense things. We all have it. We feel things. You thought about someone, five minutes later, the phone rings, it`s that person. What is that? It`s intuition.

BEHAR: It`s a coincidence.

VAN PRAAGH: A coincidence is God`s way of remaining anonymous.

BEHAR: A coincidence is God`s way of remaining anonymous.

VAN PRAAGH: God`s way of remaining anonymous.

BEHAR: I see.

VAN PRAAGH: I think it`s all divine plan, I think there really is. I think we`re very limited in this three-dimensional world. I don`t think we see everything.

BEHAR: No.

VAN PRAAGH: I think to know everything and see everything would be stupid.

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: I go along with that.

VAN PRAAGH: And ever since I was a little boy, I was able to see spirits and lights and colors around people. I was asking--

BEHAR: Were you on any kind of drugs?

VAN PRAAGH: Not yet. Much later on. You`re moving the story forward. No, so I could see these things. And I asked my mother, I was raised Catholic and she said, you see those too? I used to see them when I was a little girl. Those are God`s angels. They`ll take care of you. And as a little kid, that`s who you measure your world around you see this world, that`s how you measure your world, what you see, feel, hear and experience.

BEHAR: But when you were a kid, did you like have an attraction to go to funerals?

VAN PRAAGH: Yes.

BEHAR: And cemeteries?

VAN PRAAGH: And cemeteries. All the time.

BEHAR: You were--

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: Wait a minute. So did I, and I`m not a psychic. I used to go to wakes and be scared and then make jokes because I was so scared.

VAN PRAAGH: Oh, the opposite for me. I would go to wakes and I would see the dead person standing right there, and my family`s crying, Irish Catholic, tons of wakes, and I would see the dead person at the end of the coffin, I am saying, why are you crying? They`re standing right there.

BEHAR: The dead person was standing? Don`t they lie down in the coffin?

VAN PRAAGH: Well, everybody goes to their own funerals and services. And I swear to God, it`s always like--

BEHAR: Oh, I see.

VAN PRAAGH: The women will always go and they will look at their dead body and they always say, why did they put me in that dress? I hated that dress when I was living, why now do I have to wear that in eternity? And the men are always like, makeup, why do they put the darn makeup on me, I look like a sissy.

BEHAR: So these are the dead people that you talk to.

VAN PRAAGH: These are the people I see at funerals.

BEHAR: That you`ve seen. The spirits.

VAN PRAAGH: Yes.

BEHAR: I see.

VAN PRAAGH: My father came to me at his wake and he whispered behind me and he said, thanks for putting my teeth in, they look pretty good. And we were just saying that, he looks pretty good with his teeth in.

BEHAR: Did you ever think maybe you were hearing voices, James?

VAN PRAAGH: I hear voices, I see things, I feel things, so it`s a multi-sensory type of experience.

BEHAR: I`ve watched you on many shows and I saw you on Larry King, and you always say, you say you can contact the dead. But every time you try to contact the dead person, the person is always available. Why are they always available?

VAN PRAAGH: Oh, no, not always. I`ve had experiences where people have come to me and they want to talk to their dead mother, but she doesn`t show up, she`s not around, I can`t contact her. But the neighborhood, next-door neighbor comes through or the family dog comes through or someone else comes through they worked with. So you never can guarantee -- you can never guarantee who comes through. Never.

BEHAR: I see, but somebody does.

VAN PRAAGH: Sometimes.

BEHAR: Some dead person always comes through. Don`t you feel like saying to the dead, get a life?

VAN PRAAGH: They want us to know -- they probably have a better life than we do. They probably want us to know they`re around us, there`s no death. There`s no such thing as death.

BEHAR: I hope you`re right.

VAN PRAAGH: You can`t kill energy, you can`t destroy energy.

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: I hope you`re right, James.

VAN PRAAGH: I am right, Joy. I promise you.

BEHAR: I hope you`re right. The other thing you always say is they`re happy.

VAN PRAAGH: Depending on how they live their life.

BEHAR: So you believe in karma?

VAN PRAAGH: Oh, definitely believe in karma. In the book, I talk about karma, I talk about reincarnation. The other day at my book signing in Phoenix, I had -- I did a reading for a lady in the audience, and I don`t know what`s going to happen. I never know what`s going to happen. And who`s going to come through -- her son came through. I said there`s a Matthew here, he`s 5 years old, and he`s talking about his daddy, and the lady says uh-huh, and I said there`s a separation with his father, he`s not here on this earth. She goes, no. Now, he killed my son and then killed himself. Murder-suicide. Now, where is he? Is he in hell? Well, I don`t believe in hell. But--

BEHAR: You don`t believe in hell.

VAN PRAAGH: No. I believe hell is--

BEHAR: Neither does that evangelist, I forget his name.

BEHAR: I believe it`s a mind-set. I believe, you know, we create the world we make by our thoughts, our words and our deeds. Thoughts are real things.

BEHAR: Stephen Hawking, the famous scientist--

VAN PRAAGH: I just wrote him a letter.

BEHAR: You wrote him a letter? Well, he says that he doesn`t believe in an afterlife. He says people who believe in an afterlife are just afraid of the dark and are afraid to die. What do you say to that?

VAN PRAAGH: I say that he`s a materialistic person. I say that there is no sense of -- what is energy? I question--

BEHAR: He`s the -- he`s the scientist. He knows about energy. And he says --

VAN PRAAGH: But energy has to be transformed. You can`t kill energy. You can`t die, it doesn`t die. It has to be changed.

BEHAR: But the way you make it sound, it sounds as though -- it`s not just energy, it`s a person who`s speaking. It`s like a speaking entity. It`s not just floating energy.

VAN PRAAGH: Right. But what it is, the analogy I like to use is like television. We`re on television right now, but people who are watching this, they only see you in a box. They don`t see your image when it`s floating into that box, and why not? Why can`t they see that?

BEHAR: Maybe they don`t have HDTV.

VAN PRAAGH: But that`s energy and they can`t see because they`re not on that frequency. It`s various frequencies.

BEHAR: Now, you spoke to Johnny Carson -- after he was dead I presume.

VAN PRAAGH: Yes.

BEHAR: What did he tell you? Did he say that he preferred Letterman to take the Tonight Show? What did he tell you?

VAN PRAAGH: He preferred -- he`s with Tiny Tim now and -- always loved Tiny Tim.

BEHAR: Tiny Tim got married on the Johnny Carson Show.

VAN PRAAGH: Yes, he did. Remember that? It was really about I think -- if I remember, because it was years ago -- about his house and about his situation. Lucy`s come through a lot.

BEHAR: Lucille Ball.

VAN PRAAGH: Lucille Ball has come through.

BEHAR: What does she have to say?

VAN PRAAGH: She discussed about her and Ricky having fights all the time in this dressing room where they were. I didn`t know where I was going, until they brought me into this room, and I didn`t know what this room was, and she was right there, and she said this is where we used to fight all the time. He used to have the liquor brought in from behind, and sure enough I found out that`s exactly what`s happened. So, yes, she`s come through. (inaudible) come through, Rock Hudson`s come through.

BEHAR: Do all the dead speak English? That you speak to?

VAN PRAAGH: It`s all thought. It`s all thought. So it doesn`t matter what language, where you come from. It`s all telepathic. It`s mind-to-mind communication.

BEHAR: OK, now, the great Harry Houdini--

VAN PRAAGH: I loved Harry Houdini.

BEHAR: I went of course, everyone thinks he was a genius, but I once read that he and his mother I think it was had a deal that they would connect with each other at a seance and they had a password. And if the person didn`t hear the password, the living password, then they would know that there was no life after death. What do you say to all that? Because it never happened at any of the seances.

VAN PRAAGH: Well, that`s not true. There was a medium in Boston named Aileen Pinori (ph) I believe her name was, and she brought through the message which is Roosevelt lives, and that was the message. And he said yes, he agreed that was it. And then years later she changed -- it was the wife. The wife changed.

(CROSSTALK)

VAN PRAAGH: And years later she said, no, that wasn`t it, and that was due to much pressure given to her from the media. But indeed, Eleanor Pithier (ph)?

(CROSSTALK)

BEHAR: That`s not what I read. I read that he never got the message.

VAN PRAAGH: Yes, by a lady in Massachusetts, a medium in Massachusetts.

BEHAR: All right, maybe you know better than I do.

VAN PRAAGH: This is my work, darling.

BEHAR: Yeah. Well, let`s talk about the fact that you -- let`s switch gears for a minute.

VAN PRAAGH: Yeah, yeah, (inaudible).

BEHAR: You came out as a gay man on the Larry King show.

VAN PRAAGH: I`m always happy, joyful.

BEHAR: Yes, but I mean --

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: You came out after Prop 8 was banned in California. Right?

VAN PRAAGH: Right.

BEHAR: Is that why you did it at that time?

VAN PRAAGH: Oh, I just think it`s ridiculous. I mean, it`s just ridiculous. I mean, I`ve been, you know, it`s just so crazy. I`m married to a man 17 years.

BEHAR: Oh, you are.

VAN PRAAGH: Yes, federal employee.

BEHAR: Where did you get married?

VAN PRAAGH: We got married in California.

BEHAR: But it`s not legal in California.

VAN PRAAGH: When it was. It was three or four months.

BEHAR: There was a minute, that`s right.

VAN PRAAGH: That`s right. The minute, that we did it.

BEHAR: Then they took it back.

VAN PRAAGH: Come on. It`s [EXPLETIVE DELETED] ridiculous. It`s really stupid. So he worked for the federal government for 30 years and now he`s retired, and now I can`t get any of his benefits but yet I can get -- I can`t get any of his benefits from retirement.

BEHAR: That`s not right.

VAN PRAAGH: That`s not right. What is wrong with that?

BEHAR: So as a gay person, and a person who speaks to dead people--

VAN PRAAGH: You mean a funny person, joyful person, happy? I`m very happy.

BEHAR: Is there some special connection you have to dead gay guys, like Liberace? Does he --

VAN PRAAGH: He`s come through a lot.

BEHAR: Oh, yeah? What does he tell you?

VAN PRAAGH: Of course he has. Tickle the ivory. He`s come through, I did a reading once when -- for this man, and who he was, and I said, Lee`s here. And he says that makes sense. I said Lee is really pissed off about his settlement. And the guy says, well, I was his manager, so he came through and told him about his settlement, that he wasn`t happy with it.

BEHAR: I see.

VAN PRAAGH: So he`s come through. No, I think that it`s all energy. I think--

BEHAR: Do you realize when he was alive, nobody thought he was gay?

VAN PRAAGH: Isn`t that amazing? I mean, come on. I mean, hello. Come on.

BEHAR: Is it possible for you to talk to Abraham Lincoln and find out if he was gay? Because there`s a lot of rumors around that?

VAN PRAAGH: You`re so bad.

BEHAR: Also, you know what else I would like you to do? I have a few--

VAN PRAAGH: Abraham Lincoln comes through to me all the time.

BEHAR: He does? What does he say?

VAN PRAAGH: It`s so weird. It`s just different things. You`ll see some (ph) Lincoln every day, some reference to Lincoln is made every single day, whether it`s a commercial, it`s a car going by, whether it`s an avenue, Lincoln, Lincoln, every day for the past ten years.

BEHAR: What do you do to relax if all these dead people are talking to you all the time?

VAN PRAAGH: They don`t. I turn it on when I`m ready to work and I turn it off when I`m not working, you know. You have to learn how to mediate and open yourself up, and when not, you turn it off.

BEHAR: I see. That`s convenient.

VAN PRAAGH: They have, we have to. It`s like being on television. You get ready for it.

BEHAR: That`s right.

VAN PRAAGH: I garden, I write, I sing, I do different things.

BEHAR: You want to sing something for me?

VAN PRAAGH: No.

BEHAR: All right. Well, maybe, I hope you`re right.

VAN PRAAGH: No, I am right.

BEHAR: I hope you`re right.

VAN PRAAGH: Because there are things --

BEHAR: I`m a skeptic.

VAN PRAAGH: There are things that would come through like no one would know about, even the person I`m doing the reading for, they know nothing about. The person goes home and talks to somebody and they go, oh, my God, now that makes sense.

BEHAR: OK. I`ve got to go.

VAN PRAAGH: OK.

BEHAR: Lovely talking to you, always a pleasure to have you, James. His book is called "Growing Up in Heaven." We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: You know Ray Romano from the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" and his latest show, "Men of a Certain Age," on TNT. Well, he`s my old friend from early in our standup days. And the other day he was wandering through the halls here and he happened to drop by our set to say hello. His mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAY ROMANO, COMEDIAN: Dropped by is being generous, it was more like I was kidnapped and brought here. But it`s a pleasure, though, because we`re from -- we`re war buddies from back in the day.

BEHAR: That`s right. Yes, we are.

ROMANO: I was next door doing that guy`s show.

BEHAR: Piers? You should always come to me first because I`m the comedian.

ROMANO: They didn`t tell me you were in the same building.

BEHAR: They lie. They lie.

ROMANO: I know. He scares me a little.

BEHAR: Piers, he put a hefty bag over you and dragged you into his studio.

ROMANO: I had to pretend to be smart on his show.

BEHAR: Here you don`t have to pretend.

ROMANO: Yes. Yes.

BEHAR: You can just be as dumb as you want here.

ROMANO: That`s marvelous. That`s what made my wife rich, doing all that dumb stuff.

BEHAR: Let`s talk about how rich you are.

ROMANO: I`m not! You know what? I do what I do because I love it.

BEHAR: I know.

ROMANO: I hear I get a lot -- I get money, my wife -- every morning I wake up, I have clean clothes and an apple, and that`s all I need.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: So the money is irrelevant.

ROMANO: It goes to her. It goes right to her.

BEHAR: And the kids.

ROMANO: You know what it is? It`s like a volley, in volleyball, you ever see the guy who sets it up so she can spike it? I`m that. The money comes, give it all to her. Kids are good.

BEHAR: How many have you got now?

ROMANO: I have four. My daughter`s at USC, my boys are graduating next week. They`re twins.

BEHAR: Oh my god, your daughter is --

ROMANO: Twins are graduating. Yes.

BEHAR: Oh, my God.

ROMANO: They`re following -- they are on her coattails, because they`re going to UCS, but she`s a straight-A student, they`re straight C- pluses. So -- but they take after me.

BEHAR: But if I recall, the twins are what made you successful. Are they not?

ROMANO: Well, you mean because I was so -- it was so crazy at my house that I had to get an occupation that took me on the road?

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: That was one reason. Didn`t you make a movie about the twins?

ROMANO: I did a lot of material about my life, so my life was my twins, so first I was talking about being engaged, then we got married, I talked about being married. And then we had twins, I talked about having twins. And then for the next last 18 years it`s been how little sex I have.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: Well, you`re on the road. That`s why maybe.

ROMANO: Yes. That`s my material. But I remember I used to see you at the Green Street. We used to play that club.

BEHAR: Oh, yeah, down at Soho.

ROMANO: That little funky club.

BEHAR: That was fun. The audience was very bright down there.

ROMANO: Yes, so I kind of got away -- I fooled them. It`s like we fooled them on this show. We won a Peabody Award for this show.

BEHAR: Congratulations.

ROMANO: Thank you very much.

BEHAR: Peabody, huh?

ROMANO: Yes. And when I found out, the first thing I did was Google Peabody Award.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: And what did you find out?

ROMANO: I found out it`s a prestigious thing. And it`s kind of like a smart guy award. So we kind of ropadoped (ph) them a little.

BEHAR: That`s impressive.

ROMANO: They tell me it`s a good thing. So we are getting it Monday. We`re picking it up. Larry King is going to present it to us on Monday.

BEHAR: Oh, really?

ROMANO: Yes.

BEHAR: And how many Emmys did you win for the Raymond show?

ROMANO: I won one for acting and the show won twice. So I have three Emmys at my house and I still can`t have sex. What`s going on?

BEHAR: I know. Well, look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. He finds a way.

ROMANO: Oh. Here`s the thing about getting older, like getting to middle age is actually helping my marriage, because in the beginning, you know, I wanted sex all the time and my wife, she wanted it here. And now I want it here, and she still wants it, so we`re getting closer.

BEHAR: Getting closer.

ROMANO: We`re getting closer.

BEHAR: That`s very good. But the thing is does she want it here with you? Because you know, as you get older and you`re married how many years now?

ROMANO: 23 years.

BEHAR: So, you know.

ROMANO: Well, I never asked that question. You know? I don`t look a gift horse, you know--

BEHAR: You`ll stay married, though. You`re the kind of guy that will stay married.

ROMANO: On my side, yes, I will. Yes. My wife -- no, we`re doing fine.

BEHAR: You`re solid.

ROMANO: We`re doing fine. Here`s the thing. She comes from a traditional Italian family, and I actually said this to my wife once, because I knew that she could never divorce me even if she wanted to, because it would be a disgrace to her family and her mother, you know, from off the boat wouldn`t -- it would be -- no. You stay no matter what. So me being paranoid, I thought, what if she really wants to divorce me and she knows she can`t -- I told her, listen, if you ever do, don`t kill me, because that might be your only way out. Is to kill me. I go, tell me and I will divorce you. Just don`t kill me.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: That is the way it would happen, though. In the old Italian families, you do not get a divorce.

ROMANO: Yes. You fight it through. Yes.

BEHAR: Where are you living now, in L.A.?

ROMANO: I live in L.A. now. When Raymond started, I moved out there. But all my family is back here in New York.

BEHAR: Yes, but can you get fresh mozzarella in L.A.? Come on.

ROMANO: You can get pizza, you can get bagels, yes, there`s no -- you don`t ride your bikes, you know, but it`s also I`m playing golf in January, so it`s not bad. Yes. Yes. But I miss New York. I miss it.

BEHAR: Do you run into any of the old comedians?

ROMANO: I started the show with Mike Royce (ph), I don`t know if you`ve heard of Mike Royce--

BEHAR: Mike, yes, how are you? Of course, I remember him.

ROMANO: He and I created the show, Larry -- I know, from way back.

BEHAR: Hilarious.

ROMANO: And I see Lou Schneider (ph) is on the writing staff. You know Lou. Mike Sweeney (ph), he`s out there now.

BEHAR: Hilarious. He`s with Conan.

ROMANO: He`s with Conan, but his kids -- his kids and my kids are friends now. It`s weird.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BEHAR: When we come back, Ray and I will talk about getting stage fright.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEHAR: OK. We`re back and here`s part two of my surprise chat with the funny Ray Romano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANO: I still do standup.

BEHAR: You do?

ROMANO: Do you?

BEHAR: I do. I haven`t done it in a while because I have two shows right now, because it`s a lot on me.

ROMANO: Yes.

BEHAR: But I will get back to it very shortly.

ROMANO: That`s what I just do. I do a weekend in Vegas, I do the Mirage. I do it every--

BEHAR: You never had stage fright, did you?

ROMANO: Yes, you still get a little--

BEHAR: You get the shpilkes (ph) when you get out there?

ROMANO: Yeah, I get the shpilkes (ph) -- that`s a Jewish term, right?

BEHAR: Yeah, the shpilkes (ph), like agita.

ROMANO: You know, you get it for different -- it`s a different level. But even though they`re there to see me and they are paying to see me, you still -- yes, you get a little bit of the butterflies, but you know that it`s kind of a better setup than when you were doing a corporate gig and who the hell knew, you know.

BEHAR: Oh, the days when you have to make your bones are horrible. What was your worst gig? Do you remember it?

ROMANO: I don`t remember. I mean, there`s so many bad ones. There are.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANO: But the weirdest one I remember was they wanted me to do a college, and they picked me up at the Improv or somewhere, they took me upstate, not far or wherever, and it was like a talent night at the -- I was the comic, and I was waiting in the dressing room and these were the acts that were waiting to go on. And it was a guy in a California raisin suit -- nobody was saying, he couldn`t say anything because he was in a suit. Yes. And a woman who -- a German woman who didn`t speak English with a monkey on her shoulder.

BEHAR: Oh.

ROMANO: And it was just us there. And I was middling. I was middling. I think the monkey was closing.

BEHAR: The headliner.

ROMANO: I said, well, this is -- I guess this is show business.

BEHAR: Those are the hard days. I once followed a guy who was speaking about the Holocaust. And now the comedy of Joy Behar.

ROMANO: Yeah, well, you always have those stories, yes. They put on a video of something horrible.

BEHAR: Yeah, Auschwitz and now you. I mean, come on.

ROMANO: Yeah. I remember doing a cruise ship, did you do cruise ships?

BEHAR: Oh, yes. I`ve done the cruise ships.

ROMANO: Those are kind of scary because--

BEHAR: They can throw you overboard if you bomb.

ROMANO: But also you`re stuck with the audience for the rest of the week.

BEHAR: That`s true.

(LAUGHTER)

BEHAR: Right.

ROMANO: And I remember doing a show on a cruise ship. And it did not go well. And walking back to my room later, and you know, they are so -- they are so narrow, the hallways, and the hallway was turning, and I hear from around the turn, "where did they get these comics?" What, the -- come on, get somebody with some talent. And he turns and it`s me, and it`s so narrow we have to shimmy past each other like this. You know? And I`m just like looking down.

BEHAR: One time I did a cruise ship and -- this is many years ago -- and I heard somebody say, how could they afford to get Bette Midler on this boat?

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BEHAR: You can see Ray Romano in the new season of TNT`s "Men of a Certain Age" Wednesday nights. Thank you for watching. Good night, everybody.

END