Casey Anthony Trial - Defense Opening Statements

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mr. Baez, you may proceed. Please support Ms. Anthony, Madam Prosecutor. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the defense, I want to thank you for the sacrifice that you've made in your jury service in coming here and helping us see justice. We know it's no easy task, and we intend, I'm sure both sides, on getting you home as quickly as possible once you have all of the information that you need. And not a moment before. We are here, and you had to leave your homes because of an onslaught of publicity that lasted for three years. In the middle of sound bites and sensational media coverage, Casey Anthony stands trough for her life. Now, what am I to cover with you? I've organized my opening statement into several different ways. I'd like to cover with you what I'm going to go over first. First off, I'd like to tell you what happened. We sat through almost two hours. There was day one, day two, day three, day four, and so on, and so on. And no one ever told you what happened. But today, you will be the first people to know exactly what happened to Kaylee Marie Anthony. I will also discuss with you Mr. Roy Cronk. That name was silent throughout the first two hours of this morning. And I think you're going to find, after I conclude, that it's going to be shocking why that name wasn't mentioned to you previously. And what, if any, role Mr. Cronk will have in your evaluation of the evidence. I think that's very important, and we're going to cover that. After that, I'd like to talk to you about the investigation. This investigation was extremely plural when it comes to focusing in on Casey. Probably the most comprehensive investigation that you will ever come across in the history of the state of Florida. It was directed at one person and one person only. Now, the problem with this investigation that you'll find is that it reached the level of desperation. And that's going to be covered throughout my opening statement and my opening remarks. At what point do we stop speculating? At what point do we stop guessing? At what point do we stop being so desperate? Now, after the investigation, I want to talk to you about Suburban Drive. Suburban Drive is the location, which is right around the corner from the Anthony home. And it is where Kaylee's remains were recovered. And there are numerous suspicious circumstances surrounding that location. And I want to make sure it's brought to light to you. I want to make sure you all understand what was there, who was there, and for how long. And then after that, I'm going to discuss Ms. Anthony's car. Now, as you've noticed from this morning, there was a significant amount of time that had to deal with this car. And the evidence or the lack of evidence or the confusion of the evidence that surrounds this car will probably double, if not triple, the length of this trial. And at the end of it, you may find yourselves asking yourselves, after so much time, is that really relevant? Does it answer the question? Does it tell us how Kaylee died? And that's why you're all here today. We're not here to talk about day one, day two, day three, day four. We're not here to talk about how inappropriate Kaylee acted, her foolish actions. We're here to talk about, and we're here to find out, exactly how Kaylee died. And that's the key issue throughout this entire case. You may get distracted by emotion, and you may get distracted by what some might say reaches the level of bizarre. But you cannot lose focus, and you cannot forget that you're here on a first-degree murder case, a death penalty case, where they want to take someone's life. And that's what we're here for. And you're going to find that this is not a murder case. This is not a manslaughter case. This is not a case of aggravated child abuse. This is none of those things. But you can't be distracted. We all chose you because we thought you were the best jurist to sit on this case. You wouldn't be distracted by emotion that would let the law guide you in making a just decision. The death of a child is a horrible, horrible tragedy. And no one here is going to ever say otherwise. But we have to remain focused. We're not the media. We don't have the opportunity to speculate. And to draw in viewers. And to sensationalize life. And that's what we're going to talk about throughout this trial. Is life. Some of the happy things. But many of the ugly things that come along with life. And that's what this case is going to be about. Afterwards, I want to talk about the forensics. Exactly what reliable forensics you can rely on. And what isn't necessarily science, but more like science fiction. And you'll see that throughout the course of this trial as the state reaches that level of desperation. And then I want to conclude with my parting remarks. And tell you where I think, at the very end of this trial, we will end up at. Now, everyone wants to know what happened. How in the world can a mother wait 30 days before ever reporting her child missing? It's insane. It's bizarre. Something's just not right about that. Well, the answer is actually relatively simple. She never was missing. Kaylee Anthony died on June 16, 2008. When she drowned in her family's swimming pool. You're going to hear that Kaylee loved to swim. And Kaylee could get out of the house very easily. And did so on that day. We hear about it every day. Or once a week. Or once every other week. We hear of a story on the news. Or we'll see a little blurb on the newspaper. About some poor child. Who accidentally drowned in the family's swimming pool. Well, the reason we're all here is because not of the commonality of this tragedy. Now, that's far too, unfortunately, it's far too common. In fact, in the state of Florida, it is the number one way that children die. It's drowning in swimming pools. But what makes this case different. What makes it unique. What makes the reason we're all standing here today. is because not of the commonality, but of the uniqueness of the family that it happened to. You will hear stories about a family that is incredibly dysfunctional. You will hear about ugly things, secret things, things that people don't speak about. Things that Casey never spoke about. Come with me to 4937 Hope Spring Drive. Or as you can see, it looks like the all-American home. In fact, you can drive by any home in the United States and never know what goes on behind closed doors. You never know what secrets lie within. You never know what's going on. On June 16th, 2008, after Kaylee died, Casey did what she's been doing all her life. Or for most of it. Hiding her pain. Going into that dark corner and pretending that she does not live in the situation that she's living in. She went back to that deep, dark, ugly place called the Nile to pretend as if nothing was wrong. And you'll see as the evidence comes in that that is the most likely conclusion of the evidence. That something's not right here. Something's not right with this girl. You've heard some of it today. Some of it may have been shocking already for you to listen to. But what you don't hear and what you didn't hear is that Casey was an excellent mother. She took care of Kaylee. That child never went without food, without clothing, without shelter. You won't hear a single person come up here and testify how she was neglected or abused. There's no broken bones. There's no trips to the hospital. There's no moment that would help you determine that this child was abused or anything but loved by all members of the family. especially her mother. The photographs that Mr. A.N. Burdick talked about early on, they were all taken by Casey. Casey adored her child. And you'll see photographs of her room, of her life, and you'll know that this child was loved. But not for a horrible tragedy. A common tragedy are we all here today. You see, this family must keep its secrets quiet. And it all began when Casey was eight years old and her father came into her room and began to touch her inappropriately. And it escalated. And it escalated. What does a sex abuse survivor look like? They wear a scarlet leather. They have a tattoo on their forehead. We could all be sitting next to a person who's a sex abuse survivor and never even know it. These things are kept quiet. And these ugly secrets slowly will come out through this trial. A little bit of a sign here. A sign there. A sign here. And you'll be able to know and see what makes Casey Anthony behave the way she does. Why did she act as if nothing was wrong? She didn't run. She didn't move to California, New York, and say to her parents, sorry, you're never going to see your granddaughter again. That's the easiest thing to do. Instead, she acted as if it never happened. It never even happened. You'll hear stories of this Zanny the nanny. It's true. For two years, she pretended she had a job and pretended she had a nanny. Is that normal? Is that what normal people do? They get dressed up? They pretend that they're going to work? They have fake emails from work? Well, there was a reason behind this. Something's not right here. and anything Casey could do to protect her child, she did, including living a lie, making up a nanny, making up a job. That's what Casey had to do to live. She wanted to live, she forced herself to live in a world that she wanted to, not the one she was thrust into. And you're going to see throughout this case how some of this evidence came to be. For example, when Casey came home and told her family that she was pregnant, there was to be quiet. No one was to know. Why? I hate to say, you'll have to speculate why. Unfortunately, because of the way this case was investigated, we'll never know all the answers. but it wasn't until she was seven and a half months pregnant did the outside world know that Casey was with child. When Casey was about seven months pregnant, the family went to a wedding. Her mother's brother's wedding. This is her uncle. There they are. That's their wedding photo. in June, Kaylee was born in August. This is Casey, seven months pregnant. Everyone wanted to know who the pregnant girl was at the party. When Cindy Anthony, Casey's mother, and George Anthony were confronted with this. They both looked at Cindy's brother like he was crazy. They denied. Cindy, who was a registered nurse, said, oh no, she's just retaining water. You'll hear other stories, well, oh, she just had a tumor. She was pregnant. There's no denying this. This is a pregnant girl, but yet the entire family wanted to keep it quiet. Why? They hid this child, this beautiful child, in life. You can best believe that they would hide her death. Now, another thing you'll hear is when Casey didn't want to hide this anymore, she went to Cindy's job, and in the middle of the summertime in July, wearing an overcoat, hot summer day, wearing a huge coat to hide her pregnancy. But co-workers saw her. They began to talk. Office gossip came around. And unfortunately, a week later, Cindy Anthony had her come in and announce that she was going to be a grandma. Something's not right here. This is strange. This is bizarre. This is the life of Casey Anthony. Now, as this case was being investigated, this all came to light. Everyone was aware that they hid this beautiful child like a flower in the attic. They treated this pregnancy as if it never happened. police got a little suspicious. And you'll hear evidence that Casey has a brother. And he too wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. And on certain occasions when he was a teenager, he attempted to also touch his sister, although it didn't go as far. It got so bad that the FBI did a paternity test to see if he was Kaylee's father. And when he was confronted with this information, he didn't deny it. He said, we'll talk about it when the time is right. Well, the time is now. The time is now to try and save his sister's life, but yet these secrets, these family secrets still remain locked. You're going to hear all kinds of bizarre family behavior, that just doesn't make sense. How parents should stand by their child, but instead are throwing them under the bus, making bizarre statements and accusations. And that's what this case is going to be about. You're going to hear all kinds of interesting behavior from all parties, not just Casey. And once you see some of this behavior, you'll realize that the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. We are what we are because of who brought us into this world and how we were raised. Casey was raised to lie. This child at eight years old learned to lie immediately. She could be 13 years old, have her father's penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened. Nothing's wrong. That will help you understand why no one knew that her child was dead. That's the most important thing you must keep in the back of your mind, is that sex abuse does things to us. It changes you. Some people are fortunate to, some people are fortunate to live with it. others are not. And in this sad tragedy, it had to happen to Casey. On June 16, 2008, Casey was home with Kaylee, and so was her father. Early morning hours, the exact time is not known. It could have been early afternoon, early morning. Actually, it was the early morning hours. George Anthony approached Casey and started yelling at her, where's Kaylee? Where's Kaylee? They began to search the house. They couldn't find her. They searched in the bedroom. They searched under the beds, in the closets, in the garage. Then they went outside. This is a mock-up of the Anthony home, where you'll see they both came outside. Casey came around to the left of the house. George went that way towards the pool. They have an above-ground pool with a ladder. And we'll talk about the pool and the ladder in just a moment. But what happened next is as soon as Casey came around this corner and went back, she saw George Anthony holding Kaylee in his arms. She immediately grabbed Kaylee and began to cry and cry and cry. And shortly thereafter, George began to yell at her, look what you've done! Your mother will never forgive you and you will go to jail for child neglect for the rest of your freaking life. She cried and cried and asked for her father's help. And it was shortly thereafter that George did help. It's at this moment that Casey should have been stronger. Casey should have called 911. Casey should have done the right thing. And that's what she's guilty of. She's not guilty of murder. This is not a murder case. This is not a manslaughter case. This is a sad, tragic accident that snowballed out of control. Her death was covered up. Why did George do this? Why didn't he call 911? Again, if the investigation had gone in a different direction, maybe we'd have the answers to those questions, but unfortunately we don't. We've done our best, and we'll do our best to bring all the information to you, but that unfortunately will go unanswered. Here's some things you must know about the swimming pool. Cindy Anthony will testify that on June 15th, as Miss Jane Burdick mentioned, Cindy Anthony and Kaylee went swimming. That was Father's Day. They went swimming until the early evening hours, late afternoon hours. They have a ladder that is on the pool, which they will both tell you they were religious about making sure the ladder was down so Kaylee wouldn't get up. They were religious about it. But unfortunately, did Cindy leave the ladder up? Did Cindy forget? Because right about the time they were getting out of the pool, Casey came home. We don't know. We don't know. Is she holding guilt inside of her for leaving that ladder up? We don't know. Again, if the investigation had gone in another direction, we might know. George Anthony will tell you that Kaylee used to wake him up all the time in the morning and say, Jojo, swim, Jojo, swim, and that she can get out of the house in a hurry. Through the sliding glass doors and get out immediately. And that's why they were so religious about the pool. Now, something extremely odd happens the day after Kaylee drowned in the pool. And that is on the 17th, the day after, Cindy Anthony goes to work and tells two co-workers that someone is swimming in her pool. And they're like, of course someone's swimming in your pool. That's what pools are for. Pools are for people to swim in. She says, no, you don't understand. Someone left the ladder up. We're very religious about that. And someone left the gate open. I don't understand. This is June 17th, the day after. This is information that law enforcement had and completely ignored. because they had murder on their minds. This couldn't be an accident. That's not sexy enough. We've got some bizarre girl over here lying to us and telling us these outrageous stories, and the media loves it. They're eating it up. You'll find that professional police work took a backseat in this case. They were more concerned about the public than they were in doing their jobs. The 15th of July, Kaylees reported missing. And immediately, within 24 hours, Cindy Anthony tells Detective Mellich, who's the lead detective in this case, about the ladder incident. And it goes ignored. There's no follow-up. no questions asked. No information gathered. No forensics. Nothing. It's ignored. They're more concerned with the transport, the alleged transport, of the car than they are of what actually happened. This is a tragedy that snowballed out of control. And they didn't care. now, what we do know is that George Anthony took certain steps to actually make sure he was as far away from this situation and that Casey would end up taking the blame for this. Why? Well, if Casey comes forward and is lying her butt off, who's going to believe a liar? Especially if they cry sexual abuse. So you'll see evidence, conclusive evidence, that he took actual steps to throw his very own daughter under the bus just to protect himself. On June 20th, you heard Mr. Ane Burdick tell you about Casey running out of gas. Well, what she does do is she does what she always does, and that's go in the shed and take gas from the gas cans. Everybody knew she wasn't working. George Anthony knew she wasn't working. But it's all part of the lie. It's all part of the facade. Nobody cares. So what he does is on the 24th of June, nine days after Kaylee drowns, he reports gas cans missing. He calls the police. Now, this is an ex-detective. Who knows? When you report gas cans stolen, there's no detective that's going to come out and investigate the case because you've got some missing gas cans? You'll ask yourself when you hear this, who would report gas cans missing? Who? Well, the answer is George Anthony will. And the reason why will come to light six minutes later Kaylee's reported missing on the 15th. On the 17th, Detective Wells comes to the house and he asks to look around the backyard. He then searches the shed and asks George, can I take a look inside the shed? No problem. And he doesn't mention anything about this alleged gas can fight that Casey had with George Anthony where he claims that she wouldn't let him near the trunk and where, as Mr. said, here's your fucking gas cans. He doesn't say anything about that, but you will hear from the very first night George Anthony was telling anyone and everyone who would listen, that car smells like a dead body. Something dead was in that car. But he only did it secretly, not around Casey, not around anyone. In fact, he took a special trip to the sheriff's office to make sure he could speak with detectives alone, away from his wife, away from his son, and also so Casey wouldn't hear it. She's already in jail. On the 30th, he tells the FBI about this fight. He doesn't tell Detective Wells on the 17th or the 18th, 19th, 20th, and so on. He waits for about two weeks before ever mentioning these gas cans and mentioning how they were stolen. And the police do what normal police do, and they say, oh, wait a minute, there might be some evidence on them gas cans. So they take the gas cans, and this is a photograph that they took on August 1st of 2008 when they confiscated these gas cans. If you notice the duct tape that's there, the unique brand of duct tape that Mr. A. Burdick mentioned is right on there. We've all seen duct tape, but it's very rare when you see duct tape with a logo on it. And this duct tape has a unique logo of the company right on it. And that's what makes it so distinguishable. And you will find that when Kaylee's remains are found, there was duct tape with the remains. Three pieces of duct tape with the same brand. And is it a coincidence that the only place in the house, you know, not on the pipes, not in the garage, not on some other, on some kind of repairs that may have been done in the house, the only place in the entire house that this duct tape is on is on this gas can. Just a couple of inches. But it's on this gas can that was coincidentally reported missing. Is that a coincidence? Or is there more to the story? Well, on August 1st, right around this weekend, August 1st, August 2nd, George Anthony is at a Publix passing out flyers of his missing granddaughter that he knows is dead. He's passing out flyers and asking for donations, but a news crew is filming him. In fact, two different news crews are there, and he interviews with them. And right behind the donation jar is the roll of duct tape. the duct tape hidden right behind the donation jar. Mind you, this is the first week of August. Casey has been in jail for two weeks. all you have to do is follow the duct tape and it will point to you who put Kaylee's remains where they ultimately ended up. Or maybe not. And that I'll get into it in a moment. Mr. A. Burdick told you that the only one who had access to this duct tape was Casey Anthony. Well, that's not true. That's not true at all. The picture tells a thousand words. He was at that command center. He was home on the 16th. The only person and the only piece of evidence. The only physical evidence that you will find in this case that connects Kaylee's remains to anyone at the home is this duct tape. And that's why these gas cans become such a critical piece of information and such a critical piece of evidence. You cannot deny it. You can see it. You can feel it. You can touch it. This is evidence. And this tells you And this will lead you to the answers that you need. Now most importantly you're going to hear evidence that while at this public supermarket passing out flyers of his missing granddaughter George Anthony met a younger woman by the name of Crystal Holloway. They became close. They started dating or they had an affair, whatever you want to call it. He then began going to her house and visiting her. And on one day before Kaylee's remains were found, her name is Crystal Holloway here in the World Warth. And they began to carry on this relationship. This is the woman in the circle looking over at George at Kaylee's memorial, Miss Crystal Holloway. Right around that time, George Anthony said to the sex, well, he has denied and will deny on this stand that he ever had a relationship with her. but he couldn't get around the guard at the gate where she lives in because that woman saw him coming and going many times at her home. And Crystal Holloway will tell you that one day they had a conversation, her and George Anthony, and George began to break down and cry. And she asked him, what happened to Kaylee? and he said it was an accident that snowballed out of control. This is before Kaylee was ever found. This is while he is out passing out flyers asking for donations to help find his missing granddaughter. George Anthony carried around this guilt for many, many months. It got to its breaking point on January 22nd of 2009 when he decided to try and take his own life. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful when the police found him. And we never got the answer in his suicide note. Again, a lot of insinuations, a lot of roundabout talk, but no direct answers, no concrete answers as to why he has all of this evidence, all of this information, and isn't telling anyone. I want to be clear about Brombo. Absolutely 100% crystal clear about it. We are not, nor will we ever, say that George Anthony killed Kaylee, or that he had something to do with her death. And the reason is simple. It's not true. It was an accident. And despite how easy it is to point the finger and say there's something sinister here, and maybe play on your emotions, the fact of the matter is, this is an accident that snowballed out of control. this is not a murder case. This is not a manslaughter case. This is a tragic accident that happened to some very disturbed people. People with significant issues, unresolved issues, unresolved trauma. And while it's been fodder for the media, and these bizarre stories just go on and on and on, the fact of the matter is, it's an all-too-common tragedy, an unfortunate one. Now, I'd like to talk to you briefly about Mr. Roy Cronk. The name is due to you for your train burning's opening stadium. Mr. Cronk is the person who found Cayley's remains off of Suburban Drive, and I'm going to show you right now a brief diagram and the interesting circumstances surrounding Mr. Cronk and his discovery. Now, before I start, I want to tell you that Mr. Cronk, and again, we are not saying Mr. Cronk had anything to do with Cayley's death, but Mr. Cronk is a morally bankrupt individual who actually took Cayley's body and hid her, and anything that you derive from the scene off the Suburban Drive is completely unreliable because of the actions of Mr. Cronk. There was a $225,000 reward in this case, but it was for a live Cayley. Mr. Cronk didn't read the fine print, and he thought he had himself a lottery ticket. Let me tell you and show you how Cayley was recovered. first of all, the Anthony's live on 4937 Hope Spring Drive. Right down the block, around the corner, there's a wooded area. What's unique about this is it's the closest wooded area to the home, and it is the absolute first place anyone would look for a missing child. The first search party should have been and was probably there. Cayley Anthony was found within 20 feet off the side of the road. She wasn't found in the woods. She was found off the side of the road and was missing for six months. Let me give you an example. just how far that is, actually, Mr. Tyler. Now, you're four feet away from the first, from the actual wall. This is how far it was from the street from where you're sitting. and you take into consideration that there's grass that's about five feet. This is how far if you were mowing the lawn, walking by on your way to school, or walking your child to school, walking your dog, this is how far away you would be. And for six months, with thousands of searchers looking for Cayley, hundreds of people off suburban drive, every character with an agenda was down here looking. We had psychic dog handlers. I'm serious. We had a psychic dog handler. We had psychics, private detectives, bounty hunters, search volunteers, police officers. in fact, in October, there was two people called 911 because they heard of a screaming child in the woods. So, police were dispatched, helicopters were deployed, and they searched this entire perimeter area. They didn't find anything. in September, they also searched this area. Volunteer searchers searched that area with a group called Texas EcuSearch. Then in the first week of November, again, they searched this area. Well, police also searched that area, but there are no reports of it. The only reports of searches that we could find were from the Orlando Police Department, not the Orange County Sheriff's Office. But yet, on December 11th, when Kaylee was found, the sheriff came out and announced that they were all over that area, and it was probably underwater. So the state of Florida does the smart thing and gets a hydrologist from the University of Florida to come out and conduct a study to be able to show to you how much underwater this area was. Well, it turns out, that place was only underwater for 10 days. The rest of the six months, it was completely dry. Well, not completely dry, but it was dry. Now, let me tell you about Mr. Cronk and his activities. On August 11th, Mr. Cronk is a meter reader, and he stopped off the suburban drive right around here with two of his co-workers. And right down the block, everyone was talking about the media frenzy over here. Now, this is August 11th. Kaylee's been reported missing for several weeks now. And there are about five or six news trucks parked outside of the Anthony home, and everyone's heard about this case, especially here in Orlando. One of Cronk's co-workers says to him, you know, this would be a good place to dump a body. They should search here. Mr. Cronk says, yeah, you're right. He then goes into the woods to urinate. And while he's urinating, he tells his friends, hey, I think I see a skull over here. And they start, oh, you're crazy. They start walking towards him and they see a dead snake. And they get so distracted by the snake, that they forget about the skull. Mr. Cronk will later be asked, how sure were you that you saw a skull? He'll say 99.9999 percent. I was certain on August 11th I saw a skull. Well, he doesn't tell his friends, forget the snake, come look at this skull. He doesn't come down here and get a news van and say, I found Kayleen. does nothing. Goes back to work. Doesn't mention it again to any of his co-workers. Well, later on that afternoon, Mr. Cronk calls 911 and says, you know, there's two little areas that you can go in and there's one long big tree laying down and a bit further up I saw something round and white. not saying it's Kaylee or anything like that, but you may want to check it out. Okay. Officers respond, but they drive by, they don't see anything. August 12th, he calls again, and he talks about a suspicious gray vinyl-like big bag, even the material, vinyl. and he describes an area where someone ran across with a mower, but the weeds are still high, and a fallen tree that looks like someone tried to cut it with a white board. I'm sorry, someone tried to cut it, and there was a white board hanging across. A lot of details he's giving. Well, the police come out again, they drive by, they don't see anything. The next day, they tell him, why don't you come out tomorrow after work, and you show us where exactly this happened. Well, he comes out, and he meets a deputy, and the deputy's there to investigate a suspicious bag of bones. For some reason, it's not a skull anymore, it's a bag. The skull found its way into the bag. Deputy Kane arrives, and I'm going to go into a little bit more detail about what Deputy Kane said, but he doesn't find anything. Doesn't find the bag of bones. Doesn't find anything. September goes by. October goes by. November goes by. Mr. Crunk has the route of the Anthony home again. About a week later, he calls his son up. He has an estranged son that's in the Coast Guard. And his son will come here and testify and tell you. My dad called me and told me I found Kaylee's remains. Watch for me on TV because I want to be rich and famous. This is almost a month before he finds Kaylee's remains. September 10th. Mr. Crunk his car breaks down and he has a bill of $1,084. This is significant because he's broke. It's time to cash in his lottery ticket. December 11th, the very next day, he has the route again. As luck would have it, he has to urinate and goes into the same wooded area and finds Kaylee's remains. Reasonable doubt is not sprinkled throughout this case. Reasonable doubt lives here throughout the entire case. You will not be able to trust a thing having to do with Mr. Crunk because he had control of Kaylee's remains for obviously several months. Where he found her, we do not know. Nor will we ever know. And the reason for that is because the police never investigated him. This was their three legged pony and they were going to ride him to the finish line no matter what. Mr. Crunk says that on the 11th, he goes to urinate and sees a plastic bag. Okay, he sees a plastic bag. He hits the plastic bag and he hears a thud. Then he takes his meter reader stick and he lifts the bag up and a skull rolls out. Again, somehow the skull made it into the bag and now a skull rolls out. And they ask him, is there anything else you want to tell us? And he doesn't say, yeah, I called you four months ago, three times. He doesn't say a word. He may come up here and lie and say, yes, I told them. In fact, he does. He says later on, he says, I did tell the police, but they told me, keep quiet about it. You don't want to say anything about that. That will be what we call a conflict in the evidence because the police will thoroughly deny that they told Mr. Cronk to shut up and not say a word about calling back in August. Well, several days later, they have to go straighten out this story. They can't have skulls rolling out of bags because as Mr. A. Burdick told you, that duct tape to them is the only thing they have. The duct tape that George had. They can't have a skull because the mandible where she was placed was directly underneath in the proper anatomical position. Skull rolling out of the bag isn't going to end up that way and they know it. So they massage Mr. Cronk's testimony and he changes it. Yeah, didn't roll out of the bag. I just lifted the bag and it was underneath it. But he clearly says it dropped out of the bag. He's on audio, written statement, everything. Sworn statements. Sworn to tell the truth. Well, one of the first responding officers, when they arrive to the scene and he's there, one of the first thing he says to them is, do I still get the reward even though she's dead? second statement is, will my ex-wife find out about the reward if I get it? Mr. Cronk's boss will come and testify that when he arrived on the scene on December 11th, Roy Cronk was leaning against his truck, smoking a cigarette. And he turns to him and he says, Alex, I just won the lottery. The police want Mr. Cronk to stay quiet. They don't want these people getting at him. They don't want the media getting to him. So they ask him, please stay quiet. And his response is, Roy's got to eat too. Sorry, fellas. So what does Orange County do? What does the great Orange County do? They hire him a lawyer. And they pay for it. Orange County pays for a lawyer for this man to represent him. And then he becomes his media agent. And the very first interview that Mr. Cronk gives is to Good Morning America. where he licenses them a photograph of a snake. Can I have a sign? In exchange for this snake photograph, $15,000 and an exclusive interview with Mr. Roy Cronk, the man who found Katie's remains. Well, he gets his reward. He gets his interview. He becomes famous. But there's one thing's for certain. He can't ignore any of this. At all. In fact, one of the calls from August 12th ended up landing on a detective's desk sometime around late August. And it ended up in front of a detective named Gerald White. And Gerald White will come in and tell you that once he got the tip, he went to the lead detective, Yuri Mellich. And he asked him about this tip. Detective Mellich looked at it and said, that area's been searched already. But yet, we don't have any records of any police searches. But you're going to hear numerous people saying the police searched there. You're going to hear witnesses come and testify that they were trespassed, told to get out of that area because that area had been searched many times. Where was she? What did Cronk do with her? Why did he place her there that way? And can you trust anything this man has to say? And I would tell you, you can't. You will clearly see that you can't. The bright lights and the spotlight and the promise of fame and fortune took this man to take away all of the answers. answers that you seek throughout this case. We would love to have more than just a photograph of the duct tape with George at Publix. We'd love to be able to tell you more and show you more, but we can't. And one thing you will know is that despite all of the ridiculous, stupid things that Casey did, that Mr. A. Burdick told you about, there's not one piece of evidence, one single thread of evidence that links Casey to Kaylee's Bible. said, she's dumb enough to leave her on the corner, but smart enough to outwit the FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Orange County Sheriff's Office, OPD, every law enforcement agency that the prosecution could muster up, every alphabet, the Secret Service, they even autopsied the snake. That's how desperate they were. Yes, there was a snake autopsy in this case. They searched for every single thing they could just to try and, well, it's quite obvious, a high-profile case. They had already made an arrest. Casey was arrested within 24 hours of being questioned when there were clearly signs that something was not right with this girl. Something was just not right. They jumped the gun. They immediately made an arrest. We'll worry about the evidence later. And this is their evidence. This is how they get to where we are today. This is how they ask you to take someone's life. As I mentioned, they don't even investigate Roy Cronk. They took everyone's phone records in this case, and they never asked for Mr. Cronk's phone records. We filed a motion to try and get him, and he objected. He didn't want anyone looking at his phone records or his cell tower information to determine where he was during these months. And the police didn't want to go looking for it either. They weren't about to do that. They didn't confiscate his computer. We took his deposition. We asked him, can you turn over your computer to the police? We'll think about it. They did nothing to investigate this man. We found his son. We did. We went searching for him, and we found his son who told us, my dad called me. They didn't go finding his son. My dad told me, watch, I'm going to be rich and famous. They didn't want looking, and you're going to notice that throughout this case. There's certain questions they don't want answered, and they're not going to go looking for him. But they'll line up to sit here and tell you about Casey Anthony and her bad behavior, her inappropriateness. She's not acting right. And that's what this case is about. She didn't act right. They don't ask why she didn't act right. Only that day one, you heard it, day two, day three, day four, take an elegant prosecutor to come up and do these things and get you emotionally riled up. But there's still no answers. The swimming pool incidents, the witnesses, the independent witnesses that will come and tell you about this, there's no getting around them. No getting around them. These are people with no axe to grind. Now, I want to talk briefly about the investigation. I know I've touched on it, but you heard Mr. A. Burdick tell you that on this day, on day seven, Casey Anthony was spotted on video at Ikea, or day 12, she was spotted at the Blockbuster or another place. Day 13, she's at Applebee's. Well, they sure did. They sure did do a thorough investigation on her, but yet they still can't come up with the evidence. This is Sergeant John Allen. He's one of the lead investigators in this case. He's about five feet from the road, and he's pointing at Kaylee's remains. But yet for six months, and all of that investigation, no one could find her. Look how close he is. She was placed there to be found, not to be hidden. But unfortunately, she was placed there by Mr. Cronk, and we will never know the answers. Now I'd like to talk about Carl. Actually, before I go into the car, I want to finish up on suburban drive for a moment. There are two videos that you will see. There are plenty of witnesses who will come up and take the stand and talk to you about suburban drive and whether it was dry or whether it was not. And okay, maybe you can rely on them. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the defense raised the issue that she was placed there after that law enforcement wanted to shut that down. And that was in 2009, a year after, is when they started going to these volunteers and asking them. That place was underwater, right? That place was underwater, right? And of course, all of these, everybody who's all riled up about this case and can't stand the inappropriate girl, all tell the police the same thing. Yeah, it was underwater. Yeah, it was underwater. But there are two videos that you will see. One from a woman named Gail St. John, the psychic dog handler that I told you about. Right around in early August, she does a video, she has a video where she drives by the Anthony home and you see all of the media trucks and drives down towards and around the house, around the suburban drive and says, I'm having a feeling. They get out, she has her dogs walk and you'll see the woman walking about 30 feet. It's dry, but it's right around the area, right around the area where Kaylee was found. And most interestingly, you'll hear about two private investigators who one month prior to Kaylee being found were out searching right at the area where Kaylee was found. What's interesting is these two private detectives were working for George and Cindy Anthony at the time. This may be a coincidence. Maybe. One of the private investigators, his name is Dominic Casey, he worked for the defense briefly early on in the case, and then he went off to work for the Anthony's. Dominic Casey will tell you that he was on the phone with a psychic. Actually, first he tells everyone that he was investigating a tip, that when Casey was a young girl, she would hang out in the woods. And he was out there investigating. And the police say, well, wait a minute. Casey's not a young girl anymore. She's 22 years old. Why would you look to see if that's a teenage hangout? And then he changes the story and says, well, I was following up on a psychic tip. Well, it turns out this psychic was introduced to Dominic Casey by Cindy Anthony. It could be a coincidence. But on December 20th, when the sheriff's office decides to issue a search warrant of the Anthony home, one of the first words out of Cindy Anthony's mouth is, I had people search that area and the body wasn't there. That video, you will clearly see the water, the area is dry. Now, I want to talk about the car. As I mentioned to you, actually, if you need a break, we can take a break. The car, as I told you, this car will be the subject of much debate. And you will hear evidence in this case that has never been admitted in a court of law throughout the United States. The air samples that Mr. A&Burdick told you about. The hair has never been admitted in the state of Florida. The evidence that Mr. A&Burdick told you about. As well as you're going to hear from a dog. While the dog can't get up there and testify, his handler is going to talk about the dog and what his dog allegedly said or reacted or alerted to. And we're going to get into that when we talk about the forensics. But one of the important things that I want to talk about is everyone talks about the smell of this car. And there's some things you don't know. Things you should know. And here they are. June 16th is the day Kaylee drowned. On the 20th of June is when Casey runs out of gas for the first time. Now, it's going to be the state's contention that Kaylee was in the trunk of Casey's car from the 16th through the 20th. 20th. Well, Casey runs out of gas and she calls her boyfriend up, Tony Lazaro. And she does what she's always done. Goes and gets the gas cans. They break into the shed. They take the gas cans. Now, Tony Lazaro's testimony will go unimpeached. And that is this young man cooperated with law enforcement from the very first day. He refused to speak to us, only at deposition. He wore a wire when the police wanted to investigate Lee Anthony. And he allowed them to bug his phone. He did everything that law enforcement asked. And on this day, Casey runs out of gas and Tony picks her up. They get the gas cans and they go to the car. It's in her family's neighborhood. Well, they pour the gas and after they're done with one of the cans, Casey opens the trunk and puts the cans in the trunk. Four days would be obvious significant human decomposition in the trunk, in the heated trunk of a car. And that car would reek tremendously. But yet Tony Lazaro doesn't smell a thing. And Casey doesn't go and handle the gas cans on her own. If she had a dead body in the trunk of the car, she wouldn't be calling the people to come out and come smell this car. So she opens the trunk, he smells nothing, and she puts the cans in the trunk. If she had a dead body in the trunk, she would have put it in the front seat. It wouldn't be opening up so that he could smell, and he doesn't smell a thing. But of course, by the time the cops questioned him, they don't like that. Are you sure you didn't smell anything? No. Well, maybe you were distracted by the fumes of the gasoline. And that's their explanation. That's their explanation. But the fact of the matter is, he doesn't smell a thing. And this is four days after when he had complete access to that car and was right next to it. Didn't smell a thing. On the 24th is when George files that famous police report. And he alleges this fight happens. Even though he doesn't tell anybody until two weeks after he reports Kaylee missing. He doesn't say he smells anything in the truck. If you believe that argument ever happened to begin with. On the 27th, Casey is throwing out garbage. This is a picture of Tony Lazaro's apartment complex. If you can see in the very front of it, there's a dumpster. People who live at this apartment complex must carry their trash to the front of the complex. Casey was staying there and she threw out the garbage. She threw the garbage in the trunk of her car and like many of us forget sandwiches and leftovers and doggy bags, she forgot to throw out the trash. this is the same day she actually runs out of gas. That's where the smell comes from. This is the garbage from the trunk of the car. It's wet, sticky. And what do the police do when they're done with it? They take it into an air room and they dry it out. So it can't, and you will see once it dries out the smell goes away. And there's absolutely nothing that can be done to independently test or verify anything from this garbage. It's destroyed evidence. It's intentionally aired out. But this was in the trunk of the car for close to almost three weeks. The car is towed on the 30th. The tow yard, the tow truck driver doesn't smell anything. The tow yard company has to wait four days before they send out a notice. Your car is here. We have your car. Come get it if you want it. That would have been the 4th or the 5th of July. The Anthony family should have gotten that notice around the 7th or the 8th. Well, they don't go pick up the car until the 15th. George doesn't pick up the car until the 15th. Why? Why wait a week? They will tell you they didn't see the notice. But yet, that car sat there for almost a week after they had notice. Again, answers, questions we will never be able to answer for you. So Mr. Anthony goes and picks up the car. And one of the very first things he does is he starts telling anyone that will listen, my granddaughter is missing. She's been missing. I haven't seen her for 30 days. I found my daughter but I haven't found my granddaughter. And then he walks up to this car and asks for a witness to open the trunk. And as Mr. A. Burdick said, he'll come up here and say, you know, oh please don't let this be my king. And he will say, like he told detectives on numerous occasions, that he smelled a dead body in the trunk of that car. And it's a smell you never forget. Once you smell it, you never forget it. Of course, he's never, nor has anyone else in this case, had trash in the trunk of a car for three weeks in the Florida hot sun, so we don't know how to compare it to. But he is certain that what he smelled was a dead body. And what does he do? He doesn't pick up the phone and call Casey. Are you okay? Honey, are you okay? Where's Kaylee? Is she okay? He's a detective, an ex-police detective. He knows he's smelling a dead body, and this is a possible crime scene, and what does he do? He gets in the car and wants to drive it home. And then he goes to work, making zero attempts after not seeing his granddaughter for 30 days, and all of these day one, day three, day four, suspicious activities that Mr. and Burdick told you about, doesn't do a thing. He wants to distance himself. Stay away. I have nothing to do with this. What's interesting to you, that you should also note, ladies and gentlemen, is he also had access to this car. He shows up to pick up the car with none other than the gas cans. How did he know that car was out of gas? He's going to tell you he hadn't spoken to Casey in over two to three weeks, and that they found out through the notice that the car was there. How did he know to show up with gas cans? He's going to tell you it was a lucky guess. Why doesn't he call the police? Why doesn't he call Casey to find out if she's all right? Or Kaylee to find out if Kaylee's all right? He doesn't do any of that because he knows. He knows exactly what happened and how it happened and when it happened. Questions that nothing the state will present to you will be able to answer. but he knows all the answers and doesn't say a word. Now, one of the interesting things that will happen is you'll hear that Cindy went to work too. Cindy did call Casey, did send her texts major problems and we don't know when Cindy Anthony found out what happened or if she does to today. But there's one thing for certain too. She went back to work and people were already asking questions about this car because she had to leave work to go get the car. And just like the pregnancy, they were asking questions. And they said, Cindy, you need to call the police. And Cindy says, no, I'll call Casey later, I'll deal with it later. So what does she do? She goes back to her desk and starts to work. It's not until one of the co-workers gets the supervisor and makes Cindy go home that she has to now confront reality. Just like the pregnancy, you're faced with reality. You heard what Miss Trane Burdick said about Casey. She's walking down Universal Studios, oh, come here, this is my office over here, let me walk down this way, and then faces reality. Well, this is the way she was raised. And think about that for a second. She takes law enforcement down this path, down to an office that doesn't exist. This is how this family lives. This is how Casey learned to deal with her problems. And now Cindy has to deal with this problem. So Cindy calls and finds Amy Huizinga and confronts Casey. Casey doesn't know what to say. So you hear her blame the babysitter that doesn't exist, that everybody knows doesn't exist. Or do they? One of the most important and telling things that you're going to hear when you hear these 911 tapes is not what you hear, it's what you don't hear. There's going to be a time where Cindy, who is hysterical on that 911 tape, she will turn and say, George, Casey says Annie took the baby a month ago. and you hear dead silence. I want you to listen to that. When you hear that 911 tape and you hear Cindy Anthony hysterical and when she turns to George and says, the baby's missing, he doesn't say a word. He doesn't say, what? What do you mean she's missing? Who has her? Let's go get her. Nothing. doesn't say a word. And that's because he knows where she's at. He knows what happened. This is no surprise, but he will distance himself from it. And in fact, in one sworn statement, he says he wasn't even there when Cindy called 911. Keeps wanting to say, I was at work. I was at work. I have any part of this. I'm just George. Just your average grandfather. Casey's the wild one. Casey's the one with all the stories. He's saying this while he's with his mistress who's paying him money and he's pretending he's working. And that's you're going to hear. Crystal Holloway gave him money so he could pretend he was working. Cindy thought he was working. But you're only a hear about Casey's fake job not about George's fake job. Hold on. You can get the dry erase here. I want to touch briefly and I'm just about to wrap it up on some of the forensics that you'll hear throughout this case You're going to hear about the car evidence and a possible hair one hair. But what Ms. Drain Burdick didn't tell you is the FBI lab analyst was telling everyone and she'll probably come and tell you too that she can't say for certain that that hair came from a dead body. In fact she sent out a request asking to find more hairs and they did. We hired Dr. Henry Lee one of the world's greatest forensic scientists to go in and search that car and he found 17 different hairs 17 more hairs. Before you start wondering what is Kaylee's hair doing in there in the trunk of the car well Casey's hair other people's hair was in the trunk of the car. We often shed hairs very easily. None of them. Absolutely none of the other hairs I think there was a total of 27 that ended up being inspected had what they call the banding discoloration. This was a problem for that. So when we went and took the depositions of the analyst they got a bright idea. They decided to conduct a study. After we took their deposition they realized that they had something that was not validated so they did a study of live hairs in trunks in water exposed to all different elements and they found a couple of and they had a couple of what's called blind examinations that showed that there were some characteristics shown from live hairs. This is very questionable and you will hear that it is rarely if ever done on one single hair this type of analysis because you need more. You need to be able to be certain and this hair means nothing. You'll hear about again with the hair I mean with the car this dog well this dog is retired no longer works for the police department but what Miss Drain Burdick didn't tell you she told you about the backyard how they came out the dog alerted and how they dug there but she didn't tell you they came back the next day the dog didn't alert there are things called false positives handler bias that you're going to hear about and it's interesting that the dog at the very same exact spot wouldn't alert the next day you'll hear that when this dog went around the car he broke every rule in the book he didn't do a proper lineup there should be multiple vehicles the police officer should not know which is the suspect vehicle so that gives you credibility it lets you know that this is real this isn't somebody this isn't the dog cueing the handler cueing off to the dog because the dog wants to please its master these are called tools and that's what the dogs are they're just simple tools there's a confirmatory test that must be done and the dog he knew exactly which car it was and you'll hear conflicting testimony with whether it was one car or two cars he's the only one that says he searched two cars that there were side by side while the other detectives and the CSI people will tell you it was just one car and the most telling part about this dog is they took this dog out to suburban drive after they had finished sifting and collecting all of Kaylee's remains there were still several bones missing and you will hear that knowing that there were remains at this location the dog never alerted the reliability of this dog is questionable I'd like to question the dog but I can't I'd like for you to hear it straight from the dog's mouth but that's not possible none of that's going to be possible and the reason is is that a dog should not be testifying in a trial and let's not test it out in a death penalty trial either this air sample as Mr. Greenberg told you about Dr. Arpad Voss a very interesting man again throughout the United States this evidence has never been admitted in a court of law and this is an experiment that he conducted nothing more an experiment in which you will see flaw after flaw after flaw it's never been validated it's never been independently tested and he can't find a single person in the entire world that would agree with his theories that's going to be long drawn out and boring but the fact of the matter is is that they're getting desperate air samples pure desperation you'll hear that this scientist is somewhat of a inventor in fact what he's doing is he's invented sniffer machine looks like a metal detector so that he can sell it to law enforcement agencies across the country and what he's using to determine the chemical composition of human decomposition is this database well it's now being validated in this portfolio and he holds a patent to that machine and he stands to make millions millions and has an inherent bias by his testimony you'll also hear that he has some other great ideas like putting electronic leashes on flies to find dead bodies and he also claims to be able to find hidden graves with a coat hanger he's an interesting individual and you'll get to hear plenty of his testimony and it will be highly debated now this is the evidence that Mr. A. Burdick talked to you about I'm going to tell you some of the things she forgot to tell you about remember what I told you they spared no expense on trying to investigate Casey well Mr. A. Burdick didn't tell you that they searched all of her clothing they did a search warrant on the home and they took every piece of clothing that Casey had in her closet and they searched and they did the blue light to see if there was any blood or any suspicious stains all came back negative they took all her shoes every pair of shoes that she owned and they tested them for soil samples to see if they match suburban drive negative they took textile fibers sorry if you can't I know my handwriting is getting pretty bad there they took textile fibers that they found off suburban drive they compared her to her car and to their home no match they checked the duct tape the duct tape had no fingerprints they ran every kind of fingerprinting exam you can no fingerprints on the duct tape one of the easiest ways of being able to lift fingerprints is off of duct tape yes the duct tape was deteriorated to a certain extent but they still tried at the FBI they also searched the duct tape for DNA no DNA of either Casey or Kaylee but yet they want you to believe that she had duct tape wrapped around her mouth and was decomposing completely decomposed and not a shred of DNA there was DNA DNA from an FBI analyst they contaminated the duct tape DNA is so sensitive so easily attachable that an analyst in the documents department contaminated the duct tape and there's also another profile on there who they don't know partial profile someone they don't know but it's only at what's called one marker so it's impossible to find who that DNA belongs to but it is not impossible to exclude both Casey and Kaylee they're completely excluded there's usually what we call 13 different markers where they test DNA and unfortunately this is one only one could be contamination or could not be but there's one thing for certain there's no forensic evidence that ties Casey to this again she's too stupid she's dumb enough to leave the body off the side of the road but yet smart enough to leave zero forensic evidence something something's not right here something doesn't make sense well they tested more hairs that they found they did all kinds of tests they all came back negative negative negative negative the only thing that they are trying so desperately to tie Kaylee to is the car but one if we get back to its basics if we get back to the very basics here how did Kaylee die how did Kaylee die the car doesn't shed any light on that at best it tells you she was transported but you'll hear some testimony about a lie that George Anthony told that Casey was driving her mother's car on one occasion and that George chased her down the 408 which is a highway here and they asked him for the toll records they said you should you should have the receipts they said oh yeah I'll get them for you well he didn't get them the investigators had to go get them and they found out he lied but he didn't get arrested for lying to law enforcement at the end of this case at the end of this case when you go back home and you're back in clear water and you're sitting around the dinner table and someone says to you why did you find Casey Anthony not guilty you're going to say well I was fed a wealth of information like a V all this information came but it all boiled down to one thing they couldn't tell me how she died they couldn't prove this was a murder they couldn't prove this was a manslaughter case there was no evidence of any child abuse and that's why we voted not guilty you're going to see throughout the entirety of this case getting desperate here with this worker that we use the power I'll do time here it's probably better the prosecution can we lift this up the prosecution in a murder case is supposed to prove their case beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt not a forced doubt or speculative one every reasonable doubt they've got to present to you a case A to Z to prove their case well if the A is George Anthony and saying that he was the last person that saw Kaylee you really can't trust that can you in fact if you remember the indictment it says from June 15th not the 16th makes you wonder if they even believe if you can't trust George Anthony and they don't know how she died because the medical examiner will testify that her death was a homicide but by undetermined means they don't know how she died but they're going to tell you it's a murder or at the hands of another so if you don't have this you don't have A and Mr. Cronk represents Z you don't even have that we all swore you all swore to uphold the law to hold the state to its burden there's evidence here a reasonable doubt to show you how Kaylee really died why why did we end up in this bizarre situation we'll never be able to answer all those questions and partially because it was never looked into but the fact remains this is not a murder case and this is certainly not a manslaughter case and there's definitely no evidence of any child abuse when you've heard all the evidence we're going to ask you to render a verdict of not guilty all this aside as important as some people think this case is it's not nowhere near as important as it is to Casey they didn't know her they didn't love her the way Casey did they didn't breastfeed Kaylee every two hours when she was born they didn't wake up every three hours to feed her they weren't there when she first walked they weren't there to take care of her Casey was now you can never bring Kaylee back for Casey but you can help end this nightmare by sending her home I'll ask you all individually and collectively to render a verdict of not guilty thank you