Sparks Fly at Casey Anthony Hearing
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, earth-shattering new testimony in the Casey Anthony hearings. Casey breaks down in tears as her mom takes the stand, and gets testy with prosecutors over what happened when little Caylee went missing. Mind-boggling new details. Tears, heated moments, and what made Casey laugh out loud. You don`t want to miss this. And a knock-down-drag-out battle over what killed three people in an Arizona sweat lodge. Prosecutors trying to hang celebrity self-help guru James Ray with his own words: "You`ll feel like you`re going to die. I guarantee that." Is the defense now claiming rat poison killed the victims and not the heat? Who will the jury believe? Also, fast-breaking new details on the execution of a dad at an Atlanta daycare. Did the suspect gun down his victims to steal his wife? Cops now say the dead man`s wife and the suspect were in continuous communication before and after the carnage. Was she involved in this monstrous plot? Or did the vicious killer act alone? Plus, self-proclaimed winner Charlie Sheen finally loses his kids. His estranged wife, Brooke, yanks the kids out of his house with a restraining order, as she drops bombshell charges of physical abuse against her. Now reports that Charlie`s desperately looking for his twins. Is this act three in the train wreck? ISSUES starts now.</s>CINDY ANTHONY, CASEY`S MOTHER: Are you asking me a question?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I am.</s>CINDY ANTHONY: What is the question? I`m sorry.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The question is, when you called the police, they show up in response to your emergency 911 call, is it not your expectation -- that`s the question part...</s>CINDY ANTHONY: OK. I`m sorry. I`m sorry. This is very difficult for me.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I understand.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, high drama as sparks fly during a critical hearing in the Casey Anthony murder case. It was a marathon day for Casey. She cried and she laughed in court. It was also an agonizing day for her parents, Cindy and George, who were in the hot seat. And that means the witness stand. Things got very, very heated when prosecutors cross-examined Cindy and George about the crucial day, July 15, 2008, that they called cops to report that their precious granddaughter, Caylee Marie Anthony, had been missing for a month. Here is Cindy talking about how she says cops treated Casey, her daughter, once cops arrived at the Anthony home. Listen.</s>CINDY ANTHONY: He sequestered her into a back bedroom and began to ask her questions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know how long a period of time he questioned her in the back bedroom?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: At least an hour.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you describe Mr. Mellich`s (ph) tone of voice?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: He began, you know, in a normal tone of voice, but at times he did get kind of intimidating, I would say, or demanding of her.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: So what`s the big deal here? Well, I`ll tell you. Cops allegedly initially failed to read Casey her Miranda rights, and so the defense wants all the incriminating things she said thrown out. Meantime, her dad, George, gets a serious scolding from the judge after talking at the same time as a prosecutor, and you could cut the tension between Jose Baez and the prosecutors with a knife. The state would like to hold Baez in contempt of court. What do you think about all of this? Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS. That`s 1-877-586-7297. Straight out to the one and only Jean Casarez, correspondent for "In Session" on TruTV. Jean, what a day. What incriminating things did Casey tell cops in those crucial early stages when they first questioned her about her daughter being missing? And could those incriminating admissions be kept from the jurors?</s>JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, TRUTV`S "IN SESSION": They sure could. And this is very important to the prosecution`s chase. No. 1, she said that Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, the baby-sitter, is who actually took Caylee; she kidnapped her, that she left her at the Sawgrass Apartments, and that`s the last time she saw her. That`s one thing she said. No. 2, she said, "I left my baby there because I went to work. I work at Universal Studios." That also wasn`t true. Those are examples, Jane, of things that the jury may not hear if the judge rules in the favor of the defense after this hearing.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: That is a huge, huge development. Cindy Anthony put on a tough front today, but she also showed her tender side. Listen to this.</s>CINDY ANTHONY: I just remember, when they placed the cuffs on her, that I started to cry, and I put my head into my husband`s chest.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the deputy have to handcuff her to take her out to a patrol car?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see her being placed in a patrol car?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And was she still handcuffed at that time?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: I would believe so.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. Superstar defense lawyer Linda Kenney Baden joins us tonight. We`re delighted to have her. Now, she had joined Casey`s team early on but stepped down reportedly because of financial issues last fall. Linda, great to see you.</s>LINDA KENNEY BADEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER: Hi, Jane. Great to see you. I`m great to be here in this capacity to bring some defense common sense.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. Well, we`re fair here on ISSUES.</s>BADEN: That`s why I`m here, Jane, because you are. But you know what? I thought today was a fascinating day, you know. I wasn`t in when it came to participating in the deposition or the hearings, but I heard them say, "Wow, somebody lies and gives a story. It`s curious. It`s interesting. It`s odd. But it`s not something I would consider somebody a suspect or suspicious." I mean, that was like Eddie Murphy in the movie dealing with "Beverly Hills Cop." It doesn`t pass the smell test. Come on.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wait a minute. Linda, let me ask you this question: how long did they talk to Casey without reading her Miranda rights? And could they really throw out all that incriminating stuff? When she takes them to the Sawgrass Apartments, they still had not -- that`s where she claims she had left the little girl with Zanny then, a baby-sitter that cops believe doesn`t even exist. Could that really be thrown out? Could that really be thrown out?</s>BADEN: Think of it. Hours upon hours, we could come back tomorrow morning, and they would still have a time to question her. And you know, if you go to a cop lecture, he`ll tell you, if you haven`t heard this, custody, interrogation, Miranda. That`s like the handcuffs. I mean, it`s absolutely ridiculous. Even when that was said to her, "Is everything here you told me the truth? It`s not, is it?" Well, that means he doesn`t believe her. She`s been a suspect, at least on lying to the cops. You have to give her her Miranda rights. You can`t go around it. And if you go around and this judge finds that this was OK, then we`re just all lying to ourselves.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, but, please, Leonard Papilla, first of all, the cops say when they got there, they were treating her as a victim, someone who had lost their child, someone whose child had been kidnapped. So they say they didn`t read her the Miranda rights, because they didn`t realize that she had anything to do with it. They thought she was looking for her missing baby.</s>LEONARD PADILLA, BOUNTY HUNTER: They`re flat-out lying. They know exactly why they were there. They were looking for a missing baby. If you go back to the nine -- 911 calls from Cindy, that was the purpose of them being at the residence. She threw the line in there that she thought somebody dead in the front of the car. There`s no cop going to go to a residence with those statements at 911 and simply not think that the person they were being talked to about is not somehow a suspect. They screwed up, and they know they screwed up, and Baez caught them.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, this is -- this is huge. I mean, this is huge. We can`t -- if the jury can`t hear that Casey Anthony said, well, Zanny the nanny, who a lot of people think doesn`t exist. Nobody`s ever found hide nor hair of her.</s>PADILLA: I found her. I found her.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, yes, you found her. Oh, yes. Tell me about that.</s>PADILLA: I found her. I`ve talked to her over a dozen times.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Are you talking about the lady who`s suing because her life was ruined because she happens to have the same name. That lady has nothing to do with that case.</s>PADILLA: That`s correct. I know that. Absolutely nothing.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: The real -- the real Zanny the nanny that she`s pointing out, this lady is not Zanny the nanny. The cops say there is no Zanny the nanny. This woman just happened to have the same name and said, "Oh, just by the way, you ruined my life, because you pointed to a fictitious person that happens to share my name." But I just do not understand that -- that all this could be thrown out. I mean...</s>BADEN: Jane, can I...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.</s>BADEN: There was another important part that everyone passed over today. Remember that jail tape when she was in jail and the child missing was found, and the prosecution wanted to get it in? Remember that? Well, the judge, the prosecution today stipulated they`re not going to use that tape. That was a huge win. And I`m proud of that, because I wrote the brief on that.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now we`re -- you`re -- you`ve given us a Ph.D. course. We`re undergraduate school at this point. OK. Julie, Kentucky, your question or thought?</s>CALLER: Well, my comment is in regards to the detective. I think they should have read her her rights, No. 1. No. 2 is when the detective was at the home, I believe George Anthony said that he smelled something in the car. Why did the detectives not look when he was there then?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Jean Casarez, take it away.</s>CASAREZ: We heard that testimony today. Yuri Melich, the detective that was on the scene, lead detective, said George had come to him and said, "No, that car smells human. There`s something dead in that car, has been in that car." He said that he didn`t investigate it at that point, because this was a missing persons case. He was trying to find the little girl.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jean, could this stuff really be thrown out? I just find it hard to believe they could gut the entire...</s>CASAREZ: Listen, here`s one thought, Jane. Here`s one thought, OK? Here`s how it -- how it happened. Casey`s at home. The detectives come initially. She originally writes a statement on the kitchen table. After that she is handcuffed for three to four minutes. All right? Then she`s driven around and all that stuff. She`s returned home to sleep with her family. The next day they comes back. She goes to Universal. The judge could split the baby and allow some things in and some things out.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. When we say Universal, we`re talking about how she claimed she worked at Universal Studios, and led cops all around Universal Studios, and she didn`t work there. She was lying. All right. More on the Casey Anthony case in just a bit, and we`re talking more of your calls: 1-877-JVM-SAYS. Later, the sweat lodge defense team firing back. They claim the three people who died. You`re going to see George is also testy on the stand. Hang in there.</s>CINDY ANTHONY: I just remember when they placed the cuffs on her that I started to cry, and I put my head into my husband`s chest.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the deputy after handcuffing her take her out to a patrol car?</s>CINDY ANTHONY: Yes.