Casey Anthony Foreman: 'It Disgusted Us'
Juror No. 11 discusses Casey Anthony's behavior after Caylee's death and views on George, Cindy and Lee
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," July 12, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight: Outrage is sweeping America! Here in Washington, it is the debt ceiling. And across America, it is the Casey Anthony verdict. First Casey Anthony. Seconds after 12 jurors said not guilty, protesters hit the street, demanding justice for Caylee. Protesters are enraged that in five days, Casey will walk out of jail and breathe the fresh air of freedom.
How did this happen? Well, you're about to go inside the jury room. You get the inside story from the jury person -- jury foreperson. And you'll also hear about the jury's suspicion of Casey's father, George. Do they think George covered up an accident or covered up a crime? Or is he even a killer himself? Right now, for the first time, you go inside the deliberation room. Here's part two of our interview with Juror Number 11.
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VAN SUSTEREN: How many people do you think at least -- and maybe it changed during the course of deliberations, but how many initially thought that George was responsible for a murder?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George? Well, you know, there is no -- the problem is with the gray area, there's no way that we can tell the responsibility. What was in question a lot of times dealt with, you know, Caylee was with Cindy the night before. When she came back the next night, they looked at the pictures of them at the retirement community. Then, you know, they went to bed.
You know, guardianship, when it started, who was looking out for her that next day? You know, George and Cindy and Casey all took hand in raising Caylee. We know that, you know, Cindy went to work. And then the gray area comes in.
VAN SUSTEREN: But at that gray area, I'm thinking, you know, the -- I realize that George isn't charged in this case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: And he's not charged with (INAUDIBLE) Casey, but what I find interesting is that some jurors thought that he might be responsible not just for an accident or cover-up but for a murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just -- it was just one of those things where we -- because he was there and there was a gray area there, he was in question for -- you know, for -- for us just being -- having -- having some character issues when he was on that stand. And he was there. He was there at the time, on that day that all the gray area is happening with us. And that puts him in that mix. It put him in the mix for us.
VAN SUSTEREN: If this were a murder, in terms of the discussion and deliberations -- and obviously, that was something that wasn't proven by the state beyond a reasonable doubt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: If the -- was there ever some sort of discussion of motive? They don't have to prove motive, but...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... was there every any discussion about, like, why anybody would do that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just -- we -- and again, motive was not something that we have to prove or anything. It's not -- we felt that the motive that the state provided was -- in our eyes was just kind of weak, you know, that a mother would want to do something like that to her child just so that she can go out and party. That's what they presented to us. And -- but aside from that, no, there was no other talk on motive.
VAN SUSTEREN: Between June 16th and the time that -- mid-July, her behavior -- she's out partying. You saw the pictures, obviously. There's the tattoo. What was the discussion? And what did you think about that period?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it disgusted us. We were all very disgusted with that between June 16th, when it happened, to the time that it -- and that's what makes this hard. That's what makes this -- is what made it very hard for us. It's something that, you know, I wish -- because of that and seeing that, it'd be -- we wished there was something else we could look at that'd be more -- that'd be a felony, something where, you know -- and we don't have the power to do this.
We don't have the ability to put the laws in place for this, but something where if you do not report a child missing, then it's going to be a felony, and for every hour, day, whatever goes on that it gets worse and worse because her actions were disgusting.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm trying to -- I've had this discussion with others about whether or not you can prove a cause of death by someone's horrible behavior, which is the situation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: I don't think -- I don't think you can. I think it's a scientific issue...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... which is what I think the jury also concluded. But the whole discussion outside of the trial, for us, on our show, was, like, you know, How in the world could someone act like that with a missing child? I mean, that was the thing that was just inexplicable to us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. And it was to us, too. It was to us, too. But you know, we were asked to indict on cause of death...
VAN SUSTEREN: Convict, you mean.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or, I'm sorry, convict on cause of death. And much of the time we were in that trial, a lot of it dealt with her actions afterwards. And that's something that although it is disgusting, it is heinous, we weren't really able to take into consideration with the -- with the coming down with the verdict on the indictments.
VAN SUSTEREN: What do you think of Lee, her brother?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought Lee was very genuine. I thought Lee...
VAN SUSTEREN: Tough -- tough for him, wasn't it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was very tough for him. He had a very hard time with it. I thought Lee in the videos of how he handled things, the videos of the conversations that he had with Casey in prison, he handled himself with -- he took on a tremendous amount of responsibility, and he handled it very well, I thought. I -- it was very hard on him, and I thought he handled this situation just in a tremendous manner.
VAN SUSTEREN: What did you think of the judge?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The judge was excellent.
VAN SUSTEREN: How about the prosecutors first?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The prosecutor?
VAN SUSTEREN: Yes. How -- did they do a good job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I thought, you know, for what they -- you know, I -- really, in prosecution, when it was over and done with, when they rested, I wanted more. I wanted more. I really thought the prosecution -- I don't know if there was more for them to give. I wanted more, though, because I thought it really put us at that point in a situation where this is going to be -- this is going to be difficult.
So as far as how they presented things, I thought they did a very good job. I thought Ashton was -- you could tell they put a lot of work in the presentations. And I thought you could tell they knew what they were doing. They -- you know, they were, you know, very professional. And in some regards, at some times, I thought they made light of things that I didn't take -- I didn't consider was in good taste.
VAN SUSTEREN: You mean the -- there's one reference, I think, in closing argument, where Jeff Ashton, the prosecutor, got slapped around a little bit by the judge for smirking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For smirking, yes. I thought that was very distasteful. You know, the pigs in the blanket thing that he made towards reference to the one guy who put a pig in back of a car and studied decomp of the pig in the car, just -- at times -- and you're there for a long time, and I understand that many things pop up that could be humorous, but you always have to keep in the back of your mind that there's a -- you know, there's young girl who's died. And You know, we need to maintain our focus.
VAN SUSTEREN: How about the defense team?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the defense team -- you know, I really thought the defense team -- they were always -- again, they were very professional. I thought they did a good job. You know, they brought up -- they pushed the reasonable doubt, and the reasonable doubt was there. So they -- you know, they did a good job of defending, you know, when the prosecution rested, defending. And then I thought they did a good job in their closing remarks of, you know, sticking to their guns in that regard.
VAN SUSTEREN: Is there any single juror in that group -- you don't have to name the person -- who didn't take his or her job very seriously in terms of weighing the evidence and voting?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. We weighed the evidence. You know, I know -- there's a difference between quality of time and quantity of time. I've been in many meetings where I can say, you know, we spent a lot of time on this but the quality wasn't there.
We remained focused. We had a nice system in place. We were dedicated. We did not take many breaks. We had a course of action that everyone took serious. This was a very serious matter and all of us took it serious. And we were able to, you know, formulate the verdicts that we needed to formulate.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why, after the verdict, you -- didn't the jury give a press conference? Which you are not obliged to give, by any means. I don't mean to suggest it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: But some juries do, some don't. Why didn't you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it was a very -- the whole situation -- the whole process was very stressful for us and it was very emotional. And when it was over and done with, when we came back in the jury room, it was -- it just was a very difficult process for a lot of people to go through. And there's emotions that people were expressing was just heart-wrenching.
VAN SUSTEREN: Some really emotional? I mean, were there tears or crying?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Was there sobbing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was sobbing. There was tears. There was just a lot of people that really didn't want to talk. That's what we did - - you know, we talked to each other hour upon hour. We wanted to unwind. We didn't want to have to answer questions. We needed time. It was a situation where we really needed time. And with me being the foreman, I told them, you know, this is something that we just really need to give us some time and look us up later because we can't do this now.
And we -- we -- all of us came to an agreement on that. But you know, for us and our best interests and for you guys to get the best story that you needed, we needed just some time for us to unwind and gather our thoughts.
VAN SUSTEREN: When you -- when the judge gave you the case to go begin deliberations, you still didn't have a foreperson at that time, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: You -- you were still (INAUDIBLE). You go into the room, and how did you get selected? What's the process? Did someone say, Hey, number 11, why don't you do it? Or did you vote on it? How did..?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was -- we really didn't vote on it. I walked in, and they said, We need to find out who the foreperson's going to be. And just about everybody said me. So you know, I was honored.
VAN SUSTEREN: There was no -- no one else said, I'd like to do it, or anything?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was -- there was one other person who did want to do it, and then everyone basically said, no (INAUDIBLE)
VAN SUSTEREN: And did you sense any resentment or problem with that person?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. She was excellent.
VAN SUSTEREN: She was fine on it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was excellent. She did a great job with aiding me. She was very intelligent. And she helped me out a lot and -- as did a lot of the other jurors in the case. There was one in particular who did a great job of helping me through the process and keeping things organized for us, asking the questions when we needed to ask.
One thing that I did was I wanted everyone to know everyone's thoughts. So I just called it a round robin discussion that we were going to have where nobody else could speak. Everyone had to say their thoughts on any issues. And we did this a number of different times throughout the course of deliberation. And when I would come back around, you know, the guy that helped me out a lot did a really good job of bringing up questions and points, you know, that we needed to look at.
VAN SUSTEREN: The first day of deliberations -- about what time did you go into the room, do you remember?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't remember the exact time. I want to say it was possibly 2:00, 2:15 -- between 2:15 and probably 2:45 we went in.
VAN SUSTEREN: When was the first vote, then, on it, besides the foreperson issue? When was the first...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I wanted to know -- I wanted to take a pre- vote. I wanted to see where we stand, where people stood. So we voted right away.
VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, you raise your hand or...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... or in secret? Raise your hand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You raise your hand.
VAN SUSTEREN: And what was the split the first vote?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, for which indictment? When...
VAN SUSTEREN: Murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, for murder, it was 10 to 2, 10 saying -- it was 10 innocent, 2 guilty.
VAN SUSTEREN: And about -- if you went in about 2:15, when do you think that was?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't remember exactly when that was.
VAN SUSTEREN: Hour, two hours, three hours, next day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably about -- well, it wasn't the next day, but we went in on the first day. It was within the first hour.
VAN SUSTEREN: So there was not a lot of persuading or anything that had to be done. I mean, the...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not for the pre-vote.
VAN SUSTEREN: Not for the pre-vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: So there were two that were they adamant on guilty or just uncertain, or how do you measure their level of...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe with one, there was an uncertainty, one that was pretty adamant about it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Adamant that it was guilty?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-huh.
VAN SUSTEREN: And what later changed that to not guilty, do you think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never -- I never really -- with that person, I didn't get into that. It changed through our deliberations...
VAN SUSTEREN: Sooner or later? Or much later?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was much later. The next day, was -- when we did our post-votes is when that came out. And we realized -- you know, the indictments 4 through 7, I wanted to get that out of the -- that -- there was direct evidence on that.
VAN SUSTEREN: That's the lying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the lying.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so we -- you know, there was no -- that was a no-brainer. That was 12 to nothing guilty. And we -- so we knocked those out right away because the evidence was there. We get into 1 through 3, then that's where the issue is raised. As far as the first one with murder in the first, you know, with the 10-2 voting, after going the process that I explained earlier, where we dissected the word or the verbiage that was on the indictment and looked at our notes and looked at the evidence, you know, the killing we couldn't -- was not something that we could get.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it's very interesting that right from the get-go, there were 10-2 for not guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, that gives you some level of indication of how certain the jury was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it does. It does, you know? And all of us felt, really, when prosecution rested, we thought because we did not go in researching this much, we were somewhat of an open book, somewhat. When they rested, I just -- I was stunned. I was stunned. I thought there would be more. I really did. And I was waiting for more. And a lot of us fell that way. A lot of us felt that way, that there's just not enough evidence to fill in the gray area that we needed to have filled in.
VAN SUSTEREN: In terms of the two who in the 10-2, in the initial round on the murder, what was hanging up the two? Or what did -- what were they focusing on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The focus was on, really, the chloroform and the duct tape and that -- the chloroform, the duct tape, all of the circumstances that -- or all of evidence that was provided in that regard could -- could have emotion played into it. I didn't ask.
VAN SUSTEREN: Bad behavior of her play into it at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bad behavior, her (INAUDIBLE) yes. That's -- that was, you know, something that could have had something to do with it. But I didn't ask about that because that was not something that was in -- it was -- it's not something that we could talk about in the -- for the mid- June -- you know, for June 16th. And so it wasn't really discussed.
But I think emotion could have played into it, kind of gut response that they let out. And that's why I wanted to see where we stood with the pre-vote, with the -- you know, with my occupation, I give pre-tests for that exact same reason. And so I wanted to know where we stood.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did -- was there ever any discussion, either during the trial or during deliberation or anything, about the fact that she might be executed, that you might be called upon to make that decision?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: Never -- never took that into account? You never looked across the courtroom and thought, I'm going to have to decide whether she lives or dies?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we went on -- when we -- are you talking about when we were into deliberation or...
VAN SUSTEREN: No, just any...
(CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: ... during the course of the trial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Oh, yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, you know, looking across the courtroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a thought. Absolutely. Absolutely. When we went into deliberation, no, because the punishment is not something that's in our -- the punishment is written right down there on paper as what we were able -- the punishment's on the paper. It's the verdict. So we didn't take it into consideration.
But yes, there were times where I'd be sitting there and I'd look over, and you know, the extent of the outcome, of what could happen, it hits you. You know, it weighed on you at times. But you know, not something that I would dwell over.
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