In an exclusive interview with LawNewz Network host Jesse Weber, one of Casey Anthony’s trial attorneys said she couldn’t remember the events surrounding the time of her daughter Caylee’s death because she ‘blacked out.’
Watch a brief clip of the interview in the player above. (If you’d like to watch the full hour-long interview, it is included at the bottom of this piece.)
Weber asked defense attorney Cheney Mason why, six years after the trial, many people still don’t not know exactly what happened to Caylee Anthony.
“You don’t know what happened? How is that possible?” Weber asked Mason. Weber was referencing statements Casey Anthony made to the Associated Press earlier this year surrounding her lack of knowledge about how her daughter died.
Mason replied, “I believe that Casey’s mind, in some dimension, I guess the common word would say ‘snapped.’ She didn’t go crazy by any means — but blackout — completely a blackout — of what went on and what happened.”
Mason represented Casey Anthony along with attorney Jose Baez. A jury acquitted Anthony of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and aggravated child abuse. The same jury convicted Anthony of lying to the police.
Mason had earlier explained what he believes his client went through around the time of her daughter’s death.
“Casey, as we established with an expert witness at the end of the trial, grieved and comprehended differently than anyone else what happened. She went into what I call ‘Casey World.’ She shut it out,” Mason said.
“She didn’t know what she was doing or what she was saying,” he added. “She knows she did not do this.”
He also said Casey was “close to, bonded to, and loved that child. The child who was perfectly healthy, perfectly clean dressed, well nourished, no instance of any prior injury, no abuse whatsoever. That’s the truth.”
Mason believes Casey Anthony didn’t truly come to grasp that her daughter was gone until during her own murder trial. He explained being with her at one point during critical testimony from a grief counselor:
“She just snapped . . . when that testimony came out, I was sitting next to her, and I don’t remember whether I had my arm on her shoulder or was just holding her hand there while that testimony was going on, but she started shaking, and shivering, and she cried . . . all the time I’ve known her, and all the times I’ve seen her, I had never seen this. It was clear to me — my personal opinion — that it was the first time she consciously was actually aware that her daughter had died.”
The grief counselor ultimately testified to this theory at trial, Mason said. “People grieve differently, they react differently, that’s contrary to what most people think is common experience,” he said.
Mason made the comments on the LawNewz Network six years and one day after a jury acquitted his client of the most serious charges she faced. Still, his office receives conspiracy theories about what some people believe actually happened to Caylee Anthony. Mason cautioned against believing them.
“Let’s not assume, then, that Casey knew anything and therefore tried to hide it, and therefore was lying to try to hide, it, etc. That’s too many assumptions.”
Caylee was “precious to” Casey, he said, and that while some people use their “imaginations” to figure out what happened, courts of law use “facts to deal with the truth the best we can.”
The full interview is here:
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to include a reference to and a link to the full hour-long interview.
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