[TW: This episode contains mentions of SA, child harm & death.] This week Kail sits down with highly accredited long time legal analysis Beth Karas! Beth covers high-profile criminal cases. Her reporting and analysis have appeared on ID channel, Max, ABC's 20/20, Dateline, Nightline and more! This was such an exciting interview, Beth gave us into cases like Scott Peterson, Casey Anthony, Andrea Yates and more. We learn about Beth's latest ID show airing exclusively on Max; The Curious Case Of. Beth deep dives into various cases that still need answers like Jodi Hildebrandt's, Preacher Sheryl Ruthven & more like a crematorium that didn't quite deliver what they promised on the show! This episode is a true crime fan's dream. For more of Beth check out The Curious Case Of exclusively on Max and visit her website here! Thanks for supporting the show by checking out our sponsors! Happy Mammoth: get 15% off your first order at happymammoth.com just use thecod e FAMOUS at checkout. HERS: start your initial free visit at forhers.com/barelyfamous. Shopify: Start your one dollar a month free trial period at shopify.com/famous Search for your newest home on apartments.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Beth Karas and what are her credentials?
Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird. It's your fave villain, Kale Lowry. And you're listening to Barely Famous. All right, you guys, my next guest is Beth Karras. You may recognize Beth Karras from legally analyzing cases like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalia Grace, Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias. She's covered all of these cases on shows, on documentaries, docu-series, deep dives.
Chapter 2: What high-profile cases has Beth Karas covered?
Throughout her career, Beth has provided legal analysis on different cases and she's very knowledgeable. She does the deep dives and I absolutely love her. I think I first saw Beth on ID Channel. So that's where I know her from. She got a bachelor's degree in political science and Spanish from Mount Holyoke. And she graduated with a Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School.
Those are her credentials to start. In 1987, she was admitted to the New York State Bar. And from 1987 to 1994, she actually worked as an ADA, an assistant district attorney in New York City under the legendary district attorney Robert Morgenthau. They were prosecuting cases ranging from robbery and rape to racketeering and political corruption.
And in 1994, she actually joins Court TV, later True TV, as an on-air legal analyst and correspondent. She begins covering high profile criminal cases across the United States. And so that's where she transitions to, you know, covering all of these cases. And in 2003 into 2004, she covers the Scott Peterson trial, which we talk about in this episode.
And as you guys know, that's one of the most sensational murder cases in the US. And then in 2011, and I followed this case so closely, she provides analysis of the Casey Anthony trial, a case that obviously captivated the nation. The interest is still ongoing today. From 2012 to 2013, Beth covers the Jodi Arias murder trial, which became one of Court TV's most widely followed cases.
And she also covers Conrad Murray, Drew Peterson, and Phil Spector. So if you're familiar with any of those cases, you might recognize Beth from her legal analysis on these cases. All right, today we have Beth Karras on Barely Famous Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, my pleasure.
I'm so excited because I have seen you on so many docuseries and things like that, especially on ID Channel. So I'm so happy to have you.
Well, I'm excited to talk about my career, the shows I've been in, the latest series, whatever you want to talk about. So the latest series is The Curious Case. Curious case of, and then there's six episodes, and the rest of that phrase, the curious case of, depends on that episode. The curious case of the girl who died twice, that was the second episode.
I don't know all, I don't have all the names memorized, but each one, curious case of Bam Margera. The curious case of Natalia Grace. Yes. Curious case of Natalia Grace, but that was one ongoing story that lasted for three seasons, right? Six episodes for the first two seasons and then four episodes. And the new series that I'm in, it's just one standalone story each episode.
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Chapter 3: What is the investigative process for true crime stories?
we have to have access that's key so the next once you decide on the story you're also looking for who the storytellers are can you get people from both sides of the story for example if somebody's been under arrest you want both sides family members victims you know families of the accused lawyers whatever so it's getting the access that's critical right um and then of course you
File public records requests to get any documents. If it's a case that's been filed, you want to get police records, court records, whatever you can. So you gather as much material as possible, and then you start putting it together, telling the story.
Is that similar in law, you know, not on TV? Were you kind of doing the same thing before you transitioned? So it's a good question.
I found that the skills that I developed as an assistant DA in Manhattan, which is where we are today, translated well into my next job, which was starting out as a journalist at Court TV.
I was there for 19 years at the original Court TV, talking to a jury, talking into the camera, making sure that I don't talk down to the jury, but explain things in terms that they understand, not talking legally. It's something I would do to the audience as well, right? And so I found that skill translated well. But also, once I got into what I'm doing, because when I was at Court TV, it was like
The case was there in court. There wasn't going to be any more investigation. It was investigated. Sometimes I do some digging around, but I was on the air, you know, morning to night. There wasn't a lot of time to do my own investigation beyond what was being presented in court. When I left Court TV, because it actually went off to air, it came back under new management.
It's a little different today, but it's still a Court TV channel. Then I started doing my own digging. People would come to me with issues, and I would start doing what I maybe would do as a prosecutor, but the problem is, when you're a civilian investigator, you don't have the tools that a police officer or prosecutor have. You can't subpoena somebody. You can't get the records you want.
You can't get phone records unless maybe a lawyer in a case will give it to you or it's been introduced as evidence in a trial so now you can have it, maybe in a civil case and now you can look at it, maybe there's a criminal matter it's relevant to. So your hands are a little bit tied compared to what you can do as a public servant with police powers, right?
to put somebody in a grand jury or get a subpoena. But still, I mean, there are great investigative journalists who do some great work.
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Chapter 4: How do true crime stories resonate with audiences?
Actually, Scott Peterson was tried in 2004. I had been at court for 10 years at that point. I had covered OJ's road rage case, which was a few years after he was acquitted of murder.
Okay.
And it was in Miami. Actually, I... It was a felony. He got mad at a man who was tailing him on a not a very busy road street in south of Miami. And he got out in a rage. It was road rage. And he put his put his fist through the hand through the window of the man's car and like grabbed at his hand.
hat or his glasses or something that was considered a burglary of an occupied vehicle so that because a part of his body went through the open window and scratched the man's face so that was a felony he was acquitted of that not a bad verdict if he just was angry and his kids were in the back seat of the car and they were little at the time his two youngest that he had with nicole so um
I had covered that, but at the time, 9-1-1 had just happened, and the anthrax scare was going on.
Right, I remember that.
And so all the media were in Washington, you know, at the Pentagon, or in lower Manhattan, or in Boca Raton, where a man at American Media had just died from inhaling anthrax. So no one's covering this case, but it was OJ on the stand in a criminal case. And, you know, like People Magazine was there, a few places like that, but it was Court TV. So I had lunch with OJ early on, his lawyer.
He had two lawyers. They invited me to lunch. I've told this story before, but maybe some of your listeners haven't heard it. So we're sitting at a round table at a Chinese restaurant that was fast because we had to get back to court. It was lunch.
Right, right.
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Chapter 5: What makes circumstantial evidence significant in court cases?
Right.
Might as well just scoot the plate over and let him have it. Go ahead. I mean, his food came soon enough, but it's like, oh, but I would talk to him periodically through the trial. Now it wasn't high profile like Scott Peterson, but Scott Peterson's was probably one of the biggest ones in terms of like national or international press. But David Westerfield was kind of big.
I mean, that was two years earlier. It was big in that in San Diego, he kidnapped a little girl out of her home. Bed at home seven-year-old girl sleeping in the middle of the night. He broke into the home.
He kidnapped her as a neighbor Killed her she was found three weeks later probably raped her, but she was too decomposed to tell if she was raped Oh my gosh, and I just remember in that case thinking God Your child isn't safe in her own bed. Where's your child safe? This is a beautiful neighborhood called Saber Springs in, you know, outside of the city of San Diego, but in San Diego County.
That, I remember, we had monitors out on the street when the verdict was coming in, and there were crowds of people who came down to the courthouse because we were waiting for the verdict. And when he was convicted, because there was a camera, it was televised, there were cheers everywhere. Just like there were cheers at Jodi Arias and there were cheers at Scott Peterson.
And there were not cheers at Casey Anthony. People were outraged at Casey Anthony because she was acquitted. But people want to be a part of the process. People would take their summer vacation because a lot of these trials are in the summer. Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias, Scott Peterson, all in the summer.
Just by coincidence?
Or is there a rhyme or reason for that? No, coincidence. But they're long. They're a couple months or more. So people would actually do like a destination vacation. We're going to Phoenix for vacation. We'll go to Sedona, Scottsdale, whatever. But we're going to go to the trial for a day. And so we always had big crowds at these big televised cases. And a lot of them,
were female defendants or the wife is murdered right Lacey Casey Nicole Nicole yeah that's so do you think any of those cases would be ever be on the curious case of We are looking at cases that haven't been told or haven't been told so much. I can't say they never would be, but there'd have to be a new angle.
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Chapter 6: How do gender dynamics affect interest in true crime?
But a lot of evidence is circumstantial, fingerprint evidence and DNA and just, oh, my God, the footprints, the tire marks, the bite marks. Bite marks is controversial evidence, but that's all circumstantial evidence. Cases are tried across the country every day. Right. And convictions are obtained by prosecutors. Jurors return convictions based on circumstantial evidence.
Sometimes it can be stronger than direct evidence because eyewitnesses can be wrong and confessions can be false.
Right.
But the evidence, the circumstantial evidence could be. Well, you have to look when you look at circumstantial evidence, the jurors get to get an instruction about like if there is an interpretation of the evidence that is consistent with innocence. And another one, it says you've got to give the benefit to the defendant. You've got to go with the innocent explanation.
But when you start piling the evidence together, then you kind of like, OK, this is there's no way that tire tracks, you know, matching the car. And, you know, fingerprints, fingerprints is pretty good. He's in a place where he hasn't ever been in his life that we know of. It's not unusual to say Scott Peterson's house is full of fingerprints. That's useless evidence, right?
Hair evidence in his own house is useless evidence. But if Scott Peterson's fingerprints were found, I mean, I don't want to say he did take the boat out on the boat ramp, but. I don't even know how to speculate. You know what I'm talking about. It's like in a place where like a burglar is coming in on a window and his fingerprints are on a window at a home. He's never been in before.
Hello. Right. So I think even I can say that I have been misinformed about circumstantial evidence then. Right. Because I mean, I could, I argued on another podcast saying that I could see how Scott Peterson maybe could have been acquitted because it was all circumstantial. But you're right. Once you add on, like you pile it on top of one another and,
It's no longer circumstantial or it shouldn't be looked at as circumstantial.
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Chapter 7: What is the story behind the Curious Case Of series?
But when you look at the sum total and all those little pieces fit together and it's like, well, wait a second. It excludes every other explanation for innocence, you know, kind of says it's got to be him. Right. So, I mean... I was at that trial. I mean, I heard that evidence in Scott's case.
And I know there's a whole new young generation of people, you're a part of that, who are doing a second look at it. And it's revisionist history, in my opinion. And his family, God bless them, they have been relentless in... fighting for Scott's freedom. They got him off death row.
I mean, he had an excellent Cliff Gardner's, an appellate attorney out in the Berkeley, California area, excellent appellate attorney and prevailed in that appeal to get him off death row.
Yeah, I don't think I have strong feelings about him on death row, but I definitely... have gone back and forth, but now that I know about the circumstantial evidence basically being puzzle pieces, it makes sense that he is where he is, and that's where he needs to stay.
But when you were talking about covering cases on The Curious Case Of, I thought of a woman that I interviewed a couple weeks ago. Her name is Sarah Turney, and her father allegedly unalived Sarah's sister. Her own dad unalived her sister, killed her sister. never found a body, and they're still sort of fighting for justice. And I feel like that case doesn't get as much coverage as it should.
So that would be cool for you to look into. So was he charged? He was charged not for the murder. I don't think he was charged for her murder.
So, you know, I get a lot of stories that come to me where people are looking for assistance because they believe a murder has happened and the authorities aren't looking at it. As a journalist, I cannot give legal advice. Sometimes they come to me as a lawyer and say, I'm licensed in New York, but I cannot give legal advice. I can operate as a journalist. I can recommend a lawyer to you.
But it breaks my heart because I'm just me and I cannot do the deep dive that a lot of these people deserve and need. What you're telling me now sounds like something I might have been contacted about. Oh, I just, I'm not, I'm not sure, but there was, I had a couple of people contact me different stories just this week, desperate for help.
And you know, the Natalia Gray series has led a lot of people with special needs children who are not getting proper care or are being abused, or they know of somebody who's special needs or somebody who was adopted and is not getting there. Those stories have been coming to me as well, but I can't always do something about it.
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Chapter 8: What are the challenges faced by journalists in true crime?
So she didn't have to stop at a gas station. I mean, that was really thought out. So that one, I mean, it stays with me. Every June, June 4th is when he died. Every June 4th, I think of him. There are other murders or disappearances on that date that, on June 4th. I mean, Kyron Horman, who's never been found, disappeared in Portland, Oregon as a little boy.
His stepmother was the last one to see him. No one's, you know, she's never been charged. she's always been under a cloud of suspicion, but she's, you know, says that she left him at school and then he disappeared from school. It was the last day of school that year. It was a science fair. That's a June 4th also, um, date. Anyway, um, there have been stories over the years.
I could probably pick one every year of the 19 years I was at quarantine that resonated with me, that stayed with me. David Westfield in San Diego was one too.
And I'm absolutely consumed by the Idaho four. And I can't stop watching any of that stuff. I'm like, I wish that there was going to be a trial way sooner than there is. When is the trial date? I believe it's August of 2025. Yeah.
So I mean, I followed that certainly when it first happened. I am like everybody. I was just fascinated. And, um, You know, they were tailing him, authorities were tailing him across the country. Remember, he got stopped a few times speeding before he ended up getting arrested, I think in Pennsylvania, right? He had driven across the country with his father.
But I mean, the standard to arrest somebody is probable cause, probable cause that they committed the crime, but to proof at trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, every element of every crime is a much higher standard.
So I really want to believe that the authorities have felt they had a provable case before even arresting him, even though you continue investigating, of course, but you want to make sure you have good, solid evidence even before arresting him. So they probably feel that they've got a provable case.
When you say probable cause, is that the same thing as motive?
No, probable cause is a standard of proof, right? There are a few standards of proof. Probable cause is very low. It's just, you know, it's probable, right? We have a reasonable suspicion of a probability that you committed this. But then the next one up is...
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