Caylee Anthony

The three detectives who sat down with Casey Anthony in the conference room at Universal Studios on the afternoon of July 16 had more than 30 years combined experience in criminal investigation. They were experienced interviewers, but no appeal they made seemed to get through to the 22-year-old mother. She continued to tell lie after lie, seemingly unconcerned that her daughter's life might hang in the balance.

"If the main thing you want to do is find your daughter," one detective demanded, "and you don't think lying to us is gonna help us find her, why would you do that?"

"Because I'm scared," Casey said. "I know I'm running out of options. It's been a month."

"What are you scared of," another detective asked.

"I'm scared of not seeing my daughter ever again."

"I want you to tell me how lying to us is going to solve that problem and help find your daughter quicker?"

"It's not," Casey said.

"Then why would you do that?"

"See, I don't know," Casey said. "I'm telling you that I just dropped her off and that was the last time I seen her."

The exchange was incredible. Casey telling three veteran detectives that she wanted to find her daughter, admitting that lying to them was going to hinder their efforts to do just that, and then in the next breath continuing to lie, steadfastly maintaining that she last saw her daughter when she dropped her off with what detectives knew was a nonexistent nanny.

The harder the detectives pressed Casey for the truth, the more she repeated her inoperative nanny story. Asked again why she had led them to Universal, she said she knew it was a place Caylee liked to go. "I'm coming back to places that are familiar to me, that I know are familiar to her," Casey said.

"How old is she?" one detective asked.

"She's almost three."

"What do you think, she's gonna take a cab here?" the detective said.

By the end of the interview, the detectives had gotten nowhere.