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Nancy Guthrie missing, the investigation now into it's seventh week.
The $1 million reward remains active despite no arrests or significant leads. The FBI is revisiting Guthrie's neighborhood, looking into the contractors and crews working on homes under construction in the area.
Join Nancy and her panel of experts for the latest.
If you have information, it can be reported anonymously to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or online at tips.fbi.gov.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is an I Heart Podcast, Guaranteed Human.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy Guthrie missing, we learn one car in particular taking
center stage in the FBI's analysis of white vehicle scene and the maze of streets surrounding
Nancy's home.
That is the latest tonight we're also learning that this vacant home may have been used as
a staging area for the kidnapper.
Does that explain why we don't see the kidnapper entering or exiting from a vehicle?
He's in no rush.
The dog behind Nancy Guthrie's home goes crazy at 2 a.m.
Is it because he didn't need a car because he has a staging area near Nancy's home in
her very own neighborhood?
Also the FBI focusing on pharmaceutical records that are similar to Nancy Guthrie's medication.
All of this happening while we learn that the casting attempts failed.
Trying to get footprints or tracks outside the home.
The FBI now apparently looking at electrostatic lift prints from inside the home.
And what is Nannos doing during all of this?
He's going to the gym.
Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace.
This is Crime Stories.
I want to thank you for being with us.
One vehicle in particular is taking center stage with the FBI search for Nancy Guthrie.
It is a white vehicle.
Going out to Dave Mack, Crime Stories Investigative Reporter, Dave Mack, it's curious the
VA and Trata is like a maze of streets and intersections surrounding.
It's part of that anyway, surrounding Nancy Guthrie's home.
What can you tell me about Pima County Sheriff's requesting now surveillance, footage, anything
neighbors may have of a vehicle?
Tell me what you know.
The law enforcement, we're talking the FBI and the Sheriff's Department asking all of
the homes in the area if they have a camera pointed toward the street to go back and get
that video for the law enforcement because they don't want it being recorded over.
You're showing right there at two six two thirty eight in the morning.
We've got a car within two and a half miles of Nancy Guthrie's home seen on ring camera.
This is a shocker because when the Sheriff's Department first put up their ring of area
they were confident and was about two miles.
This is it two and a half miles so they missed it.
Now this is becoming a huge part of the investigation as law enforcement is trying to identify what
type of vehicle it is and anything else they can find.
So they're looking for any vehicles traveling along these roads that match up with this vehicle,
trying to identify it Nancy and they're looking for every camera they can find.
I'm going to go straight out to Scott Iker joining us, a founding member of the FBI's.
By the way this video is from our friends at Fox News.
The FBI cellular analysis survey team but also homicide investigator in Norfolk police.
Has worked so many missing people cases he can't count them.
Now a precision cellular analysis, Scott Iker speaking of the car.
I think it's very telling that Pima County Sheriff's is asking now for footage of vehicles
in the neighborhood and they asked for footage about a car the morning 10 am the morning
of the kidnap that would have been January 31.
What do you think?
Well this is the normal process of the investigation like this.
You have breakout groups that are looking at different sections of the investigation.
I'm sure there's one group of investigators that are saying okay we're going to concentrate
on trying to identify this car scene going by the cactuses and we got to get start working
on that.
So they'll follow that path, they'll go out and talk to the neighbors, they'll help the
neighbors access their cameras because as we know some people that are not very good
at accessing their film and their footage they'll go to the businesses and they're going
to keep asking the public to provide anything they have that might help identify vehicles
that were in the area at that time.
We're doing the same thing with the cell phones right, we're following cell phones, hopefully
we see a cell phone follow that same track as that car went from Nancy's neighborhood
to that main street, things like that will help us clue and piece it together.
You know that significant, straight out to Joe Scott Morgan joining us, Professor
Forensic's Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and
star of a hit news series Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, we're showing you some
footage from our friends at Fox, Joe Scott, he just brought up something really interesting
well, among many things, tonight focus on a vehicle, Joe Scott at 10AM, 10AM, Jan 31,
January 31, which tells me they believe the perp was in broad daylight, January 31, and
before I lose the thought, Joe Scott, what I could just say, remember in Alex Murdoch's
trial that you and I investigated ourselves, we see Murdoch's huge honk and SUV traveling
the night of the murders when he murdered Paul and Maggie, his wife and son.
With his cell phone scratching off from the scene and he had Maggie's cell phone with him,
the info the Black Boxer to speak inside his SUV shows him stopping the car, lowering
the passenger side window.
That is where we find Maggie's cell phone thrown out the window right there.
So very often we see cell phones traveling with a car, and my point is that if we get
a cell phone traveling with the car at 10AM, January 31, now we've got a cell number because
even if the perp turned off a cell the night of the kidnapping, I guarantee you he didn't
turn it off the morning of the kidnapping 10AM.
See where I'm going?
Yeah, yeah, why would you?
And again, this is another one of these benchmarks relative to benchmarking that immediate
point in time, and this goes back to a theory that I've held on and other people have held
on to over the time, and that's the idea of casing this area.
Just going back and making sure that everything is as they perceive it to be, maybe taking
one last glance at the at the area before they go in to do whatever it is that they're going
to do, and assessing the area.
I think that this is very, very critical piece of information, Nancy, because if they can
tie that back to a suspect here, this is going to be critical moving forward with the
case specifically.
On day one, Brian Fitzgibbons joining us, USPA Nationwide Security.
Let me just say again, leading a team of investigators that do nothing but fine missing people and
extract them.
Former Marine Iraqi War vet Fitzgibbons day one, you and I said car, car.
You've got Brian Cobrager cracked with a car.
Yes, we hear about the DNA analysis, which was amazing, but it all started with a clerk
at a gas station seeing his white illanches speeding by around 4 a.m. the morning of the
murders.
Right?
And she gave that to police, and the alarm went out to all law enforcement, including
campus police about a white illanstra, a campus cop at WSU, Washington State University
R.C. says, oh, who's registered on campus for a parking spot with a white illanstra?
Oh, Brian Cobrager.
That's where his name came from because of his car, and then I like to use the case of
glam yoga instructor, Caitlin Armstrong.
She murdered her love rival, a world class dirt bike champion because of over a man, really?
And her SUV has seen circling and circling and circling the murder scene.
And then of course, there's Molly Tibbitts.
She goes out for a jog after studying all afternoon and over and over.
There she is.
There's Molly.
And this guy keeps approaching her because of distinctive markings on his vehicle.
He's tracked through a vehicle day one Fitzgibbons.
We said car and I'm not giving you or myself a pound in the back.
I'm saying, if this is the car, if this is the car at 10 a.m. Jan 31 that they're interested
in, jackpot, maybe?
Yeah.
And you know, hey, you can go to great lengths to hide a cell phone.
You could not take it.
You could put it in an airplane mode.
It could be in a Faraday bag to try to keep Scott Eiker from finding you.
But you can't hide a car.
You can't hide a vehicle.
So the hope is that if we can identify this vehicle and start to piece together, some
of the video evidence from the surrounding area, and experts on this case have gone to
great lengths, including Douglas McGregor, who's been on this show, to map out the potential
avenues of egress from Mrs. Guthrie's home.
So that's got to be the focus is getting the description of that vehicle and trying
to find some video evidence of it to tie it back to it.
Okay, Scott Eiker, how do you trace the car?
Once we have the picture, if we get the picture at 10 a.m., they've got to have a reason
that they're saying 10 a.m. the morning of the kidnap, Jan 31.
She's kidnapped, go through the clock, the next morning around 2 a.m.
Why are they saying 10 a.m. Jan 31, they've got to have a reason for saying that.
Was there an eyewitness?
Remember early on, a neighbor said they had seen a strange car that didn't belong to anybody
sitting out on the street for an extended period of time near Nancy's home.
Is it that car?
Are we finally tying something together tonight?
So let's just pretend for argument's sake, it is the car.
They've got a time, they have a time, they must know about a car.
So how do we track it?
Well, there's several different ways.
One, we've talked about the videos and they've got to really push that to get that from
all the neighbors, all the businesses.
Two, is looking at the cell phones embedded in cars.
If it's a newer type vehicle, we can narrow that down through the tower dumps of that area,
identifying the type of cars that are there.
Hopefully it will match the types of cars.
And then we can track those cars and the cell phones that are traveling with those cars at
those specific times.
So that would help us get to those points of it, hopefully identifying who that is and what
kind of car there is.
And then where they went to after they were in the area around the time of the election.
So here's another question after you, Joseph Scott Morgan.
Can they trace the car's movements, which way was it going?
Does it match potentially one of the cars caught 2.5 miles away the night of the kidnapping that
we see on video? Is it one of those cars? Can we connect that? Can we connect it to the car
that's been sitting out in the neighborhood, surveilling? Can we connect it to the car that was
spotted at a gas station 7-11 type store that night? I mean, there's cars out the Ging Yang.
A white vehicle was spotted on Ringcam 7 minutes away from Nancy's home.
Are the pieces of the puzzle finally fitting together regarding a vehicle? Because now we know
Joseph Scott, they're looking at a specific vehicle. We think it's a white vehicle.
The morning she's taken, they're zeroing in on that, Joseph Scott. What else is your analysis?
Well, I'm going to my esteemed colleague, Mr. Iker. I think that the most critical bit to this
is trying to get that videography from all these other locations and they can kind of create what's
what I would call a mosaic of this imagery of the car moving past, moving forward, going about.
And also, if they are able, because you had mentioned earlier about the cell phone, if the
thing is pinging in there and they're capturing this, particularly in that approximately 10 AM run
that you're talking about, if they can zero that in, then you've got two points of connectivity
at that moment in time. Where is this thing moving to? Can you see it moving in front of other cameras?
And also out and about away from this kind of, as it's been described as maze in this neighborhood,
is there anything out on the periphery they've been able to piece together from local businesses
that is going to match this up? I think that that's going to be critical. I'm very interested still
with this area that is adjacent to the construction area that was there. And this unoccupied home,
I want to know has that car ever settled there? Has it stopped? Has it paused? Because you're looking
at a couple of locations where it could have paused. So where is the interest here? You know,
going back to this idea of the profile of the individual, where they vested time wise,
where they vested location wise. And that's going to be a big, big part of this thread, Nancy.
Dave Max, specifically, we understand the fans are interested in vehicles along via Entrata.
Where is via Entrata? What is it? It's the main residential road entering the
neighborhood where Nancy Uthre lives. It is referred to as a maze-like road. It serves as the
main residential road into the Catalina foothills neighborhood. And you mentioned this earlier,
it forced part of a maze-like residential area that is poorly lit at night. That comes into play.
You have to know the roads and where you're going at night to be able to function in this area
along via Entrata. So once we have a date, once we have a time, 10 a.m., we can go from there.
And Scott Eichert wouldn't it be possible if we're going with a white car, 10 a.m., Jan 31,
to try, I'm sure you recall the photos do-lose case. Jennifer do-lose, Connecticut mom of five,
body never found. The law enforcement there in Connecticut put together an incredible
video montage from businesses, homes, even at one point, a public bus opened up and you see
the per-driving by tracking his movements. I've got a time, I've got a potential vehicle,
I've got a street. Isn't it possible now to look at the cams, look at Wi-Fi along the routes
and see where the car went? I know it's going to be difficult, but is it possible?
It is difficult and there's a lot of different databases we can pull from. One is the videos from
the area, as you mentioned, the choke points coming from that point, where would a car have to go
from that point to get to other areas, the main avenues, the stoplights, the
business cameras, all important stuff. But when we look at the cellular aspect of it,
we can look at Google, we can look at Facebook, we can look at just tower dumps. Same stuff
we do another tower dump in that area because it's going to be possibly different towers that
are used around the scuffery's residence. And we see, all right, is that those devices in that
tower dump also in Nancy Guthrie's area tower dump. So now we put that same device in two important
areas. That helps us a lot to try and narrow down the amount of different devices that we have
to sort through to figure out which ones we're up for.
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Also tonight, a vacant home used as a staging area, Dave Mac, what does that mean?
You know, Nancy, it is a home that sits off the back yard of Nancy Guthrie's home. It's vacant
and you mentioned it earlier, the, the perp walks up to the front door. We don't see a car dropping
them off. We don't see a car picking them up in the neighborhood right there. But if they were
staging, meaning if the perpetrators were in it that is vacant, they could be in that house for days.
They could be watching the Cummings and goings at Nancy Guthrie's home. And then when they decide
it's time to go walk across the backyard area. Now, this is at the time we're talking two to
two, three in the morning when Nancy Guthrie's neighbor facing her backyard, facing Nancy Guthrie's
backyard. The dog went crazy and the two video cameras facing the backyard of Nancy Guthrie
went silent could not connect to Wi-Fi. The vacant home is near there. So if it's used by the
perpetrators as a place to make their plan to stage, well, there you go. You've got a clear shot
walking in to Nancy Guthrie's home and we've got a dog going crazy. This aerial view from our
friends at 12 knees, and I'm going to ask the controller and the police showing the aerial view
of the fads coming through her side entrance coming from the same direction going past the pool
and actually taking photos of the gate, the pool gate. Remember this? Joe Scott Morgan?
After Nana said oh, there's nothing to see here. We see the fads coming through that side area.
They're going through the pool area and they're going to pause and take photos when they go out
the gate. This would be consistent with the part coming from a staging area or parked elsewhere.
Coming through the backyard neighbors, lawn, going into Nancy Guthrie's property and going past the
pool and coming through that gate. This is where our friends at Fox News, but let's see the 12 video
again, the aerial video where with the vacant home be. There you see the neighbor's house.
Did he come around and go through the pool area and down that side portion of Nancy's home?
This is from our friends at 12 news. So to you, Joseph Scott Morgan, let's just go with the theory.
We have to pursue every avenue that a vacant home was used as a staging area. What should they be
doing right now as far as processing the staging area? Well, I hope that it's completely locked down
and that they've got the right personnel that are out there that could potentially
process this, thinking about anybody that might be in dwelling and just like Dave said just a moment
ago, where they're hanging out there for an extended period of time. And that's key because
the longer you hang out in a location relative to, say, trace evidence as it applies to forensics,
the higher the probability is that you're going to leave something behind just like LeCard's
principle. So if you're in that space, whether it be footprints or whatever the case might be,
maybe discarded wrappers, if you're surveilling an area, things that you might not think of that
we would go in because we've got all the time in the world as forensics folks to go in there and
pick that place apart. My biggest concern Nancy is that they haven't gotten to this soon enough
because we've got a lot of time that has elapsed, has anything degraded in there, has anything
been rubbed up against and obliterated all these sorts of things. So this is a time critical area
and given the proximity, I think that it's significant. I hope that they're processing this
accurately, looking for things like fingerprints, footprints, anything that can tie back
to perhaps Mrs. Guthrie's location, maybe even that car that we were talking about, the phone,
points of ingress and egress. You think about that gate back there in the back side.
Did they always take care if they were surveilling the area to walk through that gate? Did they touch
it? Had they left anything behind? So all of this stuff is still on the table my friend.
This could explain why we don't see a car that night, why the porch guy approached on a foot.
Is the vacant house behind Guthrie's home? Does it require the perp to come through the yard?
Where the dog barked? Is the vacant home being processed for prints? DNA evidence?
Question, were people squatting there? Did they have a lease? Did they rent?
We see the feds walking the trail. Is this why? So many cases that I have covered and investigated
and prosecuted involved use of a vacant home. Just got, while I've got you, we now know that the
cast prints that were attempted outdoors likely yielded nothing, probably because it was a
gravel walkway for any number of reasons. But there's still hope of electrostatic lifts. What's that?
Okay, so when you think about electrostatic lifts, we all know about magnetism, right? We learned
about that in physical science back in junior high school. So negatives attract positive. So
what we do with electrostatic lift, you see an example of one here that we did at Jack State.
That's a mylar sheet. It's kind of like vinyl. You lay it over a suspected area where you have
taken on a bleak light. You see how we're lighting that kind of a bleakly like that?
And we try to raise that print by electrostatic charge. So you place the mylar sheet over it.
You add an electrical charge. The charge on the paper on the mylar is actually negative. And
everything at the ground level is positive. So what happens is this is lifted and captured.
And we have that for as long as we treat it with respect, the bit of evidence so that we don't
ruin it. We can go back to the lab and we can have a footprint expert that can assess it.
And you're going to look for all kinds of little anomalies in there. And here's a thought.
Here's a thought as well. Back to that vacant house, okay? Are there any footprints over there
that they could have actually assessed relative to electromagnetic lifts that could be tied back
to anything that they might find on the floors inside of her house?
If the scene wasn't destroyed by crime scene investigators, Scott Eiker,
we're also learning that the feds are searching for pharmaceutical records similar to
meds used by Nancy Guthrie. How do you do that? Clearly they're trying to find someone filling
prescriptions or getting meds for Nancy Guthrie. So how do you go about finding that information?
Well, you got to first jump the hurdle of privacy regarding medical records. That's going to
be a tough one to get past. One of the things that you think about is that if they abducted Nancy
and they wanted to keep her alive, did they refill her prescription somehow? Okay, maybe they didn't
do that. But can we find other people, newer people that just started the same type of prescriptions
that Nancy was on? So, I mean, that's an avenue to go, but I think it's going to be hard. It's not
like you can do a tower dump on prescriptions. You're going to have to find a way to get into the
privacy aspect of getting people's medical histories. Well, if there's a way I guarantee the feds
will find it. Tonight we're also learning the feds are expanding their questioning to people
that don't necessarily live in the neighborhood. They are now questioning landscapers,
construction workers, gardeners, you name it. Maybe the pool crew that Nana's allowed to come clean
the pool. After the kidnapping, question to you, Dave Mack, is it true that in the midst of all
this with the feds doing the heavy lifting, Nana's just spending quality time at the gym?
Nancy, he is under a microscope and it doesn't seem to bother him in the least bit. Just to give you
an idea, he has gone to the gym four out of five days. He's spending 90 plus minutes inside the gym
and by the way, he's being followed by by the media because again, this is a guy that's got to
recall out on him right now. He lives in an $850,000 gated community, his home is on many mansion.
He's driving a fairly new Corvette convertible and they follow him to the gym.
Joining us tonight, former FBI special agent chief of the FBI counterintelligence behavioral
analysis program, author of sizing people up a veteran FBI agent's manual for behavior prediction.
He's got a second book, Unbreakable Alliances, a spy recruiters, authoritative guide to cultivating
powerful and lasting connections. Robin Drake is joining us and Robin, you got me at former
FBI special agent and chief of the FBI counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. The books
are just gravy. Thank you for being with us, Robin. Robin, I want you to look at something that's
come to our attention and that is the behavior of the porch guy. Robin Drake, he seems extremely
casual and not at all in a hurry on what we now know to be January 11. What do you make of it?
Yeah, so any time we're doing behavioral analysis, what we really want to do is put ourselves
in their shoes to the best of our ability obviously because we're not broken people like this.
But we want to literally think about what they're doing, what they're seeing, and what they're
what their motive is for doing these things. What's the goal? And so being so casual says he has reps.
A lot of people have said he's done this before. It's not unusual for him because he's so casual
about it. But also, what do people do? I mean, all of us in listening and tuning can actually
think of this. When we show up on someone's doorstep and they have a ring camera, nest camera,
something, what are we typically here? We hear the alarm, we hear the thing going off inside. And so
and up to 80% of home invasions, whether targeting an individual or targeting property inside,
they're doing scouting and reconnaissance, testing security systems, testing for things in
the area, and also a lingering on doorstep, a large number of elderly people when they
live at home alone and they're trying to get back in the house, they will hide and secrete
ways to get in, keys and bushes, keys under things. And so this individual, most likely,
definitely was scouting ahead of time and most likely testing the security system and seeing
who responds how long it takes and what the reaction will be.
Now we're also showing Feb 1, the early morning hours when Nancy was kidnapped.
January 11 says a lot to me. You mentioned casual, calm, lingering on the doorstep.
He's not at all concerned about being caught. He seems to know what he's doing.
You stated that at the get-go, it was surmised he had taken part in this kind of behavior before
in general. But this is telling me, Robin, that he has been on her porch before. He has seen
her home before. He's not worried. I think of here's a great example, Robin Drake,
John Binet Ramsey. That's someone everyone can recall. The culprit was not worried at all about
getting caught. The culprit took their time to kick back in the family home and write about a
three-page ransom note and they go, I don't like it. I'm going to sit right here and write another
one. Not at all concerned, they're going to be caught or apprehended. Why? So this guy's behavior,
he's just like standing there looking at the front door. We never see him on either date, run to
the street, sneak up, nothing like that is telling me he's been here and cased her home many times
before. Yeah, I totally agree. Either whether it was in daytime because he was part of some
work crew or maintenance crew or even just casually in the neighborhood at another neighbor's house
or whether this was not his first time on her front step testing this location. So that casualness,
either that or his brain is completely disengaged and he's completely compartmentalization because,
you know, you got to take in all the potentialities, but yeah, I'm with you. I think he's been here before
in some capacity either daylight or nighttime. What is it about his demeanor? I mean, you're the FBI
specialist in behavioral analysis, Robin Drake. What is it about his behavior that tells you
this ain't his first time at the rodeo? Nothing startles him. If you just look at the fluidity of his
movement, there's no change in the tempo, there's no change in absolutely anything. And so
think about this like we just said, if he heard an internal doorbell going off and alarm a
chime or something, you would have seen a pause. You would have seen a startle. If there's someone
out in the driveway, if there's something else going on, there would have been a pause. And also,
if this was his first time at this door, there'd be apprehension, there'd be pauses, there'd be
looking around, there'd be scoping things out. He seemed very fluid in all his motions and
everything he was executing. Even when bowing down to get a branch, which was like the dumbest
looking thing I've ever seen, but he just seemed on mission very, very methodical too. So this
was actually planned out. Okay, Robin Drake. Here is the leap. Let's follow through your reasoning
to its logical conclusion. What can I learn? What can I prove from what you're telling me?
Who is he? So he's someone that I believe is at least one degree of separation from Nancy in
some capacity whatsoever. The other thing that I think that law enforcement's doing based on
these observations of his fluidity in this environment is that go to the other house that I'm
sure they're doing is canvassing other houses. And I would do it within a one to 300 mile radius
of this house of this dwelling because other ring camps should have picked up on this because if
he's done this before, it's going to be on someone else's ring cam nest cam or something like that.
People need to check. When you wake up in the morning, you should be checking those things for
to see what happened night before because those are going to be the other leads. And that's how they're
piecing these data points together behind the scenes that we're not seeing right now. And again,
going and going, he is definitely targeting something or someone in that house. It is targeted.
Well, what that is is what we don't know. I'm just analyzing the sheriff's for all the controversy
he's going around. He's been saying a lot of things and the last thing he says that people need
to be on look at it and aware. Believe it or not, you mentioned Ramsey as well as, you know, if you
want to even look at Elizabeth's smart, when the sheriff's are saying people need to be on look out,
they are actually using different language than he was when being on look at for things. He was
actually using language of a targeted burglary typically not a home not a home invasion for
abduction. So it's just interesting. Again, he could be way off on the things he's saying as he has
been sometimes, but it's an interesting tell. Robyn Drake, you are mentioning that this suggests
the perp has broken in or home invaded before. What I'm asking you now, a more refined question is,
what does his behavior tell you as it relates to Nancy Guthrie, not other instances, maybe 300
miles away, but is this a neighbor? Is this a day laborer? Is it somebody off that construction
crew? They're not in a hurry. Does this suggest to you? It's possible that vacant home was used
as a staging area? He doesn't need a car parked out in front. He doesn't need to jump in with the
wingman, the getaway driver, because he's going to walk through that backyard. We don't see him walking
up the front. So where did he come from? Did he walk through that backyard or back to her neighbor
where the dog went crazy around 2am? Where is the vacant home? Is that why he's not in a hurry? He
doesn't have to run into a waiting car. He can go right across the street and through the backyard.
What do you make of that? Yeah, I definitely think that's a possibility and that new evidence and
ideas being out there is definitely something they must look at. I know it's challenging that
environment because the hard pack ground and the nature of the desert. And I definitely, as we've
been saying, there's some sort of connection, a personal, maybe not personal with Nancy yourself,
but personal with the dwelling itself that he's been there without having that need to flee.
Because there's no panic here, and that's what we're not seeing. We're not seeing any sort of panic
or rushed movement. And it's just very telling.
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Savannah Guthrie's mother Nancy Guthrie missing this as we learned that construction site dumps
are being searched for what? We also learn more about the process that NANOS and the FBI is employing
to get a DNA match. Is it possible? Also tonight, careful analysis of blood on Nancy Guthrie's
porch is telling us a very different story. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
I want to thank you for being with us.
Pima County Sheriff's is asking now for footage of vehicles in the neighborhood. A white
vehicle seen in the maze of streets surrounding Nancy's home. Because if they can tie that back
to a suspect here, this is going to be critical moving forward with the case specifically.
To whoever has her or knows where she is.
But it's never too late. And you're not lost or alone.
And it is never too late to do the right thing. And we are here.
And we believe. And we believe in the essential goodness of every human being.
Straight out to Dave Matt crime stories investigative reporter. We know that the feds are now trying
to question work crews on a construction site, one in particular, and maybe more in Nancy Guthrie's
neighborhood. We now know that dump sites used by construction crews are being searched.
What do you know? What can you tell me? We know that the investigation has really gotten into
these construction sites, Nancy, to identify all personnel, including daily contractors who have
come in. They're trying to identify not just people, but you mentioned the trash. They're trying
to determine where trash is being taken. Where are the dump sites for these individual homes that
are being constructed? Is there one place in particular that it's being taken or are there
multiple? They're identifying places that they can look into dump sites from the construction
sites. Okay. That is a very, very difficult task. I have worked on dump site searches. You have to
break it down into grid searches. It's really, really hard to do with me, Professor Forensic,
Jacksonville State University, Joseph Scott Morgan, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon
and Star of a Hit Podcast Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. But more important, death investigator
with over 10,000 death inquiries under his belt. I dump site grid search. I'm not saying we're
looking for Nancy Guthrie's body. That's not what I'm saying. I think they're looking for something
else. How do you go about a grid search if they are looking at construction crew dump sites?
Okay. Understand this. When you're talking about searching, any kind of landfill, all right,
and it all works on the same principle. Whether it's household debris or whether it is construction.
People just don't go in there and randomly dump stuff. They do have the thing broken up into
grids and Nancy, here's something else. This is always a clue that we look for when we're searching
these kinds of locations. Did you know that those grids have specific dates? When these things
would have been picked up, where they were deposited because you cannot continue to deposit things
in the same location over and over again, it has to be organized in order to facilitate this.
The one difficult part that I have always found in any of these things I've ever searched
is that you have equipment that runs over the stuff to pack it down, and that creates
an absolute nightmare for investigators when they go out there to begin to search.
Well, there's all sorts of issues with a construction site search. I'm curious about what they could
be looking for. When you hear a search of a dump or a landfill, you immediately think they're
looking for a body. That is not necessarily true, Joe Scott.
No, it's not. Listen, if somebody has been involved in some kind of nefarious activity,
and they have one of these big dumpsters, all right, that you see at construction sites,
and they're putting things in there specifically. Look, it could be biological materials,
something organic that's going to break down. That's one of the problems that you run into
with these sites is because this is an aerobic environment, which means it's oxygenated.
And that means that anything that's in there that is organic breaks down very, very quickly,
and it compromises evidence. But if there's other things, say, for instance,
if there's any kind of tools, any bits of wood that may have been associated with something that
was involved in a crime, that's going to be there as well. And here's one of the problems that
you run into. It's something called co-mingling. So you get evidence that's kind of tied up
together, and it can't come from other sites, because on the day that a specific grid has
stuff dumped from location A and B and C, you're confined to that spot, but that stuff gets
co-mingled, mashed down, and kind of turned around. Joining us in Ulster panel in addition to
Joseph Scott Morgan, joining us from Jacksonville State University, Brian Fitzgibbons is with us
director operations, USPA nationwide security leading a team of experts to fine-missing people
around the world, former Marine Iraqi War vet now at USPA nationwide security. The search of land
fields, it's horrible. Very often the searchers have to use hazmat outfits. They can be out there
in the sun, sweating, sweltering, and those hazmat outfits. What could they be searching for? And
one of the reasons, Brian, I say I don't think it's a search for her body is because we've heard
nothing about the use of cadaver dogs. Yeah, spot on. I believe here that they'd be searching for
pieces of any pieces of physical evidence that could have been removed from the scene. And what's
important to remember about these landfill searches is that authorities will have a very good idea
from the landfill on where this trash was deposited based on a specific timeline. So as they're
going around looking at these contractor bins, they're going to have to research that differently
than residential service. So they're going to find what contractors had large trash receptacles
in the area, what the schedule was for pickup, where they were bringing them, and that could vary.
It may not be the same location, the same transfer centers that the residential trash would be going.
Dave Mac, another theory emerging. And I just want to bat this down immediately that Nancy Guthrie
is missing because Savannah Guthrie had a stalker. Okay, so what is the report on Savannah Guthrie's
stalker? Did she have a stalker? What do we know? No, there is no confirmed idea that Savannah Guthrie
has or had a stalker. This is another part of the armchair detectives that are prevalent when a
main story like this goes out and people try to find a working idea of how it could be solved and
what could have been the motive. But no, this is not something that has been brought about by
legitimate investigation. Okay, the question is being banded about could Nancy Guthrie have been
targeted by a Savannah Guthrie stalker? I find that extremely fantastical. I want to go out to
Scott Eiker, founding member of the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey team. He was in robbery homicide over
a decade in north of Virginia PD. He is now with precision cellular analysis. Scott, fantastical,
no. Again, my favorite phrase sounds like a fifth grade girl's novel. When you have a stalker,
they go after you. They don't find your 84-year-old grandma in the middle of the desert and
cart her away in the middle of the night. That's not how stalkers operate. And in my mind,
throwing out theories like this and calling them in to the 911 tip line is wasting valuable time,
Eiker. I agree that it's wasting time to an extent. As we know stalkers, they want to be seen by
the person they're stalking. They want the attention by that person. So in that vein, there might
be an indication that, hey, if I mess with the family, I'll get the attention. But you hardly ever
see that happening. It's usually against the primary victim. In this case, if she had a stalker,
it would be Savannah. If we had information, concrete information about a stalker,
I'm sure we would have heard about it by now.
The idea that Savannah had a stalker, that nobody knows about, and they carried through their
twisted ideas and then executed them upon her mother. Okay, Karen Stark, joining us, you know her
well, forensic psychologist, renowned TV radio trauma expert at Karen Stark.com. That's Karen
with the C. You and I have had to deal with a lot of stalkers with all of your patients,
with cases that I prosecute with my own stalkers. This is not how they operate, Karen Stark.
Definitely not Nancy, and it just doesn't make sense to me that they would actually be a stalker
who's after Savannah, and somehow they wind up with Nancy. There have been so many theories that
have been thrown out that to me, this just looks like one more. Stalkers do not behave like this.
They follow the person that they're interested in, and it's endless and difficult to catch them
actually doing it, but this is not that kind of a case. This is her mother. I really believe
that whatever this was about, it's about Nancy Guthrie, not Savannah. A lot happening in the
search for Nancy Guthrie as construction site dumps are being reviewed. The stalker theory
emerging in addition to all of that, a careful analysis of Nancy Guthrie's porch.
When you pull back and look at it, it's very revealing. Take a look at this, Joseph Scott Morgan.
The video you're seeing now for our friends at Fox News gives us a better look than just a few drops
at the very beginning. You're seeing right now why a cast mold was not possible with the walkway,
but we're seeing a longer stretch. More information about the blood trail. What do you see,
Joseph Scott Morgan? Well, I see what I would interpret as passive blood deposition. What that means
is we're talking about gravitational blood drop where it falls to the earth. You don't have any
projected blood. With projected blood, you'll see these little tails that come off of the actual
blood droplet itself as it's flying through the air and it gives you an idea of direction. Nancy,
this is something, these blood droplets that you're seeing here or something that probably have fallen
from a reasonable height, maybe in the three foot range and they're dropping straight down and
impacting the ground. Do you see this area right here that we're looking at right now with this
walkway? Those blood droplets appear very uneven. Those can be easily misinterpreted. Well,
the reason they're uneven is because that's not a smooth surface, but you get up onto the stoop
there. You've got this area where you have this ceramic tile where it's a very even surface.
There's a lot to be interpreted here. We know that that's her blood. They've commented on that.
What would have to happen is she must be moving or her body, her person is being moved. Let me
rephrase that at least a three foot height. This blood is free flowing through the air. That's
what we call gravitational drop and it's deposited right there. This is not like when we think about
classic blood spatter. You and I have talked extensively about things like cast off and all these
things is dynamic. That's not what you're seeing here. This is not something that has tremendous
velocity behind it. This is something that is issuing forth from an injury. I still hold, based upon
some of those blood droplets that I saw, particularly adjacent to the doorway. Hold on, hold on,
Joe Scott. Guys, the video you were seeing was from Fox News, but I want to put up the steel.
So our viewers can see what Joe Scott is talking about because as you look at it, what he's saying
makes a lot of sense. The video doesn't really show it as well as the still photo of that blood.
So as you see it right here, it's depositing in kind of a linear fashion here and you can't
really interpret which way movement is going. Are they moving toward the door away from the door?
All we know is that there's blood deposition. Now you can look at the margins of it to say,
okay, it never extended beyond about two or three feet in width. So you can kind of superimpose
a path over that if you will, but directionality is very hard to determine with this because you
don't have any indication of flight of the blood. You know that it's dropping straight down,
okay? And these don't really vary in height, Nancy. So the higher the blood, the greater the
deposition of blood, or when that spherical, because blood, people don't know this blood actually
falls through the air in a perfect sphere. Many people don't understand that. And as it strikes,
that dynamicism of it kind of spreads it out. Well, these are not spread like greatly, like if
you're talking about blood dropping from, I don't know, a height of like 10 feet. The droplets are
going to look different than that. That's why I'm saying this is within about a three-foot range,
maybe four feet. It's dropping straight down. So what could happen? Is she being carried at this
point in time? And a lot of people have talked about was she wrapped in anything? I think that she's
bleeding rather significantly here. But if she was wrapped in anything, Nancy. Hold on, hold on,
you're saying she's bleeding significantly. And just recently, another forensic scientist has thrown
out the theory that she was quote, it doesn't really sound scientific, but I get what the expert is
saying was quote, bleeding pretty badly. But earlier, you had told me you thought this looked as if
it were a nose blade. And there's a little bit of aspiration on it from the nose or the mouth.
Yeah. Yeah. And when you see the tiny little droplets contained in there, there's one
cluster shot that they have there. These tiny little droplets that looks like
it's called expirated blood because you're expirating it. You know, I think Travis Alexander,
okay? So that's expirated blood. You don't see that in any of these other droplets. That deposition
that's like where we're looking at like the one o'clock position in that that's almost like a sneeze
or a cough or something. And then it's moving away. Nancy, do you see those little white areas in
the larger droplets? Yeah, I do. That implies to me, Nancy, that this is aerated blood. In other words,
it's coming from the nasopharynx area. Okay? So if you've got some kind of trauma to your nose,
your mouth, that sort of thing, it's got air in it. It's just not it's not like cutting a wrist.
It's more like a mist. Yeah, it is. Kind of. Okay. Hey, I want you to look at something else.
And I want Iker and Karen Stark, Brian Fitzgibbons, everybody look at this. We've also got Tammy Ballard
DNA expert. Can I see that photo? You were just showing you see the disturbance of the gravel
on top of the blood. Scott Iker, let me go back to you, formerly with the FBI, now a precision
cellular analysis. I recall distinctly a case I prosecuted and investigated at the special
behest of the electric district attorney. And I was very worried because it was originally
deemed a suicide. And my boss wanted me to make sure it wasn't a homicide. Well, long story short
Iker, the victim was found naked. A female was found naked in her bed. Number one, statistics say
that doesn't happen. That a female commits while naked. Why don't know. I just know that it's true.
She's lying in bed, right? And head on pillow takes a gun. Bam, that's the working theory.
But with a blood expert like Joe Scott, man, he was awesome too. We put the sheets up with
light behind it. And we found blood spatter under her pillow. Which means her lying there like
that and going, bam, could never have happened, right? So it's not rocket science. You just have
to know what you're looking for. And this is telling me something. I'm not sure what. Let's see
the picture again. Iker that the rocks and the gravel are distributed on top of the blood.
What does that mean? Are they helping her out? Do they have their hands under her armpits?
And they're, you know, hitting the gravel as they're walking and she's already come out,
she's bleeding. And the gravel gets on top of the blood as they're fussing around trying to
hold her up. What do you read into it, Iker?
Well, I agree with just Scott Morgan. This is definitely a pool of blood that looks like it was
spit out or, you know, sneezed out. What I also see is not only some of the rocks is parts of
that bush or the branch that is still at the front of the door there. And that's in stuck in some
of the blood droplets there. So, you know, we know that all kind of occurred around the same time.
He goes to the front door. He gets the branch, how he got her out through that security door.
We don't know. But it appears to me that that's happening all at the same time as
why some of that branch is stuck into the blood area.
Okay, hold on just a moment. We're looking at the gravel. And that's the security door. We're
going to talk about it in just a few moments, guys. But that said, just got what do you make about
the gravel being on top of the blood? Yeah, I've had my own opinions about this. For me,
part of it goes to lack of security at the scene. You've got everybody in their brother walking up
to this door. And so anytime you do that, that's why we take great care at Cromsines, Nancy,
because you don't know what you're going to be kicking about and not taking your time.
You're talking about people showing up at the door. Of course, this is, keep in mind,
thanks to Fox for providing this. However, this is not a crime scene image. We're looking at this
is media personnel that have generated this. And this should not be happening. So we had access to it.
Oh, I am so angry right now. I'm so angry. Brian Fitzgibbons, you and I have gone over and over
what Joe Scott is saying. The scene was not secured. Pizza delivery guys were going up there.
Journalists, journalists were going up there. So now, if they gravel on top of the blood,
did mean something, we can never prove it now. It could have meant all sorts of things.
It could have told us how she was maneuvered out how she may have been falling backwards and
back and forth and getting over in that gravel or the perp had kicked it over in his effort
to carry her or get her out of the home. But we can't prove anything now because the scene was
destroyed because Nannos released it. He released the scene. Yeah, there was a span of, I believe it
was 24 to 48 hours where that scene was not held initially released. You had door dash drivers
walking up to the front journalists. And you'll even notice Nancy in that photo, the foliage
that the porch suspect used is still lying on the ground. That wasn't even collected initially as
evidence. It's still lying there on the ground. So, you know, what evidentiary value in court of
those rocks, I don't know. Well done. If it's brought up by the state, the defense can shoot it
down because the scene was not kept secure. There's no chain of custody, so to speak. So,
it could have had those rocks could have gotten there in any way if they ever did prove anything.
It won't be worth anything in court because it will be attacked on cross. Guys, joining me right
now, Tammy Ballard, DNA crime scene consultant, crime scene investigation, reconstructionist,
former DNA criminalist for the San Diego Police Department crime lab. Tammy, thank you for being
with us. I'd like to understand, regardless of what Nana is saying about how blood analysis could
take up to a year, not true. I'd like to understand what you believe is happening right now with the
stranger DNA that was absolutely found in the home. We do know it did not match up to Mrs.
Guthrie, her family or any of the workers in the home. Let's just go with genetic genealogy is
being conducted right now. What's happening? They are dealing with mixtures. Again, the goal is to
find a DNA sample that is going to be suitable to do genealogy. That's your first hurdle. So,
the limitations with forensic genealogy happen to be related mostly on the front end with this
type of scenario as far as mixtures go. So, if they have a complex mixture, three, four contributors,
that's going to be something that they have to overcome with genealogy, which is definitely
a limitation. Let's assume they develop a profile suitable for genealogy. Next, you've got to figure
out starting the tree building. You've got to start getting the sample into databases.
You're only as good as who's in your database, how many people are in your database, and working
from there. Then you have the populations. If you have a Hispanic population, a Hispanic genealogy
search that you're going to have to do, maybe that's going to put in some additional hurdles
into your search. I always highlight the successes of the cases like the Rachel Marin case,
you know, sad tragic murder case where her perpetrator was from El Salvador. That's a very
difficult search for genealogy, but that happened in record time because it was a great group of
genealogists that were able to determine who this individual was. So, that's the hope for this case
as you get a good solid profile, and you're able to get that into the databases. You're building
your trees, and you've got a great team of genealogists assisting.
Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Please join us on Crime Stories and stream it first on Fox 1.
When breaking crime news develops, we investigate it and bring it to you.
Bombshell updates, answers to unanswered questions from cases making the headlines,
and cases you may never have heard of until Crime Stories. We go inside investigations with
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including gavill to gavill coverage with real-time analysis. Crime stories with Nancy Grace,
stream it first on Fox 1. I hope to see you there, and thank you friend.
Right now, the blood is being subjected to genetic genealogy testing. We believe it's a blood DNA
sample out of the home. How long will it take? Will it work? That we don't know, but the cutting
edge technology of genetic genealogy is ongoing. Was the ransom ever paid? Listen Harvey 11.
We received an alleged ransom note that we forwarded on to the authorities to the Sheriff's
Department. The FBI called us a few hours later, wanted to have a bunch of questions about that note.
There are deadlines, I say plural deadlines in this letter, and one is looming. When the family
is reaching out to say we're ready to talk, this letter suggests no talk. That was made clear
right at the beginning. We received your message, and we understand.
We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we
will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay. Many people question, was the
ransom ever paid, and if not why? To, especially as you're joining us, Scott Eiker, as well as
Brian Fitzgibbon's, let me first start with you, Fitz. You go around the world with your team
trying to find missing people. Oh, by the way, that video is from our friend Harvey 11 at TMZ.
We heard Savannah stating over and over. We're listening. We're here. We will pay. I don't believe
a ransom was ever paid. See, I would have rushed in immediately and paid the ransom, and as it
turned out, I highly doubt that that ransom note was legit, Fitz. I agree. It was missing two
essential things for proprietary information and proof of life. Those are two things that in a
typical kidnapping ransom case will immediately be delivered. The second thing is it wasn't delivered
to the family. This went to a media outlet. Of course, the family and law enforcement had to
take this very seriously at the time, but I think as we sit here on day 48, it's pretty clear
that these were not authentic. Well, there was another issue to you, Scott Eiker. I agree with what
you said, Fitz, but a, there was never proof of life ever presented. B, they never contacted the
family directly as Fitz just told you, but Scott Eiker, another issue I have is the delay, because
obviously this is not a, this is not a burglary. This is not a robbery. None of that happened.
When you go in to commit a burglary, you don't go, oh, my stars are somebody home.
I think I'll take her with me. That, that, no, that's not how it works. So,
obviously, one of the only choices left is ransom, but typically, ransom requests happen
immediately. So the victim's family can get the money together and start the negotiation.
There was never a negotiation. All there was was a Bitcoin manner of payment.
And without any proof of life and with the delay in submitting the ransom, I just don't believe
it was valid. I totally agree. And at that last point, you made that it needs to be immediate after
the kidnapping and directly to the family. I think some of the most important parts of it,
I mean, proof of life, we've, that's obviously won something that Savannah initially wanted,
but if you remember in some of the later videos, she was just kind of more leaning towards,
hey, we want our mom back, whatever condition she's in. Either way, I think the law enforcement,
the FBI and the Sheriff's Office evaluated those with the behavioral analysis unit, analyzing
the wording and analyzing whether it's real or not. And I don't think any of it was real.
I think that, I don't think the ransom was paid. And that's why we still are in this type of
situation and have nothing to go on at this point. Also tonight, I want to look at the security
door on Nancy Guthrie's front porch. Let's see that. Now, according to a neighbor, this was
practically burglar proof. What about a Dave Mac? You're exactly right, Nancy. A neighbor came
forward to say they have the same security door and they are impenetrable. You cannot break in
through the front door with that security door there. That was why she said that there's no way
anybody got through that front door. Hmm. I don't know if I agree with that. Could it be,
could it be subjected to a lock pick, Joe Scott, with that work? I mean, I'm not saying break the
door down, saying a lock pick. Yeah, but okay, here's, here's the deal, particularly with tool marks.
If you look at that deadbolt that's at the top, hopefully they've documented that very, very well.
If they suspected that, you could see pick marks there. And also, you would look for any other
tool marks. That's a great shot right there. Do you see that guard that's on the right?
One of the things here, when you think about the preventative nature of this, can it defeat,
can a pry bar defeat that? I would say probably not without raising a huge ruckus in this area.
And just looking at that, it doesn't look like there's any kind of insult to that margin there.
But the locked themselves, I suppose if somebody was skilled enough, they could probably pick it,
but it would take some time to do that, Nancy. Guys, if you know or think you know anything,
about the disappearance of Mrs. Guthrie, please dial toll free 800-225-532-4.
Or if you wish to remain anonymous, 520-882-7463, there is a 1.2 plus million dollar reward.
Thank you to our guest, but especially to you for being with us tonight. Nancy Gray is signing
off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night and until then, good night, friend.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace



