Now, there’s one other thing I want to mention that he said in this interview because now there’s new reports that at certain periods at night there was a loss of connection in the neighborhood, whether that’s Wi-Fi or something was going on.

And he said, and he was very careful.

I have to say it was a very good uh guest because he said, you know, I’m not an investigator.

I don’t know.

I can’t explain any of this.

However, our camera did show that it wasn’t connecting at a certain point in the evening uh in the weekends before and then also at around this period.

It’s very vague, but just in case our audience has heard these reports, it is actually coming from people like Jeff in the area saying these are some of the things that happened.

I know you’re an animal lover, Morgan.

Uh are dogs our secret weapon when it comes to some of these investigations? It reminds me of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories about the dog who didn’t bark led to the identification of the suspect.

Um I while you collect it, it’s not you got to be careful about assigning too much weight to it till you put it through the stress test.

And I’ll tell you why.

Um it it’s like the people said, “Well, they had Wi-Fi jammers.

” No, they didn’t.

And I can tell you why.

Because the reason people say that, and I don’t want to get geeky here, let me get technical.

But there’s a thing called the seven layer open systems interconnection model.

The seven layer model.

seven layers, physical, data, network.

So those are separate things, right? The the camera operates off of Wi-Fi.

So if I’m running a Wi-Fi jammer, I cannot take out wired connectivity.

Just you can’t do it.

So first of all, second of all, if they were running a Wi-Fi jammer, you can see examples of where Trendy Ragua and the other gangs who were doing high-end home burglaries where they’re running a Wi-Fi jammer.

All it does is it pixelates.

It interferes with the signal between the camera.

That’s a different layer.

that it’s not the physical layer.

So that’s why I’m saying that’s where when we make assumptions this is why the hard unsexy part of this is if you’re diving into this you got to make sure so my fortunately part of my background involving technology and cyber security and one of my degrees is computer information systems you say how does that and this is the difference I will tell you you kind of ties it back what’s the difference between then and now if you’re not if you’re not aware of social media if you’re not aware of AI if you’re not aware of advanced technology if you’re not aware of networking how the internet works I was one of the actually I was the first detective in Kansas to serve of a search warrant for an internet service provider on a case we had very first case and we had to we had to teach the judge what it means now to get a search warrant for an ISP.

It’s like going to the store and getting a carton of eggs.

It’s no big deal anymore.

That’s what’s changed a lot.

But if you don’t have an appreciation of the technology, the public says, “Well, yeah, they had a Wi-Fi jammer.

” Okay, that’s like saying, “I like apples, but uh here’s a steak instead.

” Completely different things.

Doesn’t Does it make That’s actually very helpful because I didn’t really even know what that meant.

I mean, you know, you think about again the movies.

If suddenly the internet goes off, the electricity goes down in the dead of night someone comes in and and that box that they showed where it had all the wires.

That’s a telephone interface box.

That that is not this is and the reason why why are we here because we still don’t have a lot of information.

So, let’s just pause the investigation for what? Well, let me ask you one one final question about Jeff’s then then I’m going to move to the media side of this because I think that’s actually also part of this story, which is how the media is handling it and specifically how NBC is handling it and some of what Savannah actually just shared in a recent interview that I’m curious to get your thoughts on.

But there have been now recent reports again that are emerging about an abandoned house in the area.

There are some reports that people were living in the house that recently moved.

There was uh several individuals.

One was described as three men.

No one really knows.

And Jeff said that neighbor said, “Oh yeah, that there is there was a house that was empty on the caddy, you know, caddy corner to him very close to Nancy Guthrie.

” I mean, just a coincidence.

Does is get are we just throwing darts because we don’t have anywhere else to go, Morgan? Yeah.

Again, it’s we’re trying to fill in that narrative, that missing gap of the narrative.

We’re bypassing the physical part of the evidence, the evidence, the interpretation, uh, and then the narrative, right? People will go straight to narrative.

I I had somebody send me Jen, I will tell you the one side of this that people don’t appreciate till you’ve been and I’m sure you got this when you’re in the media.

How many times did you find open up your email box and there was somebody who had a theory about something and it went on for pages and pages, right? I got to talk.

Well, I’m getting a lot of these and everybody’s got a theory about something, right? But that abandoned house, okay, that’s the case.

Um, I had somebody map out here’s how it could be done.

But we’re we’re trying to convince oursel it’s cognitive bias.

These are the same people that when they’re in Las Vegas keep playing the slot m slot machine because they know if I just play it one more time I’m going to get lucky.

It’s going to win.

I can just feel it in my bones.

Um and so we have this cognitive bias that goes on and I think that’s part of the problem.

I think now is it an interesting observation from Jeff Lame? Yeah.

Um was it something that you look into? But when I when we talked about I don’t know if we talked about the gloves when the gloves are found and everybody the New York Post was hyperventilating.

I’ll say then what I said then they mean absolutely nothing until they’re tied to the case.

Mean absolutely nothing but everybody this they went this way and they did this.

No.

And guess what we found out? They belong to a restaurant worker that took them and threw them off.

Unfortunately for him, you know, right in the area where uh one of the exit routes from the crime scene that means absolutely nothing.

So I don’t give it weight at this point.

It’s it’s simply part of the record.

The the problem is is when people start putting that in the frame, they say, “Well, the dogs were awake, so that’s when he was there.

” You can’t make that.

That’s that’s an assumption without the proper interpretation, without the proper appreciation of the evidence, without understanding how does a network really work.

Could the could the internet have been cut off? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I mean, I’ve got Verizon, I’ve got FiOS, and there are times I come in here and it’s not working, and I don’t think, you know, it’s a Yeah, it’s not a conspiracy theory.

That’s just the way things that’s why they call it 59’s reliability 99.

999% of the time, but that means it’s down sometimes.

Just the fact that it happens at the same time people want to read what’s I don’t believe in coincidence.

Well, I don’t believe in conflating these things together to get what happens is Jenna.

Somebody starts with a conclusion and then they work their facts to get into that conclusion because that’s the story they want to tell.

That’s the danger we have to stay one.

We’re not a conclusion yet.

We’re not at the end of the story.

Don’t tell the end of the story because we’re not there yet.

Well, and one has to wonder, are we here in this part of the story? By the way, I do think it’s a conspiracy when I don’t have Wi-Fi at my house and I’m trying to deliver the news.

I do actually I go way way down that path.

Uh Morgan, when that happens way too often.

Um I do wonder if we would be here if if the media interaction was different with law enforcement.

I’m not blaming law enforcement.

I’m not blaming the media.

I’m thinking about how these two things have worked together or not worked well and the public is still hungry for information.

You still have an innocent woman who is missing and you still have potentially a threat to public safety which seems to be lost in all of this that these criminals we don’t know criminal criminals we have no idea are have just poof disappeared but does that mean they’re not a threat to somebody else? No, of course not.

So there’s that also seems to be part of the story that’s not getting a lot of attention.

Now we have something new and this is where we could talk a little bit more specifically about how the media is handling this.

Savannah Guthrie provides an interview.

She’s back in New York City and NBC is rolling out this long interview that she did with her friend and colleague Hod who is asking her the questions that so many of us have quite frankly because we didn’t see that much of Savannah in the last several weeks.

She didn’t provide a press conference.

She provided some videos on social media.

uh interesting choice which I’m going to ask you about just because I think it’s interesting for any family to in this situation to even consider.

But she did provide some confirmation of what happened actually inside the house, actual facts, not conjecture.

And here’s what she said.

Morgan, my mom her her she was in tremendous pain.

Her back was very bad.

You know, she was trying to on a good day she could walk down to the mailbox and get the mail, but most days not.

So, there was no wander off and the doors were popped open.

[clears throat] Yeah.

And there was blood on the front doorstep and the Ring camera had been yanked off.

Yeah.

And so we were saying this is do something.

This is not okay.

Yeah, this isn’t [snorts] something is very wrong here.

Yeah, the doors being propped open is something that I don’t think we heard a ton about.

No, but that wait a minute.

The doors are propped open and she says, you know, there’s blood and these are things that clearly they knew right away, but that wasn’t exactly what was included in the information to the public immediately.

What do you think of what she said, Morgan? So, one thing I want to be careful of, too, is I know she said doors, but we don’t know if it was singular or plural, if that’s just an artifact of speech.

So, we have to be careful assuming anything.

Um, if a door if a door, the back door were propped open, then, and this is a discussion I had with folks, then you have to ask yourself, was it propped open from something from the inside? Something from the outside, did they bring it in? So, I’ I’d want to know the mechanism of what propped it open, right? Because sometimes, you know, when you stay in a hotel, when I had to throw something in the hallway, I just would throw that latch over or close it so that my door wouldn’t slam shut, right? uh you know, and so there’s ways to prop the door open.

How was it propped open? And then uh it goes back to um the scene inside the house.

What do they know about what was inside the house? She talked about blood was at the front and so was the front door propped open.

You know, it’s just here’s the danger.

You want to try and I know everybody wants and I got to tell you, I got such wonderful comments from your audience.

I think we’re up over what 700,000 views almost on that episode.

I mean, I I am so appreciative.

And I think part of the problem is people want the honest truth.

I think they’re tired of being spoonfed a bunch of crap.

Um, you know, the the truth while true crime is interesting.

If you want to watch it, that’s great.

But never look at a c true crime show and think that’s how investigations are really done.

Um, there is no Perry Mason moment in a court.

So, in this case, the the the danger is you want to make sense of what’s there of something that you don’t have the information yet to make sense of.

And so, we don’t know.

Again, I go back to uh we talked about she’s 84 years old, very hard to walk, right? Um if she’s pulled out of her bed, what you the sheets are going to look different than if she folded the covers back and got out because she’s just getting up to get a drink of water.

Where did the blood start in the house? We still don’t know that.

Yeah.

And that and that gets then into my whole point is that if you have a blood trail that starts in the house and it’s continuous, there’s no pooling and it just goes right from there outside and right into a car.

That’s going to indicate two people because somebody would have had to bring the car up, been waiting, have a door open, go in with that, and then get out of there.

I mean, that’s the hypothesis.

Um, it’s very difficult.

Let me tell you, um, go back to that trooper picture.

One of the things we had to do to get on the highway patrol in terms of the physical, you had to drag a 150lb dummy as though you were rescuing somebody out of a car.

And let me tell you, I was in good shape.

I was 6′ 205, you know, done my time in the military and RTC.

um law enforcement, you know, I was in good shape.

Dragging 150 pound dummy is tough work.

Um especially when you’re under stress because they’re timing you because they know, hey, this is part of getting on the highway patrol.

When I got on, Jenna, over 2,000, I think 2,200 people applied, only 16 of us got hired.

So, it was a very competitive process.

So, you’re wanting to make sure you do good on everything.

And so, 150 pounds felt like 300.

So th those that’s where I go back to and I say even even if you planned on doing an abduction, there’s still stress involved because once something starts happening, the person is injured, they’re not able to walk.

Now you have to start, you know, how were they carried? Were they dragged? Were they carried? Did they walk? Um those are all things where blood spatter experts can weigh in better than I can.

I’ve heard Dr.

Michael Boden talked about this.

I’ve talked to some people from the FBI.

There’s no there we don’t have any real thing, but we do know the trail of blood goes out at least from the front door.

My question is how far where does it start at in the house? Uh and that can give you an idea.

And the other thing too I want to know inside the house if it was a burglary like I said then you have signs of burglary.

Show me some staging of of that that there was something missing.

We don’t have any evidence yet that anything was taken from the house.

Her watch was left there.

Her phone was left there.

Why did you leave that? Because you can track that.

So again, it goes back to when you think of um when you think of um what does that tell you? If I leave if if I leave your phone in your watch and I don’t want you to be tracked now think about you’re under stress, it’s a burglar gone wrong.

Are you really thinking about that? Do you know that she has a Bluetooth pacemaker? I mean, are you really thinking about her watch? So I mean, and we don’t know what it looked like.

Where was the watch found at? Right.

Cuz that was one of the ransom notes.

Well, it was a watch here, but you could have seen that on the um um you could have seen that on the videos that she did with Savannah when she was showing how to make her bed and everything.

So much intelligence was gathered from inside that house because it was public.

So, that was an episode that was done a couple months uh prior to this incident where the Today Show hosts were going to their hometowns and and providing some insight into their behind the scenes.

And that we could talk about that too, Morgan, about whether or not that created a vulnerability here for this family because again, you think it did.

It did.

It I if if I had a piece of information to give as much as you want to humanize your guests, go out and visit the park, feed the ducks, do fun stuff with animals, but quit getting your family involved because your family did not sign up to be on the national news.

You know, I I know that they want to do Mother If you want to do Mother’s Day and bring them in.

Even then, I’d say, but Jenna, this is you take the world as you find it, not as you wish it was.

This is one of the things I think we need to rethink in the media is how much do we try and humanize the host, you know, as opposed to, you know, one thing I appreciated about working with you and John on the show stuff, you guys were just, you were good authentic.

You were authentic people.

You were straightforward.

We had great conversations.

We talked.

And it wasn’t one of these things where I had to make you into something you’re not.

You were always a good person.

You were always a great uh interviewer.

you’re always kind to me.

Um, and John was at everybody at Fox, everybody I’ve worked with, usually everybody in the media are kind to their guests.

So, I don’t think I think but we this whole thing about we need to humanize them and do all these human interest angles.

I just think you need to leave family out of it because why? Because as we’ve learned in this case, we don’t know that it made her the target, but we can’t discount it at this time either.

Well, and it’s it’s a good thing for all of us to think about regarding social media.

So, here’s something else that Savannah mentioned on the record about a ransom note.

Again, we un we had the family on camera, social media, very raw video talking about, you know, basically confirming that they had received a ransom note and were ready to pay.

We remember this dance.

Now, this is something a little bit more official.

And so, here’s what she had to say.

Not notes or ransom requests came.

Did you believe those to be real? There are a lot of different notes I think that came and I think most of them it’s my understanding are not real and I didn’t see them but um you know a person that would send a fake ransom note really has to look deeply at themselves.

Yeah.

To a family in pain.

But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to.

Mhm.

I tend to believe those are real.

Really? Mhm.

Okay.

I’m leaving this up on the screen because what our audience is seeing is black and there’s no follow-up question to that at all, Morgan, which as a journalist just kills me a little bit because that’s what we need to know.

Yeah.

When did you receive those ransom notes? What did they look like? Tell us about them.

What did you say? Any of it number one and number two or number three, four, five, six, and seven, right? Which notes are you talking about? Is there a danger? I mean, would law enforcement even This was what else strikes me as very strange here, is that that’s a perfect place for a voiceover to come in and say, “Law enforcement has advised Savannah and her family not to discuss the details of this, but we can tell you this one thing, anything, nothing.

There’s no follow-up.

We have no idea.

We have Was it an email? Was it a text? Nothing.

” Uh, and the reason why I’m anxious about that as a journalist is one, I want that information for our audience, but two, I’m just wondering, could it be helpful if but is the withholding of information, does that help the case at this point or does it hurt the case at this point? What do you think of what was said? I think certain times you have to withhold information.

The the case I was talking about where the gang members ran over the guy with his car.

We withheld the cause of death because only the people who committed the crime known he was run over with the vehicle and that was the cause of death.

There’s cause of death, manner of death.

How did they die? And was the manner of death natural, homicide, accidental, suicide, or undetermined? So, those are the things you have to look at.

And in this case, and in this case, but see, you have to still listen to her language.

I tend to believe, again, I go back to and and I’m not again, I’m not disparaging what Savannah says.

Her beliefs are her own.

She’s entitled to those, but it does not matter what you believe.

It only matters what must be true.

And at this point, we have determined none nothing that any of those notes are credible.

At least what’s in the public record.

But even looking at him, Jenna, I got to tell you, there’s a lot of places you can send a ransom note to, but when you send it to TMZ, I know and Harvey [snorts] Lean, what do you think’s He made a He made a mockery of the whole thing.

I I mean, I did an interview with TMZ and I was, are you going to ask me about the ransom note? And they go, no.

So, I did a YouTube interview.

They didn’t ask me about the ransom note because I know I I was on record talking about that.

said, and here was my example about the ransom note, and we may have discussed this last time, but name the last time on national network covering a major football game, baseball game, whatever.

Name the last time you seen a naked person running across the field streaking.

You don’t because it encourages bad behavior.

Every time you published one of those notes, what did you do? You gave impetus to somebody else to do it and then somebody else to do it, right? So, but again, I go back to the ransom communications that was like, give us $6 million Bitcoin.

Here’s where you send it.

Okay? No, no established communication channel, no proprietary information or proof of life.

It’s a tough, and I said this on many interviews, it’s a tough decision that they have to make.

But at this point, other than hope, what proof do they have that the person communicating actually knows where Nancy is or is in possession of her? It’s just so awful to think about.

Well, it’s situation.

I think it’s a cruel I call it a parasitic communication.

And these folks are parasites and they did it for the for the thrill.

It goes back to the people who used to work for Howard Stern or they would call into these shows and pretend to be somebody with the FAA and then say something really stupid on air and everybody goes, “Haha, that’s Howard Stern again.

” No, nobody’s laughing about this.

You’re laughing at people’s misery.

Somebody died in an airplane accident and you think it’s funny to get on the air and pretend to be somebody you’re not.

But what about the real like how would you know if the ransom note she said, as you mentioned, tend to believe it was real.

But how would law enforcement know if it was real? What what would be part of it? If I were looking for it, the thing I would do is establish two things.

Proprietary information or incontrovertible proof of life.

Show me one of those two things so that we can say, “Okay, I know what you said, but here’s what you want me to believe.

We have a huge gap between those two right now.

” So, um, and and again, it’s one of those things the family has to make.

The FBI can advise them because they’ve worked these cases before.

You know, we haven’t had a successful kidnapping in the United States in a long time.

I mean, where you really kidnap somebody, got the money.

There’s some cartel related things down by the border.

A little different cuz those they call those express kidnappings.

You kidnap somebody, you take them to the ATM, keep going to ATMs, exhaust their account, get rid of them.

But I’m talking about where you kidnap somebody high-profile like this.

Think of the Lindberg baby if that had happened now.

And you’re holding them for ransom.

Um, things like that.

So, it’s very tough to get away with that.

Here’s the thing I’m surprised about though with the expertise the FBI has.

Why haven’t we made an arrest on these fake ransom notes? Because some of them are absolutely fake.

Why hasn’t there been any information about we track them back and that gets into the tradecraft? Did they do it through a system where the server is in a country where we have no mutual legal assistance treaty, no way to subpoena that information, no way to serve a search warrant, and they’re not going to cooperate with us? Uh I’m I’m surprised we haven’t heard more information about an arrest or something being done on those because those are clearly violation of interstate commerce.

You you know it’s an extortion demand.

Um violate I mean I can count off title 18 US United States code um violations.

You know just look through the rule book.

There’s at least five or 10 involved in that.

So why haven’t we made an arrest on that? It it’s a very unsettling feeling about being in a brave new world.

Uh let’s So we don’t really have anything more than that except to that that very uh tepid uh confirmation from Savannah that she believes those were real, but we don’t have any details on it.

We don’t know when they came.

We don’t know if they’re still in communication.

There’s again zero followup.

So here’s what NBC did.

You know, Morgan, I don’t weigh in on the news.

I believe in nonpartisan news.

I believe that everyone should have a lot of perspective to consider.

I am pretty passionate about journalism and I was sort of fascinated by this process by NBC of unveiling this interview and how they did it and I want to share that with our audience and I want to get your thoughts on it as well because this followed a very familiar pattern of a major get you know a major interview that you’re going to try to put out on Friday night for the maximum number of viewers because you’re going to really sell that because it’s going to be great content.

So you start teasing something like that a few days before.

Not too far.

Yeah.

Right.

A few snippets, not too much, a little bit.

And you’re just like it’s Hansel and Gretle.

You’re following the breadcrumbs and you’re getting the audience really interested in it.

In this uh case, it surprised me though because it seems so commercial for something that is so serious.

Yes.

And this is and this is a colleague.

This is a family member.

You know that to to be treated in the same way that you could treat just any other media content just was surprising to me because of it just felt so empty and so vain uh to do that.

and that drip and drip and drip of information and every hour we’re going to give a different clip and we’re going to put this on social media and we’re going to talk about faith and we’re going to talk about this and you know Savannah was incredibly composed and incredibly eloquent to talk about this horrific event.

Uh, so this is not a knock on her.

But I am curious about the media executives decisions here because it seems mostly to benefit NBC if not completely and not any benefit to the audience or trying to solve the case because my gut feeling would be if we have Savannah, we’re going to get all the information out because we haven’t gotten the help we needed from the FBI and local law enforcement.

I’m putting words in their mouth, but this this is what I would I would say.

we’re going to do everything in our power to give information that maybe no one’s received to get more attention back on the case because we got to find her, but that’s not how it was produced.

It was produced for something different, a different goal.

And I’m just um So, here’s a question for you.

God forbid, let’s say similar situation for you.

You have a mother go missing.

How long would you wait to get out information that you think could help solve her? Would you wait till it does the drip drip drip or would you get it out right away? Never.

I would take complete control and I would try to work with law enforcement and that that was following to your question because I think families do need to think about this in a social media environment.

I don’t want anything bad to happen to any of us.

Of course, I do think and I believe obviously my husband’s a veteran.

I believe in working with law enforcement and and working in tandem and not disrupting a case and letting the experts do their work.

At a certain point though, you you can lose the story.

And I don’t know if that happened here.

I can’t I don’t have enough information.

Um well, what was going on in the boardroom when they said, “How do we do this story?” And so the question is, who’s having the conversation? It says, “How do we maximize the amount of viewership we get for this story?” And the ads, here’s the other thing is when you have something like this, you can also say, “Well, here’s what you know the ad sale is going to be.

Here’s where you’re going to package it.

” Then you get super dark about that, which is how are you selling that? But in the end, is it actually solving if it’s a member of your team? You know, you want to bring home someone that’s been on that you’ve helped promote, including the inside of their home that could have been part of the reason why they were targeted.

I just would hope that we would think about using media in a creative way to help aid the investigation because that didn’t feel like it.

That felt like programming and that’s different.

No, that’s that look again as I said this is why one of the reasons why I created the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases like it goes back to that thing either everybody counts or nobody counts.

If in the case of like a Nancy Guthrie case people wanted to see do I have a connection to that case they would have come in they would have been compared to every single case once you created an account and you have a profile that says here’s the locations in my life that mean something to me.

We would have compared them to the locations in the case.

Guess what? We may you may not have had zero connections to Nancy case, but you may have helped solve three other cases.

That’s how you make sure every and and that’s how you make sure every case counts.

But when I look at this stuff, that’s what I get back to.

That’s where the South by Southwest Summit with Nancy Grace keynoting with Vanity Fair and ID Discovery, they all said, “How can we shape the facts to tell a story?” Nobody asked the question, “Are we getting it right?” Nobody cared that they got the story right.

And that’s that’s been my problem.

And if you think about this, what did they just do? You saw her up there.

She’s in obvious pain.

You saw Hoda obviously, you know, they have monetized the grief of a family for for profit and loss.

And to me, that’s I I I’m I am so sick of some of this stuff that that’s unconscionable, right? It’s like, hey, I hear, you know, it’s like somebody shoving a microphone in your face.

Hey, your daughter just died.

How does that make you feel? Right? You know, I at some point have we lost the decency of of how to do J.

I am so glad you are on the same mission I am.

You’re in journalism.

I’m on the crime side.

I’m saying, how do we get back to being ethical about straightforward? How do we get back to actually being a journalist? How do we get actually to being somebody who fights crime and doesn’t monetize crime? That’s why most because I believe the media I believe the media can actually help, right? I do think it can hurt and I think we’ve seen that a lot.

I think our audience probably is here in part because they’re frustrated uh with all of it.

But the these things are also very easy to solve, Morgan.

Like even if you want to do these long pieces in with Savannah, even if you want to promote her, you could have a segment of saying, “Okay, here’s here’s four new things.

Here’s how you Billy Mays, remember used to say, here’s how to order.

Here’s how you help every single time.

Here’s what you can do.

” Right? And here’s why.

And also here’s um a home security expert about if you are going to put cameras in your home, how to do them in a way that’s going to provide the most information to law enforcement like how to catch the driveway and how to make sure you have an account.

Anything to like let’s all about safer families, you know, instead of monitoring.

Here’s a segment.

Here’s a segment.

You have an older parent who lives by themselves.

Here’s how you make sure they’re secure.

Here’s how you set up a camera inside the house to monitor them for falls.

You know, give us something.

give us a takeaway out of this to where yeah did something bad happen but again what can what greater good can be served as lessons from this and the lesson is how do we use social media responsibly? How do we protect our parents when they live alone? Um how do we you know do there are so many things that could come out of this as opposed to we just want to do a special to show you how much we care about watching somebody cry about their mother missing as opposed to why not have a five-part series to your point.

Have a home security expert.

Have a behavioral expert.

have somebody that says, “Guys, we’re going to show you how to harden the target.

We’re going to show you how not to fall victim to this.

You want to put a camera up.

By the way, a lot of people don’t know this.

Those those Nest cameras, 145 degree angle of view, they get what’s called the ground plane and stuff.

If you know how to point that camera correctly, you can make sure you I won’t tell you exactly how I do my stuff, but if something goes on in my neighborhood, my culde-sac, I have a record of it.

And not because I’m nosy.

All of our neighbors, we’ve talked about it.

We’ve got you come down into our culde-sac, we’ve got that area covered from the minute you come in until the minute you leave because that is just as important as protecting our homes and it’s about protecting your neighbors.

So, how do neighbors protect neighbors? How do we create cameras that can create overlapping areas? All of these cameras that were set up, Jenna, were set up to just they they they were looking at it from the outside looking in.

How do I protect this as opposed to what does it look like from the inside going out? And that goes back to that picture of the offender standing there.

And what do you see behind him? You see the driveway.

Why did he want that camera down? Because that car was in the driveway because that’s where she was taken from.

What if somebody’s camera had been covering all of the entrance routes up and down that street? We would have had a picture of the car.

That’s one of the things that’s something that if you in combination with everything else, that would lead us closer to identifying who the offender is.

Do you think Savannah should have broadcast on her own channel, meaning her own social media, and talked about the case more specifically of, you know, obviously the family was very very emotional and completely understand that.

I’m not I’m not suggesting that they should pretend to be something different, but at what point, Morgan, do you think it can be helpful to a case where those most impacted share what they know? uh even if it’s the same information as law enforcement as a way to personalize it.

How would you advise if Savannah said to you, Morgan, how should I handle this moving forward to keep attention on my missing mother? What could she do? It’s always what can the I would say, what can you do as the public? Here’s what you need to be looking for.

Get I’m the public.

What should I be looking for out in this area? Don’t give me conspiracy theories.

Yes.

Give them specifics, right? Like the give them a list.

Yeah.

Here’s we know that she was taken from here.

Here’s all the ways out of this.

if you were along this route.

By the way, how many people had Teslas? You know what Teslas have? Sentry mode.

Has anybody looked on Sentry Mode to see did it capture any vehicles going back and forth? I mean, there are so many creative ways we could look at the Sonoron Desert Trail Coalition, right? They had cameras up.

Was anything spotted there? We talked about that um that abandoned house.

I hope they searched it.

I hope they, you know, they they looked at to see is there any connection there? Why? Because number one, it’s raised, but number two, it’s interesting in a high kind of rent district like that area is, you know, nice homes.

that one.

There’s a difference between abandoned and vacant.

So, my question was, was it truly abandoned or was it a vacant home that was waiting to be sold? You know, we’ve had homes we’ve looked at here in Jenna, Northern Virginia.

We found a really great one, but guess what? It was tied up in probate.

The owner bought it, the person bought it, they died, unfortunately, a couple months later, and the thing has been tied up in probate for a year.

So, is it vacant? Is it abandoned? You know, is it tied up in an estate? Um, so that’s where words matter, too, because when you think vacant, you think, “Oh, somebody’s broke in.

They’ve sprayed graffiti all over it.

We’re going to find mattresses in there and and cigarettes and alcohol and stuff like that as opposed to is the is the person gone? Are they gone six months, you know, somewhere else? You know, did they go to Florida? Did they go to Canada? We don’t know.

I mean, those are a lot of things we don’t know.

And then when we don’t know, what is what happens? People fill in the gaps.

Well, and that’s where that’s where I’m thinking about this, which is as I was listening and preparing for an interview, listening to all these bloggers and and just trying to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

They’re all describing the neighborhood.

They’re all trying to describe the maps.

They’re trying to describe, you know, service roads, things like that.

And I thought, how different would it be even if it was Savannah’s brother, for example, say, “Okay, here’s a map of the neighborhood.

Here’s where my mom’s houses.

” You know who I would have been the face of this? I would have been the face of the brother.

Fighter pilot, you know, straightforward guy.

Keep keep Savannah off of there.

Because then then you eliminate this whole distraction of, well, she’s just doing it because she’s trying to monetize.

No, the brother.

A lot of credibility.

And I don’t I don’t think she’s trying to monetize.

I think the network and and by the way, no, that’s what I mean.

Yeah.

Yes.

They’re taking this and they’re replaying it.

But he but he gives a different he gives a different temperament to it, too.

It’s kind of like, hey guys, what what are veterans? Even your husband, the mission comes first.

What’s the mission? Our mission is to find our mother.

This is how we’re going to do it.

Give people a sense of purpose, a sense of direction.

Here’s what you can do.

Right? And so on a lot of I’m actually one of the messages I got just when we were here, it’s my friend is the head of the criminal intelligence bureau with the US Marshals.

We’re working on a top 15 case.

I’ve developed some information that’s going to help them.

Tell us more.

Uh, not yet.

I don’t want this person to that was me.

And then they run off, right? Okay.

I’m just putting in my uh request for an interview when you guys figure it out.

So, [laughter] um, here is the report I did on this person.

Um, 15 pages using some using some technology, advanced technology, Claude and Grock working together.

um and adtech data have actually now determined a pattern of movement that is indicative of safe houses.

And so that’s what we’re going to send a lead out on is these safe houses.

But anyway, but give me a purpose.

Right? So one of the things we did when we did the national center is we wanted to say here’s the case, but you tell the public what is it you can do to help.

Here are the locations of interest.

Make sure you put in your locations that are relevant in your life so we can compare them to this case and take a look to see, you know, give them a direction.

Here’s the leads we’re looking for.

Does anybody know what happened here? Did anybody see this? Just don’t say, “We have a homicide.

” Okay, great.

You’re Chicago.

You have homicides all the time.

Tell me, why should I care? What do you need from me? Right? At the end of the day, a homicide that happens in California, sorry for the loss of life, but it means less in terms of impact to my life than a homicide that happens a block away.

Right? So, we have impacts to our life, right? So give me help me understand what is it I can do because that’s where you separate the people that are just uh tourists that just want to do a driveby and look at oh there’s an accident look at that you know and then they video they they record it and they post it on social media oh look at this terrible accident nobody cares about the fact is that law enforcement hasn’t notified the family and the family now sees this on on on Facebook and they realize it’s their son that was killed in the accident true story you know people have no so give me a purpose give me a mission and you know that’s part of what you’re opponents what I’m doing.

How do we train people better? Train them to better understand the news, what it means, how to exactly what you said.

How to realize that this is a package, right? Drip, drip, drip, tease, tease, tease, right? And then the then the big reveal.

How does this not sound like the revelation of a serial killer as opposed to Savannah’s story? Yes.

And it’s it’s about equipping the public, empowering them with information in the way that helps them navigate the world, which is what news is supposed to be about.

Uh it’ll be interesting.

I have a final question for you, Morgan, and then I’ll let you go.

I know you’re you’ve been so generous with your time.

I uh Oh, I love this is I you you know, this is why you and I had so much fun on the air and I came up because it’s just so much fun to talk.

We would have four minutes and then we’d have to go to commercial.

I will say this, it is a very tricky thing what they’re trying to do to bring Savannah back on television and that is is um of course as someone that loves the news and I you I don’t know her personally, I would want to be back in my role and it’s a very difficult thing to do.

So I’m sure they’re trying to co I don’t want to make it all sound dark and terrible and about money.

There is a try they’re trying to coordinate and it it it I don’t know if they landed the plane here and I think there were some ways that they could have um potentially been a more positive force in trying to solve this case.

What is one thing that we can do today, Morgan, to better secure our homes? Let’s finish with something that is actually actionable for for someone.

If they don’t have a camera, should they get one? If they don’t have an extra lock on their door, should they get one? If they don’t have a dog, should they get one? Uh what what is what is one thing that we can do to better secure our property? Look up the term windthropping.

W I N T H R O P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P I N G.

Look up that term.

And I’ll tell you why.

Because too often you look at it from the way you look at a home.

How would I secure this? That’s not what matters.

What matters is how does a burglar look at your home? Where do they look at for vulnerabilities? Um, and so what Winthropping was, it was created actually by a guy named Winthrop, but I told you my friends I worked with at New Scotland Yard, they used to work with the Royal Olter Constabularary before it was the police service in Northern Ireland against the IRA.

Winthropping was a technique to understand how would the IRA hide their weapons, hide their caches of weapons.

And so it was looking through and then so when you work nobody homicides where when you do winthropping, you’re saying, “Okay, where would I go into? Where would I do this?” So, what I would do is I would say look look up that term, but don’t look at it the way that you would think about it.

Now, you can read all the articles how I should secure my home.

But think but think about this.

Think about this.

Look, I’m desperate.

Uh I need I need a hundred bucks and I want to and I want to break into your home because I need to steal something worth a hundred bucks.

How am I going to get into your house? Am I going to get in through a window? Am I going to get in through a door? Do your bushes cover to where I can’t see what’s out there? Are your camera have you gone out and actually because with my phone, this is what I do with my phone when I set up camera angles.

I actually take it because I can see it there and I go out into the street and I go out where I have the cameras at.

Am I getting the field of view I want? And then the other thing too is always test it, right? So um and look, take advantage of your local law enforcement.

A lot of time they have their um crime prevention officers, people who will come out and do surveys.

So reach out to your local law enforcement agent, say, “Hey, do you do anything like this crime prevention?” They’ll come out and tell you about shrubs.

And the other thing too is create a network.

Um, telephone, telegraph, tell a neighbor.

Three forms of communication.

So, make sure that you have a good network set up too to where you share phone numbers or maybe you have a Facebook group or a WhatsApp group or a Telegram group.

So, whatever you have, right? So, that when like they have things called Next Door, you can do that too.

But Next Door is kind of getting everybody’s I can’t be on Next Door.

I like where I live.

I don’t want to know other things.

I want to be blissfully ignorant about so many things.

Crimeolving.

crime something I want to be part of.

But it’s knowledge.

I would say if you if you want to take a look at your home, you have to look at how do you harden the target.

You don’t want to turn it in because there’s the balance, right? If I really wanted to make your home secure and money weren’t an object, we’d have 24-hour armed patrols, guard dogs, you know, steel doors.

Nobody lives like that.

We have to live in the real world.

You take the world as you find it, not as you wish it was.

But I would say to your point, have we replaced the locks recently? Why would you replace the locks? Because you never know who has a copy.

Does the previous owner? Did it get into somebody else’s hands? If you buy a house, first thing you should do, change all the locks.

Period.

Change.

I can tell you some of our neighbors.

That’s actually a really easy thing to do.

And I was thinking to myself like uh I didn’t live in a real house for most of my life.

I lived in a uh grew up in a a flat in San Francisco, lived in apartments.

So, I didn’t we we didn’t have a house, you know.

Uh so, it is different to be in a house.

And I’m thinking about myself living alone in New York City.

Uh did all the different apartments that were very questionable that I lived in.

Uh, but changing the lock would have been something especially if you said I’ll pay for it to your landlord.

I’ll pay for it.

I But just to make sure you’re the only one with the key.

Like those are little things I don’t I don’t even think I thought of, you know.

And you know the other thing is uh they our sheriff’s office does out here a lot of people do have your 9:00 p.

m.

routine.

I have woken up a couple times, got up in the morning, take care of my cats, take my little bag of kitty poop out to the garage, and I realized I left my garage door open all night.

Yes, I’ve done that, too.

That’s not good.

900 p.

m.

routine.

Just have your Are all my doors locked? Is my garage door down? Right.

Is everything set? One of the things I do I do test it now is I I make coffee the night before.

I have it ready to go.

So when I come down in the morning, boom, flip the switch, get my injection of caffeine.

By the way, have you seen this? This is the new eye cup from Apple.

They just released it.

Um it plays It’s April Fools.

[laughter] I was like, tell me more.

I was like, I need a little uh I’ll take anything.

Have you seen the cups though that you do have like on your uh that can heat that’ll stay hot? Yeah.

No, you can control it.

Yeah, I I have one of those.

Yeah.

But I haven’t done that yet.

This one is a Yeti my daughter got for me and I just put an Apple sticker on it.

But it looks very profession.

I would uh I think it’s real.

So uh basically yes.

Don’t don’t listen.

I’m ready for the next story uh Morgan which is I’m ready to to jump on that.

[laughter] Anyways, uh those are some really good, you know, things to think about.

Even just thinking a little bit about your safety and security, uh is is more than most do.

And I think uh any reminder of the thinking of scenario and and and understanding that there’s real risk.

Actually, that is one thing too.

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