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I am of course continuing to cover uh the Nancy Guthrie mystery.

It is now day 66 since Nancy Guthrie literally just vanished out of her home outside Tucson, Arizona.

Uh I’m going to focus in this episode on what I have learned about the ransom notes.

Um, and not only the new ransom notes that uh I told you about yesterday that came to TMZ and there are actually two of them.

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There’s one that came in the morning yesterday and there was another one that came in the afternoon and they are apparently from the same person.

Uh, but I’m also going to go back and talk to you about some of the previous ransom notes from early on and why it seems Savannah Guthrie believes that two of those ransom notes from early on uh are in fact fact perhaps are real.

But first, let me uh get to the latest um on these TMZ ransom notes.

And there are some new details that I learned today that I didn’t know about yesterday when we first learned that these um new ransom notes or alleged ransom notes came to uh TMZ.

So TMZ says that they’ve gotten more than a half a dozen emails from this same person who sent these notes yesterday.

uh emails in the past claiming to have information about Nancy Guthrie.

The person claims to know who the kidnappers are.

And something I want to point out is uh Harvey Leven when he was talking about the notes, and he’s obviously seen the notes for himself, he says that the person used kidnappers plural.

So there are more than one there’s more than one kidnapper according to whoever is writing these notes.

Um they claim to know where Nancy Guthrie is.

Uh and um Harvey Leven said that they had not gotten a note in a month from this person.

Uh but then again got two notes yesterday, one in the morning and one that came yesterday in the afternoon.

That would of course be Los Angeles time.

Um TMZ is based in LA.

Uh the note said that Nancy Guthrie is in Sonora, Mexico, and that she is not alive.

Sonora, Mexico, of course, is the area right on the other side of the border um from where uh Tucson, Arizona is.

You know, Tucson, Arizona sits very, very close to Mexico.

Obviously, the note reportedly said, quote, “I saw her alive with them in the state of Sonora, Mexico.

” And again, it’s interesting that it says with them, indicating that if this is true, the kidnappers would be plural, more than one kidnapper.

Um, this person says that they can lead authorities to the kidnapper.

Um, and according to Harvey Levan, the person who wrote this email has said these same things before, that they can lead authorities to the kidnapper and is basically repeating a lot of what he said early on um when these other notes were sent to TMZ.

Uh, so TMZ also confirmed that no money has been deposited into the Bitcoin account.

Remember that this person sending these notes is also including a Bitcoin account and demanding about uh the value of half of a Bitcoin, which is somewhere around like in the $30,000 range, a little more than that.

But as of uh last night, um there was no money that had been deposited into the Bitcoin account.

Uh Harvey Leven says that he has talked to the FBI, that they’ve been giving them all this information, and he says that his Spidey senses are telling him something about this guy, that there’s something significant that makes Harvey Leven think that this could be legit.

Although he seems to insinuate that the FBI is not really taking any of this that seriously.

Uh, according to Levan, the person who wrote these notes says said the person who wrote these notes that came yesterday also wrote a note the Tuesday after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped and said that he knew where Guthrie was and who the kidnappers are.

So that was the Tuesday after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped.

Then wrote another note on the Wednesday after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped.

So this was months ago saying that time is no longer of the essence.

So Harvey Leven is trying to make the point that whoever did this seems to be claiming that when he wrote the first notes, Nancy Guthrie was alive and then wrote a second note on Wednesday and Nancy Guthrie was no longer alive.

Um Lean says if someone is carrying out a hoax, why take the immediiacy away? And that is the reason that Levan is trying to say that these notes could perhaps be real because if you just made the whole thing up and you wanted more money, why wouldn’t you still claim that Nancy Guthrie was alive and be trying to get more money? whereas instead this person reportedly seemed to be insinuating that Nancy Guthrie was alive initially and then changed the the message the next day saying that there was no longer um an immediacy.

Uh Leven says that the FBI is not convinced enough to tell anyone to pay the money which would explain why the Bitcoin account is still empty.

It’s interesting when you think about it.

I mean it’s not in the world of Savannah Guthrie it’s not that much money uh you know $30,000 a little more than that.

So you wonder in a sense like why not just pay the money to wait and see.

But if you got the FBI saying not to pay it, you know, you have to sort of take that into account.

And again, uh Harvey Leven is saying that the Bitcoin account is still empty at least as of um last night.

So I want to point out these notes are different than the notes that came initially to the local TV stations in Tucson and those also went to TMC.

The reason they are different is because this person is not claiming to be the kidnapper.

This person is just claiming to have information about where Nancy is and who the kidnappers are.

Those other notes appear to actually be from an alleged kidnapper.

And those other notes seem to be the notes that Savannah Guthrie believes could be real.

Um, it’s interesting.

Harvey Lean is saying that f the FBI told him that they believe that those notes are real.

Those two that I’m talking about, not this, not the ones from this person, but the other two where they claim to actually be the kidnapper.

And Harvey Leven is saying that the FBI believes those two are real, which would go along with what Savannah Guthrie said in that interview with Hoda.

Remember, she said she tends to believe that two of the notes are real, too.

So, that she’s probably getting that information from the FBI.

um that would make sense.

Uh and remember at least with the local TV station I reported I found out that that those two notes that uh Savannah tends to believe are real and according to Harvey Leven the FBI also believes are real uh were not just emailed to the local TV station in Tucson.

They were sent in through a form like you know when you go to a website and you actually fill out a form and then you click submit.

Um, that’s the way that it was done, I am told, which could be part of the reason that the FBI has had a hard time tracing back who these people are.

At the same time, it is kind of shocking that it’s been 66 days and that with all of the technology of the FBI, they don’t have a way to figure out who sent those those messages to the local TV station that they tend to believe are real and who’s sending these messages to TMZ, which it seems to be a different person.

So, I am surprised that um the FBI still hasn’t been able to figure that out with all the technology they have, but apparently whoever did this had a really good way of um staying secret.

Um so, Lean says that they were working with the FBI, that the FBI was working with their TMZ team trying to figure out who has sent these notes, and that they came up dry, that they still haven’t been able to uh determine it.

TMZ also said the ransom letters they received threatened to kill Nancy, which is something new.

And I go back, those would have been the letters, those two letters that came early on that Savannah believes are real.

It seems those are the ones he’s talking about when he says that those whoever wrote those letters threatened to kill Nancy.

So, I know it’s kind of a lot to keep track of.

There’s a lot of different letters that have floated around.

Um, but it is interesting to think about these two letters.

It wasn’t just one.

It was one yesterday morning and one in the afternoon yesterday that were sent to TMZ.

And is timing just a coincidence? They were sent the same day that Savannah Guthrie went back to the Today Show.

I’m joined now by Brian Martin, uh, who is a detective with the Fort Wayne Police Department, who also specializes in cold cases.

Uh, Brian, it’s nice to see you.

Thank you for having this chat with me.

It’s also nice to I know you’re an active uh, detective right now, which is awesome to talk to you.

Um the first thing I want to ask you is is there’s been all these new developments with these ransom notes that came to TMZ.

There we’ve now learned two that came yesterday.

So today’s uh Tuesday, these came on Monday, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.

Um and Harvey Levan, who you know runs TMZ, seems to think like there may be some legitimacy to these and they come the same day that Savannah Guthrie went back to the Today Show.

Um what do you think? What did your gut tell you? So, so there’s two schools of thought obviously on this.

One is it’s somebody just out there being just nasty and and seeking attention and and trying to cause the family heartache.

And then obviously the other school of thought would be that you have a legitimate ransom note and you have somebody who is involved in the case, the perpetrator or somehow working with the perpetrator and sending these notes.

And uh I I I find it a little bit odd that they waited so long to start sending ransom notes.

Um but I can tell you from firsthand experience in a case that I’ve worked in the past.

Um we had ransom notes.

We had some ransom notes that not not necessarily ransom notes, but taunting letters.

And we had that hard decision whether we were going to hold that information in or whether we’re going to release those letters to the public and try to use the public to assist us with solving the case.

Uh our ultimate decision was that we did release them, but we did we sat on them for a while and we had them analyzed.

We went through them.

Um and then after everything came to light, we we actually realized there were some notes that were left that we missed.

Um just because environmental reasons uh were the where the notes and letters were left, no one found them or they were destroyed or thrown away.

Um but I this person whoever sent the letters obviously wants the letters.

They want some attention.

They they want those letters to be found or they wouldn’t have sent them to a news outlet.

Um that’s somebody who wants to be heard.

Um, I would hope that if it is the person involved in in Miss Guthriy’s disappearance that they want to be heard and and are legitimately trying to negotiate some type of deal or whatever it is that they’re looking to do and not maybe somebody who has uh ulterior motives for attention that has nothing to do with the case.

And you get somebody like that and it’s going to take this case down a completely wrong path away from Miss Guthrie, away from trying to solve this case and finding her.

Uh, if she’s still alive, and I hate to say it like that, you know, say she if she’s still alive, but we’re at 2 months and, uh, Miss Guthrie uh, from my understanding was not in the best of health.

She needed medication.

She, you know, so you have to have some serious concerns for her well-being.

Yeah.

And this person according to TMZ from the notes yesterday has written like I think they said half a dozen of notes before throughout this whole two months um and is is not claiming to be the kidnapper but is claiming to know who that person is or actually uses plural who the people are and where Nancy Guthrie is and is asking for half a bitcoin which is like somewhere around $34,000 $33,000.

Uh, and TMZ says they looked in the Bitcoin account, it’s empty, so it’s a real account.

I’m curious like if you’re Savannah Guthrie and you know you have a lot of money.

If you were advising her, what do you think the FBI is saying? Like should should you just take the chance and pay $30ome,000, which is probably not a lot of money for her, and just see what happens? you you know I I would like to think that the FBI is probably offering her some advice and that advice is twofold.

You know, you’re you’re going to go down this path of okay, today they’re asking for half a Bitcoin.

Okay, so tomorrow is it going to be another Bitcoin? Uh is this person actually going to give legitimate information or are they just trying to soak the family for for money? You know, and you hope that somebody’s not doing that.

And my big concern with asking for half a Bitcoin, it’s my understanding there’s a considerable reward for information leading to the recovery of Miss Guthrie.

So therefore, why would you not just submit a tip to a legitimate crime stoppers or to the sheriff’s department or to the FBI or to the tip line that’s set up um and get get the $100,000 get the $100,000.

So that makes it a little suspect to me.

Uh, I’d be very suspect of this.

Uh, this individual who claims to have information and only wants 34,000 or roughly when there’s considerably more on the table that if they truly do know information about the suspect or suspects um why why would you not do it do it the right way and it’s going to be a monetary gain for them as opposed to doing it this kind of secret kind of cloak and dagger um kind of information.

I that that makes me suspect.

One thing that I do like that you said was the fact that they mentioned suspects plural.

I think that um maybe they’re just assuming if they really don’t have knowledge, but I I I firmly believe there’s more than one person involved in in Miss Guthri’s disappearance.

Um you know, she’s an she’s an older person.

She would need assistance or possibly being carried out.

So, it would lead you to believe that more than one person was involved in in her disappearance or kidnapping.

I guess what you said about a slippery slope is a good point.

Like, if they’re asking for half a Bitcoin now, how do you know you don’t give them that? And then suddenly they’re like, “Okay, well, now if you really want more info, you know, you have to pay a full Bitcoin, you know? I mean, that that’s a good that that probably is what the FBI is telling Savannah.

” Um, but again, when you’re that rich, you know, and you’re I don’t know.

I’m just thinking if it if it was my mom and I had that kind of money and I’m up at night, it’s like, do I just pay the 30? You know what I mean? Like Oh, I’m sure I’m I’m sure the Guthrie family is very torn because part of it is just like you said, uh, you know, money’s all relative depending on what you do, how much you have.

Yeah.

And but it it draws it draws me to really be concerned with okay are we going to start here and this is going to be a continuing ongoing game or somebody else finds out and this becomes almost one of those scam deals that people get on the telephone.

Hey, I need this much in order to do XYZ.

And then next thing you know, you got two more people submitting letters and it’s another 30.

It’s another 50.

And they nickel and dime you and you gain no information.

And that’s money that could be put forward to a legitimate way of trying to retrieve their their mother or their their loved one.

So there were there were these notes I’m talking about from yesterday and that person who’s apparently sent many to TMZ.

Then there were other notes early on that went also to the local TV station in Tucson, which those seem to be the notes that Savannah, she said in in her interview that she believes that two of the notes are legitimate.

Um, so those are different notes from a different sender.

Uh, and I’m just wondering, are you surprised? I mean, it’s been now 66 days that like the FBI hasn’t been able to track with all the technology they have, they haven’t been able to figure out who’s sending these notes.

Okay.

So, with the notes, I I think it’s two, again, it’s it’s always twofold, right? Um, so, uh, you would think that they’d be able to track a note, and that off of what we see on television.

We base that off of people watching crime shows and, you know, they’ll they’ll scan this letter.

They’ll retrieve DNA, they’ll retrieve fingerprints.

But if somebody sent these letters and took um counter measures, you know, wore protection, latex gloves, whatever they may have done, washed the letters, did whatever, and there’s no DNA on those letters, and there’s no fingerprints, then it’d be very difficult to track a letter that’s sent through through mail or even email with fake accounts.

it’d be extremely difficult to track um without that physical evidence being on um you know much like you receive uh if you or I received a threatening letter in the mail and if the person was did their due diligence and didn’t leave fingerprints and didn’t leave DNA, you know, you got to ask yourself how exactly are we going to track this? Yeah, sure there’s there’s we know where it went to the post office.

We know its origin, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t drive a 100 miles to drop it at a mailbox.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t hand it off to somebody to drop in a mailbox or or some random location.

So, I think that that, you know, that that plays into this.

The other thing is we don’t know that the FBI isn’t tracking those and isn’t running down a suspect and and doing their homework and doing surveillance and and following up on information with this person.

Um, and they’re just not announcing it because I I personally, if it were my investigation, if I was on to one or two suspects, I I wouldn’t release that.

that’d be cut very close in just with my team because the last thing we would want to do is send somebody running, spook them, have them go dark on us.

Uh have them, you know, us go someplace where we couldn’t find them, have them dump their digital footprint, you know, get rid of emails, get rid of cell phones, and then we’d be back to to square one uh with all the investigation trying to track them.

Um, so I think we have to keep that in mind as well that the FBI and local law enforcement in this case isn’t going to show their whole hand.

Yeah, that’s a good point.

You know, we have sources close to the investigation who have said that there are no viable suspects right now.

You know, that it’s it’s there’s not a lot going on from what we hear.

If if you were running this case, do you think they should be using the media differently? I mean, because they’ve been quiet for quite some time now.

I mean, the sheriff has done a few interviews here and there because he’s come under fire for a lot of things and trying to defend himself, but the FBI hasn’t done any interviews.

There hasn’t been like a big press conference about the Nancy Guthrie case.

Is there anything you would be doing differently in in regards to using the media? I like to use the media when I get to a point in a case where I feel like maybe I’m stumped or I’ve I’ve hit a roadblock or I’ve started it’s plateaued and I I’ll I’ll release bits and pieces of information to elicit the help from the public and and I do so by using the media.

um whether that would be to release one of these original notes or ransom letters, if you will, that they feel was a uh had some legitimacy to it and they thought could really be a suspect.

I I may release a portion of that letter to see if anybody recognizes the penmanship.

If there’s misspelled words and you or I may be like, “Oh my gosh, I I know so and so.

They always misspell that word.

” Or, “Hey, that looks like so and so’s handwriting.

” um and and this kind of information or maybe the verbiage in it is very specific in how somebody talks or how somebody writes.

I would probably try to use that information.

I’m not saying I’d release the entire letter, but I might release portions of the letter to see if anybody in the public recognize that and would help generate additional tips.

Or maybe they generate a lead that on somebody that we’re already looking at and we just haven’t found enough to get us over that hurdle of probable cause.

And by releasing a portion of that letter, somebody can get you over that hurdle and say, “Hey, I’m familiar with this person’s writing.

They always misspell this word.

This is how they write.

Uh maybe they even have a sample letter of something that was written to them in the past that they could share with law enforcement and a comparison could be done.

Uh these are all things, but you have to weigh the risk of releasing that information with your case and and and keeping your case intact and keeping your uh your evidence so that uh it can go forward and be used in a court of law as well to get criminal prosecution.

You mentioned a case that you had where initially you did not release the letters and then decided to release the letters.

What changed your mind? We received multiple letters.

Uh the letters that were left in the case that we were involved in uh had a lot of similarities.

Uh these letters had uh contacts in them and they were these letters were left at the uh at homes that also had young children and our victim was a young child which led us to believe that our asalent, our suspect in the uh the kidnapping and murder of a young girl was actually uh out doing their own surveillance.

They were they were watching.

they were a predator in the neighborhood and we knew that they were leaving these letters saying that they were going to do the a similar crime in the future and demanding media attention and they were leaving them the homes of young girls.

So that’s a frightening aspect that was very frightening to us to think that this person’s out and about and they obviously it wasn’t left in an older person’s home that didn’t have children.

So, we knew that this person was out in the community and still active.

And it scared it it scared us.

It scared everybody to think that we have some information and our perpetrator is out moving around.

The last thing we would ever want was them to take another child.

What ended up happening? Did you catch the person? We did.

Uh, but it was 30 years later and we uh we caught our individual by using advanced DNA uh techniques.

uh genetic genealogy specifically and uh and come to find out out of the over a thousand tips that we had in our asalent, our perpetrator was never once named as a person of interest in the case.

There was somebody who was out there who was never involved.

They were never named.

Did he did he reaffend after like what he had been up to for 30 years? I’m just curious.

He he did not reaffend.

He did not, we were able to confirm that he did not reaffend.

Um, but a lot of that was due to um the public being vigilant, uh, people being scared, uh, children not uh, going out by themselves.

Uh, the opportunity never presented itself again for this individual.

Frightening case.

Um, back with Nancy Guthrie, what do you make of these notes going to the media? I mean, to TMZ and then also to the local TV stations.

Is there anything specific we should read into with that? Well, the person obviously wants they they want attention.

I I think they want attention.

I think that a lot of times when we see letters go to media outlets, it’s uh it’s it’s attention seeking and it is also a way for that person to confirm that the letter didn’t go to the Guthrie family and they’re going to sit on those letters.

I think they feel when they send to the media that the media is more apt to publish those letters and let everybody know that the letters are there.

Uh oftentimes these individuals want that power.

They want the power.

They send those letters.

You go back to think of people like the uniomber always would send in letters and and there’s many other cases where the asalent or the perpetrator will send those letters and it it is almost uh they’re reliving the event.

They’re that allows them to have the power and feel the power over the community, over the Guthrie family, and over pretty much everybody because it’s I know this, you don’t know who I am, and I’m I’m now sending you these letters, and they they makes them feel like they’re in the driver’s seat of the case.

It’s making them relevant.

It’s giving them that power trip that they need oftent times.

Yeah, I thought about that with Savannah Guthrie going back to work yesterday.

Okay.

She’s probably trying to focus on the positive, getting back to work, stay upbeat, and then, you know, you have this happened the same day.

You mentioned them if it’s real, liking the power.

You know, that just it made me sad for her that that had to happen the same day.

Yeah.

It’s it’s if it’s not the actual asalent and it’s just somebody being sick and twisted, it it just adds so much more heartbreak to the Guthrie family, you know? uh it it’s it’s a roller coaster ride.

You know, they they start to get a little bit of motiv, you know, there’s some some movement or some motivation or they’re doing uh a lot of information and putting it out to the media in hopes of generating tips in hopes of generating somebody slipping up potentially.

You know, uh we we always reinter people.

We, you know, I don’t know if I’m sure the law enforcement and FBI uh in the case is reintering folks and a lot of that may be based off of stuff that they’re finding in these letters, uh the context of the letters, but if it’s not, then it could be taking them down a complete wrong path.

But you don’t know until you investigate everything thoroughly.

And and here you had the Gutrie family trying to get back to some sense of normal, trying to get, you know, they’re I’m sure their mo their mother is on their mind non-stop and then just every time they think they’re getting to a point where they can take a breath and hope that things are going to work out, they get one of these letters and and I’m sure it just rocks them to the core.

I don’t think I would call this a cold case just based on what we know.

You know, there’s still a lot of action behind the scenes, but you you obviously investigate cold cases.

you were just talking about this one that that you helped solve from 30 years ago.

H what would you do to start out with if if you got this case just based on what what you know? Based on what I know, I think I would start off with re doing uh reintering uh many of the people.

I’ I’d rein persons of interest.

I’d rein my witnesses.

I would go all through my electronic uh information.

And when I say electronic information, I’m talking about uh security cameras in the area.

I would I would want to go through all that information again.

I’d want to any vehicles that were in the area at the time.

I’d want to do a very thorough check on the registered owners of those vehicles.

I’d look for patterns, vehicles that maybe we saw for two weeks before that we saw every day, maybe at a specific time.

And then after Miss Guthrie went missing, I I’d be like, “Hey, where is this vehicle?” Every day for two weeks, we saw it come through between 3 and 4 p.

m.

And now we’re not seeing it at all.

that, you know, I’m looking for changes in activities.

Uh, I’m looking for increased activity from a certain vehicle or person or maybe you have a bike rider.

It’s logical to think that whoever did this and was involved with it had to have done some they had to do their homework.

They had to been doing their own surveillance, if you will.

And I’d be looking to try to establish those patterns and then see how those patterns broke after Miss Guthrie went missing.

Uh I’d want to go through all my cellular data, cell cell tower information.

Hey, what what phones and devices were active in the area leading up to this and are now absent? Or what devices should maybe not have been in the area at the time of this? You know, where are the disruptions? Where are the patterns? and where are the break in those patterns? And those are individuals I’d cross reference against individuals that are persons of interest or witnesses because what if you’re interviewing somebody as a witness and they they were involved and and they’ve just been playing it cool and and and going through the motions, if you will.

Um, so there’s a lot of information and and then there’s just boots on the ground.

You know, this is this is from what I can tell a desert area.

um you know that that’s scary that that’s a vast amount of land um that you need to look at.

Um whether that is aerial searches, foot searches, grid searching, uh using canines and you know that the scary thing that no one wants to say now is ah specialty dogs, your cadaavver dogs, you know, looking for the the sense that they can help you with and guide you.

Um, you you you hope that Miss Guthrie is alive and well with whoever has her or wherever she’s at, but we also have to be realistic a little bit and and and explore all options and not take anything off the table.

Um, so those are things I would do and I would I’d definitely be wanting to reinter people.

Uh, I’d want to keep that tip line going.

I I’d try to keep things fresh in the media.

Maybe there’s somebody out there who thinks h this is a little strange.

Oh, it’s probably nothing.

I can’t imagine that John the neighbor or John my neighbor would ever do anything like this, but I I noticed behavior changes.

He maybe he or she is fixated on this case or went from being very fixated to don’t want to talk about it.

You know, those those changes in behavior.

uh all of that becomes relevant and those sometimes those little those little nuggets of people’s personalities uh changes in lifestyle uh play a huge factor in these cases and can’t be overlooked.

Yeah.

Sometimes like when I I’m thinking of as a reporter when I go to cover a story and I’m going to fly somewhere, I’ll go in with sort of sometimes a preconceived notion about what I think and a theory in my head and then I’ll get there and I’ll realize that I was wrong.

But sometimes it’s hard to mentally shift what you were thinking from the beginning, like what your first thoughts were.

Is it the same when you’re a detective uh investigating a case like this? And I would think that would be dangerous, too, because what if you your theory is totally wrong and you you’ve just been going in the wrong direction all this time.

Oh, I agree 100%.

You know, human nature is we think we we think we know until we get there and start learning more.

And you know, the expression, you don’t know what you don’t know, is very real in our business.

Uh, when I investigate a case, especially something that’s very complex, I I like to give the analogy to other detectives that, hey, I I’m I’m walking the fence.

I’m I’m I’m walking the the 3-in beam on that fence.

I need I need something to push me one way or the other.

Um because I’m trying to keep an open mind.

I don’t want to say, “Oh, this is definitely what happened.

This is what we’re getting.

This has to be what happened.

” You can’t do that because it it will it it could affect how you investigate your case though and and follow the information.

And the biggest thing with that is we have to follow our leads.

We have to follow our evidence and go where that takes us as opposed to letting our mind take us places that the evidence doesn’t support.

Is there anything that has really stood out to you? And again, obviously we don’t know all the evidence they have behind the scenes, but just with all the cases that you’ve worked that you saw with the Nancy Guthrie case, and you thought, man, that’s that’s really something.

What really bothers me is we’re we’re dealing with an elderly female who’s not living by all accounts, she’s not living an atrisisk lifestyle.

Um it it would appear to me uh that this is potentially uh driven by something monetary.

They were hoping to get some kind of monetary reward or or gain from doing this.

Um that bothers me.

Um and what really bothers me is if they underestimated uh Miss Guthri’s health and uh thought, well, we’ll we’ll take her.

This will be easy.

we’ll hold on to her at an unknown location for a day or two.

Uh we’ll we’ll we’ll get some money out of this and we’ll leave her in a Walmart parking lot.

And and she had some sort of medical event before any of that could take place.

Um they underestimated her health or or lack thereof, but um when you have people who aren’t living at an atrisisk lifestyle, they’re not putting themselves out there in harm’s way.

you know, we don’t know of major gambling or drug debts or anything of this nature or or bad affiliations.

Um, it really makes you wonder what our perpetrator or perpetrators endgame was and logical.

It comes back to money and and I just scares me to think that somebody maybe took Miss Guthrie and some she had some sort of medical event when it was happening cuz obviously it’d be incredibly stressful situation and very taxing on somebody.

Yeah, the way you explained it makes the most sense to me.

And again, we don’t know what happened, but just in terms of theories, I’ve never really thought it was a burglary gone wrong.

But what you say to me makes sense because if they didn’t intend for her to die and then that happened, it would explain why now they’re not even trying to collect the ransom because they are going to be in big trouble now.

I mean, if if they, you know, it’s like felony murder, I would think.

Um, so that would explain because I wondered, well, why is no one coming forth with a million dollars? What you just said, I think sort of explains that.

Yeah, they can’t.

Things went sideways, things went wrong, and what they had to do is they had to, it sounds horrible.

They had to dispose of Miss Guthrie because she was no longer of value to them and in that monetary gain that they’re hoping to get.

Yeah, it’s terrible to think about.

So, I think you were nodding earlier.

You agree this isn’t a cold case? Oh, I don’t think this is a cold case at all.

We’re looking at 60 days.

I think there’s still a lot of very viable information uh that can be gained uh both electronically and through uh interviews and reinterviews and and not only that but tips that are coming in.

Uh when you have tip lines in a case like this, those are usually blowing up.

You’re getting those voicemails, you’re getting those emails, you’re getting those crimes stoppers tips.

And unfortunately, uh those just take time.

They take time to vet.

It takes a vast amount of personnel to thoroughly vet th that information.

So, a cold case would be when they’ve gone through all of those and there’s just nothing left.

Yeah.

A cold case is when when we start putting our our backs against the wall.

We don’t have new leads coming in.

We don’t have new tips coming in.

We’ve exhausted all uh all forensic evidence.

We’ve exhausted all advanced uh forensic and and DNA and fingerprint analysis.

We’ve exhausted uh all of our digital evidence that we’re going to be able to gleam from cell phone companies and cell phone towers and from video surveillance.

When all that begins to dry up and we’re not getting anything new is when we start we have to start looking at where are we going to go from here.

What else can we do? Do we have anything else? Are we are we at a place where we’re we’re idle? And I I I just can’t believe that just 60 days out.

And when I say just 60 days out, it seems crazy to say, right, that we have somebody who’s been missing for 60 days, but at just 60 days out, I it’s just crazy to think that uh that this case is cold.

I I think there’s there’s information, there’s leads, there’s information that can be followed up and and evidence that can be analyzed.

Yeah.

And you made a good point, too.

There’s probably tips that have come in that they haven’t even gotten to yet that are just in a stack somewhere.

It’s entirely possible.

I mean, you you start thinking of I I would imagine the tips are in the thousands.

And in fact, I’ve heard the number, you know, in the thousands.

So, how many man-hour does it take to go through and thoroughly vet each tip? Back to what we were talking about, um, where if Nancy had passed away and this wasn’t their plan and they’re scared now, is there a way, do you think, for them to get the money and return Nancy? Wow.

So, good question.

very risky for the for the perpetrator though because anybody who can say where NY’s at uh if she’s deceased if if they’re able to give that location that is extremely risky.

How do you get that out that is not going to get tracked back to you or how you know you have to be pretty sophisticated to think about how you’re going to completely wall yourself off from it ever coming back to you providing information on where where NY’s at.

And the second part of that is let’s let’s think about this.

if she was put in a waterway, a river, a creek, uh a pond, a lake, and she uh she could be she could have moved, you know, waterways move.

Uh if if something completely horrible and grotesque was done where she was put in a dumpster, maybe they don’t know, they know where she was put, but they don’t know where she is now.

Uh now if she was buried in the desert, you would like to think that they could probably lead investigators to that that um burial location, but they did it at night under the influence of drugs or alcohol potentially.

Maybe they don’t they could just give an approximate area.

Um but there again that’s when when people uh law enforcement on foot uh specialty dog cadaavver dogs could play a huge uh part in helping uh bring Nancy home.

Um and you know whether it’s her remains or or however that would look.

But it could be one of those situations.

Uh maybe you have somebody who doesn’t uh uh truly know and they they’ve heard somebody say, “Hey, we buried her.

we put her here and they don’t know that spot and they aren’t able to get the the suspect to to give them anymore.

Yeah, I was thinking someone kind of on the outside but that still knows um who wants to do the right thing, you know, is there a way you could get a lawyer, contact police that way, get some kind of immunity to, you know what I mean, to help move things along? Oh, I think that’s entirely possible if you had somebody who was not related but had very key information uh that could come forward and provide that to law enforcement.

Um, I I would think that that person would be if they weren’t directly involved, I I would imagine there’s definitely a way that law enforcement and the prosecutors could work with that individual to uh be able to bring uh Miss Guthri’s, you know, give her family that closure and and let her be put to rest uh, you know, how she should be.

Yeah.

They’re they’re probably thinking in their mind, “Oh my gosh, if I tell them, then they’re going to be on me.

” And you know, think about this, birds of a feather, right? So, if I know something horrible and gruesome like this, it means I know horrible, gruesome people, what am I involved in? And what is law enforcement going to do with me? Even if I wasn’t involved in the disappearance and the abduction of Miss Guthrie, what if they start digging into me and find that uh I’m involved in some uh less than favorable activities? That’s such a good point.

There may be You’re right.

If you’re if you were there when this happened to Nancy, then who knows what else you’ve been involved in and they start, you know, coming to your house and then So, that’s really an interesting point.

I really appreciate Brian for taking the time uh to talk with me, go over all these latest developments.

Um, you know, it’s it’s always so valuable to talk to people like him who investigate cold cases.

And again, I don’t think the Nancy Guthrie case is a cold case yet, but certainly it doesn’t seem to be going in the right direction right now.

Um, but then again, all it takes is one lucky break behind the scenes and everything bust open or something big with the DNA, which could be coming, and that’s an episode I’m going to I’m actually working on behind the scenes that I will get to in the next couple of days.

So, uh, hopefully something breaks soon.

I still don’t believe this is a cold case.

I still have hope that there’s going to be a resolution that is going to be solved.

Will it happen soon? That I don’t know.

And again, all it takes is one tip for for a case like this to bust open.

So, if you know anything, obviously call 1800, call FBI.

Uh, any even little piece of information could um really help out investigators with the case.

And it may even be something that you don’t think is important, but to them is a missing puzzle piece and a theory uh that they are um sorry there’s a loud truck going by that they are working on.

So again, the number 1800 call FBI.

Uh really appreciate you guys for watching uh my show, for supporting my channel.

If you’d rather listen, I’m also on all the like audio platforms like Apple Podcast and Spotify and all the rest.

So you if you don’t uh want to watch these, you can listen to um and I’ll keep you guys posted with any developments in this case.

There’s also a couple of other stories that I’m starting to cover.

I’m still going to stay on Nancy Guthrie, and I know I don’t want to move on or forget about it.

Um but there are a few other things I’m going to start sprinkling in that I’ve been working on behind the scenes.

So those will be coming in the next couple of days.

Uh and I’ll talk to you guys later.