Ashley Banfield, who hosts her own podcast called Drop Deadad Serious, is breaking exclusives on this case like nobody’s business.

And yesterday, she had quite a doozy.

Um, I’m going to bring her on.

She’s going to explain what she learned, but she reported exclusively that they actually do have a potential suspect in the case, and the identity is rather shocking.

Uh, we’re going to bring her in now.

Ashley Banfield, thank you so much for joining us.

So, tell us what your, you say, very reliable law enforcement source told you about a possible suspect in the case.

Sure.

So, after almost four decades in this business, I have collected a few friends at the FBI and in local law enforcement all over the country.

And uh the source that I have is impeccable.

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And he said that not only were the cameras smashed, plural plural cameras smashed, so that the suspect likely knew about the locations of them, um, but that the car belonging to the sister of Savannah Guthrie, Annie Guthrie, was towed, impounded, and taken into evidence.

Um, and that, and this is the wording, it’s very important.

The wording is very important.

He said they now believe the son-in-law may be the prime suspect.

Those are the words.

Sin-in-law may be the prime suspect at this point.

And I’m very uh mindful.

I covered the Elizabeth Smart case.

I was out in Salt Lake City for 5 weeks while Elizabeth Smart had vanished.

And I recall specifically um a lot of language saying Ed Smart is likely the prime suspect here.

And so you got to be really mindful that as you know Megan, you’re a lawyer.

Police investigations start in the middle of the circle and they go out in concentric circles in terms of investigating um family members, right? You start in the middle of the family, you investigate out from there.

Then you go to contractors and friends and workers and everybody else who’s had some contact and then there’s the randoms.

So it is not surprising that someone in the family is being looked at.

Um that language to me was pretty strident though.

It’s surprising to me because there was forced entry.

And from the beginning, I thought, well, they must have ruled out the family pretty quickly if this is a case of forced entry because the family wouldn’t need to do that.

The family would presumably have a key and if they didn’t have a key and they wanted to get in, they just knock on the door and Nancy Guthrie would open it.

So, this is super interesting and I had a long conversation with my former colleague Brian Anton about this because Brian identified blood drops at the front door, right? And and he’s shown the video of it’s it’s pretty impressive.

Um, however, my source says the back door is wide open.

Back door left wide open.

That’s what my source said.

I had a Megan half hour conversation two days ago.

I watched it sheriff.

Yeah.

And I specifically said, “So, are you telling me when you said that she did not walk out of that house uh on her own?” I said, “Are you telling me that she might have been carried out of that house?” And I used the word over the threshold of the front door.

And he said, “I didn’t say front door.

” But he didn’t say he didn’t say no carried.

But when he said, “I didn’t say no to the front door.

” And then, you know, and the next day I’m getting information about the back door.

It’s it’s pretty safe to say, “Well, that makes perfect sense.

However, why is there blood at the front door? And Brian Anton said he couldn’t find the trail continuing past to the walkway that would take you to the driveway.

Now, it is it is uh you know, gravel.

A little harder maybe to see any blood, but not impossible.

So, I’m trying to go.

Couldn’t they have gotten her in the car, Ashley? I mean, like I’m picturing a scenario where couldn’t all those facts be consistent with they came in through the back door, then they got her, then they brought her out the front door after injuring her.

could then the blood trail continued just to the driveway.

Well, it didn’t where they then put her in a car.

It ended it ended well prior to the driveway.

Yeah, the blood trail is just at the front door on those tiles.

Then the gravel starts right away and it’s a walkway to the driveway and it’s not close.

I mean, it’s it’s a it’s a bit of a ways.

Nancy Guthrie can’t walk 50 feet, pardon me.

Nancy Guthrie can’t walk 50 yards on her own.

So, she would need assistance.

And if you’re bleeding and you’ve been in in an, you know, some sort of a melee, that would be even less.

So, I was going through the scenarios in my mind.

Okay.

Um, maybe the front door camera is smashed and there and the doorbell is rung to get Mrs.

Guthrie downstairs because that would be difficult in the middle of the night.

It would get her down those stairs.

So, the confrontation might happen at the front door right there at the tiles.

there’s a struggle and then because the car is not parked right out front where all that could be visible pot potentially maybe the car is around the back and that’s why they go out the back door and because a car be I I don’t know because I’ve been trying to see with drone video whether the car could get out into a darker spot or maybe out of camera view because the smashing has to happen but I was told that the cameras were smashed and plural.

So, if there’s a camera in the back, camera in the front, smashed.

And then, of course, Brian Anton noticed it and said, “Did asked the the sheriff, did you take them or did did do you think the guy or the the suspect took them?” And the sheriff had a funny answer.

He said, “Yes, I noticed that you were looking into it.

” Yes.

So, what he saw, Brian Engine saw was like the the remnants of a Nest camera, not even the Nest camera, right? Like, it was clear to him that they had been removed, which is not the same thing as destroyed.

The sheriff is saying that they were destroyed right before we got to them.

So, he made it sound like they were destroyed by the perpetrator here, by the bad guy.

Sheriff didn’t say on the news conference that the cameras were destroyed.

Um, Brian Anton shot that video and asked, “The cameras are missing.

Did law enforcement take them or did the perpetrator take them?” And the response from the sheriff was, “Yes, we noticed that, too.

We’re looking into it.

” And so, look, uh, I can tell you, you know, this, Pima County, there’s not a lot of crime there.

I I’m trying to think of the last major thing that happened.

I think it was Gabby Gfords being shot there, uh, what, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

Uh, and so I think he’s working in real time, you know, and trying to protect his investigation, keep the integrity, and answer real questions he wasn’t expecting maybe, and couching, you know, his verbiage as best he can.

But he didn’t say, “Oh, we don’t no we took the cameras.

” Or, “No, there never was a camera there.

” He said, “Yes, we noticed that, too, and we’re investigating that.

We’ve got them.

” It’s your reporting that that has added that they were destroyed.

But and multiple um I don’t know the location of the other one.

My guessing, and it’s just me, would be back door, but that’s where you put the nest camera.

My source also said, and this is musings, not evidence or information, who takes an 84 year old woman who can’t walk well on her own? It is a burden.

It is a It is a troublesome endeavor.

It makes you more susceptible to being caught.

You now have a problem on your hands.

What are you going to do with this person without anybody seeing it? And it stands to reason.

It’s very unusual for some random uh burglar to take the person if something happens.

It’s not a random burglar.

No, I agree.

So, it’s either somebody who’s kidnapping her and wants money for a ransom or is kidnapping her as a revenge because they dislike her or maybe Savannah or another family member.

Or it could have been a murder person.

Again, it could have been a murder that they were then removing the body from the crime scene.

That’s even worse because again, now it’s on your hands to get rid of the body and the evidence is now in your car and all the rest.

It’s not that it hasn’t happened.

It has.

It’s more likely that a random person would leave that body in the house and get get a clean getaway with no DNA evidence in the car if that’s possible.

But the other um uh random musings was that something like this, and again, these are the random musings.

This is not evidence.

This this kind of a crime typically requires a benefit.

And like you mentioned the um ransom notes musings are baloney that you know you don’t email a ransom note to TMZ or a local you know station.

It’s not normal.

It’s not usual and that time frame as well.

Ransom notes usually come pretty quickly.

This was 72 hours later.

So and look I can’t wait for that investigation to yield some idiot that thought that they were going to get some Bitcoin out of a tragic situation.

And it makes me they’re just they’re just festering parasites when they do this.

I mean, it does.

We still don’t know though whether Savannah Guthrie has received a ransom demand or law enforcement has because they’ve been very cy about the ransom question.

The the day the first day he was asked, which was Monday, um, Sheriff Nanos said, “No, I I haven’t heard anything like that.

” And he was kind of forthcoming.

And then, as you know, yesterday, Tuesday, he was much more tight-lipped.

he wasn’t as forthcoming with answers and the question of whether a ransom note had been introduced seemed more ambiguous on day two than it did on day one.

You know, it’s funny.

I’m looking back at my notes from my conversation.

I said, “Has there been a r,” and this was the uh Monday, as you said, “Has there been any uh demand for ransom?” And he said, “We don’t know.

” He said to me, “We don’t know.

” Those were the words.

However, this came out yesterday.

You probably saw it.

This was the uh QR code and the statement from Christ the sheriff saying we are aware of reports circulating about possible ransom notes parenthesis s right note in parenthesis s regarding the investigation into Nancy Guthrie.

We’re taking all tips and leads very seriously.

Anything that comes in goes directly to our detectives who are coordinating with the FBI.

We encourage anybody use this QR code.

So I think and also uh our friend um Harvey Leven at TMZ broke it yesterday.

They got the email yesterday.

So, I don’t think Harvey had it on Monday, and I would highly doubt that the local TV station had it Monday, didn’t report it till Tuesday.

All right, but that’s sort of a red herring, we think, on the side, but the news about the about Savannah’s brother-in-law is huge.

I mean, that if that’s look, I have to be honest, a lot of people initially thought it should we be looking at the family because just that’s the way it works.

90% of the time that Yeah, exactly.

That’s who it is.

Usually crime is not committed by some random person coming into a home and kidnapping an 84 year old.

Usually it’s a tragedy that somebody knows where both cameras are.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Knows where both cameras are front and back.

Um and possibly manages to get her to open the door or somehow maybe has a relationship with her and and but of course the thought of Savannah’s not on the table.

She was in New York.

She had to fly out there after this all happened.

Um the sister I mean like it’s just it just seems beyond possibility that that the sister had something to do with it.

But now we’re talking about the sister’s husband.

Yeah.

You go.

Spidey senses.

Megan with all your experience in being a lawyer and being in the media.

Do you think that they would seize the vehicle of Savannah Guthri’s sister and impound it? Tow it.

Not ask for it.

Come in.

We want to take a look.

Tow it.

Impound it.

The word words that were used are it is in evidence if they didn’t have a little stronger feeling about this because that sends a massive message early in the investigation.

If you are taking the daughter of the victim’s car that and and a famous daughter’s sister that was another thing that I just I’m just putting a lot of pieces together.

No, you’re right.

And and the other thing the audience should know they probably already do know is you’re not some whack reporter.

Like this is your beat.

You’ve been covering crime for 20 years.

You’re very solid.

Your reporting standards, 38, but who’s counting? 38 years this year.

Reporting for many, many years.

But like your reporting standards are very high.

So you you understand very well the the gravity of reporting something like this.

This is not just some slap dash operation.

And you trust this source that told you right now he’s the crime.

High level.

High level.

So no, you’re right.

They wouldn’t.

And when was it that they seized the car? Why was it they seized the car? When? When? Uh, I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that the FBI, according to Brian Anton, was over at um Annie Guthri’s house yesterday for several hours.

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