Hey guys, uh thanks so much for checking out my show.

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Uh today is day 57 in the search for Nancy Guthrie.

I’m actually in the airport right now.

Uh I am on my way back to Arizona uh to look into a couple of new things uh involving the Nancy Guthrie case.

So I’ll keep you guys posted on that.

It’s actually busy in the airport, but the TSA lines, you always hear about how bad they are, but I got through really really fast.

So that was a relief.

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I got to the airport super early, but um made it through quickly.

Uh in this episode, a couple of things.

Uh there was this deputy in Puma County who was arrested for kidnapping actually.

Uh which is it’s a crazy story.

Um I’m going to explain to you the circumstances in that.

A lot of people are sort of thinking, could it be connected to the Nancy Guthrie case cuz it’s a kidnapping charge? I don’t think so.

Uh you’ll you’ll hear why when I explain it in a second.

Also, um, a couple of new things that Savannah Guthrie said in the Deline episode over the weekend that I’m going to talk about.

Uh, and I have my friend and retired, uh, FBI agent Steve Mor on to kind of go over some of these new things that Savannah said and also, uh, some of what she said, uh, at the end of last week, just, you know, the back doors being propped open, um, Nancy not having any shoes on and the pajamas.

I wanted to get his take on a lot of those things.

So, I’m going to get into all of it in this episode of Brian and Investigates.

Hey guys.

So again, I’m in the airport um headed back to Arizona.

Um going to get to a couple of things here.

First of all, that arrest that everybody’s talking about, this deputy who was arrested in Puma County for kidnapping.

Again, no indication it’s connected to Nancy Guthrie at all, but just still interesting since it’s a kidnapping charge.

Mr.

Reynolds, this is the time for your initial appearance.

You were here this morning on charges of kidnapping.

That is a felony offense.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can and will be used against you.

So, his name is 22-year-old Travis Reynolds.

According to an interim complaint, uh Reynolds was transporting a female detainee to the Pima County Jail when he allegedly made inappropriate remarks about her appearance.

Uh he allegedly shared a vape pen with the handcuffed woman and and told her that he could help her uh with her case and allegedly suggested that they go to a hotel and have sex.

Uh detectives allege that Reynolds also showed the woman explicit videos and um delayed taking her to jail.

Uh and she said that she felt intimidated.

This is what prosecutors said uh at the hearing.

This particular offense uh that is alleged is is very very concerning u just given the uh occupation of the uh the accused and the uh power dynamics between him and the victim.

there’s indications that this might have happened before.

Um, you know, uh, the victim would like to see no, he shouldn’t be returning back to the jail or or incident location.

Uh, no weapons, no contact.

Um, then victim in this case is very afraid, very afraid of this defendant because of that power position that he had, of the power dynamics, and that he might retaliate against her.

So again, on the surface level, just from what I can tell, doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with um the Nancy Guthrie case, but again, interesting.

It’s a kidnapping charge.

Interesting that you’ve got a Puma County deputy uh who would do something like this allegedly.

So I’ll I’ll stay on top of it, but wanted to get you guys updated on that.

Um also there, you guys remember there was a Savannah Guthrie interview at the end of last week on the Today Show.

Well, there was also a dine episode this weekend where there was more of the interview that was aired and I wanted to give you guys some of the highlights.

Um, she talked a lot about her sister Annie and her brother-in-law Toamaso and how um, her mom Nancy wanted to remain independent.

Um, and you know, one thing that was comforting is that Annie and Tomaso lived so close to Nancy that they were able to keep an eye on her and look after her.

Uh, she said that no one took better care of my mom than my sister and brother-in-law, which I thought was really interesting.

um just because obviously there’s been all these rumors and speculation about is a family member possibly involved and it seems like she’s really gone out of her way to defend especially her brother-in-law saying that no one took better care of Nancy uh than her her sister and her brother-in-law Tomaso.

Uh she also said that Annie and she calls him Tommy Tomaso Tommy uh made it possible um for Nancy to stay in the house that she loved uh because they were close to her.

they let her have her space, but you know, obviously they just lived like 10 minutes away.

Um, so it sounds like they were really the primary ones just because they were so close who kept uh an eye on Nancy.

Uh, so that was the new stuff that I caught from the dine episode.

Obviously, there was the stuff that Savannah said at the end of last week that the the back doors, doors plural, were propped open.

uh when Annie and Tomaso arrived, uh that Nancy was taken in her pajamas with no shoes on, her phone and and wallet and personal items were left behind.

Uh and I wanted to talk to retired FBI agent Steve Moore, a friend of mine, about some of these new revelations, what it means to him, what he thinks all of this means to the investigation.

How coordinated was Savannah’s interview with the FBI? Could her interview and her going back to the Today Show impact the investigation maybe in a good way? Uh, so this is my conversation with Steve.

Steve, thank you for joining me.

I really uh appreciate it as always.

Um, I mean this Savannah interview, it’s just I mean the anguish that she is facing and has been and the fact that it’s now been almost two months and her strength.

I mean there I’ve got a lot of emotions coming out of it.

But in terms of the investigation, there was some new information that came out and I kind of want to go through a few of these items with you and get your take.

Um, the back door, and she said doors, actually plural, the back doors were propped open, she said, when her uh sister and brother-in-law arrived and Nancy was gone.

What do you make of that? Uh, bas that doesn’t make sense to what I know.

So, what I know to be true or at least alleged to be true from the investigation because Nancy um there was some blood belonging to Nancy on the front porch.

Um so why and the front porch is where the camera was if you could get into the back door in and out of the back door.

Um why would you even use the front? Uh I would So there there would be a lot of questions I would have.

Number one, was there uh uh any indication of entry marks uh breaking and entering or whether was that door unlocked in the back? Um that would be important to know.

The other thing is how was the doors how were the doors propped open? If they were propped open by a mechanism that exists on the door, then you got to ask how did they know that? Uh how did they know that in advance? If it was propped open by wedges or something like that that they brought with them, say in a backpack, then you’re saying this person has cased the house and knows they want to prop those doors open.

If they propped them open with just one of NY’s shoes or a chair or something like that, it would lead me to believe it was more of an impromptu decision.

Um, and that’s, you know, law enforcement is going to be trying to find out through every single bit of evidence they have.

Was this highly highly cased, highly prepared for u or were these a bunch of, you know, fools who came in and thought that they could make a million dollars and and likely have ended up taking the life of an innocent person.

One thing that I thought about just kind of visually seeing the house in my mind is, you know, we saw obviously the suspect go to the front door on the camera and the camera got pulled.

I I want and we know there’s a security gate on the front door.

Um could they have gone in through the back and and you know that was the way in and then taken her out the front, unlocked the front from the inside and because you could pull the you know you could pull a car right up to the front door there.

That’s where the driveway goes, which would kind of make sense if she’s got these mobility issues.

Savannah said she can’t even walk to the mailbox most days.

So maybe they got in through the back and took her out through the front.

Yeah.

And and I totally I totally understand that concept and why that would seem to be a logical thing.

two two things I would have to ask uh before I could come down uh with you know all my weight on the ice on that one is uh number one if they were bringing her out the front and they were both ambulatory themselves why do they need two doors blocked open? Uh having doors blocked open means you’re taking something out of them and you can’t use your hands to keep the doors open and it would be wider than say one person.

So maybe two people carrying somebody out, things like that.

So that would lead me to believe that the back door is how they took her out.

However, there’s blood on the front porch.

Um, and as far as could they have gotten in through that gated door, it would depend on two things.

Number one, did she lock it? Uh, and a lot of people don’t.

Um, the other thing would be how is that, uh, gated door locked? Is it is there a key on the outside and a little um switch type mechanism on the inside or is there a key on the outside and the inside? Because if it was locked on the outside and the inside, they couldn’t have gotten out that door unless they knew where the key was, unless Nancy gave it to them.

Um, so the problem is for me seeing blood on the front porch and the fact that yeah, it probably would have been a lot easier to get the car right by the front door um makes makes a lot of sense for the front door.

A propped open back door flies in the face of that really.

I don’t know what else you’re trying to get out of there unless they made it uh they changed their mind in the middle of this which is also an indication of amateurs.

Um, so I’m I’m just not sure where this goes.

Um, if you could get in through the back door, why would you go anywhere where there was a camera? I I don’t get that either.

I mean, and your average burglar knows right away now that the first thing you’re going to be dealing with is is uh in most places is a ring camera at any place that has valuables enough to uh to take.

And she said that her brother, who was a fighter pilot and also worked in intelligence apparently, was very quick to say, I think that she was kidnapped, uh, even on the phone with Savannah.

Um, which I guess some have been critical of that, like, oh, how would he know that so soon? But that didn’t really surprise me, actually.

I mean, if if you’re getting the call that the back doors are propped open, there’s blood on the front porch, your mom who can’t even walk to the mailbox has disappeared, I would probably think the same thing.

I I would too.

I mean, what what you have to come down to is you have to uh eliminate uh very quickly any other motive.

I mean, uh does she have money? No, Nancy.

Uh uh Savannah does.

Uh is she has she made anybody angry? Not Not bloody likely.

Uh you know, it comes all the way down.

you step down for all possible motives and there’s only one or two left and one of them, you know, sexual assault or something you don’t even want to talk about.

And kidnapping um would not even come into the equation unless there was somebody in her family in NY’s family who was wellknown and uh perceived at least as uh very wealthy, right? That would be Savannah.

I mean, and like she said in the interview, she’s coming to terms with with that, which was kind of one of the more emotal parts.

Yeah.

I mean, you can imagine the guilt she’s feeling.

Um, which is I can only imagine it.

I can never I’ve never been through that.

I hope I never do.

Right.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Um, she also said that she was taken in her pajamas with no shoes on.

Um, I guess I wondered how she would know that, but I it would make sense.

I guess if if she’s older and wears probably the same couple of pairs of shoes and the sister Annie helps take care of her, you would know what shoes she wears and the shoes are there.

But what what did what what did that say to you? Um, that they had inventoried her clothes and her uh slippers and things like that as as well as they could.

And I know from taking care of my elderly parents, at a point you start to know what they’re going to be wearing because though they might have a a large closet of clothes that they used to wear, uh once they become uh less mobile, uh they tend to get in the same type of uh clothing every day and and not change comfortable shoes and things like that.

So, my guess is that there was probably a pair of uh slippers visible uh possibly by the door or um they actually have a footprint of some type of nasties.

Um but I I’m just speculating as to how they would get it.

I’m not I’m not trying to infer that that’s how they did find it.

In your mind, when you envision this all going down with the information we have, um, why wouldn’t they let her put on her slippers? Whoever did this, same reason they wouldn’t let her put on her or get her get her medicine.

Uh, and that’s that’s still something I cannot come up with.

I mean, if you’re going to kidnap somebody, you have to have them alive.

I mean, why what why why would you kidnap somebody and not take care of their physical needs? Um, it could be uh that she was non-ambulatory at that point.

And I’m just going to leave it at that.

And um if that were the case, they wouldn’t necessarily want to put slippers on somebody they were carrying.

What would be the point? But then you got to think, where are you taking her? And so it chills me the fact that they’re taking her out of the house and not making any um any efforts towards her long-term comfort or survival.

Or maybe she, you know, she had these heart issues.

You get woken in the middle of the night like that.

Maybe she had a heart attack and this, you know, this whole plan went went arry.

I would I thought about that, but then I I also thought that uh we might find some indications of that on her pacemaker.

Yeah, that’s a good point that that would have that if she was if that happened still right there in the house and it was still connected to the eyew watch or the phone because I think that thing would would start hitting hard if she had had a heart attack of some type.

Yeah, but again, I’m not a cardiologist.

Savannah also said that her phone, purse, personal items were left behind.

I guess that plays into what what we’re talking about.

I mean, if she was taken, why would why would they give her an opportunity to take her phone, right? Even if they were going to take her uh and um keep her alive and safe and comfortable, they wouldn’t take her phone.

Yeah.

The one thing that really surprised me in the interview with Savannah, because a lot of these things I had either heard or kind of expected, I had heard some things about the back door.

Um, but the one thing that I was surprised by was that she said that she believes two of the ransom notes are legit.

Um, cuz I was just starting to think that all of those ransom notes were just phony people.

Um, just trying to get and I think some of them obviously were, but what do you make of that? That, you know, she’s she believes two of them are real.

I think she if the FBI was telling her that they didn’t believe they were real, uh she wouldn’t believe they were real.

Uh Nancy Guthrie is is a very intelligent woman and she is obviously smart enough to take um the take the advice or trust the people in law enforcement who are experts in this.

So, my guess is that that’s something she was told.

And this whole uh ransom note thing has worked as as hard as it’s been on uh poor Savannah and her sister and brother and and the family.

Um it’s been it’s been uh crippling for the for the kidnappers because if you say that uh or if it comes out in public that you are sending your ransom letters or ransom notes communications to a very specific organization say TMZ or or the local u uh network affiliate or something like that then everybody gets that address.

If the kidnappers can get that address, you can get that address and you could probably get it in a five minute um Google search.

um if they had somehow uh obtained the uh email addresses or or communication uh addresses of anyone in that family, Nancy or her sister or her brother.

Um then they can say it was sent to Nancy, but nobody would know where to send false ones.

And so I think the kidnappers uh made their uh kidnap notes actually questionable because they made it uh that in a way that other people could just pile on and look like theirs.

Plus information was released on the kidnapping notes or the ransom notes that they could uh mimic.

Yeah.

And I go I was thinking back to what I remember reporting about these notes and learning about them and and we were told there was information in a couple of them that only the kidnapper would know the location of certain things in NY’s house.

So that may be a reason that Savannah is saying that she thought it was legit.

But also, do you remember in that one social media post Savannah said, “We received your note and we this was like this is like a follow-up post and we understand.

” Um, and I’ve just wondered if they communicated that Nancy was no longer with us.

That would be um that would be kind of unusual and and really kind of macob, but um it wouldn’t be out of the question.

Um obviously uh whoever sent that and if it it maybe we’ll just uh for the sake of argument say it was the kidnapper.

Um they have not been able to prove uh prove life and there’s probably a a very hard reason for that.

And so they made a statement in the second email that they wanted uh the Guthri and the FBI to understand completely uh and and you know so much so that Nancy or and the FBI felt the need to say I’m sorry Savannah and the FBI felt the need to say we understand what you’re saying.

And then she starts uh Savannah starts talking about closure.

And that to me does not sound like somebody who is uh who is still having hopes of getting her back.

And and I go back to um the uh uh high school girl from Georgia who was killed in Aruba uh by Natalie Holloway and Yuron Vanderloot.

uh he uh at first he said give me some money and I’ll and I’ll help you and now they wouldn’t do that and then later on he said if you pay me money I will lead you to her body so the at that point maybe they changed the um the negotiating point to we will show you where to find her.

Uh, again, this is just speculation.

This is this is what I I’m doing looking in, and I am in no way, shape, or form trying to say this is what the FBI is dealing with.

But these are things that would lead me to believe that that’s what the FBI might have been dealing with.

Are you surprised the FBI wasn’t able to trace? I mean, we know that these notes went to at least the local TV stations, and they weren’t direct emails.

They went through like a contact us form from what I was told.

Um, but are you surprised that I just I guess I still would have thought the FBI would have had some way to to track the the person down through the note.

Yeah, I’m I’m surprised, but even in the few years since I’ve left the FBI, technology has just raced forward.

And so, uh, I may be, uh, having a little bit of the 24 syndrome, believing that, uh, Kefir Sutherland has this thing where he can just click it and and, uh, people’s faces come up.

Um, they, when I was in, I remember there were some really specific limitations, at least at some points in my career.

For instance, if you got a uh uh a phone call uh into a trunk line, uh say, you know, I think this was in the late or late 90s, we got a call uh a threat uh through a trunk line where they can just send it off to different extensions and things like that.

There was no way we could trace that phone call off of that trunk line just because of the way it was configured.

And so there may be uh there may be um electronic and uh technical digital things that uh prevent the FBI from getting information.

Makes sense.

What do you what do you think it means that Savannah did this interview? And I guess what I’m getting at is I was thinking to myself, if the FBI was really hot on the trail of someone, would they have advised her not to do this? Like just please just continue to be quiet.

We’re we’re almost there.

Um I mean, do you think this is an indication that the investigation is not progressing right now or could it mean the opposite? I mean, what do you think? I mean, it could mean that.

Um I’m not sure it is.

I just from my time in the FBI, I just know cases like this were never put down.

I mean, one of the hard things are when you’re an agent working these things is forcing yourself to go home and go to sleep and you and you wake up in the middle of the night saying, “What am I doing here? I better get back to work.

” And and the agents tend not to let go of this, especially when they become close to the family and they’re frustrated by not being able to find it.

It it becomes uh like Moby Dick to Captain Ahab.

it becomes an obsession for them.

And so I don’t for one minute believe that even if they’ve reduced the number of agents assigned to the case that they are uh expending any less efforts on it.

So what I would suggest is that uh Savannah realizes that she has to resume her normal life and she just can’t appear one day on the Today Show and say I’m back.

Um, there has to be some closure for not closure, but at least some type of of um agreement on where she is.

That she is still in a hard place.

Nothing’s resolved, but I have to go on with life.

And I think that was a way of saying, I’m going to resume my life one of these days soon, and you’re part of that life.

You deserve to know where I am.

Uh, to all the people who who follow her.

And I believe that uh probably the FBI uh anytime N Savannah would um say anything to the to the press, the FBI probably uh sees it as an opportunity to um to send messages uh to potential uh kidnappers and they may have had a part in that.

Um, I’d be surprised if they didn’t, but they’re certainly not going to tell Savannah to say the FBI is doing a good job or the sheriffs are doing a good job and all this.

That’s that’s not what they’re there for.

They are there simply to say, you know, appeal to somebody.

There is the the kidnappers may not have a or the people takers uh may not have uh a conscience at all.

They may just be incredibly evil people.

But somewhere somebody down the line that knows them does and eventually uh that may be where the the break in this case comes.

Do you think the interview I mean we’re all hopeful that it would make an will make a difference but I’m just thinking the the million-doll reward has been out there for a while.

Uh does her speaking this way do you think it could actually persuade someone? Yeah, I think there’s a possibility uh at this point um you know early on in the case you say that’s a low probability at this ca at this point you’d say any probability is worth doing um you you don’t go for the best shot you go for the only shots you have and so I think that’s where we are with this one and um I think it could you know as much as this is follow me on this But as much as this is wearing Savannah and her family down terribly, you saw that she is not giving up.

She is not surrendering.

Even if uh she gets no closure on this, she is not surrendering uh her self to the kidnappers.

She is not taking away her own kids’ mother uh just because of what they did.

She is strong.

She is continuing.

These are in in the worst times of her life, you are seeing the best of her coming out.

That’s I think the best thing you can say about somebody.

The type of people who take people like Nancy.

Uh when things get tough, they get worse.

They they they are cowards from the beginning and sooner or later something’s going to break.

And people who are watching this who have a suspicion even that you know this geez it sounds like this thing over here um sooner or later somebody’s going to do it and I think the fact that they haven’t done it for money uh means that um the best chance to get them would to be decency.

Do you think when she gets so she says she’s going to go back on April 6 to the Today show.

So, she’ll be on it, you know, every morning, I guess, like she was before, and she becomes a part of so many Americans lives again, and we see her every day.

Could that impact the investigation? I mean, could could whoever do this try to reach out to her again because suddenly she’s back in, you know, the limelight again on TV every day.

Like, do do you see that component impacting things? Yeah, it could be.

And and right now I believe probably that the FBI has a has at least a tenative profile on the person who did this.

And so they will have an idea whether um this person says, “I screwed it up.

Nothing happened.

I’m going to walk away, go back to my life, and try to live the rest of my life and never have a speeding ticket.

” Or if the person’s, “Wait a minute.

You can’t brush me aside like that.

You can’t ignore me.

You can’t go back to your life.

I am in charge of you.

This is me controlling you.

And if that’s the kind of person that they believe this uh this thing is that took uh Nancy, um then yeah, it could cause a uh could cause them to act out a little bit.

It’s all going to depend on the unknown.

What kind of person did this? Yeah.

I guess I’m just wondering like what’s the next chapter in all of this? you know, is there cuz it’s already such a bizarre case with so many strange twists and turns.

I just think back to when we got the video for the first time from the front doorbell camera.

It was just this like this is a horror movie moment.

I Does this all go quiet now or is there going to be another really dramatic turn? You know, that that’s kind of what I’ve been wondering about.

I think it’s going to be a a little bit like um the search for the missing Malaysia airliner.

What was that? 470 or 370? Yeah, I think 370.

Yeah, I’m age 37.

I think what you’re going to see is for the next year or so a a full-time effort on this case.

You’re going to have instead, you know, most agents have uh five to 10 cases.

Some have 20 cases assigned to them depending on what they investigate.

I would say that you are going to have this case assigned um to two people who one or two people who do nothing but this for the next year or two of their career.

And so that is a significant uh and and by the way that’s the minimum.

I’m not saying that more won’t be.

I’m just saying that the FBI is not going to give this to somebody and say this is one of your five cases.

They’re going to say no this is your job right now.

And that will continue um at full pace as long as incoming evidence and leads justify that.

If it goes completely cold uh and nothing’s come in for a year and you can’t make heads or tails of it, they’ll probably switch it to a different agent or two and try to see if they can work it.

And then what’s going to happen is it’s going to be possibly semidormant.

Um, but I I think you’re talking years down the road and every time a new piece of information comes in, uh, like Malaysia 370, they’re going to they’re going to send the boats out back looking for the wreckage.

In the same way, every time a piece of information, uh, comes in that they didn’t have before, they’re going to compare that to every bit of information they have already.

And it’s going to be a pretty uh pretty big spin-up each time one of those things happen, but they’re not letting it go.

Do you think what she did release that was new, the back door, the no shoes, the pajamas, are those things you think that the FBI cleared, or do you think I’ve also wondered, do you think she thought, you know what, guys, I gave you two months and I’m going to do the interview and talk about what I want to talk about now? Yeah.

And and that’s possible.

One thing I’ve seen uh that I I believe I’ve seen with Savannah and her family is the willingness to uh work closely with the FBI and we’ve seen um families who are you know terribly grieved because of loss not work well with law enforcement and that doesn’t help them.

So, uh, I’ve thought I’ve thought that Nancy, um, and not keep I’m sorry that Savannah has, uh, uh, really worked well with law enforcement.

And I don’t picture her as somebody who would at some point say, “I’ve given you your shot.

I’m I’m the investigator now.

” Um, so if she did mention things um that were new like the propped open back doors and things like that, uh, I believe she probably ran it by the FBI and um, they may have even offered uh, suggestions about what she might do.

Um and uh you know the interview itself I think was was important because we live in kind of a heartless uh world as far as uh viewers and audiences are concerned.

Um they they will if she doesn’t cry on camera they’ll think that she’s uh stone cold or that she knows something.

And if she cries too much, she’ll get criticized for that.

There is no winning uh you can’t you can’t win the internet.

Uh because there’s too many horrible people uh on the internet.

And so I think they uh the interview I think they did as well as they possibly could and let the chips fall simply because they were going to be damned if they did if they didn’t.

As always, I really appreciate Steve for taking the time to talk with me.

Um his insights always so valuable.

I appreciate you guys for watching.

Again, I’m about to board my flight here soon.

Um, but I’ll keep you guys posted with anything new that I dig up in Arizona, uh, my podcast on News Nation.

Uh, and, um, that’s about it.

So, again, the TSA, I was worried about the TSA lines, um, cuz everybody’s like, especially in Fort Lauderdale, there’s been some stories about them being really bad, which is where I live.

Uh, and it was like I there was no line at all.

So, that was good news.

Uh, so, uh, yep, that’s it.

I’ll talk to you guys later.