The Megyn Kelly Show - Genetic Genealogy and DNA Evidence - Part 3 of Megyn Kelly Investigates Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.160 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.760 Still in a remote location, still broadcasting for you guys.

00:00:19.800 And this is part three today of our special four-part series into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

00:00:25.600 In this episode, we take a closer look at the science and the unanswered questions surrounding

00:00:31.260 the DNA collected so far in this case. DNA evidence can be a powerful tool for investigators

00:00:37.180 and prosecutors. As you know, it can confirm identities and place individuals at a scene.

00:00:42.680 And there are ways of tracking someone down and even getting a picture of someone

00:00:46.380 when you find DNA at the scene, even if that specific DNA cannot be matched

00:00:53.920 to any criminal database. And we're going to talk about that today. You could actually come up with

00:00:58.920 a composite picture of someone based purely on unknown DNA, which can tell you what somebody

00:01:08.480 generally looks like. Isn't that so crazy? So it may not match to a criminal database,

00:01:12.720 but you can come up with a profile. It's like, they're so advanced now. The real question here

00:01:18.620 is why hasn't that been done? Clearly, they're not sure whether they have the DNA of the perpetrator.

00:01:23.920 Now, we know that forensic testing is underway on many samples taken from Nancy Guthrie's

00:01:28.620 home, but authorities have not publicly detailed the full scope of what they've collected.

00:01:33.860 Somewhere in Nancy's home, there is DNA belonging to the suspect.

00:01:38.920 That's what virtually every DNA expert will tell you.

00:01:41.800 This guy was not so forensically antiseptic that he prevented any of his DNA from getting

00:01:49.700 into that home.

00:01:50.800 It's just a matter of whether it can be found.

00:01:55.080 Genetic genealogy is hot.

00:01:57.260 It is the future of law enforcement.

00:01:59.040 It's amazing.

00:02:00.340 Cece Moore, who's been on the show a couple times, she's the godmother of it.

00:02:04.340 I've actually worked cases back to 1958 now.

00:02:08.060 Whoa.

00:02:08.980 Yeah, quite a bit before I was even born.

00:02:11.480 And so it's just amazing what can be done in those cases where the crime scene investigators

00:02:17.100 were so forward-thinking.

00:02:19.480 They collected things they couldn't have imagined how powerful they would be today.

00:02:23.820 Touch DNA doesn't have to be yours that they find like in their database.

00:02:28.140 It can be your sixth cousin.

00:02:29.880 So it's like reverse engineering someone's family tree and eventually their identity based on their ancestors.

00:02:37.100 She was saying this is why you're not going to have serial killers anymore in the United States.

00:02:41.400 About 10% of the cases that we've helped solve or been able to create profiles for have been touched DNA.

00:02:50.040 She actually came out and explained it with respect to the Kohlberger case, because, you know, in that case, they grabbed trash.

00:02:55.400 Most states allow this. It's considered abandoned at that point.

00:02:59.160 And then they go through the trash and try to find an item that might have DNA on it.

00:03:03.640 They were able to perform what is basically a standard paternity test comparison to the profile from the button on the sheath and determined that that individual's DNA from the trash was the father of the individual who left his DNA behind at the crime scene.

00:03:20.240 It is extremely confident, as we saw by the number 99.999, 8 percent.

00:03:27.800 So that means that there's basically no one else on Earth that could be the father of that individual.

00:03:34.140 This is what's now going to be done to the DNA on those gloves and probably also that found in Nancy's home.

00:03:39.020 And you start drawing circles around the person and getting to all their relatives until you can get closer and closer and closer, in this case, to Tucson, Arizona and somebody who might be living there.

00:03:48.500 This is very close to home for me, Megan, because the first case I remember as a little boy growing up in Philadelphia was the boy in the box case.

00:03:58.820 In the late 50s, a little boy found in a box in sort of the outskirts of Philly.

00:04:03.120 No one knew who he was.

00:04:04.480 Finally, after all these leads all around the world, who is this little boy?

00:04:08.940 We've got to give him a name.

00:04:10.500 Not breaking news at 5 o'clock, a major break in the case of the boy in the box.

00:04:15.160 About two, three years ago, through genetic DNA, that little boy was finally identified.

00:04:22.120 Sources tell us police have a name and they know who the boy is related to.

00:04:26.200 They can put a name on his tombstone now.

00:04:28.160 It's hard to figure out who killed him, but now we at least know his name.

00:04:31.120 It is amazing what can be done now.

00:04:33.320 Let's just hope we have something here at Mrs. Guthrie's house.

00:04:35.960 They go to the public databases that have people's DNA in them.

00:04:40.960 They're not supposed to go to 23andMe or Ancestry.com or Heritage.com, which are private.

00:04:47.980 Those are not supposed to be accessible by the feds.

00:04:50.680 But it's just like distrust of having your information out there and where it could go.

00:04:54.340 So I can see why they don't really want to be the assistant on this.

00:04:58.320 Have you ever considered taking one of those DNA tests?

00:05:01.080 You ever stop because you were afraid of where that might lead?

00:05:03.860 Some of my favorite stories on NBC were the 23andMe stories or the Ancestry.com stories.

00:05:09.160 But the question is, how accurate are those?

00:05:11.480 OK, I really want to know the answer to this.

00:05:13.620 Get Savannah Guthrie to go to all the companies and say, please give us permission because you can give us permission.

00:05:19.960 It's not a violation of law to let us have access to this so we can see if there's a match to find this kidnapper.

00:05:26.100 The problem for us here is we don't know if the abductor's DNA is on those gloves or if the DNA they have found inside the house that doesn't match Nancy or one of her service providers is, in fact, the perpetrator.

00:05:39.160 We're not even at the place yet where we know that we have a SNP unless they have it and they haven't told us.

00:05:47.680 Now, as far as what we do know, the Pima County Sheriff's Department announced last month that it did find DNA at Nancy Guthrie's home that does not belong to her or, quote, those in close contact to her.

00:05:59.940 So that's somewhat promising.

00:06:01.520 But then we since learned that it is mixed DNA, meaning it's from more than one person

00:06:07.140 making it a little tougher to isolate whose DNA it is.

00:06:11.560 As of now, there's been no report of any DNA matching anyone in the FBI's criminal database

00:06:17.240 or leads generated from genetic genealogy matches, which does take longer.

00:06:21.860 But as we've told you, there is much that we do not know about what exactly the FBI

00:06:25.700 and the local authorities have uncovered in the investigation.

00:06:28.580 it's very possible they have more than we know. Joining me now to unpack all of this and more,

00:06:34.400 Will Geddes. Will's an elite bodyguard who has over 30 years of experience as a security expert.

00:06:39.200 He consults with U.S. law enforcement and federal government agencies and now runs a firm called

00:06:43.720 International Corporate Protection. If you get kidnapped, you should call Will. Have your family

00:06:49.380 call Will. James Hamilton is here too. He's a former FBI supervisory special agent and creator

00:06:55.200 of the FBI's Close Protection School, which is a specialized training program designed for agents

00:07:00.000 to protect high-level officials. He now runs his own security firm called Hamilton Security Group.

00:07:05.980 Between these two, you have your family, you call them. God forbid anything were to happen.

00:07:11.060 And here for her first appearance on the program, Susanna Ryan. Susanna is Laboratory Director at

00:07:16.960 the private forensic DNA lab Pure Gold Forensics based in California. She has over 24 years of

00:07:23.240 experience as a forensic DNA analyst and has testified in well over 100 cases. So she knows

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00:08:31.880 Will, James, Susanna, welcome to you all. Great to see you again. Susanna, we're going to start

00:08:36.500 with you because we want to kick it off on the question of DNA. And we haven't heard anything

00:08:42.800 thus far other than there's mixed DNA inside of the house, and so far they haven't been able to

00:08:48.660 match anything with a known criminal database like the FBI's CODIS. So if you were brought in

00:08:54.460 on this case, where would you go from there? It sounds like they're doing what I would do,

00:08:59.920 which is moving on to genetic genealogy. Now, one thing I would say is I do hope that they're

00:09:05.800 making full use of the CODIS database. And what I mean by that is Arizona is one of the few states,

00:09:12.040 there's only about 11 or 12 that allow for something called familial searching. And so

00:09:18.540 what that is, is searching for a near match. We're actually searching the regular CODIS database

00:09:24.460 for someone who might be, let's say, a father or a brother of your unknown perpetrator. And again,

00:09:31.940 there's only about 11 or 12 states that allow that. It's not done automatically. It has to be

00:09:36.460 done by a special request. So I do hope that they're doing that. But if they've done that,

00:09:41.400 and they don't have a match, then genetic genealogy is pretty much, you know, one of the only ways

00:09:47.380 that, short of finding a suspect and doing a direct comparison, that I think this case might

00:09:53.480 be solved. But of course you do have the difficulty. Give us the simple explanation. You run it through

00:09:58.140 the CODIS database that the FBI has of criminals and arrestees and there's nothing. Now, how do you

00:10:05.240 then say, because I know it's a different kind of testing, but how do you then say, okay, I'm going

00:10:10.020 to try to see whether I can use genetic genealogy to figure out whose DNA this is.

00:10:15.900 Yes, it is a completely different type of testing. And so you have to have enough sample remaining

00:10:22.340 from that original sample where you did your traditional DNA testing, you uploaded it to CODIS,

00:10:28.500 you did comparisons to any known reference samples. There has to be enough remaining,

00:10:33.300 which there isn't always enough when we're talking about touch or trace DNA. So if you

00:10:39.500 have enough sample, now you have to do a totally different type of testing called SNP testing.

00:10:43.800 That's single nucleotide polymorphisms. And once that is completed, then you're uploading that

00:10:52.140 SNP profile into the available databases. And that includes GEDmatch Pro and Family Tree DNA.

00:11:00.760 There are other publicly available databases, but most of those do not allow for searching

00:11:07.560 purposes. And so, you know, we talked about 23andMe, that's probably the largest one. I think

00:11:12.860 there are about 50 million profiles in that database. The databases they're allowed to search

00:11:17.800 have, you know, a couple of million each. So you're looking for, you couldn't find a hit in

00:11:23.800 the criminal database, and now you're trying to go over to a more widespread sort of, one of those

00:11:28.480 databases people use to find relatives or figure out interesting fun facts about their family

00:11:33.100 history. Now you're looking for a match over there. And if you can find a match directly to

00:11:39.560 the perpetrator there, great. But you might find a match over there to a father or a distant,

00:11:46.660 distant relative. I mean, it could be like your sixth cousin twice removed, but you'll see

00:11:52.120 something in the genetic information that's returned to you to show, I have found a relative

00:11:57.460 of the, this person who was in Nancy's house. That's correct. Right. So what they're looking

00:12:03.060 for is the amount of what we call centimorgans of DNA. So they're looking to see how much just

00:12:09.300 chunks of DNA you share with other people. And, you know, it's interesting, like, for example,

00:12:15.720 the 23andMe database, that's something that's automatically done. You know, I, I've done that.

00:12:21.400 My sons have, and when they put their DNA in, it automatically matched up to their aunt,

00:12:26.880 right because she had done it so it just is an automatic process now that's exactly what they're

00:12:32.400 looking for these pieces of dna because you we know that you know with your parents you share

00:12:36.980 about 50 of your dna brothers and sisters at least 50 of the dna and then you start moving outward

00:12:42.980 cousins about 25 and so they're just looking for pieces of dna lengths of dna that have been passed

00:12:49.780 down that have to have been shared through a family uh relationship and the further you go

00:12:55.960 the less DNA you're going to share, but that puts you in a category of, okay, this may be

00:13:01.260 a second or third cousin. And you have the genealogists who are very skilled then at

00:13:07.260 building out those family trees and trying to narrow in on a specific family. Once you do that,

00:13:12.960 once a family has been identified, you still need to do a direct comparison, the traditional

00:13:18.380 STR testing that we always do. That is what the comparison has done. That's what's used in court.

00:13:25.620 is the traditional STR test. Well, what do you mean about that? Is that like to take the Brian

00:13:28.760 Kohlberger case for an example? You know, they had a hit on that knife sheath to eventually they

00:13:34.720 got to Brian's father and then they had to cheek swab Brian to like, is that the piece you're

00:13:40.300 talking about? Like now you do a direct DNA on the actual suspect. Yes, that's absolutely correct.

00:13:47.520 So the way we kind of look at it is the SNP testing, the genealogy is sort of a tip. It's a

00:13:53.620 lead, what is actually used in court is that confirmation sample. So, once we have that lead,

00:13:59.880 and, you know, I've done this in a number of cases. I have someone, you know, I have a DNA

00:14:03.400 profile. It's gone into CODIS. It hasn't hit anyone. All right, let's do genealogy. And they

00:14:09.900 tell me, okay, it might be, let's say, one of five brothers. And then they have to get a reference

00:14:15.580 sample from each of those brothers, whether it's a trash pull or they go up to the person and say,

00:14:20.860 hey, will you give me your DNA? And then we rule that person in or out based on the traditional

00:14:26.580 DNA testing. Okay. Gosh, it's so complicated. So what about this? The sheriff is saying it's

00:14:35.180 mixed DNA. And our friend, Matt Murphy, a longtime Orange County prosecutor, he kind of rolled his

00:14:41.340 eyes at the sheriff saying, oh, it's going to be tough for the labs to do because it's mixed DNA.

00:14:45.580 Because Matt was like, he's tried many, many homicide cases. He was like, the labs deal with

00:14:49.320 mixed DNA all the time. But so what's your take on mixed DNA? Does it make it more complicated?

00:14:56.340 And is it a deal breaker? So we do deal with mixed DNA all the time. That's correct.

00:15:03.840 Especially with the sensitivity of testing. I mean, we're getting DNA from, you know, a couple,

00:15:08.520 a dozen cells or so, right? So we're getting mixtures all the time. But that's with traditional

00:15:14.880 testing that you sort of hear about all the time. The SNP testing, it is much more challenging to

00:15:20.580 work with. That you need for genetic genealogy. Yes, correct. Yes. And the reason for that is

00:15:27.740 just think of the name, single nucleotide polymorphism, many changes, right? So every

00:15:35.080 single base pair, there's different pieces of DNA that they're looking at. Whereas the type of

00:15:41.800 testing, the traditional testing, it's sort of these chunks of DNA, and we're looking at maybe

00:15:45.960 about 24 of them. They're looking at hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA. So if you have a

00:15:52.200 mixture, now it's very difficult to pull that mixture apart if it's not the correct ratio.

00:15:58.540 If the person of interest is what we call the major contributor, there's more of that person's

00:16:03.440 DNA, that's definitely something that the labs are able to deal with. Once you start seeing that

00:16:10.000 person of interest being the minor component, maybe only, let's say, 20% or 25% of the mixture,

00:16:18.420 now the genealogists, they have a much more difficult time working with that kind of mixture.

00:16:24.120 And if you have a mixture of three people or four, which is not uncommon with these type of samples,

00:16:29.100 it becomes almost impossible. Now, let me ask you, Suzanne, if they brought you into Nancy's

00:16:35.580 house and this investigation and said, where should we be testing for DNA? Right? Like,

00:16:42.360 I mean, in a perfect world, you'd find that mouth flashlight sitting there on the floor,

00:16:46.840 right? Of course, with his saliva all over it, but clearly that didn't happen.

00:16:51.060 So what would you say to them, like walking into this crime scene,

00:16:54.680 what would you want as the DNA analyst? Right. So, you know, I mean, I think initially people

00:17:01.660 think, oh, he has gloves on. He's not going to leave his DNA. Well, that's simply not the case.

00:17:07.080 We know that people can leave DNA even when they're wearing gloves because people have a very

00:17:13.360 common habit of touching their own face or hair or skin and other body parts. So anything that

00:17:19.500 wasn't covered, if he's touching it, if he's touching that flashlight in his mouth, now he

00:17:25.080 has his saliva all over his hands. So I would definitely be looking at points of entry, points

00:17:31.420 of exits, doorknobs, light switches, bedding. So let's say Nancy was in bed at this time. Well,

00:17:41.420 he may have gone up to her and shaken her shoulder to wake her. If she's under the covers,

00:17:48.040 let's look at those covers. Anywhere that was touched on the covers, we have the potential

00:17:53.360 to pick up DNA. I would recommend using an instrument called the MVAC. It's basically a

00:17:58.740 wet vacuum that can pick up greater quantities of DNA, sometimes, you know, dozens of times more

00:18:05.540 DNA than traditional swabbing or cutting of a sample. So I would definitely want to MVAC that,

00:18:11.860 the bedding. I've had cases, you know, it sounds like this guy was in there for a little while.

00:18:17.460 So I've had cases where people use the toilet and they don't always flush. That could be a source

00:18:24.840 the DNA. Sometimes people get really comfortable. These burglars break in and no one's home and

00:18:30.120 they're having a drink of, you know, take a Pepsi or a beer from the kitchen and then they leave it

00:18:36.580 on the counter. So anything that's like out of place, appears to have been moved, would have had

00:18:41.840 to have been touched. That's the things they want to zero in on. And then if they start seeing the

00:18:46.660 same profile in multiple places that excludes any of the known people, then that they're going to

00:18:52.740 have more confidence that they have the correct profile to really focus on and do their work on.

00:18:56.960 So if they found his DNA or someone, the same person's DNA, maybe on the remnants of the Nest

00:19:02.560 camera in the front, and then again, we have video of the inside of Nancy's bedroom that we found on

00:19:09.320 the Today Show website from 2013. So maybe you'd be testing that ornate and distinctive headboard

00:19:16.680 that Nancy had in her bed, in her bedroom, or this little lamp, like you'd be going to all the

00:19:22.560 little spots right around her looking for the common profile. Exactly. Because we do have to

00:19:29.560 be careful. People are constantly bringing in DNA. Yes, they've cleared the people that they

00:19:36.920 know have contact with her. But for example, if I just shook your hand, I probably have your DNA

00:19:42.420 on my hand. And then if I go and open a door, now your DNA might be on that doorknob, but you never

00:19:49.140 touched it. So we have to be really careful when we're talking about this trace or transfer DNA.

00:19:54.660 And that's why I say if we start seeing the same profile over and over again,

00:19:58.500 we have a higher degree of confidence that we have the true perpetrator's DNA.

00:20:03.080 So good. Okay. I want to bring in my expert panel here because I'm sure they have questions too.

00:20:07.160 James, do you want to ask Susanna anything? Yeah. Fascinating, by the way, and good to see

00:20:12.780 you again. And I think Susanna makes a good point, which we were talking about last week.

00:20:17.240 And I think a lot of people weren't confused about when we had the neighbor being mouth-swabbed.

00:20:24.520 And I think Susanna can back me up, but I think they did that so they could exclude her DNA if it was found in the home.

00:20:31.640 They're just looking to exclude folks that may have been in the house.

00:20:34.560 That's why when we heard about it, we were like, why would they swab the neighbor's mouth?

00:20:39.800 Susanna, I have two questions for you, but would that make sense that that's why they did it?

00:20:44.480 Yes, absolutely.

00:20:46.080 If they want to be able to eliminate any unknown profiles that are in there, and sometimes

00:20:52.380 that helps work with mixtures.

00:20:54.880 Like, let's say her DNA, even if she's eliminated, if her DNA is present on something, if we

00:20:59.820 know that we can sort of back that person's DNA out, that then helps us to isolate the

00:21:05.680 profile that we're really after.

00:21:08.320 And how difficult, you were talking about a tool that you would recommend, I think you

00:21:13.180 described as some type of vacuum. But would Pima County, are you familiar enough with Pima County

00:21:18.760 to understand does their crime scene have those type of capabilities? I don't know if Pima County

00:21:25.040 has it. I will tell you that a number of law enforcement agencies do. I do know that, for

00:21:30.540 example, the Florida lab that has been discussed, DNA Labs International, that is doing the testing,

00:21:36.060 I know that they do have an MVAC. They were one of the early users of the MVAC. So the MVAC is

00:21:42.100 portable. If Pima County needed that, they could bring it out there. Or on the other hand, certainly

00:21:48.340 they could take the bedding, submit that to the lab, and then at the lab, the analysts can really

00:21:54.860 focus on particular areas that they want to test. Right. And what do you make of the, you know,

00:22:01.620 ostensibly, we don't have a suspect yet, and it's been quite a while. What do you make of the, you

00:22:06.960 know, no DNA match to any type of database, either CODIS or, you know, 23andMe or genealogy? I mean,

00:22:14.220 let's say there isn't a match. What would you make of something like that?

00:22:18.500 You know, I mean, CODIS, maybe not terribly surprising. That's going to be only convicted

00:22:25.340 offenders, maybe some other forensic unknown profiles. Now, Arizona is one of the states that

00:22:31.340 allows for arrestees. So people who have simply been arrested of certain felony offenses,

00:22:38.280 their profiles go into the database and not all states are like that. So that does open up another

00:22:43.600 category to search. But if this person hasn't ever been arrested or convicted of a serious crime,

00:22:51.500 they're just simply not in the database. So I do think once we've cleared the CODIS database,

00:22:58.160 I think that the next possibility is genealogy.

00:23:02.920 Now, there are certain racial groups that are overrepresented in the commercial genealogy databases, Caucasians, many more Caucasian individuals than other racial groups.

00:23:14.780 So it's easier to find someone with a relative if they are Caucasian.

00:23:19.840 I think I heard a stat. It was like 90 percent solve rate if you have a single source Caucasian profile.

00:23:28.160 So it can be more challenging if the person is of a different racial background.

00:23:33.460 Doesn't mean impossible.

00:23:35.120 I mean, for example, this glove that was found, which I was kind of surprised they were focusing on because it was so far from the scene.

00:23:43.140 But you never know.

00:23:44.000 There could have been other information that they really thought it was connected.

00:23:48.400 But look, it worked, right?

00:23:50.080 They got a DNA profile.

00:23:51.520 It didn't match anyone in CODIS, but they did genealogy and they did find who that was, right?

00:23:57.780 The restaurant worker.

00:23:59.520 Exactly.

00:24:00.280 So it works.

00:24:01.380 It's just finding the correct DNA profile to focus on.

00:24:04.940 It's not as easy as we'd like it to be.

00:24:07.540 And the problem in, I'll bring you in one second, Will, but the problem in getting,

00:24:11.620 they'd love to have access to that 23andMe and Ancestry.com.

00:24:14.640 They'd love to be able to run any of these samples in comparison to those.

00:24:18.100 But there's a policy at those entities, at those companies that does not allow it

00:24:23.760 because they know that nobody would sign up for this.

00:24:25.940 Not nobody, but fewer people would give their DNA over if they thought it was also going to be accessible by law enforcement.

00:24:33.620 We're Americans.

00:24:34.540 We're naturally skeptical of our government.

00:24:36.820 And also, you know, you don't want your brother to get arrested.

00:24:41.040 A lot of us are just like, I don't want to make it any easier for my family members to get arrested.

00:24:45.760 But they did do it.

00:24:47.180 Like, they did it in Kohlberger, and it was a big deal because they weren't supposed to.

00:24:51.560 And then the defense attorney in Kohlberger, Ann Taylor, she made a big deal out of this saying that the whole DNA analysis should be thrown out because they access those databases and they shouldn't have.

00:25:01.540 But it's not a law that you can't go into those.

00:25:04.720 It's a policy.

00:25:05.920 And if you can get them to violate their policy, then great.

00:25:08.860 And that's why some people have been saying, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Susanna, that Savannah Guthrie should go to Ancestry.com, who, by the way, is a huge participant on the Today Show.

00:25:18.520 When I was there, we had an Ancestry.com segment every three days to say, will you please bend the policy and let us run DNA comparisons against you?

00:25:28.100 Now, so they may already be doing that, Susanna, right?

00:25:30.800 Like, they wouldn't publicize it.

00:25:32.460 They would not broadcast it for all the reasons I just said.

00:25:34.860 But it's possible that they are cooperating.

00:25:38.140 Yes.

00:25:39.920 Short of, you know, knowing what I know about the Koberger case, I would say, oh, no, they're not going to do that because this is the DOJ's own interim policy on genetic genealogy.

00:25:48.380 but they sure did it in that case and listen i get i see both sides of it you know i get it

00:25:53.260 why you would want to do that but i'm kind of a rule follower and there are policies and things

00:25:58.300 in place because what can happen and i've seen this happen um it gets taken away for everyone

00:26:04.860 right yes so there used to be a that's why it's doj policy yes right but yes so there used to be

00:26:11.340 a ystr database this uh sort of a family tree a surname search it was publicly available people

00:26:17.260 could go online and, you know, search, put in their YSTR profile. Well, law enforcement found

00:26:24.780 out about that and started searching. And then they found the wrong person in a pretty high

00:26:30.040 profile crime. And then the company, which I think was related to Sorenson, it was in Utah,

00:26:38.240 they just took the whole website down. So now nobody has access to it. So that scares me.

00:26:42.860 DOJ is worried that if we start going into these private databases too much, they will

00:26:47.320 never cooperate and no one will ever get their DNA over and they will be rendered maybe not

00:26:51.800 useless, but they will sort of stop in 2016, March of 2016 or 2026 was the last time anybody

00:26:58.080 willingly gave their DNA over because that's when it became so readily available to law

00:27:02.580 enforcement.

00:27:03.200 So I get it too.

00:27:04.780 And I mean, I almost understand the Kohlberger thing.

00:27:07.500 It's like four college students were murdered in the course of 12 minutes by some serial

00:27:12.540 maniac like that that one seems rather extreme you might actually bend the policy with respect

00:27:18.180 to nancy guthrie it's like i don't know that this would rise to the same level of like oh my god you

00:27:23.400 know there's some massive serial killers on the loose we'll see um will did you have any questions

00:27:27.620 for susanna or comments i do megan thank you again for the invite on the show um i think one of the

00:27:34.260 things that we were discussing last week the three of us was about the the control of the scene of

00:27:40.140 crime you know and how they were taping off this area and how well protecting or preserving they

00:27:47.180 were of the evidence and that was one of our biggest concerns particularly when they lifted

00:27:51.140 obviously the tape around the property literally I think it was a day or two after the actual

00:27:56.740 disappearance of Nancy and then there was that incident of one of the neighbour's dogs having

00:28:02.300 a pee on the front steps of the actual property itself and so the question that I would have

00:28:08.320 really for Susanna is what question is there to the the degradation of DNA integrity is there

00:28:17.160 because one of the biggest concerns is if they were so haphazard potentially about controlling

00:28:22.080 the scene of crime what they were actually doing in terms of gathering that evidence how well they

00:28:28.840 gathered it whether there could have been a huge amount of cross-contamination on that DNA

00:28:34.020 or is it precise enough that it will be preserved for a good period of time and how long would it

00:28:39.360 last do you think right so dna that's outside the home if there was anything outside for example

00:28:45.760 you know that welcome mat that i think is probably still sitting there that was an item if they

00:28:50.580 collected right away what if the the perpetrator with that mouth flashlight there was some saliva

00:28:56.940 that came out of his mouth and landed on the mat that would have been great at this point i think

00:29:01.280 it's probably useless because it's been sitting outside, it's exposed to the elements. How many

00:29:05.920 people have walked on that mat that have, you know, transferred or taken DNA, picked DNA up,

00:29:12.440 put DNA down. So that's going to be an issue for anything that's outside. I don't think we have to

00:29:18.600 be concerned about degradation, especially the inside samples. So degradation refers to the

00:29:24.440 breakdown of DNA, where we're no longer able to get results because the DNA is sort of falling

00:29:30.240 apart. I don't think that's as much of a concern as cross-contamination or contamination from

00:29:36.840 people walking through the house, people touching things. Again, even if the investigators,

00:29:41.820 the crime scene people have gloves on, there's something called investigator-mediated transfer.

00:29:46.440 Anything they touch with a glove and then touch something else, they could have picked up DNA

00:29:50.880 from that one object and placed it on another. So, that is more of a concern to me. Now, the DNA can

00:29:57.280 last a really long time. It can last days, weeks, months, even years, you know, depending on how

00:30:03.300 well that area is cleaned. You know, I had a case once where there was a CODIS hit on this. It was

00:30:10.340 a double homicide and there was DNA on the bathroom door where the murder had occurred and it was a

00:30:15.620 male profile. The same male profile was on the kitchen hand towel hit in CODIS. It couldn't have

00:30:21.980 been him, he was in jail for the past year. So, I mean, DNA just can last a long time. Yes.

00:30:28.740 Wow. Oh, I mean, that's very telling. I have a question for you about, I mentioned at the intro,

00:30:37.580 the ability to create a picture of a suspected perp without knowing who the person is. So they

00:30:45.840 test the DNA. Let's say they go into the Nancy's bedroom and on her headboard, they find unknown

00:30:52.100 DNA. There's no hit in CODIS. They actually get the permission to run it through 23andMe and

00:30:58.520 Ancestry, no hits, no idea who this is. There is a company, I think there's more than one,

00:31:06.520 but the one we featured at NBC was Parabon. And Andrea Canning, who I work with there,

00:31:13.420 by the way, like her, positive comment about NBC. She's sweet. They ran her DNA through Parabon,

00:31:21.820 this company that does this, and they came up with like a profile of what she would look like,

00:31:27.800 not based on what Andrea actually looks like, just based on the DNA. Parabon does this service

00:31:32.140 where they say, this is what this person, they can tell like, oh, of Irish descent and possibly

00:31:37.600 with like, you know, Spanish influence, whatever it is.

00:31:41.180 And look at what they came up with.

00:31:43.420 This is the actual Andrea on the right in the red.

00:31:46.000 And this is the profile of her

00:31:47.740 that they came up with on the left.

00:31:49.220 It's amazing.

00:31:50.980 They have the general facial like structure.

00:31:54.960 The nose is close.

00:31:56.940 The mouth is pretty close.

00:31:58.340 The eyes are pretty good.

00:31:59.440 They've got the blonde hair.

00:32:02.060 I think this is incredible.

00:32:03.640 And that there was a lot they could tell

00:32:05.720 about Andrea Canning without having anything other than an unmatched DNA sample to anyone.

00:32:12.660 So can you talk about that, Susanna? Yeah. So interestingly, that was the kind of the

00:32:19.940 forebear of genetic genealogy. So the same type of testing, it's the same data that they have

00:32:27.080 for genealogy. That is what is also used to find out things like hair color, eye color,

00:32:34.020 ethnicity? Do they have freckles or not? Because it's all in your DNA, right? So they're just

00:32:40.340 looking at specific areas that they've already tested. So Parabon, that's what they initially,

00:32:45.440 that's what they were known for, was doing these sort of genetic composites. Once GEDmatch,

00:32:51.720 that private DNA database, hit about 1 million profiles, they knew at that point they had a good

00:32:58.060 chance of actually identifying people. So they're the ones that started uploading these unknowns

00:33:03.540 and getting matches once there were enough people in that database.

00:33:07.360 And it was because they already had all of these police agencies

00:33:10.720 who had already done the composite profiles.

00:33:14.240 It's the same DNA.

00:33:15.480 They didn't have to do any more testing, just researching it.

00:33:18.900 So do you think if they found DNA, let's say on Nancy's headboard

00:33:24.060 and on the backdoor handle and on what's left of the Nest camera,

00:33:30.160 like its cradle, which I think remains,

00:33:33.540 You don't know who it is, but you know it's the same DNA from the same man, let's say, that they could come up with a picture like that, that they could start determining ethnicity, hair color.

00:33:45.980 The freckles thing is crazy.

00:33:47.780 In my case, they'd be like, we can tell you for sure she cannot do directions in a car, and she's very bad at facial recognition.

00:33:55.820 I'm convinced this is a genetic problem I have.

00:33:58.320 But would they be able to do that?

00:33:59.720 Yeah. Assuming it was not a mixture or not too much of a mixture, yes, they could.

00:34:06.820 Wow. Oh, that's so interesting. All right, Susanna, you've been awesome. Final question

00:34:11.460 for you. Do you think that DNA will solve this case? Yeah, I do think that there's a good chance

00:34:19.640 of it. I feel like it's almost like a needle in a haystack at this point, right? I mean,

00:34:24.200 we have this, I'm sure there have been so many samples collected and the lab is probably working

00:34:30.700 on them or has already gotten results. And there, as you said before, there can be a lot going on

00:34:36.260 behind the scenes that we simply don't know about, right? So it's very possible that they already

00:34:41.200 have a profile isolated and now they're doing that genealogy step. And that can be very time

00:34:47.320 consuming. You know, if someone isn't in the database, their close relatives aren't in the

00:34:52.620 database, the further out the relatives are, the longer it takes to be able to build that family

00:34:58.660 tree. So that very well could be going on behind the scenes right now. I remember CeCe Moore

00:35:04.320 explaining that she would go, she would pull birth announcements, she would pull marriage

00:35:09.660 announcements, death announcements to try to, like, it's a painstaking process because they

00:35:14.180 really do have to create the whole family tree around the person who they did get the hit on,

00:35:19.240 like this sixth cousin, you know, twice removed, you know, that this person's in the database and

00:35:23.880 is somehow related to your perp. But to find the perp, it's this huge spider web around this person.

00:35:29.960 You've got to figure out their whole life. Who got married to whom? What are the other offspring?

00:35:34.620 Who are this person's cousins? Where did they move? Like it's, it takes a long time. You're

00:35:38.680 right. So this could be happening. We're praying that it's happening and that they have enough DNA

00:35:43.880 in this house to go by. And sorry, I should have asked this, but you were saying before,

00:35:47.720 Even though this guy was covered head to toe, you think he left DNA?

00:35:51.280 I do, especially given the amount of time they think that he was in the house.

00:35:55.660 I just, knowing what I know about how easy it is to get DNA, you know, for example, in

00:36:00.980 the laboratory, we're constantly wiping down surfaces with bleach.

00:36:05.500 We're putting down fresh paper, changing our gloves.

00:36:07.800 I'll go through a box of gloves on like one item of evidence because I don't want to transfer

00:36:12.960 DNA.

00:36:13.480 It's so sensitive.

00:36:14.520 So if you have someone and still rarely, of course, but it can happen even in the laboratory. Right. So if you have these protective equipment and things that are going on in the lab and you can still occasionally transfer DNA, think about how easy it's going to happen in real life.

00:36:33.580 And the longer he spends there, anytime he's touching anything, even that mask that he has on, his DNA is going to be sort of sloughing off the skin cells on that mask.

00:36:46.520 And DNA doesn't just stay on one, you know, it's not going to just stay on the inside of the mask.

00:36:51.260 It's a tiny little cell.

00:36:52.780 It's going to go through to the outside and he could be picking up DNA from his mask, from his clothes, you know.

00:36:59.460 So it's very easy to transfer DNA.

00:37:02.220 And even though he was covered, I do think that there's a good possibility he left DNA behind.

00:37:07.280 Gosh, you make a good point, though, about that welcome, Matt.

00:37:09.820 It's too bad that was still sitting there, right?

00:37:11.740 That was such a good observation.

00:37:13.680 Jeez, what else was left behind that should be in an evidence bag?

00:37:18.160 Susanna Ryan, thank you so much.

00:37:20.400 Absolutely.

00:37:21.000 Thank you.

00:37:21.520 Appreciate it.

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00:40:01.040 James and Will, how interesting was that, right? That was good stuff.

00:40:04.640 Yeah, totally. Fascinating.

00:40:06.900 I learned a heck of a lot, I have to say, from Susanna.

00:40:09.880 She certainly has subject matter expert, that's for sure.

00:40:12.800 Yeah. She testified in 140 cases, so she definitely knows what she's doing.

00:40:16.860 and maybe this really will be the way.

00:40:20.800 So I teed it up with her first

00:40:23.240 because there's a place I'm going with this

00:40:25.620 and it has to do with your theory, James,

00:40:28.140 about this being potentially a South American

00:40:31.780 like B&E crew breaking.

00:40:34.880 See, I'm like in the biz now,

00:40:36.220 a B&E breaking and entering crew

00:40:38.420 because you've been saying on this program

00:40:41.320 for a couple of weeks now

00:40:42.840 that you'd seen video of like

00:40:45.260 these South American criminals who were breaking into homes. So we finally went and pulled what

00:40:52.500 you were talking about. And this is my new number one theory. You've got me. Now that I see the

00:40:58.060 video of these guys, I totally get it. Will, you've got to look at this. We pulled video of

00:41:03.340 what James is talking about. We have a few different episodes. Here's one. This is in,

00:41:08.560 hold on a second. This is video four, which is San Diego. Okay. For the listening audience,

00:41:16.000 they look a lot like our perp. They have a hoodie sweatshirt on. They have black masks.

00:41:22.380 They have gloves. They are pretty much covered head to toe. They're clearly not wanting to be

00:41:27.500 recognized and potentially not wanting DNA. Now here's another guy. He's got like a, it looks like

00:41:34.040 a balaclava that you'd wear skiing over your head. You can only see the guy's eyes. Now here's,

00:41:38.900 here's another group sneaking onto somebody's back porch. There's three or four of them in each

00:41:44.020 of these videos, except yeah, there's like, they're together. Now here, this guy, look,

00:41:48.000 the backpack, the face covering, and there's another one that we're going to show. Um, but

00:41:54.420 they, I'm going to start with you on it, Will, because it's not your theory, but

00:41:58.600 look at this guy. This is in Tennessee. He's got the backpack. He's got the reflective thing on the

00:42:05.360 front of the backpack or a light. I can't tell which. This almost looks like the actual guy

00:42:09.940 who broke into Nancy's. So your thoughts on it, Will? Okay. So my initial thoughts and James and

00:42:15.520 I, we've discussed this at some length and I think we're going to continue to argue the toss on this

00:42:20.640 one. My gut feeling is it isn't a B&E. The simple reason being is the value of the contents of the

00:42:27.280 house and secondly the actual disappearance of Nancy's body itself you know her person

00:42:33.000 it's vanished and without wishing to sound flippant in terms of the the outfits that these

00:42:38.100 individuals are wearing it looks like a standard day in London if I'm absolutely honest with you

00:42:42.120 um we get a lot of people walking around dressed like this um so it's really about the fact that

00:42:48.220 the disappearance of Nancy which which sort of conflicts me to to fully buying into the B&E

00:42:54.720 theory you're on this so you're on the fits program of victimology is where you start like

00:42:59.500 look at the victim what happened to her who would have a motive to hurt her that's how you solve the

00:43:05.040 crime as opposed to and why remove her and why take her away from the property yeah go ahead

00:43:10.880 james well i was going to ask susanna it you know not having a dna match so far and they might have

00:43:18.400 one again they're keeping this very close to the vest what they do have what they don't have

00:43:22.660 But if you came in here on a tourist visa, you flew in from another country, and you came in through a port of entry, we're not going to have your DNA.

00:43:32.100 If you haven't been arrested in the U.S., we're not going to have your fingerprints.

00:43:35.560 So all this DNA, if they're coming up blank, again, to me, that might point toward this theory of it was a transnational criminal group, and that's why we're not getting any DNA hits.

00:43:48.000 As far as the body, again, with Will, I wrestle on that a lot.

00:43:51.660 but I also know that these guys aren't stupid. It's very difficult for you as an American to

00:43:57.740 understand how little human life can be valued. If you're from another part of the world where,

00:44:02.940 and I've been there and so has Will, human life doesn't mean as much. Take her. Why? Because

00:44:07.900 there's evidence on her, just as Susanna pointed out. There's trace DNA evidence all over her body,

00:44:13.580 so they took her. That could be a theory that would explain why they did take the body. But

00:44:20.700 again, you know, it is a theory, but a lot of things seem to, you know, be adding up.

00:44:26.080 Well, here's the other thing that's interesting about the theory. You know, Jennifer Coffindaffer,

00:44:33.060 she's former FBI, and she's a commentator, frequent on News Nation and on X. And she was

00:44:39.560 pointing out, she's a retired FBI special agent, that an FBI spokesperson has said, they said last

00:44:47.660 month that they're posting billboards in cities throughout Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and

00:44:55.260 California with pictures of Nancy. You know, call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Now, you could just say those are

00:45:02.560 the states around Arizona, Arizona and their surrounding states, or you could draw conclusions

00:45:08.740 from this. And here is what she asked. While law enforcement doesn't have the DNA from Nancy's

00:45:16.060 house entirely sorted out, she writes, do they have a DNA contributor's origin figured out? Kind

00:45:21.840 of like the paraben thing we were discussing. Is the person of Mexican descent? This is why I ask.

00:45:28.320 Billboards in California, Arizona, and Texas, particularly Houston, these are all states,

00:45:32.640 she writes, with large Mexican populations. Just because the DNA has not identified the exact

00:45:37.360 person has the sex and ethnicity of any of the profiles in the samples been determined.

00:45:42.420 culturally many hispanic men groom their eyebrows like women that's just a fact she writes she

00:45:49.920 continues i am hispanic so i'm very familiar with this i bet that dna has already provided

00:45:55.940 some answers the fbi did not randomly choose where those billboards should go there was a reason

00:46:03.120 what do you guys make of that i think there's every good chance that they may have some sort

00:46:08.700 profiling there in terms of ethnicity. I think that's altogether possible. My only concern is,

00:46:14.920 and again, that's from principally working in the shadows, as opposed to, say, James and guys in

00:46:20.340 the Bureau, is that when you have a call 1-800-FBI, the likelihood of someone who may be

00:46:28.720 connected to the individual or individuals responsible for Nancy's disappearance may feel

00:46:34.940 a little suspicious about calling that line in the event that they could be captured or they

00:46:39.620 could be identified through that process even though even though there may be assurances

00:46:43.800 that they're well but we're trying to figure out whether there's something to glean from

00:46:47.700 the chosen states right that um arizona yeah texas uh houston and new mexico did i say california

00:46:57.440 yeah arizona texas new mexico and california and in particular concentration around houston could

00:47:02.580 be interesting news. I don't know. And the thing about the eyebrows, James, we all talked about

00:47:07.740 that. He does look like he has especially groomed eyebrows, Nancy's perp. Though, we've also been

00:47:13.200 debating whether it just looks like that because the ski mask may be cutting off the top bushier

00:47:18.440 half that most men would have. Most men don't have perfectly groomed eyebrows like this guy

00:47:22.880 appears to, but it could just be they're kind of sliced off by the mask. Yeah, I remember when I

00:47:28.180 first with you. I thought it might be a woman just based on the eyebrows, but I think Jennifer

00:47:33.240 is making a good point there. And the other thing I just wanted to comment on was that

00:47:38.420 I've seen two stories now, the one you just showed about the billboards, which is called this 1-800

00:47:43.440 general FBI number. And then there was an article in the New York Post this morning about FBI agents

00:47:48.980 re-canvassing the neighborhood, asking about two particular days. And what I'm not seeing here is

00:47:55.640 any mention of task force. I'm not seeing any mention of Pima County. So you would believe that

00:48:01.340 the FBI alone is working this case, which we know is not the truth. So what is happening? Is the FBI

00:48:06.720 getting information? Pima County is getting information. And then how are we getting this

00:48:11.900 together as a symbiotic or, you know, a task force type of investigation? To me, it still seems

00:48:18.420 bifurcated. It seems like the FBI is over here doing something and Pima County is over here

00:48:23.020 doing something. And I don't like to see that at all. I would have loved to have seen that,

00:48:27.760 hey, the task force was here, the Nancy Guthrie task force made up of Pima County, FBI, even

00:48:33.560 Arizona State Police. But I'm not seeing any of that. So, you know, I think it's interesting.

00:48:38.900 Well, what do you make of the fact that the sheriff was out there, Will, a couple days ago saying he

00:48:43.400 thinks he knows the motive in the case and that he's had a strong suspicion about it from the

00:48:47.760 beginning and there's absolutely nothing that's that steered him off of that suspicion what we

00:48:52.740 what is it like why wouldn't you be sharing that i i see to be honest the sheriff is beyond

00:48:59.640 comprehension in my book right now megan i mean i i anything that comes out of his mouth is dribble

00:49:05.320 as far as i'm concerned and there is no substance or credibility so it's just white noise running in

00:49:11.080 the background but to go back to your original question which was about these billboards being

00:49:15.200 put into particular areas. Having worked a lot in Latin America and certainly working on missing

00:49:21.340 persons and kidnapping cases, the one thing I do know is in Latin communities, they can be a very

00:49:26.140 close-knit community as they can be, for example, in Islamic communities in the Middle East. They

00:49:33.120 can be very close-knit. They don't necessarily want to share information with the wider populace.

00:49:38.780 They may know and they certainly tend to know a little bit about each other's business. So

00:49:42.980 those locating of those billboards could be very relevant to specific ethnicities and specific

00:49:49.480 communities but again there is a suspicion of law enforcement there's a suspicion of federal

00:49:54.860 agencies there's a suspicion of the government which which may in itself be counterproductive

00:49:59.800 although it's a great gesture sometimes it can be better to try and disguise these things in

00:50:05.300 in a different way make it slightly less confrontational to invite people to communicate

00:50:11.660 What do you make, Will, of the fact that there's no, sorry, quick point, that there's no picture of the perpetrator on the billboards?

00:50:18.580 Like, there's a picture of Nancy, like, okay, great, but like, aren't we actually trying to find somebody who might recognize that guy?

00:50:25.160 I realize it's not exactly like a high school graduation photo, but there is a decent image of him from the video released by the FBI, and it's not on the billboards.

00:50:34.700 Absolutely.

00:50:35.460 I mean, and again, it's who's serving the purpose here.

00:50:37.760 It's a huge, huge sign.

00:50:39.120 Why isn't there a full length picture showing his physique or as far as we can deduct his physique from what he was wearing, the face, the eyes, even the weapon that he was wearing and the holster that he had that weapon contained within?

00:50:55.380 You know, there's a lot of information about the perpetrator.

00:50:57.740 I mean, in the same ways people will issue or law enforcement agencies will issue photo fits, you know, and impressionist drawings of suspects.

00:51:05.380 Again, anybody worth their soul,

00:51:07.980 if they want to know what Nancy Guthrie looks like,

00:51:10.100 then absolutely, yes, it could be useful to have that picture

00:51:12.860 if she may have been seen with other parties.

00:51:15.820 But why not have both?

00:51:18.100 Yeah, because the odds of this perpetrator,

00:51:20.140 if Nancy is still alive,

00:51:22.500 parading her around in public are probably very slim.

00:51:26.660 But this man is going to have to be out and about,

00:51:28.800 and we presume is out and about right now,

00:51:31.980 walking around living his life. And somebody knows him. Somebody knows him. But not everybody

00:51:36.680 even knows that Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped. You know, Jennifer was pointing out, remember,

00:51:41.340 there was that pizza delivery guy who showed up to deliver a pizza to one of the independent

00:51:46.320 journalists who was on site, courtesy of like, I think, a viewer, who seemed totally unaware.

00:51:50.560 He's walking right into a crime scene. You know, he went up and was like ringing the bell on Nancy's

00:51:54.140 property. He had no idea. You know, most people are not obsessed with the news. A lot of people

00:51:59.260 don't ever watch the news. Those are the happy people in life. And it's very possible that

00:52:04.840 they don't even know Nancy's missing. But if you put a picture, yes, okay, she could be on it. But

00:52:09.560 if you put a picture of this perpetrator big on a billboard, it's tough to pull your eyes away from

00:52:14.160 even if you haven't heard about the case. James, your thoughts? Well, yeah, I think you're exactly

00:52:18.060 right. And I think it's a misstep from the FBI perspective, because to me, missing person doesn't

00:52:24.380 resonate as much as abducted. So if the words on the billboard were abducted and exclamation point,

00:52:30.460 that would get a lot, you know, I mean, missing, right? Missing person means, okay, there's a lot

00:52:35.500 of missing people, right? Well, let's say abducted. And then you're right. Let's have a picture.

00:52:39.540 And you just said what all these other experts have been saying since this case started, which

00:52:43.440 was what? Oh, someone knows this guy. And that's why they went up to a million dollars. Well,

00:52:47.240 someone knows this guy. Well, guess what? It doesn't look like anybody knows this guy or

00:52:51.940 they're not talking. And what, again, the reason you may not know this guy is he's not from here.

00:52:57.460 He is not from this area. So that's the other thing I wanted to ask you about. I raised this

00:53:02.660 in our special yesterday. Nancy Grace had on a tattoo expert, you know, a guy who's been doing

00:53:09.980 tattoos for three decades. And he said, because you can see a little bit of a tat on the perpetrator's

00:53:15.500 wrist. And he took a close look at it and there are shades of gray and black in there. And he said

00:53:22.820 in his experience, that could very well be a Mexican. It could be a Mexican gang member who

00:53:31.080 he said they use this exact shading, like the gray is an odd choice. And he said, I guarantee

00:53:38.020 you that tattoo goes all the way up the arm. He said it actually could go all the way up the neck

00:53:41.880 or possibly even to the face, and he said that is very common amongst Mexican gang members,

00:53:48.560 that choice to shade and possibly even those who have been in prison.

00:53:52.040 He had a lot of thoughts on it, actually, but that was the other thing that made me

00:53:54.980 think of you, James, and your theory.

00:53:57.240 Yeah.

00:53:58.200 Again, it sounds right to me, and where's the body?

00:54:01.700 Well, if they went 60 miles south, went across the border, and put her somewhere, it's very,

00:54:07.700 very, very difficult to find her, and that's why we don't have the body yet.

00:54:11.880 How can you satisfy Will that these South of the Border, you know, gang members would, why would they take her?

00:54:20.840 I can buy into James's suggestion that it is a South of the Border team that have come in.

00:54:26.180 Whether it was from breaking and entering, again, it depends on whether there are particular items, anything that was taken from the property in inclusion, obviously, to Nancy herself.

00:54:37.760 But it could have been a team, and James knows this,

00:54:40.020 sometimes you get professional organised crime groups

00:54:42.560 which will come across the border to conduct a snatch of an individual

00:54:46.360 or to take someone for a kidnapping.

00:54:49.360 My only big question here is,

00:54:51.560 what options have law enforcement taken

00:54:54.780 to communicate with their counterparts across the border

00:54:57.500 to see if there is any gang activity that they're aware of,

00:55:01.740 any intelligence that they're aware of,

00:55:03.520 of any particular group that might have been or could be deemed as a viable prospect to carry

00:55:09.280 out an operation like this i mean sheriff now says that he has good contacts down there which

00:55:13.700 i would imagine because he's his you know tucson's an hour from the border but yeah but i mean i i

00:55:19.960 get the skepticism because in those other cases we were showing patrick mahomes was targeted

00:55:24.000 by these gangs reportedly about a year ago along with another football player i think and

00:55:30.260 Okay, there you go. But nobody ever got stolen, right? So it's like, they're looking to steal

00:55:36.360 your high-end goods, not you. Let me, if I could, Megan, just real quick,

00:55:41.940 go into that. And it is a very, very difficult thing for us to mentally try to understand

00:55:49.320 the activity of these individuals, okay? You, me, Will, we would not break into someone's house at

00:55:55.920 two in the morning, right? Because we just aren't that way. But these folks do. And so when we start

00:56:01.160 to take our rational brain and try to put it into what are they thinking, it's a very difficult

00:56:07.100 thing. I worked a case in Nebraska as an FBI agent where a guy from South America, he shot

00:56:13.440 and killed seven people in a bank. He didn't take a penny. He didn't steal a dime. And when I asked

00:56:19.020 him why, he said, because I could. Okay. Now, I can't even fathom shooting seven people for no

00:56:25.760 reason, but he did, right? And so it's very, very difficult for us to, you know, to try to put our

00:56:30.580 brain into their brain. Oh, why do you take the body? Well, it's hard for you to understand that

00:56:35.240 because you've never been there, right? They do things that will boggle the mind, right? And it's

00:56:40.520 very, very hard for us to mentally go there. That's, yeah, that's just my experience.

00:56:45.720 My mom, who was, she spent her career helping veterans at the VA in behavioral health,

00:56:50.760 mental health. She would always say, I cannot respond to irrational behavior rationally.

00:56:56.360 That's exactly right.

00:56:57.120 That's exactly what you're saying.

00:56:58.320 We're kind of playing a fool's game here because, yeah, we would not be putting on the outfit and the backpack

00:57:05.740 and breaking into somebody's house in the middle of the night, never mind kidnapping a woman.

00:57:10.180 I want to play you guys a soundbite that Chad Ayers said, something he said on our show on episode two.

00:57:17.840 He broke some news here about this case and that he'd heard from, I'm presuming, a law enforcement source

00:57:24.840 that he said is very solid on the ground in Arizona. Listen here.

00:57:29.480 As of about two hours ago, Megan, I can report from a very, very reliable source that is boots

00:57:36.420 on the ground there that the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Office have no leads,

00:57:44.840 no solid suspects. What? And this is from someone boots on the ground that I trust.

00:57:51.020 all right they have no solid leads i can also report that um it has been confirmed this morning

00:58:00.000 and i'm sure we all assume this that every family member passed polygraphs with flying colors the

00:58:06.180 fbi has no suspects so he did want to clarify that it wasn't no leads it was no suspects

00:58:13.580 no suspects and that the family not only passed polygraphs but with flying colors which

00:58:20.000 we released this clip early because we wanted to get the news out there and um you know many many

00:58:27.260 people chimed in saying that doesn't mean anything right like you can't admit the polygraphs in a

00:58:32.180 court of law i'm i'm kind of persuaded by it because just the thought let's take the brother-in-law

00:58:38.900 for example because there's been speculation about him so i thought that this guy in a band

00:58:42.860 and a part-time middle school teacher was able to beat the polygraph seems ridiculous to me.

00:58:48.900 So if he passed that thing with flying colors, I'm much more inclined to say,

00:58:51.780 let's move on from the brother-in-law.

00:58:53.960 But you tell me, James, because, you know, you've had a career in law enforcement and I haven't.

00:58:58.400 Yeah, well, a couple things.

00:59:01.520 Conclusive and inconclusive.

00:59:03.540 Any polygrapher, an examiner is what they call them, a polygrapher,

00:59:07.000 is going to tell you that you're conclusive or you're inconclusive.

00:59:10.440 There is no such thing as, quote, pass with flying colors, end quote.

00:59:14.220 That doesn't happen, okay?

00:59:16.060 That means someone is conclusive, meaning they're telling, the machine is indicating

00:59:20.660 that their answers are conclusive.

00:59:23.420 Then there's inconclusive, meaning they're not sure.

00:59:26.340 Okay, so that's that.

00:59:27.360 And then the second thing is that maybe they don't have anything, but as close to the vest

00:59:33.460 as Sheriff Nanos, we have a story, I think you reported it or I read it, that Sheriff

00:59:38.240 Nanos and two of his top deputies are the controlling people of this case, not the

00:59:43.620 investigator. Well, if they're making all the calls, that would make sense to me while Chad

00:59:48.120 is hearing from law enforcement sources way down the totem pole that they have no leads because

00:59:52.940 they don't know anything because they're being kept at an arm's length. That's my inference

00:59:59.380 from what he's saying. Either they don't really have anything or Sheriff Nanos and his two

01:00:04.540 hand-picked guys are not telling assault and if it if it is sheriff nano is controlling the

01:00:10.380 information then you have to at least put an asterisk after the polygraph information because

01:00:16.140 he clearly i mean in my view was leaned on by the guthries to say the family's exonerated

01:00:21.900 they're not suspects and then when everybody said how can you say they're exonerated when you don't

01:00:27.100 have anybody under arrest he then took steps back from that and said well they're not active

01:00:33.420 suspects at this time it was like all right well which is it right um so i don't know but what do

01:00:38.780 you make of that bit of a scoop there a scooplet as we call it in the news i mean to me it seems

01:00:45.660 i mean i i agree with james entirely on this that uh that there's a huge compartmentalization we've

01:00:51.980 seen this from the outset and sheriff nanos keeping everything to himself wanting to use his own uh

01:00:57.340 dna testing labs you know uh although susanna has obviously vouched for them and said they're very

01:01:02.700 very good and they can do the job but it's point scoring that we're seeing by sheriff nanos right

01:01:08.260 now and i think this issue of substantive leads that he has right now uh again until such time

01:01:15.280 as he just breaks cover and actually tells us what those are megan it it means absolutely nothing

01:01:20.200 and the danger that we've seen historically like you said about the brother-in-law being

01:01:24.680 released that there's big question marks over the integrity of the information that sheriff nanos is

01:01:31.400 sharing and the false hopes that he's potentially sharing. In the same way as he says, we're going

01:01:36.320 to solve this case. He can't say that with any resolute conviction.

01:01:42.000 So we still have no faith in the sheriff, but one of our guests was pointing out,

01:01:48.120 you know, are we just being impatient, right? Because we're still, it's like,

01:01:53.620 we're not even 50 days into the case. And a lot of these big murder cases take

01:01:58.720 months and months and months and sometimes over a year to solve. Like Maureen really believes

01:02:05.380 that he probably knows who he thinks it is. And she believes he's building a cage around this

01:02:13.080 person, you know, bit by bit, like evidence and evidence, but it takes time. So how do you like

01:02:19.800 that theory? Or do you think, James, he's as clueless as he looks? No, I don't know him. And

01:02:26.800 And Maureen, if she believes that, that very well could be happening, and it's methodical.

01:02:33.820 But again, that's a murder investigation.

01:02:36.540 I thought we started out with an abduction, missing person, kidnapping, live body situation,

01:02:40.780 which is, again, like I've talked about, there's a lot more speed.

01:02:45.260 There's a lot more attention.

01:02:46.620 There's a lot more sense of urgency.

01:02:49.280 But if we're building a case on an individual and it's going to take a long time, okay, that is a theory.

01:02:55.440 And I certainly hope that that works out. And I certainly hope we find the perpetrator.

01:03:00.600 But I don't think we're being impatient. I think that the statistics on an 84 year old woman, my friend, you know, Jim Gagliano was talking about this the other day.

01:03:10.380 I think it's less than one percent of the kidnappings in America are of that age group.

01:03:15.820 And so it's extremely rare. And that's why we're all kind of looking like, where is she? Where is this person?

01:03:22.160 This is not the norm. And I don't think we're being impatient at all. And last thing I would

01:03:28.060 like to say is, and I know I probably shouldn't do this, but sometimes if you look at the comments

01:03:32.460 of people who either watch your show or, you know, on some social media that I'm on,

01:03:38.000 you know, they'll say things like, why do we care? This story is being dragged out. Well,

01:03:42.480 we care because we all have, you know, mothers and we all have 84 year old, you know, a lot of

01:03:47.940 us have mothers of that age group, but we don't want to live in a country where an 84-year-old

01:03:52.160 can just be taken and no body, no leads, no nothing. This is America. That's the story.

01:04:00.400 That could happen to my mother or your mother. First of all, it's callous as hell to say that,

01:04:05.760 that people will say, why do we care? Well, that's why we care because I want to live in

01:04:08.720 a country where an 84-year-old isn't taken from her bed at two in the morning and we can't find

01:04:12.960 their bodies yes thank you for saying that i feel the same we've done a lot of work on the case of

01:04:19.320 missing baby lisa erwin who was taken from her crib at 10 months old out of kansas city missouri

01:04:24.940 and it's just she vanished into thin air she was never seen again no leads didn't track anybody

01:04:32.380 down all this time later still missing she could still be out there there was never a body found

01:04:36.380 there was never a perp same thing right will it's like no we can't we can't live in a society where

01:04:41.480 an 84 year old is stolen out of her bed, where a 10 month old is stolen out of her bed. And the

01:04:45.820 Lisa Irwin case, forgive me for putting it this way, but like, at least it made some sense. Like

01:04:50.740 a baby is valuable, you know, in terms of commercial sales, I'm sad to say, but you could

01:04:58.240 sell a baby on the black market. An 84 year old, you cannot sell. So like this one is even more

01:05:03.520 mysterious. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also where your show is doing a huge service to this

01:05:10.200 particular cases and i'm sure james will agree with me and probably most of your other guests

01:05:14.840 that you've had on is the distinct difference between what one sees on tv on netflix of crime

01:05:22.920 thrillers and everything else which gets solved literally within one hour's episode to the reality

01:05:28.200 of what actually goes on the complications the complexities of these cases the various different

01:05:34.020 strands tenuous or otherwise of evidence that then have to be sifted through this is you're

01:05:39.600 You're, I think, showing a perfect profile of how a case like this, which is most unusual and could potentially to happen to any one of us, would be potentially conducted.

01:05:51.100 What are the considerations that are being made?

01:05:52.980 So I think this sort of forensic analysis that you're doing, Megan, on this, I think people should actually pay attention to to actually see what the reality is really like.

01:06:03.600 Well, we're lucky to have guys like you who actually know what they're talking about.

01:06:07.540 One last thing I want to hit on, and that is tomorrow we're going to have on Ashley

01:06:11.660 Banfield and talk about where her reporting is right now in all of this.

01:06:14.900 But one of the things she's been focused on is Annie Guthrie's car.

01:06:20.260 We first learned from Ashley the first week that Nancy was missing that the authorities

01:06:25.020 had impounded, towed, whatever, Annie and Tommaso's car.

01:06:29.680 This is Savannah's sister and brother-in-law.

01:06:31.860 The car was just returned this past weekend.

01:06:35.280 We're talking six weeks that they've had her car impounded.

01:06:39.980 Other cars were taken and returned already from other people.

01:06:43.660 So like well in advance of this.

01:06:45.560 So what does it tell you, if anything?

01:06:48.160 I think that makes sense that they would have it longer.

01:06:50.800 They probably went much deeper with that with regards to any type of evidence collection

01:06:55.720 with all kinds of different tools that, you know, not only Pima County, but the FBI might,

01:07:00.920 you know, be recommending.

01:07:02.120 And therefore, that equipment may be hard to find and it takes a while to get it there.

01:07:07.260 I'm not terribly surprised by the length that they held on to it.

01:07:11.400 They want to make sure. And that makes sense to me.

01:07:14.480 Why they gave up the other vehicles that quick, I'm with you.

01:07:17.300 I don't know. I don't know why these people were let go or even taken in or detained.

01:07:23.200 The sheriff would understand that. But I don't make a lot of it being a long period of time.

01:07:27.880 I think it was just further testing. And that takes a while.

01:07:30.580 And they wanted to make sure they got as much as they possibly could from the vehicle before they returned it.

01:07:35.660 Okay, so that one doesn't jump out at you.

01:07:37.900 To me, that seems like a long time, but I don't know what they do.

01:07:42.220 And, you know, like you point out, it was the thing that Nancy was last seen in.

01:07:46.640 Yeah.

01:07:46.940 I mean, it's a bit like phone forensics, for example.

01:07:50.340 It can be done actually relatively quickly.

01:07:52.540 If it's done in the private sector, you could turn it around within one day.

01:07:56.480 But it's not uncommon for law enforcement to hang on to people's devices to do the forensic imaging on them.

01:08:02.640 And it could take weeks, sometimes months.

01:08:05.800 OK, well, we don't know what direction they're going in.

01:08:11.240 All we know is Sheriff Nanos is now saying he believes he has a motive and that whatever's happened since day one has confirmed his early suspicions about who likely did this.

01:08:21.920 Whether he will share that with us remains to be seen.

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01:09:26.240 You guys are so great.

01:09:27.340 Will and James, thank you.

01:09:28.320 Thanks for being here.

01:09:29.480 Great being with you.

01:09:30.020 Thank you, Megan.

01:09:30.980 Thanks.

01:09:31.900 And thanks to all of you for listening.

01:09:33.380 Tomorrow, as promised, in part four of our series,

01:09:35.540 Ashley Banfield will be here.

01:09:37.560 She's been all over the story from day one.

01:09:40.260 Where does she think the investigation is going?

01:09:43.120 She'll be here to tell us.

01:09:44.260 You won't want to miss that.

01:09:45.500 Thanks to all of you for being with us, too.

01:09:48.520 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:09:50.380 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:09:55.880 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 19, 2026

Genetic Genealogy and DNA Evidence - Part 3 of Megyn Kelly Investigates Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance ｜ Ep. 1276

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