Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC News host Savannah Guthrie was last seen a week ago. She was reported missing by her family on Jan. 31, but no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance, and no suspects have been identified.
00:02:31.800This is a picture obtained by Fox News Digital showing Sheriff Nanos at Saturday's University of Arizona men's basketball game having a grand old time.
00:02:41.900I'm sorry, but that is completely tone deaf.
00:02:44.680I don't care that he needs to blow off steam.
00:02:48.480You know what? You know who really needs a release from the stress of this past week?
00:03:10.080I'm praying, praying every day that this is like an Idaho situation,
00:03:13.160where the police look like nincompoops while on camera, and behind the scenes, they're solving it.
00:03:19.280I'm really praying that's what's happening, and very open-minded to that actually being the case.
00:03:24.140I'm very relieved that the FBI is on scene and working with this sheriff, because just the sheriff's own on-camera mistakes have been plenty.
00:03:34.600There have been plenty of them on very material matters.
00:03:37.720And so I've grown to the point where I really don't know that we should trust his word.
00:03:43.780And I also really do wonder how someone could be that tone deaf.
00:03:46.900If you want to go blow off steam in the middle of a very stressful, busy, possible murder, possible kidnapping situation, you should have dinner with your family.
00:03:57.520You should have friends over or go to somebody's house.
00:03:59.680You should not go out in public and cheer on a sports game.
00:04:05.520The Daily Mail reporting this morning that the sheriff's six-person homicide detective team handling the case lacks major case experience.
00:04:14.360The investigator leading the probe reportedly has been working homicides for just two years.
00:04:18.840The most experienced detective on the team has worked on murders for just three years.
00:04:24.100FBI Director Cash Patel is reportedly traveling to Arizona today, but we're told it's a previously scheduled trip unrelated to the Guthrie case.
00:04:32.420We do know that the FBI is on the case.
00:04:34.700We saw Mr. Yankee co-hosting that presser last Thursday.
00:04:40.440So let's hope one of or all of these law enforcement agencies figure out what exactly is going on there so that this family can have some relief.
00:04:50.460We walk you through the developments over the weekend in this morning's AM update, which is definitely worth your time this morning.
00:04:55.980But to quickly summarize, local Tucson station KOLD received another message purportedly from Ms. Guthrie's captors.
00:05:04.600And another Tucson station called KGUN is reporting now that the original ransom note received last week demanded $1 million by last Thursday.
00:05:18.420And the price went up to $6 million by 5 p.m.
00:05:24.520The threat, either implicit or explicit, no one's sharing exactly what else the note said, is that if they don't get this $6 million by 5 p.m.
00:05:34.780tonight, Nancy Guthrie will be killed because their original note that had the $1 and $6 million demands, we are told, said she was okay, said they had her.
00:05:46.040Now, there's still no confirmation that whoever is writing these messages has or has ever had possession of Nancy Guthrie.
00:06:03.900Notwithstanding that, Savannah and her siblings, Annie and Cameron, did put out a new video Saturday night, which we now know was in response to the second note,
00:06:14.300note the contents of which no one's really sharing.
00:06:32.300I mean, not that it said virtually nothing.
00:06:34.700We know virtually nothing about what it said other than it tried to convince the media and ultimately the Guthrie's that it was being written by the same person who wrote the first note, which was a ransom note.
00:06:48.420We're told that note number two wasn't technically a ransom note.
00:06:51.640But again, we know almost nothing else about it.
00:06:54.160But we are now being told that this video I'm about to show you from the three siblings was a direct response to note number two.
00:07:35.120We're going to break down what's to glean from that with our law enforcement analysts later in the show.
00:07:40.740It's very interesting she used the word celebrate, celebrate with her.
00:07:44.040I mean, I think any Christian knows that's, in this context, could very well be a reference to a celebration of life that you might have after someone has passed.
00:07:55.320The whole tone of it sounded to me more like an acceptance that perhaps their mom is gone and that they will pay to receive her remains.
00:08:11.500I could be totally wrong on that, but so we can celebrate with her.
00:08:15.700I mean, it's such an odd word if they're really like, no one thinks that if Nancy Guthrie has returned, there's going to be a massive celebration.
00:08:22.980I mean, like, that's clearly not what she meant.
00:08:24.680But the graveness of her manner and that of her brother and sister, I mean, completely appropriately grave in that message, in their look, in their tone, in what they said, to me was telegraphing, we know she's no longer alive, but we want her back.
00:09:42.000Investigators reportedly also investigating a nearby Circle K convenience store in relation to either a person or vehicle of interest.
00:09:51.720Now, we had the locals, the workers at that Circle K speak to the media and say, yeah, the law enforcement came by here and they wanted to know about a person who came by here.
00:10:04.840And we showed them a videotape and they took it.
00:10:07.460I mean, again, the law enforcement is coming out saying there's no person of interest.
00:10:12.340Now, we know they're lying to us, OK, like they're lying or they're using those terms as terms of art, person of interest, vehicle of interest, suspect, like official suspect.
00:11:31.980Could be they just got a tip that evening.
00:11:35.060But photography flashes could be seen by reporters who were outside the residence as they have been.
00:11:41.080And law enforcement knew they'd be there.
00:11:43.700Yesterday, we saw law enforcement conduct a grid search and look into what appeared to be a manhole near Nancy's home.
00:11:52.320Like a large, like picture a manhole removed.
00:11:54.460And then you just see this perfect circular opening into the earth.
00:11:59.460And there's been some debate about whether it was a septic tank, although the man putting like materials down there wasn't wearing any sort of a hazmat outfit, which those who understand how this is done speculated meant this was not a septic tank because he wouldn't have been doing that without any sort of mask or gloves or protective gear on.
00:12:59.940If this were your loved one, could you not?
00:13:01.800And having to hold your breath and wonder exactly what might be down there and what they were going to find, it appeared to be nothing, though that's unconfirmed.
00:13:15.100But nothing was seen, you know, getting pulled out of that hole in the earth.
00:13:21.120In a bit, we're going to bring in the best law enforcement analysts onto this show to walk us through the latest.
00:13:26.140Plus, MK True Crime host Phil Holloway is on his way to the scene right now.
00:13:30.280He will bring us exclusive reporting tomorrow.
00:13:32.580But we begin with someone who has broken many of the details of this story, News Nation's Brian Enten, who's reporting live outside of Annie's home right now and was there the other night when law enforcement got there as well.
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00:16:53.260And then when she left, now there's only one security guard just sort of keeping an eye on the house and telling people to stay back.
00:16:59.100Well, it's interesting to watch NBC in the mornings on the Today Show to see what they're reporting on this case because there's no question in my mind it will have been blessed by Savannah.
00:17:10.380There's zero doubt that they are asking her, are you comfortable with this?
00:17:15.960They would not want to upset her or report, get out ahead of their skis or go someplace where she didn't want it.
00:17:21.920And they were the ones who broke the news that the search of Annie's home was consensual as opposed to, you know, via search warrant.
00:17:28.240So to me, I'm deducing, though I can't confirm it as an independent fact, that she doesn't want it looking like her sister or anybody living in that home, like the brother-in-law, are in any way in trouble.
00:17:41.900But that does not jive with Ashley Banfield's reporting about them considering Annie's husband, Tomas, and that he may, quote, be a, may be a prime suspect in this case.
00:17:58.640Um, we're still investigating that too, Brian, uh, and whether the brother is coming under brother-in-law is coming under the scrutiny of law enforcement.
00:18:07.780And all I can tell you is that I have reason to believe Ashley Banfield was onto something.
00:18:12.680I don't know that he did this, but I do believe her reporting that they are taking a very serious look at him.
00:18:18.460And, um, he's been out of the picture.
00:18:21.020I mean, he has not been in any of the videos.
00:18:25.840He hasn't been seen since, I think it was Tuesday of last week.
00:18:29.480We got some photos of him outside the house here.
00:18:31.920He's very recognizable with this big beard.
00:18:34.280Um, and he was outside with his wife, Savannah's sister, Annie, and they were in the car together.
00:18:40.240But it's been, it's now been almost a week.
00:18:42.240And something else interesting, you mentioned how they, uh, went, the authorities went and, and retrieved the surveillance video from the gas station.
00:18:49.300And that they were looking for someone that gas station is a circle K and it's right around the corner from Annie's house.
00:18:56.980It's right around the corner from Annie's house.
00:18:59.000And it's, it's where it's positioned is where you would have to drive to go from Nancy's house to Annie's house, which I think is really interesting.
00:19:06.940It's literally like one minute away from here.
00:19:21.320I interviewed yesterday, uh, a former homicide detective for Pima County, uh, who was there for 20 years and is now retired.
00:19:27.920And it's interesting what you were reporting in the beginning of your show.
00:19:30.120I mean, he says the same exact thing that, uh, there's been so much turnover there that it's a mess at the sheriff's office.
00:19:36.200Uh, and that most of the homicide detectives have like two years experience.
00:19:40.180And so he's concerned a lot of the veterans like him have left just because they've been upset with the, with the department for different reasons.
00:19:46.640And there was a different sheriff and then another sheriff came back and it's, it's been a mess there.
00:19:50.760Uh, but he was telling me that in his 20 years there, he never, they never once administered a polygraph.
00:19:56.600That wasn't something that they did as a sheriff's office ever, not even once, but I know, but I don't know if now that the FBI is involved, you know, maybe they would be doing that.
00:20:07.680Um, I don't know, because while, while they suggested it was a joint investigation at the Thursday presser, FBI, Pima County, um, my understanding is it's Pima County running herd on this, that it's their investigation, their running point.
00:20:22.240And so that, that may tell us some, some unfortunate things.
00:20:27.140Here's the other thing I want to know.
00:20:28.720Um, the, the Sunday discovery that Nancy was missing, uh, allegedly came down to someone at her church noticing.
00:20:37.580She wasn't there and calling the family, which then sent the family to Nancy's home, which led to the discovery of the crime scene.
00:20:44.240However, it looked, they haven't really told us what was inside the home.
00:20:47.400Um, the daily mail and you also, we talked about this last week reporting that Nancy Guthrie was actually attend.
00:20:53.640It was no longer attending the church that they said she was.
00:20:58.140And that in fact, she'd been going virtual for the past five years since COVID that she'd been, she'd been participating in the live stream that this church offers.
00:21:06.760Um, leading us to ask, how would anybody have noticed that she wasn't on the live stream?
00:21:10.960Because it's not like a, a zoom where you can see people joining.
00:21:15.500Now we did actually try to join it this weekend and realize that there's a chat.
00:21:26.940The thought of my, my mom, not only joining a live stream, who's 84, but actually then getting in the church chat during the mass and chatting.
00:21:34.820Like it's, it's an impossibility, but maybe Nancy Guthrie is a lot more tech savvy than my 84 year old mom could be.
00:21:42.720Um, so, so I want to know whether the investigators have tracked down the alleged parishioner who made the, who was purported to have made the phone call.
00:21:52.900Brian, do we know whether that's happened?
00:21:56.180And that's been one of the strange things about this is we've all, me and then all of my other colleagues, we all talk about it out on the street.
00:22:02.680We've all been trying to figure out this church element.
00:22:06.540Everybody has talked to the pastor and the pastor has said that she went to the church, but that she hasn't come back in person since, since COVID that she goes virtually.
00:22:14.820And no one seems to know that she went to another church and the church over the weekend at their service, you know, the pastor talked about Nancy and it appears that's the church she goes to.
00:22:23.480And what I thought was interesting, Megan, is at the last press conference, the sheriff never brought up the church again.
00:22:28.380It's almost like he said that the first time right after this happened, but then no one ever talks about the church anymore.
00:22:34.600So I don't know, you know, the sheriff made a lot of weird off the cuff remarks and mistakes.
00:22:39.240Like, I don't know if that's just something he said initially.
00:22:42.680And now there's another reason that the family was concerned that has nothing to do with the church.
00:24:16.820And the second note, while we don't know exactly what it says, there are some indications that it, you know, based on what Savannah said in her video, the second note may have alluded to Nancy not being okay.
00:24:30.000And that's why I'm hearing they're not calling it a ransom note.
00:25:51.340Saying, give us our mother back so we can celebrate with her.
00:25:54.180Again, that word celebrate sticks out like a sore thumb.
00:25:56.820And it's the only way we'll have peace, which is another word associated with, I think, people who are, you know, grieving, having a settlement of the grief.
00:26:09.600Even if it's a sad settlement, but just a settlement.
00:26:13.300Like, you know what's happening and you can be at peace with it.
00:26:16.040To me, that's what she was telegraphing.
00:26:19.680So, wait, but, Brian, the $4 million would make more sense to me than, four in six makes more sense to me than one in six.
00:26:27.080Because I have to tell you, you know, I've had this conversation behind the scenes with a few different people.
00:26:32.760Let's face it, a million dollars is not much for Savannah Guthrie.
00:26:36.220She can lose that easily and not really even feel it.
00:26:41.020So, like, if that were the initial demand, I think they would have just paid it.
00:26:46.200They would have just paid it on Thursday.
00:26:48.320Four million is a different, that's a different, I mean, that's a lot more.
00:26:51.940Yeah, and I'm confident in my reporting, the person who I spoke to saw the note himself.
00:26:56.400So, I'm sure it was four million and six million.
00:27:00.020And I can't remember if I talked to you about this last time.
00:27:02.320But the other thing that was in the first note that was so alarming to the FBI, there's two things.
00:27:08.120One, the location of the Apple Watch inside Nancy's room was very, very specific.
00:27:14.820And the other thing is they specifically referenced a damaged smashed floodlight in the backyard,
00:27:22.240which has since been removed up on the back of Nancy's house, which is smashed.
00:27:26.100So, those two things were spot on in the first note, which appears to be why they've been taking all of this so seriously.
00:27:34.580But, Brian, don't you think, like, okay, so the floodlight is visible from the outside.
00:27:39.360You know, people were crawling all over the property.
00:27:41.700And especially, you know, Monday, I think the first notes came Tuesday.
00:27:45.360So, you would have just had to see it on sometimes Sunday or Monday.
00:27:48.820Or prior to that, you know, potentially you could have seen it prior to that if you were a contractor taking advantage of the family's pain here and you'd been inside the house.
00:27:56.100You might know about that floodlight and you might know where she keeps her Apple Watch at night.
00:28:00.540The thing that I can't get past is if I stole somebody and I needed to give proof of life so that I could get millions of dollars,
00:28:13.780I would ask that person questions that only that person would know the answers to.
00:28:20.100And I would put that information in my note.
00:28:22.480Like, information above all would be proof of life.
00:28:26.800Not where, like, who would say where she keeps the Apple Watch or that a floodlight had been damaged as their,
00:28:35.340aha, it is I, I've got your person, proof.
00:30:35.500But now we're talking about somebody who's taking advantage of the family's pain and not necessarily the person who's causing it.
00:30:44.320Or is all this just a sideshow, Megan?
00:30:46.680I mean, I've been thinking about this all weekend.
00:30:48.480You know, is all of this just something that the FBI has to look into and that Savannah and her family have to respond to because you put yourself in their shoes, you know, just in case, how could you not?
00:30:58.700What if in the 1% chance it is true, you know, you want to respond, you want to try.
00:31:03.780But is there a whole other side of this investigation happening that, like you mentioned at the beginning, we just don't know about?
00:31:10.440I mean, I'm coming here to the house, you know, at 9 o'clock at night on a Saturday out of nowhere.
00:31:15.760The only thing that I'm skeptical about that, though, is that it was these three sheriff's deputies who were just kind of like, I don't know.
00:31:23.760I mean, I saw the raid at Nancy's house.
00:31:26.000I shouldn't say raid, but I saw when the FBI team showed up, it was like insane.
00:33:14.920Number one, the other possibility at the search in Annie's home, which was by consent, according to NBC, and only had the three guys in the beat up car show up to take pictures.
00:33:29.100The sheriff said that earlier last week.
00:33:30.820They're cooperating and we want that to continue.
00:33:32.640Maybe it's we cannot show up FBI style and do this because we do not wish to telegraph to anybody in the family that they are anything other than victims in our eyes.
00:33:45.360And we don't we certainly don't want to go in guns blazing with the full FBI treatment and telegraph that we think this may be a crime scene.
00:33:52.480So we're going to keep it on the down low.
00:33:54.680We're going to keep it casual so that they're not regretting giving us the consent.
00:34:09.640That's all I could think when they were when they were out looking in the, you know, whether it's a water tank, whatever they were looking at that with the manhole cover and the grid search renewing again and searching again in Nancy's home is.
00:34:23.500Now, like now you're going to do that now.
00:35:36.580But it does make you wonder whether they've seen something via an email, a cell phone record or something to suggest that Nancy wasn't kidnapped, that she was killed.
00:35:50.900I think there was something in the second note.
00:35:53.680I think I think the message, the reason they're being so careful not to call it a ransom note and it was a message.
00:35:58.720I think there was something in that note that led Savannah to be very specific in her wording there.
00:36:08.580So do you think, Brian, then that that I mean, like your gut, I know you don't know, but do you think that the notes are coming from the actual perpetrator?
00:36:53.500I mean, but at the same time, if there is someone else involved and you go back to Banfield's reporting and I don't have any of that reporting, but if it is some kind of inside job or someone who knows the family, are they also treating it with kid gloves and saying we got to check every box here?
00:37:09.800We're not rushing into this because this is Savannah Guthrie and we're about to like humiliate this person.
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00:39:20.580When your kids head out for the night, we know that their safety is important to you.
00:39:35.000As we've been reporting, it is very difficult to obtain information from authorities in this case who are still claiming there is not even a person of interest.
00:39:46.980But one thing that's clear is the Guthrie family believes there is at least a chance the ransom notes are from Nancy's captor or captors.
00:39:57.420There's no other explanation for the three Instagram videos from Savannah's account where the siblings ask for further communication about how to get their mother home.
00:40:06.520To help us analyze all this, we wanted to bring in a seasoned hostage negotiator.
00:40:10.780And it's hard to find someone with more experience than our next guest.
00:40:13.480Commander Daniel O'Shea is a retired Navy SEAL who served as the coordinator of the hostage working group for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq from 2004 to 06.
00:40:24.140O'Shea managed more than 400 hostage incidents in his time in Iraq.
00:40:28.780And by the time he left, kidnappings had dropped to the single digits.
00:41:12.660You know, I saw hundreds of these pleas from families from all over the world to try and bring their loved one home that was taken hostage by the likes of al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups in Iraq.
00:41:24.800So it's troubling because it's the pain in English of not knowing.
00:41:30.380And, you know, it brings back a lot of flashback of a lot of memories.
00:41:37.480We had cases where there was a deadline set.
00:41:39.440Presumably, we know this this group harmed, you know, Miss Guthrie in the initial abduction because there was blood left at the scene.
00:41:48.000And we only know what blood was left outside.
00:41:50.040We don't know anything about what's done been done forensically inside the house.
00:41:53.980So that's that's my biggest concern is that the propensity for violence from the get go is why everyone should be very concerned.
00:42:01.160And not so much because of the deadline, but because that the group's doing this has already shown they're willing to be violent with an 84 year old woman.
00:42:11.140So, I mean, the big one of the big questions here is, are the people torturing the family with these notes the same people that have or hurt Nancy Guthrie eight and a half days ago?
00:42:23.480I was saying to Brian Enten in the first segment, Dan, I just have a really hard time believing the people writing these notes were involved in Nancy's kidnapping or whatever happened to her, because I was saying that if I had Nancy Guthrie, if I were if I went to the trouble to kidnap somebody and then wanted to prove to somebody that I had her, I would not be referencing some damaged floodlight or where her Apple watch was in her home.
00:42:49.760That's that's bullshit. That's the kind of stuff you manage to see through a window.
00:42:54.880And to me, it sounds like you're trying to sound like, you know, more than you do.
00:42:59.700If you've got Nancy, you can ask her anything, anything that would prove to her three children, you know, better than anybody that you actually have her.
00:43:10.160You don't have to do a picture. You don't need a video.
00:43:12.680You just need her to tell you things only the children and the mother would remember from their childhoods.
00:43:20.000A hundred percent. And that's I you're not you're you're not a H&R, K&R background or hostage negotiator.
00:43:27.280But I had that suspicion. What do we from almost day one when the first ransom note came out?
00:43:31.920First off, they sent the ransom note to TMZ, a tabloid network, and then the local news media.
00:43:37.800All right. That's not how can our kidnap for ransom works.
00:43:41.100If kidnapping is a business around the world and the groups that do the kidnapping, they have the prize.
00:43:45.840They grab the prize and they want to keep that prize protected.
00:43:48.980And they want to demonstrate to the prospective buyer, payer that we have who you're looking for.
00:43:54.900Let's start the negotiation. And you come out with a large number, that four million initial to six million, the latest ransom.
00:44:01.680And then that's not outside the norm range for an American because that's you know, this is a big business.
00:44:07.040And because obviously Savannah, Savannah Gunther, you know, big news network, morning show host, she's going to have the resources to probably come up with that kind of money.
00:44:15.660And that's what they're counting on. But then you've got to negotiate in good faith.
00:44:19.000And from no way, shape or form has the group that is claiming to hold her been operating in good faith and the fact that they haven't been able to provide a substantive proof of life or even trying to submit some AI version of it, which could have been, you know, suspect that they're trying to do this.
00:44:34.460But I, I am suspect that the group that has her is the group, the group that took her response for abduction is the group that is sending these messages.
00:44:43.100They may be related, but I really think this is part of the show and drama to drive up this new news media story.
00:44:49.340And why is that happening? Let's go to the underlying motives.
00:44:52.860And the motives may not be money. And I don't think it's money they want here.
00:44:56.060I think they want the news media attention, focus on this case to maybe get some of the news stories off off the net and then go.
00:45:02.960Why did they target, you know, Samantha Gunthry?
00:45:06.420And you have to look at, well, she's not a controversial figure like yourself or say a can of someone where you have people on the left or right.
00:45:12.060I mean, just being honest that you've got enemies, you've got people that don't like you.
00:45:16.540But, you know, Samantha, Savannah Gunthry is, you know, I don't watch your morning show, but I know who she is.
00:45:21.400And she's like a very nice lady. And, you know, what's the most controversial thing she's ever done?
00:45:26.880Maybe some of her interviews in the past.
00:45:28.440Well, I mean, she's no, she's not controversial, but that that doesn't rule out some freak stalker who just interpreted some report she did as an attack or as some sort of, you know, that that element is still alive and well around her.
00:45:42.660And we can't rule that out, that it's some stranger who's obsessed with her.
00:45:46.140Oh, of course, of course. But then why are you going after the mother unless you're trying to hurt her?
00:45:51.320So who has a reason to want to hurt Savannah Gunthry? Wouldn't it be a lot? The list would not be long.
00:45:56.000But go to some of her interviews. And I'm not trying to I'm not the one coming up with this.
00:46:00.360This conversation I've had, you know, with virtually everyone I've talked to, especially offline, when you don't have a two minute set, you know, segment on a news channel.
00:46:08.600So she interviewed a lot of the Epstein victims, in-depth interviews with Virginia Gouffet and some of the other women.
00:46:16.160And what came out a week before the this abduction days before the Epstein files all over the news?
00:46:23.460And now what is taken over the news media? And maybe that was done intentionally.
00:46:26.200I'm not saying that's the case, but there's more to this group.
00:46:30.740I do not think it's a traditional kidnap for ransom.
00:46:33.280They're not demonstrating any of the things that are normally associated with people that are in the kidnapping business.
00:46:38.600To make money. And I think it's a media attention.
00:46:41.840But you have to go into it that there are evil people out there that will do terrible things to one of the human beings.
00:46:48.280I doubt that, you know, we had a woman in Iraq. Her name was Margaret Asan.
00:46:52.120She was the director of Care International.
00:46:55.000She was a five foot one, 180 pound Irish woman who'd lived in Iraq for 20 plus years and married a local.
00:47:01.700She she lived the fourth people of Islam, which is our cot.
00:47:05.180She gave alms to the poor. She fed the poor.
00:47:07.340She was a there we go, a beloved woman.
00:47:23.620And no matter how good you are, that doesn't protect you from someone that wants to hurt you.
00:47:27.160So if you are advising this family at this point and we are told that the second note did not contain proof of life, that they're revealing very little about it, but we are told it did not contain proof of life.
00:47:38.540And we know the first letter said they had Nancy and claimed she was alive, I believe, but did not have proof of life.
00:47:45.560You saw the video from the family begging for such proof after they received the first note.
00:48:25.020And, you know, it's only come from experience because I think that someone evil enough to hurt an 84 year old woman makes me lean.
00:48:33.660OK, my initial thoughts, again, a week ago was a cartel involved in this because the close, you know, proximity to the Arizona, the Mexican border.
00:48:41.180The fact that I know the cartels have no problem with kidnapping.
00:48:52.920Excuse me, to the cartels, because they have a propensity to violence.
00:48:55.740They have kidnapped young social media influencers in Mexico and murdered them.
00:49:00.120So they're not above above the thought.
00:49:02.280But I again, I always started with the notion, especially when I would talk to the ambassadors from these countries where they had hostages.
00:49:10.080I would always be up front with them and say, sir, you have to begin with the presumption that your citizens that have been kidnapped by this group claiming to be affiliated with al-Qaeda or whoever, that they're not coming home.
00:49:23.040You have to start with that presumption.
00:49:24.300And the fact that this group has not shown proof of life, and I really think the media is what they're going for.
00:49:31.860So we had deadlines come and go without al-Qaeda.
00:49:34.580Jill Carroll, the young Christian science reporter, 28-year-old girl, American girl, she had deadlines come and go.
00:49:41.220And she was ended up brought home after 83 days of captivity because of pressure put on by special forces, you know, the unit that went out every night to hunt for her.
00:49:51.000And she was brought home safely because the unit, the kidnapping ring finally said, threw their hands up and said, maybe if we give her up, these bad dudes will stop coming after us.
00:50:02.540So the family, I would strongly recommend to not pay the ransom, not pay any of it, because I don't think, I think that'd be money going into the wind for nothing.
00:50:13.520Because I don't trust, there's no trust and good faith between this group and the family.
00:50:21.940And they're just torturing Savannah and her family.
00:50:24.320And I would be blunt enough to speak to the family that let's start with the presumption that your mother did not survive the initial abduction.
00:50:32.800And this may have been a home invasion that went wrong, may have been a stalker, as you said, to do the same.
00:50:38.580But I would recommend strongly against paying the ransom today by that deadline.
00:50:44.040What an agonizing decision to have to make at their most vulnerable and weakest.
00:50:51.360Of course, you'd be at your weakest right now.
00:50:53.340You're not at your strongest mentally or emotionally in the wake of this tragedy.
00:56:19.940But I don't think for one second, Chad, that President Trump would have said that if he hadn't been briefed in a way that was promising and that he was feeling like we're getting there.
00:56:28.980The thing that I found most interesting was if I were Savannah Guthrie and I heard that, I would pick up the phone in a second and call him.
00:56:35.760He called her last week to tell her whatever you need.
01:27:07.680I still want to think the investigators are looking to rescue her or at least have her released.
01:27:12.900And I'm assuming the task force has bifurcated those looking at everyone around Mrs. Guthrie, you know, housekeepers, all the people we talked about before.
01:27:21.240Then the other side of the team looking at a possible kidnapping.
01:27:26.160I'm hoping they're bringing the CIA in and NSA in terms of you can put anonymizers on your computers.
01:27:32.380You're pretty good for local law enforcement, even federal.
01:27:35.140But I'd like to think that our system, our federal government, you know, the spooks out there, the spies know how to truly penetrate a, you know, an anonymizing type system and take this back to Eastern Europe or sub-Sahara Africa, wherever these demands are coming from.
01:27:52.660And I'm not getting anything away here.
01:28:28.180Obviously, the three-letter agencies, listen, we found Osama bin Laden, right?
01:28:35.120And we had the technology to find the most well-known violent terrorist in the world.
01:28:41.360But if this video, you know, is more of just return the body, we want our mom, we want to have a celebration of life.
01:28:47.540Why do we still have this 5 p.m. or 5.30 p.m. deadline of Monday if for some reason, if one of the letters said that and then they are giving us this intel?
01:28:57.440I mean, I get it, not everything's rosy and, you know, it's kind of confusing to me.
01:29:03.560Well, and would you recommend they pay?
01:29:06.900Here we are, it's almost 2 o'clock Eastern.
01:29:28.520I mean, Savannah, definitely Savannah's not unsophisticated.
01:29:31.840They're very well aware that this could and almost certainly would be flushing $6 million down the drain that you will never see again that some con man will take and leave.
01:29:41.640And they might be back next week with more bites at the apple.
01:29:44.300I mean, you know, you could you could do this game in perpetuity.
01:29:48.980Like you waited too long, whatever it because you got the feds involved.
01:58:54.680Um, we have some things, I think, that will maybe come out reasonably soon from DOJ or FBI or whoever that could be, uh, could be definitive.
01:59:23.800I, he could be talking about that camera, Jim.
01:59:26.960What if that camera did have a recording function and they actually have somebody on tape who also might not have banked on the rooftop cam?
01:59:37.380Yeah, and again, I'd want timestamps on when the camera was found and when, you said it was Friday night that the president made that statement?
01:59:45.220Uh, we're looking it up right now, I guess.
01:59:50.780Uh, so that could be an important fact, not just that a camera was found.
01:59:55.080I don't think President Trump would say something, oh, they found one extra camera.
01:59:58.460But there was some kind of a recording, uh, aspect to it.
02:00:01.360And boy, I, neither Chad nor I, I don't think we've said anything really negative about law enforcement, but if somehow they missed this camera for the first five days or so, that's not a, that's not a good sign.
02:00:13.360Especially if it has recording capabilities, you know, in the cloud somewhere, either way, the thing wasn't, uh, smashed.
02:00:19.580I mean, even if it had a thumb drive in it of some sort, depending on how they work.
02:00:23.780But yeah, you don't get these things for wildlife.
02:00:27.380Maybe you get a notice on your phone and, oh, look, a little coyote out there, but you want to be able to wake up in the morning and see what the heck happened with all the critters, you know, overnight.
02:01:07.260She loved to watch the wildlife, you know, or, and maybe even, who knows, like it could have been a family member who installed it.
02:01:14.320I mean, in my family, if something's getting installed at my mom's house, it's either my brother, our handyman, or the service provider who brought it, you know?
02:01:25.420So it's like, it's a small circle of people who would, would have done it.
02:01:29.240Well, I think too, in critical situations, Jim, being the behavior guy, we all handle stress and trauma differently.
02:01:36.540And so at this timeframe, your mother's missing, is it possible they didn't even think about that camera up top with everything that's going on?
02:01:51.240Like, if your, if your mother's missing, it is critical that you account for every video device that could possibly have caught her abduction for authorities.
02:02:06.660Like, I agree, but could it, could it have popped in their head later on?
02:02:10.360The only possible explanation is they didn't know about it.
02:02:26.500And if I don't pay the subscription, I'm not getting the photos in a file sent to that app.
02:02:33.080But all of my cameras, all those cameras on, on the wildlife side type of, you know, trail cameras do have an SD card in them that can be removed.
02:02:46.100I'm not saying that's what type of camera was utilized, but if it was, most of these cameras, even if she did not have a subscription, most of these cameras have some type of SD card inside of them.
02:02:57.700That, I mean, that's really interesting.
02:02:59.640Even if it weren't the camera, it does make you wonder, what did President learn on Friday?
02:03:04.380President Trump learned, we've learned in the past couple of hours.
02:03:16.420So the second, the second note came on Friday.
02:03:20.360It's possible that person, again, because we're not sure if President Trump was referring to finding the suspect who hurt Nancy or the notes, the person behind the notes.
02:06:08.180Um, it was 2021 that Nancy was looking for a camera so she could watch outdoor wildlife, which is not as great as it being like 2023 or 2024.
02:06:21.360You know, the bloom comes off the rose on that kind of thing, and maybe you let the subscription lapse, and, you know, maybe if you first had a recording service by year five or four, you're kind of like, eh, I'm not that into it.
02:06:36.120Um, last week there was a report that Cash was going out to Tucson, and then they said, no, that's not right.
02:06:42.740But they said he is coming next week, and they said, but it's pre-planned.
02:06:47.940I don't, I got, I got some doubts about it, Jim.
02:06:50.840I like, it just so happens that the FBI director is going to Tucson, Arizona, of all places?
02:06:56.780I mean, it's a border town, but that's not really the FBI's purview.