00:00:00.540Bet MGM, home of the two-up early payout, presents Footy Prime.
00:00:04.540The stage is set. The sides are poised. Now is the time.
00:00:08.220Your favorite sportsbook and your favorite podcast together at last.
00:00:11.720Footy Prime and Bet MGM welcome the world.
00:00:14.680Come join the party for the best insights, analysis, and share in the global celebration right here at home.
00:00:20.000Listen to Footy Prime daily on your favorite podcast platform.
00:00:23.300Download Bet MGM app. Make it legendary.
00:00:25.940Must be 19 plus. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.
00:00:30.540Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:42.240Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today marks six months since
00:00:47.900the disappearance and alleged kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, which would go on, of course this case
00:00:53.280would, to grip the nation. Thousands of investigative hours by police, countless tips,
00:00:58.760reporters chasing down every nugget of potential new leads, and yet what happened to her remains
00:01:04.280a mystery. Coming up, we will dig into Savannah Guthrie's new message on the case and why some
00:01:09.520believe her message sounded like her words are still being very carefully chosen. Why is that?
00:01:15.860Plus, we'll go through new statements from the sheriff about the DNA, an update on the FBI,
00:01:22.220and finally, the text of that first ransom note, the one they believed was real, is out.
00:01:28.560First, though, we begin with new information on another mystery making massive headlines,
00:01:33.760and that is the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells out of Mississippi.
00:01:37.760Someone close to this investigation telling our show that Nolan was not the only boy who
00:01:44.060went over with this group of kids that day to this island, celebrating the 4th of July,
00:01:50.160to stay behind when the first boat turned back into shore.
00:01:55.100So there was another boy. We know his name. We're not going to release it because we have no desire to cause more trouble for this kid. They're all being accused of murder. The more names you put out there, another boy's teenage years are ruined for nothing, for absolutely nothing based on no proof. We're not going to participate in that.
00:02:13.940But we do know this young man's name and we know that he, like Nolan, also stayed behind. This was
00:02:21.040not some crazy decision by Nolan. They were beating on me. They were threatening my life,
00:02:26.140so I didn't go. No. He was reportedly talking to a girl. He wanted to stay behind and talk
00:02:32.120to the girl more. And one of his buddies also chose to stay behind. This was not an unusual
00:02:38.200event at all. And now more of Nolan's friends are speaking out, putting the lies to the nonsense
00:02:44.960that's been spreading about them online. At the same time, speculation is running wild regarding
00:02:51.220audio, allegedly of some of these teens on the boat. Now in all, there were three boats that
00:02:57.660this group was on when they went over to this island. Okay. We'll call the boat that Nolan was
00:03:04.040on boat number one, since that's obviously the most relevant one. Boat number one took
00:03:09.280Nolan and a bunch of others over to this island. And while they were anchored right off the
00:03:13.840island, it started to take on water. They realized they had a problem. They said the
00:03:17.760bilge pump was not working and they knew they needed to go back in. They had to go back
00:03:22.080to the mainland, which is what they did. Nolan chose to say goodbye behind. So did this
00:03:26.460other teen. And there's no question that these teens on boat number one were concerned about
00:03:34.300the fact that the boat was taking on water as any of us would be because they called in to the Coast
00:03:40.820Guard. It was technically a group called the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources,
00:03:49.000which is at least the one that had the audio recording of the call. So I don't know if they
00:03:52.800dialed Coast Guard and that's where their call was directed, but it was the Mississippi Department of
00:03:56.420Marine Resources that had the recording of the call, which has been obtained by local TV station
00:04:01.380WLOX and other outlets. This call was placed at about 4 p.m. local time to the private marine
00:04:09.200towing company SeaTow. Okay, so that's how it came in hours before Wells was reported missing
00:04:15.580by a friend and his mom. So we've got the audio recording, and it, to me, sounds like a bunch of
00:04:22.620boys on a boat worried about their boat sinking. But if you are one of the people who's been
00:04:28.120calling those boys murderers for weeks now, you might hear something very different.
00:04:34.380You might imagine a world in which you hear them talking about Nolan being dead
00:04:39.460while they're on the boat and perhaps panicking about covering up their alleged crime.
00:04:46.380You might then run with that if you were an irresponsible media outlet
00:04:50.300without reporting that there is video out there showing boat number one and Nolan not on it.
00:04:58.900Not on it at the time of the call. So, I mean, that would be somewhat irresponsible,
00:05:05.200would it not? And then we learned some more facts about the woman behind the alleged enhanced audio
00:05:13.260that she performed on this tape that has people saying they can hear these boys asking, quote,
00:05:20.940is he dead? And to say this woman has a checkered past is to understate what has been turned up by
00:05:28.420her, on her, by independent journalist Sarah Fields. So we're going to talk about all of this
00:05:34.420with Caitlin Becker. She's a reporter and host of the New York Post's podcast, New York Postcast.
00:05:41.540She's been all over this case from the start.
00:05:44.660When you sign your insurance policy for some brokers,0.92
00:08:45.580This is the original that came in, SOT1.
00:08:57.940detail assistance vicky speaking how can i help you hey we're at the west tip of horn and uh
00:09:09.860our village pump stopped working we're going we're sinking can you all please come we have a
00:09:14.480membership all right of course how far is the word coming up sir can you give me a
00:09:20.340here is um janetta brantley who enters in she says she's an audio engineer and she's0.92
00:09:27.760going to fix it and so that we can hear all the voices better. Hopefully in this one we can hear
00:09:31.820them at all. And here's what she released in SOT 2.
00:09:35.000hey we're at the west tip of horn and uh our village pump stopped working we're going
00:09:59.960we're sinking can you all please come we have a membership
00:10:02.460okay so she helpfully puts captions below what she hears including we killed him
00:10:15.260oh well that's great uh it's all on tape because she says she's she has enhanced it to where she
00:10:23.220can hear all of this and um then you have you have Jeanette Brantley this woman releasing a message
00:10:31.460saying, listen for yourself, this is what I believe is heard. Here's top three.
00:10:36.200That dialogue represents what I personally hear as an audio engineer while processing and
00:10:41.340repeatedly reviewing these sections. I'm pretty much providing it as a listening reference,
00:10:46.260not as a declaration that my interpretation is the only possible interpretation.
00:10:51.340And that's important. I want you to listen for yourself, use headphones if you have them,
00:10:56.520listen closely and decide with your own ears what you believe is being said.
00:11:00.840But once I separated the dispatcher from the boat and started concentrating exclusively on the background dialogue, what I believed I was hearing became extremely difficult for me to process emotionally, and I needed to take a mental break.
00:12:16.320I mean, then that would be an utter bombshell.
00:12:19.940But you tell me, Caitlin, whether there is any reason to believe,
00:12:24.280other than Jeanette's made up audio that Nolan was on that boat and these boys had expressed that
00:12:33.560they had just killed him. At present, there's no evidence that we have certainly uncovered in our
00:12:38.080reporting that suggested that Nolan was on that boat at the time that this call was made. As for
00:12:43.900the audio, she has her own opinions. I have no reason to doubt her sincerity when she said,
00:12:50.100listen you know this might not be the only thing decide for yourself she has her own opinions she's
00:12:54.620welcome to those i personally listened to it without reading any of the captions any of the
00:13:00.920text several times i heard some of the same things not all of the same things i heard clearly cover
00:13:08.220it up but there was something wrong with the pump so there is a very reasonable explanation that
00:13:13.820perhaps they could be trying to cover up some sort of whole issue whatever was taken on water
00:13:19.180That would make sense to me. The Bart, I heard that. And we know that there was a guy, another kid in another boat named Bart that came to help them tow and get the water out.
00:13:29.280Get the fuck up, I heard as shut the fuck up for the guy that was on the phone.0.97
00:13:34.580The stuff in the middle was too garbled, even with any kind of enhancement for me to discern what they said.0.99
00:13:41.540They could very well have been saying any of those things that she suggested. It's probably they didn't say any of those things.
00:13:47.920I didn't hear it either way. And she enhanced the audio, but the audio is out there. So that means
00:13:52.960anybody can enhance the audio. And I have not heard any version of that where I can clearly
00:13:58.500understand what is being said in the background. And that for me as a journalist is the most
00:14:04.320important part. I don't know. I'm going to get to her credibility problems in one second. They do
00:14:10.120exist. They are plain as the nose on your face. Janetta does not come to this with clean hands
00:14:14.980at all, in my opinion. But let's just play the audio up so that the audience can hear it unenhanced.0.62
00:14:37.260Detail assistant, Vicky speaking. How can I help you?
00:14:39.940Hey, we're at the west tip of Lorne, and our village pump stopped working.
00:15:35.020She says, meet Janetta Brantley, the self-proclaimed audio engineer who took a raw boat distress call and, quote, enhanced it until people started hearing phrases like, you killed him and Nolan, wake up.
00:15:45.400She has repeatedly accused Nolan Wells's friends of murdering him and has publicly called for their arrests.
00:15:52.140So she comes into this with an agenda.
00:15:54.660Her self-edited audio has now taken the Internet by storm and essentially become a dog whistle for people who are already targeting and harassing Nolan's young friends.
00:16:03.120Janetta and her wife, Ashley, described themselves as serial entrepreneurs, filmmakers, holistic
00:16:10.300herbalists, social media influencers, and founders of a Houston-based community called
00:16:27.680She pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor terroristic threat charge in Brazoria County
00:16:33.800and was sentenced to three days in the county jail.
00:16:36.220Court records also show she later entered in no low contendery, meaning no contest plea,
00:16:41.380to a Class B misdemeanor theft charge involving property valued between $50 and $500,
00:16:46.940for which she again received another three days in jail.
00:16:50.180The theft case file also references a trespass warning issued to her by Popeye's fried chicken in Alvin, Texas.
00:16:59.940Meantime, this person is this is the person the Internet has chosen to trust while accusing grieving teenagers who have no criminal history that we know of whatsoever of murder based on an edited audio file that she created herself.
00:17:15.920Before people continue spreading accusations, writes Sarah, that have targeted innocent young adults, they should consider the credibility of the person who manufactured the audio that started this latest wave of online harassment.
00:17:27.200Brantley did respond in a post on Instagram and basically admits everything that Sarah wrote.
00:17:34.360Says, I've never hidden my past. I've never denied it. The misdemeanor charges are more than 20 years old.
00:17:40.360They don't define who I am today. So she's not denying any of that.
00:17:43.760They also don't prove that I committed any crime.
00:17:47.060They don't because you were sentenced to jail in both cases.
00:17:50.100So, like, why'd you go to jail if you didn't commit the crimes?
00:18:38.920So in any event, she claims her focus has always been on one thing, justice for Nolan Wells, also attacking these boys over and over and over again.
00:18:46.700So that's that's about where we are on the audio.
00:18:49.740No one has any idea what it actually says, Caitlin.
00:18:53.120And Janetta's claim to understand it is based clearly on her glasses that see nothing but darkness when she looks at these boys who are Nolan's best friends.
00:19:04.940I wish that she would have just released an enhanced version of the audio with no captions, no statements, no nothing, no opinions.
00:19:13.360She's welcome to her opinions, of course.
00:21:38.440And social media users like Jeanette, users like Jeanetta, began speculating about him being guilty of murder after hearing his name mentioned in this garbled audio.
00:22:00.220Bart Jr., when a nearby boat suffered a mechanical malfunction, Bart Jr. gave advice and direct aid to the distressed vessel.
00:22:07.680As part of this, he boarded the distressed vessel, removed its transom plug, got back onto his boat and towed the distressed vessel for a short distance.
00:22:17.680While Nolan's disappearance and death came to light, Bart Jr. freely and fully cooperated, when it did, with law enforcement investigating the tragedy.
00:22:25.360He sat for interviews. He answered all the questions asked. He shared all of his recollections from July 4th.
00:22:29.800He compiled a list of potential witnesses, including passages on the boat he was piloting to share with the investigators.
00:22:34.960he allowed his phone to be viewed. He shared requested photographs and videos from that day
00:22:38.540with law enforcement. He permitted the inspection of his boat and GPS device. He did all of this
00:22:43.160without counsel, without requiring warrants, and without hesitation. At no point in this process
00:22:48.280has Bart Jr. ever been identified as a, quote, suspect. But this has not stopped people from
00:22:53.200engaging in dangerous speculation, nor has it stopped outright fabrications. With each new
00:22:58.740name mentioned by the media or on social media, a new mob immediately argues this person must
00:23:02.820somehow be culpable. Facts are invented out of thin air. AI is used to distort or create
00:23:08.020photographs, videos, or audio. People begin to draw unsubstantiated conclusions and reckless
00:23:12.700threats follow. This week, it has been Bart Jr.'s turn to be accused by thousands of online strangers
00:23:18.480who do not know him, do not know any relevant facts, and do not care about our community or
00:23:22.880the truth of what happened. Threats were made as recently as yesterday on Bart Jr.'s life
00:23:28.340without attempting to correct the record.
00:23:31.180They say the first cease and desist and spoliation letter is being issued today.
00:23:35.280That's a threat saying, don't you get rid of a single email, text, or letter you've written0.97
00:23:40.360since you decided to pick on our boy, because we may be suing your ass for defamation,0.90
00:23:45.960to an online user who originated many of the falsehoods against Bart Jr.0.95
00:23:50.260Then they write, we know this moment will pass.
00:24:32.020She usually posts videos from her bed.
00:24:34.100She has a JD from Loyola Law School, also a comedian and an actor from New Orleans.0.87
00:24:39.260She wrote on Insta after receiving the cease and desist letter, sue me and you gone piss
00:24:43.820off 31 million more people who are already quite upset.
00:24:48.280I have the feeling, Kimbra, they're not afraid of you.
00:24:51.680But this is just the harassment is out of control.
00:24:55.960I agree. This particular turn in the story, I mean, if this woman has a JD, if she went to law school, she should know that you don't accuse people of crimes online or in public without any sort of proof or backing. I mean, that's that's something.
00:25:13.700And Bart Jr. is not a public figure. He's not. That's something like lowest standard that's going to be applied. Exactly. Much easier defamation. Exactly. That's something that you and me like journalists, we are taught that immediately when we go into this business or study it, how careful you need to be with how you talk about people when in regards to any sort of misdeed or crime or accusation in there.
00:25:35.720It's just it's so basic. That's something that she she should have learned. This one, I have been trying to approach this case, Megan, as objectively and impartially as I can as a journalist, because I don't want to color my reporting in any direction based on my own personal opinions.
00:25:53.440This particular turn in the case to me is so wild because the assumption is a random friend on another boat happened to come over, get on this boat and participate in a murder and then get off and go home.
00:26:11.260It just it doesn't make a this does not make a lick of sense to me.
00:26:16.000this it sounds like this kid bart ended up seeing a group of friends in distress on the boat came
00:26:22.060over his version of the story and the version of the story that the kids in the boat seem to be
00:26:27.140giving to dispatch of the tow company is we're having this issue with the bilge pump he came0.60
00:26:31.660over and wherever it said damn it bart whatever word it is i don't think it was damn it it sounds
00:26:38.640a lot more like it was the guy on the phone telling him what to do with the pump so that0.78
00:26:44.700they can stop taking on water. That's what it sounds like to me as objectively as I can
00:26:50.380possibly listen to this. And people trying a murder case in the public sphere with no clear
00:27:00.720evidence of a crime yet, or maybe ever, and no actual perpetrator is wild. It seems like
00:27:08.780The public has taken sides as prosecutor and defendant in this, and they are arguing this
00:27:16.040out with absolutely no merit in either way. We don't know what happened, so we can't accuse
00:27:22.800people of a crime that we don't know has been committed. That is basic. That is so, so basic.
00:27:29.660That's not to say that an investigation, as you and I have talked about the last time I was on
00:27:34.140the show with you, the investigation from law enforcement and even an independent investigation,
00:27:38.040if that's what the family wants, needs to happen.
00:27:40.440But people are sitting here trying this homicide case
00:27:44.760in the public sphere, thinking that they know best
00:27:48.440and they're completely unrelated to the case.
00:28:08.040Yeah. I want to play this tape. Brandon Tatum, police officer, now former, I assume, because he's running, he's now doing a podcast.
00:28:17.580But he has been all over this case. He's been doing a great job. And he obtained video of the boat, the to-be-towed boat, after that dispatch call.
00:28:32.160And he played it on his show. This is it. Video one. We're looking at it.
00:28:35.480and you cannot see nolan on this boat at all you do not see a bunch of hugely panicked boys
00:28:45.180you see a bunch of boys who look like nolan did with their bathing suits on and no tops
00:28:49.680and they're standing around looking at their boat this is it's not exciting it's not i i i'm gonna
00:28:57.000guess if someone had just committed a murder it would look a little bit more chaotic on on board
00:29:01.420that boat. But there's been zero evidence that that Nolan was on that boat. And TMZ is reporting
00:29:10.080the same. He was not on the boat like it's knowable. There were witnesses to went to help
00:29:14.960the boat who were there when the boat got back to the mainland. Literally no one is claiming other
00:29:19.160than these weird Internet sleuths that Nolan was on that boat. He was back on the island. And we
00:29:25.660know that nolan wound up dead he watched his body washed up dead the monday after that saturday 4th
00:29:32.020of july back on the island on horn island he he was not back on the mainland so i don't know why
00:29:39.020they continue to beat this other than they're just throwing out empty speculation and it's not even
00:29:43.420like they have any evidence like oh my gosh there is one witness saying those boys on boat number
00:29:48.760one did it you know it wouldn't make it a lot better but it would make it a little better
00:29:52.560for all this rampant speculation to be out there but there's nothing there's literally
00:29:56.880nothing these boys seem to have been no best friends that he's been that he was on the boat
00:30:01.560just yeah exactly right so now one other thing um so brandon tatum spoke with warren hudson
00:30:10.020um and we played some of that last week when you were on uh warren had said nobody touched
00:30:16.840nolan's phone like all the guys put their phones on board the console of the boat when that boat
00:30:21.980went back to the mainland that i guess they just forgot to give it to nolan or he forgot to ask but
00:30:26.620they did return to the mainland with with nolan's phone among others and now you have benjamin crump
00:30:34.240speaking out and talking about that statement okay by warren hudson to brandon tatum listen here
00:30:41.800one of the key aspects early on here council has been nolan's phone uh originally uh with why was
00:30:49.600it on the boat? Why was he separated from it? There are explanations about that. Was anything
00:30:54.720done to it? One of the friends responded to that suggestion. Let me play it for you and get your
00:31:01.040response. None of us had a reason to go through Nolan's phone. I mean, there's multiple phones
00:31:05.620on the boat. And the boat was having issues. Why would our concern be getting on Nolan's phone or
00:31:11.340something? I mean, I don't even know Nolan's password. None of my friends do. We had no
00:31:15.220reason ever to get on nolan's phone and look at anything i don't even touch nolan's phone none of
00:31:20.360us touched nolan's phone until somebody took off the boat and put it in watch truck and then no
00:31:25.880one no one touched it until we handed it back you know to the mom that was at my buddy's house
00:35:41.120And I don't know what his ethnicity is, but he looks mixed race or he doesn't look white.
00:35:47.220And he came out and said the following because he said,
00:35:50.180Ben Crump doesn't know what he's talking about because he's suggesting that Nolan was the only black kid on Horn Island or at all in their friend group.
00:35:57.500And this guy, Trace and Shepard, is very much in their friend group.
00:36:00.700First of all, let me start with Sada Levin here.
00:36:03.420It's backstabbing from a sense of a community that I thought I had with my skin color.
00:36:09.300And, you know, they stay so strong together.
00:36:26.800and then one more for you uh he's talking about ben crump here and the nightmare that he's
00:36:32.320injected into this investigation let's watch what's your take on uh on nolan being you know
00:36:39.740presented as like the only black kid in a group of all these white boys it blows my mind because
00:36:44.720it's our friend group is not a friend group that sees race i never once thought man they look at
00:36:51.400different man they i'm kind of an outcast to them so with crump punching this narrative it's wrong
00:36:58.840do you think benjamin crump being involved in this case made it better or worse
00:37:05.880a hundred thousand times percent worse we back each other everybody i've seen we back each other
00:37:12.280i think he's taking the grieving parents and manipulating and turning this and making it sound
00:37:18.440all bad all bad because there's nothing like that at all yeah i i think so too so where
00:37:28.440where does that leave us caitlin are we are we days from getting the um the toxicology report
00:37:35.480back are we weeks where do things stand typically toxicology reports can come back in roughly about
00:37:41.000six weeks so we are hoping that it will be out sooner than later and all indications do
00:37:46.760seem to be that we're going to get those answers. I mean, the concern is, you mentioned it a minute
00:37:53.860ago, and this is my main concern too, that no matter what the autopsy says, even if both autopsy,
00:38:01.400the independent, the state won't say the exact same thing. If they say homicide, the people who
00:38:06.640think it was not a homicide will not be satisfied. If it says accidental drowning, the people who
00:38:11.940believe this poor boy was murdered are going to not accept it. So no matter what, this is not
00:38:18.140going to go away. This is not going to get better. This family is not going to be able to grieve his
00:38:24.100life however it shakes out. Whatever the medical examiners say will not satisfy these two camps
00:38:33.500of people who are screaming, I want truth, so long as the truth fits the narrative that I believe.
00:38:39.500And I think that's a problem on. I have to challenge you on that. I have to challenge you. I do not think that there is a side demanding that there's no homicide finding. There's not. I think there's a side demanding that that this be ruled a homicide. And then there's a side saying, let's just follow the facts where they lead. It's not like there's some angry mob of whites being like there was no homicide, period.
00:39:00.340Right. I think there's a there's a group that's not completely driven by race essentialism like the Ben Crumps of the world.
00:39:08.040That's saying, can we just wait? Let's wait to see what the toxicology report is.0.81
00:39:12.520Let's let the investigation play out that there's a lot of people where I am and I think where you are, which is there is no proof that boat one left with Nolan,
00:39:24.100that Nolan does appear to have stayed behind on Horn Island and was alive and well when he did that.
00:39:29.180and that the boys who left on boat one clearly had nothing to do with nolan's demise what happened
00:39:34.780to nolan on that island whether it was self-inflicted or inflicted by somebody else
00:39:38.380is still a mystery and must be investigated and i will wait and hear from the investigators
00:39:44.320to tell me what they find i'm sure they are interviewing katie the girl he allegedly was
00:39:49.780speaking to and any other girl he was talking to and if there was any sort of a drug or alcohol
00:39:54.520component going on on horn island i'm sure the cops are going to talk to every single person
00:39:58.580involved in that to find out. And if the toxicology report shows some level of
00:40:04.020intoxication by something, they're going to want to find out exactly who provided those materials
00:40:07.980and in what quantities. All of that is typically done in any investigation. It didn't happen in
00:40:13.520this investigation because of Ben Crump. It's what police do. And I think that the only side
00:40:19.620that won't accept the official word is the Ben Crumps of the world who have just determined0.99
00:40:25.940that this has to have been a bunch of evil white people from Mississippi determined to kill0.98
00:40:33.640their black friend for no reason whatsoever, because that serves his interests, his pocketbook1.00
00:40:40.220and this bizarre agenda he's chosen to spend his life pursuing. The rest of us are sane people.0.86
00:40:46.960Yeah, I think the biggest issue for me is that two things can be true. All the evidence seems
00:40:52.600to point to the fact that he was not on that boat with these boys and they went back, that doesn't
00:40:56.920mean something nefarious didn't happen to him on the island. And if everyone's only looking
00:41:00.860at one narrative to be the answer to that, then that's a problem. The only possibility is that
00:41:09.540he was killed and he was killed by these people removes any other question that perhaps something
00:41:14.700happened on the island later. But we don't have those answers and we're not going to get them
00:41:19.220until we know how he died when he died that's the most important part to me is the when because if
00:41:25.860the medical examiners come back and say that he died between 7 p.m and 11 p.m that completely
00:41:31.860removes the the narrative that he could have possibly been on that boat it does seem that
00:41:36.260there is one kind of kind of nefarious crazy narrative that's being pushed that these kids
00:41:41.400murdered him and what dumped dumped his body none of the evidence suggests that to me it just doesn't
00:41:47.360It really doesn't. But I'm not ready. It would show. Exactly. And I'm not ready to say that nothing bad happened to him.
00:41:54.200But I don't believe that. The medical examiners would know. They will. Hopefully.
00:41:57.080The medical examiners would be able to see evidence of interference with his body.
00:42:01.920They'd be able to see if he had been strangled. They'd know if he'd been stabbed, if he'd been shot, if he'd been physically attacked by these guys.
00:42:09.460The medical examiner would know. In fact, my impression is there was relatively little damage done to his body in the ocean
00:42:15.580versus what we would normally expect to see.
00:42:18.420So we're not even dealing with a situation
00:53:23.920And that's really the labs are doing it all.
00:53:26.080They're looking at genealogy, but they're also looking at specific pieces of evidence that they're hoping to get enough Kodai to say, this is who we're inking it.
00:53:42.260I mean, I'm thrilled to know that they're actually, Maureen, examining genetic genealogy because we don't know what DNA exactly they're examining, but they must have taken DNA off of various places inside the home.
00:53:55.260And if they found at least a profile that matches itself, you know what I mean?
00:54:00.480They can tell, OK, this same person, we don't know who it was, could have been James Fitzgerald.
00:54:04.840But we can see that this same man was here at the bedpost, was here at the front doorknob, was here at the back door.
00:54:15.660Now we're talking because from that, they really can do potentially genetic genealogy to find a name.
00:54:22.820It is great news, and it's news that we've been waiting for.
00:54:26.040And it also explains this long delay between the actual abduction, kidnapping, whatever we're calling it, to where we find ourselves right now.
00:54:35.740And this type of DNA, depending on what part of the world this person is from, can take six months or even longer.
00:54:44.460But they are, I think they're going to be getting there.
00:54:47.340And a lot of it also had to do with the fact that the DNA was a mixture of DNA, which, as we've learned, is very challenging to separate sometimes.
00:54:57.000He also said that the DNA is in labs across the country.
00:55:10.140I think every day we're closer only because we have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of lab work, scientific work with DNA, working with not just our lab or the FBI lab, but labs across the country.
00:55:28.140All of these labs work together. They're sharing information. They're trying their best to find a way to get the science to work, to put together a variety of different pieces of DNA evidence to come up with a suspect.
00:55:44.920All right, Fitz, can you help us understand that? Because what does he mean? It's not just at
00:55:51.320Quantico and it's not just at that lab in Florida that we know he really likes and that has been
00:55:56.320verified as a good lab by people like you guys. But now labs across the country, he says, in terms
00:56:02.480of lab work, scientific work with DNA, labs across the country we're working with. And all of these
00:56:09.720labs work together, sharing information, trying their best to find a way to get the science
00:56:14.700to work? Well, he put an S on the word lab, so there's at least two. We don't know how many
00:56:23.220labs are being referenced here by the sheriff. But some of these labs, they do have different
00:56:28.140levels of expertise, different levels of experience, and very sort of niched or nuanced
00:56:34.580elements of the DNA analysis they go through. So maybe they felt for, and they may be taking the
00:56:41.200same specimens of DNA, splitting them up, I mean, you know, some labs doing this, and then sending
00:56:47.820them out to other labs and let them work at simultaneously. That doesn't seem to make a
00:56:52.440whole lot of sense to me, but at least dividing up the different actual specimens of DNA samples
00:56:58.460and sending them to these different labs that can all handle this in somewhat different ways.
00:57:04.020Some may have an international focus that other labs don't have. I worked a case in Lancaster,
00:57:09.920Pennsylvania, a murder from 1975 as a profiler in the early 2000s. And just a few years ago,
00:57:16.840it was solved through familial DNA. At least one lab was involved here. And then actually,
00:57:22.320they traced the guy, his family back to a small town in Italy, where a lot of people then migrated
00:57:28.160into Lancaster, Pennsylvania over the years. And I was glad to be a part of that case. My profile
00:57:33.620wasn't far off from the guy who actually committed the murder. But these cases are amazing and what
00:57:38.460they can do. I grew up in Philly, the famous boy in the box case was finally resolved about three
00:57:43.340years ago, thanks to familial DNA, and genealogical DNA, all that related. So there may be different
00:57:49.580experts at different labs doing this. And even some of the people who do the actual familial work,
00:57:55.240they're not like DNA experts in and of themselves. They know the basic processes, how it works. What
00:58:00.720they're really good at is going through birth records, and media records and other type of
00:58:04.740census factors and that's how they come up with the second cousin as was referenced earlier or
00:58:09.500someone like that and started working it through there winnowing through all these people and you
00:58:13.960have like a funny uncle or someone in your family that always kept to himself maybe has a familiarity
00:58:18.300with tucson maybe here's a you know a little bit heavy set and they put two and two together
00:58:23.280they may get a hundred suspects so they can narrow it down to five they've really accomplished
00:58:27.580something and hopefully that's where they're going megan can i add something i'm now of the
00:58:32.320belief after having interviewed CeCe Moore multiple times, the godmother of this practice,
00:58:38.260genetic genealogy, that, and she told me this, you can't have a serial killer anymore in 2026
00:58:44.140because this practice is just too good at identifying the DNA. But I'm now of the belief
00:58:50.840that as long as a person leaves any DNA at a crime scene, they can catch you. They can catch you.
01:01:21.000Eventually you find your way over to Connecticut
01:01:22.980Kit and Megyn Kelly. And then you find out, oh, my God, did she buy a ticket to Tucson on that
01:01:27.380day? She did. Now you're closing in. Now you get my DNA directly from a discarded, you know,
01:01:32.680Coke bottle or, you know, tissue, whatever. And then then you get the person. This is kind of
01:01:38.160what happened with Brian Kohlberger, too. But anyway, my whole point is I'm worried with him
01:01:44.740saying so many labs and so much DNA that this is still needle in a haystack territory, that they
01:01:51.700don't have a dna profile that they're linking to the perp well like any other investigation you have
01:01:57.860leads that go to the top of the pile and leads that you work your way down to after those leads
01:02:03.160are exhausted and i think in this case what he's saying and hopefully what he means is that there
01:02:09.460are a number of people that they have done familial genealogy on and they have proven found
01:02:15.140out who they were because they have to go all the way back to common grandparents and then work their
01:02:20.380way back down this way to the current generation. And then they have to work in concert with law
01:02:26.120enforcement to go out and interview relatives of, as you mentioned earlier. So it's law enforcement
01:02:32.360working with these genealogists, working with the DNA labs. And the reason they have these
01:02:37.940numerous labs is because there is, for example, one lab in California that specializes in getting
01:02:45.220full DNA profiles from a single hair, an unrooted hair, before you had to have the root.
01:02:51.800Otherwise, you only get the mitochondrial, which is the mother's line of that. So, you know,
01:02:56.820there are other ones that specialize in touch DNA, which is the one that Nano sent the original
01:03:02.380DNA evidence to. And as long as it's an accredited lab, they have to jump through a ton of hoops to
01:03:08.120get that. It's almost like getting a four-star rating for a resort. You have a lot of work to
01:03:13.380do to get to that point. And so if these are accredited labs, then their protocols are very
01:03:20.300similar or the same to the protocols of the FBI lab, and they work in conjunction with one another
01:03:26.860very, very well. So they're probably working down this list, and they may have gotten very close to
01:03:34.240the actual perpetrator's DNA. And it's not like there's only one team of genealogists, but even
01:03:40.740if there are four or five teams of genealogists, if they're going back to some tiny village in
01:03:45.360Croatia and trying to find where everyone went, it takes a long period of time and a lot of manpower.
01:03:54.560But he didn't say it's with the genetic genealogists now. He said it's at multiple
01:04:00.440labs, so much DNA at multiple labs. And I'll tell you guys what Matt Murphy told me, who you guys
01:04:06.680know. But he's he's amazing. He's a lifetime prosecutor. Now he's doing some defense work,
01:04:12.580mostly for cops. But he's put a lot of bad serial killers in jail and was tough to be in a courtroom.
01:04:19.800And he says this. Nanos insisted on using a smaller lab in Florida and refused the offer
01:04:25.280from the FBI to use the lab at Quantico. No DNA test should ever take six months.
01:04:31.300and in case involving a kidnap of a vulnerable person no dna test should take six days he says
01:04:39.540nanos is a clown and the da laura conover soros backed career defense attorney who was elected in
01:04:47.2002020 is even worse there's never been an adult in that room i mean i completely take him at his0.98
01:04:54.300opinion because it's it's a true he's a true expert on all of this he's somebody who actually
01:04:58.700would have to get DNA to make his cases. It does seem like it's too long fits. It seems like my gut
01:05:04.940tells me that they they don't have anything. And that Nanos, you heard in that long rambling sound
01:05:11.440by like, why should I say she's dead? What good does that do? OK, I get it. And we don't know0.94
01:05:15.720she's dead. So you shouldn't say she's dead. But everything he does is just to sort of make it look
01:05:20.460like he's still juggling balls in the air where I just don't believe him. Well, yeah, I mean, and
01:05:27.900And Megan, I was on with you within two or three days of the abduction itself.
01:05:33.440And we thought, you know, days or now or a week we'd have this over with.
01:05:37.020I can't believe we're at the six month point.
01:05:39.220I think the sheriff somehow feels, you know, quantity supersedes quality.
01:05:44.400So to say that it's multiple laboratories.
01:05:47.000Well, that makes it sound like, wow, they're working even harder and getting these and getting these particular tests done.
01:05:52.580They really didn't ring. So true, Fitz.
01:05:54.660Quantity over quality is, you know, a lot of people's excuses for making themselves or whatever the hell they're doing look right.
01:06:01.920So the bottom line is, I don't know if it's two labs, four, ten.
01:06:06.120You know, I think Maureen and I earlier tried to explain they do have different levels of experience and expertise at these labs.
01:06:12.080But it's really just find the one right lab and the multiple teams of these genealogists, familial genealogists that can then take that to the next step.
01:06:21.800And again, this may in fact solve the case, but we can be talking about hundreds of separate samples of DNA, of touch DNA throughout that house.
01:06:32.740I'm sure they gave it up and opened the house up within three or four days.
01:06:35.940And, you know, they were kind of criticized for that.
01:06:37.980And they said, yeah, we better go back in and start swabbing the entire house.
01:07:05.880We reached out to the FBI to find out the status of the investigation.
01:07:09.460They punted to the Pima County Sheriff's Department saying any update will come from them and kind of suggested that's who's still running herd on this.
01:11:21.200okay fitz as our linguist what do you make of her message uh what is very clear in that message to
01:11:30.080me is uh two words you won i think this person this was a personal grievance the whole kidnapping
01:11:38.120of i should say abduction of nancy and in in in so many words they're actually in specific words
01:11:45.840a nightmare that will not end, agony, the ache for her, which, of course, no one is denying
01:11:51.640is true on the Guthrie family part. But she's basically saying, you've made your point.
01:11:56.880You've done your thing. You showed us. Then she didn't use those words, didn't make it
01:12:02.520confrontational, then kind of backed off and said, look, please do the right thing. I actually said
01:12:07.700that at least two times. There's always a way home. And it's clear now. And I'd like to believe
01:12:14.620that Nancy is still alive and among us too, but the odds are she is not. And all they're asking
01:12:21.440for at this point are some kind of, you know, GPS coordinates of where perhaps the body could
01:12:27.380be found. Nothing more, nothing less than that. And give the family some sort of closure. But
01:12:32.900essentially, this is a concession on the family's part. And it may have been hinted at in earlier
01:12:37.660messages. And I do believe the FBI and probably the profilers, some of them who I trained back
01:12:43.800in the day uh uh you know they helped her craft this she's smart enough clever enough she can put
01:12:49.820the words together herself but they made sure that you know they were they were framed in certain
01:12:54.200contexts so not to offend anyone she basically paid him a compliment you you know you did your
01:12:58.480thing but um but we're still hurting you won please at least give us this part and uh and
01:13:05.760we'll all move on from there meaning tell us where nancy can be found i mean it is interesting when
01:13:13.300you think back to the fact that the ransom notes were addressed to savannah right we've learned
01:13:18.900that over the past couple months that the two ransom notes or at least one of them was addressed
01:13:23.040dear savannah so it does appear she was at the heart of this crime um she the daughter and her
01:13:30.740fame her celebrity and obsession her money who know we don't know we don't know what the motive
01:13:35.280was but again here she comes out and annie's not there the brother's not there it's just savannah
01:13:42.920on cam once again saying we're in agony it's almost like to your point fits i want you to
01:13:49.900know you've succeeded i'm in utter agony you've succeeded in seriously hurting me and i remain
01:13:55.580extremely hurt like this is something the guy needs this is something she and the fbi have
01:14:00.840calculated will be helpful for him to hear maybe not to have pity on her but as you put it to
01:14:10.340believe he's been victorious you know i don't know that he's gonna have pity on her because
01:14:15.380he stole her mother and apparently killed her or allowed her to die but like if he feels he's won
01:14:22.280you know if he feels like she had rejected him by not responding to his letters that she may or
01:14:27.940may not have received i've told the audience before when i had my very bad erotomaniac stalker
01:14:33.420um who got a very very serious sentence for this case um he not only was he contacting me directly
01:14:40.820but he was leaving letters for me all over washington dc like in national cathedral at the
01:14:47.160at the cia hq or you know outside of it like and thinking i was receiving these you know this is
01:14:53.040not ordered thinking so right so this guy may have felt rejected by savannah because she didn't
01:14:59.080respond to a letter he left you know at abc headquarters instead of nbc who the hell knows
01:15:04.580um but i see what you're saying like it's her like forgive the term but like showing the belly
01:15:10.760like okay like you know uncle i give up you've you've beaten us just throw us a bone now but
01:15:18.880you know the one thing maureen and i'd love to get your thoughts on all that too but we have to
01:15:22.680discuss the phrase we've done our part. We've done our part. What does that mean? When I heard that
01:15:29.500and when I talked about it to the other homicide detectives on my podcast, Tim Murphy, one of the
01:15:36.540investigators said, it sounds to me like they paid the ransom, you know, because we've all talked
01:15:42.000before about we know that some of these notes, we know about these notes that were sent to TMZ
01:15:47.580and to other places, but we also knew that there was a possibility that some notes made it to
01:15:52.860Savannah without being, you know, presented to these live outlets where everyone would hear
01:15:59.020about them. So I'm wondering, and I wanted to ask Fitz actually, is there a chance that she did
01:16:05.160receive information from the offender and did in fact pay the part of the ransom or pay what they
01:16:14.660asked. And now she said, hey, we've done our part. Step up and do what you said you were going to do.
01:16:22.420And since you're asking me, Maureen, yes, of course, there's a chance for that.
01:16:25.580We have no evidence or information to us on the outside. And Megan and Brianette and other people
01:16:31.620have some pretty good sources. I think that information would have come across. What exactly
01:16:36.500savannah meant by we did our part that is unclear but at least she's probably responding to one of
01:16:45.780these communications that came in hoping against hope that the person who actually took her mother
01:16:51.260was the one responsible for at least one of those communications i know we're calling them notes
01:16:56.200whatever whether they came to savannah the media uh what have you but uh to me it's still
01:17:02.040inconclusive that they were, in fact, ransom, legitimate ransom demands by the person who we
01:17:08.520saw on the next camera, take Nancy. So she's still saying she responded and did everything
01:17:17.420that she's supposed to do. So please, quid pro quo, whoever you are, whether you wrote these
01:17:23.020letters, notes, communications or not, tell us where our mother is. That's all we're asking.
01:17:27.400But the interesting thing about we've done our part, I agree with your friend, Maureen, the homicide detective. That's how I heard it, too. Like, did they pay? Did they did they belatedly pay the six million dollars like this week? And that's why she pops up to say we've done our part.
01:17:43.740And maybe the entire everything around that those words was window dressing like the whole purpose of the message was that we've done our part.
01:17:52.500But I do recall that Harvey Levin and the other two local Tucson stations that received the original ransom note have the Bitcoin address like they had to provide how you can pay us and they provided an account into which she could deposit the Bitcoin.
01:18:13.320It was going to be $4 million if she paid by Thursday, and it goes up to $6 million if she waited until the following Monday, eight days after Nancy was taken.
01:18:21.640And there was that period where Harvey Levin, because he saw the Bitcoin address, was updating us on whether anything had been paid.
01:18:31.520So I don't understand Bitcoin, but apparently, if you just know the address of somebody's account, you can check it to see whether there's been activity in it.
01:18:40.720and he was aware that, remember when the FBI had like 100 bucks or 300 bucks deposited in there to
01:18:50.000see if the perpetrator would take it? He knew. We found that out because of him. So I feel like
01:18:56.500Harvey enjoys being on television breaking news about this case. So I feel like he would have
01:19:05.480come out to say, holy shit, we we got a live one for you. You know, six million bucks was just0.99
01:19:12.080deposited into the Bitcoin account. It could be the FBI said something's going to happen. Keep
01:19:16.460your mouth shut, Harvey. And they would have had to go to the two local Tucson stations to say that0.92
01:19:21.160as well. Keep your mouth shut. But I don't know. That's a lot of activity for Harvey to stay0.97
01:19:25.900entirely off cam. He doesn't seem to be able to help himself to go out there and just titillate
01:19:30.380us with something he knows that we don't know. He's been very quiet lately. And he did also say
01:19:36.660during those interviews you just referenced that he talked to the FBI about potentially ponying up
01:19:43.020the money himself to put some money in there to see if they could follow it, you know? So it's
01:19:48.600not like the other guy. That's in response to the other guy's demands that like, I've seen them in
01:19:53.500Mexico and I just want one Bitcoin to tell you where they are. Keep going. But he's open to that
01:19:58.360type of undercover operation, essentially. And so, you know, I agree. And I think that for some
01:20:07.040reason, and Fitz would obviously know better than I, there just seems to be some feminine component
01:20:13.700to that second note in particular. And Jim Clemente would agree also. We talked about it
01:20:20.040on our podcast, Best Case, Worst Case, the other day. And it just seems like there are words and
01:20:26.520phrases in there that are meant to almost soothe or calm Savannah. It just seems the phrases just
01:20:36.480seem more feminine and the words like perished and I can't think of the other ones buried in
01:20:42.920nature. With nature. Yeah. It's just those are my thoughts on that. I think there's so I think I
01:20:51.340I don't I don't know. It seems like like Savannah is trying to mirror that type of language back to to the author or whoever she's trying to communicate with on her last video.
01:21:03.780I want to talk about Clemente because he actually said a bunch of interesting things.
01:21:06.860But can I get you to weigh in on that, Fitz, on we've done our part?
01:21:11.500there's some apparent quid pro quo either either direct indirect that somehow savannah felt i'm
01:21:20.480sure the fbi uh profilers assisting her assigned to this case felt that was somehow important to
01:21:26.580put out there in other words uh you know the the abductor knows that they went to law enforcement
01:21:33.460if that was ever a demand don't contact law enforcement they did uh if there was some you
01:21:38.820$100 $60. So there's something in there embedded trying to
01:21:43.000create this sort of, you know, back and forth give and take
01:21:48.060relationship, hey, we basically done everything we we could do
01:21:53.520with these communications we're getting, which again, Megan and
01:21:57.460Maureen, we don't know if they're legit or not. They're
01:22:00.340playing it safe, meaning Savannah and her family, and
01:22:04.180they're going that at least one or more of them are legitimate, I
01:22:07.940really think, and I'll just throw this in real quick, the six-month anniversary, I really wish
01:22:12.420that the sheriff's department, since they're, I guess, in charge of this, would release one or
01:22:17.380more of those communications and let the rest of the world see what they look like. I fought on
01:22:21.640the Unabomb task force, like 12 angry men. I had to convince people, let's publish this manifesto.
01:22:27.200And they finally did. And it took a few months. But David, the brother, finally came forward.
01:22:31.980That's such a good point, Fitz. Said it early on, Megan. That's right. Why does Savannah have to
01:22:36.400come out and do this why where is sheriff nanos and and not with again with all due respect our0.99
01:22:42.40017 year old friend up in canada like give us an actual real nugget to get interest in the case
01:22:49.240started again for the sake of the family as a forensic linguist i've said from day one all
01:22:55.480we're doing is speculating on sound bites we're hearing you know buried with nature and all these
01:23:00.400type things and it's so hard and even the the feminine part that our good friend jim clementi
01:23:05.400said, I can't say no to that, but we don't really have the exact words and the context in which that
01:23:11.260is listed. Even with the Ramsey case, we did a TV show about that. We all got sued. But, you know,
01:23:16.840I wouldn't say it was a female author of the note, but I said the author had a clearly maternal
01:23:22.760instinct, certainly in the writing style. Your audience can take who they think may have written
01:23:27.860that note. But the bottom line is, if that exists, put it out there for everyone to see. They can
01:23:33.880keep the last line private, you know, only the investigators know that. They can cut something
01:23:39.180out that's very, you know, singular only to this. Let the rest of the world see it. Maybe we'll
01:23:44.320determine it's a non-native English speaker. I'm teaching a course right this week at Hofstra
01:23:49.040University online, and these are all the topics we're talking about. I went over the Daniel Pearl
01:23:53.660homicide or kidnapping in Pakistan. I'm sure you remember that. One of the darkest crimes ever
01:23:59.640committed. 2002, ultimately decapitated. There's pictures of him, old school, holding up a
01:24:05.520newspaper. I forget which English language newspaper it was, but him with handcuffs,
01:24:10.280his arms shackled, a gun to his head. And, you know, he was kidnapped, not for money purposes,
01:24:16.040for ideological purpose. They thought he was a CIA agent. But, you know, that comes back from
01:24:20.800day one. If you're going to do, if you're even a poor kidnapper and an experienced kidnapper,
01:24:24.960And again, there are so few kidnappings for profit in this country. I mean, we go back decades for the last legitimate one. Why not make it easy? Why do you have everyone speculating whether this was real, whether this account or this letter, this communication, something should have been left at the scene, as I said, or an old school Polaroid picture sent of mom or a clipping of her hair, something like that. We've got her. We want this money.
01:24:50.440Nothing. Everything. Can I ask you quickly? I don't want to get too far off topic, but we just did a whole week of programming on JonBenet Ramsey as part of our MK Confidential Crime Series that we're doing this summer.
01:25:01.340You can find it on our MK show feed. And you can't defame a dead person.
01:25:06.780So and Patsy Ramsey has passed. Do you think Patsy Ramsey was responsible for JonBenet's death?
01:25:13.440Megan, my the lawyer, I was fully indemnified for the CBS when we did a show with Jim Clemente back in 2016 with Dr. Henry Lee and a bunch of others.
01:25:21.340We were sued, fully indemnified, deposed for two days at the very end, settled out of court, not a penny out of my pocket.
01:25:27.360Lawyer said, Fitz, anything you say afterwards, you've got to hire your own lawyers.
01:25:33.900Well, I will fill in the blanks because CBS concluded in that special that it was the son, right, that it was Burke Ramsey.
01:25:41.780And then he's the one who filed a massive lawsuit. And the theory by some, including the grand jury, we believe, as it turned out, was that Burke Ramsey, her nine-year-old brother, killed her and that Patsy and or possibly John Ramsey covered it up because they didn't want anything to happen to their son with like a fake ransom note to.
01:26:05.620But anyway, that's that's not where our series landed, because JonBenet had some stranger's DNA on her and they they've just never been able to match it to anybody.
01:26:16.300But there is unknown male DNA in JonBenet's underwear on the garotte that was used to strangle her.
01:26:24.820There's a bunch of evidence that we just haven't been able to, through genetic genealogy or otherwise, find it.
01:26:30.100And and, you know, they're they're trying to test that right now.
01:26:33.480they're trying to do genetic genealogy on that tiny, tiny DNA right now. And, you know, Mr.
01:26:39.600Ramsey's fighting with the Colorado authorities to get the last remaining specs of it so that it can
01:26:46.040be tested through genetic genealogy and they're not giving it up. That was the last update we had.
01:26:50.240Thank you so much for all of your expertise and help on this case. And we bring back our other
01:26:54.540experts that have been with us from the beginning. Chad Ayers, a former SWAT team leader, Will
01:27:00.280Geddes, elite bodyguard who has over 30 years of experience as a security expert, and James
01:27:06.680Hamilton, a former FBI supervisory special agent. Gang, great to see you all together again.
01:27:13.760The latest that we have, we would just begin discussing it with Fitz and Maureen on the
01:27:17.960ransom notes, is we do now, I got to hand it to this Brianna Whitney, because she used to work
01:27:23.700for one of those two Tucson news outlets that did get to see the ransom notes. And while Sheriff
01:27:28.880nanos won't release them still six months later it's like come on you know like what are you doing
01:27:34.420um she now works for crime junkie which is a podcast network full of great two true crime
01:27:40.380shows and she's given it up so god bless her because it's interesting and she's seen them
01:27:45.780she says she has seen them with her own two eyes which is credible because she was the reporter
01:27:50.300for one of those local news outlets that did receive both notes and here she is earlier we
01:27:56.400had played her describing the second note and we analyzed it. And now she's released what was in
01:28:03.380the first one. Here it is in SOT 22. This is how it started. Hello, Savannah. We have your mother,
01:28:11.780Nancy. She is safe but scared. She will be held for ransom. And once payment is received,
01:28:16.740she will be released unharmed. We will be holding her for a maximum of seven days.
01:28:22.000so they go on then to demand the the millions of dollars and they give the two deadlines
01:28:27.320but what is key here i think is that the money was demanded in usd so us dollar typically if
01:28:35.160this is coming from somebody here you don't say that you don't say that this is what it went on
01:28:38.660to say once payment is received the bitcoin address below she will be released within 12
01:28:44.620hours of deposit to a safe drop-off location back in tucson if the payment is not received
01:28:51.820by the last deadline on Monday the 9th at 5 p.m., she will be killed. Your mother is aware of this
01:28:58.280and her life is in your hands. It is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as
01:29:04.940soon as possible. You will not be able to contact me from here on out. There will be no negotiation.
01:29:11.620Do not play games. Law enforcement will not be able to help you.
01:29:15.240it's fascinating right i mean it's fascinating to actually hear it read and the fact that it
01:29:22.280starts with hello savannah she's safe but scared four million blah blah blah then we see the part
01:29:29.240that harvey levin had been referring to for a while about how he believes that they have her
01:29:33.840within the tucson area because he says she'll be released within 12 hours of deposit to a safe
01:29:40.980drop-off location back in tucson if we get the money basically her life is in your hands in the
01:29:46.640best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible you will not be able to contact
01:29:51.140me do not play games law enforcement can't help you so your impression in response to all of that
01:29:57.000i'll start with you on it chad i'm still not buying it again the usd uh we talked about that early on
01:30:03.800i still personally believe this is some type of organized crime ring a scam trying to solicit
01:30:10.680money to the family. Again, some of these, your other guests have a lot more expertise on like
01:30:17.340these complex kidnapping cases. But, you know, from an outsider with law enforcement background,
01:30:23.480I just, it seems too much of like someone just trying to get money and take advantage of a
01:30:28.220family going through the worst time of their life. Well, you sound a little like James. James has been
01:30:33.420our skeptic on the notes from the beginning. But wait, before I get to James, Will, I want to talk
01:30:38.520to you because you you actually are somebody that we all need to call will god forbid somebody gets
01:30:43.780kidnapped that we know because will's master of the dark arts who actually will just get your
01:30:47.580family member home don't ask questions for a small fee you'll be reunited with your loved one
01:30:52.880ideally and he has to read notes like this and figure out whether he should credit them or not
01:30:58.240so now that you've heard you know directly from somebody who's seen it what's in it what's your
01:31:02.840takeaway. Okay, Megan, firstly, thank you for having me back on the show. Secondly, the note
01:31:09.520itself seems reasonably well considered and well structured. And certainly one of the biggest
01:31:14.580challenges on any kind of kidnapping for ransom and particularly resolving any kind of ransom
01:31:22.000that's been demanded is firstly how that ransom is delivered. And secondly, is where the actual
01:31:27.760hostage is going to be released to now the two parts that are well considered firstly bitcoin
01:31:33.600and secondly that she would be delivered into the local area which which for myself i see that as
01:31:39.700pretty convincing and uh and well considered the only element we're missing here and i would love
01:31:46.280to sit down with that journalist and find out whether she knows the answers to this is how was
01:31:52.020that ransom demand delivered in the first place because that's going to tell me an awful lot
01:31:57.200about whether this is professional or whether i would agree with chad well we do know another
01:32:02.260what do you mean we know we know is uploaded to tmz's tip line and then we know the yeah and
01:32:08.580and also the two local stations have tip lines you know like a news organization a lot of news
01:32:12.700organizations have these you can go online and you can upload your tip and we also now do i actually
01:32:18.820didn't know this but apparently you did have to submit an email in order to use one or all of
01:32:26.200those tip lines. And the person who did upload it did provide an email. And now just in preparing
01:32:33.200for today, I learned that it is this is from CBS reporting earlier in July that a Gmail address
01:32:41.660was entered as the contact email and addressed to Savannah Guthrie. The family worked with the FBI
01:32:49.080to craft a response, but there was no email back. So clearly this is new. They did try to email.
01:32:56.200that email and didn't get a response so that so that's really interesting i thought this was uh
01:33:01.080these were potentially ransom demands which had been made through various other conduits uh
01:33:05.640certainly you know we we discussed the tmz ones before so there are there are two parts to this
01:33:10.760and i think uh james would be able to answer certainly the the federal side in terms of the
01:33:15.640investigation and the relationships with say google to be able to interrogate the gmail account
01:33:20.840But setting up a burner Gmail account, that, to me, sniffs of someone that's not so organized.
01:33:27.500I don't want to give any viewers ideas of how to deliver a ransom demand by a more secure route, but I certainly wouldn't be using Gmail because Gmail, even if you set up a burner account, you use various VPNs, they are reasonably traceable, even if it is just a singular account that they've set up for the purposes of delivering this ransom demand.
01:33:49.060all right wait there's more to the first note as we all know because the person convinced the fbi
01:33:55.700that they had nancy apparently yeah by saying specific things about nancy's home and brianna
01:34:03.620whitney gets into that too and you know i mean good honor six months for the love of god like
01:34:09.220just tell us what was in the note and here she does watch and then at the very end they basically
01:34:14.300give what we learned in the press conference at the time, that there was something only the
01:34:19.880abductor would know, which was she had a white smartwatch that was on the floor near her bed,
01:34:26.520like at the foot of her bed. And then there was this floodlight that was destroyed in the backyard.
01:34:31.080So those two clues are what gave the FBI kind of the wherewithal to say,
01:34:35.100this is not a hoax. At least they didn't think so, or they were investigating it as
01:34:38.980possibly legitimate they still are by the way okay now that's i mean that's a tough one because
01:34:46.860broken floodlight on the outside of a house is something anyone going by could see that's that
01:34:53.380is why would they choose that but look you know watch at the foot of the bed is good that's a good
01:35:03.160one. Like white Apple watch is not that great. This is, I have an Apple watch on now. It's not
01:35:08.940that great. Cause we have seen pictures of Nancy wearing the white Apple watch. We we've documented0.99
01:35:13.260that on this show prior to her abduction. Um, here's one, uh, but there's multiple shots of
01:35:18.320her wearing the Apple watch with the white band. So you could have gleaned that as somebody posing
01:35:22.840as the kidnapper, just trying to get money from the family. But if they said it was at the foot
01:35:27.780of the bed on the floor and it was, even you, James, you got, that would, that would get your
01:35:34.280attention. Sure. Hey, good to see you. It would get my attention. Good to see you too. Um, it,
01:35:39.780again, you made the great point about the floodlight and anyone could have seen that.
01:35:44.200Um, again, if I am going to go through all this trouble to kidnap this lady and try to get paid,
01:35:50.060I'm certainly not going to send an email to a local news outlet or TMZ in the hope, in big H, that they're going to get it somehow to Savannah.
01:35:59.860And Savannah is actually going to believe me with all the other fake ransom emails that are coming in.
01:43:38.080Yeah, I still go back on. They're so totally differently written. I think they were like we've all said, I think they were written by two totally different individuals. And if it was completely serious, why, you know, and if we thought there was more to it, I don't understand why the Pima County Sheriff's Office at this point, six months in, why are they not the ones releasing this?
01:44:03.100Why are we having some, you know, a phenomenal reporter being the one that's happened to
01:45:27.080Well, I'm going to draw from that a couple of different things.
01:45:30.980And I'm also going to draw from what James and also Chad just said, which is I believe that I agree with them that it was a male and a female who wrote both separate notes.
01:45:40.920The use of the generality of we is a standard.
01:45:45.500You know, nobody, if it's an individual that's kidnapped Nancy, they're never going to want to indicate it's necessarily them.
01:45:51.540The second thing is the tonal difference between the two notes.
01:45:55.700And the third thing, which is really interesting, because I'm seeing current ransom demands being sent through, and these quite often are put through AI.
01:46:04.900So they're cleaned up, they're tidied up, they're improved to make sure that grammatically and spelling wise that they're formulated in a better way.
01:46:12.680This would appear to me to indicate potentially an age category for the kidnappers as well.
01:46:18.020And perhaps individuals that wouldn't be so au fait with using, for example, AI to clean up that ransom demand to try and remove any identifiers or anything else that would potentially highlight who they might be or where they may be coming from.
01:46:34.760So there are some interesting aspects here. They're well formed, the 12 hour distance or time delay in terms of returning Nancy.
01:46:45.420Well, yes, of course, they're never going to want to give any kind of geographic position of where they may be bringing her from and delivering her to.
01:46:52.920So, yes, they're going to use the widest potential circumference from Tucson to actually return her.
01:46:59.900But I think the notes in themselves tell an awful lot more than just what the content is.
01:47:06.340I mean, is there any chance, James, that this actually is just one guy?
01:47:12.360And, you know, notwithstanding the fact that he propped open the back door of Nancy's house, which many of us believe he did to allow an accomplice to come in.
01:47:24.940but a lot of people believe that he propped open the back door of Nancy's house so that an
01:47:28.960accomplice could come in. Um, cause we believe he entered through the back door after not succeeding
01:47:34.540to get in that front door. But we do know from leaked reporting that the back door was propped
01:47:40.060open with like a planter or something. And that's weird because he exited with Nancy out the front
01:47:46.380door. We know that from Nancy's blood all over the front stoop. So in any event, why would you
01:47:51.080prop open the back door and like why would you do that other than to allow a buddy to come etc in
01:47:55.760any event is it possible that notwithstanding that this is one guy and he just slipped there
01:48:00.980by saying me whereas every other pronoun was we to sound more ominous more threatening like more
01:48:07.220serious like somebody she's going to have to bargain with or savannah and her siblings are
01:48:10.860going to have to bargain with sure yeah you know it's possible uh like i was saying the other day
01:48:16.540to somebody on these theories, you know, as an investigator, you know, certainly you can have a
01:48:21.300theory, and I think we all do here, but I, you know, have to be very focused on what the evidence
01:48:27.220is saying to me. It's not, you know, people, because what can happen is you can fall in love
01:48:31.100with your theory. You can fall in love with what you believe. It's your narrative you're painting
01:48:34.820in your head, and as an investigator, that's terribly difficult to do, and you shouldn't do
01:48:38.980that, by the way. You should let the evidence, you know, take you to, you know, the subject,
01:48:43.300And I think that's the challenge with all this is that we are, you know, theorizing and we don't have all the information. Sure, it could be the guy on the porch writing these letters could be his girlfriend, his wife. You know, I think that that's certainly reasonable.
01:48:56.940one of the biggest mysteries around these notes if we believe they're real these two ransom notes
01:49:02.940is what incentive does a kidnapper have before the ransom has been paid and even before the
01:49:11.500ransom deadlines have expired because nancy was taken on a sunday in the wee hours of saturday
01:49:16.140into sunday the ransom note came on monday they said you've got till thursday and we'll give for
01:49:22.540$4 million, we'll give her back. But if you miss that deadline, it was very weird. If you miss
01:49:26.980that deadline, we'll give her back as of Monday if you pay $6 million. So you got $4 million on
01:49:32.960Thursday. The price goes up to $6 million if we wait till Monday. This note, this first ransom
01:49:38.700note came after the expiration of the first deadline, but before the expiration of the second
01:49:44.680deadline saying she's dead like sorry guess what she died what would the incentive be by the actual
01:49:54.580kidnapper or frankly by anyone else to say that before the deadlines are expired you're still
01:50:01.740hoping you're about to get six million dollars you've sent your initial communication you've
01:50:06.240been your threatening you know self i don't get that does anybody have a thought on that
01:50:14.040I mean, my feeling on it is it's, again, another indicator of a kidnapper who doesn't do this as a business.
01:50:21.520This is not an industry that this individual has been involved in or these people have been involved in before.
01:50:29.200There's a certain degree of professionalism.
01:50:32.420But to be honest, there's a lot of amateurish approach.
01:50:36.160And one of the things which is absolutely key is there's so many different factors that can influence even a willing satisfaction of a ransom.
01:50:45.020And to put such a defined deadline usually is an indicator of someone who is fearful, is frightened of potentially getting caught or discovered or captured in some shape or form.
01:50:55.300So, you know, them putting in a defined deadline of you don't deliver by this date, then the hostage is going to be dead.
01:51:04.160there is a possibility they may have opened up channels to say yes okay uh we have to extend it
01:51:10.280because more often than not when we're negotiating a kidnapping the first thing that one will use is
01:51:15.320referral and referral will be that we need to try and get hold of the money uh we need to aggregate
01:51:20.620that money together to be able to pay it particularly when it's a very large ransom and
01:51:24.700one of the reasons why many ransoms are settled megan at a far lesser figure than the original
01:51:30.680demand is because of the availability of the cash and being able to do so uh you know from1.00
01:51:35.880our point of view unlike the other chaps here you know my job is is not to capture or apprehend0.99
01:51:41.220the kidnapper it's to get the hostage back so you know i i don't care about who they are i just want1.00
01:51:46.800to get the hostage back and i will pay the ransom by whatever means possible but because of the
01:51:50.800publicity that this garnished i think these two were absolutely terrified and whether unfortunately
01:51:57.140nancy expired which i i have a horrible feeling that unfortunately that is the case and i think
01:52:02.500we all do um i think the fact is that they were panicked into trying to get this done as quickly
01:52:07.500as possible not knowing necessarily her health conditions until that she was actually in their
01:52:12.200care there was there was at least one intervening event between the original ransom demand and the
01:52:21.840she perished uh note and it was the family's response right i'm i'm trying to make sure it
01:52:30.340was 47 and 47 stop 47 we have savannah in her first video talking about the potential
01:52:35.700about the ransom note we believe and i think this was after number one and before number two
01:52:44.240because after number two we got we got the we received the super sad video where she was like
01:52:49.780we received your message. We understand. We want to celebrate with our mother. We will pay.
01:52:57.500Remember, she had said that. I think this is the first response we got in 47. Is it, Steve?
01:53:03.120Yeah, let's watch 47, which was before the expiration of the second deadline,
01:53:07.700and we believe before the second ransom note came in.
01:53:12.100We, too, have heard the reports about a ransom letter in the media.
01:53:15.820as a family we are doing everything that we can we are ready to talk
01:53:24.820however we live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated
01:53:34.660we need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her
01:53:45.820We want to hear from you, and we are ready to listen.
01:56:25.060If I had confidence that this crime scene was 100% secured, that these cops, no one talked, that whoever was involved and had information that no one has said a word to anybody, I'd feel better about, okay, there might be some credibility here.
01:56:57.340Or maybe, maybe, forgive me, but like, maybe it's a cop.
01:57:03.260Maybe the person writing the letters is law enforcement.
01:57:07.500Again, like we were saying at break, you don't really, until you get the human body back and we have some clarity, we don't want to rule out anything, okay?
02:09:28.860They're trying to figure out this is real or not.
02:09:30.640I mean, it's very, very difficult, hard work. And if these are fraudsters, you know, they're going to have to say in their report, hey, we're moving away because this guy's clearly a fraudster.
02:09:39.020And they better be right. Right. Because they're going to be asked about it and judged later if they were wrong.
02:09:44.640But, you know, we need other investigators who are working other buckets of this case.
02:09:49.440And you see how much time this has taken just us. And if they don't have a lot of resources, which, again, I'd like to know exactly how many people are working on this thing.
02:09:58.240there's a lot of bodies getting chewed up with nonsense right and that's that's part of what's
02:10:03.220going on and that's why we're sitting here six months later and there's nothing right we have
02:10:07.340nothing but these things can tend to take us down these rabbit trails and if we don't have a lot of
02:10:13.540resources and a lot of bodies working it makes this very very difficult okay what go ahead chad
02:10:19.880you're gonna say something and we may get there but it's it's almost the way she's talking in
02:10:26.500those videos um does the bureau feel like some of this could be legit because the way she speaks in
02:10:33.200her recent video a few days ago um some of her verbiage in there makes me believe that you know
02:10:39.900if these you know behavioral analysis and and agents with the bureau are talking to her
02:10:45.080that they do somewhat feel like there is some type of communication still
02:10:49.820going on behind the scenes that that is exactly i don't know if there's still communication but
02:10:55.920She definitely told Hoda that she thinks those first two notes are real.
02:10:58.920And I think she probably got that from the FBI because Savannah is a sophisticated customer.
02:11:03.200She wouldn't be deviating from what federal law enforcement had told her will.
02:11:07.380You know, I mean, I do agree with Chad.
02:11:09.060I think certainly from her last release, her last video, that it does appear to be some kind of communication channel that is open, which which does.
02:11:20.580It conversely works against those other notes, which are more definitive.
02:11:25.000There were no channels of communication. And certainly one of the things that maybe Savannah is looking to try and achieve, and again, I've done this, is where, unfortunately, the hostage has perished, is trying to retrieve, obviously, the deceased family member or friend or whoever it might be that's been taken hostage.
02:11:43.460So it may be her beseeching some sort of communication.
02:11:46.800the problem is with a lot of these frauds like james was saying um there you can't when you have
02:11:52.380a case which is well publicized everybody's going to come out the woodwork to try and uh and jump on
02:11:58.580the wagon and make a few bucks here and there we saw it with the the infamous case over here for
02:12:03.500madeline mccann the small child that went missing and there are still frauds to this day who are
02:12:08.880trying to claim that they have witness evidence and they have information that could lead to her
02:12:14.640whereabouts so you know the the big challenge as james was saying for the bureau is to try and
02:12:20.620differentiate and try and move one to the other whether there is a current line of communication
02:12:25.900i don't know but certainly i would see her beseeching obviously whoever did have her to say
02:12:32.200where is she so we can get her back hey megan we just we just covered i was saying earlier that we
02:12:38.280have this series that we're doing for the summer called mk confidential and it's it's a series on
02:12:42.780crimes infamous crimes that were releasing on our same podcast feed in the first week we did
02:12:47.680john benet ramsey and in that case not only okay we said we never found out you know who killed
02:12:53.440her we never found out who wrote the ransom note but we did have more than one guy claiming he did
02:13:01.100it like there was this one guy in particular who claimed he did it and like confessed the whole
02:13:07.600thing he wanted quote credit for it he he had nothing to do with it it was like his weird
02:13:12.700fantasy so like the fbi's got to deal with that possibility too that there are people glomming
02:13:17.680onto this like wanting for their own i don't know weird psychological benefit to to convince people
02:13:25.780that they're the perpetrator or that they have a connection to the perpetrator just just to
02:13:29.840get off on it never even never mind even the bitcoin chad well think how many years that
02:13:34.800narcissistic sociopath Joran Vandersloot in the Natalie Holloway case was dropping little hints
02:13:41.380and teasing things along the lines, but would never, of course, but it took forever for him
02:13:47.820to come back out and say something. But in this last video, Savannah, I'm going to read what she
02:13:52.540says when she says, the world can be a cruel and unforgiving place. And I know that you have tried
02:13:59.880to do things the right way i picked up on that and it's almost like um she feels like she's
02:14:08.020talking to the same person and i i'm just going back i feel like there is other communication
02:14:11.960that we do not know about yeah megan let me jump in real quick uh chad had asked me a question and
02:14:17.620i think um i want to i want to be very direct on that i i think you're right chad i think there's
02:14:24.260somebody from the Bureau talking to her about what to say. Okay. And that's fine. And I think
02:14:29.600that's great. I think my concern here, and I don't know if anyone's picking up on this,
02:14:33.920but this might be all they have. Okay. Meaning they're, they have nothing other than these very
02:14:41.060strange ransom notes to the media that, and that's where they're going. It's almost like
02:14:45.940this Hail Mary pass at the end of the game. So what I'm gleaning from this, that we don't have
02:14:51.880anything. We don't have fingerprints. We don't have DNA. We don't have cell phone activity.
02:14:56.260We don't have the normal evidence that you would find in a kidnapping. Okay. And this is it. We're
02:15:01.620going to, we need to reach out to maybe a fraudster to see if maybe they can give us something. And
02:15:06.560that's scary as hell to me. Yeah. Totally agree. Totally agree. Sheriff Nano says that we played
02:15:12.000the soundbite in our first hour. He says we have DNA at multiple labs, not just FBI. We have multiple
02:15:17.500multiple labs who have so much DNA, but we don't have any idea whether they have DNA of someone
02:15:23.100they think is the perpetrator, you know, as opposed to like there's DNA on inside the refrigerator at
02:15:28.600Nancy's house, too. But do we have any idea whether it's from the person who abducted her?
02:15:32.520Well, no, exactly. I think, again, that's that's just casting the net as wide and as far as
02:15:37.420possible, which is probably the only options that they've got right now. But I'd I'd certainly agree
02:15:41.480with both Chad and James with what they've just said. I think certainly in terms of Chad saying
02:15:45.900that there's possibly another line of communication.
02:15:49.040James, certainly in terms of the Bureau
02:15:51.120guiding Savannah as to what to actually say,
02:15:54.660and that's standard framing, as we would call it,
02:15:57.200which we do in what we call the contact preparation.
02:16:39.440Proof of funds comes against proof of life.
02:16:42.000And that's the one thing which has really held this whole thing up.
02:16:44.600There's been zero proof of life on Nancy, which unfortunately, again, leads me to suspect that she perished pretty quickly after the capture.
02:16:55.680James Fitzgerald was saying, yeah, go ahead, Chad.
02:16:58.680Sorry. I think Will might have just mentioned this, or James, I apologize, which one.
02:17:04.160But we did have a recent news article that came out, I think, on CBS, where an anonymous FBI source stated, we are no closer today at six months than we were when this happens.
02:17:19.180And remember, Megan, the last time that we communicated, I discussed my federal source that told me that there are no solid suspects in this case.
02:17:28.000And that was, what, four months ago, probably four or five months ago, when we last had that communication.
02:17:32.480And now six months later, CBS is reporting almost verbatim the exact same thing.
02:17:39.560Although Maureen told us the last time she was on, she has reason to believe that they're zeroing in on Porch Man, that it hasn't come to fruition yet.
02:17:47.380And my impression in in dealing with my own sources is the FBI is trying to distance itself from this case and from Sheriff Nanos, that they want it really clear that this is his investigation, not theirs.
02:18:00.240and that does not exactly smell like success to me you know like they're getting ready to say oh0.96
02:18:06.400it's a joint effort and we got the guy it sounds more like oh shit we've got nothing this nimrod
02:18:11.780out there because what i can say separate and apart from my own impression is nanos and patel
02:18:18.420have been kind of warring patel went on hannity and made some statements that were basically
02:18:25.000along these lines you know that we weren't brought in until late um you know sheriff nanos uh kind of
02:18:31.860kept the fbi out of this he said local officials kept fbi do we have that we have that sound bite
02:18:36.680you guys i think we do cut anyway it was four days four days this is from may 5th this is on
02:18:43.800from my sources sean hannity they were trying to keep you guys out they did and for four days we
02:18:49.820were kept out of the investigation and when we were finally let in sean look what we did
02:18:54.380we went in and got the ring doorbell and we said hey is anyone talking to google i call the
02:19:01.340leadership at google that's why you have that image because the fbi worked with google to put
02:19:05.340that image out why did they send the dna to a lab in florida not the quantica again we were saying
02:19:11.120we'll process it i we i launched hundreds of agents and intel staff to phoenix in tucson just
02:19:16.800for this case just to be on stand they didn't want just to do the canvassing and we said we'll take
02:19:21.100the dna and again it's a state and local matter so it's their call on where to send the dna we
02:19:25.860have quantico best lab in the world i had a i had a fixed wing aircraft on the ground ready to move
02:19:30.280it immediately through the night and they said we're sending it to florida and we would have
02:19:33.700analyzed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information our labs just
02:19:39.300better than any other private lab out there and we didn't get a chance all right let me tell you
02:19:44.940what's really interesting about that soundbite there is zero chance those two did not discuss
02:19:48.640how it was going to go before the interview.
02:19:51.060And Hannity's questions are just as telling
02:20:08.280But Sheriff Nanos' answer is they actually were there.
02:20:11.500They weren't there day one, but they were there day two.
02:20:15.840That Sheriff Nanos says Kash Patel is wrong.
02:20:18.640uh, that they were brought in within, I think, 48 hours. And they were, but, but the point is
02:20:25.240Hannity is telegraphing. The FBI is not to blame. Cash Patel is telegraphing. The FBI is not to
02:20:33.720blame. Now let's be honest. It would have been better if the FBI had been there day one. I think
02:20:38.200we can all agree on that, but like they were there, they were there within 48 hours, 72 at
02:20:44.420the absolute outside, we saw that presser. The first presser was Sheriff Nanos. But then right
02:20:52.220after that, we had an FBI agent who briefed us from Tucson. So they were definitely brought in
02:20:58.180by February 3rd. That's 48 hours. She was taken on February 1st. So all of this is to say,
02:21:04.400this is about covering your ass. That's what's obvious. Kash Patel's like we had a fixed wing1.00
02:21:09.820aircraft. Okay. I'm not blaming him. I'm just, and the FBI, he's like, we were the ones who
02:21:16.200found the image. Yes. Good for you. That's great. But let's be honest. The FBI has not been able to
02:21:22.180solve this case any more than the Pima County Sheriff has. Well, I think if I could, as the
02:21:30.040FBI person here, um, when we say the FBI was there, we've got to be real careful what we're
02:21:35.180saying, okay? Some agent from the Tucson field office who just rolls over there in his field
02:21:40.360jacket saying, hey, I'm here to help in any way we can, to me does not meet the definition of the
02:21:46.260FBI has got its resources on the ground and they're working this thing. That is not what
02:21:52.100I'm feeling at all. And what I hear, and I don't know Mr. Patel at all, but what I'm hearing from
02:21:56.780him is it sounds like the real resources, the lab, the ERT, the cell phone analysis unit, all of this
02:22:04.020you know, big resource stuff, which is on the East Coast, by the way, that wasn't allowed in until
02:22:09.620four days after she was taken. That is significant. That's not, that might as well be four years when
02:22:16.260you're dealing with a kidnapping. So it is significant that they weren't brought in
02:22:19.940immediately. Now, Nanos can say it's because, you know, the FBI, blah, blah, blah. But I kind of
02:22:25.540tend to understand what Patel is saying. And I think we need to be real clear when we say,
02:22:29.700Yeah, they were there. In what capacity is the better question?
02:22:34.480Well, that's a very fair point, because I think the FBI's complaint from the beginning has been they have not been allowed to run herd on this.
02:22:41.700And that you got Sheriff Nanos running herd and that he doesn't know what he's doing.
02:22:45.860Right. And that's the challenge with this case, as we kind of said the first episode, they don't have primacy.
02:22:50.680You know, they can't just roll in their FBI style in the movies and say, hey, we're taking over.
02:22:54.540They can't do that on a kidnapping. And so they are really at the behest of the locals.
02:23:00.220And thank God, you know, there are media outlets like you keeping pressure on this nanos because that's it.
02:23:05.560He's not a city police chief like in Seattle. They can get fired.0.71
02:23:09.460You know, he's a sheriff. And the only way he can really get removed is some type of, you know, election change or some type of ballot initiative by the citizens of Pima County, which I don't see happening.
02:23:19.580But there's got to be pressure put on this guy, you know, to be more forthwith.
02:23:23.720I saw Fitz talking earlier about, you know, start to release some things and he's right.
02:23:27.660But, you know, we're not getting anything from this guy other than, you know, quick snippets at his white Corvette on his way to the gym.
02:23:35.160No, that's why I applaud this Brianna Whitney, this journalist from the local Tucson outlet who's now with Crime Junkie, who's like, I'm going to tell you what's in the two notes.
02:23:44.660Like, good for her. What could possibly be compromised at this point if that's really what's in those two notes in her revealing that?
02:23:52.300Right. It's like, but why does she have to do that? Why does Savannah have to go and do the, you know, we're in agony video. Where is Sheriff Nonos? He's sitting down with a 17 year old podcaster from Canada saying, oh, we were all over the DNA.
02:24:06.080it would be laughable if it weren't so frustrating i want to we pulled a sound
02:24:13.840bite you guys just just just for kicks when the whole fraud on us my family
02:24:20.100came out when we realized diane and brad were fine and they were at home and we had spoken
02:24:26.840with them we realized oh my god we're in the midst of somebody trying to defraud us
02:24:29.580we kept it going the fraudster did not know we found out and so we kept it rolling for a little
02:24:36.400while longer and it was super fun he would have been so it would have been so fun to have you
02:24:39.740guys involved in this at the time but i i had a phone call with him and he was trying to get me
02:24:45.380to pay the money and it was 17 grand and he wanted bitcoin and uh we cut just a little
02:24:52.180excerpt of my final conversation with him before the jig was up here it is are you the sole
02:24:57.520practitioner, or what are you? I'm a public defendant. I work for the state bar here in
02:25:04.220Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, okay. Where'd you go to law school? I'm a lawyer, too. I went to
02:25:10.180school in New York, John J. Law. Oh, really? What year did you graduate? I'm sorry? 73.
02:25:21.280You graduated law school in 73? You don't sound that old.
02:25:23.700and then he i asked him where we could pick up diane and brad after we you know made the payment
02:25:37.500and he's telling me that they're in massachusetts in cape cod you know at some jail and he gives me
02:25:43.240an address in connecticut i like connecticut they're in they're in massachusetts and oh
02:25:51.200oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so busy. And the way it finally ended was I finally was like, you know,
02:25:57.320$17,000, a lot of money. We're not really even that close with Diane. He hung up. It was like
02:26:05.240the big reveal. He gave it up. He hung up. You realize we were on to him, but it was like kind
02:26:11.540of shocking that he gave it up. You know, like he went to such lengths. He hired the actress.
02:26:16.160he was playing the lawyer her diane's lawyer he had somebody at at the quote courthouse again in
02:26:23.140air quotes to pick up the phone and give me the case number and give me an update on like their
02:26:27.320status he definitely had at least three players in all this and three different numbers like
02:26:33.980these guys are not kidding around just as elaborate as you think you know they wouldn't be
02:26:39.900they they will so like i don't know i don't know how they would have figured out that there was
02:26:45.280the watch at the end of the bed. But I'm starting to come around to the belief, James, that the whole
02:26:51.180thing's a fraud other than the guy who took her. Go ahead. You're going to say something, Will.
02:26:54.340Yeah, I was just going to say, Megan, you'd be surprised how common those kind of frauds that
02:26:58.860were perpetrated or was attempted against you actually are occurring all over the world.
02:27:04.020And certainly with the advent of AI, there's an ability that even to capture a small amount of
02:27:09.900of someone's voice from a telephone call or being stood next to them you can then duplicate that
02:27:16.140voice you can create whatever script you want and so you can make it terribly convincing that
02:27:21.120you are speaking to someone that you recognize the voice of and believe is that genuine person yes
02:27:25.920i mean well to be honest it is possible it it's possible that's what was done to my mother-in-law
02:27:33.920We we've just assumed all this time that it was an actress pretending that she was Diane, but we don't know that.
02:27:41.260And of course, if you talk to any elderly person, they'll tell you that, you know, the person's like, your your granddaughter has been arrested.
02:27:49.360And, you know, like she needs you. And then they're like, which granddaughter?
02:27:53.660You know, the grandmother's always like, which granddaughter? And then the fraudster will be like, which one do you think it is to get you to say the names of your granddaughter?
02:28:02.260it's that one it's that yes it's little rachel whatever so it's they're very sophisticated and
02:28:08.640they tend to target you know elderly people but in this case they they targeted a famous woman
02:28:15.100and her siblings and anybody would become instantaneously vulnerable and manipulatable
02:28:21.440if if you had their parent if they believed you had their parent so i guess it's extremely likely
02:28:29.360That some fraudster somehow found out about that watch, Chad, and used it to get the money.
02:28:35.920Because let's face it, the thing about the floodlight is not persuasive at all.
02:31:15.460And I think for some stupid reason, they took that body. But that's the only thing that explains to me why we don't have anything. We have nothing definitive. These people were not amateurs. They had to know what they were doing. And that's the theory I'm working off of.0.99
02:31:30.060there to steal but not to steal nancy yeah i think they were in there to do a burglary and
02:31:36.560then i think something happened they panicked they said the hell with the you know taking0.50
02:31:39.660anything we got to get her out of here to buy time so that you know we have because she won't
02:31:44.400be found till the morning type of deal but if we take her got we got some time thank you all
02:31:49.500gentlemen so much for today and all the times you've helped us to be continued uh don't forget
02:31:54.280everybody we have the final two episodes of mk confidential coming up tonight and tomorrow on
02:31:58.120the trials of Klaus von Bülow. It's about to get really good. Enjoy. We'll see you Monday.
02:32:05.220Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.