Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC News anchor Savannah, was last seen at her Arizona home on Saturday evening. She has not been heard from since. On the heels of her disappearance, a new timeline emerged that points investigators in a new direction.
00:01:53.560The man married to Savannah's sister, Annie, Tomas, as someone who, quote, may be the prime suspect in this case.
00:02:05.380She'll update us in two minutes when she's here.
00:02:08.320The 84-year-old mother of the NBC News host, Savannah Guthrie, remains missing.
00:02:13.500She was last seen at her Arizona home on Saturday evening.
00:02:18.160Um, and we'll get into the change of the timeline as well.
00:02:22.520Plus, we have the best law enforcement analyst in the world who will be here later in the hour with his take.
00:02:27.300But we've got to begin with one of the more bizarre developments in this entire case.
00:02:32.120We showed you earlier this week the Instagram message that Savannah and her siblings posted to their mother and to her suspected captors.
00:02:43.520They dropped it on Wednesday evening, and we talked about how it was strange.
00:02:48.920This is not a judgment of how they handled themselves.
00:02:51.400This is an observation about the odd messaging and whether it means something, whether it was potentially directed by the kidnapper to be an acknowledgement of something.
00:03:04.240It was just so odd in the way it was presented and phrased, and that could have been completely just at law enforcement's direction for reasons we don't understand, or it could have been some sort of a signal that was asked for by a kidnapper, or it could have just been the family's choices while under duress.
00:03:23.480Yes, we don't know, but we're trying to figure out what we can.
00:03:27.560This part in particular is coming back to surface, and we'll explain why, and pay particularly close attention to the ending.
00:04:37.480And notice how Savannah's sister, Annie, seems to take a deep breath at that very moment.
00:04:43.800It sounds like a phrase we might have heard before, and online sleuths confirm, indeed, we probably have.
00:04:50.660They discovered that line is from the 1991 horror crime film, Silence of the Lambs.
00:04:56.560Before we play the clip, let me tell you what the movie's about.
00:04:59.480Most of you know, but some of our audience is younger and may not.
00:05:03.320The main character, Clarice Starling, is played by Jodie Foster.
00:05:06.460Starling is investigating the kidnapping of Catherine Martin, the 25-year-old daughter of the fictional Senator Ruth Martin.
00:05:13.840Catherine, the daughter, has been kidnapped by Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who skins his female victims.
00:05:20.500In the scene where the phrase, talk to her, and you'll see, is used, it's the kidnapping victim's mother, Senator Ruth Martin, sending a message to her daughter's captor.
00:05:36.740Catherine Martin, the 25-year-old daughter of Senator Ruth Martin, listed first as a missing person, is now believed to have been kidnapped by the serial killer known only as Buffalo Bill.
00:05:47.180Memphis police sources indicate that the missing girl's blouse has been identified, sliced up the back, in what has become a kind of grim, all-too-familiar calling card.
00:05:55.160Young Catherine Martin, as we've said, is the only daughter of U.S. Senator Ruth Martin, the Republican junior senator from Tennessee.
00:06:01.980And while her kidnapping is not at this point considered to be politically motivated, nevertheless, it has stirred the government to its highest levels.
00:06:08.740Reach for comment on the ski slopes of Stowe, Vermont.
00:06:11.660The president himself said to be, and I quote, intensely concerned.
00:06:15.400Just moments ago, Senator Martin takes this dramatic personal plea.
00:06:20.400I'm speaking now to the person who is holding my daughter.
00:06:53.640Both reference how kind the person is and end with talk to her and you'll see.
00:07:02.120Now, we're not the only ones who noticed this and it's getting a lot of attention on social media today.
00:07:06.920It is one of many, many, many developments that we need to go through.
00:07:10.420We're going to try to unpack what this means and more with Drop Dead Serious podcast host and long term crime reporter, among other kinds of reporting, Ashley Banfield.
00:08:31.360It is an eerie similarity, and the choice of words could be completely coincidental, or it might not be.
00:08:38.800It could be something the FBI suggested, you know, something, much in the way, if you ever watched that movie Contagion during the pandemic, starring Matt Damon, it had what the CDC would do in the case of a pandemic so exact.
00:08:53.400You knew that there was definitely a playbook from which the CDC had behaved and that they had shared that playbook with the filmmakers in this movie that was made long before the COVID pandemic.
00:09:03.040And it did make me wonder whether, in preparing Silence of the Lambs, the filmmakers consulted with an FBI hostage negotiator, that kind of person, who gave them the kind of messaging that they would typically give the family members of a kidnap victim.
00:09:17.180And it made its way into the script, and it may have made its way into Savannah's script, too, in quite the similar manner.
00:09:24.500Very astute, because, in fact, Jonathan Demme, who created Silence of the Lambs, did confer with the FBI, did have multiple investigators with the FBI and agents with the FBI actually consult on the movie.
00:09:37.640John Douglas, one of the most famous profilers, worked on Silence of the Lambs, so it's entirely possible that there is an age-old playbook with all sorts of options and suggestions for agents to use when trying to make communications like this.
00:09:51.260And we were told by the FBI that they were working in concert with the Guthrie family, as they should be, to help guide them through this extraordinary process.
00:10:02.020They were very careful also to say that, in the end, all scripting is up to the final decision of the family, you know, who's going to read it, which is obvious.
00:10:11.060But the guidance was clearly annotated yesterday when they said that they were there.
00:10:16.740We saw them go in with the ring light and the Apple tripod, the iPhone tripod, to help set up the actual shoot for them as well.
00:10:26.260So it's maybe not that surprising that perhaps pieces of an FBI playbook were used, maybe unknowingly to the agents today, that had been used, you know, decades ago in the creation of Silence of the Lambs.
00:10:38.700Hmm. It does make you wonder what else in the messaging that we've heard from the family, because, of course, last night, Cameron Guthrie, the brother of Savannah and Andy, issuing his own direct-to-camera statement, just him without the sisters.
00:10:54.500And in both of the video messages and in Savannah's Instagram post that was written, which preceded both of these video messages, there's just, there are odd phrases that really have us wondering whether they have had more communication with a potential kidnapper than they're letting on, which would be totally appropriate.
00:11:17.280Obviously, obviously, they're not going to tell all of us everything that's happening. But her Instagram post sounded a little unlike Savannah. For one thing, Ashley, it was not capitalized, which, okay, it's a social media thing. You could make the case that a lot of people don't capitalize, but Savannah normally does. She does normally capitalize.
00:11:39.280We went back and checked her Instagram and her Twitter. And much like yours truly, and I imagine you too, most journalists would capitalize. We're not 20, and we're just sort of in the business, so it's like we pay attention to those things.
00:11:53.040But on this post of all posts, like the most important post of her life to date, this is the one that came out the night before the video of the three siblings. She posted on Tuesday evening. This is all without caps, even at the beginning of the very first sentence.
00:12:09.160We believe in prayer. We believe in voices raised in unison, in love, in hope. We believe in goodness. We believe in humanity. Above all, we believe in him. Him is capitalized. Nothing else is.
00:12:19.740Thank you, again, beginning of a sentence not capitalized, for lifting your prayers with ours for our beloved mom, our dearest Nancy.
00:12:29.740The mentioning of her name, clearly that was suggested by law enforcement, trying to get her to humanize her. Nancy, Nancy, she has a name. She has kids.
00:12:39.160And goes on and on. And then it ends with a quote, a Bible quote. And then listen to how she cites it. She writes in quotes.
00:12:48.360He, that's capitalized, will keep in perfect peace those whose hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Lord is capitalized. End quote.
00:12:55.380A verse of Isaiah for all time, for all of us. Bring her home. You know Savannah. I know Savannah too. That doesn't sound like her.
00:13:06.080A verse of Isaiah for all time, for all of us. I don't know whether this is all coded, Ashley, but the messages are being very carefully coordinated, it seems to me, and may just be what law enforcement is telling them or could be responsive to some sort of a demand.
00:13:23.900Well, you know, Savannah is actually pretty spiritual. I'm not sure that she would have written the message.
00:13:28.560No, no, she's spiritual. She's very spiritual. She wrote a whole book about faith.
00:13:32.640But the phraseology out of the quote, a verse of Isaiah for all time, for all of us.
00:13:39.920You know what that also could be? Is for her mom. Because mom is very faithful. Mom goes to church, and that might have been something.
00:13:45.840Again, if we are to believe that this ransom effort is even true. I have my serious doubts about it, and yesterday the FBI said something in the press conference that I picked up on very quickly.
00:13:58.420They were asked about the deadlines, the second deadline, and the FBI agent said in a normal kidnapping case, there would be contact by now.
00:14:05.920They have to take it seriously, and it's why it's prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and the guy that they pulled in in California is going to have the book thrown at him.
00:14:16.180I think it's 8 to 10 as a minimum there for prison, because it is—
00:14:20.500Just FYI, for those who didn't listen to AM Update, there was a separate man who was arrested this morning, or yesterday morning, for demanding a ransom of Annie and Tomas via text message, and also made a nine-second phone call to some member of the Guthrie family, who was just a fraudster.
00:14:36.520He had nothing to do with the other ransom notes per law enforcement, nor with this case at all, we believe.
00:14:42.200He was just trying to glom on to someone's tragedy and torture the family further, and he's now under arrest. Keep going.
00:14:47.100Yeah, there's Derek Callea, I don't know, C-A-L-L-E-L-L-A, allegedly now charged in this.
00:14:54.140And very seriously, too, that's interstate commerce when you use the lines like that, using email, using phone lines to cross state lines, and also interfering with law enforcement.
00:15:01.600There's all sorts of things that could throw the book at him for that, but I would, without question, expect some prison time for this guy if he's guilty of these crimes.
00:15:08.100But, you know, to hear any other notes, because it's a little complicated, right?
00:15:13.120There's a note to TMZ, there's an email.
00:15:15.400There's an email to TMZ, there's emails to two television stations that are local in Arizona, and then there's this one that was communicated directly to the family, and communicated directly to Savannah's sister Annie and her husband, Tomaso.
00:15:27.980So, that is fascinating to hear, though, that they are focusing on the emailed ransom notes, but they also indicated, not very clearly, but slightly clearly in the press conference, that those three that went to the outlets seemed to be from the same person.
00:15:47.420And they noted a couple of things in them.
00:15:49.020Yes, and they did, for the first time, say that they're identical.
00:15:51.500For the first time, the FBI confirmed in response to a question that it is the same note.
00:15:55.920Jim Fitzgerald, who's been on with us every day, formerly of the FBI, has said that's the one thing he really wanted to know was, was it exactly the same?
00:16:03.860You know, or could there have been, like, some sort of a copycat, or did they, for some reason, and the FBI yesterday said all three the same?
00:16:08.660I have my questions about the details in them as well, because there were details released yesterday about floodlights, broken floodlights, potentially.
00:16:18.460I do, but let me just finish up on the messaging from the family, then I want to talk about your exclusive reporting, and then I definitely want to get into these notes, because they're very interesting.
00:16:27.520One other thing on the messaging, we noticed that, I mean, the family, I think, is being very disciplined on exactly what it says and how it says it.
00:16:34.300We talked yesterday about how, very clearly, Savannah Guthrie knows how to speak at ease, directly to camera, unscripted.
00:16:43.980Quite clearly, they're being really careful about if somebody's got her, not triggering him, saying what needs to be said to reach him in the best way possible to actually get a response.
00:17:05.440They want proof of life, and they're desperate to have a communication, because very clearly, Harvey Levin made this clear yesterday on various appearances, that the ransom note said Thursday night is your first deadline, and Harvey suggested Monday is your second deadline.
00:17:18.880And it certainly sounds like if they didn't meet the Thursday night deadline, the price was going up.
00:17:36.840But in any event, I just want to show you the messaging that both Savannah and now Cameron have offered in their back-to-back Instagram messages here.
00:17:45.620And this, again, was Cameron alone last night.
00:17:47.720Okay, so that's what we heard from Cameron himself last night.
00:19:14.180It is why the penalties in the code are so steep for this, not just because of the interstate commerce, but because of the interjection of the law enforcement's efforts, but also just the sheer torture that you put these people through.
00:19:29.720Yeah, it's so awful, and you and I both have our doubts about whether it's even real.
00:19:34.220So it does, if I had to put money down, I'd say this is somebody intentionally torturing the family, trying to scam them, trying to get money from them in their most vulnerable, painful moment.
00:19:44.520And by the way, if that's true, then it means the real kidnapper, murderer, who ever hurt Nancy, however they did it, yeah, perpetrator, is out there watching the whole thing, letting them suffer too.
00:19:57.760Like, it's not enough that they did something to the mother, they're letting the torture go on day after day after day.
00:20:04.400When I saw those three people, Ashley, the other night on camera, all I could think was, these are torture victims.
00:20:11.700And we don't often see this, right, because this is a very high-profile case, but in so many of the true crime cases that we covered, this is the reality.
00:20:20.820This is what people go through when their loved ones go missing.
00:20:24.240Do they get a high-profile ransom note sent to TMZ?
00:20:37.840Okay, so let's get to your reporting, because it was very clearly the gorilla in the room yesterday at that presser, where it came up three different times, four actually, four total,
00:20:50.160where the sheriff saying, we have no suspects, no persons of interest, and then some broadsides, quite clearly, I thought, at you.
00:21:59.180And it's really kind of reckless to report that someone is a suspect when they could very well be a victim.
00:22:08.440It just I bring to you, to the media, I plead with you to be careful of what it is we put out there because we don't have anybody here listed as a suspect.
00:22:23.760And you could actually be doing some some damage to the case, but you can do some damage to that individual, too.
00:22:31.400This is social media is kind of a kind of an ugly world sometimes.
00:22:36.300OK, so, Ashley, are you standing by your exclusive reporting broken two days ago now that three things top law enforcement?
00:22:49.080OK, who's an impeccable source, told you that Tommaso Sione, who was married to Annie Guthrie, Savannah's sister, may be the prime suspect in this case.
00:41:47.400Because we've also, in the midst of all that, had both the Daily Mail and Brian Enten yesterday told us as well,
00:41:55.320reporting that Nancy Guthrie wasn't going to church physically anymore and hadn't been since the COVID pandemic.
00:42:04.400That she'd been joining the live stream the church offers and participating from her home.
00:42:09.840Moreover, the Daily Mail reports it wasn't a Zoom situation where the congregants could see who was joining virtually.
00:42:16.500It was just a live stream being blasted out by the church, outgoing only.
00:42:20.860And therefore, no one would be aware of whether Nancy was participating or not.
00:42:25.480So, how did we go from, she talked to a friend who was concerned at the church, which you heard him say on camera there, and they took him an hour and then they called 9-1-1, to now it's, they checked on Nancy and discovered her missing and within moments called 9-1-1.
00:42:42.540Yeah, I think these are all things that lead to an even bigger mystery and a little confusion.
00:42:48.660I always give law enforcement grace when there's so much going on and there's an exigent circumstance and now all these ransom notes which have taken law enforcement's direction elsewhere.
00:53:48.6402.28 a.m., the pacemaker app shows a disconnection from the phone.
00:53:53.440So, she's got a pacemaker in her body that communicates with her phone and an app, and we are told that if it gets some 30 feet away from the phone, if she gets some 30 feet away from the phone, it'll disconnect.
00:54:07.900Now, so, clearly she was being taken out of the house around that time, 2.28.
00:54:14.440So, if you go from 1.47 a.m., which is when the doorbell cam got disconnected, to 2.28 a.m., which is when her pacemaker, meaning she, got far enough away from her phone that the app stopped communicating with the pacemaker, that is 41 minutes.
00:56:07.900There are certain things in that home that we know only the intruder knows about and the things that occurred.
00:56:16.060And we don't want that information out.
00:56:19.360So the sheriff has been meticulous both in an interview with Ashley earlier this week and at the presser yesterday about not revealing what evidence they have inside of the house.
00:56:29.700But whatever it was, it, plus, we believe, in addition to the blood drops out front, led them to call in the homicide unit.
00:57:26.980This kind of points me towards, Megan.
00:57:28.900First of all, we're putting so much attention.
00:57:31.500Everybody is looking at ransom, ransom, ransom, that it's easy to overlook the other possibilities.
00:57:38.700And the fact that you honed in on this is really good, the 41 minutes, because that could be the time period when somebody was looking for something.
00:57:54.420Is there something going on that we don't know about with Miss Guthrie?
00:57:59.240And somebody was in there trying to find something in particular?
00:58:02.720Because I can't think of any other reason for them to be in there for that long.
00:58:08.120It's not like they're going to interrogate her before they kidnap her.
00:58:12.420So it would be a quick in and a quick out, typically.
00:58:15.860So it almost appears just from this timeline that somebody may have been in there, and then perhaps she woke up and there was a scuffle and it took a dark turn.
00:58:40.380But I think that this kind of alludes again to the fact that whoever was in that house had been there before, I just have this suspicious feeling, and that they were doing something other than just setting up to abduct an 80-year-old woman.
00:58:58.900So I think this is something that is causing me to pause for just a moment.
00:59:03.920The reference to some unspecified DNA found inside of the house that's now being tested makes you wonder exactly what was it?
00:59:12.280You know, was it just they swiped the door handles and the windows and maybe Nancy's bedposts for touch DNA?
00:59:58.640And something that we haven't discussed, Megan, is it possible that a sexual assault also took place?
01:00:05.420And again, I hate to even breach the topic, but is that a possibility?
01:00:09.380Listen, two counties over from where I am two or three years ago had the exact same situation.
01:00:17.080The only difference was this lady here was 89 years old, but it was a person on drugs, sexually assaulted her in the middle of the night, brutally murdered her.
01:00:28.660Now, she was still there, but is that a possibility?
01:01:45.580Assuming that number is correct and it doesn't change on this again, Megan.
01:01:49.240And, you know, that's going to be very critical there.
01:01:52.780So, again, a successful abduction, but a poorly run kidnapping at this point.
01:01:57.140And I have other examples we can talk about of other kidnappings down the line here today.
01:02:00.540But it's just not being run very efficiently or effectively so far.
01:02:04.980If their ultimate goal was to get money out of these kids.
01:02:07.280Unless there's a lot of things, mitigating circumstance will be things that we're not learning from law enforcement.
01:02:12.960But successful abduction, not a good kidnapping.
01:02:15.000And yet it doesn't look like a full lunatic because they did think to get the ring cameras or they were Nest cameras.
01:02:21.460And apparently managed to do that without, I don't know, getting caught.
01:02:24.840I realized that those were not subscription cameras.
01:02:26.980So maybe the images were on there but just were written over.
01:02:30.500That's what the sheriff said happens with these cameras when you don't have the subscription service.
01:02:33.800By the way, get the subscription service.
01:02:36.080You know, I don't think most of us fully understood, you know, that that was a thing.
01:02:40.040But you got to get the subscription service because it's useless to you in solving crime if it just rewrites every couple of hours, as the sheriff said, or writes over itself.
01:02:48.940I do want to talk about, I want to talk about the ransom notes in a second.
01:02:53.540But I got to be honest, I'm with you guys.
01:02:55.740I'm not totally intrigued by the ransom notes because I don't, I don't believe personally that they're from the real kidnapper.
01:03:03.080Though, I could totally be wrong because the more I listen to Harvey Levin, the more I think he's starting to believe that they actually are from the hostage taker.
01:03:14.480I just want to stay on a couple of the items that we discussed with Ashley too.
01:03:18.000How about this, the change in the timeline on Sunday morning, guys?
01:03:21.640I talked about this a bit with Chad yesterday, but I didn't get to talk to you other guys about it.
01:03:25.680It was, as we played from the sheriff, I don't know if you guys heard this, but the sheriff had been saying all week that it was an hour delay, that the family had been called by a constituent at the church.
01:03:46.680A congregant called Nancy's family at 11 a.m. on Sunday after she failed to arrive at church.
01:03:52.160And then we played the sheriff on camera this week, repeatedly saying that, putting the time around 11.10, that the family got notified and got over to, and or got over to Nancy's house, either notified at 11.10 or there at Nancy's house.
01:04:05.860They live only a couple of minutes down the road.
01:04:08.420And then suddenly yesterday, it's completely changed to, no, the family discovered her missing at 11.56 a.m., discovered her missing.
01:04:19.620And then within seven minutes, called 911.
01:04:25.100Now, that to me seems like a rather large thing to have wrong, like when the family discovered that she wasn't there.
01:04:32.280Coupled with the new information that Nancy, now this could turn out to be wrong too, a lot of things have, but that apparently Nancy was not going physically to church.
01:04:41.960The Daily Mail spoke with a woman who said, hold on, I'm finding my quote here.
01:04:49.780Let's see, a fellow congregant in Nancy's church reading from the Daily Mail in Tucson was initially reported to have alerted her family that she failed to attend the morning service on Sunday.
01:04:57.840Curiously, however, a source has now told the Daily Mail that the elderly mother of the Today Show host had not been at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church for years.
01:05:06.000Ever since the COVID pandemic, she has been worshiping online.
01:05:10.420It is understood that St. Andrew's did not have a large-scale Zoom call for online viewing, as some religious organizations do.
01:05:15.560Instead, the church's 9 a.m. and 1045 a.m. services on Sunday are live-streamed, and it is impossible for other participants to know who else is watching.
01:05:25.500Now, the church responded by saying, all we can tell you is that Nancy has been a member here for many years.
01:05:32.020She is part of our community, and we love her, said Ed Coates, administrative assistant at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church.
01:05:37.760Quote, we're praying for her, and that's really all we have to say right now.
01:05:41.600I'm sure the media will know before we will, you know, how the story unfolds, but we are praying for her safety and praying for her family.
01:05:48.780So this was her church, the Daily Mail, and also Brian Enten reporting that she had not been to this church physically for years.
01:05:57.480So how could a congregant have noticed she wasn't there and called the family to report it on Sunday morning?
01:06:07.700You know, I would—whenever I hear these things, Megan, first of all, this timeline, I'm looking at it as you're talking.
01:06:14.040I'm going through it, and it's a little odd.
01:06:16.140The timeline that we have versus the verbiage of the sheriff before is different, and there are some things like the camera detecting or being disconnected and then detecting movement.
01:06:27.920There are some things there that don't make sense.
01:06:30.120It could be easily explained, but they don't make sense.
01:06:32.400But I would like to know who the person is that reported this to the family, okay?
01:06:40.780If she's not known to be there or to be on camera, who was it that's suspected?
01:06:47.320Is it somebody that she usually talks to while she's on there, and they said, oh, you know, she—and they're just not telling us that?
01:06:53.020That would make sense, and perhaps it's that simple.
01:06:56.180But if somebody—if the church or somebody's reporting that there's no way to know if she's online, yet somebody comes up with information that she's not there, then who was that person, and how did they have that information?
01:07:11.560So there's these things, and also the timeline of the family.
01:07:16.340This reminds me, again, of Idaho, where, you know, they found all this crazy stuff, and instead of calling police immediately, they called a bunch of friends over to decide what to do next.
01:07:26.980And so if the family went there and discovered that she wasn't there, and it took that long for them to notify police, if the first timeline that the sheriff went over is correct, that is also very suspicious to me why you would get there and take that long to call police when apparently it was odd enough for you to go over there and check in the first place.
01:07:50.320See, I have been defending the hour-long delay because I feel like I would be so reluctant to involve law enforcement without knowing for sure this is that level of situation.
01:08:03.960I'd be like, she wandered. Let's check on our own first.
01:08:06.800Or she may have been picked up by a friend and gone over to a friend's house. Let's check out that.
01:08:12.440Now, the blood on the front stoop makes it all less easy to understand the hour.
01:08:17.100That takes it, but that's assuming they saw it. Maybe they, too, came in through the garage, which doesn't take you right over the patio. I don't know.
01:08:27.060And we also don't know what the scene was inside the house. Was it chaotic? Was it obvious that some sort of struggle had happened in there, in which case the hour-long delay would be weird to law enforcement, too, right?
01:08:37.920It's like, you go to your mom's house and she's not there. That's one thing. You go there and you see, like, tables overturned and a blood trail leading up to the bedroom.
01:08:45.120You call within 30 seconds. You know, all that's relevant.
01:08:51.940One thing real quick is that what I have to guard against is an FBI agent, and the other gentleman can speak to this, or as an investigator, I should just say investigator.
01:09:00.020I do not get into the trap of offending people because I assume somebody may have done something.
01:09:08.080And, you know, in the Gonsalves family, when the Idaho murders went down, I wasn't that I was suspicious, but I made the comment that the father, Gonsalves' father, his behavior was very odd to me.
01:09:22.820And the vitriol that I got because I pointed that out was overwhelming.
01:09:27.540But, see, that is what an investigator cannot do.
01:09:30.420If the family members, other family members are saying, no, no, it's not this person or it's not this family member, you have to ignore that because the potential there is that you are going to look past somebody who was involved.
01:09:42.320And if you look at anything, go and binge watch 48 Hours Mysteries, which has been on for 30, 40 years,
01:09:48.820and you will see that the vast majority of these things are done by family members.
01:09:54.200And in a lot of cases, the other family members protest about looking at their siblings or spouses and things like that.
01:10:02.480And keep in mind, we got Savannah living, staying with her sister right now as well.
01:11:25.000He was clearly going through Ashley Banfield's exclusive reporting and trying to, like, dispute her reporting, but he didn't really.
01:11:33.420He just kind of said, we're not commenting on that.
01:11:35.180Or I don't know where anybody got that.
01:11:36.800The one thing he really did kind of confirm without confirming was her report that they have seized Annie Guthrie's car and that it's been impounded.
01:11:44.260And here is his comment on that in SOT 16.
01:11:46.820The car, the car that was at the home, it's just standard investigative practices.
01:11:54.220It's part of the search warrant scene, court orders.
01:11:57.180We pull it out of there and do our scene processing with the vehicle.
01:12:03.840Guys, I don't even know what that means because if it was Annie Guthrie's car, it was, I believe, at Annie Guthrie's house.
01:12:10.980Like, I haven't heard any reporting that her car stayed at her mother's home for days until it was allegedly impounded.
01:12:19.140Um, and I don't know that that would be part of, if it was at Annie's house, that would not necessarily be part of the crime scene in a standard search warrant.
01:12:33.920Just, we talked about this the other day.
01:12:35.580Uh, I mean, I think they would be remiss as investigators to not search that car, impound it, put it in the evidence lot, and bring in a team to go through it.
01:12:44.360Uh, if, if they had found anything of, uh, viable evidence there, forensic evidence, hairs, fibers, DNA, of course, anything related to that, um, that's off to the lab right now.
01:12:54.620They're, they're trying to get their comparisons.
01:12:57.880Uh, the messaging is complicated and confusing.
01:13:01.500I sometimes wonder if they're playing 4D chess or we're back at checkers when we're listening to some of this stuff being said, uh, we're not going to even comment on the sheriff and his, his delivery style.
01:13:50.020Apparently a consensual search, maybe a search warrant, whatever it was.
01:13:53.200And, uh, and, and so far they're awaiting results or the results were negative and they're moving on in a different direction.
01:13:58.480I mean, the one thing I think we can say, cause I'm just thinking about, you know, we think that the time of kidnapping or, you know, disappearance was around 2 a.m., you know, right around there.
01:14:08.380I mean, the pacemaker stopped communicating at 2 28 a.m.
01:14:11.760I think it's fair to say if, if she was taken or God forbid killed prior to that point, we would know thanks to the pacemaker because the pacemaker does communicate with the Apple watch and the Apple phone.
01:14:31.180And as I understand it now, it's, it's kind of constantly downloading, uh, information on, on there.
01:14:37.940And if you have like an event, it'll show you, but the, it's constantly collecting information, the iPhone on, on, from your pacemaker.
01:14:48.460But so, but I'm saying like if, if, yeah, so if her heart had stopped beating, you know, prior to, you know, at any point from 9 45, when she was last seen forward, we'd know that we'd know if she were no longer alive prior to the moment that her pacemaker stopped communicating with the phone.
01:15:06.060So I think we really can, in this case, unlike a lot of cases, really put the time of whatever happened to her, removal from the home at 2 20, you know, not, not before 2 28 a.m.
01:15:18.140And would we assume that the sheriff would come out or the FBI would come out and say, we believe she is still alive.
01:15:24.080If they have that cell phone data from the pacemaker and we see that, hey, actually her heart has stopped at X amount of time.
01:15:30.960Would he still be standing, standing in front of that podium saying, we believe Nancy Guthrie is still alive.
01:16:40.380So I just, like, to me it makes who dropped her off, even though there's been weird messaging around that at 9-48,
01:16:47.580a little less relevant, because I don't think this is a case where whoever dropped her off, you know,
01:16:54.800took her then or did something to her then, because I do think the pacemaker would have recorded something between 9-48 and 2-28 that night.
01:17:04.920We would have seen an event or something.
01:17:07.980She was clearly still in the house between 9-48 and 2-28.
01:17:14.160At least her body, in some form, was still in the house during that time.
01:17:36.840That would not necessarily prove anything.
01:17:38.940Blood or, of course, other body fluids would tell us a lot of his or whoever else it is.
01:17:44.700But these people, if I just add in here, they really have to start re-interviewing.
01:17:48.800They probably interviewed him at least twice so far, separate.
01:17:51.800Start offering polygraph examinations to them.
01:17:55.140You know, polygraphs aren't perfect, but if done right, but the right polygraphist and, you know, the pre-interview, the first interview, post-interview,
01:18:02.680you can get a lot of information from people.
01:18:04.520So this concentric circle we're talking about.
01:18:06.840Wait, Jim, can I ask you a question on that?
01:18:55.140If you say you want a lawyer and you say you want someone to represent you or you're refusing to be interviewed or a polygraph, I didn't want to ask some more questions about you.
01:19:03.800But I certainly want phone records, too, from everyone and ask them about, all right, will your phone call to this person, to that person?
01:19:09.020And even the person at the church, whoever this person was allegedly called, let's get them interviewed in depth, in detail, maybe a polygraph to them.
01:19:17.760And let's start throwing these things out there.
01:19:20.040And there should be another team, of course, working, you know, the alleged ransom note and email, whatever it is, and looking at all those factors, too, from far away.
01:19:28.000But that concentric circle, a team has to be in there saying, we're doing this for your sake, everyone, please.
01:19:33.460And if someone turns down on that family, you know, that request, the other family members, because, oh, wait a minute, why don't you want to talk to the investigators?
01:19:40.820And who knows where that would go from there?
01:19:43.280But it may lead to a break somehow of the family and someone come forth.
01:19:46.480I'm not pointing at the family at this point, but do they know someone indirectly, even tangentially, that somehow thought they were doing the right thing and abducted the woman, whether it's a kidnapping or not?
01:19:56.720We just don't really know that yet, for profit, that is.
01:20:01.320So I know yesterday, you know, all of us were kind of this timeline and the disconnect that we know that the ring doorbell, I know, Jonathan, you and I were talking about this, the ring doorbell was destroyed.
01:20:12.400And then we get that, then the disconnect.
01:20:38.460I'm kind of, because obviously Ashley talked about the back door there.
01:20:42.840It appeared that there was some type of entry made to the back door.
01:20:45.880So is it possible when we look at these two disconnects was they disabled, you know, someone knew how to approach this door to not be viewed or whatever, or it did view them and they just didn't capture the image.
01:21:03.520At that point, we know that is going to be the exit, or we believe that's the exit.
01:21:08.420Then at that point, they can pull a vehicle to the front door, but the entry, whether they're working with one or two, entry is made into the back.
01:21:15.740Now, again, this doesn't help with the 40-some-odd minutes or however they were inside the house, all right, but when they go into the back door to make entry, that is that, you know, the other picture that we are gaining from.
01:24:58.440So I think those three absolutely believe that this might be the hostage taker and that they might need to negotiate with this person to save their mother's life.
01:25:07.520And Harvey Levin really revealed quite a bit about what's in there and why they might believe that.
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01:26:12.320We're back now with our panel and more on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, and we're going to get into the ransom note now.
01:26:22.820The ransom note, the authorities confirmed yesterday that it was the same note sent to all three media outlets, TMZ and to Tucson local television stations.
01:26:31.440That was a question Jim had been asking from the beginning.
01:26:34.700We're told by the FBI, same note, three different recipients.
01:26:38.380And now Harvey Levin is offering new details of what was in the letter.
01:26:42.960Here's a little of what he told Aaron Burnett last night, SOT 5.
01:26:46.420The Monday deadline is far more consequential.
01:26:50.520I will say this, that they do mention an Apple Watch, as the FBI said, and they do mention the floodlight, the damaged floodlight.
01:26:58.740There is something else, and it is the placement of the Apple Watch, which has not come out.
01:27:05.600And if that placement is accurate, I'm sure that is something that puts this letter on the FBI's radar.
01:27:15.820They went to great lengths in sending this email to us in making sure that it stays anonymous.
01:27:23.340I don't know that the FBI is at all close to figuring out where it came from.
01:27:28.800They began the letter, I don't think I'm giving anything away here, they began the letter by saying that Nancy is okay but scared.
01:27:39.140So they say she is okay, and also that she's aware of the letter and the demands.
01:27:47.000That Nancy Guthrie herself is aware of it.
01:27:50.520So that's very interesting, the part about the watch, guys, because one of the questions at the presser yesterday was, okay, you know, you're saying in this note they referenced the Apple Watch and something about the floodlights on her home.
01:28:04.040Well, you can see the floodlights on her home from outside.
01:28:07.260Like, there are pictures right now on Fox News Digital showing them.
01:28:09.720You know, it's not like a big news thing.
01:28:12.140And the reports about her Apple Watch hit, I think, on Monday, like right after this story first became national news.
01:28:19.580So, and the ransom notes, as far as we know, did not go to the media outlets until, we believe, Tuesday.
01:28:26.920So the question was asked to the FBI, like, you know, why do we believe these are real as opposed to somebody who just heard information in the news and then tried to capitalize on this family's pain?
01:28:37.860And the FBI director seemed like he didn't say, oh, no, there's other stuff in the note.
01:28:42.840He was like, yeah, that's one of the things we're considering.
01:28:45.900But now you have Harvey Levin saying, no, no, no, there was something specifically about the placement of the Apple Watch, which he suggested only the kidnapper could know if the placement of the watch, as described in this note, were correct.
01:29:02.000You know, if the person, maybe they said she had it right on her bedside table next to a picture of the one grandchild and a notepad.
01:29:10.540You know, maybe it was something that truly only the kidnapper could know.
01:29:13.720So that's one of the reasons why he's taking it very specifically or very, very seriously.
01:29:56.120It means they're taking it seriously because they don't know if it's not real.
01:29:59.580And so, you know, how how much do people vary in where they put their watches or did they put the watch in a certain place and then mention that?
01:30:12.040And so I think speculating on on the reality or the realism of these of these notes, even though they sound very compelling, it may just it may not be anything.
01:30:24.400Or it may be, again, Megan, 41 minutes in a home before you abduct somebody.
01:30:30.320It just may be the fact that people who were in there know her and know that house and they're using this as a ruse and they can say these specific things because they were in there for that long.
01:30:40.760Whether they meant to hurt her or not or wake her up or not.
01:30:45.120Wait, are you suggesting like if they if they took her life and now they're just play acting that there's a kidnapping underway?
01:30:56.000I mean, that that would not be the first time that that has happened and it would not be the first time that people have gone into.
01:31:02.860If it was a sexual assault, as we were talking about earlier, I doubt that that individual that would go into the house and do a sexual assault of that nature of an elderly woman is going to go down the road of this ruse.
01:31:16.680So those wouldn't be probably connected.
01:31:18.580But a family member we have seen in the past where they have tried to send the police down another road, either blaming somebody or some type of ruse.
01:31:26.420So I could see that occurring, especially if the death was not intentional.
01:31:32.040Let me get to two other soundbites from Harvey describing what's in the note.
01:31:38.520I don't know, but the way it's written, they say this is it.
01:31:42.500It's the only communication and the police aren't going to be able to help you.
01:31:46.580They're that bold saying that there is a phrase in this email that absolutely makes me believe.
01:31:54.480This person who wrote this and if they're telling the truth that Nancy is in with a within a radius of the Tucson area, not in Tucson right now, but in a radius would be New Mexico.
01:32:08.260I don't know how far, but I think at least what the authorities have is they've got a radius and that's something.
01:32:15.980There's a little bit more on her allegedly being in the Tucson area where he spoke with Aaron Burnett, SOT 6.
01:32:21.440My sense is this is whoever sent this letter is based in the Tucson area.
01:32:30.140And I say that because of a reference made in the letter, a sentence in the letter.
01:32:36.180It feels to me reading it that this is Tucson based.
01:32:42.340And and and I think that's a fair analysis based on, you know, my discussions today in the office and just reading this letter.
01:32:50.600So this doesn't feel like this is somebody out of state or out of the country who hatched this plan.
01:33:29.280He's trying to take advantage of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.
01:33:34.040You could absolutely be sitting someplace in India doing this whole thing.
01:33:38.540Harvey's suggesting if it's real, then the person's got her near Tucson, because obviously he's suggesting, Chad, that they could have her back very quickly once they get their millions.
01:33:52.400And I think what it what it really boils down to, I mean, if we're just using common sense here, it's not like they took her to an airport or even or even an FBO and got her on a private plane.
01:34:02.620Right. You've got to have an idea unless you've got some, you know, janky airfield behind your house in the middle of the desert.
01:34:08.120They were on some prop plane, probably very highly unlikely.
01:34:12.100So we can probably eliminate that aspect.
01:35:13.560Just someone, could be some college kids having fun with this.
01:35:16.480Hey, I know how to put these emails together.
01:35:18.540You know, I watched, you know, Criminal Minds back in the day and they put something together.
01:35:21.780Or, and this brings us back now to what is the reason for the abduction, for profit or is it for a revenge taking of this woman and possibly doing bad things to her.
01:35:33.860And they put this out, as I described yesterday, a POMIC, Post-Offense Manipulation of Investigation Communication.
01:35:41.480I coined that term because I was seeing these things happening in other cases I worked over the years, certainly back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
01:35:49.620And these are, it's a whole sort of separate set of letters that people were putting together.
01:35:54.080So, is someone sophisticated enough who took Mrs. Guthrie, then put her somewhere, not still alive and not alive and said, hey, I'm going to become a suspect.
01:36:04.600I better put this fake email out to two news stations and TMZ.
01:36:50.920If she winds up dead and you wind up getting no money, that you're still going to be held liable for it.
01:36:55.300So they better be some kind of proof of life that they offer.
01:36:58.660And then the parents, I should say the family will know she's alive or not.
01:37:02.580But these are all the options and the different sort of silos that the investigators have to look at of what this letter actually means, this email and how and its authenticity.
01:37:11.920So do you guys believe if we don't, if the family doesn't get proof of life between now and Monday, which is the second deadline in there, which is the more serious deadline, according to Harvey, I can only guess he's suggesting they're saying that's it for Nancy on Monday.
01:37:28.380But something much more serious, he said, is going to happen on Monday if they don't get the money.
01:37:32.620If they don't offer proof of life, which is what Savannah and her siblings asked for, which is what Cameron, her brother asked for last night, you know, they want to be in communication very, very badly and they want proof of life.
01:38:07.920Somebody is like the guy in California is just trying to extort money from somebody, basically.
01:38:14.080Whereas if the people who did it use this as a ruse to get the tension away from them and then they just drop off the radar, I think it's very, very telling.
01:38:24.320Because a true person, listen, there's two phases of this crime that happened.
01:38:27.780One is, well, actually three, entry to the house and whatever reason they were there for 41 minutes, removal of the victim or kidnapping or removal if it was a body, and then this potential ransom issue.
01:38:46.260And the ransom part of this is really the most technical aspect of this.
01:38:52.360So somebody to do all three of these things for the first time ever is quite a big deal.
01:38:59.240The cartels are using Bitcoin now as ways to collect ransom.
01:39:03.380But there's no evidence that that's occurred over the border, which is not really far from where she lives.
01:39:10.920Her type of person or person, the persona that she or the person that she is rich and going and she traveled to Mexico and being kidnapped there, that would make sense.
01:39:20.880So I just look at this as we're going down a rabbit hole here that has two different types of phases of this crime.
01:39:31.760And the second one, which is this ransom issue, it's very hard to figure out.
01:39:38.180And I'll say, I think because in the, if she is there, if the ransom is real, they said 5 p.m.
01:39:46.220They didn't say Greenwich Mountain Time, right, which I think a professional would probably say that.
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01:45:58.980Would, if, because we started off the show again and we heard Ashley talking about the son-in-law.
01:46:03.860If the son-in-law is involved, is this letter, and if it's from him, is that just a BS letter?
01:46:14.040Because you would think if, if, if the son-in-law went in there to, you know, take her life in hopes of getting, you know, insurance money, getting grandma's or mother-in-law's house.
01:46:25.200Would you go to the extent of writing this full letter?
02:11:01.640And so it's not like a normal neighborhood, you know, where, like, you have neighbors.
02:11:05.820I can see my neighbors, you know, like my neighbors can see me.
02:11:09.420I think it is possible in this particular neighborhood to maybe get in and get out without anybody's nest camera or ring camera detecting you because all the houses are set back.
02:11:19.280It could be a bank down the road, though, or a grocery store.
02:11:21.460I mean, just any cars in the vicinity of that area, you know, I'm in Arizona and it is a dead, it's a desert at night.
02:11:30.280There's hardly anybody moving at night.
02:11:32.180And so, especially in that type of location, if there's any store that has any video at all within, I would even say, 10 miles, I would try to pull some camera at that time to see any cars that might have been heading to or from at those particular times.
02:11:46.400I would suggest that if they haven't done it, they should do it.
02:11:50.080And, Megan, you know, I was I didn't work this when it happened, but I was later inherited the case of the 2008 bombing, pipe bombing of the recruiting state, the military recruiting depot in Times Square.
02:12:02.860A guy rode up on a bicycle at three o'clock in the morning, put a pipe bomb on, rode all the way back over to like 32nd Street.
02:12:28.560But it's it is interesting that it turns out Savannah used the exact same messaging in her video with her siblings that we saw in Silence of the Lambs.
02:12:40.100We talked about it at the top of our first hour.
02:12:41.680I'm just going to play the juxtaposition for you guys here in Sot Zero C.
02:12:47.560She is full of kindness and knowledge.
02:13:13.860Ironically, in a way, in the in a fake kidnapping case, the JonBenet Ramsey case, because she was never left the house, found dead in the basement six hours later.
02:13:23.940In that ransom note, there were three separate movie references, one from Dirty Harry, one from the movie Speed and a strong reference to the movie from the usual suspects with the whole foreign faction thing.
02:16:19.900We need you to reach out, and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward.
02:16:25.380But first, we have to know that you have our mom.
02:16:28.360We want to talk to you, and we are waiting for contact.
02:16:33.060Any thoughts on why he played such a bit role in the first video but was the sole player in the second one?
02:16:39.660My take on this is, and I may be totally wrong, but he's a military man, and he's a fighter pilot, I think is what you were saying earlier.
02:16:46.800I mean, that's an aggressive personality.
02:16:48.740I don't think he was happy with that first video.
02:16:52.540I think he – it was kind of a long video, and they looked like they were being held captive reading it.
02:16:59.040And I think that he or somebody or a group of the family members wanted to do a different one.
02:17:07.200And the flowery language and the things in the first one, I don't know what the relationship is between these siblings.
02:17:14.640I don't – you know, it's hard to tell.
02:17:17.180But, you know, that appears to me as though that was done with a cell phone as opposed to a camera with a script in front of you and a little bit more of he wanted to do that.
02:18:15.320But for some reason, a geographic location was represented on his hat in the two different family and pleading to the kidnappers, whoever they may be, videos.
02:19:38.080Maybe they intentionally lined it up that way so they had like a third in reserve, you know, who could come forward and do his own video.
02:19:44.520And I don't know what they do over the next few days.
02:19:46.360I'm sure they're getting increasingly desperate if they have reason to believe that that Monday scary deadline is real.
02:19:53.800I mean, I can only pray that this is all – that he was told to wear the hat, that Savannah was told to use no caps in her Instagram post,
02:20:00.940that Savannah's language and the way she and her sister were talking were somehow codes for some other kidnapper ransom note that we have no idea about from somebody who has actual proof of life or something that could be –
02:20:15.800I'm like, that's – I just feel like short of that, I feel – I don't feel hopeful, you guys.
02:20:20.540I don't – I mean, does anyone feel hopeful at this point?
02:20:22.480It's pretty shocking how a lot of these cases end up being just simply a bad family member or a bad encounter with somebody.
02:20:30.380We still – we haven't even talked anymore about the person that called in saying that they were worried about the church issue.
02:20:35.820I mean, it's astounding how many of these cases end up being where we go down all these roads and it just ends up being somebody who's a real dirtbag that did something in some cockamamie scheme that they thought they could get away with,
02:20:49.360and they just didn't plan their – you know, through it, and so they end up killing the person.