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- [00:05]
A
Hello and welcome to our brand new podcast, Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. We kick things off with the case captivating the nation, the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. Michael Ruiz has been in Tucson for FOX News Digital since the beginning. I know you've been out there and you have been just paying attention to everything that's going on. And we can't wait to talk to you about what's happening in Tucson. So bring us up to speed.
- [00:33]
B
Yeah. So I mean, the latest is that there's been a lot made of this DNA evidence that they found inside the house. Unfortunately, they ran a CODIS check on it, which is the FBI's criminal DNA database, and it came up with no hits. So, so there's, there's a little bit to unpack here. There's DNA evidence on a glove found about two miles from her home that the investigators believe aligns visibly or some with some other characteristics with what's seen on surveillance video recovered from her front porch. So a suspect in a mask and gloves was on her front porch the night she went missing. They think this other glove is similar to it in enough of a way where they tested it, put the DNA through codis, no hit. The DNA on the glove also doesn't match other DNA found inside her house. So now they're unpacking that DNA. There's more of it that they still need to test and send to this CODIS database. And they also have samples that have DNA from multiple people on them that they have to separate and then test all that. And then they're going to put that through codis. They're going to do other things that they can use to try to get somewhere with this DNA and find a suspect in the case.
- [01:42]
A
And Mike, we've also heard about late night raids happening in the last couple of days and nothing has come from that. So where are we now in terms of what's next? I mean, the DNA testing looked like it was going to be pretty good on that glove. And then like you said, there wasn't a CODIS hit. Now, that doesn't mean that all hope is lost, but it definitely means that we're in a position now where we're not getting a lot of answers quickly.
- [02:08]
B
Well, they did a lot over the weekend, right? I mean, they had multiple raids at the same time. They hit a house nearby and they also had pulled over someone in a car driving in the neighborhood. And they told us that those two stops were somehow related to each other to the same warrant and to the Nancy Guthrie disappearance. After all that, though, the people that they had detained were all released with no charges. None of them have been accused of having a role in this apparent abduction. So what's next is police are looking at other leads, and they're looking at what could be this thing called investigative genetic genealogy, or IgG, which is another way of tracing DNA. They can use someone's family tree, their heritage, their ancestry, to find family members. Then they go through that and they narrowed down, they narrowed down on a potential suspect. Sorry, there's a car going really fast over there. I'm not sure if you heard that. But anyway, they use the IGG to find someone and come up with leads, and they can find a suspect's relatives. Narrow in. Maybe someone has relatives in New York who happened to have property here or some other reason to have been here in Tucson, Arizona at the time of Nancy's disappearance. So they can use those leads to track down suspects like that. Now, that's not the only thing they're doing. They're also going around to local gun stores. We've heard asking about several people, almost two dozen people. We're not sure the exact number, but we're told a ballpark of 20 people with images and names. And the FBI is asking these gun store owners if they have sold any weapons to any of these people recently. So they're, they're tracking that down too. Now, there's also this theory that they can get more surveillance video recovered. What they did with the surveillance video on her front door camera is kind of this groundbreaking thing that we haven't seen before, at least I'm not aware of it having been done before. But she had no cloud subscription and the physical camera itself was taken, but they were still able to recover enough video to put it out there so that we could see it. And on top of that, they then used forensic techniques to tell us how tall the guy was, to tell us his build. They didn't estimate a weight, but he's 5, 9, 5 10, somewhere in that range of average size. And he apparently had some, some identifiable items that he was carrying with him, like this backpack that they said is an Ozark Trail brand backpack, which they only sell at Walmart. He had this pistol holster or revolver holster on his belt, which is, is also commonly sold at Walmart, but not every Walmart. So they're looking at the connection of that pistol hole.
- [04:39]
A
Mike, let me jump in. I think that these are things that people who have been watching this have known. Right? This is not new evidence. I want to talk about the way that Coburger was found and how that relates to the igg. And I know that you were on the ground in Idaho for CO Burger just as you're on the ground in Tucson. And I want to talk about this IGG because I think just the way Coburger was discovered, this may help in a case like this. So talk to me about what that process looked like and the fact that, you know, Co Burger was several years ago now and has that process gotten faster? And would we respect. Would we expect some more answers on IGG sooner than we did in Co Burger? If there are any?
- [05:25]
B
Yeah, Donna, great question. So Brian Coburger, who is the man convicted of killing four University of Idaho students, he left a K bar knife sheath at the scene. It was the only lead that investigators really had. I mean, they said they had the car, too, but there was no plate. It would have probably taken them a lot longer to track him down. This little DNA sample he left on the knife sheath, they were able to use IGG and track down his family. First, they found his cousins. They were distant cousins. They might not have even known him for all we know. And they didn't want to help police, so they kept going up this family tree and eventually led them to his father and then through his father to him. And as we know, he is now serving multiple life prison sentences with no parole. So they had the right guy. And the way they did that, the timeline of how they did that. The murders happened on November 13. By December 19, police had finally received Brian Kohberger's name as a suspect. He was arrested on December 30th. Now, I was talking to the folks from Othram. That's one of these laboratories that does IGG work. I'm talking to them this morning, and they were on the Coburger case. They developed the profile within 24 hours. Obviously, it took a little bit longer to find Coburger from that profile, but the work has only gotten faster. They were telling me this morning that this can. This can happen in a matter of minutes. It could take longer if someone doesn't have an extensive family to train.
- [06:45]
A
Have they waited, though? But why have they waited? They've had this DNA from the house on the glove. Why aren't they doing the testing for IgG at the same time they're trying put these things through codis. Why are they waiting?
- [07:00]
B
So a couple of things there, and I am not a geneticist or an expert on genealogy, but I know that they have to do different types of testing. So what they did in the lab last week or over the weekend in Florida to make the CODIS match or to check it out against CODIS is a different kind of DNA testing than they do for this genetic genealogy. They need a much more developed profile to work on this and then it takes a long time to sift through the data. You actually have people manually. Not only do they get the DNA back, but they're looking at heritage and ancestry and other things that aren't DNA to link people to places and relatives. Just like, you know, when you go and search your research, your family tree online, it's not just genetics. They're going to tell you that we found a, you know, obituary in 1912 from your great grandfather and this is where they were living. So things like that, it's not just the genetics. So it's a much more labor intensive kind of process once the IgG is in play.
- [07:53]
A
Well, yeah, and I agree with that and I think you're right. But given the fact that, you know, in Coburger we had four dead bodies and yes, they wanted to find the killer, but they were able to take the time they needed to do that and make sure that they did everything correctly. Here we still have a missing woman who's 84 years old with heart problems. And I just feel like they waited until so many days. I mean, that glove got sent to the lab in Florida. They didn't send it right to Quantico. Then they had to send what they did find into codis. It's like there's been so many extra steps that I'm just wondering, you know, what the sentiment is or if anybody out there on the ground is talking about why these things are taking so long. I think the public is saying, okay, we need to move this along. We still have a missing woman. We're hearing today that people in the neighborhoods are starting to say, I'm locking my doors, I'm feeling unsafe. So, you know, I'm just wondering if feeling that there's a sense of urgency on the ground.
- [08:52]
B
This is definitely a community where they're not used to this type of crime. We were told early on when we got here, this is the type of community where people leave their doors unlocked. I don't think that is the current feeling here. I think people are a little on edge. This has gone on now for 18 days without a suspect. They don't have any persons of interest. They haven't released any information on a potential vehicle that people should be on the lookout for. So it is a Concern for safety. It's a mystery that people don't really understand. They would like answers and they're hoping that the investigation will bring them answers. But behind the scenes, we know that investigators aren't going to reveal their hands right away. We don't know what they're working on other than what we can publicly see. And it's probably a lot more than what we know about.
- [09:33]
A
And I think it's strange. I mean, you know, you're out there, you hear what's going on, and we're all watching the same thing. I know your Twitter activity, or excuse me, your ex activity, is very robust. And we are not the sheriff. Every time the sheriff speaks, it's like he contradicts himself. And that has to be very frustrating for the people who live there and whether or not they feel safe.
- [09:57]
B
Yeah, this is a small town sheriff thrust in the international media spotlight. So, you know, I am not sure how accustomed he is to dealing with this much scrutiny. Certainly there's been, you've seen the back and forth between the sheriff and critics of the sheriff, as we can call them. But that said, there's. There's a sense that he is working around the clock. He told me earlier this week that he worked through the weekend, he worked through President's Day, said he's not taking any days off. We know that officers have been called in, their vacations have been canceled, they're working overtime. So the investigation is still ongoing, even if the messaging is a little bit confusing.
- [10:32]
A
Yeah, I think you're right. I also think that, you know, we're dealing with not only a sheriff, like you said, that is not really familiar with this type of scrutiny, but at the same time, how difficult is it to keep the answer straight or the story straight? It's like he talks to one news outlet and says one thing and talks to another and says something else. I think it would probably be much more helpful for you especially and for people like us who are talking about this every day, if maybe there was a more direct flow of information, maybe an every other day press conference, even if there isn't much new news to at least say these are the steps that we are taking and the community is safe, or people need to lock their doors.
- [11:14]
B
Yeah, I think everybody would appreciate some clear communication and some consistent communication. And there's. There's certainly been some confusion. But I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback the sheriff or anybody else involved in the investigation. We. We just are kind of following what we can see and the concrete developments as they come out and. And we know a little bit more of where this investigation is going, but obviously there haven't been any answers yet.
- [11:36]
A
Well, it's smart of you to not question the sheriff as you're out there. I think that's probably a good move. But, Mike, thank you. Stand by if you can, for us. That would be great. Let's bring in criminal defense attorney David Gager. David, how are you today?
- [11:51]
C
I'm great, Donna. How exciting is this? Congratulations. This is awesome.
- [11:55]
A
Thank you. So happy to have you in this first podcast today. So thank you so much. So let's talk about what is going on here in Tucson, Arizona. So tell me what your initial thoughts are in terms of where we are 18 days into this investigation, and it seems like every time we turn around, it's two steps forward and three steps back. So tell me what your initial impressions are, and then we'll kind of get into it and talk about it as two lawyers who at some point would hope that we see a case like this come to a courtroom and that somebody's arrested and that there is actually justice brought, regardless of what happened.
- [12:33]
C
Well, absolutely. And I actually think that analogy is great with taking three steps back. I'm kind of shocked that in some of what I'm hearing, we are where we are. We're talking about the officers saying that they're using scanning technology back on helicopters to scan for her pacemaker again, which is basically just a blanket type of move. We're hearing about them going to neighbors homes and talking to people that maybe should have been talked to right away. I just feel like I'm kind of surprised that we are at this point where it's almost as if we're starting over. The DNA lead didn't go anywhere. We're back to what appears to be square one now. As you know from all we do, they're not playing their whole hand. They're not telling the media and everyone everything that they know. They have secrets to keep in terms of not getting information out there that they would. Could potentially have compromised their investigation. But I was taken aback a bit when I heard about some of the other things that they're doing being very beginning of investigation type stuff.
- [13:27]
A
Yeah, I know we talked about the DNA with Mike a little bit, and there's been a lot of communication about the fact that there was multiple people's DNA found in the home of Nancy Guthrie. Now, that doesn't mean that there are potentially multiple people who committed this crime. Talk to us about all the ways DNA can end up in someone's house.
- [13:50]
C
Sure. And I think that that is, you know, a bit of a red herring for the public to say, well, there was a lot of DNA there, so there must have been a lot of people, maybe a lot of people were involved. You would expect that there would be a lot of DNA profiles in a woman's home who has frequent visitors, who has family, who has, you know, people delivering things to the house, any type of way. DNA can be shed pretty easily. It can come through skin cells, it can come through saliva, it could come through things that you had contact with and then put down. So the fact that there's multiple profiles there I think is something that's actually really not that surprising. It's who those profiles belong to and are they profiles of people that would reasonably be expected to be there. That's the key. And we just don't know right now. All we know is that they did the swabs, they did their collection techniques, the techniques had hit for DNA profile and now they're sent to labs to determine if they mean anything or not to the investigators in terms of evidentiary value.
- [14:40]
A
Well, and potentially every person who had not only access to that house, but let's say you had deliveries come to that house from Amazon or UPS or FedEx. Anybody who touched those boxes or the items put in the box that touch DNA can be transferred.
- [14:56]
C
There could be the DNA from a package handler who sorted it at the facility three days ago that could have stayed residually on some tape or something from a box that then wound up on a table, that then wound up in the home. And we've had plenty of cases, you and I, where residual DNA has been left and shed DNA has been left. We've even had DNA present in testing that came from the people who were working in the labs. It's very, very easily transferred. And because of that, finding multiple profiles in someone's home is not necessarily a tell all, it's what's done with that information.
- [15:30]
A
Yeah, and we know that they did DNA testing of all the people who did have access to that home. And the reason to do that, of course, is to then exclude people whose DNA may show up and say, okay, well this DNA is not one that we need to consider. You know, odds are the person that came to work on the pool, if they touch the electrical box in the back, is probably not somebody that you have to worry about.
- [15:55]
C
Right, that's exactly true. And they have the technique to weed people out. And like you said, that goes back to the. They're not telling us everything about everything that they know. They're excluding people and using the profiles they have, maybe ones that were voluntarily given to them, things like that. So they're doing that behind the scenes work. But I just think that in general, and this goes back to what you said about, you know, the press conference and the clarity. That's a pretty unclear statement for a sheriff to make to say, hey, we found a bunch of DNA profiles in the house. That gets every at home detective saying wait a minute, what's going on with that? You need a little more than that, a little more explanation than that. And we really didn't get it. And there should be, I think, a free flow of information and follow up to say that the finding of multiple DNA profiles doesn't necessarily mean that we have suspects that we're not telling you about.
- [16:39]
A
Yeah, I talk about this a lot because it bothers me this idea that the sheriff does not want to tell us whether or not this was a forced entry into the house. And you know, we talk about, and we've talked about it on multiple shows, we talk about this front door and the front door is this really heavy front door. And you know, in order to get through that door, if you were to try to get break in to that door, it would be very difficult. You'd see signs of damage to that door. We've all seen the outside of that door. It doesn't look like it's damaged. The only thing damaged outside was that nest doorbell camera. But what we do know is that there was blood on the steps of that, that patio leading down to the driveway which did test back to Nancy Guthrie's DNA. So they know that that was Nancy Guthrie's blood. So at some point it would seem that she was taken out through that front door or for some reason near that front door prior to leaving the house. So to me that issue of how someone got in is fairly relevant. And I'm not sure why putting that piece of information out would be problematic in any way to the public knowing that in terms of impeding the investigation. Do you have any thoughts on that?
- [17:54]
C
I can't understand it either. You're absolutely right. That makes absolutely no sense. Particularly also because what you had talked about several times, I think it's important this is still a missing persons investigation as well. So the public knowing about what happened out in front of that house, was this a break in? Was this a forced entry? Was this, you know, a violent occurrence? I mean, I think that that's important because we're Trying to determine whether or not this woman, and we all pray that she is. Is still alive and is still, you know, with captors. And I think that a full understanding of exactly what happened in terms of how she was extracted from that home is. Is paramount to not only an investigation, but also a satisfaction of the public that they are safe and that they are in a place where they can feel safe. You are the elected sheriff. That's your job, is the safety of your community, along with criminal investigations.
- [18:42]
A
Yeah, and I just keep going back to the fact that, you know, I get why you wouldn't want to tip anybody off that is a potential suspect, But I just don't see how that would be anything that would be problematic now. It might be problematic to somebody who may be wanting a reward. So if you. You put out certain pieces of information, you don't want the public to know too much in terms of trying to get an. Get the reward here. But at the end of the day, you would need to have really credible information in order to get an FBI reward for $100,000. So I'm just not so sure that any of that matters. But again, I don't know why that's a sticking point for me, but it really is. I just think it's one of those things that would give us some information, shed some light onto what maybe this truly was. But I guess we're going to find out more. The sheriff has also, just the other day, I think, came out and said that the Guthrie family is no longer suspects in this case, and they have been cleared as suspects. So tell me if you think that that means anything at this juncture, given the fact that we really don't seem to have any information and they seem to not necessarily have any other suspects. So is it premature to clear them? And what does that really mean, if anything?
- [19:59]
C
Well, I mean, you know, Donna, you're not a suspect until you're a suspect. You know, I mean, you never know when something could change. You never know when some evidence comes through that changes their thought of it. Some genetic profiling comes through, and next thing you know, well, we thought not, and now he is. They're not exonerating him. They're not saying that charges against any of them have been denied or that anything like that. They're just saying that's not the direction we're looking at right now, and that's fine. Maybe that's the facts, and that's how I'm led them. You know, that's the way they've gone. But I just don't see that that proclamation means that never again will they ever be looked at if any of this physical evidence and any of the scientific evidence starts pointing in that direction again.
- [20:37]
A
Yeah. And I think, given the fact that we heard just this morning that there were, and we talked to Mike about it, too, that there were people in the community saying that they're now locking their doors, I think initially most people felt that this was fairly targeted, given who Nancy Guthrie's daughter is, given the fact that this is a safe community. And so I think now the fact that family is cleared, I think that is making the community a little bit more leery if they can't really pinpoint someone at least close to her, someone who knew her, someone who was familiar with her. And so maybe now they're feeling like this was not a targeted attack.
- [21:15]
C
That's also possible. And that's also the unnerving part. If this was not targeted, it's extremely coincidental, but it's also extremely unnerving because basically, you took what you might consider to be one of the most vulnerable people in the community, the woman who's on the pacemaker, the woman who is needing medication, the woman who can't walk 50 yards without assistance, and you violently extract her from her home and leave her blood on her porch. I mean, that all of a sudden is the telltale of not a safe community with a small town sheriff that just is policing a bunch of people that unlock their doors. That's a completely different set of circumstances, if that's what really happened.
- [21:50]
A
And, you know, and scary and rare.
- [21:54]
C
Absolutely. Exceedingly rare. Almost unheard of, if you really think about it. I mean, it's not. There's a community like this. There's hundreds of communities like this in every state in the country. So this targeted, random act of violence and lack of explanation has got to be very, very scary for the people who are living there, particularly because I think it's of a community of older people, retired people, people who kind of are at that stage in their life where they're trying to be in a place where they can let their guard down a little bit and live in peace for the rest of their days. And this is very, very scary.
- [22:28]
A
It is scary. And I think that that kind of goes into my next question here. This is now week three, and I think the American people are not only not tiring of the story, because people want to know and people want to see a very happy resolution here, but at the same, people are looking at this going, why isn't there more movement? And that may be because it's on TV all day long and without any movement, it makes it seem like it's much longer. But it is fairly typical for crime investigations to take a considerable period of time, correct?
- [23:05]
C
Absolutely. And actually, if you look at it from our perspective, Donna, we're hoping for rushed cases that are missing things or maybe done too quick and therefore there are errors made. And, you know, defense attorneys jump on that. That's what we get paid to do. But the concern is in this case, what makes it so much different is that this is still also missing persons. And I think people want to know, not just about the case and the investigation, but also, where is this woman? What's happened to her? Has she gotten her medication? I mean, it's a very personal story because it's the mother of a person that millions of Americans invite into their home every day. And when a TV personality who's there for the morning show, who people, you know, have on in the background while they eat their breakfast, I mean, and her mother's missing and we can't know anything about it. That's tough. It grips the country because of who it is and where it happened.
- [23:55]
A
Well, yeah, And I think the country says, look at the resources being dedicated to this. I mean, you see the comments online where people say, well, there's a lot of missing people. But you see that not only the amount of people watching this to see what happened, but people looking at it going, okay, we're putting all these resources out and yet we're still not getting any answers. So I think that's where that level of frustration comes in. It's looking at what's actually what the output is versus what is given in return at this point. And so that three weeks seems like it's a lot longer than it actually is.
- [24:28]
C
You know, we live in a world of return on investment, and that's what this is. We've invested time, we've invested resources, we've invested communications with the highest of appointed officials in our government. The head of the FBI, not just an FBI agent. We have the head of the FBI commenting on us. We have the President of the United States who has made comments about this. At that point, you have an America that I think it's fair to say is saying, what is going on here? What is. What is happening?
- [24:54]
A
Invested, very invested in. Want answers.
- [24:57]
C
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's probably the best word to put. They are invested in the outcomes of a person who is universally known in this country as a trusted person. That we see every day on a morning show.
- [25:11]
A
Well, and everybody has a mom, right? So everybody has a mom. So anybody watching this can put themselves in that position and say, oh my goodness, if this was my mother. And so it's just a story that's hit on so many different levels. I wanna go back for a second to DNA and the testing of DNA because for you and I that try these cases and David's probably cross examined more DNA experts that than I have because I usually make him do it, but I don't, I don't love the science part. So I think that as defense attorneys we look at this DNA and if they are going to actually catch someone using DNA and they are using now IGG DNA to go through this genealogy, they have to be careful because if in the testing they have hits but they consume all the samples, then there's nothing left to retest. If at some point someone's arrested, this case gets to a courtroom and the defense attorney say, hey, wait a minute, I need to test that myself.
- [26:17]
C
Correct. And you know, without boring America too much about this. Basically what you need to know is that every time DNA is tested, a little piece of it is extracted, it's put into different types of chemical solutions and examined under a microscope. And then that piece of the test is, I guess the best word you could use is spoiled. You can't use it again. And every single time you do a test, every lab you ship it off to, every company that you contact that has done these type of genealogy examinations, every time you send one that's gone for, I guess, ever, is the best way to do it. And we know that this genetic tracing technology that creates suspects, it does not create DNA matches and does not put a person necessarily in the location, which ultimately is the most important part of DNA evidence in terms of how bad it can be for a defense attorney. When you look at it in a case, if they've got your DNA hit at the location you were there, I mean, and that's sometimes, as we said, it can be transferred. There can be other explanations. But in general, you know, the general public, your average juror is saying your DNA was in the house, you were at the house. So law enforcement and ultimately prosecutors in a case want to have that available to them because sometimes it can be their only link to a suspect and the outcome and the ultimate charging when it's a random act, which may be in this case.
- [27:38]
A
Yeah, the other day there was agents, I think it was just last night or even earlier today, there were agents Seen at the house of neighbors, and there was a ladder up, and it looked as if they were inspecting a camera on the outside of a neighbor's house. And then they went inside the house to presumably speak to the owners of that house. And the Internet, of course, has gone crazy about why they're doing this 18 days later. So tell me if that's kind of normal in the course of investigations, if that's something that should have been done or why they'd be going back to the house. I mean, we've tried cases where they take cameras from the front of the house and give you the footage and never go to the back of the house to see if there were cameras. And a lot of times there are, and then you don't get that footage. So explain the way that investigators are dealing with this evidence, why they would wait so long. Does it mean anything that they would wait so long? Let's kind of talk about the cameras on the house of the neighbors that they went to today or yesterday.
- [28:41]
C
I mean, I'll be frank. That's a little bit surprising to me that with, like you said, with all the resources and everything employed here and everything, it looked as if those cameras were visible, if not to the naked eye from the street, at least from, you know, all these drones and all these aerial pictures we've gotten from the media on this. And to say that that is somehow recognized now at, you know, 18 days later, that is shocking to me. The only notion. I thought that maybe a lead that they had or something led them back to that to say, oh, yeah, that camera that was pointed in an area that we thought had nothing or no evidentiary value. Well, maybe actually we should go take a second look, because some of the evidence we got may indicate that something could have came in the frame of that camera. To me, though, that's. Boy, check anyway, you know, why not? It's the neighbor. Go through the video. You've got hundreds of agents here and all these sheriffs. Take a look.
- [29:32]
A
Yes, exactly. I think it's very strange, but we'll see. I think that cameras obviously only tell what they can record and only if the recording is available. And so the longer you wait, the odds of cameras getting erased or not saved obviously become more likely. So I don't know. We'll see. We got a ton of viewer questions regarding the Mexican border and what needs to happen in terms of an investigation in Mexico. Nancy's house is only 75 miles from the Mexican border. And now the questions. And of course, the sheriff has talked about it. And now the Internet is asking and viewers are asking what needs to happen in terms of an investigation possibly moving into Mexico and how difficult that may be from a jurisdictional standpoint. Now, I know the FBI has the power that they have, but how much more difficult would it be if this investigation truly leads them into Mexico? And if it does, is it too late that they haven't been there already?
- [30:35]
C
Well, I would say, first of all, that I think it's maybe a misnomer in the public that somehow investigations between law enforcement of the Mexican government and the American government have some sort of, like, strained relationship. They work in concert all the time, particularly investigating cartels and things like that. It's more associated with that. But there is, I think, a good working relationship with the Justice Department, with federal law enforcement, and with the corresponding or similar agencies in Mexico. So I don't think that that's going to be the problem. I think the issue is kind of like what we've talked about with everything. We're now 18 days later and into a country in Mexico that's relatively easy to disappear into. And so I think that if those conversations and communications are just happening now, that might be a problem. That being said, I think that's unlikely. I'm sure at some point, the Justice Department, the FBI, the investigators, have probably reached out to the Mexican government in concert with the Border Patrol, our own Border Patrol, and their Border Patrol, to say, you know, can you check on crossings? Can you check on things like that? We have this description, we have this vehicle. We have, you know, anyone come through that got arrested with a mask, anything like that, you know, and I think that that's probably going on already.
- [31:46]
A
Mike, let me just bring you in for one more question about the border issue. Do we have people at the border now paying attention to what's going on there, or have we since the, you know, day or so after the arrest or, excuse me, after the abduction?
- [32:02]
B
Well, we know that the Border Patrol was involved in the case early on, but I think that their role at the time was because they have this elite unit with search and rescue dogs that they could deploy out here in Nancy's neighborhood to try and find, you know, the scent of a person. There was a shirt discarded in the front yard for a couple days. We finally found out where it came from. The the Border Patrol had actually used it to pick up her scent for their dogs and search the area. So that was their involvement before. Today we're learning from the FBI that law enforcement is in contact with their counterparts on the other side of the border. We don't know that there's any evidence that Nancy was taken across the border. I think the sheriff has said he hasn't seen any. So it's a question of where she is. Of course, if we could answer that, we'd find her. But at the time, right now, they are working down there. Yeah.
- [32:51]
A
Well, Mike, thank you. David, thank you. I can't thank you both enough for being with me on my first episode of Crime and Justice. I am Donna Rotuno. Thank you for joining us on our first episode of Crime and Justice. We want to hear from you. Keep sending us your questions on social media and don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. See you next time.