Breaking: Police Dig Into Contractors & Day Laborers | Nancy Guthrie Case Update

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield

Episode: Breaking: Police Dig Into Contractors & Day Laborers | Nancy Guthrie Case Update
Date: April 2, 2026
Host: Ashleigh Banfield
Guest: Detective Clint Cole (Retired, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into major developments in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, now at day 60. Ashleigh Banfield explores the police's current focus: interviewing contractors, subcontractors, and day laborers who may have access to Nancy’s home, drawing parallels to the solved Nancy Woodrum case. The episode features an in-depth conversation with Detective Clint Cole, an experienced investigator from the Woodrum case, about the challenges and investigative strategies in dealing with transient workers and a sprawling pool of potential suspects.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scale and Complexity of Contractor & Day Laborer Inquiries

• Banfield explains the situation: Authorities are now painstakingly tracking down and interviewing everyone who had access to the Guthrie property, including contractors, subcontractors, and day laborers.
  • “Can you imagine the number of people that you’d have to find? ... It’s a mess.” (01:44, Banfield)
• Transience and Lack of Records:
  • Many workers are picked up for daily jobs, sometimes without real names or any records, especially in border areas.
  • “Sometimes you don’t even know their names… maybe it was a fake name.” (07:35, Banfield)

2. Parallels to the Nancy Woodrum Case

• Both cases involve affluent women, frequent contractors, and a meticulous household.
• In Woodrum’s case, careful documentation and help from close family aided police; in Guthrie’s, similar resources may assist detectives.
• Key clue: In both cases, flower pots were used to prop doors/gates during the crime.

3. Discussion With Detective Clint Cole

The Process of Tracking Contractors

• Contractor chaos: Multiple workers, some never recorded or remembered, complicate tracking.
  • “A contractor goes, picks up his supplies, and he needs a hand for the day. He could just pick anybody. He doesn’t know their history, doesn’t even know their name sometimes.” (18:15, Cole)
• Insider help:
  • Documents from realtors and family members can be critical.
  • “Nancy Woodrum’s daughter was helpful... she knew some of the people that were on scene. She knew there was a conflict between this contractor… and Nancy Woodrum.” (15:35, Cole)
• Day Labor Dilemma:
  • Some workers are truly anonymous—a major obstacle.
  • Example: In Woodrum's case they only learned of a laborer named "Patrick" because another worker eventually revealed him, weeks later.

Investigative Techniques

• Neighborhood Canvassing:
  • Expands suspect pool to anyone in the vicinity or working on neighboring homes.
  • “We did a huge neighborhood canvas… whatever would bring someone to somebody’s house to do work. Plumbers, electricians, you know, that stuff happens every day.” (29:42, Cole)
• Document Review:
  • Meticulous victims’ records – checkbooks, address books, notes—often contain undocumented names/timelines.
  • “Nancy Woodrum was extremely organized... she had notes—detailed notes on this date and time…” (20:58, Cole)

Interview Strategies & Challenges

• Face-to-Face Preferred:
  • In-person interviews are vital; people often reveal more in person than by phone.
  • “From that point forward, my policy is... you meet them in person.” (36:21, Cole)
• Building Rapport:
  • The best approach is patient, rapport-building, not “good cop, bad cop.”
  • “Neither one of us ever slightly raised our voice. We constantly made sure he understood.” (61:40, Cole)
  • “A lot of times the best thing you can say is nothing...” (61:55, Cole)
• The Suspect May Have Already Been Interviewed:
  • “A lot of times you have or will talk to your suspect early on before you know he’s a suspect.” (33:31, Cole)

Limits of Voluntariness

• No one has to talk:
  • “In most cases, you cannot make anyone talk to you... they don’t have to talk to us.” (36:45, Cole)
• Tech obstacles:
  • Today’s restrictions make tools like Google geofencing (to see which cell phones were present at a scene) much harder to obtain.
  • “Those are very difficult to get now.” (38:04, Cole)
• DNA/Forensic Gaps:
  • If police lack direct forensic evidence (as in Guthrie's case), solving the case is much harder.

The Limits of Investigation

• Resource constraints:
  • There is always a breaking point in how far back police can go or how many leads they can follow.
  • Eventually, focus shifts from the widest circle (all possible visitors) to the most likely, immediate pool.
  • “At some point, you... compile a list of neighbors, and... you just have to like, okay, all right. We’ve done our due diligence.” (31:33, Cole)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s a mess.” (Banfield, quoting investigators on the challenge of interviewing all contractors, 03:05)
• “Sometimes you don’t even know their names... maybe it was a fake name.” (Banfield, 07:35)
• “We were lucky. We had the realtor who was keeping pretty close ties, and Nancy Woodrum was taking good notes.” (Detective Clint Cole, 27:35)
• “A lot of times you have or will talk to your suspect early on before you know he’s a suspect.” (Cole, 33:31)
• “In most cases, you cannot make anyone talk to you.” (Cole, 36:45)
• “That DNA was…the final thing that was like, oh, yeah, no, we definitely got our guy.” (Cole, 47:40)
• “I don’t think, you know, and it worked in our case, we didn’t try and overpower him. We didn’t try and overtalk him. We were extremely prepared. And when we knew it was time, we hit him and told him that we knew he did it and there was no way out.” (Cole, 61:55)
• “It just doesn’t seem like … you want the most experienced person to lead one of the biggest, most high profile, vexing cases that your county’s had in, you know, 20, 30 years.” (Banfield, 58:13)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:50 – Episode theme introduction and context on Nancy Guthrie case
• 12:45 – Interview with Detective Clint Cole begins
• 15:35 – Example: Family/friends as invaluable sources about contractors
• 20:58 – The crucial role of the victim’s own paperwork/notes
• 29:42 – The scope and methods of neighborhood canvassing
• 33:31 – Point: Suspect often interviewed early
• 36:45 – Legal limits: Can’t compel interviews without probable cause
• 47:40 – Touch DNA and geofencing as casebreakers in Woodrum case
• 51:23 – Analytical discussion of Guthrie crime scene (doors propped, front exit)
• 59:01 – Interview approach: planned questions, staying calm, rapport-building
• 62:35 – Tactics for effective suspect interviews in detail
• 68:40 – Cole’s #1 advice: listen to anyone and everyone
• 72:10 – The importance of reconsidering past interviews: “You may have already spoken to your suspect”

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Investigative “Best Practices” Highlighted

• Keep detailed records and notes—even casual ones.
• Use family & close friends as resource engines for daily life/habits.
• Canvas not just the victim’s home, but the neighborhood—as widely as possible.
• Review and revisit early interviews: suspects may evade detection the first time.
• Leverage every possible perspective (including legal clerks and outside experts).
• Build rapport in interviews; “bad cop” tactics rarely work for complex crimes.

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Flow and Tone

Ashleigh Banfield maintains her signature blend of empathy, detective curiosity, and slightly irreverent wit. The conversation is detailed, accessible, and honest about investigative frustrations and limitations. Detective Cole’s style is calm, methodical, and reveals a dedication to process over presumption, offering listeners a realistic inside look at homicide investigation complexities and the virtues of patience and teamwork.

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Conclusion

The episode expertly contrasts the solved Woodrum case and current difficulties in the active Guthrie investigation, especially as police wade through a labyrinth of contractors and day laborers—often with no paperwork and fleeting ties. Experienced detective Clint Cole offers lessons learned, especially the need for organization, record-keeping, and open-minded teamwork. The key message: Even without leads that "jump out," relentless detail work, smart interviewing, and leveraging every possible angle may eventually crack the most confounding cases.

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For further updates, Banfield teases new information about a key piece of evidence in her next episode.

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Transcript

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[Ashley Banfield]

Hi everyone. I'm Ashley Banfield. This is drop dead serious. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for subscribing. And if you haven't already subscribed, boink. It's right there, the little thing, just, you know, click it. Really appreciate you doing that. It does me a real solid thanks to everybody who has already. Thank you so much to the members who've joined. Lots of content coming up for you guys, special content just for members. If you want to join, there's a join button down there too. So today is another milestone. It is day 60, day 60 in the Nancy Guthrie investigation. 60 days since Mrs. Guthrie disappeared. And I'm learning something else from my sources in the investigation, and that is that at this stage, they are now running down the contractors and the subcontractors and doing the interviews. Can you imagine the number of people that you'd have to find? And then just getting through all of those interviews, the ones who will agree to it. Got information on how messy that can be in just a moment from a guy who has been to this rodeo before. And also when my sources told me about running down the contractors and subcontractors and doing the interviews, the quote was, it's a mess. It's a mess. Think about this for a minute, okay? Your own home excluded. Just think about every other home out there and all the things, things that happen at your home where strangers are on your property, right? Maybe some painting, maybe some roofing, maybe some yard work. A lot of people get yard work. Delivery people. Those aren't really contractors. But how about the TV repair? The guy that moves the fridge, the guy that removes the old mattress, the folks that clean the pool, the folks that fix the Window. I mean, just. It's. The list is endless. And that's not even taking into account. Did you have any, you know, construction done? Did you have any remodeling done? Any interior renovations, exterior renovations? What about that casita, you know, was that guest home renovated in the last little while? Something fixed. The electricians who come in, the plumbers. Like, there's just an endless list of people who work on our homes, right? Mrs. Guthrie had money. It was a nice home. Not a ton of money, but enough to have people help her with the pool and the yard. The yard is meticulous. Must have had some electrician work done at some. The air conditioner guys. I mean, there's just an endless list of folks that come to the home to do work. And that is the list they're running down and doing the interviews now. The contractors, the subcontractors. And may I remind you, not just at Mrs. Guthrie's home. There's work being done in all those homes surrounding her house. People driving by and seeing Mrs. Guthrie maybe on one of her good days when she went down to the post box and got her mail. And somebody could have seen there's a vulnerable woman, there's an older woman. I think I'll scout that out and see if she lives with anybody and see if any of the doors are unlocked at night. Is that who did this? Is it somebody who was working on someone else's home? Is it someone who was working on her home? Somebody had an idea, somebody got an idea, and somebody planned this fairly meticulously. Now that we know that the back kitchen screen door was propped open with Nancy's flower pots. Right. And that the back gate was propped open with Nancy's flower pots. This is information from my sources as well. These are in my back episodes. Just take a peek back. And one of my back episodes is particularly of interest now that I've learned about the interviews going on with the contractors and the subcontractors, because an episode that I did about a woman named Nancy Woodrum involved contractors and subcontractors and a painter in particular. And if you haven't seen the episode, I highly recommend we're going to link it down below. Listen to it. Because Nancy Woodrum and Nancy Guthrie's cases are so incredibly similar. Right? Just. Just so many similarities. Woodrum's case was solved, and it turned out that they had to interview a lot of people, a lot of contractors and subcontractors. And the painter. The painter is the guy that eventually really tweaked their interest I won't give it all away to you right now. But the CO Lead detective on that case, a man named Detective Clint Cole, I interviewed him before, and I was so fascinated by his process that I thought, wow, now that I know that the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI, the joint task force between those two entities, is running down the contractors and subcontractors and doing the interviews, I gotta call Clint, because that's what he did. He interviewed all those contractors and subcontractors. And before he interviewed them, guess what? He had to find them. So now I want you to imagine for a moment how difficult it is to find them. You're about to learn how difficult it is. Given the standard modus operandi of general contractors and what kind of, you know, what kind of actual files they keep on the day laborers that they pick up, the transient workers who come in and leave. You know, sometimes you don't even know their names. They've. They've come in and they've worked for this. This contractor, this general contractor, and. And no one ever knew who they were. Maybe they knew a first name. Maybe it was a fake name. Maybe they didn't even know the first name. But when that seems really hopeless, because to me, that seemed really hopeless. Clint Cole, Detective Clint Cole made me feel a little bit better. Based on Nancy Woodrum, his case and some of the ways that she spoke from the grave and what they found in her house that led them to a lot of names they might not have known otherwise. You're going to hear what that was. And I foresee some of the similar circumstances playing out in Nancy Guthrie's case just because of the person that Nancy Guthrie seemed to be very organized, meticulous, tidy. You know, another one of our episodes from last week. I think it was Friday. Maybe we dropped it on Saturday. My sources had told me that that home was meticulous. You know, it did not look like there was a crime committed anywhere in that home except for that front entrance. Inside and outside her front door. A blood pattern that goes from the inside front foyer area, and the pattern continues the same way to the outside front entrance of her doorway that the tiled outdoor area and then down the front walk. So but for that and the man in the ski mask. On camera. Camera. My sources last week told me in the episode from Saturday, it just didn't look like a crime had been committed there. It. And here's the quote. It looked as though she had just gotten up and out of bed and walked out of that house. And Disappeared, but for the blood and for the guy on the doorbell cam. So there's some similarities and some differences between Nancy Guthrie's case and Nancy Woodrum's case. But the investigating, the questioning, the tracking down of these contractors and subcontractors, all that kind of process is very same. It's very similar. Right. So that's why I was so interested to talk to Clint Cole about the process that they employed to get all those contractors figure out who they were, track them down, convince them to talk. Because you don't have to talk to anybody, right? Policeman comes knocking on your door, you're not compelled. You don't have to talk to them unless they find probable cause to subpoena your phone and compel you. But you have a right to remain silent. So how do you get these guys to talk? How do you do these interviews? Clint is amazing. He's got some secrets, he's got some tips. He's been at this game a long time. He has something to say about experience, which, if you watched my episode yesterday, you'll know. The lead investigator on the Nancy Guthrie case was assigned this case. He was a two year homicide detective veteran. That's it. He had two years in the homicide unit as a detective. So not a bastion of experience. Right? That's not the same with Clint Cole. This guy's been at it forever. He'll tell you why experience was so critical and why it actually played out really importantly in the Nancy Woodrum case. And here's something that he said that I hadn't even thought of because it happened in his case. He said they may have already spoken to their suspect. They may have already spoken to him because in Clint Cole's case, in the Nancy Woodrum case, they had already spoken to him. Gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it, but it's advice that many detectives will tell you, apparently. So you're going to hear about that in a second. But I think one thing that's super critical is how organized was Nancy Guthrie's life? Because Nancy Woodrum was very organized and it helped. Did Nancy Guthrie's organization help as well in terms of finding all these contractors and these subcontractors that they are now in the process of interviewing, according to my source. So all that's coming. And like I said, you should check out the. The episode. I'll link it, as I said below, about Nancy Woodrum's case, Nancy Woodrum's case, very similar, with one huge difference that we know of, because we don't know what happened to Nancy Guthrie. We do know what happened to Nancy Woodrum. We do. And she was murdered and they did find her body. So super interesting to hear that. But I want you to listen now as I run down this new information, but also as I go through some of the other information that we've learned this week and that is about the flower pots being used to prop open the back kitchen doors. Right. The screen door and the kitchen door. It's one entrance, two doors, hence plural. Nancy's flower pots used. I had this in the episode two days ago. Lancy's flower pots used to prop open those kitchen that the two doors that lead into the kitchen from the back patio, but the back gate also propped open with Nancy's flower pots. And what Clint, Clint Cole says about that, given the crime scene as well, I should give you this caveat. He has to be very careful because he's still an active homicide investigator, that he can't speak, speak specifically to Nancy Guthrie's case. But since there's so many similarities, he can certainly tell you what that would have led him to do on Woodrum's case and also how those similar things played out in Woodrum's case and what he did. So it's super interesting. So here is my conversation with Detective Clint Cole. He's retired, but he's still working as a reserve officer with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office. He is also not just known for Nancy Woodrum solving that case as a co lead detective, but he's also known for his work in the cold case and unsolved unit. He solved multiple high profile cold cases, including the Kristen Smart Killer. Right. So he knows a thing or two. He's got the experience. So here's my conversation with Detective Cole. Detective, talk to me a little bit about the process of turning your attention in an investigation towards contractors. It cannot be easy.

[Detective Clint Cole]

No, it's not. In our case, we had quite a few contractors on scene in the case. In our Nancy Woodrum case, the house was, had been sold, the large house that was owned by our victim and they were doing final escrow repair work. So we had, we had plumbers, we had electricians, we had just general contractors, painters. And so I would guess probably 10 to 15 different contractors who were coming and going. And some, the difficulty is some weren't always checking in like they were a subcontractor and they would just show up.

[Ashley Banfield]

And you know, at that point, if you've got that lump on your desk, you know, how do you categorize and methodically try to make a grid of who was there when doing what, and who are they, and how do I contact them?

[Detective Clint Cole]

One of the things that helped us is the realtor that had sold the property was pretty heavily involved in getting the repair work done. And so he had a list of the main contractors that were on the property. So that was helpful. But, for example, one of our. One of our contractors, a guy by the name of Sean, he was in charge of doing most of the general contracting work. Well, he had at least two people helping him that the realtor didn't know about. And so just because we kind of were lucky with our realtor knowing and was doing the hiring, our victim wasn't doing the hiring. You know, the construction worlds, you know, they could pick up some guy in the parking lot at Home Depot to come help them who's just waiting for a job. And so that makes it difficult sometimes to track down exactly who's on your. Your property.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah, lucky for you, you had that bonus of having the realtor who was knowledgeable. But Nancy Woodrum also had. And I think it was her daughter who was more helpful than her son. But was her daughter also able to provide some intelligence on who had been at the house and done what, even outside of construction work?

[Detective Clint Cole]

She was. Nancy Woodrum's daughter was helpful. She was very close with Nancy. She was at the house pretty much every day. So she knew some of the people that were on scene. She knew there was a. A conflict between this contractor by the name of Sean and Nancy Woodrum, a pretty serious one, where they. Angry texts, angry conversations right there on the property in front of other people. So she did point us in the direction of. Of who this Sean guy was. And we got the name of the painting company from the realtor, but the contractor had a couple guys working for him that nobody really knew about.

[Ashley Banfield]

I mean, like you said, the day laborer part is so troubling when you think of the number of day laborers who could jump onto a crew and show up at a house one day and then not be a part of that crew again. It's. It's almost like, you know, just people scattering in every other direction, and you somehow have to. To. To find them. Were you able to find pretty much everybody that you could at least get an idea about and then realize that there probably were many that you would never know about?

[Detective Clint Cole]

We feel pretty comfortable that we were able to identify everybody that was on our property involving our crime. There was one guy. His first name was Patrick. He Worked for Sean, and nobody knew about him but Sean. And Sean didn't tell us right off the way, right off the bat about this guy. So we didn't. We didn't discover this. This Patrick guy probably for two or three weeks into the investigation. You know, he was obviously not involved and eventually cleared. But here's a guy that was on the property that really nobody but Sean knew about, family didn't know, the realtor didn't know. And, you know, and so you think, well, my gosh, you know, how many other people have been on this property that we're not aware of? You know, when you go to some home Depots, Lowe's, whatever, there's guys waiting out in the parking lot. So a contractor goes, picks up his supplies, and he needs a hand for the day. He could just pick anybody. He doesn't know their history, doesn't even

[Ashley Banfield]

know their name sometimes. Right?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Right. Yeah. He's meeting them for the first time. The guy could give him any name he wants.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get to that in a minute. Because, you know, in the Nancy Guthrie case, she's really close to the border, and it's no secret that people are pouring over the border all the time, and they need money right away when they arrive, especially if they're here illegally. That's an easy way to get, you know, day labor jobs and be under the radar and really under the radar. Nobody would even know who you are or how to track you. I'll get to that in a bit. But the fact that you said that Nancy Woodrum's daughter was very involved in her life and was there every day, that's very similar to Nancy Guthrie. Her daughter lives just four miles away, involved in her life, according to Savannah Guthrie, her other daughter. And so it would seemed to me that that's a wealth of resource in terms of finding out habits, friends, recent friends, recent battles, fights, like you said, disagreements. Was that sort of a good starting point then, to find out just all about Nancy Woodrum's last days, weeks, months, years?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yes. Her daughter was extremely helpful in telling us not only who was on the property during this escrow process and. But any other friends that Nancy Woodrum had that were coming and going, neighbors. And so we. We relied heavily on her daughter to give us information, and it was nice to have her cooperation because, as you mentioned, in our case, the son was not cooperative at all. He refused to. Pretty much. He gave us one interview and then refused to talk to us.

[Ashley Banfield]

So I was astounded by that. In Fact, I need to remind the viewers that we're linking that episode that you and I did down below here. So anybody wanting to see just how bizarre this son behaved and he was a suspect because of his strange behavior, they can watch that. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is how Nancy Woodrum kept her own calendar and her own contacts and her own files, because it would seem to me like Nancy Woodrum was in her 60s, Nancy Guthrie is in her 80s. But they might keep very meticulous files about work done, checks paid to whom, phone numbers, contact numbers, address books, even, you know, the older folks sometimes still have a Filofax with the phone numbers written, written down. Did you find that with, with Nancy Woodrum?

[Detective Clint Cole]

We did. It's a great point you bring up. Nancy Woodrum was extremely organized. As soon as we walked into her front door. To the right was a filing, not a cabinet, but like a filing portfolio folder type thing, a large one, like a kind of like a milk crate style file folder that was up on top and it had everything, the escrow paperwork, you know, all of all of her pertinent information. And then on her table, we were lucky. She had notes. She had exactly what you described, detailed notes on this date and time. Sean Bloom and I, you know, discussion over money or, you know, whatever the situation was. Nancy Woodrum did have several yellow, you know, legal notepads of notes, basically from the start of when she listed the house up to right before she went missing.

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[Ashley Banfield]

That's a windfall for you, and I should mention until you see that episode. If you don't know, folks, Shawn Blum was not the killer of Nancy Woodrum. It ended up being a painter who had been on the property. Sort of a last thought, because everybody else who came across in this case just seem so guilty just with their circumstances. But it's just a great lesson that those who look super guilty at the beginning aren't necessarily your guy. So this is what we wonder about in the Guthrie case. Learning that the contractors and subcontractors are being interviewed, and that, quote, it's a mess. I imagine that the bordertown issue that I just brought up earlier would add a real wrinkle to trying to find everybody who'd ever stepped foot as a landscaper, as a painter, as a day laborer, as just brawn. For anybody who'd stepped foot onto Nancy Guthrie's property, this would be really hard for police officers and for detectives.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah, it is. You know, I can imagine in a town closer to the border where it would be even more difficult than what we dealt with. You know, there are. There are people that are, you know, in the United States that don't always provide their correct identity. It's, you know, I'm not being critical. It's a fact. And, yeah, I. I can imagine that it would be very, very difficult in a town in that area because it was difficult for us. And, you know, we're not near the border, and, you know, these contractors just have a tendency to, you know, at least in our case, the contractor, you know, he was unorganized. He wasn't, you know, he didn't have good notes, like, you know, payroll sheets and stuff. He didn't have any of that. He was just. Yeah, by cash and by the seat of his pants. You know, he wasn't. He. You know, he wasn't a well established contractor, I guess would be the best way to describe it. And so luckily, our painter, where our suspect event, as you mentioned, was working, the. The painter, he now was very organized. He knew exactly who he had on that property on what days and what hours. And so once we identified our painter suspect, then we knew exactly what days. But in the other case with Shawn, we didn't know. I mean, Patrick, the guy that worked for Shawn, he didn't even remember what days he was there.

[Ashley Banfield]

How many other. I mean, we were talking earlier about construction at Nancy Woodrum's, but there are so many other reasons why people would show up. People you've never seen before and may never see again on your property. You know, just off the top of my head, you know, like a gutter cleaner, landscaper, driveway repair, roof repair, camera installation, you know, even that seems so ironic. But if you're installing security cameras, you know, there are guys who got to be brought in for that as well. I mean, were you able to run down all of the possible kinds of people and workers who'd been at Nancy Woodrum's home? Because this is what I'm imagining they've been doing over the last 60 days in the Nancy Guthrie case.

[Detective Clint Cole]

You know, I feel pretty comfortable that we did identify everybody that was on that property before Nancy Woodrum went missing. But can I say 100% no? Because, you know, people forget, you know, maybe. Maybe one guy's not available one day, so you call another buddy, and then you forget about that. Because, like as I said, the main contractor was unorganized, didn't keep notes, didn't have, you know, any. Anything at all. And so. But I. I feel pretty confident that we identified everybody. We were lucky. We had the realtor, who was keeping pretty close ties, and Nancy Woodrum was taking good notes. And. And so Nancy, when we learned about the Patrick guy, we went through Nancy's notes again, and sure enough, Nancy Woodrum had made a note that this. Some guy named Patrick was on. On property. But that's all she knew about him, was that he was helping Sean and his name was Patrick.

[Ashley Banfield]

And of course, this is just a piece. You know, it's. It seems like the picture you're describing is this herculean task to run down all of those people and the ripple effect of who those people associated with and hauled on for a day here and a Day there to come to the property. And that's only one piece of the investigation, because that's not even the part of the investigation. That could be just some random person, Someone who'd identified Nancy Guthrie in a different way. Maybe neighbors who have construction work going or landscaping. So how do you break out from the big project, that is, those associated with Nancy Woodrum's property, Nancy Guthrie's property, and get into all the other surrounding properties and the day laborers and the contractors and the workers and the landscapers, et cetera, et cetera, or who are in the neighborhood?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, what we did is we did what is pretty common is a neighborhood canvas. We went to all the surrounding neighbors, and we asked them those exact questions you just mentioned. You know, have you had any construction work, Any type of, you know, cable tv, satellite, you know, you name it. Whatever would bring someone to somebody's house to do work. Plumbers, electricians, you know, that stuff happens every day. And so we. We did a huge neighborhood canvas. We made sure we went to every single house within a certain area around Nancy Woodrum's house. And we asked all those. Those questions and tried to identify anybody, as you said, somebody, a drifter that. I mean, it's not uncommon for, you know, somebody to see a transient type person or somebody walking and offer them help.

[Ashley Banfield]

That's what happened in Elizabeth Smart's case. The Smarts offered their love and their care to the man that came into their home and eventually came back and stole Elizabeth. So, yes, you're absolutely right. Those who are trying to help can often become victimized, which is so sad. I just keep thinking about how unwieldy those numbers. Numbers are, though, Dr. Cole. Like, you're talking about potentially hundreds of people over several years who have, you know, worked on the Woodrum property. Slash, now I'm thinking Guthrie. But then all of the other hundreds of, you know, people on projects at surrounding homes. At what point do you have to stop the concentric circle and just say, we just don't have the manpower anymore to look down these rabbit holes?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah, well, at some point, you do have to just like, okay, let's focus on, you know, you do your neighbor. We did our neighborhood canvas. We even asked, like, you know, up. Up here, the electric utility is Pacific gas and electric, PG&E. So, you know, people come and read meters once a month usually. And so we asked about, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, and at some point, you. You. You kind of compile a list of, you know, neighbors. And. And we were lucky there Wasn't a lot in surrounding neighbors there, you know, there wasn't a tremendous amount, but I could only imagine how difficult it would be if there was. And you have, you know, another 10 or 15, you know, because even though Nancy Woodrum lived in a rural area, there was quite a few neighbors around her.

[Ashley Banfield]

That's the same with Nancy Guthrie.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah. And so at some point, you're right. You just have to like, okay, all right. We've done our due diligence. Now. What we did is we then went back and focused on the guys that we knew were at her property and started working on them first. We figured they were the most likely, you know, if there was a contractor, you know, three weeks earlier, a mile down the road, we could deal with him if we needed to. If we had, you know, if we couldn't find our suspect, we've identified him, keep it. Keep, you know, keep his name in our memory bank. But then you go back and you focus on what is most logical, reasonable and tight circle. Yeah, yeah. And then when you run.

[Ashley Banfield]

Run out. Yeah, when you run out, you start moving to the contractors, everywhere else.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah. And then. Then you. Then we came back and, you know, usually it's going to be a tight circle. For example, in our case, the painter who was our suspect, I had talked to him in July, and we didn't identify him as the suspect until November. So another thing that's extremely common in these cases, and I learned this, and when I went to the LA Sheriff's Homicide School, who are some of the best homicide investigators in the world, I mean, they get sometimes two or three a day, that a lot of times you have or will talk to your suspect early on before you know he's a suspect. And that's what happened here is I called Carlo, our suspect, the painter, to ask questions about the other contractor, the

[Ashley Banfield]

one that looked more suspicious. Right, right.

[Detective Clint Cole]

And of course, he couldn't wait to say all these things about the other contractor. So that's something that. That. That I've learned personally and that I use and keep in the back of my mind. And it was a valuable lesson to us in the Nancy Woodrum case. I wish I would have done that first interview with our painter in person, because I don't think he would have been able to control himself, and I would have seen something based on what we later learned.

[Ashley Banfield]

So it's critical, you're saying, to have these. The kind of work I'm imagining, you know, is going on right now with the Guthrie case and going through all the Contractors and subcontractors. Some of that is not face to face. Some of that is just via telephone and email and text messaging.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, it can be, yeah. In. In our case, I. I. We made the decision, and looking back, it was not the best one, because I believe our suspect, who eventually confessed as you know, and. And took us to the body, I believe he wanted to kind of, like, get this off his chest. It was bothering him, and I. I think 100%, he would have not been able to control himself in July had I met with him in person. That's just my opinion. He may have, but I don't think so. And so from that point forward, my policy is, I don't care what type of suspect it is in a homicide case. You know, obviously, if we're collecting genealogy of an innocent person, that's different. But if. If you're not sure of a potential person of interest or suspect in a homicide, my new policy is you meet them in person.

[Ashley Banfield]

So there's my next question. Getting the interviews, because I'm trying to figure out what the process is in the Guthrie investigation as they go through all of these contractors and subcontractors. Are they requesting a voluntary conversation with these people? And if so, I can see how that would transpire. What if they say, forget it. Not interested. I don't want to talk to you?

[Detective Clint Cole]

In. In most cases, you cannot make anyone talk to you. You know, they have a right not to discuss it. Even if they're not a suspect, they don't have to talk to us.

[Ashley Banfield]

So what's your next step?

[Detective Clint Cole]

You. You have to try and get that information through other. Through other means, through other people. There's. There's things, you know, cell phone and stuff. We were able to get cell phone technology, so we knew who was on Nancy Woodrum's property the night she went missing. That's a big way of. Okay, okay. You don't want to talk to us. Okay, that's fine. Well, we were able to know exactly who was on that property the night

[Ashley Banfield]

she went missing, but super hard to get a subpoena and get enough probable cause to have a judge sign off on a subpoena, to get someone's cell phone to look through their messaging or. Or look through their. Their apps that might say where they've been. How do you. How do you get there? I mean, if you literally have a list of 100 or 200 people, and let's say 25% of them say, forget it, not talking, how do you. I mean, there's no Probable cause there just being a name.

[Detective Clint Cole]

You. You're. You're in a bad, bad spot because you have to have probable cause in a search warrant, which takes, you know, probable cause, as you said, for a judge to sign to get those cell phone records. And, you know, when we were lucky, when we did our case, we had a Google geofence. Well, those are pretty difficult, if at all, to get now. And that told us everyone that was on the property. We. You know, so we were able to write one warrant that told us everybody. Those are very difficult to get now. And so if you don't have probable cause and a person refuses to talk to you, there's not a lot you can do. I mean, you. You can try and build around them, talk to other people that know them that were on scene. Okay, yeah, we saw this guy and Nancy Woodrum having multiple arguments. You can always get your victim's cell phone. It's what we did. We got her cell phone records, which showed these text messages of these arguments between her and the contractor.

[Ashley Banfield]

So even though, again, as a reminder, I just want to remind the listeners and viewers that those arguments weren't the cause. Like, this wasn't the guy. It seemed like you had the guy. When you've got the arguments going on between the contractor and Nancy Woodrum, turns out it's not him, which is just, again, so frustrating because all that work, product, gone. You got to turn your attention elsewhere.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah, no, it ended up being the quietest guy in the entire group of people. You know, there was a realtor who was another realtor who was upset at her. The contractor was very upset at her. And. And then our suspect is eventually this quiet little passive painter who thinks Nancy's just lovely.

[Ashley Banfield]

Who. Yeah, you know, she offered me tamale. She was so nice to me.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yeah. You know, he never said anything. He was quiet. Never had any. Any incidents. His boss loved him. When we go talk to the boss, you know, the head painter, the guys that own the company. Hey, what's the. You know, tell us about your two painters that were on scene? Oh, they're the greatest guys in the world. They'd never do something like this, you know, Voila. It was one of those quiet guys.

[Ashley Banfield]

Shocking. Just. And then that tells people listening right now just how difficult this work can be. They don't jump right out at you. There's not often a nice big red flag or a spidey sense that just jumps right out at you. Like, you said you could interview them. And then seven months later, oh, my God, it's that guy I talked to months ago. And that brings me to the timeline of how far back are you going? When you're looking at laborers and workers and TV repairmen and refrigerator movers and all the people who've had contact with that home, how many years back can you go in terms of resources and how many years back should you go?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, how far back you. I would. We went. Kind of depended on what, what we knew at the time. So we knew we had several people that were currently involved in issues with, with our victim. I guess if I were to not, not talk about any other case, but just as a, as a way of doing things, if, if we didn't have those in the Nancy Woodrum case, if we didn't have Sean and, and, you know, the other realtor and some, some people to look at, we would go back as far as possible, you know, as far as you can trace people there. You know, you just keep running. Yeah, you just go and tell, you know, as far as you can. Would be what we would have done had we not had, you know, a suspect finally come to light with Google Geofence. But prior to the Google Geofence coming, you know, that was. That was seven months. You know, we were stuck. We, we. We cleared some of the obvious people. And keep in mind, there was a air. She had an Airbnb, a rental. So not only were there guests there that weekend, which we dealt with, but you have to look at in our case, we had to look at other guests that had been there recently. And luckily, Nancy kept a list of all that well.

[Ashley Banfield]

And so there you go. There's an additional complication for you. You were lucky in a couple of ways in that the perpetrator left his DNA behind, like rich DNA semen on the Nancy Woodrum's bed. So you had something to check against. In Nancy Guthrie's case, it's unsure that the DNA sample that's mixed that they have from her home is even the perpetrator they don't have that they're admitting anyway. A rich source that is obvious, you know, could be something from a door handle or it could be touch DNA, but it's a mixed sample that's giving them all sorts of problems. You also had what you mentioned was the geofence, where the Google geofence basically spotted a cell phone in Nancy's bedroom at the time she disappeared. That wasn't her phone. And if you didn't have that, and if you didn't have that DNA sample, do you think he would have been able to. To solve the Woodrum case, Liberty Mutual

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[Detective Clint Cole]

I'm not going to say we wouldn't. I, I, I will say it would have been much more difficult. I believe. So. We were, when we kind of got, we had cleared most of the other people and we had kind of got to a place where we were a little stuck. We were gonna go back and re. Talk to the painter who was our suspect, and, and the guy painting with him, and we were going to revisit some of the other people that we knew were on property. So that was our plan prior to getting our Google results back. But no, I cannot sit here and honestly tell you that if we didn't have a Google geofence and it was, it was touch DNA from his handprint on a pillow is what we had.

[Ashley Banfield]

Oh, it wasn't semen.

[Detective Clint Cole]

No, no, it was, it was touch DNA. And so, all right, had we not had those two things, the main thing that identified our guy was the Google geofence.

[Ashley Banfield]

But I should just mention, the touch DNA is in blood on the pillow. So it is one. Whoever, whoever's touch DNA that was was your man, right?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yes. And it was a mixture of Nancy, our victim's blood, and so there's a way to separate that. But since it's a male and a female, we were able to do what's a Y haplotype, where you just look at the male side of the DNA, the Y side, and we were able to determine that it was our suspect Carlo's paternal lineage. And it's like one in 1100 that it could be somebody else's paternal lineage. So that narrowed it. Right.

[Ashley Banfield]

Knew it was the guy, as opposed to there was a male cleaner in here at some point, and that could be his DNA on the pillow. You knew it was in her blood. It was mixed within her blood, therefore it had to be the, the perpetrator.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Yes. Yeah, it was the, the handprint. The only reason we saw the handprint was because it was her Blood. He had her blood on his hand, and you can only see the print on the handprint from looking above it. So, like, if you were looking at the pillow just laying on the bed, it was very difficult to make out a handprint. But our crime lab lady, Janine did a great job, and we took everything back to the lab, and she got. She always gets up on a ladder and looks at evidence like that. And from a top, you can see the handprint clear as day.

[Ashley Banfield]

But you think the perpetrator, that night, when he took all the bed sheets and thought he took all the evidence away, maybe saw that throat pillow and it didn't look as though there was anything on it, so he left it, I believe.

[Detective Clint Cole]

So he either was in such a haste that he didn't just missed it, or he looked at it and figured, you know, it's not, you know, I will guarantee you he had no idea about touch DNA. And that has come a long, long way. And that's a great resource for law enforcement now. And that's how we confirmed, you know, we. We were probably going to be able to prosecute our case with the Google geofence and at least get a good interview out of him. But that DNA was, you know, the final thing that was like, oh, yeah, no, we definitely got our guy, you know.

[Ashley Banfield]

Well, listen, your crime scene told you a hell of a story. You know, Nancy Guthrie is not the same. You know, Nancy Woodrum's bed sheets are all gone. There's this pillow with the blood print on it. But in Nancy Guthrie's case, our sources have told us the house is devoid of what would seem to be any kind of crime committed there. But for. And my sources have told me, but for blood droplets inside the front entrance of the home. That goes lead outside the front entrance of the home and down the sidewalk. And the man who's seen on the video with the ski mask. But for those two things, the quote was, it looked like she got up out of bed, walked out of her house, and vanished. So a lot more vexing, a lot more perplexing, wouldn't you think?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Oh, yes. In the Nancy Woodrum case, the minute I walked in or looked into her bed, and it was about the same time we're getting reports seven miles down the road that her. What we later learned was her bedding had blown out. Thrown out. However, you know, we later learned blown out of. Of our suspect's vehicle. Oh, we knew right. I knew right away something terrible had happened. So we had very definitive things, in my opinion, that Told us Nancy Woodrum had had something very terrible happen to her. It wasn't. I mean, there was blood at the. At the side of her bed. There was blood spatter against the wall. All of her, you know, her bedding, her clothing that was laid out that night was all seven miles down the road with blood on it. So we, We. We had much more definitive proof that something really bad had probably happened.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah. What we're hearing is that there is just not that story at all in Nancy Guthrie's bedroom. We do know from Savannah that she was taken from her bed without her shoes, in her pajamas. But from all the reporting that we've gotten, all the sourcing that we've gotten, there is no blood, there's no struggle. There's nothing in that bedroom nor anywhere else in the house except for that front foyer where those blood drops begin, according to our source and lead outside. The most recent thing that I've also learned is that the perpetrator propped open her kitchen screen door, which was a double door screen and a wooden door, propped open that screen door with her flower pots and also propped open the back gate to her home, and yet still exited with Nancy out the front door. As a homicide investigator, where does that take your mind if you've got a pattern like that?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, you know, it could. It could mean multiple things. In. In our case, the suspect left the sliding glass door that Nancy Woodrum used as her main in an entry and exit door. He left that open when he left, so he didn't take the time to close the door. So he. That told us, told me that he was probably in a big enough rush to get Nancy out of there, that he didn't think about closing the door, because that would be an alarm to some people if they were walking around outside Nancy's house. Because most people who knew her knew she kept her door closed. And so that's what that told us at our scene, that he. He was in a rush to get out in regards to setting things up. You know, just as a homicide detective, you know, it appears that there's some sort of planning there.

[Ashley Banfield]

Do you tell me to understand how you guys work? Because I have it in my mind that you've got all these, you know, these bizarre facts in Nancy Guthrie's case. The propped open screen door to the kitchen, the propped open gate, the guy who's seen on the front doorbell cam wrecking it, and the blood droplets that lead out the front. Do detectives then get into, like, a war room and start gaming out the possibilities all the different scenarios that might have happened, and then each one kind of takes one and tries to go down that road. Or how does it work?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have. In. In. In our case, we were at the. We held the crime scene Saturday into Sunday morning. We released it Sunday afternoon. We went directly to our headquarters and had a meeting. And everybody compared notes. Everybody, you know, the people that spoke to the wedding party. We. You know, the two us to lead investigators. Okay, what did the wedding party say? So, yes, definitely. I. I think that's something that homicide detectives do and if not, should do, is you sit around and. And part of these cases is you talk about theories. You know, why. Why is this. This way? You know, why were the. Why were the sheets in our case out on the road? Would he throw them or would they blow out? Okay, well, if they blew out, he's probably in a truck. Okay. So you start talking about stuff like that, you know. You know, if the suspect had a car, how in the world could the sheets really blow out? So, yeah, you discuss theories like that. And that's what we did. And we would have a meeting. Not every day, because we were busy sometimes, but several. You know, every couple days, we would have a meeting on it with everybody working that case, including some administrators, and we discussed theories. Okay, what. You know, not only theories. Well, but who do we need to talk to now? What are our next steps? You know, how long till we get the lab back? You know, the evidence from the lab? Absolutely. That's what we do.

[Ashley Banfield]

Well, and they've got a task force on this one. You know, they've got the FBI in the Tucson office collected together with about between four and six Pima county homicide detectives and representatives that presumably are working on this every single day and having those meetings every single day. I'm only guessing, but I wonder, you know, you've been at this job decades, so you come with the experience. In our last interview, you told me how Carlo threw Nancy Woodrum over his shoulder and carried her that way. Because I'd been fascinated by why those blood drops are so vertical in Nancy Guthrie's case. And I wondered, is it possible for one guy who's 59 to 510 to carry 150 pounds over his shoulder? And you told me, oh, and then some with regard to your guy. But this is you with experience. This is you with decades of having gone through so many different things that the aha moments are at the tip of your tongue. The lead investigator on Guthrie's case has two years experience in homicide at least for the first 30 days when he was assigned to that case. Does that surprise you, knowing just how high profile the Guthrie case was, to have somebody so novice and such a rookie at the helm of it?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, I don't know the dynamics of their agency. For example, like our agency, we're small compared to LA county sheriffs or San Diego county sheriffs, the larger agencies. So I can tell you what happened in our case because I was one of the more experienced detectives. The detective that was on call that day knew that I had experience. And not only that, but this case was in what is known as the northern part of our county, what we call North County. That detective never worked up here or lived up here. He knew that I've lived up here for, you know, 30 years. And so he asked, even though I was, my primary assignment was cold case homicide. He asked that I beat the lead on this, the second lead on this case with him. And so that's what we did because he felt, and him and I have discussed this recently, where he just felt that he wanted my experience. And so I had solved a couple of other cold cases and this was going to be his first homicide. And. And so he asked for a more experienced investigator. That's what we did.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah, well, it's. It's what the layperson over here on this end of the mic thinks would happen. Like, you want the most experienced person to lead one of the biggest, most high profile, vexing cases that your county's had in, you know, 20, 30 years. It just doesn't seem like, and I don't know about this lead detective's life in the community. Maybe he's got 20 years, 30 years, I don't know, of living in that community. So he's got a richness there that is valuable. I don't, I don't know that to be the truth. I am curious, though, about the interviews, given that we know interviews are going on now, the interviews of the contractors, subcontractors. When you're in the room doing those interviews, is it like the movies, Good cop, bad cop? I mean, how does it usually go down?

[Detective Clint Cole]

I. I'm not a big fan of the good cop, bad cop thing. I worked sexual assault cases for five years before I started into homicide. And in those types of cases, if you're trying to play the. A bad guy or a tough guy role with somebody who's committed a sexual offense, especially against a child, they're not going to talk to you. So how, how we did this interview was we planned this interview Believe it or not, we planned this interview for several days. We had been tracking Carlo, our suspect. We knew he was a golfer. We knew he took his kid to school every morning while the wife stayed home. We knew, you know, he. He was busy painting every day. He wasn't, you know, out messing around. He had a good job. So what we did is we planned our interview. We sat down. My partner Dave and I sat down, and we literally planned the interview for at least two days. We had a list of questions. They were in order the way we wanted them to go, and we knew exactly when we were going to turn the heat. And it was planned. So neither one of us ever slightly raised our voice. We constantly made sure he understood. Do you have. Have questions? So that's. That's how I like to do an interview. Very calm. And a lot of times the best thing you can say is nothing. You know, ask a question and let the person answer. And when they're. They're done or you think they're done, let them think about it for a little bit longer. A lot of times they'll just keep spewing something out. I don't like to. I don't think, you know, and it worked in our case. We didn't. We didn't try and overpower him. We didn't try and over talk him. We were extremely prepared. And when we knew it was time, we hit him and told him that we knew he did it and there was no way out. And so that's the way we did it. I think that in any interview, this, you know, what you see on tv, the old sip of it, stuff within YPD Blue and all that, that doesn't work. That's. In my opinion, that's not. There may be a time and place for it, but not. Not in a case like this that we handle. You've got to really kind of play upon their emotions and that sort of thing. I'm not a huge fan of the bad cop thing.

[Ashley Banfield]

So when you began. I'm just really intrigued by how you planned this out. You said you planned your questions in the order in which you wanted to start eliciting information. What was the strategy? Let's ask him questions that are really innocuous. Make them think that we're investigating somebody else or what was the strategy in how you listed the questions and when you did the. Go for the jugular the best.

[Detective Clint Cole]

What we wanted to do and what we did do was the reason we had this list of questions. When you get into an interview of that magnitude it's easy to want to jump ahead. We. Where's Nancy Wheedrum? You know, where's Nancy Woodrum? But we. He's not going to tell you if he doesn't feel comfortable with you. And so the first 45 minutes or so of that interview was nothing but building rapport because he took his kid to school every day, and the wife didn't have much to do with that. We told him he was the greatest father in the world. We praised him for that. We found out, you know, we knew he was a golfer because we were tracking him. You know, we. We spent 20 minutes talking about golf, and just a lot of people it might drive crazy because we took at least an hour of just building rapport, not really letting him know that we were on to him. We asked about Nancy a little bit. Hey, do you know anything more? You know, what have you heard? We asked some real basic questions, and while we're. While we were doing this, we're reading him, and when we're talking about golf, his body language is open, he's relaxed. We start asking questions about Nancy Woodrum, even though they're not directed as him as a suspect. His. His stomach starts gurgling, his body language changes, and that's all stuff. Why. Why we ask all these preliminary questions because he's. He's. He's real mellow. Oh, yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I try to be a good dad. And then you throw in, oh, what have you heard about Nancy Woodrum recently? And then his whole body changes, and then you go back to the golf, and now he's. He relaxes, and you can gain a lot of information that way. And that's why we planned it. I mean, we really planned that interview. A lot of people were. A lot of people in our own agency thought we were being crazy for taking so long, but it paid off.

[Ashley Banfield]

It's amazing advice for the investigators who are working the Guthrie case, because this is apparently what they're doing right now. They're asking these questions. I don't know if they've got their sights set on someone like you did, but they got to ask a lot of questions of a lot of people, it would seem. The other question I wanted to ask you is about bringing in people like you, people who have the experience deputizing. One of my guests yesterday said he's been sitting on the outskirts, having retired. He's got seven years experience in the homicide department, and he's just waiting for them to call him and say, come on back in. We need the extra manpower we need to deputize some, some experienced guys. And that isn't necessarily happening. Would that be something that would be a decision that you and your folks would make, like, let's bring in more manpower with more smarts who've been to this rodeo.

[Detective Clint Cole]

We're lucky that we have some pretty significant experience in art agency. For example, our elected sheriff was a detective for a very long time, so he has investigative experience. So when he's sitting in on our meetings with us, he's not sitting in necessarily only as the sheriff. He's sitting in there as a guy who's worked homicide cases and worked these cases. And so as far as us bringing someone from the outside in, I don't know, I don't think we would do that, but we don't necessarily need it in some other cases that I've worked. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't talk to people, Dave.

[Ashley Banfield]

Advice really, like calling your old colleagues and just getting bouncing ideas off them.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Absolutely. We did this. And Dave and I, the other lead investigator, both had gone to LA Sheriff's homicide school. I'm a huge fan of those guys. They get sometimes three or four murders a weekend and you know, they. We'll get two homicides, three homicides a year. So Dave and I, we didn't bring them in to work the case, but we certainly spoke to them probably early on a couple times a week just running things by them because although I had more, a little more experience than Dave, those guys have much more experience than all of us because they work so many homicides. And one of my, one of my favorite buddies down there, I'll just use his first name because he'd get mad if I told his real name. But Phil is an old legendary homicide guy and he's the one who told me in the Woodrum case before we identified Carlo, he told us, you've already talked to your suspect. He's the one who told us that. And I had, and that's experience that is hard to come by. So no, we would not bring anyone in, but 110% we reached out to LA Sheriff's homicide detectives that we knew that had tons of experience and reran things by them.

[Ashley Banfield]

If you, if you were able to give advice, I mean, here we are, it's, it's April 1st. We are at day 60 in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance. If you, with your background, your years as a detective, homicide detective, and your experience on a case that is so incredibly similar, if you had the opportunity to give advice to those who are trying to solve Nancy Guthrie's mystery. What would you tell them?

[Detective Clint Cole]

Well, I'll answer that this way. It's my way of doing things. My, my way, my policy to listen to anyone and everyone. Some people may not have anything to offer, some people may be crazy, but I, and I do it to this day on, on my cases that I'm still working my unsolved homicide. I'll listen to anybody who has anything to say, a theory, anything. I'll listen to them. You know, that doesn't mean you hire them and have them come and, you know, run things, but I think it's, it's super important to listen to anybody. We had a very intelligent legal clerk in our office at the time, and she had a great criminal detective mind, and she was our legal clerk. I, I, we ran things by her, you know, what do you think you have? I, that's how I do things. Just because somebody's not a sworn detective doesn't mean they don't have a feeling that might be beneficial. And we would run things by, by our legal clerk, Nancy, all the time. And, and she was great. I'll tell you a story that this is why you. We did it and why I recommend it. We were stuck a couple of months in, and Nancy told me one day, I think you guys should revisit the painter. Now, that clerk said that our legal clerk. And when I say legal clerk, I am not, you know, downplaying a legal clerk or, you know, being disrespectful to a legal.

[Ashley Banfield]

But she's not. Yeah, she's not a homicide investigator.

[Detective Clint Cole]

She's not a homicide detective. And about two or three months in, and she would, she reads all, she would type and read all of our reports. So she knew the case as well as we did. And she told me, you guys need to go back and look at the painters. And by golly, another two months late. And we were planning on it, but not soon enough, obviously, until the Google geofence came back. And when it was the painter, I was like, oh my gosh, Nancy, you were right.

[Ashley Banfield]

And her name was also Nancy.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Her name was Nancy. Correct? Correct. She'd be really mad. I used her name, first name only.

[Ashley Banfield]

And there's a lot of Nancy's in this, so. Fascinating. So do you think you'd also give them the same advice that Phil gave to you and that was you may have already spoken to your suspect?

[Detective Clint Cole]

I think you have. I think, I think that's very good advice in any Homicide case. Absolutely. And it doesn't. That's why we were going to go back and relook at people. You know, the ones that. Because by this time we had cleared some. The contractors and some of these people we had cleared by DNA. So the cleared people. Okay, we put them away now. Let's go back. And that's. I think that's a very good thing to do in a homicide case is to. When I work my cold cases, I have. I have a case of two young girls where it's stuck, and we're doing genealogy, and it's still stuck. We go back and re. Revisit at least once a month, my partner and I, who helps me. We go back and we revisit everything. We've just done everything all the time. We sent. We sent the entire case to the Sacramento DA's office, who is doing our genealogy for us and said, take a look. Do you have any ideas? I think that is excellent practice in a homicide investigation. Absolutely.

[Ashley Banfield]

Well, your team is lucky to have you, that's for sure. And I'm lucky to be able to talk to you. I could speak to you for hours, just in the best practices. And what happens inside as a fly on the wall in the room. Detective Cole, thank you so much for this.

[Detective Clint Cole]

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you very much, Ashley.

[Ashley Banfield]

So there you have it. There is my conversation. My great thanks to Detective Clint Cole. I love talking to guys like that because I'm just imagining him in the war room, you know, with all of his other detectives throwing out the theories, throwing out the ideas, and then, you know, one of them saying, aha. And I love the fact that that. That legal clerk, Nancy, helped them with some of their ideas and said, you need to go back to that painter that tells you if you're one of those online sleuths. Right. We all have ideas that are valuable. Some people go a little crazy. I get it. But you know what? The online sleuths that I have seen as well, especially in the production Don't Fuck with Cats. Wow. If you haven't seen that, you gotta run, don't walk and watch. Don't Fuck with Cats. It's an incredible story of the online community crowdsourcing, solving a serial killer. Anyway. But it does tell me that, you know, they're just detectives. They're just like us in some ways. They just come up with ideas and they throw them on the table and then they try to game them out. Right. So to that end, I have a little bit more information that I'm going to be bringing to you tomorrow about a key piece of evidence in the case and something we've been waiting to find out about. My source has told me what the circumstance is with that key piece of evidence, so I'm going to have that for you tomorrow. In the meantime, thank you again for subscribing. Reminder. Boink, boink, boink. It's right there, the little guy. It's free, it's easy, it's fun, and then you don't miss any updates when I have updates to bring you. Plus, I really appreciate it. It does me a big solid when you subscribe. So thank you. And then also I hope you join, I hope you join our little, you know, membership community. I drop a lot of content just for the members and I do These Q&As a lot of times where we just basically shoot the shit. And it's an ask me anything, anything you want. And the last one I think went two hours or something like that. So if you join, you get to be a part of that as well. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for watching. And do remember, truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.