Mystery Kidnapper Exposed: The DNA Trail That Could Crack the Nancy Guthrie Case

Summary

Podcast Summary

Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield

Episode: Mystery Kidnapper Exposed: The DNA Trail That Could Crack the Nancy Guthrie Case
Date: March 4, 2026
Host: Ashleigh Banfield
Guest: Retired Texas Ranger Brandon Bess

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the ongoing Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case, with a focus on the role of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) and investigative shoe-leather work in cracking complex cases. Ashleigh Banfield shares updates from her law enforcement sources while featuring an in-depth interview with former Texas Ranger Brandon Bess, an expert in criminal intelligence, cold cases, and DNA-driven casework. The conversation aims to demystify what happens after a DNA "hit" and how investigators painstakingly whittle down suspects, highlighting the real-world difficulties, nuances, and ingenuity needed to bring suspects to justice.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Status of the Nancy Guthrie Case

• As of March 3, 2026 (Day 31), the investigation has not produced highly active leads warranting new raids.
• Sheriff continues to provide selective updates, citing that the case “can, absolutely, be solved.”
  • “He thinks this case can, quote, absolutely be solved… I hope that's true. I hope it's just not lip service.” (Banfield, 05:28)
• Surveillance video (SUV spotted leaving the scene): The sheriff indicates the vehicle has not been identified yet, and it’s not ruled out as evidence.
• Speculation arises about the real number of vehicles being examined, challenging the sheriff’s statement about "hundreds of thousands."
  • “Out of 560,000 people who live there, hundreds of thousands of them were driving at 2:30 in the morning? That seems like that statement wasn't thought through.” (Banfield, 06:47)
• Motive for the crime remains unclear; investigators have yet to reveal or perhaps even determine if sexual or other motives were involved.
• The investigation team has shrunk from 400 to a smaller, specialized task force of homicide detectives and FBI agents, now awaiting DNA updates from a private Florida lab.

2. DNA and Genetic Genealogy Process

• Current challenge: The DNA sample found is a mixture and incomplete, making it incompatible with the CODIS system—a direct national offender database search.
• Investigators are pivoting to investigative or familial (genetic) genealogy, which can still break the case.
  • “With a partial sample, doesn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you don’t go another route, which is, you know, investigative genealogy or familial DNA research.” (Banfield, 09:34)
• Issues such as separating mixtures in the DNA sample remain, but experts suggest these are not insurmountable.

3. Scene Activity Update

• Increased activity at Nancy Guthrie’s house, with visitors including possible locksmiths, contractors, and two individuals with metal detectors searching for dropped jewelry or small items in the easement (public area near the street).

4. Interview: How Investigative Genetic Genealogy Works

[Start: 17:55]

Brandon Bess Explains:

• Initial DNA "hit" from FGG usually points to a family tree, not a suspect—often results in a nationwide search for ~20–80 possible relatives.
  • “...in every investigation I ever did involving forensic genetic genealogy, it became a nationwide search… On the worst case scenario, we had 80 different familial tests that we had to go collect.” (Bess, 19:10)
• Most people cooperate when asked for DNA; in five years, only one subject refused due to fear of scams.
  • “In my five years of doing that… only had one person… that turned us down.” (Bess, 21:54)
• Investigators use creative persuasion; humorously pitch the idea of being played by a celebrity in a potential movie about the case to ease concern.
  • “You look a lot like Julia Roberts. Would you like to have her… play you in this movie?” (Bess, 21:54)
• They begin by ruling out suspects by gender, age, criminal history, geographic location, and by checking alibis and immigration status if needed.
  • “Male, female of course, first, then age and then location, physical location of the folks.” (Bess, 28:29)
• Touch DNA methods (e.g., swabbing doorknobs, objects) can be unreliable. Trash runs (collecting discarded trash for DNA) are often the most effective.
  • “The biggest majority of it is trash runs. Getting lucky that there's not seven people living in a house and going through enough of that.” (Bess, 40:59)
• Even with FGG, cases can take months or years to solve due to logistical, budgetary, and manpower constraints.

5. Memorable Anecdotes & Challenges in Genealogy Investigations

• Occasionally, sensitive family secrets emerge, like discovering unexpected familial relations or previously unknown histories of abuse or infidelity.
  • “Daddy is not Daddy… We actually had one where a case where the grandfather was the father of the person that we took DNA from… those things that you run into in these cases that you would never think humanly possible.” (Bess, 26:01)
• Team sizes are small (Texas had 6 rangers for the entire state); most agencies rely on mutual aid and strong inter-agency partnerships for legwork—especially when suspect relatives live in different states.

6. The Rigors and Realities of Sleuth Work

• Tracking suspects is time-consuming and may involve stalking them for discarded DNA, as seen in cases like the Golden State Killer and Rex Heuerman.
• Trash runs are fully legal once the trash is placed on public property but are resource-intensive, especially if multiple people live at the suspect address.
• Cold case investigators work cases from other agencies and often get national calls, relying on reciprocal support for out-of-state leads.
  • “The majority of cold case work is done by a very small group of people.” (Bess, 35:53)
• The FGG process is one of elimination—removing those with strong alibis, strong law-abiding history, physical impossibility, or clear unrelated geographic location.
• Final confirmation can often come only after dozens of negative results and painstaking narrowing.

7. Timeline Realities

• Turnaround time for complex FGG cases is slow; six months is considered "pretty fast," depending on luck and resources.
  • “Six months was pretty fast to be able to wrap one of these cases up unless you just got really lucky.” (Bess, 47:22)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “We all know that DNA work and Othram Labs and the lab in Florida, DNA International in Deerfield Beach, they’re all super smart people with very, very specified careers that, you know, you and I maybe don’t understand to the nth degree. We just know the headline.” – Ashleigh Banfield [04:40]
• “Turns out that though we could not do what we do without the FGG technology… the amount of work that sometimes goes into these cases after we received that initial, I hate to say confirmation, but that initial hit… that becomes a nationwide search.” – Brandon Bess [19:10]
• “They want to be a part of something really big… you get to give answers to a family that may not have had answers for 30, 40… years.” – Brandon Bess [23:31]
• “A lot of it is the doorknob, swabs… Touch DNA is very difficult to work with.” – Brandon Bess [38:58]
• “The biggest majority of it is trash runs… that's the best thing is the trash run.” – Brandon Bess [40:59]
• “We never had the luck where we plug something in and boom, we got the answer the next day.” – Brandon Bess [46:35]
• “How is this one dope able to keep us at Bay for 31 days? And maybe here's the better question. How much longer do you think he's going to be able to keep us at bay? …I don't think he's going to be able to.” – Ashleigh Banfield [48:34]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 04:52: Overview of DNA use in the Guthrie case and investigative process
• 06:28: Discussion about the misquoted vehicle numbers and evidence from doorbell cams
• 08:30: Lab DNA challenges, partial samples, and what’s next after CODIS
• 11:09: Discussion on the possibly secondhand "Walmart" backpack, plea for public tips
• 17:55: Introduction and background of Brandon Bess
• 19:10: Bess details how FGG produces large pools of possible relatives—“the real shoe-leather work”
• 21:54: Bess shares how most people consent to give DNA, with humorous persuasion tactics
• 26:01: Bess recounts difficult findings in genealogy (hidden family secrets)
• 28:29: How investigators sort possible suspects—gender, age, location, history
• 34:51: Explanation and legality of trash runs for emerging DNA collection
• 35:53: The reality of minuscule cold case teams and reliance on partnerships
• 38:58: Techniques and findings in collecting touch DNA—why some are more/less effective
• 41:23: Handling multi-person households in trash runs; narrowing down potential DNA matches
• 43:17: Coordination with law enforcement nationwide; use of agency aircraft for cross-state tracking
• 47:22: How long these cases actually take to resolve
• 48:34: Banfield’s summation—frustration and optimism for solving the case

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Final Thoughts

The episode is a rare window into both the methodical, scientific, and deeply human aspects of modern cold case investigation and DNA-driven crime solving. Banfield’s irreverence and expertise balance deep frustration with system delays against optimism that “gumshoe work” and forensic genealogy will ultimately win out—even in confoundingly difficult cases like Nancy Guthrie’s. As the investigation grinds forward, listeners are reminded just how much labor and fortitude is required, and why patience is essential when the headlines go cold.

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For Those With Information

If listeners know of any secondhand sale of an Ozark Trail Backpacker Pack (black), or have other relevant tips, they're urged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.

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Summary compiled in the inquisitive, irreverent, and serious tone of Ashleigh Banfield and her guest.

Transcript

[Brandon Bess]

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[Ashley Banfield]

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[Ashley Banfield]

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[Ashley Banfield]

te oy a Cox Dre quiere Cops Mobile Gig Unlimited. Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield. This is drop dead serious. Thanks so much for being here. Big favor. Hit subscribe. It really helps a lot. I so appreciate you and I really love that you're here. Let's get right to it, shall we? It's another busy day. I didn't think it was going to be a busy day, but it is. It's March 3rd as I record this, which is day 31 in the Nancy Guthrie case. And I've talked to my law enforcement source who's told me a couple things that, you know, interesting but frustrating. No extremely active leads at this point. As of a couple of days ago, not leads that would generate enough information to satisfy the warrant process is what I'm told. And my source says don't expect any raids anytime soon. You know, we've already had two. The last one was February 13th. That's over two weeks ago. And so, you know, it's frustrating, but it doesn't mean that nothing's happening. And to that end, I have such a good guest for you to hear today. I can't believe I haven't met Brandon Bess until now. He's a former Texas Ranger and he is right out of central casting. I love this guy and you are going to hear more from him in in the podcast in the future because he is so smart is a whip. He's an expert in criminal intelligence. He did that with the Rangers. Expert in cold cases. He did that. Expert in all things othram Labs because he worked with Othram Labs, in fact, helped solve the Mary Katherine Edwards case in Beaumont, Texas. And here's what I have for you today. It is such a treat because I know you've heard a lot about DNA in this case. Sheriff said something about DNA to NBC News, and I'm going to tell you that in a second, but I want you to sort of know how it works once it gets out of the computers. That's kind of a talk to me like I'm five way of saying it. But look, we all know that DNA work and Othram Labs and the lab in Florida, DNA International in Deerfield beach, they're all super smart people with very, very specified careers that, you know, you and I maybe don't understand to the nth degree. We just know the headline. We know generally about what they do. But what happens once the lab kind of says, here are your people, Here are the 40, 60, 80 potential family members of your suspect, and maybe in there somewhere is your suspect? Then what happens? What are the cops and the detectives and the rangers and the agents for the FBI? What, what do they do with this pool of dozens and dozens of people who might or might not be connected to this criminal? Well, they're connected in some way. But how do you get to the criminal? Because after the computers and the scientists in the lab get through their work, the gumshoe fellers and ladies do their work. They hit the pavement, they hit the sidewalk, they knock on the doors, they follow the possible, you know, target, and they collect something to see if it's their guy. And it is a fascinating process. And so Brandon Bess, who you're about to meet, including his 10 gallon hat, which is amazing because I lived in Texas for five years, so I so love that culture. He will tell you the work that he did, the gumshoe shoe leather work that he did, to find these people and how amazing it is when you find them and how incredibly crazy it is when you approach people and ask them for their DNA because they might actually be key to solving a crime. What would you say? Wait until you hear his responses of what some of his people have said when he's knocked on their doors. Okay, but let me get you through a bit of today, and then you're gonna hear from this former Texas Ranger who's just, again, so, so incredibly smart and so incredibly fascinating. The sheriff today, it was revealed, did an interview with NBC News and it was aired on the Today show. Again, the sheriff's not doing interviews with anybody else. Just Selectively, every so often, just sits with someone. It's frustrating for the rest of us who are all trying to get, you know, information straightened out or cleared up or even information. But he told NBC News that he thinks this case can, quote, absolutely be solved. That's good to hear. I'm happy to hear that. I hope it's true. I hope it's on target. I hope it's just not lip service. I hope that what he's saying is like, yeah, we have enough that we're going on. It's a lot of work, but it can absolutely be solved. To the vehicle that was found whizzing through some neighbors doorbell cam, front front doorbell, facing camera on 1 February, at exactly the time that it's likely a vehicle would have left Nancy Guthrie's home and then seven to eight minutes later, crossed through their. Their camera purview. We had heard that that was a dead end. Maybe not. Maybe not. Because the sheriff said that they haven't yet identified that suv. Right. But not that it's out of. Out of play. And then said something else that was weird.

[Brandon Bess]

Look, what I would tell you is this. We're aware of it and we're looking into it just like any other piece of evidence.

[Ashley Banfield]

Have you been able to identify the car that drove past at 2:36am no. No. But you are looking to identify it?

[Brandon Bess]

We're looking at that vehicle as well as hundreds of thousands of other vehicles that were out driving that time of day.

[Ashley Banfield]

Okay, hundreds of thousands of other vehicles. I don't get that. I'm sorry. First of all, what's the population of Tucson? I'll tell you the answer to that. It's roughly 560,000 people. So out of 560,000 people who live there, hundreds of thousands of them were driving at 2:30 in the morning. That seems like that statement wasn't thought through. And I say that also because Michael Ruiz from Fox News was very, very clever and smart and went back to his files from Moscow, Idaho and said that Idaho investigators had a list of more than 20,000 white Hyundai Elantras to sort through. So, okay, that was one vehicle they were looking for very specifically. But 20,000 is a much more manageable number than hundreds of thousands. Right. It was also seen in the middle of the night on these dark cameras and identified as a white Elantra. But other people thought that this might be a Kia Soul. So, again, I'm just curious as to why the sheriff would say we're looking at hundreds of thousands of vehicles Other vehicles. So some other things. The sheriff said the motive remains unclear. Okay. To me, that's huge. Because if there were evidence that, of course, we don't know about, they're not telling us everything. Right. If there were evidence, say, somewhere in Nancy's home, say, her bedroom, that led them to suspect maybe this was an attempted rape or something like that, or. Well, he's saying no. The motive remains unclear. So the mystery gets bigger. But at least that kind of sheds the possibility of the parade of horribles that we were all hoping was not the case. Again, it's the sheriff, and a lot of times what he says has to be cleared up or corrected. So I don't know. Sad that I can't trust that. That's ironclad, but it is what it is. The task force, remember, we told you that. Look, in every one of these cases, eventually there has to be a drawdown of personnel. And there were 400 people working on the Nancy Guthrie disappearance at one time. And the sheriff has used, you know, certain euphemistic language to say that we're, you know, we're going to ebb and flow. These are my words. As. As needed, we'll adjust personnel. And so at the same time is saying that the sheriff said there was a task force that had been established with Pima County Sheriff's Department homicide detectives as well as FBI agents. All right, so that's nice that there's a defined group that's working on it, but it also tells me it's a smaller group than it used to be. And they said. The sheriff said that they're still awaiting DNA updates, that that task force is still awaiting DNA updates from the private lab in Florida. All right, then I like this. You know, the last we heard was that the sample was, you know, an incomplete sample, that they had had trouble separating it from a mixture, but that itself, it was incomplete and couldn't be loaded into codis, which is a yes or no. Right? CODIS is the National Offender Database. You take your perfect sample, you stick it in there, you say, you got any guys like this? And it says yes or no. So with a partial sample, doesn't work. But that doesn't mean that you don't go another route, which is, you know, investigated genealogy or familial DNA research. And I'm going to get into that in a moment with my guest, Brandon Best, because that's what I think was going on. But then the sheriff also said that they were still having some issues with the separating it from the mixture. But I spoke with an expert who said, bullshit. We had mixtures all the time. That's what rape cases are. They're a mixture. I don't know what to make of it. I'm just not super skilled in that science. But look, I'm going to take him at his word that they're struggling. Maybe there were multip different pieces of DNA that were mixed into that mixture and they're trying to separate out the unknown from some of the knowns. Whatever it is, the work is still going on. That was the point of me bringing that to you because I'm happy about that. It means that there's still optimism. This was less optimistic. The backpack, right? The Walmart backpack. The sheriff said that it might have been secondhand. It might have been a secondhand backpack. Maybe it wasn't purchased. Here's how he said it to NBC, because his words matter. Take a look.

[Brandon Bess]

We've now learned that maybe it wasn't purchased out of Walmart. That backpack, as new, is exclusive to Walmart. But who's to say I didn't buy it and put it on ebay? That's what we're looking at.

[Ashley Banfield]

If you're watching and you know of somebody who either sold a backpack or maybe you sold a backpack on ebay recently, or you know of an ebay transaction that you saw for that backpack. 1-800- call FBI. 1-800- call FBI. If you know of a secondhand sale of that particular black backpack. It's called the Ozark Trail Backpacker Pack. Okay. Black. If you know of anything that may have sold secondhand, maybe in your store or eBay. Again, 1-800- call FBI. The authorities, obviously this is kind of a thanks, Captain Obvious. But the sheriff said, look, there's a lot of information that we haven't shared with the public. Absolutely. And they shouldn't. Right. I get it. The way investigations go, they've got to keep a lot of stuff close to their vest, especially for when you catch a guy, because you want to have stuff only the killer will know. But you also don't want to let the killer know you've got this on them so that they can go underground. But here is what the sheriff said about that. And I want to read this because there's something specific about it. There's so much that everybody wants to know, but I would be very neglectful, irresponsible, as a police officer, law enforcement leader to share that with everybody. We have information on this case that we think is going to hopefully lead us to solving this case. But it takes time. That last part. It takes time. So Brian Enten, who, by the way, can we just please all say a prayer for Brian Enten's skin and health? Because, you know, Sheriff Nanos made it really difficult for any reporters to stay out in front of Nancy Guthrie's house. Most of them have left because he made this massive parking restriction, which means you gotta walk forever and ever. Amen. To get to Nancy Guthrie's front driveway. And you cannot have your vehicle, which means it's all in your backpack. And whatever you got is what you got for the day. Water, sunscreen, shelter, all of it. And the heat is oppressive. It was 87 the other day when I checked. And poor Brian Enten is out there doing the good work to continue to follow this case for us with no shelter. Right. It's just miserable. Thanks, Nanos. Yeah, it's not going to happen. You're not going to. You're not going to get everybody to leave. The dogged among them are going to be there, and Michael Ruiz is one of them, and Brian Enten is one of them. And he saw a lot of activity at Nancy Guthrie's house today. Multiple vehicles arrived and drove into her driveway. People went into the home. It was hard. Brian and said they look like they might be locksmiths at one point. Looks like they might be contractors. Dressed nicely, though. And it's even possible, when I looked at them, maybe they were detectives of some kind. Hard to tell. But separately, two other people showed up, and they were doing something very odd. And so when asked, they said they were there to search for jewelry and, you know, smaller items that might have been dropped and that went, you know, missing, perhaps during the crime. And so they had a metal detector with them, and they were searching the easement, which is right off the pavement of the front road. But before your actual property line starts, there's, you know, usually public property. Band of it. It's called an easement. And they were searching and digging in the easement out in front of Nancy Guthrie's front lawn. So not on her property, but just where her property meets the road and where it's public. And they said, look, this is what happens. Sometimes these things are shed during crimes. An earring or a necklace or something. Okay. So that's kind of the update about what happened, you know, at the house today and where the investigation is, at least for my law enforcement source, which I said, it's slow. Like, there's just not a lot of good heavy meat there. Not enough to get warrants to get raids going, so don't expect that. According to my source, the sun's shining, birds are singing, and all feels right

[Brandon Bess]

in the world until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year.

[Ashley Banfield]

At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.

[Brandon Bess]

Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more.

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[Ashley Banfield]

But I wanted you to hear from retired Texas Ranger Brandon Bess. Guy worked in Criminal Intelligence. Guy worked in the cold cases. He worked with OTHRAM Labs, as I mentioned before, and helped to solve this incredible case in Beaumont, Texas. And as it turns out, he's really well known among the super smart DNA community because he did this for decades. And what I wanted to learn from him and help you to, to learn as well, is what these guys do with the scientists once they get their information from the scientists, what these guys do on the pavement to weed out the dozens and dozens and dozens of possible family members down to the actual suspect. Because it is a fascinating process. Okay, now here's my interview with former Texas Ranger Brandon Bess. He now works for PPI Security in Houston, Texas. And let me tell you, this guy knows his stuff. So, Brandon, talk to me a little bit about the process that most of us never actually see when it comes to what is done at the shoe leather level with genetic genealogy.

[Brandon Bess]

So as, as a new cold case Ranger, I'll tell you that your question hits home very hard because we thought when this forensic genetic genealogy came out that it was going to be, we're going to get a set of names, we go out, we collect a couple of DNA samples, and boom, we got our suspect. Turns out that though we could not do what we do without the FGG technology, I mean, these cases wouldn't get solved at all. Obviously they hadn't been solved. But the amount of work that sometimes goes into these cases after we received that initial, I hate to say confirmation, but that initial hit, for lack of a better term, on, hey, you're looking for the Jones family or you're looking for the Smith family, that becomes a nationwide search. In every investigation that I ever did involving forensic genetic genealogy, it became a nationwide search. Sometimes it was limited nationwide to the south, but oftentimes we would have, I want to say on the worst case scenario, we had 80 different familial tests that we had to go collect. That is a lot of people, and that's a lot of work by law enforcement that still has to be done on it. So it's an extreme amount of work that goes into it after getting that initial hit.

[Ashley Banfield]

So that initial hit. And when you say worst case scenario is 80, that means you basically get 80 potential people who could be associated to this subject you're looking for or could be the subject, correct?

[Brandon Bess]

That is correct. Most of the time the folks at othram, especially working with them, they would tell you, hey, this is not going to be your, this is not going to be your suspect. We think we're at a second cousin level. They were really good about Telling you how far away you were, which was really important when we would go collect these samples because as you can imagine, people are somewhat skeptical of, you know, this Texas Ranger coming to Louisiana or coming to Ohio or coming to, you know, New York and having to ask them for a sample of their DNA and telling them that someone they're kin to is a murder suspect but that they're not going to know who that person is. And to date, I have yet to have one that the target test, the familial test that I had to do, they never knew who the person was. They were too distantly related.

[Ashley Banfield]

But I can't imagine getting that request. How many people say, yes, sure. And how many say, slam the door?

[Brandon Bess]

Believe it or not, in. In my five years of doing that, of working with Othram as an active law enforcement officer, Texas Ranger, I only had one person. And it was a little old lady who had. She. She thought we were some kind of scammer. She didn't believe that it was. We were really law enforcement. That was the only person that turned us down. But my partners and I had a pretty, pretty good story when we would go meet them. And most of the time that was picking on law enforcement. And what we would say is, if it was a woman that we were collecting from or whether it was a man, we would always ask, woman, hey, who do you want to play you in the movie? And the same would be with a man. And we would have, you know, hey, you know, you look a lot like Julia Roberts. Would you like to have her if it was a man? You look a lot like Brad Pitt. Would you like to have Brad pay you in this movie? And of course they would ask, why, like, or Texas Rangers, there's going to be a movie about what we do. And that usually put us right over the top. And they understood. And, you know, it became a little bit of a joke that. That worked every time.

[Ashley Banfield]

Seriously, it was literally a sales job like that that could convince someone to hand over their DNA to. To help in the investigation.

[Brandon Bess]

It was, yes.

[Ashley Banfield]

It's just remarkable to me. I assume most people would be skeptical right off the bat, but that's only part of the job. I mean, let's start. Let's roll back a little bit to the point where you. You get the Jones family and you get 80 names. What's the first thing you do? Look for the females who definitely aren't the suspect and kind of cut it in half.

[Brandon Bess]

Yes, that is. That is one of the easier ways for sure, you know, Looking at criminal histories of people, especially when you have a decent idea of, hey, we think it's Mr. Jones, but we're at a first cousin level right now. Let's look at these, let's look at these folks. Let's look at all the options that offer them sent us and who has a criminal history, who has, who has been dealt with by law enforcement in the past. And we would steer away from those. We would look for, you know, in Texas, we'd call them the solid citizen. We would look for that solid citizen who's, you know, never been involved with anything, is pro law enforcement. And, you know, it's podcast like yours, believe it or not, that both the good guys and the bad guys understand what it's really all about. So the good guys understand because of listening to podcasts, because of watching Cold Case TV shows, that, hey, they understand what it's about and they want to be a part of it. And that was a part of the sales pitch too, was that, hey, you get to be a part of something really big. You get to give answers to a family that may not have had answers for 30, 40, I've got a case that's 50 years old. You get to be a part of that and you're good again, Solid citizen. They want to be a part of that. They want to volunteer and give that DNA to help you get to it. And then they won't leave you alone after until you give them the answers of who you got and when you got them. Of course, some of these cases take years to solve. Years and years to solve. Even with that genealogy.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah, it's got to feel good to let them know that you caught the bad guy and that they were a

[Brandon Bess]

part of is absolutely.

[Ashley Banfield]

So you start with the law abiding folks, the good citizenry who want to help, and then eventually you got to get to the ones who might have some criminal background. How do you get them on board? How do you just, I mean, I kind of know, but I want to hear it from you.

[Brandon Bess]

So it's, it's, you have to convince them that they are not a target of the investigation, they're not a suspect. And you have to do that by knowing their history, knowing where they were at the time, knowing that, you know, they might have been 12 years old when this crime was committed, and just convincing them that you're not trying to trick them, that you can give them other numbers of people, you can show them television shows that you've been on, podcasts you've been on kind of sell it to them ahead of time. Like, hey, we know that this is difficult to understand, or this may be difficult to believe, but watch these few things and you'll see that we're telling you the truth. We're not out to get you. This is not trickery. Because if we were, it could ruin our criminal case. And most of the time, that works. One of the. One of the difficult things that I ran into a couple of times, though, and this was with Othram, was first off, endogamy in a case which meant there was a lot of inbreeding, for lack of a better term, and that was going back to the 1800s. That wasn't anything in modern history. But to tell someone, hey, you know, you know, your great grandparents were actually first cousins. What's taboo now? They didn't even know back then. They didn't understand that they lived, you know, 20 miles apart. They had never heard, each heard of each other in their lifetime. The second part is when you discover that one of your target test subjects was not fathered by the person he or she thought they were fathered by, that they were out of. Not out of wedlock. What's the word I'm looking for here? That their mom and dad was. Not who their mom and dad. I'm not talking about adoption cases. I'm talking about, you know, the. The mother may have been having an affair and we strayed. I know. You can edit this down. Good. So we. We actually had one where a case where the grandfather was the father of the person that we took DNA from. He had sexually assaulted his grandchild, his daughter, that child was born, and that child was given up for adoption to another family member. And we discovered that in all that. So that one was extremely difficult. And as a matter of fact, we never went back to the gate. We didn't have it in us to tell him that we left it alone. He had lived his life not knowing that. And there's those things that you run into. There's obstacles that you run into in these cases that you would never think humanly possible, but the biggest one being that Daddy is not Daddy.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yeah. Yeah. And let's roll back even before you get out into sort of like, you know, hitting the streets when you're first dealing with that case and you start. You start. You start sorting, right? You start sorting who absolutely can't possibly be and who potentially can be. What are all the categories that you start with? And I get it. Male, female would be first, Right. Clearly, our perp isn't A female. So all the females are gone. What are the next categories that you start sorting?

[Brandon Bess]

Age. Age is the biggest one. You know, could this person. And you know, can an 18 year old do a certain type of crime? Sure, but in, in serial cases, especially serial sexual assault, serial murders, we do not anticipate and to my knowledge, I don't know that we have an 18 year old serial killer that's ever been captured. That, that said there could be, but not to my knowledge. So one of the things that you start looking at is how old was that family member at the time of the crime, going through that? Where did that family member live? Because, you know, 1960s, 1970s, some of these folks were born with five, six, seven, ten siblings. Figuring out where those siblings were at the time. If there's, you know, a five year date range that we're looking at, hey, where were these people in that five year date range? So male, female, of course, first, then age and then location, physical location of the folks. Is it even possible? We, we had a case in Beaumont that there were two brothers and obviously it's 50, 50 shot which one it could have been. And that was after just an extreme amount of genealogy work had gone into it. I mean, six months of just brutal, brutal work by the genealogist, by Othram, and of course by us going out, you know, law enforcement on the ground, going out and collecting those samples from people. But that one, when it came down to two brothers, we literally looked at criminal history and location. Those were the two things that was easy. A lot of times it's not that easy, but when you start really getting down to the very end, it comes to that, it comes to age, criminal history, involvement with law enforcement, you know, some background. The typical stuff that you would do on anyone on one of the cold cases before we knew about this, you kick all that stuff back in that we used to do.

[Ashley Banfield]

So you get rid of all the chaff, you know, the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, when you end up with, say, and maybe this is a moderate guess, 20 possible suspects, what's next?

[Brandon Bess]

So then that's when you go back to Othram again. That's when you go back and, and they run those numbers on what you've got, who are the most likely on those because, you know, if every one of them got down to 50 or, I'm sorry, got down to 20, let's say you're still talking about a huge amount of time that it could take. So that literally comes down to Othram Labs looking at the numbers that you've got and them doing what they do, them doing, the smart people work and that is which one of the numbers that they have actually is closest to it. Letting them weed those down for us, letting those sort those and tell us, hey, this is the most likely from the 20, they can whittle it down to five or six. You get it down to that five or six and go that direction. Now we'll say that we have had in the past, you get down to that five or six and you're going the wrong direction. But the good thing about them is they push you in the right direction really quickly.

[Ashley Banfield]

When you have like for instance, I think about the Golden State Killer that was out in California and of course the Long island serial killer suspect Rex Heuerman up in New York. They followed him on the street and picked up a pizza that he discarded into the garbage and they were right behind him and picked it right back up. Talk to me a little bit about that part of the shoe leather work because I'm fascinated in how some people just aren't going to give you that sample and others, you don't want them to know that you're looking for their sample. So walk me through that part of it all.

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[Ashley Banfield]

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[Brandon Bess]

a KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor. The greatest insult the Colonel ever suffered was being served a wrap that was just a snack by a friend. So he took two crispy tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and pepper mayo and wrapped them in a soft tortilla. It wasn't a snack, it was a meal. He called it a twister and never called that friend again. The Colonel lived so we could chicken the Twister. Now back at kfc Classic or with bacon. Also try it spicy. It's finger licking. Good prices and participation may vary. A couple of cases that I can think about. One in particular, the Mary Katherine Edwards case out of Beaumont, Texas with Beaumont Police Department. That case we had a college professor that we were looking at and that college professor lived in a gated community. We had a hard time getting to his house, but we did finally get to his house. So we actually snuck in the middle of the night up to his house, into his driveway and swabbed the door handles on his truck that were, you know, it was parked in an open Spot. We swabbed those door handles. Well, that didn't work. So we had to go to the university, follow him around, attempted to catch him dropping some things. And I'll say he was not the suspect. We finally got a coffee cup that he discarded, and it was not him. And we moved on to another suspect, that suspect that we actually got his DNA from the trash. And we used our partners in the FBI and a local sheriff's office in Ohio to go do what's called a trash run. And the trash run is when someone discards their trash, puts it in a barrel, and it goes out by the road for a company to pick up. Then we go through that trash. So they pulled his trash, and it happened to be during COVID time. So there was a great number of COVID masks, but there was also a toothbrush and a razor, I believe, in that case. So we were able to verify him through that trash run. And you. You talk about an exciting moment. I mean, we had. We had worked and worked and worked, and there were so many people that were. I'm not gonna say suspect. So many people that we had to eliminate in that case. To finally get that one guy from a trash run in Ohio was just huge, huge, huge.

[Ashley Banfield]

Well, I'm gonna ask you about the trash run in a minute, because when you got a household of, like, six people, you got six people's trash out on the curb. And I should just tell our audience that it's perfectly legal to go through someone's trash once they put it out into public property. You can't do it on private property. That needs a warrant. But if they put it out, you know, for. They pick. You know, they've sent it off into the public space. So it's. It's a. That's really a great opportunity for. For law enforcement. But before I get to that, go back to that professor, because this is the work that I'm. I'm so curious about. I don't know how many agents and officers and police officers and rangers and all the rest you had assigned to your case, but it would seem to me that it would take a lot of people at a lot of man hours to just track that one guy until you finally got the coffee cup that turned into a dead end. I mean, that's the kind of work that I think a lot of people don't understand is going on when the authorities say this could take weeks, months, years.

[Brandon Bess]

So, unfortunately, the Texas Department of Public Safety cold case team within the Texas Rangers, when I was there, there were Only six of us for the entire state of Texas. Not just for Houston, for the entire state of Texas. Fortunately, in the last year and a half, they've doubled that. So there's. I think there's about 15 Rangers now that are in the cold case, but you're still talking about for the entire state of Texas. The majority of cold case work is done by a very small group of people. And, you know, cold case work, though, it's very rewarding. It's very difficult, and it's very difficult. One of the reasons is because there's only so few of us that do it. There's so few of us that, that have the partners in local agencies that they can spare the people to do it. You know, if a case is going unsolved for 10, 15, 20 years, it's not that people don't care, but there's new cases dropping every day. So for an agency to be able to dedicate someone to go with us to work these cases, because it's really their case that we're working. And I say we're as the Texas Rangers. So for your listeners, the Texas Rangers are an investigative agency within the Texas State Police, but our primary role is assisting other agencies with their investigations. And that specifically on cold cases, is the case we don't investigate. I shouldn't say that. It's not that we don't investigate our own. The cases that the cold case team with the Texas Rangers work are normally cases that are from other agencies. 99% of them are other agency cases that we pick up with them. And it's usually two to three people at most that are working these cases.

[Ashley Banfield]

So a couple questions. The fact that it boggles my mind to think that you were only six people on your team and now it might be upwards of 12 to 15. But, you know, for cold cases, I get it. But nowadays we've got these cases that are falling into our laps that aren't cold, but may require the, you know, the IGG work or the familial DNA work. So in a case like Nancy Guthrie's in Tucson, would that also fall into the very overworked cold case team's lap if they have to go out searching now for investigative genealogy and do the gumshoe work maybe all over the country for whoever this perpetrator is?

[Brandon Bess]

You know, I think the expertise that a cold case investigator would bring to the Guthrie case, for example, knowing how to collect these samples, what it's going to take to collect these samples from people, I certainly think that is going to be very beneficial to that case. Absolutely, yeah.

[Ashley Banfield]

What other techniques do you use when literally you have followed someone and you're walking however many paces behind? What other techniques, what other anecdotes do you have for things that you've been able to pick up that an unsuspecting person left behind that was, you know, beneficial to you?

[Brandon Bess]

Well, a lot of it is the, the doorknob, swabs, you know, watching a person that goes into a door. I'll tell you that touch DNA is very difficult to work with. I've had a couple of cold cases where a. A purse was snatched from my murder victim. I know that purse was handled by the suspect in that case, got ran with for a couple of blocks and thrown down and we didn't get any DNA off that. So touch DNA is, is very, very iffy at best, I'll tell you that. Another case that we worked, we got the suspect's WristWatch from the 1980s and you know, those old school watches that had the stretchy bands that are on them, for lack of a better term. I don't know what you call that, but the kind of bands that pinch you and would pull hair and that sort of thing. We got no DNA from that. We got a cigarette lighter one time, old school Bic metal lighter where, you know, the, the person has to run their finger across that rough surface. Didn't get any DNA from that. So DNA doesn't. I mean, it sheds. And we understand that. And we understand that you can get lucky at times. But we've had success with glasses before, you know, getting DNA off glasses. We, of course, have had great success

[Ashley Banfield]

with glasses like you wear or glasses that you drink from.

[Brandon Bess]

Yes, glasses like you wear because of the, you know, the rims being on the noses. People put their glasses in their mouths, that sort of thing. We've had success with that. But the biggest majority of it is trash runs. Getting lucky that there's not seven people living in a house and going through enough of that. Having our labs and having Othram labs, the state police lab as well as OTHRAM lab, just process and figure out what's male and what's female in that stuff. It's a lot more work and it's a lot more money, of course. But that is one of the things that, or that I should say that's the best thing is the, is the trash run.

[Ashley Banfield]

Right. And I'm thinking about like Brian Coburger, the, the. The killer who murdered the four kids in, in Idaho, University of Idaho, that was a trash pull. But there were three people living in that home. And I think they may have done the trash pull before Bryan Coburger got home. I'm not sure now, but if you have multiple people in the house, is it still effective?

[Brandon Bess]

It is. You just, you're, you're going to have to identify who those three people are, get DNA from each of those three people. And I guess what you've got to say is it's one of these three people who is the most likely person that it could be. Is it mama, is it daddy, or is it son? And eliminate, eliminate them the same way we eliminate everybody else who was in town, who has an alibi, who's picked up on video, who's, you know, all those things that we look at to be able to tell where and when a person was, where they were, to be able to get down to which one of those three that it is,

[Ashley Banfield]

one of those other aspects before you, you know, maybe get on a plane or start driving, you know, to hit the road and track down these, these potential suspects is the, is the natural alibi. Right. This so and so lives in Scotland and has lived there forever and hasn't been on a plane. I mean, you can probably get that information pretty quickly from Homeland Security. Well, right. If they're even in the country.

[Brandon Bess]

Not really quickly, but currently we're a little better off than we were some years ago with federal cooperation. There was a time that a lot of information that you tried to get from federal authorities was very slow. But in cold case investigation, the relationships that you develop with your partners in the FBI and the atf, Homeland Security, all those folks, absolutely is critical to that. So those, those took some time. Those took some, some trust building time. But those things were built. And you're absolutely right. Who was where and when.

[Ashley Banfield]

So, Brendan, how often do you have to get on a plane? Because as you mentioned, this is a nationwide search. Even when you're dealing with a locale, you don't know if somebody was visiting and did this crime. How often do you, do you and your guys, would you have had to get on a plane to start looking at people six states away?

[Brandon Bess]

Well, budgetary issues are always a concern. You hate to say that in homicide investigations, but for us to convince our bosses that we needed to hop on a plane and fly to another state, we needed to know that we were getting pretty close to the target. Otherwise, what for budgetary concerns and issues, again, what we relied upon was our partners in other states. And I'll tell you that One of the. One of the greatest aspects of being a Texas Ranger is that people from other states called us for things, and it didn't matter what it was. The rule in the Rangers was if you got a call from someone in another state, unless you were standing in the middle of blood in a crime scene, you dropped what you were doing and you went and took care of that. As a result of those relationships that we developed over the last 50 years, let's say whenever we call someone, we got that kind of return favor done. Because it was known that, hey, if you call the Rangers, they're going to drop what they're doing to get things done. So we in turn relied on that. Now, when we started getting really close, we would either take one of our own aircraft, we would take, you know, local agency aircraft. Rarely did we fly commercially to go do these things because we would normally need to take things with us, take tools with us, take evidence with it, not evidence, take tools with us and take other things with us that we didn't want to get on a commercial plane with. So, and our hope was that when we captured the person, we were going to put them on the plane and fly them back home with us also, which. So it's never happened. Sorry, repeat that I said, which I'll confess, they never came home with me. They always wanted to stay and fight extradition.

[Ashley Banfield]

Interesting. But it's great to hear that your partner agencies, you're all playing in the sandbox real well together.

[Brandon Bess]

Very much so. Very much so. And especially with, I hate to use the word popularity of cold cases, but people understand now because they have been able to see in the media, they've been able to listen to these podcasts, watch things and see, hey, these things really work. And the popularity of that, just because that's the only word I have to use for it in the chains of commands of these police agencies, they know it's a good deal. They know that when they cooperate that it's a good deal for them, that their council members, their governors, their legislatures, all those things are going to be supportive of them and their budgetary needs, the money that they need to do these things, because they see the end result is a very positive end result. And of course, that that goes for everything, not just in cold case. You build that relationship with those other state agencies or local agencies or the federal authorities, then it's a mutual respect. It's just what you said, you're playing in the sandbox well together.

[Ashley Banfield]

So a lot of people wonder when they hear, hey, this. This could take a while, you know, to. To find Nancy Guthrie's suspect. If the DNA sample that they're having worked on right now in a Florida lab is viable. The reason that it could take a long time is because it's not just putting samples into a computer and seeing what pops up. It's because guys like you hit the streets.

[Brandon Bess]

That is correct, yes. The odd chance that, hey, this is a convicted fella. I say the odd chance. We never had that kind of luck in cold cases. We never had the luck where we plug something in and boom, we got the answer the next day. It's exactly. Exactly as you describe it, is that if not lone wolf, it's the person who hasn't been captured in the Guthrie case. I'm going to make the assumption that. That they do have DNA at this point, or they've got DNA. They've ran it through the CODIS systems and the Indus systems and all those, and they haven't got that hit that we talked about. So, yeah, it can be extremely, extremely slow.

[Ashley Banfield]

And when. When you say slow, how slow?

[Brandon Bess]

You know, I never had a case, and granted, I've been retired for two years now. I still work in the industry, and I still follow cases and cases that I worked on, I still get calls about and updates on. But, you know, six months back, two. Two and a half years ago, six months was pretty fast to be able to wrap one of these cases up unless you just got really lucky, I would say today. And with all the. The support that the Guthrie case is getting, the monies that are available there, the. Just the amount of cooperation and work, and I know that those sheriff's officials out there, I'm sure the state police are involved there. The FBI, I know is involved. I'm sure they're working 247 on this.

[Ashley Banfield]

Yep, they sure are. So let's cross our fingers it's not six months up. Brendan Best, this has been so fascinating. I know I've got you as the sun has come down completely. So thank you for. For pulling over and giving us your time. I really appreciate this.

[Brandon Bess]

Absolutely. It's great talking with y', all, and

[Ashley Banfield]

I hope it's not our last conversation. In fact, I'm gonna make a bet it isn't.

[Brandon Bess]

Sounds great. Look forward to it.

[Ashley Banfield]

So there you have it. Day 31. It's just maddening if you think about this, right? Because each time I go back to the video of this, what I think is a buffoon on the video camera at the front door, I see a guy who wasn't really, you know, skilled. It doesn't look like a cartel guy anyway, right? Who knows what his bad business is? It looks like a guy who's just a bit dopey, right? And all I keep thinking is, how could somebody this dopey who didn't really plan to cover the camera. He didn't have a plan, you know, he didn't have a weapon to smash it off if that's what he eventually did. Because that's what my source said he did. Didn't have black tape to put over it. How did a guy like this, how was he able to fool us at least for 31 days? The weight of the US government, the weight of the Arizona government, the weight of all eyeballs in America effectively watching this story and flooding them with tips. How is this one dope able to keep us at Bay for 31 days? And maybe here's the better question. How much longer do you think he's going to be able to keep us at bay? Because here's what I think. I don't think he's going to be able to. I actually do think that that bite light in his mouth that he had to put in his mouth and take out, even though he's wearing gloves, what do you think's on those gloves? His DNA, his saliva. And it's on something in Nancy Guthrie's house. It's on those door handles. It's somewhere on that ring camera bracket that they eventually took and probably processed. It's on something in the house. I think they're going to find him. I think it could take time. The gumshoe work is probably at play as we speak, and I think they're going to get them. So watch this space. And if you know anything, 1-800- call FBI. Somebody knows him. Thank you so much for watching, everybody. Thank you for listening. And remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.