C (15:21)
He hadn't recognized the photo. So that is interesting. Whether that indicates any further that she's there. No, it's just an additional piece to a puzzle. If somebody say, didn't take the medication with them and then realized, oh, geez, what am I going to do now? Maybe I better cross an international border. It's possible that at least life saving medication could have been obtained very easily without even supplying an ID in those drugstores. Pima county sheriff put out another statement today. Well, thank you. Appreciate that. A lot of it is very Similar, but there were a couple of nuggets that were new and interesting. One of them in particular, very new. Let me start here though. Currently several hundred personnel are assigned to this case from various law enforcement agencies and are actively reviewing thousands of tips. That's the first time we've had an indication of how many people, how many law enforcement investigators are working on Nancy Guthrie's case. Several hundred. I have reporting in a second. That will give you an even narrowed down number from Fox News. That's coming in just a second. But something else that the sheriff said after saying good afternoon media partners was that the FBI has received more than 20,000 tips to date. Continue to urge people to call 1-800-call-FBI. I also heard another snippet from the sheriff in his multi day interview, or is it multi interview day where he said when those tips stop coming in, this case goes cold. And he's encouraging those tips to still come in. Yeah, 20,000 and they got a look through them for sure. But they want them to still come in. So if you know anything, if you have even an iota, the smallest piece of information can snowball into a solution. Right? And an arrest and a conviction. 1-800- call FBI. That's the number to call 1-800- call FBI. Here's the thing that was new to me in the sheriff's statement. Now I think we kind of all had jumped to this conclusion perhaps a little bit on our own, but this is sort of a confirmation about the clothing that the suspect in the doorbell cam was wearing. Sheriff says the only item that has been positively identified is the Ozark backpack. Investigators are working to determine where the other items may have been purchased. I'm super interested in that because Fox reported today that police do not know where the gun and holster came from. They only know where the backpack came from. And that's enlightening because there's been so many reports about that holster being a ten dollar holster that you could buy at Walmart. Now maybe it's the fact that it's not exclusively available at Walmart, but that backpack is maybe that's the issue. So positively identifying the Ozark backpack as being from Walmart. Only they have narrowed that down but haven't narrowed down where anything else comes from. Including that balaclava. Fucking balaclava. That's the thing that I keep zeroing in on. Yes, it's very generic, the three hole barrel balaclava. But no, not a lot of people buy them. Especially in Arizona. Right? Buy them in Arizona or have them delivered to Arizona. So I keep thinking like, even if you have 200 of them, for me, that'd be a lot. In Arizona, nobody buys those unless they're criminals. Not many people ski in those. I'm an avid skier. I've skied all over the world and I ski almost every weekend. And when it's super duper cold, which it doesn't typically get in Arizona. Yes, I know they're skiing there. Most skiers will wear a face mask that has eyes all the way across, not three hole. It doesn't usually work like that. Yes, some will, but it's rare. That's why I think that item is so rare and so trackable. Unless he stole it. Because that's entirely possible. Right. If you're a criminal and you don't want to be seen buying anything, you steal it. But if you're gonna buy something that day, you still seen on camera. So again, I keep thinking about the cluster purchases and again, cluster purchases, if you haven't seen it from my other episodes, is when some criminal goes into the store and buys everything they need to either commit the crime or clean up the crime. Okay. I should mention, by the way, the balaclava in Tucson, it's only available online at Walmart. Whether you can buy that same balaclava in another store, I don't know. It's possible, it's likely. But as far as Walmart's concerned, it's only available in Tucson online. From our investigation, that you can't buy that walking into the store. But again, those cluster purchases, it has done in so many people. You know, the folks who go and buy the bleach and the tarp and the hacksaws. Yeah, people like Brian Walsh who clean up the murder of their wife after they cut up their victims and then throw them out in garbage cans. Yeah, Brian Walsh was the moron who had a full shopping cart full of everything he needed to do that. So it is possible that there's a cluster purchase where the backpack was purchased. The maybe the balaclava, maybe the gun holster, maybe that jacket. Dunno. Possible. But I reported yesterday that one of the reporters that's covering this case said that they have now established an entire team of people just in the FBI just to track clothing. And what you see on that ring cam, that's great. I mean, you have an entire team trying to track down all the leads that you can see on that doorbell cam. Here's one other thing. I say this every time. Say it with me now. There are currently no press briefings scheduled. Blah, Blah, blah, blah. But then there's one more line at the bottom of that and it says this. The sheriff will not be holding media availability tomorrow or through the weekend. So I guess I don't know that there will ever be a press conference on this. Not sure. Just cherry picked reporters. Okay, so I told you before that the sheriff said that there, you know, are hundreds of people in law enforcement now, several hundred personnel assigned to the case. Fox's Jonathan Hunt actually got a more clear number and said that the number of people working on this case now is closer to 400. 400 is a lot. 400 people. Think about the company you work for. 400 people working on the Nancy Guthrie case. Is it really possible that some guy who's a bit of a dope, you know, rolls up on a ring camera and kind of notices it and then tries to deal with it, you know, first with his hand and then with some vines? A dope like that, can he really stump 400 of America's finest? I don't think so. That's my feeling. I don't think so. But it is shocking to think it's 400 to 1 right now as far as the gun store inquiries. Brian Enten broke this news the other night that local gun stores all around Tucson, they all reported, many of them reported that, yeah, the FBI agents came in with sheets of paper and photographs and names and said, have you seen anybody like this? Can you run these names? And Fox's Jonathan Hunt said, unfortunately, the gun store inquiries so far have come up empty. That's distressing. Very distressing. And then on Fox today, I also saw something that I just wanted to pass on to you guys. Cause I think it was really. It's a good thing to say. It's a smart thing to say, especially as they still ask for tips. This came from Jason Pack, a former FBI supervisory special agent. And he was appearing on Fox this afternoon. And he said this. The public should think about who haven't they seen in the past 18 days, not what, what have you seen, who haven't you seen, who's dropped out of normal behavior in the past 18 days, whose pattern is totally different in the past 18 days, who's acting strangely, who was MIA on February 1st, who is acting very strangely on February 1st. That is one of the ways to really gear up tips. Not just, I recognize that gun holster or that balaclava. It. It's someone's behavior in Tucson that was just whack, right? Think about it that way. And then if something tweaks 1-800- call FBI. Who vanished and had no explanation. And it was really out of character. They were just gone. Didn't show up for work sick that day. Right. Monday was the day after. Sunday was the day of the actual abduction. Sunday night, real late. So you had to deal with. You had to deal with Nancy if you had her. And you wouldn't have been able to do it real quick and easy. Monday would be a weird workday. And Sunday you'd have been mia. Right. So were you missing someone in your life? Did somebody act really weird? Has been acting weird ever since and then just keeps vanishing. Keeps. I can't show up for work today either, or I gotta leave. I gotta come back to work, and I'm taking all these breaks. Think about that as a potential tip, I think. And I thank you, Jason Pack, for making people think that way, because that is a really good way to get leads from cnn. Today, a team of federal prosecutors is standing by, according to cnn, ready to prosecute anybody who is trying to extort the Guthrie family. Okay. Remember, I've been saying, I think there's two parallel investigations going on here. Who is sending those heartless, sick and twisted ransom notes? Right. There have been myriad. Who's doing it? Who's behind that? If they've got America's finest digging into that digital trail and they're able to break that, then hopefully we'll have a few more prosecutions other than just that one fella in California who allegedly did this. Right. Boy, I hope they allow cameras in that courtroom when he goes. And it's federal, so they probably won't. But I'll remind you about federal crimes. When you are convicted, they don't even bring charges unless they're 90% sure. They gotcha. Right. They don't even bring cases at the federal level unless they are really sure. And that's why their conviction rate is above 90%. I think it's even higher. It's like, might even be above 95%. And then when it comes to sentencing. Yeah. There's not a whole lot of good time. When you are serving a federal sentence, if you get 20 years, you're doing close to 20 years, which is like, we'll see what happens in that case. Ed Lavendera from cnn, he said this. There's no indication that federal authorities believe the ransom notes are legitimate or authentic. The only quote that they're prepared to give us is that they're, quote, taking it very seriously. Right. Of course they have to. It's a lead. It's a Tip. Like anything else, you got to take it seriously. But it's interesting. He said there's no indication yet that we've received in the media. Ed Lavender is saying this that federal authorities believe that these notes are legitimate or authentic. Michael Ruiz, busy posting today as well about January 11th. Remember when we heard early on that that local authorities were asking neighbors in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood to look at their ring cams and focus on January 11th as well as January 31st, February 1st, when Nancy actually disappeared. But why January 11th? We all wondered. And then suddenly the sheriff changed his tune and said, no, no, I, I really want you to look at January 1st right through February 1st, big wide net, right? Look at all your video. But why originally that January 11th date and Michael Ruiz had posted that, you know, there was a spike in a Google search for Savannah Guthrie's salary and Nancy Guthrie's house location. And that was like a holy Dinah moment. But then, you know, Google kind of knocked it down a bit saying when the samples are that small, it doesn't necessarily represent much. It was a little complicated how they described it, but they were effectively trying to say it's not what you think it is. It's not that aha moment. Smoking gun. But Michael Ruiz did see that the January 11th date and the specific time frame of 9pm to midnight also surfaced during an FBI canvas of Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood when the agents were asking for the neighbors to look at their home security video. One of those neighbors that was canvassed then made the post and put it on the ring app. FBI did not immediately respond to request for comment. Michael says. Michael Ruiz says. But again, Pima county sheriff is saying we want video for a whole month. January 1st of February 2nd. Here's something super interesting. The BBC and this is via CBS. So sorry about all the different sources, but I just want to know where you got, where I got this from. CBS put out a report that the BBC's interview showed that the Pima sheriff is not ruling out the possibility of an accomplice. First time I'm really hearing about that. So says investigators have not ruled out that an accomplice aided the suspected kidnapper seen on the doorbell camera. This according to Chris Nanos. He told the sheriff, told the BBC but did not provide further information about a possible accomplice. So they're just not ruling it out. I know a lot of people have said it's pretty hard for one person to, you know, pick up 150 pound woman whether she's moving or not. Not impossible not impossible, but a lot of people have speculated this is the kind of thing that you would need help. I'm not so sure. There's no honor among thieves, right? They're not always loyal to each other. So the more people you bring in, the more chances you have at being found out. Ratted. Okay, I want to do something now that gives us a different perspective. Do you know how investigators often say, well, when things start to go cold and tips stop coming in, and you really start to wonder, my God, have we been wrong all along? Like, what are we doing and where are we going wrong? And a lot of times they will go back to square one and they will start looking over the entire case with a fresh set of eyes. That's what cold case investigators do, right? They go back to the files, they bring out the boxes, they dust them off, and they start going through everything. Because, as you can imagine, there's so much information that's transpired and trans been. That's been shared and that's been broadcast and disseminated. In this case, sometimes you forget some of the stuff just from the morning, let alone from last week or three weeks ago. And so I went back to the news conference from Monday, February 2, the very first press conference that Sheriff Krisnanos gave us. And that is just, you know, that next day. Because day one of this crime was February 1st. Sunday, February 1st. So Monday, February 2nd, is day two. And this is what Chris Nano said in the press conference. And when I looked at it with the benefit of, you know, 19 days of hindsight, I kind of shook my head, quote, no, I don't think there's an active threat. I hate to say that because, you know, we're going to canvass the neighborhood, and maybe there's a prowler that's been seen around. There's a lot of work still to do. We don't have any indication that the public is in danger. Pregnant pause here. Because I recall in the Idaho quadruple murders, we were told that the public was not in any significant danger. This was a targeted attack. And there's nothing to see here in terms of the public being worried. That was not the case. This was not the case. Let me reread that for you. No, I don't think there's an active threat. Hate to say that because, you know, we're going to canvass the neighborhood, and maybe there's a prowler that's been seen around. There's a lot of work still to do. We don't have any indication that the public's in danger. How do you know that within 24 hours? How do you know that so soon? What is it that you knew that day that made you say to us, I don't think there's an active threat. We don't have any indication that the public's in any danger. Where were your investigators? What were they thinking? Because I know what my source said your investigators were thinking. I know where my source said your investigators were all in on a family member. Right. And I'm just wondering what it was you had and what you saw that had you telling us. We don't have any indication the public's in danger because that son of a bitch is still out there. That ski mask, frightening monster that you called him, he is out there. So why did you say that you know, a woman is missing, her blood's on the front porch. There's something inside that you said was concerning. You had your homicide team in there. Why did you tell us that? That you don't think there's an active threat and that the public's not in danger? I'm super confounded by that. And then I got confounded by this. Here's a little bit more from that press conference. This is the sheriff. We put all our air assets into this. Our drone systems, our aircraft, our helicopters, our heat sensors, infrared, everything we've had, we've thrown at this. They're going to step aside. We'll call them out again if we need to do some searching. But right now, we're going to. We don't see this as a search mission as much as we see it as a crime scene. Again, this is Monday. This is February 2nd. We put all our assets into this. They're going to step aside. We'll call them out again if we need to do searching. But right now, we don't see this as a search mission as much as we see it as a crime scene. Why? Why on Monday, 24 hours after this crime is reported? You know why. What was it you knew? Where were your heads as homicide investigators, Sheriff's deputies? Monday, why are you telling us all of our assets? We're gonna. They're gonna step aside. So I called Spencer Corson. You saw him on my podcast the other night. He's that former special deputy U.S. marshal. He's a threat management expert. He's the author of the book the saf. He founded the Courson Security Group. He is effing brilliant. I know some of you don't like it when I swear. So I'm Trying to clean up. And I want to tell you some of the things that Spencer told me, okay? Because I think he makes a lot of really interesting points. He actually numbered them for me because I said these statements. Look at these statements, Spencer, and tell me your thoughts. These statements of the sheriff are made one day after she's reported missing. Number one, Spencer tells me, if it's a crime scene and not a search mission, then the, quote, no active threat statement becomes logically fragile. If there's a violent offender and no suspect in custody, risk cannot be ruled out categorically. It can only be qualified as low probability. Number two, Spencer says, you do not suspend air search assets early in a viable rescue timeline unless your probability model has shifted. Number three, when a leader says, quote, I hate to say that before asserting that there's no act of threat, that's hedging language. It attempts to soften a statement that may not be fully supportable. Number four, early in a case like this, language matters. Boy, I'll say. When a sheriff says it's not a search mission but a crime scene within 24 hours, that tells you investigators saw something that shifted probability away from rescue and towards homicide. The risk is not in being decisive. The risk is in being prematurely certain. The concern is about allocation of resources. He goes on to say, did they, A, prioritize one person while still investigating parallel tracks, all the pieces matter. And B, did they collapse the investigation into a single hypothesis? Confirmation bias. He says all investigations should run on a competing hypothesis model until the facts, plural, prove out the theory, not the theory to the facts. I told you. Spencer Corson is a smart guy. Obviously, he does this for a living. He did this for a living as a U.S. marshal, right? Former Special Deputy, U.S. marshal, Threat Management expert. All of that is super interesting. Why were we told there's no threat, nothing to worry about on day one? What did they have and think and do and focus on on day one? And was it a huge bloody mistake and was valuable time lost because these parallel investigations and searches and everything else weren't going on at the same time? It is a big question to ask, and as journalists, it's our job to ask them. Find the details. Because the devil resides in the details. And these might be the details that matter. Anyway, that is the update for tonight. I know it's a bit shorter, but let me tell you something. If there's one thing I really noticed today is that the reports are getting shorter. I also noticed that the news is dropping the Nancy Guthrie segments. Not in every show. But in many shows, down in their rundowns to the B block and the C block, some are still leading. But I even noticed a reporter today who was giving a live report from out in front of Nancy Guthrie's house, was interrupted in the live report so that the show could go to President Trump was speaking live and I think at some car manufacturer. And then that was it. That show stayed on. The Trump news conference for about an hour, did not come back to that story. So it just my heart sank because I know some neighbors said the other day to Brian Enten, look, I know that then I'll paraphrase the neighbor speaking to Brian Enten, I know that you guys get a bum rap for being out here and that the neighbors are frustrated with all the traffic and the reporters and all the rest. But generally speaking, the majority of the neighbors out there are happy that the media is still there. And the reason is that person said that neighbor said to Brian Entin, because it means you're still helping to find Nancy. Because the minute the reporters go away, the tips start going away, the work starts abating, the story starts to recede and the resources start going away. That's how cases cool down and go cold. And so in that respect, yeah, media circus. I get it. And there's been a lot of criticism about the media circus. I get it. But on the positive side, that keeps the story in the forefront. And I'll bet there are a lot of missing people's parents and loved ones out there that wish they had that media circus that Nancy Guthrie's getting. Thank you everybody so much for watching. Thank you for listening. Don't forget this Sunday at 6pm Eastern we're going to have one of those members Q and A because I think a lot of you have a lot of questions I see in your comments. I try to get to them as much as I can, but we'll have a chance to actually talk, which will be really nice and in a nice relaxed way. And yes, that guy who sits behind me, this somebody says he's got ninja level stealth skills. My husband Chris, he didn't even know he was on camera for that last one. Anyway, he'll probably make an appearance as well. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Please remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.