← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
The Truth About the Guthrie Case: Will They Ever Solve This Vexing Case?
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Ashley Banfield
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead Serious. Thank you so much for being here. And if you're new, welcome. By the way, subscribe. It really helps. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you are not new, do it. And thank you to our members. I really appreciate you guys. So I have been thinking a lot over the weeks and weeks that we've been covering the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie about all the things that just didn't quite go right. And you know, who am I to talk? I'm not law enforcement, but I can tell you this. I've been around the block when it comes to crime and justice. I have been a crime reporter for decades and, and so I've seen a few things and I've seen the way investigations go and I've seen when they screw them up. So I put together a list of all the things that happened in the last, you know, half Dozen plus weeks where I just kind of sh. Head. And I know I'm not the only one. In fact, the experts have said it, too. The, you know, the grizzled homicide detectives who've been at this a long time also saying what the actual f is going on in Arizona. So let me just sort of go through a couple of these, because in a moment, I'm going to talk to one of the more seasoned homicide experts and a guy who actually runs the Cold Case foundation, you know, still doing it for a living, so to speak, solves crimes, solves the puzzles, applies the techniques and the evidence, and follows the evidence to where it leads you. These are, you know, kind of like crime 101. And I can say that in this particular case of Nancy Guthrie, there are a lot of things that just, even to the untrained eye, you say, like what the. What the. That ain't the way it's supposed to go. It doesn't happen that way on CSI and on tv, and it doesn't happen that way in reality, either. Let me start with this. You know, when the investigators came to process the scene, they missed a critical piece of evidence, at least one. The camera that was above the casita, the pool house. It was there. It was never collected by the initial homicide detectives. They released the scene, you know, in like, less than 48 hours, it seems, and that camera was still there. And eventually they took it. That's a mistake. Number two. They sure released that house pretty quickly. Right again. Crimes committed on February 1st, that's a Sunday. House is released on February 2nd. That's a Monday. That is real quick. And by the way, that's not me saying that. That's Sheriff Chris Nanos. Take a listen.
- [04:06]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
You know, Monday morning quarterback. I probably would have, but I'll say this. We processed the scene. We did. We got what we thought was complete. My team did that. I have to have all the faith and trust in their abilities and their skills. And I think they went through that pretty well. But because another agency now steps in and wants to assist, if they were just like with you, we're an open book. Absolutely. How can we help? One of the things people don't see, I heard your question about, you know, and we left. And then others could walk up, you know, when we process a scene and we're done, we return that scene to the. In this case, the homeowners, the family. And we don't just go march back in there. We call the family again and get permissions to go back to the home. So, yeah, there's again, Monday morning quarterback. Absolutely. I probably could have held off on
- [05:03]
Ashley Banfield
that, you know, for things that are, you know, left behind in an investigation of this magnitude. It was a shock to me that they never took the bracket off the front door where the nest cam had been affixed before. It was, well, my source says smashed off the mount, and it was certainly gone. And the sheriff said, it's not in their possession. So it is gone. The perpetrator took it, but the nest cam mount was still on the wall for days and days and days. I always said that this guy probably put a bite light into his mouth, maybe using those gloved mitts of his, and that that would put saliva on his gloves. And he was manhandling that camera and the mount, too, so there could be his DNA on that mound. But the mount wasn't taken. Not right away, anyway. It took, I think, maybe more than a week or two before they finally showed up and took the mount. So there's a bit of a misstep as well. The sheriff said early on that Nancy Guthrie was taken from her bed and then the next day said, I didn't mean for you to take it literally, and made us all retract it and change our reporting, only to have Savannah Guthrie put out an Instagram where she literally said the words, my mom was taken from her bed in the dark of night. So to me, that's a big misstep, too. Either it did happen and you said it and then you lied the next day, or. Or it didn't happen, but you both said it and then you retracted it. The whole just thing seems just kind of nonsensical. And I kind of trust Savannah. She's a broadcaster. She knows words matter. She's also a lawyer, and this has happened to her. I don't think she'd make it up in any case. Seems like a misstep to me. It was also a total shock to me that on day two, February 2nd, the sheriff called off the search for Nancy Guthrie.
- [06:52]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
So we have. We have shut down our search and rescue mission, and we've given them. Sent them home to rest. They were out all night. Look, we put all our air assets into this. Our drone systems, our aircraft, our helicopters, 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 to do more searching. But right now, we don't see this as a search mission as much as we do a crime scene. Remember, it was A search and rescue mission the first few hours, and we transitioned that over to a criminal investigation.
- [07:35]
Ashley Banfield
I remember hearing that and thinking, what the hell is going on? This woman is missing. And, yes, you brought the homicide detectives in because something didn't look right in the house. But why on earth would you call off the search this soon? My God, that does not happen. Not in the crimes that I've covered, not in the missing persons cases that I've covered. Search parties are out for weeks. Elizabeth Smart had a whole industry of search parties set up in Salt Lake City for weeks. I was there for five weeks, and those search parties were there every single week. I'm recording this in week six, and we haven't seen a search party. I've barely seen a search party. And shockingly, hearing the sheriff say on day one, we're calling off the search permanently until. But if we need to, you know, bring searchers back on a case by case basis, we will. My words. But effectively, that's what he was saying. I couldn't understand that for the life of me. Day two, mistake, possibly. As for searchers, the Cajun Navy offered their services. Cajun Navy, well known Katrina. They brought together a legion of all these civilians who had assets and knowledge and capabilities, and they all went about their business, you know, working as, you know, as a community. And the Cajun Navy sent a representative to help search for Nancy Guthrie or for evidence or for anything. Free labor, free help. Many eyes. And they were rebuffed. They were ghosted, effectively. The guy who was sent said they just didn't respond. That might be a mistake. Free labor, good labor, smart labor. Labor's been around for two decades plus. The mistake I was so astounded by was the sheriff when he was asked a question by a reporter. What can you tell me about this list of names and photographs that agents have gone gun store to gun store asking if maybe these people had been in their store. And Sheriff Nano said, that's a lie. Is it? I mean, unfortunately for the sheriff, the reporters had already been to those stores, had already interviewed the owner, slash, workers of those stores who had already said yes, the FBI was here and showed us a list of names and photographs, and we put them in our system, and unfortunately, we couldn't come up with anybody. So that's not a lie. Don't use those terms. They're mean and cruel and wrong. Lie. Is it a mistake? Or was it that the sheriff just didn't know about it because the FBI left him out of it? I don't know. But It's a misstep for sure. Also seemed to be unaware that the FBI had gone to Savannah Guthrie's sister's home and brought their ring light and their capabilities and helped the three siblings, Savannah and her two siblings, record an outgoing message directed to the alleged perpetrator who might be holding Nancy for ransom. Remember those ransom notes in the beginning, the alleged ransom seekers? Yeah. The sheriff didn't know about it. Had had to find out about it from his wife, who saw it on the news. That's a misstep as well. Or is it the FBI not bringing the sheriff in because they just didn't want the sheriff to know what they were doing, lest he say something about it that, you know, had to be retracted. The Another big shock on day two. Remember, called off the search. On day two. Articulated to the community, to the world, in the press conference, there's no threat to the community out there. There's no boogeyman out there. You don't have a cause to be concerned. I think the exact words that he used were no cause for alarm. No concern. Well, you know, 40 some odd days later, he certainly has said, there's a lot of cause for concern. This person's still out there. These are my words. But effectively his message, lock your doors. There is a reason to be concerned. Just because it' Guthrie's doesn't mean that you're not at risk. Everybody's at risk because this guy's out there. That ain't the same as message number one. Why on day two were you saying there's no cause for concern? How the hell did you know or what did you know or what information were you going on? Because that's changed six weeks later. There were a couple of raids, very high profile raids. Lots of firepower, manpower, just, you know, just the. The weight of the world coming down on these two citizens. One in Rio Rico in the first two weeks, and then the other one was February 13th into February 14th in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood. And, you know, those people were detained and cuffed and their houses were turned upside down and their lives were kind of shattered, and that didn't pan out. Were those mistakes? Not necessarily. Look, in cases like this, there are going to be suspects that they're going to investigate. Did they need all that FirePower? I've heard two different versions from experts I trust. One, yes, the guy's dangerous, and Nancy Guthrie could have been chained up in a basement. You don't know. Two, the other assessment was that's ridiculous. Who needed all those cars all Those agents, all those guns, all that response, you know, the bomb squad. I mean, I've. I've heard it both ways from people in the business of law enforcement. So I'm not sure which way to weigh in on that. But the other thing that is big is the sheriff has made no secret that he loves the guthrie family, that they're special to tucson, that savannah is a special daughter of Tucson made good with her life. And he made those comments very early in the case. And if you know missing people cases, the vulnerable. It's crime fighting 101 that you have to investigate families first. As unpalatable as it might be, it's just the way law enforcement works. So was it right for him to be saying all these flattering things lovingly about the. The guthrie family? Probably not, because they had to be a target. You know, that's just the way he's supposed to do his job. They had to be looked at. But there's been a lot of people who've brought up the topic of favoritism. Has this sheriff favored this family while he was supposed to be investigating? This family could be looked at at a mistake. But you know what time will tell when we finally find out where exactly their heads were at. Maybe some of these questions will be answered. But until then, I had somebody who helps me get through a lot of these things because he's better at this than I am. Chris mcdonough is a retired homicide detective who has had his fingers in the cases of some very perplexing cases very hard to solve. He's also the director for the cold case foundation, and he is the host of the popular YouTube show the interview room. So I called up chris, and I had all these questions about all these missteps.
- [14:19]
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Ashley Banfield
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Chris McDonough
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Ashley Banfield
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Chris McDonough
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Ashley Banfield
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- [15:19]
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- [15:48]
Ashley Banfield
U N D so, Chris, the, the first, I mean, listen, there have been a lot of mistakes, but the first one I want to ask you about is the fact that they missed a camera, an outdoor camera, I think, on the casita or the pool house. It seemed alarming to me and as a homicide investigator, I can't imagine what you thought.
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Chris McDonough
Well, Homicide 101 is if you get to a house and you canvas that house, I. E. You've search it entirely, you're going to start looking for that type of evidence that's going to give you solid evidence, not circumstantial evidence. Right. And video is one of those things. So if you're seeing that potentially there's a video system in the house, well, automatically you have to assume that you're going to go through that home, exterior and interior and look for those cameras. So the fact that they like all
- [16:44]
Ashley Banfield
the gutters like you would, you would think you would do a complete perimeter search for any security cameras on all buildings in the house. No.
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Chris McDonough
Right. And plus you have family there. So you want to ask the family where, where? Tell me about the security system that your mother has. And they may or may not be aware of it, but at the same time, if they are aware of it, they're going to point you to, oh, yes, you got a camera over here, she's got a camera over here, there's one on the roof. And you know, you just follow that chain of evidence.
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Ashley Banfield
Well, on the subject of cameras, I could not believe that the bracket was left behind on the front doorbell cam, the bracket that held the nest cam. Because if this guy has the bite light, he's got a light in his mouth of some kind. He, he had to put it in there and he had to take it out. And presumably he did that with his gloved fingers, which would tell me that when he has his mitts all over the camera and he's fussing with the foliage. He's probably touching those fingers to the bracket. And yet the bracket was left there for days until finally I think the FBI might have shown up, put the big white tent over the front, and an hour or so later, what do you know, it's gone.
- [17:54]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, I mean, these are the, you know, fundamental 101s, right? I mean, you. Whenever now, you know, given some grace to the initial response. Right. They didn't know for a fact that, that they were going to end up with this particular video. And, you know, now we're hearing they may even have more, at least photographs of some sort, but that shed the fact that he. That camera is missing. To your point exactly, Ash. I mean, with this idea that
- [18:28]
Ashley Banfield
on day three, on day three, that would be Tuesday after Nancy's Sunday disappearance. On day three, my source told me their nest cameras, they were smashed. And what do you know, they're gone. And Michael Ruiz from Fox News said there were glass shards. He saw glass shards underneath where the nest cam would have been. To me on day three, I don't know why they would not have taken the actual bracket from which these cameras were. Were smashed. You would assume they'd have been manhandled at some point.
- [19:01]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, and every piece of that camera is a piece of the evidence. And you know, if you think about that, there could be touch DNA. There could have been like you're talking, there could have been, you know, fluids from the. Maybe the suspect's mouth etc, or he could have even cut himself. I mean, we don't know that yet. I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities. I mean, whenever you hit glass, even with gloves on, there's a problem. You know, there's a possibility that you. The suspect could cut himself. And many crimes have been solved like that. And maybe this is some of this, you know, mixed DNA problem that we're. We're hearing about but we don't know about. This would be a perfect example of if in fact there is glass down there and it was witnessed, then they should have collected it. There's. There's no excuse not to.
- [19:52]
Ashley Banfield
Interesting you said that, because I hadn't thought of it till now. It is a doorbell camera, which means you touch it. And so all sorts of people would have touched it. And maybe the mix could be from those who have rested their hand on the doorbell camera or, you know, put their hand over it as a joke or something, maybe that. Who knows if it's from inside the house or if the mix is from the outside, from that doorbell camera, it's something to contemplate. But, you know, even the mat. So the shards of glass, particles of glass. However, Fox News worded it, the front half moon door mat was left behind as well. To my knowledge, it's still there. I'm not sure if they ever picked it up.
- [20:33]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, the last I heard as well, that it's still sitting on the porch there at the house. And we now saw on that video, the suspect was standing on it with both. Both feet as he walked up to the front door. And so, you know, that's. That in of itself is problematic because you could get. You could get dirt transferred. I'll give you. I'll give you a simple case. I mean, 30 seconds. I. I had a case where it was. A body had been dumped out into the brush area. And we gathered the air filter from the suspect vehicle, and we sent it to a botanist. And we then took the foliage from around where the body was discovered. Long story short, we were able to match that foliage up to the particles with inside of that air filter. And so this is a kind of situation where, let's say this guy had dirt from another environment. Okay, this. That area is very specific to, you know, you know, type of geographic, you know, area. But at the same time, the soils are different, the environment's different. So, you know, you could have cactus from different parts of that particular region. Well, who's to say it, you know, he didn't transfer something from the bottom of his shoe onto that mat. You may not get DNA, but you may get, you know, some type of dirt of some sort.
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Ashley Banfield
I've covered cases like that, Chris, honest to God. I've covered cases where in court, you learn that mud that's on the tread of the killer's shoes ends up getting transferred to a location where it shouldn't be. And so I've seen it multiple times. Soil that's not supposed to be there is there, and it only comes from this particular area. So, yeah, I. I still can't understand why they would have left the map behind. But once again, that's why we're doing this list of mistakes. The other thing is that the search for Nancy was called off on Monday. By Monday, don't even know what time. But by Monday, which isn't even 48 hours later, they stopped searching for her. Why would they do that?
- [22:45]
Chris McDonough
That is a great question. You know, they first got in there and, you know, they handled it like a missing woman. Right, that. Almost like a walk Away, for lack of a better. Better terms, what we would call it. And so it was a check, the welfare kind of thing.
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Ashley Banfield
And then they saw the blood and called the homicide division, like, very, very quickly.
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Chris McDonough
Right. And that's a huge mistake in terms of shutting it down at that moment, because it's. At that point, you really want to expand your resources. You don't want to, you know, pull them in. And I was surprised they didn't put more cadaver dogs into the area, even with, you know, you can put booties on those dogs, because I can tell you that these dogs missed, you know, certain things at certain times. And sometimes, you know, it depends on the wind. Right. If the wind's blowing a certain way, a dog may not pick the scent up right away. So I don't know if they've gone back over there to run, you know, cadaver dogs. But here we are, you know, this far down the road. You would think that they should do that.
- [23:52]
Ashley Banfield
Day 40 +week7ish. I mean, yeah, depending on when our viewers are watching this. The other thing that the sheriff said very early on was, I believe it might have been day two. He said to a member of the media that Mrs. Guthrie was taken from her bed in the middle of the night. And that was published, I believe, in the New York Times. I could be wrong there, but it was published. And then the sheriff came out later and was angry about that, saying, well, I didn't think. You take me literally. And everybody retracted all this reporting that she was taken from her bed, only to find, several weeks later, Savannah Guthrie using those exact same words when she gave her Instagram account, speaking. My mother was taken from her bed in the dark of night. And so I just can't for the life of me understand A, why someone would say it if they didn't want it out there, because B, why they would retract it if it's true.
- [24:51]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, that's a great point, Ashley. I mean, the. The. The communication here to the public is to be gentle is alarming because if, in fact, she was taken to the bed in which. From the bed. And that's what he did say, well, then that tells us specifically about the mentality of this perpetrator. And it takes him to a different level. The fact that we may have two photographs, you know, from two separate nights, one with a gun, one without a gun. Is this one or two people? We don't know that piece of the puzzle, but we know one of them has a gun. And so that means this person entered that house with the ability to use deadly force. And it also means there's an 84 year old woman asleep, probably high probability, in her own bedroom in that house. Now, that tells us a whole bunch of information about the mindset of the suspect and the familiarity of that mindset to that home.
- [26:02]
Ashley Banfield
Well, it just made me question. I understand why investigators hold back information. It's not lost on me. We get it. But if you're looking for a kind of perpetrator, certainly the public more advised on who they're looking for, might be able to think, you know, my friend Jake is kind of like that. You know, they might be looking, you might be more attuned to zero in who it is that the, that the police are looking for if they know there's a certain predilection among their friends. And so it's the kind of information, if you've already sent it out there, Sheriff, why on earth would you retract it if it's true? Because it actually might help spur more tips.
- [26:44]
Chris McDonough
Yeah. There comes a point in investigations where you have to determine whether or not putting information into the public will help the investigation or hurt it. In this particular case, I think at this juncture, look at the type of leads that were generated just by putting the video out there. Okay. And that came through Cash Patel, remember he hit it up on in social media. Well, that generated a whole new enthusiasm for the investigation, for lack of a better term, 40,000.
- [27:22]
Ashley Banfield
So last count, Chris.
- [27:24]
Chris McDonough
Right, and, and that's. Right, that's the point. That's the reason. And so when you have a sheriff who's talking out of both sides of his mouth, you know, one day it's. Yeah, I said this. Well, I didn't mean to say that. Well, perhaps I said that. It's a confusing messaging to the public. And the messaging, you know, to the public should be very clear, concise, precise, you know, because you're. There are other senior citizens out there in that area that are on edge and you have to make sure that if you have information that tells you, look, you're okay, you're going to be okay. Because we have a direction we're headed and this is the reason why you don't have to say all of the reasons, but you also have to lower that fear and that temperature to the community. That's your obligation as a law enforcement.
- [28:20]
Ashley Banfield
You're speaking my language. In a minute, I'm going to get to that. Because Sheriff Nano said on day two, there's no concern here. He actually said there's no case. There's no cause for alarm. There's no concern. But that directly conflicts with what he said this week. I'm getting to that in a moment, but I want to just specifically say the words that Sheriff Nanos used back early in the case. These are the words that. That Sheriff Nanos used. He initially told NBC News, quote, when you're taken from your bed and you don't want to go somewhere, that's an abduction. But then the sheriff's department said that Nano's quote meant that figuratively and did not mean that she was literally taken from her bed. That's what the department then said and clarified to NBC.
- [29:11]
Chris McDonough
Yeah. Does it get any clearer than that? Right. Clear as mud, you know, that's right. Exactly. And so it's like, okay, well, wait a minute. What do you know that tells us shit, she didn't want to go number one. Okay? You can't tell the public that. Oh, by the way, we know she didn't want to go out, you know, leave that house. Okay, well, how do you know that? Do you have other information inside the house? And if you say that or if you do, then you need to tell the public. The reason I made that statement is because we have other evidence that we're holding close to the chest that gives us clear and concise information about that being the point. And this is, I think, where maybe this burglary thought process comes up. Because, you know, early on, he. He said, well, this could have been a burglary gone wrong. Well, anybody who enters a building with the intent to commit a theft or a felony is a burglar. Okay? On. Under the law, okay? But if you're 84 years old and you're sound asleep and there's a guy circling your house, and there's all this other stuff that's been going on, guess what? He's not there to commit a burglary. He's there to commit a major felony, evident of the fact that she's missing out of that house. And so when you put that. Those pieces of the puzzle together, and then you start telling the public, look, you know, I'm not really sure what we have. It could be a burglary. It could be this. You know, I'm not sure. Well, your job is to be sure. Trust me, I've been doing this, you know, since 1982. And I work some of the highest profile cases in this country. I did the little boy in Southern California that was murdered in the bathroom. And there were 18 satellite trucks when I walked out of that bathroom. I did. Leticia Hernandez, who was kidnapped December 16, 1989, which is the only little girl that's ever been profiled three times on America's most Wanted. I have done a lot of high profile cases. If the miscommunication is screwed up, then parents will worry about where their children were. In this case, you have senior citizens going, am I safe, Sheriff? And he's getting mixed messages out there. He needs to get off of the podium and let his PIO do their
- [31:36]
Ashley Banfield
job well, and check the, Check the facts, too. Okay, I'm going to go through the list a little bit more. The sheriff released the scene Monday. That was the day after that this happened. And then later admitted, well, maybe I did that too soon. And said the words, I believe that's on me.
- [31:54]
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- [32:25]
Chris McDonough
Homicide 101. Do we have everything here? Yeah. Okay, let's triple check to make sure we have everything here. Okay, done. Now that means if you are going to search that house and you have a warrant to do it from a judge, then you hold it as long as you need it. If you need more time, you go back to the judge and you say, you put your hand up and say, your honor, we're not done. We're still processing. We're still gaining more information as this comes down. You know, the, the irony of that was when the FBI did finally come in, when he let the. Their evidence team comes in, remember, he says, well, they need to do their thing, too. What, what is. What the heck does that mean? You know? Oh, they need to put their own, you know, barrier tape up to keep the public out, you know, and now they need to do their own thing. Well, that in of itself was confusing.
- [33:21]
Ashley Banfield
I'll tell you what, I'm mindful of that though, Chris, because I've seen a lot of crimes that they start small and then they're resolved and there's no need to sort of scale it to the FBI. And on day two, apparently the FBI was involved, so that's actually a good timeline to hear that they were involved. But then to hear that on day two, you're releasing the scene. I feel like it shouldn't be released until Mrs. Guthrie's back home. Not. We double and triple checked our evidence to see if we got what we need.
- [33:50]
Chris McDonough
Right? There's what they call rollback warrants, right? Where you can, you know, you sit, you. You all of a sudden discover something that the investigation tells you, okay? Either a witness or, you know, video or whatever, okay? The mat is a good example of that, okay? And so you can go back to the judge, or you can go to the family and get consent, and the family can say, oh, yeah, of course. Go get that piece of evidence. We want that, okay? The courts look at that, and juries look at that and go, oh, well, they didn't see it the first time. That makes sense. Okay? But they also, juries are not real friendly when it comes to, hey, we've got the homicide guys here the very first night, okay? Or whatever it was. We've got our evidence team here, and guess what? We've. We've released the scene, and then all of a sudden, they see, hey, I got to go back three or four more times to this house because we keep, you know, learning more things. And. And that's when a court will come in and say, well, why don't you just shut the thing down and hold it, okay? And you have a crime scene log, and you have a person with that crime scene log that dates and times everybody coming in and everybody going out, okay? Because if that's not done, a defense attorney is going to jump on that. And it's called fruit of the poisonous tree. All of that evidence that they collected that they did, you know, quote, diligently collect, okay? It's going to get suppressed in, you know, pretrial hearings. And one thing that shocked me, that the sheriff had said, he said, well, we'll let the courts handle that stuff. Remember, he was asked, yeah, who does that?
- [35:36]
Ashley Banfield
Well, he does. How does he know this? Who does this? On, like I said earlier on day two, which is Monday, following the Sunday abduction, the sheriff says there's no cause for alarm in terms of if there's a concern to the community. He's asked if there's a fear, a boogeyman out there. He says, there's no cause for alarm, no concern. And then on week six, he says, we believe we know why he did this. Meaning the suspect. We believe we know why he did this. I think from day one, we had strong beliefs about what happened, and those beliefs haven't diminished. And then he said, you do need to be concerned out there. Lock your doors. Etc. Wha. What the hell changed? If you believed what you believed from day one, why are you telling us to lock our doors now? But on day two, you were saying, no cause for alarm, no concern. That's a hell of a mistake, if you ask me.
- [36:34]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, it is. And the fact that the sheriff is saying, we. We believe we know why he did it, well, that's a singular. That's not. They. We believe why they did this. Okay? And. And so that tells the public, hey, there is that person out there that they may know who that person is. And apparently it sounds like they knew who that person was on day one. And so then the next question then to the public is, well, what about all this ransom note then? Was that just noise? Right. Do they know where she was taken to? Did they have some type of information in there like that? You know, the sheriff needs to clarify what this messaging is, and he can't do it part in bits and pieces. I mean, it's almost like he's thinking in bits and pieces. He's not, you know, coherently telling the public, look, you know, here's what's going on and here's the reason why. And quite frankly, he should not be the mouthpiece for this investigation. It needs to go back to a lower, like a sergeant or a lieutenant who is working with the task force. Somebody from the task force should be the mouthpiece to the media and to the public.
- [38:03]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
The.
- [38:04]
Chris McDonough
The sheriff needs to sit in his office, get debriefed on a daily basis about what's going on. And it's the task force commander who says, okay, you know, Chuck, you're the public information officer. He. Here's what we want to tell the public today. This is the progress we're making. You hold that daily briefing 10am for professionals like yourself and others. You get everybody in the same room at the same time asking the same questions, and they all get the same answer. Okay, but not this guy.
- [38:37]
Ashley Banfield
It just conf. It's confounding to hear him say, we believe we know why he did this. I think from day one, we had strong beliefs about what happened, and those beliefs haven't diminished. And so day two, there's no cause for alarm in the community. Day 40 or day 30, day 41, I think he's putting out. Day 40, he's putting out. There is a cause for concern. Lock your doors. You know, this is a danger to the community. And like you said, there's an entire alleged ransom piece to all of this that the FBI is working. Right. They're going into Savannah Guthrie's home and helping to record these messages to the so called alleged ransom seekers. And the sheriff didn't know anything about it. He learned about it from his wife. I mean, this, to me, this is a colossal sort of failing, not knowing that something this big was happening, you know, just down the street.
- [39:38]
Chris McDonough
Well, it's a perfect example of you. You know, your ego goes to the door before your experience. You, you can be, you know, you can say you've had 40 something years or 50 years, but there's nothing that can replace experience. And, you know, I, I have a lot of experience, but I've made mistakes like the next person. But at the same time, I let the people that are in the lane run and do their job. And administrators. The sheriff is an administrator. His job is to protect the community and to run the department. It's not to run investigations that is the homicide team.
- [40:28]
Ashley Banfield
Chris, is it sake of the FBI to not inform the sheriff that they were going in and recording for the very first time an outgoing message from the family to these alleged ransom seekers? Is that a mistake of the FBI or do you think it's the FBI specifically holding it back because they're worried about what the sheriff was going to say?
- [40:46]
Chris McDonough
Well, I think it could be twofold. Right behind the scenes, there's political jockeying going on as well as in front of. You've got the field agents and you've got the sheriffs who are working side by side. And quite frankly, they're probably doing an amazing job. Those guys. It's always the people behind you that are, you know, lockstep into, you know, who's going to get to the podium first. I mean, evidently, just look at, look at how some of the information got released. You have the director of the FBI send in a text message out. Okay. Or a tweet out on. On Twitter about the, the video and the photographs. Okay. You know, and, and now you have the sheriff coming over and going, hey, well, we didn't know about that. We. We didn't know about the, you know, the, the ransom letters and, and that the family was going to read that stuff. So it was almost like a, you know, like a tennis match. Right. Okay, well, you're going to do that. Fine, we'll do this. And, and finally they, they realized that the public wasn't going to stand for it. And I think the pushback from the public was, you guys need to get on board here together and leave this other stuff to the side because there's an 84 year old woman out there who's been missing. And you need to put your aspirations off to the side. Terms of. Politically, this is a really interesting phenomenon happening where politicians are stepping up to the podium to run investigations. Their job is not to run investigations. In fact, any, any. In my opinion, anytime you see a politician step up to the podium, it's a, It's a problem. Okay? It's a problem. And if. Because that's telling you they're also behind the scenes trying to tell the investigators what to do and how to do it. Okay. And I'll tell you, that's a, that's a recipe for disaster. It really is.
- [42:50]
Ashley Banfield
To that end, the sheriff in this case really, from day one, spoke so highly of the Guthrie family. And for anybody out there who's, you know, doesn't work in investigations, it sounds nice, right? Oh, this, you know, poor family's been victimized. And he's saying how, you know, she's almost like two first daughter. Savannah's so special to our community. Nancy's special to our community. All of that sounds nice, but isn't it their job to kind of be the bad guy in an investigation? As unpleasant as it is, the statistics usually point to families and you've got to investigate from the, from the very middle outward in the concentric circles. So should he be making those kinds of overtures to a family that he's bound by law to investigate? Gate.
- [43:34]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. And you. There is no favoritism when it comes to potential homicide. Our job, our. Our job as investigators and I work for the Cold Case foundation, is to follow the evidence wherever the evidence takes you there. There is no, you know, there's no favoritism in that evidence. Okay. And so if the evidence took them to a car and then that car took them to a house and that house took them to their phones, which in this case you have all of that taking place and then. And then maybe other evidence took them back to the house, to the garage at 10 o' clock at night and photographed it. Okay, well then tell the public why. Why did you do that? Because that in of itself is not doing the family any favors in any way, shape or form because it was all done, you know, in the evening, most of it, except for the. When the ICAC guys showed up with the U Fed to go into the, into the home. Why are they, why are they ringing the doorbells of all the neighbors of the family? Members to ask them about the family members. That's just, that is Homicide 101.
- [44:49]
Ashley Banfield
But also photographing inside their, their home in the dark of night, I think something that led a lot of people to say, what. What's going on here? These are supposedly the victims. The sheriff has spoken so lovingly of this family. Then why are you over there, you know, intruding on their, on their home, is it.
- [45:04]
Chris McDonough
Why are they coming out of the house with bags?
- [45:06]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah, I mean, all of the above. And I don't want to suggest for a moment.
- [45:09]
Chris McDonough
No, I get it.
- [45:10]
Ashley Banfield
People have wrongly accused me of theories. And what I have done is I have only reported what my sources have said, and that was that they are looking at a family member. And so I'm just so curious about why the sheriff would speak so lovingly of a family that he's clearly investigating so publicly. He's saying to us, you know, these people could be victims and ease up. And it's reckless to say these things, but yet he's photographing their home, he's towed the car, he's asking neighbors, he's searching around their homes, taking video from gas stations nearby. Again, I don't know if it's a mistake or if it's just. Or if it's just somebody who's just not ready for prime time. I'm not sure.
- [45:52]
Chris McDonough
Well, you have to ask yourself, right? We have to step back and, and, and you're right. We're not accusing anybody. We're just, we're just watching what the sheriff is doing. I mean, let's just be clear with the public, right? We're seeing the same things that quite frankly, the family seeing because, you know, the family's going, why are you towing my car? Oh, well, you know, and he had to give him a reason. He had a warrant for him and he had a warrant, so he had to give a judge a reason. Somebody had to get a judge to say, okay, I see what you're looking for here you go.
- [46:28]
Ashley Banfield
By the way, as an investigator, just tell the audience, is it probable cause in a circumstance when someone goes missing to ask a judge, I want a warrant for a family member's vehicle because they're family and we always look at. Is that enough of probable cause or do you have to have a lot more than that?
- [46:45]
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- [47:08]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
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- [47:14]
Chris McDonough
u n d. Yeah, yeah. No, you just can't, you know, you just can't tell a judge. Oh, well, you know, because. Okay. Because they're family. Okay, now what you could.
- [47:26]
Ashley Banfield
Not just that, but, you know, statistically speaking, that's always where police begin. They, they begin with those who are closest to the vulnerable when they go missing. But.
- [47:36]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
Right.
- [47:37]
Ashley Banfield
That's not enough. That, that doesn't reach the bar of probable cause.
- [47:40]
Chris McDonough
No. Did you see them impound Ed Smart's car?
- [47:44]
Ashley Banfield
You know, I was there and I don't recall.
- [47:46]
Chris McDonough
It's hard. I don't recall seeing that they didn't impound his car. Okay? I mean, just look at how many kidnap cases, okay, where a family member has been kidnapped and the law enforcement agency goes in and says, okay, everybody's car's impounded.
- [48:03]
Sheriff Chris Nanos
Okay?
- [48:03]
Chris McDonough
No, you can't do that. Okay? Now what they, what they probably worked off of is the fact that that was the last proof of life in a vehicle that was brought over to that house, okay? So of course a judge would say, okay, she's 84 years old, disappeared from her house, you know, your honor, she was brought over by a family member. Okay, fine, we want to search that car. No problem. Here you go. You. I, I think that's enough for you to get that vehicle, okay? And so, but remember, there's a 10 day return on that search warrant. You get 10 days, okay, by law.
- [48:47]
Ashley Banfield
I didn't know it was 10 days.
- [48:48]
Chris McDonough
Oh, yeah, you get 10 days by law to go through the evidence or look for the. Find the evidence, and then you got to bring that receipt back to the judge. Unless you ask for an extension. But then you've got to go back and you've got to give a judge a reason why you need an extension. The judge just isn't going to say, hey, you, you get to keep fishing for as long as you want. No, that's not how the Constitution works, right, under the fourth Amendment, you know, and the fifth, you know, if somebody says, yeah, you can have in your
- [49:20]
Ashley Banfield
search and seizure, right?
- [49:22]
Chris McDonough
And the fifth is you can't just keep asking them questions about it, okay? At some point the judge is going to say, look, you're asking them too many incriminating questions. That's a violation. And you're searching too long, et cetera, et cetera, and they. And. And all that math starts to be put together. But in this particular case, when they were done, they didn't just give the car back. So something. Something is just not lining up.
- [49:49]
Ashley Banfield
They've also told us for two weeks, I believe they told you. And they told Brian Enten, a week later, we're in the process of returning the car. And then a week later, the same statement, we're in the process of returning the car. But they. It is odd. And I, I look at that as a mistake only because if you're clearing these people, my God, clear them and give them their vehicle back. And don't let, you know, journalists like us question, well, what the hell is going on then? Because you gave Luke Daly his car back within that 10 days. That was the silver Range Rover in raid number two on February 13th. They got. He got his vehicle back within two weeks. I don't know if they ever took Carlos Palosuela's vehicle. He was the door dash driver who was in, you know, Southern Arizona when they raided him. But that leads me to another issue. Two big raids with huge firepower, like just, you know, massive response, multi agency response that, that yielded nothing. And we never really learned what was the lead and was it really a strong lead. Do you see that as a mistake or do you see those raids as, hey, that's the way this works?
- [50:56]
Chris McDonough
Yeah, I don't necessarily think of that particular piece of this investigation as a mistake because they may have, you know, some type of digital footprint that led them to that, you know, particular individual. And, you know, remember, if this person carried a phone into that area where Ms. Guthrie lives, then technology today is going to pick up on that and they're gonna, they're gonna go through and they're gonna identify, hey, wait a minute, we've got this, you know, particular ping. It's connected to, you know, this type of problem. I, you know, person or house or whatever, and then they're going to get a search warrant and they're going to go hit that house just to make sure. And what did we find out? I mean, the guy says, hey, you know, I do deliveries and yeah, I could have been over in that area. So, you know, they had to vet him. They had to do that. And it's the same thing with the other circumstance. Now, in that circumstance, though, the Range Rover, which we're talking about, that one, the fact that they took that as a piece of evidence and they put evidence tapes, remember, on the. On the Back hatch you saw the FBI writing as his ID number and the date and time. You know, that's for the chain of custody. They show that that piece of evidence now goes on an evidence list and that car is towed to a processing evidence facility. And of course, it. Its process. Well, they didn't find anything because at some point they turned around and they said, okay, you can have your car back. Okay. I. E. We can't hold this indefinitely. Now, if they would have found blood or, you know, something that would have been, you know, connected to Ms. Guthrie, then you can bet that car be. It would still be sitting in their evidence facility. Because now you have to. That evidence becomes exculpatory to whoever they arrest for the defense. The defense now has an opportunity to go look at it themselves. They just can't release it. Okay. And so. And that would have to come through a court order. So in that case, you know, they let the gentleman's car go.
- [53:13]
Ashley Banfield
But let me ask you about the other issue that. And I look at this as a big mistake. A reporter came into Sheriff Nanos office and asked him about authorities going door to door to gun stores with a list of names and photographs and asking the proprietors of the gun store or the workers there, have you seen any of these people? And can you run them through your system and tell us if they've purchased anything? And we saw interviews with these people in this gun store saying, unfortunately, I just didn't get a. I'm sad I didn't get a hit. I wanted to help, but no, we couldn't help help. That reporter asked sheriff Nanos about that, and sheriff Nano said, that's a lie. As though it didn't happen when clearly it had happened. We witnessed it. And I wondered if it's. Again, the FBI didn't tell him they were doing that. And there's Sheriff Nanos telling a reporter it's a lie.
- [54:05]
Chris McDonough
Well, again, right. We go back to allowing the task force to control the communication because that's the exact type of statements that it turns out, in fact, it was true. And the sheriff took a position and just kind of shot from the hip. And in this kind of high profile case, you do not shoot from the hip at all. You had better know how to get to the top of the mountain, because people don't get to the top of the mountain by falling there. Okay. And in this case, he keeps falling on the top of the mountain and doesn't realize he's going to get the momentum and he keeps rolling to the bottom of the mountain. But what he's doing is he's strengthening the defense against Ms. Guthrie. He's not strengthening the investigation for her, for the state or for the. For the U.S. attorney's office in any. Any way, shape or form. Because you can bet a guy like Mark Garagos. Let's just use Mark for an example, right? High profile lawyer out of la, awesome guy, okay? He's going to grill you on the stand. I, trust me, I. I've been grilled, okay? Like the next guy. But that's their job. And, and when you get off of that stand, and the sheriff will be that guy getting off the stand, he's going to want those statements back. He's going to want them all back, because they're going to put the FBI guy on, you know, to counter his comment and say, hey, you know, did in fact, didn't you, in fact, you know, go to these gun stores with all these folks? Yes, we did. And why did you do that? And he's going to give the answer, and then they're going to put the sheriff on and say, well, you didn't know about that, did you? Well, I didn't know about it at the time. What else didn't you know about? And they're going to look at the jury.
- [55:59]
Ashley Banfield
There's a million reasons, right? What you're just laying out being the most important. Secondly, you want to have faith. What your public officials, you know, are saying is trustworthy. That's hard to deal with now, given how many inconsistencies there have been. But also, don't tell people they're liars, you know? Yeah, don't. Just don't. It's a really harsh criticism. And I had this from. From the sheriff. I'm not liar, but he said some things I believe were directed to me, and I just don't think it's appropriate. If you're working on something and you need to keep it quiet, keep it quiet, but don't start throwing arrows, slinging arrows at those who are doing our jobs. Last one real quickly, and that is the Cajun Navy. You know, we've come to know the Cajun Navy over years and years since Hurricane Katrina, at least for me, and I think they have. Actually, the genesis of the Cajun Navy was Hurricane Katrina. And it's just a loose group of individual civilians who sometimes have boats or have dogs or have some kind of savvy about how to search and do rescue, etc. And they sent a representative to ask the sheriff, can we come and help? Can we bring our resources to bear in this case and was ghosted. I mean, wasn't even given the respect of being told, no thank you, just was ignored. And I just wonder how often does that happen where law enforcement, I hate to say, looks a gift horse in the mouth, but in this case I feel like it really is because there's no searching going on. And we just found, you know, tan pants in a wash behind Annie Guthrie's home and a knee brace that I guess wasn't collected.
- [57:39]
Chris McDonough
Yeah. You know that whenever these kind of things happen initially, right. You don't, you just don't know what you have initially. So, you know, I think the sheriff's department and their search and rescue, they, they sent all the resources that they felt that they could have sent. Right. But then to your point, you get to a place where you go, okay, could it, can it hurt the investigation? And the answer is no. When you're, when you're looking at an 84 year old woman, however, it does have to be controlled by somebody in the department. Meaning you need to have a liaison that's saying, okay, you know, folks, this is the grid that we're going to search. We need you to get out there, okay? And then you walk them through it. If you find something, don't touch it. Just, you know, put a flag on it, notify us, you know, we'll come out, we'll collect it, we'll photograph it, we'll measure it. You know, we used to call it bag and tag. Right. Just don't touch it. Now, if you have an experienced group of searchers, my understanding is there's a lot of former le, there's a lot of former military folks in this organization. You know what, why not use them? Get them on the ground, let them get dirty. They may know something that we don't know. And I guess that's the key, you know, law enforcement, we don't always have the answers. Okay? And that's why you put information out to the public and say, look, have you seen this guy on this video? Okay? That's not law enforcement solving this crime. That's the public picking up the phone and saying, yeah, this is, you know, so and so such and such. And the reason I know that as I saw that clothing before he put it on when he was getting in his car. Hypothetically, of course. Right. But that's how cases get solved. And if you're resistant to that in your community, guess what? You're not serving your community, okay? You are telling your community what to do. And that's not service law enforcement. There needs to be a paradigm shift there. And that sheriff should be the very first one that should admit it and say, hey, maybe this is a resource. I again, I made another mistake. We should pull them in.
- [60:00]
Ashley Banfield
Many eyes make light work. And crowdsourcing has certainly helped to solve crimes. Gabby Petito for one. Chris McDonough, thank you so much. It's a long list. I appreciate you helping me get through it.
- [60:12]
Chris McDonough
You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
- [60:14]
Ashley Banfield
So there you have it. My thanks to Chris McDonough. He's following this case day to day. He knows all of the details. He's one of the better. Go to people who knows what's going on and when things, you know, don't make sense because other stuff was said before that ain't being said today. But we're going to continue to watch this. I just think these missteps should be highlighted because who knows if the list will grow longer. Thank you so much for watching, everyone. Thanks so much for listening. And remember, 1-800-FBI if you know anything about the case of Nancy Guthrie, where she might be and who that monster might be. 1-800-FBI, there's $1.2 million in reward money waiting for you if you're the person who can help crack this case. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And don't forget, truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.