Unanswered Questions, Savannah's "Today" Return - Part 4 of Megyn Kelly Investigates Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance | Ep. 1278

Summary

The Megyn Kelly Show
Episode: “Unanswered Questions, Savannah's 'Today' Return – Part 4 of Megyn Kelly Investigates Nancy Guthrie’s Disappearance”
Date: March 21, 2026

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Overview

This gripping episode, hosted by Megyn Kelly, continues her investigative series on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. With special guest Ashley Banfield, veteran journalist and host of “Drop Dead Serious,” the conversation turns to unanswered questions, new theories, law enforcement contradictions, the responsibility of media in sensitive cases, and NBC’s handling of Savannah’s return. Through frank dialogue, Megyn and Ashley dissect the mishandled elements of the investigation, the consequences of publicizing personal information, and the challenges for crime victims in the spotlight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Danger of Oversharing Personal Information on TV (00:40–06:55)

• Megyn uncovers alarming details about how much of Nancy Guthrie’s personal life was made public via the "Today" show over the years.
  • Examples included her address, favorite restaurants, and even her bedroom, thanks to segments featuring Savannah and Nancy.
• Notable Quote:
  • “It is disturbing to think that it was just November that she broadcast that her mother does live in Tucson. And I haven't checked, but I bet it's fairly easy to find the mom's address. She lives alone. She's elderly.” (Megyn, 04:03)
• The discussion highlights how family members, not just public figures themselves, can become targets due to repeated TV exposure.
• A segment from Savannah’s 2024 book mentions a ‘kidnapping game’ from childhood, causing the hosts to reflect on how innocuous anecdotes might be misconstrued or fixated upon by unstable individuals.

2. The Impact on Families of Public Figures (06:55–12:12)

• The show questions the ripple effects of media exposure:
  • Would Savannah have ever considered that sharing so much about her mom could put Nancy in danger?
  • Both Megyn and Ashley reflect on their own histories of putting their parents on TV, admitting no one in media had considered a parent could be targeted before.
• Notable Quote:
  • “I just hope that she doesn't feel a sense of guilt for having done these beautiful segments about a wonderful mother. And quite frankly, God, I hope they do get a solution to this story at some point and that it has nothing to do with Savannah's fame...it shouldn't.” (Ashley, 11:24)
• The upside: More people are aware and invested in Nancy’s case because of this coverage.

3. The Law Enforcement Contradictions and Public Safety Messaging (12:12–26:08)

• Recent statements from Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos alarm the community as he claims the case is both “targeted” and the community is “in danger.”
  • This contradicts early reassurances that there was no public threat.
  • Clip Played (14:10):
    • “We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted, but… we're not 100% sure of that. And so it'd be silly to tell people… don't worry about it.”
• Notable Quote:
  • “If this week you're telling us, lock your doors, and, yes, he could strike again, then what the hell was that message on day two?” (Megyn, 13:48)
• Ashley reveals her sources said early police focus was on family suspects, not an outside perpetrator, contradicting Nanos’ “known from day one” assertion.
  • “I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I saw the day one comment. Because on day two and three I was talking to extraordinary sources… and they entirely had their focus towards the brother in law.” (Ashley, 15:37)

4. Theories on Motive and Perpetrator (26:08–43:30)

• The hosts discuss whether Nancy was targeted due to her relation to Savannah or if she was a victim of a sexually motivated crime by a stranger.
  • Citing statistics and a similar case (Nancy Woodrum), they explore the likelihood of a younger male perpetrator and the underreported phenomenon of sexual crimes against the elderly.
• Notable Quote:
  • “92% of geriatric rapists are in their 20s.” (Ashley, 19:18)
• The possibility that media sensitivity (likely due to Savannah’s fame) has led to less rigorous public and internal scrutiny of all possible theories, including family involvement.
• The discussion criticizes NBC and major media for avoiding coverage of uncomfortable but relevant facts regarding last contacts, house searches, and vehicle tows.

5. Role of Independent Media & Law Enforcement Accountability (26:08–34:07)

• Both hosts strongly defend the function of independent and persistent media in bringing attention and tips to missing persons cases.
  • Arizona State Rep. Alma Hernandez is called out for telling independent media to “go home.”
  • Comparison to the Elizabeth Smart case, where intense coverage ultimately led to Smart's recovery.
  • “Every family in America that has a missing person would give their eye teeth to have that kind of coverage…” (Megyn, 29:14)
• Critique of law enforcement’s selective transparency and reluctance to accept help from experienced volunteer search groups like the Cajun Navy.
  • “I don't understand it… If we are looking for Nancy Guthrie, who may no longer be with us, then someone needs to be looking. The desert is very big.” (Ashley, 32:42)

6. Crime Scene Processing and What We Know (34:07–43:30)

• Crime scene was released quickly, and early searches were limited.
  • Blood drops on the front porch and inside are discussed as evidence not properly preserved.
  • The “front security gate” theory: unlikely the perpetrator entered via the front; likely used the back door.
  • Debate over whether multiple suspects were involved or the man on the porch acted alone.
• Detailed forensic parallels drawn to other elder-targeted abductions/murders, explaining how evidence can be preserved and what mistakes can mean for solving the case.

7. The Technical Aspects: Cameras, Backpacks, Polygraphs (48:56–63:36)

• Confusion around Nest camera timeline:
  • Was a Wi-Fi jammer used?
  • Were the key images on different days or hours?
• Insights into what surveillance, or lack thereof, may have hampered investigations.
• Family members reportedly passed polygraphs and volunteered devices, but polygraphs aren’t determinative.
  • “Polygraphs, as you know, they're great investigative tools, but… They're not the kind of technology that is as trustworthy.” (Ashley, 62:35)

8. Will This Case Be Solved and the Challenges Ahead? (65:13–70:33)

• Ashley is optimistic: “I do. I actually really do [think this case will be solved]…with the full weight of the US Government…and the bungling nature of this guy, yeah, I do think we’re going to find him.” (Ashley, 65:22)
• Emphasis on the importance of finding Nancy’s remains for closure for the Guthrie family.
• Unpacking NBC’s challenge in orchestrating Savannah’s return—balancing sensitivity, public perception, and network politics.

9. Returning to the Public Eye After Trauma (68:28–73:16)

• Ashley shares her personal experience with PTSD as a 9/11 survivor and journalist to stress the difficulty Savannah will face in returning to live TV.
• Advice: Savannah’s return should start with pre-taped segments to avoid unpredictable live emotional responses.
• Megyn shares that Ashley's work during 9/11 inspired her to leave law and become a journalist, giving a poignant perspective on legacy and resilience.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Media Responsibility:

  • “But it is a good sort of reminder. Maybe edit around the edges. You know, they don't need another maiden name. They don't need to have it highlighted over and over what town they live in. Especially because, you know, you have to worry about, did you put the same layers around your mom that you did around yourself?” (Megyn, 10:43)

• On the Need for Vigilance:

  • “We're people. We're not automatons. You know, and so I just hope that she doesn't feel a sense of guilt for having done these beautiful segments about a wonderful mother.” (Ashley, 11:24)

• On Investigative Transparency:

  • “The problem is, is that we have to chase the truth. That's our master. We don't kowtow to authority… Otherwise I'd be profitable.” (Ashley, 23:15)

• On Solving the Case:

  • “I do [think it will be solved]. Like you and I were just talking about, this guy is not Mensa. He's done some things, and it will trip him up. Whether we are going to ever find Nancy is a different question.” (Ashley, 65:22)

• On Navigating Trauma and Career:

  • “For that reason, you're right. They better find the lady.” (Ashley, 70:33)

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Key Timestamps

| Time | Segment | Main Points | |----------|--------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:40 | Danger of Public Information | Details on what was revealed about Nancy Guthrie on TV; impact on safety | | 06:48 | Family Exposure, Social Media | Discussion on the risks for loved ones of public figures | | 12:12 | Law Enforcement Contradictions | Analysis of shifting police public safety messaging | | 14:10 | Sheriff Nanos’ Statement | Audio of the sheriff explaining "we've known since day one" about the motive | | 26:31 | Neighbor’s Fear | Clip from neighbor Laura on new fears post-sheriff warning | | 32:42 | Search Efforts Criticized | Discussion of sheriff’s refusal of help from volunteer search groups | | 34:07 | Crime Scene Assessment | Problems with evidence handling and analogies to other cases | | 48:56 | Surveillance & Timeline Questions | Issues interpreting Nest camera data and evidence | | 61:08 | Polygraph Discussion | Family’s polygraph “clearance” scrutinized | | 65:22 | Case Resolution Outlook | Ashley’s prediction on potential for solving the case | | 68:28 | Savannah’s NBC Return | Challenges for Savannah’s on-air comeback; advice on easing transition | | 71:24 | 9/11 Story & Legacy | Megyn’s tribute to Ashley’s 9/11 reporting and its lasting impact |

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Tone and Language

Megyn and Ashley maintain a frank, empathetic, and sometimes darkly humorous tone, balancing compassion for the Guthrie family with pointed criticism of investigative missteps and media habits. The language remains direct, no-nonsense, and frequently personal, with both hosts drawing on their own extensive careers in television journalism.

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For New Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

This episode skillfully weaves together the personal, the procedural, and the media scrutiny in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance. Listeners come away with a nuanced understanding of the risks of media exposure, the complexity of high-profile missing persons investigations, law enforcement’s opaque processes, and how personal and institutional trauma intersect in the spotlight. It’s both an update and a thoughtful reflection on the implications for journalism, public safety, and justice.

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Transcript

[A]

It's tax season, and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it, guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family as an effective and affordable online learning program. IXL covers math, language arts, science and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from Pre K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up [e-mail] 20. Visit ixl.com 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Today we dive into part four of our series on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. We've stayed on top of this case to bring you the latest information, and we will get into the role that independent media have played in uncovering key details about Nancy and the investigation thus far. Another disturbing discovery uncovered in our investigation is how much information about Nancy Guthrie is publicly available. It is easy, easy to find exactly where she lived, where she liked to eat in Tucson, and what her bedroom looks like, thanks to a Today show segment we found in 2013. From 2013, well, we took a deep dive into the trove of information that the Today show has shared about Nancy and her personal life and information over the years. Watch this.

[B]

We're welcoming Savannah Guthrie to her new

[A]

role as co anchor of today.

[B]

We could not be more pleased or proud.

[A]

Back when Savannah officially joined Matt Lauer as a co host, which was 2012, Nancy was part of the big welcome, dishing the family stories. If she got tired, she'd just sit down right in the middle of the grocery store aisle. Then she'd threaten us and she'd say, I'll cry.

[B]

She had a loud mouth.

[A]

That woman looks familiar. Who is this woman? Nana's mom in the house?

[B]

Yes. My she's like, what are you talking about?

[A]

And her sister, Aunt Debbie. And you can see she's shy Just like you are. Anyone paying close attention would have known a lot about Nancy Guthrie.

[B]

Mom, are you there? Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi, Nancy. Hi, Nancy.

[A]

Should there be a kids table on screen? Maps often showed off where she lived.

[B]

Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Guthrie. Savannah. Good. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

[A]

My mom's birthday today.

[B]

Happy birthday, mom. Can I just indulge and say happy birthday to my mom?

[A]

Savannah rarely missed a birthday. Me, too.

[B]

She's the best. People celebrating a birthday out there in Tucson. She's in Tucson, Arizona.

[A]

And gosh, it's been a long time since I've gotten to hug my mom. She was like the 12th member of the cast for a while. We can't wait to get her back. Happy birthday, mom. It is my mom's 80th birthday. You knew Nancy's maiden name.

[B]

Nancy Ellen Long, 1942 in Fort Wright, Kentucky.

[A]

You knew where she was born. Personal information was everywhere.

[B]

My mom is up early in Tucson, Arizona.

[A]

Nancy Guthrie joins us now. Hi, mom.

[B]

Good morning.

[A]

Hi, Savannah. You may have heard me talk about my idyllic childhood growing up in Arizona. And it was. But it wasn't where it all began. Mother and daughter went back to Australia in 2015. I didn't think we'd ever come back. No. I never thought I'd see Australia again. Touring the hospital where Savannah was born, I mean, no detail of this relationship was left uncovered. It has been great to do this journey with you, mom. It's incredibly sad, and it's incredibly awful to think that something as sweet as a segment with her mom could possibly have played a role in the mom's targeting Tucson is more than its breathtaking landscape. I mean, it is disturbing to think that it was just November that she broadcast that her mother does live in Tucson. And I haven't checked, but I bet it's fairly easy to find the mom's address. She lives alone. She's elderly. Just the air, the quality of life. The segment did not feature Nancy's home or disclose details about where she lived. But after this week's events, people around here at NBC. This is a quote. Are going to think twice before putting their family on television at all. Man, that's a dark thought. Putting out where your mother lives. That is a different angle that we need to look at. I'm sure she wasn't thinking that way. I'm sure. Sure you think that way about your children. Right. But this is yet another. Another one of those firsts. But the best thing about Tucson is coming home and seeing you guys. I'm, like, kind of stunned by what we have here. Savannah's book, which was released in February of 2024, discussed a game she used to play as a kid with her cousin. And it was a kidnapping game involving Nancy. About once a year in the summertime, cousin Terry orchestrated a kidnapping of my sister. Terry would make a pit stop and let Annie and me call home at a payphone. Mom, Cousin Terry kidnapped us to take us to her house. My mother would feign shock protest how terribly she would miss us and assure

[B]

us she'd drive up to retrieve us in a few days.

[A]

If the sheriff's never heard this before,

[B]

this would be something that I would definitely look into.

[A]

But anybody who's read that book, as well as you both have talked about stalkers.

[B]

People latch onto things in weird, weird ways.

[A]

You just never know what's gonna set a lun down the lane. He or she goes, sweet baby Jesus, can we just rid this world of all the lunatics? There really is a chance that some nutcase obsessed with her realizing they couldn't get to her. Chad. Because, you know, of course, Savannah's got the proper security precautions in her life. She's got young children decided to go after her mom. I would dive into her social media. Who's been liking, you know, is there a repeated person that's liking a bunch of photos? Is there a bunch of people flooding her, you know, dms. You're right. And that's the sick times that we live in. The last shout out was just four days before Nancy went missing.

[B]

There she is with my daughter, Veil.

[A]

We love you, mom. Happy birthday.

[B]

Love you.

[A]

Love you. It was dark. Truly chilling when you see it all together. Another question that is still out there is what's next for Savannah? We saw her return to the Today show set last week with hugs and, you know, sort of greetings with everybody. She's not yet back on the air as of this week, but she's coming soon. And there are reports that they're trying to figure out exactly how to ease her back on set in a way that's not too awkward for her or the audience. There's a lot to discuss. We actually have a pal of mine who is also an NBC alum. She was at NBC for a long time and her name is Ashley Banfield. She's now host of Drop Dead Serious with Ashley Banfield, an independent media show. Let's talk about what's really happening right now. New data shows that financial stress is at an all time high for some. Many Americans are at a breaking point. Debt maxed out, no extra money, no room to breathe. And some people are running out of options. Listen, if debt has been weighing on you, you're not alone. And when it comes to debt, waiting usually makes it worse. Interest piles up. Minimum payments keep you stuck. But you do not need another loan or bankruptcy. You need a strategy, my friends. That is why I want to tell you about Done With Debt. They build a smart, personalized plan around you. They know what it takes to get you the biggest reductions possible. Whether you owe 10,000 bucks or much, much more, Done With Debt has one clear goal. Lower what you owe, so you keep more of your paycheck every month. Start with a free consultation. It takes just minutes. Share your situation and find out what's possible. You don't have to stay stuck. Go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com Ashley, great to see you again. It is chilling now, like, with the benefit of hindsight, to see how much was disclosed about Nancy.

[B]

Yeah. But you know something? I don't think there's a person among us who works in TV that hasn't done a segment like that or a few, you know, a few segments like that. And seeing it all mash up, you know, mashed up together certainly does give you pause. And I just have this sinking feeling that's probably the last time you're going to see those kinds of segments because there's going to be such a chill.

[A]

I mean, I, having been at the Today show for, you know, a year and a half, I can say I also put my mom in the air. I'm like, she, she would come down to the set at the Today show and we had a funny segment called Ask Linda because my mom is very funny and she would answer, like, viewer mails. We weren't disclosing a ton of her personal identifying information. But I have to be honest, you didn't even think about it. Like, when it comes to, like, going upward in the line, you're not even thinking that there's a danger until Nancy. Like, you're always thinking downward in the line about your children, you know, your immediate sort of family. But, like, this is a new way of torturing somebody. This hurting of the mobs.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm still of the conviction this is not somebody who was obsessed with Savannah. Because, Megan, you and I have been on TV a long time, and there are all sorts of communications that come our way, many of them from jails. You know, we have a lot of letters from jail. And typically the fascination starts with us and then might actually move out in the concentric circles. But. But it doesn't just start with a member of the family. It doesn't. I think that this is something that's going to end up being far more simple than we all imagined. We're all imagining all kinds of different scenarios, but it nevertheless does give us pause about our families and what we put on the air about our families. I've done multiple segments about my mom over the years. We're proud of our parents. We want to show them off. We want to show them. You know, if you're wondering what made this. There you go. It's over there.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah, I know. My mom is hilarious. And it's like the thought of never having shared her with anybody just seems so wrong because people need to know her. But it is a good sort of reminder. Maybe edit around the edges. You know, they don't need another maiden name. They don't need to have it highlighted over and over what town they live in. Especially because, you know, you have to worry about, you know, did you put the same layers around your mom that you did around yourself? And especially now, now that this idea has been introduced, it's even more disturbing. So I don't know. I feel for her because these are risks that didn't look like risks at the time she took them. And now, in retrospect, this is one of the many things she's gotta worry about or think about.

[B]

You know, as you were playing that montage, I kept wondering about just the utter guilt that Savannah might feel and shouldn't. She's no different than anyone else in the media landscape that has been proud of their parents and photographed their parents and put them on social. We share our families. We share ourselves. We're people. We're not automatons. You know, and so I just hope that she doesn't feel a sense of guilt for having done these beautiful segments about a wonderful mother. And quite frankly, God, I hope they do get a solution to this story at some point and that it has nothing to do with Savannah's fame, because until that time happens, I think this will be something that just gnaws at her. And it shouldn't. It just shouldn't.

[A]

Well, one upside of having done all those segments is more people feel like they know Nancy and are interested in the case and are keeping an eye out for Nancy and are following coverage of the case. You know, it's not just because Savannah's well known. It's also like, we've seen a fair amount of footage of this sweet lady. And, you know, she seems like a doll. I mean, honestly, she seems so, so kind. And that makes people feel a little bit more invested, which is on the plus side. Now, on the side of it wasn't a stalker of Savannah's or somebody who is obsessed with Savannah. Nancy, you have the sheriff Nano's statement this week that. I know. That he thinks he knows what the motivation is and that he's only grown more certain since day one on what the motivation is. And, oh, by the way, the community is in danger. Wait.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wait, so if the community's in danger, it's not somebody who's a stalker of Savannah in his mind.

[B]

Here's the quote. We believe we know why he was here. We believe we know why he was here, and we have known since day one. Well, then why did you raid two random people's homes? And why did you tell everyone on day two? There's no cause for alarm. Those are my words. But effectively, the message in the news conference on February 2 was, there's nothing to be worried about. There's no danger to the community. Well, if this week you're telling us, lock your doors, and, yes, he could strike again, then what the hell was that message on day two.

[A]

Exactly. Right. And he was saying, just in case you're thinking, this won't happen to me, this was just something that happened to the Guthrie's. Think again. I mean, he really underscored it, like, you know, reminded me of the line in. What was it? Oh, God, Ghost.

[B]

Right?

[A]

You in danger, girl. Right. From Whoopi Goldberg. That's basically saying to the entire community, you. You in danger, girl. Like, what. Wait, here is. Here's part of what he said the other day. We have it.

[B]

Do you think that this suspect could

[A]

strike again, whoever did this? Well, absolutely. We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted, but we can't. We're not 100% sure of that. And so it'd be silly to tell people. Yeah, don't worry about it. You're.

[B]

You're not his target.

[A]

Don't think for a minute that because it happened, the Guthrie family, you're safe. No, keep. Keep your wits about you. Like, I'm sorry, targeted, but you're all in a lot of danger.

[B]

Yeah. So.

[A]

And.

[B]

And there's. It goes on to say, and we've known since day one, which was what really got in my craw, because I know what was going on on day two and day three.

[A]

Wait, hold that.

[B]

Their focus Was entirely different.

[A]

I wanna, I wanna hear what you had to say. But I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play that piece of the sound bite and then you take it. Here we go.

[B]

There is something that's come out in

[A]

the investigation that gives you a sense of motive here and why this person did this. You know, I think it's come out

[B]

from the, from day one.

[A]

I think from day one we had some strong beliefs about what happened. And those beliefs haven't diminished.

[B]

Do you believe it was a burglary gone wrong?

[A]

I'm not going to get into those theories. We have our beliefs, everybody else has theirs.

[B]

Nano says he's intentionally withholding their theory and other details in the case, citing the integrity of the investigation.

[A]

Go ahead, Ashley.

[B]

Well, I just, you know, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I saw the day one comment. We believe we've known since day one because on day two and three I was talking to extraordinary source inside that group of folks that was working on that investigation. And they entirely had their focus towards the brother in law. Whether it's right or wrong. By the way, I have taken so much shit online for people saying it's my theory, not my theory. I actually have a different idea of what I think happened and it is not that. What I am reporting on is what I heard their theory was what they were doing on day one and two and three. And it was not what Sheriff Nanos just said. They did all sorts of things on day one, two and three that indicated they. They thought it was someone within the Guthrie family. They towed a car under warrant, for God's sake. And they shut down the, the search for Nancy and they closed up shop at the crime. And then they told the whole neighborhood, you're all safe, there's nothing to worry about here.

[A]

And then they waited Tomasso's house so

[B]

this guy to tell us that he's known since day one that there's some terrible boogeyman out there. But on day one he's treating Tommaso like the boogeyman. And that is what the police were doing, not what Ashley was doing. I had a source telling me where that investigation was and that is where it was. So this guy, you know, it's sad because I'm a huge supporter of law enforcement. Have been for a long time. I even host On Patrol Live when Dan Abrams is off. You know, I've always been a big supporter of law enforcement. But when a guy like this takes the helm, he does a disservice to all the good men and women in blue who are honest and who have integrity and then operate investigations with the investigation in mind, not with themselves in mind.

[A]

Well, when you say that you have a different theory, what's your different theory?

[B]

Well, it's just sort of simple, I think. So often in mystery we tend to go to all sorts of lengths to imagine what happened. And generally speaking, the answers are pretty simple. I think this was just probably, you know, a sick individual who had sick intentions against a vulnerable person. And it happens. And I know it's really hard to talk about it because this is of course a public figure's mom. So we sort of feel like you said in the segment, we all feel like we kind of know her now because we've all seen the segments. But the truth is sick people do sick things to vulnerable adults and children. And I think that Nancy might have been targeted by someone like that. I looked at that kit and it looked much like what Matt Murphy talks about a lot of times. Homicide prosecutor from California. It's just not that complicated. And I hate to say that. I just think, why would someone take the victim? Sometimes things go sideways and then perpetrators act in real time and do whatever is the first thing in their minds. And sometimes it's, I've got to get rid of this person. I've got to get rid of this body.

[A]

Matt's been saying from day one that we should not rule out that this was a rape case and that that's what the motivation of that man was going. And he's talked about how he's prosecuted a lot of these geriatric rape cases which it most of us didn't even know was a thing. But it is a thing and it's something we have to reconcile with because it's a possibility here. And apparently in the vast majority of these cases, Ashley, the perpetrator would be a younger man. It's not like a 60 year old man who does this. It's somebody in their 20s or 30s, which would match up, we think, with what we saw on that porch.

[B]

92% of geriatric rapists are in their 20s. And you're right, Megan, it's not something we think about. It's not something we imagine is possible. I mean, if you ever have these discussions, and quite frankly, in the true crime community, we talk about these things all the time. This case has been different. There's been a lot of favoritism and sensitivity to reporting on this case. I mean, on day five when the sheriff said they towed Annie's Car, Nobody reported it. I just still can't understand why there has been this sort of hands off approach to covering the story. And so with this particular topic, I do get it. It's uncomfortable. God forbid, I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But in every other true crime story, when there's a mystery like this, we do talk about these things and we do go over all the possible scenarios because I also think it helps people in the public to start looking at people they know differently. I mean, we're all imagining this, you know, sort of hefty, pudgy burglar. But maybe if you thought about this potential scenario, you might look at someone differently. If you're thinking about a tip, you might know of somebody who acts in a weird way towards older women in that area, who disappears at night, et cetera. There may be tips that are spurred if you just think about a different possibility. And in every other case, we do. In every other case, we do talk about it. In this particular case, we have not.

[A]

You're right. It's probably because Savannah's famous and half the media knows her. I mean, NBC's own coverage has been. Has stayed, you know, 20ft away from anything involving Annie and Tommaso, which also seems irresponsible to me. I mean, they. They may have absolutely nothing to do with this, but they were the last ones to see her. Their house has been searched, we think repeatedly, but certainly for several hours in the evening, in the dark of night, they towed their car. That's absolutely fair game when you're reporting about the facts of this. And not only has NBC steered clear of it, but, you know, Jake Tapper of CNN was out there shaming people for even discussing it. It's like, I'm sorry you're friends with her, but that doesn't mean you skew your coverage of the case, whether it's on this issue or the issue of family members who could potentially have been involved.

[B]

Well, look, Jake, whatever, he. He's not on this beat, let me just put it that way. He doesn't know the arcane aspects of this. He doesn't know the arcane aspects of Idaho either. And I lived through Idaho where we had bald face lies given to us from a police chief who has taken it on the chin since about a dangerous man who walked among us, and he walked among us for six weeks. And so I, as a reporter, and

[A]

they told us there was no threat,

[B]

no threat to the public. Go about your business, you know, send your girls out, you know, to the campus at night, whatever. And it was bullshit. And this guy was going into work beside women who afraid of him. Had they known that there actually was a threat to the public, maybe they would not have gone into that office. Maybe they would have demanded to work remotely. I don't know what happened to anyone else in those weeks that Brian Coburger walked free. I don't know how many parents decided to. To not haul their kids back from Moscow or Washu, wherever they were, because they got the assurance from the police that everything was fine. So when I lived through that and a few other instances along the 38 years I've been doing this, I have like, hey, gloves off. If you're gonna say things, then I'm going to report what I see and what I hear as well, because it's in contravention to what I'm hearing from within your own department. You saying that is different. Right. And then today you saying this, that we've got a boogeyman out there. Now, I don't know if you're just trying to deflect. The problem is, is that we have to chase the truth. That's our master. We don't kowtow to authority because otherwise I'd be profitable. Mm.

[A]

Exactly. Thank you. I could completely relate to that on a number of fronts, politically and criminally.

[B]

Oh, by the way, Megan, I actually was in Soviet Union and got to see Pravda for reals in 1991. And I talked to people in Soviet Union best I could through French. Oh, gosh. I was speaking three languages with people. Ukrainian, Russian, French, and English. And I remember just the fear and terror of even having discussions with people in the open air, you know, no microphones anywhere. 1991. The fear that people had about talking about the government back when, you know, Gorbachev had just fallen. This was, like, right at the time that the Soviet Union became the Commonwealth of Independent States. So I have lived through. And by the way, I've also been in Iraq and Iran and all these other places where you can't talk out loud. So I live differently. I believe in our system, and I believe that we should be questioning authority. And as long as you do it respectfully and your sources are ironclad.

[A]

Yeah. And you've been doing that all along. I know people have really focused in on your reporting, which, by the way, no one's undermined. No one's ever come out and said, we have a source that says that source is BS and doesn't know what he's talking about. It's like, okay, the investigation may have moved on. We don't actually know. We have no idea what. Who's going to be arrested for this, if anyone. And what we do know is the sheriff is now saying he. He thinks he knows the motive and it's been the same all along. And we're in danger. Okay, the community is now in danger. You had six weeks. Not in danger. Now suddenly you're in danger. And you could get targeted. Even though this was targeted, but still the community at large is in danger. I mean, like, so was he wrong

[B]

then or is he wrong now? Right. Was he wrong then or is he wrong now?

[A]

I'm trying to read his tea leaves. He's projecting it's a B and E. He's projecting you could be in danger because this is a breaker, an enterer, and he could target your house next. But when. But he says Nancy was targeted, quote, targeted. That must mean something other than as Savannah's mom. Like, maybe she was targeted because she had a nice house or because she was an 84 year old woman and he had some sexual fetish.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

But it would be nice if you give some guidance to a community that is probably a bit on edge. Ashley.

[B]

You know, I've been listening to and watching Brian Enten's podcasts every single day. All of his coverage. I read his tweets. I'm a bit obsessed. And I think it was yesterday's podcast. Brian interviewed a woman named Laura, I think her first name was, who was a neighbor of Nancy Guthrie's who talked about the fear that she now feels since the sheriff made this proclamation. I think, what was it? Thursday or Wednesday of last week, whenever it was midweek and on week six. And I realized, like, this is the. This is the result. I wish more neighbors had spoken publicly because they. I wish that the Sheriff Nanos had seen the result of his words. There are real people who are afraid because now they think there's a maniac out there. So are you being true today, Sheriff Nanos? Should Laura and all her neighbors be afraid because they are really afraid now, or should they have been so restful and, you know, should they have had no fear at all since day one for the last six weeks?

[A]

Well, Ashley, you're so right. And especially because now I'm gonna play. We actually have some of that from. From Brian. This is from March 16th. Let's play it. And then I'll make the second half of my point. Saddle up. 11. Are you nervous?

[B]

Are people nervous? I. I saw that quote Today and I saw that he was just really talking with NBC reporters. And I think he's.

[A]

It's a little bit ambiguous.

[B]

I think it's targeted, but we're not sure. I'm just not quite sure what that means. But it did cause, you know, my hair to raise up a bit when he said that.

[A]

And it, it did give me, you

[B]

know, some time to think about what that means.

[A]

And it made me a little bit uncomfortable being, you know, a nearby neighbor.

[B]

I was thinking about that today on

[A]

my way home from my appointment.

[B]

Like, okay, what does that mean?

[A]

And, and does that mean there could

[B]

be somebody else lurking around, somebody that's just looking for easy targets? He said it was targeted, but. Targeted based on what?

[A]

Because he also said you're in danger. That was Laura. And the second point I was gonna make about it, Ashley, is not only does she get this warning six weeks later from the sheriff, but she gets it just at the time that all the media's gone. The media's gone. So, like, there's a sense of security when you look out your window and it's, you know, head to toe, you've got people up and down the lane. They're all gone now. So it's gone back to this isolated, dark community. Just as the sheriff says, everyone's in danger.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank God that there are enough media who decided to really follow this case. Right. And report what was happening on this day one that Sheriff Nano says he's known everything since. And shame on those who shat on me for saying this was where their focus was, because maybe their focus was wrong. Because if what Nanos is saying now is true, their focus was wrong and they may have lost a lot of valuable time. And they could have warned those people a lot earlier had they opened the aperture perhaps a little bit more. So, you know, I guess to the Jake tappers of the world, I say you refrain from reporting certain things because of whatever self established morals you've put out there. But the rest of us are concerned about safety and truth from authority. Because if my parents were living in that neighborhood, I would have wanted them to know what was going on, not whatever platitudes the sheriff was choosing to say that day.

[A]

And also the nerve of like that one local Democratic representative who I can't remember her name right now, but she was like, get out, get out. Independent media go home. The nerve. As you know, having been in the crime business for a long time, and I cover a lot of crime too, just to give my legal background every missing Family. Every family in America that has a missing person would give their eye teeth to have that kind of coverage, independent broadcast or otherwise, of their missing loved one. That's how you put pressure on law enforcement.

[B]

Yeah, I have 40,000 reasons why that idiot shouldn't be in office. They're called tips. They came into the FBI and they came into the homicide unit of the local sheriff. And but for that coverage that she disdained, I dare say that those tips wouldn't even have gotten into the thousands. And like you said, ask any family of a missing person, they beg for coverage like this. And I'm sorry if it made for uncomfortable parking, but I dare say as well that parking was bullshit. It had nothing to do with why Sheriff Nanos made a parking restriction. He shooed everyone away. Everybody but independent media.

[A]

Yes. Her name is Arizona state legislator Alma Hernandez. And how dare she insert herself in this way? I mean, I just. It was absolutely shameful. Does she have a missing loved one? Is it her mom who's missing?

[B]

No.

[A]

I didn't hear the Guthrie say get out. And we don't want any more independent media covering this case. I think every family in America that has lost somebody and they don't know what happened to them would love to have the JLR investigates and the Brian Entens Ask Get Smart and the Ashley Banfields and the Megyn Kelly of the world covering this non stop ask.

[B]

Ed Smart. Ed Smart also had the microscope on him. I remember the awfully awkward and uncomfortable interview I did with Ed and Lois Smart in Salt Lake City in the first few weeks of Elizabeth's disappearance because the entire focus was on him. Not the entire, but a very, very deep part of that investigation was on Ed and the media was asking questions about Ed as well. And. And Ed never said, get rid of the media. Ed stood up and was in front of the media asking, find Elizabeth. Find Elizabeth. Find Elizabeth. And what ended up finding Elizabeth? The face of Elizabeth was out there and the police officer recognized her when he saw her. You know, so Ed will tell you, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. They do focus on family. It's how investigations go. And it sucks. But you get that added benefit of all those eyeballs when your story goes viral. So it is again, any family will tell you of a missing child. They would take the awful for the great of media scrutiny any day when their loved one's missing.

[A]

I want to ask you about a bunch of things about this case that are bothering me and other people and just get your quick takes. The fact that Sheriff Nanos would not accept the help of any search group. These storied, smart, organized, successful search groups that you and I have seen go in to many missing person cases and do grid searches and really help repeatedly said no to those groups and didn't organize his own civilian team to do a grid search, you know, because with the volunteers that you get on a case like this, you have way more bodies than you have in a police department or an FBI at every turn. He said no. What do you make of that?

[B]

I don't understand it. You know, if I give him the benefit of the doubt, he doesn't want to compromise evidence that's out there. But if the evidence just if a tree falls in the forest, you know, and it's frustrating because. Because groups like the Cajun Navy, they're oftentimes made up of a lot of former law enforcement and people who have training like this, and they are savvy enough to know if you see it, photograph it, call it in, don't touch it. And it is stressful because if we are looking for Nancy Guthrie, who may no longer be with us, then someone needs to be looking. The desert is very big. It would be helpful to be able to get closure in this case, maybe even some evidence, because anything that would be with her could provide clues, right? It could provide skin, hair, fibers from someone else's clothes. Lots of cases have been. Have been actually solved through someone else's fibers from their shirt, you know, or a piece of tape. Because tape is an amazing little grabber of DNA and skin cells and hair. Just ask the Long island serial killing suspect. That's how he ended up behind bars, because of the tape and all the shit that you got stuck to the tape from allegedly his home. So, yeah, I feel like if we had people searching the desert, like, maybe they could search Gogo beach, we might actually be able to find some resolution in this case.

[A]

Whether you think this was a thorough investigation of the crime scene in the initial days.

[B]

No. I mean, I don't think 24 hours is quite enough. Crime scene was released and the search was called off all on Monday. And this happened on Sunday. So February 1st is Sunday. February 2nd is Nanos big news conference, his first one, where he says, we're calling off the search and we're gonna treat this like a crime scene now. But released it to the family and the pizza delivery guy and the reporters who walked up and saw the evidence of blood on the front doorstep. And whoever else showed up, I mean, everybody showed up. And so it's very frustra to see the subsequent searches by the FBI and other CSI teams long after the fact. I mean, will it give them answers? I don't know. Did somebody step on the footprint that might have been the footprint of this monster?

[A]

Probably.

[B]

Did anybody decide to take the front mat? Did anybody decide to take the actual bracket that the nest cam was on? No, not for a couple weeks. And P.S. when you take something out of your mouth like, I don't know, a bite, like your saliva's all over your little gloves that you thought you were protecting your fingers from so perfectly, and then you mess with that actual nest cam and your DNA gets all over the bracket. The bracket was up for two weeks until finally the white tented day revealed that it had finally been gone. So, no, I don't think it was processed appropriately. And what frustrates me about that, again, benefit of the doubt and grace here. When you don't know that you're dealing with a crime like this and you think it's just a missing person, like General McCasland in New Mexico, you think maybe he's wandered off or. I know they don't think he has, but you don't treat it like a crime scene right away. But they had blood, and so it was.

[A]

And it should call him Homicide to

[B]

take it right away. Yes, the first hour. Well, listen, not even in the first hours. My source said that those droplets that you're showing right now are mimicked inside the same pattern that you're seeing there. Straight up and down, except for that sort of aspiration looking one. Those same patterns are mimicked inside the house. And that when the patrolmen arrive for the phone call from the family saying, we think my mom is missing and we need help. The patrolmen were told by some other officers who arrived. Get out. We have something much different on our hands than a missing elderly woman. They saw, according to my sources, the back door wide open. They saw the blood in the house. Unfortunately, I can't tell you where. I wish I knew, but my source didn't have the knowledge of where exactly those blood drops inside the house were. But if I were a guessing man, it's likely in that front entrance area because they were aware right away, according to my source, that back door's wide open. Blood drops are here. Blood drops go out the front. Get out. Don't compromise the scene anymore. We need to bring Homicide in. And that all happened within minutes, as my source told me.

[A]

I mean, walk us through what you think that means, because it seems pretty clear that this guy did not get in through the front door. You know, it had that gate on it that made it virtually impenetrable according to virtually everybody. There was actually a sound bite from the neighbor, that same woman, Laura, with Brian Enten. And here's what she had to say about that gate. We've had law enforcement experts on here talking about that gate. I want to get one of those gates. But they say you basically, if you have that on your front door, no one's getting through. Here it is in Sat 12. And I don't like to speculate, and I always also assumed it was two people because of, of the person who was at the front door and he was standing there.

[B]

And I don't think he was the main person.

[A]

I think he was the guy outside who was waiting for them to come out.

[B]

Because if you have a gate like that, a security gate on the front

[A]

door, you're not getting into that. You're never going to break into that security gate. I mean, I, I actually talked to a security guy about two or three

[B]

weeks, three weeks ago, and he confirmed you're not breaking into those gates. So I think. And you know, she has glass on both sides of the door. And I think he was trying to see.

[A]

And so when he was standing there,

[B]

he wasn't trying to figure out what to do. He was trying to look to see what was going on. And also because you have a security

[A]

gate, the door, the wooden door, if

[B]

that's open, it's hard to see inside if it's dark.

[A]

Cause I have one of those, you can't really see if the door is open or not.

[B]

So I think he was standing there

[A]

waiting for someone to come in. Out. Very interesting theory would dovetail as well with the speculation that possibly that item we see in the perpetrator's pocket is a walkie talkie. We don't know. Could be a police scanner, could be something else entirely. But if there was a second person, would work and with your theory would work because it does seem clear that the perpetrator actually gained access to the house through the back door. At least that's seems clear to me because clearly they had Nancy, we know that's her blood on the front porch when they went out the front porch door. So they, when they had Nancy, she exited through that front door. And I accept that he was not able to get into that front door on his own. So is that what we think, Ashley? He came in through the back door. You said you saw signs of force. Not you, but Your source said there were signs of forced entry, so that's how they got in. And then they brought Nancy out the front and presumably into a car.

[B]

Correct. I mean, that. That's what the source said. In my opinion, based on the knowledge of this back door being wide open, blood being inside, blood being outside, in the same pattern, it kind of looks as though they were in the house and came out through that front area, that front door. And yeah, you're not getting in through one of those, you know, security doors. But I don't see why it's, like, so tricky here. You know, like, if you see other crimes where. Where people have been taken, it isn't difficult to see how blood can be dripped. Right. I think about the Nancy Woodrum case. I did a podcast episode on Nancy Woodrum's case in Paso Robles, California, and the perpetrator in that case was a rapist. And she was. People got really angry when I said elderly, but she was, I think 62 or 64, I can't remember, but on the older side, and vulnerable, living alone. And he broke in and took her out the door, up over his shoulder. And there was blood in that case as well. And I. I disagree with Laura in the fact that I do believe this person worked alone, especially with that particular theory. People don't typically work with partners when they do that. But I asked the sheriff who ran or the lead investigator who ran the. The Nancy Woodrum case. Well, how hard is it if, God forbid, Nancy Guthrie were dead, to take her out over your shoulder? One person, 150 pounds of dead weight is extraordinarily difficult. And he said, oh, no, it's not. Absolutely not. Not only did that perpetrator take her out of her home, he also took her 100 yards off of the road, 50 yards of which was over his shoulder and the last 50 yards of which he dragged her. So it's entirely possible for one. And that guy was only, I think, five, eight. He said he was a smaller guy, so it's not difficult to do that. And it's. I mean, the case, the most bizarre case. Look it up. It just. It mirrors Nancy Guthrie's case so frighteningly, like, to a T, even to the detail of who did they catch?

[A]

The. They caught the perpetrator in that case?

[B]

Yes. Yes, they did. And in the Nancy Guthrie case, I wish. Well, listen, I don't know what they're doing specifically, what the FBI is doing specifically to run down leads, but in the case of Nancy Woodrum, it took them seven months I mean, listen, we're at what, you know, two and a half or one and a half, you know, six weeks. Yeah. And it took them seven months, but they ran down every single person. There were a lot of people on the property that night. She had rented out her main house to a wedding, so they had to go through all the wedding guests, and they did that. And everybody seemed a little suspicious, like there were all sorts of hinky things that went on, but they. And her own son was a suspect as well and behaved bizarrely. Refused to give his DNA, refused to help them find his missing mother. So, yeah, suspect. But then they had male DNA inside Nancy Woodrum's bedroom, and everybody that they had looked at, you know, ended up being xed out because of that. But ultimately, Megan, what they did was they went through every single contractor who'd ever been there. They also geofenced and found his phone.

[A]

Phone.

[B]

I think since then, criminals are a little bit more savvy about having. Not. Not having their phones with them, not just turned off, but not having them with them, unfortunately. And, yeah, sadly. Well, we'll find another tool. But they got this guy, and he was clean as a whistle. Right. That's why nothing happened in codis. He didn't have any background, any criminal background that he'd been caught for. And he was married with a kid, and he was in his 40s. And Nancy Woodrum had been nice to him. He was a painter, and she'd been nice to him. She gave him tamales, like she'd made some tamales and gave them to him and said, oh, these are mine. I'm sure they're not as good as your mother's, but. And he, for some reason, took that as flirting. So he came back, you know, the next night after the tamales and left his wife. Apparently, he stepped out on her a lot, left his wife and child at home, did this horrifying thing. But, Megan, he stopped at a church on the way. He stopped at a fucking church and prayed, I guess, for 20 minutes or so, and then continued on his murderous, horrifying, rapey rampage. And that was his mission. He went into. To rape Nancy Woodrum and he killed her. And then he took her out over his shoulder, out through the door, into the vehicle, drove 60 miles. That's another weird one. Drove 60 miles to a place where he dragged her, like I said, off the road, 100 yards into the desert. But when they caught him, Megan, this is the weird part. You don't usually get this in our business. He sung Like a canary. He told them everything. It was the most bizarre thing. Yeah, they got him in an interrogation room and they said, we've got your phone in Nancy's room. And he tried to give them some crap story about, well, I went to get a ladder and I accidentally hit her with my car. And they're like, mm, try again. And then he, he just opened the floodgates and he took them to the body. And the investigator told me had he not taken the police to the body, they never would have found her. And when they did find her, they barely could find her. The activity in the desert, the animal activity had done its work in seven months and it would have been next to impossible to find her.

[A]

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[B]

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I mean pronunciation. Visit RosettaStone.com today. Rosetta Stone How Languages Learned hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Drishinski, Jessie Kelly, RealClearPolitics, and Mel many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. I agree with you. I'm not sure whether Laura's right that he had an accomplice, that this was like the man waiting to receive Nancy on the front porch. It that that's not necessarily true. He actually that could have been deeper there kind of figuring out whether the front door was going to be an option for him and figuring no it's not, I'm going to go around to the back door where he had more luck with an easier door without that big gate over the front of it and then clearly took Nancy out the front. Yeah, you go yeah.

[B]

Either that or, you know, if we take our sources at their word and this is not my source only I had a source said this. You did. Everybody had the source that said that those two images were taken on different days. The one without the backpack and without the gun was taken on a different day than the one with the backpack and with the gun. I'm still not 100% of the day isn't just a few hours earlier because it was a different day a few hours earlier. But I have a feeling it's possible that what he was trying to do was just get rid of the camera. I mean, it wasn't that I want to get in. I just want to get rid of the camera so that I can bring her out without the camera catching. All this business of how I walk and how I bend and what if something happens and then they see a tattoo or whatever. So I feel like that must give that, though.

[A]

That's one of the things that this really mystified me of this about this, the timeline, because they said at 1:47, the cameras went offline. And then at 2:12, image detected. To this moment, I don't understand that. Like, you know, there's been discussion. Was there a WI fi jammer? At 147, it turned off the Nest camera. But then at 2:12, was it working? Because we see the images of the guy, but those were retrieved images. So, like, do you understand, do you what they're trying to say with those two different times?

[B]

Yeah, it's a bit, you know, tricky. But I do think that the WI fi jammer isn't an impossibility. They're temporary. Right. And so it is possible that he did a WI FI jamming and then started messing around the house and taking out the backlights. Right. So that there'd be no images if the cameras popped back on. And we know that the cameras are plural. My source said from day one, cameras, plural, nest cameras, plural, smashed. And so if you think about it, he could have been around the back. He could have jammed the wi fi at 1:47 when he arrived, gone all around the house doing whatever business he wanted to do to make it dark and get rid of whatever cameras he could find. And this is the last one, because this was the one. Perhaps he wanted to leave the house with Nancy. And so what I see differently what everyone else sees. When he comes up with those vines, I see something else. I don't see him trying to hang the vines to obscure the camera. That's just silly. I see him taking a vine and testing it. I feel like he's testing the strength of it. And then I see him kind of with a fist around those vines and I think he's trying to put the vine between the camera and the mount and yank and yank that camera off. Because the camera and its mount, its bracket, there's only like an eighth of an inch or so. It's very, very, very narrow. It's almost like a, the width of a quarter in between those two things. We all have them. Right. And so it's hard to get your fingers in behind there and pull it. And I think that's what he might have done at the beginning when he, when you saw him, he put his hand over and it felt like he was like, you could see him almost squeezing in the beginning. And so then he starts MacGyvering and looking around for some, you know, something he could use to yank it or get between it or to wedge it off. And he, you know, gives the inner part of the entrance about, about a two second scan and then sees the vine and pulls on that vine. And I feel like he's sort of testing the strength of it. And then I feel like he might be trying to yank the, the camera off in any case. Michael Ruiz from Fox Digital said in one of his early reports, I think in week two, I think that there were small glass fragments below where the nest cam was, which would track with what my source said earlier on day one and two and three, that cameras

[A]

that they were destroyed.

[B]

Nest cameras. Right. He said nest cameras. So that ended up being true. Right. We're smashed. Yeah.

[A]

Well, we did a whole experiment with the nest camera on the show and what we learned was you can get that thing out of the cradle easily. All you have to do is like toggle it. You basically just hold it and you kind of wiggle it left to right. It's very simple. It's not hard. I did it and I'm not particularly strong or, or it comes with a little. It looks like a key, it's a flat key. It's about half an inch in length. And if you have that, you just kind of put it in there right in the back and it pops right off immediately. But it's not hard to get those things off of the cradle. And so I don't know whether this guy had familiarity or not, but those vines would have done it for sure. Because even just your hand toggling it while it's in this cradle will take it off. So you could be that. Absolutely.

[B]

His big fat hands with all those glovey things on. Maybe he was struggling for dexterity there. I don't know what it is, but I don't think he was hanging the vines. I mean, they're cute. They're like wedding vines. You know, they're not gonna cover anything. I think he was trying to clear a path to get out and that.

[A]

And then you're right, because when you get the camera off of the cradle, it continues to record. And it wasn't until we took a hammer and smashed the glass dome on it, which is right over the lens, that it stopped filming.

[B]

Yeah. We don't know what the other images they. They have are. And I. I get it. Listen, I totally understand that investigations. You got to keep a lot close to your vest. No problem. And if it's not helpful for the public, you know, if there's an image there that isn't helpful for the public to, you know, get eyes on and get more tips, then, sure, keep it close to the vest. So maybe they have something that. That shows those last moments of that. Of that camera being taken off. They may not want the perp to know that, you know, we. We know you have it. You know, we know you've got it with you, or we know what you did to it. But. But I think this is sort of simple. You know, if you need to get out that door and your vehicle is going to be, you know, close enough to be able to carry something very heavy, and the back door may have been too far with too many gates to get through. Maybe that's the decision. Yeah. That he made.

[A]

Yep. Yep.

[B]

The other thing is I want to tell you something else, Megan, and that is that my source said that the blood droplets inside the house are the same as they are outside the house in that they are not disturbed. They're not stepped in. There's no. There's no sign of struggle in them. There's not somebody walking in front, say, at gunpoint and dropping blood with the person behind them walking through it. It's not like that. From the description that I got, it's like this. Meaning if you think of the Nancy Woodrum case, the perpetrator put Nancy Woodrum over his shoulder, and then, you know, she was wrapped up in bedding. But if there'd been anything exposed and she'd been, you know, dripping blood, that would be dripping behind him as he was walking Nancy Woodrum out to the vehicle he put her in. And can I just tell you one other detail that's just batshit crazy? The perpetrator in the Woodrum case, he put. He was a painter. I told you that. And he had a painting truck, so it was like a. Like a pickup Truck with all of his painting supplies in the back. The. The paints, the gear, the ladders, whatever. And he put Nancy Woodrum in the back of that vehicle. In the back of that pickup truck. In all the bedding, like, wound up in all the bedding. He also grabbed her clothing from the next morning. She had laid out her clothing on her bed as a habit of hers. So he grabbed her next day outfit. She's in her pajamas. He wraps her up in bedding, takes the bedding, throws her into the back of the pickup truck, but then does not close the gate. And he drives for 60 miles like that. Now, granted, it's 2, 3.

[A]

Doesn't close the gate on the back of the pickup truck.

[B]

Nope.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

He drives with it open. Don't ask me why I couldn't get that answer. Believe me, I tried. It might have been that there was too much stuff and that she, you know, stuck out too far to be able to get the gate up. I don't know. Whatever it was, he didn't close the gate. What if people could see, huh? Like I know that's what I'm talking. I'd be like, are you kidding me? Who does this? It is four o' clock in the morning, it's dark, whatever. But the bedding ended up unraveling and blowing out. So they found some of this bedding and her outfit from the next day. You know, she was. She'd laid out her outfit for the next day, and they found that on the side of the highway. I can't remember how many miles it was down the road. Not that far. But that's what this guy did. He. I mean, they. They offered it.

[A]

You know what this is reminding me of, Ashley? And you and I talked about this at the time Kohlberger arrest. And once we found out it was him, this weird combination of very smart decisions and very dumb ones from the same person.

[B]

Yes, yes, exactly. And you can have somebody who, arguably Kohlberger is bright enough to get into a PhD program, but what a moron. He carried his phone like a brick. And you know, we all know that

[A]

you're ordered the knife on Amazon, orders

[B]

the knife on Amazon, drives his own car to a killing. What? Who does?

[A]

Anyway?

[B]

All these things, you know, people, as we learn of these crimes, it's why reporting on them is so important. You know, you've gotta know what these people are doing so you can protect yourself against them and we can get better at crime fighting.

[A]

We need. Where's this guy's really dumb mistakes, you know, like that's what I wanna know. It's not great for him that we have the images of him. That's one. But like where are his dumb ass mistakes that make it easy? Like he doesn't appear to have brought his phone. That's unfortunate. He did appear to hide his car from the NEST camera on the front. That's also unfortunate. However he got that backpack, it doesn't appear to have been at a Walmart cash register according to what Sheriff Nano says. So we, you know that was smart and that was very smart because that, that would have required a lot of advanced thought like I'm going to wear this backpack and maybe potentially get caught on camera and therefore I don't want to be seen on camera purchasing at a Walmart. So I'm going to get it secondhand. This is, I'm, I may be giving him too much credit. It might not have been that well thought out. But those leads have led nowhere. Finding the guy who has that jacket or the purchase of that jacket or the purchase site and the backpack, same. And like no obvious DNA. I mean they've said so far there's been no matching, no obvious like fingerprints with the gloves. Like he was, this guy was careful. It doesn't seem like it was his first rodeo.

[B]

Yeah, I, I, by the way I just, as you were talking I thought I wonder if he picked it up in a lost and found. You know because the kids lose their stuff all the time and, and lost and founds end up all the time stacked with stuff and nobody bothers to come and get their stuff. And so people might not even really know it's gone. But I would hope that again through all of this coverage somebody says oh yeah, my kid had that backpack and we lost it and we never found it again. And that might be a lead. But folks 1, 800, call FBI if that's you. But I think, you know, I often go back to the Casey Anthony case for stupid mistakes. Like Casey was, you know, she was never convicted of murder but she did a lot of stuff.

[A]

But we all know she did did it.

[B]

Well I'm never going to say that because the jury said that's, my strong jury said she didn't. Because you know what would be amazing is if you, if you got sued for libel and then you get all discovery, you get to actually talk about the case with her.

[A]

Right. She can't sue me for liable. It's my opinion that she did it. My opinion is protected.

[B]

So in the case of Anthony case I, I often say because I sat through every second of that case in the courtroom. And I often say that case was not won by a defense attorney. It was lost by terrible prosecutors who were egotistical and overstepped. Except for one named George, who was amazing. The other two were idiots. But in this particular case, I don't know that he's a mastermind. I think he's sort of the situation of the prosecutors he chooses. Got dumb luck in that it's super dark, you know, just super duper dark. And Nancy didn't have a subscription, so there's just not enough to find this guy in the night. And then, you know, Tucson. What the hell? What's with your flock cameras? What's with your egresses and ingresses? Like, why would you not be more protective of your folk? And so there's another, you know, misstep by the Casey Anthony prosecutors. Your. Your camera systems are awful. And. And this guy just kind of struck luck all the way along. That's my feeling about it. You know, I look at a guy who walks up at a door and isn't quite sure what to do and doesn't have the tool ready to go. So I don't think he's a mastermind. I just think he struck a really lucky vein in that there was a confluence of circumstances that were in his favor. Not by his design.

[A]

By the way, earlier this week on our program, Chad A. He's also former swat. He said he has a boots on the ground source in Arizona who told him there are no suspects and that the family has all passed polygraphs, quote, with flying colors. So, you know, I have that too.

[B]

Believe it or not. I cut the same. I go a little further on that. My source said, yeah, telling that. And I haven't reported this yet because I'm still trying to put my finger on it. And this was actually, like, I want to say, two and a half weeks ago, My source said that the family was all given polygraphs. They must have been given those polygraphs in the home that they were staying in the private home they were staying because they didn't march them into the sheriff's department to do that. And typically those polygraphs aren't given, from what I understand, in the sheriff's department anyway, but they must have taken the gear to the. To the home where they were at. But my source said that they cleared the family based on polygraph tests and voluntary voluntarily turning over their electronic devices. And I thought, well, that's odd. That's not typically how you clear somebody. You know, I would Turn over any device that I didn't use in a crime. It's just a weird thing to do. And polygraphs, as you know, they're great investigative tools, but they're. They're. You can't use them in court. They don't stand up in court because they. They're just. They're not the kind of technology that is as trustworthy as, you know.

[A]

Well, the other thing is, if I'm Savannah Guthrie, and I know very well that my family has been mentioned as possibly involved in this, and I don't believe they were involved at all, I would make sure I had the best lawyer money could buy for when they came out and sat with my sister and my brother in law. And I'm not sure who would have selected the poly. Polygamy, you know, I really don't like. You don't have to do it. You could say, we'll do it, but it has to be somebody that we find. And probably the cops would have said, okay. I feel like Nanos would have been like, that's fine by me. So we actually don't know the specifics of that. Like, the more I think about this whole week I've been wrestling with that news. Like, do I believe in this? Does it change my opinion of whether the family might possibly have had some involvement? I don't believe Annie Guthrie or Tomas were able to fool a polygraph. That doesn't seem likely with, like, a poet and a band member. Like, they've got some stone cold ice in their veins. I just don't know about that. But I'm not sure it's determinative of whether they're no longer under suspicion or not either.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. There are some FBI sources of a colleague of mine who told her that the FBI doesn't feel the level of suspicion about the family members as much as they did in the beginning. But again, again, that's hard to quantify. But I just feel like if you were so gung ho in the early part of the investigation about this family, to the extent that you did the things you did, and then halfway through the investigation, you wanted to clear them, then clear them. Don't drag things out and toy with the media and obfuscate because. Because it doesn't do them any good. And so it seems that sheriff Nanos has had a special place in his heart for the Guthrie family. He even said as much as, and I'll paraphrase here, like, savannah's Toussaint's daughter, and we love this Family, Which I also thought, look, that's fine if you feel that way, but you have to do. You have a job to do. You have a job to do. And in the beginning of an investigation like that, in any missing person's investigation, you have to start with the family. It's just 101. As sad and as difficult as it is, it's 101 1. You've got a job to do. So you shouldn't be making those kinds of comments. You shouldn't be telling everybody how special this family is that you're supposed to be investigating. You should just stick to the damn work and do the work, and after it's all resolved, have a coffee party or do whatever. But in the meantime, that doesn't give people a lot of faith in, you know, your. Your focus on this.

[A]

No, no one has faith. I. I know you have to run, so I just want to ask you two quick questions, if you can spare the time. Number one, quickly. Do you think this case will be solved?

[B]

So. I do. I actually really do. Like you and I were just talking about. This guy is not Mensa. He's done some things, and it will trip him up. Whether we are going to ever find Nancy is a different question. I'm not 100% sure about that, given the Woodrum case and what I learned in the Woodrum case case. It was very disheartening in that regard. And for that, my heart breaks for the Guthrie family. But I do think we're. Like I said, it took seven months to get Nancy Woodrum's killer. And I do think that with the full weight of the US Government and the technology and the bungling nature of this guy. Yeah, I do think we're going to find him.

[A]

Doug. Doug and I, every day, we. We. I love Zach, Peter. He's been commenting on this case online. He. I've had him on the program. He's very funny. But he's been helping draw attention to this. And he keeps saying, where's the lady? They never found the lady. You know, and it's like we, Doug and I, say that to each other. Where's the lady? Like, it's just a short form way of keeping her in our thoughts. They have to find the lady. They have to. Like, America has become obsessed with finding this particular lady for a bunch of reasons. And I just feel like they can get the perp. The odds go way up of finding the lady, of finding poor Nancy. Maybe they cut a deal, maybe they shave something off the punishment, but we've gotta Find Nancy. All right, the last thing I wanna ask you.

[B]

Arizona has death penalty, right? Arizona has death penalty.

[A]

So that's something to bargain with.

[B]

You can dangle death penalty and say, you give us the location. Cause not every day do you get the guy who came in and just coughed up every detail about the Nancy Woodrum murder.

[A]

Last but not least, Ashley. Savannah's gotta return to the NBC set soon. And the reports are that they're having lots of meetings, of course, as they would at NBC. You know, they have 10 meetings for everything. How should it be orchestrated? You know, how do they make it easy for Savannah? How do they make it easy for an audience that now is looking at Savannah as a crime victim primarily to start to see her again as a news anchor? And I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. You worked at NBC for a long time, and I have to ask you, because you and I talked about this before together on the air. NBC is not super chummy and always a family and so nice and so good to everybody. There are all sorts of cutthroat dynamics that will be going on behind the scenes. Even though this is a Savannah Guthrie case, even though this is her mother, even though there's a bunch of empathy for Savannah. Like, I'm sorry, but network news is just a toxic, strange. And the nastiness toward you by Katie Couric made national news. She wrote about in her book how she did not want to help you. Sorry, I just, like, it's just relevant because I've been trying to tell the audience you're going to be manipulated by the producers at NBC. They're working on it right now. And she admitted that she did it to you. You were so graceful about it, by the way. You were so kind. You were like, you're Canadian. You're a nice person. You were like, not always. Oh, I'm sad to hear that she did that. That to me, I would handle it a different way entirely. But you're a nicer person than I am. So just having said all that, what do you think the challenges are and how do you think this is likely to be handled?

[B]

You know, it's a really good question because you're right. I think the viewers will be seeing her as a victim, and she's got to get back to a new normal. But. But adopting your new normal, it's really tricky. And I can only speak from the experience of having been a victim in 9 11. That life was completely different afterwards. And I think probably it's ptsd. But I. For years Would break into tears at the mention of 911 in front of a crowd. And it was humiliating. It was embarrassing. Like, I remember getting up to do one of my first speeches in New York City. It was probably a year afterwards. I'd come back from war, and suddenly it just came over me, and it wasn't even a topic about 9 11. And I just started to cry on stage, and it was so embarrassing. And that was my biggest struggle, was to try to get back to my old normal and, you know, understanding that my new normal is gonna come along for the ride, you know, and so for Savannah, for her, it's gonna be really hard, you know, to be under the microscope those first few times. And then for the producers, I don't know. I honestly, Honestly, this is such weird territory. I don't know what's best probably to do. Packages and for viewers who are watching right now, packages are what you do when you tape things and you edit pretty pictures, Much like you saw those lovely things with her mom. They're not live. And you can break down and you can take a moment and then get back, you know, get your wits about you and continue. And so I'm assuming that maybe her return in the beginning won't be a lot of live, because live is what. Where it's just so unpredictable, fraught. And the pressure. Yeah, the pressure and the emotion, all of it is just so much. So keeping her limited in the live and more on tape with packages and interviews that might have been pre taped, that might be the easier way for her, but she will get through it. She will have her life back. But this will be the worst gnawing hole for her. And for that reason, you're right. They better find the lady.

[A]

You mentioned the 911 thing. I've got to tell the audience the story. You know the story because I've told it to you on the air before. But you on 911 is the reason I am sitting here. I was an unhappy lawyer. I was in Chicago. I was considering a career change. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And 911 happened. And of course, like everybody else in America who wasn't in New York, I had the TV on and I was watching NBC. And there you go. You were covered in the dust from the buildings falling, and you were the consummate professional. You did such an amazing job. And I thought to myself, for the first time, journalism is a public service. Like, this person is at great risk right now, and she's on the air like a complete pro, delivering the news. Without being overly emotional, without making it about yourself.

[B]

That is the cloud that we were in just about 45 minutes ago or so at the time we were there when the. When the first trade tower came down. My producer and I were overcome by the cloud of debris and smoke that came at us so rapidly. We had to break down a window to a. To an apartment building. We had to break the window and go into the second door inside just to breathe. Oh, my God. Look behind us. Please pan in this way. Please be careful of your baby. This is it.

[A]

That's the building coming down.

[B]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, no, we're. Listen. Okay. We'll be all right. We'll be all right. I think we're okay, actually. I think we're okay. All right, we're gonna have to move this way. We're gonna have to move. We're gonna have to move. That cloud is coming this way from here down on the ground level in Manhattan. What some of the things that have been collected from the street can show us. I don't know if you can zoom into here, Michael, but these papers were collected from 1 and 2 World Trade Center. The head. The of letters on them say those addresses here. The 81st floor deliveries. The 87th floor deliveries. The 90th floor, the 92nd floor. What kind of parcels have come in? They were found scattered within a mile.

[A]

And that was the day I decided I wanted to try my hand at this new profession because of you. And this is one of the many reasons why it's so annoying to hear people talk about you like you don't know what you're talking about. Like, no, no, no, this is a pro. She is the most professional you can get in this industry. And. And I had never thought of you as a crime victim. What I was seeing that day was a. Was a crime victim. Or that you would have lasting PTSD after everything that happened that day. But of course you would. Of course it did have a lasting effect on you. And it's.

[B]

I didn't see it that way for decades. I'm not kidding.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's jarring.

[B]

I didn't either.

[A]

Jarring. But I hope you know, like, when you think about your legacy from that day and the trauma that was caused, part of your legacy is sitting right here and is extremely grateful to you for your courage.

[B]

Well, it's very kind. The truth is I was shit scared, so I don't know how any of that wasn't coming through. And it was just sort of necessity's the mother of invention. You gotta get on the air. Just get it done. But I never thought of myself as a crime victim ever, until recently, because I realized, oh, yeah, you can't sort of be involved in the death of 2,000 people more than that and have them all around you and realize you just narrowly. Narrowly escaped it and then stayed in there for nine days without having some effect on you, you know, And I. And I knew that the crying was, you know, was a result of it. I just didn't realize. I didn't think of it as being a victim. I just thought of it as, like, what an awful experience I had to go through as a reporter. But lately I've thought of it as like, yeah, you were a victim before you were a reporter, so you became the reporter after you, you know, escaped that shit. But. But I'll tell you, PTSD is. Is real for people in the public eye who suddenly have to face people live. It comes at you, and you just don't even know it's coming. And it's seconds, and it's on you. So for that, I really hope Savannah doesn't have any of those moments, because they're impossible to control. I was on an airplane. The first airplane I took out of New York City nine days after 9, 11, on my way to Pakistan. And I was sitting up against the window, and it flew over. It flew over, over, you know, the World Trade center pit. And I just burst into tears. The man beside me was like, ma', am, are you okay? And I was hiding my face against the window because I was so embarrassed. I didn't know what was happening. This wasn't me. I'd never had that happen before. I could not stop. And it was heaving like a kid who's hyperventilating after crying so long. I couldn't stop. And I thought, I don't know what the hell that was, but that better not happen again. And it did. It happened for years. Doesn't happen now, but it happens for years. So I. For that reason, I hope Savannah gets a lot of help and limits the live for a while.

[A]

I agree with you. Baby steps back onto that set and into the public eye. Ever been in a bad relationship? You know the kind. It just wears you down. You settle in, even though deep down you know this is not how it's supposed to be. Well, that's what daily aches and pains can feel like. You stop expecting to feel good. You start thinking, maybe this is just my life now. But it doesn't have to be with Relief Factor. You can break up with pain just like Anthony did. He wrote, quote, I was dealing with debilitating pain and fatigue and I've been taking Relief Factor for about two months and now I'm back to running my business, fishing, gardening, doing the things that really matter to me. If you have back pain, knee issues or stiffness slowing you down, Relief Factor could give you your mobility back. Relief factor is 100% drug free. It targets the inflammation that causes pain, helping you move better, feel better and actually enjoy life again. Try the three week quick start for just 1995. Go to relieffactor.com or call 804 RELIEF break up with pain and get back to what matters. Such a pleasure talking to you, Ashley. Thank you for all the great work you've done on this case and thanks for coming on as always. We should do this more totally anytime. I would love it. And make sure you check out Ashley's show, which I'm sure you have if you're interested in this case. She's wonderful. She consumes Brian Enten the way I consume her show. And I love Brian Enten shows as well. And thanks to all of you for joining us for our week of special Nancy Guthrie coverage. Of course we are going to stay on this case and we are going to be staying on the news and I will finally return from my undisclosed location on Monday and we will be live again on politics and news and this and anything else that comes our way. Until then, have a great weekend and thanks to all of you. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear. Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end. This is very strange Angie. The one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.

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