Sean Ramesh (2:32)

And you went into the heart of the speculation.

Luke Winke (2:35)

Yes, I did.

Sean Ramesh (2:36)

Of the true crime hysteria.

Luke Winke (2:39)

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Ramesh (2:40)

Tell us where you went and tell us what it looked like.

Luke Winke (2:42)

So I flew into Phoenix, Arizona, and I jumped in a rental car and I took out my phone and I tapped in Nancy Guthrie's address and I drove to Tucson about an hour and a half away, all pretty ordinary, you know. And then I took this one right turn onto a street, and immediately you could just tell there was all these cars parked on the side of the

Perry Vandell (3:04)

road out front of the home of Nancy Guthrie. And it is a media circus out here. There are some weird people that show up out here.

Jake Sullivan (3:13)

And so there's this guy in this

LifeLock Announcer (3:15)

car right here who literally drove by

Jake Sullivan (3:19)

like 50 to 100 times, very slowly. It's a pizza delivery.

Perry Vandell (3:23)

It's a pizza. Somebody pranking her.

Luke Winke (3:25)

There were drones overhead. There's just media people just kind of wandering around. There's people like filming like front facing camera videos and talking to their streaming setups.

Perry Vandell (3:34)

D29 the search for Nancy Guthrie. There's her home right behind me here in the Catalina foothills.

Sean Ramesh (3:41)

We're out here at the Nancy Guthrie home.

Perry Vandell (3:42)

Today marks one month since she has

Sean Ramesh (3:45)

been abducted from her home, allegedly taken out of her bed, per reports.

Perry Vandell (3:48)

Day 32. Where is Nancy Guthrie?

Luke Winke (3:51)

Guthrie.

Perry Vandell (3:52)

Back out in front of Nancy Guthrie home.

Luke Winke (3:55)

What's interesting about it, there's not like a police barricade or anything. Anyone can just kind of show up there to cover the case. And that includes journalists like me, and that includes random youtubers. That includes people who just have a morbid curiosity and want to see the site of what was for a while the biggest story in America. And yeah, it was pretty surreal. You know, it was, you know, it wasn't like you're outside a courthouse or something like that where you sort of expect the zeitgeist. It's just the side of a road in a nice neighborhood in Tucson.

Sean Ramesh (4:31)

Is there something about this Nancy Guthrie case that is particularly potent for these true crime tribes out there? Is it just that her daughter's super famous?

Luke Winke (4:43)

That honestly is part of it. Like, this is like a. A galactically famous person, almost like in like the subconscious of America.

TODAY Explained Host (4:50)

Good morning. It's November 26th. This is Today. It is so exciting to be here in Windsor. It is a charming town 20 miles outside of London, and it's really steeped in royal history. So in the name of science, I agree to let them film me all night taking part in an experiment, spending a night at a hotel to learn more about the consequences that come with a host of disruptions.

Luke Winke (5:12)

And I think also part of that is like, I don't know we live in kind of like a low trust culture right now. And I think people are maybe more eager to believe that, oh, maybe the sheriff doesn't know what they're talking about

Perry Vandell (5:25)

when it comes to the investigation. I don't even know if they can do a new investigation because so much of the evidence was tampered with and

South by Southwest Announcer (5:32)

botched at this point.

Luke Winke (5:33)

Maybe the FBI has bungled this.

Sean Ramesh (5:35)

The way this case is being investigated is completely ridiculous. It's botched and it's like a whole bunch of rookies are investigating.

Luke Winke (5:41)

So maybe you're maybe more inclined to think that a couple YouTubers might be getting to the bottom of something or are focusing on something that whatever authorities out there have missed.

Sean Ramesh (5:55)

You know, now that you mention it, I feel like I saw the director of the FBI in Italy, like, chugging beers with the men's hockey team instead of trying to crack this case.

Luke Winke (6:08)

I didn't see that so much from them. Cause I will say a lot of these content creators did seem to be right leaning, shall I say? And I think they were more interested in the Democratic sheriff of Tucson, but I'm sure that was probably in the bloodstream at least a little bit.

Sean Ramesh (6:24)

Did you get a sense being out there, how much people wanted to solve this case versus how much people wanted it to drag on for the views, for the engagement, for, who knows, the revenue?

Luke Winke (6:41)

I can't say that the influencers wanted it to drag on for the engagement, but I do think that the longer it went on, in some ways that was more validating for some of the influencers that were out there in the sense that it let them kind of exist in the. It exists within this narrative that, like, I'm the one that's gonna be able to solve this. I remember there is this one guy, this dude, Jonathan Lee Riches, jlr. He goes by. And the longer I was out there, his content stopped being so much about Nancy Guthrie and started being about stuff.

Perry Vandell (7:21)

How I understand people have to have health and fitness, but would you go, like, if you're a sheriff, would you go to the gym and work out? Just days. Just like the next day when Nancy goes missing, she said he's been there for days, like working out in the morning.

Luke Winke (7:37)

Like, I'm going to be out here. I can actually crack this case where they can't.

Sean Ramesh (7:41)

What's funny about that is here we are a month and a couple of days out from Nancy Guthrie being abducted and no one's figured it out. Not the FBI, not local law enforcement, and not these myriad influencers out there. What are the influencers doing out there?

Luke Winke (7:58)

So most influencers are literally just setting up a camera in front of her house and talking to a chat box that is full of people that are tuning in to just basically just stare at Nancy Guthrie's house and kind of wait for updates to trickle in or to share random kind of theories they saw on Twitter or, like, pass along rumors. And you might think that why would anyone tune into that? That sounds kind of boring. I don't have a great answer to that. But what I can say is, clearly there is a market for this. Like, the top guy out there, this guy JLR, he was getting almost like 80,000 concurrent views of people just staring at a static feed of Nancy Guthrie's house. I talked to another guy out there who's from California, and he drove out there. And the reasoning he said so is because he said, well, no one was taking the night shift.

Sean Ramesh (8:49)

So it sounds like you're describing a scene in which these influencers and, you know, chatcasters and whatever else, they're aware that they're not helping. They just want the views. They just want the engagement. Is that all it is?

Luke Winke (9:02)

Yeah.

Sean Ramesh (9:03)

I mean, how different is that, I guess, from CNN being out there and not breaking any new news?

Luke Winke (9:07)

Yeah. I think this is the thing I found myself thinking about a lot, because again, you are right. The engagement is really good. You are covering the biggest story in the world. And if you are in the game of true crime, this is where you want to be. You have the veneer of giving the people what they want. I am out here covering the story and piping it to the people that trust me on true crime. I didn't get a great sense that ultimately what these influencers were doing and what these cable news entities were doing were especially different. I think at the end of the day, everyone was sort of milling around Nancy Guthrie's house, waiting for the sheriff to show up to make their statements.

Sean Ramesh (9:44)

I guess you could say it's a free country, but it kind of isn't lately. And you could say, like, they're not hurting anyone, but they kind of are, because haven't they gassed up certain theories to the detriment of alleged suspects who weren't even suspects?

Luke Winke (10:01)

Yeah, I mean, the thing with, like, you know, if you're a traditional media entity, right. You're sort of bound by certain. Just a certain rules of how you go about this stuff. A good example is the sheriff, when I was out there, made a statement kind of reiterating that they had ruled out Nancy Guthrie's immediate family as suspects in this investigation.

Sean Ramesh (10:24)

To be clear, the Guthrie family, to

Luke Winke (10:26)

include all siblings and spouses, has been cleared as possible suspects in this case. The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are the victims in this case. And that's because there's been all this speculation that someone close to Nancy Guthrie might have been the person to abduct her. And I talked to one guy out there who was a true crime streamer, and he, you know, told me, it's like, well, I go about things a different way. I like to have direct interaction with my viewers. So when the sheriff put out that statement, I put a poll in my chat saying, like, hey, do you believe the sheriff? That her family had nothing to do with it? And in that poll, everyone said that, no, I think their family still had something to do with it, you know, which, like, that probably is where the public sentiment is. But it wasn't like he was taking charge of saying, like, no, guys, listen, we can't be talking about that, because the authorities ruled them out. Like, they were still willing to kind of engage. And that kind of speculation, which you could say is a little bit damaging and not necessarily helpful to solving the case, and that makes it a little bit less.

Sean Ramesh (11:28)

It's like doing your own research about vaccines, except you could ruin someone's life.

Luke Winke (11:34)

Yeah, except that I was talking to this guy who was an influencer out there creating content about the Guthrie case, obviously, and we were talking about how streamers like him get accused of, like, passing along misinformation because he had starred in a. It was an inside edition was out there. And they. They did this little feature about how he and these other influencers were putting out these rumors and that the police want them gone.

Investigator/Expert (12:02)

All this stuff, distractions like that, standing out here in the parking lot and screaming how bad the sheriff is, how does that help this investigation move forward?

Luke Winke (12:11)

And I was talking to him about that. I expected him to really push back hard against the idea that he was spreading misinformation. He did that a little bit, but that wasn't really the thrust of his defense. Instead, he basically told me that, listen, I'm going to get things wrong. I'm going to pass a lot. I'm going to get misinformation. I'm going to see tweets and talk about it. Then it might later prove that that tweet is wrong. But, like, I'm a true crime content creator, and that is. That's what makes true crime fun. The misinformation is kind of what makes true crime fun. Like to come up with a rumor and a theory and talk about that and explore it and maybe it get later debunked. That is kind of what we do here in true crime. Like, that's what I'm out here to do. Like the next day he was gonna go, like, investigate a golf course because some of his viewers thought that, like, her, like Nancy Guthrie's body might be stowed away in this gol. I don't know, I was sort of like, I was chilled about how much I related to what he was saying and how kind of icky it felt. Nonetheless,

Sean Ramesh (13:27)

If you want to read more about how the true crime influencers gave Luke the ick, head to slate.com and look for his piece titled the Haunting American Scene Unfolding Outside Nancy Guthrie's House when we're back on Today Explained, we're going to try and figure out why this case hasn't been cracked yet.

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Astetted Herndon (14:29)

Hey everybody, Astetted Herndon here. I wanted to let you know that Vox Media is returning to south by Southwest in Austin for live tapings of your favorite podcast. Join us from March 13 through March 15 for live tapings of Pivot, Teffy Talks, Professor G's Markets. Where should we begin with Esther Perel and the special live taping of Today Explained, hosted by yours truly. The Vox Media podcast stage will also feature sessions on from Brene Brown and Adam Grant, Marcus Brownlee, Keith Lee, Vivian Tu, Robin Arzon and more. Visit voxmedia.comsouthbysouthwest to pre register and get a special discount on your south by Southwest innovation badge. That's voxmedia.com south by Southwest. Hope to see you there.

Perry Vandell (15:19)

After decapitation strikes against Iran's leadership, what can we expect next in the escalating war?

Sean Ramesh (15:25)

The big question is if there is going to be a next strongman in Iran, what kind of strongman will that person likely be? I don't think that there's going to be another powerful cleric, supreme leader. I'm John Finer.

Jake Sullivan (15:39)

And I'm Jake Sullivan.

Perry Vandell (15:41)

And we're the hosts of the Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week we sit down with Kareem Sajapour to discuss what to expect in this next phase of the war against Iran.

Jake Sullivan (15:51)

The episode's out now. Search for and follow the Long Game.

TODAY Explained Host (15:55)

Wherever you get your podcasts, you're listening to TODAY explained.

Sean Ramesh (15:59)

Perry Vandell is a public safety reporter with the Arizona Republic. He's been covering the Nancy Guthrie case

Perry Vandell (16:05)

from the jump it began very large.

Luke Winke (16:08)

Good evening.

Sean Ramesh (16:09)

We do begin tonight with the urgent search and the race against. Time now to find the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

LifeLock Announcer (16:15)

It has been another gut wrenching day

Luke Winke (16:17)

here at NBC News as investigators search

LifeLock Announcer (16:19)

for Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy.

Perry Vandell (16:21)

I'm outside the home of Nancy Guthrie. It's now six days since the 84

Luke Winke (16:26)

year old disappeared without a trace.

Perry Vandell (16:29)

I think, you know, it became apparent that this wasn't an 84 year old woman who walked out of her home of her own volition. There were signs that she was likely abducted at its apex at least there were hundreds of law enforcement assigned between the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. It's not immediately clear as of now how many investigators remain active on the case. They haven't really gone into that. The Pima County Sheriff's Department gave this sort of vague description about, you know, reallocating resources, depending on the situation and context and things like that. But they have assured that it remains active and ongoing.

Sean Ramesh (17:25)

Tell us what we know about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

Luke Winke (17:28)

Sure.

Perry Vandell (17:29)

We know that in the hours prior to her disappearance she was at her daughter Annie's house for dinner and games and returned home just before 10pm and was dropped off by her son in law.

Investigator/Expert (17:47)

And we know that because we have a garage door open at approximately, I can't stress that enough at approximately 9:48pm at 9:50pm that garage door closes.

Perry Vandell (18:00)

Then her ring doorbell camera was disconnected, I believe a little bit before 2:00am

Investigator/Expert (18:07)

2:28, Nancy's pacemaker app shows that it was a disconnect from the phone.

Perry Vandell (18:13)

That was sort of the last sign that investigators had.

Investigator/Expert (18:15)

And at 11:56am the family checks on Nancy, discovers her missing.

Perry Vandell (18:22)

And then it's believed that she wasn't without medication that she took for a heart condition that she had. So there were concerns about her well being at the very beginning of the case because if she didn't have it then that could threaten her life as well.

Luke Winke (18:40)

This is an 84 year old grandma that needs vital medication for her well being. You still have the time to do the right thing before this becomes a worse, much worse scenario for you.

Perry Vandell (18:52)

We know that she had still a pretty sharp mind but limited mobility. And so that's pretty much the solid things that we know about this case.

Sean Ramesh (19:08)

Okay, so we know some. What don't we know?

Perry Vandell (19:12)

I mean, the big ones are who. Who abducted her.

Sean Ramesh (19:16)

Abducted Nancy Guthrie?

Perry Vandell (19:17)

Yeah, who abducted Nancy Guthrie?

Astetted Herndon (19:19)

Why?

Perry Vandell (19:21)

Like the motive? I mean, really core things about the case. The case began with sort of the possibility that it may have been an abduction for ransom. We had a couple ransom notes that were curiously shared with through the media.

LifeLock Announcer (19:42)

They're coming in all coming in the exact same way through our tip email inbox. It's always clear that it's the same person because they have that bitcoin account attached to it where they are still hoping to get the $100,000 reward.

Luke Winke (19:57)

At 6:42 on Monday evening, our station received a message via email, a possible ransom note linked to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

Perry Vandell (20:05)

They're trying to verify the authenticity of the notes, trying to get proof of life from her would be captor or captors.

TODAY Explained Host (20:14)

We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her.

Perry Vandell (20:28)

But so far, developments with the case appear to have stagnated.

Sean Ramesh (20:34)

Has there been anything that we know of resembling a really solid break in this case?

Perry Vandell (20:42)

So, I mean, I would say probably the biggest break in the case is the FBI's ability to get the footage and images from the doorbell camera. That was the first time that it wasn't really putting a face to it because he was masked, but a masked face, I guess, to, you know, someone who likely was involved in her disappearance. I'll note law enforcement didn't arrest anyone. It's sort of semantics. But they detained them. These people were never booked into jail on any charges or anything like that. They were sort of detained, questioned by authorities, and then later released. So they appeared to be breakthroughs at the time. I know, especially with the first detainment which came shortly, like hours after the release of the images and footage from the doorbell camera. And I know I and some of my colleagues thought, oh, they found the suspect. And then we're a little surprised when we later learned that, oh, guess it wasn't that person, you know. And to this day I don't think that investigators have ever elaborated on what led them to detaining that individual and anyone Else they detained. And since then, it's kind of just been a lot of, you know, we're reviewing hundreds of hours of footage that people have submitted. We're reviewing tens of thousands of tips that have been submitted to both the Pima County Sheriff's department and the FBI. And I guess one thing I would say for the breakthrough is the FBI have projected that the masked individual in the footage is between four five foot nine and five foot ten, average build.

Sean Ramesh (22:29)

Sorry, five foot nine to five foot ten, average build. That's like, I only see that every time I look in the mirror.

Perry Vandell (22:35)

Right, exactly. And then they've deduced that the backpack he wore was a like 25 liter Ozark backpack that sold at Walmart. But essentially that's it. And the other thing I'll mention is that, you know, police weren't called to the home until the late morning after she disappeared. She, Nancy Guthrie, was supposed to visit a friend's home to attend a virtual church service. And the friend notified family when she didn't show up. And then the family called police. And by that point, you know, assuming that she disappeared around 2am when her pacemaker disconnected from the app, whoever abducted her had an hours long head start from police.

Sean Ramesh (23:25)

It feels like with the amount of resources dedicated to this, because of the profile this disappearance, kidnapping has,

Investigator/Expert (23:36)

that there

Sean Ramesh (23:37)

would just be more known. By this point, do we know why we don't know more?

Perry Vandell (23:45)

While Nancy certainly lives in the Tucson area, there is an unincorporated community called Catalina Foothills. It's an unincorporated community that has an ordinance that strictly limits the amount of exterior lighting your residence can have. Having been out there, you know, in the evening, the sun has gone down, it is just pitch black. Obviously, you know, a lot of doorbell cameras and security cameras these days do come with night vision or, you know, something to that effect. You know, referencing back Nancy's doorbell camera, you can still clearly see the masked man approaching her front door. But if you were just out there, living out there, looking around, you know, this masked individual would have the COVID of darkness on his side. And so it's important to note that a lot of the traffic cameras out there, whether it's a traffic camera at an intersection or on the highway, those aren't recorded.

Sean Ramesh (25:05)

It's weird because, you know, whoever kidnapped Nancy Guthrie presumably did it because they thought, oh, maybe I'll get like a big payday out of this. And yet by keeping her for longer, you're just prolonging your payday. Unless she's dead, is there a chance we'll never know what happened to Nancy Guthrie.

Perry Vandell (25:27)

I think that that is the question that we're at at this point is are we ever going to figure out what happened to Nancy and where she is? And at this point, I don't know. That's kind of the unfortunate situation that we're in is we just don't know whether she's gonna be found.

Sean Ramesh (25:52)

That was Perry Vandell. You can read him@azcentral.com Kelly Wessinger produced the show today. Amina Al Saadi edited, Andrea Lopez Crusado was our fact checker and Patrick Boyd mixed. This episode of Today explained.

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