Speaker 1: Folks.
Speaker 2: It is Sunday, February fifteenth, and two weeks ago today,
Speaker 2: eighty four year old Nancy Guthrie was reported missing, and
Speaker 2: after it first telling us how urgent the search was,
Speaker 2: the sheriff is now saying it could take years to
Speaker 2: crack this case. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Speaker 1: Robes.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of developments, necessarily concrete developments in this case.
Speaker 2: But this comment I found odd, surprising and disturbing.
Speaker 3: What is going on with all of those resources and
Speaker 3: the intense search that is going on right now and
Speaker 3: the hope that still remains for the Guthrie family to
Speaker 3: make a public statement like that doesn't seem helpful or
Speaker 3: I'm just confused why he would even go there. Maybe
Speaker 3: he's trying to temper expectations. Maybe he's trying to get
Speaker 3: reporters off his back saying this could take a while.
Speaker 3: But that is a bold and just discouraging statement to
Speaker 3: say the least.
Speaker 2: You said, maybe it was this, maybe it was that.
Speaker 2: Could it also maybe be that he had just an
Speaker 2: honest moment and they have nothing.
Speaker 3: Yes, I guess that is the case, and I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just you're not used to seeing investigators tip their
Speaker 3: hand like that, or police say something like that, especially
Speaker 3: when they know there's an expectant family holding their breath,
Speaker 3: praying every night, wishing and hoping for the best, and
Speaker 3: maybe privately you could temper their expectations to publicly say that.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's just a head scratcher for me.
Speaker 2: So let's put this in the full context of what
Speaker 2: he said, and we'll get We're about to give you
Speaker 2: the exact quote from Pima County Sheriff Nanol's out there
Speaker 2: who everybody's become familiar with at this point. With his
Speaker 2: case the Robes, he hasn't been doing well well. I
Speaker 2: don't even know when the last official press briefing was,
Speaker 2: but he has from time to time come out and
Speaker 2: done interviews. Certainly keeps the local affiliates there updated, but
Speaker 2: he hasn't been doing a lot of press. But he
Speaker 2: did around here over the past couple of days after
Speaker 2: there have been some developments in Robes. One of the
Speaker 2: outlets he did sit down with and give comments to
Speaker 2: was The New York Times. Not a lot of information
Speaker 2: in there, necessarily, but Robes. This jumped off the screen
Speaker 2: to me and it happened to be. I think it
Speaker 2: was the last line they put in the story.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's interesting. That wasn't even their headline.
Speaker 1: But it's everybody else's.
Speaker 3: Yes, this isn't that funny. So the comment is this,
Speaker 3: he said to the New York Times, the sheriff. Maybe
Speaker 3: it's an hour from now, maybe it's weeks or months
Speaker 3: or years from now, but we won't quit. We're going
Speaker 3: to find Nancy. We're going to find this guy. So
Speaker 3: it was oddly in a positive statement that he dropped
Speaker 3: this little bit of information that you know, wasn't something
Speaker 3: that any of us had heard before. As you pointed
Speaker 3: out at the top of this, every single comment we've
Speaker 3: heard from the sheriff and from investigators has been that
Speaker 3: time is not on their side, that this is an
Speaker 3: urgent search. There is an elderly woman who needs her medication,
Speaker 3: family members desperate defined her, and there have been developments.
Speaker 3: DNA has been found that does not match Nancy Guthrie
Speaker 3: or any of her family or close friends. So that's
Speaker 3: a very you would think positive development. They have been
Speaker 3: starting to detain people and question people, seemingly getting at
Speaker 3: least some sort of tip that leads them in a direction,
Speaker 3: which means there could be others. They have to sip
Speaker 3: through tens of thousands of tips and they need the
Speaker 3: one that actually points them in the right direction.
Speaker 2: And if so, I thought it was interesting as well.
Speaker 2: He used the word exhausting. But we've talked about it
Speaker 2: here ropes. You hear right after they released that front
Speaker 2: door camera video, they have a suspect they're looking at right,
Speaker 2: he's got a ski mask over there. Tips start flooding
Speaker 2: in after that, and they detained a guy and we
Speaker 2: were holding our breath and then there was nothing and
Speaker 2: the guy was released. And it happens to be nothing
Speaker 2: to it. Those ups and downs we're experiencing. He spoke
Speaker 2: on the experience in the menzuel and called them exhausting,
Speaker 2: that these ups and downs, and that guy this was
Speaker 2: another honest moment. He said, Yeah, that door dash guy,
Speaker 2: that first guy we detained. We thought that was it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, this has to be the evidence. Everything's there.
Speaker 3: Then you talk to people, you learn, you do your
Speaker 3: search anything maybe not. Yeah, I mean, look, this is
Speaker 3: it's interesting. When you have a local sheriff, Pima County sheriff,
Speaker 3: you probably wouldn't expect that he has a lot of
Speaker 3: experience dealing with a case on this level, and certainly
Speaker 3: not dealing with press at this level. At this level, God, yes,
Speaker 3: he's he's probably just being himself, being the local sheriff
Speaker 3: that he's always been. It doesn't always necessarily translate when
Speaker 3: you have an international story where you have a network
Speaker 3: news anchor's mother vanish and in such a bizarre, unexplicable
Speaker 3: way that he really he's had nothing in his career.
Speaker 3: I would imagine that would have prepared him to put
Speaker 3: him into spot life like this. So perhaps he says
Speaker 3: things and does things that may be members of the press,
Speaker 3: and certainly people who are reading these articles are thinking,
Speaker 3: why did he just say that? What did he just say?
Speaker 3: But you have to take him at his word. He's
Speaker 3: being honest. He's not putting on. He's not media trained,
Speaker 3: so to speak, where he knows the slick and smooth
Speaker 3: non answer to give. He's not a politician. So in
Speaker 3: a way it's refreshing, But we're also maybe even a
Speaker 3: little taken aback at how honest he's being in moments.
Speaker 2: And look, we have to start with just giving him
Speaker 2: credit for being able to do his job well behind
Speaker 2: the scenes. You don't have to be that versed in
Speaker 2: how to handle the press. Some are better than others,
Speaker 2: but when everybody is hanging on to your every word
Speaker 2: and desperate for information, every step can potentially be a
Speaker 2: misstep for this guy, and he is look, Roges, we
Speaker 2: haven't gotten into It doesn't necessarily have to. He is
Speaker 2: getting just ripped online left and right. And I understand
Speaker 2: a criticism, but who are we to say if he's
Speaker 2: doing this right or doing this wrong? Even this comment
Speaker 2: we're talking about might be an honest one. This isn't
Speaker 2: a criticism from us about what he's saying. For Rogues,
Speaker 2: it's it's been two weeks. They said, we don't get.
Speaker 1: This woman home in twenty four hours, the worst could happen.
Speaker 2: And to hear him in certain when he first said
Speaker 2: robes ah, damn, I ain't think about this till now.
Speaker 2: Should we have been taking the signs that this statement
Speaker 2: might have been coming? When was it when he said
Speaker 2: no further press briefings scheduled. He hasn't had one in
Speaker 2: a week plus. But to tell us this is urgent.
Speaker 2: We need to find her or she could die to
Speaker 2: no more press briefing schedules. And yet this thing could
Speaker 2: take weeks, months or years to find out. You put
Speaker 2: piece that together. Something is happening behind the scenes that
Speaker 2: is not giving them confidence.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think they're frustrated. You know, you have
Speaker 3: all this activity. The press is like three people have
Speaker 3: been detained. You're seeing white tents go up, and they're
Speaker 3: analyzing vehicles, and they're searching homes. And again, probably not
Speaker 3: something this Sheriff's department is used to doing to look
Speaker 3: for a missing person like this with the world watching.
Speaker 3: And so yes, he called the ups and downs of
Speaker 3: the case exhausting. As you pointed out, this is probably
Speaker 3: fairly new, a new intensity that he and his team
Speaker 3: have not experienced before. And yes, we're all waiting and hoping,
Speaker 3: and certainly the family is on another level. But the
Speaker 3: police feel that scrutiny and that intense pressure, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: they're probably not sleeping much, and he certainly is not
Speaker 3: sleeping much, so he might say things he wishes he hadn't.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine being Savannah's family and seeing that headline,
Speaker 3: even if you know in the back of your mind
Speaker 3: it's possible. Obviously, they've had to leave a certain small
Speaker 3: amount of space amid all the hope they have that shit,
Speaker 3: we might not ever find our mom. That's got to
Speaker 3: be that's the scary thought in the back of their
Speaker 3: head that they know is there that they probably have
Speaker 3: never acknowledged or don't want to acknowledge, and certainly not publicly.
Speaker 3: And now you got the sheriff saying it to the
Speaker 3: New York Times. That's tough to read.
Speaker 2: And it seems impossible, Robes that we could not know
Speaker 2: even in two weeks, that we don't know what happened
Speaker 2: to this lady. We don't know where she is, what conditions.
Speaker 2: It seems completely implausible all the resources. Now, how do
Speaker 2: you disappear? There have been people who've put extensive efforts
Speaker 2: into trying to disappear, and we find them, and.
Speaker 3: We still find them.
Speaker 2: And when they make tried as hard as Robes, how
Speaker 2: is this possible to just abscond with an eighty four
Speaker 2: year old, sickly lady who is not mobile.
Speaker 1: And I don't get this story. Baby.
Speaker 2: This is if you want to start throwing in theories
Speaker 2: about alien abduction, I will listen, because that makes just
Speaker 2: as much sense as some of the theories floating out there.
Speaker 1: Nothing makes sense.
Speaker 3: No, because you look the motive is never necessary when
Speaker 3: you're at a criminal trial when someone's been charged, and
Speaker 3: yet it's the thing that a jury wants to hear,
Speaker 3: and it's certainly something that police want to know when
Speaker 3: they're investigating, so that they can have a focus, have
Speaker 3: a place to know. Why would someone want to do this?
Speaker 3: And we've talked about it. Obviously it's either money or
Speaker 3: it's passion. It was something that this person clearly planned
Speaker 3: out with what they brought to the home that day,
Speaker 3: so it had to be premeditated. But the big glaring
Speaker 3: question is why why? And if you can't figure out
Speaker 3: the why, it's pretty hard to find the new.
Speaker 1: Robes it took her on purpose?
Speaker 2: If you wanted to kill her, would have killed her
Speaker 2: there right, Yes, if you want to take her, it
Speaker 2: has to be for money. Why are you going to
Speaker 2: take an eighty four year old woman who's sickly you
Speaker 2: got to take care of.
Speaker 1: It's so ransom makes sense.
Speaker 2: But how many notes have we've gotten from different TV
Speaker 2: stations and news outlets and now from somebody who's a
Speaker 2: rat who says, I know who.
Speaker 1: The kidnapper is. We give me money. Yes, this story
Speaker 1: is beyond no.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say. And the other option is, so
Speaker 3: maybe it started out. We've talked about this. It started
Speaker 3: out as a kidnapping, something went wrong. She she died,
Speaker 3: whether he or the suspect intended to or not. Wouldn't
Speaker 3: you then have to get rid of the body, so
Speaker 3: you can't keep it in your home like you can't
Speaker 3: like so, I mean, I guess there are ways, but
Speaker 3: I just like, it's so baffling.
Speaker 1: And you want to leave open And I said that you.
Speaker 2: I said this to you where we were in the
Speaker 2: car yesterday and we were talking about it, and wees
Speaker 2: the only way this story gets bigger is if somehow
Speaker 2: this woman is found alive, that she is found somewhere
Speaker 2: and Nancy Guthrie's comes out of this. Okay, you have
Speaker 2: to hold on to that hope, at least publicly. Robes
Speaker 2: with the information we know, we don't have any reason
Speaker 2: to think otherwise. The family don't know how much different
Speaker 2: information they have. But tones messaging have changed in the
Speaker 2: past two weeks of this story. But there have been developments,
Speaker 2: including DNA that Robes just mentioned, also new ways to
Speaker 2: submit tips, and there have been tons of them. Stay here,
Speaker 2: We'll give you the very latest, including what was an
Speaker 2: increase in police activity this weekend? All right, we continue
Speaker 2: here on Amy and TJ two weeks to the day
Speaker 2: that Nancy Guthrie was reported missing and still no signs
Speaker 2: of her robes. It's important to make this there was
Speaker 2: some increased police activity, and they made clear after that
Speaker 2: that no matter what you've been hearing about detainments and
Speaker 2: whatever else, we got nobody.
Speaker 3: No arrests, no suspects, no persons of interest, and thirty
Speaker 3: two thousand tips to go chase down.
Speaker 2: And that video made all the difference. And that's a
Speaker 2: good thing. You want to generate tips, But robes, there's
Speaker 2: so many now they say they got four hundred investigators
Speaker 2: going through thirty two. They have to decide which one
Speaker 2: this rises to the level. This one looks like we
Speaker 2: should go after this one first and then track that down,
Speaker 2: and then the next one and the next one.
Speaker 3: Thirty two thousand, that's overwhelming. I was curious with the
Speaker 3: DNA that we've talked about, because it is it is fascinating,
Speaker 3: with all of the theories that had been swirling around initially,
Speaker 3: and everyone always looks, including police, especially at the people
Speaker 3: who purported to love Nancy Guthrie or no, Nancy Guthrie.
Speaker 3: You're much more likely, obviously to be killed or have
Speaker 3: some harm come your way by a close friend or
Speaker 3: family member. But that DNA, at least the DNA that
Speaker 3: they found in the home, we don't know what form
Speaker 3: it took, but they were able to rule out family
Speaker 3: and her close friends. That is of incredible significance. I
Speaker 3: was curious because they say the DNA didn't hit a match.
Speaker 3: Obviously they've got folks who have already been arrested. They've
Speaker 3: got a basically a database, a database of folks they
Speaker 3: could link up to. That would have been the most
Speaker 3: obvious and most the easiest way, I guess for there
Speaker 3: to be some sort of a connection. But you were
Speaker 3: watching I woke up this morning to you watching True
Speaker 3: Crime per usual, and they were actually talking about taking
Speaker 3: DNA and putting it into one of these twenty three
Speaker 3: and meters types of databases and finding relatives and then
Speaker 3: hunting down the person. Yes, they might not have committed
Speaker 3: a crime, but they might have had relatives who go
Speaker 3: on to some of these ancestry websites, and that's a
Speaker 3: way how you can zero in and find a person
Speaker 3: at least who this DNA may belong to.
Speaker 1: Surely they're doing that.
Speaker 3: I was so if I woke up thinking about this
Speaker 3: case because I was listening in my dream, like stake
Speaker 3: to your to your show.
Speaker 1: They got that guy, by the way, Oh they did
Speaker 1: exactly that.
Speaker 2: That to your point, that's exactly how they tracked down
Speaker 2: a killer. This woman some genealogists. Lady just offered her
Speaker 2: services to a police department. She had to go to them.
Speaker 2: Kind of a thing. Well, IM, we have to assume
Speaker 2: they're doing this. They're doing absolutely everything, but robes. If
Speaker 2: they're doing absolutely everything, seems like something after two weeks
Speaker 2: should put them on some path. It's amazing. It's they
Speaker 2: the way they talk to us, Babe. They talk like
Speaker 2: they have nothing. They talk like they have nothing, and
Speaker 2: I'm blown away the DNA part. So now we're talking.
Speaker 2: They apparently other people worked at the home and whatnot,
Speaker 2: but everybody who was known to go in and out
Speaker 2: has been eliminated from this DNA. They found who was
Speaker 2: in there and robes even when they figured out, I
Speaker 2: don't know, leftover from a pizza delivery guy could have
Speaker 2: been left over, but we don't know if it's blood,
Speaker 2: if what they're talking about they found.
Speaker 3: Yes, So it seems as though if they're actually talking
Speaker 3: about this DNA they found that wasn't Nancy Guthries, you
Speaker 3: would think it had to be something that was from
Speaker 3: I would assume it'd have to be blood. I mean,
Speaker 3: just because it would be the only thing that would
Speaker 3: make sense that that would be of interest if it was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, I guess they're looking at fingerprints,
Speaker 3: are looking at everything, a cigarette, it could be.
Speaker 2: Who what any of this could be. They have set
Speaker 2: up now and how this who knows how this is
Speaker 2: going to go. They set up links the FBI and
Speaker 2: the Pema County Sheriff. Click on a link and you
Speaker 2: could submit any evidence. As it says, but any tip
Speaker 2: that's going to get flooded now probably.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you think about it. You got one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars out there for someone that's not chump change.
Speaker 3: It started out of twenty five hundred, it went up
Speaker 3: to fifty thousand, and now it's at one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: If you provide the information that leads to the arrest
Speaker 3: or conviction of the person responsible for taking Nancy Guthrie,
Speaker 3: that is a hell of a reward, and you would
Speaker 3: think it would be incredibly incentivizing.
Speaker 2: But whatever this bozo is, and maybe it did. The
Speaker 2: incentive is to get the money and try to insert
Speaker 2: yourself into a story and try to do a scam.
Speaker 2: But we as the latest note that we know of
Speaker 2: that has been received as a second one or not
Speaker 2: a third one, that came from someone who sent it
Speaker 2: to TMZ claiming that they know who the kidnapper is
Speaker 2: and now they want one hundred thousand dollars and they
Speaker 2: want it by sending me one part of it in
Speaker 2: bitcoin and I promise I won't cash it in until
Speaker 2: you catch the kidnapper and then I want the other half.
Speaker 2: What So that's where we are. That is at this point, Robes. No,
Speaker 2: they still haven't said that's credible yet. They haven't tol seven.
Speaker 3: No, they haven't. And I look, there have been almost
Speaker 3: every day. I think yesterday might have been the exception.
Speaker 3: There have been interesting, strange, out of left field developments
Speaker 3: that have kept this story in the forefront of a
Speaker 3: lot of folks minds. It's kept it on the front
Speaker 3: page of all of our online news sources, and certainly
Speaker 3: it's something people continue to talk about. That's good for
Speaker 3: the Guthries, who want people focused, want pressure on police. However,
Speaker 3: at a certain point, when you have the sheriff coming
Speaker 3: out and talking about it could take years and there
Speaker 3: really aren't any new developments. The biggest fear that you
Speaker 3: could possibly imagine for the Guthries is that people just
Speaker 3: stop caring because it just seems so hopeless and it
Speaker 3: just seems like there's nothing happening. So I fear that, like,
Speaker 3: at least some of these developments, even if they don't
Speaker 3: bear fruit, even if they don't get us closer to
Speaker 3: knowing who the suspect has is, at least it keeps
Speaker 3: the interest alive on the story, which is important.
Speaker 2: You talk about the interest, and you're right. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to remember the last significant, like real concrete updates. You know,
Speaker 2: it was the video, But other than that, so many
Speaker 2: of the updates have been bizarre.
Speaker 1: Here's another one.
Speaker 2: The sheriff in charge who just told us two weeks
Speaker 2: ago we new to find her in twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: say yeah, this could take years.
Speaker 1: That's a bizarre story, but still nothing concrete. Folks.
Speaker 2: We didn't expect to frankly hop on and give an
Speaker 2: update on the This has happened several times. We probably
Speaker 2: won't do a gu three update tomorrow, and then we
Speaker 2: wake up as something happens, we go, holy shit, is
Speaker 2: this so? We just wanted to hop on give you
Speaker 2: this update. This is something that you and certainly we
Speaker 2: are keeping our eyes on. We always appreciate you spending
Speaker 2: time and trusting.
Speaker 1: Us with this story.
Speaker 2: But always top right corner of your Apple podcast app
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Speaker 2: subscribe and get the updates. There have been a plenty.
Speaker 2: We will keep an eye on it, folks. We always
Speaker 2: appreciate you spending time with us on TJ Holmes on
Speaker 2: behalf of my dear Amy Robach.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Things youssssss