Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Tennessee teen Savannah Leigh Pruitt disappears from bedroom, FBI searches 4 states

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

The search for missing Tennessee 14-year-old Savannah Leigh Pruitt is in it's third week, but investigators are still looking for clues to decide if the teen ran away from home or was abducted. Nancy Grace explores the case with the lead investigator, Monroe County, Tennessee, Sheriff’s Detective Jason Fillyaw. Grace's expert panel includes Dr. Brian Russell, a psychologist & lawyer, forensics expert Karen Smith,  Atlanta juvenile judge & lawyer Ashley Willcott, and Crime Stories reporter Robyn Walensky. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Do you know another parent or expecting parent? Are you wondering what can I give them as a gift? Nancy Grace here. Don't give them another onesie. Don't give them a plastic toy or, God forbid, a toy gun that's just going to end up in the garage. Give them something that matters and what matters the most is protecting their child. What do you love most in the world?

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$6.99. Give that as a gift, not another onesie. Find out how to protect your child when you're I'd rather have that any day of the week than a plastic toy or, God forbid, a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to crimestopshere.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. She was a very loving, very bubbly, a ray of sunshine. She stole the spotlight out of the room. I mean, she really, really did. As beautiful as she looks, that's how her soul was.

It's very beautiful. You guys aren't giving up hope, though. I'd just like to plea anybody that knows anything, please come forward, help with the investigation. No lead is too small. We cannot rest until we know something about our Savannah. Please come home, Savannah, for sure. Yes, please. It's just unimaginable to tell you how it feels to lose one of yours.

You can't think. You can't eat. You can't sleep. Say parents who are in agony as a multi-state search unfolds for a missing 14-year-old little girl. You just heard the parents of Savannah Lee Pruitt speaking to our friends at WATN Knoxville. Savannah, where are you? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. That really upset me when I heard the mom say she was.

Do they already believe 14-year-old Savannah is dead? This is still a search, not a recovery. This is a search, and it is across many states. Joining me right now, Dr. Brian Russell. You know him well. Psychologist, lawyer, and host of I.D.'s hit show, Fatal Vows. Forensics expert joining me from the Florida jurisdiction, Karen Smith. And joining me right now, CrimeOnline.com,

where you can find this and every other breaking crime and justice story. Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. She's the author of Beautiful Life, the CSI behind the Casey Anthony trial. Robin Walensky, I haven't been hearing a lot about Savannah's disappearance, but I want to change that right now. For those of you listening, all of you out there on the road, as you're listening to Sirius or your podcast at Crime Tip line, 423-442-3911. Repeat, 423-442-HELP. And boy, do we need help right now. This little girl has been missing for days.

Robin Walensky, start at the beginning, please. She is 14 years old. She's adorable. She's in school. She's a good kid by all accounts. Nancy goes to school liked by the teachers. An honor student. Was originally living in Lawrenceville, Georgia up until Christmas time, until December. And then she has a love of animals, this little girl, Savannah Lee Pruitt. She loves animals. So her parents moved to Madisonville, Tennessee.

She's the oldest of four children, Nancy. Oh, you know, Robin, I told you this when I was pregnant. I always wanted four children. That was my dream to have four children. But I'm happy that I have the two. And my husband's theory was to cut our losses. We got so blessed and so lucky let's don't tempt fate but she hit the lottery the jackpot she has four children savannah lee pruitt one of four

go ahead robin yes and she's the oldest of the four and her mom christina describes her as a ray of sunshine her dad the same like his heart is broken they don't understand it all of a sudden they see her go to bed january 13th around 11 o'clock at night the next morning four o'clock in the morning on the 14th she is missing gone vanish well hold on i'm making my flow chart robin hold on hold on robin walensky uh she 11 p.m goes to bed and i have to confess i'm sure dr brian russell's going to give me he double all about this but sometimes on weeknights i have let the children stay up as late as 11 o'clock they're only 11 but so she's up at 11 p.m One of the parents is up at 4 a.m. She's gone. Okay, so I've got a five-hour window. All right, go ahead, dear. And then the next thing you know, they look in her

room, and she's gone. Nowhere to be found. And it is the parents that call 911 for the police for help. Now, it's my understanding that the younger sister is the one that discovered her missing, not a parent. Yeah, that is possible. But then alerted the parents that she was not there. I'm curious. Do you know, Robin, if they shared the room together? No, I'm not sure about that. It is possible.

You know, with four kids, a lot of times, you know, kids double up in rooms. So it is very possible that they did. But I know this. She was nowhere to be found at 4 o'clock in the morning. You know, I'm curious about another thing before we go further in the timeline. What can you tell me about Madisonville? Tell me about Madisonville. Sort of a rural area, farms, lots of animals, which is why

they moved there in the first place, horses, chickens, that sort of a thing. A rural area, not a city. Well, this is what we know. The little bit that I do know about Madisonville, it is a city, although not large, and it's the county seat of Monroe County, Tennessee. The population was around 5,000 in 2010. So let's just say it's tripled to 10,000. It reminds me a little bit, Dr. Brian Russell, and there's a reason I'm going here. Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist, lawyer, host of ID's Fatal Vows. I grew up out in the middle of rural Bibb County. And the city was Macon, which is, quote, the county seat. Basically, that means that's where the drugstore and the courthouse is.

That's what the county seat is. And maybe the Dairy Queen. So my point is, even though we're saying it's a city and Madisonville is the county seat of Monroe County, that doesn't mean it's a metropolis. And it gives you a certain mindset of safety and security. I mean, I'm thinking about Molly Tibbetts. Remember, very, very rural area. And she was at the home of her boyfriend and his brother. Both of them were gone out of town. She goes jogging. She's never seen again.

Very rural area. And as that turned out, now charged is a guy, an immigrant that was working at, I believe, a chicken farm or a farm nearby. And my point is, long story short, crime hits everywhere. Well, that's true. That's true. I think in the Tibbetts case, of course, he came at her while she was out jogging and in this case you know the girl went disappeared went missing from the house and you know it's always interesting what we saw the horrific case that ended in a as happy of an

ending as it could have with Jamie Claus where, where there was, you know, this incredibly rare home invasion, murder of the parents and kidnapping of the girl, you know, and there was all kinds of evidence, of course, that someone had entered that house, you know, who wasn't supposed to be there. Here in this case, apparently, you know, there's not a lot. It's always fascinating to me when, you know, somebody goes missing from a house and there's really not an indication. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, Dr. Brian, I have that same fascination when Isabel Solis was taken out of her home.

I could not understand. I thought, wow, this has to be an inside job, a relative, a friend, some family member. No, it was not. And then, of course, there's Elizabeth Smart that we always refer back to. But it's not just Smart. There are so many others. And this is a young girl that had never given her family any trouble at all. Take a listen to her parents speaking to our friends at Inside Edition. The 14-year-old hasn't been seen or heard from in about two weeks. Please come home. We do miss you terribly. Sitting in their living room, Savannah's parents plead for her safe return,

holding photos of their oldest child who they believe wouldn't just run away. She has never misbehaved, been a bad kid ever in her life, and this is just really way out in left field for her. Investigators in Tennessee say so far their trail for her has gone cold. Usually we locate them within 24 to 48 hours. A cell phone pinged near a welcome center in Corbin, Kentucky, about 130 miles from their Madisonville home. You are my sunshine and you'll always be my sunshine, no matter what I look. Please come home. You are my sunshine and you'll always be my sunshine no matter what I look.

Savannah Pruitt is described as 5'3", 110 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information on her whereabouts should call police. Her family was emotional understandably as you could understand. Anyone whose child has gone missing is understandably distraught and the Pruitts are no different. We do have some details, new information. They have been following a few leads and looking into several people, but they do not have any suspects just yet. This is a big part of why they are now reaching out to us and you, the public. They've done as much as they can and they need more help.

They need you all to be their eyes and their ears. This investigation is now spanning across four states. as they can and they need more help. They need you all to be their eyes and their ears. This investigation is now spanning across four states. Imagine the amount of people at those state lines that could see something, say something. We know that her cell phone was last pinged at 5 30 in the morning in the Corbin, Kentucky area. All the Pruitts want is their daughter back home on their farm in Madisonville. It is just unimaginable to tell you how it feels to lose one of yours. There is no explanation unless you've went through it. She brought the sunshine up in the morning. I mean, just like having your cup of coffee in real life, just not

the same without Savannah. She was my sunshine. I put that on Facebook. I know my sunshine's gone. If she's watching at any point in time, is there anything you guys would want her to know or say She was my sunshine. I put that on Facebook. I know my sunshine's gone. If she's watching at any point in time, is there anything you guys would want her to know or say to her? That we love her dearly and we want her home. Love you and come home for sure. Now the Pruitts just left here about an hour and a half ago. They're going to go keep on passing out even more and more flyers. Christina Pruitt, Savannah's mom, her husband is a trucker. He will be passing out flyers

at truck stop rest areas. You'll soon start to see them everywhere. We're told that Savannah loved all animals. That was part of the reason why they moved back from Georgia to Tennessee was so that she could have a farm and looking at her animals right now is just too difficult for her parents.

That is the family of missing Savannah Lee Pruitt speaking to our friends at WATN Knoxville. Reporter Gabriella Pagan. Oh, gosh, when I hear the mom talking, it's just, it's brutal. And the dad, because in the morning, it'll be about 5 a.m., and I wake up and I think, oh, I'm going to go put on some tea and get ready for John David and Lucy waking up. And that is what gets me to put my feet on the floor.

Guys, we were talking about a beautiful young girl, Savannah Lee Pruitt. There is no indication whatsoever that she went willingly. Tip line 423-442-3911, 423-442-HELP. Joining me, Dr. Brian Russell, Karen Smith, Robin Walensky, and right now joining me, judge and lawyer. You can find her at AshleyWilcott.com. Ashley Wilcott. Ashley, the thought of waking up and your girl being gone, just gone. I mean, because of what I do, I'm constantly looking in on the twins and I always make

sure I see two lumps in the bed. I've just now managed to stop going closer to make sure they're breathing. Okay. Because even I know that's a little too weird, but can you imagine going in and there's no lump in the bed? No, no, I can't imagine it for anyone,

Nancy. And I just feel for these parents and all my sympathy in terms of having to go through this. But there are a few things that bother me. I do a lot of prevention work and a lot of people are going to look at this case, frankly, and say, Oh, she's a runaway. She just ran away.

She's probably trouble at home. No, she's a victim. Even if she ran away, she's a victim because there is someone who knows what happened to her. There's likely a predator involved in this. She is a victim, and everybody's got to be looking for her. I want you to take a listen to what our friends are learning regarding her cell phone data. We've already reached out to all the cellular phone carriers and social media outlets and have produced in excess of 2000 pages of reporting. Myself, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Knoxville office and the TBI have gone through each and every page of that reporting, and there hasn't been nothing in any of that reporting that led us to believe that she intended to run away

or was speaking with anybody that would try to abduct her. So at this point, this is a missing persons case. She's not been upgraded to an endangered child at this point because we don't have any information as far as her being in any direct danger. Any and all tips that come in will be followed up by myself, the FBI, and we're gonna continue to be checking with her phone services to see if those phones do reactivate.

They also have information in their systems to notify us if there's an activation immediately. So at this point, we're just waiting on her phones to activate and waiting on tips and information. We just keep looking. We've got authorities in several different states already working on the case. I guess we've reached out to authorities in four different states. That's Detective Jason Filial with Monroe County Sheriff's Office. We'll dip back in that presser in just one moment. That is very extensive, a very extensive media search and device search. Karen Smith, forensics expert, joining me. You heard Detective

Jason Filial, and they say the Monroe County Sheriff's Office have obtained all of her cell phone data and text messages and her social media pages, 2,000 pages worth, and there is no indication she was going to run away from home. Karen Smith, what more can you tell us? This is a head scratcher, Nancy, and I'll tell you what, when they're going through 2,000 pages of social media, you know, some carriers keep your text messages. Other cell carriers do not. So I don't know how much of that is actually text. The problem is the cell phones are missing, and apparently they've either been turned off or they've powered down. And they were last seen in Corbin, Kentucky. They were last heard from in Corbin. So, you know, first of all, they need to find the cell phones if they can.

Just because the cell phones were there doesn't mean they were with Savannah. To Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist, lawyer, and host of that they've sifted through 2,000 pages of cell phone data, social media data, all of that, and they found nothing, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, to suggest she ran away. insidious these days, Nancy, is that kids can have contact with predators who are posing as other kids. So you can look at somebody's social media and it looks like, oh, well, you know, they're just having contact with same age peers. You know, it doesn't look like anything alarming, but, you know, people are not necessarily who they portray themselves to be on social media. And so you can have a kid suggest to another kid that, hey, wouldn't it be fun to, you know, sneak out in the middle of the night and meet up in the park and have a Coke? And,

and, you know, the one kid runs off to do it and the other kid turns out to be a recently released sex offender from prison. So, you know, just because it doesn't, there's nothing obvious in the social media, I don't think necessarily means there wasn't some contact there that we'll find out about later on. Well, I don't know if you recall, just recently I met with Alicia Kozakowicz, who is the personification of that scenario. She's gorgeous. She's brilliant. She's now an activist. She was online as a teen girl and taught for a long month to some other girl.

Then she discovered the hard way who she was really speaking to. She came out of the house one night after a family dinner around Christmas and the teen girl was there and grabbed her put her in his car held her captive raped molested chained her to the floor had planned to kill her that evening when the feds saved her life I want to talk about that cell phone ping. Will a cell phone ping crack this case? What was the date that you pinged her cell phone? It was pinged at about 515 to 530 on the morning of the 14th. So the morning she was missing you were able to ping her cell? Yes. As soon as you noticed it was in Corbin did you send anyone or did anyone in Corbin, Kentucky begin looking for her?

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we reached out to the county sheriff's office in corbin they checked the area. The peen was close by within a relative location of the Welcome Center there in Corbin. Like over the state line? Just about a mile and a half over the state line. Is her phone still on? No, her phone has been inactive since that last peen. And she's been on or off social media? She has not been on social media. She has not been seen or heard from via social media or her cellular phone use since that last ping in Kentucky. Is there any reason to believe or know why she would be in Kentucky or what she could be doing in Kentucky? None at all. None. Okay. You are hearing Detective Jason Filiard with the Monroe County Sheriff's Presser as he is describing the last ping.

Back to Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, author of Beautiful Life CSI, behind the Casey Anthony trial on Amazon. Robin Walensky, a ping at a, I think I heard him say, welcome center just across the state line in Kentucky. Right. A welcome center is one of those places, Nancy, where you cross over into the next state and you can stop and use the facilities, pick up a map, you know, kind of stretch your legs. So to me, it would be a place where there would be people walking around, possibly even at that in the wee hours at 515 in the morning. I've driven across country many times

and these welcome centers are normally a very good place kind of to stretch your legs and use the bathroom. Well, that's interesting because in the book I'm writing, a nonfiction about fighting crime, I say do not go to a rest stop. It's a predator's playground. I mean, when I was growing up, I would stop at Stucky's. And it was the Stucky family, and they were known for their pecan logs okay that was a big big deal to get a Stucky's pecan log at a only place you could get them was a welcome center those days are long gone but Robin Walensky you go right on ahead and you stop at that rest rest center and you just keep my number and 9-1-1 on speed dial I'm

probably taking my life in my hands. The ones in the state of New Jersey where I'm from are pretty safe and have cameras on them. Mm-hmm. Good. Because you know I'll be playing that surveillance video over and over and over saying, where's Robin Walensky? But go ahead. What time of the day was this early morning when her phone, Savannah Lee Pruitt's phone, pinged in Kentucky just across the Tennessee line?

Between 5.15 a.m. and 5.30. And what I find interesting about this is that this is 140 miles away from the house. So if you do the math, you know, this is a couple of hours drive away from where she's living. Okay, 140 miles away from the home. She goes missing between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., which means if she had headed, whoever has her had headed straight out, 140 divided by 60 miles an hour is about two and a half hours-ish, which puts her leaving.

Wow. hours ish which puts her leaving wow that puts you could get there in that window is my yeah absolutely because if she pings at four what time that was it did you say 5 15 a.m 5 15 back it up two hours that's about two and a half that's around 2 30 in the morning yeah you're right so she pinged not long after she went to bed it's almost as if someone was looking in her window or saw her go to bed waited until the lights were off and everything was dark like everybody was asleep grabbed her right then say 11 30 11 45 midnight and took off now the family has said repeatedly they do not know anyone in kentucky the sheriff's office repeat says savannah's phone has not been active since that last ping the day she went missing she has not used her cell phone or presented herself on social media since the time she went missing. Detectives say she had two phones, one from her old residence in Georgia,

and another one she got right when her family moved to Monroe County, Tennessee. They moved there, repeat, so she could have more space for all of her animals. I get it. Why do you think I clean guinea pig cages every morning at 7 a.m.? Because it's my daughter's dream. She wants to be a veterinarian. We got a dog. We got a cat. We got guineas. And I don't know what's going to happen next. Please don't let it be rabbits. But this is what I know. You'll do anything for your children. They moved so she could have more space to have all of her animals. She has never run away before. We also know that a window was open. A window was open.

What does it mean to you, to Karen Smith, forensics expert, that her phone either went dead or was turned off after that ping? It means that either the phone batteries at the same time went dead, which is highly unlikely, or somebody physically turned those phones off for a reason. They realized that she had these phones, took them from her and shut them down. Now, what I want to know is in Corbin, Kentucky, where they were pinged, what kind of a search was done? Did they search around the entire rest area? Did they search every garbage can? Did they search every nook and cranny? Did they search the dumpsters? Did they search the field? Those cell phones are somewhere. We need to find them. You know, they are, and I don't want to be bleak, but you know,

Robin Walensky, you and I have been covering the case of missing Colorado mom, Kelsey Barrett. We still don't have her cell phone, and we know the area where it last pinged and where I think it was discarded, near Gooding and Twin Falls, Idaho. Still don't have it. Yeah, sometimes the criminal mind, some of these people can just dump it in a dumpster and then it gets taken to a landfill and never to be seen again or tossed in a body of water. You know, I don't believe the family had, this is a yes-no, Robin, do we know if they had surveillance cameras in the home? I do not believe so.

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systems. Add-on cameras now through Monday, Feb 4. That's Monday, February 4th, 9 p.m. Pacific. Visit BlinkProtect.com slash defense. BlinkProtect.com slash defense. BlinkProtect.com slash defense. On January 14th, 2019, Savannah Lee Pruitt, 14-year-old female from Maru County, was reported missing by her parents, Christina and Randall Pruitt. Our investigation has basically led us to this point. She was last observed by a cell phone GPS to be in the Corbin, Kentucky area, possibly moving north to an unknown destination from there. We would like to ask the public's help in any way with tips that lead to the location and safe return of Savannah to her parents. Again, Savannah is described as a white female, 14 years of age. she is 5'3", 110 pounds, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes. That's the description we are getting from Detective Jason Filial with Monroe County Sheriff's Office at his presser.

We'll dip back into that in a moment. But what we know is Savannah Lee Pruitt, missing, 14 years old, from Madisonville, Tennessee, has never run away. But we also know a window was open. We know that apparently her clothes and the bed sheets were taken out. Who did that? Her mom says, yes, there is a possibility she ran away. But I can tell you this, even if that's true, a 14-year-old little girl is not going to last long in a big, mean world.

On Facebook, Savannah writes about, quote, loving parents who teach me right from wrong daily. Her first Facebook page has practically nothing publicly viewable, except there are two photos, a profile photo with a heart around it. A second page with the same profile picture says, I'm the daughter of two amazing loving parents who teach me right from wrong daily. Love you guys. The cover photo on one of the two pages

is the holy cross other photos from the page say things like family is everything it discusses books she's reading she shares shares some selfies one friend wrote you like you look like the sweet little girl you are pretty her mom calls her sunshine is it possible she ran away i don't know the mom says she's counting the days on the calendar and they're starting to blend together to dr brian russell psychologist and lawyer host of id's fatal vows dr brian a little girl like this straight off a farm in Madisonville, Tennessee. How long do you think she's going to survive on the streets? Not long if she's trying to survive by herself. You know, I think any parent who has a teenager at home and has not seen, I don't know if you've seen the movie Searching,

but any parent who has not seen the movie Searching, you ought to watch it. If it's freezing cold where you are this week, it's something great to do inside. Stream the movie Searching, watch it, and then if you think it's appropriate, watch it with your teen. I think both of you could learn something really potentially lifesaving because it's about just exactly the kind of situation that we're talking about where a young girl leaves her home, you know, not with any intention of never coming back and then gets caught up in something that she had, you know, she never could have planned for. And it all starts on social media. So it's very eye-opening, I think, for people. Well, Ashley Wilcott at AshleyWilcott.com, judge, lawyer, and anchor.

Ashley, the social media, they've combed through 2,000 pages of it, indicate nothing about running away. So here's the thing, Nancy, I, I am not accusing anyone, but we see in our line of work. I've noticed you always say that right before you accuse somebody. Over and over and over again, we see circumstances that are the worst case scenario we'd never think could happen. I am not saying these parents are involved, but I am going to point out a few things. First of all, both of them talk about her in the past tense. She was our life. We've lost her. Yes, she's missing, but I think most parents are going to hang on to hope beyond

hope that she's really okay and she's going to be found. So that bothered me. The other piece of this is, no, she's never run away before, but somebody knows something, whether there's foul play or not. Someone knows something. So anything they know, whether it's about her, the family, dynamics, whatever, they need to come forward. In the last hours, her family says her parents say they have no reason to believe she ran away. Back to Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Let's go through what we know about her disappearance, about the home, about the

community. What evidence do we have right now, Robin? This is, like you say, it is a city, but it is a rural area where the home is. There's four kids living there with the two parents. They are married. These are their four biological children. There's all sorts of animals, which is why they moved there in the first place. A little more space than where they were living in the state of Georgia up until the Christmas break.

And then they move. Well, I know this. I know Phileo, Detective detective philia says they have no evidence and they do not believe that she was in touch with anyone so i mean to me if she's not in touch with anybody how did she get or her phone get that far away 130 140 miles, by 5 o'clock in the morning or 4 o'clock in the morning. So if she's not in touch with anybody, who has her? You know what, Nancy? It reminds me of a case we did recently where someone in the neighborhood sees this girl.

She's extremely attractive. And perhaps they had eyes on the house. And we're watching the patterns. When are the lights on? When are the lights off? and perhaps they had eyes on the house and were watching the patterns. When are the lights on? When are the lights off? Maybe they had eyes on this home and were watching this girl just like we've seen with Elizabeth Smart. Well, that's interesting, Robin. That's very interesting. I'm going to throw this to Karen Smith, forensics expert.

Jackie Howard here in the studio has pointed out something I find very interesting. They had only been in that home four weeks. In that home, remember, they had just moved there from Lawrenceville, Georgia, to a bigger plot of land so she could have all of her animals she wanted. Just four weeks. And what Robin is saying that I was alluding to earlier, she said it much better. They had just gone to sleep. If you look at the timing, the timing, she goes to bed at 11 p.m. at 4 a.m.

Sister notices she's gone. That gives me a five-hour window. Her phone, her cell phone is pinged around 5 a.m., two and a half hours away. Okay, which means, you know, she probably left pretty quickly after the lights went out and they everybody an intruder could have seen the lights go out gives it 40 minutes or so for everybody to settle in and go to sleep and bam in the window and gone that's exactly the way it happened with Elizabeth Smart you're right you're absolutely right and you what, Nancy, I go back to the open window and I go back to the fact that her bedsheets and clothes were missing. Now,

I don't know of a teenager that's going to sneak out in the middle of the night and take their bedsheets with them. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read that. And here's the thing, that window, the forensics that may be gleaned from it. We are talking DNA. We're talking hairs and fibers. If somebody came in that window and then exited with her, they need to look at all of the minute trace evidence that may have been left behind. And, you know, fingerprints, maybe, maybe not, but you have to look at her bedroom. You have to look at the window. You have to look at the window. You have to look at whether it's a first floor, a second floor. Were there any shoe prints outside?

Was there any tire tracks, a foreign car? Explain to me why it disturbs you so much, because I feel the same way about her bedsheets missing. Who takes their bedsheets? You know, listen, I was a teenager. We all were. I snuck out. Didn't ever take my bedsheets missing who takes their bedsheets you know listen i was a teenager we all were i snuck out didn't ever take my bedsheets with me i just went out my way i never snuck out and neither did jackie neither one of us ever snuck out well i did i would go to the neighborhood pool with all the kids at midnight and you know we'd swim around and be stupid what but that doesn't mean that somebody took me and i never took my bed sheet. That tells me that somebody may have. This is my speculation here.

Somebody may have maybe subdued her in the room and then wrapped her in the sheet and taken her. You know what? Here's another issue. We know some clothes were taken, but we have no indication. A coat was taken and it's cold. Guys, please help us. Her parents say it's like having their soul ripped out. 14-year-old Savannah Lee Pruitt is missing.

Desperation growing to find 14-year-old Savannah Lee Pruitt nearly three weeks after she mysteriously vanished. She was our life. And our life is gone. It's hard. I mean, it's hard to eat. It's hard to sleep. It's hard to think. Pruitt, who was homeschooled, last seen January 13th heading to bed around 11 p.m. Typical ordinary day. I mean, no signs of anything. Just before five the next morning, her family discovering Savannah was gone. Her bedroom window open and some of her clothes and bed sheets missing. Authorities believe the teen may have traveled roughly 140 miles from her home in Madisonville, Tennessee to Corbin, Kentucky.

Her cell phone pinging in that area around 5.15 that morning with no activity since. There has been no presence on social media either through Facebook or any of the other outlets that we've investigated. The Pruitts, clinging to hope, she'll return home soon. Savannah, I love you, and we want you to come home. Where is Savannah Lee Pruitt? This little Tennessee girl, just 14 years old, was, quote, her normal bubbly self before she vanished over two weeks ago I'm Nancy grace this is crime stories

tip line four two three four four two three nine one one repeat four two three four four two H ELP can't sleep can't eat can't think the parents in agony where is Savannah joining me right now? On the scene special guest Detective Jason Filliol from the Monroe County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department Detective. Thank you so much for being with us. How did you first find out Savannah

was missing her parents had dialed 911? We had a deputy respond to the scene, take down missing children information, and he reported it to me as I am the investigator that deals with all of our juvenile child abuse type cases. I've got a question for you. Everyone with me from Monroe County, Tennessee is Detective Jason Filial. Detective, when they called 911, what time was it? They called 911 right at 6.37 a.m. 6.37 a.m. Yes, ma'am. The father had already tried to check the area to see if she had wandered away from the house. They have horses in a barn,

and she takes care of the horses, so he had gone up to check those areas, things of that nature before they called 911. Who discovered her missing, Detective Phil, y'all? Her 12-year-old sister initially found her bedroom empty and then she told her parents that she wasn't there. And then the 12-year-old sister and her father went into the bedroom and found the window open. The window open. The window open. What kind of window was it, Detective Phil, y'all?

It was just a vinyl-type single sash window, and the window, the sash was raised, and the screen had been cut. The screen had been cut. I find that interesting. You know, they can actually tell if the screen was cut from the inside or the outside by looking at the way the tiny pieces of metal are bent. For instance, if you cut from the inside, you'll see just, I have to look at it under a microscope. I can't just look at it. I can feel it if I barely touch it with my fingers but see that's dangerous because if there is any fingerprint on there you're messing that up but I have felt a replica and if you feel it really carefully like go from the bottom up the screen you can feel which way it was cut just barely do you have a determination about which way it was cut the preliminary determination is it was cut from the inside of the residence we have the federal

bureau of investigation and the tennessee bureau of investigation assisting in the case and we have special agents that are working on that right now you know what else detective jason phill y'all uh and you probably already know this, of course you do, but for our listeners, another way that you can tell if a screen was in or from the outside or the inside, was it pushed out from the inside or was it taken down? It's where it's lying because if you push it out from the inside, generally it'll go straight down. If you're taking it off from the outside, an intruder will cast it aside. Am I making myself clear, detective? Yes. When you went in the room, what was the first thing you noticed, detective Phil, y'all? The bed sheets missing. Now, that can be taken in many, many different ways.

Correct. Many different ways, because if you're uh on the run why would you take your bed sheets can i can i ask you did you see that the fitted sheet and the sheet you pull up over you were both missing or just one it appeared just to be a fitted sheet on the bed so there's also two blankets that were pushed down towards the foot of the bed so just the fitted sheet i'm curious i know this is a small detail but the fitted sheet which goes down over the mattress was gone the sheet you pull over you was it still tucked in i'm just curious at the bottom no it was not and neither were the blankets or the cover no were the both the pillows still there yes with me detective jason phillia from the monroe county tennessee sheriff's department tip line for this missing

girl 14 year old savannah lee pruitt parents just moved there to have more land for all of her animals. I've been through the same thing with my daughter, Lucy Elizabeth Lynch. He is from the Monroe County Sheriff's and the tip line there is 423-442-3911. I know these seem like small details, but they mean something to me. Now, did she know how to drive, detective? No, no. Other than just having four-wheelers around the property, she hadn't been learning to drive yet, according to the parents. And do they have Uber or Lyft in that area? No, ma'am.

We are a large county, but we're very rural. I'm with you, detective. I grew up in Bibb County. There's nothing as far as I could see but soybeans and pine trees okay if somebody said lift i would have no idea what they were talking about so detective so we know she did not leave by lift or uber or taxi we know she can't drive now don't judge me but my children who are 11 have been driving for three years Now, don't judge me because when I take them home to Macon, there's a big field, and I go out there in my minivan. I let them ride around in circles.

Okay. Don't judge me, but they know how to crank up. They know how to put on the brake. The works. Okay. No, I'm not letting them out on the street, but they do know how to do that. My point is, if she had access to four-wheelers, she does know a little bit, but no vehicles are missing. So that crosses that off the list, correct?

Correct. So, I understand, Detective, that you guys have come through about 2,000 pages of digital data. Is that true? Yes. Good Lord in heaven. Let me ask you this. What are you looking for and what, if anything, did you find? At this point, we've found literally nothing to lead us in any direction in the investigation. We have sent out several more requests for new, more

current information to all the cell phone providers and cellular phone tower systems. And we are actually already receiving that information this morning, and I'll be sitting down with special agents from the FBI and TBI to start going through the new information to try to kind of cast a broader net. Let me ask you another question, Detective. I know you've been through 2,000 pages, but I'm taking what you just responded to mean that does not include her most current cell phone data. That's correct.

When I first sent out the request at the beginning of the investigation, those requests have an expiration point, so you actually have to update the request and search warrants to the different data outlets. Gotcha. So do you have the data up until the night she went missing? We do. Okay. So you would know if she had sent any texts like, hey, I'll meet you at the end of the driveway at 2 a.m. Do you have her text? You've got her text and her cell phone calls? We have her text messages. We have her phone calls. We even have her iCloud contents. And

unless she has, as a lot of 14-year-old teenagers do these days, unless she has an app, an application that kind of hides that information from us grown-ups. Oh, let me tell you, I got two 11-year-olds, and I don't know what Santa was thinking when they got an iPhone. I'm telling you what, when I get my hands around his neck. With me, special guest, Detective Jason Phil, Yallman Road County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department, leading this investigation. Detective, yeah, there are things like WhatsApp, Just Talk, Home, something. There's so many of them that they get in these little chat rooms and talk.

So what I'm wondering is anybody, two things. One, are any particular clothes missing like her favorite blue jeans that she would never have gone without? And two, what about any of her little friends? Are they missing? What do we know? As far as question one, her parents weren't able to tell us specifically which clothes were missing. They just noticed that some of her clothes were missing. According, apparently, to them, they said that she was doing laundry the day of the 13th, the day prior to her going missing. She'd been doing laundry, and she still had them all kind of piled up in her laundry bag and had folded and put away. Well, here's another thing.

Detective, do you have a daughter? I have two. Okay, well, then you know the deal now they're they're a lot of them in addition to jeans they wear things they look like jeans but they're actually tights or leggings and then of course everybody has to have black ones my daughter has so many black tights over the years and navy blue ones if she went in one of them i you, I wouldn't know who was missing because she has seven or eight paired that all look just alike. So if she has on something like that, they wouldn't know.

Now, what about her PJs? Were they missing, Detective? They did not. They appeared to be wadded up on the floor beside her cell phone charger. Speaking of cell phones, she has two cell phones. Why? One cell phone was from Georgia, where they had moved up from three weeks prior to her disappearance. And they found that that

phone service didn't work as well as another carrier. So they went and got phones locally on that, on the other carrier and just hadn't discontinued the contract on the previous phone. Are both of those physical phones missing both of them gone yes ma'am but the charger is still there right yes you know any any child in the right mind would know to take that charger i find that interesting anything else missing that we know of like a fitbit an apple watch anything like that that she may have taken with her to suggest she left on the phone? The only thing missing is the two phones, the clothing, and then the bed sheet. Here's the conundrum.

Here's the conundrum. Who drove her? Who took her? It's entirely possible somebody comes in that house and goes out that window. A question. Detective Jason, fill y'all with me moreau county tennessee sheriff's department and we're trying to get every question out of him before he has to go back into meetings about this very case detective so many thoughts running

through my mind she didn't drive she's not on foot we don't know if or who came into that home what's your thought on who she may have been in contact with because they had only lived there like four weeks is that right that's correct we've been tracking down leads in the Georgia area that they've moved up from we have FBI agents that are working down there to follow up on those leads check with her school that she was enrolled in down there. We also have agents working in the Kentucky area where the last pings of her phone, both phones were, checking leads and checking for traffic cameras, things of that nature.

Also have agents checking an area up in south or northeast Tennessee where the family was known to visit and had some family friends up there where she had spent some time with them during the summer to see if there were any leads up there. As far as here in Tennessee, she was homeschooled for the three weeks that they were here and they had her enrolled in school, but she hadn't started yet. Is there more to the reason? Okay, so you're focusing on other areas than right there. Okay, that makes perfect sense. I've got a feeling about the whole Georgia, the Lawrenceville connection. Is there more to their move than we know? Did they move for any other reason other than wanting more land? The father was starting to have some health,

not severe health issues, but some health issues and wanted to be closer to his family. And the mother's family is from kind of in our area, too. So it kind of got them more centrally located to relatives. Now, we got information, it may be misinformation, that she had the two cell phones and they had both pinged in Corbin, Kentucky between 515 and 530. Oh, I thought she left one. She took both of them with her? Yes, ma'am. And they both pinged?

Yes. And then? Within about eight minutes of each other in the same county. She had a phone from AT&T. That phone pinged, you know, depending on what tower it hits at what time. But it showed closer to the Welcome Center in Kentucky, which is just about 1.7 miles inside the state of Kentucky from Tennessee. And the other phone, her Verizon phone, pinged closer to the actual city of Corbin. Detective Jason Feeley, Alamare County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department.

I just want to tell you one thing before you go. We didn't have a name for it at the time I first encountered it, but I remember when I prosecuted two, as we call them, pimps, but they were much worse than that. They were child sex traffickers, and they had lured a 13-year-old girl under false pretenses, and when she went, she was forced into prostitution in inner-city Atlanta. It took me forever to find that girl.

I had her school picture, gorgeous little girl with braids down the side of her head, gorgeous big brown eyes. It took me three months working with Vice. We went into a flop house. We think she's in there. I walked in. I came out and went, she's not in there. That's a bunch of grown women.

They went, go back and look at the one in the white boots. I went back. I looked. She's 35 years old, detective. She had a weave all down her back, high boots, tons of makeup, and a mini skirt. And I looked at her, and I could not believe that was the little girl. Got a mistrial in my opening statement. That's all right.

I had it re-indicted by the grand jury and they both got 20 to life. That's my fear right now. Why is Savannah gone? Where is Savannah Lee Pruitt? With me, special guest Detective Jason Filyaw, spearheading this investigation from Monroe County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department. Detective, I can't thank you enough. Is there anything else you want to tell our listeners across the country, including Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia right now? Just please call in if you have any information. If you feel that you've seen anybody that looks like her, you

believe that you saw her yesterday. It doesn't matter. Any tip is an important tip. Please call in, give us the information. It will be followed up on and taken seriously. I just am imagining my little girl. She's almost 12 now. This little girl just two years older out In the public on an interstate with God only knows who? Thank You detective tip line four two three four four two three nine one one With me in addition to detective Jason Philly offer them in Monroe County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department. Special guest Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.

Tell me what you believe forensics experts should be looking for in the home, specifically the bedroom, the window, the kitchen, the front door, the works. Yeah, we've kind of covered the screen. The thing that really bothers me about this case, Nancy, is the fact that that fitted sheet is missing. I want to know what was the rationale for taking that sheet. And so with that said, I'm hoping that all of that bedding has been carefully collected to look for DNA. And I'd like to know what the surface of that bedding has been carefully collected to look for DNA. And I'd like to know what the surface of that mattress looks like.

And, you know, I have thoughts that are running right now relative to things like sexual assault and all of these things that this young girl may have been lured out of the house, may have been assaulted, somebody had been targeting her. That kind of sends a chill up my spine. Another thing to the point of the cell phones. I'm still, this world is a very electronic savvy world now. I'm still not convinced that she was necessarily had those phones in her possession if there was somebody else with her. For all I know, and I think that there is a main thoroughfare that runs from their location directly toward Corbin. Corbin's a point of entry for Kentucky coming out of Tennessee. I'm wondering if maybe those cell phones weren't on another vehicle, the connection back in Georgia. I don't know if there's somebody down there that has a connection to her romantically, relationship-wise. Maybe she's headed in the other direction. So all of these things have to be considered in their totality here. And as we sign off, we are getting information

from WKOA has a suspect in the disappearance of this little girl been detained in Lynchfield, Kentucky. Has occurred. What? We're waiting to find out. According to WKOA, and we're still trying to confirm, a Marathon gas station employee who was working at the gas station at the time says a male entered the store at the gas station late Wednesday evening and made a purchase. When he exited and returned to his vehicle, which was a gray Ford passenger car, he was immediately surrounded, put on the ground by FBI.

The suspect was the only person observed in the vehicle. Go to crimeonline.com where we are bringing you breaking news as it develops in the disappearance of Savannah Lee Pruitt. This is an iHeart Podcast.