Criminology - Nancy Guthrie

Episode Date: February 15, 2026

  Nancy Guthrie was seen by anyone in her family just before ten PM on January 31st, when a family member dropped her off at her home. Police now believe that she was abducted from her home by an unknown assailant. This case has made headlines for weeks now, with new details coming out daily. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and alleged abduction of Nancy Guthrie. Nancy's daughter, Savannah, is known to millions of people as a host on the popular Today show. That may have been one of the causes initially of the media frenzy. But now, people have been swept up by the emerging details, such as doorbell camera footage of the suspected perpetrator. There have been multiple ransom demands, some proven to be hoaxes, but no proof of life has been offered, and no credible demands have been made. The public is clamoring to find out what happened to Nancy and what her current status is.     You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok  Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

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I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics.

Listener discretion is advised. So everyone and welcome to episode 397 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing pretty good. How you doing? I'm doing great.

I hear you're working on your studio digs for you and Gibby there if you're in-person recording. Yeah, we have a new studio, which, you know, after 10 years, because we're almost 10 years into this thing, it seems weird. And strangely, I was almost nervous recording for the first time, which, you know, is weird. We've been doing this so long. But I got a little bit of nerves just because it was a new, I guess, space. But as soon as we started recording, you know, that kind of went away and we just got into the, you know, the swing of things. Yeah, anytime you change things up, there's always a little bit of jitters and, you know, getting used to it.

But it's hard to believe. It's almost 10 years and what, we've been around for eight or nine now. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how time flies. Yeah, yeah. It really does. Well, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts.

We had Tammy Forkham and Seth Keener who jumped out at our highest level. So great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much to Tammy and Seth and everyone else that supports the show for anyone else that would like to head over. head over to patreon.com slash criminology to get started. And we have to do another reminder because time is running out. But in case you haven't heard, Morph and I will be at CrimeCon, Vegas in just a few short months.

And we want to see you guys there. Crime Clown is the world's biggest and best true crime convention. It's happening at Caesar's Palace, May 29 through the 31st. This is one of a kind of event to see all your favorite celebs from the world of true crime. And to stop by and hang out with Mike and I on Creators Row. We're also planning our annual criminology T-Cat meetup with listeners, so you don't want to miss that. And if you're going to book now, use our promo code criminology, that will save you 10% on your standard badges when you check out at crimecon.com. All right, Morph, so now that we have all that out of the way, we need to dive into this week's case and it is a big one.

The missing persons and presumed abduction case of Nancy Guthrie out of two. Tucson, Arizona. If you've turned on the TV at all over the past week and a half, you have likely been greeted with stories and headlines about Nancy's case. There's so much to go over and unpack. And this is going to be a really full episode. And we'll have an expert on who's going to provide some insight into how things work behind the scenes on a case like this. And Mike, you've mentioned a presumed deduction. The more details that come out and are released by law enforcement, the more this seems highly likely that it is an abduction. You seem to have an 84-year-old woman dragged away from her home in the middle of the

night. It's a terrifying situation and people want to see a good resolution. This doesn't seem like a random incident, as we'll discuss. It seems to have involved some planning, and it's likely that Nancy Guthrie was targeted. For those listeners who don't know, one of Nancy Guthrie's daughter, Savannah, is a well-known television news anchor. She's been the the co-host of NBC's that today shows since 2011. For the public, the news about this abduction broke late on February 2nd or early on the 3rd. By this point, Nancy had been missing from her home in the northern part of Tucson, Arizona

for days. Before we get into the details of the disappearance, we need to talk about this area of Tucson, where Nancy lives, the Catalina foothills, because it'll come into play. Tucson is a desert community. Lots of sand, lots of cactuses. It's made up of hilly terrain with culverts and hills. Now, most news outlets are not reporting Nancy's home address. And we won't be either, but we can say it's near East Skyline Drive and North Campbell Avenue.

It's a $1 million home. And this is an upscale neighborhood with houses that are spread out and the lighting is not the best. and this lack of lighting and the location of the homes is going to play a large role in this case. Nancy's home was armed with a security system and cameras, and that too is a big part of the story. Investigators believed early on that Nancy may have been kidnapped. She was last seen by anyone in her family just before 10 p.m. on January 31st when a family member dropped her off at her home. police have bounced around in clarifying who dropped her off, but most reports say that it was her son-in-law, Tamas Socioni,

and that he dropped her off after a family dinner. Nancy was supposed to go to a friend's home the next morning to watch a live stream of church service as she did every Sunday, but she didn't show up, which is out of character of her, and that raised concern. Thankfully, sometime after 11 a.m., that friend contacted Nancy's family members so they could check on her. Just before noon, her family arrived at Nancy's home,

but couldn't find her. They checked the house itself as well as the surrounding property. By noon, they contacted the Pima County Sheriff's Department to report her disappearance, and that officially kicked off the investigation into this case. It was clear that Nancy's family immediately took this situation seriously. Her daughter, Savannah, who lives in New York City, flew out to Arizona as soon as she could. She was set to co-host the Olympics opening ceremony in Milan, Italy. but understandably due to her mother's disappearance, she withdrew from that responsibility and stayed close to her sister Annie and brother Cameron. Cameron lives in Vermont,

so he too had to get out to Arizona. It was immediately clear to investigators that something bad had happened to Nancy and she hadn't just popped out of the house unannounced. Her car was still parked in the garage. Her cell phone, wallet, and an Apple Watch that she always wore were still at the home. Perhaps more importantly, her hearing aid and her medication, which she needed to take daily for a chronic health condition. It had also been left behind. The actual medication Nancy takes has not been named.

But according to the FBI, it's needed for a heart condition. And according to reports, not taking this medication could be fatal for Nancy. So it's pretty clear that police knew right away, this was a race against time. And to me, more of, you know, this is just a nightmare of a situation.

You have an 84 year old woman who, you know, if Nancy is anything like the people in my life at that age, they have a pretty set pattern. Most people, when they get into, their 80s, they may still be active, but by and large, they're not spur of the moment as much as maybe a 20-year-old. The patterns are pretty well established. And one thing that you don't see often is someone dropping,

you know, off the grid, not contacting people, right? That's just not normal. And I can only imagine what the family was was going through in this period. And we do hear sometimes that senior citizens, older people sometimes have conditions like dementia, those kinds of things, Alzheimer's, and they'll wander off. But as we'll talk about shortly, that's not the case with Nancy.

Everyone that knew her said that, you know, she was very sharp, very alert, didn't have any of those conditions. She also had some physical elements that we'll get into that would have probably prevented her from just walking off. So I think to the credit of the police, they seemed to say early on, okay, this woman didn't

just walk out of her front door and go someplace. Something happened to her. And I think that approach was the right one. Investigating Nancy's devices helped authorities put together a timeline when something seemed to have happened to Nancy. And we're going to go over the full timeline starting back before Nancy vanished. On Saturday night, January 30, first at 532 p.m., Nancy traveled to her daughter, Annie's, and son-in-law, Tomaso's home, and reportedly she took an Uber there. While there, the family reportedly played games and had dinner. Later that night, family dropped Nancy off at her home at 9.48 p.m. The security system recorded the garage door opening at 948 and closing at 950. And again, it's fuzzy on who actually

dropped Nancy off, but most reports say that it was her son-in-law. early on the morning of Sunday February 1st at 147 a.m. the home security system doorbell camera or nest cam at the front door of Nancy's home disconnected or went offline. And we're going to talk about this further. 27 minutes later at 2.12 a.m. The security system detected a person at the front door, although no video was initially available. 16 minutes later at 2.28 a.m. Nancy's pacemaker app, which was connected via Bluetooth, disconnected from her phone. A lot of people hear this and think that her pacemaker

disconnecting means that she could have died, but that simply means that she likely moved far away enough from the Bluetooth signal that it disconnected. Sort of what happens when you go too far with your headphones or your earbuds from a Bluetooth signal. And I have a similar situation more. I have a glucose monitor that I wear on my arm that's connected to my iPhone. And if I happen to leave, you know, my phone on one level of the house and I go to the second level, eventually it disconnects and there's an alarm on the phone that drives the whole family crazy. Yeah, those alerts, the signals.

those Bluetooth connections can be tricky. You know, I go on one side of my house out in the yard, and I seem to drop my connections for Bluetooth stuff. I go to the other side of the house, and it's perfectly fine. So, you know, those signals definitely can help tell a little bit of what's going on. It's not until over nine hours later at 11.56 a.m., that family arrived at the home to check on Nancy and found it empty.

Again, this is an area where police have been tight-lipped. We don't really know where police have been tight-lipped. which family member went to the home, but it was presumably Nancy's daughter, Annie, or Tomaso, or both. At 1203 p.m., the call is made to police, and at 1215, the first patrol car arrived. So at least by what police were able to establish early on, it seems like the first sign of trouble may have been around 1.47 a.m. when that front camera disconnected. Now, the cameras and security sensors seem to do their job, but there was a problem. to record and maintain video footage captured by the cameras,

Nancy would have needed a subscription plan and she didn't have one. So that meant short of real time alerts that someone was at her door, for example. There wouldn't be any video of what transpired. And that is kind of one of the shortfalls, I guess, for the lack of a better word, of some of these front door cameras or different security systems. You know, if you don't sign up for the. subscription, really what you have are alerts. You don't get kind of that record of the video and many of them. And for a lot of people, that's probably enough, right? They get an alert.

That's all they really want until something bad happens, right? And then you kind of wish you had that video to look at. And that's obviously what we're talking about in this case. Yeah, we've got pretty heavy security at our house here. And after this case, I'm already looking at options to upgrade and maximize the protection for us. You know, because this really opened my eyes to some of the shortcomings that you can have in your security. We should point out that some reports state that the camera that detected a person was an interior camera inside the home. While others report that it was from the exterior. camera near the front door if it really was an interior camera that sense movements, it could

have been Nancy moving around in her home or it could have been someone who had entered the home. It was eventually revealed that the exterior camera near the front door was physically removed, presumably by the assailant in this case, based on the timeline provided by that security system and Nancy's pacemaker app disconnecting. we can surmise that someone showed up at her front step at 147 or before somehow gained entry into Nancy's home and forced her out of it by 212 when she got far away from her Bluetooth signal and it lost contact. After that, we just don't know what happened. This is where the questions begin. Was she marched off on foot?

Was she put into a car? Did she get into a car willingly? We just don't know. As police looked around the property, they found some very important and disturbing clues. First, there were several blood drops on the front doorstep. There's a video of this blood, and it's very noticeable if you're looking down. Some people ask the question, how did her family not notice that blood when they showed up to check on her? And if they were looking forward and maybe at the door or through a window, they may not have seen it.

The blood trail seemed to lead away from the porch and then stopped. And by blood trail, we don't mean like a large pool or indication that there was blood spraying, just several drops indicating that someone was bleeding pretty steadily. DNA testing would quickly prove that this blood was Nancy's. So it was clear that when she left her home, she was injured in bleeding. There have been no reports of any broken windows or forced entry into the home. And we know the garage door did not open. after it closed the night before at 950.

So it seems likely that Nancy was taken out to front door where the blood was. There have also been some reports stating that the back door of the home was standing open. This all leads to the question. If this person didn't break into the home using force, did they simply find a door unlocked and enter? Or could they have used a key or maybe, you know, Nancy let this person in? there's no way to know for sure at this point. So let's recap what we know up to this point. Nancy, according to the family, was dropped off at her home the night before and made it safely inside.

We have to assume that to be true because her pacemaker was detected inside the home. At some point in the early morning hours just before 2 a.m. It seems someone showed up outside her home, and by 2.30 a.m., that person, along with Nancy, were gone. And Nancy was injured in the process. But we don't really know is what happened in between. How did the person get in and what happened once they were inside? Obviously, police may have more information, but if so, they're holding it back. So based on everything we've talked about up to this point, it seems like someone came into Nancy's house, something bad happened and they took her.

But police, likely early on, before they knew much of this stuff, had to explore the possibility that Nancy could have walked away from, her home on her own, perhaps confused. But no one, not her family, not investigators, really believed that Nancy had walked away from her home and had gotten lost in the desert. She had, as you said, more, no known issues with her memory that would have caused, you know, wondering or confusion, nothing like dementia or Alzheimer's. To the contrary, Nancy has been described as being very sharp. Now, Nancy does suffer from limited mobility and uses a cane, making it unlikely that she would have made it very far from her house, even if she did for some reason, end up wandering off in the middle of the night. We also talked about Nancy having a pacemaker taking medicine, so even if she had wandered out of the home, she likely would not have made it far on foot.

So based on everything police knew about Nancy and what they found at her house, it was pretty clear to them that this was an abduction. But who would take Nancy and what? By February 4th, multiple news outlets had received ransom notes demanding money in exchange for Nancy's safe return. The Tucson-based station, KOLD, has an online contact form for submitting tips, and they received the demand for $4 million of Bitcoin through this online. form. The deadline was set for February 5th, but allowed for a February 9th Bitcoin delivery with an extra $2 million, tacked on as interest for the delay. Nancy's daughter Annie and her husband Tomaso both reportedly received text messages asking them if they had obtained the Bitcoin yet. But it seems that initially, these news outlets may be working with police, didn't publicly

share that they had received these ransom demands. After none of the news outlets shared the details about the ransom demands, TMZ received an email essentially outlining these ransom demands. According to a People magazine article, the letter begins by saying she, meaning Nancy, is safe but scared. As far as we know, there was no proof of life offered in the letter. The TMZ news about a ransom spread quickly. So at this point, it was hard to keep under wraps. But in big cases like this, there's always the possibility that someone out to make a quick buck and not actually connected to the crime will involve themselves.

And that's exactly what happened. There has been at least one confirmed hoaxer and authorities have already caught him. On February 5th, 42-year-old Derek Colella was arrested at his home in Hawthorn, California. he has been charged with transmitting a demand for ransom and anonymously using a telecommunications device with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass another person. It turns out that those texts to Annie and Tomaso were from him. He also called one of her family members. It hasn't been disclosed who.

The call lasted nine seconds. The authorities were quick to warn people, do not make ransom demands like this because you will get caught and be in hot water. Heath, Janky, FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge put out a statement that read in part to those impostors who are trying to take advantage and profit from this situation. We will investigate and ensure you're held accountable for your actions. It never ceases to amaze me how many people, slimy people, come up. out of the woodwork in a tragic situation like this to try and make a quick buck and try and

weasel their way into the, you know, the, the hearts of the family members that are wanting their loved one back. And here they are trying to make, take advantage of them and get money out of them. It's, it's really pitiful. And thank God, the FBI was able to catch this guy quickly. Yeah, to me, it's really despicable that people will come out after a tragedy such as this and try to fleece the family for money. And you could also make the argument about like a natural disaster, right, a hurricane or something to that effect. You undoubtedly always have people who come out and say that their disaster cleanup people.

And basically, they're just fleecing people out of money. Yeah, it's, you know, this kind of situation brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio and 20. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

At the time we're recording this, there have reportedly been multiple ransom demands, sent using a variety of methods, letter, email, text. One person claimed to know who the abductor was, but wanted one Bitcoin, which is the equivalent of close to $60,000 in exchange for the information. They reportedly supplied their own email and contact information. there's a large reward being offered in this case, so why wouldn't you just go that route and try to provide the name of the perp if you had it and collect the reward and do it the right way? One of the ransom demands gave instructions and an account that money was to be transferred into. According to reports, up to $6 million was to go into this account, which is a publicly viewable account, by the way. According to some reports, a very small amount was deposited into it, less than $300 total. This could have been done by the authorities in an attempt to track to see who tries to collect or withdraw that money.

Nancy's children have expressed an interest in paying these ransoms. If it means getting their mom back safely, they have appeared in multiple videos that were released asking for communication from the abductor as well as proof of life. And we don't want to spend too much time on these ransoms because they may have nothing to do with Nancy's case. They could just be red herrings. But unfortunately, the authorities have to consider all of these demands as possibly being connected. And in a race against time to save a sick and elderly woman, that can be a real waste of time and resources. What we do know for sure is that all of the deadlines given in these ransoms, have passed. And there's been no proof of life for Nancy offered and no communication that's

confirmed to be from the actual abductor. On Tuesday, February 10th, we got some major news. It took over a week to recover them, but it turns out that despite Nancy not having a subscription plan for the NEST camera, the system did save the recordings in the cloud somewhere. The FBI was able to help restore the data, and it confirms that there was someone on Nancy's port. tampering with her camera. They release this video, and it's chilling to say the least. Someone in a ski mask and gloves walks up to Nancy's door. You can see that they were wearing a backpack and have some kind of handgun holstered on the

front of their waist. They're wearing what looks like multiple pairs of disposable gloves. It almost looks like they're surprised by the camera because they don't head right to it. Once they're aware of it, they put their hands up in a way that covers their face as they try to figure out how to take the camera down. And what's interesting is I hadn't seen this kind of holster. You know, I know they make holsters that sort of are for concealed carry. They go on the inside of your pants someplace.

But the ones I've typically seen, they go on your right side or your left side, whereas this one was down the front of his pants, basically. But, you know, I know you've do a lot of shooting and you're familiar with that kind of holster. Yeah, it's actually called appendix carry and it's become more and more popular over the years. I think now a lot of holster companies are actually making holsters for this appendix carry. I have never done it just because it seems strange to holster a gun that is directly pointed at, well, let's be honest more if you're most prized possessions.

I don't know how else to say it. It can be a little scary, but it is a very popular way to carry now. Yeah. And that's, you know, some of the experts I've seen on some of the shows were saying they're not familiar with that, but maybe that's something that's really unique.

Maybe somebody does remember somebody that carries a gun like that, maybe at the shooting range or whatever, and that's going to be something that's a big clue. And it's also in the video, you can see that it's like a right hand grab. So it appears the person's likely right handed. Well, I don't know what type of experts these would be because that would be strange to me to have an expert say that they're not familiar with this type of carry because it's pretty well known. So we have this person on the porch, right? They're figuring out how to take the camera down.

Then the person walks away from the camera for a moment looking around before the size. to grab some shrubbery from the front of the house, and it seems like they were planning on draping it over the camera lens, perhaps. It appears that they have some kind of flashlight in their mouth because when they walk back to the camera, there's a light shining from their mouth, they then placed the shrubbery over the camera lens, blocking the view. This is likely so that they could use both hands

to remove the camera without recording more of their face. In photos and video from the crime scene, on the ground next to the welcome mat, directly next to the drops of blood on the porch, was all of this shrubbery that the suspect had used to cover the camera. It's clear that this person had taken steps to keep from being identified, but even in a ski mask, there were clues. Most people seem to think that the abductor is a man, he's likely white or Hispanic, he has large round eyes, and appears to have a neatly manicure. mustache that protrudes through the mouth hole, as well as possible hair under his lip, perhaps indicating a goatee. Some people also seem to think that this person has a very neatly manicured set of eyebrows. It's important to point out that this is that kind of black and white thermal night imaging,

which isn't nearly like seeing someone in the daylight and in color. But still, the video provides a lot of helpful details. From these details, we can get a good view of the intruders walk, their gate, their bills. Although initially no official height or weight or other descriptors of the person was released by the authorities, Susan Constantine, a body language and human behavioral expert, shared in a New York Post video that she believes the suspect has big brown eyes, stands 5'10 to 5 foot 11, and is in good shape with a medium-the-stocky build. Some of the other key things seen in the video may provide important clues.

For one thing, the intruder is wearing a distinct backpack. And it looks like when they arrive at the scene, that backpack is full. You can see that there's clearly stuff in the bag. Now, what it is, we don't know, but it could be a big clue. Because if that person was there to rob Nancy, you'd think they'd have an empty bag with them so that they could carry out valuables, jewelry, money, whatever they can fit in there. So the fact that the bag was full could mean that robbery wasn't. the motive. It could also mean that perhaps things connected to a pre-planned

forceful abduction could be in the back, maybe rope, zip ties, handcuffs, a bag to put over Nancy's head, any number of things. CNN reported that the backpack is widely believed to be an Ozark Trail Hiker brand. Ozark Trail is Walmart's private label outdoor brand. The authorities have confirmed that they believe the backpack is indeed an Ozark Trail backpack. So that bag could turn out to be an important clue. And the authorities will likely try to trace any sales of that bag. The person is also wearing like what's kind of like a track suit type of zip up jacket and light colored running shoes or sneakers.

There's also a lot of speculation in online debate about. the brand of clothing and shoes, but no official indication from authorities about that as of the time we're recording this. And I think more if when you take all of this into consideration, right, the video and everything that we've talked about, it's pretty easy to see why authorities would, after, you know, gaining this knowledge quickly pivot from a missing person. case to more of an abduction.

While all of these images of the suspect were being released, agents from the FBI and officers from the sheriff's department were going door to door and Annie and Tomaso's neighborhood, interviewing neighbors and also searching properties and drainage pipes. We still don't know what specifically they were searching for or what information they felt Nancy's daughter and son-in-law's neighbors could have about Nancy's disappearance. One neighbor said the agents were looking for cameras and wanted to search the wash that ran along their backyard. We should point out that Annie and Tommaso's home is about four miles away from Nancy's or about a 10-minute drive. And this is not the first time that police have had an interest in their home.

They've been there multiple times, searching around it and inside of it. Police also towed away their vehicle and took it for processing, reportedly with their blessing and not with a warrant. early on in the investigation, Ashley Banfield reported that, according to her confidential source, Nancy's son-in-law, Tomaso Sione, the husband of her daughter Annie, and possibly the last person to see her. The night before she disappeared, was potentially the prime suspect in the case. Authority seemed to refute this at their next press conference, though, and Tomaso has not been arrested or charged in this case, but many people, are still suspicious of him and the continued searching of his home and nearby homes of his neighbors probably has not helped to ease that suspicion. Obviously in cases like this, police start looking at the people closest to the victim and then work out from there. And in Nancy's case, that's no exception. Whether police behind the scenes suspect Tomaso

of being involved or have any reason to keep digging into him, we don't know. But it did seem odd to me more if that, you know, police seem to have spent a lot of time searching in and around Annie and Tomaso's home and then also searching around the neighbor, their neighbor's homes. I mean, they even took their vehicle. So I get it. That seems like a lot. And you can understand maybe why.

it fueled some of the suspicion of Tomaso and maybe even Annie, but again, we just don't know. Yeah, to me that's very interesting because, you know, they're spending a lot of time there as much time, if not more than the time they spent around Nancy's property. And so, you know, I take that to mean something's sending them there, whatever that is, we don't know. but I don't think they'd be spending that much time, resources in and around their home, as well as all their neighbors' yards, if there wasn't something there they were seeking and some reason for them to be there. On Tuesday, February 10th, there was more breaking news when it was confirmed that the Pima County Sheriff's Department had a person of interest detained for questioning in Nancy's case.

This was in the town of Rio Rocco, located an hour south of Tucson, and just 20 minutes from the Mexican border. The man identified as Carlos Palisuelos was reportedly pulled over in a traffic stop without incident. Either at that same moment or later on, the home in which he lives in with his partner, his children, and his mother-in-law was raided by police. According to Carlos and his family, the door was knocked off the hinges. His car and phones were searched and given back to him. It's not clear why investigators were interested in Carlos or what led them to him, but he was released and wasn't charged. Carlos, who was clearly unnerved and set by the run-in with police, was interviewed by multiple news outlets and said he had no idea why police were interested in him. He does

have family in Tucson, and he also works there as a delivery driver, so whatever led police to him may have had something to do with that. But since police did let him go, it seems like they don't think he's involved. Carla said he didn't know Nancy Guthrie and wasn't sure if he ever delivered to her home. So this lead or potential lead seems to have been a dead end, but police have kept busy looking at all possible clues in the case. There were early reports that investigators wanted the surveillance footage from a Circle K gas station in between Annie and Tomaso's home and Nancy's.

It seems that they were hoping to obtain footage. of any people or vehicles in the area around the time Nancy Vantage. Some reports say that a vehicle of interest was developed from that video, but as of now, investigators have been tight-lipped about why it's of interest or what kind of vehicle it is. As of now, the time of this recording, this is where things stand in Nancy Guthrie's case. And unfortunately, we don't have a lot to go on. We don't know if there's a strong suspect police are looking at. There was very early mentioned by some sources that there was possible DNA evidence left by the abductor,

but it was never really mentioned again or confirmed, but it seems like a tantalizing clue if it's true. There are also reports that investigators are seeking voluntary cheek swabs of landscapers and workers who may have been to Nancy Guthrie's home. The best evidence or clue may be the video footage of Nancy's presumed abductor. We talked about his clothing, his backpack, certain things about his face, and someone out there there may recognize him by his walk or his body movements or mannerisms. Likely because of a lack of evidence and information and due to the continued searches of her daughter's home, Nancy's children have been under a microscope. Their grief and anxiety in the videos they release are being picked apart as meaning something

else or indicating X, Y, or Z. people say stuff like there was a lot of blinking in this video. Savannah wore makeup in this one. Annie sounds like a robot or why is the son-in-law absent from these videos? Is he hiding something? For Savannah, she's used to being in the public eye and facing criticism or negative comments, but for the rest of her family, being in the spotlight and being accused by some of being involved, that's got to be tough.

And I think more of you see this frequently from people online, right? They pick apart these videos. I think more often than not what they're saying, you know, turns out not to be true or it doesn't mean what they think it means. Now, every now and then people are right. I think the Chris Watts videos are a perfect example of that. But, you know, I think we have to be really careful. unfortunately, I don't think a lot of people are, but when you are talking about the family

and really casting suspicion on them and it's tough. And if they're not involved in any way and have nothing to do with Nancy's abduction, you know, they're going through a lot and then they have to deal with this, you know, suspicion and accusation on top of it. it can't be easy. And then if there's a conclusion in this case, down the road, they're going to have to deal with that stuff and, you know, all the suspicion they were under the scrutiny. So just not a good situation for Nancy's family to be in. Dereys in this case are running wild. Some people think that the family wanted Nancy dead so they could inherit her home or property. But there is also ranged from terrorism to cartel involvement to even the Jeffrey Epstein files playing a role. For now, we just don't know why Nancy was abducted, or by who, or what their end goal is. People are also jumping on every bit of news and connecting it to the case.

This week, an 84-year-old woman was lifelighted to a hospital in the Tucson area, and people ran wild with the theory that it was Nancy and that she had been found. It turned out not to be her. On Wednesday, February 11th, what was described as a black glove, was found by searchers about a mile and a half from Nancy's home, Some reports said that two gloves were found, and apparently that's what police are confirming, that it was two gloves. Either way, in an investigation where no stone is being left unturned, the authorities are likely

going to try and determine who drop that glove or gloves and whether it's connected to Nancy's case. Gloves can be a rich source of DNA. So it seems likely that police can ID the owner, but is it another red herring? If it's not related to the case, then it's just another waste of time and resources. So I think we have to speculate a bit. Is it possible that financial gain by a stranger could be a motive in this case? Nancy's daughter Savannah Guthrie being on TV could be related to why someone targeted her mom.

She's famous and worth millions. So perhaps someone could have abducted Nancy for ransom expecting Savannah to pay. And if someone wanted to target Savannah by going after her mom Nancy, Nancy wasn't hard to find. It's no secret that Nancy lives in Tucson. She's lived there since the 1970s. And Savannah's quite open about the fact and has even talked about living in Tucson on the Today Show, as recently as November 2025. In that episode, Savannah said, my mom still lives there.

And she appeared on camera with her mom and sister in Tucson. While they didn't film at Nancy's home, someone could have easily gleaned enough information to track Nancy down. Savannah has talked publicly at other times about how her father passed away in 1988 and his obituary is online for anyone to look up. So it's probably easy for anyone to figure out that Nancy was on her own. And let's face it, Morp, in this day and age, there's so much information online. It's not that hard at all, right, to track someone down if you really wanted to. Financial gain by a stranger like you talked about Morph certainly is a possibility. and we touched on financial gain by someone close to Nancy.

What we haven't talked about is what if the motive for this abduction is not financial? We mentioned how the person showed up to the home with a full backpack, apparently not planning on stealing anything. What if the motive was a sexual attack? Women who are alone and vulnerable, even elderly women are often targeted for those kinds of attacks. attacks, but often in a great many of those cases, after the attack, the attacker flees the home for a quick getaway. They don't bring the victim with them. And we mentioned Nancy wasn't extremely mobile. She couldn't walk far and she needed a cane. She wouldn't have been easy to move, especially for one person. And that raises another possibility. Was there more than one perpetrator?

We only see one person in the video. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a second person involved, perhaps out of view of the camera or waiting in a nearby getaway vehicle. It seems like police are counting on surveillance footage as well as physical evidence to use to solve this case. They likely are tracking cell phones and vehicles in the area of Nancy's home around the time of the deduction. And they're likely digging into the various ransom demands. But to this point, all of that has not led to a lot. an arrest or to Nancy Guthrie's recovery.

Patience with the investigators is wearing thin for some people. There's been a lot of criticism in this case. In one instance, Nancy's home was opened back up to her family, and people were free to go back and forth to it, with reporters even filming the bloody entryway. Then suddenly, without warning, police raced back to the home once again, putting up crime scene tape before searching the roof in nearby drains. And Pima County Sheriff Chris Nannos, the lead person at most of the most of the crime. of the press conferences in this case, drew the ire of people when he was spotted at a

University of Arizona basketball game earlier this week at the height of the investigation. While he's certainly entitled to a life outside of work, the optics didn't look good. The longer this case goes without resolution, the more negative comments seem to come the investigator's way. You know, this is a case that is not like many others we've covered. part of that is because so much is unfolding by the day. There's so much information to sort out and dissect just for us as podcast hosts or for our listeners. So you can imagine how big a task this is dealing with all this for investigators who are racing against time to find Nancy to help us understand the ends and outs of a case like this and everything that's involved.

We invited on an expert to help walk us through it all. Sergeant Marlon Marachi spent 24 years with the LAPD and has worked in the Internal Affairs Department and as a public information officer. With there being so much stuff to sort through and put out there for the public in a case like Nancy's, we asked Sergeant Marachi how law enforcement decides what to put out there and what to hold back. One of the things that stands out the most about this case is the fact that, yes, it is viral, it's nationwide, and lucky that the Pima County Sheriff's Office decided to make it a multi-jurisictional, multifunctional operation with the FBI, right? And so when you are doing these soundbites and you're giving these press conferences, you want to be able to preserve as much information as possible because we don't want to like tip all. the suspect one, too. But rewards are very important. They're suitable and they're good to go, if you will, in terms of getting some momentum and getting tips out there for people to report

and see, hey, you know what? Yeah, I saw the suspect or I know this information, so on and so forth. But the big challenge with this particular case is that it's nationwide, right? It's viral. So imagine you working at the command post as one of the officers, or one of the deputies or one of the agents, and you're just getting flooded with all these leads, all this information, you want to be able to decipher what's a really good lead and go with that lead and investigate. No stone goes on turn.

And so that's one of the big challenges. But what people are not talking a lot about is the fact that when you have a multi-jurisdictional, multifunctional operation, you've got to determine who's going to take lead on this. In other words, hand over the baton, Pima County sheriffs, and let us do what we're really good at doing. Not to say that Pima County is not good at what they're doing. However, you do need the necessary resources, tools, and equipment, forensics, digital evidence. You need that personnel and you need all those resources to ensure that you're doing a full-blown investigation as you're trying to find Ms. Guthrie.

And, of course, the ultimate goal is to get our home safe. Sergeant Marachi next discussed the challenge of so many people working together and deciding on how to handle everything coming in as far as tips and leads. What you would do is you would create a command post and start delegating certain duties. Like, for example, you'll have maybe a supervisor to say, okay, when you get this type of digital evidence, then you're going to be in charge of that information to disseminate. You overhear the supervisor, command staff administrator, when you get these tips, And they believe that they saw something very important, then you're going to be responsible for that. And it all gets funneled to one person, right? But with that being said, the most important evidence is what's inside the house.

And guess what? We weren't able to get any type of evidence as to what happened in that house. As you can tell from the facts, there's about a 40 to 50 minute gap, right, a lapse in time where the suspect was in there. And so what we do need to know is process that crime scene and get what happened inside, especially in the bedroom, right? Or the whole house for that matter. But as you know, and we all know, is that the scene was secured and then all of a sudden a couple of days later it was opened where the media got let in.

And you know, you saw the media taking recordings of the blood splatter right there by the door. I believe there was some in the backyard as well. well. And people walking in and out the family let back in. That just is going to be a major challenge because it is going to cost some type of contamination that's going to compromise the entire investigation. We asked Sergeant Marachi how unusual it was for Nancy's home to be released as a crime scene so quickly. During my time to patrol, when we responded to these critical missings, right? And certainly, I haven't worked in an abduction case. I just want to go on the record to say that. However, there is some primary basic fundamental investigative duties and

responsibilities as you arrive at scene. And one of those basic duties is to secure the perimeter as much as possible. Why? Because the experts, right? The detectors are going to come and process that crime scene. Because it is a crime scene, right? You have a possible kidnapping abduction. And, you know, and chances are you might, and again, I want to be clear here, you might have a murder. You might have a murder case. We don't know that yet. So when you have all these thoughts, right, and all these preliminary criminal acts, if you will, you have to preserve that crime scene. That's super, super important.

So what you would do is you would do an inner perimeter, right, tape off everything around the house. And then you would also do an outer perimeter where the. quadrant, at least the closest quadrant. And that's determined by the supervisor at scene how you want that out of perimeter. And then what you do is you grab a deputy that has a log that's going to log every single person that comes into the scene and out the scene. And you want to keep that log in chronological order. Sergeant Marachi talked about some of the video surveillance clues in this case.

Definitely you have a possible suspect, right? at scene attempting to get into the front door, right? If he's trying to be deceitful by covering the doorbell camera, then that gives you some intention is that he's trying to get into the house. So you can establish that as the case moves forward, okay? After that, we don't know what's to come. And again, I think the most important information, and I'm sure the FBI has all this information,

perhaps all this evidence is when you process the crime scene as it relates to what's inside the house. We haven't heard about anything that's inside the house. And I think that's super important, you know, where the gatherings happen to be, if the house isn't disarray, if it's disheveled, you know, maybe you can kind of come up with a theory as to what is it that the suspect did in terms of, okay, they entered the front door and they perhaps went this direction. The bedroom's located on the east side of the house. So now they made a left turn and went to this direction. There's just so much information where you can build up this theory.

But again, it's the unknown. The hardest part about these type of cases is what we don't know. I guess that's the best way to label it. We asked Sergeant Marachi to share his thoughts on the decision to share these images at the time they did. My thinking is that it takes time to process. process video surveillance. And you want to make sure that you're depicting solid information that's going to appease the media, right? And definitely let the community know, right? For tips.

So it's not so much that it took so long, but what I will say, had the FBI, would have taken the lead on this from day one, right? Chances are we probably would have gotten this video surveillance evidence a couple of days ago, or I should say a couple of days prior. Now you have something to go by, right? So now we have a suspect and we have clothing. We got stature, height, maybe weight. And I'm telling you, man, the FBI has all these tools and equipment that can probably go ahead and identify who this person is.

And again, investigations like this take time to process. We asked Sergeant Marachi, if he was the public information officer in this case and was about to go out now with the latest information to address the public and appeal for help, how would he approach it? What I would do as a PIO, I would give this an updated information. As you can see, this surveillance video depicts a suspect. We believe that it's a male individual. As you can see, the clothing pleases anybody has seen any type of. clothing similar to the suspect that's depicted in this video surveillance, give us a call. I would really focus in on the tipping, right, to call the hotline and to call the tip line,

because now you have something to go by. Because for all we know, maybe a couple of miles down the road or somewhere, someone's going to say, oh, you know what? Yeah, here's the clothing that kind of matches what we just saw in the surveillance video. Or here's that mask. So I would really focus and hone in on the. on the fact that we need your help. We need you to get out there and let us know if you have any information

or you happen to see something similar to this suspect, this individual, please give us a call. And of course, someone's going to ask, so what's the latest and what's the next steps? Well, the next step is to definitely grab that lead of this video surveillance of this male individual and just move forward and try and make a, full-blown attempt to identify who this person is. We asked Sergeant Marachi if there's a risk to releasing this video,

if it might tip off the suspect and he gets rid of stuff that may tie him to the crime. Those are the calculated risks that you take in investigations, but you're better off given the information because we do have some good Samaritans out there that will call and update us and help the FBI. FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Office, right, as opposed to, and again, we can both agree that if this individual saw this, he's on the run, man. I'm as of the essence. We can't thank Sergeant Marlon Marachi enough for coming on.

Be sure to check out his work, including on this case, on his YouTube channel, the Marlon Marachi show. That's M-A-R-R-A-C-H-E. There's no doubt that Nancy Guthrie's children and her grandchildren just want her home. Until that happens and they're reunited, they're undoubtedly going through hell. And Nancy herself, you can't imagine what a terrifying ordeal this had to be for her. She likely woke up that night to a masked man in her home and was attacked.

It could be out there now being held someplace and being terrorized by her captor. In the most recent updates, as we were about to record, we have the following items. First, and this comes from KVOA's Jacob Owens, he says that police are asking for any doorbell video footage from anyone near Nancy's home from Sunday, January 11th between 9 p.m. and midnight. He also mentions that police are interested in footage from Saturday, January 31st between 9.30 and 11 a.m. As there was reportedly a suspicious vehicle on Via Entrada about 10 a.m. Those with cameras are asked to check before any point.

possible video is overwritten. Another big update is that according to Nancy Grace, police are now looking for a gray pickup truck that was seen at some point in Nancy's neighborhood. There aren't many details about it, but they seem to want to ID the driver and talk to them. Other late breaking details include a surveillance video that surfaced over the past 24 hours of an unidentified man a few miles from Nancy Guthrie's home who was carrying multiple backpacks and appeared to try and throw in over a fence. This was around the time frame that Nancy was abducted, but apparently that man has now been identified and ruled out in connection with Nancy's

case. Police have also put out an official description of the suspect, describing them as a male medium build and standing 5 foot 9, 5 foot 10. In what may be the biggest and most important news to come out. It's being reported that a glove not belonging to Nancy was found inside her home, and it's been sent to a lab in Florida that could yield some major clues. So we'll have to wait to see where that goes. While most of, you know, the latest info seems to indicate that, all right, police might be closer to figuring out what happened to Nancy. There has been some discouraging news being reported, and that is that there appears to be some friction or disconnect between the Pima County Sheriff's Office and the FBI.

There apparently is some bickering and back and forth over who's in charge and handling and sharing of the evidence and case details. That's probably the last thing Nancy's family wants to hear. So hopefully they can work that out. There's now a $100,000 reward doubled from $50,000 being offered for information that leads to either Nancy Guthrie's recovery or an arrest in this case. If you have any information, you can contact the FBI by calling 800-2-25-5-324, or the non-emergency line of the Pima County Sheriff's Department at 520-351-490. Hey, it's Morf here with a very late update.

After Mike and I recorded this in the overnight hours of Friday, February 13th, to Saturday, February 14th, there was a SWAT raid at a home two miles from Nancy Guthrie's. on the 6,200 block of Comini, De Michael, and Tucson. At the same time, there was a traffic stop at a nearby Colvers fast food restaurant. These two incidents are reportedly connected to each other and to the Nancy Guthrie case. Reportedly, there were multiple people taken into custody in these two incidents. Some reports say that three and up the four people were taken into custody. There are also unconfirmed reports that someone may have taken their life in connection to these incidents, but there's no way to confirm it, and again, it may not be taken.

true. At the Culver's police stop, a silver or gray range rover that looked as if it had been parked there for a while and was dirty, was being heavily looked at by police on scene, and eventually they made entry into the back of the SUV. When they did, they surrounded police vehicles around it and raised yellow tarps to prevent witnesses or reporters from looking inside. What, if anything, was in there? We don't know. The SUV was then towed away. It seems like this latest action by police may already be proving to be a false lead. According to Brian Enton of News Nation in an ex post from the morning of February 14th, he states, the Pima County Sheriff tells the local affiliate KOLD last night's operation was,

quote, nothing more than a lead trackdown that led to a search warrant and no arrest. And added, just tracking down leads, no arrest and no signs of Nancy. that is what Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos just told me last night. So sadly, it seems like there's a good possibility. Nancy's still out there someplace. Let's hope for the best for her. So morph as we wrap this case up, obviously, and we said it early on, right? This is a story that is all over the news.

It is receiving a ton of attention. And I think by and large, most of that is because Nancy, Nancy's daughter, Savannah, is a big star. Let's face it, she has been on, you know, this very big show, the Today Show for many years. She's known to millions of people. That's one of the reasons, right, that this case would receive so much attention. Yeah, it definitely seems like that was what fueled it. But I think now it's because it's so strange, the clues are so strange.

Now you've got this creepy video. I think it's sort of grown legs. Well, it was initially, you know, caught the attention of people because her daughter's famous. Now, I think the case is just taking over the news cycle because of all the strange clues and strange twist and the daily things that are coming to light. It's almost like a soap opera playing out in real time and people are just interested in it. well you do have some interesting aspects you know first of all the footage captured of the person who i think we all believe maybe nancy's abductor what's with the the full backpack it kind of makes it seem like the person is not there to rob and it seems very likely that nancy gathry was abducted

And then you have, you know, these ransom demands. Some proven to be hoaxes. Others, I don't think have been confirmed. There's just so much going on, Morf. And there's another strange thing is, you know, why did this happen? Is it a pre-planned abduction? Did he go there with some other intent, you know, home invasion and something went wrong? And he panicked.

it's sort of the unknown that is really interesting. On one hand, too, it seems like this person came very prepared, gloves, ski mask, covered head to toe, only their eyes visible, their mouth. They seem to know that there's a good chance they would be seen. They have a gun so you know they mean business. They're not just there to scare someone. And it seems like they would possibly use that gun if they needed to. So it seems like there's a lot of prep.

But then also there's a very amateur attempt with the shrubbery to hang it over the camera. So it's almost like they knew there would be cameras, but then they're surprised by a camera at the same point. And I imagine now that that video is out there, this person has to be really scared and looking over their shoulder that there's going to be a knock at their door any minute. Yeah, well, the camera. is a big deal to me. Because there is this thought by people online that, well, why are the police looking so hard?

It seems that, you know, Annie and Tomaso, they've done so many searches in around their home, their neighbor's properties. Okay, what do they know that they are not revealing to the public? But then you have this doorbell camera and you, would think anyone connected closely with Nancy would know that that camera was there and would either not try to enter the home by the front door, maybe they would pick the back door. So in a way, I don't know, it almost seems like this person wasn't prepared for that and improvised. I'm not sure, Morp, what to make of it.

Yeah, there's definitely a little bit of a clash there. It seems like on one hand, they they were prepared on the other hand. They were surprised. So I wonder if they had cased this home out or had been there in some capacity, whether it's as a delivery person or as a guest, whatever it might be. And they forgot about that particular camera. Just fascinating. But one thing that I have a theory on that jumped out to me was the first instance

where we know that person's at the doorstep is at 147 a.m. and that's when the, you know, the doorbell seemed, the door cam, call it cam, nest cam, seem to go offline. And I think that could be the point where he's fooling around with it and literally yanks it off the law and takes it with him when he flees. But what I find interesting is that 27 minutes later at 212, the security system again detects a person at the front door all. although there's no video because by this point he's ripped the camera down. I think what he did, and this is just my theory, is that at 147, he yanked that camera down,

and he probably went to hide out to see if police came, to see if it would set off some kind of alarm, because I know with different alarm systems, if you interfere with them, if you try and, you know, destroy them, they're built to trigger, you know, someone to come out for the alarm company, to call the police and send someone out. So I have a hunch that this person went over, watched from a distance to see if police came,

and after 27 minutes he didn't see any police, he said, okay, I feel safe now. I can go back and enter the house. And that's why at 212, it detects that person at the door again. So I tend to think that's what happened that he was hanging out, waiting to see if police would respond. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting theory, but that's what we're dealing with right now, right? Or theories, speculation, because we don't know. The police don't know, so we don't know. But the one thing I do know is that this is a case that we're going to be following.

Many people are going to be following. And hopefully there is a break that comes sooner than later. I mean, my hope is obviously that they can recover Nancy a lot and unharmed. But unfortunately, I feel like the longer that this goes on, the less likely that is. I hate to say that, but I think that's the truth. Yeah, there's no doubt that, again, we mentioned because of her medication that not having that medicine could be fatal for her. and being all these days out now, who knows if she's gotten sick, or again, she was hurt during the abduction. We know that because of the blood, so she could have been sustained injuries there

that wouldn't have been good for her. So, you know, time will tell, but, you know, if this person wanted something they haven't clearly communicated with the family, if it was some kind of ransom or they wanted something or return for Nancy, they provided no problem. proof of life. They've, you know, we've had these mystery ransoms, but we don't know if any of them were from the actual doctor. So what does this person want? That's the key takeaway from me is the remaining question is, why did he do this? And what's his angle? But I think a lot of people are assuming that Nancy was the target because of her famous daughter. But what if that's not the case, Morph, what if this person had no idea that this woman, Nancy, who lived there, his daughter,

was a famous TV celebrity and only found that out after the fact. Is that possible? Yeah, and then, you know, we have the fact that this person took her from the house. If it was simply, you know, if he didn't know that she was the mother of somebody famous and it wasn't about a ransom, maybe he went there. just for a home burglar, even though the bag was full, or he was going to do a home invasion. But the unusual part is that he chose to take Nancy with him. So that, to me, you know, that seems like more of a work for him to try and get away

with a, you know, an elderly lady in tow that can't move around good. It's going to slow him down and make it more likely from to be caught. And then he has to presumably, if she's okay, or he's going to try and keep her alive. He has to take care of her, keep her someplace. That's even more of a commitment on his part. So, you know, it's going to be interesting to see if she's found, if she's okay, how she was treated and what this person did to try and keep her alive because, you know,

if she dies, this person's facing a murder charge as opposed to kidnapping, which is already serious enough. Yeah, just all things that hopefully we will get. to down the road. But that's it for our episode on Nancy Guthrie. As always, if you love the show, and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating and review. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, run every major platform. Just search for Criminology podcast on your favorites. You can also find news, old episodes, and more about the show on

criminologypodcast.com. And if you want to join us, discussion group about the show and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.