Law&Crime Sidebar - Savannah Guthrie Drops New Clues in Mom's Horrifying Kidnapping Case

Starting point is 00:00:00 Honestly, we don't know anything. We don't know anything. And I'd just say, I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so sorry. We have just seen part one of Savannah Guthrie's interview on The Today Show. This is her first time sitting down and speaking about the apparent kidnapping of her 84-year-old mother, Nancy. It is incredibly sad. It is powerful.

Starting point is 00:00:27 But it also reveals details about her and her family's perspective through this whole ordeal. And yes, she addresses the allegations, the theories that her family was somehow involved. We're going to get into all of that and more right now. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Look, as we're covering this story, I think it's pretty clear. Staying on top of the news is very important. But the problem is, with all the media bias these days, who knows what to believe?

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Starting point is 00:01:32 get the facts. Welcome back to trustworthy journalism. In a Guthrie interview Thursday morning was just heartbreaking. It really was. There's no other way to describe it than that. She is speaking out in a TV interview for the first time going back to NBC's Today Show to talk about her mom, 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, went missing 54 days ago from her Tucson area home on February 1st. It is incredibly difficult to watch. But I will tell you it is also important. It is important on a number of levels. It's so important for the human aspect of this because sometimes we forget in the midst of the investigation and the suspects and the leads and the evidence and the sheriff. This is a real family being torn

Starting point is 00:02:18 to pieces because of this. They are living this day in and day out hour by hour. But it is also important because it goes to the idea of what does she and the family know at this point? What was their experience like as they went through the different chapter? of this. And as it still goes on, what does that tell us as we sit here with no arrests, no identified suspects, no reported breaks in the case? So I want to go through what she told Hoda. And I also want to provide context for what she said. Now, to be clear, this is apparently part one of the interview. Part two is going to air tomorrow Friday morning. So first, Savannah gets into how she first found out that her mother was nowhere to be found. And she said,

Starting point is 00:03:01 no. She said, mom's missing. And I've said, what? What are you talking about? She said she's gone. Talking about her sister there. And according to Savannah, her husband, Mike, was out of town for the weekend, that she and the kids, they spent that Saturday night away from the home. When they all got home on Sunday, they get a call from Savannah's sister Annie. And remember, the reporting was that Nancy had visited her daughter Annie's house the night of January 31st, 532 p.m. had dinner, was driven back to her house by her son-in-law. Tomaso Sione, dropped off at around 9.48 p.m., saw her go inside, drove off.

Starting point is 00:03:42 The Pima County Sheriff's Office indicated that Nancy's garage door went down at 9.50 p.m. And it wasn't until the next day, February 1st, that she was reported missing. That a friend apparently called Nancy's family saying that Nancy hadn't shown up for church. There was a source that told Fox News that for years Nancy and several other friends, they got together each other's homes to watch the virtual church service that was live streamed. from this church in New York. Now, the sheriff's department is then alerted. And you go back to the interview where Savannah says that they thought originally this might have just been a medical episode, which by the way, I will tell you behind the scenes here at Long Crime, when this first

Starting point is 00:04:22 broke, we all initially believe that might have been what was going on too. But here's the problem. This is when everything changed. But this is what Savannah told Hoda, that at Nancy's house, the back doors were propped open. So they thought maybe she'd been taken away on a stretcher in an ambulance to the hospital. Maybe that's why that they'd already been calling the hospitals. They couldn't find her. Now, I will tell you, there had been reporting about forced entry, right? I don't believe the sheriff's office has officially come out and said that. Not totally clear why. Perhaps they couldn't definitively say that. They won't. And there may be circumstances to Nancy's apparent abduction that we just don't know yet, and maybe they don't want to reveal. But talking about

Starting point is 00:05:01 leaving things behind. Maybe they're not 100% sure and they don't want to say something and then backtrack. Or maybe there's certain aspects of the apparent abduction where it doesn't appear that you have a broken window or a door that's been slammed down, right? And this could provide maybe an answer of how Nancy left or was taken from the house. But talking about leaving things behind, but Nancy's pacemaker app showed it disconnected from her phone at 228 a.m. And by the way, investigators deployed a signal sniffer device to track the pacemaker. The signals in the area goes up to a helicopter. They try to pinpoint locations.

Starting point is 00:05:34 But the bigger part is that it gives us not only a timeline of when she disappeared, when she was apparently taken, but it shows how dire the situation is for her. In fact, Savannah touched on that in her interview saying how her mom had been in tremendous pain. Her back was bad. Take a look. She was trying to on a good day. She could walk down to the mailbox and get the mail, but most days not. So there was no wander off.

Starting point is 00:06:02 That is what separates this case from other kidnapping cases. What do we mean? Look, in every kidnapping case, of course, time is always of the essence. But when you have an 84-year-old woman who has mobility issues is in need of prescription medication, yes, there is a desperate need to find Nancy quickly. But also, if she was kidnapped, you know, how would the kidnappers get her this potential medication to keep her alive? limited in how they may transport her or where. And, you know, my colleague at News Nation Brian Enten, he came on my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, a few weeks back, and he had gone

Starting point is 00:06:36 to Mexico. He gone to Nogales, the 60 miles south of Tucson. And the theory was, you know, maybe Nancy may have been taken across the border. And Enten basically discovered how easy it would be, theoretically, to smuggle someone in there, but also, you can more readily get medications there without a prescription. Although, to be clear, there is no definitive evidence of this. theory at this point in time, but it was something that was explored. I want to go back, because Savannah also told Hoda about the blood outside the door, the ring camera. It's a chilling aspect of this case. Yes, there did appear to be blood droplets outside the front door of Nancy's home, and the Pima County Sheriff's Office, Chris Nanos, the sheriff, did confirm that that was Nancy's

Starting point is 00:07:17 blood. Now, it's not clear how it got there, when it got there, but remember, one of the most controversial aspects of this investigation is that authorities had taken off the tape from the scene, and And essentially reporters were allowed to walk up right to the scene. I remember those initial shots of the blood. So there was always concerns about contamination of evidence. A law enforcement source told CBS News that some blood was also found inside the house, which is interesting because it's our understanding that forensic DNA material was apparently found at the home, that that was sent over to genetic genealogy testing.

Starting point is 00:07:53 You know, family tree combined with investigative efforts, You narrow down to a suspect or suspects, family members. And we've seen that have remarkable results in a number of cases. Look at Brian Koeberger. And we haven't heard anything back from that per se, but I still believe that's something we have to look out for. That's something that could be a break in this case. It may take some time, but let's not lose hope about that.

Starting point is 00:08:12 Camera 2. Okay, so Sheriff Nanos indicated that there was this doorbell camera at Nancy's home disconnected at 1.47 a.m. So again, remember those key dates, the period of time when all this apparently went down. And the software apparently detected someone, maybe even an animal, on a camera about 25 minutes later. This is, again, according to Nanos. Now, this is the part that we played before that is so unsettling.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Because after all this time, Savannah said, we don't know anything, meaning they don't know anything more about what happened to Nancy. And that is especially heartbreaking when Savannah seems to wonder if her mom was potentially abducted because of her. And somebody thought, oh, that girl, that lady has money. We can make a quick buck. I mean, that would make sense, but we don't know. But yeah, that's probably, which is too much to bear. To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it's because of me. It's just so difficult to think about that.

Starting point is 00:09:31 It is so difficult to hear. You know, like she said, it's basically, it's too much to bear. I think that's a really good way to explain it. And I will tell you, unfortunately, that has been a theory, right? Why potentially take the mother of a famous TV anchor? Was it a burglary gone bad? Was it targeted? Was a home invasion?

Starting point is 00:09:51 Was there a panic? Did they know this was Nancy's house? And there's another theory, too. And I hate to say this, but I have to bring it up. Because there are those, some investigators who wonder, If this is a sadistic targeted operation, someone who revels in the pain of watching this family endure this from watching what we're showing you right now. I mean, why not take the money? Remember that? Savannah's family put out a $1 million offer, reward. Take a look. If this is what is to be, then we will accept it. But we need to know where she is.

Starting point is 00:10:32 we need her to come home. For that reason, we are offering a family reward of up to $1 million for any information that leads us to her recovery. She even said you could call the tip line, you could be anonymous. And Savannah, in her interview with Hoda, said, while it's her understanding that a lot of the ransom notes that came out, there was a lot of reporting about that, she believes they were fake. She did say, quote, you know, a person that would send a fake ransom note really has to look deeply at themselves. I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real. And Savannah was also asked about what she called the terrifying doorbell footage of that mass man.

Starting point is 00:11:21 Remember, it was FBI director Cash Patel in the Pima County Sheriff's Department that posted the surveillance images and the video of this subject outside of Nancy's home. And I can't imagine that that. is who she saw standing over her bed. Yeah. I can't. That's too much. Yeah. So give you a little more context.

Starting point is 00:11:50 You have this person. Authorities previously described this individual as a male with an average build who's about five foot nine inches to five foot ten inches tall, masked wearing a backpack, gloves, flashlight, seemingly trying to manipulate or cover the camera with foliage. and they were able to recover data from the home security camera system. It was reported that this subject was carrying a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker backpack. And at one point, authority said the clothing, the face mask, especially could have been purchased at Walmart.

Starting point is 00:12:22 So maybe even Walmart online. Apparently investigators looked at surveillance footage from local Walmarts. This is according to Sheriff Nanos. They got their hands on purchase records for that backpack as well. The gloves, this was a setback. Remember, there were gloves. that were recovered by authorities about two miles away from Nancy's house, black, possibly the ones worn by the suspect. I mean, they look like them. They run the DNA profile, but it didn't

Starting point is 00:12:45 return a match in CODIS, right? That big database from the FBI of those who were arrested for a crime, the DNA was submitted. We're talking millions of DNA profiles, no hit. And then it recently came out that the DNA on those gloves was traced back to a restaurant worker in the area, but wasn't considered part of the investigation. And by the way, the data that was recovered, from the camera, you know, Sheriff Nanos said Google told him that one of the surveillance images could be from January 11th. So this is days before Nancy went missing. It was always a theory with someone casing the house. Well, since then, Nanos indicated that Google has withdrawn its support for that claim, retracted that statement. And according to the sheriff, Google says,

Starting point is 00:13:27 we may never know the exact dates when an image was captured. So it's still unclear if this mass figure was actually at Nancy's house, you know, before the abduction or not. It was also reported at one point that the FBI was looking at gun purchases in Tucson stores as well. Haven't heard more about that. But here's what's interesting in the interview with Hoda, too. So Savannah spent a lot of time talking about her family, how amazing her family is, how strong they are, and how they've been on the same page, saying, no one took better care of my mom than my sister and brother-in-law, and no one protected my mom more than my brother. And we love her. and she's our shining light, she's our matriarch, she's all we have.

Starting point is 00:14:08 My siblings are amazing, and we are a unit. And I talked about how brilliant my brother is, but my sister is equally brilliant, and also has special powers of intuition and faith and language, depth and heart. And I feel like we came together with all these beautiful gifts that came from our mom and dad and from God, did our best to come up with the words to say, and I haven't posted one thing or said one thing that the three of us hadn't decided together.

Starting point is 00:14:32 It is surreal. How is it possible that we're having to make a video speaking to a kidnapper who took an 84-year-old woman in the dead of night, in her pajamas, with no shoes, without her medicine, this little person? And she said she was glad that the video of the mask guy came out because of all the theories online about her family being involved. And her response to that speculation is this. And it piles pain upon pain. there are no words. There are no words. Yeah, so that is why, to me, it seems she's making this statement and saying they were always together. It's not surprising she's saying this because when you look at the videos of them together, those videos wouldn't have been made if there was any indication. Anybody in that family was a suspect.

Starting point is 00:15:28 And to be clear, Sheriff Nannos indicated that all members of the Guthrie family and their spouses have been cleared as suspects with him saying the family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and our victims in this case. Suggesting otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel. And to give you a sense of what she means, you know, family being on the same page. You remember this from February 7th where Savannah is sitting with her brother and sister? We received your message and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.

Starting point is 00:16:05 This is the only way we will have peace. this is very valuable to us and we will pay. And again, her sister being there was so important because there was a lot of theories and speculation online that somehow her brother-in-law, right, Annie's husband, Tomasso, was somehow involved. But as you can see from law enforcement, as you can see from Savannah,

Starting point is 00:16:28 there is no evidence to suggest that whatsoever. Now, as you know, anybody who has been watching this case knows there have been a lot of question, around how the case has been handled, the investigation. I mentioned the crime scene, questions of when the FBI was brought in, how were they, was the Pima County Sheriff's office properly coordinating with the FBI, where was evidence being submitted? And right now, as I speak, there is an effort to recall Sheriff Chris Nanos. In fact, the Pima County Deputies Organization issued a unanimous no confidence vote for Nanos, saying in a statement that

Starting point is 00:17:03 they have unanimously voted no confidence in Sheriff Chris Nanos and called for his They also pointed to Nanis's apparent disciplinary history as another reason to remove him from office. During the interview, Hoda asked Savannah, how did your family feel about the way the investigation was conducted? And Savannah responded, it's still going and people have worked tirelessly, tirelessly, and we see that. But we need answers. We cannot be a piece without knowing. And she ended this part of the interview with this. And it is never too late to do the right thing. And our hearts are focused on that.

Starting point is 00:17:44 And this comes on the heels of the family releasing a statement just a few days ago, and it reads in full, quote, We are deeply grateful for the outpouring from neighbors, friends, and the people of Tucson. We are all family now. We continue to believe it is to Sonans and the greater Southern Arizona community that hold the key to finding resolution in this case. Someone knows something. It's possible a member of the city. of this community has information that they do not even realize is significant. We hope people search their memories, especially around the key timelines of January 31st and the early morning

Starting point is 00:18:16 hours of February 1st, as well as the late evening of January 11th. We desperately ask this community for renewed attention to our mom's case. Please consult camera, footage, journal notes, text messages, observations, or conversations that in retrospect may hold significance. No detail is too small. It may be the key. We miss our mom with every breath, and we cannot be a peace until she is home. We cannot grieve. We can only ache and wonder. Our focus is solely on finding her and bringing her home. We want to celebrate her beautiful and courageous life, but we cannot do that until she is brought to a final place of rest. Thank you for continuing to pray without ceasing. And it's signed to Guthrie family, Cameron, Christine, Tomasso, and Savannah and Michael.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Now, I have to believe, and we'll see what part two is tomorrow, but I have to believe one of the reasons that Savannah Guthrie decided to do this interview is not only to share her side of the story, to maybe correct any misconceptions people have, but also to keep it in the limelight. This news cycle changes like that. There is so much going on in the world right now that while this story dominated the headlines for a long period of time, it is now taken a backseat. And it seems to me that in order to get answers, in order to get resolution, in order for people to actually look at the materials that they may have in their possession, it may take something like this,

Starting point is 00:19:36 statements like this, interviews like this, for people to give it a second look because it seems, as of right now, the public may be the answer to finding out what happened. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast,

Starting point is 00:19:51 Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. You can also follow us on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X, Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. I'll see you next time, everybody.

Law&Crime Sidebar - Savannah Guthrie Drops New Clues in Mom's Horrifying Kidnapping Case

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