Where is Nancy Guthrie?

Nancy Guthrie, mother of today host Savannah, has been missing for over a month now, but

I want to take a second to talk about a guy named Dominic Evans.

He probably haven't heard of him.

He's a middle-aged elementary school teacher who, in his spare time, plays drums in a band

with one of Nancy Guthrie's sons-in-law.

Because of that connection, he ended up speaking to investigators in Arizona.

They did not arrest him.

But because of that connection, he ended up becoming a prime suspect for amateur investigators

who have descended on Tucson to create what some call content for their followers.

That content, at least for a while, ruined Dominic Evans' life.

He was scared to leave his house.

He feared for his kids' safety.

He told the New York Times,

I feel like someone's taken my name, but for what reasons?

I don't know.

Monetary clickbait to be relevant, entertainment, but they're innocent people to get hurt.

I'm Sean Ramos for him.

On today's explain from Vox, we're going to revisit a rather disturbing trend in our

very online world.

Time vacations.

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This is today explained.

Luke Winky writes about all sorts of things for slate, including occasionally crime.

I think people think that this case probably could be solved, despite the fact that it's

not.

And I think that is kind of driven a lot of the speculation.

When you went into the heart of the speculation of the true crime hysteria, tell us where

you went and tell us what it looked like.

So I flew into Phoenix, Arizona and I jumped in a rental car and I took out my phone and

I tapped in Nancy Guthrie's address and I drove to Tucson about an hour and a half away,

all pretty ordinary.

And then I took this one right turn onto a street and immediately you could just tell there

is all these cars parked on the side of the road.

Out front of the home of Nancy Guthrie and it is a media circus out here.

There are some weird people that show up out here and so there's this guy in this car

right here who literally drove by like 50 to 100 times very slowly.

It's a pizza delivery.

It's a pizza.

It's my prankiner.

There were drones overhead.

There's just media people just kind of wandering around.

There's people like filming like front-facing camera videos and talking to their streaming

setups.

D29, the search for Nancy Guthrie.

There's her home right behind me here in the Catalina foothills.

We're out here at the Nancy Guthrie home.

Today marks one month since she has been inducted from her home allegedly taken out of her

bed per reports.

Day 32, where is Nancy Guthrie back out in front of Nancy Guthrie home?

What's interesting about it, there's not like a police barricade or anything.

It can just kind of show up there to cover the case and that includes journalists like

me and that includes random YouTubers.

That includes people who just have a morbid curiosity and want to see the sights of what

is was for a while like the biggest story in America.

It was pretty surreal.

It wasn't like you're outside a courthouse or something like that where you sort of expect

the zeitgeist.

It's just the side of a road and a nice neighborhood in Tucson.

Is there something about this Nancy Guthrie case that is particularly potent for these

true crime tribes out there?

Is it just that her daughter is super famous?

That honestly is part of it.

This is like a galactically famous person almost like in the subconscious of America.

Good morning.

It's November 26th.

This is today.

It is so exciting to be here in Windsor.

It is a charming town 20 miles outside of London and it's really steeped in royal history.

In the name of science, I agree to let them fill me all night taking part in an experiment

spending a night at a hotel to learn more about the consequences that come with a host

of disruptions.

And I think also part of that is like, I don't know, we live in kind of like a low-trust

culture right now and I think people are maybe more eager to believe that maybe the

sheriff doesn't know what they're talking about.

When it comes to the investigation, I don't even know if they can do a new investigation

because so much of the evidence was tampered with and botched at this point.

Maybe the FBI has bungled this.

The way this case is being investigated is completely ridiculous.

It's botched and it's like a whole bunch of rookies are investigating.

Maybe you're maybe more inclined to think that a couple of YouTubers might be getting

to the bottom of something or are focusing on something that's whatever authorities out

there have missed.

You know, now that you mention it, I feel like I saw the director of the FBI in Italy,

like chugging beers with the men's hockey team instead of trying to crack this case.

I didn't see that so much from them because I will say a lot of these

content creators did seem to be right-leaning, shall I say, and I think they were more

interested in the democratic sheriff of Tucson, but I'm sure that was probably in the bloodstream,

at least a little bit.

Did you get a sense being out there?

How much people wanted to solve this case versus how much people wanted it to drag on for the

views for the engagement for who knows the revenue?

I can't say that the influencers wanted it to drag on for the engagement, but I do think that

the longer it went on in some ways, that was more validating for some of the influencers

that were out there in the sense that it let them kind of exist within this narrative that like,

I'm the one that's going to be able to solve this.

I remember there is this one guy, this dude Jonathan Lee Rich's JLR, he goes by.

And the longer I was out there, his content stopped being so much about Nancy Guthrie

and sort of being about stuff how-

I understand people have to help health and fitness, but would you go like if you're a sheriff,

would you go to the gym and work out just days just like the next day when Nancy goes missing

and she said he's been there for days, like working out in the morning.

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

What's funny about that is here we are a month and a couple of days out from Nancy Guthrie

being abducted and no one's figured out, not the FBI, not local law enforcement and not these

myriad influencers out there. What are the influencers doing out there?

So most influencers are literally just setting up a camera in front of her house and talking to

a chat box that is full of the people that are tuning in to just basically just stare at

Nancy Guthrie's house and kind of wait for updates to trickle in or to share

random kind of theories they saw on Twitter or like pass along rumors and you might think that

why would anyone tune into that? That sounds kind of boring. I don't have a great answer to that,

but what I can say is clearly there is a market for this, like the top guy out there

this guy JLR. He was getting like almost like 80,000 concurrent views of people just

staring at a static feed of Nancy Guthrie's house. I talked to another guy out there who's from

California and he drove out there and the reasoning he said so is because he said, well,

no one was taking the night shift. So it sounds like you're describing a scene in which there

these influencers and chat casters and whatever else. They're like aware that they're not helping.

They just want the views. They just want the engagement. Is that all it is? Yeah, I mean,

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

Yeah, I think this is the thing I found myself thinking about a lot because again,

you are right. The engagement is really good. You're covering the biggest story in the world and

if you are in the game of true crime, like this is where you want to be. Like you have like

kind of the veneer of giving the people what they want. I am out here covering this story and

piping it to the people that trust me on true crime. I didn't get a great sense that

ultimately what these influencers were doing and what these cable news entities were doing

were especially different. I think at the end of the day, everyone was sort of milling

around Nancy Guthrie's house waiting for the sheriff to show up to make their statements.

I guess you could say it's a free country, but it kind of isn't lately.

And you could say like they're not hurting anyone, but they're kind of are because

haven't they gasped up certain theories to the detriment of like alleged suspects who weren't

even suspects? Yeah, I mean, the thing with like, you know, if you're a traditional media entity,

right, you're sort of bound by certain, just a certain rules of how you go about the stuff.

A good example is the sheriff when I was out there made a statement kind of reiterating that

they had ruled out Nancy Guthrie's immediate family as suspects in this investigation.

To be clear, the Guthrie family to include all siblings and spouses has been cleared as possible

suspects in this case. The family has been nothing but cooperative,

gracious, and are the victims in this case. And that's because there's been all this speculation

that someone close Nancy Guthrie might have been the person to a doctor. And I talked to one guy

out there who was a true crime streamer and he, you know, told me, it's like, well, I go about

things a different way. I like to have direct interaction with my viewers. So when the

when the sheriff put out that statement, I put a poll in my chat saying like, hey, do you believe

the sheriff that her family had nothing to do with it? And in that poll, everyone said that no,

I think their family still had something to do with it, you know, which like that probably

is where the public sentiment is, but it wasn't like he was taking charge of saying like, no,

guys, listen, we can't be talking about that because the authorities ruled them out. Like,

they were still willing to kind of engage and that kind of speculation, which you could say is

a little bit damaging and not necessarily helpful to solving the case. And that makes it a little

less. It's like, it's like, it's like doing your own research about vaccines, except

you could ruin someone's life. Yeah, except that I was talking to this guy who was an

influence over their creating content about the gutter case, obviously. And we were talking about

like how streamers like him get accused of like passing along this information, because he

had started and he was an inside edition was out there and they did this little feature about how

he and these other influencers were putting out these rumors and that the police want them gone,

all the stuff. Distractions like that, standing out here in the parking lot and screaming how bad

this sheriff is, how does that help this investigation move forward? And I was talking to him about that.

I expected him to like really push back hard against like the idea that he was spreading this

information. He and he did that a little bit, but that wasn't really like the thrust of his

defense. Like instead, he basically told me that listen, I'm going to, I'm going to get things wrong.

I'm going to pass along. I'm going to get misinformation. I'm going to like, you know, see

a tweets and talk about it. Then am I, am I later proved that that tweet is wrong? But like,

I'm a true crime content creator and that is, that's what makes true crime fun. The misinformation

is kind of what makes true crime fun. It's like to come up with a rumor in a theory and talk

about that and explore it. And maybe it gets later debunked. That is kind of what we do here in

true crime. Like that's what I'm out here to do. Like the next day, he was going to go like,

investigate a golf course because some of his viewers thought that like, like Nancy Guthrie's body

might be stowed away in this golf course. I don't know. I was sort of like, I was chilled about

how much I related to what he was saying and how kind of Iky had felt nonetheless.

If you want to read more about how the true crime influencers gave Luke the Ick

had to slate.com and look for his piece titled The Haunting American Scene Unfolding Outside

Nancy Guthrie's House. When we're back on today, explained, we're going to try and figure out why

this case hasn't been cracked yet.

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You're listening to Today Explained. Perry Van Del is a public safety reporter with the

Arizona Republic. He's been covering the Nancy Guthrie case from the jump. It began very

large. Good evening. We do begin tonight with the urgent search and the race against time now to

find the mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie. It has been another gut wrenching day here at

NBC News as investigators search for Savannah Guthrie's mother Nancy. I'm outside the home of Nancy

Guthrie. It's now six days since the 84-year-old disappeared without a trace. I think, you know,

it became apparent that this wasn't an 84-year-old woman who walked out of her home of her own

volition. There were signs that she was likely abducted. At its apex, at least, there were

hundreds of law enforcement assigned between the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI.

It's not immediately clear as of now how many investigators remain active on the case.

They haven't really gone into that. The Pima County Sheriff's Department gave this sort of

vague description about, you know, reallocating resources depending on the situation and context

and things like that, but they have assured that it remains active and ongoing. Tell us what we

know about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. Sure. We know that in the hours prior to her

disappearance, she was at her daughter Annie's house for dinner and games and returned home

just before 10 pm and was dropped off by her son-in-law. We know that because we have a garage door

open. At approximately, I can't stress that enough. It approximately 9.48 pm. At 9.50 pm,

that garage door closes. Then her ringed doorbell camera was disconnected. I believe a little bit

before 2 am. To 28, Nancy's pacemaker app shows that it was a disconnect from the phone. That was

sort of the last sign that investigators had. And at 11.56 pm, the family checks on Nancy,

discovers her missing. And then it's believed that she wasn't without medication that she took

for a heart condition that she had. So there were concerns about her well-being at the very

beginning of the case. Because if she didn't have it, then that could threaten her life as well.

This is an 84-year-old grandma that needs vital medication for her well-being. You still have the

time to do the right thing before this becomes a much worse scenario for you. We know that she had

still a pretty sharp mind, but limited mobility. And so that's pretty much the solid things that

we know about this case. Okay, so we know some. What don't we know? I mean, the big ones are

who abducted Nancy Guthrie? Yeah, who abducted Nancy Guthrie? Why? Like the motive,

like I mean, really core things about the case. The case began with sort of the possibility

that it may have been an abduction for ransom. We had a couple ransom notes that were curiously

shared with through the media. They're they're coming in all coming in the exact same way through our

tip email inbox. It's always clear that it's the same person because they have that Bitcoin account

attached to it where they are still hoping to get the $100,000 reward. At 642 on Monday evening,

our station received a message via email, a possible ransom note linked to the disappearance

of Nancy Guthrie. They're trying to verify the authenticity of the notes and trying to get proof

of life from her would-be captor or captors. We live in a world where voices and images are easily

manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. But

so far, developments with the case appear to have stagnated. Has there been anything that we know of

resembling a really solid break in this case? So I mean, I would say probably the biggest break in

the case is the FBI's ability to get the footage and images from the doorbell camera. That was the

first time that it wasn't really putting a face to it because he was masked, but a masked face, I

guess, to someone who likely was involved in her disappearance. All note, law enforcement didn't

arrest anyone. It's sort of semantics, but they detained them. These people were never

booked into jail on any charges or anything like that. They were sort of detained, questioned by

authorities, and then later released. So they appeared to be breakthroughs at the time. I know,

especially with the first detainment, which came shortly, like hours after the release of

the images and footage from the doorbell camera. And I know I and some of my colleagues thought,

oh, they found the suspect. And then we're a little surprised when we've later learned that,

oh, guess it wasn't that person, you know, and to this day, I don't think that investigators

have ever elaborated on what led them to detaining that individual and anyone else they detained.

And since then, it's kind of just been a lot of, you know, we're reviewing hundreds of hours of

footage that people have submitted. We're reviewing tens of thousands of tips that have been submitted

to both the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. And I guess one thing I would say

for the breakthrough is the FBI have projected that the mass individual in the footage is between

five foot nine and five foot 10 average build. Sorry, five foot nine to five foot 10 average build.

That's like, I only see that every time I look in the mirror. You're right exactly. And

and then they've deduced that the backpack he wore was a like 25 liter Ozark backpack that

sold at Walmart. But essentially that's it. And the other thing I'll mention is that, you know,

police weren't called to the home until the late morning after she disappeared. She

Nancy got three was supposed to visit a friend's home to attend a virtual church service and the

friend notified family when she didn't show up. And then the family called police. And by that

point, you know, assuming that she disappeared around 2 a.m. when her pacemaker disconnected from the

app, whoever abducted her had an hour's long head start from from police. It feels like with

the amount of resources dedicated to this to because of the profile this disappearance kidnapping has

that there would just be more known by this point. Do we know why we don't know more while

Nancy certainly lives in the Tucson area. There is an unincorporated community called Catalina

foothills. It's an unincorporated community that has an ordinance that strictly limits the amount

of exterior lighting your residents can have. Having been out there, you know, in the evening,

the sun has gone down. It is just pitch black. Obviously, you know, a lot of doorbell cameras and

security cameras these days do come with night vision or, or, you know, something to that effect,

you know, referencing back Nancy's doorbell camera, you can still clearly see the masked man

approaching her front door. But if you were just out there living out there looking around,

you know, this, this masked individual would have the cover of darkness on his side. And so

it's important to note that a lot of the traffic cameras out there, whether it's a

a traffic camera at an intersection or on the highway, those aren't recorded.

It's weird because, you know, whoever kidnapped Nancy Guthrie presumably did it because they

thought, oh, maybe I'll get like a big payday out of this. And yet by keeping her for longer,

you're, you're just prolonging your payday. Unless she's dead. Is there a chance we'll never

know what happened to Nancy Guthrie? I think that, that is the question that we're at at this point

is, are we ever going to figure out what happened to Nancy and where she is? And, and at this point,

I don't know. That's kind of the unfortunate situation that we're in is we just don't know whether

she's going to be found. That was Perry Van Dell. You can read him at azcentral.com.

Kelly Westinger produced the show today. I'm an al-Sadi edited. Andrea Lopez Cruzado was our

fact checker and Patrick Boyd mixed this episode of Today Explained.

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