Source close to Nancy Guthrie investigation has message to Savannah and major concerns - day 61

Hey guys, it is day 61 in the search for Nancy Guthrie. I am still here in Tucson, Arizona. I'm actually outside the TV station here at KVOA where there's this really big banner and it says, bring her home. It's so sad.

I'll read you guys some of the messages there later, but there's now like thousands of signatures. But in this episode, I wanna get to the latest on the investigation and this interview that I had for NewsNation with a source close to the investigation. Who you guys know I've been meeting a lot of people, I've been talking to a lot of people.

This person was willing to sit down and do an interview with me. I obviously had to conceal their identity just because they could get in a lot of trouble for speaking out. But this source wanted to clarify some things, wanted to talk about things happening behind the scenes, wanted to talk about mistakes that were made early on,

and had a message for Savannah Guthrie. So it was quite an interview. I want to play it for you, and then I'll tell you a little more on the other side What would you say are the biggest mistakes when it comes to the Nancy Guthrie investigation from what you know?

speaking with some people that actually know the intimate knowledge of this investigation have told me that There was an immediate rush to judgment on what was happening at that scene And it was that Nancy had somehow wandered off. And so they rushed to that judgment, stayed with that judgment, and then ran the investigation as if this was a search and rescue issue

opposed to a possible criminal issue.

From what you know, were the initial people who responded inexperienced?

From what I understand, the people that were there on the scene were not 10-year homicide detectives. They didn't have a lot of experience in homicide at that point, to include the supervisor, who from my understanding, never investigated homicide before being installed as the supervisor for the homicide unit.

So the supervisor who first responded to Nancy Guthrie's house had never investigated a homicide?

Correct.

How was that possible?

Listen, you have decisions made by people that will install friends and people that can do stuff for them opposed to people that are there on their merit and can do the job correctly.

Do you think not enough evidence was collected?

The fact that detectives had to return to that location not once but several times leads me to believe that they should have handled it differently. They should have kept the scene secure.

Do you get the sense right now that there's anyone that they're seriously looking at?

The people I've talked to that are still in the know on this investigation tell me there's no direct suspect right now. No name on the table.

Is that shocking?

Not with how the investigation's gone so far. I mean, you have individuals that are either lucky as hell or more cunning than a lot of people have seen in the past. If you take the first extremely lucky, maybe his luck will run out, but so far it hasn't. But if you take the second one, that he was extremely cunning, there's a chance that he may have covered his tracks so well that we may not find out what happened right now.

Obviously, we're hiding your identity right now because you could get in a lot of trouble for speaking out this way. What would you want to say to the sheriff if you could?

I would say that he ruined a great department. It's savable if he steps aside, and I would ask him to step aside.

How would you describe morale at the sheriff's office right now?

I would say right now it's extremely low. This is the lowest I've seen it. There's a lot of embarrassment, especially with the news, kind of conversations that I've had with Nanos, his interaction with the media.

When the press conferences started happening and the interviews with Nanos, what were you thinking?

Shut your mouth. Stop talking. That's pretty much what we were all saying. Because why is he out there saying that?

The no confidence vote, I mean, that every single deputy in the union That's pretty much what we were all saying. Because why is he out there saying that?

The no confidence vote, I mean, that every single deputy in the union voted that they don't have confidence in the sheriff, I think to a lot of outsiders was like, wow, I mean, every single deputy.

Yeah, this isn't the first no confidence vote that we've done. So it should have been no surprise to him, especially with what has been going on. Not only our local community, Arizona in general, but just the nation now sees that we have no faith in Chris Nanos.

Is it awkward for people working there?

I think everyone is walking on eggshells.

What would people in the department want to say to Savannah?

Just to explain to Savannah that just because we have an incompetent lead doesn't mean that we don't care, that we don't want Nancy to be brought home safely, and that we're not with her in this. We are completely with her and her family in this.

I really appreciate, obviously, that source for trusting me, for sitting down with me. Obviously, some important information getting out about what is going on behind the scenes, what the source says is happening about, you know, issues with the investigation early on. I reached out to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for comment on some of the allegations and just

some questions that I had before this ran on News Nation and I did not get a response. I asked for an interview. I was told he's not doing any interviews. Granted, he's done other interviews. I saw them on the local stations here, but I did try to get a response.

He has said and made clear in the past that he stands by his investigation. He doesn't believe that he made any mistakes. And I remember early on, at one of the press conferences, he said maybe he should have kept that crime scene up earlier or later You know shouldn't have taken it down, but then later said well, he actually doesn't think he made any mistakes

and he has said he stands by his investigators and has an Experienced team so that's what he said in the past, but he didn't respond to this specific report If he does I'll do some kind of update. I want to talk to my friend and retired FBI agent Steve Moore. I had part of his conversation on my last podcast. I want to continue that conversation now with and get his take on these latest items that my source brought up in that interview and really dig in with Steve about what it all means and where things go from here. Steve, our source told us that there was what they called

a rush to judgment based on the initial investigators who were not experienced and the sheriff that Nancy wandered off. That that's the theory they were working off of initially that first team that arrived. And if you remember from Savannah's interview, they were working off of initially that first team that arrived.

And if you remember from Savannah's interview, she made the point we were trying to tell them she didn't just wander off. She can't even walk to the mailbox most days. If they were going under that assumption, like, would you think that that was a waste of time in the beginning? Like, what goes through your mind there?

Well, if you're looking for somebody who walked away from the house, who's in their 80s, you're going to do a search about 20 yards around the house and you're not going to treat it as a crime. You're not gonna be looking for somebody to assist. You're not going to be looking for tire tracks

or footprints or anything else you might be walking. The searchers for her might be walking all over. I mean, think about it. That, you know, the exterior of the house right there, if there was dirt nearby, anything like that, flowerbeds, anything that they might have stepped in, that's your crime scene. And they were treating it as a search location, which means everybody come on in and we'll have a, we'll have a huddle right here and stand in the driveway when you don't want them standing on the driveway. So that's a huge thing. I can understand how they might have thought what's the

chances of somebody being kidnapped for ransom in our little town. It doesn't matter what the chances are you have to work every angle. And it's just pretty frustrating that the other thing is one sign of a really good investigator is admitting when they're on the wrong track. I always admired the agents who would say say I was absolutely sure I had it. And then this one piece of evidence didn't fit.

And I realized it made my conclusions impossible. So I have to start over. And and I always loved agents like that and said, yeah, yeah, good job. You you followed the evidence. but when the evidence didn't go where you wanted it to go, you agreed to go with the evidence, not with what you wanted to believe.

Yeah, and I guess, you know, there's a lot of elderly people in this part of Arizona. They deal with a lot, I'm told, of elderly people who do wander off and people who have dementia.

Sure.

But if you show up to this scene, and you're told right away, she can't walk far and she does not have any dementia. I'm just wondering if they were their inclination was Oh, no, but we see this happen so much. We still think she

wandered off.

And my question would be if I was an arriving detective would be, hey, how many people when they walk away leave blood on the front door and rip out their own ring camera? Right. Doesn't fit not a walkaway. I just... This isn't... It isn't rocket science. There's blood, she's missing, and the ring camera has been ripped off the wall.

People don't walk away like that. ring camera has been ripped off the wall.

People don't walk away like that. I wonder how soon they realized that the ring camera was ripped off. Cause on Savannah's interview made it seem like they noticed it pretty early on.

If you've got eyes in your head, I mean, when you're walking up to a potential crime scene, you're looking at everything. I mean, it's're walking up to a potential crime scene, you're looking at everything. I mean, it's kind of a cliche, but you're looking at everything as you walk up.

Also, if you're Savannah's sister, Annie, who lives close by, takes care of the mom, looks after Nancy, and showed up and is the one who realized she was missing, they knew she had the Ring camera. I would think, like, if it was my mom, she probably went to check the camera. Like, that's what I would do.

Well, what happened? Let me, so I would imagine they figured it out pretty quickly.

Well, and then you have to wonder why they weren't listening to Savannah and Annie all along. Did they think that in their vast non-experience that they knew more about it than the family?

Yeah. non-experience that they knew more about it than the family. Yeah, and was, I mean, like you said, those beginning hours are critical.

Yeah, and I feel bad for the detectives and the really good people of the Sheriff's Department. I am not painting this department as a bad department. I'm just saying that one or two people can ruin a reputation.

With them, with the first, according to our source, crime scene investigate homicide supervisor having no homicide experience. And we know that they came and processed the scene and then they opened it back up where we were able to get the blood,

the video of the blood in the front. And then the FBI came back later to process it. They came back several times to process the scene after that. Is that a problem, that they opened it back up and then came back later?

Well, yeah, if you open the scene, you've lost a substantial amount of evidentiary value of anything you find after that. Everything you find after it's been opened, especially when the public knows what's been going on and the bad guy knows what's been going on,

it opens the question, did somebody plant something once it was opened up? So yeah, that's a terrible mistake. And I cannot imagine anybody doing that. And I know there had to be people yelling within the sheriff's department saying, do not release this, do not release this. But a decision was made higher up that they did release it and it's inconceivable.

Do you think that just goes back to the inexperience?

Yeah. I mean, you just don't do that.

impact what they did? Because it was opened back up? Like what if they what if they say, well, we don't think anybody went in between those times? Yeah, it wasn't back up? Like, what if they say, well, we don't think anybody went in between those times? Yeah, it wasn't technically a crime scene, but no one went in the house.

Well, how do they know? Were they under 24-hour surveillance? Was the house under 24-hour surveillance? How do you know that the footprint that you just see in the dirt was there before they released the crime scene. I mean, everything you everything you're looking for is now suspect.

Yeah, well, and the fact that the media that we were able to walk up in the I mean, the footprints would definitely be an issue, but the inside and there wasn't surveillance because then they didn't even look after the house after that. They left the first time because we were out there. There wasn't a deputy outside. So I guess they would have no way of saying 100%

that no one went in the house.

Yeah.

I just, you know, I think, for instance, the FBI, I think if they had just been there at the crime scene right away, they probably would have just removed the tile with the blood on it and sent it just that way back to Quantico. Because blood spatter the way, microscopic way, did the blood

fall vertically or did the blood fall at an angle? Was it a high velocity, medium velocity, or low velocity spatter? There are all these things that you can get when you have the original evidence. You can take a photograph of something and you can't blow it up to microscopic level. You just get pixels. If you have the item in front of you, you can go down to the microscopic level and find a lot out.

So you've seen where they would have actually taken the tiles off the front step? Just removed the tiles?

Oh yeah, more often than not. If there's blood on sheets, say you've got a fitted sheet or something, they would send that entire sheet back to Quantico. I would have at this point, I might've sent all the bedclothes, blood or not, or all the bedclothes, back to see if anybody dropped a hair on the couch

or on the comforter or whatever. If you're helping somebody out of a bed, she's 85, she's going to need help. What if you dropped what if a hair fell out of your head? What if you touch something? There could be there could have been evidence in the sheets.

The the source is also telling us that there are no suspects, that they have no suspects right now, which to me doesn't come as a huge surprise just based on what I've seen. Does that surprise you?

Not anymore. I cannot tell you how many, you know, through this entire case, we'd be walking, two agents walking who knew each other back to different shows. And we'd say, you think they're going to get them? Oh, yeah, I think they're going to get

them in 24 hours. I see 48. And none of us could figure out what made this case so, you know, like the Riddler did it or something. I think it was just that the case was botched early on.

You think that's just impacted it all along?

Yeah. See, cases are made, cases are made sometimes by the thinnest of margins, the smallest pieces of evidence. I mean, the whole Lockerbie thing, uh, you know, when, when Libya bombed TWA or, uh, Pan Am, uh, that Pan Am flight, That was solved by by a line of police officers in Scotland who found a circuit board this big

and they were able to trace it to Libya. I mean, that's how close cases come. And so if you have somebody who's reduced the value of the the value of the evidence by 10%

That's maybe enough

It can just be the smallest little thing that was missed if you delay

Evidence coming in for three or four days Then it may mean that some evidence never came in at all It is it is a, you know, it's like that, you know, a butterfly flapped its wings on one side of the earth and the other side you end up with huge, huge changes. You don't know what the ripple effect of a bad case initiation could be.

Something else that the person told us, referring to the suspects, whoever they are or suspect, these individuals are either lucky as hell or more cunning than what we've seen in the past, which I thought about a lot about that too. Is this person just so lucky?

Like, they just got lucky, and that's why for two months, they've still not been caught? Or was this by design? Were they so good that they're getting away with it?

If I knew the answer, I would have evidence on the case. But anybody who wears their gun in the wrong holster like a codpiece and then uses branches to try and cover up a doorbell camera to me does not seem like Goldfinger, you know what I'm saying. I would suspect that there is possibly some well-planned aspects of the crime, but parts of it were just embarrassingly goofy. And that's why it's so frustrating that they haven't caught the person yet. I can't imagine why, but now I'm getting an

idea.

So it may have just been luck, some of it, is what you're saying.

Luck and the fact, I mean, part of their luck is that the case wasn't investigated properly right at the beginning, and that slowed it down and changed the course of the investigation, and maybe evidence didn't come in.

There was something else I asked the person about what they would say to Savannah, what other people around the case would say to Savannah. And they said that they're with her, that even though there's issues with their leadership, they say it's not, they don't want it to be reflected in the hard work that they're doing. What do you make of that? I mean, when you've worked cases and I mean, it must be hard when you think about the victim,

especially if you're not happy with the way your bosses have performed.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is disturbing at times and you lay awake at night at times. And I know that there are Sheriff's Office Department deputies out there and detectives out there who are just agonizing over how this is gone and how they're being portrayed and I feel horrible for the Guthrie family. I just, they deserve better than this.

And I feel horrible for the department because they deserve better than this. And they're getting dragged through the mud for something that wasn't a departmental problem. It was, well, it was not an infection throughout the department. It was a problem higher up, apparently. So yeah, it is very hard. And, you know, Savannah is doing,

I mean, she is the, this sounds horrible. She is the ideal victim relative because she expects excellence from the police, but she doesn't denigrate them for not having success in the investigation. She understands what they're going through. She understands the effort that's being put forward and

she has not turned on them publicly and that helps them, that motivates them more. That makes them, every time Savannah comes on and says the police are working hard. You don't know, they're just, they're tireless. That makes them really not wanna go home at night until they've gotten the next bit of information. That motivates, she couldn't do more

to motivate law enforcement to do the right thing here. And again, in her worst times, you're probably seeing the best strengths she's ever had.

Yeah, that was the word she used, tireless. But I thought about this, like, she must be getting frustrated. And I'm just thinking if I were in her shoes, you probably don't want to air those frustrations publicly because, like you said, you want to keep the people motivated

that are going to be the ones to hopefully solve this.

Yeah, I've seen cases ruined by victim family bonding too close to the police department who's doing the wrong thing. And I've seen cases ruined by people who were so frustrated by not having quick resolution that they sabotage the case by attacking law enforcement.

And right in there is where the sweet spot is, is you can be frustrated, but recognize the difficulties, recognize how hard they're trying, and motivate them, privately express frustration, and do it with very few people, and know who to talk to, and move forward that way. I think she's showing how to deal with something like this. I hope nobody

ever has to. Yeah, she's really been incredibly strong. A couple more things I wanted to get to. Our source said in the interview that morale is extremely low and used the word embarrassment, how they feel about their department right now on the national stage. I guess I just go back to the investigation. Does that feeling impact an investigation?

It does. It does. I can remember when I was assisting, I wasn't the case agent, but when I was assisting on the Atlanta bombing investigation, the Olympic bombing, and the FBI, the part of the FBI settled on this one guy who had been a security guard, and he turned out to be absolutely innocent and actually kind of a hero trying to help people. And that hurt for a long time. That's very embarrassing. It makes your agency look like Keystone cops and What I would tell the officers who are having to deal with us and the deputies

Hang in there. It changes it goes back and and it will not define you if you do not let it define you Work work your butt off be honorable and let things Fall where they may but yeah, it is it is embarrassing and it is painful.

And the source said you remember some of those early press conferences that the sheriff was doing over and over again and making some mistakes. I saw your facial expression there. The source said that behind the scenes they were saying, like, please shut your mouth, stop talking, which I think was frustrating for the people behind the scenes.

I don't know why you didn't listen to him. If people are telling you that, and a lot of people are telling you that, you have a choice.

You have to decide either that everybody's disloyal or I may be, they may be right. And the way the source described it to right now is everyone's walking on eggshells, which again, I just go back to, don't you need kind of a different environment for a successful investigation? You do, you absolutely do. And

maybe there's some changes that need to be made. But what I would tell you is the fact that you have a source in the investigation tells you how desperate and how frustrated they are because you know who police don't talk to? The press, who they don't trust, the press, the media.

It's ingrained, it's part of your, I don't trust, the press, the media, it's ingrained. It's part of your, I don't know how it happens, but it just ingrains in you during training and years and years of work. And you say, we are the ones in blue, they're the ones trying to ruin our cases. So for somebody to come forward to somebody in the media and say, you got to know this is not going right. And that's almost to me a cry for help, saying, you know, I know nobody would do that because they feel it's dishonorable.

So doing that, somebody is risking dishonor in order to do the right thing.

All right. I really appreciate Steve for taking the time to talk with me. As I mentioned earlier, I'm outside the Bring Her Home banner, which is at KVOA, which is the TV station where Savannah Guthrie used to actually work. I kinda wanna end this video just reading you

some of the messages because again, at the end of the day, you know, this is all about Nancy. This is a person, this is a mother, this is a grandmother, this is a friend. I know I get into a lot of the investigation and the nitty gritty, but you know, there's still an 84 year old woman missing. And it's a mystery and we don't know how she just disappeared.

And it's rocked this community, it's rocked her friends, it's rocked her family, it's rocked strangers. Let me flip the camera around and read you a little bit of what some people have written on this banner. It says, bring her home. There's a lot of, there were a lot more flowers out here,

but obviously they come and take them away as it's so hot out here, but you can see. Prayers for Nancy, hope for a safe return. Mostly what God does is love us. We pray you come home soon. Mostly what God does is love us, Savannah Guthrie. Love Helen.

We Tucson, we live here in hopes and prayers. Your prayers, Savannah Guthrie family, will be answered. Bring Nancy home. Thoughts and prayers to you and your family. Stay strong.

We are with you. You have our love and prayers. We love the today show. Bring Nancy home. We love Nancy. Thinking of you. Hope, peace, and love.

The desert is calling for Nancy Guthrie's safe return. Each Saguaro arm represents one of your loving children who wants you home. The fourth arm is the entire Tucson community praying for your safe return. That's so nice. Love and prayers. Do not lose hope. Prayers for all. Prayers from

Phoenix, Arizona. I notice people sign this from all over the place. Stay as safe as possible. We are so very sorry for all of you praying for a miracle. There are no words. Nancy, we all love you dearly. Please come home soon. May the Lord wrap his arms around you, keeping you safe.

Sending prayers, strength, and hugs, bring her home. Yeah, it's just so many. Praying for her to come home. I mean, everybody just wants Nancy to come home. Guthrie family, we are praying for you. Nancy has our hearts.

Love, Lori from Fernandina Beach, Florida. So I was saying people have been coming here from all over the place. So it was kind of a heart. There were some candles here. I'll just back up and let you guys see the banner. For those of you who haven't seen it, you can see the picture of Nancy there on the end.

Bring her home. So I appreciate you guys for following along with me this week in Tucson. I'll keep you guys posted if there's any developments. I'm going to keep cruising around and see if I can dig anything else up. Again, appreciate Steve, I appreciate the source for talking with me.

And I'll stay on it. And I'll stay on it. And I'll talk to you guys later.