FBI Drops DISTURBING Video, Person Hauled Away in Cuffs | Nancy Guthrie Missing Day 10

Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Dead Serious. I'm going to do something very unorthodox in this episode tonight. I'm actually going to start with some breaking news that just happened right before midnight and I'm recording this on the morning of February 11th. It just passed over into midnight. I'd actually finished the podcast and Brian Enten on News Nation got some unbelievable breaking news on a person being detained in Rio Rico, Arizona, which is about a dozen or so miles from the Mexican border south of Tucson. Okay, so

that was big news. We knew that there was this person being detained and being questioned in connection with the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, but Brian Enten raced down to Rio Rico and wouldn't you know it, he is out in front of the person's home who was detained. So it was a traffic stop, okay, but that person was detained from inside the home, the homeowner said. His mother-in-law actually spoke with Brian Enten, said that the cops broke down the door,

put her son-in-law in cuffs, and took all of their phones. So listen to this unbelievable interview that Brian Enten just got with the woman who owns the house where this massive law enforcement action just took place, like within the last

30 minutes.

I'm outside the house that is now being searched where this subject lived, we're told. There was a traffic stop close by. This is the subject being questioned in the Nancy Guthrie investigation. This is Josefina. This is her house and the subject is her son-in-law. Is that right? Tell me how this happened. Where was he when he was detained?

My daughter and him and the kids, my grandkids, were doing door dashing when they got stopped here. And I don't know what kind of questions they asked him. But when we got home, I wasn't at home. When we got home, we found out that they took my son out. They went inside. They bust the doors from my house. They went inside and took my son to the little woman and had him handcuffed and then got him outside. That's when the time that we got home and we all was going on and they couldn't say anything and they said to ask him to have a search warrant to go in my house and they said we don't

need a search warrant we could go do that if we want to. So I told him yeah I think you need a search warrant why why did you break my door? You took my son on the wrong way. I mean, you hurt him. His wrists were with a handcuffs. Let me ask you, were you familiar with the Nancy Guthrie?

No. Had you seen that she was missing? I, like a toilet her, I didn't read what was going on. The story, they take electronic devices at all. Are you, did they take your phone? They took my phone, my husband's phone, my daughter's phone, my grandkid's phone, and my son-in-law's phone.

Let me show you these pictures really quick, Josephina of, um, just give me a second, I got to pull them up on my phone. These are the pictures from outside Nancy Guthrie's house. This is who they're looking for. Does this, and did the eyes look like your son-in-law at all?

No, not at all. You see the mouth? Yeah, no, he doesn't look that old.

Brian, can you ask what her son-in-law's name is?

It's Carlos, Carlos Palazuelos. Sorry, what's his name? Carlos. Carlos, and what's his name? Carlos. Carlos. Yes.

And what's his last name?

Palazuelos.

Okay.

Yeah. So. And does he work in Tucson?

Would he ever be in Tucson? He's in Tucson all week. He works delivering boxes for like UPS. He works with a company. And I told him you can call the company that he works there and verify that he's working. Is your daughter also detained? No, they just let my daughter and my grandkids go.

Okay, okay, thank you Josefina. So that's sort of the latest here. Jessie, they took her phone too, her husband's phone, and her daughter's phone, and obviously her son-in-law's phone, and they are searching her house right now.

So this is sort of an unfolding situation.

And I'll get into this with Arthur, the fact that they didn't have a search warrant according to her. Do you know where Carlos is right now, Brian?

Do we know where Carlos is right now?

No, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with him. They took my phone. I can't reach with nobody.

Yeah, we think he's being questioned.

Yeah, they already asked us a lot of questions about him. We told, like I said, I have nothing to hide. You can go in my house. You can search anything you want. There's nothing to hide. I don't know the lady. I don't know about the lady. I saw her on Facebook, But like I told you, was he ever violent? Any any violence? No, he's a good guy.

criminal history that you know,

none of them. Okay.

Is he from Tucson?

Brian, so I mean, that's that's sort of the situation. She's obviously in shock. Yeah.

Did you show her photos of the person outside of Nancy Guthrie's house, the images, the mask, the backpack? Did she identify any of those items of clothing and nothing? She doesn't see anything in that I

did. And let me show you let me show you again. You have you seen these photos?

Yeah, the detectives showing to me right now.

And the backpack does the

backpack he doesn't have a backpack. He doesn't wear backpacks. He doesn't like that. Either that. I don't know what gloves or something like

that. I don't know what they're called. Yeah, gloves. You see the boots? Yeah. Let me get you a closer picture. You see this here? Look at the eyebrows. The eyebrows are very specific. You see how they're very manicured?

No, that's not him. Nope. I can assure you it's not him. Okay. I can assure you.

Like I told you, if I had my phone, you a picture. Okay. I can show you. She wants to show me a picture, but she doesn't have her phone. But she seems very sure. I mean, it's hard to tell with the mask, but we've said if you knew the person, you'd be able to recognize them.

But Brian, if you don't mind asking her, does she know where he was January 31st, February

1st?

Do you know where he was January 31st, you know, when this happened? It would have been last Saturday night.

Well, every he works from Monday through Friday. He's home Friday. He stays home Friday, Saturday and Sunday, go back to work on Monday. So on the weekends, he stays at my house. He doesn't go nowhere.

He says, was he at your house?

Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was.

Are you positive?

Yeah, I'm positive.

He was here at my house. Because this would have happened late Saturday and early into Sunday morning, like around

2 a.m. on Sunday. He's always here for his kids on the weekend.

Could he have left in the night?

Oh, no. No, I'm pretty sure he has his van that work. He uses them. The van that's outside. The van? A van. It's broken. It's not working.

How long has it been broken?

Well, it broke down Friday afternoon.

This past Friday?

Yeah, this Friday. So a couple of days ago Friday.

Yeah.

Okay. So the van was pulled here and he's been here. He's been going with my daughter, door dashing with the kids, his kids, and he's been home. Okay. Yeah. And you're sure he was home last weekend? Yeah, yeah.

He's been home.

In the middle of the night?

Yeah.

Okay. I'm pretty sure. Okay. So you heard that. That's what she said, Jessie. So she says that he was home.

She can't look at it on her phone. I mean, they took all the about this. I'm sorry, I didn't know if she was saying anything else, Brian, I apologize. No, she was just saying she's, what were you saying?

They told you to just to go stay somewhere else tonight? Yeah, maybe to stay somewhere else because I'm not going home from my house tonight.

Okay.

Yeah, she's basically, they've told her that, I guess the search war may go on all night long. So she's been told she probably won't be able to get back home tonight.

OK, so now what this entails, I can't tell you. The fact that he's in cuffs, it's a little more than detained, but taken out in cuffs, all of their phones taken. Whether this has to do with Nancy Guthrie being missing and that video that was released today and the tips that came flooding in, don't know. Does it have to do with the alleged ransom notes that had come in because there was action there today as well.

You're going to hear that in my podcast. Apparently money went in to the Bitcoin wallet and suddenly there was a lot of activity that led to this police detaining of this man in Rio Rico. So now that you have the latest that literally just broke, here is the rest of my podcast that I recorded earlier that really wraps up the entire day. Hey everybody, I'm Ashley Banfield. This is Drop Dead Serious.

Welcome to my Vermont broadcast location. It has been a day, just such a day in the Nancy Guthrie missing persons case. I say that because there's still a lot of unsettled facts in this case, right? But today was the biggest day for developments. We're at day 10. And I have collected the entire day for you, including a massive deployment right now of SWAT team members and bomb squad that have fanned out to an area in the southeast.

I can't tell you more than that. I don't know more than that, but also I think strategically the police are keeping it pretty quiet. Most law enforcement experts say you don't send the bomb squad and the SWAT team unless there is a hostage situation or there is a dangerous arrest.

So, you know, watch this space. I'm watching it for you. So a big piece of breaking news tonight is that multiple media outlets reporting that one person has been detained in connection with the Nancy Guthrie disappearance for questioning. That is fascinating.

I cannot wait until more information comes out about that, which reminds me to tell you to subscribe. Please subscribe to this podcast because I'm going to do these updates. I don't want you to miss them. And also, it really does show a lot of love for me and I appreciate it. You guys have been amazing in helping to foster this podcast as I've been doing my independent

journalism, which I have been really loving. And I have been loving connecting with you on a personal level rather than through the TV. But yeah, subscribe so that when I get updates I can get it to you right away. And then also that just came on the heels of a jaw-dropping video release from the FBI of the person, at least one, that they believe is behind the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

Just a remarkable doorbell cam. And I said it last week that it was Nest cams and it's been confirmed today. These are Nest cam images that came from Google. It was like a residual data, as it's called, that came from back-end systems. So Google worked with the police and some reporting said that the police only got it today i haven't confirmed that but that they got this video out just as soon as they had shown it to the guthries and the guthries said they couldn't identify the person but i have so much to tell you about that video not from me from people who know way more than me. From the top FBI guy that I know, Chris Swecker, but also the top local law enforcement homicide detective that I know, Paul Holes, who solved one of the coldest cases in America, the Golden State

Killer. They both have totally different perspectives on that video, but a lot of synergy as well. So you're going to get all of that information in just a moment. It was, I said it, jaw-dropping and shocking and clearly it had a huge impact on the community because the FBI basically put this out with 1-800-CALL-FBI and there's been a flurry of tips that have come in since. A flurry of tips and then wouldn't you know it, bomb squad, SWAT teams go flying out from the Pima County Sheriff's Department, but also a flurry of activity over at Annie Guthrie's house.

A ramping up of agents presence there in three different ways. In three different ways, the FBI was going door to door, right? And actually asking for permission to go on people's properties to search around Annie Guthrie's house. Okay, that happened. But also, law enforcement was out searching the brush, and local law enforcement and search

and rescue crews were also going door to door all around Annie Guthrie's house. And I've got a lot more to show you about what happened at her front door today. But before I get to all of those details, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting this podcast. I'm doing this independently. I wanted to work directly for you and not for a company. And so to do that, I have to thank my sponsors. They're making this entirely possible. All the work that we've been doing, the investigations they've been doing, the sourcing that I've been doing for the last week on this story and I'm proud to say that CookUnity is one of my sponsors and

thank God because it's been a lifesaver for me with the schedule I've had especially in the last week. If you don't know CookUnity, it's the first chef to you meal delivery service. It means these are fresh meals right and they're made by award-winning chefs and they're delivered right to your door ready in minutes they're not those gross things that you peel back and you're not quite sure what's what they're not icky it's real cooking so I can tell you for me this has been huge because I've had zero time to be grocery shopping or cooking or anything the variety that they offer

is incredible you scroll through the app there are hundreds of different options everything world cuisine comfort food lighter meals for when you've just gone too far and you don't have to do meal prep. So I particularly love the chicken biryani and the Thai sausage, the chicken Thai sausage, Chef Arthi Sampath. I'm obsessed with her now, and so I'm pretty much ordering only from her.

But if you want some half price meals, you're welcome. You heard me, half price. Go to the link in the description and try CookUnity. Trust me, it is really, really good. And I got you 50% off your first order. Click the link in the description, use my code, Ashley50. Don't forget, I'm A-S-H-L-E-I-G-H. Ashley50, the number 50, I want to get you to all the developments today. It has been so incredibly busy. At 730 Eastern tonight, Harvey Levin, who's a friend of mine, had an incredible report. He said there's activity in the Bitcoin account.

Oh my God. And why does he know that? Because he received one of the original ransom notes with the Bitcoin account. Oh my God. And why does he know that? Because he received one of the original ransom notes with the Bitcoin wallet, right? Demanding this $4 million be put in the Bitcoin account by Thursday of last week. And if you miss that, it's going to be $6 million by Monday, yesterday at five o'clock. Yesterday came and went.

Harvey said there was nothing, no activity in that account. Nobody put the money in, nobody got proof of life, presumably, right? But today, today, late this evening, not only does Harvey say there's activity in the Bitcoin account, but guess who else did? KGUN, one of the local stations in Tucson, also a recipient of one of these alleged ransom notes, right? And they went even further. They confirmed that the amount is less than $300 deposited in the Bitcoin account. Why is this important? Well, if money went in and then money went out, you can trace where it goes out. And if you

haven't seen my interview from last night on my podcast last night with Ari Redbord from TRM Labs, the blockchain intelligence company, you have to see the interview. He is the foremost mind on crypto crime, right? And financial crimes. He's literally the guy that helps government and the private sector. And so he taught me something I didn't know. He taught me just how traceable it really is, right?

We got the wallet, money goes in, but the secret is when the money goes out. Once the money goes out, you can track it. A little like taking a paper check and walking around with it. Doesn't do much for you until you go to the bank and cash it, get the money, and now the bank knows who you are. It's a little like that. You get it out into the exchange to actually start buying things or transferring it and now every single one of these transactions is traceable.

So it's in the description, definitely link to yesterday's podcast and listen to Ari Redbord's interview. It's super, super interesting. And maybe this is what's happened. Maybe this is what's happened tonight because somebody put $300-ish, a little less than $300 into that wallet

and there's activity there. So are they tracing it? Because it wasn't long afterwards that all of a sudden SWAT team went out, bomb squad went out, and they were headed to a location southeast of the area of the Sheriff's Department.

Can't say where, everything's been real quiet, and even if reporters knew, they weren't gonna say because there's obviously some kind of activity. Fox News confirming through two sources that it absolutely had to do with the Nancy Guthrie case. Wow. Wow. I really hope this time tomorrow we've got guys in cuffs. Right? I hope this time tomorrow we have a resolution about Nancy. Who knows if this is about a scam, a crypto Bitcoin demand, a scam on top of a crime that's unrelated or who knows if this is actually related to the crime.

I can tell you this goes to the highest level in the country. If you are watching news today, you saw the White House weighing in on this. In the press room, Caroline Leavitt actually addressed the Nancy Guthrie case. Have a look.

Gabe.

Caroline, thank you. And thank you for the update on our colleague Savannah Guthrie's mother. Is there anything more you can share? You said the president was reviewing that surveillance footage. What was his initial reaction when seeing those disturbing images? And does he believe that that suspect acted alone?

I haven't talked to him specifically about the second point on whether the suspect acted alone or not, so I don't want to weigh in on the President's thinking on that. His initial reaction, of course, as all Americans, is just pure disgust. And again, it's heartbreaking to see now this footage really bring to life a story we've all been reading about. And again, we're just praying for the safety of Nancy Guthrie and that she will return

home soon. And the president directed me to please encourage all Americans with any information to call the FBI.

And we hope that this case will come to a positive resolution as soon as possible. All of this happened within the same time period as this remarkable drop of video. Okay, so the Nest cams, yes, they're Nest cams. That's what I reported last week. They are Nest cams and Nest is owned by Google, so Google worked with the FBI and worked with the local sheriffs to provide the, well it's called the back-end systems residual data. Okay, it's kind of a fancy way of saying we actually did have something in our cloud. Nancy Guthrie might not have had the subscription so she couldn't get it but

we actually had it. I guess it took a while. There's some reporting today that it actually happened today that these images got to the FBI and local law enforcement today. I'm not sure of that, but they did share it today after they shared it with the Guthrie family, who, according to NBC, said they did not recognize the figure in the picture. Hard to recognize the figure in the picture given the coverings. And we're going to go over this in detail because there is so much that is just silently said about this perpetrator. Right? For starters, he ain't no pro. Let's put it that way and I'm gonna break

down exactly why. Why he's no pro. But there's a couple of things that really stand out in this video. The backpack that he's wearing, it is packed full. Comically full. Right? Soft and full. What's in there? Tools for kidnapping? Maybe bags for either bagging a body or stealing something?

Don't know. Gun holster. Everybody has talked about this gun holster. It's a joke, really, in terms of like people who know, you know, firearms. The way it's been described is someone who clearly has no knowledge of law enforcement or background in law enforcement or military because the weapon itself is described as a semi-automatic, right, holstered in a revolver holster that doesn't quite fit right.

And it's right at the center where his crotch is, also a very strange place to have a gun. But it does hue to the right with the handle of the gun, so perhaps a right-handed perpetrator, just because he would be able to grab the handle of the gun from from the right, that's at least a clue as to whether this guy's left-handed or right-handed. Also the balaclava. First thing I noticed right away. Some people call it a ski hat,

ski mask, I call it a balaclava. It's what bank robbers have always worn, to cover up everything they can except the eyes and the mouth hole. How many people buy those in Tucson? I'm up in Vermont right now,

and even I don't see those things around here, and it is well right now. And even I don't see those things around here and it is, well, right now 25 degrees. It's a warmer day. Not many people buy those or wear them in Tucson. So whomever purchased that or got his hands, and yes the FBI is calling it a him, that's gonna be a memorable moment, you know. It's an unusual purchase. It's an unusual order. That order might be able to be traced. It's a significant balaclava because it's got a pattern and

seams to it. It's not just a black one, right? So I think the balaclava is big in terms of tracking who actually bought it. A lot of people are saying you can see facial hair, a mustache, maybe even a goatee, a soul patch. Jury's out on that for me. I think you can see the mustache. I'm not so sure that what you're seeing is a soul patch. Someone else mentioned there could be a disguise underneath the mask as well. I'm not so sure that this guy is the guy I would assume would be that clever. I don't know. This guy didn't seem like he was planning anything. He didn't seem to know really what was going on and didn't seem to be too

concerned. Certainly wasn't worried. Didn't look like he had a mission. Didn't look like he had to get in, get out, get his job done and not be seen. Didn't seem to care that he'd been seen. Paul Hulls has something so interesting to say about that and Chris Swecker has something very different to say about that. You'll hear that in a moment. Fox News also reported that under the right arm of the perpetrator they felt that you could see a cell phone popping out of his pocket. I was struggling with

that one. I felt at one point maybe in his front left pocket, pant pocket, there might have been a shape when he turns away from the camera. You know, he's messing at the camera, then he turns away from the camera. And I felt like maybe his left front pocket looked like it was a stiffer shape. Again, I'm not sure, but I think FBI, you know, digital forensics are much better than us watching it on television or zooming in on the internet.

The tips. What an idea. I mean, to put that out there, it caused so many people to call. There was one gumshoe homicide detective I heard on Fox saying, there's some girlfriend out there who hates this guy and they're going to call him in. They're going to drop a dime. That's what he said. They're going to drop a dime on this guy. And this gumshoe, you know, detector has been at the game a long time. He was well into his late sixties and he had done this for a long time.

But that's a really good point because that's what happens a lot of times. People see something and they're like, I recognize that body shape. I recognize that mustache. I recognize those eyes. I recognize that balaclava. So this was a brilliant thing to do and the tips came flooding in. Right at the same time, TMZ reports the Bitcoin activity, and right at the same time is the explosion of law enforcement activities.

SWAT flies out, bomb squad flies out. Another gumshoe detective said, yeah, you don't send those thing out unless there's going to be an arrest tonight. There's going to be somebody in cuffs tonight. That's what he said. He's not connected to the case, just an analysis. You do not send out the heavy guns unless you got something, either a hostage negotiation situation or you got a dangerous arrest, right? Bomb squad, super

interesting. But listen, watch the space. Like I said, things can change. So one more thing I want to hit. Savannah Guthrie put out an Instagram today. This would have been the lead story in the news had it not been for all of these other things that happened afterwards. Savannah put out on her Instagram, we believe she is still alive. Bring her home. I'll say the tip line again. 1-800-CALL-FBI. Can't hear it enough. 1-800-CALL-FBI. Anybody watching this right now, no tip is too small.

No tip is too small. Okay. To that end, Fox News has a digital reporter named Michael Ruiz. He's been doing a lot of really good reporting alongside News Nation's Brian Enten. These guys are the best in the true crime business, right? And I can't really figure out why Michael Ruiz released this video today that he said he actually took on February the 3rd,

which would be Tuesday of last week. But he took the same kind of pictures that Brian Enten took, walking up the walkway and going to the front door where the blood is seen on Nancy's front tiles. But along the way, he sort of panned to the left and saw this blue L.L. Bean shirt sitting on the ground. Very weird. This is right out front of Nancy

Guthrie's home. A blue L.L. Bean shirt sitting on the ground. This is after the homicide detectives with the Pima County Sheriff's Department have released the scene. Is it from the sheriff's? Did they leave it there by mistake? Did they not collect it if it was already there? Is it from the guy who was seen on the video? It's really hard to tell. But Michael Ruiz put this out and said, I shot this on February 3rd. That's last Tuesday. That's a day after the crime scene was released. Okay. One other thing that's

interesting here is that Michael Ruiz's video actually trained down into that more gravelly walkway away from the tile entrance where Brian Enten saw blood. And it looked like it's possible some of those red spots might be blood droplets. We don't know. He just zeroed in on it and it did seem as though it looked a little like it could have been more blood droplets which would take you outside of that arch. Because we'd been wondering, why is there only blood right in that entranceway

and nothing walking out towards the gravel driveway? But there was no car out there either, right? There was no car out at that driveway. It makes you wonder all the different scenarios. And one person I spoke with today said, this is a homicide

investigator said, is it possible that Nancy ran and was injured and bleeding and ran out that front door and was grabbed and brought back in? That's a possibility. I've also wondered if she answered the door, opened the door and there he was and he hit her to disable her and that's why the blood was there. But now with Michael Ruiz's video it's very

interesting to see that potentially that blood trail does carry out. Potentially, not for sure. We know from the Pima County Sheriff's Department that the blood at the front entrance was Nancy's. They haven't gone so far as to say that there was blood that was along the walkway as well. Okay, so 3.30 Eastern time, 1.30 Tucson time today. And an interesting scene played out at Annie Guthrie's home, which is about four miles away from Nancy's, right?

It was very, very busy there today. But three, at least one sheriff's deputy and three law enforcement officers showed up at her front door and knocked and waited and waited and it was a prolonged wait and then the door opened and there was a person it looked like an older person who answered and then sort of got out of the way of the

cameras. They were not invited in, not right away. They were standing there and conversing with the person inside the home. Hard to tell but I'd say maybe under a minute or so then they were let in and the door was closed behind them. So that happened again at about 1.30 local time, 3.30 eastern time. But then after all this crazy activity, the video being dropped, the Bitcoin, the SWAT team, all of that, agents were, like it was described, flooding into the home of Annie Guthrie, the area around

the home, like the neighborhood. A flood of agents arrived in the neighborhood of Annie Guthrie's home. And there were a couple things that they were seen doing. Some of them were canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on neighbors' doors. Neighbors would come out, look like they were answering questions, but they seemed to be going door to door, at least some of the agents, okay. And Brian Enten actually said search and rescue crews were going door to door near Annie's house. He also said law enforcement was searching the brush in Annie Guthrie's

neighborhood, and we had heard that there was searching going on in a number of different properties around Annie Guthrie's home. And then Brian said it was the FBI that was knocking on the doors and asking for permission to go onto people's properties to search. You have to do that.

You've got to get a warrant if they won't let you and you have to have probable cause or you've got to ask for permission. You can't just start wandering onto people's property. So flurry of activity at Annie Guthrie's house today, all while this other business was playing out. Also a very harrowing photograph emerged today, investigators appearing to be looking in the drainage pipes

of one property in Annie Guthrie's neighborhood. And then this is breaking news from Anjanette Levy, who works for Law and Crime. She says, ABC News is reporting one person has been detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. One person has been detained and is being questioned in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

That's per ABC News reporting. Then I should also tell you, Sean Hannity from Fox News says that there are now quote persons of interest according to FBI Director Kash Patel who was on his show. There are persons of interest in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance after substantial progress today. Let me repeat that. FBI Director Kash Patel is telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that there are now, quote, persons of interest in Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.

That after substantial progress today.

That's huge.

I'm waiting for the news conference because they kept saying no news conferences until something significant develops. Well, it sounds to me like today was a significant development one after the other. The video, the bomb squad, the SWAT teams related to the Nancy Guthrie disappearance flying out, agents descending en masse into Annie Guthrie's neighborhood. Fox News said they observed on-foot sweeps going through Annie Guthrie's neighborhood. So maybe

late they will give an update of some kind. Hopefully there's been some sort of an arrest, some sort of resolution. Hopefully Nancy Guthrie is found alive. But we do know that the SWAT rollout was related to different sources to Fox News.

They're also reporting that there was like law enforcement helicopters flying around at the same time that the SWAT and bomb squad took off in the southeast direction. The most important thing when you're looking at video of a perpetrator and you're analyzing it is what you don't see, right? Some of this stuff is obvious, but some of this stuff is not quite as obvious unless you work in the business.

And when it comes to the FBI and how good they are at this, Chris Swecker is the former FBI assistant director of criminal investigations. He's basically the guy who caught Eric Rudolph. And you know who Eric Rudolph is? He's the Olympic Park bomber. So Chris Swecker cut his teeth working gumshoe FBI and now he's the first guy I call when I need some really really stringent analysis on something like this video. I had an incredible conversation with him. You're gonna hear that right now and then I'm going to the

local level and how the homicide detectives see it because it's a very different, different kind of analysis and so Paul Holes who I'm sure you know if you're a true crime fan. Paul Holes is one of the more famous homicide detectives, also responsible for one of the biggest collars in American history, and that is the Golden State Killer. Paul Holes is on the team that solved that cold case after decades, and he's gonna weigh in with some fascinating information on what he sees in that video. So first my conversation with former FBI

Assistant Director Chris McCarty. Two different SWAT units went in different directions out of the Pima County Sheriff's Office. Fox News reporting that it is related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation and that the number of FBI agents and presence near Annie Guthrie's home has increased dramatically. Just to get your reaction to that.

Yeah, SWAT teams don't load up and roll unless there's a mission. I mean, I doubt they're going to dinner. I don't think they're going to train. So we'll have to keep our eye on that. There does seem to be some focus again in Annie's neighborhood, which is somewhat significant, particularly coming on the heels of the video that we just saw released.

And so I think at this point, you still can't rule the family out. And I've maintained all along that the kidnap, that supposed kidnapping ransom was bogus, but that's just the kid, the ransom part. The kidnapping is real. So somebody's got her, somebody took her somewhere bleeding heavily. They took her out of her house at 1, you know, 2.30 in the morning.

So you know, I think we're still, we're on the outside looking in at this point and all we can do is speculate. But I think there's something going to happen in the next 24 hours, if not tonight.

And the president mentioned on Friday night on Air Force One, there's been a lot of developments and I think you're going to see, you know, resolution soon. I'm paraphrasing his words, but it certainly seemed that he was using the words definitive and he wasn't referring to search. He was referring to the end of this absolute nightmare. And let's hope that it's a good end. I think that's what everybody wants.

But so much has happened today. This video has been just remarkable. Seeing the perpetrator, allegedly, walking up onto Nancy Guthrie's front stoop. And then, you know, there's so much to analyze, but effectively trying to obscure the camera,

and then eventually, we know, there's so much to analyze, but effectively trying to obscure the camera, and then eventually, we know, disable, my sources said smashed cameras, plural, and then make off with them. Let's start with just the overall impression you got from everything that you saw in those videos that the FBI released.

Yeah, what I see is someone who is not in a big hurry, you know, they're wearing pretty tight fitting clothes, the person is in shape, I think he has a mustache, he's wearing a handgun on the front, which is an unusual place to carry a handgun, but maybe to conceal it a little bit better. A backpack that is extremely full and sort of bulging out and he is, you know, he seems to have a little bit of trouble with the camera to begin with.

He grabs a piece of a leaf or some shrubbery and tries to use that to obscure the camera. What's fascinating to me about that is, I'm not sure why he was in front of the house to begin with, because he didn't get in that way. We know that that door was intact. I saw it when the house to begin with because he didn't get in that way. We know that that door was intact.

I saw it when the house was released. There are pictures of it where the blood drops are shown and you see the door. The door is intact. There's also an Amazon package just to the right of the door. This is after the house has been released. So, you know, there's a lot, I think there's a lot to identify here if someone knows that person well. You see them walk, you see their build, their general height, some facial hair, pretty blazing eyes and eyebrows that are pretty distinctive.

So if you know this person, I think you're going to be able to identify him. I have heard a lot of analysis today from people far wiser than I in the business of this kind of crime. And many of them said he's confused. He's just bungling. He wasn't prepared. He's taking his time. He doesn't seem to be focused. He does not seem to be focused. And he's just randomly looking around for some shrubbery. And I have my theories about that as well.

A friend of mine said that he's got a nest cam and that there is a very narrow, you know, there's a very narrow space between the nest cam and the bracket and that you can't get your fingers in there. So then you might've actually grabbed some shrubbery

to try to wedge your fingers in there. So then you might've actually grabbed some shrubbery to try to wedge a stick in there. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but in any case, why wouldn't you have brought a tool if you were planning on doing this?

Right, right. If you knew there was a camera there, and even if you didn't, you should assume that there, you know, everybody has aimsy, it's plastic. And, you know, so I don't know, not a, you know, a Mensa criminal here, shall we say.

And to that point, with your FBI background, not the kind of skilled, surgical kind of criminal that would, say, be presented by a cartel that does this kind of work for money.

Right. This is not someone who does kidnappings for a living. And I have maintained, and I still kind of hold to this theory, that this was a target of opportunity that either a delivery person or a pool person or a contractor or a yard person or repairman knew that an 84-year-old woman, of means, lived in a big house with a pool and a pool house all by herself in a very dark neighborhood. And it's a target of opportunity, almost too much to resist here. So...

But what's the benefit? I keep saying, we've not heard about a robbery.

Right, we haven't.

Certainly that backpack wasn't going to fit anything on the way out if he was working alone and I have my theories that it's possible he was not. But others have said an 84-year-old woman in ill health is a burden and if you wanted to rob the place and you were startled, you might do something terrible and then leave. But why would you take the person with you?

Yeah, I mean, I want to know how he got in the house because he did not get into that front door and I don't think she opened the door at 1 47 a.m. in the morning to a masked man with a gun. So, you know, he had to have gotten in the house somehow because she's not there and they obviously left through the front door and there was blood.

I have some theories there as well. My source said that the back door was wide open. And also as you see this person approach the front, there are no blood droplets there. The injury to Nancy hasn't happened yet as this video shows us.

So, you know, at some point, Nancy was more than likely bleeding at that front door, but the blood drops do not continue down the gravel path. It is from what Brian Enten has reported on NewsNation, the blood is just there and nowhere else, which makes me wonder if there wasn't some ruse to get her to open the door and then an injury happened and the dynamic activity was pushed into the house. Whatever else happened in the house,

because there's 45-ish minutes of activity, and then maybe there was an egress out the back of the house, you know, out that back area where the floodlights were destroyed, my source says the cameras were smashed, and there is a more secretive area to maybe, say,

load up a person into a vehicle at the garage out of the sight of any neighbors?

Yeah, I mean, that's entirely possible. I saw the blood, there were droplets that kind of walked away from the front door, but look, that is certainly possible. I just, I'm shocked a little bit at the lack of planning here.

And I think I see headlights behind him, but that could be another house across the street. But when you look over his right shoulder, there are clearly two lights. And we can't really tell what distance they are.

But you can't see a car. Like, that car did not come in that turnaround. And there is that other entrance towards the garage on the right side of the house where you can take an entirely different path.

That would make sense.

So let me ask you this again. Well, I'm going to get to the question of the facial recognition and the technology that the FBI has and how much you need. I'll do that in a second. But not before I talk about the mouth, because there's been much made about the the light that comes out of the mouth of this perpetrator. Some said it might be a grill or it might be silver reflecting in the infrared,

but I've spoken to a digital expert in forensics who said absolutely not. That was a light source. If you watch the video, he's got his head down, almost like he's watching his step in a very, very dark entrance with a step, and you can see a light click on and off. When he goes to grab the strawberry,

you can see the light click on and off. And when he's looking right at the camera and fidgeting, the light is clearly on. I just wanted to get your thoughts about the idea that this might be an infrared reflection of saliva or very white teeth or a grill, or whether you think it's actually a light in his mouth.

No, I think it's a light. That's what it looks like to me. And it would make sense, too. Hands-free, small, you know, small light, really dark area. You know, that would make all the sense in the world. And, but again, it just seems to me, why mess around with that camera if you're not going to go in that way?

And I still feel like he, you know, maybe he socially engineered his way in the front door. I just find that really hard to believe at 1.47 in the morning, that he could successfully pull that off and depend on pulling that off, you know, from the very beginning, as if that were part of his plan. I feel like that he took that camera off and then about 17 minutes later, there's another detection. And I think he's trying to find a way to get into the house in a way that, you know, that, and we may, he may have, as you mentioned, if the back door was open, maybe he found his way

around the back and got in that way. We know that in Kohlberger in the, you know, if the back door was open, maybe he found his way around the back and got in that way. We know that in Kohlberger, in the Idaho case, he found a sliding glass door open. And it may be that there's some complacency in that neighborhood and you leave side, you might lock the front door, but you leave the side door or some door somewhere open. I don't know. But I just, I don't understand his method here in trying to dismantle a camera

when he doesn't take her out that way. Or doesn't go in that way.

Well unless he was, you know, trying to disable all cameras for any activity and maybe he had help. We don't know that this is the only person, right? It's the only person we can see. Doesn't mean it's the only person who's on property. Because if you did want to take this person out, if you did want to take Nancy Guthrie

out of this home, you would probably not want any cameras on any doors seeing it happen. Let me ask you about the facial recognition technology. I keep thinking we're so much better. Every six months, we are better with our tech, and AI has only made that more exponential. Given the very limited characteristics that we can see through that balaclava, through that ski mask,

can the FBI work with that? The eyes, can they actually do some facial recognition technology?

I don't think so. I work with a facial recognition company as a consultant, and they use both facial recognition and the iris, which has a lot of identification points. You can't, and a lot of facial recognition does work with the iris as well. In this case, the iris, you know, it looks like there's a really bad reflection, and I don't think a reader can actually see the veins and the

things that they need to see and the way the iris is configured. The rest of the face, I just don't think technology is there yet. My experience with it has been if it's a flat photo and it's a pretty good resolution and you've got a lot of identification points to work with, it might work. But when you have just eyes, you have a head shape because that clava, that mask is pretty tight and you have some glimpse of the teeth in the mouth and the facial, a little bit

of mustache under here, but I just don't think it's quite that good yet.

It's frustrating. I know a lot of people have said, he looks like he has perfectly manicured eyebrows. I'm not so sure of that. I look very carefully at the eye holes of the balaclava and there's a black seam all the way around the bottom. I assume that that black seam goes all the way around the top as well, or it

might be a partial eyebrow. I think it's, I'd love to get your analysis on that, whether it's just too much of a leap to say, he's got manicured eyebrows.

You know, what's really interesting about this is if you've seen the brother-in-law, he has very manicured eyebrows and he's very dark. And I think this person is pretty dark and swarthy. So I don't know, unless he's got a fake, you know, clearly there's mustache there and that's showing, and I think there's some chin hair showing as well just under the mouth. So, and I'm by no means suggesting that that's definitive and that is the case, but

you know, this person in my view a dark, kind of swarthy person.

And there are plenty, you know, in Tucson area, plenty of people who look like that. So I wanted to ask you about all of these incredible details in the video. You've got a jacket, you've got pants, you've got sneakers, you've got that very specific backpack.

Some commenters have mentioned it looks like a biker's backpack. As you mentioned, it is absolutely stuffed full, which tells me you're not coming to do a crime like this with ancillary items that you don't need, that there was probably a lot of material in that backpack

to perpetrate the crime. Do you have any thoughts on what might have been in that backpack?

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe something to wrap her up and restrain her in. If, you know, if he's there to rob, then he needs some time to look around and she needs to be restrained during that time. So it may be, you know, full of, he's got to have something, if he's there to rob her, he's going to take things out and probably in that backpack. So it may just be other duffel bags to carry stuff out with, because it looks soft to me. And it would make sense to bring a couple other duffel bags with you so you could haul

some things out of there. Again, that's on the theory, this is a home invasion robbery type of thing. We haven't heard anything about anything being stolen.

No, we haven't.

And we haven't heard anything about a forced entry. And it may be that the sheriff had just enough discipline to not put that out there, because he did put a lot of stuff out there and he had to walk a lot of stuff back. But I'd like to give them credit for not telling us about a point of entry and things that were stolen,

because that would be the details you want to withhold.

Yeah, it's always a balance between the work of reporters and the public's right to know and transparency and what they want to hold back. I remember in the Koberger case, they didn't tell us the truth. They said, there's nothing to see here. There's no concerns here. There's no, it's a targeted attack. Your kids are all fine. Nobody's kids were fine for six weeks. And, you know, Brian Koberger was going to class with women who were afraid of him for a very long time.

And they had that information and bald face lied and told us they didn't. So I'm always mindful of that as well. And it is within their right to do it. It's the investigative techniques they're allowed to have. Let me ask you about cluster purchases. So for instance, I don't believe that many people buy a ski mask balaclava like that in Tucson. I think that is not only a bizarre purchase,

it is a very unique style. And so that has got to be a wealth of information for investigators, especially if you tie it to the nitrile gloves that many have said he's likely wearing, the jacket, the pants, anything else that he's got on his person.

Yeah, we've seen this before. I mean, it's painstaking, it's gumshoe work, but going to the hardware stores or trying to figure out where those types of items could be sold and then canvassing them to see if anything was bought within a certain time frame, that has sunk more than one criminal, as anybody that watches these crime shows knows that.

Very possible, but I think also you have to allow for the possibility that you might have bought it online. It's kind of unusual.

Well, if you buy it online, you put it somewhere and you use some kind of money source, some kind of credit card or debit card. There's the money trail if you buy it online and there's a physical camera trail usually in every store. And again, that balaclava is not normal. It is unique. And that's the thing. Well, the gloves are unique too. They're almost like boxing gloves. I don't know. I mean, you know, Brian Denton was very specific saying that many are saying in the investigative world that those look like nitrile

gloves. That is something that mechanics will often use. They're like a very kind of a very thick sort of latex that mechanics will often use. So it's they can be purchased, you know, by many people. What I think, though though is $50,000, right? The FBI puts out a $50,000 reward for information that might lead to someone in this case. There's no honor among thieves. No.

But there is honor among those who may be complicit. And no one who's ever complicit in these crimes comes forward and says, it was my guy. I didn't do much. I just drove the car. It has to be somebody ancillary to that thief who recognizes, say, that ski mask.

I think that's true. I mean, it's somebody who's clearly a part of it. And Dark House at night, I feel like he wasn't working alone. She, it would have been hard to just pick her up and carry her out of there if she was incapacitated. But again, we don't know that. But co-conspirators like this,

unless someone has offered them, they don't roll until they're facing it, right? Somebody offers them a deal, they usually don't roll for rewards because of their own culpability. I think that's a point you were making. $50,000, I'm giving myself up too, and I don't even know if I have a deal. So I think that part's doubtful. $50,000, people ask me, why is it $50,000? Why isn't it more? And our rationale when I was working was, you don't want to offer too much because it kind of brings the nuts out of the woodwork. You want to offer just enough to get some peripheral person

to break in and give you the information. It makes sense. I was very specific to look at the gate of this individual as he approached the house. And to me anyway, it looked as though his left foot turned inward, that he was slightly pigeon-toed on the left foot. That's the kind of detail that's huge. I mean, it might not appear huge, but it is to investigators, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. I mean, and you know, the FBI will diagnose it frame by frame. And there'll be a lot of things that you and I couldn't even think of at this point, because they'll be able to get more detail out of it. But I look at this person and I say, this person is in pretty good shape. There's no belly there. He's built well and he's at ease. So he's kind of in a sort of a confident sort of way. Despite the fact that he kind of bumbled with the, you know, with the camera, you know, maybe he had, maybe he just felt like he could disable that. He didn't have to worry about it, but he disabled it anyway,

because he had the mask on. I don't know. There's some amateur aspects to this, and there are some aspects that you would give him some credit and say, hey, this is a pretty accomplished criminal.

Right. So there's another aspect that I thought was sort of very technically advanced that I'd heard some analysts talking about today, and that is colorizing the video based on the samples that they know are true. They know the brick color, they know the tile color, and they know the colors of the gravel. And based on those comparative colors, they could actually colorize

this video. Do you think they're doing that? Trying. Yeah, I've seen Civil War photos colored in and certainly they're capable of doing that. I'm not sure how you do it, but the FBI has all this forensic capability. If they don't have it, they know where to get it, like they did with the Nest. They have a group called the Operational Technology Division, which was actually under me when I was still at the Bureau. They establish long-term relationships with different tech companies, all of them.

Tech companies don't like to talk about it, but they do have a relationship with the FBI so that there's a point of contact with just about every tech. If you don't have that capability, you don't have that service, you certainly have the contacts to find someone in the private sector that does.

You know, the other thing is, is you can see clearly that he steps up onto the tile, off of the tile, into the gravel and dust area, back onto the tile. That area had to be ripe for investigators with with shoe prints Except for the fact that there was an Amazon delivery So who knows when that am that Amazon delivery could have come before anybody knew she was missing

Yeah, it's baffling. I noticed it too. It's off to the right It's kind of up against the wall there and it's their biggest day and it's not in the video where he is

So we know the Amazon delivery was not there when he disabled that camera at 1.47 a.m. which would leave you till the next morning, right? To Sunday morning.

Right.

Before 11 a.m. when the family shows up.

Right, so somewhere either somewhere in that time the Amazon delivery came in. I don't know when the photo was taken of the blood drops and the photos that we're talking about.

Monday late afternoon after the-

After they released the home.

Yeah, after they released the home. And so, I mean, I think that the news gathering there would have seen the Amazon delivery, but there was Brian Enten's video showing the Amazon delivery. It had happened sometime between that guy

showing up at the cameras, right? 147, Saturday night, and potentially the sheriff showing up at 12 noon on Sunday and locking it down.

Yeah, it's baffling. Well, that part isn't baffling because Amazon people throw it up there. But what it tells you is that she does order on Amazon and gets deliveries at the house. And that's a big deal, I think, because-

Well, an Amazon shoe print could be there too, which is frustrating because you wanna think that the only shoe prints there are this perpetrator, but you can definitely see where he stepped. And if there's an exact measurement of a shoe in that exact area where the video shows it,

then you've got some kind of shoe print to go on.

Right. And the nice thing is it's Arizona where you have fine dust that blows around, and that's pretty conducive to a footprint. So again, maybe the shoes are distinctive. The clothes are. I mean, I agree with you.

The clothes are distinctive as well. The backpack is. The strap itself is. The holster and the gun are a little bit unusual. I mean, it almost – in some ways it looks like it's got a white handle on it. That's unusual.

All that's helpful.

Yeah, there's a lot. Lots of detail.

As I looked at that weapon, and today that was the first we'd ever heard that this was an armed person. We assumed that there was some kind of threat that was made to disable Nancy and to injure Nancy. But he's armed with a weapon. You don't have to hurt an 84-year-old woman if you have a gun. They will walk with you. Why do you think this bloody confrontation happened at the front? Do you think that maybe Mrs. Guthrie screamed and he was trying to stop that?

You know, I think that's a strong possibility that, you know, he had to take some kind of action to shut her up. He knows, you know, he knows he's in a quiet area. He knows he's in one of those areas where noise carries. He's got concealment and it's really dark, but that one factor that can reveal him and cause a response is the screaming.

And so he has to shut her up somehow.

If that happened. And I would think that it's possible that these Nest cameras, and I reported last Tuesday that these were Nest cameras, and today we learned they're Nest cameras for sure, that it's possible they recorded audio because they're battery powered, right? They're not wired.

You don't rip them off the wall and everything goes dark. They're battery powered. My source said the cameras were smashed, which would then stop all activity in those cameras. But maybe there's some audio. They certainly weren't releasing audio today.

Yeah, no, I mean, we think, I think you and I are in agreement that they showed all of this to the family first. And that would make sense to do the same thing. I mean, there's no point in releasing the audio right now. They want to see, they want to sort of put their toe in the water and see if they can get an identification off of what they have. If they need to feed more out to the world, they will in dribs and drabs,

but they're going to take it step by step.

Something I heard today that was super interesting was that the FBI wanted this perpetrator to see this. Not just us. Wants all of us to see it for the tips. That's understandable. But wants the perpetrator to see it. Can you explain that? I don't know. I mean, you don't want the person to

know that you have them identified. I mean, I don't think they did that for that purpose.

Wouldn't you think they'd want him to change his behavior so that everybody around him would notice

suddenly he's behaving differently? I think they, I mean, the primary purpose in my view was to get an identification. Secondary purpose, I mean, the other thing that could trigger is to him to just dig in, burrow in and don't move. Particularly if he has somewhere to be and assuming that he does. I mean, I don't want to talk to criminals out here and give them tips, but the ones, the ones that are on the move are going to get caught. You see that time and time again.

I'll just say it out. 1-800-CALL-FBI, 1-800-CALL-FBI, because another thing that I heard today from an analyst, which I thought was brilliant, was that whomever is responsible for this, whoever did this, their pattern of life, their routine was entirely different the next day. You cannot have a 140, 50 pound person in your possession or body without your normal routine being completely disrupted and not for a short period of time. So that's the kind of thing people should really be looking for. Hey, did my pal so-and-so suddenly just vanish from work or suddenly just not answer, you know, he goes to me for 12 hours? I mean, that's really critical, isn't it?

Right. Especially when you match that behavior up with maybe this person has that build, that walk, that eye, the mustache, you know, that all those other things that we see there. So it's a combination of things. But yet, I mean, it's the whole picture. People need to kind of factor that in, particularly people in that area. I mean, here in North Carolina, probably not as much, but there in that general area of Tucson, ought to be, you know, their head ought to be on a swivel.

Why do you suppose that the FBI put the video out but then didn't say we've done the measurements because you can tell against the arch, right? How tall it is.

They did that in Brown and I don't know why they didn't do it in this. In fact, they didn't really do anything other than put it on the website. I would expect a press conference to explain some things and say, here's what we're looking for from you, the general public, now that we have this here, pay attention to this, pay attention to this, and see if they compare that against the person that you, people that you know, that are acting in, as you described, in an unusual way after that night. I don't know what's going on with

the press situation. Usually, Cash is right out there mean right out front, and he'll be there if there's an arrest.

Oh, he's there now. We are reporting he was on site.

That's a sign in itself.

He was meeting with the FBI officers in the local jurisdiction.

Yeah, that's telling in and of itself because he's not going to miss a good press conference. Interesting you would say that.

So you're saying that maybe, and I'm guessing here, maybe the next load of information that will keep the news cycle going and keep people's tips coming in would be height, weight, build and maybe a few other nuggets because there might be more video that they haven't released. I suspect there is.

And voice maybe, as you said. Well, I mean, it doesn't look like he's talking to anybody but you know the the other thing is we haven't heard anything about cell phone pinging if you will. I mean maybe he was smart enough to turn his cell phone off. We've seen people put them in their cases and you know to disguise or to hide the signals from going out but you know that we've seen cell phone analysis really take some great strides in the last couple of years and it's extremely revealing, particularly at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Geofencing. I mean, yeah, listen, we just, you know, we're covering this story in Columbus, Ohio, where Spencer and Monique Tepe were murdered and allegedly it's the ex-husband. They've pulled him in and charged him with it. And they say in their affidavit that he left his phone at the hospital where he works for that entire period of time. They alleged that he drove there,

killed him and drove back. So I think people are getting savvy about that, especially Coburger types, but not everybody. And this guy doesn't seem like a pro.

Yeah, you know, bad guys watch CSI as much as everybody else. And they know the obvious ways that they can get caught. I mean, witness the fact that this guy was covered from head to toe. And he probably, I got to believe he never took that off when he got inside the house. So they probably have no DNA to work with at this point from the perpetrator. That usually, I mean, that's been a big crime solver over the last few crimes that we've seen,

the big ones with the genetic genealogy, touch DNA and that sort of thing. But they're not crowing about that.

I know that DNA has been submitted by contractors and workers now, all who had an ancillary association with Nancy Guthrie. Last question, why do you suppose the White House

is weighing in? It just makes this so massive. Yeah, I mean, it's high profile. And that's what the president likes.

And it helps, right? It does help.

Yeah, it does. It certainly does help. And I hesitate to say this, but the FBI is not going to get involved in every single elderly missing person in the country. The reason they're there is because it is a high profile case. As far as I can tell, there's no patent obvious federal jurisdiction here. You could stretch it and say interstate transmission of emails, the threat, you mean the ransom, but you'd have to connect that to the crime. That in itself is a crime, ransom, and bare minimum, it's extortion. You're trying to extort money and you use an email to do it.

That doesn't get to the core kidnapping part of it.

Right, right. Chris Wecker, it is a mystery and it's why I call you, because you know so much more about these things than I do. Thank you so much for this. I thank you for your wisdom and all of the service to our country as well.

Thank you, Ashley. Have a good night.

My great thanks to Chris Swecker for that. Just so incredibly insightful. Okay. I promised you, uh, Paul Holes is going to weigh in as well with all of the homicide level, uh, intelligence that he sees going to give you that in a moment, but first I want to thank my sponsor, Vanman, because they helped me bring this podcast to you. If you think that all of those natural products you're buying from the wholesome mom and pop

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and they're great sponsors. Let's go to the granular, right? Everything that a real homicide detective with decades of experience saw in those videos today. Here's Paul Holes. Paul, what is your assessment

of the absolutely remarkable videos that were released by the FBI?

Yeah, you know, I was not surprised that they actually had this video because my understanding was that Nancy did not have a subscription and therefore nothing was recorded. But having worked, you know, in law enforcement, it was like, well, you know what, this video is going to be cached on Google's, you know, web servers. So my assessment is that the FBI probably has had this video for some time. It doesn't take that long. They have a great

working relationship with Google. Although, there's some reporting today that they just got it today because it took Google that long to get the residual data that was located on the back-end servers. It's possible. I don't know if that reporting is accurate, but that was something

that was said today. Yeah, no. So, you know, my assumption was is they've had it for a while, but if they just got it today, obviously they thought it was important enough to release in order to start getting the public to weigh in on what they see in the video. You know, I know when I when I took a look at this video, and it was after you texted me. You know, I have not been following this case in great detail. But when I saw this video, I was like, everything is wrong in

this video. Everything is wrong in this video Everything is wrong in this video so This is an individual you take a look at the the man in the video he obviously has planned his Strategy and his attack he has put on

layers of clothing He has put on what I'm going to describe as a ski mask. You know, obviously he wants to obscure his identity. He has gloves on. He's got a backpack on. And he's got a pistol and a holster on the front of his belt.

You know, so, Ashley, you know, as I look at this video, you know, there's certain things that just strike me funny and I can't necessarily articulate for sure, but when I take a look at this ski mask or this baklava over his head, The head doesn't look like, doesn't look right. It looks off in terms of the anatomy. And that's where I think possibly there's maybe another mask, like one of these Halloween costume masks that he's put over his face. But also in the video

where you see his eyes, his eyes don't look right to me and I can't articulate why, but I'm wondering is that part of maybe a mask? Could the facial hair seen through the mouth hole be part of a mask? Or does he have contacts in or something? I think this offender has taken steps to obscure his physical features. And that's where I believe the family has come,

or law enforcement has said, the family has taken a look at this and has said, we don't recognize him.

We don't recognize him, yeah.

Well, maybe because the person has disguised themselves to a point to where the family wouldn't recognize him.

It's fascinating.

So he has put time into getting ready to commit this crime. Anytime I approach a case, I am always wanting to look at the case from the offender's perspective. What is he doing? How is he doing it? And most importantly, why is he doing? How is he doing it? And most importantly, why is he doing it? And when I look at this video, I'm going, this is not what a real crime looks like, even though this obviously is a real crime. with the pervasive nature of doorbell cameras

and porch cameras, the way he approaches the victim's house, he just saunters up to it. That's not what we see.

But what does that tell you about him?

Oh, I will tell you what it tells me is he wants to be seen on this video camera.

What?

He is not doing anything in this video to avoid being recorded. He is literally positioning himself so he can be recorded. And not only is he just casually walking up to the front door of the house, and then he starts interacting with the camera. Then he turns around. Now you see him in 360 degrees, and then he walks away to grab some shrubbery to try to obscure the ring camera. You don't see that in this day and age. Criminals that are experienced, whether they're burglars or home invasion robbers, they go up and they're in that house as fast as possible and of course, they're practiced.

Yeah, they're deliberate. So you're just basically what you're saying is,

he's bungling. It's not that he wants to be seen as a red herring. He's just he's bungling this crime Is that what you're saying? Oh, no, I'm not saying he's bungling at all What up? What I'm saying is is that he is Wanting the viewers of this video to perceive this crime in a certain way He is wearing what I would call a costume. Of course, it's obscuring his identity, but he also is trying to look a certain way

where anybody looking at this video is going to go, that's the bad guy. And the most, I would call it obnoxious aspect of his costume is the firearm in the holster that is on the outside of his pants in front of his pants zipper. Nobody carries a gun like that. If you've ever done this type of crime before, or similar crimes with a firearm,

you would recognize that doesn't work. Any firearms person doesn't carry their gun like that. And quite frankly, I'm looking at this going, that gun doesn't even match that holster. And I would defer to firearms experts, but that holster does not allow the person to grab the pistol that's inside of it around the grip of the handle to be able to gain

control of the gun, to pull it out in order to be able to use it. This is where this is all set up. So I look at this. He is literally just sitting there rotating around, look at me. I am the guy that's going to go in and abduct Nancy. That's what he wants the viewers of this video to see. This is called misdirection. In my world, this is what we call staging. Staging is when an offender

tries to make the crime look like something that it is not, because in the offender's mind, he thinks he's likely going to be a suspect. And so now he's trying to throw the investigation off into a different direction. I look at this video and I'm like, no, this is farcical. This is amateur hour. He is obscuring his identity. I think when I look at aspects in this video, he's got the ski mask or baklava on, right? I think he has another face mask on underneath to obscure his facial features. Through the mouth hole you can see possible facial

hair. Don't put any weight on that. That could be fake. I think he has layers of clothing on his upper body and even his lower body to hide the physique. This is all a setup. And when taken into the context of the other aspects of the crime that I'm aware of, it's like, okay, this is somebody who is so concerned that law enforcement is going to focus in on him, that he's trying to make this crime look like an abduction, ransom, a financially motivated crime. I'm going, that's not what this crime is at all. That's my opinion.

If you think that's the deflection, what do you think the actual crime intention is? Well, I think the actual crime was to inflict harm on Nancy. And what that harm is, I mean, there's a spectrum of aspects, but this is probably interpersonal. Depending on who this person is, it could be somebody very close to Nancy.

It could be somebody very close to Nancy. It could be somebody that is distant. As an example, let's say a delivery driver who has interacted with Nancy and decided, I know who she is. I want to do certain harm to her. And I know how to set it up in order to kind of misdirect the investigation.

So that's where this-

I always think there has to be a benefit, right? If it's not a sexual benefit, which so many of these home invasions can be, it's a robbery, but we're not being told that there's anything that was stolen,

and we certainly don't see a whole lot of space in that backpack for any ill-gotten booty, unless inside the backpack or additional bags. So what else do you see if it's a deflection from look, I look like a kidnapper. And that's not what I am. I want you to believe that. What else do you think this person was after?

Well, you know, I, and obviously, I do not want to put any, I definitely don't want to put any anything out there that's going to cause the family any emotional distraught. I don't overlook the possibility that this was a sexually motivated crime, it could have been we have plenty of examples of elderly woman being sexually assaulted by men. This just

happens. And so within law enforcement, that's something that has to be considered. However, there could be an interpersonal aspect, some sort of vendetta, there could be a financial gain. It's just that if the financial gain of maybe home invasion robbery under this set of circumstances, the dynamics of the crime didn't go the way the offender thought it would. And now he's having to kind of change his course.

And instead of, you know, I would say if this was a true planned abduction ransom ahead of time. And the offender is saying, I want financial gain. I want $6 million. He's going to discreetly communicate with the family. He's going to tell them in this communication, whether it's written, whether it's verbal, however it is, do not contact law enforcement or harm will come to Nancy.

I've said that all along. It's a weird way to go about trying to communicate. Normally, you don't want law enforcement or the public to know anything about it. You want your money and you want it fast. And you want to get that trans... I mean, kidnap for ransom is a business and they're good at it.

This was none of that.

It's the perspective of the offender. The offender by communicating the ransom to the media has complicated his life of getting his financial goal from this crime.

So let's move on from that because I've always felt that that is a secondary crime that's happening, a crime of opportunity and a very, very, very cruel pylon to a very sad situation for the Guthries. Let me talk to you a little bit about the mouth light. I have talked to multiple people today and a digital forensics expert who knows sort of the magic of infrared camera

and the effects that it can be had. Some have said, well, maybe this is a grill, maybe this is silver teeth reflecting, but I'm not so sure because as he's walking up, he's looking down and there's a light source that hits the ground

at the point where he needs to step up in a very dark area. And then at another point, he reaches around to get the shrubbery, looks down and the light source hits the ground where the shrubbery is being pulled up. And then staring right into the camera,

there is this constant bright light coming out of the mouth. From all of your expertise, tell me your thoughts on all of that.

Well, you know, we've seen that in terms of offenders, you know, using a small flashlight in their mouth, you know, it's and you think, well, it'd be a lot more practical to basically have a forehead mounted light or LED source.

Or you'd see it coming out of the mouth, which we don't.

No. So, you know, this is where, you know, of course, he's at the time that this is occurring, which I believe is like 147 a.m.

The very first disconnection of the camera as we've been recording. So, right before that.

Timeline's 148. So, you know, so, you know, this is just something that he's doing, you know, he needs to be able to see as he's walking through this dark neighborhood. It's, you know, from my understanding is these houses are quite spread out, probably don't have a lot of good neighborhood lighting. And so he needs to be able to see in order

to get up.

48. I'm going to correct 147.

Sorry, 147. Okay. Yeah. But't know if it was a bright moon or not, but he does need to see. But it really doesn't change my opinion on what I am seeing in this. This is not right. This is a guy that wanted to be-

What I'm asking, is that a light that he's using? Or is this a reflection? Because if it's a reflection of a grill, then you've got a lot more to go on. Somebody who's got a grill or silver teeth. Or is this a mouth light that casts light on the ground at two specific different times

as he's looking down? At least to my eyes I think I agree with you that he does have some sort of light that he's using in order to be able to see. I don't think this is reflection from a mouth grill. You know, so, but you know, that's just a practical aspect of, you know, having to approach the house, you know, in pitch darkness, and in all likelihood, you know, one of the you know, the questions as I'm looking at this video is,

well, why is he choosing to go through the front entry? You know, there's probably plenty of other opportunities around the house that he could have chosen to go into. So, not knowing the layout of the house, not knowing where Nancy would have been in the house, I can't determine, you know, why he chose this particular location. I just

think that the way that he starts interacting with the camera, and just casually is now, you know, sauntering around turning around basically allowing the camera to film everything he's doing. He's got to assume that that camera is recording, you know, and then to come up with some shrubbery to

try to hide it. This is not what I see in other cases. You don't think he was using that shrubbery, maybe a stick that's connected to that shrubbery, to maybe try to get between the wall mount and like the bracket and the camera? Because it's a very narrow, narrow area between, it's almost the width of a key, and it's hard to get your fingers in there. Do you think he was maybe trying to get something to pry it?

You know, I could only guess at that. I would say that when you take a look at the landscaping that he went out to, to try to find something, he'd come back with a rock and he'd smash the camera. That's the fastest and quickest thing to do. So why pick shrubbery? You know, the idea to maybe pry the camera out, I assume is plausible,

but I think he's going to try to damage the camera.

Well, and eventually the cameras are eventually the cameras are gone. And my source said the cameras were smashed, plural, and they were gone and they don't have them in their possession. So maybe at some point nothing could get that off. perhaps and again my source said smash perhaps that's what ultimately did happen. Let me ask you about the fact that there's no car in the background right but around the right hand side of Nancy's house you could drive well out of that camera's purview

and be parked around the garage, which also has entry into the backyard as well. And the spotlights were busted off the wall at the back door. Again, my source said cameras were smashed, plural. What do you make of the fact that there's no vehicle that you can see in that aperture?

Well, obviously, he had to get Nancy out to a vehicle in order to get away from from from her house and you know that's assuming that she isn't hidden somewhere on the property. But assuming that she is not on the property then he's going to have to get her out to a vehicle and this is where he's going to have to get her out to a vehicle. And this is where he's going to make the assessment. This is where offenders, you know, they are conducting crimes to minimize risk to themselves.

So why not, he comes up to the front door, why not take her out the front door? So there's something going on.

Maybe because there's a view to the street, right? There's a view to the street. You can see, when Brian Enten is standing in front of Nancy Guthrie's driveway, you can pretty much see to that arched entrance.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So he's making an assessment, and that's where I'm wondering, why does he choose that approach to get into the house. But in terms of getting Nancy out of the house, you know, this is going to be where, okay, is Nancy cognizant? Is she fighting? Is she screaming? You know, is he having trouble keeping her under control? That's going to dictate how he potentially is going to try to force her out to his vehicle? Is she unconscious or worse? You know, that's going to also have an impact on how he gets her to the vehicle.

You know, and then there's the practical aspect of us. How far away can, you know, is this vehicle parked? Is this a house that allows him to get the vehicle up close, which would be ideal for him, or because of the landscaping and everything else, does he, if he has an unconscious Nancy, does he have to carry this body out to his vehicle?

You know, you make a really good point and it makes me think of something. First of all, the blood is just contained to that front entrance on the tiles and Brian Enten looked and saw no blood trail leading down the gravel path. So something happened there and then did not continue. And you know, older people's skin is often very, very thin. My mom is 87 and she can bump into a table and be bleeding terribly from that.

So it's possible there might have been a struggle at that front door and that just the mere struggle might have caused that kind of blood pattern. Although some have weighed in saying it looks like an expiration

blood pattern closer to the ground. So you know what I've seen and my caveat is of course it's just grain grainy photos coming over the various videos that I've looked at. But most of the pattern is dripped blood, and it's dripped blood from a height. And I can't tell you how high it is, but this would be consistent. As an example, hypothetical, you know, let's say you have a cut to your finger.

Now you're dripping blood out on that front porch. That's a possibility. You have, you've been punched in the mouth or in the nose, and now you're dripping blood from the face, or you've got a scalp laceration because you've been pistol whipped.

Those are possibilities.

I did-

Or you have jostled an elderly woman's arms by trying to grab her, and the skin truly is tissue paper-like, right? And that can cause a terrible bleed. But I keep thinking, if you have a gun, you don't have to physically subdue an 84-year-old woman.

She's going to do what you want. I'm wondering, I asked Chris Swecker this as well with the FBI, do you think that maybe Nancy screamed at that front door? And that was the reason that was there was violence at the front door?

Well, it's possible, you know, and what I don't know is, is there any blood inside the house? And if there is, what kind of blood patterns do you have? They're not confirming that. But my source said there was blood inside the house. So I would I would suggest the offender went in. And this is the dynamics of violent crime, thought I can control this 84 year old woman, and she turns out to be a fighter. And she ends up with bleeding injuries from whatever mechanism, but makes it out to the front porch and then is possibly pulled back in. Or she's subdued on that front porch,

but why don't I see any blood pools out there? You know, the expiratory pattern that you alluded to earlier, maybe, but if that's the case, then you've got either blood in the oral cavity or blood in the lungs like she's been stabbed in the chest or that pattern

possibly could be blood dripping into blood and now you get these satellite spatter patterns. I just don't have the details in the images to try to clarify

one way or another. No that makes sense and it's really hard you know doing that from from a distance without question. I want to ask you about the backpack. Some commenters have said it looks like a biker backpack. I can't weigh in on that one way or the other,

but I can weigh in on the fact that it is stuffed full. What do you know about offenders that have nefarious plans about home invasion or kidnapping or worse and the tools that they bring. Does that backpack speak to you in any way as an investigator?

No, it stands out to me and it looks overly stuffed, like comically overly stuffed. So I'm thinking about, okay I'm planning on going in and abducting this 84 year old woman. Maybe I bring bindings. Do I bring a blanket or something to roll her up in if she's unconscious in order to carry her out? Possibly.

Is it possible I've got a change of clothes in case, you know, I'm, I was seen entering the house and now I want to look different on my escape I think all of those could account for some volume within the backpack I've seen offenders not within abduction but going in to commit sexual assault where they are bringing in video cameras Polaroid cameras, you know, and this is back in the day, they're bringing in nylons binding material, they're trying to, they want to be able to set the scene up, because of their

particular fantasies. No idea if that's the case going on here. But when I look at that backpack, I'm going, it almost looks like a pillow has been stuffed in it to make it look huge. You know, and this is where I go back to where this is what the offender wanted us to see. This does not look practical. This looks costume.

What do you make of the fact that we've got sheriff's deputies showing up at intermittent times of day and night at Annie Guthrie's home? We've got sheriff's deputies showing up at FBI showing up and an FBI and night at Annie Guthrie's home. We've got sheriff's deputies showing up at FBI showing up and an FBI showing up at Annie Guthrie's home as well. Also at Nancy Guthrie's home, four miles apart, doing these intermittent searches, sometimes during the day, sometimes not. A tank underground, some said it might have been a septic tank, had

a large entry point, could have been a water cistern or a well. What do you make of all of this sort of patchwork searching, but the fact that on Monday, 30 hours after she disappeared, searches were called off completely, permanently, the sheriff said. We're calling off all searches permanently

until or unless they're warranted. What do you make of all that?

Well, I would say that this is just the ebbs and flows of an investigation. The initial response, and likely they probably had a search warrant in order to get into Nancy's house, just to make things kosher. But as time goes on and their their early assumptions of what this case was may have changed, they may have new information, new tips are coming in, and they're now going, OK, we need to go back into Nancy's house or we may need to take a look at one of the daughter's houses.

There may be, you know, information that There may be pop, you know, information that they go, Oh, you know, it's possible that Nancy didn't survive this attack and her body is somewhere on the property on some some other people's properties where could her body be hidden. And now they're going back and taking a look at that. Some of it is I mean, this is just what ends up happening. I've had to go back to the same homicide house multiple times over the course of my career.

It's just normal. Would you be searching as well as fervently at the family members house as the crime scene house and in the brush surrounding and canvassing neighbors surrounding would you be doing equal amounts of work at both of those homes?

Well, I think that there's a clue in there. And no, would I be searching a family member's house if I did not suspect the family member? No. I mean, I have to, to search a family member's house, I've got to go to a judge and articulate facts as to why I want to violate that person's

Fourth Amendment rights. And a judge, an impartial person in this investigation goes, yes, I think you have sufficient reason to go and do that search.

So but interestingly, Paul, the reporting from NBC has been that Annie Guthrie, Savannah's sister's house, there was permission given to the sheriff's deputies to come in and photograph for three hours on a Saturday night. Others have said you would back it up with a warrant anyway to preserve your prosecution if there's going to be one. And yet Brian Enten went to the courthouse and couldn't find a warrant. Does that mean that the courthouse

hasn't filed it yet? Does that mean that there just isn't one and they went they go on good faith and say well they let us in so we'll just spend three hours

photographing it give me a read. Yeah you know I would say you know again it depends on the the importance and the priority to their investigation about Annie Guthrie's location. I know from my agencies that I've worked for is that we wouldn't take, we would not just rely on consent for something like that. There would be a warrant.

Now, under the circumstances of this case and the high profile nature, the details within that warrant potentially could compromise the investigation. So I think the affiance in that case would be asking the judge to have that warrant sealed.

And that's understandable because the warrant for the car being towed, Annie's car being towed, Megyn Kelly asked for it and said it was sealed. But when Brian Enten went to the courthouse to get any kind of evidence of a warrant for Saturday night search, the court told Brian,

there is not one sealed or otherwise. And that's why I'm just wondering, is it possible there's a timing, a filing issue? Is that possible? Or might it just be that homicide investigators with the sheriff's deputy decided, it's okay, we just have permission, we'll just go in, wise or unwisely?

Well, you know, that I would say that's, that's always a possibility if they have consent now that, you know, they would have the person sign a waiver of consent, you know, for them to be able to go in and then that may be sufficient and maybe a common practice within this particular jurisdiction. So you know, I don't know, you know, it you also could have, you know, a records clerk for the courts. You know, I don't think that they're under any obligation to say if the warrant is sealed

that to say that a warrant was actually issued. I just don't think that they're under any obligation to say, if the warrant is sealed, that to say that a warrant was actually issued. I just don't know.

That's interesting. I didn't think of that. There's so much more to talk about. I'm gonna have to have you back another time. Paul, thank you so much for this. I appreciate your knowledge and your willingness to share

because this is just so mystifying to so many of us and we all just want the best outcome for Nancy Guthrie to come home to her family if it's possible.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for and thank you for having me on, Ashley.

It's always good to talk to you. Okay, my great thanks to Paul Holes. He knows a thing or two. You know, when you have that kind of success in your life and you've been able to solve a major case like that, listen to your insights. Things are moving fast. We've already got multiple media outlets reporting that one person has been detained for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie case.

And so I think it's fair to say that the night is young. So do me a favor, subscribe so that when I do an update on this, you will get this right away. Really important that you subscribe so that you don't miss any of the breaking news because it's breaking. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you for watching and as I always like to it's breaking. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you for watching and as I always like to

say to you, if you remember anything from this, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.