Where is Nancy Guthrie?

0:00Sean Rameswaram:Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today host Savannah, has been missing for over a month now. But I want to take a second to talk about a guy named Dominic Evans. You probably haven't heard of him. He's a middle-aged elementary school teacher who, in his spare time, plays drums in a band with one of Nancy Guthrie's sons-in-law. Because of that connection, he ended up speaking to investigators in Arizona. They did not arrest him. But because of that connection, he ended up becoming a prime suspect for amateur investigators who have descended on Tucson to create what some call content for their followers.

0:33Sean Rameswaram:That content, at least for a while, ruined Dominic Evans' life. He was scared to leave his house. He feared for his kids' safety. He told the New York Times, I feel like someone's taken my name, but for what reasons? I don't know. Monetary, clickbait, to be relevant, entertainment. But there are innocent people that get hurt. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. On Today Explained from Vox, we're going to revisit a rather disturbing trend in our very online world. Crime vacations.

1:20emotional well-being matters, find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash explained. That's BetterHelp.com slash explained. As AI reshapes professional services, law firms and in-house teams are rethinking how complex work gets done. Harvey AI is an AI platform built specifically for legal practice, helping teams analyze documents, draft with precision, and collaborate securely across matters. Today, more than half of the Amlaw 100 use Harvey. Learn more at Harvey.ai.

1:58This is Today Explained.

2:00Sean Rameswaram:Luke Winkie writes about all sorts of things for Slate, including occasionally crime. I think people think that this case probably could be solved, despite the fact that it's not. And I think that has kind of driven a lot of the speculation. And you went into the heart of the speculation. Yes, I did. Of the true crime hysteria. Yeah, yeah. Tell us where you went and tell us what it looked like. So I flew into Phoenix, Arizona, and I jumped in a rental car, and I took out my phone, and I tapped in Nancy Guthrie's address. And I drove to Tucson about an hour and a half away. All pretty ordinary, you know.

2:40And then I took this one right turn onto a street and immediately you just tell there was all these cars parked on the side of the road. Out front of the home of Nancy Guthrie. And it is a media circus out here. There are some weird people that show up out here. And so there's this guy in this car right here who literally drove by like 50 to 100 times very slowly. It's a pizza delivery. It's a pizza. It's my prank interview. There were drones overhead. There's just media people just kind of wandering around. There's people, like, filming, like, front-facing camera videos and talking to their streaming setups.

3:18Day 29, the search for Nancy Guthrie. There's her home right behind me here in the Catalina foothills. We're out here at the Nancy Guthrie home. Today marks one month since she has been abducted from her home, allegedly taken out of her bed, per reports. Day 32, where is Nancy Guthrie? Back out in front of Nancy Guthrie home. What's interesting about it, there's not like a police barricade or anything. Anyone can just kind of show up there to cover the case. And that includes journalists like me. And that includes random YouTubers. That includes people who just have a morbid curiosity and want to, you know, see the sights of what is was for a while like the biggest story in America.

4:01And, yeah, it was pretty surreal. You know, it was a you know, it wasn't like you're outside a courthouse or something like that where you sort of expect the zeitgeist. It's just the side of a road and in a nice neighborhood in Tucson.

4:14Sean Rameswaram:Is there something about this Nancy Guthrie case that is particularly potent for these true crime tribes out there? Is it is it just that her daughter is super famous? that honestly is part of it. Like this is like a, um, a galactically famous person, almost like in like the subconscious of America. Good morning. It's November 26th. This is today. It is so exciting to be here in Windsor. It is a charming town, 20 miles outside of London, and it's really steeped in Royal history. So in the name of science, I agreed to let them film me all night taking part in an experiment, spending a night at a hotel to learn more about the consequences that come with a host of disruptions.

4:55And I think also part of that is like, I don't know, we live in kind of like a low trust culture right now. And I think people are maybe more eager to believe that, oh, maybe the sheriff doesn't know what they're talking about. When it comes to the investigation, I don't even know if they can do a new investigation because so much of the evidence was tampered with and botched at this point. Maybe the FBI has bungled this. The way this case is being investigated is completely ridiculous. It's botched and it's like a whole bunch of rookies are investigating. So maybe you're maybe more inclined to think that a couple of YouTubers might be getting to the bottom of something or are focusing on something that whatever authorities out there have missed.

5:39Sean Rameswaram:You know, now that you mention it, I feel like I saw the director of the FBI in Italy like chugging beers with the men's hockey team instead of trying to crack this case. I didn't see that so much from them because I will say a lot of these content creators did seem to be right-leaning, shall I say. And I think they were more interested in the Democratic sheriff of Tucson. But I'm sure that was probably in the bloodstream at least a little bit. Did you get a sense being out there how much people wanted to solve this case versus how much people wanted it to drag on for the views, for the engagement, for who knows, the revenue?

6:22you i i can't say that the influencers like wanted it to drag on for the engagement but i do think that like the longer it went on in some ways that was more validating for some of the influencers that were out there in the sense that it let them kind of exist in the uh it exists within this narrative that like i'm the one that's going to be able to solve this i remember there is this one guy uh this dude uh jonathan lee riches jlr he goes by and the longer i was out there his content stopped being so much about nancy guthrie and started being about stuff how i understand people have to have health and fitness but would you go like if you're a sheriff would you go to the gym and work out just days just like the next day when nancy goes missing she said he's been there for days, like working out in the morning.

7:21Like, I'm going to be out here. I can actually crack this case where they can't.

7:24Sean Rameswaram:What's funny about that is here we are a month and a couple of days out from Nancy Guthrie being abducted and no one's figured it out. Not the FBI, not local law enforcement, and not these myriad influencers out there. What are the influencers doing out there? So most influencers are literally just setting up a camera in front of her house and talking to a chat box that is full of people that are tuning in to just basically just stare at Nancy Guthrie's house and kind of wait for updates to trickle in or to share random kind of theories they saw on Twitter or like pass along rumors. And you might think that why would anyone tune into that?

8:07That sounds kind of boring. I don't have a great answer to that. But what I can say is clearly there is a market for this. Like the top guy out there, this guy JLR, he was getting like almost like 80 ,000 concurrent views of people just staring at a static feed of Nancy Guthrie's house. I talked to another guy out there who's from California and he drove out there. And the reasoning he said so is because he said, well, no one was taking the night shift.

8:32Sean Rameswaram:So it sounds like you're describing a scene in which these influencers and, you know, chat casters and whatever else, they're like aware that they're not helping. They just want the views. They just want the engagement. Is that all it is? I mean, how different is that, I guess, from CNN being out there and not breaking any new news? Yeah, I think this is the thing I found myself thinking about a lot because, again, you are right. Like the engagement is really good. Like you are covering the biggest story in the world. And if you are in the game of true crime, like this is where you want to be.

9:00Like you have like kind of the veneer of giving the people what they want. I am out here covering the story and piping it to the people that trust me on true crime. I didn't get a great sense that ultimately what these influencers were doing and what these cable news entities were doing were especially different. I think at the end of the day, everyone was sort of milling around Nancy Guthrie's house waiting for the sheriff to show up to make their statements.

9:27Sean Rameswaram:I guess you could say it's a free country, but it kind of isn't lately. And you could say like they're not hurting anyone, but they kind of are because haven't they gassed up certain theories to the detriment of like alleged suspects who weren't even suspects? Yeah, I mean, the thing with like, you know, if you're a traditional media entity, right, you're sort of bound by certain just a certain rules of how you go about this stuff. A good example is the sheriff when I was out there made a statement kind of reiterating that they had ruled out Nancy Guthrie's immediate family as suspects in this investigation.

10:07To be clear, the Guthrie family, to include all siblings and spouses, has been cleared as possible suspects in this case. The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are the victims in this case. And that's because there's been all this speculation that someone close to Nancy Guthrie might have been the person to abduct her. And I talked to one guy out there who was a true crime streamer. And he, you know, told me, well, I go about things a different way. I like to have direct interaction with my viewers. So when the sheriff put out that statement, I put a poll in my chat saying like, hey, do you believe the sheriff that her family had nothing to do with it?

10:44And in that poll, everyone said that, no, I think their family still had something to do with it, you know, which like that probably is where the public sentiment is. But it wasn't like he was taking charge of saying like, no, guys, listen, we can't be talking about that because the authorities ruled them out. Like they were still willing to kind of engage in that kind of speculation, which you could say is a little bit damaging and not necessarily helpful to solving the case. And that makes it a little bit less.

11:11Sean Rameswaram:It's like it's like it's like doing your own research about vaccines, except you could ruin someone's life. Yeah. Except that I was talking to this guy who was an influencer of their creating content about the Guthrie case, obviously. And we were talking about, like, how streamers like him get accused of, like, passing along this information because he had starred in a – it was an inside edition was out there. And they did this little feature about how he and these other influencers were putting out these rumors and that the police want them gone, all this stuff. Distractions like that, standing out here in the parking lot and screaming how bad the sheriff is, how does that help this investigation move forward?

11:54And I was talking to him about that. I expected him to like really push back hard against like the idea that he was spreading misinformation. He did that a little bit, but that wasn't really like the thrust of his defense. Like instead, he basically told me that, listen, I'm going to I'm going to get things wrong. I'm going to pass along. I'm going to get misinformation. I'm going to I'm going to like, you know, see a tweets and talk about it. then it might later prove that that tweet is wrong. But like, I'm a true crime content creator and that's what makes true crime fun. The misinformation is kind of what makes true crime fun.

12:31Like to come up with a rumor and a theory and talk about that and explore it and maybe it gets later debunked, that is kind of what we do here in true crime. Like that's what I'm out here to do. Like the next day he was gonna go like investigate a golf course because some of his viewers thought that like Like her, like Nancy Guthrie's body might be stowed away in this golf course. I don't know. I was sort of like, I was chilled about how much I related to what he was saying and how kind of icky it felt nonetheless. us.

13:10Sean Rameswaram:If you want to read more about how the true crime influencers gave Luke the ick, head to slate.com and look for his piece titled The Haunting American Scene Unfolding Outside Nancy Guthrie's House. When we're back on Today Explained, we're going to try and figure out why this case hasn't been cracked yet.

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16:21You're listening to Today Explained.

16:23Sean Rameswaram:Perry Vandel is a public safety reporter with the Arizona Republic. He's been covering the Nancy Guthrie case from the jump. It began very large. Good evening. We do begin tonight with the urgent search and the race against time now to find the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie. It has been another gut-wrenching day here at NBC News as investigators search for Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy. I'm outside the home of Nancy Guthrie. It's now six days since the 84-year-old disappeared without a trace. I think, you know, it became apparent that this wasn't an 84-year-old woman who walked out of her home of her own volition.

17:04There were signs that she was likely abducted. At its apex, at least, there were hundreds of law enforcement assigned between the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. It's not immediately clear as of now how many investigators remain active on the case. They haven't really gone into that. The Pima County Sheriff's Department gave this sort of vague description about, you know, reallocating resources depending on the situation and context and things like that. But they have assured that it remains active and ongoing. Tell us what we know about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. Sure. We know that in the hours prior to her disappearance, she was at her daughter Annie's house for dinner and games and returned home just before 10 p.m.

18:07and was dropped off by her son-in-law. And we know that because we have a garage door open at approximately, I can't stress that enough, at approximately 9.48 p.m. At 9.50 p.m., that garage door closes. Then her Ring doorbell camera was disconnected, I believe, a little bit before 2 a.m. 2.28. Nancy's pacemaker app shows that it was a disconnect from the phone. That was sort of the last sign that investigators had. And at 11.56 a.m., the family checks on Nancy, discovers her missing. And then it's believed that she wasn't without medication that she took for a heart condition that she had. So there were concerns about her well-being at the very beginning of the case, because if she didn't have it, then that could threaten her life as well.

19:04This is an 84 year old grandma that needs vital medication for her well-being. You still have the time to do the right thing before this becomes a worse, much worse scenario for you. We know that she had still a pretty sharp mind, but limited mobility. And so that's pretty much the solid things that we know about this case.

19:31Sean Rameswaram:OK, so we know some. What don't we know? I mean, the big ones are who abducted her. Who abducted Nancy Guthrie? Yeah, who abducted Nancy Guthrie? Why? Like the motive, I mean, really core things about the case. The case began with sort of the possibility that it may have been an abduction for ransom. We had a couple ransom notes that were curiously shared with through the media. They're coming in, all coming in the exact same way through our tip email inbox. It's always clear that it's the same person because they have that Bitcoin account attached to it where they are still hoping to get the$100 ,000 reward.

20:21At 6.42 on Monday evening, our station received a message via email, a possible ransom note linked to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. They're trying to verify the authenticity of the notes and trying to get proof of life from her would-be captor or captors. We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know, without a doubt, that she is alive and that you have her. But so far, developments with the case appear to have stagnated.

20:57Sean Rameswaram:Has there been anything that we know of resembling a really solid break in this case? So, I mean, I would say probably the biggest break in the case is the FBI's ability to get the footage and images from the doorbell camera. That was the first time that it wasn't really putting a face to it because he was masked, but a masked face, I guess, to, you know, someone who likely was involved in her disappearance. I'll note law enforcement didn't arrest anyone. It's sort of semantics, but they detained them. These people were never booked into jail on any charges or anything like that. They were sort of detained, questioned by authorities, and then later released.

21:41So they appeared to be breakthroughs at the time. I know especially with the first detainment, which came shortly, like hours after the release of the images and footage from the doorbell camera. and I know I and some of my colleagues thought oh they found the suspect and then we're a little surprised when we later learned that oh guess it wasn't that person you know and to this day I don't think that investigators have ever elaborated on what led them to detaining uh that individual and and anyone else they detained. And since then, it's kind of just been a lot of, you know, we're reviewing hundreds of hours of footage that people have submitted.

22:28We're reviewing tens of thousands of tips that have been submitted to both the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. And I guess one thing I would say for the breakthrough is the FBI have projected that the masked individual in the footage is between, uh, five foot nine and five foot 10 average build.

22:53Sean Rameswaram:Sorry, five foot nine to five foot 10 average build. That's like, I only see that every time I look in the mirror. Right, exactly. And, um, and then they've deduced that, uh, the backpack he wore was a like 25 liter Ozark backpack that sold at Walmart. But essentially that's it. And And the other thing I'll mention is that, you know, police weren't called to the home until the late morning after she disappeared. Nancy Guthrie was supposed to visit a friend's home to attend a virtual church service, and the friend notified family when she didn't show up. And then the family called police. And by that point, you know, assuming that she disappeared around 2 a.m.