Folks.
It is Sunday, February fifteenth, and two weeks ago today, eighty four year old Nancy Guthrie was reported missing, and after it first telling us how urgent the search was, the sheriff is now saying it could take years to crack this case. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Robes.
Not a lot of developments, necessarily concrete developments in this case. But this comment I found odd, surprising and disturbing.
What is going on with all of those resources and the intense search that is going on right now and the hope that still remains for the Guthrie family to make a public statement like that doesn't seem helpful or I'm just confused why he would even go there. Maybe he's trying to temper expectations. Maybe he's trying to get reporters off his back saying this could take a while. But that is a bold and just discouraging statement to say the least.
You said, maybe it was this, maybe it was that. Could it also maybe be that he had just an honest moment and they have nothing.
Yes, I guess that is the case, and I don't know. I just you're not used to seeing investigators tip their hand like that, or police say something like that, especially when they know there's an expectant family holding their breath, praying every night, wishing and hoping for the best, and maybe privately you could temper their expectations to publicly say that. I don't know. It's just a head scratcher for me.
So let's put this in the full context of what he said, and we'll get We're about to give you the exact quote from Pima County Sheriff Nanol's out there who everybody's become familiar with at this point. With his case the Robes, he hasn't been doing well well. I don't even know when the last official press briefing was, but he has from time to time come out and done interviews. Certainly keeps the local affiliates there updated, but
he hasn't been doing a lot of press. But he did around here over the past couple of days after there have been some developments in Robes. One of the outlets he did sit down with and give comments to was The New York Times. Not a lot of information in there, necessarily, but Robes. This jumped off the screen to me and it happened to be. I think it was the last line they put in the story.
Wow, that's interesting. That wasn't even their headline.
But it's everybody else's.
Yes, this isn't that funny. So the comment is this, he said to the New York Times, the sheriff. Maybe it's an hour from now, maybe it's weeks or months or years from now, but we won't quit. We're going to find Nancy. We're going to find this guy. So it was oddly in a positive statement that he dropped this little bit of information that you know, wasn't something
that any of us had heard before. As you pointed out at the top of this, every single comment we've heard from the sheriff and from investigators has been that time is not on their side, that this is an urgent search. There is an elderly woman who needs her medication, family members desperate defined her, and there have been developments. DNA has been found that does not match Nancy Guthrie or any of her family or close friends. So that's
a very you would think positive development. They have been starting to detain people and question people, seemingly getting at least some sort of tip that leads them in a direction, which means there could be others. They have to sip through tens of thousands of tips and they need the one that actually points them in the right direction.
And if so, I thought it was interesting as well. He used the word exhausting. But we've talked about it here ropes. You hear right after they released that front door camera video, they have a suspect they're looking at right, he's got a ski mask over there. Tips start flooding in after that, and they detained a guy and we were holding our breath and then there was nothing and the guy was released. And it happens to be nothing
to it. Those ups and downs we're experiencing. He spoke on the experience in the menzuel and called them exhausting, that these ups and downs, and that guy this was another honest moment. He said, Yeah, that door dash guy, that first guy we detained. We thought that was it.
Yeah, he said, this has to be the evidence. Everything's there. Then you talk to people, you learn, you do your search anything maybe not. Yeah, I mean, look, this is it's interesting. When you have a local sheriff, Pima County sheriff, you probably wouldn't expect that he has a lot of experience dealing with a case on this level, and certainly not dealing with press at this level. At this level, God, yes, he's he's probably just being himself, being the local sheriff
that he's always been. It doesn't always necessarily translate when you have an international story where you have a network news anchor's mother vanish and in such a bizarre, unexplicable way that he really he's had nothing in his career. I would imagine that would have prepared him to put him into spot life like this. So perhaps he says things and does things that may be members of the press, and certainly people who are reading these articles are thinking,
why did he just say that? What did he just say? But you have to take him at his word. He's being honest. He's not putting on. He's not media trained, so to speak, where he knows the slick and smooth non answer to give. He's not a politician. So in a way it's refreshing, But we're also maybe even a little taken aback at how honest he's being in moments.
And look, we have to start with just giving him credit for being able to do his job well behind the scenes. You don't have to be that versed in how to handle the press. Some are better than others, but when everybody is hanging on to your every word and desperate for information, every step can potentially be a misstep for this guy, and he is look, Roges, we haven't gotten into It doesn't necessarily have to. He is
getting just ripped online left and right. And I understand a criticism, but who are we to say if he's doing this right or doing this wrong? Even this comment we're talking about might be an honest one. This isn't a criticism from us about what he's saying. For Rogues, it's it's been two weeks. They said, we don't get.
This woman home in twenty four hours, the worst could happen.
And to hear him in certain when he first said robes ah, damn, I ain't think about this till now. Should we have been taking the signs that this statement might have been coming? When was it when he said no further press briefings scheduled. He hasn't had one in a week plus. But to tell us this is urgent. We need to find her or she could die to no more press briefing schedules. And yet this thing could take weeks, months or years to find out. You put
piece that together. Something is happening behind the scenes that is not giving them confidence.
Well, and I think they're frustrated. You know, you have all this activity. The press is like three people have been detained. You're seeing white tents go up, and they're analyzing vehicles, and they're searching homes. And again, probably not something this Sheriff's department is used to doing to look for a missing person like this with the world watching. And so yes, he called the ups and downs of
the case exhausting. As you pointed out, this is probably fairly new, a new intensity that he and his team have not experienced before. And yes, we're all waiting and hoping, and certainly the family is on another level. But the police feel that scrutiny and that intense pressure, and so yeah, they're probably not sleeping much, and he certainly is not sleeping much, so he might say things he wishes he hadn't.
I can't imagine being Savannah's family and seeing that headline, even if you know in the back of your mind it's possible. Obviously, they've had to leave a certain small amount of space amid all the hope they have that shit, we might not ever find our mom. That's got to be that's the scary thought in the back of their head that they know is there that they probably have never acknowledged or don't want to acknowledge, and certainly not publicly. And now you got the sheriff saying it to the
New York Times. That's tough to read.
And it seems impossible, Robes that we could not know even in two weeks, that we don't know what happened to this lady. We don't know where she is, what conditions. It seems completely implausible all the resources. Now, how do you disappear? There have been people who've put extensive efforts into trying to disappear, and we find them, and.
We still find them.
And when they make tried as hard as Robes, how is this possible to just abscond with an eighty four year old, sickly lady who is not mobile.
And I don't get this story. Baby.
This is if you want to start throwing in theories about alien abduction, I will listen, because that makes just as much sense as some of the theories floating out there.
Nothing makes sense.
No, because you look the motive is never necessary when you're at a criminal trial when someone's been charged, and yet it's the thing that a jury wants to hear, and it's certainly something that police want to know when they're investigating, so that they can have a focus, have a place to know. Why would someone want to do this? And we've talked about it. Obviously it's either money or
it's passion. It was something that this person clearly planned out with what they brought to the home that day, so it had to be premeditated. But the big glaring question is why why? And if you can't figure out the why, it's pretty hard to find the new.
Robes it took her on purpose?
If you wanted to kill her, would have killed her there right, Yes, if you want to take her, it has to be for money. Why are you going to take an eighty four year old woman who's sickly you got to take care of.
It's so ransom makes sense.
But how many notes have we've gotten from different TV stations and news outlets and now from somebody who's a rat who says, I know who.
The kidnapper is. We give me money. Yes, this story is beyond no.
I was gonna say. And the other option is, so maybe it started out. We've talked about this. It started out as a kidnapping, something went wrong. She she died, whether he or the suspect intended to or not. Wouldn't you then have to get rid of the body, so you can't keep it in your home like you can't like so, I mean, I guess there are ways, but I just like, it's so baffling.
And you want to leave open And I said that you.
I said this to you where we were in the car yesterday and we were talking about it, and wees the only way this story gets bigger is if somehow this woman is found alive, that she is found somewhere and Nancy Guthrie's comes out of this. Okay, you have to hold on to that hope, at least publicly. Robes with the information we know, we don't have any reason to think otherwise. The family don't know how much different information they have. But tones messaging have changed in the
past two weeks of this story. But there have been developments, including DNA that Robes just mentioned, also new ways to submit tips, and there have been tons of them. Stay here, We'll give you the very latest, including what was an increase in police activity this weekend? All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ two weeks to the day that Nancy Guthrie was reported missing and still no signs
of her robes. It's important to make this there was some increased police activity, and they made clear after that that no matter what you've been hearing about detainments and whatever else, we got nobody.
No arrests, no suspects, no persons of interest, and thirty two thousand tips to go chase down.
And that video made all the difference. And that's a good thing. You want to generate tips, But robes, there's so many now they say they got four hundred investigators going through thirty two. They have to decide which one this rises to the level. This one looks like we should go after this one first and then track that down, and then the next one and the next one.
Thirty two thousand, that's overwhelming. I was curious with the DNA that we've talked about, because it is it is fascinating, with all of the theories that had been swirling around initially, and everyone always looks, including police, especially at the people who purported to love Nancy Guthrie or no, Nancy Guthrie. You're much more likely, obviously to be killed or have some harm come your way by a close friend or
family member. But that DNA, at least the DNA that they found in the home, we don't know what form it took, but they were able to rule out family and her close friends. That is of incredible significance. I was curious because they say the DNA didn't hit a match. Obviously they've got folks who have already been arrested. They've got a basically a database, a database of folks they could link up to. That would have been the most obvious and most the easiest way, I guess for there
to be some sort of a connection. But you were watching I woke up this morning to you watching True Crime per usual, and they were actually talking about taking DNA and putting it into one of these twenty three and meters types of databases and finding relatives and then
hunting down the person. Yes, they might not have committed a crime, but they might have had relatives who go on to some of these ancestry websites, and that's a way how you can zero in and find a person at least who this DNA may belong to.
Surely they're doing that.
I was so if I woke up thinking about this case because I was listening in my dream, like stake to your to your show.
They got that guy, by the way, Oh they did exactly that.
That to your point, that's exactly how they tracked down a killer. This woman some genealogists. Lady just offered her services to a police department. She had to go to them. Kind of a thing. Well, IM, we have to assume they're doing this. They're doing absolutely everything, but robes. If they're doing absolutely everything, seems like something after two weeks should put them on some path. It's amazing. It's they the way they talk to us, Babe. They talk like
they have nothing. They talk like they have nothing, and I'm blown away the DNA part. So now we're talking. They apparently other people worked at the home and whatnot, but everybody who was known to go in and out has been eliminated from this DNA. They found who was in there and robes even when they figured out, I don't know, leftover from a pizza delivery guy could have been left over, but we don't know if it's blood, if what they're talking about they found.
Yes, So it seems as though if they're actually talking about this DNA they found that wasn't Nancy Guthries, you would think it had to be something that was from I would assume it'd have to be blood. I mean, just because it would be the only thing that would make sense that that would be of interest if it was. Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I guess they're looking at fingerprints, are looking at everything, a cigarette, it could be.
Who what any of this could be. They have set up now and how this who knows how this is going to go. They set up links the FBI and the Pema County Sheriff. Click on a link and you could submit any evidence. As it says, but any tip that's going to get flooded now probably.
Yeah, And you think about it. You got one hundred thousand dollars out there for someone that's not chump change. It started out of twenty five hundred, it went up to fifty thousand, and now it's at one hundred thousand dollars. If you provide the information that leads to the arrest or conviction of the person responsible for taking Nancy Guthrie, that is a hell of a reward, and you would think it would be incredibly incentivizing.
But whatever this bozo is, and maybe it did. The incentive is to get the money and try to insert yourself into a story and try to do a scam.
But we as the latest note that we know of that has been received as a second one or not a third one, that came from someone who sent it to TMZ claiming that they know who the kidnapper is and now they want one hundred thousand dollars and they want it by sending me one part of it in bitcoin and I promise I won't cash it in until you catch the kidnapper and then I want the other half. What So that's where we are. That is at this point, Robes. No,
they still haven't said that's credible yet. They haven't tol seven.
No, they haven't. And I look, there have been almost every day. I think yesterday might have been the exception. There have been interesting, strange, out of left field developments that have kept this story in the forefront of a lot of folks minds. It's kept it on the front page of all of our online news sources, and certainly it's something people continue to talk about. That's good for
the Guthries, who want people focused, want pressure on police. However, at a certain point, when you have the sheriff coming out and talking about it could take years and there really aren't any new developments. The biggest fear that you could possibly imagine for the Guthries is that people just stop caring because it just seems so hopeless and it
just seems like there's nothing happening. So I fear that, like, at least some of these developments, even if they don't bear fruit, even if they don't get us closer to knowing who the suspect has is, at least it keeps the interest alive on the story, which is important.
You talk about the interest, and you're right. I'm trying to remember the last significant, like real concrete updates. You know, it was the video, But other than that, so many of the updates have been bizarre.
Here's another one.
The sheriff in charge who just told us two weeks ago we new to find her in twenty four hours, say yeah, this could take years.
That's a bizarre story, but still nothing concrete. Folks.
We didn't expect to frankly hop on and give an update on the This has happened several times. We probably won't do a gu three update tomorrow, and then we wake up as something happens, we go, holy shit, is this so? We just wanted to hop on give you this update. This is something that you and certainly we are keeping our eyes on. We always appreciate you spending time and trusting.
Us with this story.
But always top right corner of your Apple podcast app where you see our show page as a little button there that says follow click that you can make sure the updates always come to you. That's your way to subscribe and get the updates. There have been a plenty. We will keep an eye on it, folks. We always appreciate you spending time with us on TJ Holmes on behalf of my dear Amy Robach.
We'll talk to you soon.
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