Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
SAVANNAH GUTHER MOM MISSING: EXTENSIVE HIGHWAY SEARCHES UNDERWAY
11 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
All of our hopes dashed last night when we learn a guy has been taken in for detainment. In the Nancy Guthrie case, we learned that the hostage unit is on standby less than a mile away. That means the hostage is nearby, right? for our hopes to be dashed when we wake up this morning and find out that guy was released. He allegedly had nothing to do with Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.
Also, as we go to air right now, another missive has been received by TMZ, 30 Mile Zone. This time, the missive isn't the rat. They want to rat out the rat.
Chapter 2: What new developments are there in the Nancy Guthrie case?
They are stating they can give the name of the perp for one Bitcoin to a Bitcoin wallet. What is the Bitcoin worth? $66,000. Also at this hour, we learned that the FBI is combing the roadside and they are in three locations. Campbell, they are in near... They are near Sinaloa, Tulsa, Northridge, Estrada, those four places, not three, four.
All the Catalina foothills, and they are looking along the roadside. Why? Was something tossed out of a car? A cell phone? A camera? That camera that was taken off Nancy Guthrie's front porch. What are they looking for? In addition to combing the Catalina foothills near the roadside, the FBI has launched a new search near Nancy Guthrie's home in the Catalina foothills north of Tucson.
Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Dave Mack joining me, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Dave, I'm going to get to the searches that are going on right now in the foothills of Catalina first. Then we'll go through what happened last night. I see, I've seen video footage of the FBI
and I believe local law enforcement elsewhere, combing the roadsides. Where are they?
They are in the Catalina foothills just north of Tucson, Nancy. And by the way, they're not just in one location. They have spread hundreds, okay, plural, hundreds of FBI agents and sheriff's deputies are all over the area. They're searching roads, back roads, and they're not isolated to one specific area. They're covering all of it.
And they are looking specifically for evidence that could have been tossed from a vehicle going down the road. maybe a road that doesn't get a lot of traffic in the foothills. And they are looking. They're going, you know what? There are so many people out there. They're asking anybody driving in those areas to be extra cautious. They're even warning media. I say they, it's the FBI.
The FBI Phoenix office has taken to X to point out there are so many officials that are actually searching this area. Be careful. Get out of the way. They're on foot looking for evidence, Nancy.
Josh Colesrud, joining us from this jurisdiction in Arizona, veteran criminal defense attorney, former federal prosecutor, and founder of the Colesrud Law Offices. Josh, exactly where would the Catalina foothills be for those that are not familiar with Arizona?
Yeah, the Catalina Foothills are just outside of Tucson. It's an affluent area. I'm from Phoenix. We kind of look at the Catalina Foothills as the Scottsdale of the Tucson area. It's very nice and a fairly large retirement community.
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Chapter 3: What does the Bitcoin ransom demand reveal about the case?
And as Dave Mack said, it's all along the roadways. So what are they looking for? Brian Fitzgibbon is joining us, Director of Operations, USPA, Nationwide Security. Their specialty, locating missing people at USPASecurity.com. Brian. I think they're looking for something thrown out of a window. And is this desperate? Maybe. Or maybe they got a tip. The number of tips has swollen.
There's a surge of tips after Savannah Guthrie's last plea for the public's help. Did somebody call in and say, hey, I saw a guy throw what looked to be a cell phone out of a car on that night? But what could they be looking for, Brian? And what does this mean that they're literally beating the Bushes?
Chapter 4: What evidence is the FBI searching for in the Catalina foothills?
Yeah, bingo. There are two reasons that law enforcement would be out there. And the first one, you highlighted both of them. The first one is, hey, they got a tip. Someone in Tucson said, hey, I saw a suspicious vehicle parked alongside of the road. Maybe there was a swap that took place. A second vehicle came in. I saw something, and we want to go inspect that area.
And law enforcement's out there following up on that tip. The second reason is exactly what you said. Very often in criminal activity, they're going to dump, regardless of what crime it is, they're going to dump that clothing or disguise so it's not in a vehicle with them.
So there's a very good chance that this is law enforcement doing exactly what they told us they're doing, which is all the blocking and tackling to do this the right way. And that's going to include covering those major roadways, avenues of egress away from Ms. Guthrie's house, to see if there's anything discarded along the road that now matches that video we have from the crime scene.
And Brian Fitzgibbons, you and I covered and investigated ourselves the Delphi double murders of Abby and Libby. And if you will recall, it came out in court and it was really heartbreaking that a tip had been taken down at the beginning of the investigation. And that tip had been translated incorrectly. And I believe that they reversed Richard Allen or they reversed the name of the street.
So all of this time when people were searching and so much was happening trying to solve the case, it was right under their noses. But the tip got screwed up and overlooked. There's so many citizen tips. I always use the Gabby Petito case as a great example of citizen sleuth. Everyone was looking for Gabby Petito in her white Ford Transit.
We now know that she and Brian Laundrie had been in what is called dispersed camping. Way, way out in the wilderness. No port-a-potty hookups, no lights, no cell phone range. And there was a citizen who had been following the story, and they had the handle red, blue, and methane, as I recall. And they spotted Gabby Potato's white Ford Transit.
And out of the blue, in the middle of nowhere, they go, hey, that could be Gabby's Ford Transit. They called it in, Brian, and law enforcement went out there. And if it had not been for that citizen sleuth, we would never have found Gabby Petito's remains and her parents would be wondering to this day, what happened to Gabby?
The outcome wasn't good, but they know they have the knowledge of what happened to Gabby. So did you know, Brian Fitzgibbons, that in the last 24 hours, there have been 4,000 calls, tips called in. Before that, there had only been 1,800 since Feb 1. But once this video was released, let's play it again, control room, please. This is what is generating the calls and the tips. This.
And I want to see his face as best as we can, that balaclava, that ski mask that he is wearing. This guy, this guy, if I could just get my hands on him. So, Brian Fitzgibbons, you believe, repeat, what you think is the reason they're out beating the bushes by the side of the road.
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Chapter 5: How are law enforcement agencies coordinating their search efforts?
It's a kidnap.
Well, I mean, there's kidnapping that is a dumb kidnapping where people get caught. And then there's a professional kidnapping where people don't get caught. Now, everything except for the video has been done on a professional level. So this video isn't congruent with the other things that have happened. I mean,
This 84-year-old was kidnapped and there's a national manhunt for the people or person involved. And we, as far as the public is concerned, know almost virtually nothing about what's going on, including finding Nancy Guthrie. So, what I'm trying to say is, you know, we don't know yet to attribute a motive, we don't know yet if this is professional or not.
But if somebody later on a month ago, a month from now said that this was staged to you know, mislead us in our investigation, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised.
Chapter 6: What insights can body language experts provide about the suspects?
Okay, now I see what you're saying. Like, make us think it's a kidnap for ransom when really it's a murder in order to get her inheritance. Something that's just a theory of misdirection to follow up and give an example of what you're stating.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
A lot's happening right now. We now know that the FBI and local law enforcement is trying to identify the clothing, the backpack, the shoes, the balaclava, the ski mask, the gun, you name it. Very quickly, Dave Mack, tell us about yet a third missive, this one to TMZ, that has gone down literally in the last hours.
It has. Nancy, the shocking reality is that earlier today, TMZ got another email. Now, this one is not from the actual kidnappers. This one is from a rat promising to rat out the kidnappers in exchange for one Bitcoin. Now, they will name who the kidnapper is. And by the way, he's not saying this person doesn't say plural. He's saying, I will name the kidnapper. One person. Singular.
in exchange for one Bitcoin that cost about $66,000. That's the offer. It's not the kidnapper. It is somebody who knows the kidnapper offering to rat them out for the money.
Okay, straight out to Chris McDonough joining us, director of the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective. He's worked Oceanside, California. He's worked over 300 homicides in a 25-year career. That's his expertise, and he is the star of the interview room on YouTube. What do you make of a rat ratting out a rat? Can he be believed? And does nobody understand Bitcoin can be traced?
You put that wallet up there, throw in $100. The minute it is transferred out, bam, the IRS can do it. The DOJ can do it. The FBI can do it. unless they move the money to a foreign country that has low or no Bitcoin regulation. In other words, there's nothing for us to subpoena. There's nothing there because there's no regulation. We can get him.
Yeah, absolutely. And remember that guy that used to send the, uh, Hey, you're the heir of a Nigerian Prince and for a million dollars, we'll hold it. Okay. That this is just a bunch of noise that's going on around this thing. Uh,
what's what's really important here is right re refocus back at the house and that's what the investigators are doing and what what you were talking about a little bit ago uh nancy uh on this search that's going on here if they do find a piece of clothing one evidentiary tab or path that they can go down is they can look at that clothing and there's an what they call an r n number on the tags.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the suspect's behavior on the investigation?
You got me at our end number. Start right there.
Yep. So an RN number, and I actually had a homicide where we pulled the RN number and we found where the suspect had purchased his clothing. What it is, it's a Federal Trade Commission number and it's mandatory for any kind of import clothing from overseas. And every piece of clothing has it. Let's say if it was made in Indonesia or something to that effect.
Well, with that number, the Federal Trade Commission tracks the inventory as it comes into the United States and then the distribution points as to where that particular clothing went, including backpacks.
Well, McDonough, you're brilliant. I just plugged in RN number. You can actually search the RN database. There is an RN database. Wow. You had a case and you used the RN database? How?
Yeah, well, the suspect pulled off his jacket and he left it in a drainage ditch behind the murder scene.
And so we pulled that number through the Federal Trade Commission, and we were able to find out when the item was manufactured, who the distributors were, and then we traced it to a store in a mall nearby, and we were able to go to that mall and pull the purchase receipt of all of those types of jackets.
And then we had the credit card numbers, and we just kind of, you know, through elimination, ended up with our guide.
I didn't want to interrupt you. I understand it that far, but how did you get it into evidence?
Easily. We just showed him the chain of custody, you know, how we did it.
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Chapter 8: What role do citizen tips play in missing person cases?
The zipper is reflective. So that's what we know about that. Again, Walmart. That'd be the first place I would look, the local Walmart, because we believe this guy is from Tucson. Why? His affinity with KGUN and KOLD. Also, he's a guy that goes to TMZ. Who goes to TMZ? There is a very specific group A demographic that reads TMZ. I do. Who else does? Look at the backpack.
What can we learn from the backpack? And it's crammed to the brim. He is not going in to take anything out. He's not in for a robbery or a burglary. He's taking something in for Pete's sake. Let's see the other side, which I find to be very, very demonstrative. The two light... Look, on either shoulder, you can see the light reflectors. That's what they're looking for.
An adult-sized backpack with these light reflectors, those shoulder patches he's got on his chest. They're looking for the balaclava. They're looking for the jacket. They're looking for the backpack. The gloves, at first, they're like boxer's gloves. Is he wearing multiple layers? That said... We understand that that is being done right now. Okay, what do you think about that, Fitzgibbons?
No, you're absolutely right, Nancy. And there, you know, so far as analyzing this video even further, they are breaking apart every single pixel around that mouth and those eyes on every exposed piece behind that mask. Now, obviously, it's an uphill battle. for whatever softwares and whatever abilities the FBI has. But they've already surprised us one time with recovering this video.
I wouldn't be surprised if they did again.
Fitz Gibbons is actually joining us from a scene. He is working. So, Fitz, before you sign off, can I talk to you about facial recognition? Because from that video, the FBI can determine and local law enforcement can do this as well. It's not magic. It's not genius.
They can look at this, they can measure the length, the height of the stones in Nancy Guthrie's porch, on her porch, when he first walks in, when he first steps up on that step, and they can determine his height, probably down to about an inch. Okay, let's see him walk up the porch. Here we go. He's got his head down, that's not helpful. Keep going. Right there. Right there.
When he was walking up and held his head up. Also, you can even get the size of this guy's shoe when he's stepping on those tiles. There's one where he steps directly in at the beginning of the tile. We can get his shoe size. It's already been estimated to be a size 12. His height has been estimated between 5'11 and 6'. Okay, facial recognition. It's used at airports.
It's used by people that already have clear to get on to planes. It's used by passport, quick lines, by global entry, all sorts of facial recognition is already out there. I mean, look at your iPhone for Pete's sake. That's facial recognition.
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