Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy Guthrie, missing as we learn special emphasis is now being placed on Mrs. Guthrie's bedroom and her garage. But why? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Straight out to Crime Stories investigative reporter Dave Mack. Dave, what's the latest?
Nancy, one of the things that we've been wanting was Savannah Guthrie back on the Today Show.
Chapter 2: What details are known about Nancy Guthrie's disappearance?
I say we wanting. The American people want to see some normalcy because, bless her heart, after two months, it's been a long, long time coming. But Savannah made her appearance back as preannounced on the Today Show. Take a listen.
Welcome to today on this Monday morning. We are so glad you started your week with us and it is good to be home.
Yes, it is good to have you back at home.
Well, here we go. Ready or not, let's do the news.
Yes, so good to have you back.
Savannah also did another announcement. This one was for her church website. And in this video is very, very personal, a very, very personal at times talking about her faith and about the Easter season and what it means to her and how it applies to what her family has been going through since the disappearance of her mother. It is a very touching video.
I have long believed that we miss out on fully celebrating resurrection if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death. It is the darkness that makes this morning's light so magnificent, so blindingly beautiful. It is all the brighter because it is so desperately needed. So I close my eyes this morning and I feel the sunshine.
I see a bright vision of the day when heaven and earth pass away because they are one on earth as it is in heaven. When we celebrate today, this is what we celebrate. And I celebrate too. I still believe. And so I say with conviction, happy Easter.
That's Savannah Guthrie in a video posted for Easter Sunday through her church website.
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Chapter 3: How has Savannah Guthrie returned to work during the search?
Chris McDonough, you have a special interest in Ms. Guthrie's bedroom. Explain.
So, Nancy, if we look at the bedroom where she's making the bed, for an example, what I think the public is looking at is her making the bed. What I'm looking at is what we would call a control zone between the bed and the wall. Because if the suspect comes in there and this is her pattern of life to sleep on the left side of that bed, notice there's an alarm clock there.
Notice her books are there. Notice her chair is there. All these items tell us that that's the side that she would be. So now picture this suspect on the left side of that bed. That also gives us an indication of potentially a point of entry into the house. Now, and that goes into this idea of the tarps. Where did this tarp idea come from?
And how is the suspect going to control her and quote, you know, put her in a tarp? I think that's out of play here. And it goes back to the blood evidence on the front porch where he's taken her through the front door.
Why do you think the theory about a tarp, and I agree with you for other reasons, by the way, why do you think that's misplaced?
Well, everybody has said, you know, it looks like a tarp in his backpack. Okay. Well, if you're going to control her in that house, the place you're going to do it is in that bedroom. And if you look at the, now we look where she's standing on the side of that bed, showing us how she makes her bedroom, you know, how she makes her bed in the morning. That is a pattern of life. So are the books.
She's a big reader. So is the alarm clock. So, you know, the chair being there is critical because that's where she probably sits in the morning, you know, to, you know, at that age, you want to be moving your legs, you want to be, you know, moving your body and just kind of waking up. And so the elderly need these types of items nearby.
What we don't see is the Apple Watch device, you know, the charger device that allegedly disconnects at 2.28 in the morning.
Let's take another look at the video of her in the bedroom. I want to take a careful look beside her bed. You're right. That's where she would charge her phone most likely and her hearing device right by the bed. But it looks like she's got it put away for the cameras. Now, why is her routine so significant to you, Chris McDonough?
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Chapter 4: What evidence is being examined in Nancy Guthrie's home?
Because we know that there's a signaling device because all of us that do have garage door openers, that's something, you know, we can just be rolling down the road, right? This is old technology. And you press the button and you're still several feet away, maybe even yards away from your house, and your door begins to lift at that point in time.
Chapter 5: What significance do the ransom notes hold in this case?
Is there some way they could have gotten into that? I think that question... has to be asked and it has to be answered. Is there any way to trace that and try to understand if anybody could have access that area through some type of potential hack?
Can garage door openers be hacked? Absolutely. They can be hacked. They use low frequency radio waves. You heard Joe Scott state that very often you have a panel on the inside. But of course, you have a panel on the outside that is visible. So you yourself can get in. If you don't have your Flickr, they're usually on a three to 400 MHZ range.
It communicates between your remote and the motor unit. Now it's kind of like car radios. It's how they send songs through the air or how spoken word travels as sound. Same thing with garage door radio waves. They carry coded signals and they tell your door to open or close. How easy is it to hack into a garage? You can even do it with a toy. Watch.
We are really looking at a way that you could possibly brute force your way into any fixed code garage or gate using a device like the IME. It's a toy from Mattel. I don't think they make it anymore. But some hackers out there found that it actually has a pretty cool chip inside called the CC1110. It's a microcontroller with a transceiver.
And the transceiver is really cool because it actually transmits and receives on a really wide range of frequencies, down to around 200 megahertz, up to like 950 megahertz. So you can talk to a lot of things, including garages, cars, power meters, alarm systems, all sorts of things are in those bands.
And there's actually some contacts underneath a battery in the back which allows you to flash the board, erase it, and install your own software on this device. So you can program in the De Bruyn sequence and then use this device to play those bits at the frequency you want to play and basically open any garage door or gate you like.
That from Veritasium on YouTube. So Joe Scott Morgan hacking in is really easy.
Yeah, it's absolutely terrifying how easy it is. We're not talking about something, Nancy, here like a cellular device or some type of iPad or something like that. We're talking about access and control to your own residence. And when you see it demonstrated how easy it is to facilitate this, it brings into question how sophisticated do the individuals have to be that do this?
And if you've got a crew of people that specialize, say, for instance, in things like robbery or intimidation or this sort of thing, you know, I got to tell you, that garage door seems like it's really easy to defeat. That really broadens your spectrum here relative to what type of person that you're looking at that could have perpetrated this crime, Nancy.
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Chapter 6: What role does Bitcoin play in the ransom demands?
There you see him, and that is Jan 31 into the early morning hours of February. No package. Then, by the next day, there is a package. Take a look at it, Dave Mack.
It's shocking that it's crystal clear right there. Before, no package. Now, we clearly see a package. Was this used as bait? Like, for instance, you're walking in the middle of the night. That's all I can figure out, Nancy, is that you're using this package as some form of disguise of yourself if somebody were to see you out. in the neighborhood. Why are you here? Oh, I got a package to deliver.
That's the only reason you would see it there. But if it's really an Amazon package, then we can document when it was delivered, who delivered it, and what time they were there.
Well, as a matter of fact, Dave Mack, in Pima County, an earlier attempted home invasion occurred was facilitated by a female pretending, these guys in conjunction, by a female pretending to deliver a package. Let's switch to the woman acting like, there she goes. See her? That's exactly what you're talking about. But I see a problem, Dave Mack. Let's go back to the before and after.
I mean, he may have the package in hand when he's skulking around or have it somewhere to reach for and pretend he's a delivery person. But here you see porch guy, it's not there when he's there, and then it's delivered. Here's where I'm going.
To Chris McDonough joining us, director of Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective, and star of the interview room on YouTube, we here at Crime Stories have now conducted our own investigation. Even the older models of Amazon delivery trucks have cameras. They're not 360, but they're really good. The newer delivery trucks do have 360.
So what, if anything, was captured in the days leading up to Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping? It's a treasure trove of information.
Yeah, absolutely, because you're going to be able to see this truck pull up to that residence, and you're going to see anything that's out of place prior to the abduction. And like Dave said on the porch, with that package there, you're going to know date, time, right up to the minute where they took that picture. You're going to have the metadata on that phone when that picture was taken.
And my gut tells me, Nancy, that he saw that blood and went, oh, whoa. And he placed it off to the side there, took a picture, and he went about doing his thing. Not thinking, obviously, that there was a potential problem here.
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Chapter 7: How do investigators trace emails related to the case?
Right now, it's the needle. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Two evil ransom-type notes are sent demanding Bitcoin in exchange for information about Ms. Guthrie's whereabouts. This as we learn that there was a live feed of the outdoors in Mrs. Guthrie's kitchen and on a laptop. Is that real? As investigators, including the FBI, tried to determine if the so-called porch guy was
was wearing shoe coverings. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
There is this idea that there could be no subscription. The actual camera could have been disabled. And Google is still able to generate these really extraordinary, chilling images. It ultimately could be what cracks this case.
And the latest missive sent again to our friend Harvey Levin at TMZ. The perp, one of them, insists while they're not the kidnapper, according to them, that they know where Mrs. Guthrie is. And they seem very angry that they have been dismissed. Let's hear it from the horse's mouth. Listen to Harvey Levin at TMZ describing the note.
We got another letter today from this person, an email saying, I know where her body is and who the kidnapper is. Give us give me half a Bitcoin and I'll tell you. And this person has been really persistent, knowing that if it's a scam, it's a federal crime. Right.
That from our friends at TMZ, that's Harvey Levin on TMZ Live. Dave Mack, what the hey? Now, let's be clear. Savannah, and I believe that she conferred with the FBI before she stated this, says that she believes two of the ransom notes are real. Let's divide it up. You've got the... deadline notes, the original ransom notes to which she is referring, where the person says, I have Ms. Guthrie.
They give information details about the interior of her home and they state they want Bitcoin. We'll call that the deadline. OK, then we'll call the other notes. Harvey Levin has just gotten. We'll call that deadline. the hyena, because he is trying to capitalize on a horrific crime by claiming he can give information about Mrs. Guthrie's whereabouts.
So we've got the deadline notes, the ransom notes, and then the hyena. Now, this is why, at the get-go, many of us here on the panel tonight believed that two of the ransom notes could be real, and we learned from Savannah that she thinks the same. Listen.
The two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.
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Chapter 8: How do shoe coverings relate to the investigation?
Slow down. Explain that, please. Spoofing technology.
Sure. Given the level of technology nowadays, spoofing an email address, making it appear as though it came from nancygrace.com is possible. However, it is also possible to dig deeper into that header analysis route and path and server info to determine where an email actually could have come from.
Okay, that's looking, trying to track the email. And I'm not sure how this guy and the actual ransomware has managed to stump the FBI. How are they doing it, David Richards?
Well, I don't have specific details, but I can assume that there are certain email addresses, email platforms that one can sign up to remain anonymous, to not provide any information that you or I would use on, for example, a Google. No real names, no real information. It can just be what would be considered a burner account. So that is possible here.
Well, how do you track burner accounts?
Well, it's no different than blockchain. The more interactions you have, the more correspondence, the more data points you have can add to the ability to track an account.
The platform providing that burner... You just told me something really important. Well, it was all important. I'm trying to... ingest everything that you're saying. It's like drinking from the fire hydrant, a lot at once. But you said the more communications, the more likely it is they can trace him.
And according to Harvey Levin, who I have no reason to doubt, he's been contacting them incessantly. Wouldn't that help?
It could help. The problem with Harvey is that he may not have the tools or the knowledge to gather what might need to be gathered. FBI or federal law enforcement would be coming in as a second party versus controlling those communications.
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