Hello and welcome to the best case worst case.
This is Jim Clementi, retired FBI profile of former New York City prosecutor and writer
“producer of Criminal Minds and Bluebeard, Unautable.”
And with me today is my great friend. Morino-Connell, 25-year veteran of the FBI and co-host of this show, thanks for listening. Yeah, it's great to see you, Morin. And today, we're going to kind of catch up on the Nancy Guthrie abduction case. This is a very, very strange case.
I mean, we both worked cases where kids or adults are abducted, but nothing. Nothing in my experience has ever played out the way this case has. How about you? Absolutely, it's so weird, Jim, and, you know, every case has its twists and turns and it's ups and downs.
But this one is like being on a roller coaster without a seat belt on and you just
never know what you're going to wake up to.
“And part of it, I think, I don't know if you agree or not, but part of it for me is it seems”
like there's just a bunch of pieces from different puzzles that we're trying to cram together because some of these things just don't belong with each other. Right. It doesn't make sense, right? And, you know, we've both been on the news over the last few weeks talking about
this case, trying to interpret the evidence that's coming out as it trickles out. And there's a lot of, well, there's a lot of false narratives being played out out there. And there's a lot of people that are trying to, I don't know, just make things worse than they actually are. The fact is that this is a very serious case.
This is any time you have an elderly person abducted, putting through, being put through that kind of stress, it can be life-threatening. And so, you know, we hope, and we pray that she's still alive, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if she was alive, even, you know, that night, who knows. That's my fear.
Yeah, it is a real fear, I get it.
“But the fact is that, as things have come out, and as we've watched from the outside, what's”
going on, you know, what we know about what's being reported about, what law enforcement is doing, there's certain indicators that we see. But our friend, Jim Fitzgerald and Ray Carr, have a podcast called Cold Red. And it's interesting, because I listened to Jim's profile of this offender. And he kind of broke it down before and after the images were released.
But I totally agree with his profile. And that the pre-offence behavior was that this guy had some additional stressors in his life right before the abduction, that entire weekend. He was probably working up his courage to do this and making the plans, and he was acting like a stress dude.
Like, then I get away with this. Is this too much? Can I trust the guys? I'm hiring or whatever. Yeah, it's a stress more than one, right.
But it could also be that he literally was, you know, so hyped up or he got, you know, just either emotionally or he could have been using drugs or other intoxication methods in order to sort of lower his inhibitions and just give himself permission to do this. He's not a professional. I mean, especially once we see that that video, this guy is not a professional.
He's not some cartel hit guy or something like that that I've heard on multiple programs and sites that's absolutely not true. Based on his behavior, it's very easy to see this guy was not well-prepared. He thought he was, but he wasn't. And he gave away so much information in that video.
It's just ridiculous.
But a lot of what he gave away was that he was prepared, but he had actually never done
this before because he wasn't totally prepared. Had he been a professional, he would have been in and out of that house in under five minutes. Had he been a professional, he certainly would have planned to have some way to incapacitate the camera outside. He didn't, he wasn't prepared, he grabbed a bunch of brush, ridiculous.
In the process, he revealed that he has what it looks like a tattoo on his ri...
on the bottom of his right wrist and that's a real big mistake because that can easily
be used to identify him or he's out there right now of getting it removed and that behavior can also help identify him or maybe he's getting it tattooed over with something different so that you can't recognize the same pattern that you can see revealed when he put his hand up to that camera to try to block it. So those things right away tell you that he is not a professional, that he's not as good
as he thinks he is.
And so the stress level that he would be under immediately following that is going to
“be exacerbated and I think Jim Fitz and Ray Carr talked about this, his post-defense”
behavior is going to be even more erratic, it's going to be out of the norm, it's going to be demonstrably different than what people expect from him, he's not going to be where he's supposed to be, he's going to call in sick, he's going to stay away from people, he's going to hide himself, he's going to drive a rented car, he's going to hide about where he's going, I'm going to take care of a cousin or some random thing.
Right, some emergency that he has to deal with to get out of his normal activities during this time and once those images, those videos and pictures were posted by the FBI, I think his stress level went right through the roof, there's no question that this was something he didn't expect. Again, part of not being a professional at this is having to deal with the lack of expertise that you have and what's really important is that people out there know him,
like he has, he doesn't live in a bubble, right? Right, so Jim, here's my question, that guy on the porch is clearly no mastermind, that
“gunsling or dude, he is no mastermind at all, I think we can all agree on that.”
Yeah, I'm of the opinion that is crotch, I mean, that's ridiculous. I would also say that I think they were at least two people, two people that were there that night and perhaps one person that hired them and there's a whole number of reasons that we can get into later for why I feel that way. So my question to you is, let's say someone hired these two guys, what's your profile of the guy that hired them? Is he, when he starts,
because right now he's probably thinking, oh, this letter came into TMZ and now the whole investigation is moving down to Mexico, I'm off the hook because I felt that that move from the very beginning was a move to create distance between the perpetrator and the investigation. Like get the FBI down in Mexico, keep pushing information that way, I mean, I just think it's interesting. But like, all right, so what would be the motivation? I mean, is it just for money,
kidnapping? Is that the motivation? Was it some sort of revenge or jealousy, or was it the this guy? And this is what fits added to the profile that I hadn't thought about, but it actually makes sense, is that this guy may be fixated on a number of female celebrities. And this particular mother of a female celebrity was somebody that he had some kind of inside information, or casual
“contact with, or some fixation on, because remember Savannah brought her mother onto the show a”
number of times. So that would have put her in the spotlight. I'm not blaming Savannah at all. Everybody should, right, track with their family in any way. They should have the freedom to do that, but some people get totally fixated on celebrities or on people in the news. And because of that,
they could form an attachment to that person. Now, I've always believed that the people or person
that did this has had some kind of contact with Nancy Guthrie. And that would have been either casually during, you know, interactions because of repairs, or deliveries to the house, or obering, or yard work, or tree trimming, or whatever it is, or pool cleaning, some reason, some person had contact with her. And from that vantage point, they were able to determine
That she lived alone, and that she would be vulnerable.
her than that? Of course it could. What I'm saying is, at a minimal, right, it is somebody who has
had some kind of contact with her. In other words, it wasn't just a random thing that night, just going into this home for a burglary or something like that. I don't believe this person is an experienced burglary, and that that was the actual MO that night, but it went awry, and so
“he took her. I don't think that's what happened. I think this was a targeted event, and a very”
a planned, but not extremely well planned event. Also, so you think that someone could have gone there because they're a stalker. Let's just call them basically a stalker. And maybe they couldn't get near or closer anywhere, you know, in proximity of Savannah. So they thought they do the next best thing, a doctor mom, kidnap her mom, and then what? Come in to be the same. They're interacting with Savannah, then they have her attention, then they get her to come on
social media, and the news, and talk to them, you know, they may feel a sense of importance because
of that, but normally in abduction cases and kidnapping cases, almost always, there is a warning,
not to go to the police and not to go to the media. Because if you go to the media, the police immediately know about. So they typically avoid those things, but in this case, they went full on right to the media. And they didn't know they didn't go until days later, which is another red flag. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is if you go to the media, you are immediately telling everyone, including the police, that you have committed a crime.
“Why would you do that? Why? Well, maybe you want the attention. That's why I'm thinking. This can't”
be just about the money. I think attention is incredibly important to this person. And that means
that before this case, that person talked about that. And he would have leaked out and about that, about the fact that he's deserving of more attention than he's getting. He's not seeing all the fame that he should have. And this could make him really jealous of people who do have fame. And it could form a very, very negative. And I think in this case, maybe deadly attachment to that person or to fame. And it's in and of itself. Jim, there's a lot of people, a lot of
really experienced people who believe that this, this wasn't a kidnap for ransom. That this was they just removed her from the house or they, they, they were going to kidnap whatever happened. Let's let's just, let's just play this one out. They just went there to quote unquote getter. Let's not get too graphic. And that these ransom requests are just from random people on the outside trying to take advantage of that. But weren't there, weren't there specific? I mean,
didn't the police say they were specific items mentioned that actually were 100%. Absolutely actually things. The location of watch. Right. Yeah, they have a watch and the light outside and the light outside, which which the drone was up. I don't know, I don't know what the timing was. Yeah, the light outside pretty quickly. The Apple Watch, how do you explain that? I can't be a person. Jim, you know, I love to cook at home. I think it's great. But all the shopping and shopping
and everything is just too much. Yeah, there's nothing like home cooking and hello fresh makes it easier. It cuts out all the time that you waste shopping and all the excess food that you have when you're done shopping. You're able to really create a nice home cook meal for your friends and
“family or host a dinner party if you want to. Yeah, and you could choose for more than 100 recipes”
every week, including stuff from around the world. And hello fresh has bigger portions to satisfy everyone. But if you want to order the same thing every week, like a lot of us, you know, who just like salmon and chicken, go ahead. It's awesome. And the flavor profile is just delicious. And you could choose from one 35 high protein recipes every week, including Mediterranean and GLP1 friendly options. And what's really important to me is it's 100% antibiotic and hormone free. And now there's three
Times more seafood to choose from with no upcharge.
pairs and apples and asparagus because with home cooking, dinner always tastes better. I love
hello fresh and you'll love it too. Yeah, so you can go to hellofresh.com/bcwc10fm to get 10 free meals and a freeze-wheeling knife. That's a $144.99 value on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on your first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. If it isn't somebody who actually had it inside knowledge. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't sent by the person. It doesn't mean it was the notes were sent
by the person that we saw outside the house on the video that could be a co-conspirator of his. And
it could be that, you know, it was all planned this way. I don't know why you would wait. I don't know why you wouldn't leave the note a note there at the scene. But going to the media, especially TMZ and then not going to the media where Savannah Guthrie actually works. Those things are just incongruent. They don't make sense together like you were mentioning earlier there. Well TMZ has a website where you can just fill in a tip, you know, so that's where these messages were entered.
So they also sent it to the local CBS affiliate, which also has the same type of works.
Which also has the places where these notes were sent all have the type of website where you can submit a tip for news. And that's where these things came into. Are you saying MBC doesn't have that? I don't know, but they they chose for some reason. I don't know what. I haven't checked and
“not logical. If you are actually asking for ransom, who do you need to get the message to?”
Well, if your Nancy Guthrie, then you need to get the message to her daughter, Savannah Guthrie. And perhaps the station where Savannah works. But instead of doing it directly, they send it to CBS local affiliate and TMZ, a national media headline place. And so again, it's very strange that that would happen in a case where typically offenders do not want anyone to know about it other than the family because they want to get paid and they want to get paid from the person,
the people that are most hurt by the abduction. But instead, they told the world. Again,
“these, this abductor or these abductors have told us with their behavior what's most important to them.”
Getting the word out to everyone was really important to them. More important than hiding the fact that they committed this seriously, high risk crime. Okay. Now go ahead. The, I have a couple of things that just jumped out to me. Number one, I felt from the very beginning that the gunsling around the porch was high. He was way too calm, way too relaxed. He was very familiar with the area. He just, just didn't, it just didn't even seem to bother him. But everyone else is saying that
other aspects of this investigation are sophisticated nature because obviously they were able to pull it off. We can't take that away from him. Nancy left the house. Somehow, some way, we're not sure of that yet. But my, my thought is, and I wanted to get your, your opinion of this, to me, this smacks of the DC sniper, where you have this, this dichotomy, this investigation, where it's one part is sophisticated. The other part is very juvenile. And we're just seeing this, this juxtaposition of these two things.
“And I think that that's part of the reason why this is hard to wrap our heads around.”
But I believe that that's because there's a number of people playing this game. And they're not all, they're not all, on the same chessboard, if you know what I'm saying. I think these, I think these ransom notes, the majority of, especially this one in Mexico,
Is just a complete hoax.
make sense of everything when you just can't make sense of it because I don't think they go together.
Yeah, it's an interesting point that there are some dichotomies exposed in this and in this whole process. So far, you're right, the guy at the front door didn't seem professional enough to really pull this off alone. And successfully. Yeah, I'd have a hard time envisioning him robbing a taco stand effectively. Well, so that would indicate that there's at least one other person involved. And you know, there aren't other than movies. There aren't a lot of big group conspiracies doing
a lot of things effectively in the criminal genre because there's always a breakdown, there's always a
weak point, there's always somebody who is too nervous or blab's too much or whatever. So there's all sorts of different ways in which big groups of conspirators actually end up getting caught because
“the weak link is really something that law enforcement can exploit. And I believe in this case,”
if there's more than one person involved, that it's probably only one more person. I don't think there's a big group working together here. Now, was that other person,
somebody who just hired this guy who we saw on the video possibly was the other person
hiding around the back while this guy went to the front, possibly. We don't know because we're not in the investigation, but I'm sure the investigators know exactly how they made entry into that. And that's a, that's a key part of the behavior that we just don't know. We also don't know what one thing we do know if you look at it, this guy that went up to the door, unless that door was left unlocked and I mean both the burglar door or the gate door and the really thick
solid would a front door, unless both of those doors were left unlocked, which I highly doubt for an 84 year old woman with serious hearing issues and she wears, you know, so she couldn't even
“hear if someone came in. If both those doors were left unlocked, that would be the only way that”
he could get in because from all the video footage that that was shown of the back of the house, there appears to be no forced entry that door in back, it's much easier to kick in, no question about it because the gate door on the front opens out, which is very hard to break into, unless he didn't see a pry bar or anything like that, those are hard doors to breach and everyone can agree on that. The one in the back has nine pains and it's a blue door, it's like the color of
this sweater and it didn't appear to have any shred of wood near where the deadbolt would be, once you kick the door, et cetera. So, you know, how did the, how did the person get in through a window or something? I don't know why they're not telling us that. That to me is just a little bit weird. Why? But, you know, they made that decision, they made a lot of decisions to hold things back. Well, fine, but we just don't know, so we can't really apply not, but it doesn't appear that he had
the tools or the ability to get in through the front door. No, we know the back door was left open, right? So, that's probably most likely where Egress was made. Does that mean that that Egress? No, ingress. No, Egress. Egress was through the front door where the blood was, I would say. So, they got in through the back of the house, did what they had to do. They were in there for 41
“minutes and then I think they went out the front door and I think that's why he came out.”
I think that's why he tried to cover that and then destroy that camera on the front porch was because the plan was for them to take her out the front door to get her into the car. Okay, but, all right, then what you're saying is that they definitely came in through the back door. I don't know where they came in, but with the back door being open when family got there,
I would say that that would be a better option unless, of course, because the...
unless that door was left unlocked by someone.
All right, so then, yeah, you're right, the blood on the front walkway does indicate that she was brought out that way, but I'm very, I don't know, maybe it's more likely that she would have left the back door unlocked and not, not thought about that, but why have a security gate on the front door if you're not going to even lock that door, right? So it is more likely that the front door was locked and it's possible the back door was unlocked or they had a way to pick that lock
“or they had a key. And again, that brings me back to somebody who has done work on the house”
many times. Contractors will be given keys to get in to do work when nobody's home and
or they could steal a key when they're there in the house and make a copy and then put the key back and the homeowners are nonetheless. So there's a lot of ways to get in. I doubt during the winter that she had her windows open. If there was a broken window, it would have been all over the news, right? So you just, you just made me think of something. It's not uncommon for a workman to be given like a key to the past through door of the garage, if there is one, I'm not even
sure, but a lot of these, you know, a lot of garages have that past through door, which to the
people listening that's just like a regular door, pedestrian door that you just walk through. And it is also not uncommon being in the security business to find that all the locks are key to the same key. So if you had a key to the garage because deliveries were coming or who knows what or the chemicals for the pool or who knows what, you could have, you could make a copy and then in fact have a key. But there was a reason that I went to the front door, destroyed the camera, tried to
obscure the photos of himself and and then there was blood found on that on those tiles as they as we believe they exited. Right. Well, I, I just don't know, I don't know what law enforcement knows, but obviously when those details come out, we'll be able to give a much more detailed and accurate explanation of what, what went on here and likely what the motive was. Obviously on its face right
“now, it looks like the motive was financial. I think unless there's some other deep,”
deeply seated motive hidden behind this behavior that the financial, the kidnapping, would be the only reason to take her from the home. If it was a burglary, if it was sexually motivated, if there were some kind of fixation on her, it's just why would they take her from the home. It just doesn't make sense to me unless there was just a whole bunch of DNA. Yeah, well, but again, a body with you as an offender is much more condemning than any DNA left anywhere. You can't argue
your way around having a body with you, but you can argue a way, especially if you're a repairman. Of course, my DNA is in that house. I worked on the refrigerator for two days. Well, it depends on
“what the DNA is. Is it touched DNA in the hall bathroom or is it sperm on the bedsheets?”
Well, I'm not saying that happened here, but if that were the case, then I think you would be, you know, then those sheets would be missing. And there would be very obvious evidence of that. And if that's the case, then on enforcement knows about it, the fact that we don't know about it, that's fine. I don't care. I'd rather have a successful investigation as a successful prosecution. I have the media, know everything, and potentially screw up things. But this is a very, very disturbing
case for a lot of people. I think mainly because, you know, I think Savannah Gus III is a
Well-liked celebrity and host.
that she was so obvious. Yeah. The way she loved her, yeah. Yeah. That I think that may have been
“that may turn out to be the actual motivation here in this crime is because of that relationship.”
Now, it doesn't limit us to a particular type of a vendor. It could be multiple different types of offenders, with multiple different types of relationships or no relationship to this victim. But again, what we need is for people in the public to pay attention to the behavior of people around them because somebody is acting out of character. Some of it has been acting out of character
“for weeks now. And that is something that you need to tell law enforcement, either call the FBI or”
call the local county sheriff's department and tell them what you know because we know that this guy does not operate in a bubble that he is actually living around people, maybe with people working with people hanging out with people and his behavior has changed and you recognize that.
And law enforcement never expects you to have all the pieces to the puzzle. They'll put the pieces
together. Just call with whatever little puzzle piece you have and let them put that together, give them a name, give them a license plate, give them an address, give them something, something where you saw this person who's displaying this odd behavior.
“And I think that in conjunction with those videos that we saw from the FBI from that camera,”
I think those two things are going to solve this case and I hope it's soon and I hope Nancy Guthrie is okay. I do too. Well, thank you everyone for listening. This is Best Case Worst Case signing off. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most delusive serial killers,
but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there hidden in plain sight,
so why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Seaman, and this is Monster, Hunting List, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IR Radio App, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
