Bryan Kohberger Granted New Lawyer, Nolan Wells Mystery Deepens, and Savannah Guthrie Makes Plea to Kidnapper, with Megyn Kelly

and I'm an ex-cop. I have been in and around this justice system for nearly 40 years now and

“I think I know when we have a great True Crime Show and we do have one for you today. I'm very pleased”

to be joined by my friend, my co-host Ashley Merchant, also a criminal lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia. Ashley, great to be with you. Good to see you Phil. We do have a packed show today. So let's go over what we've got on the docket. We've got some updates on the tragic death of Nolan Wells. We'll go over the viral enhanced audio and newly surfaced footage, both of which have ignited debate over whether Nolan boarded the boat with his friends after the party on Horn Island. And we have some

movement now in the Sighters family. This is the so-called House of Horrors Case. We will discuss Gary Sighters' seniors' motion for a competency evaluation. He's saying that he's not competent to stand trial. We'll get into that. And what it means for the broad child endangerment case.

“And later on the show, we've got special guest Megan Kelly. She's going to join us to discuss”

new details in Brian Cober's fight to withdraw his guilty plea and some recent developments in the

Nancy Guthrie, just appearance. But Phil, let's first get started with Nolan Wells. This is the

18 year old who was found dead after allegedly separating from his friends at a Fourth of July party in Mississippi. His body was discovered two days later on in Island at July 6th and the cause and manner of death are still under investigation. What I thought was interesting is the sheriff said that there were no obvious homicidal trauma signs that indicated to him that any foul play had happened, but the coroner was not speculating on the case. But Nolan's family has been putting forth

a different narrative saying that Nolan was an elite athlete. He was a swimmer. And so they really aren't buying this whole accidental drowning. The issue though is that investigators have uncovered absolutely no evidence of foul play. So there's a lot of speculation about what's going on, but they say that they're going to be diligent and gathering all the facts. Now Nolan's family though, they're suspecting without any proof whatsoever that there is something darker possibly

that was going on with their son. And we've got his mom actually speaking out saying that she just wants some answers in transparency if we've got soft one. This has been a difficult journey. Losing a child is truly bright to your heart. It is a pain that is just you can't measure it. Especially someone like Nolan who brought so much joy and light and life to everyone. You don't find too many genuine people like him. So to lose that light at such a young age,

under these circumstances has been absolutely difficult, which is why we've gone this route. There's so many people out in the public asking all of these questions, but the only question that we have is what happened to our son. Actually, so there she was speaking on leave it was July the 22nd. And you know, I don't want to of course ever minimize the pain that a parent feels, I'm sure at the loss of a child, that's just not the natural order of things. And it's a

horrible, horrible tragedy, no matter how you slice it, but you've got to wonder, is this really a mystery, or is it simply a tragedy? If it's a mystery, the question becomes, is it a mystery because it's a real mystery? Or is it a mystery because people are trying to make it one where one doesn't actually exist? I want to mention that two days prior to her speaking there in that video that we just

“played, two days prior on July 20th, which I believe was the date of Nolan Wells funeral,”

her team of lawyers. They sent a what we call a spoilation letter. It's a type of pre-litigation letter,

basically putting all of his friends on notice that they're about to be sued. And I want to just

read part of it. It says you are here by placed on notice that litigation concerning the death of Nolan Wells is reasonably anticipated. Accordingly, you have an immediate legal duty to preserve all sorts of evidence that it goes on to describe. So I have a question. If she says all she wants is transparency, actually, why not wait until you get the results of the official investigation? After all, the DA there is sending it to a grand jury, an investigative grand jury.

that you're about to sue all of his friends, then, you know, I just question, what are you really

after? Are you really after answers? Or is there something else going on? And I just can't help

“but wonder if this is not more of a contrived controversy? Right. Well, and I think the problem”

fill is that there's no evidence of foul play. So what we've got is we've got something that looks like an accidental drowning. Everybody thinks it's an accidental drowning. And it's something that if you're at the scene, you would pretty quickly be able to see if there was any foul play. Unless there was some type of, you know, allegation of a drugging or overdose or something like that, but there's absolutely no evidence that there's any motivation. The evidence that we've got so far

is that they were out there drinking and that he separated from his friends. He left his phone, which wasn't that abnormal. And then you've got, you know, parents who aren't happy or willing and I don't want to use word happy because it's awful. It's a tragedy. But that doesn't

“mean that it's a crime. And so there's some died, but there are good swimmers who die every day.”

We see that in the news all the time where there are very strong swimmers who die every day. I had a good friend who was a criminal defense attorney who, you know, just maybe two years ago, died in the surfdown in Savannah. It was a shock to all of us because he was a ratman. Yes.

It was, it was just an absolute shock. And, you know, the first thing we said was he was a good swimmer,

but that doesn't mean that there was any type of foul play. So, you know, it's unfortunate that that that's the automatic conclusion that people are jumping to. And I can't help but think if you want transparency, you're going to assist with the official investigation. There's nothing, there's nothing to indicate that the official investigation is going to be anything other than transparent. But as you and I both know, it takes it's a lot of time. So, you know,

the government does not work quickly and they certainly don't work quickly when there's an investigation and they like to work, you know, undercover, they don't like everybody poking around, seeing what they're doing. So, that's not abnormal, Phil. And the fact that it's going to go to a grand jury, I mean, it's going to go either way. That is about as transparent as you can get. Well, speaking of the official investigation, now we have some audio of this emergency call,

I mean, you know, I hesitate to use the word emergency, but apparently the build pump on the boat that was bringing all the friends back from Horn Island had failed. And so, they thought they needed to have the boat towed, okay? And so, now we have this whole thing being released, but now TMZ, has taken it upon themselves to enhance that audio, which I might add, the TMZ version is apparently 20 seconds longer than the official audio. This is according to Jesse Weber over at our friends at

long crime and court TV. They had an audio specialist look at it and he noted that the TMZ version is 20 seconds longer. But people are saying, actually, that they hear things on this call that suggest that Nolan Wells was on that boat while it was sinking for lack of a better word. Let's go ahead and have a listen to some of that audio here at SOT 2. Hey, where's the west tip of Horn? And our village pump, SOT 2, we're sinking, can y'all please come,

we have a membership. It's coming up, we're just sinking, I don't know, we're just, we're going

“down there. I don't know if there's a number, it's either Jerry Agerson, I think it's Jerry Agerson,”

try that. I know we have a membership like guaranteed. I don't have the tag on here, you've got ripped off. No, we do not, okay. Okay, McCord, it's our 30 degrees by 14.684 North, and then west by 88 degrees by 46.89. Hey, Laura, stop it off. And there's lots of people breeding on the boat.

Like seven. So the first thing that comes out to me, Phil, is the fact that not only was this

longer, but one of the other things that this gentleman said, this expert said, was that the digital fingerprint was different. And the content of the clips was different. And now we know with AI, it's so easy to doctor these types of calls and these types of, you know, what they call evidence.

is the fact that this kid is calling the CTO company. He's calling for help. He's calling for someone

“to come. It doesn't, it kind of defies logic if you think that they're out there doing something”

sinister trying to hide this murder that they perpetrated. And then they're calling and saying, come and help us. Doesn't make sense. Why are they going to bring, you know, bring people to them if that's happening? And if it was an accident, and Nolan was there, they would be saying that. They would be saying, send the EMS. Well, people are saying that they hear in this audio, which, as you mentioned, it's, it's, it's 20 seconds longer than the official audio that was publicly released.

So how do you, how do you get a longer recording once it's enhanced than the original one,

unless you're adding something to it? But people are saying that they hear, is he dead, wake up,

and something along the lines of, of perhaps Nolan's name? But, you know, we've got video footage in video one of the, the vote being told, there's no Nolan on there. He's clearly not there. The company is CTO. That's who was called. They did not respond. But on July the 28th, just a day or so ago, Officer Tatum Show obtained this, this video. It was taken by a passenger aboard that vote. And, you know, it's just, he's not there. Nolan is not there. He's not to be seen anywhere.

And of course, the district attorney is going to put all this together, present it to an investigative grand jury actually. And for those of you who are in the audience who may not know, a prosecutor can use a grand jury in a number of ways. My prediction is that this is going to all be presented to the grand jury and the grand jury is going to return a finding that there's no there there.

And it was, this is simply what we always thought that it was from the very beginning, a tragic

accidental drone. Yeah. And we've, we've got actual footage of the DA saying we're going to take

“our, the time that's required to complete the work. And I think that's saying, hey, we're doing”

our job. Give us a little bit of space. We can listen to her statement at South 3. As district attorney for the 19th Circuit Court District of Mississippi, I want to talk directly to the people of Jackson County. Our community is grieving the tremendous loss of Nolan Wells, who has loved and treasured by everyone. Nolan's family deserves answers and our community deserves answers. Every death in the county, except those of natural causes and non-criminal

car wrecks are presented to your grand jury. Many people don't know that. We have handled death investigations in this manner, my entire career. Nolan's case is being handled the same way with the same care and the same commitment to the truth that we handle all death investigations. I understand the public's urgency to know what happened to Nolan, but we are not taking time for time sake. We are taking the time required to complete the work this investigation demands.

The pressure for answers does not change what the work requires. Our restraint and communicating facts and evidence is not an effort to keep the truth from the public. It is an effort to protect the integrity of this investigation and the grand jury proceeding. Actually, I for one appreciate that the district attorney is taking the time to try to get it right. You and I recently finished up a case where a certain district attorney did little to no investigation rushed to judgment

and wrongfully accused someone of a capital crime that took almost five years to get a dismissal in. So, a wise prosecutor is going to take the time to do what is necessary to get it right. In fact, she met with the DA met with the Nolan Wells mother Christine, only nine days after the body

“was recovered. Don't you lie 15? If you want to put this in perspective, that's only five days”

before Christine, mother Christine, announced through her lawyers that they were essentially getting ready to sue all of Nolan Wells friends. If you ask me who's rushing to judgment and who's not doing their homework before they decide to pull the trigger, it's going to be Nolan Wells parents. But we've got to, I won't leave it there and we can talk more about this and of course, we're going to be following here on the program and all of the shows here on the M. K. True Crime

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mktc so they know we sent you. Actually, we've got this cider case, right? Up in Korea. Oh, hi. This is the so-called house of horrors. And I want to sort of set the stage here on this real quick. On June 30th, investigators executed a search warrant at this cider's family home. They were investigating Gary cider's junior, who's 36 for a claim of some type of public indecency. And during the course of their search, actually they found 16 children crammed inside a

12 by 12 room. Now, in and of itself, that's horrible, but the kids were described as being nearly feral. The house itself was to say it was messy as an absolute entertainment. It was

it was just grotesquely, what word would you use? Actually, I would just say that it's

horrifying. I mean, it was just a hoarding situation, but it did seem like a hoarding, and it did actually seem like some extreme poverty. And we've heard some statements from one of the attorneys about being extreme poverty. It definitely seemed like that, but it seemed more than just extreme poverty, because you can still be clean, you know, even if you're poor. But there was definitely a hoarding situation. But some of the things that have been happening

in court recently, the biggest thing is one of the attorneys actually has raised competency to stand trial. And what that means is essentially, he's concerned that his client may not have the present mental condition to proceed. And that's very different than what we're seeing in the

Lindsey Clancy trial. You know, in that case, we're talking about what's called criminal response

ability. Yeah. And so competency to stand trial is whether or not you're able as a defendant to assist in your own defense, to understand what's going on. You know, you've got to be able to understand what you're being charged with, help your attorney, get them information, decide if you're an attestifying, not testify, things like that. So that's very different than whether or not you're criminally responsible. Sometimes you can have both, but at this point, what we're seeing

is we're seeing an evaluation for his mental condition. And that is right now, not back when the alleged crime was was committed, also thing is interesting because we have a gag order in this case, but they have filed when they did this competency motion and the documents that support it, which are likely medical records, it was filed under seal. And that's not abnormal. You know, that happens all the time. You don't want your clients medical records. If you file them in

open court, you wave HIPAA. And then they become public record. And that's really not

“medical records, aren't really the public's interest. Well, I think it's worth pointing out that”

I think a lawyer has a, you know, if a lawyer has any suspicion that their client might not be able for mental health reasons or otherwise to assist the lawyer in their defense, they have a duty to raise this. And it would probably be malpractice, not to raise it. I don't know where it's going to go. I mean, I usually what happens is there's a medical evaluation that 's done usually by the state or in some cases, the local governments, but this will be a government

paid for government-funded mental health medical evaluation to determine whether he's presently competent to stay in trial because after all, there are 16 counts of felony child endangerment. And if this is going to be a trial, you really need to have your client assisting. And if for some reason, if he's found to be not competent, actually, as you know, what happens is he could be forcibly treated. In other words, he could be sent to a facility somewhere. He could be

under the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist for the purpose of restoring his competency

“to the point where he could then stay in trial. Watch to see where this goes. What do you think?”

You know, the one thing that I just wanted to point out was when they do mental competency, it doesn't necessarily mean mental illness. It can also mean mental retardation. And a lot of times, I mean, I forget about that a lot of times we forget about that. And the reason I wanted to point that out is there have been some reports that there were maybe some low IQ issues here, you know, some issues like that. And that's an interesting point because if you've got poverty,

we've already seen some glimpses at some defenses. You know, we've got poverty extreme poverty. And then we've got, you know, ignorance, low IQ. They didn't know any better sort of defense. And I wonder if there's some element to that. Maybe there's some mental retardation. Maybe there's some low IQ. And the lawyer is actually seeking to see if his client actually is mentally there to be able to stand trial. You know, and actually understand it and assist.

There's a whole lot harder because you can't make someone competent if they're incompetent

the legal term. So I always, you know, say that sometimes the legal terms have a little bit of time

“catching up, but that's the actual legal term. Well, so Gary seniors attorney is a guy named”

Dorian Baum. And you know, he has spoken out and he said, look, this case may not, in fact, be criminal. He says, quote, everyone should take a deep breath and step back because, unfortunately, when all this comes out, what we're going to see is a state entity which is criminalizing poverty and a little more. So again, this is obviously we don't have access to the information. We're going to have to follow the case and see where it goes. But over time, we're going

to find out is there is there criminal responsibility or is this, in fact, just a situation where parents who may not have the capacity to properly parent and make good parenting decisions. But I can't get away from the 16 kids in one, 12 by 12 room. I just, I just find it to be almost incomprehensible, how any parent or anybody could look at that and not understand how

“that's, you know, just a criminal way to treat children. But we shall have to see. We're going to”

leave it there for this segment. But coming up, we have Megan Kelly and I want to say, I'm really surprised and I'm really, I want to commend our producers for being able to get in touch with Megan Kelly. I didn't know that we had such great access to her. Of course, I just, Megan's going to be joining us to discuss Brian Coberger and his attempt to get himself a new trial. And then we have Savannah Guthrie's latest plea to her mom's believed kidnappers.

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good to have you. We are a week here. Yes, it's great to see you. And guess what? We're a week shy from the one year anniversary of the M.K. True Crime Show. So it's kind of fitting. Yeah, that's crazy, right? It's kind of fitting that we've got Brian Coberger back in the news, trying to withdraw his plea because the launch of our show was supposed to coincide with his trial. And of course, then he pled guilty last minute because he was a chicken and didn't want

to face the death penalty. And so now he's filed a petition stating that he was pressured into falsely confessing. And I know you and I got to talk about it yesterday on the show on your show, but let me ask you, were you surprised by this move? No, not at all because he's had a very rough year in prison. I mean, he has not been enjoying being locked up. And what have we seen in the daily mail like every other week? Another complaint, he doesn't like the food. He doesn't like the

noises that the other prisoners are making. He doesn't like the way they talk to him. He doesn't like a cell. He doesn't like the amount he gets to exercise. He's not enjoying prison as it turns out he's drunk around a country club. And so yeah, I'm not surprised because he couldn't take it. And I'm sure it does drive you positively nuts. So, you know, you shouldn't kill four people, really, is this? Oh, yeah. My favorite was his saying, oh, well, they've restricted my freedom of

movement. And I was promised freedom of movement. I know, I'm like, it's prison. That's the whole point. Honey, sorry. It's amazing. You know, Meg, look, I wish I could have been on that program with you and Ashley and Mark Gergoes because it was a fascinating conversation. And if I

had been there, here's what I would have gotten into. So, I get into it here. If you take what he has

alleged, if you take what he has alleged in this filing, his hand written. But he basically says that he was coerced into the plea agreement. He says that his attorneys failed to disclose certain evidence, including what he's calling clumps of hair, found in Ethan Chapin's hands which,

Ethan's hairs contained in it and nobody else's. So, the thing, you know, is likely frivolous,

but if you just take it at face value, if you're the judge, who, by the way, has just today ruled that he will appoint a court appointed counsel for this effort by co-worker Megann. But if you take this at face value and assume for the sake of argument that it's true, don't you have to at least order a hearing if you're the judge. And if it, if there's evidence to back any of it

“up, I hate to say this, but don't you have to consider granting his motion if he can prove these claims?”

If, if there's a lot of this in there, Phil, I don't think you do have to grant a hearing. I think you can decide this based on the motions and the briefs and let the, let the, let the new lawyer, let's see what she's got, fire away. Let's take a look at it and see if there actually is something that is new. But the clumps of hair, whatever we, you know, say was in Ethan's hand, was submitted by defense lawyers for Brian Coleberger before he took the plea. So, I don't really care

if it's debris or if it's hair. It's, whatever it was, it was known by his lawyers prior to him, pleading guilty. So, that's not going to be the grounds for a new trial. And the only other thing he's put forward and let's, you know, maybe we'll get more creative on, so we actually have a lawyer on board is the stuff about how unhappy he is with this prison cell, you know, with this restriction of movement and that he was misled about the conditions death row would provide. I guess he's going to say

he was told that they were especially awful and now he's learned they're not that bad. I don't know what he's going to say, especially if he's really going to be grounds for an appeal or grounds to take away his guilty plea. So, I don't think he's going anywhere. I was reminded like if he had something some smoking gun, something about an accessory and let's say like let's take one little walk down that lane because, you know, Howard Bloom, who I love, who's been all over this case from the start,

he is convinced that Brian Coleberger didn't have an accessory that he was the accessory to somebody else as the primary culprit in this crime. And let's say let's just say that's true

because the first question he asked when he got arrested was anyone else arrested. And he's got the

breadcrumb trail to to lay. Maybe he does that through the new court appointed lawyer. Maybe he actually does have something he can point them to that will catch the judge's attention and, you know, Bob's your uncle were back on for the summer hearing involving Brian Coleberger without we were going to get last year, but I mean, what are the odds? Howard was really interesting. I mean,

“he was on your show yesterday. I think we've got, um, Saw 5 where he was talking about that he”

really does believe there's a complice. I mean, he had me believing in if we could play Saw 5. The time will come when he reveals more and it'll be a slow process. He's going to let it all spill out carefully until he gets up to his big reveal. And what's his big reveal? Well, it's something you and I have discussed before. I believe that there was an accomplice and I think the facts point in that direction. I believe that, you know, coberter didn't have an accomplice.

He, in fact, was the accomplice. Four people were killed two different floors of the house within nine to ten minutes. And then you get the forensic reports, one person which stabbed 54 times. Another one 32 times. Two people fought back. Uh, noses were broken. Uh, there was real carnage. It was being possible for one person to have done that. I want to get your thoughts Megan

on something related to that shot. So now that he's filed this motion to basically take back his plea,

he's throwing his lawyers under the bus. He's saying that they lied to him and did all this other terrible thing by doing so. He's created a conflict of interest with his trial attorneys. And so now there is no more attorney client privilege and guess what? They get to become witnesses at the motion hearing where the judge gets to decide whether to grant him his new trial and let him withdraw his plea. My question is this, Megan. If, if there was an accomplice,

“wouldn't it be just sort of expected that he would have told his lawyers about it?”

And if that's the case, uh, won't his lawyers then be on the stands saying everything that their client told him, including whether there was an accomplice? I have a feeling he told his lawyers nothing. I have a feeling he spoke with them very little. I think he's loving having this secret to himself. And it's one of the reasons why he didn't even want to say his plea out loud when he was arranged. It's one of the reasons why he hasn't spoken to anybody. You know, he didn't

allocate at his plea hearing. I just think Brian Colberger is really enjoying having this little secret in his pocket and maybe he'll speak to his professor from that PhD. We'll know from the

going to enjoy doling out the little nuggets, you know, one at a time so he can keep attention on

him going. It seems to be his newfound oxygen. You know, it's like he was this loser who felt like a

“sack of meat who felt no emotions. Finally, he decides to settle on murder, which I think lit him up.”

He felt alive. And every time we talk about him, we're tickling that same nerve, you know, for him again. He gets off on it. So I don't think he told and Taylor squat. I think it's, he's operating on a much higher plane when it comes to information dispensation than that. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that he's really a puppet master. Because a lot of times Kate cases like this crimes like this, they're about power. You know, he wanted to have all this control. He wanted to be

the puppet master. And this, he's now in prison. He's miserable. He has no power. He's not relevant.

He wants to be relevant. He wants to have power. And what power does he have? This, this is really all he can do. And it's something, I mean, it's a sick form of entertainment for someone who's in prison. You know, maybe he does think he'll win, maybe he doesn't, maybe he's just bored. I mean, it's, it's really sick. I don't personally think he's going to win though, because what, and we talked about this on your show yesterday, he pled guilty. He did not plea under what's called

Alfred and Alfred versus North Carolina is a case where you can plea guilty, but say, hey,

“guess what, but I didn't do it. He didn't do that. He actually pled guilty. And I think we've got,”

we've got length. We've got him actually playing guilty as thought for. You've heard the plea agreement that I talked about today. Do you agree with that plea agreement? Yes. Has anyone promised you that I would be lean or easy on you if you pled guilty? No. Has anyone threatened you or anyone close to you to get you to plead guilty? No. Has anyone other than the state's agreements with respect to the plea agreement? Has anyone promised you anything in exchange for your plea agreement? No.

Has anyone told you to be untruthful and answering my questions today? No. Has anyone offered you a reward of any kind other than the plea agreement in order to get you to plead guilty today? No. Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? Yes. Megan, I see that. The question that I've got and I'd love to hear your thoughts about this is, you know, that looks like the judge put a nice bow on it and pat it up real nice and

and it's not something he should be able to go back and pierce and reopen this way. But

“couldn't the judge have done a little bit more and required him to give more details?”

Hey, why did you do it? Exactly. How did you do it? Walk us through how you did it and get him to be

more specific on the record under oath so that they basically would foreclose this kind of bullshit

from even coming to pass now because he's just tormenting these families? Yes. And look at the amount of millions that Idaho taxpayers have had to lay out now for this guy's defense and now this appeal. And yes, the judge should have and the prosecutor that that prosecutor dropped the ball. They didn't handle this well from the start. They had the keystone cops or a to them from day one. And he seemed afraid to prosecute the case. I don't think they do a lot of serious murder cases

out in this district of Idaho. This guy didn't seem like he'd been around the block that many times. And a lot of seasoned prosecutors who we interviewed over the, you know, two years that this thing was pending, pending all felt like he did not know what he was doing and were baffled by some of his decisions. And in the end, he held all the cards. The prosecution held all the cards. They would have happily gone to trial with this evidence that we all knew that he was headed for a

conviction. You know, couldn't very talented lawyer creates some doubts, sure, but beyond a reason about no. So Brian Colberg did this because he wanted to save his life and Taylor convinced him it was to save his life and that he didn't want to be on death row. It wouldn't be a nice existence between now and the time they actually shot him in the firing squad situation. And the firing squad probably wouldn't be that great either. And to avoid that, all the prosecutor

had to say was, where is the murder weapon? Why did you choose them? How did you do it? Walk us through it? And he would have said, I don't want to. And they would have said, great, then we're going to trial. And either way, we would have had a much more full some airing of what happened to those four kids. This was one of many reasons why Steve Gonzalez was against that plea. And did not feel that Bill Thompson worked with him, communicated with him, or his family, anywhere near enough

before settling on this. He and one of the family, I'm trying to remember because there was only one mildly also objected to it, remained somewhat baffled that they were consulted so little by the

following that. And I'm kind of personally hope that Brian Kubricker takes a stand. I'd love to see that, but we'll keep following that. But I want to talk to you a little bit about Nancy Guthrie. So there's some new things happening in Nancy Guthrie's case. And we just had Savannah recently talking to me to new plea on Instagram. Just it's, it's so heartbreaking. Do the right thing if we could play SOT 6. I'm coming on today with the very specific message. It has been months since our mom was taken from us.

Our family is in agony. We are in a nightmare that will not end, nothing about our situation has changed.

We have done our part, and we will never stop looking for her. We will always ache for her,

feel that hole in our hearts. The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place, and I know that you have tried to do things the right way. So I'm asking you, begging you, to do the right thing now,

“make the right choice. Help us find her. Tell us where to look for her. I truly believe it is”

never too late to do the right thing. Help us bring this situation to an end. For all of us, no matter where we've been and what we've done, I believe there is always a way home. Please make the right choice. She's begging for mercy. It's heartbreaking to listen to. Obviously, you know, she's lost her mother, and her grief is probably just immense. I just can't even imagine the grief that she must be feeling. But the question that I think Megan, this raises is

the Savannah Guthrie and her family, do they believe that they are really intruly talking to, albeit publicly, to the actual kidnapper or killer, or are they just sort of maybe holding on to some little glimmer of hope in the remote possibility that this could be a real person. Because I'm

always felt that these letters, these ransom notes, which we now have the contents, I'm

wouldn't get into here in a minute. But I've always felt like they were hoaxes. But if you hear what she's just pleaded with publicly, it sounds like she believes she might be talking to a real person.

“Yeah, I think she believes 100%. I mean, she sat down with Hoda in that interview and we learned”

for the first time that she really does believe those first two ransom notes. Not all the BS that kept going to Harvey Levin after the fact, like I've seen them in Mexico with her. And, you know, for a half a bit, going, I'll tell you now, and the other half later, none of that, but those first two that came the week that Nancy was taken. She believes in those, and so it was clear to me, as soon she said that to Hoda, that the FBI believed in them, too, because Savannah's a sophisticated character,

not only has she been in news for 20 plus years, but she was a lawyer, too. I mean, we came up together when we were both covering the Supreme Court. We were very young, recovering lawyers, you know, the new beat journalists together. And I've had many, many conversations with Savannah

“about the law and our journalism careers and so on. She smart and she sophisticated and her analysis.”

So she would not be called into, you know, these are real just by her hope. I, there's no way the FBI didn't tell her, they believe they're real. And Harvey Levin, even though he's, you know, been kind of a clown on this whole thing, I have to say, he has been reporting that the FBI told him that they're taking those extremely seriously, and he's intimated that the FBI believes they're real. And the FBI is not a bunch of

vehicles. So I do think those who are closest to the case have good reason to believe what's in those two notes is from the real kidnapper. They were persuaded by where he said the watch was, I don't know why they'd be persuaded by a statement about the broken floodlight on the outdoor of the house, you know, that we can, we could all see, but the point even of that white apple watch seemed to convince them. And then you have, you know, Savannah making a reference to the mother having

no shoes on and perhaps the kidnapper knew that too. It's apparently he provided enough details to convince them that he actually did see Nancy that night, which is the closest you can get to convincing that you're the kidnapper without showing actual proof of life. So I mean, it doesn't seem, we know somebody took her. We know that. Yeah. And we have reason to believe she's dead because

she hasn't come forward. And she was so old and frail and not in good health. And that second note

seemed to change in tone and tanner and they're telling us again through Savannah that they think

actually giving her mother a proper Christian burial. And if she can catch the guy on top of it, it's so much the better. But I'll bet you her number one concern is getting her mother's body back

“so she can bury her properly. That's how I took this. And you know, Savannah did talk to the FBI.”

They knew an advance that she was going to post this. But the phrase used, we have done our part. That struck me. And I know a lot of folks have been talking about that. That struck me that Savannah maybe was referring to a ransom payment or something like that. But she's had some communication. Maybe something we don't know. Did you think maybe there would be a ransom payment or something like that that they caused her to make that statement? I mean, I think if we're Monday morning

quarterbacking, which of course we are in a case like this, that remains unsolved all these months later, they should have paid it. Yeah. I mean, they should have paid it. When the when the

ransom note first came in and said, you know, five million now or seven million on Monday,

they should have paid it. She's got it. And by the way, Savannah does have it. But I happen to know her friend circle and she's got friends that are, you know, ridiculously wealthy, billions and billions of dollars for whom that would have been a rounding error. It would have been absolutely nothing. So I'm sure it was not a for for most people that would be a resources issue. You know, like, well, I don't have five million dollars. And, you know, I can't rate even if I wanted to.

For her, it wasn't. It was a strategic decision. And everyone has said the FBI would have told her, don't do it without proof of life. But I think, you know, they're probably was a discussion along the lines of, but what if I did do it? You know, what wouldn't we at least be able to track down this person and see, is it worth, you know, it's like when you're at the gambling table, we were in Atlantic City last weekend. And sometimes when you're playing poker, you got to pay

“to see. If you want to see what they have, you got to put that last bed in. And I think she chose”

not to because she was being advised again by the FBI that's done this way more than she has. And I'll bet you right now they're all regretting the fact that they didn't at least pay to see whether the person withdrew the five million and then tracked that bit going down. Megan, before we, before we let you go, we really appreciate you taking the time to come on with us. You mentioned the second note. And I want to read that real quickly. It says, quote, we did not fully

grasp the seriousness of her physical condition. We never intended to hurt her. That was not our

intention. She perished shortly after she was taken. We believe it was heart-related. She is buried in nature now. Nothing you could have, nothing you could have done, could have changed the outcome. We are truly sorry the note read. And you know, we've talked about this. What does this meaning of she's buried in nature now? But in, in line of some recent theories that have been proposed that this may not, this may not have originally been written in English. In other words,

this may have been translated from some other language and then sent to her after being run through like Google translator, something along those lines. And to me, that that seems like it might be plausible. So my question for you is, do you think it's plausible that these notes were originally

“written in some other language? And if so, what does that tell us about the validity of these things?”

Are they actually real notes? Well, it would make sense, given how close they are to the southern border less than an hour away. And we're looking at that from day one. Many of us who cover how open the border has been and how we have no idea who crossed it in those four years. The Joe Biden was president thought about that possibility from day one. You know, they're, she's so close to it. If you go and check out anybody's yard or pool service in this area of the country, you're going

to run into dozens of immigrants, many of them, unlawful illegal immigrants. So there was always

a high possibility that there was a Mexico connection. But I was also kind of enticed by Morino Connell's suggestion that the writing sounded feminine to her, that it's not so much a translation that we're responding to in the weird language as it is a woman who's doing certain things in there that you wouldn't expect from some tough grizzled mailed kidnapper, which is what we picture, given who we saw on the porch. But we don't know that that guy was working alone. In fact,

I would suggest he's not working alone because if the ransom notes are real, those first two ransom notes are real, and that guy we have every reason to believe he was the one who took Nancy. That's not the same person. That guy was like the sophisticated with the Bitcoin set up and the ransom notes and managed to fool the pair. I just, whatever, he didn't project Mensa to me. He seemed more like just the muscle. And so who knows, you know, maybe there was a more sophisticated

customer and how can we rule out that it was a woman? Because I was as soon as Morino said that I was like,

her that she's not the cause and that there's nothing she could have done and buried in nature? I grant you it could be foreign and translated through the internet or it could be a woman. But I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out, you know, if we ever find anything out,

“there's a female involved in this. I think that's a very good point. It does definitely sound”

like a female and I think most people think it couldn't be done by one person. This was definitely a duo at least or maybe even more than that. Well, thank you so much Megan for coming. This was awesome. And next up, we're going to take a look at your new show, The New Crime Series MK confidential. Oh, I think you're going to love it. Thank you. Yes. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back to the MK True Crime Show. I'm Phil Holloway along with my co-host today, Ashley Merchant. Our guest today was Megan Kelly and guess what? Megan has a new True Crime series revisiting cases that we are still talking about to this day. Things like the John Benet Ramsey murder,

“the Clouds Fundbuilow case, and more. Take a look. So you think you know who did it?”

Think again. This summer on MK confidential we are taking a fresh look at some of the most notorious crimes of our time. The search is on in the district for a missing woman. Her name is Shandra and Levi Shandra. The cases you thought you knew, fresh questions, overlooked evidence, long held assumptions, put to the test. I would say that he surrendered when he was found backed by 20 years of crime and legal reporting. Watch MK confidential this summer,

and you may never see these cases the same way. Again, here may be your baby's close to you.

My goodness, Ashley. I haven't heard of -- I haven't thought about Clouds Fundbuilow and Shandra Levi, and I can't tell you how many years. This is very, very exciting. I can't wait to see what all she's got in store. I know. It sounds like a good beach podcast. You know, when you're relaxing for the rest of the summer, the short end of summer listening to this podcast, I'm excited about it. It's like eight weeks. It's like a mini series. And you know, I'm constantly

looking for things to binge watch or binge listen to, in addition, of course, to the content here on MK True Crime and on this channel. But I'm constantly looking for things to binge watch and listen to this seems like it's right up my alley. Yeah, it does. It sounds like it'll be exciting. I can imagine myself walking on the beach listening to the podcast. I wanted to be speaking about that. I wanted to just remind all of our viewers and our listeners. If you haven't subscribed,

we're available everywhere you get your podcasts. We want you to subscribe on podcasts, but also, it makes sense to subscribe to our YouTube channel at MK True Crime. Because we talk about things that sometimes have a video component to them. And it sort of gives you the full context of the program if you're able to watch and listen. So check us out on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcast. And of course, on serious XM, the Megan Kelly channel. We're going to have to leave it there for

the program today. Be sure, like we said, to tune into MK confidential on Megan Kelly's YouTube

channel. Thank you, Ashley, for being such a great co-host, as always. Thank you to our audience.

I want to say a big special thanks to our producers who put all this together and make us look and sound way much better than we deserve. And with that, we will leave it there and I want to wish

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