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It mixes easily with water or smoothies, making it simple, enjoyable routine that you can stick to every single day. Right now get 15% off the super elixir at wellco.com and use Kate Casey 15 at checkout. Try it for yourself and feel a difference within weeks. That's W-E-L-L-E-C-O.com code Kate Casey 15 at checkout for 15% off the super elixir. 15% off at W-E-L-L-E-C-O.com promo code Kate Casey 15. First time orders only. Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with Kate Casey. This is the third episode covering the investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance. A case that's gripped the nation. Not only because of who she is, but because of how suddenly she vanished. Nancy Guthrie is 84 years old. She lives alone in the Catalina foothills outside Tucson, Arizona. She's the mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie. And based on what authorities have released, we have a timeline of how this may have unfolded. On Saturday, January 31st, at 5.32pm, Nancy took an Uber from her home to her daughter Annie's house for dinner and games. It was a normal family evening. Nothing unusual, no sign of distress. At approximately 9.48pm, a family member dropped her back home. Security footage shows her garage door opening at 9.48pm and closing at 9.50pm. Then hours later, something changed. At 1.47am on Sunday, February 1st, Nancy's doorbell camera was disconnected. At 2.12am, surveillance software detected movement on one of the home's cameras. But no footage was saved because there was no cloud subscription. Investigators later recovered images with the help of private sector partners. Those images show a masked armed individual at Nancy's home. The footage appears to show the person tampering with the front door camera. Then at 2.28am, data from Nancy's peacemaker app shows it disconnected from her phone. A critical digital marker. Investigators believe this suggests she was removed from her home around that time. And there are details that make this even more alarming. Nancy's cell phone, her wallet and her life-sustaining medications were left behind. She did not leave voluntarily. By late Sunday morning, the family knew something was wrong. At 11.56am, after Nancy failed, to appear for church, family members went to her home and discovered that she was missing. At 12.03pm, they called 911. Authorities later confirmed blood was found on Nancy's front porch. And it was identified as hers. Based on the physical evidence, the digital data and the surveillance recovery, both the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI have concluded that Nancy was taken against her will. Since then, the investigation has intensified. Late Tuesday night, authorities detained an individual during a traffic stop in Rio Rico, Arizona. An Uber driver who identified himself as Carlos Pellas-Walos. His home in Rio Rico was searched, along with a nearby property by the FBI evidence response team. He was released, and as of now, no charges have been filed, and officials have not publicly linked him to the surveillance footage or other key evidence. There is also the ransom element. After earlier, significantly higher ransom deadlines passed, a small bit-coin payment, about $152 was deposited into the digital wallet associated with the ransom demanded on the evening of February 10th. That transaction occurred shortly after prior deadlines expired and has added another layer of complexity to this investigation. And for the first time, we are hearing confirmation from the highest levels of federal law enforcement. FBI Director Cosh Patel said Tuesday night that investigators are probing persons of interest, adding that substantial progress has been made in the last 36 to 48 hours through technical capabilities and strategic partnerships. Savannah Guthrie has said that she and her family believe her mother is still alive. Her words were simple and direct. We believe she is still out there, bringing her home. So joining me again for this third deep dive into this case is James Manzi, principal and owner of oft solutions, a management consulting firm focused on empowering national security clients through risk management, strategic leadership, and operational insight. James Career spans senior leadership roles across US Army Special Operations Command, joint Special Operations Command, and US Special Operations Command. He also served as a national capital regional liaison officer as a colonel, and earlier in his career worked as a special agent with the FBI. He brings decades of experience in intelligence, operational planning, and complex investigations. Here is my interview with James. What kinds of information can investigators reliably extract from photos and videos, but beyond what's visible at first glance? From the technical side of his first evidence collection, obviously, height, weight, they can compare known entities. I think someone mentioned it on one of the other shows that they referenced the number of bricks, and they compared the individual to that, and they could get a known height. Obviously, you can see physical dimensions, gate, walk, compete comparisons. Clothing is very important. As far as trying to paste that back, the bureau will literally go through from the ground up on this individual, from the gloves to the shoes to the pants to everything, and try to narrow down, not just the make the brand, but possibly look at other collection they've had in other areas that could be similar to that prior to the event, whether the day of night of or even days before. Based on what they have now, it's definitely like the spine of the investigation from there. It helps them qualify leads that they've received that maybe they couldn't validate. Now they have a known starting point with this individual period, right? They know, based on not just the physical part, but they could see how he was operating. What's the level of his confidence? How is he, was he, could they possibly determine if he was alone or with others based on his movements, and which is another conversation we get into it a few minutes? How accurately can photos and videos be timestamp, even if the original metadata is missing or it's altered? Well, based on some of the cyber enhancements I've seen recently, I think they can definitely narrow it down. You'll see based on the companies out there, they'll say, hey, we're 100% within hours, we're at 60% within an hour and we're at maybe 50% within minutes. So depending on the collection device, depending on the company, the third party, I think it goes back to our previous conversations that it really narrows the window, would it for investigators to collect data that's selected versus invasive right? Now we know we have a window to look into and it helps eliminate a lot of the other stray voltage out there to focus on, you know, really what the timeframe was. I think it's much more accurate starting point than a sometime between, we said, you know, it's 12 hour window versus a two hour or whatnot. Okay, so then once a timeframe is established, then how do investigators use that window to analyze phone activity or digital presence in the area? It's game on, like everything they've been doing, they're going to go back through it. We talked about cell towers, Wi-Fi collection, all these other things. They're going to look at patterns with anomaly, you know, in who was in the area, who wasn't in the area, anybody turned their phones off. There's a thing called cell phone tower jumping where phones go from tower to tower to tower. Now that they have this type of timeline that definitely took place within a certain amount of time, they can then piggyback on these cell phone towers to see if that had known devices, even historically, like say the neighbors all have cell phones, right? They can see over, say a week, you know, cell phone X was in this house every day. Well, they're going to scratch that one off the list. They start looking for those little anomalies in there and then they can get rid of all the stray voltage and focus on those. If someone intentionally left their phone behind, how does that change the investigative approach? So for example, the person that we see in that footage, if they didn't bring their cell phone, it was, I don't know, 20 miles away, does that change the investigative approach? Well, obviously it limits that phase of the technology exploitation, but there's also, you know, they could have had a Bluetooth, they could have had if they drove vehicles today have Bluetooth, when you start your car, it sends a signal. I mean, there's, you know, I'm getting into a lot of it because obviously some of the sensitive, but the FBI and law enforcement in general has a lot of access. It makes it a little more challenging, as long as direct as a cell phone. But there's also, you know, the ability, the outliers, to this person or this group of people surveil the house over a period of time. So maybe days before, they see a phone, a phone, a phone, a phone, and then they don't see a phone. Certain time of day, right? So that's the other thing. It's not just what's there, but what's not there. What alternative digital or physical footprints might investigators look for if there's no data to rely on? I think they're going to go back through the surveillance cameras, whether it's on houses, they'll expand the radius most likely. And this is just not specific to this case. Anyone who's going to commit a crime like this, obviously, they probably didn't go from A to B. They stopped somewhere, either communicated amongst themselves or paused, waited for, you know, there wasn't a direct line. So they could have stopped at a gas station, a convenience store, red light cameras, license plate readers, they'll go back through all that. And now that they have, although they don't have facial recognition, they have enough, especially with AI today, they can plug in some enough dynamics from that photograph and try to narrow down any other pictures that were captured or videos were captured. So it might not happen overnight, but trust me, they have a lot to work with with that video. When investigators release photos and videos during an active investigation, what are they typically trying to accomplish? And we were 90s into this by the time that they were able to release it to the public. A lot of times it's to generate targeted tips, right? They're sending this out there. There's a lot of thought that goes into this before they do it based on where the investigation sits. I know that again, we talked about compromising, putting people at risk. Sometimes they'll want to provoke action from the subject like citizens, in this case, it's a kidnapping. They haven't heard anything. I'm putting out this picture, maybe that caused the subject or subject to flee or to re-contact police. Well, obviously last night, although it was at this point, the wrong individual generated a car stop. So someone might say, hey, I see the guy traveling south on whatever road and the police pulled him over. That kind of information, it definitely helps generate more specific leads now that they have something to work from. And then the other thing is it's not just that law enforcement is looking for this person. Everyone's looking for this person. So again, you got to weigh the pros and the cons of releasing that information. But I think finally, just from a community policing point of view, it reinforces the community that there is progress in the case. This case has a lot of media attention. And there's a lot of questions being like, where I think we spoke about it a couple of times. Like, what's going on? It's really going out with the FBI. I share anything. Well, they just did. Right. Here's where we're at. And again, I still think regardless of what the director says about people of interest, they're making a lot of progress right now. From a law enforcement perspective, how are photos and videos used as an investigative tool beyond simply informing the public? Well, internally, it goes back to a lot of what we talked about. It's going to help quantify and validate leads that maybe we're kept come in and they couldn't they couldn't really validate. That's the biggest thing is is sifting through all that to find out if there's something they missed or if they're getting new information that makes it more credible, i.e. either a tip or they could have collected digital information, physical information from the scene, etc. That really makes it it saves a lot more time because it's kind of the analogy of it's a rifle shot versus buck shot. Fact that there was a little bit of money put into that Bitcoin account, what does that tell you? Well, they just they could have been testing the transfer to make sure it gets deposited. Or I don't I again, I apologize, I wasn't I'm not familiar with who sent the money or how it was received. I really can't say much on that. Are there details and photos or videos that train investigators focus on that the general public might overlook? Yeah, obviously some of the physical aspects that we talked about as far as height, weight, things like that. But for me, what I looked at was his actions, his clothing, it shows preparation, his level of experience based on his movements in front of the window or door. His awareness of security, was he nervous, was he was he delivered in his movements? The manages time was he stressed. All these things was like, Helter Skelter. I did hear a comment last night that one of the people had said, TV that he was convinced he was a log, he had this backpack and I'm not a firm believer of that. I definitely checked before we got online. There's been no dissemination of how the front door was breached. So we don't know if he had a key. We don't know if he forcible entry. We don't know if he knocked and she opened it. And we don't know if someone entered the house from the rear. And he was just the guy carrying all the gear and they let him in. So there's a lot of things here, you know, back in the old days, people would fortify their front doors. So on the swatting, we couldn't get in. So we just go around the back and go through the slider. So you never know how if she had cameras in the back of her house and the FBI has not released that information. So we really don't know if he was a lone actor or if there could have been somebody else already in the house and he was just carrying all the goods. How do they balance how much they release to the public? It's kind of like a tap dance a little bit. You know, there's a lot of the people in the FBI, the pro-vilars, the psychologists. They worked with the family. Obviously, the family was probably made aware of everything prior to it being released and then it was discussed with them the strategy and why they were doing it. A lot of thought goes into it. And there are some historical cases where it's worked to the benefit of law enforcement, but it is. It's really a conversation. It's case by case specific. Have you seen similar cases where releasing visual evidence marked a turning point in the investigation? There's two national cases. One was a local murder case back in. I think it was 2017 in Indiana. I didn't work on the case, but it was, it's become like a teaching point out there. It was called the Delphi murder. A woman was murdered, but prior to being assaulted, you might have heard of this. She was able to get a video and a picture of the cell. It took five years, but they ended up arresting the guy. But the most notable one from the federal side was the Boston bombing at the marathon in 2013. Now, different circumstances, right? Because we're talking about a kidnapping. There's a body. You know, you don't want to antagonize the kidnappers to force them to do anything where the Boston marathon was, hey, this was public public awareness, right? These guys have bombs. We're notifying the public that there could be. So, although the intent is different, but the reason on the success was purely on the notifications, they were receiving from these photographs. So again, it really varies on the crime, on the victims, and on the timing of what they're trying to achieve. So I think people at this point, they're wondering, what does the timing of those releases tell us about where investigators might be in the decision making process? I would, for them to do that, it's not a sign of desperation. I think they're getting close. And they're confident enough that either they have surveillance on people, or they are, they're close. I think we talked just here last night. When I see things like that, my clock's ticking, like in the next, I'm not going to put a time on it, but they're close. They're making a lot of progress right now, based on that. It's through the physical and optical evidence. They collected, or people are calling in, like, yeah, I know that, okay. Yeah, because I think a lot of people may wake up and learn of this gentleman being released, and wonder, is this a sign that there may be aimless? No, I think there's hypervigilance right now. People want to help, and it's no difference from law enforcement. You know, you don't know, I don't know which law first agency pulled over this gentleman. I saw how far south it was from the residents, and I understand the connection through. So the methodology is correct, right? He's the Uber driver, or whatever, or breeze, whatever. I get that, but they're just doing their job. They're working off the tips, probable cause. You know, it's just it's going to happen. People are going to be content, kept contacted by the police because they're doing their jobs, and they're just eliminating the the nose at this point. So last question, based on these updates, what should the public realistically expect to happen next, and what should they avoid assuming? I think they can expect that the Bureau is now full force leading this along. I mean, let's be honest, the level and the weight the Bureau brings is not a just service to the local police, but they don't have the same national resources that FBI has. So in combination, I think the FBI is going to go full force on this, and most likely have this resolved. If it's going to, to what end, hopefully the victim is still alive, I would imagine that would be the next thing you're going to see that arrests would be made. Any last thoughts or things that we should know? Just have confidence out there that the agents on the ground are skilled at what they're doing, and that the senior agents that bring it in and the people who have worked these kidnappings, there's a method to the madness and they're very efficient. Thank you so much for your help. Thanks, Katie. As always, I want to thank my guest, James, and remind you to make sure that you click subscribe, please leave a five-star review. Continue to join me with further updates. Also, make sure that you check out my substack for my What to Watch list and articles as well. You can get that at kkc.substack.com every week. I will give you a list of what to watch, especially if you were interested in the true crime category. I have plenty of documentaries in that category. Also, check out the bonus episodes. Apple Podcasts and on Patreon, I've got the Tell Me Everything series that's coming to a conclusion, so make sure you go and check that out at p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com backs slash k kc. And then also make sure that you follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram at at kkcca TikTok. It's kkc and Twitter threads and Blue Sky at kkc. Continue to check back for all new episodes and thank you so much for listening.
