This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy Guthrie, missing new video surfaces of cars flying past in Nancy's neighborhood. In the critical hours between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., Significantly, one vehicle speeding by just eight minutes after Nancy's pacemaker disconnects from Bluetooth, flying like a bat out of H-E-L-L. Why? And online sleuths identify a star, a small star, black or blue in color on the porch guy's jacket. Is it real? And if so, can it be used to track down the kidnapper? And in another development, AI, artificial intelligence, was it used to write two of the ransom notes? And if so, there's a way to track it. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Dave Mack, what is the latest in the search? Savannah Guthrie took to Instagram and posted a clip from the Today Show in a segment about her mom and writes, please be the one that brings her home. And she also added, you know, tips can be anonymous and the reward can be paid in cash. I don't think that's been said before, but we all know that tips can be anonymous if you want. But the reward can be paid in cash. She coupled that with releasing a shortened version of what should the family release the other day. But Savannah Guthrie reminding everyone that tips are anonymous and the reward can be paid in cash. New video surfaces of cars flying past in Nancy's neighborhood. That video found on a neighbor's cam, the door cam, the surveillance video at the edge of their yard, also catching 12 vehicles flying by at the time Nancy Guthrie is kidnapped. Dave Mack, what are we seeing? Well, you're actually seeing rain camera footage of a car. About 2.36 in the morning. And, Nancy, this is a home located about two and a half miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. It's a back road that leads out of her neighborhood, and it doesn't see a lot of traffic, not on a regular basis. Between midnight and 6 a.m., February 1st, about 12 cars went down that road in front of this camera. But right there, 2.38 a.m., a car goes flying by that camera, Nancy. That would be enough time from the time, or 2.36 a.m., I apologize. Eight minutes after Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker connected via Bluetooth to her Apple Watch, that car goes flying by that Ring doorbell camera, and you can see it. It's heading away. So that's what we're looking at, and that is really important that it's just outside of that two-mile radius that law enforcement put up as the search area. This is two and a half miles, but there it goes, right there, away from the neighborhood. Straight out to Brian Fitzgibbons joining us, Director of Operations, USPA Nationwide Security. He leads a team of investigators, seasoned investigators, that find missing people all around the world. former Marine Iraqi war vet, one expertise, extracting people from Mexico. Brian, thank you for being with us. What do you make of the video? Yeah, this is a really good development here in this case. And what you see is as this search is expanding beyond the crime scene, this is two and a half miles away from Mrs. Guthrie's house. This is just a sampling of the leads that the FBI and Pima County have developed. And I want to mention that they are currently analyzing over 10,000 hours of surveillance video. So this is one small tip of the iceberg here that we're seeing. But they're going to start tracking down this vehicle as it was in the area at the right time. This is certainly a great lead for investigators. Todd Shipley joining us, digital cyber crime expert, former Detective Sergeant Reno PD, 25 years in law enforcement, author of Surviving a Cyber Attack, also author of Investigating Internet Crimes. You can find him at darkintel.info. Todd Shipley, thank you for being with us. How will the feds go about enhancing this video? Well, they're going to take the screenshots out of it and try to figure out what they can find from that one particular shot and identify if there's anything that's usable in that shot. It's a pretty quick shot that's moving, so it's not something that's going to be an easy thing to do. But they're going to take that video and the stills and try to enhance whatever they can to find anything. Descriptions, bumper stickers, the license plate, obviously, if they can figure any of that out. the year-making model obviously is important because then they can start tracking down who owns those in the state and try to figure out what potential list of suspects they might have who own that kind of car and then start contacting each one. Straight back to Brian Fitzgibbons. Brian, many online sleuths have identified the vehicle as being a Kia Soul. Let's see the mock-up of the Kia Soul. Now, Brian, as you and I have discussed on many, many occasions, car manufacturers change either ostensibly or subtly the design of a car nearly every year And that appeals to you know those individuals that like to buy a new car every year and always drive a new car That said, it can be subtle or very obvious. It can be a tilt up in the front lights. It can be a change in the number of taillights. It can be any number of things, a subtle slope in the front windshield. But the point is, isn't it true? Fitzgibbons, major metropolitan areas such New York, Chicago, L.A., Atlanta, they've got, of course, homicide. They've got robbery. They've got crimes on children. They've got sex crimes. They've got white collar crimes. They have an entire fleet of people, investigators that deal with nothing but car theft and recovery. Often busting wide open car theft rings that make millions and millions of dollars a year. Those guys and ladies can look at a car at a distance and tell you, oh yeah, that's a Kia Soul. That's a 2024. And this is how I know it. How do they do it, Fitzgibbons? Oh, absolutely. And that's from thousands of hours of surveillance on the job that they're finely tuned to identify, make, model, and year. And what I will say is, while this video is not necessarily the highest resolution that you would want, a lot of those key identifiers are there. The shape of the windows, the locations of the taillights, they can get a relative height and size of the tires, size of the vehicle in general. So a lot can be deduced from this. And I think that their assumptions would be pretty accurate here. Guys, let's take another look at the video. How do they do it? How do they enhance it? It's amazing to me, but it's been done over and over and over. You think you can't see a tag? They may find a way to find that tag. Although typically in an operation like this, Shipley, I doubt the person has their true tag, if any tag, on the back of the car or the front Shipley. Keep in mind that any part of that identification can be important. The color, the make and model, like we said, they're going to be able to go to the DMV locally and identify who has that. If it's a thousand cars, if there's one distinctive feature that can limit the information that they've got to research, then that'll knock that down and they can go after those people. But even if it's a thousand cars, they've got to try to figure out where those people are in this case because of what's happened and identify who was there and whether they potentially were in that city or not. And don't think you've gotten away with anything if this is you in this vehicle, because Brian Fitzgibbons, you and I have covered together and investigated many others separately of cases that were cracked by the vehicle. And here are just a few. Okay, of course, the poster boy for so many evil and nefarious things, Brian Koberger. That whole case started, the identification of Koberger started with a, it was a, not a circle K, not a quick trip. I went to the gas station. A clerk at the gas station takes it upon herself to come through hours and hours of video. She spots a white Elantra flying by. If you had been to the King Road address where the murders occurred, to get there, you come to an intersection, and over on the left is this gas station. You go up the hill and go down a very circuitous route to get to the 1122 King Road address. That said, that's the only way to get in there. She finds a white Elantra speeding by around four o'clock in the morning and she alerts police. They in turn alert all police forces around them, including campus police, including Washington State University in Pullman. The Washington State University police, campus police, go through all the records and they go, oh, white Elantra. Who has a white Elantra that's registered, you know, with a car sticker here? Oh, Brian Koberger's one. They go to his place, they see the car, they take a picture, and that's how the name first comes up, Brian Koberger. Then there's the Molly Tibbetts case. In the Molly Tibbetts case, she is a gorgeous young co-ed studying late. She goes out for a jog. She's murdered. You know how they find the perp? Through distinctive markings on his vehicle taken from a door cam as he drives by. He kept driving by her back and forth, trying to engage her in conversation. When she says, I'm calling 911, buddy, he kills her. And in the recent history, Brian Fitzgibbons, the Tepe murders, you and I have come through that case with a fine tooth comb. Remember beautiful Monique and her husband dead in their beds. Brian Fitzgibbons, the perp who has been arrested, not convicted yet. Dr. Michael McKee, on his car. First of all, surveillance video catches him in the area, tag plates. He had stolen tags, switched them out, but guess what was on his car? You're going to love this. Where he worked at the hospital, the sticker was still on the car. When they get to the car, finally, he scratched it off. Ding, ding, ding, red bell of alarm. Why scratch off your parking sticker? So you heard what Shipley just said, it may not be the tag. It may be a sticker. It may be an identifiable scratch along the side of the vehicle. It could be anything, Fitzgibbons. Help me out here. Absolutely. Time and again, the vehicle is the linchpin to cracking a case wide open. You just listed off a litany of such cases. And I think what we're seeing here with all of this video, this new video that's been collected as of yesterday and now there will be thousands of hours of more video in with this new reward up to over million This vehicle could crack the case open Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Todd Shipley, if a civilian can identify this as being a Kia Soul, what can the feds do a lot more? We have seen them enhance video like nobody's business. I mean, it's possible. And everybody, tonight, there are reports this is connected to Guthrie. There are reports it's not connected to Guthrie. all citing FBI sources. We don't know the answer. But Todd Shipley, in reality, not guessing whether this is going to be connected or not, I don't quite understand the process of how they can lighten the picture, how they can zoom in. How do they do it? And have you ever been part of catching a perp through the car? Well, you know, the fact that the FBI has got digital forensic experts and video experts that can go through this. It's something that, you know, is well known. They've been parsing through this. I don't know that they've got the speed to be able to do the things that people do online when they do a, you know, community-driven review of these things. Once they release the video, people are looking at this, trying to identify things and matching things at a speed that we've never seen before in law enforcement because this whole community-driven approach to identifying information in these videos and photos has changed how law enforcement has to look at this. And sometimes they're on their heels trying to catch up with what the community's doing because the community's identifying stuff, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly, and then they've got to spend time trying to figure out whether what the public is saying is correct or not that can take away from what they're doing. So sometimes it's hard to do that, but they've got the skills to be able to get the information and identify what's there. And tonight to Dave Mack, Crime Stories investigative reporter. According to sleuths, a star is visible on the porch guy, the perpetrator's jacket near his. There you go. Thank you. Near the backpack strap. What do we know, Dave Mack? Well, we know exactly that. You're looking at the photo there, Nancy, and it looks like there could be a star on that backpack strap, but there are other photos that don't show anything. So what we're looking at, I think, is a shadow from what he's holding up in front of the camera. If it's not a shadow, if it really is a black or blue star on that strap, well, that adds to our ability to identify this particular person because we know the brand of this backpack. We can search the brand and see if any of these backpacks come with a star on the strap. The backpack would have nothing to do with the star. The star is on the jacket. Isn't that right, Dave? I'm looking at it, and it's either on the strap or on the jacket, Nancy. It appears to me. It looks to me like it's on the jacket. What about it, Brian Fitzgibbons, and how would we use that star, if it's real, to find the perp? Yeah, this looks like it's on the jacket. And I'll say two things. First, that this is either a brand of jacket, so it will help us identify exactly what item that is. The FBI can do their thing to track down where the purchase might have taken place. Better yet, it could be a custom embroidered piece for a business or a school or something like that. And if it is a custom made piece, that's going to really narrow things down for us because these items aren't one of one. right? There'll be 50 made or 120 made. And, you know, people will be able to quickly identify that. This post that we are showing you is from Trill, T-R-I-L on X. Video from Nancy Guthrie's home obviously shows a mass suspect, the 84-year-old taken out of her home, but now a distinguishing mark on the jacket? Is it real? Is it a shadow? Take a look. The FBI working on the case released this video footage the night Nancy Guthrie was taken. And now what do we know about a black star on the jacket? An individual spots it and immediately it hits the internet like wild fire. I'm trying to figure out how the feds are going to go about isolating this, determining if it's real, and then finding it in their vast FBI texture and clothing database that they keep. And in that, they input everything from prior cases, whether it turned out to be real or not, connected to the case or not. Example, in the Wayne Williams serial killings of young men throughout Atlanta, the case was cracked by first time ever at a mile district attorney's office, the use of fiber comparisons on the bodies of many of the young boys and teen victims. There were odd fibers that were later traced back to the carpet in Wayne Williams's parents' home and the carpet in his vehicle where he would put the bodies after killing them just before disposing of them in the Chattahoochee River. So the FBI has a huge database of all sorts of materials, clothing, textures, you name it. And I guarantee you, if this is real, they're pouring through it right now Straight back out to Dave Mack What can you tell me about the guy that and drives by Nancy Guthrie home in the dark of the night up to 100 times all the time staring at a photo of her in the car Nancy, late yesterday afternoon into the early evening hours, a man was driving his vehicle on Nancy Guthrie's street right in front of her house, and he's driving by really slow while he's looking at a picture of Nancy Guthrie on his phone. Now, we're not talking three or four times driving up and down the street. We're talking about the guy doing it for a long time, 50 to 100 times, driving in front of her house all the while. And I'm going really, really slow. He's creeping along, looking at a picture of Nancy Guthrie on his phone. So finally, police decide it's time to take a look at this guy, and they pull him over. and police arrest 34-year-old Antonio de Jesus Peña Campos in front of Nancy Guthrie's home on misdemeanor DUI charges. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining us now, Heather Barnhart, digital forensics expert with Celebrite. You heard all about that during the Alex Murdoch trial, in the Alex Murdoch trial, cracked the case wide open, and the SANS Institute, System Admin Audit Network and Security. She worked on the Brian Koberger case. She is the co-author of Practical Mobile Forensics, now in its fourth edition. Wow. Heather, thank you for being with us. Heather, I want to talk to you about the so-called ransom notes. Heather, is there anything about these ransom notes that would suggest that they were AI generated? And what are your thoughts about tracking that? One thing I want investigators to think about in this case are those ransom letters. And I remember reading and hearing on TMZ that one of them seemed to be written by a professional. Why was that one different? if AI was used to help write a ransom note, which is likely. So think about the Google searches that came out that so many IP addresses had searched for Nancy Guthrie. Who would know her name? Who would know where she lived prior to the kidnapping? Can you find keywords in open AI that's available to the public that can be searched for anything that was written specifically in those ransom notes? And if the answer is yes, this could tie back to a location and to a person in their home who potentially was behind that keyboard typing those unique words. Wow. I hadn't thought of that, Heather. That's pretty amazing. What about if a VPN was being used? If the person wasn't using some type of VPN and private browsing and all the things that mask you from where you're existing when you're typing things, then yes, we can find them. But keep in mind, Brian Koberger tried to do this, and we still found him. So there is always going to be a misstep that digital evidence will lead back to the person. But if they didn't do this, and you just open a browser and you start Googling things, absolutely, that can be used the exact same way that OpenAI can be used. And I don't want the public to think, oh, no, I use ChatGPT, or I use Claude, or I use something else. If you log in, your data is more protected than if you just start typing. For the Palisades fire, that's how law enforcement found people of interest or suspect of interest was things that they were typing into AI that just existed out there in the world. Heather, I want to circle back to the video that has just surfaced about the video of the vehicles flying by at the same time Nancy Guthrie is kidnapped in her neighborhood. What do you make of that? Video forensic experts will be able to slow down those vehicles to the point of us being able to identify make and model. They should also be able to detect speed. So if you think you're involved in a crime, you're probably driving pretty quickly. And this is exactly what happened with Brian Koberger. He tore out of that neighborhood in that vehicle. That car was the second most important identifier to the DNA to getting access to Brian Koberger and leading to an arrest. So this could be what investigators need all along to identify who is involved in this crime. So Heather, what about the fact that to the naked eye, to us, the video looks blurry? Oh my goodness. In my terrorism investigations, we were able to identify things that you can enhance this footage. Think about what AI can do for us in forensics. This is a perfect example of using AI to clean up an image, remove the blur, slow it down, and have vehicle experts say, I know that this is likely this make and model probably of this year. And then you go into the records and see who in that area owns vehicles that match that description. And it will really pare down the amount of people that need to be questioned at this time. If you know or think you know anything about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, please dial toll-free 800-225-5324. Repeat, 800-225-5324. Or, if you wish to remain anonymous, 520-882-7463. Repeat, 520-882-7463. There is a 1.2 plus million dollar reward. Thank you to all of our guests for being with us tonight. But a special thanks to you for joining us in the continued search for Nancy Guthrie. There is time to bring her home.
