Ep. - 1529 - SATURDAY SERIES: WHAT HAPPENED TO NANCY GUTHRIE?

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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. And welcome back for this special Saturday series episode. Nancy Guthrie vanished under circumstances that immediately raised alarm. She's the 84-year-old mother of today's show co-host Savannah Guthrie and her disappearance has drawn national attention, not just because of who her daughter is, but because of what investigators say happened inside Nancy's home. Nancy was last seen at her residence in Tucson, Arizona, late on January 31 into the early morning hours of February 1. Authorities believed she did not leave voluntarily. Her cell phone wallet and car were left behind. She required daily medical care and physically frail, though described as mentally alert, factors that significantly increase the urgency of the search. Very early in the investigation, her home was designated a crime scene. Law enforcement is confirmed evidence of forced entry and blood found of the residence was later matched to Nancy's DNA. Investigators also noted that a home security camera went offline shortly before 2 a.m. and a pacemaker, monitoring app disconnected soon after, both now key pieces of the timeline under forensic review. The Pima County Sheriff's Office, along with the FBI, has made it clear that this is being treated as a criminal investigation, not a routine missing person case. While no suspects or persons of interest have been publicly identified, authorities have stated that they believe a crime was committed. In the case further, were reports of ransom communications. Some messages, including a widely circulated demand for millions of dollars in Bitcoin, prompted national concern and fueled hopes that Nancy might still be alive. However, law enforcement is not confirmed the authenticity of any ransom note connected to her disappearance. In fact, the FBI arrested a California man for sending fraudulent ransom text to the Gothrey family in an attempt to extort Bitcoin. Authorities have stated clearly that he is not to believe to be connected to Nancy's disappearance, underscoring how misinformation and hoaxes have clouded in already complex investigation. So as of today, there have been no publicly confirmed proof of life, no one else suspects and no declared motive. Investigators continue to analyze forensic evidence, surveillance footage, phone data, and digital systems while the family has made repeated public pleas for contact or information. This is a case that sits at the intersection of public attention and private tragedy, one where emotion, evidence, and uncertainty collide. And understanding it requires more than headlines. It requires perspective from people who know how complex investigations actually unfold. And that is why I'm joined today by my friend, James Manzi. James is the principal and owner of Auth Solutions, a management consulting firm focused on empowering national security clients through risk management, strategic leadership, and operational insight. His career spans senior leadership roles across military, intelligence, and private sector security operations, including US Army Special Operations Command, joint Special Operations Command, and United States Special Operations Command. Now, before his military service, he worked as a special agent with the FBI, bringing together intelligence and law enforcement expertise in high stakes investigations. So in this episode, he brings decades of experience in intelligence analysis, risk assessment, and operational planning to help unpack what we know and what we don't about the Nancy Guthrie investigation. Here's my interview. James, welcome back to the show. Always great to see you and so grateful for your insight. Thanks, Gaiton. Happy to be here. Happy New Year for 2026. I know. Well, this is an interesting case, and it really I think has kind of taken the nation's interest. As we get started, you and I talked prior to this, just to remind everybody who's listening, you know, this is an active investigation. And we have to be mindful of the procedures and tactics that law enforcement is using and respect their methods. So, you know, we'll talk about certain things, but I'm more than happy to answer questions. So from your perspective, as a former military officer and a protection specialist, what immediately stood out to you about this Guthrie case? Immediately, it was it was either well planned because of the time of day, you know, I looked at it in two different ways. Either someone spent or the group spent a lot of time watching, surveilling, planning, or someone had inside information about the residents, the occupants, the speed in which it was done, the time of day, the way it was done, it wasn't messy as opposed to loud. They didn't raise a lot of red flags. And based on her, you know, other than her daughter being a sol, I guess you could call her a celebrity, she's on TV. You know, it was kind of, it just raised a little bit of a red flag, two son Arizona, three remote area, senior area. It just didn't give the appearance of some of the other kidnappings historically in the past of like a high value target, so to say. When you first reviewed the publicly available facts, what questions did you think investigators would prioritize in the first, I don't know, 2448 hours? You know, obviously, you know, anyone would comment, says questions. There's been any threats on the family, externally, internally, any anomalies that they hired or fired, any people that work at the residents, you know, you see now with all these remote deliveries, you know, i.e. Amazon, et cetera, delivery of goods, you know, groceries, has someone, you know, made a delivery to the house by accident, you know, they could have been, all these things come into play. And the other part would be, you know, the neighborhoods themselves, you know, look at, probably any neighborhood, how many people have ring cameras, how many people have surveillance cameras. It's very difficult today to maneuver without somebody inadvertently catching something. You know, so that has changed a lot of the things that happen today. Would it be easy for them to ask the neighbors for their ring camera or their surveillance footage? Do you usually typically have a hard time asking people for that information? Most people will cooperate depending on the type of crime. It's, you know, and I say that, you know, depending on the neighborhood, in a case like this, you know, I haven't been out there, and I've seen what's on the news in the area. It looks like it's a rather respectable area. I think most people would cooperate. She probably knows her neighbors, or at least, you know, she wasn't like the bad neighbor, you know, you know, say, but when it comes to something this serious, people are more apt to, um, to cooperate. How does your background in executive and VIP production shape the way that you can assess a case like this? Well, much much like the inverse, what we just talked about, you know, when we brief executives or their families, it's not just the physical security, it's also the electronic security. The situation we've had in the past where it's been vulnerabilities has mostly been family members. So where they'll have wifi in the house, like, you know, don't, don't give out your password or don't log in here or don't do this. The biggest challenge we've had is with, with, with the kids, because we go through all these procedures to set up security and then the kids by, you know, because they're kids. You need to go and do what they do. And then the wifi gets caught, uh, uh, cracked, then they get into alarm system. It does, these, these guys are good, uh, guys and girls. These, these tech people can get a lot of information. And that's just done, like, say the physical resident. That's not to mention trade secrets, economic crimes. When our people travel, we generally recommend they have a separate laptop or cell phone that they take internationally that's clean. So I think you can compromise. We, in some cases, we sweep vehicles for electronic devices, you know, the guys that I use overseas, my partners, I've been with them for many years back in the military and, uh, they're trusted. So I don't really have those situations where I'm worried about what's in a vehicle, you know, but if I, if some other people use third parties, that's a big concern, you know, especially the collection. So I never even thought about that. So as you're doing your investigation, you have to be incredibly mindful of the wifi or any access to someone impeding the investigation. Yes. So, and I'll say this in broad terms, anytime someone has a cell phone, it could pick up on cell towers, it could pick up on, you know, you think about your phone. So to say, or even a laptop, when you go to connect to wifi, how many times have you gone on your phone, you see all these wifi in this account? Right? Well, that still registers is trying to connect. So historically, um, in any, whether it's my business or law enforcement, they can go and search and see what phones tried to connect. There's cell towers. Um, and I, you know, again, respecting their methods, there's, there's ways to avoid certain things. But most people are not in the know of that and they're just walking around with their cell phone and the discipline to leave their elect, sorry, they'll leave their electronics behind. That's, that's, that is a, how do I say the, the greatness of electronics, but also the Achilles Silver electronics. So when experts say it's seen suggest abduction, what indicators are they usually looking for? Disturbments, you know, obviously blood, something like that, a struggle broke, you know, and I hate to say it's like, after you do this long enough, you look in, you could walk in and you could determine, okay, there's things out of place. Very rarely is someone taking it at their will without something being disturbed. And if they are, then the people that are doing it would definitely, if they were trying to conceal a struggle of some type, then that escalates the level of experience of those type of people who are committing the crime. So that makes sense. So if there's blood in the front door, that would sign to you. This is someone who perhaps is not as sophisticated. No, it just could have been a struggle. I mean, for them, it's time to clean the scene. Again, we're talking civilian versus military versus political. There's, that's, those are two different conversations in the general world of kidnapping in the civilian world. For someone to have the patience to abduct someone and, you know, either if there's an disturbance and then to sanitize the scene and to leave to make it look like nothing happened, that's a different level of criminal. My guess, you know, based on, even though they might have had, they were able, I mean, open source, you know, they disabled a ring camera, they did these other things. For them to have the ability to clean up before they left, that would be an exercise in patients that most criminals don't have. Based on what's been publicly reported, what elements most strongly suggest that this was not a voluntary disappearance? Well, obviously the, well, volunteers' appearance, the struggle that you see, and obviously they're not sharing everything with us. Regardless of her age, I guarantee you someone, you know, unless they drugged her in some capacity and dragged her out, which doesn't appear to be the case, she was most likely kicking streaming, grabbing, pulling all the things someone desperate would, you know, would come to do. How important in that personal items, phone, the wallet, the vehicle, they were all left behind. Obviously the phone is key. The wallet and the vehicle, depending on if it has like a GPS in it, or on-starred, they can track where the vehicle went, depending on, it sounds like they left everything behind the scene. Obviously they weren't concerned about her wallet, so it wasn't, how much money does she have in there? It's not credit card fraud. This was very deliberate and personal for the body. How does the victim's age and the medical dependence change the way professionals would assess the motive and also the urgency? Well, it's a higher risk for them to kidnap some of that age, because it's the stress of that event could cause some other physical impairment. Obviously, she sounds like she has a pacemaker, so her heart isn't strong. I don't know, you know, I'm not a medical doctor, but in some cases, how does the pacemaker react to being away from the controller of, you know, it's in her phone, contract, her heart rates and all that? That itself would expedite if the kidnappers knew that that was an issue, that's going to expedite their communication because of her potential longevity. In your experience, are elderly victims more likely to be targeted intentionally or caught in opportunistic crimes? In all honesty, it's really not about their age. It's about the, it's either going to be financial, it's going to be politically motivated, or it's going to be a terror threat based. You know, how are they trying to affect change? Are they trying to get someone to manipulate them, do something else? Is it purely financial? Okay, we're going to do X, and whether you see with children or any adult, I personally have not worked a case or been involved, even on the military side, where it was age-related. It's just, in some ways, I would say that's a detriment because of the things we just talked about, especially that age, over 80. I mean, my parents are still alive, and I see what they go through between their medicine and all that. That's a big ask. Does the presence of medical devices or monitoring technology complicate or assist investigations? Well, can anything electronic can always be exploited? And I don't know, I'm not familiar with what she has in her, and if it transmits, etc. Or if it's got to be much like a Bluetooth, it's connected to a specific device. So I think it would depend on what exactly what device she has in her. So when ransom communications surface early in the case, how do professionals evaluate whether or not they are actually credible? Well, that's a great question. A lot of it is going to be in the communication itself, how has it received the verbiage? Is it the frequency, the nomenclature? How did they position it? Was it, I can't give us $10 billion? And then you have 30 minutes to, you know, it's this change of events. I wish there was like a running scale. If it's this, then it's that, then it's this. But it really comes down to the experience of the investigators and the negotiators. And it's just an experience-based business. And you see now the FBI is involved. Obviously, they feel that that comes in if they feel that the body's been taken out of state or out of the country, or the local police could ask for help. And so this is the bureau to then bring in resources to support. And that really is the, I'm not sure the county, the sheriff out there what their experience is, and kidnapping is this. But the bureau definitely globally has a lot of experience undiland with this. And I'm trying to imagine what it must be like for these families or individuals who are faced with this, this, this, this, this life-altering experience. How are they helped when it comes to doing some sort of response video? Do they have people that are available to help walk them through how to do it? Because you're so emotional. Yeah, the bureau especially has individuals that help with the services. That's going to be very scripted because there's a lot of message that that is a very complicated answer. Not complicated in the fact of how to answer it. But to stage it in such a way, said one, you don't want to offend or insult the kidnappers. You don't want to antagonize them. If you remember a few years, many years ago, the DC sniper, although it was not a kidnap case, I was working on, well, me and everybody else was working on that back then. When the chief of police came on TV and said, Hey, your kids are safe. They're not targeting kids. And the next day, they shoot the kid at the high school. Right. Okay, so I'm not saying that was a colossal mistake, but we don't know what you're dealing with. So that's where the communication is key. And then during that time, they're assessing the profilers, the lab. Everybody is looking at the forensics trying to build a pseudo profile of the personality they're dealing with. And that will indicate or dictate how they communicate. But the family, like sometimes there just isn't an answer to make them feel better because we don't have the answer. We're still trying to fit some moving target. Yeah. What are some red flags that typically suggest a ransom demand may be fraudulent or opportunistic? I would say back to what we said a minute ago, that if the frequency, the amounts or the request, you know, the typical, Hey, I want to air plane at the field, you're going to fly me to wherever that kind of, I know that's an exaggerated quest. I do see that they're, they're one, they have a Bitcoin. They're trying to get it in Bitcoin and all that. So that, that the ransom itself, again, it falls into that same category. Law enforcement will look at historically the things that have worked and have not worked and build that profile. But those are the, like literally inconsistencies and the timeliness of what it is. You know, how dramatic is it? Is it reasonable? What's the, what are the words they choose to use? Very important. I'm writing this. Like what's the intent? And so that's, there's people way behind the scenes that are truly FBI agents, but they work on support side that can analyze that type of information, give a better idea of what exactly we're looking at. Also, I would think where it's being disseminated to, like in this case, I know, like a local Tucson new station, but also TMZ, wouldn't that indicate perhaps younger people were involved? That was my first inclination that, you know, going to the media and that respect is, and I'm not saying it's a, it's a mask of desperation, but obviously where the daughter works, you know, to me, that looked like they're trying to influence maybe that she works for NBC, is that correct? Yeah. Influence NBC to get involved and then try to help facilitate it. That's my take. If this is purely about money, purely about the mom, like I'm dealing with the family, I'm getting my money and I'm going away. So to me, I'm not saying it's a sign of desperation, but they're trying to build support for their cause. And that to me would then indicate, you know, increasing the amount of money they're looking for, to try to bring in other resources. And they, like I said, whether the age is younger, but maybe more in the technology age of, you know, they're not 80 years old, trying to kidnap this woman is my point. Great. How common is it for unrelated actors to insert themselves into high profile cases like this? It's fine. It's on the criminal side. Yes. Possibly. But again, they're exposing themselves and it to whatever decisions the first group only made. You know, it's like you, it's like buying a used car, right? These guys already kidnapped this woman. They've already done all this stuff. And then you got this other party coming in and, you know, it's still added. It's not a secret to be tell someone you don't know what these other people have exposed their operation to or who. So I would say that these guys bought it. They own it and it's going to be cradle to grave is my take. And my guess is if they continue to use, um, continue to communicate, obviously, the more time goes on, it's a threat to the woman, but law enforcement is good at doing what law enforcement does. And I would, I would say that they're, you know, they're pretty quiet about what's going on. So I'm assuming they're all the tools they have to bring this one back safely. How critical is digital evidence? So cameras, the apps, the devices, in modern abduction investigations. Today, it's insurmountably effective because back in the day, we didn't have any of that. Other than, you know, we had human, we had to buy a person to say, I think I saw this car in the license plate might have been this. It was a green was a blue. He was five, seven, was he black? Was he white? He just spent it. I don't, it was crazy back then. Like that he was now, you get the freebies. You get the ring cams, you get, you know, like everybody, the Uber driver who's got the camera on his car and he happens to be like, there's all this technology. It's just knowing how to get at it. And then that brings up, I guess back to one of the questions you asked me a few minutes ago about, you know, civilians offering that information going to like Apple or going to Uber or going to these other places, not as simple as you think, because they're big on privacy, they're big in our lights. It's sometimes going to be a challenge trying to get third parties, not civilians, but the third party companies provide that information. How, when, when systems go offline around the time of a disappearance, how to investigate interpret that because it looks like her system went offline. I believe it like 121. And that we can't get specific footage because the person, the subscription had not been paid. So are they at the mercy of, you know, the little information that they can glean? Yeah, pretty much. You know, obviously the neighbors will be key here to see if they can pick something else up. It's a good starting point when they can see like, I know they saw the ring cameras disabled. Excuse me, but yeah, that again, anything they get is better than nothing. I know that doesn't seem promising, but at least they have an idea of the time of day where this event took place versus hey, we last talked to her at eight o'clock. Right. I know it's eight o'clock in the morning. You're looking at a 12 hour window. You're like, I have no idea where to start. So this narrows that, again, I mean, as an investigator or even the military side, I'd rather deal with four hours and 12 hours. That makes sense. What kind of digital timelines are usually filled in the background, even if the public never sees them? Again, I think there's there's canvassing the the neighbors are looking around. There's other, I guess I said, I think the cell phone towers and the Wi-Fi, there's so many unrelated technological towers of types. We choose that as a term. That's really the starting point. It's hard to do, again, like I'll say, unless the people who kidnap her were so diligent in concealing their personal electronics, which then makes it a bigger challenge. And then you're hoping for that ring cam footage or something like that. That's just how it works. I mean, they can really do a good job on, you look at the Idaho, the guy that killed the kids, that was one of the things that nailed the tower footage. Again, it's a matter of discipline. I see things like that are when this finally gets resolved and they give us the keys to the kingdom, how they did it. That really will dictate the level of experience of these kidnappers. Because, you know, anyway, in terms of media, how does this intense media coverage affect investigations like this, both positively and also negatively? I wasn't generally a fan of the big, you know, again, there's a time and place for everything and it's really a coordination with the family because generally the family is like, hey, I want to I want to get the word out. It really is a collective effort on the greater good, but what influence it is influences it is the amount of evidence you have collected the strategy where it's going and like the leads that you have. That's really going to dictate how much they're going to put out there. You know, obviously they went to a third party with TMZ and whoever else. That doesn't necessarily help because that puts pressure on law enforcement because the public's like, what do you guys do? You know, and for the whoever's in charge for the FBI and the local police, they got to stand up there and just hold the line because we're not going to share where we're at. It's just not going to happen, you know, could her bad on the progress? What would you say is the thing that the families often struggle with most during the early stages of a suspected abduction? One, you know, obviously in this case, as an older woman, her, her life, what's where is she, how is she doing? What's from status? And the other is second-guessing themselves. Did we allow this to happen? Did we, you know, again, expect to? Was it someone who was working at the house? Was it the gardener? Could we have done something or did we put her in a position for this to happen? Even though that's generally not the case, like these bad people do bad things. The way it is, and most people aren't so negative or narcissistic. They look at everybody like their criminals. So a lot of this, when we see crimes like this, like you look at murders, there's a dead husband or dead wife. The first person we talk to is the living spouse. It's the way it goes. It's not personal, but that's definitely, and about half the time of not more, it's still living spouse who did it. So there's all these things. And now internally, they're probably looking at the family's going, hey, is there anybody in the family could have done this? There's any cousins or friends? Like that's the part to get a little sensitive because you don't, you can be sitting at the table, controlling, getting controlled by someone who might be involved. That is absolutely the truth. So the last two questions, Haver, the first is, is there anything that the public often misunderstand about why law enforcement cannot share more information early on? I think most people will respect the privacy of it. But again, in today's generation, people are like, we just want to know, it's more, it's a sensitive title, like you can just tell us, but I think of it's your family, and you want law enforcement to be the most effective, most effective, you let them do their job, like especially when it comes to this, like too much information in the public is not going to help them be effective. And you're talking about a human life here, like something they say on TV, like you don't want, it goes back to what we talked to a few minutes ago. You don't want to tag in these guys. You don't want them to think that no one's paying this right. All the things that we make them terminate this hostage taking. That's the risk you take by going to public because you call their bluff and they're like, we know it's not worth it. And then you never find your body and they go away and maybe we find them, maybe you develop. Lastly, from your professional standpoint, what should people be paying attention to next as this case develops? I think the biggest thing that's going to happen is that they're probably going to have a breakthrough either that the kidnappers because of her age. Medically, I think it's going to, it could force them to be the ramp up their request. Like change the manner in which they're asking for their Bitcoin or whatever they want. I just unfortunately, she's that at that age and the stress alone on her person is immense. You're not going to hear much from the law. Of course, it's going to hold line. I think the people have her, that's going to, that's what you might see then reach out to another media organization or ramp up their communication with, I guess it was TMZ or whatever. That's my take. But the police are going to be stoic and doing their thing. I'm so grateful for your time. Tell everybody where they can find you and learn more about your company. Yeah, I'm James Amman at OTHolutions.us. I help out as needed advising on executive protection and security worldwide. More than happy to answer any questions for anybody out there and please come talk to me. Thank you so much. Okay, have a nice day. Always a pleasure. I want to thank my fantastic guest, James Manzi, and remind you to make sure that you click, subscribe, please leave a five star review. I hope that you join the Facebook group reality life with KKC. You can get bonus episodes by going to patreon patr.en.com backslashkakc and also Apple podcasts and also make sure you check out my What to Watch list at kkc.substac.com and lastly follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram at at kkcc a TikTok it's kkc and twitter threads in blue sky at a kkc.