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Nancy Guthrie: Ransom note connected to her disappearance said she had died · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So today we are doing a deep dive into a
• 0:03
  case that really just shatters everything you probably think you
• 0:06
  know about modern security.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. It's the kind of case that, well,
• 0:11
  it makes you look at your own house a little differently, right.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, the mission of today's deep dive is to
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  unpack this terrifying collision between a very traditional physical home
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  invasion and modern digital extortion exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And we're going to be pulling from a lot of
• 0:27
  different sources today. We've got police timelines, FBI press releases,
• 0:31
  statements from the family, and forensic reports.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we need all those sources to understand how
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  someone can just vanish despite leaving this massive trail of
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  digital and biological breadcrumbs. We're talking about the disappearance of
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  Nancy Guthrie on February first, twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Which took place in a really quiet, affluent neighborhood in
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  the Catalina Foothills just north of Tucson, Arizona.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And Nancy was eighty four years old. Yeah, But
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  to understand the stakes here, you have to know that
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  she is the mother of Savannah Guthrie, the anchor of
• 1:00
  NBC's Today Show.
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  Speaker 2: Which instantly elevates this from a local missing person's case
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  to an absolute international media circus.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean you introduce a high profile family
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  connection and suddenly you have millions in reward money, intense scrutiny,
• 1:16
  and as we'll see a lot of very dark complications.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: It creates this massive noise to signal ratio for the investigators.
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  When you have a national platform, every opportunistic scammer on
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  the Internet suddenly wants a piece of the action.
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  Speaker 1: It's sickening, honestly. But before we get to that, I
• 1:33
  want to frame this with an analogy. Think about the
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  digital fortress you build around yourself.
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  Speaker 2: Oh right, the illusion of safety exactly.
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  Speaker 1: You probably have a doorbell camera watching your portrait now right.
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  You use medical monitoring apps, or you take ride shares
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  that log your GPS.
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  Speaker 2: We all do we assume those things create this impenetrable wall, right.
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  Speaker 1: Because we think, well, everything is tracked in the cloud,
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  so I can't be touched. But this case shows how
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  quickly that fortress can just be bypassed.
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  Speaker 2: So let's look at the actual timeline of that night,
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  because the technology documented everything right up until it didn't.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's start with the evening of January thirty one.
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  It is incredibly almost eerily normal. Nancy has dinner at
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  her daughter Annie's house and Tucson, just a standard Saturday
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  night family dinner, right, and then she takes an uber home,
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  which again relies on that modern web of convenience. We
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  have the digital footprint from the rideshare API.
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  Speaker 2: It confirms the exact drop off coordinates. She arrives safely
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  at her home at nine four five pm, and.
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  Speaker 1: Then the home security system picks up the narrative. Surveillance
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  captures her garage door closing at nine fifty pm.
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  Speaker 2: Which is a routine you probably relate to. Right, you
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  walk in, hit the button, the door rolls down, and
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  you just exhale.
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  Speaker 1: You're safe inside. But then things start to get really
• 2:46
  chilling in the early hours of Sunday, February First.
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  Speaker 2: The timestamps starts showing this calculated escalation.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so at one forty seven am, the doorbell camera
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  is actively disabled or disconnected. It just drops off the network.
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  Speaker 2: Now in isolation, camera dropping its feet in the middle
• 3:01
  of the night, isn't you know, inherently suspicious?
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  Speaker 1: Right, Like Router's reboot or ISP's push updates.
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  Speaker 2: At two am, exactly. Power lines flicker all the time.
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  But twenty five minutes later, at two to one pelve am,
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  a different layer of surveillance software detects movement near the house.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so that totally eliminates the idea of a Wi
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  Fi glitch.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. Someone is actively navigating the perimeter. They're probing
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  the security architecture, trying to bypass the sensors they just
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  tried to blind.
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  Speaker 1: And then, and this is the detail that completely stopped
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  me in my tracks when I was reading the source material.
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  At two point two eight am, Nancy's pacemaker stop sinking
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  with her monitoring app.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that cessation of telemetry data is the critical inflection
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  point of this entire crime.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, let's pause here, because the forensic implications of this
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  are wild. We think of a pacemaker as just this
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  biological metronome.
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  Speaker 2: Right, some of it just keeps your heart beating.
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  Speaker 1: But they are basically diagnostic computers implanted in the chest.
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  They use bluetooth to handshake with a receiver in the bedroom,
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  offloading data about heart rhythms and battery life.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, well, it's like we've turned the human body
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  into an airplane.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, the pacemaker is the black box. It's designed to
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  save a life, but inadvertently it becomes the most vital
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  piece of forensic evidence.
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  Speaker 2: Because when the sink drops at two point two eight am,
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  it doesn't definitively mean her heart stopped.
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  Speaker 1: Right, it means the bluetooth tether was broken exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The implant relies on proximity. Once she is physically removed
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  from the radius of that local network, the handshake fails.
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  Speaker 1: So given the disabled camera and the perimeter movement, two
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  point two eight am is the exact moment of abduction.
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  Speaker 2: It marks the exact second she was taken from the house,
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  which the.
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  Speaker 1: Family doesn't realize until the next day. Right, Yeah, she
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  misses an online shirt service. They call nine to one
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  one and the police arrive to find a ghost.
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  Speaker 2: Someone who knew how to blind the cameras, except they
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  didn't really blind them.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, this part is fascinating. The perpetrator totally misunder stood
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  how modern consumer surveillance actually works.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they assumed that because Nancy's camera didn't have an
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  active paid subscription, it was just a dummy unit.
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  Speaker 1: Which is what everyone thinks. Like, if I don't pay
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  the monthly fee, the company isn't recording my porch.
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  Speaker 2: Right, the user interface stops showing you the videos, but
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  the hardware is still running, its base programming, still buffering
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  exactly even without the premium tier. The optical sensor is
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  processing light motion triggers are firing, and it's making background
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  API calls to cloud.
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  Speaker 1: Servers, usually Amazon Web Services or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, just to maintain network status. So tech companies
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  cash massive amounts of this residual back end data.
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  Speaker 1: So investigators serve a warrant and they actually extract fragmented
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  video from that back end caching layer the cloud remembered.
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  Speaker 2: And the image they retrieved of this phantom suspect is
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  incredibly telling.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a masked mail about five feet nine inches,
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  medium build. He's wearing a ski mask, a heavy jacket,
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  long pans gloves.
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  Speaker 2: Which, in the air of a desert, even in February,
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  is restrictive. It shows a primary focus on forensic countermeasures.
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  Speaker 1: Right. He's trying not to shed any skin cells or
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  hair follicles.
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  Speaker 2: Or sweat, and he's concealing any tattoos or scars. But
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  the most important detail is.
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  Speaker 1: The backpack, the one with the handgun holster attached to
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  the front.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, a chest or backpack holster is highly tactical. You
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  don't use that if you're just breaking in to steal
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  a TV.
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  Speaker 1: Right. It leaves your hands free exactly.
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  Speaker 2: You need your hands free to subdue and transport a
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  human being. It suggests a really premeditated, militant approach to
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  a hum invasion.
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  Speaker 1: But then the narrative completely splinters because you have this
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  tactical operator who pulls off a zero trace subduction. Right,
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  But the second the physical crime ends and the digital
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  extortion begins, that professional facade just crumbled.
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  Speaker 2: And a massive whiplash. So a few days after she vanishes,
• 6:54
  the first ransom note hits the media and the family.
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  Speaker 1: And on the surface it looks sophisticated. They demand four
• 7:00
  million dollars in bitcoin for her safe return, with a
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  strict deadline.
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  Speaker 2: But demanding bitcoin is well it forces the investigation into
• 7:07
  a very complex cyber forensic chase.
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  Speaker 1: I always wonder about that. Though the blockchain is a
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  public ledger, right, everyone can see every transaction, why ask
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  for bitcoin if the FBI is watched.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the ledger is public, but the wallets are pseudoanonymous.
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  You don't need an ID to generate an alphanumeric string
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  and more importantly, extortionists use crypto mixers.
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  Speaker 1: Oh right, like tumblers. How did those actually work?
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  Speaker 2: So imagine you have one hundred dollar bill and the
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  FBI has the serial number. Okay, you take it into
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  a room with a thousand other people who also have
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  one hundred dollar bills. You all shred your money into
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  tiny pieces, throw it into a giant blender and turn
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  it on. Wow. Okay, and then you pull out a
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  newly taped together one hundred dollar bill made from thousands
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  of different fragments.
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  Speaker 1: So the value is identical, but the chain of custody
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  is just completely destroyed.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, they use smart contracts to pool and jumble transactions,
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  making the funds look clean when they exit the mixer.
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  Speaker 1: So the family responds to this four million dollar demand, Savannah,
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  Annie and Cameron release a video plea.
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  Speaker 2: They do everything exactly right from a crisis negotiation standpoint.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no anger. Savannah just looks at the camera
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  and offers total compliance. They say they'll pay. They just
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  beg for their mother's return so they can have peace.
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  Speaker 2: They neutralize the tension and validate the kidnappers leverage. But
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  before you pay, law enforcement requires incontrovertible proof of life, right.
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  Speaker 1: You have to know she's alive. But they never get
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  there because the second note arrives and the tone is
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  just it's devastating.
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  Speaker 2: The second note claims that Nancy has died, and.
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  Speaker 1: The language is so specific and haunting, and they say
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  they quote did not mean to kill her, yeah, and
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  that she is buried with nature. Now. It was described
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  by sources as this sputtering, labored apology.
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  Speaker 2: And critically they abandon the financial demand entirely. They didn't
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  ask for a single cent to return her body.
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  Speaker 1: Which is That's a part we really need to unpack,
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  because why would a kidnapper walk away from four million
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  dollars just to send an apology.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it tells us a lot about their psychological profile.
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  The shift from a cold, crypto demand to a panic
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  confession means we aren't dealing with a mastermind.
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  Speaker 1: It's an amateur who lost control exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The tactical gear was basically cosplay. Think about the physiological
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  reality of the crime. You subject an eighty four year
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  old woman to the terror of a home invasion.
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  Speaker 1: Plus the freezing desert night, the adrenaline.
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  Speaker 2: Spike, any of those variables could trigger a catastrophic medical event,
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  and the moment the victim dies, the crime upgrades to
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  felony murder.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow, so the motivation flips from making money to
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  pure self preservation.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And if there were multiple co conspirators, the paranoia
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  would be immense.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the group dynamics would just fracture immediately.
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  Speaker 2: The apology note might actually be one conspirator trying to
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  get it in, writing that they didn't intentionally commit murder,
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  that it was an accident, just trying to cover themselves.
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  Speaker 1: But oh wait, how do investigators actually know that these
• 10:02
  notes were real?
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  Speaker 2: That's a great question, because the true crime ecosystem just
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  lost its mind once the four million dollar demand went public.
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  Speaker 1: Oh the opportunists, it's so gross.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Places like tmz started getting flooded with fake notes,
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  people demanding half a bitcoin claiming they knew where the
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  body was.
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  Speaker 1: They even arrested a guy in California, Derek Kalella, for
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  sending false ransom demands, which I mean, think about the family.
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  Speaker 2: It's psychological torture. You're filtering your grief through internet trolls.
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  Speaker 1: So how does the FBI, led by Sheriff Chris nanos
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  separate the real leads from the stammers.
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  Speaker 2: They use something called proof of life protocols, relying on
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  holdback evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, hold back evidence, meaning details they keep out of the.
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  Speaker 2: Press exactly so they knew the apology note was real
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  because it included non public information about the specific clothing
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  Nancy was wearing when she was taken.
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  Speaker 1: Stuff only the person inside that house at two twenty
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  aam couldn't know.
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  Speaker 2: Right. If a scammer emails TMZ, the FBI I will
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  tell the family to reply and ask a specific question
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  like what brand of shoes was she wearing.
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  Speaker 1: And if they can't answer it, they just sever communication.
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  Speaker 2: It acts like a cryptographic handshake. But the media complicates
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  this by publicizing the demands, which just provides templates for
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  more scammers.
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  Speaker 1: It forces authorities to waste time verifying garbage while the
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  real trail goes cold.
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  Speaker 2: Speaking of the real trail, let's talk about the physical
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  search because it.
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  Speaker 1: Was massive huge the FBI gets involved, the reward jumps
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  from one hundred thousand to one point two million dollars.
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  Speaker 2: The family also donates five hundred thousand dollars to the
• 11:35
  National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. To use their networks.
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  Speaker 1: But the frustrating part is that the house was immaculate,
• 11:42
  no signs of struggle.
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  Speaker 2: But out in the desert miles away they found this
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  single most important piece of physical.
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  Speaker 1: Evidence, the discarded glove, a.
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  Speaker 2: Glove containing viable DNA, And.
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  Speaker 1: This brings us to the frontier of forensics investigative genetic genealogy,
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  which people often misunderstand.
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  Speaker 2: They think you just put us SWOB in a computer
• 12:00
  and spits out a.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Name right, like standard CODIS testing. But CODIS relies on
• 12:05
  short tandem repeats or STRs right.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, and STR is like a bar code. If that
• 12:11
  specific barcode isn't already in the FBI database from a
• 12:14
  prior arrest, you get zero results.
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  Speaker 1: But genetic genealogy uses SNPs right single nucleotide polymorphism yes.
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  Speaker 2: Instead of a barcode, SNP's map the entire ancestral blueprint.
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  They extract epithelial cells from that glove, build a dense
• 12:29
  SNP profile, and upload it to law enforcement databases like ge.
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  Speaker 1: Match, so they aren't looking for the killer. They're looking
• 12:36
  for like the killer's third cousin, right.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Someone who took a mail in DNA test And if
• 12:41
  they find a match based on shar cent organs of DNA.
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  Genealogists start building sprawling family trees backward and forward.
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  Speaker 1: Using census records and obituaries.
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  Speaker 2: And then they prune the branches using the physical descriptors
• 12:53
  we got from the cloud data, like the height, and
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  build until they narrow it down to a suspect.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so I want to play Devil's advocate. Here. We
• 13:00
  have the suspect on camera, we have the exact time
• 13:02
  of the crime from the pacemaker, we have holdback evidence
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  in the notes, and we have a glove with DNA
• 13:08
  that can trace their exact bloodline. Yeah, so why on
• 13:11
  earth are there no arrests. It feels like we have
• 13:15
  all the edge pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but the
• 13:17
  center is completely.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Empty because there is a massive legal chasm between identifying
• 13:22
  a suspect and securing a homicide conviction. We saw this
• 13:26
  when they briefly detained two initial persons of interest, Carlos
• 13:30
  Palaswelo's and Luke Daily Right.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: They detain them, question them, and then release them without charges.
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  Speaker 2: Which perfectly illustrates the limits of circumstantial evidence. You might
• 13:40
  have a suspect whose DNA matches, the glove found miles
• 13:43
  from the house.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And a defense attorney would just say, my client goes
• 13:46
  hiking and lost his glove last month.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly without a body. You are prosecuting a corpus delecti case,
• 13:53
  a crime without a corpse.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: This state can't even definitively prove a murder occurred.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: The defense will argue the apology note implies a medical accident,
• 14:03
  not premeditated murder. If you charge them and a jury,
• 14:06
  it quits because of reasonable doubt double jeopardy attaches.
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  Speaker 1: So they can never be tried again, even if you
• 14:12
  find the body later.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly legally perilous.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, amidst all this talk of API calls
• 14:18
  and sent morgans, it's so easy to lose sight of
• 14:21
  the human impact here. Oh, absolutely, Nancy Guthrie wasn't just
• 14:24
  a data point in a police file. She was eighty four.
• 14:27
  She was incredibly active, fiercely independent, and so involved with
• 14:31
  her church.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: She was literally expected at a virtual church service the
• 14:34
  morning they found her missing.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: And her family, I mean Savannah Guthrie's dual role in
• 14:39
  all this is heartbreaking.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: She had to balance immense personal grief while returning to
• 14:44
  the Today Show airwaves right in the middle of the crisis.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Having to broadcast to millions of people while waiting for
• 14:50
  news about her mother. Just it strikes such a.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Nerve, It really does for anyone listening who has aging parents.
• 14:57
  It completely shatters that comforting illusion living in a quiet,
• 15:01
  gated community guarantees safety.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we buy the medical monitors, we install the cameras,
• 15:07
  and we think they are protected. But they're still so vulnerable.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: And as of June twenty twenty six, this investigation remains
• 15:15
  incredibly active. The one point two million dollar reward.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Stands, but it has shifted from a rescue mission to
• 15:21
  a recovery mission, though the family still holds out hope
• 15:24
  for closure.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: It's an investigation full of absolute contradictions.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: It really is. I mean, as we wrap up, I
• 15:29
  want to leave you with this really unsettling thought to
• 15:31
  just all over. We live in an era of total surveillance.
• 15:35
  We literally implant devices in our chests that broadcast our
• 15:39
  heartbeats to the cloud.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: We think all this data protects.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Us, right. We think to be visible is to be safe.
• 15:45
  But the terrifying truth is that all these monitors don't
• 15:48
  act as shields. They're just post mortem tracking tools. Despite
• 15:51
  all our technology, the physical world is still vast enough,
• 15:54
  and human desperation is dark enough that a person can
• 15:57
  simply vanish, be buried with nature, and leave our bleeding
• 16:00
  edge science completely powerless to bring them back.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just shows that our analog world is still
• 16:06
  incredibly untamed.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Stay safe out there,