Notes in Nancy Guthrie Case Lack Proof of Life, Proof of Connection to Crime: Private Investigator

Joining us for insight on the Nancy Guthrie case is Nils Grivelius, a private investigator and crime expert. Good to have you with us today, Nils. What would you make of this latest report of this note? It needs to be followed up on by the Bureau, and obviously they're doing that, Stefania. But there's been a lot of fake notes, lots of extortionate demands from people who are obviously not involved in the disappearance of Ms. Guthrie. Just last week, a man in Hawthorne, California, was arrested for just this sort of thing. So we have to be very cautious. I will point out that there is no proof that Nancy Guthrie is still alive, which in the tradecraft of the kidnapper is how you establish your bona fides. Not only that you're the one communicating, but that you're the one holding her. Also, in this modern era, it would be very easy for an artistic extortionist to create an AI proof of life video. Now, I don't know if any of that has been sent to Harvey Levin or any other news outlet. It seems odd to me that the ransom demands are only going to news outlets rather than to the family and or law enforcement. Presumably anybody holding Nancy Guthrie would know exactly how to contact one of her children. So call me skeptical. What would be your next steps if you were investigating? It's obvious to me the context of detaining this DoorDash driver, this delivery man, that the FBI is analyzing cellular signals of telephones coming and going from the Catalina Hills neighborhood where Nancy Guthrie went missing from more than 10 days ago now. It's an easier location in the sense that there are not 10,000 signals per hour to analyze. There are probably 500, 400 at the most. What works against them is the paucity of surveillance cameras. They did manage to recover some footage going on the back end. I believe a colleague of mine, a private contractor, often to the Justice Department and other agencies, is the man who recovered that footage and those images. I promise you there are more images that were recovered and they're just not being shared with the public because they're not useful in advancing the investigation. And what do you make of that footage? Well, a civilian audience should not be shown a brutalized woman ever. It's shocking, it's demoralizing, and it doesn't advance the cause of the investigation. It distracts from the investigation. So the Bureau is using very good judgment here, so is the Pima County Sheriff, in keeping their cards very close to the vest. I expect the Bureau and the Sheriff's Department of Pima County to break this case within the next seven days. What kind of information? I'm not even sure that this is a kidnapping. It may have been a hit, an opportunistic robbery, something like that. Kidnapping might necessarily be a charge if she's removed from her home. But when I say kidnapping, I'm using the term advisedly, a kidnapping for ransom. There are kidnappings that occur all the time in this country. Usually it's parents just taking their own child away from a custody situation. We also have a lot of kidnappings that occur that are never reported because it's cartel activity. One cartel operator kidnapping another cartel operator or their children or their wife or something like that. I want to dispel any notion that narcotics cartels are involved in this. I don't think they would ever involve themselves in something that would bring such heavy scrutiny to them. And generally they consider attacks on civilians, particularly elderly women, to be utterly unmanly. It would be a death sentence, Ms. Cox, within the cartels to involve themselves in this. If this is a bona fide kidnapping for ransom, it's a very well organized group. Now, you saw the man putting the weeds up in front of the camera in the footage. That means he wasn't that well prepared. You'd think he would have some duct tape or something to cover the camera with, and ultimately he removed the camera and the footage had to be obtained from a cloud drive. They did a computer forensic analysis of a hard drive in order to obtain it. That's the direction that this is going in. As much scientific work as possible until they get a make on a person of interest, and then they process him or her through the interview process and compare where it is, what they've done, who they are connected to, things like that. What kind of information would be useful that the public might be able to provide, especially if they've now seen this video footage, perhaps of the clothing or something like that? Savannah Guthrie is calling on the public to help as much as they can. Well, other than the ski mask, the man appeared relatively anodyne. He could be anyone, anywhere, hence the use of the ski mask to defeat any cameras. If somebody recognizes his manner of dress, the way that he walks, that sort of thing, I would hope that he'd call the Pima County Sheriff or the FBI. Chances are very good that if this was done on a planned level, that they reconnoitered that address multiple times to know when to get in, how to get out, which route to take to the highway, how to avoid flop cameras. I think that the Bureau and the Sheriff are working with a lot of information, and right now it's like looking for a needle in a needle stack rather than a needle in a haystack. They have to look through a lot of, compare a lot of similar information to arrive at the one. Well, it's great to hear your insights today. Thank you so much. Nils Gravillius. I want to thank you for lending me your camera and microphone. Have a safe day, Ms. Cox. And you. Thank you.