AZ Nancy Guthrie, 84, (mother of TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie) missing - last seen in the Catalina foothills area on Jan 31, 2026

[BrittMontero]

I don't think the notion of a physical ransom note is obsolete.

It would be less traceable than some electronic communication.

Find some 8.5x11" generic office paper, use a printer one already has owned for a while, print a brief message and handle with gloves. Dispose of printer in a normal black trash bag. Job done.

Vs using a phone, computer or other means to transmit an e-demand.

The problem is with receiving the ransom. The days of saying "leave it under the third park bench from the right" are long over. I've racked my brain and cannot come up with a way for the drop or handoff to happen that doesn't seriously jeopardize the perp.

 

[Fargo]

If this is the same guy I am thinking of. He is out there working 24 / 7 and providing on the scene real time information people want. I am impressed by his work ethic.

It's not the same guy you're thinking of. IMO

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

Interesting source, thank you.

I've been pondering about the "NG Stalker Perp" OPs and I, this morning, have profiled as theories.

What if the Stalker was NOT local, as is the presumption by LE, it appears? What if the Stalker was from far away in another state or country?

What if they work remotely such as for a tech company so they can continue working wherever they are as long as they have WiFi?

What if the Stalker planned this possible horrific act, to control NG's emotions and get her attention, for a long time? What if the Stalker rented a short term rental and car (Grey SUV?) for a month or three to refine their plan?

What if they killed SG, and since not local, they carted her body far away from NG's home - into the desert or mountains? And what if those desert and mountains were in UT, CO, TX, CA, NV, MX?

What if their Tucson rental had been reserved to end the morning of 2/1 to coincide with their exit strategy?

What if their car rental and flights to / from the area were not from Tucson, but an airport ~2-8 hours away, perhaps with the dumping location on the way from Tucson?

IOW, if it was a deranged SG stalker, did they come into town stay a while and then leave with no local trace and with NG far away?

All speculation. My imagination's queries.

Interesting scenarios that make sense. The person will be much harder to find in this scenario. It would be easy to take NG's body out of the Tucson area in a rental car in the middle of the night and drop her body in an isolated area out-of-state, drop off the rental car and fly out from Las Vegas or another out of state airport.

 

[connie9030]

And finding drugs would have let them hold the suspect longer than the meager 24 hours AZ allows. Only 6 states are that low. The rest are 48 to 72 hours. They needed time to process the evidence they retrieved before having to release them.

 

[birdbox]

I'm having an incredibly hard time grasping that all manner of LE people would take off their gloves and just drop them willy nilly all over the ground for miles around, never mind at the property. It's so insane to think about, I don't believe it. Until I hear that statement from the mouths of LE, I choose to think that what the journalist ( whoever that was ) said about that was taken out of context.

Is it possible they some of the searchers gloves fell out of a trashcan or something? It may not be a situation of them just discarding them on the side of the road.

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

I don't think the notion of a physical ransom note is obsolete.

It would be less traceable than some electronic communication.

Find some 8.5x11" generic office paper, use a printer one already has owned for a while, print a brief message and handle with gloves. Dispose of printer in a normal black trash bag. Job done.

Vs using a phone, computer or other means to transmit an e-demand.

The problem is with receiving the ransom. The days of saying "leave it under the third park bench from the right" are long over. I've racked my brain and cannot come up with a way for the drop or handoff to happen that doesn't seriously jeopardize the perp.

And that may be why they didn't leave a ransom note and instead notified local TV stations and TMZ. MOO

 

[barth00]

Well there was this phd criminology student that left a knife sheath that had his dna at a crime scene once…

Can’t forget Fotis Dulos throwing bloody clothes out on a very busy street while driving in his truck as caught on camera

 

[LRinCA]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2023089192708997380

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

Is it possible they some of the searchers gloves fell out of a trashcan or something? It may not be a situation of them just discarding them on the side of the road.

I believe the weather was in the 70s and 80s during many of the searches. They may well have put the gloves in their pocket because they were warm and the gloves fell out without the searcher realizing it. I just can't imagine that many searchers leaving their gloves out on the side of the road.

 

[Tortoise]

I think I see what could be repeat (square shaped) transfer blood stains from the sole of a shoe. If they ever catch this person, and/or track his purchases from Walmart, if he purchased his whole outfit there, they might be able to put him at the scene via prints if not DNA. JMO

link for image https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/...12df7.jpg?resize=960,640&quality=90&strip=all

 

[HoveringWombats]

Sorry to keep coming back to the garage door—those of you with app-controlled garage doors, what could result in only an “approximate” open time but a definitive close time?

A few things here...

First, I don't think that we should take the close time as any less approximate than the open time. We know the sheriff is not that precise with his words, and IMO the "approximate" was intended to apply to both. At the very beginning of going over the timeline, he said "these are approximate times." I think he was saying that all of the times on the timeline should be taken as approximate.

We don't know definitively where he got the times from. My best guess is that they looked at NG's phone or similar device, and got it from notifications showing on the screen. But they could have gone through the vendor of the garage door opener to get logs, or something like that. But we're just speculating on all of that at this point.

Factors that could cause the times to be "approximate:"

1. We already know that the times are shown without seconds. When we're talking about a span of 2-3 minutes, a difference of even 15 or 30 seconds is a pretty significant portion of the time window. If we take the extremes, it could have been 9:48:59 to 9:50:00 - basically 1 min or it could have been 9:48:00 to 9:50:59 - basically 3 min. Obviously this assumes some incorrect rounding technique, but without the actual data, we can't rule it out.
2. If they did get the times from notifications on the phone screen, those tend to not show the seconds anyway (for recent stuff, it might say "5m ago," and for older stuff it'll be like "Yesterday, 21:48"), so even if they wanted to provide down to the second precision, they might not have had the information.
3. In order for these notifications to work, at least in the 3 different systems I've had, first the door has to detect it's open, then it has to send that even to a server, then the server has to process it and send it to my phone. That can take anywhere from a couple of seconds to several minutes (or even longer if there's an outage of the service or something).
4. Depending on the app and system, the timestamp that the event happened may not be in the notification itself. For example, my current garage door is integrated with Apple Homekit. I get notifications from the Home app when the garage opens or closes, but it just says "garage door opened" and the only time I have is the time on the notification. Which, as described above, can sometimes take several minutes to arrive. So it might show a timestamp that's 5 minutes later than the door actually opened.
5. This is probably a minor factor, but in an old system I had, the "opened" notification was triggered by a tilt sensor on the garage door. This didn't register an "open" until the door was at least half way up, which took several seconds, and it didn't seem to register a "close" until the door was totally closed. Again, these several seconds can be significant when we're only talking about a time window of a minute or two.

JMO all of this is silly anyway because I personally vehemently disagree that the two minute time window is suspicious in any way whatsoever. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I hope this helps explain why those times might not be very accurate anyway.

 

[shonyakay]

BE is saying the gloves found 2 miles away from Nancy's home matches the subject's DNA from the door cam.
Huh?
Are they saying they know who lantana man is?
Or are they saying the unknown male DNA from the home matches the DNA in the gloves?

Or maybe they got DNA from the door area recently and that DNA matches that pair in the gloves?

 

[Eli9]

Mine gives exact times. Never seen anything approximate. BTW, since I looked just now, mine is generally open and closed in less than 2 minutes.

Wanna do an experiment? Would your app detect the door opening if you disconnected the overhead cord and manually opened it? It only takes 6 seconds from the exterior of your garage to break in manually unless it is manually locked. Curiosity on my part.

How Thieves Can Break Into Your Home by the Garage Door

In 6 seconds thieves can break into your home by the garage door. Here's a simple thing you can do to prevent home break-ins by the garage.

www.corporatetravelsafety.com

 

[Diddian]

I think they may be looking for fingerprints, trying to pull information and data from the infotainment system, perhaps a built in gps too. Figuring out when she last drove and regular places she would go. I remember seeing her vehicle being taken out and the front bumper also “appeared” damaged. I can’t currently find a photo of that atm to verify.

They Start talking about her car around 3:50. BE also mentions later on that LE took her vehicle on day 6 of her disappearance.

NG’s vehicle was taken AFTER it was reported that LE viewed surveillance at a local Circle K gas station/convenience store. IMO, it may be that they viewed a vehicle on that surveillance that resembled NG’s vehicle, so they took the car for testing which might confirm whether or not her vehicle was used that night, possibly in the crime in which she disappeared.

Link to Feb 8 story about LE confirmation of Circle K surveillance:

Investigators widen search to Nancy Guthrie’s daughter’s home, nearby Circle K

Authorities have widened the search area nine days into their efforts to find Nancy Guthrie.

www.azfamily.com

 

[SlimPickens]

There has been a lot of discussion about how poorly public communication has been handled in this case.

As a police public relations specialist, I’ll say this: In high-profile cases, it’s imperative for law enforcement to get in front of the story. A disciplined, well executed communications strategy is critical.

When agencies don’t communicate clearly and consistently, speculation fills the gap and public confidence is eroded—as we’re seeing here.

A strong PIO/comms team helps:

• Protect investigative integrity
• Control misinformation
• Coordinate media access
• Maintain public trust
• Demonstrate professionalism
• Encourage public cooperation

Vague or inconsistent communication damages credibility.

In this investigation, both the PCSD and the FBI would benefit substantially from a more strategic communications approach.

My suggestion: Put a strong PIO at the mic, do some damage control, and reset the narrative going forward.

— MOO

Both agencies have PIOs. FBI has really good ones that get paid very well to, as the agency's protocols typically attest, not have to speak very much. It speaks volumes that press conferences have essentially gone the way of the dodo. In conjunction with the federal search warrant being issued for the last 'SWAT and sweep', and the Sheriff's post-sweep press conference being snuffed "at the request of the FBI", there is a strong likelihood that the FBI - by statute and in practice if not by public disclosure - has taken the lead in this case.

JMO.

 

[submarine7]

Agree.

And speaking of AG and TC's occupations, wouldn't it make more sense for a kidnapper or burglar to strike on a weeknight? Early on, say, a Wednesday morning. It would take a long time for anyone to miss NG compared to a weekend when people are free to run over around noon to check on her, and when social events take place.

Remember the crime happened on a Saturday and as a poster pointed out, there were requests for cctv with emphasis on two preceding Saturdays so I wonder if the perp is otherwise occupied M-F.?

 

[gin2]

I believe the weather was in the 70s and 80s during many of the searches. They may well have put the gloves in their pocket because they were warm and the gloves fell out without the searcher realizing it. I just can't imagine that many searchers leaving their gloves out on the side of the road.

Seems like there were a LOT of gloves they oopsied if they all fell out of pockets.
Good grief, shouldn't they know better?

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

Can’t forget Fotis Dulos throwing bloody clothes out on a very busy street while driving in his truck as caught on camera

Had forgotten. Still can't believe it. So, the Lantana guy may really have thrown out his gloves within 2 miles of NG's house. If true, we know that he wasn't thinking straight and may not have thought ahead about how he was going to dispose of his gloves and clothing. If you have just kidnapped or murdered somebody or been involved in a murder or a kidnapping, perhaps it's hard to think straight. But, still, some planning ahead would be useful.

JMOO

 

[SaraSmile]

FOR PEOPLE HERE WHO ARE SAYING IT WASNT A Kidnaping.....HERE YOU GO

Kidnapping is generally defined as taking a person against their will by force, threat, or deceit, often for ransom or to facilitate another crime, such as sexual assault or injury. Abduction, often considered a broader term, involves unlawfully taking a person—frequently a child—away from their guardian, sometimes without direct violence, such as through persuasion or fraud.

Exactly what what you call it? NG wasn't taken voluntarily, to attend a tea party. JMO MOO

Thanks for the info re kidnapping.

Also, to add, if the person died during the crime at their home, and the person was then removed, It May not be considered a kidnapping.

In the case that a DB is moved After death, it is murder or manslaughter and tampering with a human body.

This is just my understanding. Thoughts on this?

JMO

 

[SlimPickens]

Mexico would be a great idea but I'm guessing it would have been too dangerous for them to drive through Border Control with a body in their car. MOO

Certainly true, but may not have have been a body at the time.

JMO.