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

[cathathorse]

9:26 Uh, the doorbell camera. Um, it it was removed. We know that, but we're not
9:32 confirming that any cameras were smashed or destroyed around the house. I don't
9:38 know where that came from, but that's something we're not confirming.

There is a transcript button in the link that I used to pull up the transcript. But you need to click on "more" under the video description to see the transcript button.

Notice in the previous quote early in the press conference he uses the passive voice, "it was removed," but he never says by whom.

16:14 We know that the the tech company that we sent that camera off to, yes, they've said they've they've run out of ways to

 

[Napoli]

I

and what about analysing the cameras inside her home which I heard they had.?

Re the people who say it’s weird to have that
My friend the other day told me her mum has them due to living many miles from her children but as they realise , it shows limited footage of the multiple places mum might fall, but are yet to develop a better ( agreed to ) solution.

Also , I had a thought … what if the kidnapper does actually have access to a prepared stash of her medication? To reveal proof of life now would highlight awareness of her medical history .

The ransom demands seem to have fizzled … what does that mean?they have given up seeking money ?

It's been 3 weeks. "WE WiLL PAY", said by SG in her third video, was not done. Even if the ransom notes were real ( I believe they were) NG being held by a perp for 3 weeks, being without meds and probably injured because we know she was bleeding on the walkway and probably was bleeding in the house, supports the notion that she is no longer alive. If she died even if in the last couple of days, she is decomposing and would not be sitting in his home or car unless in a freezer. (also unlikely) Family will come to that conclusion. LE will also. This is not a recovery mission for a live person. NG's "value" to perp and others is only if you want her remains for a celebration of life or for some weirdo ritual if you are the perp.. He is NOT going to reveal her final resting place. Too much information, imo. Car tracks, being seen entering or exiting an area while disposal goes on...too risky now. He may also visit the area....relive the experience of once being so close to his fantasy girlfriend, SG. moo

This venture is over for him. He will go back to blending into society and live with his twisted memories and await SG's return to NBC. JMO

 

[Cassie P]

Even if he thought it had been disarmed, he should have had a tool if he planned trying to get in that front door - but he apparently has nothing at the ready. It was easier to pull up a plant to cover the camera than pull a tool out.

The motion notifications from my doorbell camera sound like every other notification on my phone so depending on how many notifications she gets, it may not have been notable. She also had a hearing aid which she apparently didn’t have in as it was still in the house. If she also used the Do Not Disturb feature on her phone when sleeping, she wouldn’t have gotten audible motion alert notifications either. :-/

Someone else here stated he did eventually use a screw driver to take off the camera, maybe he doesn't think on his feet, and needed a minute to figure out what to do??

My door bell camera sound is unique. So I know right away it is someone at the door. Yes if she is hearing impaired she might not hear it.

But the point is the Latana man did not know any of that. So that is why he grabbed the plant to obscure the camera right away?

 

[SlimPickens]

Anticipated the phone's and watch's tracking capabilities and purportedly left them there. Likely didn't know or even consider a pacemaker, and if he did know probably didn't know the traceability of them. LE probably should've kept that little tidbit to themselves, because disclosing it may well have sealed her fate.

JMO.

 

[Silverstorm]

I am stuck on LE's early assessment that the blood splatter on the front porch was possibly aspirated.

"Blood aspiration, which is based on an intact breathing activity, is one of the forensically most important vital reactions."* So, this implies some sort of trauma with the inhalation of blood, such as a severe nose bleed or thoracic injury to lungs. Especially if NG was on blood thinning / anti clotting medications, as I suspect given heart conditions we're told she has. She'd bleed very easily.

But I also wonder if the splatter was post mortem, limiting the bleed event, and occurred as she was being removed from her house. Could / did (without notifying the public) LE determine if the NG porch blood splatter was post mortem?

*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379073804006310
IMO.

That’s interesting.Also Laura Ingle’s interview with csi Sheryl Mccollum on X (not youtube)thought NG coughed and some blood drops had an air bubble in them.Just before the 4:58 mark.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2022998324979138950

 

[OldCop]

I agree with you on disposal sites. There are lots of pockets of desert close to Nancy's home that could conceal a body--areas along through roads without foot traffic or culverts, for instance. Your mention of Mt Lemmon seems plausible. You prompted me to share my early theory that Nancy could have been taken into the Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area / Mt Lemmon. It's close by. It can be accessed from nearby neighborhoods, trailheads, and roads that traverse it. Once off a trail or road, the dense vegetation and rocks in the flat, wide open areas or the crags in the rock faces could conceal a body or evidence. Air searches might have eliminated the flat areas near roads and trails. The outcrops in the lower rocky cliffs would make detection from the air difficult.

Given Nancy's physical limitation, It's not plausible that she was forced to walk away from her house or into the wilderness as Elizabeth Smart was. Posts here largely dismissed the idea of Nancy being taken from her home by off-road vehicle. Most ORVs are loud, they pointed out. Someone trying to be stealthy wouldn't use one on the roads in the neighborhood or to go through the open spaces behind homes. The noise an off-road vehicle is only a concern near houses. Once out of NG's neighborhood, the kidnapper could have transferred to an ORV and continued on.

After the video from the front door was released, I read an opinion elsewhere from someone familiar with the desert saying the kidnapper could be itinerant or camping. Based on his experience and the equipment he uses on off-road adventures, he thought the backpack looked like it contained a Starlink Mini. Initially, hiding out in the wilderness waiting for ransom seemed possible if unlikely. Even if that was the original plan, I fear too much time has passed. She's not alive, and the kidnapper is long gone. I think it is more than likely that a kidnapper would take an elderly victim into the wilderness area only as a disposal site.

The area outside of the neighborhoods is isolated and remote. There are plenty of places for a prepared kidnapper to hold a hostage or dispose of a body. I agree with previous opinions that well-intentioned untrained searchers going on unfocused searches would not be helpful. The area is too vast and unforgiving.

View attachment 645254

Pusch Ridge Wilderness

The Pusch Ridge Wilderness lies within Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona, USA, just north of Tucson. Spanning 56,933 acres (23,040 ha), the wilderness area conta...

peakvisor.com

View attachment 645255

In the image above, you can see 2 trials.

Pusch Ridge Wilderness

Explore the most popular mountain biking trails in Pusch Ridge Wilderness with hand-curated trail maps and driving directions as well as detailed reviews and photos from hikers, campers and nature lovers like you.

www.alltrails.com

Great post,@Bodhi. Thanks for the area info.

 

[penguinface]

The reports early on were saying Forced Entry. Banfield also said her "source" said this. Nanos said he wouldn't confirm if there was Forced Entry.

None of them reported which door the alleged forced entry happened at though. JMO but personally, I don’t think doorcam guy’s intention was to get NG to open the door.

 

[white rabbit]

@SaraSmile, i'm thinking the same. this isn't as complicated as we've been making it out to be in 1500 pages of posts.

someone (could be a guest unknown to us from AG's house) dropped off NG at her house. whether it was my mother, friend, inlaw, anyone, i'd have walked an elderly person inside. how do we know that the driver didn't accompany her into the house? i don't care what the super-smart-house-garage-door-technology picked up. anyone could've walked NG in through the garage (if it were me? dropping off an 84 year old woman into a dark house? i'd make darn sure she was safely inside)...said person would've closed the garage door and exited through the side door, garage, sliders, wherever.

as far as we know there were no garage cameras...and if there were, LE/FBI aren't sharing that information.

this rabbit doesn't care about the front step blood splatter. that could be a fox running across slate with a dead squirrel in its' mouth. just because LE says it's NG's doesn't mean anything. they lie for good reasons sometimes...

what hasn't been considered (by me, until now), is...what IF (our favorite term on this thread) whoever dropped off NG entered the house and committed a crime. again, it could've been any dinner guest/mahjong player from AG's...we have no clue. once the crime was committed, said person went back to his/her home and basically panicked. phoned a friend and said 'we have to stage a burglary/kidnapping to get her out of there', went back at 2-ish, made sure 'lantana man' was caught on camera...and poof...the 'perfect crime'.

 

[submarine7]

I am not sure if they were smashed. The suspect took the doorbell camera with him.

Michael Ruiz could have been mistaken thinking that some of the tiny white lantana pieces on the porch were glass.

From February 2? I think:


Speaker 14 (16:38):

Sheriff, we noticed that the camera on the front of the house is missing. You believe the perpetrator purposely took the camera?

Chris Nanos (16:45):

Don't know that. We're looking into that as well.

 

[Cassie P]

Or he had a WiFi jammer in his backpack and was surprised that the camera was still being triggered (although doorbell cameras still work I *think* if wired into the home and he may not have known that). If I recall correctly, there were (early) reports of next door neighbors having WiFi issues around that time.

Or he cut electricity and it was a battery operated front door camera and he didn't anticipate it.

This is all my layperson's opinion and I admittedly don't know a lot about how these cameras work even though we have a metric ton of them in and around our house, both wired and unwired.

JMO.

But lantana man may be a layperson as well. Not a home security expert. We are proving here on this forum that even though we surrounded by these gadgets we have no idea how they actually work and how they are powered.

Yes most of us might guess that if you cut the wifi and/or the electricity it will cut the cameras and the phone alerts.

 

[birdbox]

Let's pretend PERP used his car. He probably doesnt drive his car on a daily basis wearing gloves. DNA from his steering wheel could be on outside

January 11 seems to be an important date to the sheriff and investigators. Has anyone read anything regarding activities in the area on Jan 11. Could Nancy have been at an event and followed home after someone heard she had a famous daughter. I am not good at searching for articles, etc. They are stuck on the Jan 11 date for some reaason

Are they asking NG neighbors for Jan 11 info or everyone in community to lookout, check cameras?

 

[SouthAussie]

Notice in the previous quote early in the press conference he uses the passive voice, "it was removed," but he never says by whom.


16:14 We know that the the tech company that we sent that camera off to, yes, they've said they've they've run out of ways to

Maybe removed by the perp, but left at the property or found close by. So that LE actually had the camera to send away for analysis.

imo

 

[penguinface]

It's been 3 weeks. "WE WiLL PAY", said by SG in her third video, was not done. Even if the ransom notes were real ( I believe they were) NG being held by a perp for 3 weeks, being without meds and probably injured because we know she was bleeding on the walkway and probably was bleeding in the house, supports the notion that she is no longer alive. If she died even if in the last couple of days, she is decomposing and would not be sitting in his home or car unless in a freezer. (also unlikely) Family will come to that conclusion. LE will also. This is not a recovery mission for a live person. NG's "value" to perp and others is only if you want her remains for a celebration of life or for some weirdo ritual if you are the perp.. He is NOT going to reveal her final resting place. Too much information, imo. Car tracks, being seen entering or exiting an area while disposal goes on...too risky now. He may also visit the area....relive the experience of once being so close to his fantasy girlfriend, SG. moo

This venture is over for him. He will go back to blending into society and live with his twisted memories and await SG's return to NBC. JMO

Not disputing anything else in your post here, but it has been two weeks, not three! Still long enough, just mentioning for accuracy’s sake.

 

[BellaToothless]

Possibility she was assaulted or ran from abductors. Fell. Unconscious? Concerned they might be charged with murder so they took her.

I guess? So they are charged with kidnapping with no body and not so bad? I'm just trying to follow your line of thinking. I would think if they were just there for burglary and this happened they would have focused on hightailing it out if there with whatever they can grab. They wouldn't have planned to take an elderly body with them for a planned robbery. Disposal of a body is a much larger investment. I have not heard a peep from LE that this was also a robbery.

 

[Nikynoo]

It's been 3 weeks. "WE WiLL PAY", said by SG in her third video, was not done. Even if the ransom notes were real ( I believe they were) NG being held by a perp for 3 weeks, being without meds and probably injured because we know she was bleeding on the walkway and probably was bleeding in the house, supports the notion that she is no longer alive. If she died even if in the last couple of days, she is decomposing and would not be sitting in his home or car unless in a freezer. (also unlikely) Family will come to that conclusion. LE will also. This is not a recovery mission for a live person. NG's "value" to perp and others is only if you want her remains for a celebration of life or for some weirdo ritual if you are the perp.. He is NOT going to reveal her final resting place. Too much information, imo. Car tracks, being seen entering or exiting an area while disposal goes on...too risky now. He may also visit the area....relive the experience of once being so close to his fantasy girlfriend, SG. moo

This venture is over for him. He will go back to blending into society and live with his twisted memories and await SG's return to NBC. JMO

It’s two weeks, not three.

 

[DizzyB]

I guess? So they are charged with kidnapping with no body and not so bad? I'm just trying to follow your line of thinking. I would think if they were just there for burglary and this happened they would have focused on hightailing it out if they’re with whatever they can grab. They wouldn't have planned to take an elderly body with them for a planned robbery. Disposal of a body is a much larger investment. I have not heard a peep from LE that this was also a robbery.

It is my belief that no body murder cases can be harder to prosecute. Of course, not impossible, but more difficult.

 

[Cassie P]

I don’t know if his being unprepared or thinking it was disarmed fits what we see. Something about the hand positions and the lantana dance is off.

Could he have been shielding off part of the camera view and/or blocking the microphone as an accomplice was removing NG? I’m not sure that’s a better explanation, either.

If the recovered files contain audio, they’d be providing useful information to investigators. It’s possible to disable audio recording and transmission on a Nest camera. I hope it wasn’t done.

“When the microphone is off, your camera doesn't stream or record audio. When you first set up your camera and doorbell, the microphone is off by default.

“If you have more than one Nest camera, you can turn each camera's microphone on and off independently.”

Change Nest camera and doorbell audio settings - Google Nest Help

Adjust your Nest camera and doorbell audio settings to turn the microphone off or on, change its sensitivity and set up audio notifications. Turn the microphone on and off When the microphone

support.google.com

What feels off to you about the hand positions and the rest of his behavior?

Yes someone else here discussed that idea as well. Was lantana man working with an accomplice who had come in the back door and was the one abducting NG?
Was lantana man supposed to help this guy get NG out the front door without being seen on camera, and to help get her in the car?

 

[SlimPickens]

I don't feel that anyone knocked or woke her up prior to being in the room with her, because if someone rang a doorbell or knocked on the door at that hour, and if she is a safety-conscious and/or paranoid type (I imagine an 84 year mobility-challenged lady living alone would be one of those if not both), then it would've given her time to react, even if just with a hastily dialed emergency call from her watch or phone. No home invader of any type and with any expertise would give someone that chance.

Could also explain the ill-advised "snatched from her bed" comment in the early press conferences.

JMO.

 

[SaraSmile]

I agree. If you have a body or hostage in your vehicle, you don’t want to be stopped by LE. You want to hide them as soon as possible. However, it also depends on your relationship to the victim. Do you want to revisit the site for some reason or do you want the victim to be as far away as possible so there would be little to no connection to you.
I used the road to Mt Lemon as an example in reply to the post by @Trino

Agreed. Deposit body ASAP, around 5-10 miles away. It looks like you can get to some hilly, bushy areas fairly close, but Yes, far enough away that it’s not found easily.

J MO

 

[jtfolden]

I don’t know if his being unprepared or thinking it was disarmed fits what we see. Something about the hand positions and the lantana dance is off.

Could he have been shielding off part of the camera view and/or blocking the microphone as an accomplice was removing NG? I’m not sure that’s a better explanation, either.

If the recovered files contain audio, they’d be providing useful information to investigators. It’s possible to disable audio recording and transmission on a Nest camera. I hope it wasn’t done.

“When the microphone is off, your camera doesn't stream or record audio. When you first set up your camera and doorbell, the microphone is off by default.

“If you have more than one Nest camera, you can turn each camera's microphone on and off independently.”

Change Nest camera and doorbell audio settings - Google Nest Help

Adjust your Nest camera and doorbell audio settings to turn the microphone off or on, change its sensitivity and set up audio notifications. Turn the microphone on and off When the microphone

support.google.com

In my opinion, if the front door was already unlocked, he could have just stepped inside and removed the doorbell while keeping completely out of shot. In fact, if they’d already gained entry, he wouldn’t have had to come up on the porch from the front at all. There’s also the fact that the other cameras should have detected motion earlier if that were the case.

I still believe he was working alone in getting her out at this point but we don’t have a lot to go on beyond that.