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

[SlimPickens]

Electronic trails
So far, LE hasn’t traced him using electronic or written records – phone pings, vehicle GPS, highway cameras, hotel bookings, gun sales, holster sales.

Great overall post. I disagree on this particular part of it just because I feel confident that something within this realm would've been required, at a minimum, for a federal judge to sign off on that search warrant. Possessing any or all of these things in and of themselves would not result in an arrest anyway.

What they would need for an arrest is physical evidence showing that the suspect was in the home at the time of the abduction, or physical evidence that the victim was with him after the abduction. That would be DNA, fingerprints, or a clear video/image of him in the home or entering the home around that time and then leaving the home with the victim, or video or other evidence of him with the victim after the crime. Both DNA and fingerprints, while compelling, would need quite a bit of supporting evidence (i.e. the evidence they used for the search warrant). With electronic evidence only, they could just show that he was in the vicinity around that time.

This then (partially) challenges another thing you outlined, because even if they could demonstrate within a reasonable doubt that his IP address was used to create the ransom email and to open/monitor the Bitcoin account, it wouldn't be enough to make an arrest. Enough for a search warrant, yes, but not an arrest. They would need physical proof that he was using the IP at that time and for that purpose, or at a minimum be able to exclude everyone else with access to that IP.

To me (at least how I'm thinking today ), with no new noise, no new movement, and all press conferences cancelled after that last raid, it suggests LE is confident they found their perp(s) and are waiting for the final confirming pieces of evidence to fall into place. Remember - LE could absolutely know who did this without being able to prove who did this. The last part requires some meticulous evidence synthesis and analysis, and no room left for doubt.

As we know all too well at times, no jury will convict (anymore) based solely on a chest badge and raised right hand. They have to spoon feed convictions nowadays. A tall order, but that's what they signed up for.

JMO.

 

[apeXperience]

I posted about this last week, questioning if the No-Backpack image was from a different night.
There are various clues in videos and images released.

Nancy is thought to have been taken in the early hours of February 1st, which was a clear night with a very bright full moon. For reference Moonrise was around 4:54 p.m. local time, and moonset was about 6:44 a.m.

In the No-Backpack image:

• The image is cropped and very low resolution (possibly a thumbnail image which may not have metadata showing the time/date that the original image was captured)
• No shadow from moonlight
• Sky looks completely black (if it was a random cloud covering the moon, surely we'd be seeing the clouds illuminated by the bright moonlight)

I grabbed a frame from one of the videos to compare (on the right) note that I cropped and resized it to match the no backpack image shown on the left:

@Spectrix, I agree 100% with your astute and detailed analysis.

Obviously, the with backpack image / video was taken on February 1, 2026.
Yes, on February 1, 2026, the moon phase was Full Moon with Illumination: 100%.
IMHO, the "shadow from moonlight" you pointed at in your depiction is perhaps past midnight since with sided tilt.
Forensic evidence result was released saying that Nancy Guthrie was removed from her residence around 2:30 am.

Further, IMHO the no backpack image / video was taken on January 11, 2026.
On January 11, 2026, the moon phase was Waning Crescent with Illumination: 40%.
A slightly cloudy sky with Illumination: 40% would cause this black background.

Why January 11, 2026?
Early in the investigation, the FBI requested the residents of nearby houses to check their videos' recording the nights of January 10 to 11 and of January 31 to February 1.
Hence, IMHO, the date of January 11 is relevant to the images / videos.

As about the sheriff's statements, let's say IMHO this sheriff's statements (his statements and NOT himself, please) are ... {insert many negative attributes including ... @!#$%}. Amen.

 

[Tortoise]

Jumping in after missing many posts -- if the "different day" footage was from earlier than 11pm the night she was taken, why wasn't the video overwritten when the three hours had elapsed? MOO

My understanding is that the three hours refers to three hours worth of recordings saved, rather than only being able to access recordings that happened within the last three hours.

Learn about event and 24/7 video history - Google Nest Help

Google Nest cameras and doorbells can detect important sound or motion, stream live video, and save the video to the cloud. These features can help you keep tabs on activity happening in and around yo

support.google.com

" *The 3 hours of event video previews is available without a Google Home Premium subscription for the Nest Cam (battery) and Nest Doorbell (battery)."

Nest Doorbell (battery)*

Up to 3 hours of event video history

 

[tbgo]

This entire event is surreal.

Do people think that if LD is involved, the motive was financial?

Well, they didn’t get any money out of the deal that we know of.

 

[flakesofsnow]

"We don't have evidence to support when each image was taken" is not an accurate statement. Perhaps he is naive to their retrieval processes, but the fact that Google techs were able to decipher these images at all indicates that time stamps are known and present.

The real question is did these Google engineers follow chain of evidence procedures to ensure that their brilliant discoveries are admissible in court? Maybe. Maybe not. But evidence that isn't admissible is still evidence.

Me thinks the good Sheriff is being a bit coy.

JMO.

Imhoo google saves everything and all they had to do was retrieve it. No engineers or high tech needed. even if it was deleted it’s very simply to retrieve. I was a server admin for 20 years.

 

[Warshawski]

My dudes. How in the holy h*ll did LD ever end up the way he did with his extensive criminal record??? I mean, by reading his father's obit, the doctor was amazing and beloved in the community and his mother is/was also a medical professional. I am STILL so confused.

I’m still quite confused by the people ‘involved’ in that raid.

BE (and others) reported that 2 people ( male & female) were at the house.

As well as that there was the RR and driver at Culver’s - the driver I’ve understood to be LD ?

The lady at the house we’ve heard from, she apparently waited at neighbours place while police searched the house, and she’s said ‘my son was spoken to by police’.

Who is her ‘son’ ?
If it’s LD, what happened to the guy that was at the house with ‘Mum’ when it was raided ?

 

[wibbleflea]

To me (at least how I'm thinking today ), with no new noise, no new movement, and all press conferences cancelled after that last raid, it suggests LE is confident they found their perp(s) and are waiting for the final confirming pieces of evidence to fall into place.

I was close to this position nearer the time of the search. LD seemed like a fit. But there are no signs of NG’s whereabouts or fate, long after the search of the car and house. My feeling is that if LE had been looking at the real perp that closely, living in a shared house, there’d be some evidence of the recent abduction of an 84yo a few days prior.

LD had drug paraphernalia visible in a car at his arrest just last year. Would he have hidden evidence of NG’s abduction so thoroughly? That seems like a sea change.

 

[SlimPickens]

Imhoo google saves everything and all they had to do was retrieve it. No engineers or high tech needed. even if it was deleted it’s very simply to retrieve. I was a server admin for 20 years.

Well yeah, but they don't want their customers to know that it's that easy.

 

[TheDinks]

I’m still quite confused by the people ‘involved’ in that raid.

BE (and others) reported that 2 people ( male & female) were at the house.

As well as that there was the RR and driver at Culver’s - the driver I’ve understood to be LD ?

The lady at the house we’ve heard from, she apparently waited at neighbours place while police searched the house, and she’s said ‘my son was spoken to by police’.

Who is her ‘son’ ?
If it’s LD, what happened to the guy that was at the house with ‘Mum’ when it was raided ?

So, MD is the mum and LD son with the RR at Culvers.

When BE reported that 2 people (mother and son) came out of the house, I kinda assumed MD was with her other son but neighbour did an interview and said she told him it was just her at the house, so... we don't know who the other male is

 

[Kemug]

I do hope that it won't turn out that poor Nancy was being stalked, even for only a short time. It breaks my heart when I hear about people just going about their normal lives, completely unaware that they are doomed. Although for the Tepes, it would have been kinder.

 

[SlimPickens]

I was close to this position nearer the time of the search. LD seemed like a fit. But there are no signs of NG’s whereabouts or fate, long after the search of the car and house. My feeling is that if LE had been looking at the real perp that closely, living in a shared house, there’d be some evidence of the recent abduction of an 84yo a few days prior.

LD had drug paraphernalia visible in a car at his arrest just last year. Would he have hidden evidence of NG’s abduction so thoroughly? That seems like a sea change.

Fair points. I waiver and waffle myself, and pretty much daily. But he did lawyer up. And quickly. Therefore no signs of NG's whereabouts or fate post-raid is not necessarily indicative of his innocence, but rather his silence.

To your main point and based on what we know of his past exploits and run ins, it's a fairly big stretch to think that he is patient and/or intelligent enough to pull something like this off in the manner in which it was pulled off. And surely not without help from someone more studied, methodical, and meticulous than him to perfect it. Perhaps even someone he may have an unhealthy attachment to, for example.

Indeed, what if he's the impressionable one here. The muscle, so to speak.

JMO.

 

[girlhasnoname]

Still holding out hope for an alive Nancy to be reunited with her family, despite the odds.

 

[Jabarn]

I do hope that it won't turn out that poor Nancy was being stalked, even for only a short time. It breaks my heart when I hear about people just going about their normal lives, completely unaware that they are doomed. Although for the Tepes, it would have been kinder.

She may have very well been stalked and monitored, the unknown suspect(s) learning her habits and waiting for the right moment to make the abduction. Where she was taken is probably relatively nearby and could involve a rental, such as a hotel that that sees little traffic (that would be less expensive) or something like an Airbnb. I doubt she would be at the suspect’s actual residence. That’s just my opinion.

If the ransom demands are real and not some external opportunists, the longer this goes on, the more likely she would become a liability. That’s why it gets so much harder as the days go by to think of what would make them to the right thing and let her go now. This is completely outrageous.

 

[mrjitty]

Imhoo google saves everything and all they had to do was retrieve it. No engineers or high tech needed. even if it was deleted it’s very simply to retrieve. I was a server admin for 20 years.

I agree with one observation.

The free bulk cloud storage days of 10-15 years ago are long over. In the late 2010s that all tightened up. So I agree they likely cache everything for a time, and just needed to dig into the storage to locate the file(s) - easy so long as not too much time had gone past.

 

[rebel123]

She may have very well been stalked and monitored, the unknown suspect(s) learning her habits and waiting for the right moment to make the abduction. Where she was taken is probably relatively nearby and could involve a rental, such as a hotel that that sees little traffic (that would be less expensive) or something like an Airbnb. I doubt she would be at the suspect’s actual residence. That’s just my opinion.

If the ransom demands are real and not some external opportunists, the longer this goes on, the more likely she would become a liability. That’s why it gets so much harder as the days go by to think of what would make them to the right thing and let her go now. This is completely outrageous.

If she has been 'stalked' then in some ways that gives 'law enforcement' more potential evidence. He's been around the house multiple times, he's been in the 'vicinity' multiple times. Increases the chances of it being someone local, I'm not sure he would travel miles and miles to carry out 'surveillance'. Again it shows 'planning', but at the same time, he learnt nothing from the previous visits i.e. door bell camera - twigs etc. It makes him even more 'amateur'.

Also that 'rules' out Cartels. They would just do it.

 

[Tortoise]

The other thing I've been able to find out about the doorbell camera is that the infrared night vision sees up to 10 feet (3.05m).

Night Vision​

See up to 3.05 metres 4 850 nm infrared LEDs with IR cut filter

​

https://store.google.com/product/nest_doorbell_battery_specs?hl=en-GB

I've watched a review of the camera's features on YT

. Go to 4.59 in the video to watch a test of that feature. He says he triggered the recording at about 12 feet.

Someone or a vehicle in Nancy's driveway wouldn't trigger a night vision recording, IMO. I'd approximate 10-12 feet to be roughly where the intruder enters from the middle of the pathway, IMO.

Something I had misunderstood from watching the recording of Nancy's intruder is that the porch wouldn't appear to him to be lit up. He would only see the white ring faintly glowing around the bell presser. That explains why he used his mouth torch to illuminate the ground when he was searching around the porch for something to cover the doorbell camera.

Nest camera and doorbell lights and sounds - Google Nest Help

Your Google Nest camera or doorbell lights let you know what’s happening or if there’s a problem. Each pattern and color combination, like solid green or pulsing blue, has its own meaning. Your camera

support.google.com

Light ring pulses white	Doorbell sensed motion The light ring will pulse white when your doorbell detects motion, like a visitor coming into view of the camera.
Light ring spins	Waiting for a response The light ring on the doorbell will spin after a visitor presses the doorbell button and is waiting for a response.

 

[mrjitty]

The other thing I've been able to find out about the doorbell camera is that the infrared night vision sees up to 10 feet (3.05m).

My experience with trail cams is that a broad/deep view (i.e down a trail) gives a large number of false triggers (trees moving, birds etc). So it makes sense that the doorbell sensor doesn't see far, or you'd get a huge number of triggers when no one is actually coming to the door.

IMO