FBI finds more images from Nancy Guthrie’s cameras, but what’s missing is ‘odd’ – day 41 on scene

Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out my show.

Really, really appreciate it.

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Uh, today is day 41 in the search for Nancy Guthrie.

That’s Nancy Guthri’s house right back here.

Uh, I am in Tucson, Arizona, continuing to try to dig up new information, stay on top of the case.

A couple of big developments today.

You know, we’ve had some slow days, but there’s some some big things that have come out over the last 24 hours.

First of all, um, new reports about additional images that the FBI has been able to obtain from Nancy Guthri’s surveillance cameras.

Remember, we knew they got the images from the front camera because that’s how we got the pictures of the suspect, but she had other cameras in the back in the side of her house by the pool.

And we are now learning that the FBI has been able to obtain some images from those cameras.

Um, but there’s a catch and um, there’s some issues there.

So, I’m going to explain all of that in this episode, but overall, it’s good news.

Also, just interesting comments from the Pima County Sheriff.

I’m thinking more and more about this.

He just did another interview where he was asked, “Do you think the suspect could strike again?” And he immediately responded, “Absolutely.

” Which goes back to my episode yesterday uh with retired FBI agent Steve Moore, who was saying the same thing.

The sheriff is also still saying they believe it’s targeted, but that he can’t say that uh 100%.

I’m going to get into the latest comments from the sheriff.

And then also, um, I really believe at the end of the day, DNA is what may crack this case.

Remember, they’ve been having issues with the DNA from inside NY’s house because they say uh that it’s mixed, which means it could be multiple people’s DNA in one sample.

I actually went to a DNA lab at Arizona State University.

Um, it was so interesting.

I can’t wait for you guys to see this.

showed me actually how the process works.

What does it mean if DNA is mixed? How hard is it to sort out? What do they think is going to happen with the Nancy Guthrie case? I mean, these are people who have done this for a living for a long time.

Um, and there are some things that they really zeroed in on.

The flashlight in the suspect’s mouth could be a big deal when it comes to DNA.

And and they’ll explain why.

So, I’m going to get into all of it in this episode of Brian Anon Investigates.

Hey guys.

All right.

So, again, I’m here outside Nancy Gothrey’s house.

Uh day 41 in the search for Nancy.

Uh today is Friday.

Uh it’s a really really hot day here in Tucson.

One of the hotter days uh lately.

And apparently next week it’s going to get really really hot.

Um which the people who live here are just like, “Yeah, it’s no surprise.

Wait till summer.

” Um but I wanted to get into the latest with you.

I think perhaps the biggest development right now is this new information coming out about additional um images that have been recovered from Nancy Guthri’s uh surveillance cameras.

Uh which is a pretty big deal.

You know, we knew that Nancy had other cameras.

There’s cameras on the side in the back of the house near the pool.

And we knew the sheriff had told me actually last time I interviewed him that Google was trying to go back and find those images.

And apparently they have found some images.

Uh, and this is reporting from ABC and Fox who were able to source some of this new information.

Uh, but they say, um, that images were able to be pulled off of some of these cameras in the um backside of the house.

The images were recovered in recent weeks from motion activated cameras trained on the swimming pool, the backyard, and the sideyard.

Um, they were unable to recover video footage.

So, this part is interesting.

Unable to recover video footage, but thumbnail images were captured when the cameras were triggered by motion.

And so, they’ve been able to recover the thumbnails, not the full video, uh, but the thumbnails.

Um, but the cameras recorded nothing suspicious.

Uh the sources told ABC uh investigators were able to observe several people in the back and sideyards over an unspecified period prior to the abduction.

After Nancy Guthrie was taken, law enforcement officers uh are seen near the pool on some of these uh images.

So they they’ve been able to see police on the images.

Uh the cameras captured nothing on the night of the abduction, though, so that’s important and unfortunate.

Um, but they did capture people in the days uh before.

The source told ABC that investigators have drawn no conclusions as to why the cameras captured nothing on the night of the abduction, but one source described it as odd.

Um, so that’s kind of striking.

Uh, what’s interesting though is if even if they were able to see people on the cameras in the days before, that could still help with the investigation.

They can go back and try to figure out who those people were.

I mean, maybe they were just like contractors or people cleaning the pool or whatever and have absolutely nothing to do with the case.

Uh, but at least it’s something.

And the fact that they’re able to make progress on these cameras, I think is is good news.

Obviously, and the source described it as odd that they can’t find anything from right when Nancy was abducted.

Um, but perhaps the sheriff described it to me when I talked to him about Google doing this as like having to just keep peeling back layers.

So, maybe this is just the beginning and they will be able to find something.

Um, the fact that the source called it odd though does make me kind of go back to um what we learned from the from the other neighbors saying that there may have been some kind of internet outage right around the time of NY’s uh abduction and also the questions about was a um a signal blocker used um you know the antenna sticking out of the suspect’s pocket.

The more that I’ve talked to people and thought about that, the less likely that I think it is.

I think it probably is a walkie-talkie in his pocket, but the fact that the cameras in the back were not working right at the time of NY’s abduction.

Um, you know, and the fact that remember the neighbor also told me that his camera, two Nest cameras were not working right at the time of NY’s abduction.

Um, the neighbor that lives back behind Nancy.

I mean, are these all just coincidences? Is this all going to play out into something related? I don’t know.

But the fact that they are getting images from these other cameras, I think, uh, is really, really significant.

So, I’ll I’ll try to dig into that a little more.

I’ve been trying to work my sources to get a little more information about it.

So, I’ll let you guys know if I find anything else out.

Um, something else really significant that has come out over the last 24 hours is the sheriff, Sheriff Nanos, the Pima County Sheriff did another interview with NBC News.

I’ve been trying to get an interview with him for, I mean, for the last couple of weeks.

You know, I did that one interview with him and I haven’t been able to get one since.

and his office basically just says that they’re not doing any interviews right now, which it’s obviously not true because he’s been doing interviews with NBC News.

I mean, I kind of get why he’s choosing NBC to do the interviews with.

Obviously, that’s where Savannah Guthrie works, so there’s a there’s a connection there.

Uh, but he did do another interview with NBC, and what really stood out to me is is the reporter asked um very specifically, “Do you think that the suspect could strike again?” And he responded, “Absolutely.

” which uh is not what I expected him to say.

Um but it makes sense in light of some of the reporting that we’ve done and even my episode yesterday where we dove into could the the suspect strike again.

Well, the sheriff is saying absolutely.

He did go on to say that um they still believe that this was a targeted uh you know crime that this wasn’t just random.

But then he said we don’t have any way to say that with 100% certainty.

Um, and just based on sources that I have, I know that they’ve got some working theories of what happened, but I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence right now pointing to one theory or another theory based on what I know.

So, he says that it was a targeted crime still that they think it was, but that he can’t say with 100% certainty.

And then he also said that they have a theory that they are working off of in terms of what happened, but he did not want to reveal that.

Um, so there wasn’t a ton of new information.

I just thought it was interesting that he said that um the suspect could absolutely strike again.

And I’ll tell you, even just being here today, that’s something that the neighbors are are talking about.

Um you know, that comment has made its rounds around the neighborhood.

They know that the sheriff said that.

And I think it’s, as you can imagine, if you lived here, kind of unsettling for for the people um who live here.

See what else I wanted to update you guys on.

Um, so the DNA is um important obviously with any case, but especially with this case because it doesn’t seem like there’s been a lot of other solid leads.

And remember the the big piece of DNA that I think is going to end up being the most important is the DNA that was found in NY’s home that they told us does not connect back to Nancy Guthrie, does not connect to any of her f friends or family, is a stranger’s DNA, so it could be the suspect’s DNA.

So we were all very hopeful about that initially.

Then we found out that it was mixed.

Uh, which is not good, but they can overcome it sometimes.

When can they overcome it? How do they overcome it? That’s what I’m going to get into next.

Um, I did this really fascinating interview with Professor April Stonehouse.

She’s a forensic science professor at Arizona State University.

She worked in crime labs for decades.

Uh, and they basically have a crime lab at Arizona State University, which is what she showed me.

and she really walked me through how all of this actually works.

How do they actually get DNA from a crime scene? How do they get DNA from the gloves? Remember, they got DNA from the gloves.

What does it mean when it’s mixed? And how do they overcome it? And when can’t they overcome it? Because sometimes they can’t.

And she talked to me very specifically about what’s standing out to her about this case when it comes to DNA.

Um, and there’s just a lot that I didn’t realize or know.

I mean, about different ways that they can get DNA.

I I didn’t realize, you know, um this is just a lot.

I want you guys to and this is really an informative interview, especially when you think about the Nancy Guthrie case.

So, I wanted to show you my my full conversation with April.

Let’s start from the beginning and let’s use gloves as an example.

Like the gloves found on the side of the road in the Nancy Guthrie case.

Correct.

Once you find the gloves, what do you do? So, once gloves are found, what they’re going to do is however they are recovered, they undoubtedly had been peeled off by somebody.

And what you could have potentially had is them exposing the interior of the glove and you may have found gloves that look like this.

And so they would have received those into the laboratory and they would have taken um a swab just like this.

It looks like a Q-tip, but these are long-handled swabs that we use in the laboratory.

They would have taken that and they would have wet it.

I’m going to show you guys what that looks like to let you know.

as forensic scientists, they would be practicing what we call clean technique.

I would have a mask on.

I would have my lab coat.

Um, and so, and a mask, we now know from our life experience with COVID that there are little saliva droplets through the air.

So, that as I’m talking to you, I could potentially be contaminating something.

So, in a laboratory, I would be wearing a But I’m talking on the side of the road.

Is this what they would be doing? They would be doing So, they would not They would not They would collect it.

Okay.

They would put it in an envelope.

they would seal it and then they would start what’s called a chain of custody.

Meaning from the point that they’ve collected it, they’re going to time and date stamp that on a document and then they’re going to sign whoever collected that.

Okay? Then that’s going to get submitted to the laboratory and then somebody like me who’s a corologist is going to come through and I’m going to be collecting DNA off an item and depending on the nature and the context of what the allegation is, that will determine whether I do additional tests or if I just collect for DNA.

So in this case, if I received a glove, I would know that I had skin cells on it.

And if you think about wearing gloves, the longer you wear them, the more friction you have and the more of your skin cells you’re leaving behind.

So the longer somebody wears it, more skin cells.

So what I would do is I would take a swab.

I would wet it with some water.

And this is sterile sterile water.

And I’m just going to wet this swab.

Okay.

And you saw how quickly and readily that got absorbed into that.

And then what the corologist is going to do is they’re going to swab this and they’re going to pick up all those skin cells that are on that glove.

Not and not every single one, but they’re going to pick up a a sufficient amount of representation.

And then this is going to go forward for DNA analysis.

So, they know already that if they only have skin cells to work with, that’s not a DNA rich substance like blood or saliva or semen, they’re going to take this sample and they’re going to move it forward and they’re going to do a DNA extraction.

And what that means is they’re going to cut the material off the swab.

So, actually, I’m going to do that for you guys.

I’m going to grab Sorry, I got to grab a little a sharp object.

Yeah.

Feel free to So, they’re going to use either a surgical scalpel or they’re going to use a sterile razor blade like this.

And in this case, they’re going to cut this sample.

They’re going to peel back this cotton.

And if you can see, you see how I roll that back? and they’re going to cut the surface of this.

They’re going to put it into a tube like so.

And then this is what goes forward for DNA analysis is what I swabbed off the surface and I got onto my my sticks.

Um, and so then this will go through a process where we use these reagents and we’re going to break open those skin cells and release the contents of the cells.

So if you think back to your biology days, um, in school, you had the outer part of the cell, which is called the cell membranes, made out of fats.

We want to get rid of that.

We want to get rid of the protein.

All we want to end up with at the end is a nice clean DNA sample.

So after that is done and we have a liquid sample, then we’re going to figure out how much DNA did we get out of the sample because we have an ideal amount that we like to put into our reaction where we copy the DNA.

So if you have a really strong body fluid like blood, I’m going to get more DNA than I need.

So I might have to dilute the sample.

If I have skin cells, I have an expectation I’m not going to get a lot of DNA.

So, we run that through this instrument over here.

This is um actually called a quant studio.

And we would put a plate in here.

I have one here where each one of these wells has Oh, it’s heated up.

I’m not going to take it out.

I’ll leave it.

Each well has a place where we put each individual sample.

And this is what tells us how much DNA we have.

And after that, then I use a kit.

And these are kits that are used by forensic crime laboratories across the US.

And they’re standardized.

And if you think about it, we want everybody in a crime laboratory to be looking at the same exact areas of DNA that we’re looking at.

So the FBI governs forensic crime laboratories, government labs.

And so we all we have we know exactly which areas we’re copying.

And if you think about it, we standardize it for our US databases and so that we can compare results.

So we would use this instrument.

This is called a thermal cyclinger.

And what it does is you would use a very small amount of that DNA.

We actually need one nanogram of DNA.

It’s a very very small amount.

It’s a very sensitive technique.

And we would copy those areas where we know people are different.

And I want to show you a diagram of what that looks like.

And I want to show you the difference between So I have pulled up an example here.

So this should tell you the difference.

Okay.

So these are areas of DNA that we copy.

And this this is what crime labs are copying.

And you saw this in the Nancy Guthrie case when they submitted that blood.

That blood is really rich in DNA.

So it lends itself to the standard testing that we do in forensic crime laboratories.

So they would have copied areas of DNA that are called short tandem repeats.

They’re short because they’re only four bases.

They’re tandem meaning they’re right next to each other.

So if you notice these are right next to each other, just right in a row, right? Yeah.

And then they’re repeated.

And so you see this pattern repeats over and over and over again.

And what you see is this person has five repeats.

This person has six or seven.

And we are all different.

The number of repeats we have, that’s these are areas of our DNA where we can separate people and tell them apart.

And those are the areas we want to copy.

We don’t want to copy the other areas that are standard in humans.

So that’s how you can tell whether someone’s DNA is theirs.

That’s right.

Okay.

That’s right.

And matter of fact, we look at over 20 different areas.

So you and I may both have five repeats at one area just by coincidence.

But by looking at over 20 of them, we can see that’s when we see differences amongst people.

And so does this machine tell you that what’s on the screen here? So the last machine is look gives us results that look like this.

Okay, this is what DNA from this is actually a DNA mixture.

And when you have DNA, I’m going to switch over to this profile.

I have a couple pulled up for you.

So first of all, this is DNA from one human being.

And if you notice under each one of these little rectangles up here, those are all locations of DNA.

And I told you we look at over 20 of them.

So each one of these is like an address, right? And the maximum number of peaks you’re going to see is two because you get half your DNA from your mom and half from your dad.

So typically, so this first number is this person has 16 repeats at this location and 17 repeats at the other like I showed you.

And if you notice here, you have a single peak.

Well, the reason is is that mom gave you a piece of DNA that has 16 repeats and so did dad.

So sometimes you get the same number of repeats.

So the maximum number of peaks that you’re going to see is either two or one.

This is how we know when we have a mixture because I’m going to show you what a mixture.

But also I want to point out a few other things.

We also know if we have DNA from a male or a female.

So in this case because the suspect is male and we know he’s male from the video that’s been provided, they’re going to be queued into this right away.

They’re going to be looking to see did we recover male DNA.

In addition, this is what a DNA mixture looks like.

So now notice this got this looks a lot busier, right? And now notice I have four peaks here.

So when we heard it was mixed DNA from inside Nancy.

That’s what this looks like.

That’s exactly what this looks like.

And this is um a a sample that we used in our research.

And this is a mixture of two people.

And does this make it harder? Yes.

Yes.

Now much harder.

Yeah, it can be.

So let me show you.

I’ll show you an this is an example where it’s difficult.

You would think that the 15 and the 16 go together and that’s the profile from one person and the other one is a 1718.

And we have ways of mathematically breaking that down.

If you notice, you look over here, notice these peaks are about half the size of those other taller peaks.

Sometimes there’s enough of a difference in height you can tell them apart.

But, and let me show you an extreme example of that.

So notice I told you you can have a maximum of two peaks.

And at first this may look like it’s DNA from one person, right? Because you’ve got two, one, two.

But look at here.

I’ve got two tall peaks and I’ve got this dinky little 10 peak there.

That’s the the that’s the first sign I’ve got a mixture.

And because there’s such a drastic difference, I know that this strong profile belongs to one person and this little dinky profile belongs to somebody else.

So when there’s a drastic difference between people, you can really tell them apart.

So when you heard there was a mixture from the DNA they found in NY’s house.

Yes.

Is that I mean it seemed like a real challenge.

What was going in your mind? Were you thinking oh no? Well in my mind I was thinking how much DNA did each person contribute? And so in this example you see there’s an extreme amount.

You see that this person probably makes up about um 90% of the mixture.

This person makes up about 10% of the mixture.

So, what I wanted to know is how many people were there because I’m showing you a nice mixture that has two people.

These are called simple mixtures.

When you get to mixtures of three and four and five people, those are called complex mixtures.

So, it depends on how how many people are there to begin with and then how much DNA did each each person put into that.

I could have 90% of the DNA be from one person and maybe only five be from the other two people.

So when you when you’re dealing with very small amounts of DNA, it can become very complex and very difficult to parse that out.

Especially if you don’t have enough information where I only have a couple peaks.

If I only have a couple peaks like I’m showing you here, I’ve only got one.

And look, look at this extreme peak here.

This could be what they’re seeing is a lot of DNA from a female and a very small amount.

That little Y peak there, that’s male DNA.

So, does it just take more time when it’s complex? It can take more time.

Is that the issue? Or it can take more DNA.

And so, you basically are at the mercy of whatever the suspect left behind.

So, when you say it could take more DNA, like they need to go get more DNA if it’s available.

So, they may have swabbed the surface of something.

So they may have to go back and do another collection.

They may have to rerun it.

They may only have that amount of DNA.

They may have collected as much as they possibly could from the very outset and this is all they have to work with.

And what if that’s the case? If that’s the case and they don’t have enough of a DNA profile to put into COTUS, then you’re stuck.

And then that might be where they switch over to investigative genetic genealogy if perhaps that would assist them in in in their investigation.

But if there’s a mixture of three people or four people or even five or even more, you’re getting to a level of complexity that will not lend itself to investigative genetic genealogy.

So it just depends on what did the DNA come off of, how many people are there, do you have enough DNA to work with? And so that’s going to those are all going to be factors that are going to play into how much they’re able to utilize that sample.

Can you So, you showed me how you swab the gloves.

If we were in NY’s house, like if they’re trying to get the What would they be focusing on? How would they would they swab like shelves? I mean, how how what would that look like? I think it would depend on what the scene look like.

So, we know that the perpetrator made illegal entry into the home and so we don’t know if there was a struggle.

If there was a struggle, they may be looking at items that they think that the suspect handled or used.

Um, and so without knowing what the interior of the scene looked like, it would be difficult, but they would be focusing on items that the suspect used.

One of the questions I have is how did he make entry into the home and did he use any tools to get into the home? Did he injure himself on the way in? It’s quite common when people break into homes or businesses that they injure themselves because they’re using tools and they’re using a lot of force.

So in this case, when they saw the blood at the threshold of the front door, they may have thought that that blood belonged to the suspect, that he could have injured himself when he went into the home.

And that you were telling me that would have been a very good thing.

That would have been a very good thing if that was his blood.

And unfortunately, um, it turned out to all be the victim’s blood.

And the reason that it would have been a good thing if it were his blood is we would have had his DNA profile and the primary focus is to figure out who he is and to find his identity and also to find Miss Guthrie.

So finding Miss Guthrie and knowing his identity are going to go hand in hand.

Tell me again what are the best way like you said blood is the best like what are the the best forms of DNA? So this is a good question.

So we focus on body fluids that are very rich in DNA.

So blood, semen, and saliva are usually the three body fluids that we prefer as forensic scientists that come in as evidence.

Now, because our techniques are so sensitive with very small amounts of DNA, we can get results from just skin cells, but it depends on how long somebody either handled something or wore it and left their skin cells behind.

the longer they wear something, the more opportunity they have to leave their skin cells behind.

But if we had if we had a list of preferences, we always want to start with those body fluids that are rich in DNA because they have the highest chance of giving us DNA results.

And that’s what we’re going to focus on.

And if you in this case, you saw that that they focused on the blood at the front door.

And that that’s exactly what I would have expected because it’s rich in DNA.

It’s going to give them a DNA profile.

And until they ran it, they wouldn’t have known who the blood belonged to.

One thing I noticed in the photos that they released from the front door is, you know, the suspect was obviously covered up, but wasn’t wearing a mask.

And you mentioned saliva.

Saliva.

If if he was in the house yelling or, you know, when you spit comes out or whatever and it goes on a table or on the counter, would would the DNA stay there when it dries and everything? Yes, it would stay there.

half of the battle would be knowing that it was there and locating it, right? Um, so there may be things if there there are certain things that we look at at crime scenes depending on what the alleged allegation was.

So they knew that there was blood at the front door, so they knew somebody was injured.

They just didn’t know who.

So they would have run that blood right away.

But there could be other items in the house.

They could have been looking for burglary tools, things of that nature.

We know from the footage that he’s wearing a ball of clava.

They could have been looking for that.

If he had shed that mask somewhere, we would definitely be swabbing that because he would have left saliva around the mouth of that.

But the fact that he wasn’t wearing a mask over his mouth and nose.

Is that a very good thing? Um, it is a good thing, but knowing where he was at inside the home would be very difficult.

So just because he was in there breathing and spit was coming out, that doesn’t tell us much about they can’t check the whole house.

They can look, but unless he spit a lot, they’re not going to see a large quantity and it’s not going to flues the way we would see with other body fluids where you have a large amount.

Like if somebody were to spit on somebody and there was a sizable amount, we would be able to see that with a light source with like a a black light kind of.

Is that Yeah.

Yeah.

we call sometimes are called an alternate light source or a forensic light source.

Um we actually had a case one time where um a homicide victim they thought she had seen on her back but when he dumped her body he spit on her as one last um disrespectful action and they could see it because it was such a large amount.

So really what we’re talking about is quantity.

How much did they leave behind? So, knowing what the scene looked like on the inside and if there were any indications that they could figure out anything that he handled or touched or used while he was inside the home would be helpful.

Just based on your experience, I mean, you’ve seen the the video of him outside.

We know he was inside the house, we think, for 40 minutes.

Do you think they were able to find something inside that would have his DNA on it? I would Yes.

I would be hopeful that they found at least a few items of evidence because by virtue of the fact he’s in a home he doesn’t belong in, he is going to leave some of his DNA behind.

Now, he’s obviously taking measures to try and avoid leaving his DNA behind.

He’s wearing gloves.

He’s wearing a mask.

Um, but it but we know we know scientifically that they will leave behind traces of their DNA.

It’s just a matter of locating it and finding it.

Are you surprised it’s taking this long? No, I’m not actually.

It’s actually been moving at a very rapid pace.

Um because they ran that blood immediately.

When that all came back to match the victim, then they found themselves in the position of having to go back and submit additional items of evidence for testing.

And so when they worked the blood, they wouldn’t have known what the results were until they actually got the results back.

I’m sure they were disappointed when they it all came back to match the victim in this case because now they had to go back and find additional items inside that home to submit.

Um, and so that’s what’s it it’s part of this process of working items, seeing what the results are, and then if the results aren’t helpful, working more items of evidence to try and advance the investigation.

Do you think it’ll be a DNA that ultimately solves the Nancy Guthrie case? I hope it is.

I hope it is.

Yes, I do.

Yes.

And I’ve had cases.

I’ve worked cold cases.

I worked a cold case from 1981 down in Puma County that was a Jane Doe who was unidentified and a homicide victim.

And I worked that case in 2006 and it was from 1981.

And the DNA in that case single-handedly made the difference in figuring out her identity and who had perpetrated that crime.

Wow.

And so yes, DNA, and to your point about if DNA is left behind, yes, it could be left behind in very, very small quantities.

Sometimes half the battle is just finding where it’s located in a crime scene like at NY’s.

I mean, do they do they swab everything and then they go and now if they need more, they’re they’re checking those same items again that they now have in the lab or do you know what I mean? If they’re saying, “Gosh, we need more DNA now.

” What do they do? Well, it depends on what what the item is.

So, um I’m just going to take an example.

This is not related to the case, but let’s say you had a drinking container.

So, let’s say you had a glass and they swabbed the mouth of the glass where somebody would have put their lips and drink from that glass.

If they didn’t get enough DNA, they may go back to that item and swab it again to try and pick up more DNA.

Um, so it just depends.

So, they’re not going to randomly go through the house and indiscriminately start swabbing everything.

They’re going to be looking for items that either flues or things that they know the suspect may have used while he was at the scene.

Um, it just depends on what that scene looked like.

And if you think about it, when the investigator went into that home, were there items out of place? Were there things um that seemed they were associated with a struggle? You know, there are things like that that they would be queued into to be looking for.

And they’ve been very careful not to say what the inside of the house was like.

Yes.

And what I You think that’s by design? I do.

I think that the reason that they haven’t discussed it is, and this is not uncommon, that sometimes there are facts associated with the case that only the suspect would know.

And so investigators may hold on to that information so that when they go to confront that individual at the time of investigation or arrest that these are facts that only the suspect would know and it would be confirmation.

And also if you put that information out in the public domain, you could have people coming forward that have absolutely nothing to do with that case trying to take credit or gain some sort of notoriety.

So there may be facts that they’re keeping very tight to the vest because only the suspect would know.

We see the detectives out there, you know, when we’re out at the house and you can it’s a hard job.

I mean, it’s very hot and they’ve been working it out.

It’s been 40 days when we’re doing this interview.

But for the the scientists behind the scenes like what you’ve done for so long, I mean, are are they also really invested? I mean, is does it get frustrating for them? Because I mean, they’re they’re just as involved as anybody else.

We just never see them, I guess.

So, I think that when you have a case like this that has notoriety, um there’s always an awareness that there is a time factor.

It wouldn’t be surprising to me that all of the samples in this case have been expedited, meaning that the lab that did the work that they were waiting for the evidence to come in and that would be the only evidence they would be working on and so that it would take priority.

And given the nature of the disappearance of Miss Guthrie, time is of the essence.

So it would not surprise me if the lab was waiting for that evidence to be received so that they could get working on it right away.

So that would be my expectation.

Um but in addition to that, one of the things about forensic science is that we take precautions for any and all items of evidence.

So it becomes a series of scientific procedures and steps.

So they would be conducting themselves in the same exact manner they did for any item of evidence, which was to be cautious, to prevent contamination, to implement all of those quality control uh mechanisms that we have so that the evidence stands up in a court of law and stands up to scrutiny.

So So that would be standard for the forensic scientist.

That would not change.

But what probably was different is that that lab was waiting to receive those items of evidence and they would get to working on it immediately.

You know, he had the flashlight in his mouth in that one photo.

What does that say to you? How could that be helpful for DNA? Yes.

As a forensic corologist, I would have queued into that immediately and said that is a great source of DNA.

So, I would have asked, did they recover that flashlight? Because I would want to swab the end of that flashlight that was in his mouth where he was depositing saliva on it because I know from the video that he’s got it in his mouth, he’s leaving saliva behind and that’s a really strong source of DNA.

So, I would have been queued into that right away.

So, I would be looking for that flashlight to see if he left it at the scene.

Is there anything else? And I know you haven’t been able to be inside of the house.

None of us have, but is there anything else that has piqu your interest when you said you would have been queued in on in the flashlight? Anything else you’ve seen that you thought, “Oh gosh, that could be good.

” Yes, I would have.

Well, not that I’m aware of, but I would be asking questions, and these are the normal questions I would be asking an investigator as well, is I would want to know, is there blood on the inside of the home? And I would want to take a representative sampling and test any items of blood.

We know the blood at the front door belongs to Miss Guthrie, but you know, sometimes in cases you have multiple people who are bleeding and you select multiple blood stains to run in an effort to try and find the per the profile from different individuals.

So, we know that the blood at the front door is hers, but if there’s other blood inside the home, I would definitely want to test that.

Um, and sometimes it’s very difficult if there’s a lot of blood.

It’s difficult to know which stains to test because they may all be from the same person.

Um, and sometimes that’s just the randomness of it and testing it.

Um, we also look at blood stain patterns in to help assist us in selecting those stains that we think may come from one individual versus another.

Um, I can think of multiple cases where when we look at clothing, we would we would select blood stains from different parts of of a shirt, for example.

Um, because, you know, if somebody’s got their hands up in a defensive mode, you know, they may get blood from the perpetrator here.

So, you know, it just depends on what they have to work with at the scene, what they saw when they entered the home.

So, we know they’ve been swabbing DNA from people like in the mouth from people that they’ve uh been suspicious of like when they’ve done search warrants and stuff.

I’ve been out there and I know that they’ve done that.

Yes.

So, then do they compare that against what they found in the house? Is that what they’re doing? Yes.

If they have a sufficient profile from an item of evidence.

So, let’s take um an example not related to this case.

Let’s say you have um blood left at a scene and you have a nice DNA profile from a perpetrator.

You would take what you’re referring to the swab of the inside of the mouth.

It’s called a buckle swab.

And those cells on the inside of the mouth are kept in really great condition because they’re kept moist with your saliva.

So instead of collecting blood from a suspect, we always collect um what’s called a buckle swab.

Um it’s fast, it’s painfree, it’s easy to collect.

Um and so that’s pretty standard for a collection from a suspect.

So yes, they would generate a profile from the buckle swab and compare it to any profile that they had developed from evidence at the scene.

What if they haven’t and we don’t know, but what if they haven’t developed a profile from evidence at the scene, which it kind of seems like maybe the case based on these comments they’re making.

Oh, it’s mixed and we’re having issues.

Would they then just be holding on to the DNA profiles from all the buckle swabs? I suspect that they would not be collecting buckle swabs if they didn’t have at least some evidence to make a comparison because that would be a feudal effort.

So, if they’re going through the trouble of collecting buckle swabs, they must have something to compare to.

It might be a weak DNA profile.

Maybe it’s weak and they can’t put it into the DNA database, but maybe it’s enough of a profile that they can they can make some comparisons.

Interesting.

So, even if it’s if it’s too weak to put into the database, it could still be good enough for direct comparisons.

sure if they’re able to pull out a DNA profile.

So, it kind of goes back to this idea of mixtures of DNA mixtures.

So, just as a review, DNA mixtures are samples that have DNA from multiple people, at least two, and sometimes it can be more.

It can be three or four or five people or even more than that.

But, um, so it’s DNA that’s mixed together.

And so, they haven’t told us about the DNA mixture.

I don’t know how many people are in the mixture that they suspect.

and we don’t know how much DNA is from one person versus another.

So, if they’re collecting buckle swabs from suspects, they must have something to work with.

I just don’t know the strength of it.

It might be weak.

And just my last question, how quickly is the science changing? Like, if if they let’s say with this sample they got from the house, it’s got too many mixtures and you know, it’s not a great sample.

Is the science changing quickly enough that like in years suddenly it would be an okay sample? Oh, it’s the technology is always advancing and you’re seeing it in real time right now with investigative genetic genealogy because we’ve talked quite a bit about the type of testing that goes on in a forensic crime laboratory.

But then if you’ve noticed they switch gears and they start talking about investigative genetic genealogy and you and if we look at the history of that the most famous case is the Golden State Killer case.

There were actually cases that came before that, but because of the magnitude of that case, it caught um national attention.

But you saw in cases where you had evidence from the 70s and the 80s where they went back to those cold cases and they worked that evidence and they did genealogical testing.

And so you saw it and now what you’re seeing is this evolution where instead of on one end of the spectrum applying it to cold cases now they’re also applying it to very immediate contemporary cases and we saw this in the Moscow Idaho murders.

They So you have in that scenario the suspect in that case he was so young he had not committed a crime and he was not in the US criminal database.

So they were unable to learn his identity.

So they switched gears to investigative genetic genealogy and he left blood on the knife sheath at that scene.

And with that blood they did genetic genealogy where they did the same testing you would do if you did went to ancestry.

com 23 andme familytree DNA any of those testing services.

And then they learned his identity by looking at genealological records.

And if you look at that case, they had eyes on him within six weeks.

That’s a very quick turnaround time.

So you have a case where you had an unknown suspect and within six weeks they’ve identified him.

Yeah.

So you’re seeing this evolution, right, where you had cold cases, people that had committed crimes a long time ago that would have never been in the criminal database because the criminal database didn’t come into an existence until 1998.

So, could there already be people they have eyes on because of the DNA that we just don’t know about? Sure.

It’s quite possible because of the genetic genealogy.

It’s possible, but if they did, they would be making an arrest.

I think I think we would see and and that might be something that unfolds as time goes on.

We might see that play out.

That’s one possibility.

Does DNA ever give you a instead of giving you one person, does it give you a group of people ever where you’re like, “Oh gosh, we’ve got 20 people we have to keep an eye on or does it usually pinpoint it?” Well, you can look at the Golden State Killer case as um a great example where when they it depends on when they do the search because let’s backtrack a little bit and talk about investigative genetic genealogy.

Instead of getting an exact match in the US criminal database, instead in investigative genetic genealogy, we’re looking to find a match to a relative.

Now, that relative, it depends on how close they are related to somebody.

If you have a close relationship, like a sibling, a parent, or a child, you’re going to find that individual very rapidly.

But let’s say you have a match to a fourth or a fifth cousin.

By building these family trees in the Golden State Killer case, they identified it back to a set of it was either I believe it was a set of great grandparents from Italy.

So they had to build those family trees out and they had identified eight descendants that fit the the right age, the the right sex.

He was male, right? And then he could have he could have been one of the possible descendants from this couple.

And so they collected DNA samples from all those individuals.

Matter of fact, if you go back to some of the old news, they talked about there was an individual in a nursing home that they collected a sample from because he was a descendant of that that couple as well.

And so they ruled people out individually.

What’s interesting is if you watch U.

Barbara Ventner’s interview, there’s a little tool that she used that predicts eye color.

And they predicted he’d have a blue eye color, which he does.

Um, and out of all those descendants, he was the only one with the blue eye color, which is just incidental, but also shows you that there are all of these little tools that by looking at your DNA, there’s information embedded in it.

So interesting.

Right.

And so so you can see that they can narrow it down.

Sometimes you have um a situation where I have there’s um a case that I worked on that I can’t talk about that used investigative genetic genealogy.

It’s making its way through the courts right now.

Um, but that individual matched to a very close relative and um, it turns out that his only sibling was a female, so we knew it had to be him.

So, it just depends.

So, it can help narrow it down.

Yes.

And it can narrow it down significantly.

So, it depends on are we looking for a male or a female and how many how many um, siblings did they have? You know, if you only have one male and it it’s the only intersection of these two families, you it may be very easy.

Sometimes it’s really difficult.

You may have lots of descendants.

So, it just depends on each family and each family tree.

Really appreciate April for taking the time to to talk with me and everybody at Arizona State University.

Um, again, just really an eye-opening look sort of behind the scenes at at how all of this DNA stuff works, which it’s complicated, but she did a really good job of just breaking it down and making it understandable, especially in relation to some of the issu relation to some of the issues that we know are happening with the Nancy Guthrie case.

Um, so again, I appreciate it.

We drove out to Phoenix, Mo and I, um, to uh to to to meet her and appreciate her for for showing us all of that.

Um, something else that’s interesting.

I reported it a couple days ago, but it was just picked up by some other outlets about, which I just wanted to say again because I think it was just in the New York Post that I reported this, but that at the uh the Mexican restaurant where Savannah went in that latest uh episode of the Today’s Show where she did the segment with her mom Nancy and they kind of toured Tucson.

They went to this Mexican restaurant and I have been able to confirm that authorities have reached out to that restaurant trying to find out if there was anyone unusual that was there when they were doing the taping, anyone that stood out, anyone that was lingering around too long or trying to take too many pictures, that kind of thing.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve told you guys that a couple of times before, but I did notice that some other people just started reporting it today.

So, I wanted to just remind you guys of that, which does go back to a theory that we’ve talked about a lot.

um you know, could this be a Savannah stalker? Some kind of person who’s obsessed with Savannah? And that’s sort of what this all relates back to, which I think is still a very real possibility here, although there’s a lot of possibilities.

It’s kind of crazy that we’re in day 41 and we still um we still don’t really know, but I’ll keep you guys posted with any developments.

Again, some days have been really slow.

Uh but the last 24 hours with what we learned about the cameras, uh FBI finally being able to access the cameras at the house, the additional cameras, and then also the sheriff doing a new interview.

Uh there’s been some interesting developments.

So, we’ll see what happens over the weekend.

If anything develops, I’ll keep you guys posted.