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Laura Coates Live
Police Activity Tied To Guthrie's Case Underway Near Nancy Guthrie's Home. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired February 13, 2026 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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AMBER RUFFIN, COMEDIAN, "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": He ruined -- he ruined it. He ruined it. And I'm so mad at him.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD JR.: But I would counter Amber that maybe he wouldn't have gotten bronze without cheating. Maybe he should have cheated more.
UNKNOWN: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
UNKNOWN: Yes.
WOOD JR.: And he'd have got that gold.
MICHAEL IAN BLACK, COMEDIAN, "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": It would be -- it would be very funny if she goes out tonight and (bleep) somebody who won a silver medal.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You can catch an all-new episode tomorrow at 9 p.m. on CNN and the next day on the CNN app. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." Our Saturday round table "Table for Five" is at 10 a.m. Eastern. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS NANOS, SHERIFF, PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We have some DNA, and we don't know who's it is.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Denying reports that he blocked the FBI from accessing key evidence.
NANOS: I would never. Why would I do that?
UNKNOWN (voice-over): More than 30,000 tips in the case so far. NANOS: Today, we've gone out 5, 10 miles because we found a glove. Everybody is finding gloves.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): These captors, they didn't expect. There are many eyes on them.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): True crime influencers swarming to Tucson to -- quote, unquote -- "cover this case."
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Someone out there knows who that man is.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think progress has been made.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Do you think Nancy Guthrie will be found?
NANOS: Yes, I believe she'll be found.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Welcome to a special edition of "Laura Coates Live: The Search for Nancy Guthrie." Right now, we've learned there's some police activity about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. It's not clear what exactly is unfolding or how significant it is, but we are sending our team there to check it out, and we'll give you an update as soon as they get there. But tonight, there is some major news in the case. The sheriff leading the investigation is telling CNN they've got DNA evidence.
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NANOS: We have DNA. So, trust me, if we knew who it was, we'd be on it. But we do have some DNA. And we'll continue to work with those, with the lab, on that DNA analysis.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And that was from the house?
NANOS: I'm -- I'm not telling you where it was. We have DNA.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Will it bring police any closer to finding who abducted Nancy Guthrie, who has now been missing for 13 days? In just a moment, our reporters and law enforcement experts will explain exactly what investigators are doing to find out who that DNA belongs to.
The sheriff also told CNN's Ed Lavandera they are chasing down tens of thousands of leads, and I do mean literally tens of thousands. Local police got nearly 5,000 calls just in the first couple hours after the doorbell camera video was released showing a suspect on her front porch the night that she was taken. The sheriff says they're running down those tips one by one, and it has led them to find multiple items that they are now testing for the DNA I mentioned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NANOS: This glove was found the other day, and it was found by a search team. That's their job, is to go out and search that area and expand that search. But it was two miles away from the house. And it was a tip. It was a lead. Today, we've gone out 5, 10 miles because we found a glove. Everybody is finding gloves. We got gloves 10 miles out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: But back at Nancy Guthrie's home, this is what got a lot of attention today. Workers carrying out maintenance on her pool. The manager of the crew says it was their first time there. And police say the cleaning, well, that was at the request of the Guthrie family. And the sheriff says the family has been nothing but cooperative during the investigation. But when he was asked point blank whether they had been cleared, this is what he said.
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NANOS: The evidence will take us there if that's the case. Right now, we are working close with that family. And yes, our hearts go out to them.
UNKNOWN: So, they are not cleared as of now?
NANOS: Nobody is cleared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: I want to start with Ed Lavandera, who is live for us in Tucson. Ed, tell me, what did that sheriff tell you about this DNA that they've recovered?
LAVANDERA: Well, you know, Laura, this is the first time we've been able to speak with the sheriff since late last week. So, the development or the confirmation that some DNA evidence had been collected on the property here at the Guthrie home was rather significant. And it is significant because, you know, they've collected DNA evidence, obviously, from the Guthrie family, landscapers, people who had direct access to the home, caretakers, that sort of thing. And this DNA does not appear to match any of those people. So, it's from an unknown source. So, we asked them specifically if they believe this is the suspect's DNA.
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The sheriff wouldn't say exactly that because there are some, you know, scenarios where it could just be -- there could be another explanation for it. But it was significant that they have some sort of DNA. So, if there is someone who is taken into custody, it sounds like they have something to compare it to to try to draw a connection there between any potential future suspect and what they have from evidence here on the property.
COATES: You know, the sheriff says that they've gotten a flood of tips after the release of that doorbell video. But what about the other cameras that were inside of Nancy Guthrie's home? Any updates there?
LAVANDERA: No, but there was a little bit of insight that I thought also was interesting from our conversation with the sheriff. Remember, you know, it took -- what? Ten days to access the video from that doorbell camera and, you know, using private entities to try to resurrect that video that was kind of -- on a backend system is what we were told.
But we were also told that there are multiple cameras on the property. And I asked the sheriff if the similar work that was done to get the front doorbell camera video resurrected, if that was being done for the other cameras as well, and the sheriff said they're trying.
So, it is possible, if they're able to pull off the exact same thing that they did with the other camera, that there could be even more videos from the property or perhaps inside the home that investigators could have at some point.
COATES: Just think of how many tips are generated from the outdoor camera tips and, of course, the video. Imagine what other jigsaw piece puzzles could be coming together. Ed, I mean, the sheriff, he has been optimistic from the very beginning, frankly, that they will figure this out, that they will bring Nancy Guthrie home. Did you sense any change in that optimism or attitude?
LAVANDERA: I didn't. You know, that's -- I think that's probably the nature of law enforcement investigators in a situation like this. They're not -- they're not going to give up hope, and they don't have any reason to believe otherwise. At this point, there's no evidence that suggests that. So, I think they clearly want to do as much as they can to keep that hope going.
But the sheriff did acknowledge, you know, this investigation has been a roller coaster. Many ups and downs. So, kind of keeping that energy and positivity going and that hopefulness going, I would imagine, is incredibly difficult, especially for no other people than the Guthrie family themselves, as you can probably imagine.
COATES: Ed, this is every day. Optimism is what people are holding on to.
LAVANDERA: Yes.
COATES: Opt and hope. Thank you so much. Please stand by. I'm here to break down the latest investigative threads with me. Former members of the FBI, retired FBI special agent Michael Harrigan and also former FBI counterintelligence operative Eric O'Neill joining me as well.
First, let me begin with you. You heard from the top of the show that there is some police activity that's happening about two miles from her home. That radius is interesting because, of course, two miles from that was where they saw there was a glove at some point. There was located DNA testing, as you know, happening. And it was live pictures of what's going on right now when you see at least one off -- one person out in the area. Any insight, you think, as to what this could pretend in that radius? MICHAEL HARRIGAN, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Absolutely. I think what
you have here, Laura, is as the case goes on, as it ages here, the case spreads out in concentric circles further and further out. So, they start to consider evidence that may be as a result of tips or other information that may lead them to extend that perimeter of search.
So, I think that's natural in this case, is that, as the sheriff alluded to, some of the gloves that come in from 10 miles away, likely a lot of those will be totally non-relevant.
But you want the public to provide those tips. Even if the public thinks that it's not going to be helpful, you want them to call in, provide those tips, and then law enforcement is going to give it the weight it deserves.
COATES: The concentric circles are important to me because this is about two miles from her home. And there's a lot that have been made about revisiting the actual home multiple times. And you heard from many people who -- they really, you know, had issues with the fact that it had been a reopened crime scene. But revisiting a scene was not unheard of. The idea that this is an area outside, but still looked at again, even these days later, does that surprise you that they're revisiting or looking at areas even miles away?
ERIC O'NEILL, FORMER FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE: No, not at all. In fact, what's happening is they're looking deeper into the neighborhood. And the neighborhood is a war in the streets. It's a complicated area.
And I suspect what the FBI and law enforcement is looking for is some -- some sort of camera, which is why they're asking people for their ring and home camera footage to go back in time. And there are two specific dates they're looking at.
So, they know something they're not telling us and asking people to look for the footage because I suspect they have some sort of evidence or tip that the criminals were casing the area earlier. And so, they're trying to figure out where they were in the neighborhood because getting in and out of there is really difficult.
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And if you're a smart criminal, you're not using your phone in GPS because the FBI can track that later using -- every phone ping off a cell tower, right? So, it's not perfectly accurate, but you can get a sense of where someone was when. So, they're going to have to figure their way in and their way out, their ingress and egress, after they commit the crime, and that leaves a record if someone caught it on camera.
COATES: And that's important, too, because we've heard a lot about, you know, Ring cameras. You know, obviously, kind of the generic way of thinking about what another house could pick up on. But you're right, I mean, to get from point A to point B, you're likely going to pass things that are maybe municipality-owned. You're talking about private businesses, gas stations, for example, other businesses that might be in the area.
If a person had to make their way to the area, walk me through the way in which officers are going to try to eliminate people. Obviously, they're going to ask for the cars of every neighbor that's there. They know what cars are supposed to be there. But trying to decipher which should not, what does that look like?
HARRIGAN: Well, I think what you have here is when you look at a case like this, the amount of data that's coming in, both from electronic means and also from human intelligence where people are calling in and providing information, the hard part is the analytical process. They've got to go through -- like you said, they've got to go through each of those cars that are seen on camera. They have to establish who belongs to that car or who the car belongs to and see if they were supposed to be there or not.
So, when you look at the crush of that kind of data there, I mean, that's incredible. You're talking gigabytes, likely of electronic data, of recordings, of tips, all this stuff coming in. So, the teams behind the scenes have to grind through this.
COATES: But for the FBI's presence. Could a local law enforcement or entity do that on their own?
HARRIGAN: Likely not. When a case gets this big, what you have is, from Quantico, you have crisis management specialists.
COATES: OK.
HARRIGAN: And each field office has these. And they're specially trained and equipped to go into major cases and provide a kind of a coordinating tool. They bring all these leads together, they work with the investigators, and they help to disseminate leads out so that leads get to the investigators and get prioritized, because if you're looking at 20,000 leads here, someone has to prioritize that because you're not going to have 20,000, you know, 20,000 investigators here, you're going to have a limited number, and they have to figure out which leads are important.
So, that database and the way they organize that is very important. That's what the bureau brings.
COATES: Yes.
HARRIGAN: The core and the point of this is still going to be the sheriff's department. That's their city, that's their county.
COATES: Right.
HARRIGAN: But the bureau is there to assist.
COATES: Speaking of the sheriff, we are learning that we may get an update from the sheriff's office about the activity that's happening right now. From what we're looking at, you're seeing live pictures out there right now of what's on the scene. There's the sheriff of Pima County, obviously, truck that's there. There are some cones. We are seeing already, of course, the lights in the distance that are happening there.
But also, it seems to be -- I think that this is a residential area of some sorts we're looking at. One thing that we have noticed, and I think I'm seeing, is that rain that's happening in the area as well, which, you know, you had mentioned, Eric, in the past that can complicate it. The terrain itself, the topography of the area, all things complex for the average person to understand how to navigate. The darkness --
O'NEILL: Right.
COATES: -- the vast expanse of space, and now the weather. These things can really make time of the essence.
O'NEILL: Yes, time was always in the essence of the case. I mean, this is a case where someone was abducted, kidnapped, and the hope is, of course, that she's still alive and out there somewhere. So, this isn't a case where you can have a slow burn. You can do a lot of careful forensics. You actually have to move quickly in order to preserve that life. And so, time is an enemy here, especially when weather comes in. It can destroy trails.
When you have all these different people moving through the property, you know, the sheriff did make a mistake in opening up the crime scene. And then, of course, they quickly closed it again, I think, before the FBI came in because they wanted to do more forensics. The FBI sends drones over the property, and they find spaces that they never thought to look at. And so, that's why they were back and looking at all these different places. So, what they want to do is move quickly.
And look, in the last two days, this case has really progressed. We've got the video footage, which gives you an impression of the person. Now, you have the height, you have the approximate weight, you can do a gait analysis, you can do a facial structure analysis.
We have a backpack. So, now, they're looking at every Walmart, I guarantee you, and pulling the transaction records from every single person who bought one of those Ozark backpacks from a local Walmart and then tracking them down.
And then like we spoke earlier, they're using traffic cameras. Everyone who has a Ring camera is uploading to the Ring app, and Ring is sending that data to the sheriff's office. You can take data from whatever home security camera you have and upload that to the sheriff's office.
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That's going to the FBI's crisis management team.
COATES: Yes.
O'NEILL: They are probably using A.I. to try to cut through some of the noise there. And I'm -- they've got to be close to some leads. COATES: Well, we also are learning -- I want to share with everyone a map just so you understand how close we are to the area of Nancy Guthrie's home. The law enforcement activity is not that far away. We're talking within two miles. And, obviously, you see, there's some of the meandering paths that it takes to get from the main roads that appear to be, you know, more than two or three lanes all the way over to Nancy Guthrie's home. So even to enter where her home is, it is a navigation. But the fact that that area is closer to what looks to be more of a high traffic area -- I saw an officer stopping someone and then putting a cone back in place to show that they are confining whoever is supposed to be in that area.
But pull up that map. We have a map on the right here, people. Looking at this map, Michael, this is not so far away as to make an exploration of this area obsolete. This is still very close.
HARRIGAN: Absolutely. You know, you look at that area and look at all the houses in there and all the streets. So, there's a lot of -- it seems to be a pretty dense concentration of residences and potential paths here. A person could drive any which way out of here. There are many feeder roads in there.
So, I think what's happening here is as they get tips from the public, someone may have seen something thrown out of the vehicle or they saw something along the side of the road that to them catches their attention. Well, they have to go out, take a look at that item, potentially collect the item, and then send it for processing.
So, considering that, and it's a major area, it's not like this is a very rural area where there's like -- she didn't live on a road where there's -- you know, houses are miles apart here. You know, there's a lot of potential avenues here for them to look. In a lot of places, evidence or instrumentalities of the crime could have been discarded along the way, anywhere in there.
COATES: That's especially -- again, we have an officer who seems to be checking who's there. There are also law enforcement vehicles. But that discarding part, this has been really fascinating for people who have been looking at this intently, and that is when somebody has planned what it appears to be a crime and has been able to evade authorities for as long as this person has, short of the recovery of residual data, the surveillance footage from that camera, many would think how bizarre it would be to simply discard a glove or discard some aspect of your clothing or otherwise and not maybe have a more finite way of destroying it.
But those are exactly the moments sometimes that people can become, when they're emboldened as criminals, can make those sorts of mistakes believing, hey, I'm outside of this radius, they're never going to suspect this. And these are the kinds of mistakes or kinds of moments that law enforcement investigators are going to hone in on and wait for.
O'NEILL: You're exactly right. And some of these cases are broken because criminals make mistakes. Criminals make mistakes. They have to do everything perfect all the time. And it's that one mistake that investigators pounce on. We are looking for mistakes. We're looking for that error they make that gives us help like leaving DNA somewhere on the crime scene. The sheriff said they found it. We don't know where he found it, but that's very useful. If it's not the family and it's not someone who worked in that home, it could be one of the perpetrators.
Then you find other evidence somewhere else, like maybe one of those gloves. And if you compare it, you say, look, the glove was here, it has the same DNA evidence as what we found in the house or the garage or near the pool or wherever they found it. But all of these are great clues.
Now, I mean, they did a pretty good job at getting away with it for 13 days. Do I think that as they're driving away, they threw a glove out the window? Probably not. But they could have dropped it by accident as they were trying to move Mrs. Guthrie. You know, it's not always easy to move a person who doesn't want to be moved.
COATES: I just want to remind people that there was an incident earlier in the week. And remember, this week has been a whirlwind of activity, which otherwise has been excruciating for the limbo that the Guthrie family has experienced, where they detained somebody. They actually executed a search warrant on someone's home. That person was later released after questioning and said in interviews that he was told his eyes or his eyelashes resembled the person who was depicted, who is now a suspect inside of that video. So, there are instances where even law enforcement as diligent and optimistic and productive cannot have a lead come into fruition.
But here, the idea again that we've got this police activity underway that's two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home, and this is coming after that crowdsourcing of information. Do you view the crowdsourcing, the increase of the reward, the sort of limbo that we've been seeing, is that a sign of weakness on behalf of the investigators or do you think that the public is not privy to the underlying iceberg?
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HARRIGAN: I think you hit the nail on the head there, Laura. I think it's absolutely that the public is not privy here to what's going on. And in these cases, life hangs in the balance, directly. And this is the most serious of law enforcement cases where you have somebody who could become a homicide victim or already has been, but the last indication you have is she was alive. So, with the life hanging in the balance, law enforcement has to go through a very quick analysis of actionable leads and aggressively pursue them.
So, when you have a person who is indicated that could be connected through an eyewitness report or some data points to this person, may have been a delivery driver, you have to go heavy on that, and that includes a search warrant, obtaining of evidence. And luckily, in this place, it worked. It worked. He was excluded, and they moved on. But they can't leave any stone unturned here. And that's the tough part of these cases, is they have to move quick. And so, there'll be a lot of dead ends here. But at one of these cul-de-sacs of information, there will be a solution at one point. O'NEILL: That's right.
COATES: We have Ed Lavandera, who is making his way to the scene, because I want his eyes, I want his ears there, to tell me exactly what that police activity is looking like. We're going to go to a quick break. When we come back, we'll learn more about why the police are suddenly two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Apparently, to close down parts of the road. Ed Lavandera will be on the scene to give us everything, next.
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COATES: Let's go back to CNN's Ed Lavandera, who's at the scene of the police activity about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Ed, what are you seeing
LAVANDERA: Well, right now, we're at a checkpoint in this -- this -- basically the same neighborhood as Nancy Guthrie, like less than two miles away. It took us just a few minutes to drive from when we last spoke to you at the top of the hour to get over here. Right now, the road that you see down this way goes down past this sheriff's truck and kind of bends down there. That's where the law enforcement activity is going on right now. We don't have any real clarity as to why they're here or what it is that they're finding. So, we're awaiting that.
So, we want to kind of take and proceed with a lot of caution here because, as you all know, this could turn out to be nothing, could turn out to be significant. We just don't know at this point.
Obviously, earlier this week, we saw similar kind of activity. We saw search of a home. A person taken into -- was detained and questioned after being pulled over about 50 miles south of Tucson in the town of Rio Rico.
So, we don't know if this is going to be something similar or what kind of a clearly law enforcement here pursuing leads in the Nancy Guthrie investigation, which authorities have been telling us throughout the day have been pouring into them.
COATES: Yes.
LAVANDERA: But what exactly is materializing here, we don't quite know just yet.
COATES: Ed, are there normally security checkpoints? And is this police presence higher or lower than you're normally seeing?
LAVANDERA: This is actually -- in this area, there's only, you know, one officer. They're kind of blocking off the roadway. This is where Pima County authorities here just a short while ago announced that this would be a media staging area. So, presumably, someone will come out here shortly and let us know exactly what is going on. But from this vantage point, it's very difficult to kind of see because the road goes down and kind of bends around to the side. And so, it's a little bit difficult. But right now, authorities are more concerned with kind of keeping the roadways clear.
There's obviously a huge amount of interest, and I don't think I can overstate that at all, Laura, with neighbors here in the area, especially given that this kind of activity is unfolding so close to where Nancy Guthrie lives. So, that is definitely obviously something that's causing a great deal of concerns for residents here in the neighborhood.
So, we will continue to monitor. I don't hear much from down there. It seems like it's actually rather quiet considering, you know, the magnitude of what may or may not be happening. And literally just one officer there that kind of guarding the entrance and the path down that roadway right there. Presumably, there's, you know, way more and more intense law enforcement presence as you get past that truck there that you might see in the background.
COATES: And that truck is blocking an actual roadway, a walkway. Is it a hiking trail? Are you able to see where the lights are pointed in any direction?
LAVANDERA: No, no. It's a roadway. It's like one of the roads in the neighborhood here. And actually, from where we're standing, you actually can see it. We're in the foothills just north of Tucson. So, you can actually see the city lights, you know, miles, miles down in the distance there because we're kind of sitting up high on a bluff here, if you will. So, again, you don't hear a lot of activity. It's hard to even see kind of police lights down there past the truck. Very serene up here where we're at for the moment. But we will continue to monitor that.
COATES: I find it very telling, Ed, also because this has been one of the areas people have been wondering about whether Ring cameras or other neighborhood cameras would pick things up. But even from your vantage point, given where you are, you're not seeing below a certain area, which obviously adds to the complications of being able to detect activity even for cameras that are directly across from one another.
Please stand by for us, Ed. We have a lot more questions as activity may be picking up.
[23:30:00]
Joining me now is Tiffany Roy. She is a forensic DNA expert who used to work at the company. They're actually the one that's processing the gloves and other evidence that has been found from the Guthrie case. And we don't have all the information as to the exact location of the gloves or from which location they were actually obtained. But Tiffany, as we're watching this law enforcement activity play out, we do know that DNA from the home was sent to this lab for processing. Why this lab in particular and how quickly, do you think, they're able to turn it around? TIFFANY ROY, FORENSIC DNA EXPERT: Well, Pima County has a contract with this laboratory, and they have a long working relationship with the laboratory. So, they have their own laboratory, but they also routinely send work to this lab and through their government grants, they have a relationship, they have quality support, they believe this lab does good work. So, they sent -- once Pima County was done with what they could do in-house at their laboratory, then they turn to this other laboratory to do things that were above and beyond, I think.
COATES: Many people may be more familiar, as opposed to lab in Florida, with Quantico as even a concept. The sheriff is defending his decision to send the evidence to the lab you mentioned, and not to Quantico, knowing that there is FBI presence. He says that the lab already actually has Nancy Guthrie's DNA, it has her housekeepers', it has her landscapers'. Would the FBI lab that people may know more by name, would that be more effective, you think?
ROY: I don't think there's a difference in effectiveness with the laboratories that are doing the testing because all of this stuff is being provided to these labs by the law enforcement agencies, by Pima County, by the detectives. They're providing all of the -- all of the standards, we call them standards, for people that are involved, you know, would routinely visit the Guthrie home, all of the staff, all of the people who would be expected to be there. Pima County is providing that to these laboratories that are doing the testing, whether it's the private laboratory or the FBI laboratory.
It's really just -- I think they're trying to keep their things in- house. What they could do in Pima County, they did. And then anything they needed to outsource, rather than go into the FBI, they went with the private laboratory that they've used in the past for other investigations because they had confidence in them for one reason or another.
COATES: And again, they're going to be testing wherever they see in the samples against other known profiles and otherwise in a larger database of information. Tiffany Roy, thank you so much.
ROY: No problem.
COATES: Everyone, we're watching right now live images, live video right now of an area in Tucson about two miles. Let's actually bring up the map for a second, if we can, in the corner so people know this activity is happening about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Remember, it was a two-mile radius within which a glove was found. That has now been tested for DNA. We're waiting to hear about those results. This activity is underway. Ed Lavandera is on the scene. We're learning more about what might be taking place there. Of course, the weather complicating our ability to see and, of course, the dark terrain.
Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary joins me now as well. Greg, OK, I wanted to have you on because you talked about a thing called the post-abduction behavior, and that's very important. Can you explain, first of all, what post-abduction behavior even is, and then tell me why it's so critical?
GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Right. Well, we obviously have an abduction here. So, what this means is for the offender, his normal routine has been completely disrupted. If he has this victim, he has her under control someplace, but that's totally all consuming. So, for the viewers, we want to overlay all this information. We've got the physical description, we've got the videos, the stills. And then if that looks like somebody you know, and then suddenly his behavior has changed, his normal routine has totally changed, have been disrupted since then, that would be another indication that you really need to call in that lead.
So, being aware of that, thinking about that, but also be aware that if this had been planned, that he may have provided an excuse, hey, I'm going to be out of town for a couple of days, got to see my sick aunt up in Des Moines or something like that. So, don't rule it out if you think, hey, he looks like the guy, but no, he told me he was going to be out of town, so it couldn't be him. You got to call all that information in, for sure.
COATES: That's important to think about because people don't necessarily know what they don't know. And investigators have, understandably, probably kept a lot of information closer to the vest.
[23:34:58]
In the event they do identify a suspect, they want to be able to cross reference that against what would have been known publicly and what this person may uniquely understand.
One thing that has been a fixation, has been really the only morsel people can sort of sink their teeth into, has been that surveillance footage that was reclaimed by the data. I know that one of the things you've been looking at is that backpack. And the fact that the backpack was full jumped out at you.
Talk to me about why you think that may help rule out that this was some sort of home invasion gone wrong. And I will note, we actually have the backpack, not -- the same model of it. And frankly, it can be flattened very easily. That looked to be completely full, in some respects, on that person's back, which means it was likely full of something. Why does that rule out to you that it was a home invasion?
MCCRARY: Well, it mitigates -- excuse me -- it mitigates against it because you would expect the offender to go in with an empty backpack if he's going to steal stuff. If this is a property crime, a home invasion gone bad, I'd be more likely he would carry an empty backpack in so he could put in laptops and, you know, whatever he was going to steal. But this one was completely full. There's no way he's going to get much of anything else in there.
The other thing -- excuse me -- this goes to a larger issue of trying to understand what crime it is we're investigating. So, is this a home invasion that went bad? Is this a kidnap for ransom? Could it be another motivation for a kidnapping such as a stalking-type of personality? So, we're taking the kind of the 30,000-foot view of this, but that's what you have to do at the beginning. You can't rule out any particular hypothesis. You have to develop every idea, and then compare it against the evidence until you can rule something out or rule something in.
So, looking at the home invasion, I mean, most burglars do not want a confrontation. So, they go into unoccupied dwellings. Many times, they're daytime burglaries because people are at work. But going in at almost 2 o'clock in the morning, you're almost guaranteed to find somebody in the residence. Plus, he's going in with a gun and the backpack is full. So that, to me, tends to indicate that it might not be just a home invasion.
But the other thing they would be doing investigatively is to look for any prior similar crimes. And by that, I mean any other home invasions, especially at night, because this could be -- if so, this could be part of a pattern, and that investigative avenue could provide a lot more evidence as well.
COATES: Yes.
MCCRARY: And then, if it's a ransom, which it might have looked like at the beginning, you'd expect some money, but that seems to have dropped off. The other thing is it could be some kind of stalker based on the celebrity.
COATES: Wait. Hold on. So, you rule out -- Greg, I want to get back to the idea of your final point about the stalking, but the ransom notes, we still don't know if they were legitimate or if they were somehow somebody exploiting the grief and agony of the family.
MCCRARY: Yes.
COATES: But if they weren't real, then they could presumably rule out money as a motivating factor, and that perhaps leaves you with the most eerie feelings of what other motive would possibly be left.
MCCRARY: Another possible motive, if we rule out the ransom, is that this could be a stalking kind of personality. And why that's a possibility here is the celebrity stature of Savannah Guthrie. And we know that many morning female hosts, T.V. hosts and stuff, become the victims of stalking. It generally doesn't end in violence but, sometimes, it can. And in the morning shows, the morning shows thrive by creating a very warm, friendly, intimate atmosphere. They're all family, all that. And for a delusional person or a very, very lonely person, they come into their living room every morning, and they develop this delusional relationship. That can go bad sometimes.
So, you want to look at that idea. Has there been any communication with Savannah Guthrie, with the mother, with the show that's weird or intrusive or inappropriate, and can we identify those people? So, that's another avenue, I'm sure, they're taking a look at.
COATES: God. Introducing social media exponentially makes this more complex. My goodness. MCCRARY: Indeed.
COATES: Greg McCrary, thank you so much for your expertise this evening. We are still waiting and watching to see --
MCCRARY: Thanks for having me.
COATES: -- what this increased police activity is about. The rain certainly picking up as the police activity is as well.
[23:40:01]
An active SWAT situation we're seeing, it looks like, two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. We will hear more after a quick break and bring you exactly what we know.
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COATES: I want to go back to CNN's Ed Lavandera, who's at the scene of that police activity about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home.
[23:45:00]
Ed, what's going on now?
LAVANDERA: Well, not much has changed, Laura. We're still anticipating, hopefully hearing from Pima County sheriff's officials, perhaps even FBI officials at some point here in the coming moments, hours or minutes. Who knows? We will try to figure that out. But, you know, the scene here just kind of remains. This stretch of road in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood is still locked down.
COATES: Yes.
LAVANDERA: No way to get into this particular stretch. The road goes down over -- behind the truck that you see me and kind of bends to the right over there, and that's where the activity is taking place from this vantage point that we can't get past. It's very difficult to see what is happening down there. And we haven't really heard anything of note since we've been here on the scene as well. But, obviously, an intense amount of interest and nervousness, especially for the residents who live in this particular pocket of Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood.
COATES: Yes.
LAVANDERA: But, as I mentioned a short while ago, we're just a couple of miles away from Nancy Guthrie's home, probably easily less than two miles. So, you know, significant that this kind of activity is taking -- is happening so close to where Nancy Guthrie's home is, and also given just that these are the types of neighborhoods, these are the streets that we have seen investigators canvassing and re-canvassing over and over for the last 13 days, now going on to 14 days.
So, obviously, we're anxiously awaiting exactly what is going to happen here. It's still too early to tell. Bear with us. We will get the best possible information. We want to make sure it's 100 percent accurate and make sure that we can share with you what is the right and correct information to share. So, we're working to get that. But, right now, it's going to take a little bit of time for us.
COATES: Ed, I trust you're in sync, and you will bring us what we need to know when you have it. How long has this presence been there? You got there pretty quickly from the home of Nancy Guthrie. We have a map showing how far away this is. Less than two-mile radius. I would note, again, a glove was found within a two-mile radius as well, and it's obviously been sent to processing for DNA and beyond. But Ed, about how long has this police activity even been going on? Do you have a sense?
LAVANDERA: Well, it's interesting. We've been hearing rumblings of activity. Nothing that we could confirm or anything that was -- you know, exactly the information that we could confirm that would be proper to share. But there have been kind of rumblings going on all evening. And then shortly before your show started here at the top of the hour, we started hearing this specific area is the area that was seen -- the law enforcement activity that we're seeing tonight. So, it hasn't been going on that long. I'm sorry, losing a little bit of track of time here. We're almost an hour into it, probably, at least.
COATES: Yes.
LAVANDERA: So, you know, this could take some time, just like we saw earlier this week down in south of Tucson, about 50 miles. You know, it took several hours for that situation to be -- for the person who was detained to be questioned, for the home to be searched. That took several hours, went well into the night. So that could very easily be something that we're about to witness here tonight. And if it's something more significant, more serious, this is obviously something that will probably last all night long.
COATES: Ed Lavandera, please stand by. Bring us what you have. Back with me, Michael Harrigan and Eric O'Neill. I need my FBI and counterintelligence experts here. OK, they're confirming that's an active SWAT situation. My vision of SWAT, I'm thinking Hollywood style, from the repelling down a building. Bring me to the reality. What does it mean for SWAT to be on the scene, at least in part of it?
HARRIGAN: Well, generally, Laura, what you're going to have is a SWAT or a tactical team. Tactical assets would be deployed in a situation where they're either a (INAUDIBLE) or they're serving a search warrant or they're encountering somebody or interviewing somebody who they feel could be a danger. So, those are the -- generally, those are going to be your situations where you're going to have SWAT deployed. Normally --
COATES: How big is that team normally?
HARRIGAN: The team can be anywhere from six, eight, 10, 12 individuals. Normally, on a long case like this, you're probably going to have SWAT, multiple SWAT teams switching off on shifts to be on standby.
COATES: A SWAT vehicle is coming right now. What does that tell you, that type of vehicle? Is there some urgency behind it?
HARRIGAN: It doesn't look like they're moving very urgently.
COATES: Right.
HARRIGAN: That looks like an armored vehicle that is generally used by SWAT to -- here it goes, SWAT right on the side.
O'NEILL: Right.
HARRIGAN: So, that could be a support vehicle coming in with more equipment, specialized equipment for the team, or could be more team members coming in to assist.
[23:50:00]
O'NEILL: And it's interesting that --
COATES: Oh, I'm sorry. The sheriff is saying there's no press briefing. A written statement is forthcoming. I see a SWAT vehicle, though. Tell me your point.
O'NEILL: My point is that it's interesting that the street is closed off. And what I would suspect is that there was a good tip or they received some information from the camera footage that people are uploading. And the only reason they would bring SWAT into a residential street like that is if they had a person of interest or they had an interest in a home.
I think, Mike and I were talking about this during the break, that they were looking at a residence. And that's why you would bring SWAT in. You're not going to have to bring SWAT in to do a forensic search of a glove on the side of the road. You're going to bring it in when you want to control a residence. And what they're doing is they're controlling the street so we don't have civilians walking into a potential hostile zone. You bring SWAT when you're worried that the person that you're going to go approach could shoot back.
COATES: Armed and dangerous.
O'NEILL: And they're trained to deal with that.
COATES: How?
O'NEILL: Mike, you were SWAT.
HARRIGAN: Yes, I agree with 100 percent on this. I think that you hit the nail on the head here. It's more than just another routine lead here. There's something going on there that they have. They need to have a specialized team to help support the agents or the officers that are actually making contact there. So, there is more to this, and it'll be interesting to see what comes out of this and what they're able to share with us.
COATES: We've got a written statement forthcoming. There will not be a press briefing. There's an active SWAT situation two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. In fact, stand by. We're learning more information. I see more cars coming in and out of the area as before. Remember, there was a very slow pace. The cones are broken out. Now, I'm seeing at least about half a dozen vehicles now going into a particular zone that had previously been closed off, including forensics now. Forensics, a SWAT vehicle, and others going in. And remember, this is a residential area.
In fact, you know what? Bring in -- I've got one of Nancy Guthrie's neighbors, Marla Handler, who's with us right now. Marla, everyone is trying to understand this area. You are familiar with this particular area. It's about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. I'm watching at least now a dozen vehicles, it seems, going into that area. It has been blocked off from media access. Do you know that general vicinity? Is that residential? Is it some sort of trail? What could that area look like?
MARLA HANDLER, NANCY GUTHRIE'S NEIGHBOR: So, this area near Nancy Guthrie's home is residential. They're all homes in this area.
COATES: So, Marla, are you -- when you're looking at what's going on and you've had some, I think, contacts with the FBI over the course of what was happening, can you describe those conversations so far?
HANDLER: Yes. Basically, they are doing an amazing job. They are just on every street, asking questions, talking to all our neighbors, trying to inquire, you know, where Nancy is, trying to gather evidence. We really feel like, you know, the investigators, the FBI, all of the security personnel on the -- in the neighborhood is really doing an outstanding job and really just turning over every rock to find something.
COATES: That's very comforting, I'm sure, for the family and all who are just deeply invested in the safe return of Nancy Guthrie. Have you been able to review any video surveillance that you may have and have turned anything over that might be helpful?
HANDLER: Yes. We have not. We have looked at our security cameras. We have very extensive security on our home as well as our street. It's very extensive. We have outdoor cameras. We have motion detective cameras. We have sensor lights, smart locks. We have door and window sensors. We have Ring cameras, 24-7 security, and wireless outdoor cameras that face the street. So, we are fully equipped. And it's just -- yes, it's just incredible. Cameras are a lifesaver.
COATES: Do you have all of that because of a concern or proactively? Is there a concern about your safety in the area more broadly or was that something you have done proactively to ensure your safety?
HANDLER: Yes. I think just from the neighborhood, from our HOA, I just -- we feel like it's very vigilant over the years to have security. It's very important. Cameras are really important. So, it's just a neighborhood, an HOA thing that we all feel is really important.
COATES: Yes.
HANDLER: If I could just add a quick little conversation, a little story. About six months ago, I installed a Ring camera in my elderly father's home. And it immediately alerted to me that my father fell under the coffee table. And I was able to contact the paramedics to save my father's life by using a Ring camera. So, I have to say that the real benefit of cameras is to protect the ones we love.
[23:55:03]
And by having a camera, you're doing the diligence that you're going to make sure that your loved ones are safe and sound and that you feel comfortable. We have a lot of elderly people that live in this neighborhood.
COATES: Yes.
HANDLER: And it's very difficult. The homes are not right next to each other. They're really spread out in the Catalina foothills. Not like other cities. So, it's very difficult to see if there's a disappearance, a kidnapping in one home. The next house would not even know about it.
COATES: My God.
HANDLER: That's how we're so separate. So, that's how Tucson, Arizona is. We're a half million people. We're a very small, close-knit family community. University of Arizona is here, full of vibes and sports. The homes are separate.
COATES: Marla, you've offered --
HANDLER: It's very difficult to know what's going on.
COATES: A very good public service announcement. I certainly hope for safety for others as well. Thank you for your really astute observations here. We're watching more vehicles on their way. We'll be right back. Our second hour, ahead.
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