Why Law Enforcement Experts Believe Savannah Guthrie's Mother Was Specifically Targeted in Abduction

What this episode is about

Law enforcement experts engage in victimology to profile potential suspects in the abduction of Savannah Guthrie's elderly mother, focusing on her low-risk lifestyle and gathering details about individuals who have recently interacted with her. They analyze her everyday behavior, assess her vulnerability, and consider how potential perpetrators might have gained access, emphasizing the importance of understanding her social circle and any recent visitors.

Key takeaways

• Victimology reveals insights: understanding a victim's habits often leads investigators closer to suspects.
• Surveillance isn’t just movie magic; it’s crucial in real-life crimes, revealing patterns before the act.
• Not all criminals are masterminds; sometimes, it’s just a desperate moment and a poorly executed plan.
• Forensics aren’t instant; DNA analysis requires patience, but modern tools like touch DNA offer hope.
• A close border complicates investigations, as suspects may evade traditional databases – a forensic game of hide and seek.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Megyn Kelly (Guest) · 5 min speaking
• Jim (Guest) · 7 min speaking
• Randy (Guest) · 5 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 3:00 – 6:00: Savannah Guthrie
2. 9:00 – 12:00: Savannah Guthrie
3. 15:00 – 17:45: Birch Gold Group

Notable quotes from "Why Law Enforcement Experts Believe Savannah Guthrie's Mother Was Specifically Targeted in Abduction"

• View they didn't take her because she's related to Savannah Guthrie. what are the odds that this is just some caper where they've kidnapped an 84 year old woman who just so…

  about Savannah Guthrie · at 9:31

• That gold has risen over 700% in the last 20 years. And a never- ending list of reasons smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals with Birch…

  about Birch Gold Group · at 16:41

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Savannah Guthrie — Person · Referenced public figure (victim’s daughter) · 2 mentions · first at 3:33
  Discussed as the high-profile connection that likely motivated the kidnapping of an 84-year-old woman (her mother), shaping theories about ransom, targeting, and investigative scope.

Sponsors

• Birch Gold Group — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 16:51
  Promoted as a service for diversifying savings into precious metals, particularly gold, during economic uncertainty.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Jim, how do you even begin to to come up with a profile of who would potentially steal an 84 year old woman? Well, uh, we always start with victimology. What do we know about our victim? This is a low-risk victim, probably as low as you can get in terms of her everyday activities, her behavior, and even the environment in which she lives, where she travels and and of course her physical uh you know condition which is not the best in terms of u mobility etc. So we want to find out everything about her in that regard and of course expanding that it's everyone she knows of course family friends interview all of them go through emails text messaging such as that but then to to then really hone in on uh who who have been guests in her house in the last month plus. Obviously family and friends we'll know about those. What kind of repairmen? What kind of medical people? What kind of delivery people? uh

0:58 salesmen just randomly knocking on doors and and even those people, you know, maybe plumbers or heater uh HVAC guys, they may not be uh they may be legitimate and have nothing to do with this, but they have friends and they and those friends talk to friends. So, that sort of all has to be worked out exponentially to find out everyone who's been in or near that house. These people didn't wake up at uh you know at noon on Saturday and say, "Let's go out and kidnap Mrs. Guthrie." I'm saying these people, even though she's an older woman, you'd probably want someone to back you up, drive the van, the car, SUV, whatever, and then have someone else go in. They could have, was it forced entry? It seems like it was breaking a window or something. Or a little woman, you know, a younger woman knocking on the door. Oh, my car broke down and they tricked her into opening the door. Another part of victimology.

1:44 What kind of uh risk uh averse person is she? Would she open the door for a stranger? These are thing her family and friends can tell. So that's what we first want to do uh to find out everything about her all her goings on for the last month or so uh emails social media all those type things who she' been in contact with and all those people have to be interviewed and friends of those people and to see possibly a linkage to this I I won't say these are criminal masterminds who undertook this but they at least got away with this so far and they did some practice some surveillance and we got to look at technology for not just that weekend but going back a week for no doubt they cased her house. They surveiled it to make sure they knew what neighbors were doing, who's on the streets, and uh and that technology may give some clues to that in to who did this also.

2:33 And just to let the audience know, uh the sheriff had told one outlet that she was snatched from her bed uh in the middle of the night and then he took that back too, saying he didn't mean to say that. So, like I I feel for the sheriff. you know, this is he's been thrust into the national spotlight in a way he didn't anticipate. But you you do have to give him like a day or two to find out whether he's going to stick with the message that he delivered at the presser or in these interviews. But I again, he's just trying to get the word out and get attention drawn to this. So, we don't right now know whether she was snatched from her bed or whether it was the scenario like you just outlined, Jim, where maybe they rang the doorbell and she came down and they grabbed her. I mean, what we do know, Randy, is that they the sheriff said she cannot walk more than 50 yards herself. Like, she's infirm physically,

3:19 but not mentally at all. And that would mean that somebody would have to either take her or quote help her uh get out of the house uh and get into a car potentially. She saw we saw her with a cane on the set of the Today Show, so she clearly used a cane and I'm sure she was slowgoing and they'd have to have pulled a car right up to that door, right? I mean, like it's 2:00 a.m. They they would have had to pull the car. If they know this woman's on a cane and she can't move well and she's fighting, you know, she's at the point where she's potentially bleeding, don't you think they would have had to have a car right up there in her driveway?

3:59 Absolutely. And um there in one of in one of the reports and and you know as as this dripped and drabed uh information came out there was um a uh a mention of forced entry. That was one of the things that was said. And so I was hopeful that when when I heard that that and then the droplets of blood I was really hopeful that those droplets of blood might belong to the suspect who might have cut themselves when breaking a window or something like that. um that that hope has been dashed because they did confirm that that DNA uh belonged to the victim here. So unfortunately,

4:36 but what what about touch DNA, Randy, because you know it's like now we've got touch DNA. That's what caught Brian Coberger.

4:41 Well, for sure. And you can bet that and this is one of the be beautiful things about the cooperation with the FBI. um they are unparalleled with their forensic abilities and uh and seeing that they were called into the scene uh early on that they have tremendous assets at their disposal. So um they they but it takes time for that DNA uh evidence to to surface and then then of course you know DNA databases

5:09 aren't aren't you know it's not like the fingerprint database where everybody that's been arrested has has DNA out there. So, um, it is

5:17 well and on top of that, if it's we have to factor in the possibility that this is somebody from Mexico since it's only, you know, an hour away from the southern border and would we have, you know, if it's not an American potentially, would we have DNA um, in the way we do for most Americans linked at least, you know, maybe 10 times removed, but most of us are in there now thanks to some distant relative who's gone to these DNA data databases and given their blood. We just, we don't know. But Jim, that's an interesting question about DNA and the FBI's help. And also, we know, it's been reported that the FBI's using its cell phone towers, uh, its triangulation. You know, how it can check the towers to see what phones were in the area at a certain time. So, now the 2 a.m. info is very helpful. And unlike the three of us, the FBI almost certainly has NY's actual phone and they can see what time

6:12 she put it down. They can tell what time you went to bed. They can tell certainly what time you stopped texting people, what time you went offline on it. Um, so if they can probably put the time to within maybe even, you know, a couple minutes of when she got taken and then they use those cell phone towers to see which phones may have been in the area. I mean that ultimately that's how they caught the DC pipe bomber or so they tell us. What do you make of those potential leads?

6:36 Oh, sure. All that is very important and I assure you as Randy was saying there's a task force already assembled in the Tucson area of multiple agencies. I know Border Patrol is involved. Uh certainly FBI, Tucson Police, Sheriff's Department, and no doubt the state police. And they're all working together on this. And I I know I don't know for a fact, but I can I can tell you that uh uh people from Quantico, the FBI laboratory are there in position now, and they're running through all these aspects you just described. Don't forget all the surveillance cameras up and down the streets of Tucson. U tag recognition software, facial recognition software, and again, not just that night. They're going to have to, you know, grab it, of course, for that night, everything they can for those few hours before and after, you know, 2 am, but they want to go back before that.

7:23 Would the fact that it might have been done at 2 a.m. be helpful because there's going to be less traffic, fewer license plates to read and try to identify on the highway, right around, you know what I mean? Like, is that is that a good thing that that it's been limited to a low traffic hour?

7:38 Well, sure. And I mean, the the benefit to the bad guys is that it's dark under the cover of darkness, all that. they can get away with it. The bad news from a forensic and technology perspective is there's going to be fewer people out there to in fact uh you know correlate uh or collate the different tags that are running back and forth uh and going you know in whatever direction and this will be expanded by 50 miles to 100 miles in concentric circles which would take us right to that Mexican border. And by the way, these kidnappings, as as Randy said earlier, they don't happen in the US, they're very, very rare. They do happen a lot in Mexico, Latin America, and South America. They know Mrs.

8:15 Guthri's the daughter of a uh very uh I'm sorry, the mother of a very uh you know, wealthy woman newscaster and uh and they know this is a prime target and and I'm just wondering if there's been a ransom demand on already, but that's not being released. And we, you know, some criticism perhaps dustified of the sheriff, but maybe they're sitting on something that we I'm sure they're sitting on a lot we don't know. Is it possible there's a ransom demand? If there's no ransom demand, then what's the purpose of this? Some kind of a revenge or uh uh something? And I I six weeks ago we had the Brown University shooting and the MIT shooting that goes back 25 years and a whole continent apart. So, if there's no money demand, then what's the what's the motivation behind this? And I'm sure that's what the police and law enforcement are struggling with right now. Motivation will be nice to know for money or for

9:03 rebound. The sheriff said no. He said no to ransom. And he said no in a way that I believed. He was like that's just we haven't heard anything about that yet. No. No ransom demand.

9:13 Unless they insisted. He doesn't unless they insisted. He doesn't say that publicly.

9:17 That's right. He could be could be misleading for everyone's protection. Uh but what for whatever it's worth on the record he denied that there had been a ransom demand. But you tell me, Randy, I I there's just no way in my lay person's view they didn't take her because she's related to Savannah Guthrie. I mean, what are the odds that this is just some caper where they've kidnapped an 84 year old woman who just so happens to be the mother of one of the biggest news stars in America? Like that just that does not track to me. Well, in law enforcement, we don't believe in coincidences, and I don't believe in that coincidence either. You're absolutely right. Here is very high-profile. Um, you know, her daughter's very, very highprofile, and and you know, uh, Jim was talking about victimology, highly critically important in in this type of investigation. But the victimology is going to have to now

10:11 expand to include the daughter because they're going to be looking into any threats um any any type of um uh past uh occurrences that might lead to some type of of grudge. uh you know you know there there's there's people out there in the world and you and I both know that they they aren't playing with a full deck and um and and there there are people that that um you know uh concentrate on on a on an individual and they become um you know so incredibly attuned to them that they they view themselves as being uh related to them or a love interest or anything like that. So all of this has to be looked at. You can't you can't discount anything here. And that's what makes this such a a a very very difficult investigation. And it's it's going to require um all of the resources at play here. And I and I just as the time ticks by here, Megan, I'm I'm really concerned. As time ticks by, the chances of survival are diminishing uh

11:22 literally by the hour. I I'm just trying to figure out, you know, why why would you do this? You know, Jim, I'm I'm thinking in We talked to Matt Murphy, uh, longtime federal prosecutor yesterday, and he was saying, you know, forgive me, but don't rule out a possible sex crime because he's prosecuted cases where 79year-old women were raped and and attacked and and so sadly that made some sense. But one would think that if that were to happen, she would have been left there or if she'd been killed afterward that she'd be left there. I don't know. Um it's strange that they took her. Like they they clearly took her and I suppose you could make the case that if they killed her in the house, forgive me for this kind of speculation, but we're all wondering what happened. that that also could explain the pacemaker no longer communicating with the Apple Watch at 2 a.m. You know, that's the other

12:25 possibility of why the the the sinking stopped. Well, this was a high-risisk crime to go to the door, grab the woman, and do anything with her. Uh it it it increases 100fold by putting her in a car and driving away with her. So much can go wrong after that. You cross the line or one of your tail lights is out, a police officer could stop you and you have all kinds of issues. Now, whether she's in the trunk, she has duct tape around her, you know, I'm just speculating here also. We don't know. Um, but the the reason to be fine, and I agree with Randy, this is not coincidence. They knew she was the daughter of this uh this prominent news person in the US, worth worth some money. I'm sorry, the mother uh uh and her daughter was of course the newscaster. And and and and if if money is not a factor, then it has to go back to some personal issue. And there has been research done over the years. Of course, there are some men out

13:18 there who get kicked out of sex uh with much older women, and the research was the older the women uh the younger the offender. So, we have her at 84. What does that say about this case? But there may be so much more involved here. We're not going to lock into someone in their teens or early 20s necessarily because of that research. U but uh nothing can be ruled out at this point. Uh, I would urge if the person is listening to us out there, you make it look like this is so random and meaningless. You must have a meaning. You must have a purpose for doing this. Let the authorities know.

13:50 Put something out there somehow. And uh, and hopefully give us a proof of life that this woman is alive. She doesn't deserve to be killed. She didn't do anything to you. I can assure.

14:00 Do you know, Jim, is they brought dogs in. All sorts of dogs. And I'm I'm just assuming they brought both rescue dogs, you know, blood hounds and also cadaavver dogs. But would a cadaavver dog get a hit if a person had only been dead in the house for a half an hour? I

14:18 I think and and and Randy can perhaps discuss this too, but cadaavver dogs are so well trained uh and and they have such an expertise. I mean, and there's some dogs even better than others that I think they could pick up the scent whether recently dead dead in the house or or or you know, down the line somewhere. But I I believe a dog, a cadaavver dog, well trained with a proper, you know, u master, if you will, or or trainer, uh they would find the remains if they're somewhere in the area. Maybe it's a good sign. So far, Randy, the the the one thing from that sheriff is he he's not talking like she was killed in the house. She he's he's he he clearly doesn't know whether she's alive or dead right now, but he's not talking like he thinks she was killed in the house. He did bring in homicide detectives right away, but like there's an urgency to him and him covering the field with the press yesterday afternoon

15:07 suggests he he thinks there's still time to save her. Yeah. And that is uh that's all correlation to what they found at the crime scene. Now remember very early on they did they did uh couch this as a crime scene and they talked about droplets of blood you know later on um when when a body when a killing take place a murder takes place it is it is uh it is very messy okay you know uh whether it's from blunt uh you know trauma for you know hitting someone with an object if it's a stabbing if it's a shooting it is um It leaves it leaves a lot of evidence around. And so when he talks about that it was a crime scene and that they found evidence and especially the droplets, that indicates to me that um that there was not a major crime scene found here, that there was not um a pool of blood, if you will, or or tissue or things like that. And that would be that would I mean if you look at all the different ways that that um

16:13 that a a body can lose you know its life. It's from it's it's from blunt uh trauma. It's from gunshots. It's from stabbings. It's from strangulation. But um but generally it's going to leave it's going to leave a lot of forensic evidence behind. And there's been no indication that there was a major scene found here. International disputes, inflation, rising national debt, digital currency. There is a never- ending list of reasons that gold has risen over 700% in the last 20 years. And a never- ending list of reasons smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals with Birch Gold Group. Gold can thrive during uncertainty, which is why it's a crucial part of a balance strategy. It gives you peace of mind given all the events that could impact the US economy. See if holding gold in a tax sheltered retirement account is right for you.

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Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Why Law Enforcement Experts Believe Savannah Guthrie's Mother Was Specifically Targeted in Abduction"?

Megyn Kelly (Guest), Jim (Guest), Randy (Guest).

What is "Why Law Enforcement Experts Believe Savannah Guthrie's Mother Was Specifically Targeted in Abduction" about?

Law enforcement experts engage in victimology to profile potential suspects in the abduction of Savannah Guthrie's elderly mother, focusing on her low-risk lifestyle and gathering details about individuals who have recently interacted with her. They analyze her everyday behavior, assess her vulnerability, and consider how potential perpetrators might have gained access, emphasizing the…

What is mentioned in this Megyn Kelly episode?

2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Savannah Guthrie. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Why Law Enforcement Experts Believe Savannah Guthrie's Mother Was Specifically Targeted in Abduction"?

The episode runs 18 min; the transcript is about 3,447 words in 28 timestamped sections.

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