Episode 43

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Published on:

10th Mar 2026

The Nancy Guthrie Case: What Investigators Got Wrong - And the AI That Could Solve It - Pt 1

Was Nancy Guthrie abducted, or was it something else entirely?

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation on Heroes Behind the Badge, we sit down with Morgan Wright, former state trooper, former detective, technical advisor to America's Most Wanted, and one of the most innovative investigative minds in law enforcement today.

This episode is not about speculation. It's not about true crime sensationalism. And it's not about rehashing what you've already seen on the news.

It's about what the evidence actually shows — and the uncomfortable conclusions that follow when you strip away the narrative and rebuild from the ground up.

We talk about:

  1. Why the "burglary gone wrong" theory doesn't survive scrutiny
  2. The critical 16-minute window that changes everything
  3. What the blood trail and the end of the driveway tell investigators
  4. Why the suspect on the ring camera was not acting like a burglar
  5. How an 84-year-old woman with a pacemaker factors into the investigation
  6. The crime scene handling mistakes that could haunt a future prosecution
  7. What investigators may be hiding in plain sight

This conversation goes beyond headlines.

It applies first principles investigative methodology to one of the most talked-about disappearances in recent memory, and arrives at conclusions most people haven't been willing to say out loud.

If you follow the Guthrie case, this episode will reframe everything you think you know. If you're in law enforcement, it offers a masterclass in how narratives can derail even the best investigators.

Transcript
Dennis Collins:

Every major investigation has a moment.

Dennis Collins:

The experienced detective looks at the evidence, looks at their notes,

Dennis Collins:

and then thinks to himself 'This case is not what everyone thinks it is.'

Dennis Collins:

Today.

Dennis Collins:

We're bringing in someone who had that moment with the Nancy Guthrie case.

Dennis Collins:

Morgan Wright, former state trooper, former detective technical advisor

Dennis Collins:

to America's Most Wanted and one of the most innovative investigative

Dennis Collins:

minds in law enforcement today.

Dennis Collins:

When Morgan looked at the Guthrie case, he didn't just

Dennis Collins:

rehabilitate the existing narrative.

Dennis Collins:

He demolished it, and what he found will change the way you think about this case.

Dennis Collins:

This

Dennis Collins:

is Heroes Behind the Badge.

Dennis Collins:

When you studied the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, and I'll call it

Dennis Collins:

disappearance 'cause I'm not sure what it is, but it is a disappearance.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

Did you have that moment of truth?

Dennis Collins:

And what triggered that?

Morgan Wright:

So to kind of.

Morgan Wright:

Frame this up correctly about the way I approached it.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, look, I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk one 'cause he is really, really rich,

Morgan Wright:

which means he's really, really smart.

Morgan Wright:

You know?

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

When you build all that stuff.

Morgan Wright:

But I was listening to one particular episode, this is years ago, and he was

Morgan Wright:

talking about how we built batteries.

Morgan Wright:

And the way he built batteries.

Morgan Wright:

He said, H how you know, the way you did it cheaper says,

Morgan Wright:

what are batteries composed of?

Morgan Wright:

Nickel, cadmium, lithium ion, you know, he broke it down.

Morgan Wright:

He said, I can go buy those on the market at spot price.

Morgan Wright:

But it was the process of rebuilding it from the ground up.

Morgan Wright:

So I got to thinking, you know, what we're missing really in law enforcement.

Morgan Wright:

'cause I, you know, I used to, I was a state trooper, I was a detective.

Morgan Wright:

I did stuff in the justice and intel space.

Morgan Wright:

But you know what we're missing, there's a lot of good things out there, but.

Morgan Wright:

It's like when a new technology comes along, like DNA, we have to figure it out.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, biometrics, we have to figure it out.

Morgan Wright:

Drones, we have to figure it out.

Morgan Wright:

So I said, but something that really hasn't been refreshed in a long

Morgan Wright:

time is investigative methodology.

Morgan Wright:

So I started applying what I called first principles.

Morgan Wright:

So the way I looked at the Guthrie case is the way I would look at you and I

Morgan Wright:

were just talking beforehand, Dennis.

Morgan Wright:

It's like, if you want it, you can either rehabilitate a house or you can.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, remodel a house, rehabilitating a house.

Morgan Wright:

You go in, you paint the walls, okay.

Morgan Wright:

It looks good, right?

Morgan Wright:

And that's what happens with narratives.

Morgan Wright:

You just, you take a narrative and it, you know, Hey, let's rehabilitate

Morgan Wright:

the narrative, make it fit, fit our view of the case, right?

Morgan Wright:

What I instead do is it, it is like if you watch those things on HD TV or

Morgan Wright:

when they come in and they remodel a house, but it's demo day, they tear out

Morgan Wright:

the walls, they tear out everything.

Morgan Wright:

You tear out everything.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Down to the structure.

Morgan Wright:

You fix all the structural problems and then you rebuild from the ground up.

Morgan Wright:

So that's what I do on cases.

Morgan Wright:

So with Guthrie.

Morgan Wright:

I think what separated me from the other folks is I, I don't,

Morgan Wright:

I don't go in for narratives.

Morgan Wright:

I don't go in for speculation.

Morgan Wright:

I don't go in for theories.

Craig Floyd:

Sure.

Morgan Wright:

When I looked at the Guthrie say Case, I said

Morgan Wright:

either it's a burglary that went wrong or it was never a burglary.

Morgan Wright:

It can't be both.

Morgan Wright:

And so what you do is you create your hypothesis for each

Morgan Wright:

case and then you stress test.

Morgan Wright:

It to the point of failure.

Morgan Wright:

And the more that you start, look, because look, uh, I've

Morgan Wright:

investigated enough burglaries.

Morgan Wright:

You say if somebody's gonna burgle a house, um, what are the signals of,

Morgan Wright:

what are the signals of a burglary?

Morgan Wright:

What's the signals of theft?

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

Are they moving around things or is it a staged crime scene?

Morgan Wright:

Is it a. Is it a abduction designed to look like a burglary?

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

And then you have factors that make it look like that.

Morgan Wright:

So in the Guthrie case, here's what you would have to believe in the Guthrie

Morgan Wright:

case where all the people say, well, it was a burglary that went wrong.

Morgan Wright:

So if it was a burglary that went wrong, you have somebody whose mindset

Morgan Wright:

is, I'm in here to take something.

Morgan Wright:

They have an encounter with the victim.

Morgan Wright:

And then in that short timeframe, which we know it's from two 12 when the one of

Morgan Wright:

the sensors went off inside the house, one of the cameras to 2 28, when is the

Morgan Wright:

last ping from her pacemaker to her phone?

Dennis Collins:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

In 16 minutes, somebody whose sole intention was to

Morgan Wright:

burgle a house now become somebody who's going to, who's decided

Morgan Wright:

abduction is less risky than fleeing.

Morgan Wright:

And so they have to arrange transportation, they have

Morgan Wright:

to arrange logistics.

Morgan Wright:

You have to arrange control, so.

Morgan Wright:

When you do an abduction, there's three things you have to look at.

Morgan Wright:

You have to look at entry, was it forced or consensual?

Morgan Wright:

Then you have to look at control.

Morgan Wright:

What's your mechanism for control of the the target, and then what's

Morgan Wright:

your method for egress exfiltration?

Morgan Wright:

So when I looked at it, I said, I'm not saying it's one or the

Morgan Wright:

other, but I'm saying, but if you stress test it and collapse it.

Morgan Wright:

The whole thing about it was a burglary that gone wrong doesn't survive in a

Morgan Wright:

lot of the stress tests because it's not, it's not the same indication

Morgan Wright:

as opposed to a targeted abduction.

Morgan Wright:

And you can tell by where the blood trail goes, uh, but it, to me,

Morgan Wright:

it's that very short time window from where there was, we know that

Morgan Wright:

there was motion inside the house.

Morgan Wright:

Look burglars there, there, uh, and look, having investigated enough,

Morgan Wright:

and in your audience, they know too.

Morgan Wright:

It's about get in, get your stuff, get out, get off the x,

Morgan Wright:

the longer you're in a house.

Morgan Wright:

The higher the risk goes, right?

Morgan Wright:

You want to get in, you want to get out.

Morgan Wright:

But when you're doing a targeted abduction, if you've done your

Morgan Wright:

reconnaissance, if you know like patterns of life, you're

Morgan Wright:

more comfortable sitting around.

Morgan Wright:

That's why when you look at the video of the, when they recovered the video,

Morgan Wright:

the behavior of that person, that person was comfortable where they were at.

Morgan Wright:

I mean, and they be at their, yeah, you look at their trade craft a lot.

Morgan Wright:

See, here's the other thing.

Morgan Wright:

Two people made a mistake on Dennis.

Morgan Wright:

Everybody said, well, this is an amateur.

Morgan Wright:

Now, I tell you, I was in Tucson.

Morgan Wright:

I talked to, um, people that were on Tucson PD and the sheriff's

Morgan Wright:

office and DPS, and I've talked to people on a TF and Marshalls.

Morgan Wright:

That's called the, it's called the Mexican carry.

Morgan Wright:

And second of all, people got it all wrong because they said it's a white holster.

Morgan Wright:

Now, that's infrared.

Morgan Wright:

People even didn't understand the technology of how infrared works,

Morgan Wright:

so they got the colors all wrong.

Morgan Wright:

But this, this guy had no, this guy was relaxed.

Morgan Wright:

He was not in a hurry.

Morgan Wright:

And you can tell that because 1 47 to 2 28, you know, 47 minutes, is that,

Morgan Wright:

so I'd simply ask, is that typical behavior of a burglar, uh, who's

Morgan Wright:

looking to steal something and get out?

Dennis Collins:

Probably not.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah,

Bill Erfurth:

probably.

Bill Erfurth:

No.

Bill Erfurth:

And you know, you know, I, I, I think it's pretty evident, especially if you

Bill Erfurth:

really think it out and if you have any law enforcement background, just like

Bill Erfurth:

you said, Morgan, you know, you're in and out, you just want to grab something.

Bill Erfurth:

You're a thief basically, right?

Bill Erfurth:

But all of a sudden, if you're a thief and you decide, uh oh, I ran into this woman.

Bill Erfurth:

Now I'm going to abduct her.

Bill Erfurth:

Well, where are you gonna put her?

Bill Erfurth:

You know, you haven't thought it through already.

Bill Erfurth:

You gotta go home and live somewhere where other people are around.

Bill Erfurth:

You haven't had any kind of pre-thought, uh, you know, plan.

Bill Erfurth:

So I, I, I agree with you a hundred percent on that.

Craig Floyd:

But, So Morgan. So, okay, so we we're ruling out burglary.

Craig Floyd:

It sounds like after you've gone through this whole process.

Craig Floyd:

So where in, in your mind are we today?

Craig Floyd:

What kind of crime was it?

Craig Floyd:

Uh, are we ever gonna solve this crime?

Craig Floyd:

I mean, couldn't Nancy Guthrie still be alive?

Craig Floyd:

I mean, where, where is your head right now?

Morgan Wright:

Um, so I told you I was gonna bring a couple props.

Morgan Wright:

Before I answer that question, I have to thank Craig.

Morgan Wright:

So I did some fundraising for you guys on the, uh, ride and run to remember.

Morgan Wright:

So this is something I've kept with me always.

Dennis Collins:

Oh, look at that.

Morgan Wright:

And then I got this from you too, Craig.

Craig Floyd:

Oh, yes.

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

Commemorative coin.

Craig Floyd:

The whole very,

Morgan Wright:

and I do that because right back here.

Morgan Wright:

And you know what this is, this is one of my best friends.

Morgan Wright:

I was there when his name was read out on the wall.

Morgan Wright:

So, uh, everything you do, I just want you to know everything you do is

Morgan Wright:

personal for me, and I'm, I'm honored to have for you to consider you a

Morgan Wright:

friend and for you to have me on this.

Morgan Wright:

So

Dennis Collins:

that's

Morgan Wright:

great.

Morgan Wright:

Now that I've got my props out of the way, let me get to your question.

Dennis Collins:

Thank

Morgan Wright:

you.

Morgan Wright:

So here's what I think.

Morgan Wright:

I think, um, all of these folks are looking at it incorrectly.

Morgan Wright:

Because they're, they're, they, once you get wedded to a narrative,

Morgan Wright:

then the narrative becomes canonical, it becomes sacred.

Morgan Wright:

You can't, you know, and so as an investigator, then you're less

Morgan Wright:

likely to dispute the narrative because it goes against what

Morgan Wright:

everybody else has put out there.

Morgan Wright:

So, Craig, to your point where I think we are.

Morgan Wright:

When I look through that model and I say, is it a burglary gone

Morgan Wright:

wrong or was it never a burglary?

Morgan Wright:

I find very few things to show that it's a burglary gone wrong and back.

Morgan Wright:

What you were saying about, you know, like, burglars want to get

Morgan Wright:

off the X. So I think it's, I think, um, at some point later we will

Morgan Wright:

find this was more of a targeted abduction than everything, because

Morgan Wright:

like you said, where's your car at?

Morgan Wright:

So if you're gonna do an abduction, you have to arrange for a car, you

Morgan Wright:

have to arrange for transportation.

Morgan Wright:

We know there was a car.

Morgan Wright:

How do we know that?

Morgan Wright:

Because of the blood droplets stop at the end of the driveway.

Morgan Wright:

And so there was a car there.

Morgan Wright:

Um, now one of the, one of the cool things we did, a friend of mine, um, this

Morgan Wright:

ties into everything about what I think happened, but a friend of mine, we, him

Morgan Wright:

and I both testified before Congress back in 2013 on healthcare.gov safety

Morgan Wright:

and security of big government systems.

Morgan Wright:

He's, he's a NSA hacker, Marine bright guy.

Morgan Wright:

But I was flying to Tucson actually for Fox News to go on scene for a while,

Morgan Wright:

and we were going back and forth.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, I actually over starlink, first time I flew on an aircraft with starlink,

Morgan Wright:

it was like amazing, the speed.

Dennis Collins:

Oh, okay.

Morgan Wright:

But we got to, but we got to talking about,

Morgan Wright:

you know what a Bluetooth is.

Morgan Wright:

Bluetooth is nothing more than a transmitter.

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

A transmitter with a unique idea signal.

Morgan Wright:

So we were going back and forth.

Morgan Wright:

He started already while I was in the flight, he was writing code.

Morgan Wright:

For how to detect this Bluetooth 'cause really.

Morgan Wright:

But the FBI now had developed some rudimentary stuff, but Dave's stuff

Morgan Wright:

actually improved what they had.

Morgan Wright:

But they were doing it in a helicopter.

Morgan Wright:

So the reason I say that, Craig, is I know everybody was out there saying,

Morgan Wright:

Hey look, well she could still be alive.

Morgan Wright:

She's this.

Morgan Wright:

I was the one saying.

Morgan Wright:

The part out loud that nobody wanted to say.

Morgan Wright:

I said at some point, you gotta start treating this as a no body homicide.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

You have to change your investigative mindset.

Morgan Wright:

Are we looking for a clandestine grave site?

Morgan Wright:

Which that's tough in those hills there.

Morgan Wright:

You cannot dig in that area.

Morgan Wright:

It's baked.

Morgan Wright:

Are we looking for a, uh, open grave site, you know, a body dump?

Morgan Wright:

Are we looking for a concealed grave site?

Morgan Wright:

Maybe somewhere inside a building?

Morgan Wright:

And I simply said, if people thought she was alive and that was their

Morgan Wright:

operating theory, then why is the FBI up in a helicopter looking for

Morgan Wright:

a ping from a Bluetooth device?

Dennis Collins:

Hmm.

Morgan Wright:

Because they understand too, is that you can't

Morgan Wright:

take anything off the table.

Morgan Wright:

You can't get wedded to a narrative.

Morgan Wright:

So I kind of bring all of that to say this.

Morgan Wright:

Craig is a, um, I looked at all the egress routes.

Morgan Wright:

I did a whole analysis of how you get outta there.

Morgan Wright:

That area is like a bowl of spaghetti.

Morgan Wright:

If you turn a bolus, spaghetti upside down the roads, there is no rhyme or reason.

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

Um, so somebody had to have local knowledge, or at least

Morgan Wright:

some kind of a navigation app.

Morgan Wright:

Well, if you have a navigation app, chances are there may be a

Morgan Wright:

signal that, that we could collect.

Morgan Wright:

W if I were investigating the case, it's like I would treat

Morgan Wright:

it as a no-body homicide.

Morgan Wright:

That's the way I would investigate it, and I would look at what are the

Morgan Wright:

possible egress routes out of there.

Morgan Wright:

I know a lot of people said, Hey, they could have gone across the

Morgan Wright:

border maybe, but to your point, I think we're making earlier.

Morgan Wright:

She's 84 years.

Morgan Wright:

So here's, here's my final kind of capstone point.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, everybody says, well, we wanna hold out hope.

Morgan Wright:

Well, I'm a realist, right?

Morgan Wright:

Uh, it is like, if I'm investigating, hope is not a strategy.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, hope is an outcome, but it's not a strategy.

Morgan Wright:

So you have an 84-year-old woman who is confronted at two o'clock

Morgan Wright:

in the morning who has a pacemaker.

Morgan Wright:

There's obviously a violent confrontation because there's blood.

Morgan Wright:

Whether she had was on Coumadin and was easy to, doesn't matter, you had some

Morgan Wright:

kind of violence 'cause you had control.

Morgan Wright:

The cha so the chances of a 30-year-old surviving for 14 days, they could do it.

Morgan Wright:

They'd be pretty weak at that.

Morgan Wright:

The chance of an 84 cardiac compromised woman who was, uh, attacked basically,

Morgan Wright:

or confronted in the middle of the night in her own home by herself, um,

Morgan Wright:

I would question whether or not she was able to survive the drive out of there.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, so that, that kind of answers the question.

Dennis Collins:

This case is not what everyone thinks it is.

Dennis Collins:

You've kind of flipped the script and saying, no, my narrative would

Dennis Collins:

be a lot different than what the common narrative is, is out there.

Dennis Collins:

And that's what good investigators do, right?

Dennis Collins:

You flip the

Morgan Wright:

script.

Morgan Wright:

They do.

Morgan Wright:

But you know what happens too, but even some investigators, they

Morgan Wright:

fall victim to certain things.

Morgan Wright:

In other words, it's like, um, Craig and I are investigating

Morgan Wright:

a case and he's got a he.

Morgan Wright:

He comes to me and he says, Hey, here's what I've got, and there's already a

Morgan Wright:

narrative, and I accept his narrative.

Morgan Wright:

And then I, then the district attorney accepts that narrative,

Morgan Wright:

and you build upon that.

Morgan Wright:

But what happens if it's wrong?

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

There's two things.

Morgan Wright:

Either the premise of the case is wrong or we've got the wrong.

Morgan Wright:

Premise to begin with.

Morgan Wright:

And that's why I call 'em hypothesis.

Morgan Wright:

Alright?

Morgan Wright:

If you have a hypothesis and you're testing that you know something's gonna

Morgan Wright:

fail, in fact you want it to fail, I want one of these two models to fail.

Morgan Wright:

Either it's the model of a burglary gone wrong, or it was never a burglary.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

I want one of those to fail so I can collapse this binary model down to,

Morgan Wright:

uh, a, an investigative path forward.

Morgan Wright:

So, um.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

You know, and the other thing too is I think the problem with narratives,

Morgan Wright:

again, it's like we get locked in on 'em and then well, uh, Craig,

Morgan Wright:

I know you were in the DC region.

Morgan Wright:

I was, if I said

Craig Floyd:

white van,

Morgan Wright:

yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Mm-hmm.

Morgan Wright:

White narrative right there.

Morgan Wright:

You said it white.

Morgan Wright:

Everybody's looking for a white van.

Morgan Wright:

And I, I told the FBI all the data we needed to solve, you

Morgan Wright:

already had, and guess what?

Morgan Wright:

They did a. Malvo and Mohammed were, had their plates run 13 times

Morgan Wright:

in 33 days by law enforcement.

Morgan Wright:

Their tag was in the system four times Are

Craig Floyd:

we're talking about the beltway snipers.

Craig Floyd:

The

Dennis Collins:

beltway sniper.

Dennis Collins:

Right.

Craig Floyd:

The beltway snipers killed 10 people in this area.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, we've done a podcast on that.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Well, I got the data behind it.

Morgan Wright:

I did the presentation.

Morgan Wright:

I went out to FBI and I said, look, you got all the data.

Morgan Wright:

'cause I was doing stuff on serial killers about low level contacts and looking at.

Morgan Wright:

N-C, what's called NCIC Offline.

Morgan Wright:

So, but, but four times a dark colored or dark colored or burgundy

Morgan Wright:

colored caprice was seen leaving the scene of one of those shootings.

Morgan Wright:

And guess what?

Morgan Wright:

It's the only vehicle in the United States whose plate was running the

Morgan Wright:

National Capital Region and in Alabama.

Morgan Wright:

And how do we tie those two together?

Morgan Wright:

'cause ballistics tied the shootings in the National capital region to the

Morgan Wright:

one in Alabama, right, Montgomery?

Morgan Wright:

That's where people got it confused.

Morgan Wright:

They thought they were talking about Montgomery.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, county, Montgomery

Dennis Collins:

County.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, right.

Morgan Wright:

As opposed to Montgomery, Alabama.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

So, wow.

Morgan Wright:

That's, that's my point.

Morgan Wright:

So when you get locked in, what was everybody looking for?

Morgan Wright:

Every time a shooting happened, we were shutting it down,

Morgan Wright:

looking for a white panel van.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

So is there something, Morgan, in your, uh, in your experience,

Dennis Collins:

in your, with your expertise.

Dennis Collins:

Is there something hiding here in plain sight?

Dennis Collins:

As in so, so many cases?

Dennis Collins:

Because kind of what you're saying is, Hey, look over here.

Dennis Collins:

Look over here, and we should be looking over here.

Dennis Collins:

Is there something hiding in plain sight here?

Morgan Wright:

Yeah, there probably is.

Morgan Wright:

And one of the things I start working I did is um, I do a lot of work.

Morgan Wright:

A friend of mine owns a company called Fog Data, and they do a lot

Morgan Wright:

of work with what's called ad tech.

Morgan Wright:

So you have two things, cell site location information, that's where the ping's

Morgan Wright:

off the cell phone, but those require subpoenas to each individual carrier.

Morgan Wright:

Then you have to aggregate it.

Morgan Wright:

Ad tech is different.

Morgan Wright:

That's based on the app on your phone.

Morgan Wright:

It doesn't matter.

Morgan Wright:

Your carrier doesn't matter what model you have because those apps now centralize

Morgan Wright:

the collection of data and that data becomes is something that's sold.

Morgan Wright:

You agree to it when you download your app.

Morgan Wright:

So everything I'm talking about here is perfectly legal.

Morgan Wright:

So I think that there are some mo patterns of movement and, and here's

Morgan Wright:

the, here's the reason I say that.

Morgan Wright:

I was telling somebody, if you think about what some of these gangs do, or

Morgan Wright:

even even people who have at least.

Morgan Wright:

Some modicum of, of tradecraft, they actually follow the same thing

Morgan Wright:

the terrorist planning cycle does.

Morgan Wright:

When you commit a terrorist act, you do things like broad target selection, um,

Morgan Wright:

initial reconnaissance, final target selection, uh, rehearsals, uh, and

Morgan Wright:

final, uh, then final, um, reconnaissance actions on the objective, escape and

Morgan Wright:

exploitation, escape innovation, I mean.

Morgan Wright:

That's human behavior.

Morgan Wright:

So what I'm saying, Dennis, is we need to look at what human behavior does.

Morgan Wright:

How would somebody leave that area?

Dennis Collins:

Yes.

Morgan Wright:

And what we need to do is focus on what are the

Morgan Wright:

most likely areas they left.

Morgan Wright:

Focus a signals analysis on all of those areas.

Morgan Wright:

Because it is out, I think it's out there somewhere, but, you know,

Morgan Wright:

criminals have gotten smarter.

Morgan Wright:

The, the, the damage CSI did for, uh, collecting DNA and evidence cases.

Morgan Wright:

Well, 'cause they told 'em just pour bleach on stuff or get rid of it.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, they showed them.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah, but what's the expectation?

Morgan Wright:

The expectation is you can run DNA and have it back in 44 minutes.

Morgan Wright:

Why?

Morgan Wright:

Because that's the amount of time a one hour show on TV gets

Morgan Wright:

at 16 minutes of commercial.

Morgan Wright:

So right, all DNA comes back in 40, solved in 44 minutes,

Craig Floyd:

right?

Craig Floyd:

Morgan?

Craig Floyd:

One of, one of the things that interests me is that, um, you know, most of these

Craig Floyd:

kind of cases are solved in, in the first.

Craig Floyd:

Few days, uh, and if they go cold, it, it's much less likely that we're gonna

Craig Floyd:

get a, a good outcome anytime soon.

Craig Floyd:

Um, in the early days of this investigation, we, we saw, uh,

Craig Floyd:

sheriff Chris Nanos, uh, Pima County Sheriff down there in Arizona.

Craig Floyd:

He took, seemed to take the lead, his agency took the lead, then the.

Craig Floyd:

BI came in.

Craig Floyd:

Look back at the, those early days.

Craig Floyd:

Were there mistakes made or do you think this crime was just done so well that,

Craig Floyd:

uh, we may never have a, a good outcome?

Morgan Wright:

Um.

Morgan Wright:

So I don't wanna, I don't wanna disparage any agency.

Morgan Wright:

Um, but, but I will say, let me put it to you this way.

Morgan Wright:

Um, it's not unusual for an agency to maintain the lead on something

Morgan Wright:

when there's not a federal nexus, if there's not a federal predicate.

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

But the FBI comes in and helps on a lot of things now.

Morgan Wright:

Technically, if it's kidnapping, would the FBI have jurisdiction

Morgan Wright:

to the extent that it violates the Hobbs Act or goes across state lines

Morgan Wright:

and you're so close to the border.

Morgan Wright:

But I think the appropriate relationship was the Sheriff's Office takes the lead.

Morgan Wright:

I would've taken more advantage of the FBI early on, only for

Morgan Wright:

the reason because Nancy Guthrie.

Morgan Wright:

This was gonna be a national case.

Morgan Wright:

Everybody knew it because of Savannah Guthrie.

Morgan Wright:

This was gonna get the attention, right, that it obviously did.

Morgan Wright:

And so what you wanna do is take advantage of the resources.

Morgan Wright:

Look, a friend of mine, Michael Miller, um, uh, chief Police down

Morgan Wright:

there in Texas, where they had the shooting at the synagogue.

Morgan Wright:

They, HRT, he said he was so impressed.

Morgan Wright:

HRT, I mean, FBI flew out HRT, these folks, they had a standoff,

Morgan Wright:

but he's, but look, I, I've worked with the bureau enough too.

Morgan Wright:

When they roll, they've got the toys.

Morgan Wright:

I mean, they, they're somebody who brings some serious toys to the game, right?

Morgan Wright:

And so I would've done that.

Morgan Wright:

I think, um, just me personally, I would've done that earlier, but the

Morgan Wright:

other strategy I would've taken.

Morgan Wright:

Um, here's the other thing that happens, and it gets to the

Morgan Wright:

narrative we were talking about.

Morgan Wright:

When you don't hold any kind of a regular.

Morgan Wright:

Touchpoint with the press you have to feed the beast and reporters will start.

Morgan Wright:

I can't tell you how many times I was reached out to by local reporters just

Morgan Wright:

looking for some new angle, right?

Morgan Wright:

Because there wasn't, and, and I'm not knocking it.

Morgan Wright:

That's his style.

Morgan Wright:

He, he can certainly do that just for me, the way I would've done it, even

Morgan Wright:

if he didn't have enough to report, I would've at least had somebody, a

Morgan Wright:

public face out there, a PIO so that people come and talk to them and say,

Morgan Wright:

Hey look, here's what we're doing.

Morgan Wright:

Here's the update.

Morgan Wright:

And as people, you reach a point to where the case peaks.

Morgan Wright:

Where that's, and I could tell too who was out there by looking at the amount

Morgan Wright:

of, uh, media that was there, just lining the road, I'd actually drove the house.

Morgan Wright:

'cause I wanted to at least say I've been there.

Morgan Wright:

I saw the scene, I saw, I talked to the deputy guarding the house.

Morgan Wright:

I checked the area.

Morgan Wright:

Well the other thing too, here's the other thing that got me.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, you were talking about mistakes.

Morgan Wright:

I think when they, the New York Post was following the FBI when they found

Morgan Wright:

the glove on the side of the road.

Morgan Wright:

Oh my God.

Morgan Wright:

It's the glove and, and everybody's a well.

Morgan Wright:

But lemme tell you, I was on, um, I think it was News Nation with Elizabeth Vargas.

Morgan Wright:

Elizabeth and I were actually designed to be on the second generation of

Morgan Wright:

America's Most Wanted together.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, and COVID hit.

Morgan Wright:

So that kind of went, but we were talking, but I, I said

Morgan Wright:

something and she repeated it.

Morgan Wright:

I said that glove means absolutely nothing until it's tied to the crime scene.

Morgan Wright:

Otherwise, it's just a data point.

Morgan Wright:

And what did we find out?

Morgan Wright:

Has nothing to do with it.

Morgan Wright:

Nothing.

Morgan Wright:

They ran the DNA as a restaurant worker, and, but yet we exhausted so

Morgan Wright:

much cognitive energy and so much.

Morgan Wright:

Press and focus, but that's the role of a PIO to say, Hey look guys, tone it down.

Morgan Wright:

This is nothing but a data point.

Morgan Wright:

And, but I tell now, there is one constructive criticism I

Morgan Wright:

would give in this whole thing.

Morgan Wright:

If you're a first responder, if you're a searcher and you're out there,

Morgan Wright:

for God's sakes, take everything out that you brought in with you.

Morgan Wright:

Do not discard, discard gloves.

Morgan Wright:

Cigarette butts, gum wrappers.

Morgan Wright:

Quit doing that.

Morgan Wright:

You know why?

Morgan Wright:

'cause everybody thinks, oh, that could be potential evidence.

Morgan Wright:

So

Dennis Collins:

yeah,

Morgan Wright:

that, that would be my only constructive criticism.

Morgan Wright:

It's like camping.

Morgan Wright:

When you go camping and you're in a national forest, you clean up

Morgan Wright:

your campsite, you take, you pack everything out, including your trash.

Morgan Wright:

So, um,

Dennis Collins:

yeah.

Morgan Wright:

But you know, structurally well, one more point here real quick.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Here's the biggest mistake, though.

Morgan Wright:

We, we only know what we know.

Morgan Wright:

A lot of people are making too many assumptions when you don't have.

Morgan Wright:

Regular contact and they're trying to infer what law enforcement knows

Morgan Wright:

and they're getting it all wrong.

Morgan Wright:

We don't know what's inside the house.

Morgan Wright:

We know that there's mixed DNA, but that's the other thing.

Morgan Wright:

There's a whole big chunk of this missing.

Morgan Wright:

It's like a DNA strand that they did on Jurassic Park, and they filled it

Morgan Wright:

in and we saw what happened there.

Morgan Wright:

You know, dinosaurs went wild.

Morgan Wright:

So you gotta be careful about filling in that DNA strand.

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

Well when, um, uh, one of the criticisms early on was that they

Craig Floyd:

opened up the crime scene, uh, too early and, uh, investigators.

Craig Floyd:

Kept going back into the house, kept going, looking for more evidence in,

Craig Floyd:

in the surrounding area, and, and perhaps, uh, some of the evidence

Craig Floyd:

might have been lost because they opened up the crime scene too soon.

Craig Floyd:

Reporters, uh, curious Onlookers started going to the house, looking at the blood

Craig Floyd:

on the, on the porch and in the driveway.

Craig Floyd:

What, what's your thought on that?

Morgan Wright:

So here's, here's a bit of forensic trivia.

Morgan Wright:

How many people know what Locard's Principle is?

Dennis Collins:

Billy notes.

Dennis Collins:

Billy.

Dennis Collins:

Billy.

Dennis Collins:

Raise your

Morgan Wright:

hand.

Morgan Wright:

There you go.

Morgan Wright:

Trivia for 300.

Morgan Wright:

For $200.

Morgan Wright:

Locard was a, was actually a forensic scientist.

Morgan Wright:

I think he was French, but Locard's exchange principle that says anytime you

Morgan Wright:

come in contact with something, you leave something and you take something with you.

Morgan Wright:

Oh, so the, this is why you control crime scenes.

Morgan Wright:

And to your point, Craig, actually that's another constructive criticism.

Morgan Wright:

It's like the military.

Morgan Wright:

Once you, once you, you don't wanna fight for the same ground twice.

Morgan Wright:

And if they develop a suspect, what you, what have you automatically

Morgan Wright:

started building in reasonable doubt.

Morgan Wright:

'cause you can say that evidence wasn't there.

Morgan Wright:

That's not him that was introduced.

Morgan Wright:

That's why you have to be so careful with touch.

Morgan Wright:

DNAI shake hands with you, Craig.

Morgan Wright:

I get what's called touch, DNA epithelial cell.

Morgan Wright:

I go and I pull a door open.

Morgan Wright:

I've just put your DNA on a door in a building you've never been in.

Morgan Wright:

But yet now I've put you at the crime scene.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

So people, people leap to that conclusion, right?

Morgan Wright:

So, yeah, you're right.

Morgan Wright:

I think I would've, here's the other thing.

Morgan Wright:

As much money is gonna be spent on this case, and time and attention

Morgan Wright:

simply stationing a deputy there and keeping the crime scene

Morgan Wright:

locked down until you were sure.

Morgan Wright:

Um, I, I, no, look, I understand budgets.

Morgan Wright:

You gotta be careful about how you do stuff, but I also understand.

Morgan Wright:

That if you don't keep that crime scene secure, the cost to come back in

Morgan Wright:

and then do all these other things to account for it will far exceed the cost

Morgan Wright:

of stationing a single deputy out front.

Morgan Wright:

I work crime scenes to where we had to station somebody.

Morgan Wright:

We had a gang related, um, murder.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, he was actually a dope deal gone bad.

Morgan Wright:

A guy got run over with his own car, left in the middle of a field.

Morgan Wright:

We didn't find it till almost five 30 or six o'clock at night.

Morgan Wright:

So we had to secure that area until daylight the next day.

Morgan Wright:

'cause there was no way to go into that crime scene and

Morgan Wright:

be effective at searching it.

Morgan Wright:

So sometimes you just have to secure the scene and hold it.

Morgan Wright:

But I go back to what I said earlier, Craig.

Morgan Wright:

It is such a national case.

Morgan Wright:

With national visibility, I would've gone the extra mile because guess what?

Morgan Wright:

Every potential defense attorney, if they find a suspect, and I hope they

Morgan Wright:

do, every defense attorney is gonna be, you know, the biggest mistake

Morgan Wright:

they made in the OJ case when it came to DNA, when they were showing their

Morgan Wright:

videos, and I remember this, and they were showing how they collected videos.

Morgan Wright:

One of the, one of the demonstrations where they're showing actually, and

Morgan Wright:

I remember seeing this, this lady blonde, I think a ponytail glasses.

Morgan Wright:

She was showing how they got swabs off the concrete.

Morgan Wright:

She bent down, she touched her fingers on the concrete just to balance

Morgan Wright:

herself, and then took a swab and the defense attorneys pounced on that.

Morgan Wright:

'cause they said, you just touched the ground with your gloves.

Morgan Wright:

But those gloves are supposed to be sterile now.

Morgan Wright:

What if, what other DNA have you introduced into this that

Morgan Wright:

wasn't there to begin with?

Morgan Wright:

Wow.

Morgan Wright:

This is what's gonna happen when you don't control the scene.

Morgan Wright:

Defense attorneys are gonna pick this apart and have a

Morgan Wright:

field day, and guess what?

Morgan Wright:

They get the luxury of being a Monday morning quarterback.

Morgan Wright:

They can sit back and judge everything that you did.

Morgan Wright:

But again, Craig, I, I agree with you.

Morgan Wright:

Like I said, I, I know, you know, my heart's still, I'm still a cop.

Morgan Wright:

I bleed blue, so I hate to say, but if I could offer constructive, uh,

Morgan Wright:

improvements for people in the future, if you have a high profile case.

Morgan Wright:

Lock the scene down early, don't let anybody in.

Morgan Wright:

And there's nothing wrong with staying too long at a crime scene.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

You know, if you, especially if you've got consent to search and

Morgan Wright:

keeping that thing locked down.

Bill Erfurth:

So I just, I just wanna chime in now.

Bill Erfurth:

Go ahead, bill.

Bill Erfurth:

Because I, I, I, I think that ultimately we're all gonna be surprised in the end.

Bill Erfurth:

I think something is gonna surprise every one of us that

Bill Erfurth:

maybe we didn't think about.

Dennis Collins:

You know, Bill's, right.

Dennis Collins:

And in part two, Morgan Wright goes even deeper, not just on the Guthrie case,

Dennis Collins:

but on the investigative technology that could solve cases like this one for good.

Dennis Collins:

We're talking about a platform that found a six month fugitive in just 36 hours.

Dennis Collins:

Artificial intelligence that gives one detective the output of 10.

Dennis Collins:

And a way for you as a citizen to help solve cold cases

Dennis Collins:

without ever leaving your home.

Dennis Collins:

And if you wanna support the men and women of law enforcement,

Dennis Collins:

visit CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

Dennis Collins:

This is Heroes Behind the Badge.

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About the Podcast

Heroes Behind the Badge
We tell REAL stories about REAL cops.  And we expose the fake news about police and give you the REAL truth.
From the front lines to the final call, Heroes Behind the Badge brings you the untold stories of America's law enforcement community. Led by Craig Floyd, who spent 34 years working alongside police officers across the nation, alongside veteran facilitator Dennis Collins and law enforcement expert Bill Erfurth, this podcast cuts through misconceptions to reveal the true nature of modern policing.

Our dynamic trio brings unique perspectives to each episode: Craig shares deep insights from his decades of experience and relationships within law enforcement, Dennis guides conversations with meticulous research and natural flow, and Bill adds engaging commentary that makes complex law enforcement topics accessible to all listeners.

Each episode features in-depth conversations with law enforcement professionals, sharing their firsthand experiences, challenges, and triumphs. Drawing from extensive research and real-world experience, we explore the realities faced by the over 800,000 officers who serve and protect our communities every day.

From dramatic accounts of crisis response to quiet moments of everyday heroism, our show illuminates the human stories behind the badge. We dive deep into the statistics, policies, and practices that shape modern law enforcement, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of what it truly means to serve in law enforcement today.

Whether you're a law enforcement professional, a concerned citizen, or someone seeking to understand the complexities of modern policing, Heroes Behind the Badge provides the context, insights, and authentic perspectives you won't find anywhere else. Join us weekly as we honor those who dedicate their lives to keeping our communities safe, one story at a time.

Presented by Citizens Behind the Badge, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for law enforcement professionals across the United States. Join over 126,000 Americans who have already signed our Declaration of Support for law enforcement at behindbadge.org.