Episode 44

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Published on:

12th Mar 2026

The Nancy Guthrie Case: What Investigators Got Wrong - And the AI That Could Solve It - Pt 2

What if the technology to solve cold cases already exists — and most law enforcement doesn't know how to use it?

In Part 2 of this two-part conversation on Heroes Behind the Badge, Morgan Wright goes beyond the Guthrie case and reveals what's actually changing in cold case investigation.

This episode is not about hope or hype. It's not about what AI might do someday. And it's not about replacing investigators.

It's about what is already operational — and the uncomfortable gap between what law enforcement knows and what they could know if the right tools were in their hands.

We talk about:

  1. How a six-month fugitive was located in 36 hours using only open-source data
  2. Why treating a case like a social media profile changes everything
  3. How AI-structured prompts are producing 15-page investigative reports in hours
  4. Why the reward in the Guthrie case may not be what breaks it open
  5. The second-suspect question — and what the ring camera footage doesn't tell us
  6. The $5.7 trillion annual cost of unsolved crime in America
  7. How ordinary citizens can contribute to active cases right now

The conversation that started in Part 1 with first-principles analysis of the Guthrie case ends here with something bigger: a look at how the entire architecture of cold case investigation is being rebuilt — and how citizens are now part of that system.

If you want to understand where investigative technology is actually headed, this is the episode.

Learn More or Get Involved

  1. https://CitizensBehindtheBadge.org
  2. https://openunsolved.org

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Transcript
Dennis Collins:

In part one, Morgan Wright tore apart the prevailing

Dennis Collins:

narrative of the Guthrie case using first principles investigation.

Dennis Collins:

Today we go deeper.

Dennis Collins:

Morgan was in the room after nine 11 helping design how 18,000 law

Dennis Collins:

enforcement agencies share intelligence.

Dennis Collins:

He had the data to catch the DC snipers before they were ever caught, and now

Dennis Collins:

he's built a platform that tracked down a fugitive in just 36 hours that law

Dennis Collins:

enforcement couldn't find for six months.

Dennis Collins:

Today, Morgan tells us how technology

Dennis Collins:

And artificial intelligence are about to change cold case investigation

Dennis Collins:

forever, and how you as a citizen can be part of solving cases

Dennis Collins:

that have gone cold for decades.

Dennis Collins:

This is heroes behind the badge.

Bill Erfurth:

I am a little more interested in Morgan.

Bill Erfurth:

I wanna find out about Morgan's

Bill Erfurth:

Organization and some of the interesting things that you said that are new,

Bill Erfurth:

cutting edge technology and ways to go about investigating crime.

Bill Erfurth:

So Morgan, maybe you can tell us about that a little bit.

Morgan Wright:

I'd be happy to.

Bill Erfurth:

All right,

Morgan Wright:

so this actually, this idea actually started, the

Morgan Wright:

genesis of it was after nine 11 I was doing work, inside DOD on the

Morgan Wright:

counterintelligence field activity, joint counterintelligence assessment group.

Morgan Wright:

We were saying we've gotta look at this, all this data, we have all

Morgan Wright:

these systems and, and, find the risk.

Morgan Wright:

And then, uh, nine 11 happened and, I was doing work.

Morgan Wright:

I ended up working with the Department of Justice.

Morgan Wright:

I actually, I'm the architect.

Morgan Wright:

I wrote the entire concept, what's called the concept of operations 145

Morgan Wright:

page strategy on how to share information between all 18,000 federal, tribal,

Morgan Wright:

state, and local law enforcement agencies.

Morgan Wright:

And if you're listening out there, and you know what Ban is, that was our first win.

Morgan Wright:

There used to be like two and a half separate systems for ballistics.

Morgan Wright:

We actually made the case, there should be a single system, should

Morgan Wright:

be that sole source of information.

Morgan Wright:

And so we got that done.

Morgan Wright:

But the, thing I was frustrated with

Morgan Wright:

That led into I was the lead subject matter expert, consolidate

Morgan Wright:

into the terrorist watch list.

Morgan Wright:

We did the proposal, I came in 'cause I was doing work at justice.

Morgan Wright:

We looked at all the dots.

Morgan Wright:

Here's the case study on that real quick and why, what I'm doing, why

Morgan Wright:

I believe in what I'm doing now.

Morgan Wright:

Um, in April of 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi, who was who, uh, through link analysis

Morgan Wright:

we determined is like the second most important person behind Mohamed Atta.

Morgan Wright:

He was stopped by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, written a ticket.

Morgan Wright:

Guess what?

Morgan Wright:

Checked it in CIC.

Morgan Wright:

His record is in NCIC offline.

Morgan Wright:

He was let go.

Morgan Wright:

He paid his ticket in August of 2001.

Morgan Wright:

State Department puts him on a watch list.

Morgan Wright:

Why do you put somebody on a watch list who's already in the country?

Morgan Wright:

So we missed the chance to connect the dots there Several times, some

Morgan Wright:

of these hijackers were stopped, like Muhammad Atta was stopped in July.

Morgan Wright:

He had, overstayed his visa at that point.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, he had warrants in another county for failure to appear, and

Morgan Wright:

we failed to connect the dots.

Dennis Collins:

Wow.

Dennis Collins:

So,

Morgan Wright:

and that's, what, what, when I was talk, we were talking

Morgan Wright:

about doing work on the sniper case.

Morgan Wright:

I kept telling 'em, guys, all the data you need is there.

Morgan Wright:

We need to look at it the same way, the way ViCAP, the violent criminal

Morgan Wright:

apprehension program is supposed to work.

Morgan Wright:

You look at, the, crime scene, you look at the body, you look at whatever it

Morgan Wright:

is right there of signatures that you, and then you say, these are similar, a

Morgan Wright:

uh, serial killer may change their mo, but they rarely change their signature.

Morgan Wright:

So you look at what's the signature.

Morgan Wright:

But, I started saying, Hey, look, If you look at the number of people

Morgan Wright:

in the US age, 16 or older, and the NIJ, national Institutes of

Morgan Wright:

Justice did all these studies.

Morgan Wright:

It's a certain amount, the number that have at least one contact

Morgan Wright:

with law enforcement, then two, then three, then fourth, then five.

Morgan Wright:

That number got very small.

Morgan Wright:

So I said, let's supply that same model and draw circles

Morgan Wright:

around every, what's called ORI.

Morgan Wright:

That's kinda like the IP address for an agency.

Morgan Wright:

It identifies very specifically who an agency is and where.

Morgan Wright:

Let draw circles around that and then compare everything

Morgan Wright:

that's been run in NCIC offline.

Morgan Wright:

Compare that and find out what's in common.

Morgan Wright:

Well, guess what?

Morgan Wright:

I found Bill, 97 vehicles had been run in the National Capital Region, had

Morgan Wright:

had their tags run two or more times.

Morgan Wright:

Out of those 97, 3 were Chevy Caprices.

Morgan Wright:

One belonged to Malvo and Muhammad, and four times the Chevy Caprice

Morgan Wright:

was seen leaving the shooting.

Morgan Wright:

We had all the data we needed to do it.

Morgan Wright:

So I said, okay.

Morgan Wright:

Fast forward, 2013.

Morgan Wright:

my last quote, official job executive.

Morgan Wright:

I was an executive at Bell Labs Tel Lucent, but actually my team

Morgan Wright:

built what's now called FirstNet.

Morgan Wright:

We did the first demonstration of it.

Morgan Wright:

We rolled it out.

Morgan Wright:

Um, I, so I voice like this tech intersection between

Morgan Wright:

people and technology.

Morgan Wright:

So 2013, I had this idea that says, Hey, look, we're all connected to a case.

Morgan Wright:

Well, at that time, what was the platform that connected

Morgan Wright:

everybody in Six Ways to Sunday?

Morgan Wright:

It was Facebook, so I said, let's quit treating cases, like

Morgan Wright:

they're just a, a standalone.

Morgan Wright:

Let's treat cases like there were profile on Facebook and

Morgan Wright:

how are you connected to those?

Morgan Wright:

So I originally started off date, location, time, demographics,

Morgan Wright:

relation, and then I was morphed into geographic demographic, psychographic.

Morgan Wright:

But so I did, I built it, did a demonstration.

Morgan Wright:

Mike Chapman here in Loudoun County, he's a good friend of mine.

Morgan Wright:

For a long time sheriff there, I said, Hey, gimme a fugitive case.

Morgan Wright:

And it kind of looked like this.

Morgan Wright:

He said, Hey, I said, only open source information.

Morgan Wright:

I don't want no CGIs.

Morgan Wright:

No.

Morgan Wright:

So this is actually a US Al case that I'm working on with the US Marshals,

Morgan Wright:

but I, that's all I got was a flyer.

Morgan Wright:

I took that flyer, did open source research, found another 15

Morgan Wright:

locations this guy was known to be in, put that into our system.

Morgan Wright:

They'd been looking for this guy for six months.

Morgan Wright:

We found him in 36 hours.

Morgan Wright:

Three states away in a place.

Morgan Wright:

They had no idea he was there.

Morgan Wright:

And the reason it was being, it goes back to, we're all connected somehow.

Morgan Wright:

So when I looked at this, I said I wanted to find everything that

Morgan Wright:

connected somebody back to this crime.

Morgan Wright:

Um, I did a whole case study on the Cleveland kidnappings, Amanda Berry,

Morgan Wright:

Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.

Morgan Wright:

I don't, a lot of people don't realize, but they were all held

Morgan Wright:

within five miles of where they were kidnapped, I think three miles.

Morgan Wright:

And when you look at the sketch that they had of the suspect and compared

Morgan Wright:

it to Ariel Castro, I'm telling you that is I've seen, and I know you

Morgan Wright:

guys have had scenes of sketches done by police artists, sometimes they

Morgan Wright:

don't even come close to matching.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

This looked like somebody took the picture and drew his.

Morgan Wright:

Through, the sketch from his picture.

Morgan Wright:

It was so good, but yet they didn't share that information in the neighborhoods

Morgan Wright:

where this is, where this had happened.

Morgan Wright:

So I said, we gotta solve that.

Bill Erfurth:

Mm. So quick question.

Bill Erfurth:

I just want, I, I just wanna see if we can jump back into that, and of

Bill Erfurth:

course, without giving away trade secrets, you got it done in 36 hours.

Bill Erfurth:

Can you expound on that?

Morgan Wright:

Oh, it's not a trade secret.

Morgan Wright:

It's, it's the, all I did was think about it the way nobody else

Morgan Wright:

did, which is everybody treated Facebook like, Hey, we'll just go on

Morgan Wright:

Facebook and we'll post a picture.

Morgan Wright:

Here's what we're looking for.

Morgan Wright:

bill, the only way you would know that exists is if you're

Morgan Wright:

scrolling through Facebook.

Morgan Wright:

And you happen to see that post by that department on that day before it

Morgan Wright:

gets buried by 10 other posts, right?

Morgan Wright:

So, I said, no, we, have to, how do, we maintain persistence?

Morgan Wright:

Codis, uh, bin, uh, it was a AFIS at the time.

Morgan Wright:

It's now NGI.

Morgan Wright:

How do we put something in there so it persists and it

Morgan Wright:

waits for connection to happen?

Morgan Wright:

So I just simply said, treat the case as a profile, as a person.

Morgan Wright:

So that person has location.

Morgan Wright:

So if you go into Facebook, you can say, Hey, I used to live

Morgan Wright:

here, here, here, and here.

Morgan Wright:

And then.

Morgan Wright:

How many times have you guys logged into Facebook and found a

Morgan Wright:

connection to somebody that's like, on a completely different computer?

Morgan Wright:

A completely different network?

Morgan Wright:

Completely different email, of course.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

And it's like May.

Morgan Wright:

So Facebook and a lot of these folks are very eerie how they do it.

Morgan Wright:

So Bill, that's all I did.

Morgan Wright:

I just simply said, Hey look, where's this guy live?

Morgan Wright:

And then based on that, when people connected, they connected to our system.

Morgan Wright:

We had like 50,000 users at one time and about 500 agencies.

Morgan Wright:

when they connected they, they would link their.

Morgan Wright:

Facebook profile to the system?

Morgan Wright:

Well, the Facebook profile compared their profile to the case profile

Morgan Wright:

and found out what they had in common, and that's how we found it.

Morgan Wright:

Actually, I did a whole segment on uh, A, B, C.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, they interviewed Mike, they interviewed me.

Morgan Wright:

About how we found the guy, and that was just simply, it was just

Morgan Wright:

connecting those things in common.

Morgan Wright:

But it, you can't connect the dots unless you collect the dots.

Morgan Wright:

Bill and the dots all have to be in one place.

Morgan Wright:

So what I did was I re-architected it because the problem with Facebook.

Morgan Wright:

And I'm not talking about it as a company, but just talk.

Morgan Wright:

The whole logistical problem is the algorithm changes all the

Morgan Wright:

time, and it's a privacy issue.

Morgan Wright:

They don't own, they own the data.

Morgan Wright:

We never own the data.

Morgan Wright:

So how did we redo this?

Morgan Wright:

So it came to me and said, well, let's just use open source information,

Morgan Wright:

geographic demographic, psychographic.

Morgan Wright:

Everything has to translate back into geospatial, into a location, but.

Morgan Wright:

For example, take this case that I'm working on right now at the Marshalls.

Morgan Wright:

If we, we've actually got this listed on our site.

Morgan Wright:

So if you go to, uh, OpenUnsolved.org, you can find, you can click on

Morgan Wright:

the thing that says Active cases.

Morgan Wright:

She's one of the cases here.

Morgan Wright:

This flyer only lists two locations.

Morgan Wright:

Just the town of where the crime was committed.

Morgan Wright:

And then the location in Ohio where she killed her boyfriend, dismembered

Morgan Wright:

him and dumped his body parts on I 75.

Morgan Wright:

Well, I went through, I found another 12 or 13 locations I found family

Morgan Wright:

members she was connected to, which now becomes additional locations.

Morgan Wright:

and so that's the way we approach it.

Morgan Wright:

We say, what are all the locations in common?

Morgan Wright:

That's how we approach it.

Morgan Wright:

I started with a flyer like this with Mike Chapman.

Morgan Wright:

So now all of our cases we're putting in, we've got the pilot's going on right

Morgan Wright:

now, so we actually have a pilot program.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, we're gonna cap it at 15.

Morgan Wright:

We're almost there.

Morgan Wright:

So if any agencies are interested, uh, you can go to OpenUnsolved.org.

Morgan Wright:

You can register under the law enforcement side.

Morgan Wright:

But we've got agencies right now from California to Virginia.

Morgan Wright:

wow.

Morgan Wright:

You know, and we're, we're looking for all different sizes.

Morgan Wright:

So, so to kind of bring it back, you know, what's the system is.

Morgan Wright:

So, um, when we did it this way, we partnered with the Chesterfield County

Morgan Wright:

Police Department and the Virginia Association Chiefs, the police.

Morgan Wright:

So I've, I've known Dana Schrad and VACP (Virginia Association of Chiefs

Morgan Wright:

of Police) for many, many years.

Morgan Wright:

Good partners, good friends.

Morgan Wright:

So we actually, through Chesterfield, through Jeff Katz, who is the

Morgan Wright:

colonel there, who's now the Colonel of the State Police in Virginia.

Morgan Wright:

Which is good for us.

Morgan Wright:

we were able to get two grants from DOJ and help build this out.

Morgan Wright:

Now these are micro grants, so we built this entire system based on

Morgan Wright:

less money than you would pay with fringe and benefits and salary.

Morgan Wright:

Less than you would pay one and a half executives for one year and one agency.

Morgan Wright:

So it's very.

Morgan Wright:

It's been very much, we had to make some trade-offs, but the system's functional.

Morgan Wright:

It's operational.

Morgan Wright:

We've got cases in there now.

Morgan Wright:

We are, what we're doing now is I'm a firm believer in community policing.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, I sat on the ICP community policing committee for six years, so I never

Morgan Wright:

solved a case with too few leads.

Morgan Wright:

I always solved a case than we had more leads than we ever needed, which

Morgan Wright:

was good, bad in a way, but good.

Morgan Wright:

But so.

Morgan Wright:

this can't work just on the police alone.

Morgan Wright:

This is the only system in the United States that puts the police and the

Morgan Wright:

public on the same platform to share locations in common between locations

Morgan Wright:

in their life that are relevant to them.

Morgan Wright:

Yes.

Morgan Wright:

Comparing it to locations in a case.

Morgan Wright:

And so it sits like codis, like DNA.

Morgan Wright:

You put a profile in there.

Morgan Wright:

And it either makes a match or it doesn't.

Morgan Wright:

And if it doesn't make a match, it sits there and it waits until something's

Morgan Wright:

put in that it does make a match.

Morgan Wright:

And now everybody benefits.

Morgan Wright:

So our goal is to link all the crime stoppers together and the

Morgan Wright:

crime solvers into one unified place, one unified platform.

Morgan Wright:

But we're rolling it out, in Virginia and California, probably

Morgan Wright:

Ohio and maybe Tennessee with our pilot program right now.

Bill Erfurth:

Morgan, before when you started the interview, you, I

Bill Erfurth:

just wanna talk about something that, that we were chatting about before

Bill Erfurth:

and, you were talking about how now you're using technology mm-hmm.

Bill Erfurth:

And, uh, all these social media sites and whatnot, to, bring together,

Bill Erfurth:

to show who went to school together and who lived in the same town or

Bill Erfurth:

who lived in the same neighborhood.

Bill Erfurth:

Talk about that a little bit.

Morgan Wright:

So that just comes from the pattern matching.

Morgan Wright:

So it's like when you look at a case, So you think about doing victimology,

Morgan Wright:

like say on a homicide, a lot of people just look at it around that.

Morgan Wright:

But when we say, when we look at it, we look at it from a geospatial standpoint,

Morgan Wright:

and a temporal standpoint, geospatial.

Morgan Wright:

It's not only where's the victim live right then, and where did

Morgan Wright:

she work, but where was she born?

Morgan Wright:

Where did she go to school?

Morgan Wright:

Where are all of these other places that are relevant in her

Morgan Wright:

life that may generate a lead?

Morgan Wright:

Because guess what, like I used to live in Kansas, so if

Morgan Wright:

you put a case in from Kansas.

Morgan Wright:

I'm not living in Kansas anymore.

Morgan Wright:

Haven't been there for 26 years, but I would get a notification now

Morgan Wright:

because I used to live there where that case was and I might know the guy.

Morgan Wright:

Look, if you guys remember America's Most Wanted, I mean, I was a

Morgan Wright:

technical advisor with John Walsh and his crew for a year and a half.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah, John Wal.

Morgan Wright:

I was there for the 1000th episode.

Morgan Wright:

One of the things I designed called Digital Signage for Public Safety, we

Morgan Wright:

actually featured on the 1000th episode.

Morgan Wright:

Imagine when a MW launched, everybody says, is this gonna work or not?

Morgan Wright:

Then they caught an FBI top 10, and then it kind of exploded from there.

Morgan Wright:

But with, TV, you have to be watching.

Morgan Wright:

It was appointment tv.

Morgan Wright:

They might have 3000 cases, but again, 44 minutes of network television.

Morgan Wright:

You might be lucky to get five cases on there, right?

Morgan Wright:

And 2,995 don't get the time of day.

Morgan Wright:

Then you also get what they call white girl syndrome, the Gabby Petito

Morgan Wright:

case, all this focus on her right.

Morgan Wright:

What are we doing for all the other cases?

Morgan Wright:

So the way the technology works is we don't care.

Morgan Wright:

Age, race, sex, height, socio, doesn't matter.

Morgan Wright:

It's like we treat it like a profile.

Morgan Wright:

It, stays in there.

Morgan Wright:

It's ones and zeros.

Morgan Wright:

It doesn't care.

Morgan Wright:

But if you come in because of one case bill, if you come in because of

Morgan Wright:

a case that involves Nancy Guthrie.

Morgan Wright:

And you say, Hey, I wanna find out if I'm connected to that case.

Morgan Wright:

You have zero connection to that, but you might be connected to 10 other

Morgan Wright:

cases that you weren't aware about.

Morgan Wright:

So it doesn't matter.

Morgan Wright:

Case brings you in, we connect you to everything that's inside there.

Morgan Wright:

And then the second thing we're doing, um, we want to create, and we've

Morgan Wright:

already started doing this, so we've, we want to create the first, what's

Morgan Wright:

called large language model for law enforcement, a universal large language

Morgan Wright:

model, harness the power of ai,

Dennis Collins:

right?

Morgan Wright:

The way we're doing that right now is, doesn't matter which.

Morgan Wright:

Chat bot.

Morgan Wright:

You use like a, uh, chat.

Morgan Wright:

Chat, GPT, perplexity.

Morgan Wright:

Grok, Claude.

Morgan Wright:

But, I'm working with Johnny Capelli out of Chesterfield County, but I started,

Morgan Wright:

I'm saying, why don't we do this, right?

Morgan Wright:

Why don't we create structured prompts and take advantage of the power of ai?

Morgan Wright:

So, um, we've now got several structured prompts for homicide

Morgan Wright:

cases, uh, kidnappings.

Morgan Wright:

Missing persons fugitives that go through.

Morgan Wright:

And once you set the context, the role you, you do the interview so

Morgan Wright:

that chat bot asks you questions.

Morgan Wright:

Then the task I generated about a 15 page document and I shared it with the marshals

Morgan Wright:

stuff that they weren't even aware of.

Morgan Wright:

And so what we wanna do is how do I make an investigator.

Morgan Wright:

Be able to do 10 times the work without working 10 times longer.

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

And so we have to figure out how to harness the power of ai.

Morgan Wright:

So we're actually gonna do a one hour course called Structured

Morgan Wright:

Prompts for criminal investigations.

Dennis Collins:

That's brilliant.

Morgan Wright:

What we're

Dennis Collins:

brilliant.

Morgan Wright:

But every agency I've talked to so far on this

Morgan Wright:

pilot program, this is one of the questions I ask, are you using ai?

Morgan Wright:

And do you know what a structured prompt is?

Morgan Wright:

No.

Morgan Wright:

Johnny Capelli, and I know we're recording this on a day, nobody,

Morgan Wright:

it'll come out later, but.

Morgan Wright:

We're recording this on a Friday.

Morgan Wright:

The day before Johnny, the guy I'm working with, he's our liaison.

Morgan Wright:

He retired from Chesterfield County, an expert in nobody,

Morgan Wright:

body homicides, cold cases.

Morgan Wright:

He's actually working with the Texas Rangers on a case.

Morgan Wright:

He produced a report using the structured prompt I developed, and he's

Morgan Wright:

enhanced, gave it to the Texas Rangers.

Morgan Wright:

These guys are, you know, and girls are great.

Morgan Wright:

They go, how did you do this?

Morgan Wright:

Where did you get this?

Morgan Wright:

And he said.

Morgan Wright:

That's it.

Morgan Wright:

So this is really just introducing people to the power of what's already out there.

Morgan Wright:

And again, we're, we're a nonprofit, we're funded by the government right now.

Morgan Wright:

Now would we take donors?

Morgan Wright:

I don't wanna take anything away from you guys, but if anybody wants to donate to

Morgan Wright:

us, we're a C3, we'll take your money.

Morgan Wright:

You know, but we're looking, but what we're looking to do is get

Morgan Wright:

funded the same way NCMEC does.

Morgan Wright:

Ncmec, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Morgan Wright:

As a authorization.

Morgan Wright:

The program's authorized every year or every four years.

Morgan Wright:

They get 47 to 50 million a year.

Morgan Wright:

They have about 250 employees.

Morgan Wright:

We're saying we're gonna invert that model and be very technology focused.

Morgan Wright:

AI focused.

Morgan Wright:

We're we're analysts.

Morgan Wright:

We're not investigators in the field, not case managers.

Morgan Wright:

We wanna make it easier for you to solve your case.

Morgan Wright:

So we've inverted our model.

Morgan Wright:

We can do with 19 people and $6.75 million.

Morgan Wright:

We can cover every case.

Morgan Wright:

Any case that's listed in the NCIC manual, we can cover all those cases.

Morgan Wright:

And by the way, the internet has no concept of distance.

Morgan Wright:

Doesn't matter where you are in the world, we can make connections

Morgan Wright:

between here to Australia.

Bill Erfurth:

So Morgan, this is Morgan.

Bill Erfurth:

If this is a big question, this comes up all the time and we have a mass

Bill Erfurth:

shooting or some crazy crime, you know, clearly everything we're talking

Bill Erfurth:

about right now, it's much easier to be an investigator today than it was

Bill Erfurth:

20 years ago because of technology.

Bill Erfurth:

But oftentimes we'll have these mass shootings, these school shootings,

Bill Erfurth:

and it always comes up and, and says, well, there were these red flags and

Bill Erfurth:

there were these posts on social media.

Bill Erfurth:

Why wasn't this identified earlier?

Bill Erfurth:

How, do you think that what you're talking about may potentially be able

Bill Erfurth:

to identify those things in advance?

Morgan Wright:

So Bill, I would say we're not really geared towards doing that.

Morgan Wright:

That's more like open source intelligence and looking at all sources and stuff.

Morgan Wright:

But I will tell you though, one of the ways you can address it.

Morgan Wright:

But here's the problem.

Morgan Wright:

I wouldn't say it's easier than it was 20 years ago.

Morgan Wright:

I, we have more data than we had 20 years ago, and that leads to what

Morgan Wright:

I called informational entropy.

Morgan Wright:

In other words, we can get so much information, we're drowning in it.

Morgan Wright:

The mind can only hold four to six concepts at a time.

Morgan Wright:

the mind is for having ideas not holding them.

Morgan Wright:

And I tell people, my mind's like a bookshelf.

Morgan Wright:

It went on, another book falls off.

Morgan Wright:

But the question, that you're talking about is how do you derive

Morgan Wright:

intent or behavior out of posts when you're, when yeah, I mean, how many?

Morgan Wright:

Not just petabytes, but zetabytes of data is out there

Morgan Wright:

that you have to comb through.

Morgan Wright:

So I would tell people, it's always easy looking backwards to connect the dots.

Morgan Wright:

It's very difficult.

Morgan Wright:

To connect the dots looking forward, right?

Morgan Wright:

So somebody would say, but you know what, that boils down to that a lot of times

Morgan Wright:

that boils down to if you're online and you see behavior like this, is there a

Morgan Wright:

structured way for somebody to report their concerns that's coordinated,

Morgan Wright:

like in a fusion center or a threat center to where that can be looked at?

Morgan Wright:

We know that in Parkland, we know that in uh, some other cases they said,

Morgan Wright:

Hey, well the FBI had this information.

Morgan Wright:

I'm not gonna knock the FBI, I don't know exactly what the case is, but I

Morgan Wright:

will tell you if I'm a detective and I'm sitting there and you give me 20

Morgan Wright:

volumes on a cold case homicide, and you say, Hey, I want you up to speed on this

Morgan Wright:

by tomorrow morning, not gonna happen.

Morgan Wright:

There's no way I can hold 20 volumes in my head.

Morgan Wright:

So we have to look at how does.

Morgan Wright:

How does artificial intelligence properly constrained?

Morgan Wright:

You gotta put the guardrails on it.

Morgan Wright:

That's why a highway has boundaries.

Morgan Wright:

You know, you, you just can't be just riding, driving all over the place.

Morgan Wright:

But we have to be very structured about how we do this.

Morgan Wright:

But I think there's ways that's more intelligence analysis.

Morgan Wright:

and, and there are products out there that do that we're more focused on

Morgan Wright:

for crimes that have been committed.

Morgan Wright:

and you're looking to develop leads on that.

Morgan Wright:

How do we help you generate, those.

Craig Floyd:

Morgan, what's the website people can go to?

Craig Floyd:

I mean, this is fascinating.

Craig Floyd:

You want the public's help?

Craig Floyd:

Uh, where, where can they go to get started Here?

Morgan Wright:

OpenUnsolved.org.

Morgan Wright:

And now look guys, it's a work in progress.

Morgan Wright:

'cause right now we're of all volunteer organization.

Morgan Wright:

I've been doing this for a year.

Morgan Wright:

Longer than that, but I've been working without pay for a year

Morgan Wright:

trying to get this up and running.

Morgan Wright:

So, um, we're, while the website looks nice, there's a couple things

Morgan Wright:

we need to fix, so judge us on that yet, but judge us by the results we're

Morgan Wright:

getting where every agency I talk to.

Morgan Wright:

So any agency, whether you're law enforcement or citizen,

Morgan Wright:

if you go to OpenUnsolved.org.

Morgan Wright:

You can start as a citizen, you can start registering and in fact, one

Morgan Wright:

of the things I've already done, I've got a online guide for law enforcement

Morgan Wright:

and an online guide for citizens.

Morgan Wright:

So you can, you'll be able to click it and it will show you, Hey,

Morgan Wright:

this is how you use our platform.

Morgan Wright:

This is what you do.

Morgan Wright:

Now, what I'd love to do, Craig, this is one of the things we're working on.

Morgan Wright:

Once you get to a mobile app, for me, that's the game changer.

Morgan Wright:

That's the killer thing that we need right now.

Morgan Wright:

Because how do people live their life?

Morgan Wright:

If I ask you guys to show me your phone, I guarantee you your phone's within

Morgan Wright:

arm's reach right, are pretty close.

Morgan Wright:

So, but everybody has one of these things.

Morgan Wright:

This is how they prefer to do it.

Morgan Wright:

So while we're web based, right now, we're moving to mobile.

Dennis Collins:

That's great.

Craig Floyd:

Hey, I wanna shift back.

Craig Floyd:

I, I, while I got you, I mean

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

you, you've been so involved and immersed in the Nancy Guthrie case.

Craig Floyd:

One thing that's always troubled me, and, and I know we've

Craig Floyd:

talked about it a little bit.

Craig Floyd:

You, you got one guy.

Craig Floyd:

in the video, the ring camera, uh, video, and we've all seen it.

Craig Floyd:

I just can't imagine if this was a planned abduction, that there wouldn't

Craig Floyd:

have been more than one person involved because you've got a, a woman that, you

Craig Floyd:

know, you're, she may be incapacitated, she not real mobile to begin with.

Craig Floyd:

We understand.

Craig Floyd:

wouldn't this person that we keep seeing in the video have had an

Craig Floyd:

accomplice or maybe more than one?

Craig Floyd:

What's your thought?

Morgan Wright:

That's one thing I said, if you have an abduction, if it,

Morgan Wright:

if this is not a burglar gone wrong, but a targeted abduction, then on

Morgan Wright:

an abduction you need three things.

Morgan Wright:

Entry control, exit.

Morgan Wright:

And so one of those things on control is how do you control that person?

Morgan Wright:

Look, you might be, I remember when I was a state trooper, I

Morgan Wright:

was, uh, you know, applied for it.

Morgan Wright:

I was pretty physically fit.

Morgan Wright:

I was coming outta the police department.

Morgan Wright:

I was in the Army Reserves, you know.

Morgan Wright:

But to drag 150 pound dummy, that's dead weight.

Morgan Wright:

It's not that easy.

Morgan Wright:

So, um, that's what leads me to say, if this was targeted deduction, then

Morgan Wright:

where's the logistics for exit, which means a vehicle, And so now there is

Morgan Wright:

some video out there and you, I think a lot of people are assuming too much,

Morgan Wright:

but there are some indications in one of the videos that they show that it looks

Morgan Wright:

like there might have been a mobile phone screen or something like that flashing,

Morgan Wright:

which might indicate a second person.

Morgan Wright:

But I tell people the video, we don't have all the video.

Morgan Wright:

And we don't even know what law enforcement knows, but I would say

Morgan Wright:

if I were looking at this again, just using first principles, it

Morgan Wright:

doesn't matter what you believe, it's matters what must be true,

Dennis Collins:

right?

Morgan Wright:

There are enough signals to indicate that as a targeted abduction

Morgan Wright:

because how else would that person, um.

Morgan Wright:

Because what I would expect to see inside the house, and I, some

Morgan Wright:

people say, you're sounding morbid.

Morgan Wright:

No, I'm clinical.

Morgan Wright:

It's an investigator, right?

Morgan Wright:

You gotta just compartmentalize.

Morgan Wright:

But if she was, if she was somehow subdued and left in the house and

Morgan Wright:

already bleeding, you would expect to find a puddle of blood where

Morgan Wright:

she was laying as the offender went and got a vehicle of if he's, uh,

Morgan Wright:

acting solo and then bring her out.

Morgan Wright:

So I would say, Craig, if inside the house, there's no evidence of

Morgan Wright:

that, but it looks like the injury started in the house and went right

Morgan Wright:

out and went right to a vehicle then.

Morgan Wright:

I would say you, you must be, you have to consider the possibility

Morgan Wright:

that there's a second person.

Morgan Wright:

It's too tough to do a targeted abduction.

Morgan Wright:

And we were talking about, I think, you might've said something, bill, but, so one

Morgan Wright:

of the things I did to test this, I had, I, I got a hold of Pete Ferelli, if you

Morgan Wright:

guys, some of you guys might know Pete.

Morgan Wright:

Pete was one of the whistleblowers on Fast and Furious, um, was an ad at a TF.

Morgan Wright:

He's written a book called The Deadly Path.

Morgan Wright:

He's a buddy of mine, but Pete was an a TF agent.

Morgan Wright:

In Phoenix operating, covering Phoenix in Tucson, they, investigated home invasions.

Morgan Wright:

So we talked about home invasions.

Morgan Wright:

How do they work?

Morgan Wright:

You know, what mechanics are there?

Morgan Wright:

'cause a home invader, it's about forced entry, it's about surprise.

Morgan Wright:

They, they come to control, they have mechanisms for control.

Morgan Wright:

and we talked about express kidnappings.

Morgan Wright:

And one of my other friends, Aaron Graham, that was with DEA, he actually had a

Morgan Wright:

bounty, a half a million dollar bounty put on him while he was down in Mexico and

Morgan Wright:

they had to move him across the border.

Morgan Wright:

So he was in Tucson.

Morgan Wright:

Actually ran into some of the cartel guys.

Morgan Wright:

So we talked about, to your point, bill, after you were talking about

Morgan Wright:

earlier, how does the cartel operate?

Morgan Wright:

We kind of disabused people of that.

Morgan Wright:

'cause the cartel doesn't deal in crypto and all this other BS of

Morgan Wright:

these quote ransom communications.

Morgan Wright:

I think that was a big distraction.

Morgan Wright:

So, bring it all back.

Morgan Wright:

I, Craig, if I were investigating this, I would leave my mind open to the

Morgan Wright:

possibility that you've got a second person, which means you may not have

Morgan Wright:

that person's DNA at the crime scene at all if they were inside the vehicle.

Craig Floyd:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

You know, at all.

Morgan Wright:

So, um,

Craig Floyd:

was there any evidence of forced entry?

Craig Floyd:

I, I haven't heard any.

Morgan Wright:

The only thing I remember seeing is Fox News had a drone that they

Morgan Wright:

flew around the house, and so I think there were two doors and three windows,

Morgan Wright:

or maybe three doors and two windows.

Morgan Wright:

I don't remember.

Morgan Wright:

But, but they flew around it and they looked at it.

Morgan Wright:

there were no signs of forced entry anywhere now.

Morgan Wright:

but then you back up from that going, okay, forced entry.

Morgan Wright:

It doesn't, It doesn't eliminate the possibilities that one of the

Morgan Wright:

doors was accidentally left unlocked.

Morgan Wright:

Look, I'm pretty careful about locking my doors at night, but there's

Morgan Wright:

sometimes I come down in the morning and I open up my garage door to take

Morgan Wright:

out, 'cause I got two cats, so I gotta scoop the litter and I walk out and

Morgan Wright:

I left my garage door open all night.

Morgan Wright:

I'm going, you know,

Dennis Collins:

oh my.

Morgan Wright:

And look, the other thing too is.

Morgan Wright:

The other thing guys, she's 84.

Morgan Wright:

she was out at her, at her, uh, daughter's and son-in-law's house

Morgan Wright:

for four and a half, five hours, probably came back pretty tired.

Morgan Wright:

Is it possible that somebody at that age would have missed locking a door?

Morgan Wright:

that's one of the things I think that's a hypothesis you have to consider.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

What about in the video?

Craig Floyd:

We see, uh, uh, the film showing the intruder with a backpack on

Craig Floyd:

most of the time, but then we see another video shot of seemingly the

Craig Floyd:

same guy, but without the backpack.

Craig Floyd:

I mean, was this two different times that he came to that door?

Craig Floyd:

Was, did he just take off the backpack?

Craig Floyd:

I mean, what's your theory on that?

Morgan Wright:

One of the things we're missing, and this is why it was

Morgan Wright:

so tough, people thought, well, why couldn't they get this video earlier?

Morgan Wright:

Well, Nancy Guthrie had no subscription.

Morgan Wright:

but what a lot of people don't recognize in your terms of service on your video

Morgan Wright:

camera, and I've got, I've got a similar setup, uh, I've got ring doorbells

Morgan Wright:

and stuff, but I have a subscription.

Morgan Wright:

But what you don't realize on there is they collect, even if you don't have an

Morgan Wright:

account, they're still collecting video when a sensor goes off or a trigger.

Morgan Wright:

But what happens is when that video comes in, a lot of times it's not,

Morgan Wright:

like, doesn't go into your account because you don't have an account.

Morgan Wright:

So they had to search.

Morgan Wright:

I said it's like, it's the equivalent of using a match to find a needle in the

Morgan Wright:

middle of a forest when there's no moon.

Morgan Wright:

it's the fact that they found it is, I mean, just a miracle.

Morgan Wright:

But the reason I say that, Craig, is a lot of times when you look at

Morgan Wright:

stuff, there's metadata on there, date timestamp, you know, when it happened.

Morgan Wright:

What we don't know about this, although it appears to be similar,

Morgan Wright:

uh, you look at the clothing and you look at stuff, it's similar.

Morgan Wright:

and so that's the question.

Morgan Wright:

But again, if let's do a hypothesis and say maybe that's the same person, and

Morgan Wright:

they were standing outside 10 minutes before that 1 47 that we saw them, you

Morgan Wright:

know, approaching with the backpack on, what else does that tell you?

Morgan Wright:

They weren't there for 47 minutes.

Morgan Wright:

They were there for 57 minutes, then almost an hour.

Morgan Wright:

That all that tells me is that person then.

Morgan Wright:

Reinforces what I believe is that their behavior shows that they're

Morgan Wright:

extremely comfortable, that it was less about a burglary and more about

Morgan Wright:

some kind of a targeted operation.

Morgan Wright:

so yeah, we raised more questions, but which is fine.

Morgan Wright:

But at some point we have to start eliminating the impossible.

Morgan Wright:

Like that guy can't be in Tucson, Arizona, and Chicago at the same time.

Morgan Wright:

That's physically impossible.

Morgan Wright:

So at some point, reality has to start taking some chess pieces off the board.

Morgan Wright:

'cause what we wanna do is collapse all these things, test them to failure and

Morgan Wright:

end up with fewer things to focus on.

Morgan Wright:

But the problem with cops, it's like collecting stuff.

Morgan Wright:

Well, you never want to throw a piece of paper away.

Morgan Wright:

You never, you know.

Morgan Wright:

Might be important.

Morgan Wright:

Pretty soon you got 20 boxes of stuff and that's, that's

Morgan Wright:

what, that's the information.

Morgan Wright:

Entropy.

Morgan Wright:

You've got so much stuff in there, you can't process it, so sometimes you

Morgan Wright:

gotta reduce the amount of information you look at, but we don't, the

Morgan Wright:

biggest thing we're missing on that, Craig, is the date and timestamp.

Morgan Wright:

We don't know if it happened after 1 47 or before 1 47.

Morgan Wright:

We don't know if it happened after they left the house and that person now

Morgan Wright:

took off his backpack 'cause he is got somebody in the car controlling Nancy

Morgan Wright:

and he is trying to make sure, you know, they didn't leave anything behind.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, uh, he talked about what he

Morgan Wright:

called his right hand rule.

Morgan Wright:

He'd get done to the crime scene.

Morgan Wright:

What he would do, he'd follow, he'd start on the right hand side and work his way

Morgan Wright:

around to make sure he left nothing there.

Morgan Wright:

We don't know what they were doing, but

Craig Floyd:

one, one of the things that they said will probably solve

Craig Floyd:

this case eventually, who knows?

Craig Floyd:

was the reward, alright?

Craig Floyd:

For a long time, se a couple weeks, maybe more, they had a $50,000 reward,

Craig Floyd:

for any information that seems.

Craig Floyd:

Like a very puny amount for a case of this magnitude.

Craig Floyd:

And then all of a sudden, more recently the family, I guess, uh,

Craig Floyd:

added a million dollar reward, which seemed, you know, like maybe this'll

Craig Floyd:

be the, the key to solving the case.

Craig Floyd:

But even that, uh, doesn't seem to have worked, uh, why

Craig Floyd:

the Puny Award for so long.

Craig Floyd:

And do you have confidence that maybe this million dollar reward might,

Craig Floyd:

be the key to solving the case?

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

You know, I think part of the issue upfront with the reward the size

Morgan Wright:

it was, is they didn't want to,

Morgan Wright:

stir up a, a bunch of fake tips because if it was too big too soon, I think,

Morgan Wright:

you know, maybe part of their thinking was we would just get a lot of.

Morgan Wright:

Crap in here we have to deal with.

Morgan Wright:

So, but 50,000 of, yeah, considering the notoriety of the case doesn't,

Morgan Wright:

seems like it's not enough, but 50,000 is more than, if you look

Morgan Wright:

at the FBI top 10, it's 25,000.

Morgan Wright:

Now the rewards for justice, you've got other stuff.

Morgan Wright:

US marshals, like this case here, that's only 15,000.

Morgan Wright:

Apparently the marshals don't have the budget.

Morgan Wright:

The FBI does.

Morgan Wright:

So, but, but now, but the, but the language is different now because.

Morgan Wright:

I think the people, the other reason people looked at it,

Morgan Wright:

it's $50,000 from the FBI.

Morgan Wright:

Now there's a little, there's a problem there because.

Morgan Wright:

Let's assume that you have no money, you're a debt.

Morgan Wright:

A hundred thousand, 50,000 would be like a big, a lifeline.

Morgan Wright:

But it says for the, uh, arrest and conviction of somebody, you might

Morgan Wright:

wait three years for that money,

Dennis Collins:

right?

Morgan Wright:

But now, then what?

Morgan Wright:

The family said, it's a million dollars for the return of her body.

Morgan Wright:

We're not, not, we're not talking prosecution now we're talking a million

Morgan Wright:

dollars for the return of their mother.

Morgan Wright:

Which is basically, you know, they, they tell us where the body is.

Morgan Wright:

That's different.

Morgan Wright:

why a million dollars hasn't moved the needle?

Morgan Wright:

I don't know.

Morgan Wright:

there's, reason to believe that some people might think is that this is,

Morgan Wright:

it's, look, it's very tough to get away with the kidnapping anymore.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, the FBI's got it down to an art and science.

Morgan Wright:

You, they, well, they could use crypto guys after nine 11 and

Morgan Wright:

after a bunch of other stuff.

Morgan Wright:

Tracing crypto is not as hard as what you think.

Morgan Wright:

so it can be done.

Morgan Wright:

and so there may be reluctance to do that.

Morgan Wright:

I think what's gonna break the case, it's gonna be somebody

Morgan Wright:

sometime walking along and finding.

Morgan Wright:

Skeletonized remains.

Morgan Wright:

It's gonna be somebody that's finding something in a building.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Uh, I don't know that the, I mean, I looked at

Morgan Wright:

all these cases and sometimes, it's not the reward that does it.

Morgan Wright:

It's a citizen just happens upon it, you know, and turns it in.

Morgan Wright:

Look, Craig, I like you.

Morgan Wright:

You're a great friend, but for a million dollars, dude, I'd

Morgan Wright:

dime you out in a heartbeat.

Morgan Wright:

Wow.

Morgan Wright:

There we go.

Morgan Wright:

We got it on tape.

Morgan Wright:

Don't rob a bank with me, man.

Morgan Wright:

I go down easy.

Morgan Wright:

You gimme a million dollars, like, okay, I love it.

Bill Erfurth:

I guess everybody has their price, huh?

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

So let me ask you, Morgan.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, go ahead, Dennis.

Dennis Collins:

If you, all of a sudden were handed this case.

Dennis Collins:

Okay, Morgan, here's the case.

Dennis Collins:

You're in charge.

Dennis Collins:

You've got 72 hours to get this thing back on track.

Dennis Collins:

What would you do?

Morgan Wright:

Well, first of all, I'll tell you why.

Morgan Wright:

72 hours.

Morgan Wright:

How do you know?

Morgan Wright:

72 hours is the magic number.

Morgan Wright:

I'd start pushing back right from the start, But I know people, how much

Dennis Collins:

time do you need?

Morgan Wright:

I don't know.

Morgan Wright:

Here's, here's my response.

Morgan Wright:

I've lost my keys.

Morgan Wright:

How long will it take me to find them?

Morgan Wright:

I don't know.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

So I think that's the problem you don't wanna do.

Morgan Wright:

'cause if you, if you give, and don't, don't get me wrong, Dennis, I'm

Morgan Wright:

just pushing back in a friendly way.

Morgan Wright:

But my response would be, if you tell me I have to have something done in 72 hours,

Morgan Wright:

which shortcut do you want me to take?

Morgan Wright:

That may affect the case.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

All right.

Morgan Wright:

So, you give me the case.

Morgan Wright:

Here's what I would do.

Morgan Wright:

I'm gonna bring in a fresh set of eyes.

Morgan Wright:

People who've never, I want people who don't know squat about this case.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

And we're gonna do what I said.

Morgan Wright:

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're not just gonna re rehabilitate the narrative.

Morgan Wright:

We're gonna dismantle everything.

Morgan Wright:

Forget what the news says.

Morgan Wright:

Forget what's out there.

Morgan Wright:

We're gonna dismantle this case and start.

Morgan Wright:

And it's more than just putting a fresh set of eyes.

Morgan Wright:

Like in a cold case, we're gonna make use of advanced technology.

Morgan Wright:

We're gonna start feeding documents into a system.

Morgan Wright:

We're gonna start, we're gonna have it start doing the brain work for us, right?

Morgan Wright:

And what we're gonna do is start from ground one.

Morgan Wright:

There's another technique too.

Morgan Wright:

Have you guys ever heard of the technique called Winthroping?

Dennis Collins:

No.

Morgan Wright:

So it was actually developed by, I had some friends in New

Morgan Wright:

Scotland Yard who taught this to me.

Morgan Wright:

The, new Scotland yard and MI six developed this technique when they

Morgan Wright:

were doing operations against the IRA and what they would be looking

Morgan Wright:

for in the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Morgan Wright:

They'd be looking for where, where.

Morgan Wright:

Weapon caches were, and so rather than thinking about how a cop

Morgan Wright:

would think, you have to think how would an IRA operative think?

Morgan Wright:

Or how would a spy think?

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

So Winthrop is putting your eyes in there.

Morgan Wright:

So the other thing I would do is I would get people in

Morgan Wright:

there, it's like red teaming.

Morgan Wright:

When you, you have an opposing force, you know, red teaming.

Morgan Wright:

I would get somebody in there that says.

Morgan Wright:

You think we, I I'd reenact the whole thing.

Morgan Wright:

'cause you, what you wanna do is you wanna test time.

Morgan Wright:

'cause we have videos of the car being over here a mile or two miles away.

Morgan Wright:

Somebody saw a car going by.

Morgan Wright:

Right?

Morgan Wright:

We wanna test all of these things, test them for time, for space, for reality.

Morgan Wright:

If it, if it, violates the laws of physics and violates reality.

Morgan Wright:

The first thing you do is you get rid of it.

Morgan Wright:

You don't keep it.

Morgan Wright:

That's the problem with entropy.

Morgan Wright:

You put too much in there.

Morgan Wright:

So I would start getting rid of stuff.

Morgan Wright:

And it's Darwinism, right?

Morgan Wright:

Sometimes you gotta thin the herd and only the S strong survive.

Morgan Wright:

Only the strongest hypothesis survive.

Morgan Wright:

And I would rebuild the case from the ground up, and I would say it's

Morgan Wright:

gonna take as long as it takes.

Morgan Wright:

We understand the importance of it, but um, you can, you can get

Morgan Wright:

it right or you can get it fast.

Morgan Wright:

Which one do you want?

Dennis Collins:

Right, That's, great.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

That's, uh,

Craig Floyd:

Hey, Dennis, uh,

Dennis Collins:

how do we get you in charge?

Dennis Collins:

Morgan?

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

Dennis and Bill.

Craig Floyd:

Uh, remember

Morgan Wright:

that, remember that million dollars?

Morgan Wright:

There

Craig Floyd:

you go.

Dennis Collins:

That's a good start, huh?

Craig Floyd:

But I would say this, I, I mean, Morgan and I haven't spoken

Craig Floyd:

in a while and I had forgotten his brilliance, his passion, please.

Craig Floyd:

Um, his, his ability to articulate, you know, uh, things that are

Craig Floyd:

very complex, Thanks to people like Morgan of technology, law

Craig Floyd:

enforcement is gonna advance to places that we've never been before.

Craig Floyd:

And that excites me because people say, you know, we, we now have fewer officers.

Craig Floyd:

How are we gonna do more with less?

Craig Floyd:

And I think Morgan is telling us it's possible.

Craig Floyd:

And it's here.

Craig Floyd:

And, uh, thanks to people like Morgan and, and the technology, uh,

Craig Floyd:

experts like him, um, we're, we're doing okay in law enforcement and

Craig Floyd:

I think this place is gonna be a lot safer in the, in the future.

Morgan Wright:

Well, hey, Craig, just to build on your point real quick, a lot

Morgan Wright:

of people don't realize compared to nine 11, New York City has what, 10, 15,000

Morgan Wright:

fewer officers than they did on nine 11,

Dennis Collins:

right?

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Craig Floyd:

It's crazy, but

Morgan Wright:

I

Craig Floyd:

mean, we're doing well.

Dennis Collins:

Well, what you've talked about today is exciting.

Dennis Collins:

I mean, I, we'd love to have you back and, talk more about it.

Dennis Collins:

I mean, the national

Morgan Wright:

Well here, Dennis, I'm gonna give you the offer, we'll

Morgan Wright:

put it out to everybody listening.

Morgan Wright:

I told you my project, I talked to Craig about this.

Morgan Wright:

I wanna put together a project of all unsolved line-of-duty deaths, right?

Morgan Wright:

I wanna make the project on the National Center.

Morgan Wright:

I want to, we'll cooperate with you guys.

Morgan Wright:

I want to get the word out because I want people to get into this system.

Morgan Wright:

Guys, no money.

Morgan Wright:

It doesn't cost you anything.

Morgan Wright:

It costs you about five minutes to set up an account and put in five

Morgan Wright:

to six locations that are relevant in your life, and then guess what?

Morgan Wright:

You sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

Morgan Wright:

So, I mean, that would be one thing I would do immediately with you guys

Morgan Wright:

that could have, first of all, it speaks to all of our hearts, right?

Morgan Wright:

It speaks to my, fortunately my friend is solved, they made the arrest.

Morgan Wright:

But, uh, all of those unsolved cases, I wanna, I wanna either a, I want a

Morgan Wright:

clearance or I want an arrest in all of these cases that are still unsolved.

Dennis Collins:

So how do people get involved?

Morgan Wright:

OpenUnsolved.org.

Morgan Wright:

There is a law enforcement side.

Morgan Wright:

There is a citizen side.

Morgan Wright:

Go to the citizen side, create an account.

Morgan Wright:

It's very simple.

Morgan Wright:

It'll say, you know, create an account.

Morgan Wright:

you, your email.

Morgan Wright:

We don't collect any personal information.

Morgan Wright:

In other words, Dennis, its you create an account.

Morgan Wright:

We just need an email so we know where to email tips to you at.

Morgan Wright:

And that's really it, right?

Morgan Wright:

No phone number, no date of birth, no credit card, no social, nothing.

Morgan Wright:

We don't need anything from you.

Morgan Wright:

Got it.

Morgan Wright:

And I want people to understand too, we keep that information

Morgan Wright:

private that is never shared with law enforcement, never shared.

Morgan Wright:

It's like Crime stoppers.

Morgan Wright:

Can you imagine Crime Stoppers having caller id?

Morgan Wright:

An anonymous caller calls up and you call 'em back and say, Hey,

Morgan Wright:

I forgot to ask you one question.

Dennis Collins:

Uhhuh.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

And I've, but I've actually had cops say, well, could they?

Morgan Wright:

I said, no.

Morgan Wright:

Look, I was a cop.

Morgan Wright:

I ran the crime stopper's phone on my desk.

Morgan Wright:

I no way.

Morgan Wright:

I understand the value of it.

Morgan Wright:

the, thing that would kill our program off faster than anything

Morgan Wright:

else is for the public to under, for the public to believe or find

Morgan Wright:

out that we're sharing information, their information, absolutely.

Morgan Wright:

With law enforcement.

Morgan Wright:

So there is an absolute bright line down the middle.

Morgan Wright:

There's will never be.

Morgan Wright:

And now if we're served legal process and says, you're compelled to provide this.

Morgan Wright:

Only to the extent possible, and we'll fight that because that's

Morgan Wright:

the only way this system works.

Morgan Wright:

It's built on trust, and if you don't have the trust of the public.

Morgan Wright:

You know, and this is what we've dealt with in law enforcement

Morgan Wright:

for a long time, right.

Morgan Wright:

I'm speaking to the choir here.

Morgan Wright:

The public, it's PE in principles of policing, the PO public

Morgan Wright:

have to believe in the police.

Morgan Wright:

Absolutely.

Morgan Wright:

And the police are the public.

Morgan Wright:

And the public or the police.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

We're both doing the same job.

Morgan Wright:

Just one of us gets paid to give full time and attention to duties

Morgan Wright:

which are incumbent upon everybody.

Morgan Wright:

So this is a partnership between the police and the

Morgan Wright:

public to solve a huge problem.

Morgan Wright:

Oh, by the way, one quick stat.

Morgan Wright:

This is the other thing that drives it home.

Morgan Wright:

We're all paying a crime tax.

Morgan Wright:

How, if I ask you what is the cost of crime each year to the us and

Morgan Wright:

that means the cost of homicides, the cost of kidnappings, the cost of

Morgan Wright:

families, victims, lost wages, funeral expenses, courts, corrections, law

Morgan Wright:

enforcement budgets, I mean everything.

Morgan Wright:

If you replacing stolen property, putting a bolt on a door 'cause you got broken

Morgan Wright:

into, what is the cost of crime each year?

Bill Erfurth:

Billions.

Bill Erfurth:

Pretty sub substantial.

Morgan Wright:

If our, if the cost of crime were a GDP, it would be the

Morgan Wright:

fourth largest country in the world.

Morgan Wright:

The United States pays $5.7 trillion a year in a crime tax,

Dennis Collins:

5.7 trillion trillion

Morgan Wright:

5.7.

Morgan Wright:

I've got the, I've talked to the professor who did the study, it's

Morgan Wright:

called the aggregate cost of crime.

Morgan Wright:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

Um, 5.7 trillion every homicide.

Morgan Wright:

On average costs, the costs society $10.9 million.

Morgan Wright:

When you look at 17,000 homicides a year, which is what we've been averaging

Morgan Wright:

up to lately, the cost of homicides is more than the combined budgets.

Morgan Wright:

Just homicides alone is more than the combined budget of all federal,

Morgan Wright:

tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the United States.

Dennis Collins:

Wow, you're, that's staggering.

Morgan Wright:

That's just homicides.

Morgan Wright:

And we have 300,000 unsolved homicides.

Dennis Collins:

Wow.

Dennis Collins:

Great.

Craig Floyd:

Well, we gotta do better to stop those murders.

Craig Floyd:

That's the key.

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Morgan Wright:

but it's getting better, Greg.

Morgan Wright:

Let me, pile on that point.

Morgan Wright:

I, I, I'm not being political.

Morgan Wright:

A lot of people talk about Trump, whatever, but I will tell you, how do you.

Morgan Wright:

How do you not appreciate the fact is that we have the lowest

Morgan Wright:

homicide rate in 125 years.

Morgan Wright:

How many people do not have to?

Morgan Wright:

I've made that knock on the door with both accidents and murders.

Morgan Wright:

How many people do not have to get knock on that door to be delivered?

Morgan Wright:

The worst news they've ever gonna receive in their life?

Morgan Wright:

And how much has that saved society, not just emotionally, but financially, right?

Morgan Wright:

We're paying less for crime because there's less crime.

Morgan Wright:

and so, I mean, just for me, the fact that we have the lowest homicide

Morgan Wright:

rate, that's a good place to start.

Morgan Wright:

and we, we should take advantage of it.

Morgan Wright:

That's why we're trying to, how can we help keep that down?

Morgan Wright:

How can we help solve some of these unsolved cases and

Morgan Wright:

how can we help give people.

Morgan Wright:

A way to part how, like how do you get involved without being involved?

Morgan Wright:

This is a way for citizens to get involved without being involved.

Morgan Wright:

I don't have to be involved in the case.

Dennis Collins:

I like

Morgan Wright:

that.

Morgan Wright:

And lemme tell you, victims families all the time say we wanna do something, but

Morgan Wright:

we feel like we're getting in the way.

Morgan Wright:

Or the cops don't want us there.

Morgan Wright:

What can we do?

Morgan Wright:

They can hand out flyers all they want, but that doesn't scale, right?

Morgan Wright:

This helps you scale.

Dennis Collins:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

You know, you tell three people, it's like, it's like Amway.

Morgan Wright:

If you remember the days of Amway.

Morgan Wright:

Craig, if you get three and those three people get three, we got 27.

Morgan Wright:

Pretty soon we're all retired.

Morgan Wright:

Living on a beach.

Morgan Wright:

Right.

Morgan Wright:

But that's the network effect.

Morgan Wright:

tell people, the more dots we have in a system, the more dots we can connect.

Craig Floyd:

Great point.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Morgan.

Dennis Collins:

Thank you Dennis.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, I, I, we could go on and on and, uh, I know we, we, we, uh, we will try

Dennis Collins:

to have you back because there's so much to talk about, but thank you for today.

Dennis Collins:

This has been very informative, not just about Guthrie, but uh,

Dennis Collins:

Billy ask about, what about you?

Dennis Collins:

And I'm glad we got that out there.

Dennis Collins:

'cause the work you're doing is very important.

Dennis Collins:

And it's, gonna make a difference.

Dennis Collins:

It probably already has and it will continue, so

Morgan Wright:

I hope so.

Morgan Wright:

And that's what I do.

Morgan Wright:

I, I've got a Substack and Craig alluded to it earlier and I'm, I'm glad to share.

Morgan Wright:

And

Dennis Collins:

what's your

Dennis Collins:

publication guys?

Dennis Collins:

What's

Morgan Wright:

your public?

Morgan Wright:

It's called CrimeReconstructed.substack.com.

Morgan Wright:

And that's where I do, it's, it's basically, actually, I'm working on a

Morgan Wright:

book, but the title informs what it is.

Morgan Wright:

It's called Crime Reconstructed Rebuilding Enduring Cold Cases Through First

Morgan Wright:

Principles and Modern Intelligence.

Morgan Wright:

This is where.

Morgan Wright:

This is where we strip away.

Morgan Wright:

It's not true crime.

Morgan Wright:

If you guys are coming for true crime and all the breathless stuff, that's not me.

Morgan Wright:

I'm not doing this for clickbait, right?

Morgan Wright:

We're not.

Morgan Wright:

We're not the murder monetizing media.

Morgan Wright:

This is about how do we, train people to recognize narratives, to discount

Morgan Wright:

them, to realize, to get to the heart of the matter and strip away everything

Morgan Wright:

right and rebuild it from the ground up.

Dennis Collins:

Say the name,

Morgan Wright:

appreciate it.

Dennis Collins:

Say the name of your substack again.

Morgan Wright:

Crime reconstructed.

Dennis Collins:

Crime reconstructed.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

I'm definitely gonna put it on my favorites list.

Dennis Collins:

And, uh,

Craig Floyd:

I've already subscribed.

Craig Floyd:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

And I, and I wanna to, uh, remind our listeners, our viewers, our

Dennis Collins:

audience, if you enjoyed hearing anything Morgan had to say today, make a comment.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

We love your comments and if you disagree with Morgan.

Dennis Collins:

he's hard to disagree with.

Dennis Collins:

'cause this dude has all, oh

Morgan Wright:

no, look, first Amendment baby.

Morgan Wright:

Tell me what you don't like.

Morgan Wright:

I'm more than happy to, I take constructive criticism all the time.

Dennis Collins:

Well, let's hear it guys.

Dennis Collins:

We would love to hear some because he, he said a lot of important things

Dennis Collins:

today, not just about the Guthrie case, but about the future of where he's

Dennis Collins:

trying to take these unsolved cases.

Dennis Collins:

So let's comment on this.

Dennis Collins:

Hit.

Dennis Collins:

Subscribe, like, or follow.

Dennis Collins:

We, we love it when you do that.

Dennis Collins:

I wanna remind you, this podcast, heroes Behind the Badge is brought

Dennis Collins:

to you by Citizens Behind the Badge.

Dennis Collins:

Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading voice of the American

Dennis Collins:

people in support of the men.

Dennis Collins:

Women of law enforcement, you can get involved with us very easily.

Dennis Collins:

Just like in Morgan's case, it's a simple click of a button.

Dennis Collins:

CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

Dennis Collins:

Dot org, CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

Dennis Collins:

There's a whole menu there of what we're all about.

Dennis Collins:

There's an opportunity to make a donation if you feel that you need to do that, but

Dennis Collins:

most of all, there's a chance to support.

Dennis Collins:

The men and women of law enforcement, the people that are putting

Dennis Collins:

it out there every day for us.

Dennis Collins:

Thanks again, Morgan Wright.

Dennis Collins:

This is, uh, the end of this episode of Con of Oh boy.

Dennis Collins:

That's another podcast of Heroes Behind the Badge.

Dennis Collins:

Heroes Behind the Badge.

Dennis Collins:

And we'll be back soon.

Dennis Collins:

Stay tuned, subscribe so you get notified the next time we release a new episode.

Dennis Collins:

We'll see you next time.

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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.