DNA samples collected from home confirmed to belong to Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother: Sheriff
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced on Sunday that a woman missing in Arizona is the mother of “Today Show” host Savannah Guthrie. (Pima County Sheriff’s Department)
(NEW YORK) — Investigations are continuing on Tuesday after the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie disappeared over the weekend in what authorities believe was a possible abduction from her Arizona home, police said.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen in the Catalina Foothills area on Saturday night, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. Her family reported her missing on Sunday around noon local time, authorities said.
Investigators do not believe Nancy Guthrie left her home willingly and that she was abducted in her sleep early Sunday morning, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told ABC News.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said investigators processed Nancy Guthrie’s home on Sunday and “saw some things at the home that were concerning to us,” and that it is considered a crime scene.
“She did not leave on her own, we know that,” Nanos said during a press briefing on Monday.
DNA samples collected from Nancy Guthrie’s home have been confirmed to belong to her, though authorities have not yet confirmed if they were blood, the sheriff’s department said Tuesday.
The sheriff is planning to hold a briefing on the case at approximately 1:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Nancy Guthrie is described as having some physical ailments and limited mobility, but does not have cognitive issues, her family said, according to the sheriff.
She takes medication that if she doesn’t have in 24 hours, “it could be fatal,” Nanos said Monday.
Authorities said they are reviewing the home’s security cameras and have Nancy Guthrie’s cell phone.
Sources briefed on the probe told ABC News that investigators are focusing on Nancy Guthrie’s electronic devices to see if there is data that could point to an assailant or a specific time when the abduction would have occurred.
Investigators are also paying attention to the condition of the home and whether things were moved or left out of place, which could suggest that someone with greater strength or agility was in the home and when, sources said.
“Right now, we don’t see this as a search mission, as much as we do a crime scene,” Nanos said.
In an Instagram post on Monday night, Savannah Guthrie asked her followers for prayers amid the investigation.
“Thank you for lifting your prayers with ours for our beloved mom, our dearest Nancy, a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant. raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment,” the talk show host wrote, alongside a prayer.
(NEW YORK) — A major winter storm is expected to bring ice and snow to the upper Midwest on Thursday, with the system moving through the lower Northeast on Friday and ending by Saturday morning.
Freezing rain is forecast to move through northern Minneapolis and Wisconsin on Thursday evening. The rain is expected to reach Michigan on Friday morning, moving into western and central Pennsylvania later in the morning.
Most of the freezing rain and ice accumulation is expected in central and western Pennsylvania.
Snow flurries could begin as early as noon on Thursday in New York City, though most of the forecast snow is expected to fall after 4 p.m.
Snowfall is expected to continue through Thursday night in New York City, upstate New York, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — though Boston is not expected to see significant snow.
Much of the heavy to moderate snowfall is expected to end by 4 a.m. on Sunday. Snowfall is forecast to end entirely by Saturday morning between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.
New York City, northern New Jersey, the southern Hudson Valley and western Pennsylvania are expected to see the most snow accumulation, with more than half a foot possible. Some areas could see up to 8 or 9 inches of snow.
Ice accumulation could reach more than a quarter of an inch in central Pennsylvania, such as in Johnstown and Clarion. Drivers along the I-80 and I-70 have been advised to use extreme caution. Power outages are also possible with high levels of icing.
Up to 0.2 inches of ice accumulation is possible for areas of northeastern West Virginia and through central and northwestern Pennsylvania, plus up through much of Michigan, including Detroit. Driving is expected to be difficult on untreated surfaces.
Washington, D.C., and Baltimore may also see some ice accumulation on Friday and into Friday night.
Across the upper Midwest, ice accumulation of around 0.2 inches is possible from northern Minnesota through northern Wisconsin and Michigan.
(NEW YORK) — On one quiet night in Miami, a rising college football star had his life cut short in a murder that sent shockwaves through the city.
Just months before he was expected to be selected in the NFL draft, University of Miami defensive lineman Bryan Pata was tragically gunned down on Nov. 7, 2006, leaving his family, friends and teammates seeking answers for nearly two decades.
“I’ll think back how we used to spend our times together…all the good stuff. But you think, ‘Oh, man. He’s not here anymore.’ That’s when the tears flow,” Pata’s sister Ronette Pata told “20/20.”
A new “20/20” episode, “Murder at the U” airing Friday, March 6, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu, examines the case.
You can also get more behind-the-scenes of each week’s episode by listening to “20/20: The After Show” weekly series right on your 20/20 podcast feed on Mondays, hosted by “20/20” co-anchor Deborah Roberts.
The 22-year-old had just arrived home after football practice when he was shot in the head after exiting his vehicle, according to authorities.
Dwayne Hendricks, who said he pulled into the apartment complex shortly after Pata did and found him in a pool of blood, said he was the one who called Pata’s family to deliver the news.
“I tell people to this day, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. It was to call his mom and say that her youngest is dead,” Hendricks — a teammate and roommate of Pata — recalled as he delivered his testimony in court years later.
Dave Howell, Pata’s teammate on the Miami Hurricanes, remembered his charisma and leadership within the team.
“His aura. It just stuck out,” Howell told “20/20.” “He always gets everybody to kind of gravitate towards him.”
Investigators began looking for suspects and discovered that Pata reportedly had issues with a teammate named Rashaun Jones, who, it was later discovered, was the only player to not attend a mandatory team meeting the night that Pata was killed.
Pata’s teammates told investigators the two had previously physically fought and Jones had threatened Pata. It was also rumored that Jones had once been romantically involved with Pata’s girlfriend, Jada Brody.
However, Pata’s case went quiet for 15 years, until an in-depth ESPN article on the investigation helped re-ignite interest in the case. Pata’s brother Edwin expressed gratitude for the sports outlet’s reporting.
“I believe one of the catalysts was the ESPN article that came out. I think that was part of it. I think also the state prosecutor also getting a little more aggressive and being much more aggressive in his approach towards arresting someone,” Edwin Pata told “20/20.”
Jones was subsequently arrested in 2021 for second-degree murder. Police cited his cell phone records and an alleged eyewitness as important pieces of evidence they said tied him to the crime.
While detained, Jones told police he had a tempestuous association with Pata.
“I mean, we had an up-and-down relationship,” Jones said. “We was teammates. I guess females got involved. So it was, I don’t know, I guess jealousy over females.”
Investigators discovered that on the morning of Pata’s murder, Jones was suspended from the University of Miami football team after testing positive for marijuana for the second time. He also changed his phone number earlier that day, they said.
However, Jones maintained his innocence, insisting he had nothing to do with Pata’s killing.
“I used to be young and wild … that ain’t got nothing to do with picking up no gun, trying to kill nobody, harm nobody with it. That’s not in me,” Jones told police.
Jones pleaded not guilty, and subsequently sat in jail for four and a half years awaiting trial due to being unable to afford bail. The trial finally began in February. The prosecution sought to build a case against Jones based upon his conflicts with Pata and the alleged eyewitness who investigators claimed placed him at the scene of the crime.
The defense countered that police never really treated Jones like a suspect or bring Jones in for a sworn statement for more than 15 years.
However on Monday, after two weeks of testimony, the judge in the case declared a mistrial as the six-person jury remained deadlocked over a verdict. When polled, one of the jurors told “20/20” that five members were in favor of acquittal, with one holdout for conviction.
The state attorney signaled they intend to move forward with trying Jones again later this spring.
Jones’ attorney Sara Alvarez said that he refused a plea deal to keep fighting for his innocence.
“Mr. Jones continues to be presumed innocent, and we will be back to fight this again at the next trial,” Alvarez said.
As the legal battle over his murder continues two decades after his death, Pata’s family still remember his warmth.
Edwin Pata told “20/20” that his brother lit up every room he walked into.
“Full of life, full of energy, positive energy. Someone who’s truly missed,” Edwin said. “It’s still hard for us today.”
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, Ma., Sept 8, 2004. (Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appears to have successfully hidden a trove of potential evidence of his crimes from investigators for more than a decade, according to documents released this month by the Department of Justice.
Internal correspondence between Epstein’s attorneys and private investigators, as well as previously sealed court filings, suggest that the disgraced financier went to extreme lengths to hide the potential evidence during the critical three-year period when local and federal law enforcement began investigating him before he secured a lenient plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.
Less than two weeks before the Palm Beach Police Department raided Epstein’s mansion in October 2005, a private investigator retained by Roy Black, a criminal defense lawyer for the disgraced financier, removed a trove of evidence from the home, including multiple computers, more than two dozen phone directories, and sexually explicit material, according to documents released by the DOJ.
State and federal prosecutors appeared to have never accessed the materials while they investigated Epstein, potentially shielding Epstein from criminal exposure and contributing to how he was able to evade justice for more than a decade.
A 2020 report from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility about the issues with the investigation later concluded that the computers contained “potentially critical” evidence that could have changed the trajectory of the case.
“There was good reason to believe the computers contained relevant — and potentially critical — information; and it was clear Epstein did not want the contents of his computers disclosed,” the report said.
In the two decades that have followed — despite multiple investigations into Epstein’s criminal actions — the boxes of sensitive evidence appear to have been passed between representatives of Epstein but never fully recovered by law enforcement.
While law enforcement has long been aware of the removed computers, documents released earlier this month by the Department of Justice for the first time shed light on the evidence removed from the home and the ill-fated effort to retrieve them by law enforcement.
The documents outlining the trove of removed evidence were first reported by The Telegraph.
‘Items of potential evidentiary value’
According to a 2005 memo from private investigator William Riley to Black, another private investigator, Paul Lavery, visited Epstein’s Palm Beach home at Black’s direction to remove “items of potential evidentiary value” from the home.
Attempts by ABC News to contact Lavery and Riley Wednesday about the developments were unsuccessful. Riley’s partner in his private investigative firm Steve Kiraly declined to comment.
Black died last year, and an attorney at his former firm said he was occupied with an ongoing trial on Wednesday and unavailable.
Searching Epstein’s home less than two weeks before police would raid it, Lavery removed more than a hundred pieces of potential evidence, including three computers, 29 bound telephone directories, a three-page listing of nearby masseuses, and at least ten photos of nude or partially nude women, according to the memo. At least two of the photos had handwritten messages on them, including from a woman who wrote, “You better never forget about me” before signing her name and ending the note “Class of 2005,” the memo said.
Lavery also removed more than dozen items of sexual paraphernalia, five pieces of women’s underwear, Epstein’s concealed carry permit, an Epstein identification card for Harvard University, and more than $2,000 in cash, according to the memo. Among the removed items was also more than forty mainly pornographic VHS tapes and books titled “‘Compleat Slave’ — creating and living an erotic dominant/submissive lifestyle” and “‘Training with Miss Abernathy’ — a workbook for erotic slaves and their owners,” the memo said.
The detective with the Palm Beach Police Department who was in charge of the investigation noted in a court filing that several items in Epstein’s home “were conspicuously absent” when they arrived to execute the search warrant.
“For example, there were several hanging file folders that had their contents removed, and the pre-existing security cameras that I had observed during my last visit to Mr. Epstein’s residence were in place but were not connected to recording equipment,” he said in the filing. “In addition, at each location where a computer had been present, computer monitors, printers, and other peripheral devices were present but the computers (CPU-Central processing unit) themselves were removed.”
A FBI later agent attested in a then-sealed court filing that the items “were purposely removed from Mr. Epstein’s home in anticipation of an execution of a search warrant” and may contain vital evidence.
“A review of Mr. Epstein’s computers may provide additional electronically stored message logs which could be further evidence of Mr. Epstein’s intent to travel to engage in sexual activity with teenagers he recruited from five Palm Beach County high schools,” the court filing said.
According to the filing, one of the computers potentially contained critical surveillance camera footage because it previously was hard-wired to the home’s surveillance system.
“The FBI investigation has determined that Mr. Epstein was actively involved in lewd and lascivious conduct with minor females as early as March 2004. To the extent that Mr. Epstein tries to deny that any or all of the victims ever visited his home, video footage of them at the house would rebut such a claim,” the filing said.
A review of the Department of Justice’s Epstein library and an index of evidence released last year by the Trump administration earlier this year suggests the materials were never fully recovered by law enforcement. Testimony from an FBI analyst during the 2021 trial of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell suggested that investigators recovered a copy of at least one of the computers, though the original computers and physical documents appear to have never been located.
‘She needed to gather the stuff from the house’
The removal of the computers and other items was memorialized in multiple interviews conducted by law enforcement in the following two decades.
A woman who worked as a personal assistant for Epstein told the FBI in 2021 that she was instructed by the disgraced financier to gather his items so an unidentified man could collect them from Epstein’s Palm Beach Home.
“[She] recalled the conversation she had with EPSTEIN was where he told her that something happened to his detriment and she needed to gather the stuff from the house,” an FBI agent wrote in a report summarizing her account.
While the assistant said she believed she would likely be meeting with a member of law enforcement, she said she arrived at the home, gathered the material, and provided it to an unknown man. The assistant said she similarly removed items from Epstein’s island.
Epstein’s property manager also recounted the handover in his interview with federal agents, describing that Lavery retrieved the computers in the fall of 2005.
In the following years, law enforcement unsuccessfully made multiple attempts to retrieve the items, though court documents suggest that their attempt to recover the evidence was largely focused on the three computers, rather than the trove of physical evidence — such as dozens of address books and sexual paraphernalia — that were also removed from the home.
‘Never seen the equipment again’
As the investigation into Epstein heightened in the months following the search, Epstein’s lawyers fought to keep the materials out of the hands of law enforcement, arguing in previously sealed grand jury materials that the attempt to recover the materials were “simply the most recent of a series of highly intrusive and unusual attempts to acquire highly personal and/or privileged information” about Epstein.
In court filings, Epstein’s attorneys appeared to acknowledge that the items were removed from the home prior to the search but argued the materials were irrelevant to the investigation and protected by attorney-client privilege.
“Without disclosing any work done by Mr. Riley or his firm on Mr. Epstein’s behalf and at my direction, any actions thereafter taken by him or the firm were taken in connection with the legal representation of Mr. Epstein,” Epstein’s attorney Roy Black told the court in a then-sealed motion.
The exact location of the materials in the months following the search is not clear, though recently released documents suggest that the materials quickly changed hands. According to notes taken by federal agents in 2007, Lavery claims that he promptly delivered the items to Riley, another private investigator who worked for Epstein and managed multiple storage units for the financier, the Telegraph first reported.
“I took the items that were given to me,” Lavery said, according to notes. “Never seen the equipment again.”
Riley was subpoenaed for the information but appears to never have handed over the material, objecting to the requests with the help of Epstein’s lawyers. During the critical three-year period when Epstein was investigated by law enforcement before reaching a plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, the trove of evidence was never accessed by law enforcement.
When Epstein fulfilled his objection to plead guilty in state court pursuant to his non-prosecution agreement, the grand jury subpoena was withdrawn. When victims suing Epstein began seeking the materials in 2009, lawyers for the convicted sex offender appeared to spring into action to further ensure the materials would not be disclosed, citing the terms of the non-prosecution agreement.
“Over the weekend I learned that plaintiff’s counsel are looking to get from me the computers and paperwork I took from Jeff’s house prior to the Search Warrant. I have them locked in storage and would like to know what to do with them,” Riley told an attorney for Epstein. “They are no longer needed in the criminal case, I assume.”
Riley later confirmed in a letter to Epstein’s attorney Robert Critton that he would continue storing the materials in a “safe and secure location.”
“If at any time, you are unable to maintain possession of those materials or have any concern whatsoever that Mr. Epstein’s possession may be compromised in any manner, please advise me immediately such that we can take the necessary actions to protect and preserve those materials as is required in the Non-Prosecution Agreement,” Critton wrote in a letter memorializing their conservation. Critton died in 2020.
Email correspondence between Riley and Epstein suggest that the disgraced financier was paying to keep the materials in a storage unit as late as 2010, though their location in the following decade — when investigators in New York opened a new investigation into Epstein and charged him with sex crimes before his 2019 death by suicide — appears to still be a mystery.
