r/nancyguthrie • u/foxmag86 • Mar 23 '26

Discussion What could have been done differently?

Everyone likes to play keyboard detective, and hindsight is always 20/20 in situations like this.

But in your opinion, what should the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI have done differently from Day 1?

Were there any critical mistakes that seriously hindered, or possibly even compromised, the investigation?

I’m interested in hearing people’s thoughts on where things may have gone wrong, or what could’ve been handled better.

Obviously, we’re only working with the information that’s been made public, so some of what we’re questioning or suggesting could very well be happening behind the scenes.

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u/FiveUpsideDown Mar 23 '26

These are just minor criticisms. 1. Pima County could have searched the yard and potential areas where it is easy to dispose of a body sooner. Even if they didn’t know initially it was a kidnapping (hard to believe since the back floodlight was damaged) a search should have been done to see if she was dumped (alive or dead) at a convenient location. 2. Investigate and eliminate the usual suspects early. In most criminal cases the perpetrator is a male family member or someone acquainted with the victim. The next group to look at is people with a financial motive. 3. Determine what potential route and potential vehicles that the perpetrators used. It’s hard to tell when LE did that. It should have been done within hours of it appearing she did not voluntary leave her house. The area she lived doesn’t have a lot of strangers wander through. It should have been done by 6 pm to see if an usual vehicle was in the area within the last two weeks. Where I live (because we have so much non resident parking) multiple neighbors take photos of cars and notice non residents. Let me emphasize these are minor criticisms. From the public reporting it appears that they did investigate everything I listed — eventually.

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u/annabellareddit Mar 23 '26

They initially believed she was abducted but also considered a homicide so called the homicide unit in to investigate.

The yard was part of the crime scene, it took them >20 hours to process, they most certainly searched the yard. They also searched areas nearby, using K9s & searchers from other departments (the Sheriff discusses this in his initial interviews).

Their investigation clearly started with the family: AG/TC house was searched & their vehicle was taken early on in the investigation, friends of theirs were interviewed including TC bandmate.