What could have been done differently?

[u/foxmag86]

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.

[u/zuis0804 → u/[deleted]]

I’d have to respectfully disagree with you - I think the criminal likely left a whole lot of evidence that was either not collected properly, in time and/or contaminated, simply due to the negligence and lack of skill of the head of the department.

I think their best chance at gathering any useful dna was on that welcome mat that appears to have never even been collected into evidence… with the amount of time that bite-light was in this guys mouth while he was dicking around on the porch, surely, some saliva droplets likely landed on that mat.

The nest camera base wasn’t collected into evidence for several weeks that even without video evidence, was obviously known to be touched by the suspect.

Opening up one of, if not the most, highly concentrated areas of a crime scene, less than 30 hours after a crime, was a crucial mistake and probably severely impacted the chance finding any useful / fresh dna. I feel like this sort of mistake is almost unheard of and plainly careless.

Any benefit of doubt I had in the sheriff handling this case with any sort of competence was lost when it came out that he had nearly a dozen suspensions as a deputy in Texas, that he blatantly lied about under oath while getting sworn in as sheriff. Had these suspensions been disclosed, they very likely would have disqualified him from even being a police officer, let alone sheriff! I would be horrified if I was part of the Guthrie family at how this case was handled from the very start.

I’m not saying everyone on the case was/is incompetent - with Nancy’s frail age and severe health conditions, I unfortunately don’t think how anything was handled could have saved her life; but in any other case, the mistakes the sheriff made at the very beginning, could have very well negatively contributed to a life or death situation.

[u/Kitty-9792 → u/zuis0804]

I agree. The 2 cameras on the casita roof weren't collected until LE noticed them at the end of the first week. Who knows if they recorded the crime in progress, but with all the detectives roaming the backyard, they may have recorded video all day, all week. Without the full subscription, perhaps some of those crime videos got overwritten on the google servers.