A member of the media who was one of the first on the scene of Nancy Guthrie's home has revealed a detail that has really startled him.
“No one really knows what has happened,” said Brian Entin, senior correspondent with NewsNation, who arrived in Arizona within 24 hours of Guthrie vanishing, per the Daily Mail.
Entin has reported from the front lines of some of the nation’s most high-profile cases.
He spent seven weeks camped outside the home of Brian Laundrie’s parents during the search for Gabby Petito.
He also covered the aftermath of the November 2022 killings of four college students in Moscow, Idaho, staying for weeks in the frigid college town.
Yet this case, he says, is different.
“That's what has everybody so gripped and so disturbed by it.
"Every day there's a different twist and turn that makes you think something different - and even now, I can't say that I secretly have a theory of who did it, or that I know who the suspect is.”
“We really just don't know. And I think that's what makes this really unique.”
Timeline: What Happened to Nancy Guthrie?
Details remain limited.
84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at 9:50PM on January 31.
Family members dropped her off at her $1 million Tucson bungalow after dinner at the nearby home of her daughter Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni.
In the early hours of February 1, shortly before 2:00AM, a masked figure was captured on doorbell camera footage tearing the device from the wall.
By around noon that same day, Nancy was reported missing, launching a nightmare for her family that continues to unfold.
Since then, the case has grown more complicated. Several ransom notes have surfaced. One was exposed as fraudulent.
The Blood at the Doorstep
Entin has been at the forefront of coverage during his week and a half in Tucson, breaking several key developments.
Among them: the discovery of blood at Nancy Guthrie’s front door. Entin and his crew obtained graphic footage of the spatter, which sheriff’s officials later confirmed belonged to Nancy.
When Entin first arrived, authorities had informed him that blood had been found at the home. But on Tuesday, February 3, he made a startling discovery: the crime scene perimeter was gone.
“In other big cases that I've covered, even if it's not really an active crime scene any more they'll at least keep a deputy out there,” Entin said.
“I've never seen that before, where it was just kind of like 'we're done,' and they left, and everything was just opened back up.”
With no officers present, Entin and his team approached the home.
“We weren't sure if any family members were in the house, so we realized, why don't we just go knock on the door like we would in any other story.
"There's no one here. There's no one telling us that we're not allowed to. We knock on doors all the time, so we should just go see if anybody's home.”
It was his cameraman who first spotted something alarming.
“And so, the cameraman Nick actually went up before me and was the one who said: 'Oh my gosh, there's blood up near the doorstep.'”
Entin immediately grasped the gravity of the situation.
“First of all, I thought, 'This is really serious. This is not a good sign that there's that amount of blood right outside the front door.'”
He was equally stunned that the area wasn’t secured.
“My second thought was, 'I can't believe that the police aren't still here, that the sheriff isn't still here. How are we able to just walk up? How is anybody able to just walk up?' That shocked me.”
Within 24 hours — following FBI advice — the scene was sealed off again.
Questions About the Investigation
Entin said he observed no obvious signs of forced entry. However, scattered plants near the doorstep struck him as unusual.
More than a week later, doorbell footage showed the masked intruder grabbing handfuls of shrubbery in what appeared to be a clumsy attempt to block the camera lens.
On Thursday, nearly two weeks after Nancy disappeared, a white tent was erected over the area where blood had been found.
“It was surprising to see that tent go up. It's the exact spot where we filmed the blood.”
“Why they would decide to protect that spot almost two weeks later, I'm not entirely sure.”
He did note that rain was forecast, but remained critical of the initial handling of the scene.
“It's shocking that they wouldn't want to preserve all of that [scene from the outset] and keep people from even walking in the driveway.”
“You'd think they wouldn't have wanted everybody's footsteps there, because they would have probably wanted to try to find footprints, right?”
To Entin, the early response reflects deeper instability within the sheriff’s office, which he described as being 'in turmoil.'
Sheriff Chris Nanos has at times appeared strained by the intense scrutiny. During one press conference, he acknowledged: “I'm not used to everyone hanging onto my every word and then holding me accountable for what I say.”
Former employees have told Entin that staffing turnover has left relatively inexperienced homicide detectives on the case.
“These are people who have decades of experience, who are now telling me that the homicide detectives working the case have two to four years' experience, just because of all the turnover at the sheriff's office,” he said.
“They're concerned. They're relieved now that the FBI is so involved, but they're concerned about the way that it was handled initially.”