Transcript of The search for Nancy Guthrie. Drama in a Georgia courthouse. And an ice skating scandal. New

Good morning. You're listening to the Dateland Story meeting. We will jump in so we can get started on a busy day. Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news. What's the timeline on things? We were supposed to start trial on Monday. This is Affluence Money Greed. Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's February 12th, and here's what's on our docket. Emotions run high in a Georgia courthouse as the boyfriend of a murdered law student takes the stand.

I would be so angry not understanding how God could allow the devil in his angel's house.

In Dateline Roundup, Luigi Mangione's outburst in the courtroom and the latest chapter in the saga of Alec Murdoch, the disgraced attorney convicted of murdering his wife and son.

Murdoch's defense team went before the five justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court to argue why he should get a trial.

Plus, remember Olympian ice skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding? We'll be talking to a veteran ice-skating reporter about the crime that captured the world's attention. This man was running with this stick just coming down at my leg. But before all that, we wanted to update you on the latest developments in the search for Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of our colleague and friend, Savannah. Nancy Guthrie has been missing from her home in Tucson for more than 10 days. According to the Pima County Sheriff, she was abducted in the early morning hours of February first. Up until Tuesday, the Sheriff said investigators had no suspects or leads in the case. That all changed Tuesday afternoon. As you may have seen, the FBI released video captured by Nancy's security camera in the early morning hours of her disappearance. It showed a masked and armed man walking up to her front door. Here to tell us more about what was in the video and what it all means bringing Nancy home is NBC News National Law Enforcement and Intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. I should say we're taping this conversation on Wednesday afternoon. Tom, thanks for being here.

Hi, Andrea. Good afternoon.

I know you've been all over this story, and just personally and professionally, it's a difficult one for you, for all of us. Remind us of the timeline of Nancy's disappearance, and we've learned a lot more about that from law enforcement.

The timeline here has become a little more clear. So it's Saturday night, approximately 9: 30, 9: 45 in Tucson. And it's the Guthrie family that drops off Nancy at her home in the Greater Tucson area at approximately 1: 47 AM on Sunday morning There's this moment where somebody is seen on the nest camera on the front door of her home. And that was this extraordinary video that we saw released by the FBI. And then a critical piece of evidence, apparently Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker had the ability to communicate and give information and reporting real-time to her phone. And at some point around 2: 28 AM, they're no longer in connection. And that is what investigators believe is a moment where she is now officially out of the home and away from the home, probably a moment or two before that. The family is advised that Nancy Guthrie did not join up with her regular group to watch a stream of a mass of a church on Sunday morning. The family gets there and In less than 10 minutes, they realize something is terribly wrong. They pick up the phone, they call police, and the sheriff says, Look, we immediately saw some things that just didn't seem right, were indications that this could be the site of a crime.

As a matter fact, actually dispatch homicide detectives. Andrea, right from the very beginning.

Yeah, her vital medication was apparently left behind. Wallet, phone, there's her blood on the doorstep. Tom, there have been reports of several ransom notes being received by TV stations and TMZ demanding payment for the safe return of Nancy. You have actually seen a copy of one of the notes. Can you sort through what we know and don't know about them and what you're allowed to share?

Yeah, sure. So everybody understands the details that we withhold from these notes Really, just because there are certain aspects of the investigation we don't want to tip off whoever they're looking for. But the gist of it is this. They point out the fact that she was wearing a white Apple watch. They point out the fact that there were floodlights at the home. There's a request for cryptocurrency, and they provide some specific deadlines. Look, the first picture you're going to find of Nancy Guthrie and Savannah Guthrie together is she is wearing a white Apple Watch. That's public information. That there's a floodlight at the home. I mean, how many homes in this country don't have floodlights outside or some lighting outside of a home? The thing that people have been focused on are these potential deadlines. But then we saw the Guthrie family, as you know, start to put out videos and say, Look, just reach out to us. We're ready. We're here to talk, but provide us with some form of proof of life. It's our understanding that that hasn't happened. And so really, authorities are trying to see whether these notes are credible or not.

We don't have any additional insight into that so far.

Right. You mentioned the surveillance video that was released on Tuesday by the FBI. It feels like everyone in the country must have seen it at this point. Initially, we were told that Nancy did not have a subscription to having the video saved, and we were told there may be no footage ever. But that all changed.

It all changed. It was clear that there was a lot of work between Google, which is the parent company of Nes, which was this camera, and the FBI.

Yeah, a lot of people hard at work, surely just working around the clock with what we're talking about. At what point did the FBI decide to go public with it? Was it immediately?

Well, the FBI assuredly did not immediately make these images public once they became aware of them. I mean, first off, it's our understanding that the family was briefed on these images, wanted to make sure, see if anybody in the family recognized anybody in the course of this. Then the decision is made to go public because you want to involve the whole country.

Tom, can you just, for our listeners who are not looking at the video right now, and we will link to the images and the videos in our episode description, but can you just describe exactly what we see on the tape?

Right. Well, you see a couple of different things on the tape. I mean, first off, you see the individual approach. They've got their head down there and almost intentionally looking at the ground like they don't want the camera to see their eyes. In this individual approaches, they're fiddling around. You get some real close-up images of their gloves. You see this gun that's carried in a holster externally. It appears that it would be set up if somebody was a right-handed shot. And then you see a backpack on them with the reflective tape out front in this light-colored mask, but their eyes are very clear. Some people say that around the mouth, there might be some facial We'll hear either a goatee or a mustache or both. And the backpack is very large. And one of the things that sticks out, and I'm sure you notice this, just how full that backpack is.

Oh my gosh, full.

To the seams, almost.

Yeah. I mean, very chilling, very jarring to look at those images. About eight hours after those images were released, we learned that a man had been taken into custody for questioning. What do you know about him? And it sounds like it's not really going anywhere with him?

Right. Well, this person was released. They took his phone. They've kept his phone. They conducted a court-authorized search. I think that's notable. As you know, you don't search a home without that court paperwork. But When you actually conduct those searches and talk to them, you might realize that some of those things are easily explained, and they might not actually point towards the crime.

Okay. The FBI director released a statement saying they're looking at people and that they have made a lot of progress. What is next? What are the most critical steps, do you think, going forward?

You're already seeing some activity since this video came out. You're looking at a lot of searches that are occurring on the ground, FBI agents combing through Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood, just the old-fashioned shoe leather or boot leather, whatever you want to say in this particular instance. They're going from store to store, gas station to gas station, pulling video. All of that's part of the investigation. They're really humming on that. That's something that I think we'll get to the point of identifying, is this one person? Is it two, three, four people? Who's involved in this? Why did they do this? It's so obviously nerve-wracking for everybody in that community. Just what the Guthrie family has been put through here in our colleagues, Savannah, it's so awful. I think everybody wants an answer for Nancy. Everybody wants an answer for Savannah and the family just to figure out how did we get here? Why would somebody do something like this?

Yeah. It It's just you feel almost like you know Nancy. You're rooting for her, even for people who haven't met her. It's like the whole country has come together for Savannah's mom, which is so wonderful. If anyone does know anything, you can call 1-800, call FBI. That's 800-225-5324, or you can visit tips. Fbi. Gov if you want to leave a tip online. Thank you so much, Tom, for covering this story for the network. You've done such a great job, and during a difficult time, you're really breaking things down for people. So we appreciate it.

Well, you got it. I'm so glad we had a chance to talk, and it's all about getting information out, and certainly, we got to hold out hope for Nancy.

We all want that so badly, and our prayers and hearts are with Savannah and her family during this difficult time. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. For our next story, we're heading to the college town of Athens, Georgia, where it's week two in the trial of a man accused of murdering University of Georgia law student, Tara Baker, 25 years ago. Prosecutors say DNA evidence proves Edric Faust is the killer, but he says he's innocent. In a blistering cross-examination this week, Faust's defense attorney confronted the person he alleges is the real murderer. Ms. Mellon, you have not shed a tear. Here to bring us up to speed is Dateland producer, Dorothy Newell, who has been inside the courtroom. Hey, Dorothy.

Hey, Andrea.

Dorothy, let's start with just a quick recap of the case. Remind us who was Tara Baker and what happened to her in 2001.

So Tara was a 23-year-old first-year law student at the University of Georgia. On January 19th, 2001, at about 11: 20 AM, firefighters responded to a fire at Tara's home. She lived off campus. When they entered, they found Tara's body. She'd been raped, strangled, stabbed, and left for dead, and her bedroom was on fire.

So awful. Dorothy, you and Dateland field producer Justin Ratchford have spent a lot of time in Athens covering this case. What struck you the most about the location of this crime? I mean, this is a place where parents send their children off to college hoping that they're safe.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, first of all, is like the quintessential college town. There's tons of kids here. They're working, they're playing, they're planning for their futures. Just like Tara was doing when she was killed.

She had her whole life in front of her. That's what makes this really hard to hear. What did investigators learn in those early days as they were investigating this off-campus crime?

Well, there were certainly indications that this didn't feel like a random attack. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing was taken except her laptop, and she was still wearing her diamond earrings. Investigators looked at various people, a classmate, a lawyer from the law firm where she worked, and Tara's boyfriend, Chris Milton. But police said his alibi checked out and no one else rose to the level of arrest. But evidence was gathered and organized, and that would become important over the years.

As it so often does in these cases when they go unsolved, because in this case, 25 years later, investigators finally made an arrest. This was such a long time coming, Dorothy.

That's right. They used new technology to retest the rape kit that was done at the time of Tara's murder, and they got some viable DNA. This time around, when they ran the suspect DNA through CODIs, that's the National Criminal DNA Database, they got a hit, a repeat offender named Edric Faust. That was just really out of the blue.

The prosecution, of course, Dorothy, focused its opening statement on that DNA match. Which jurors, they like to hear about DNA.

Right. The prosecutor said the chances that the DNA belonged to anyone but Faust were one in 800 quadrillion.

Right. But so, okay, there's an unusual twist. The defense is not disputing this.

How does Mr. Faust's DNA, simply being in Ms..

Baker's body, establish that he is the person that killed Ms. Baker?

Yeah, defense The attorney, Ammon Cruz, agrees that Faust's DNA was inside Tara's body, but he's more interested in the fact that someone else's DNA was there, too. It was her boyfriend, Chris.

Chris was Tara's boyfriend, as you said. They were intimate. I would think that would be expected to find his DNA. But the defense says there's more to it, Dorothy.

Yeah, the defense argued that Chris's alibi was shaky, and he changed his story to the police about when he last saw Tara, and that makes him, according to the defense, deeply suspicious.

Okay, so that was the lead up to what happened on day 6 of the trial when the prosecution called Chris to the stand to tell his story. Take us through his testimony, Dorothy.

So the prosecutor asked Chris about his and Tara's relationship.

How was the state of you and Tara's relationship in those months leading up to her murder?

Everything was wonderful. We were both in the understanding that we were pursuing future paths for us to have a better future together. Our relationship was strong.

He talked about getting the awful news. He was working at a plumbing job and got paged by Tara's mother.

What did you learn when you called Ms..

Virginia Baker? She had told me that there was a fire at Tara's residence, and there was a body discovered in the fire.

In that moment, what was your reaction to hearing that information? Devastated.

Chris also talked about how he got so upset he punched a wall.

Yeah, and that's pretty important to the case. The defense argued that Chris's hands showed cuts and scrapes after the murder, and that could implicate him in the very violent crime, right? But that first day, police noted nothing on his hands. Later, I think it was like two days later, he told the court he really lost it.

I started I was having an extreme emotional moment. There was a wall in front of me, and I punched it, I don't know, maybe 30 times, maybe more.

Chris told the jury he cooperated with investigators from the beginning, doing repeated interviews, giving them DNA samples. He said he struggled with his grief in private.

I would find myself on my knees, pounding the ground, the sand, whatever. Just finding myself so mad at God, not understanding how God could allow the devil in his angel's house.

Dorothy, then it was the defense's turn to cross-examine Chris Milton. This is such a big moment in all of this. He is really the crux of their defense, right?

Yeah, right off the bat, things were tense. The defense attorney brought it to question Chris's emotions, suggesting they weren't authentic.

Why didn't you cry?

When?

Just now.

Why didn't any tears fall out of your eyes?

They are falling out.

Well, let's talk about January 19th. Would you agree that today you were much more emotional than you were on the day that you learned Ms. Baker's death?

I was holding it together best I could.

The defense's cross-examination was all about timelines. Where was Chris the morning of the murder? Where was he in the days before Tara was killed? I know we said off the top that his alibi was checked out.

Well, there's all kinds of timelines involved here. There's another timeline that's really important. Chris testified that he and Tara had seen each other the weekend before the murder, so a few days before. But the defense brought up something that Chris told investigators in 2024. He said that he hadn't seen Tara for 10 days before her death.

The last time you saw Ms. Baker, was it six days before, 10 days before?

From the beginning, I said I saw her the weekend prior. From the beginning, you've said that? Yes, sir. That you've seen her the weekend, and that is It's always been what you said. There was a time that I was confused, and it was 20 plus years later.

The defense's point is that Chris's stories are inconsistent, probably untrue, and his timeline isn't trustworthy.

So So the prosecution, Dorothy is still calling their witnesses. Do we know what's next?

Given the many delays, I'm guessing this will go on another week.

Okay. Thank you, Dorothy, for this update.

You're welcome. Thanks, Andrea.

Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We've got updates on Luigi Mangioni and Alec Murdoch. Plus, we look back on a 30-year-old ice-skating scandal, the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline producer, Mario Garcia. Mario, welcome back.

Thanks for having me back, Andrea.

So first up, we've got an update out of New York. It's a story you know very well, the case of Luigi Mangione. He is the man accused of gunning down United Health care CEO, Brian Thompson, back in December 2024. Luigi Mangioni has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. So what's new, Mario?

That's right, Andrew. I mean, Gianni was back in court this past Friday. Bear in mind, he's facing criminal charges in both federal and state court. His federal trial on stalking charges is now set for jury selection to begin on September eighth and with opening arguments in October.

Okay, he found out the date of his state trial, June eighth. Whatever happened was not sitting well with him as he was being escorted out of the courtroom.

Yeah, that was interesting. I've been to several hearings, Andrea, and he's been very active in his defense and talking with his attorneys during hearings. But this was a little bit of excitement. As he was being escorted out, he shouted, it's been reported, It's the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any common sense, which was the first time we've seen to act like that in court.

What did he mean by that, Mario, in this particular case by double jeopardy? Because I think when most of us think of double jeopardy, we think if you're acquitted, you can't be tried for the crime twice.

Well, you're not supposed to be tried for the same crime twice, as you said, Andrea. Our legal expert, Danny Savalos, told our friends over at NBC News Now that double jeopardy is not likely at play here because the state and the federal government are considered two separate sovereigns, and he's technically being charged with different crimes in each jurisdiction. It's definitely a rare situation, I would say.

As we all know, Mario, trial dates move around constantly, so we'll see if these dates hold. Okay, now we're going to go to a case I know well. It's another high-profile defendant. She was back in court this week across the country in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cori Richens. Cori is the mom of three who wrote a children's book about grief before she was charged with her husband Eric's murder. Prosecutors say she laced his drink with a lethal dose of fentanyl. Richens denies that, and she has pleaded not guilty. Her trial, I can't believe it because I feel like I've been on this story for such a long time, it's finally underway.

It is finally underway, Andrea. Jury selection finally began in the Richens trial on Tuesday, and many of the potential jurors told the judge that they'd heard of the case but didn't know much detail or have a strong opinion about it.

There's been a lot of buzz about the questionnaire that the prospective jurors are filling out.

It's an incredibly rigorous questionnaire, and so now people are looking at that. It's 23 pages long with some 99 questions. Perspective jurors are being asked questions about everything. From the TV programs they like to watch, bumper stickers on their cars. Both the prosecution and the defense are trying to weed out anyone, anyone who might have some bias.

The jurors will find out next week if they've been selected. All right, we'll keep a close watch on that one. It brings us to our main story in Roundup this week. On Wednesday, there was a high-stakes hearing at the Supreme Court of South Carolina in the case of Alec Murdoch, the disgraced lawyer convicted fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, and their 21-year-old son, Paul. Mario, before we get into what's new here, just give a really quick recap of this complicated story.

Complicated indeed, Andrea. Murdoch called police in June of 2021, you might recall, to report finding his wife and son fatally shot when he says he arrived at their home. But investigators didn't buy that. They methodically pieced together, cell phone video, vehicle data, and witness testimony that placed Murdoch at the scene at the time of the shooting and he was arrested for those murders. At his trial, prosecutors said he'd killed Maggie and Paul to cover up financial crimes, and a jury convicted him in March of 2023.

Okay. Murdoch ultimately was sentenced to life in prison, and He got a life sentence for each of the murders. Mario, tell us what his team is now arguing to the Supreme Court of South Carolina.

On Wednesday, Murdoch's defense team went before the five justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court to argue why he should get a trial. One of their main arguments is that he didn't get a fair trial because of the behavior of someone that had been in the courtroom the whole time, the court clerk.

Yeah, this was a lot of drama involving this clerk. Remind people of what happened with her.

Her name is Becky trial, and I covered the original trial. Ms. Becky was everywhere and had regular contact with the jury as part of their job, getting them into the court, getting them their lunch and everything else. After the trial, she was actually criminally charged for her behavior during that trial. She denied tampering with the jury in any way, but pleaded guilty to four counts, including misconduct in office, and then she later apologized to the court.

Okay, what does the defense say Ms. Becky did that specifically violated Murdoch's right to a fair trial.

Murdoch's defense says that Ms. Becky made comments to jurors that could have influenced them to find Murdoch guilty. For example, they point to remarks she allegedly made encouraging jurors to watch Alec Murdoch's demeanor closely during testimony or urging them to move deliberations along.

Let's listen to Murdoch's defense team make their case to the justices on Wednesday.

As I stand here today, I'm honored to be arguing about how to interpret that Constitution, the Sixth Amendment, specifically.

I've never seen a factual pattern like this where the clerk of Court sets out to influence the verdict. Mary, what do the prosecutors say in response to this argument?

Well, not surprising, Andrea. The prosecutors dispute all of this and say any comments by Ms. Becky were limited and did not affect the verdict. In fact, the prosecutors say nine of the jurors told a lower court judge exactly that at a previous hearing.

If the court were to grant Murdoch a new trial. Do we think he stays behind bars?

Even if that happened, Andrew, he'd still remain in prison because of his lengthy state and federal sentences for his financial crimes. But a ruling in his favor could have much broader implications for how courts handle claims as a jury influence moving forward.

I find this completely fascinating. With these appeals, hard to say when we could have a ruling, right?

Right. Cases like this could typically take weeks or months, Andrew.

Thank you for all these updates, Mario.

Thanks for having me.

For our final story, we're heading to the Winter Olympics. Millions of ice-skating fans have been glued to the games this past week, watching the gravity-defying spins of quad God, Ilia Malanin, or the fancy footwork of ice dancers Madison Choc and Evan Bates. It made us think back to two other US Olympian ice skaters who made headlines 30 years ago for their skating and also for something that happened off the ice. We are talking, of course, about the afternoon in January 1994, when 24-year-old ice skating champion Nancy Kerrigan was attacked at a Detroit ice rink by a man with a baton. Dateland interviewed her soon after it happened. This man was running with this stick just coming down at my leg. Philip Hirsch is a special contributor to nbcalympics. Com, focusing on figure skating. Welcome to the show, Philip. My pleasure. So let's remind people about Nancy Kerrigan. She was such a big deal in the world of ice skating at the time.

Nancy had something about her. She just had a beautiful, beautiful line on the ice. She was the Bronze medalist at the 1992 Winter Olympics and then went on to become US champion in 1993, and she became of America's sweetheart.

Philip, Nancy was in Detroit getting ready to compete in the 1994 US National Championship. She had just finished practicing for the day. Take us to that moment where everything changed for her.

Well, most of us in the US media were actually sitting watching the short program of the Paris Competition when somebody ran into the press seat area and said, Nancy has been attacked. Nancy came through the curtain, separating the practice rink from the backstage area and was attacked by somebody using what turned out to be a metal baton. She was whacked on the knee, and the very famous video of this shows her screaming, Why, why me?

Why? Why?

I remember it like it was yesterday.

In press box banter, one of my colleagues immediately said, Where was Tanya?

Really? For those people who weren't born or were too young, Tanya Harding was a big competitor of Nancy Kerrigan.

Tanya was an extraordinary skater. She was a much more athletic skater. She won the 1991 US Championship and became the first US woman to land a triple axel jump in competition, which was a very big deal. She stood to benefit the most by Nancy not being on the Olympic team. It was just a normal assumption for people to say, totally jokingly, where was Tanya?

The attacker fled. So this was really the beginning of a mystery of who this man was. Let's take a listen to this Dateland interview that Jane Poly conducted with Nancy Kerrigan just days after the attack.

I don't know why that man did what he did to you, and you don't know either. Yeah, I wondered why and thought, if I could just ask him, I'd just like to know.

But I don't think I could understand anyway if he were to be able to give me an explanation, because I don't think that way. I don't think It's too vicious and cruel. How can you... I can't understand it.

So police in Detroit investigated it. It turned out that the mast hit man was a guy named Shane Stent.

Shane Then leads to Tanya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Galuli.

And leads to Tanya's bodyguard, Sean Eckert.

Jeff Galuli ended up pleading guilty to planning the attack. So both Tanya and Nancy end up going to Lillehammer, Norway, a few weeks after the incident. As members of the US Olympics Figure Skating Team, there was so much tension hanging over the competition. Nancy's recovering from the attack. Tanya is under a cloud of suspicion. What happens?

The biggest deal of the Olympics may have been the first practice when they were on the ice together. Everybody was waiting for that moment. Nancy got her wearing the same dress that she had when she was attacked, which is her way of saying, I'm here and I'm strong. As it turned out, Nancy skated throughout that competition as well as she ever had in her life.

What happened with Tanya?

One of her bootlaces broke and she tried to tighten the skates, and that caused a long delay. Tanya had a very bad short program. She was not able to land a triple axel. At At that point, the competition between Nancy and Tanya was over.

Tanya ends up finishing eighth overall. Nancy gets the silver medal. Less than a month later, Tanya Harding pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of conspiracy to hinder prosecution. She never admitted to helping plan it, but she did admit that she took part in covering it up.

Right, exactly. She eventually admitted to having some knowledge of what had happened. She was basically kept from skating in any sanctioned competition for the rest of her career.

You've said after the attack, figure skating went viral on national TV print outlets for the next two months. It just really supercharged interest in the sport.

Well, the irony of this was that most of the figure skaters, the initial reaction was how horrible this was. And then the next two or three years went by, they realized it was making all of them rich. A lot of skaters made a lot of money because Tanya Harding's cohorts and she had raised the visibility of this sport to a level that it had really never seen. The ratings were off the charts for the first part of the competition.

All right. Well, Philip, still capturing our attention all these years later. Thank you for your unique insight into It was such a crazy time.

Thanks, Danielle.

That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateland Premium. We hope you're all enjoying the Olympic coverage. Dateline will not be on NBC for the next two weeks because of the games, but you can still stream episodes on Peacock. And look out for an exciting drop in our podcast feed on Monday. We'll be sharing all six episodes of Keith's original series, The Girl in the Blue Mustang. It is the story of a young woman's murder in a California park and ride, a witness who knew too much, and the Dateline viewer who changed everything. I was sitting at home, and some force compelled me to go watch this episode of Dateland, NBC. And on Wednesday, Keith and I chat about the story on a special edition of Talking Dateland. Thanks for listening. Dateland True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Keanne Reid. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone-Groth and Aria Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff. Production and fact-checking, helped by Audrey Abraham. Veronica Mzezeca is our digital producer. Rick Juan is our sound sound designer. Original music by Jessie McGinty.

Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateland. Hi, everyone.