Nancy Grace, a veteran prosecutor turned true crime superstar, is just as baffled by the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance as everyone else following this heartbreaking story.
Grace detailed her thoughts on the case that captivated the American public on Friday as part of the opening keynote address at Variety magazine’s inaugural True Crime Summit at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has been in the headlines every day since information surfaced that Today anchor Savannah Guthrie’s mother had been kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on February 1st.
Grace spoke to Dear Lawrence, publisher and co-president of Variety magazine, a true crime buff herself. Lawrence began the session with a direct question about how, despite all the cutting-edge forensic tools available to investigators these days, the Guthrie case remains unsolved.
“I’ve been asking that question since about the second day after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance,” Grace said, citing her extensive experience investigating and prosecuting violent crimes. “I’ve always been curious, how did this happen?”
Grace said she has one strong belief in this case. That means no immediate family members are involved. While there is inevitable speculation that the kidnapping was orchestrated by someone close to the Guthrie couple, Grace said every instinct told her this was not an inside job. She pointed to Savannah Guthrie’s actions in recent news video footage of Guthrie’s family gathering outside Nancy Guthrie’s home.
“I don’t believe the Guthrie family is responsible for one reason only, because I first met Savannah Guthrie many years ago and I want to assure you that she is not a fake TV person,” Grace said. “She’s real. She’s real. Just like what you see on TV. She’s very smart. She’s a trained lawyer. It’s not only difficult, it’s impossible to believe that Savannah Guthrie would put her arm around (a family) if she suspected that she was involved,” Grace said. “With all your real crimes, law buffs will say you should look first at the family, because of course statistically the family did it. But I don’t think the family did it in this case.”
Grace also reflected on her experience with violent crime, which led her to the work she does today. In 1979, when Grace was a 19-year-old college student, her fiancé, Keith Griffin, was murdered.
“I remember the smell of carnations at my fiancé’s funeral. I still get sick from that smell and can’t bear to smell it. It’s a moment in my life I’ll never forget,” Grace said. She expressed deep sympathy for the Guthrie family, knowing intuitively how difficult it is to process the effects of a violent crime. She likened it to being in the upside-down world of “Alice in Wonderland.”
“When you’re in the middle of it, you feel like Alice. Everything is turned upside down. Nothing makes sense. After my fiancé Keith was murdered, I remember asking my mother for days, ‘Is Keith dead?’ It wasn’t accepted for a really long time. ”
Grace had criticized local authorities in Tucson, particularly Sheriff Chris Nanos, for their initial handling of the case.
“I think they were advised by law enforcement not to jump to ransom money. I think they thought that with the reality show, the sheriff running Desert Justice, law enforcement could solve the problem in an organized way. So this is a big problem, too. They’ve been waiting a long time to report it to federal authorities,” she said.
Nanos has had a lot of experience putting perfume on pigs, failing, translating, and failing. There is a big difference between an accident or mistake and someone intentionally damaging an investigation. I don’t really care about his attitude or his reality show or what he promotes about me. “I don’t care about that,” Grace continued, “All I care about is how it affects investigations. There are a lot of bad decisions. The federal government has powers and skills that local law enforcement doesn’t have, and that doesn’t matter to them. And I hate to diminish the value of the men and women around the world who are doing the best they can and doing a great job. They just don’t have the expertise that the federal government has.”
Lawrence briefed Grace on other current controversies, including the Epstein file and its impact on the concept that Americans receive equal justice under the law. She named the now-disgraced Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, whose exchanges in the Epstein file revealed they benefited from the convicted sex offender for money and perks.
“They’re some of the richest people in the world, but they’re like pigs in the valley,” Grace said. “And they had to go to Epstein for the money. I mean, it’s like jumping into bed with the devil and liking it.”
Grace has not been shy about criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi and her investigation of those who used Epstein’s systematic trafficking of underage girls and women as sexual playthings for those in power.
“I’ve talked to multiple Epstein victims who are now adults, and I still roll my eyes when people say the word closure, because when you’re the victim of a violent crime, there’s no such thing as closure. They… , we know who the attackers are, and that’s where we find the customer list, and we want to talk to the victims and find out if the federal authorities are going to the trouble of looking at all the documents,” she said.
The conversation delved into some of the cases Grace has been involved with over the years, including the murder of Philadelphia schoolteacher Ellen Greenberg and the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, and discussed the pillars of the true crime genre. Grace is happy that viewers can learn important tips and tricks by watching her show and other well-produced true crime shows.
“I give credit to the audience. They used what they learned from law enforcement and other sources. I’m sure I’m not the star,” Grace said. “The case is the star, the victim is the star. So I’m just a conduit, and I’m lucky to be able to do that.”
