Viral sleuths are turning the Nancy Guthrie case into content

The Nancy Guthrie investigation is now in its third week, which means it was only a matter of time before the case piqued the interest of online armchair detectives.

Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing on Feb. 1. In the weeks since, the street outside her home in Tucson, Arizona, has become a destination for true-crime livestreamers.

Online sleuths have dissected the publicly available details of the ongoing case while spreading far-fetched conspiracy theories. Some have filmed themselves driving through Guthrie’s neighborhood. The hashtag #nancyguthrie currently has more than 16,000 posts on TikTok, where users analyze Ring doorbell footage and excerpts from Savannah Guthrie’s 2024 memoir, capitalizing on public interest in the case and often drawing hundreds of thousands of views.

These posts across social media platforms have forced law enforcement to repeatedly set the record straight and dispel rampant rumors and misinformation, particularly as it pertains to Guthrie’s family members.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos announced Monday that Guthrie’s children and their spouses had been fully cleared from the investigation. “The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case,” Sheriff Chris Nanos said in a statement posted on X.

His statement appeared to indirectly address those speculating online and reporting irresponsibly about the case. Influencer content is, by nature, unwieldy, reactionary, and unbeholden to the same standards as traditional news outlets covering ongoing investigations.

Former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Lt. Gil Carrillo told 13 News that online speculation has the potential to inadvertently hinder investigations. “With all of these people that are getting on social media rendering their opinions and their thoughts, investigators have to take time from their investigation and assign people to follow those leads up because they all have to be followed,” Carrillo said. “Every one of them has to be vetted out.”

Members of the true-crime community counter that more eyes on an active case can help, something authorities themselves have acknowledged. As a person involved in the Guthrie investigation told CNN last week: “The breakthrough tip could come from anyone, from anywhere.”

In 2021, online sleuths credited themselves with helping locate the remains of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old who went missing during a road trip with her boyfriend. As the internet became consumed with the case, sharing images, analyzing Petito’s YouTube uploads, and speculating about timelines, YouTubers Jenn and Kyle Bethune spotted Petito’s van in their own travel footage. This helped point authorities to the area where Petito’s body was ultimately found.

Since then, similar episodes have played out across the hugely popular true-crime corner of the internet. Inspired by those successes, influencers and amateur sleuths are increasingly inserting themselves into both active and cold cases. But even well-meaning intervention can risk doing more harm than good.

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