Aug. 4, 2026

Nancy Guthrie's Ransom Notes Released, Three ER Doctors Testify in the Clancy Trial, 21 Days Searching for London Thomas

Show Notes
Transcript

Six months after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie was taken from her Tucson-area home, the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI Phoenix Field Office released the full text of two ransom notes sent to Tucson CBS affiliate KOLD — the first on February 2, addressed to her daughter, Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, demanding $4 million in bitcoin; the second on February 6, claiming she had died shortly after being taken and was "buried in nature." Investigators say the notes share a distinctive linguistic style they hope someone will recognize. No suspect has been named and the notes' authenticity has not been confirmed. Also: jurors in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial heard three Beth Israel Deaconess Plymouth emergency physicians describe treating Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, after the January 2023 strangulations in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Clancy has pleaded not guilty and contests criminal responsibility. And in Wayne County, Michigan, Jalen Pendergrass was sentenced Friday to 25 to 50 years for the second-degree murder of his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend, London Thomas, whose body was found sealed in a plastic bin 21 days after she disappeared. His mother, Charla Pendergrass, has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.

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WEBVTT

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Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher, and this

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is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Shark Media powered

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by AI. It's Tuesday, August fourth, twenty twenty six. A

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word before we start. Today's episode deals with the deaths

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of children with strangulation and with suicide. If that isn't

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something you can sit with this morning, skip this one.

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We'll be right here tomorrow. Here's what we've got. In Plymouth, Massachusetts,

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the Lindsay Clancy trial went somewhere no trial wants to go.

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Jurors walked through the house where it happened. Then they

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came back, sat down and listened to three emergency room

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doctors described, one at a time exactly what they did

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to try to bring Cora Dawson and Callan Clancy back,

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and the mother who killed them sat across the room

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and wept. In Wayne County, Michigan, a man who's strangled

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his seventeen year old ex girlfriend and then let her

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family search for her for twenty one days is going

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to prison for at least twenty five years. Her grandmother

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stood up in that courtroom and told him exactly what

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she thought of him. And I am going to let

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her have that. And in Tucson, six months to the

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day after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her home, investigators did

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something they have never done in this case. They published

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the ransom notes, both of them, including the second one,

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in which the writer says Nancy is dead, says they

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never meant it, and says she's buried somewhere out there

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in the open. That's the show. Let's go. Let's start

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in Plymouth Superior Court. You know this case. We have

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been in that courtroom with you since jury selection. Lindsey

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Clancy thirty five years old, a former labor and delivery

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nurse on trial for three counts of murder in the

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deaths of her own children, Cora five years old, Dawson

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three years old, Allen eight months old, January twenty fourth,

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twenty twenty three, in the basement of the family's home

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in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Here is what makes this trial different

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from almost every trial we cover. Lindsey Clancy is not

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saying she didn't do it. Through her attorney, Kevin Reddington,

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she has admitted that she strangled her three children with

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exercise resistance bands. That is not in dispute. What is

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in dispute is whether she is criminally responsible for it.

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Her defense says she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis,

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that she heard a voice telling her to do it,

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that she was not in command of her own mind.

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The Commonwealth says she was. Prosecutor Shannon Buckingham told the

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jury that Clancy acted deliberately and meticulously and that she

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had simply grown dissatisfied with her life as a mother.

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So that's the whole case, not who, not how, whether

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she knew Last week. The prosecution did what prosecutions do.

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They built the record brick by brick, and on Friday

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they took the jury out of the building. Eighteen jurors

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got on a bus and went to Duxbury. They walked

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through the house in groups of six. The house has

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a new owner now, someone who fought that visit and lost.

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Then they went to the three V restaurant in Plymouth,

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where Patrick Clancy picked up takeout that night. Then they

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went to the CVS where he stopped for his kid's medicine.

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They stood in the same places, in the same order,

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along the same route a father drove while his children

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were dying. Then they came back to the courtroom, and

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it got worse. Two Duxbury police officers testified about guarding

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Lindsey Clancy at the hospital that night. They described her

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as sedated and unconscious, with visible injuries to her wrists

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and her neck. One officer told the jury the clothes

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she had been wearing were soaked through with blood down

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to her undergarments. One of those officers, Richard Lippard, rode

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with her to Boston, and on cross examination, Reddington walked

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him through something the jury had not heard before. Ade blew.

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Overnight at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Lindsey Clancy's condition collapsed.

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Staff came running from all over the floor. The overhead

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speakers called it out with the room number attached. Reddington

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asked him, and that meant she was dead or dying? Right?

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Lippard said, yes. Understand what the defense is doing there

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because it is not sentimental. The Commonwealth has been quietly

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building a theory that the suicide attempt was not real.

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Back at her arraignment years ago, a prosecutor suggested Clancy

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lowered herself out that window and dropped and didn't account

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for the ground being frozen. Last week, officers conceded on

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cross that the cuts to her arms were not life threatening.

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So Reddington is answering that he is putting a police

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officer on the stand to say she nearly died that night,

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not theatrically, clinically with a code called over the intercom

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and a room full of people running. That is a

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defense argument. It's a good one. The jury decides what

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it's worth. My job is to explain it, not to

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endorse it. And then came the doctors. Three emergency physicians

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from Beth Israel Deacon His Hospital in Plymouth, each one

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assigned to a different child, each one describing in the

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flat professional language emergency medicine uses because it has to

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exactly what they did. Doctor Mark Tenerowitch had Dawson. He

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was told the boy had been strangled. He and his

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team worked on Dawson for roughly forty minutes before accepting

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that his heart was never going to restart. He declared

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him dead at seven twenty eight that evening. Doctor Benjamin

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Kaufman had Callen, the eight month old, and Kaufman actually

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got a pulse back. He got that infant's heart beating again,

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but Callen never breathed on his own, and the testing

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showed nothing upstairs. Kaufman put it as plainly as a

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doctor can. At no point did he exhibit any brain function.

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Callen was flown to Boston Children's Hospital, and he died

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there days later. Doctor Michael Snyder had Cora, five years old.

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She arrived with bruce around her neck and every sign

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of oxygen deprivation. She was not breathing, there was no heartbeat.

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His team ran CPR for about thirty minutes and got

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Boston Children's on the phone for guidance, and none of

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it mattered. He declared Cora dead just before seven point thirty.

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Two children pronounced dead within two minutes of each other

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in the same emergency department on the same January evening.

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Across the room, Lindsey Clancy covered her face and wept.

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And I want to say something about that, because there

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is a version of this show that treats a defendant

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crying as a performance, and I'm not gonna do that here.

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I don't know what is happening inside that woman's head.

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Nobody in that building does. That is literally the question

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twelve people are eventually going to have to answer. What

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I do know is that three doctors described losing three

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children and every adult in that room had to sit

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still and take it. Yesterday, the trial rolled into its

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second week and stayed inside the hospital. Jurors heard from

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physicians at Boston Children's who took over Callen's care, doctor

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Andrew Caprero in the emergency department and doctor David Cassavant

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in the intensive care unit. They also heard from doctor

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Kelly McDonough, an emergency physician at South Shore Hospital, which

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is where the ambulance took Lindsay Clancy before she was

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flown into Boston. Judge William Sullivan told the panel to

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expect a full day. Crime lab specialists are expected next

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and after that this trial turns toward where it was

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always going to end up, the psychiatrists, the medication records,

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and the question of what a mind does when it

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comes apart, and whether the law cares this thing. Is

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expected to run six to eight weeks. We are in

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week two. Core Clancy was five years old. Dawson Clancy

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was three, and on the last morning of his life,

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he dressed himself for the first time, and his father

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took a picture of him leaping at the camera with

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both arms over his head. Callan Clancy was eight months old.

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And had not learned to walk. Yet someone has to

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say their names now to Wayne County, Michigan. Her name

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was London Thomas, seventeen years old from Inkstern. On April fifth,

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twenty twenty five, around four in the morning, her sister

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dropped her off at a house on Carlisle Street. That

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is the last time anyone in her family saw her alive.

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The house belonged to Jalen Pendergrass. He was twenty three.

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They had been dating. Prosecutors say the relationship was already

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over by the time she got there that night. She

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never came home. Her mother reported her missing the next day,

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and then the searching started, the kind of searching families

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do when the institutions haven't caught up yet. Flyers group searches,

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phone calls, weeks of it twenty one days. For twenty

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one days, London Thomas's family looked for her, and for

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twenty one days, according to prosecutors, Jalen Pendergrass lied. He

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lied to her family, He lied to police. He posted

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videos on social media claiming London had been spotted alive.

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He even called police himself several times to complain that

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London's family was harassing him set with that for a second,

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he knew he knew the entire time, and he let

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a mother spend three weeks driving around Metro Detroit with

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a stack of flyers in her passenger seat. On April

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twenty six, twenty twenty five, a man walked into Inkster

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police with a story. He said, Charlotte Pendergrass, Jalen's mother,

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had asked him to move a sealed plastic bin. He

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had put it in an suv parked on Millard Street

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in Southfield. That suv had been sitting in that driveway

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for about two weeks. Investigators went and looked London Thomas

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was inside the bin. She had to be identified through

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dental records. The Oakland County Medical Examiner ruled that she

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died of as f and ruled the manner of death

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a homicide. On July second of this year, Jalen Pendergrast

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pleaded guilty to second degree murder. He admitted the two

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of them got into a physical altercation, and that he

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put his hands around her neck and kept them there

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until she stopped breathing. In exchange, prosecutors dropped charges of

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felony murder, unlawful imprisonment, and tampering with evidence. Friday, he

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was sentenced. London's mother, Jasmine Bennett, went first. She said

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she was struggling to find words when there are none.

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She talked about the graduation, her daughter will never have

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the prom she will never go to the wedding. That

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is never going to happen. She said, losing London has

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been the most horrific and difficult event of her life.

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She said London is with her everywhere she goes now,

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just not in a body. Then London's grandmother, Barbara Bennett,

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took her turn, and she did not soften a thing.

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She said London left her with beautiful memories. She said

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that even though she can't see her, London is always

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at her side. And then she said the only regret

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she has is that Charla and Jalen Pendergrass are still

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walking this earth and London is not. And then she

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said he is a waste of skin. That's it. Jalen

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Pendergrass sat stonefaced through all of it. Prosecutor Dominic de

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Grazia told the court he believes Pendergrass genuinely thinks he

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is the victim in this story, that he has been

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persecuted by mysterious forces that he is not the one

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at fault. DeGrazia called it cold blooded and calculated, and

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said Pendergrass was willing to let London's family go the

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rest of their lives not knowing whether she was alive

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or dead, and would not even give them the courtesy

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of being able to bury her. His attorney argued he

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deserves credit for the plea, that there were real questions

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about how London died that only Pendergrass could answer, and

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that his client has expressed remorse in private conversation. Judge

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Paul Cusick sentenced him to twenty five to fifty years,

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which is that's exactly what the plea agreement called for.

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But the judge added a line, and I want a

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parole board to hear it in about two decades. He said.

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He believes every single minute of a fifty year sentence

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would be deserved in this case. That is a judge saying,

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my hands are tied by this agreement, but the record

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is going to reflect what I actually think of you,

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and this case is not finished. Charla Pendergrass is charged

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with first degree premeditated murder, felony murder, unlawful imprisonment, and

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tampering with evidence. She has pleaded not guilty. She is

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presumed innocent and she will be until a jury says otherwise.

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Her trial is scheduled for late October, and we will

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be covering it. But there is one more piece of this,

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and it's the part that made me put my pen down.

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Back in May of last year, Charlot Pendergrass was charged

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with lying to a peace officer during a violent crime investigation.

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Prosecutors said video and phone records showed she had lied

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to investigators that August. The charge was dismissed not because

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she didn't lie. It was dismissed because the investigators she

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allegedly lied to were FBI agents, and under the Michigan Statute,

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a federal agent does not meet the definition of a

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peace officer. The assistant prosecutor said it out loud in

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open court. Neither agent had ever been licensed as a

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police officer in Michigan, and no other law enforcement was

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in the room when it happened. The statute didn't reach.

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It dismissed without prejudice. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you.

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I understand why that statute is written the way it is,

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and I understand why a prosecutor who wants a conviction

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that survives appeal, doesn't run a theory he thinks is

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going to lose. That is the job, and de Grazia's

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office came back later with murder charges anyway, But there

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is still something obscene about a family spending twenty one

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days looking for a girl who was already inside a bin,

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and the law's answer to one piece of that alleged

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cover up being wrong. Flavor of badge. There's a playbook

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for this. Every year, somebody's lawyer finds the seam. London

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Thomas was seventeen years old. She was supposed to graduate,

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She was supposed to go to prom. She was supposed

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to live long enough to get embarrassed by her grandmother

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in public. Someone has to say her name. Commercial break

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coming up. Six months to the day after Nancy Guthrie

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vanished from her Tucson home, investigators released the ransom notes,

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both of them, and the second one is a confession

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of a kind that nobody in that family ever wanted

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to read. Welcome back to Daily Crime and Justice. I'm

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Garrett Fisher. Nancy Guthrie is eighty four years old. She

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lived alone in the Catalina foothills just north of Tucson, Arizona.

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She has a pacemaker, She takes daily medication for a

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heart condition, limited mobility, sharp mind, and a church she

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never missed. On the night of January thirty first, twenty

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twenty six, her daughter Annie and her son in law

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had her over for dinner. He drove her home. She

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went in through the garage. That is the last confirmed

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sighting of Nancy Guthrie alive. In the early hours of

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February first, her doorbell camera went dark around two thirty

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in the morning. Her pacemaker lost its connection to her phone,

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which means she had been moved out of range. She

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was gone. There was blood on the front porch. Friday

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mark six months. We have covered this case since the

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first week, and I want to be straight with you

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about where it stands, because the honest answer is nowhere good.

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There is no suspect, there is no name person of interest.

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Nancy Guthrie has never been found. But Friday, the Pima

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County Sheriff's Department did something new. They published the ransom Notes.

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Two notes, both sent to Kold, the CBS affiliate in Tucson.

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The first on February second, day after she was taken.

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The second on February sixth, investigators redacted the sender's email

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address and the name the writer used and released the rest.

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The first note is addressed directly to Savannah Guthrie, Nancy's daughter,

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the Today Show anchor. It says they have her mother.

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It says she is safe but scared. It sets a

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price four million dollars in bitcoin by five pm on

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Thursday the fifth, rising to six million if that deadline passed,

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due by five pm Monday the ninth. It promises she

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will be released within twelve hours of payment at a

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drop off point back in Tucson. It says that if

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the final deadline passes, she dies. It says her mother

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knows this and that her life is in the family's hands,

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and it closes by warning them not to play games

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because law enforcement cannot help them. The second note, four

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days later, is addressed to the Guthrie family, and it

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changes everything. It says they did not fully grasp how

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fragile she was physically. It says they never intended to

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hurt her. It says she died shortly after she was

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taken and that they believe it was her heart. It

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says she is buried in nature now and it says

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nothing the family could have done would have changed the outcome,

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and that they hope her family can find peace. I

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have read a lot of terrible documents for this show.

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That one is in its own category because whoever wrote

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it wants credit for regret. They want to be understood.

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They took an eighty four year old woman out of

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her home in the middle of the night, and the

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surveillance video shows a masked man with a backpack and

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a gun walking up to her door, and then they

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sat down and wrote to her children asking them to

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find peace. Now here is why the sheriff released those notes,

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and it is the most interesting investigative move in this

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case in months. Investigators say the two notes share what

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they called a unique linguistic style, distinctive word choice, distinctive syntax,

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distinctive phrasing. They believe the same person wrote both, and

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they believe that style is specific enough that somebody out

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there is going to read it and recognize it. A friend,

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a family member, a coworker, a classmate, somebody who has

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read this person's writing before and is going to feel

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the hair go up on the back of their neck.

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That's the ask no, have you seen her? Read this

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and tell us if it sounds like anyone you know.

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They paired it with a behavioral ask too, think back

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to early February. Did somebody in your life have a

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sudden change in mood, unexplained injuries, a routine that shifted

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for no reason, an oddly intense interest in this case,

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or an oddly conspicuous lack of one unexplained knowledge about

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Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood, or about what happened there. Two caveats,

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and I am not going to bury them at the bottom. One.

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Authorities have not confirmed these notes are authentic. They also

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have not ruled them out, and Savannah Guthrie has said

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publicly that she believes they may be real. Reporting indicates

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the notes reference details about the scene that may not

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have been public at the time, including the location of

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Nancy's Apple watch and a smashed floodlight in her backyard.

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That is suggestive, it is not proof. Nobody has established

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that whoever wrote those notes is the person who took

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her two. This investigation has already produced collateral damage. Last week,

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two Arizona men who were detained back in February and

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released without charges filed a notice of claim against the

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sheriff and a detective, seeking a combined total of more

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than three million dollars. Carlos Palazuelo says he was pulled

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over and arrested at gunpoint in public, held for hours,

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and that the sheriff posted about the arrest on social

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media in a way that made him look like a

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suspect to the entire country. Daniel Maddock says he was

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taken at gunpoint and kept under guard in a van

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while a house was searched. His mother, who owns that house,

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is also a claimant for damage to her property. They

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argue the warrant was defective. The Sheriff's department declined to

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comment on pending litigation, and has pointed out that nobody

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has been cleared in this case. Both of those men

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were released without charges. Neither has been charged with anything

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connected to Nancy Guthrie, and a notice of claim is

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a claim, not a finding. That is the first step

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toward a lawsuit, and none of it has been tested

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in court. Over the weekend, Savannah Guthrie posted again. She

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said that every day the family wakes up and tries

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to be strong, because that is what their mother taught

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them to do, but that their hearts are in ruins.

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She said, they are begging for help. She said someone

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knows something, someone suspects something. She is right about that.

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Somebody wrote those notes, and somebody out there knows how

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that person writes. If you're in southern Arizona and something

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in this is scratching at the back of your mind,

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the Pima County Sheriff's Department wants to hear from you.

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Not a theory, not a hunch about a stranger, a

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name attached to a way of writing. Nancy Guthrie is

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eighty four years old. She has been gone six months

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and three days. Her family cannot grieve her because grieving

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requires knowing, and nobody will tell them where she is.

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Someone has to say her name. That's daily Crime Injustice

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for Tuesday, August fourth, twenty twenty six. Cora Clancy five

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years old, Dawson Clancy three years old, Callan Clancy eight

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months old, London Thomas seventeen years old, and Nancy Guthrie

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eighty four years old. Still out there somewhere. Five people,

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three families, one thing in common, every single one of

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them was somebody's entire world and every single one of

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them is being talked about on a podcast this morning

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because somebody else decided their life was an inconvenience. Accountability

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doesn't have a legal department. It doesn't get dismiss because

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the badge was the wrong color, and it does not

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get to write a note to a grieving family asking

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them to find peace, do better. If this show is

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worth your morning, do me one favor. Tell one person

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about it, Text a friend, share the episode. That is

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genuinely how this thing grows. And if you're listening on Spotify,

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drop a comment because I read them. Here's what I

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want to hear today. The Clancy jury is about to

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spend weeks listening to psychiatrists argue about what was happening

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inside one woman's mind three and a half years ago.

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Do you think twelve people can actually answer that question?

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Or is this the one thing our system fundamentally cannot do.

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Tell me. I'm Garrett Fisher. This has been Daily Crime

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and Justice from Calaroga Shark Media. We'll see you tomorrow.

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A few notes on today's reporting. The Lindsey Clancy trial

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is ongoing and was in session as this episode was prepared.

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Testimony described here reflects reporting through Monday morning. A third

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developments later Monday, and any testimony Tuesday are not reflected.

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Lindsey Clancy has admitted through council that she killed her children.

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She has pleaded not guilty on the grounds that she

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lacked criminal responsibility. No verdict has been reached, and nothing

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in this episode is a finding about her mental state.

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Sources differ on Callan Clancy's age. Current wire reporting and

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court coverage list him as eight months old at the

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time of his death, while some earlier coverage listed seven months.

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We used eight. Sources also differ on Jalen Pendergrass's age,

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reported variously as twenty three to twenty four, and on

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Charlotte Pendergrass's age. Charlotte Pendergrass has pleaded not guilty to

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all charges and is presumed innocent. Her trial is scheduled

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