There is still no confirmed update tonight regarding the reported abduction of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy. The situation remains tense as the FBI continues to increase its presence around the family home in Arizona.
Multiple news networks including an ABC affiliate have now received what is being described as a potential ransom note. Authorities are working to determine whether the note TMZ reportedly received is connected to the one sent to news outlets, and whether either document is legitimate. Investigators are also considering the possibility that the note may not be authentic at all, but instead the work of someone attempting to insert themselves into a high-profile case.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has continued to publicly involve himself in the matter, reportedly even placing a call to Savannah Guthrie today. The White House has also been devoting significant attention to developments in the case.
There is a growing sense that this is a race against time. Nancy Guthrie is 84 years old and reportedly relies on medication that she may not currently have access to. That reality adds urgency to an already serious situation.
The investigation remains active, and authorities are working around the clock in hopes of identifying a suspect and bringing this case to a safe resolution.
Adding another strange layer to this case, the White House has social media posts announcing a reward connected to the investigation.
The search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie, is ongoing, and authorities are requesting assistance from the public. Anyone with information is urged to contact 911.
Our prayers are with the Guthrie family as we hope for Nancy’s safe return home. pic.twitter.com/AuA4zQcPiW
Guthrie’s mother was taken from her home at age 84. Authorities believe this was not random, and there is evidence suggesting foul play. Beyond that, details remain limited. And that’s where the unsettling part begins.
This is not a typical crime story. Crimes of passion usually have clear emotional triggers. Crimes of purpose usually have financial or strategic motivations. But abducting an elderly woman from her own bed raises uncomfortable questions about intent. Yes, she is the mother of a widely respected newscaster and that fact alone invites speculation but speculation is not evidence.
Online, some are already attempting to connect this event to Guthrie’s past reporting, including coverage related to high-profile scandals. At this stage, however, there is no verified information supporting those claims. It’s important to separate fact from theory.
Still, the circumstances are undeniably unusual.
A ransom note.. demand for cryptocurrency. Federal attention.. An elderly woman taken from her home. Everything about it feels strange and in cases like this, strange details matter. As the investigation unfolds, we’ll likely learn more. For now, the priority is simple: that her mother is found alive and safe. But based on what has been reported so far, the situation appears serious, and she may be in grave danger.
Gruesome new details emerged Tuesday after the cable news network NewsNation reported finding a blood trail leading from the front door of the home of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Jonathan Gerlach allegedly has an Instagram account by the username “deadshitdaddy” with the subtitle “Ledger of the Dead”. On the page he claims he is a private consultant conducting “provenance & forensic documentation of human remains”
The investigation began in November when people reported missing remains from the cemetery. The investigation gained traction when an anonymous tip gave police info. The tipster claimed to have been inside the home and witnessed dead bodies hanging from the ceiling. The tipster also said that Gerlach traveled as far as Chicago to deliver bones to a customer.
Police set up undercover surveillance at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yeadon and caught Gerlach in the act.
According to court documents, investigators recovered more than 100 human skulls, long bones, and mummified human feet and hands from his basement. Eight corpses, along with body parts, ashes, jewelry and clothing believed to have been taken from graves, were found inside the storage unit.
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Police say Gerlach targeted mausoleums and underground vaults at the 1855 cemetery. It’s considered the country’s largest abandoned burial ground, according to Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, which helps maintain the 160-acre landmark in Yeadon that’s home to an estimated 150,000 grave sites.
Police say the investigation remains active. Authorities are urging anyone with loved ones buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery who has concerns to contact Yeadon Borough Police.
The murder of Rob Reiner and his wife this time of year or anytime, quite frankly is very, very upsetting and unfortunate. But what makes it even extra strange and bizarre is the circumstances surrounding it, and how fast it all unfolded.
Because we’re used to the long goodbye when someone in Hollywood is sick. The updates. The “fighting for their life” talk. The gradual acceptance. This wasn’t that. This was one of those moments where a person who’s been part of our cultural wallpaper for decades is suddenly just… gone. Just like that.
And now there’s this surreal detail layered on top of it: the reporting that, hours before the killings, there was a tense incident involving Rob Reiner and his son Nick at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party. That’s the part that feels like a movie — except it isn’t. According to reporting, Nick’s behavior at the party unsettled people, and there was an argument involving the family.
Then the next thing you know, Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, are found dead at their home in Brentwood, Los Angeles and police arrest their son, Nick Reiner, in connection with it. Multiple outlets report he was taken into custody and booked on murder charges / arrested on suspicion as the investigation continues.
And yes, this is the part that has to be said, because it’s impossible to ignore: this wasn’t a peaceful passing. It’s being described as a brutally violent, horrifying crime. The kind of thing you don’t associate with a household name you grew up with.
The reporting also points to a longer, darker backstory .. addiction issues, instability, a family that was scared, a situation that didn’t just “start” that night. That doesn’t explain what happened, and it doesn’t make it easier to read… but it does make it even more tragic.
You know it’s weird and this is going to sound trite, but the idea that we could all live with Rob Reiner in our lives in some form is true. Some people remember him from All in the Family. Others know him from the movies and the moments that shaped whole eras: Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, A Few Good Men, a career that touched way more people than he ever met.
And now that life gets extinguished in Brentwood, California, in a way nobody saw coming .. and you’re left with that same feeling every time something like this happens: how can a famous life feel so permanent… until it suddenly isn’t?
Life takes strange turns when you least expect them .. health incidents, car accidents, traumatizing events. Sometimes good too like a loytrry win!
But this one? This one is surreal. And even Conan O’Brien’s name, and everyone at that party, gets indirectly touched by something horrific they never signed up for, simply because they were in the orbit of it.
Rob and Michele were killed in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14. Sources previously told PEOPLE they were found by their daughter Romy.
According to Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department records, Nick was taken into custody and is being held on $4 million bail. At an unrelated press conference Monday morning, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said Nick had been booked on a murder charge.
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Nick Reiner, 32, has a long history with drug addiction, which began in his teens. He told People in an interview in 2016 that he spent periods of weeks sleeping rough on the streets and was in and out of rehab for addiction treatment that started when he was 15.
The Madison Police Department announced Geyser’s escape in a social media post on Sunday.
“Morgan Geyser was last seen in the area of Kroncke Dr. around 8 p.m. with an adult acquaintance. Her whereabouts are unknown as of Sunday morning,” the department wrote. “The Madison Police Department was notified of her disappearance Sunday morning.
“A recent image of Geyser, captured on security video from this past month, is attached below. If you see her, please call 911,” police added.
In March, state health officials argued that Geyser was in no condition to walk free from the institution after evidence emerged of an unsettling correspondence she was having with an ‘older man’ called Jeffrey, who sold murder memorabilia… Geyser had sent him her own sketch of a decapitated body and a postcard saying she wanted to be intimate with him..
There was something different about that fall. It wasn’t just the cool wind or the early darkness. It was the quiet sense that danger could be anywhere — at a gas station, a parking lot, a grocery store. After the collective fear of 9/11 and the anthrax scares that followed, America was still trying to breathe again. Then, as if on cue, came a new shadow: the D.C. sniper.
It started on October 2, 2002. People were going about their everyday lives when the unthinkable happened. A man was shot in a parking lot in Maryland — random, senseless. Then it happened again. And again. By the end of the spree, ten innocent people were dead and three were injured. They were fathers, mothers, students — ordinary people who simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that was the most chilling part: there was no pattern, no clear motive, no reason. The randomness itself was the terror.
We actively reported it at the time for the HORROR REPORT (yes we are getting old)..
At that time, we focused on the crime, the mystery, the psychics saying they knew whodunit.. and even Geraldo saying it was linked to terrorism..
It wasn’t.
The Snipers: A Twisted Bond
When the names were finally revealed, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, the story only grew darker. Muhammad, the older man, was seen as a manipulative father figure. Malvo, only 17, was the student, the son, and eventually, the one pulling the trigger. It was a relationship that blurred the line between control and indoctrination. The mystery grew deeper.
Investigators later learned that Muhammad’s motive wasn’t random at all. Beneath the chaos was a horrifyingly personal plan.. he wanted to kill his ex-wife, Mildred Muhammad, and hide her murder within the randomness of the spree. Each shooting was designed to make her eventual death look like just another part of the pattern. It’s almost too cruel to comprehend: an entire region terrorized so one man could cover up his own obsession.
Malvo, during his trial, revealed how Muhammad had filled his head with delusions … convincing him they were soldiers on a mission.
Over time, Malvo became the primary shooter, operating from the trunk of a modified Chevrolet Caprice with a small hole drilled near the license plate. He was a minor, controlled by a man with a criminally methodical mind.
The Capture Code
Here is where things get a little creepier.. A little known aspect of the crime remains mostly a mystery even today.
After three weeks of terror, authorities finally caught the pair at a rest stop near Myersville, Maryland, on October 24, 2002. But even the capture carried a strange aura. Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose stepped up to the podium and spoke the now-infamous words: “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.” Even more.. Police Chief Charles Moose read that sentence aloud late as part of his message to the sniper, adding: “We understand that hearing us say this is important to you.”
What does the phrase “caught like a duck in a noose” mean to the sniper?
Authorities are not revealing the context in which the sniper – if he is indeed the author of notes left for police – asked them to publicly say: “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.”
Police Chief Charles Moose read that sentence aloud late Wednesday night, as part of his latest message to the sniper, adding: “We understand that hearing us say this is important to you.”
There were rumors immediately afterwards *and even today* that this was all MK ULTRA related and this statement had to be read in order to ‘turn off’ the brain that was wired and programmed to kill. Seriously, with the lack of explanation over the years, this continued to be a point of contention. And remains one of those strange, lingering details ..
The Trials: Justice and Consequence
In the years that followed, both Muhammad and Malvo faced trial. Muhammad was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2004. Malvo, being a juvenile, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The defense for Malvo painted him as a victim of manipulation — a teenager molded and brainwashed by a master manipulator. They argued he wasn’t fully responsible for his actions, but rather under the control of someone he saw as a father. Muhammad’s defense, on the other hand, had little to stand on. The evidence was overwhelming, the motive chillingly clear. On November 10, 2009, John Allen Muhammad was executed by lethal injection in Virginia. He refused to utter last words prior to his the execution.
His ex-wife, Mildred Muhammad, later became an advocate for domestic violence survivors. She founded a nonprofit called After the Trauma to help victims rebuild their lives. Her story — surviving abuse, losing her sense of safety, and then rebuilding her purpose — became a powerful counterpoint to the darkness he caused.
Lingering Shadows and Theories
Even after justice was served, the story never truly ended. The D.C. sniper case feels like a mirror reflecting both the fragility of normal life and the deep, unsettling capacity for manipulation and control. For those who lived through it, the fear was real. People zigzagged while pumping gas, ducked behind car doors, and watched the tree lines. It was psychological warfare in broad daylight.
And then there’s that phrase — “the duck in a noose.” Some say it was just a bit of theater; others think it was something more — a cryptic sign from higher up, maybe even tied to deeper conspiracies or hidden messages. Like many dark chapters in American history, this one leaves room for speculation. Maybe that’s part of what keeps it alive in the public mind: the unanswered questions, the lingering unease, the feeling that not every part of the story has been told.
The D.C. sniper case is now history.. but it’s also a reminder of how fear spreads, how control corrupts, and how quickly ordinary days can turn extraordinary in the worst way. In a way it’s about the fall of 2002, when America once again found itself staring into the unknown after a long period of tension..
Even as the facts are settled and the case is closed, there’s still that phrase hanging in the air .. a duck in a noose.
A cryptic whisper fear ruled enough for people to wonder if they may randomly meet a terrible fate.
Every year, when you sort through your children’s Halloween candy, you’re doing it for two reasons. First, probably to steal the best ones before they notice. But second, because you’ve heard the stories: knives in apples, poisoned chocolate bars, and cyanide-laced sweets handed out by strangers.
Guess what? Here is the tough news to consider… It’s not really true and there may be no real logical requirement to keep doing this.. (though we all still will )
There is some history on the origin for this candy fear..
Another high profile case made headlines in 1964, when a 47-year-old mother from Greenlawn, N.Y., named Helen Pfeil handed out bags of treats containing arsenic-laced ant traps, metal mesh scrubbing pads and dog biscuits.
But the real fear began with one man, in Texas, nearly fifty years ago.
The night he came home
On Halloween night 1974, a father named Ronald Clark O’Bryan, later called “The Candyman” by major media that loves naming killers for pop culture and sales purposes, laced powdered candy with cyanide. He was also called the The Pixy Stix Killer but that name didn’t seem to stick …
O’Bryan didn’t lace candy to poison his neighborhood in Pasadena, Texas. He did it to kill his own 8-year-old son, Timothy, for life-insurance money.
That is the horrid truth behind this urban legend.. It was real in a sense, but it was disgustingly personal for O’Bryan.
O’Bryan, a 30-year-old optician from nearby Deer Park, joined his children and neighbors for trick-or-treating. One house was dark; no one answered the door, so the kids moved on. O’Bryan lagged behind for show, then caught up holding five giant Pixy Stix, about 21 inches long, sealed with staples. They were tampered with– by him.
He explained to the children they were lucky: The “rich neighbors” were handing out expensive treats. Each child got one. Later, he gave one to his five-year-old daughter and another to a ten-year-old boy from his church.
That night, Timothy ate a few spoonfuls of the powdered candy, complained it tasted bitter, and collapsed. Within minutes he was dead.. he was poisoned by his own father.
The Investigation
O’Bryan claimed a mysterious neighbor had handed him the candy. But the man he blamed, Courtney Melvin, was at work as an air-traffic controller on duty that night and he had more than 200 coworkers confirming his alibi to law enforcement.
Detectives soon learned O’Bryan’s life was a complete train wreck. He was more than $100,000 in debt, behind on his mortgage and car payments, suspected of theft at work, and had held 21 jobs in 10 years. In the months before Halloween, he quietly took out life-insurance policies totaling up to $60,000 to $100,000 on his children!
At trial, witnesses testified that O’Bryan had asked about buying cyanide and even discussed lethal doses. His sister-in-law told the court that at Timothy’s funeral, he spoke excitedly about collecting insurance money and taking a vacation.
Prosecutor Mike Hinton told jurors: that the only inescapable conclusion you can draw is that this man killed his own child for money.
The case seemed as air tight as people can desire.
It took the jury 46 minutes to find O’Bryan guilty.
The Candyman’s Final Trick
O’Bryan maintained his innocence for nearly a decade. On March 31, 1984, he was executed by lethal injection. His final meal: steak, French fries, peas, corn, salad, rolls, iced tea, and for desert a Boston cream pie.
Outside the prison, protesters wearing Halloween masks chanted “Trick or Treat!”
It was both macabre theater and a grim bookend to the legend he had created.
The root of fear
O’Bryan’s crime transformed Halloween. Parents no longer saw candy as harmless; they saw potential danger. In the years that followed, rumors spread nationwide .. tainted treats, razor blades in apples, needles in chocolate bars.
By the 1980s, police and hospitals offered X-ray screenings for candy. Families examined every wrapper under bright kitchen lights.
To this day, continued stories occur each Halloween season in which people report tampering of candy to cops.. such as this from 2015 in Kennett Square PA, when parents complained to police about needles in treats.. which turned out to be a hoax.
The Legacy
The Candyman’s story became the template for America’s Halloween anxiety. It was a true crime that birthed a thousand false ones..
Every October, parents still dump candy onto the dining-room table, sifting through it like forensic scientists. It’s ritual now, a strange inheritance from 1970s.
Because even though the candy isn’t poisoned, the fear still is there..
According to Professor Joel Best, there have been approximately 80 reports of sharp objects inserted into Halloween treats since 1959. The great majority of those reports turned out to be hoaxes
Don’t feel guilty about checking the candy.. you know, just in case.
And while you’re looking through, maybe just throw away those candy corns that ruin teeth and don’t taste good anyway.
This is an amazing moment in crime spree history.. Robbers dressed as construction workers just stole priceless relics from history.. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!
A manhunt is under way after thieves broke into the Louvre and stole “priceless” jewellery that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte’s family.
The gang entered the Apollo Gallery in broad daylight shortly after 9.30am, once the gallery had opened to the public, and stole nine items including a necklace, a brooch and a tiara.
The masked criminals arrived on high-powered scooters and reportedly gained access to a part of the building where construction was taking place after using a van-mounted extendable ladder to enter on the Seine River side of the museum.
They then forced open a window, smashed display cases, grabbed the jewellery and left.
Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, called it a “major robbery by a team that had done scouting” and said that jewellery stolen from the museum on Sunday was “priceless”.
And it all took reportedly 7 minutes for it all to occur…
