The police seemed stumped. Nancy Guthrie had been kidnapped in the night and investigators had no idea who was responsible. But a legion of amateur sleuths and true crime obsessives had already made up their minds.
It was a family member, seeking inheritance money, one YouTube commenter guessed. Something seemed off about the older daughter, said another on Reddit. On X, one woman wrote confidently that she had seen enough true crime shows to know that it was the older daughter and son-in-law who were guilty. After all, the onlookers reasoned, that’s the way these things usually play out.
Fevered, and unfounded, speculation caromed around social media, livestreams and message boards, and by Monday, Sheriff Chris Nanos of Pima County, Ariz., was fed up. Three weeks in, he said, armchair detectives were still flinging allegations that were not only incorrect but also cruel.
The sheriff issued an exasperated statement publicly ruling out Ms. Guthrie’s children and their spouses as suspects, a move he had resisted because he wanted to avoid officially eliminating anyone until the culprit was in custody.
“I just got tired of it,” Sheriff Nanos said in an interview on Tuesday. “I need to step in when my victims are being revictimized by some knuckleheads out there.”
The disappearance of Ms. Guthrie, 84, the mother of the “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, has captured the nation’s attention — and its lurid imagination. An online ecosystem devoted to making entertainment of high-profile murders and mysteries has turbocharged interest in the case.
Ms. Guthrie’s case is one of many in recent years to set off such a fervor, as true crime stories have become big business in a world where engagement is easily monetized. But the frenzied atmosphere often gives way to reckless and inaccurate accusations. The 2022 killings of four University of Idaho students, for instance, left a trail of those wrongly blamed.
Crime has long enthralled, but the internet has enabled the public to participate in investigations vicariously. Now, true crime fanatics do not need to wait for a case to be cracked and a podcast to drop. They can try to solve it themselves.
Content creators and their followers have flocked to Ms. Guthrie’s street in the foothills of Tucson, joining the throng of television and newspaper reporters standing sentinel. Many others have streamed and surmised from afar.
The spotlight on the case has led to tens of thousands of tips, the authorities have said. But the accompanying conjecture has complicated an already difficult investigation and has stung Ms. Guthrie’s grieving family.
The assertion that Ms. Guthrie’s son-in-law was, or could be, the “prime suspect,” as the news anchor and podcast host Ashleigh Banfield put it, risked endangering law enforcement officials’ delicate relationship with the Guthrie family, a key source of information, Sheriff Nanos said. Ms. Banfield has defended her report and maintained that the son-in-law was the focus of investigators at the time.
Such speculation has also inspired a flood of baseless tips, the sheriff added, which has distracted officers from more credible clues.
“You’re taking away valuable resources for wild goose chases,” Sheriff Nanos said.
Technology has made it easier to follow investigations in real time, but the public typically lacks the training and access to crucial facts that the authorities rely on to form their conclusions, said John Iannarelli, a former assistant special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Phoenix division.
A case is almost never as simple as it might appear to curious civilians, who have become accustomed to mysteries tidily wrapped up in police procedurals and documentaries, he said.
“It’s very easy to sit back from the outside and say, ‘Hey, this person should be a suspect,’” Mr. Iannarelli said. “We have a ‘CSI’ generation, where we expect everything to be solved in an hour. But the reality is, it takes time.”
For some, following investigators’ every move has proved profitable.
Livestreamers have seen record views and have raked in followers. The gossip outlet TMZ, which received a ransom note from someone purporting to be Ms. Guthrie’s kidnapper shortly after her disappearance, has covered the case seemingly nonstop. And the gambling site Polymarket has recorded $145,000 in bets about when the abductor would be arrested.
“People are grifting off this terrible and sad situation,” said Alma Hernandez, an Arizona state representative whose district includes part of Tucson and who has followed the search closely.
She has watched misinformation flourish and has seen content creators implicate innocent bystanders and tail police vehicles.
“It compromises everyone’s safety and compromises the investigation itself,” Ms. Hernandez said. “It’s not helpful. Honestly, it’s just creepy.”
The sensationalizing of someone’s darkest days also has a lasting impact on those around them, said Danielle C. Slakoff, a criminal justice professor at California State University, Sacramento, who has studied how media portrayals of true crime affect family and friends of the victim.
“It can leave their family feeling like their loved one didn’t matter, that it’s the graphic details people care about, not the real person at the center of the story,” Ms. Slakoff said. “They didn’t ask for this to happen. This isn’t some mystery or game to them. This is their real life.”
Those closest to Ms. Guthrie have felt this acutely. Her children have not spoken publicly beyond social media videos pleading for help finding their mother, but Ms. Guthrie’s friends have said the online accusations have been painful to read.
Kris Federhar, who has known Ms. Guthrie for nearly two decades, said she was relieved when the sheriff’s department absolved the family. “Thank God,” she said — not because she had worried they were culpable, but because she hoped it would end the harassment Ms. Guthrie’s children and their spouses have endured.
“It hurts the family,” Ms. Federhar said. “As if all this isn’t bad enough, why are we putting salt on the open wound?”
She said she has been alarmed by the rampant theorizing from people with no connection to the case who know nothing about the family.
“Nancy is a grandma, she’s a friend to many, and this isn’t helping things,” Ms. Federhar said. Ms. Guthrie’s relatives and friends, she added, are “real people with hearts and souls, and are living through a fricking nightmare.”
Another friend, Vicki Edwards, said the speculation has been agonizing.
“The unfounded commentary from ‘true crime’ personalities and social media influencers only adds to that burden,” Ms. Edwards said in a text message. “The noise continues to distract from what really matters — supporting one another and keeping the focus on Nancy’s safe return.”
Jack Healy contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Reis Thebault is a Phoenix-based reporter for The Times, covering the American Southwest.
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