Digital sleuths and burger deliveries: Inside the true crime scene outside Nancy Guthrie’s home

TUCSON, Ariz. – Four weeks into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC's "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, journalists camped outside her Tucson home gathered around a vehicle pulling up to the residence driveway, with their camera phones recording as the driver was told by a Pima County Sheriff's deputy that no one was allowed on the property. 

The driver backed out and began to pull forward when she rolled down her window and, with a stern voice, told the reporters to stop filming her. She wasn't a Guthrie family member or anyone connected to the missing 84-year-old.

She was a food delivery worker, traveling with two bags filled with Wendy's cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and a large drink. 

The food was for Alina Smith, co-founder of Crime Seen Collective, a network of influencers and online streamers who independently cover big crime stories wherever and whenever they happen. 

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Smith, who had been streaming from outside Guthrie's home all day, said one of her followers ordered the food after she mentioned that she was hungry. 

Smith is one of several streamers who have flocked to Tucson to cover Guthrie's suspected kidnapping. 

"We try to be boots on the ground," Smith, who drove from Dallas to Tucson, told Fox News Digital. "We try to show our followers what it's like on location."

The national media have descended on Tucson to cover the story. In recent years, traditional journalists, as well as authorities, have had to compete with, and manage another type of journalist – the true crime scene streamer. 

The amateur sleuths are a new wave of independent reporters who have made it their mission to broadcast videos to their often sizable audience, reporting even the most nuanced developments in round-the-clock raw coverage.

Another streamer, Mel Smith, no relation to the Crime Seen Collective founder, traveled from his home just north of New York City to give updates on the case to his followers on his "Watching the World 777" YouTube channel. 

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Dressed in a sharp gray suit with a red tie and Yankee cap amid the desert heat, Smith, 49, gives updates to his followers, as well as a glimpse into the scene outside Guthrie's home, including a memorial for the 84-year-old that has grown larger by the day. 

"I typically like to stick with what's been presented factually, not a lot of speculation," Smith told Fox News Digital in front of Guthrie's home. "Because I have a lot of people following, I want to make sure I keep everything above grade."

Smith said he typically has legal professionals on his show to break down courtroom developments for his viewers. 

Smith said he was in the courtroom for the weeks-long Sean "Diddy" Combs trial and most recently was in court for proceedings related to the arrest of Luigi Mangione and former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

"I was one of the individuals that was there when he said Happy New Year four times to four of us sitting in line," Smith said of Maduro. 

Alina Smith, who is funded through donations and other means, started her Crime Seen Collective in 2024 and has covered a range of big news stories, including the 2022 University of Idaho murders in which four students were savagely killed in an off-campus home. 

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Many of the streamers offer video of the exterior of Guthrie's home, as well as portions of her neighborhood, despite some fed-up neighbors who view the large media presence as an inconvenience. They typically gather near the home during shift changes for Pima County Sheriff's deputies guarding the home or any vehicles that pull up to the property. 

Earlier this month, the Pima County Sheriff's Department asked the media to stop ordering food to the crime scene address after a Domino's delivery driver went up to the home.

Despite their following, some view streamers as doing more harm than good while not adhering to journalistic standards typically followed by mainstream reporters. 

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On Feb. 16, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos refuted allegations put out by some streamers and others that Guthrie's family members may have been involved in her disappearance. 

"The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case," Nanos wrote in a statement. "To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel… Please, I’m begging you the media to honor your professionalism and report with some sense of compassion and professionalism."

Robert Quigley, an associate professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin who spent 16 years as a journalist at the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, said the key for reporters and streamers is to follow ethical standards. 

"Are you following ethics… are you being sensitive, are you being transparent, all those types of things that make for good journalism?" Quigley told Fox News Digital. "In situations like this where everybody is kind of flooding in and everybody's getting a lot of page views and lots of engagement… you're going to get everything from somebody that kind of understands how to do solid reporting, and then you're going to have other people who are kind of there for the salaciousness of it."

State representative Alma Hernandez, who lives in Tucson, recently said she was sick of "reporting ‘grifting’ insane speculation, lies, and BS by random wannabe journalists and YouTubers who have now caused more harm than good to this entire situation and put this serious case in jeopardy."

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"Please GO HOME. Let law enforcement do their jobs," Hernandez wrote in a Feb. 10 post on X. "Stop following them during swat operations and playing detectives. I am sick of the constant LIES from those who can't even spell Tucson and clearly have never been to our city."

"This home is not near downtown or midtown, so posting random videos of people walking in yards ain't it y'all, no, Mexicans don't all look the same, yes, our sheriff should probably stay off social media and not speak to the press anymore," she added. "Yes, this is sad, and we all want Nancy home. But seriously, PLEASE STOP."

Hernandez did not name any specific person in her online rant.

Unlike streamers who come from out of town, Damian Enderle covers Tucson news with his "857 Tucson" YouTube channel, where he reports on local crime, homelessness and other issues. 

"All of a sudden, the biggest has come to Tucson," Enderle said as to why he began covering the Guthrie case. 

The streamers noted that they have more flexibility to cover events than traditional news media reporters.

"It's a different mindset," Enderle said. "It's nothing against the legacy media. It's just that everyone has a place and this is a new thing."

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Alina Smith noted that one news organization left the scene of the Guthrie home amid a slowdown in news from the case. 

"They got told that they had to pick up and go to another job and that's it," she said. "You have a start date and an end date. And we just continue to be here until we feel it, and our followers and our supporters kind of say, 'look, there's nothing there.'"