Why Is a Crypto-Security Firm Now Investigating Nancy Guthrie’s Disappearance?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today.
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:16)
I want to tell you about a man who lives in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood. He is not a suspect. I in no way, shape or form in saying that, because in no way, shape or form do I feel or believe that in any, because this is not somebody who is a person of interest. This is someone who might be thinking they're lucky stars right now. If I were him, I might be. That wasn't me. I'm not accusing this man of anything. No one is. But his name is in the public record, and what he does for a living changes the way you look at this entire case. His name is Dr. Peter McGaw. He's a geologist out of the University of Arizona. Very accomplished man. Smart man. Does some really neat work. He co-founded a publicly traded silver mining company called MagSilver. They literally named a mineral after him.
Peter Megwight, I don't know, but here's why he matters to this story. For over 40 years, the man has been the exhibits chair or one of them for the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. It's the largest event of its kind on the planet. He's the one who brings specimens in from museums and private collections around the world. I mean, how interesting would that be? The Arizona Daily Star photographed him organizing minerals at his Northside home for the show. He stores and works with his personal collections, allegedly at his house sometimes. Decades of field work, Mexican silver, rare specimens. 40 years of collecting. This is like, wow, accomplished.
His house, he's in the Catalina Foothills. His house is literally a gems throw away from Nancy's door. That's how close.
The week Nancy vanished from her bed, the big Tucson gem show was running. It was going on. He was quoted in local media talking about the exhibits and in one detail about that crime scene that's been sitting in plain sight since the case began. And I don't hear nearly enough people asking what it means. Nothing, nothing was taken from Nancy's house, nothing. People ask, well, what was taken? Nothing, nothing was taken from Nancy's house.
And the man on Nancy's porch that night gave himself away with a single piece of gear. Let me get back to that too. And investigators kept circling one specific date. Weeks before she disappeared, January 11th, the date is either the strongest thread in this whole lane or the one that cuts it. And we'll get there too.
Dr. McGaw is not under any sort of investigation. He's not involved. If this theory is right, he's a near victim. The person whose home might have been the actual target. Everything that we're talking about is public record. University pages, newspaper articles, industry profiles. He is a public figure. And if this lane has legs, what happened to Nancy Guthrie is something that may have almost happened to him.
Or was there never any intent for any human being to be involved? It was all about the minerals, the gems. Every winter for about three weeks, the city where both of these people live turns into the single largest concentration of portable, untraceable wealth in America. The Tucson Gem and Mineral and Fossils showcased. 60,000 people from more than 20 countries north of $280 million in direct spending. Loose stones, gold, finished jewelry, cash that never touches a bank. Some dealers store inventory in hotel rooms. Some keep it in trailers. Some take it home at night. And the people who come to steal aren't a theory. They're in the police files. The Tucson police gear up every single year, extra officers on the street, undercover and off duty specifically to catch the people who trail the gem money into town. They've been doing this for decades because thefts spike during the show. This is not up for debate. It does break in spike. Just weeks before the 26th show, a dealer storage container near Arva Valley got hit on Christmas Day. Hundreds of hours of work in flat stones and fossils gone. A year earlier, a dealer lost nearly a million dollars in Oregon sun stones out of a trailer overnight. Vendors at the public shows say they spend more time watching for thieves than making sales. And it hasn't stayed a theft. In one Pima County case, two gem dealers walked in their hotel room, found armed men waiting with guns and a stun device. They got tied up. The crew walked out with more than a million dollars. The suspects got tracked to California and arrested with the cash and a BMW they'd bought with the proceeds. The charges included kidnapping, armed robbery and aggravated assault. So gem show crime escalating to the point where someone gets physically taken, that's not a stretch. It's actually a docket number. Now think about what a crew in town for the show would see if they had heard about a collector up in the Catalina foothills. Not a hotel room, not a tent, a private home, in a neighborhood with no streetlights. Where the roads wind through the desert and the houses sit an acre apart behind cactus and brush and inside one of those houses a personal mineral collection built over 40 years by the man who runs the biggest show on earth. That's not a difficult target to hear about. Dr. McGaw is a public figure. He's been in the newspaper. He's on the university's website. He speaks at international events. The crew doesn't need inside information to know a collector lives up there. They need Google. Five minutes and a phone. And the Jewelers' Security Alliance saw the same connection. It ain't just me. After Nancy vanished, the JSA issued a crime alert to the entire jewelry trade. They offered a $10,000 reward and then specifically cited the Guthrie family's ties to the jewelry industry as the reason, because Nancy's daughter, Annie, is a working jeweler in Tucson. She's been making custom pieces in platinum, gold and silver for over a decade. She has a metal smithing shop. She lives in the foothills near her mother. Annie and her husband were the last people to see Nancy alive that night. They had dinner together and dropped her at her door. The JSA asked everyone who attended the 26 shows to come forward, including international colleagues, a major industry security organization, putting their name and their money behind the gem show connection. They didn't do it casually.