Nancy and Savannah Guthrie
Facebook/Savannah Guthrie

A Domino's driver showed up at an active kidnapping crime scene in Tucson, Arizona, last week. He was not there by accident.

A viewer watching a live YouTube stream had ordered the pizza for the broadcaster sitting outside the home of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department was not amused. 'We can't believe we have to say this, but media on scene: please do not order food delivery to a crime scene address,' the department wrote on X. 'This interferes with an active investigation.'

The pizza delivery captured something real about what the Nancy Guthrie investigation has become: a content industry, complete with its own economy, ethics, and audience.

Who Is Running These Streams?

The man who received the pizza was Jonathan Lee Riches, who operates the YouTube channel JLR Investigates and describes himself as a 'fearless investigator.' He has more than 540,000 subscribers and drew 45,000 concurrent viewers during one of his streams from outside the Guthrie home. His titles run along the lines of 'BREAKING - MANHUNT!!! NANCY GUTHRIE KIDNAPPING - LIVE.' Click through, and you mostly find Riches sitting in his car.

Riches is not without history. He spent time in prison for wire fraud, and made headlines in 2012 after driving to Connecticut in the wake of Sandy Hook posing as the shooter's uncle. He filed an estimated 4,000 frivolous lawsuits, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, including one against the Kardashian family for alleged links to al-Qaida, and one filed under the name of the man who shot congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Then there is Jimmy Williams, a former construction worker who streams on Dolly Vision and told an Australian reporter that his flights, hotels and expenses are entirely funded by viewer donations. He spent days parked in a lawn chair outside the Guthrie home for up to six hours at a stretch. One of his videos promised 'shocking chaos' at the scene. It turned out to be a dispute with a neighbour over parking.

Jennifer Youngblood, 52, streams under the handle Jay is 4 Justice and spent most of her career in hospice work before turning to true crime full-time. She is in Tucson mostly shadowing Riches. She does not find any of this troubling. 'I think anybody has the right to report on anything they want,' she told the Guardian. 'The viewers know that Jonathan is not in the know.'

When Speculation Becomes the Story

The deeper problem is not the pizza or the parking disputes. It is what fills the broadcast hours when there is nothing confirmed to report. Both Riches and Ashleigh Banfield, host of the true crime podcast Drop Dead Serious and a former cable news anchor, floated unproven theories implicating Guthrie family members in the disappearance.

Sheriff Chris Nanos had to issue a formal statement on 16 February clearing every family member, including spouses, and directly addressing the speculation. 'The family are victims in the case,' he said. 'To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel.' He appealed to the press for compassion and professionalism, in a statement directed at people who had never signed up to either standard.

Arizona state representative Alma Hernandez was blunter. 'I can't believe I have to say this, but if you're not law enforcement, go home,' she posted on X, accusing some online personalities of spreading lies and putting the case in jeopardy.

According to USA Today, conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, who helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, pushed back with his 3 million followers in tow: 'We will not stop reporting.'

Kate Winkler Dawson, a producer and senior lecturer in broadcast journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, has watched this pattern since the Gabby Petito case. 'It perpetuates the belief that folks online hold the key to breaking cases,' she told the Guardian. 'Sometimes they do, but most of the time it really slows down the case and is unhelpful.'

Mark Feldstein, who spent 20 years as an on-air investigative correspondent at CNN and ABC News and now chairs broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland, put it more sharply. 'They're just winging it, making it up as they go along,' he said. 'It kind of deflates the currency for all journalists.'

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