Southwest
FBI uncovers new lead in murder of New Mexico musician 'taken' from motel, mom says
Federal investigators have uncovered a new lead in the cold case murder of a New Mexico musician who vanished from a motel recording session under suspicious circumstances, his mother says.
Zachariah Shorty was last seen alive on July 21, 2020, at the Journey Inn in Farmington, New Mexico, a close-knit town in the northwestern part of the state on the edge of the Navajo Nation.
He was a 23-year-old musician and had gone to the motel to record with a group of four other people.
The exact circumstances of how he left are unclear. His mother, Evangeline “Vangie” Randall-Shorty, received a phone call from one of his friends around 11 p.m. The caller told her that her son went outside to smoke a cigarette and never returned.
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Zachariah Shorty pictured in an undated photo provided by the FBI. The bureau is offering $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest following his July 2020 murder. (FBI)
But when Randall-Shorty called her son’s phone, the same friend answered.
“[She] answered it and said Zach left his phone,” she told Fox News Digital. “I asked if he was back. She said, ‘no.’ Zach never leaves his phone.”
Randall-Shorty had gone to the motel around 7 that night to drop off a pizza for her son.
One of the last things he told her was “I’m going to finish this track.”
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Zachariah Shorty was 23 years old when he was “taken” from a motel where he was recording music with four other individuals. Authorities found him dead with gunshot wounds 13 miles away, four days later. (FBI)
He was missing for four days before investigators found his remains in a field on the Navajo Reservation. He suffered gunshot wounds before his killer or killers left him there.
“I say ‘taken’ because he was found in Nenahnezad, in a field, on a dirt road,” his mother said.
That’s 13 miles from where he was last seen in Farmington, and you’d have to pass his home in Kirtland to get there.
Although later this month will mark four years since the slaying, Randall-Shorty said investigators have given her a new glimmer of hope for justice.
“I got a call from the FBI, that they had a new lead,” she told Fox News Digital. “I’m just hoping and praying that that is the lead that we need to solve Zach’s case.”
They asked her if she recognized a couple of names, she said. She did.
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Zachariah Shorty was said to have left the motel to smoke a cigarette by the same friend who later picked up his phone when his mother called it, she says. (FBI)
“After the update from them (the FBI), I did get another tip, and I passed the information to them as well,” she said. “The same names keep coming up.”
The FBI declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation. But Randall-Shorty and her lawyer are hopeful that investigators will bring her son’s killer to justice.
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“In this case, there were witnesses in that hotel room that were with him prior to him going missing,” said Darlene Gomez, the attorney representing Shorty’s mother pro bono. “The family has provided many, many leads. There’s a body that was found. It’s a small community. These are generally the precursors for a case being solved.”
Gomez, who operates a nonprofit dedicated to solving missing and murder cases involving indigenous women and their relatives, MMIWR, said that businesses up and down the street had surveillance cameras, too.
But as the case dragged on, several witnesses died, she said.
The FBI has jurisdiction because Shorty’s remains were discovered on tribal land.
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There is a $10,000 reward offered for information that cracks the case and leads to a conviction.
Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 505-889-1300 or go to tips.fbi.gov.
Fox News’ Peter Petroff contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Savannah Guthrie spotted in NYC as search for missing mother enters sixth week with few answers
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TUCSON, Ariz. — “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie is back in New York City as the search for her missing mother enters its sixth week with little publicly known progress in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie was photographed in public for the first time since her mother’s suspected abduction, alongside husband Mike Feldman and their young son in the Big Apple Sunday, days after an emotional reunion with her NBC colleagues and more than a month after her 84-year-old mother Nancy was last seen.
Nancy’s disappearance shocked the country — especially when the FBI released disturbing surveillance video of a masked man on her doorstep.
Savannah Guthrie spent weeks in Tucson with her siblings as the investigation played out — before she and her older sister, Annie, added bouquets of yellow flowers to a growing display at the foot of their mother’s driveway. She quietly flew home to New York last week.
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Savannah Guthrie is seen out in New York with her husband Michael Feldman as the “Today” show anchor makes her first public appearance more than five weeks after the suspected abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie. (ASPN / BACKGRID)
Sunday marked five weeks since the suspected kidnapping.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation, which is now being overseen by a task force consisting of local detectives and FBI agents.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
No suspects have been publicly identified.
A masked man who appeared on Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera around the time authorities said she was taken is described as being of average height and build and carrying a black Ozark Trail backpack.
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Savannah Guthrie and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, are pictured Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
He appeared to be armed with a handgun as well. Law enforcement sources said he visited Nancy Guthrie’s home at least once in advance of her disappearance, wearing a similar disguise.
Other identifying details are scarce.
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The use of cadaver dogs is also on hold, according to authorities, who re-canvassed Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood as recently as last week.
When asked if that meant they believed she is still alive, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos declined to discuss evidence in the case.
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“Anything is possible,” he told Fox News Digital.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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There’s a reward of more than $1.2 million in play for information that leads to Nancy’s recovery.
Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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Southwest
FBI subpoenas 2020 Arizona voting docs as federal push into election administration widens
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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate’s 2020 audit last week and complied with it.
“Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,” Petersen wrote. “The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”
The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.
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An election worker removes a ballot from an envelope to count and inspect the pages inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, “Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.”
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.
President Donald Trump listens during an event about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said in a statement. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
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Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at an “Only Citizens Vote” bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill’s primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year.
Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.
Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Wisconsin man who fled Border Patrol checkpoint in stolen car killed after shootout in Texas, police say
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FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin man driving a stolen vehicle was killed Wednesday after he fled through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint and led authorities on a vehicle chase and shootout in Texas.
The incident happened at around 10:30 a.m. at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in the Big Bend Sector between El Paso and Van Horn, a remote area.
James Douglas McMillan, 33, of Greenfield, Wis., took off from the checkpoint after a Border Patrol drug K-9 alerted to the vehicle and agents directed McMillan to pull over for a secondary search, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
A migrant walks through the Rio Grande as he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. On Wednesday, a man was shot and killed by authorities near El Paso after fleeing through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. (John Moore/Getty Images)
During the car chase, McMillan opened fire out of his vehicle window at DPS troopers and other authorities from several law enforcement agencies and civilian vehicles, DPS said.
“As law enforcement returned fire, DPS Troopers performed a precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver and successfully stopped the suspect vehicle,” a DPS statement said.
McMillan barricaded himself in his vehicle and eventually pointed his weapon towards officers, prompting officers to open fire, authorities said.
He was shot and killed. No law enforcement officers or civilians were hurt.
Investigators determined McMillan was driving a vehicle reported stolen in Arizona. The shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI and USBP.
The shooting involved Border Patrol agents and DPS troopers. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
In January, a man suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants was shot by federal officers during a gunfire exchange in Arizona.
Patrick Gary Schlegel, 34, fled from authorities on foot and allegedly shot at a CBP helicopter and at agents, Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix Division, said at the time.
A U.S. Border Patrol officer watches a USBP helicopter. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
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Schlegal, a U.S. citizen from Arizona, underwent surgery and survived. No one else was harmed, authorities said.
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