Southwest
Judge declares mistrial in case of Arizona rancher charged with murder of Mexican national on border property
A jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly, who was accused of second-degree murder in connection to the death of a Mexican national found fatally shot on his borderland ranch in January 2023.
The jury began deliberating April 18. After days of being unable to reach a verdict, the judge overseeing the trial declared a mistrial on Monday.
The case centered around the death of Mexican national Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, who was found shot to death on Kelly’s 170-acre cattle ranch near Keno Springs outside Nogales, Arizona, on Jan. 30, 2023.
Kelly’s defense has countered the prosecution’s argument that Cuen-Buitimea was an unarmed migrant and has suggested cartel influence mired the death investigation.
ARIZONA RANCHER DEFENSE CONSULTANT CLAIMS ‘CARTEL INFLUENCE’ IN MURDER PROBE, RIPS SHERIFF’S PAST COMMENTS
George Alan Kelly enters court for his preliminary hearing in Nogales Justice Court in Nogales, Arizona.
“Long story short, this is simply not somebody who’s looking for the American dream. There’s no evidence that this person is here for those kinds of benign purposes,” Kelly’s defense attorney, Brenna Larkin, said during her closing argument on Thursday. “And we bring that up, not, you know, to be judgmental about Gabriel or to not have compassion for him. But when people are involved in a criminal lifestyle, it’s dangerous. It’s more inherently dangerous than simply being a migrant who’s coming here. So it’s relevant for that reason.”
Cuen-Buitimea had illegally entered the country multiple times previously and had been deported as recently as 2016.
Over the course of weeks, jurors heard testimony regarding where and at what distance Kelly was standing when prosecutors argued he fatally shot Cuen-Buitimea, as well as the motivation for the gunshots.
The defense maintained Kelly only fired warning shots into the air from his patio earlier in the day, and his wife, Wanda Kelly, testified about dialing their Border Patrol ranch liaison upon spotting two armed men dressed in camouflage and carrying rifles and backpacks walking about 100 feet from their home. Law enforcement responded to the property, and hours passed before Kelly called Border Patrol again to report finding the body.
The fatal bullet was never recovered from the scene. A criminologist working pro bono as a consultant for Kelly’s defense, Dr. Ron Martinelli, previously told Fox News Digital that none of the state’s witnesses in the trial had provided any rebuttal testimony against the defense theory that a rip crew — a gang of bandits, sometimes cartel-affiliated — could have fatally shot Cuen-Buitimea and robbed him.
ARIZONA RANCHER GEORGE ALAN KELLY’S WIFE TESTIFIES IN MURDER TRIAL, DESCRIBES ARMED MEN NEAR BORDERLANDS HOME
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway was pressed by the defense about an online video showing him speculating that Kelly wanted to “go hunt me some Mexicans.”
“You told Big Super, ‘We caught this rancher shooting at migrants’ and then you said that ‘there are people who want to come hunt some Mexicans’ — you made that statement?” a defense attorney asked Hathaway on Wednesday. Big Super is the name of the real estate YouTube personality whose video Hathaway was featured in touring his borderlands neighborhood.
Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink listens to opening arguments in the trial of George Alan Kelly. (Angela Gervasi/Nogales International via AP)
“Yeah I did,’ Hathway replied. “I just did a colloquial, ‘There are some people that want to go hunt them some Mexicans.’ Yeah I did make that statement.”
Martinelli also alleged to Fox News Digital that Hathaway broke U.S. State Department protocol and Mexican law by arranging an unauthorized meeting to interview Daniel Ramirez in Nogales, Mexico, weeks after the shooting. The prosecution argued that Ramirez was the sole witness to Cuen-Buitimea’s shooting death and fled across the border afterward.
Ramirez testified that he previously carried drugs across the border, though not on the day of the January 2023 shooting.
The defense argued that based on Ramirez’s own testimony, it did not seem he was even present that day. The jury was able to make a field trip to Kelly’s ranch to get a lay of the land.
“The only conclusion that can be reached based on Daniel’s description of this property is that he wasn’t there,” Larkin said. “You cannot find Mr. Kelly guilty of aggravated assault against Daniel because Daniel was not there. And you cannot find him guilty of any of the offenses, second degree murder or lesser included, because they did not prove that Alan shot this person, and they have to prove it.”
Larkin told jurors that Kelly was confronted with “a threat to his life” and “had a rifle pointed at him,” meaning that he would have been justified in using deadly physical force.
But even so, the rancher “didn’t use deadly physical force,” Larkin said in her closing argument. “He fired shots up into the air, over the tree, over where these people were to get the threat to stop.”
George Alan Kelly listens to the prosecution during opening arguments at Santa Cruz County Superior Court. (Angela Gervasi/Nogales International, via AP)
“The law does not say that you cannot use lesser force to defend yourself. The law does not say that when you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you folks were out there. This is not downtown Nogales. This is not a populated area. This is isolated. It is empty,” Larkin told the jury. “He can fire warning shots to protect himself and to protect his wife. And that’s exactly what he did. That’s exactly what any man who cares about his wife and his home should do in this situation when faced with the threat that he was faced with.”
In the state’s closing argument, prosecutor Mike Jette maintained to the jury that there’s “no justification” for Kelly having seen “two unarmed men walking two fences away” and “pulling out your AK-47, stepping on the patio, no verbal warning and shooting nine times.”
“He escalates the situation. His wife is fine,” Jette said Thursday. “You do not have the right to use deadly physical force to protect a person who didn’t need protecting. You don’t have the right to use deadly force when there is no threat to home or yard, and you don’t have the right to initiate, instigate or escalate with deadly force. No right whatsoever.”
“Gabriel and Daniel were shot at. Gabriel is dead, killed by a high-powered weapon, an AK-47. Entry wound, exit wound lined up with the defendant’s property,” the prosecutor said. “Steps out, no verbal warning. Defendant shot his AK nine times. Shell casings prove it. Ejection pattern proves where he was standing. Position and orientation of Gabriel’s body proves where the shot comes from.”
Jette closed by telling the jury if they’re not convinced on the second-degree murder charge, they can still convict Kelly on the lesser charges of manslaughter, negligent homicide or aggravated assault.
Kelly made national headlines last year when he was held on a $1 million bond on a first-degree murder charge for several weeks. The highest charge was later downgraded to second-degree murder.
The rancher rejected a deal from prosecutors earlier this year that would have reduced the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he would agree to plead guilty.
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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.
FBI AGENTS SEARCH ELECTION HUB IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA
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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