{"id":201273,"date":"2026-02-22T21:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/amateur-youtube-detectives-constant-streams-put-cases-in-jeopardy-its-clickbait-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T21:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:43:11","slug":"amateur-youtube-detectives-constant-streams-put-cases-in-jeopardy-its-clickbait-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/amateur-youtube-detectives-constant-streams-put-cases-in-jeopardy-its-clickbait-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Amateur YouTube detectives\u2019 constant streams put cases in jeopardy: \u2018It\u2019s clickbait\u2019 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Self-declared sleuths have inserted themselves into the search for Nancy Guthrie, compromising the investigation for views and clicks
O<\/span>n the 10th day of the search for Nancy Guthrie, reporters camped outside of the missing woman\u2019s home noticed a strange man strut right up to the front door. It had been more than a week since the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie had disappeared, and authorities had just announced they had a new lead from Ring footage of what looked like a \u201cpotential subject\u201d attempting to tamper with the doorbell camera on the morning of her disappearance. So now who was this unknown person, clad in a gray top and black pants, carrying a large black bag and striding to the door?
It was a Domino\u2019s delivery driver.
\u201cNever seen something quite like this,\u201d local ABC reporter Ford Hatchett wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cDelivery was for an independent journalist out here who is live streaming, @JLRINVESTIGATES. A viewer ordered it for him.\u201d
JLR Investigates<\/a> is the name of the YouTube channel run by Jonathan Lee Riches, who describes himself as a \u201cfearless investigator\u201d and has more than 540,000 subscribers that watch his dispatches from outside Guthrie\u2019s Tucson home.
\u201cWe can\u2019t believe we have to say this, but media on scene: please do not order food delivery to a crime scene address,\u201d the Pima county sheriff\u2019s department wrote<\/a> in a statement. \u201cThis interferes with an active investigation. Please also respect private property laws.\u201d
National media has descended on crime scenes since the dawn of tabloids more than 100 years ago. The modern media circus only became more invasive with the advent of the 24\/7 news cycle. The Nancy Guthrie investigation is no different; but this time an even more meddling type of reporter has come to define the three-week investigation: the true crime streamer.
Self-declared sleuths like Riches have inserted themselves into the investigation, broadcasting their videos to a sizeable audience.
He posts stream with titles like, \u201cBREAKING \u2013 MANHUNT!!! NANCY GUTHRIE KIDNAPPING \u2013 LIVE\u201d but once you click through you mostly see Riches simply sitting in his car. On day 19 of the investigations he was at one point documenting a police shift change at the scene of the crime. \u201cBathroom break,\u201d he narrated to his 29k viewers.
Riches does try to offer more than just dry footage of the house\u2019s exterior. He has \u201cinvestigated\u201d tips, such as an unrelated car tow and hospital airlift, as if these leads might go somewhere. Followers might appreciate Riches\u2019 tenacity, but the false tips breed misinformation. State representative Alma Hernandez slammed<\/a> \u201cwannabe reporters\u201d who \u201chave now caused more harm than good to this entire situation and put this serious case in jeopardy\u201d.
Before his true crime pivot, Riches spent time in jail for wire fraud<\/a>. He made headlines in 2012 for driving to Connecticut in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy posing<\/a> as the elementary school shooter\u2019s uncle. He is known for his prolific filing of absurd lawsuits \u2013 the San Francisco Chronicle estimated<\/a> more than 4,000 by 2024 \u2013 including one against the Kardashian family for participating in al-Qaida training. He once filed<\/a> a phoney lawsuit against representative Gabrielle Giffords, posing as the man who shot her and killed six people in 2011. He even attempted to sue the Guinness Book of World Records for dubbing him the world\u2019s most litigious person \u2013 but representatives for Guinness said they did not have that record category. The suit was later dismissed.
Riches did not respond to a request for comment. He told<\/a> the Arizona Republic that the fake lawsuit against Giffords was a joke he filed to entertain himself in prison and was in bad taste. For this he would be sentenced to five years\u2019 probation on a charge of making false statements.
Riches is one of a handful of livestreamers that have relocated to Tucson. Jimmy Williams, a former construction worker turned full-time streamer, spends up to six hours sitting in a lawnchair outside the Guthrie family home. Williams, who streams on his channel Dolly Vision<\/a>, told<\/a> an Australian reporter his trips are totally funded by viewer donations: \u201cthe plane tickets, the hotels\u201d all come courtesy of his audience.
In one video Williams reported on<\/a> \u201cshocking chaos\u201d at the scene of the crime \u2013 which ended up being a fight the streamer had with a neighbor over parking.
As well as the streamers there are such figures as Megyn Kelly getting involved. Kelly used to be part of the institutionalized media: after her lengthy stint at Fox News she was briefly Savannah Guthrie\u2019s colleague on the Today show. Now she\u2019s an independent journalist, self-producing a daily talkshow, and reporting on unverified online theories about the Gutheries (although she did not descend on their home). On her show she floated an eerie social media theory about Savannah Guthrie\u2019s plea to her mother\u2019s captors. Kelly discussed a video message in which Savannah Guthrie spoke of her mother\u2019s kindness and then said: \u201cTalk to her, and you\u2019ll see.\u201d The line mirrors a quote from the horror film The Silence of the Lambs, where a deranged serial killer kidnaps a senator\u2019s daughter. In the movie, the senator releases a similar statement, using the same phrase. As Kelly put it: \u201cThe choice of words could be completely coincidental, or it might not be.\u201d
This week, after Riches and others suggested Guthrie family members might be responsible for the crime (and Kelly said she wouldn\u2019t rule the family out as suspects<\/a>), sheriff Chris Nanos refuted the allegation, writing<\/a>: \u201cThe family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case. To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel \u2026 Please, I\u2019m begging you the media to honor your professionalism and report with some sense of compassion and professionalism.
But Nanos\u2019s statement is directed toward an inherently unprofessional media: most of these true crime streamers lack any streaming or good reporting judgment. In the past, they might have covered solved murders or decades-old cold cases \u2013 not breaking news. That\u2019s changed in recent years, says Kate Winkler Dawson, a producer and senior lecturer in broadcast journalism at University of Texas at Austin.
\u201cI first noticed it with Gabby Petito,\u201d said Dawson, referring to the vlogger who was killed by her boyfriend while the pair documented their van life through the American west. It took almost a month for authorities to discover Petito\u2019s body. \u201cThere was a clear and present danger,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cWhere is she? There is an entitlement from some folks [online] who don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re getting enough information.\u201d
Petito\u2019s missing van was discovered thanks to dashcam video from another YouTuber, which, to some viewers, validated their involvement in the case. \u201cIt perpetuates the belief that folks online hold the key to breaking cases, and sometimes they do, but most of the time it really slows down the case and is unhelpful,\u201d Dawson said.
Mandy Matney was a newspaper journalist in South Carolina who struck true crime podcast gold while covering the crimes of Alex Murdaugh, a lawyer who was found guilty of killing his wife and son. The show, Murdaugh Murders Podcast, doggedly followed the police investigation and subsequent trial, becoming the No 1 podcast on Apple in 2021, and the basis for a Hulu series starring Jason Clarke and Patricia Arquette. Matney says she was \u201ccaught in the middle\u201d as a journalist turned social media star.
She said during her reporting she found herself surrounded by true crime influencers. \u201cWe weren\u2019t really competing at all with legacy media for scoops,\u201d Matney said. \u201cWe were competing with TikTokers and content creators who were just making up news and publishing very baseless tips. It takes years of learning how to vet information [as a journalist] and really falling on your face to learn how to properly source stories and decide what information the public needs to hear.\u201d
After the killing of Rob and Michele Reiner in their Brentwood home \u2013 and police charging their son Nick with first-degree murder \u2013 reports<\/a> surfaced of influencers showing up at the scene in hopes of filming macabre, on-the-scene videos. One streamer wore a Burger King hat and yelled racial slurs at reporters; two others drove by filming for their audience while blasting music from their car.
\u201cOne of the biggest problems [with this behavior] is the sentiment behind it,\u201d said Dawson. \u201cIt\u2019s not to help the case or to inform people. It\u2019s clickbait, a way to make money, and stay relevant in the true crime world.\u201d
Jennifer Youngblood streams under the handle Jay is 4 Justice, which is also the name of her true crime podcast. Youngblood, who is 52 and lives in Clearwater, Florida, spent most of her career in home healthcare and hospice work. She now fully supports herself through true crime. She started streaming in 2018, documenting the case of Christopher Lee Watts, a Colorado man who killed his pregnant wife and two children. She met Riches, the Guthrie streamer, in Facebook groups created to follow various cases.
Youngblood is now in Tuscon, where she\u2019s mostly shadowing Riches and making a few videos of her own about Guthrie. She says he goes out with his tripod, two phones, and a fan in case his phones overheat.
She does not find the presence of streamers, or their lack of standards, problematic. \u201cI think anybody has the right to report on anything they want,\u201d Youngblood said. \u201cThe viewers know that Jonathan is not in the know. They know he\u2019s not an investigator. They know he\u2019s not a cop. I think people are intrigued by watching every step of the way.\u201d
Youngblood says that Guthrie\u2019s neighbors are \u201cappreciative\u201d of Riches. \u201cThere\u2019s been so many neighbors that have come up and said, \u2018We\u2019re so happy you\u2019re here. We\u2019re watching you, we want to see what\u2019s going on. We\u2019re not kept in the loop [from the police].\u201d
Youngblood believes the mainstream media is \u201cbewildered\u201d by Riches\u2019 popularity, and may be feeling a bit of \u201cprofessional jealousy\u201d, too. \u201cHe\u2019s getting millions of views, and that\u2019s what\u2019s got their attention,\u201d she said.
She says she knows all about Riches\u2019 history of wire fraud and phoney lawsuits. It does not bother her. \u201cEveryone wants to talk about his felony background and the things he went through, but I think that people should be celebrated for changing their life and doing good things,\u201d she said. She trusts him to be accurate, saying: \u201cI think his record speaks for itself.\u201d
And what about when streamers do get things wrong? \u201cI think that anytime you have a case of this magnitude, you have misinformation, regardless if there\u2019s people streaming or not,\u201d Youngblood said. \u201cYou have forums like X and Reddit. I think that social media itself is the bearer of misinformation.\u201d
Mainstream journalists are mostly appalled by attitudes like Youngblood\u2019s. \u201cOne of the unfortunate things is that the public may sort of confuse these vultures and their ghoulish questions and prying with more mainstream, legitimate news outlets,\u201d said Mark Feldstein, who spent 20 years as an on-air investigative correspondent at CNN and ABC News and is now the chair of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. \u201cThey\u2019re just winging it, making it up as they go along, and so it kind of deflates the currency for all journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Self-declared sleuths have inserted themselves into the search for Nancy Guthrie, compromising the investigation for views and clicksOn the 10th day of the search for Nancy Guthrie, reporters camped outside of the missing woman\u2019s home noticed a strange man strut right up to the front door. It had been more than a week since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}