Nancy Guthrie's Tucson neighbors: Life with streamers 'unbearable'

This new brand of true crime content creators has been criticized for propagating misinformation and speculation. Residents of the neighborhood where Guthrie lived, however, detail more pressing concerns. 

“These Youtubers have turned Nancy’s home into a for-profit tourist attraction, earning subscribers and dollars for every hour they sit in front of her house, with various characters that show up with food and drink and laughs at the expense of her family and neighbors,” a resident said in a statement to the Star. 

Many of the creators claim they are trying to keep Guthrie’s name in the public eye, but nearby residents argue they are simply exploiting her while harassing the community. 

“They’ve unfairly invaded the privacy of a street including sharing names, addresses, license plates, videos of their homes to 40K viewers while using veiled threats, accusing neighbors of being involved in her disappearance,” a resident said. “They've done the same to Nancy's local family, using Nancy’s house as a stage for their daily call-in show, with each caller sharing their batshit crazy theories of which neighbor or family member did it.” 

Residents detail what feels like near constant surveillance. Those who live nearby have faced verbal harassment, intimidation, being followed and filmed and had their private information publicized, a resident said.  

Creators monitor changes in the neighborhood and devise their own narrative to villainize the neighboring community, a resident said. Some would even fly drones over private properties in the neighborhood. Sparse on facts related to the case, the creators often shifted focus to the neighborhood. 

“There has been no update to the public officially recently,” a resident said. “They need to create content to stay relevant, and they have decided that we will become their content without our consent and without understanding what it is doing to our entire community, and it is tearing us apart.” 

Being faced with this challenge has brought the neighboring community together as they try to understand and deal with the situation, residents said. 

“We are in a network now that we protect each other because we understand it’s like a little bubble of the world flipped upside down, in which we are the twilight zone,” a resident said. “You’ve got the people in the world following the YouTubers, thinking that we’re doing things wrong for just trying to live our lives, and then you have us. We feel like we can’t just live our lives in the very most basic sense — not being filmed coming and going, not being screamed at going on a walk with the family or walk with the dog.” 

“The reality is they’re the ones harassing us in person and online,” a resident said. “They are spreading our information about us, our homes, our addresses online to their followers — that goes out to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people, and it doesn’t go away. Just because something is public record doesn’t mean that you can then take it and turn it into hateful harassment.” 

Much of the behavior residents discuss is visible in the creators’ videos and livestreams. While many residents typically avoid walking or driving past the creators, the times they do, the interactions sometimes become confrontational. 

“Slow down, f---in’ rice rocket,” said Alexander Zabel Jr., 54, who runs the channel CriminalNetwork, as someone drove past him while he sat along the side of the road filming a livestream video. “F--- that dude. He lives right around the corner — acts like we don’t f---in’ know where he lives at.” 

In another livestream during which multiple creators sat on the street near Guthrie’s house late into the night, Zabel tells his audience that he "took a fat s---” on a neighbor’s property. 

Those who stood up to or questioned streamers were met with criticism from the creators and their followers, residents said. 

“One of the issues is, three months ago, if you asked them why they were there or politely asked them to please leave, you became the subject of their attacks,” a resident said.

Residents noted that an elderly woman in the neighborhood is often a target, appearing frequently in creators’ videos, posts and comment sections. Some have even insinuated that she had a role in Guthrie’s disappearance.

In April, Zabel posted multiple songs on YouTube mocking the woman for being fed up with streamers who have taken over her neighborhood. In a livestream on June 7, Zabel gets into a verbal argument with her during which he accuses her of putting rocks and feces along the easement. 

For months, the Sheriff's Department had received complaints from residents. On June 6, Nanos was shown a video of Zabel peeing in a tent on the street. Afterward, he decided to implement stricter enforcement in the neighborhood, Nanos said.

On June 8, deputies arrested three YouTubers regarding their conduct in the neighborhood. 

Zabel was arrested on suspicion of obstruction of a highway or thoroughfare and public nuisance. Troy Lewis Bradshaw, 34, who runs the channel DAA JUICE, was arrested on suspicion of public nuisance. And Damian Todd Enderle, 46, who runs the channel 857 Tucson, was cited and released for public nuisance. 

“You cannot sit there and get into arguments with the neighbors, belittle neighbors, defecate, urinate in the streets,” Nanos said. “You just can’t do that.” 

Documented in Zabel’s livestream, on June 5, three days before his arrest, Zabel sets up a black, pop-up privacy tent that he refers to as his “pee tent” on the road inside Guthrie’s neighborhood. He then enters it with what appears to be a Lay’s Stax canister in hand. About 40 seconds later, he steps out from the tent and dumps the canister’s contents near some rocks on the side of the road. 

The citation also states deputies observed Zabel sitting on a lawn chair in the road with traffic cones placed beside his belongings on May 26. 

Both Zabel and Bradshaw were taken to the Pima County jail. The two were released later that night, which another YouTuber captured on livestream. 

Enderle, whose livestream documented Bradshaw’s arrest, left the neighborhood after being cited. 

"They have officially arrested DAA JUICE," Enderle said on his livestream as he drove away from the neighborhood. "They are taking him to Pima County jail as we speak right now. We need to get lawyers. We are being targeted." 

“I don’t believe any of those individuals that have been arrested are there for any other reason than to grift,” Nanos said. “They’re there for money, and it’s a shame that they have such a following that doesn't see that.” 

The trio’s arrests sparked online backlash from their followers and other creators. Comment sections became a hub of support for the creators and claims that they were being persecuted because Nanos could not handle the bad publicity. One YouTuber posted a song the next day as a tribute to the three. 

On June 9, during a livestream, Enderle said he was seeking a civil rights attorney, claiming the arrests were a violation of his First Amendment rights. He also noted that the endeavor would be costly, and he would appreciate any financial support his audience could provide. 

After being released from jail, Zabel said on Facebook that he sent a letter to the ACLU of Arizona. 

In the letter, which he posted to Facebook, he wrote that he believes the arrests were a violation of his constitutional rights and denied throwing urine. 

“You have a First Amendment right up until it carries on beyond your rights and starts interfering with the rights of others,” Nanos said. “What our deputies look at is, ‘Have you exceeded your boundary of rights?’ It’s one thing to have a right to free speech, but once that free speech interferes with somebody else's rights, your rights are not valid any longer.” 

In cases of criminal accusations, the First Amendment defense typically is not applicable, said David Bodney, a litigator focused on media and constitutional law based in Phoenix.  

“On the other hand, if they could show that the prosecution was motivated by a desire to censor or limit their speech on a particular matter, they might have a good First Amendment defense,” Bodney said. 

“A key question is whether they are being charged on the content of their creation or the conduct that gave rise to neighbors’ concerns,” he said. 

While the creators were focused on their perceived civil rights violations, the neighborhood had its first feeling of peace in over four months, a resident said. People were able to live their normal lives for once instead of having their existence revolve around creators. That feeling was short-lived, though. 

During a livestream on June 11, Zabel returned to the Guthrie house and set up his chair along the easement. Roughly an hour later, deputies showed up to arrest him.  

Zabel’s own video shows him struggling with the deputies as they try to get him in handcuffs. At one point, a sheriff's sergeant falls to the ground. 

Zabel was arrested on suspicion of public nuisance, a misdemeanor, and resisting arrest, a felony, according to a Sheriff's Department news release. He was booked into the Pima County jail. 

Other creators and commenters responded with support for Zabel, claiming that the arrest was wrongful, and deputies used excessive force. 

As of Friday afternoon, Zabel was released from jail, which another YouTuber documented on livestream. 

Residents say, however, the three only represent a portion of the creators who have caused them problems over the past four months. There are other, larger creators who come in from out of state every few weeks to exploit Guthrie’s name, a resident said. 

Jonathan Lee Riches, the man behind the YouTube channel JLR© INVESTIGATES!, has been one of the most prominent of such. Riches began regularly posting videos and livestreams where he covered criminal cases with a “boots on the ground” approach in 2022. 

He has a checkered past of his own. In 2016, he was indicted on accusations of posing as Jared Lee Loughner to file a fraudulent lawsuit against Gabby Giffords. 

At the time of the lawsuit, Loughner was serving a life sentence in prison for shooting and killing six people and wounding 13 others at a supermarket on Tucson’s northwest side in January 2011. Giffords, the target of Loughner’s attack, suffered a gunshot wound to the head. 

Riches sought $25 million in punitive damages from Giffords for emotional and psychological distress, the indictment said. 

In February, Riches told The Arizona Republic that he filed the lawsuit while in federal prison for a wire fraud conviction. He said that he filed it along with other inmates as a joke to pass time, noting it was in bad taste. 

Residents are hopeful that with the recent round of arrests and stricter enforcement on the Sheriff's Department's part, they can return to a sense of feeling safe in their homes again. What happened to Guthrie deeply troubled everyone who lived nearby, but they need to find a way forward and push back on the narrative that creators forced upon the neighborhood, a resident said. 

“It’s not going to go back to how it was before, but we have to find a way to accept a new version of normal,” a resident said. 

“We are aware of the family and their hardships and their pain,” a resident said. “Many of her friends live around there. She is not forgotten; she will not be forgotten.”