A masked intruder, a silenced camera, and a frantic race against time. As the search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother hits day 11, federal agents have finally unlocked “previously inaccessible” footage of an armed figure at her doorstep. But with a high-stakes detention ending in a release, the investigation is at a knife-edge. WATCH the haunting video and the latest updates on the abduction that has stunned the country.
RIO RICO, AZ — The advancement arrived several hours after investigators disclosed chilling video showing a masked individual on Ms. Guthrie’s front porch the morning of her disappearance.
Investigators dismissed a man who had been held late Tuesday in the vanishing of Nancy Guthrie. Earlier, officials made public new footage showing a masked figure at her entrance on the night she disappeared. A man who was taken into custody during a traffic stop by investigators examining the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has been discharged after questioning. In an interview early Wednesday, the man remarked he had not heard about Nancy Guthrie but hopes that she is located unharmed. “I hope they capture the suspect, because I’m not it,” he said, speaking on the doorstep of his wife and mother-in-law’s residence in Rio Rico, Ariz.
The F.B.I. and the Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday had executed a “court-authorized search” connected to the inquiry in Rio Rico, Ariz., about an hour’s drive south of Tucson, Ariz., the county sheriff, Chris Nanos, declared in a statement. As of 1:20 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the department had not yet affirmed that it had released the person it had detained for questioning. But a spokeswoman, Angelica Carrillo, said investigators had “finished their search of a property in Rio Rico”.
Investigators interrogated the man after he was detained during a traffic stop south of Tucson, more than 10 days into the quest for the 84-year-old mother of the “Today” host Savannah Guthrie. Outside a home in Rio Rico, a woman said the man was her son-in-law and that investigators had smashed down her door and were scouring the house. She said her son-in-law had been transporting food when he was pulled over by the police. She maintained that the masked figure in a newly circulated surveillance video was not him.
The clip, released earlier, shows a masked person on Nancy Guthrie’s porch around the time that she is thought to have vanished from her neighborhood near Tucson early on Feb. 1. The individual is wearing a ski mask, gloves and a backpack, and appears to be armed with a pistol. Cable news commentators and true crime buffs have spent more than a week analyzing the limited details of Ms. Guthrie’s case as they have emerged. The authorities noted early on that they were probing the disappearance as a kidnapping, and Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have distributed a series of videos beseeching whoever is involved to reach out to them. They said they were prepared to hear ransom demands.
It was not yet evident whether the authorities believe the person being questioned is the same individual in the video, according to a second law enforcement official familiar with the case. The 44 seconds of silent black-and-white surveillance footage released on Tuesday shows a masked figure approaching Ms. Guthrie’s house and raising a gloved hand to obstruct a Nest doorbell camera. The camera was eventually disabled.
Federal authorities said the doorbell video made public on Tuesday had been “formerly inaccessible,” but declined to explain why. Experts said it likely took longer to locate the video because Ms. Guthrie did not pay for a subscription to the Nest service. Rio Rico, the town where officials detained a person for questioning, has long been a critical transit point for smugglers because of its location near Interstate 19 and the rugged desert hills.
Ms. Guthrie’s older daughter, Annie, and her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, were the final people to see her before she disappeared. Mr. Cioni drove Ms. Guthrie home from dinner. Hours later, at about 1:47 a.m., her front door camera was severed. Investigators believe that she was most likely taken soon after. The authorities had said last week that they were reviewing a message sent to a Tucson television station, but did not verify that it was related to a purported ransom note sent earlier, which demanded millions of dollars in Bitcoin.
Police found blood on porch belonging to news anchor’s missing mother
A man was released from custody early Wednesday morning after being held for questioning in the vanishing of Nancy Guthrie. Carlos, who refused to provide a last name, told reporters on Wednesday that the police detained him for several hours before freeing him. The release of the man was a setback to investigators, who are entering their 11th day of trying to establish who may have abducted Ms. Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother. Carlos, a 36-year-old, said that he had been in his vehicle on Tuesday evening when police officers asked him his name and then detained him. He was held for several hours, he said, before ultimately being released with wrists swollen from handcuffs. He said he had not heard of Nancy Guthrie but hoped the police found the culprit. “They better do their job and find the suspect that did it so that they can clear my name,” he said.
The video — silent, grainy and in black-and-white — shows a person approaching Ms. Guthrie’s doorstep on the night she was abducted. The person wears a ski mask, gloves, a backpack and what appears to be a holstered handgun. The authorities have known since last week that the camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1. But in a statement on Tuesday, the F.B.I. and the Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff’s Department said that the footage had been uncovered only “as of this morning,” and that the images had been “previously inaccessible”.
The video offers a clue. It is stamped in the upper right corner with a name: Nest. An internet-enabled Nest doorbell can record video and alert homeowners to sounds and movements. Owners can pay a monthly fee to get premium features, like long-term video history. If Ms. Guthrie had had a paid subscription, the authorities might have had access to footage stored on her account, said Adam Wandt, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
But Ms. Guthrie did not pay for a subscription that would have stored the video, according to Chris Nanos. So while she may have been able to access real-time video, historical footage would probably be stored only on a server somewhere in one of Google’s vast data centers. It is unclear whether investigators used a warrant to obtain the footage. They may not have been required to, because the kidnapping might be considered an exigent circumstance — a legal exception to the warrant requirement.
Google did not immediately respond to questions about the footage, but Mr. Wandt speculated that finding the data could have taken days. First, investigators would have had to request the data from Google. “Sometimes those requests are clear and simple,” Mr. Wandt said. “However, they often are not, and they might take more than one back-and-forth. And then the company might need a day or two, or three, to figure out how to get that data”.
