FBI releases detailed description of Nancy Guthrie suspect and backpack he was carrying as reward for info is raised to $100,000: Live updates

The FBI released more information about the suspect in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie on Thursday.

‘The suspect is described as a male of average build, approximately 5’9″ – 5’10” tall,” Phoenix said in a statement from the FBI.

‘In the video, he is wearing a black, 25-litre ‘Ozark Trail Hiker Pack’ backpack.’

The agency added that they received more than 13,000 tips in the case and the reward amount increased from $50,000 to $100,000.

Derrick Callella, who is accused of sending a fake ransom note in Nancy Guthrie’s case, will be arraigned today at 16:00 local time at the federal courthouse in Arizona.

Callella sent a fake ransom message to Nancy Guthrie’s daughter in early February, a few days after Nancy was kidnapped.

Callella texted Annie and Cioni on February 4: ‘Did you buy Bitcoin? [sic] ‘We are waiting for the transaction on our side’.

Three minutes later he called one of Nancy’s family members. The criminal complaint stated that the conversation lasted only nine seconds.

Today Show host Savannah Guthrie contacted the family shortly after Annie and their brother Camron posted a video on Instagram pleading for their mother’s return.

Callella allegedly admitted to sending the messages and told investigators he was “just trying to see if the family would respond.”

Officials confirmed Callella was also charged in a 2023 embezzlement scheme in which 13 Los Angeles County employees allegedly stole more than $430,000 in unemployment benefits from the county.

A man who claimed to know the identity of Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper sent a chilling note to her family on Thursday demanding $65,000.

Grainy. Fleeting. Less than a minute total. But for detectives investigating Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance from a quiet home on the outskirts of Tucson, the newly obtained doorbell footage is a bombshell.

Black-and-white footage released by the FBI, the first major development in the case by authorities, shows a masked, armed figure on the porch of his $1 million home in the early hours of Sunday, February 1.

The person appears to be tampering with the doorbell camera, at one point holding a flashlight in his mouth while setting up the device. This is the first time investigators and the public have seen the suspect.

Speaking to Fox News on Friday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the FBI is providing every resource possible to assist in the ongoing Nancy Guthrie investigation.

“We are bringing the full resources and weight of the federal government to help local authorities bring this case to closure and bring Nancy Guthrie home,” Leavitt said.

‘President Trump immediately offered this when this case first broke, when this news broke, and when our hearts are breaking every day as it continues.’

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump reviewed new security footage released by the FBI of Nancy Guthrie’s home.

Leavitt said he was with the president as he reviewed new evidence in the case, which he described as “heartbreaking.”

In the shocking footage, it was revealed that a masked figure wearing latex gloves was tampering with the security camera at home. He was released just hours before police detained a person of interest in the case near Tucson, Arizona.

Leavitt said President Trump reacted to the images with “utter disgust.”

Retired Houston sketch artist Lois Gibson created an informal sketch of an unidentified police suspect captured on home security footage from the night Nancy Guthrie disappeared.

Gibson was not assigned by Arizona police during the search, and the drawing was not officially released by authorities.

The forensic expert created a mock-up of what the suspect might have looked like based on what little the surveillance footage revealed: eyes, lips and facial hair beneath the mask.

“I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t stop myself, I wanted to help, I felt the pain,” Gibson told KHOU 11.

‘I’ve been in the same room with people whose babies have been kidnapped and it makes you feel like you’re being held by the throat and suffocated by what they’re going through, so I wanted to help them.’

Nancy Guthrie’s neighbors have shown an outpouring of support since she disappeared from her home nearly two weeks ago.

Yellow bows were seen tying trees down the street from Nancy’s home in the Catalina Foothills in solidarity with the Guthrie family.

Yellow ribbons were used in missing cases to show hope and support for the safe return of a person.

A makeshift memorial was also erected outside Nancy’s home; where flowers, handwritten messages, posters and candles were placed at the memorial.

Nancy Guthrie had been missing for 13 days after being abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1.

She was first reported missing after not attending a virtual church service at a friend’s house.

Authorities began searching for him that night. The next day they confirmed that her disappearance was being treated as a crime.

Nancy Guthrie posted on a neighborhood app explaining that she had previously encountered criminals in front of her $1 million home and why she decided to buy a doorbell camera.

The 84-year-old mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie was taken from her home in the upscale Catalina Foothills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning hours of February 1.

According to his profile on Nextdoor, he had lived in the house since 1975 and raised his three children there.

The Arizona sheriff is said to have blocked the FBI from accessing key evidence in the investigation into the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, a source told Reuters on Thursday.

The FBI asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for physical evidence, including a glove and DNA taken from the home of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, to be processed at the FBI’s national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

Sheriff Nanos insisted on using a private laboratory in Florida instead.

He criticized claims that his department “hidden evidence” as “not even close to the truth.”

‘Actually, the FBI wanted to send one or two they found at the crime scene to the location closest to the incident; ‘one and a half miles…’ he continued.

‘And I said, ‘No, why would we do that? I said, ‘Let’s send them all to where the DNA is, all the profiles and markers.’ They agreed, it makes sense.’

The sheriff also argued that the gloves found at the scene by FBI investigators may not have been as valuable as initially thought, as police found multiple pairs on the side of the road near Nancy’s home.

“We don’t even know the true value of these gloves,” Nanos said, claiming there were “quite a few.”

Authorities announced Thursday that the suspect seen trying to hide the Nest doorbell camera outside Nancy Guthrie’s home the night she disappeared was carrying a 25-liter ‘Ozark Trail Hiker Pack’ backpack.

The brand is exclusive to Walmart and can only be purchased new in store.