Nancy Guthrie search at Arizona home ends with no arrests
Police searching for Nancy Guthrie ended an overnight search of an Arizona home with authorities no closer to finding the apparently missing 84-year-old.
The house, part of the semi-rural community of Rio Rico about 60 miles south of Tucson, belongs to the family of a 36-year-old man who was detained at a traffic stop in connection with the kidnapping case and questioned for several hours overnight. The man, who The Times is not naming, was released from custody early Wednesday, shortly after deputies, FBI forensic experts and agents left the home.
Authorities have not officially identified the man or provided any details about whether or how he might be connected to the case. Outside the home, the man told reporters he had never heard of the Guthrie family and had not followed news about the case. He said that the police did not ask him any questions when he was detained.
“I hope they catch the suspect because it’s not me,” he said. he told reporters. “They better do their job and find the suspect who did this so they can clear my name.”
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Tuesday night that agents were examining multiple people as “persons of interest” in the case.
“We are looking at those who we say are persons of interest,” Patel said.
The case took another bizarre turn on Wednesday morning, when TMZ announced it had received a letter demanding payment of bitcoin, worth about $67,000 at the time, in exchange for the name of Guthrie’s kidnapper.
“If they want the name of the person involved, then I want 1 Bitcoin in the wallet below. Time is of the essence,” he said in the note, according to TMZ.
Authorities are currently offering a $50,000 reward for information in the case.
It was an eventful day for law enforcement investigating the cases, with FBI officials releasing surveillance footage showing Guthrie approaching the front door of Guthrie’s Tucson home the morning he was abducted.
The images marked the first major break in the 11-day investigation.
Footage recorded at 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1 shows someone wearing a ski mask, gloves and a backpack tampering with the Nest camera at Guthrie’s front door. A gun holster is placed around the person’s waist in a easily visible location on the front of the body.
In the footage, the person approaches the front door, notices the camera and tries to cover the lens with his hand. They then look around the patio and garden area, apparently looking for something to block the camera, and settle on some foliage that they place in front of the lens.
When authorities arrived at the Arizona home later that day, the camera was missing.
In an investigation that has led to numerous dead ends, the footage was expected to be crucial in helping law enforcement advance the case. But there is still no sign of Guthrie, who has been without medication since he was taken from his home on February 1.
The family’s pleas for Guthrie to return became more urgent as time went on.
“Today” host Savannah Guthrie, one of Nancy’s daughters, shared images of the masked person at her mother’s front door in two posts on Instagram on Tuesday and asked for the public’s help. In one post, he says the family believes their mother is “still alive.”
“Someone out there knows this person,” he wrote. “We believe he’s still there. Bring him home.”
