A person has been detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The person was picked up south of Tucson by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, assisted by the FBI, and authorities were preparing to search a location linked to the individual, a law enforcement official who had been briefed on the investigation told ABC News late Tuesday.
It was not clear if it was the same person who had been captured on surveillance video recovered from “back-end systems” that the FBI had released Tuesday afternoon. In that video, the masked figure had a handgun holster and was caught outside Guthrie’s front door the night she disappeared from her home seemingly without a trace. FBI director Kash Patel referred to him as an “armed individual” and said he “appeared to have tampered with the camera.” The doorbell camera had been disconnected the night Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, went missing.
The video unleashed a flood of tips, NBC News reported. Law enforcement officials said Tuesday evening that whoever had allegedly taken her was someone who most likely lived locally.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen the evening of Jan. 31 after being dropped off at home following a family dinner. She was due to watch a livestreamed church service with friends the next day, and when she didn’t show, they notified the family, who reported their mother missing after finding no sign of her at home. Police determined the home was a crime scene and that Guthrie had apparently been abducted.
Since then, several purported ransom notes have come in — at least one of them a hoax — and her grown children, including Savannah Guthrie, have pleaded for her return in video messages. While Nancy Guthrie is of sound mind, her physical health is frail, and she may have been without daily medication that she needs to survive.
With The Associated Press
