• Detained person released: Authorities have released a person detained for questioning in Rio Rico, about 60 miles south of Tucson, CNN affiliate KNXV reported. Authorities earlier searched a car and a home in the city. Nancy Guthrie’s whereabouts remain unknown, according to a law enforcement source.
• Surveillance video: The FBI released doorbell camera footage from outside Nancy Guthrie’s front door taken the night she disappeared, showing a masked, armed person. Separately, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency is looking at “persons of interest” in the case.
• Pleas for help: “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie posted another message from her family saying they believe their mother is still alive. You can submit actionable tips by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI, 88-CRIME or 520-351-4900, or visiting tips.fbi.gov.
Our live coverage of the search for Nancy Guthrie has moved here.
CNN affiliate KNXV reporter Lillian Donahue said her colleagues spoke to the man who said he was detained for questioning in the search for Nancy Guthrie.
The man said “he didn’t even know who this woman (Nancy Guthrie) was, that he works as a delivery driver,” Donahue told CNN’s Rosemary Church, adding she saw him drive his car back into the Rio Rico neighborhood where a home had been searched Tuesday night.
Donahue said authorities have since left the home in Rio Rico and opened up the scene.
In a video of the interview shared by KNXV reporter Ford Hatchett, the man said his wife was driving when they pulled over because police were following them.
“They told me I was being detained for kidnapping. I asked them, ‘kidnapping of who?’” the man, who authorities have not identified, said.
“I told them … I might have delivered a package to their house but I never kidnapped anybody.”
CNN has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and FBI.
The person who was detained for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie investigation has now been released, CNN affiliate KNXV reported early Wednesday.
Law enforcement on Tuesday detained a person for questioning, after pulling them up at a traffic stop in Rio Rico, an hour’s drive south of Tucson, near the US border with Mexico.
CNN has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and FBI.
The detention was based on investigative leads, but the person was not charged, a law enforcement official told CNN at the time.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday that investigators had completed their search of a property in Rio Rico.
Investigators have completed their search of a property in Rio Rico, Arizona, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement just before 1 a.m. Wednesday local time.
The Nancy Guthrie investigation is ongoing, the sheriff’s department added, without sharing any further details.
Tuesday night, authorities said a search warrant was being executed at a home in Rio Rico — which is about 60 miles south of Tucson near the Mexico border.
Major developments in the Nancy Guthrie case came late Tuesday evening, with a person detained for questioning and a search warrant being executed at a home in Rio Rico, Arizona — which is about 60 miles south of Tucson near the Mexico border.
Despite the developments, authorities have still not been able to locate the mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, a law enforcement source told CNN.
Here’s what we know:
- Person detained: Law enforcement detained a subject for questioning, who was stopped during a traffic stop an hour’s drive south of Tucson, along the US border with Mexico. The detention is based on investigative leads, but the person has not been charged, a law enforcement official told CNN at the time. It’s not clear if the person is the same individual seen in surveillance footage released by the FBI earlier on Tuesday.
- “Persons of interest”: Separately, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency is looking at “persons of interest” in the case. He did not say who might be under suspicion, but said authorities were going through the process of elimination.
- Search warrant: A search warrant is being executed at a home in Rio Rico. The road where the search is ongoing has been closed. A woman on the scene in Rio Rico told CNN that it was her home that was being searched. She said authorities were investigating her son-in-law, who she said was detained, but “he had nothing to do with (the case).” Authorities are also searching a car in Rio Rico.
- Door cam footage: Earlier on Tuesday, the FBI released doorbell camera footage from outside Guthrie’s front door taken the night she disappeared, showing a masked, armed person. Engineers at Google, which owns the doorbell camera maker Nest, were able to recover data after several days.
- Ongoing search: Sheriff’s deputies also canvassed the neighborhood of Annie Guthrie, one of Nancy Guthrie’s daughters, on Tuesday. Officers knocked on doors, asking residents whether they could look at their property. Nancy Guthrie was at Annie’s house for dinner the night before she was reported missing.
As the questioning of a detained person continues in Rio Rico, Arizona, authorities have still not been able to locate Nancy Guthrie, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.
A vehicle can be an “amazing” trove of potential evidence because it tells investigators so much about a person, a former police detective said.
“We live in our vehicles, we do everything in our vehicles, whether it’s committing crimes or not,” former police detective Mike McCutcheon told CNN’s Laura Coates early Wednesday.
Investigators will be looking for blood evidence using the chemical Luminol, as they know Nancy Guthrie was bleeding when she was abducted, McCutcheon said.
But they will also be looking for fast food receipts and bank cards.
Tire tread, he added, “can be like a fingerprint” and investigators will be tracking the vehicle’s telematics to see where it’s been.
If Guthrie was in the car, “particularly if she’s moving or struggling, she’s going to leave some evidence behind,” he said.
Authorities search vehicle in Rio Rico
00:46 • Source: CNN
Authorities search vehicle in Rio Rico
00:46
Authorities in Rio Rico, Arizona, which is around 60 miles south of Tucson, were seen searching a vehicle in connection with the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, according to footage filmed by CNN on the scene.
The Pima County Sheriff’s confirmed that the vehicle, a gray SUV, was the one pulled over during a traffic stop, during which a person was stopped and taken in for questioning.
Video from the scene shows the car alongside vehicles from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Marana Police, a town north of Tucson.
Though the ransom notes in the Nancy Guthrie case have not been verified, investigators questioning the detained person will be looking for clues that could link them, a former FBI deputy director said.
“There is probably one or more analysts who have been assigned the task of monitoring this questioning – specifically for that,” Andrew McCabe told CNN’s Laura Coates early Wednesday.
“They’re looking for any clues to see that this person uses the same sort of words or the same sort of phrasing, or repeats the same sort of ideas in the course of of talking to investigators, assuming this person is talking to investigators,” he added.
Images and door cam footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home suggest the masked person was calm and had the ability to quickly adapt, an analyst said.
“He doesn’t seem to manifest really strong signs of being nervous… He’s not racing around nor does he appear jittery. That’s impressive to me,” former FBI senior profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday.
“You can only get that calmness from two things: your personality and your experience being in situations like this before,” she added.
FBI releases Nest videos from Nancy Guthrie's home
00:40 • Source: CNN
FBI releases Nest videos from Nancy Guthrie's home
00:40
O’Toole said what stood out to her was the person’s ability “to adjust pretty quickly” to changing surroundings, such as the presence of the door cam.
When you combine those actions with the type of clothing and backpack he was wearing, it showed a “certain amount of planning” that was designed to “minimize the amount of physical evidence left at the scene,” she said.
When interviewing a person like this, O’Toole said finding someone “unflappable” would be key.
“What’s important as an interviewer is to match their emotion,” she said.
Police have cordoned off a road near Interstate 19 in Rio Rico, Arizona, which is about 60 miles south of Tucson and near the US border with Mexico, according to CNN journalists on the scene.
The road, Camino Agosto, is where investigators are carrying out a search related to the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
Woman said her home was searched after tip
00:30 • Source: CNN
Woman said her home was searched after tip
00:30
A woman in Rio Rico, Arizona told CNN authorities are searching her home after they received a tip related to the investigation of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
“They had somebody give a tip that the lady was in my house,” said Josefina, who CNN is identifying only by her first name. “I told them you can go in and search my house, there is nobody there. I have nothing to hide.”
The woman said authorities are investigating her son-in-law, who she said was detained, but “he had nothing to do with that (the case).”
CNN has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s’ Department and the FBI.
She said authorities had broken down her door and were searching her house when she arrived home from Tucson. She said she didn’t get an answer when she asked officials if they had a search warrant.
Retired FBI Special Agent Peter Lapp has shed light on how the execution of a search warrant could play out in the Nancy Guthrie case.
A search warrant is being executed at a home in Rio Rico, Arizona. In addition, Lapp said the car that the person detained for questioning was driving was “still important.”
“There’s a lot of really good evidence in there that the FBI and law enforcement are going to want to be taking advantage of,” Lapp told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday.
A case such as this would present a “high risk execution of a search warrant” where officers would be prepared to potentially encounter other persons of interest, Lapp said.
Officers will be looking for any signs of struggle, blood spots, or signs that someone was being held there for a long time.
The first thing investigators need to do when conducting an police interview is to build rapport with the detained person, a CNN analyst said.
Investigators are carefully selected based on their knowledge of the case, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller told Laura Coates on Tuesday.
“You can get somebody who starts to tell you a little bit, and maybe you can get a little bit more, or a little bit more. Or they may go the opposite direction, which is to move into deny deny, deny,” Miller added.
Either way, investigators will want to “draw that conversation out and see if you can get toward that breaking point,” he said.
Getting information of the location of the victim, will be the biggest goal of the questioning in this case.
A search warrant is being executed at a home in Rio Rico, Arizona, in connection with the Nancy Guthrie case, a spokesperson with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, Angelica Carrillo, told CNN.
The sheriff’s office said earlier it was questioning a subject who was stopped “during a traffic stop.” The person was detained in Rio Rico, a law enforcement official said.
Rio Rico is around 60 miles south of Tucson, near the US border with Mexico.
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe said it is unclear what led law enforcement to stop the person detained in the Nancy Guthrie case, but officers had enough reason to bring them in for questioning.
“We don’t know the lead that brought law enforcement to that person. We don’t even know if that lead was derived from the public airing of the video and the surveillance photo,” McCabe told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday.
The person could have been pulled over for a traffic violation, he added.
Retired FBI Special Agent Peter Lapp, who was also in conversation with Coates, said that “time is of the essence,” however, and police released the door cam footage because they likely needed help identifying the individual.
“I can’t say that that led to the car stop, but it’s the timing is just too coincidental,” he told Coates.
If investigators don’t get probable cause for a search warrant or information to hold the person longer, “they’re going to have to come to a point in sometime in the near future that they have to release him,” Lapp said.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, assisted by the FBI’s Evidence Response Team, is conducting a court-authorized search of a location in Rio Rico, Arizona, related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office said.
The operation is expected to last several hours, the Sheriff’s Office added, without providing further details.
The sheriff’s office said earlier it was questioning a subject who was stopped “during a traffic stop.” The person was detained in Rio Rico, said a law enforcement official.
Several police cars were seen on a Rio Rico road, according to photos shared with CNN.
Rio Rico is around 60 miles south of Tucson, near the US border with Mexico.
Law enforcement officials have detained a person for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie case — a development we first learned of from a source that has since been confirmed by the sheriff’s department. CNN’s Senior National Correspondent Ed Lavandera reports.
Person detained for questioning in disappearance of Nancy Guthrie
Law enforcement officials have detained a person for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie case, a law enforcement official told CNN. The official stressed that the person has not been charged. Separately, FBI director Kash Patel said agents are investigating a "person of interest."
00:38 • Source: CNN
Person detained for questioning in disappearance of Nancy Guthrie
00:38
A subject was detained and “is currently being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in an X post.
The subject was stopped “during a traffic stop south of Tucson,” the department said. The individual was detained near the border, in Rio Rico, a law enforcement official added.
Rio Rico is around 60 miles south of Tucson, near the US border with Mexico.
The post didn’t indicate if the subject is believed to be the same person featured in photos and video released by the FBI this morning.
“Additional information will be released as it becomes available,” the sheriff’s department said, adding there is no press conference scheduled at this time.
FBI agents are looking at more than one individual as a “person of interest” in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, told Fox News late Tuesday.
“We are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest,” Patel said.
Patel did not elaborate on who might be under suspicion, but said authorities were undergoing a process to eliminate anyone who may not actually be involved.
Patel said the FBI’s outreach to the private sector has shown “there might be persons of interest in and around the area related to this event.”
The FBI’s first priority is finding Guthrie, Patel said, and “right behind that is to find anyone and any others involved in this kidnapping case to make sure they’re brought to justice.”