FBI agents were seen arriving at the Arizona home of Nancy Guthrie on Wednesday in what is understood to have been a “final sweep” of the property before it is handed back to the family of the missing 84-year-old, who disappeared from her house on Feb. 1.
Images and video taken outside of the $1 million Tucson-area dwelling in the afternoon of Feb. 25—nearly one month after Nancy is thought to have been abducted from her home—show multiple officials arriving in a convoy of vehicles.
According to NBC News, officials spent two hours walking through the dwelling and searching in the area directly outside the property, with sources revealing that the sweep was “related to efforts to turn the home back over to the Guthrie family,” including Nancy’s daughter, “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
Law enforcement officials have since confirmed that they no longer see a reason to keep the home sealed as a crime scene or prevent Nancy’s relatives from entering the abode.
The authorities seen at the home were not pictured with any equipment, however a truck from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was seen parked directly outside the entryway to the dwelling.
Hours earlier, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department revealed that a temporary parking restriction has been put in place in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood where Nancy has lived since 1975, noting that a “no parking zone” has been set up on “several streets … surrounding the Nancy Guthrie residence.”
These measures were put in place in order to “protect public safety and relieve area residents from chaotic conditions caused by a large media and social media streamer presence in the area,” a statement posted by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
Anyone with any information about Nancy Guthrie’s case should call 1-800-CALL-FBI, 520-351-4900, 88-CRIME, or visit https://tips.fbi.gov/.
Earlier in the week, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department revealed that it is going to cease its daily updates about Nancy’s case, which it has been sending since Feb. 2, shortly after the mother of three disappeared.
An email sent to media on Feb. 24 stated that updates will now be limited to “instances when new information warrants release.”
Savannah, 54, has been absent from the “Today” show since the news of her mother’s disappearance was revealed, having traveled immediately to Arizona soon after it was revealed that Nancy was missing. Her former costar, Hoda Kotb, has been filling in for her since Feb. 2.
It has been reported that the on-air host has been staying at a rental property in the area with her sister, Annie, and her brother, Cameron.
On Feb. 24, Savannah shared her first video update with the public in more than a week, posting an emotional clip in which she revealed her family is offering a $1 million reward to anyone who provides information that leads to Nancy’s return.
The mother of two acknowledged that her mother may have died, but said that the family just wants to know where she is—and to bring her home.
“We still believe in a miracle. We still believe that she can come home,” she said. “We also know she may be lost. She may already be gone. She may have already gone home to the Lord that she loves and is dancing in heaven with her mom and her dad and with her beloved brother.
“But we need to know where she is. We need her to come home. For that reason we are offering a family reward of $1 million for any information that leads to her recovery.”
The Guthrie family’s reward will be added to the $100,000 already offered by the FBI, as well as an additional $100,000 that was given by an anonymous donor.
“So please, if you hear this message, if you’ve been waiting and you haven’t been sure, let this be your sign to please come forward, tell what you know and help us bring our beloved mom home so that we can either celebrate a glorious, miraculous homecoming, or celebrate the beautiful, brave, courageous, and noble life that she has lived,” Savannah continued.
“Someone knows how to find our mom and bring her home,” the TV host added in her caption.
Within 12 hours of that post going live, the FBI received 750 calls to its tip line, NBC News reports, adding to the tens of thousands of tips that have been sent since the start of the month.
One of those tips came from a neighbor of Nancy, who revealed this week that she spotted a suspicious-looking man walking around their community near the missing 84-year-old’s home around two weeks before she disappeared.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Aldine Meister, who has lived in the same neighborhood has Nancy for nearly three decades, explained that the sighting occurred around 14 days before she is believed to have been abducted from her property in the Catalina Foothills.
Nancy’s neighbor noted that she saw the person walking by an intersection that leads to the mother of three’s $1 million home—adding that, while she did not report it at the time, she has since told the authorities about it.
Meister explained that the man in question did not look like a local or someone who was visiting the area to hike, recalling: “He didn’t have your typical walking gear on, and he had his hat pulled really far over his eyes.
“He was kind of younger, and he just didn’t look like he was going out for a walk. He just didn’t fit.”
While she has since reported the incident to law enforcement, Meister noted that she did not take any video or photos of the man at the time.
Meister said she mentioned the incident to her husband at the time, but the couple initially shrugged it off—until two weeks later when Nancy was reported missing from her property, with authorities later revealing that she is believed to have disappeared some time between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Feb. 1.
In an interview with Fox News on Feb. 4, Catalina Foothills resident Tom Pew, who lives in Nancy’s neighborhood, described locals’ horror over the alleged crime, noting that he had “never heard of any crime like this” taking place in their community.
“It’s a friendly neighborhood, it’s a very comfortable place to live,” he said. “People walk every day in the streets around the neighborhood. They know one another, greet one another, walk their dogs. By and large, there’s just no crime.
“[Any] crime that does occur is a petty kind of crime, where someone might leave their car unlocked, and kids walk by and take something.”
Pew also shed some light on the lack of security camera footage, noting that many people in the neighborhood feel safe enough that they don’t see a need for installing security systems at their homes.
“It doesn’t shock me [that there is a lack of security camera footage], it’s not really a high security area,” he said. “People don’t really look at things like that.”
He also highlighted media reports about there being no street lights in the neighborhood, stating that they haven’t been installed “because the sky is one of the most perfect skies to be seen in a neighborhood in the country.”
“People like dark skies and aren’t really afraid of the dark,” he said, adding: “I would say the reason you couldn’t see other houses from the Ring cameras that are on other houses … you think of this as a desert, but there are a lot of trees and shrubs and things like that. The houses are not that close together. There’s a lot of space here between the houses.”
Meister’s revelation came shortly after it was claimed that the masked intruder who was caught on camera outside of Nancy’s Arizona home may have visited the property prior to her disappearance, with sources revealing that footage of the suspect outside the dwelling may have been taken on two separate days.
Nest doorbell camera footage and screenshots taken of a masked and armed man outside of Nancy’s Tucson-area home were released to the public on Feb. 10, and it was initially assumed that all of the visuals had been captured on the same day, Feb. 1, which is when authorities believe the 84-year-old was abducted.
However, sources close to the investigation have now told ABC News that one particular photo from that release—which shows the man standing just a few feet away from Nancy’s front door—was actually taken on a different day, suggesting that he may have visited her property prior to her disappearance.
While the majority of videos and images show the man in question carrying a backpack and with a gun holstered around his waist, the photo in question captures him without the backpack, and with no gun visible.
“One theory, according to the sources, is that the suspect approached the door the first time, noticed the camera and was scared off, only to return later, when he is seen tampering with the device and putting branches in front of the lens,” ABC News reported.
However, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department has insisted that there “is no date or timestamp associated with these images,” adding that “any suggestion that the photographs were taken on different days is purely speculative.”
Nancy was last seen outside her home late on Jan. 31. She is believed to have been taken from the property in the early hours of the morning on Feb. 1.
Hundreds of FBI agents have joined the search for the mother of three, while volunteers have been helping to comb the local area around her house in a bid to uncover evidence that might lead to her location or the identity of her captors.
The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department have issued multiple pleas for help in identifying the person in the video, with several identifying details revealed in the wake of the footage release.
In a post shared to the FBI Phoenix X account on Feb. 12, the agency highlighted several details about the person in the sinister footage, including their estimated height and their gender.
“New identifying details about the suspect in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie have been confirmed after a forensic analysis of the doorbell camera footage by the FBI’s Operational Technology Division,” the post reads.
“The suspect is described as a male, approximately 5’9” – 5’10” tall, with an average build. In the video, he is wearing a black, 25-liter ‘Ozark Trail Hiker Pack’ backpack.”
According to CNN, investigators are trying to identify other items being worn by the man, including his gun holster, which Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has previously stated “had some pretty unique characteristics.”
Authorities have asked all residents who live within a two-mile radius of Nancy’s $1 million home to pass over any available footage taken on two days leading up to her disappearance—including one date more than two weeks before she was taken from her Arizona property.
Investigators have asked told residents in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood to submit any and all surveillance footage taken by doorbell cameras between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight on Jan. 11, as well as videos from 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Jan. 31, the morning before the 84-year-old disappeared.
Additionally, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department has asked that residents with any video footage taken between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2 that includes “vehicles, vehicle traffic, people/pedestrians, and anything neighbors deem out of the ordinary or important to our investigation” hand those videos over.
What is the full timeline of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance?
Sheriff Nanos noted during a media briefing on Feb. 5 that, while times are approximate, his team has pieced together several pieces of evidence that indicate Nancy’s movements—and the timeline of her apparent abduction.
Nancy, 84, was reported missing at around 12 p.m. local time on Feb. 1, around 14 hours after she was dropped off at the property following a family dinner. When she failed to turn up at her usual church gathering on Sunday, her friends alerted her family, who found her home was empty.
SATURDAY, JAN. 31
5:32 p.m. Nancy travels to Annie’s house in an Uber for “dinner and playing games with the family.”
9:48 p.m. A garage door at Nancy’s house opens when she was dropped off at the property by her daughter.
9:50 p.m. The garage door closes, indicating that Nancy was inside the home.
SUNDAY, FEB. 1
1:47 a.m. Nancy’s doorbell security camera is disconnected.
2:12 a.m. Movement is detected on a security camera at the home. No footage of this is currently available.
2:28 a.m. Nancy’s pacemaker app indicates that the device has been disconnected from her phone.
11:00 a.m. Nancy fails to arrive at the home of a friend, where she had been due to watch a church service livestream.
11:56 a.m. Nancy’s family travels to her home to check on her and finds the property empty.
12:03 p.m. The family calls 911 to report Nancy missing.
12:14 p.m. Police officers arrive at Nancy’s home.
