INVESTIGATORS have announced they’re looking into a related incident that happened weeks before Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped.
Guthrie was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona on February 1, but police believe something connected to her disappearance occurred 21 days earlier on January 11.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office made the bombshell announcement on Monday, but said the date’s significance remains unclear.
“We do believe that something occurred on Jan. 11, and that’s with the FBI’s analysis of the equipment and digital stuff they’ve done,” Sheriff Chris Nanos said, according to CBS7.
Nanos, who has been under fire for “bungling” the search and lying on his resume, stressed that the date remains speculative.
Officials are not yet releasing any information or evidence that has led them to be interested in January 11.
Authorities had asked anyone living within a two-mile radius of Guthrie’s Arizona home to provide any footage they have from January 1 to February 2, with a particular focus on the evening of January 11.
Weekend wonders
The Guthrie family released a statement on Sunday also mentioning January 11.
“We hope people search their memories, especially around the key timelines of January 31 and the early morning hours of February 1, as well as the late evening of January 11,” the family said.
“We desperately ask this community for renewed attention to our mom’s case — please consult camera footage, journal notes, text messages, observations, or conversations that in retrospect may hold significance.
“No detail is too small. It may be the key.”
January 24 was another date previously noted as a time of interest to investigators.
Brian Fitzgibbons, Director of Operations USPA Nationwide Security, suggested these dates could be helpful in building a profile of the suspect, as the dates fell on weekends.
“All three of those on weekend nights. That is extremely probative…He’s always doing this on weekend nights. Why?…It adds a tremendous amount of color behind the profile that we’re building of this suspect,” he said on Nancy Grace’s Crime Stories podcast.
“Is this somebody who traveled a distance, who was maybe working somewhere Monday through Friday elsewhere during the week, traveling to the Tucson area on the weekend to conduct this reconnaissance?”
Speculation arose that the armed and masked individual who was seen on Guthrie’s doorstep in a video released by the FBI could have been captured on a different night, and not the night Guthrie was taken.
Nanos said that there was no timestamp on the footage, so there is no way for officials to know if the images were taken on another day, CBS7 reported.
“There’s nothing there critical that we can say positively that this individual, with or without the backpack, was at that house on January 11,” the sheriff said.
He said the only way authorities know the footage is from the night of the abduction is because the suspect removed the doorbell camera.
Nanos said investigators are continuing to dig through thousands of tips and videos that they have received.
The desperate search for Guthrie hit 50 days on Sunday, but there are still several questions left unanswered.
Early days of the search
Guthrie was last seen by her family on January 31 and was then reported missing the next day.
Early in the search, police released security cam footage showing a masked man moving in the range of the camera outside of her home shortly after 2am on February 1.
At 2:28am, Guthrie’s pacemaker app disconnected from her phone, which was later found inside her home.
Investigators discovered a trail of blood outside the Arizona home and a glove with a DNA profile was also found at the scene.
Nanos was asked about the DNA collected, but it appears the finding did not produce any promising information, CBS7 reported.
Family holds out hope as suspect remains a mystery
Guthrie’s family was later ruled out as suspects, and they have said they are holding out hope for a miracle.
In one update, Savannah admitted that Nancy may already be gone and “dancing in heaven.”
After officials released details that the masked man was of average height and build, experts began speculating whether or not there were multiple people involved in the abduction.
Fitzgibbons, a top security expert, told The U.S. Sun that the suspect’s laid-back behavior could indicate there was another suspect watching out nearby.
“The level of detail done to hide his identity and to limit leaving any DNA at the scene leads me to believe that this person was not acting alone,” Fitzgibbons said.
Nanos said in the past he believes Nancy was a target and had an idea about the motive.
“We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted,” he told NBC News. “But we can’t, we’re not 100% sure of that.”
Multiple ransom letters were sent out after Guthrie went missing, with details about her home and clothing.
However, after the deadlines demanding millions of dollars in cryptocurrency passed, it remains unclear whether or not the notes were real.
One of the recent updates in the case came from Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, where it was reported that a video captured inside an Uber showed Guthrie catching a ride to her daughter Annie’s home on the night she was last seen.
“The Uber driver turned over all the video from inside the vehicle,” said Crime Stories investigative reporter Dave Mack.
“This was looked at by the investigation. They found nothing of substance of anything of Nancy Guthrie in the vehicle, anything she said, her demeanor, nothing was mentioned.
“They interviewed the Uber driver at length. And again, there was nothing to report. It was just a regular pick up and drop off.”
Savannah was recently spotted at the Today Show studio on March 5 for the first time since her mom’s disappearance.
“Savannah Guthrie stopped by the studio this morning to be with and thank her TODAY colleagues,” the Today Show said in a statement to The U.S. Sun.
“While she plans to return to the show on air, she remains focused right now supporting her family and working to help bring Nancy home.”