The FBI has released key new details about the masked, armed intruder caught on security camera at Nancy Guthrie‘s Arizona home on the night she disappeared—while announcing that it has increased its reward for information leading to her safe return to $100,000.
In a post shared to the FBI Phoenix X account, the agency highlighted several “identifying details” about the person in the sinister footage.
“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.”
Minutes earlier, it was reported that the FBI is “actively investigating” a video of a man captured carrying a backpack near Nancy’s home on the same night that she disappeared.
Surveillance video of the unidentified man, which was obtained by TMZ, shows him at a location around five miles from the Tucson-area property where “Today” host Savannah Guthrie‘s 84-year-old mother was seemingly kidnapped by a masked intruder.
While there is currently no evidence to suggest that the man in the video is in any way connected with Nancy’s Feb. 1 disappearance, sources from both the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department have confirmed to Fox News and TMZ that they are actively seeking the person in the footage for questioning.
The new video was recorded on a Ring camera at an Arizona homeowner’s residence at 1:52 a.m. local time, around 14 minutes before a security camera at Nancy’s property detected movement outside her front door.
In the clip, the person is seen wearing one backpack—a black design—and carrying a second blue bag. He is wearing an olive green jacket and blue-grey pants, and at one point appears to be trying to hoist one of the backpacks over a red brick wall.
The footage comes two days after FBI Director Kash Patel released video footage and images captured by a Nest security camera outside of the front door of Nancy’s property, which shows a person in a knitted ski mask and thick gloves approaching the entrance to her home with a gun.
It is not currently known whether there is any connection between this person and the man seen in the newly-obtained footage.
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/.
However, 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.
A webpage has been set up where neighbors can upload their video footage—while the sheriff’s department has revealed it will be using the Neighbors App to communicate updates to anyone living within a two-mile radius of Nancy’s home.
One man who lives around the corner from “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie‘s mother also said he was asked by detectives about whether he had seen a truck in the area.
While investigators did not reveal why they are asking for the information, David Romano, told NBC News that detectives had asked his family about the vehicle on two occasions.
Hours earlier, Savannah, 54, shared a heartbreaking montage of old home videos featuring her missing mother—as investigators searching for the 84-year-old were seen erecting a white tent around the front door of her Arizona property.
Savannah shared the clips on her Instagram account, stating in her caption that she “will never give up” on finding her mother, who has been missing since Feb. 1.
“Our lovely mom,” she wrote alongside the clip, which featured several videos of Nancy with Savannah and the “Today” host’s sister, Annie Guthrie, outside the family’s longtime Tucson-area residence.
“We will never give up on her. Thank you for your prayers and hope.”
The video ended with a photo of Nancy with all three of her children: Savannah, Annie, and son Cameron. It appears the videos were taken outside the same property where Nancy was living when she disappeared; the 84-year-old raised all three of her children in the home, which she bought in 1975. It is now worth around $1 million, according to estimates.
At the same time, the New York Post reported that authorities were seen setting up a tent around the front door of Nancy’s property, after a “series of non-marked vehicles” arrived at the address in the Catalina Foothills.
Images taken by the publication’s photographer in Arizona captured images of the small white tent being set up in front of the main entrance to the house—the same entryway where security camera footage of a suspected intruder was captured in the early hours of the morning on the day that Nancy disappeared.
FBI agents were seen arriving at the property in the vehicles, which had several cases of equipment in the back.
That same tent was taken down several hours later, with the Post reporting that a Nest camera bracket that had previously been mounted on the door frame outside the property was removed during the time that the tent was in place.
Authorities have not stated why the bracket was removed, however it is believed to have previously held the camera that recorded footage of a masked intruder arriving at Nancy’s home in the early hours of Feb. 1.
The developments come after the FBI confirmed that it was expanding its search of the area surrounding Nancy’s property.
On Wednesday, investigators searching for clues in Nancy’s disappearance found a pair of black gloves abandoned on the side of the road around a mile and a half away from the missing 84-year-old’s Arizona home, it has been revealed.
As first reported by the New York Post, the gloves were located on a roadside by authorities who have been scouring the area surrounding Nancy’s property since early on Wednesday.
“Investigators have recovered several items of evidence, including gloves. As part of the investigative process, all viable evidence is submitted for analysis,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department confirmed in a statement shared with Realtor.com®.
Nancy was first reported missing on Feb. 1. Video footage released from a security camera that was located at the front door of her home revealed a masked, armed intruder approaching the property in the early hours of the morning on that same day.
The unidentified person was wearing a knitted ski mask and black gloves—although it is unclear whether the gloves located in the FBI search are in any way connected to this alleged suspect. The gloves have been submitted for DNA analysis, investigators told KVOA.
The FBI revealed in a post shared to its X account that it was carrying out an “extensive search along multiple roadways in the Catalina Foothills area related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation.”
Anyone in the area was asked to “remain especially cautious when passing law enforcement personnel near the roadways.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department noted that it has received close to 18,000 calls about Nancy’s case in the last few days, noting that “several hundred detectives and agents” have been assigned to assist with the ongoing investigation.
“You will continue to see increased law enforcement activity throughout Pima County as the investigation expands,” a spokesperson noted.
Speaking to the New York Post, former FBI agent Michael Harrigan explained that agents will now try to ascertain whether the glove holds any DNA—although he made clear that the item could well have been discarded by someone with no connection to Nancy’s case.
Addressing the scale of the search, Harrigan added that the fact agents are searching more than a mile away from Nancy’s home indicates that they are “absolutely doing a lot of detail work in this case behind the scenes.”
“In this instance, with it being a kidnapping, there is no limit really to a perimeter,” he added.
The discover comes soon after the Pima County Sheriff’s Department revealed that it has received close to 18,000 calls about Nancy’s case in the last few days, noting that “several hundred detectives and agents” have been assigned to assist with the ongoing investigation.
Around 4,000 of those calls were submitted in a 24-hour period.
On Tuesday night, authorities detained a local delivery driver, who later identified himself as Carlos Palazuelos, after a traffic stop in the Tucson area.
Speaking to Telemundo outside his home in Rio Rico, AZ, after his release Palazuelos said that agents had arrived at his home with a warrant to search the property, having taken him in for questioning, claiming that authorities “held [him] against [his] will.”
“They held me against my will,” the 36-year-old stated. “They didn’t even read me my rights until two hours later.”
Recalling what ran through his head during the questioning, Palazuelos said he thought: “What the f–k am I doing here? I didn’t do anything, to be honest, I’m innocent.”
The delivery worker said that agents told him he resembled a person seen in security camera footage that was retrieved from a Nest device that was taken from Nancy’s home on the night of her abduction.
“Until right now, all I know is that they showed my in-law a picture of somebody wearing a mask, or something, and they supposedly looked like my eyes,” he added to Fox News.
While Palazuelos works as a delivery driver, he said he does not know whether he has ever delivered anything to Nancy’s house.
What is the full timeline of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance?
Pima County Sheriff Chris 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.
While no footage is available from the cameras, Nanos noted that the security camera alerts lead them to believe that a person or persons may have been inside Nancy’s home between 2:12 a.m., when movement was detected, and 2:28 a.m., when her pacemaker stopped syncing with her Apple devices.
Why did it take so long for footage of a suspect in the Nancy Guthrie case to be released?
Authorities had previously stated that they were unable to retrieve any footage from the Nest camera that was taken from the doorway of Nancy’s property because she did not have a subscription that enables archival video to be stored.
However, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department revealed in a statement issued on Tuesday that the video was ultimately “recovered from residual data located in backend systems.”
“Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie‘s home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices,” the statement read.
“The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems. Working with our partners—as of this morning—law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance.”
Authorities further stated that they have no other information to share about the suspect at this time, nor are any additional press briefings planned.