A growing number of investigators are said to be probing the possibility that Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping on February 1 began as a burglary gone wrong.
One person familiar with the ongoing investigation into Guthrie’s disappearance told Arizona Family on Sunday that police are looking at the possibility that a man caught tampering with her Nest doorbell camera may have just been trying to burglarize the $1 million home in Tucson, Arizona.
If that were the case, the source said there is hope that the 84-year-old could still be alive even as the search for her extends into a third consecutive week without any arrests.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos later disputed that theory and told the Daily Mail that his department is still working on the theory that Nancy was abducted.
Several people have been questioned in connection with her disappearance, but were later released. A series of ransom notes have also been sent to media outlets, including TMZ, demanding at least $6 million in bitcoin from the Guthrie family.
Authorities are now waiting for confirmation on DNA samples from an unknown male profile that was lifted from a glove that the FBI has said ‘appears to match’ the pair the suspect was seen wearing in the shocking doorbell surveillance footage.
It was found last week near Nancy’s home along with several other gloves, which were sealed in evidence bags by the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, and shipped overnight for testing at a private lab in Florida.
Nearly 16 gloves were collected near her home, and most of them were used and discarded by searchers at the site, the FBI told the Daily Mail.
But one of the gloves is different from the rest and appears to match the ones the unidentified masked captor was wearing in the doorbell video captured at Nancy’s front porch, the FBI said.
DNA results usually take about 24 hours to come back
Glove found near Nancy Guthrie’s home ‘matches’ the one’s worn by suspect in chilling video, FBI says
A total of 16 gloves were found about two miles from Nancy’s home, the FBI told the Daily Mail.
On Sunday, it was revealed that most of those gloves were used by searchers who then discarded them on the ground.
But one of the gloves appeared to be a match to the one’s a male suspect was wearing in doorbell footage captured in the early hours of February 1, the agency said.
Abductor has to be ‘enormously confident,’ profiler says
Former FBI profiler Candice DeLong told CNN that the person who abducted Nancy Guthrie has to be ‘enormously confident in themselves.
‘For somebody to think they can pull off a crime like this, they have to be enormously confident in themselves, and the term narcissistic psychopath comes to mind,’ she said.
‘Psychopath being a clinical term, someone that has no empathy for others, no guilt for what they do to other people,’ DeLong then explained.
‘They do not see themselves as fallible in any way,’ she added.
DeLong then went on to explain that a person who would commit a kidnapping like this would have to think they are able to pull off a crime of this magnitude.
However, the masked man seen in Nancy Guthrie’s surveillance footage did not seem sophisticated enough, DeLong said, citing the suspect covering the doorbell camera lens with a plant before walking away.
Investigators have received over 30,000 tips
Investigators have received more than 30,000 calls for leads in the Guthrie case, Sheriff Chris Nanos told KVOA.
The calls have come into the Pima County Sheriff’s Department as well as the FBI, he said, noting that he believes authorities are making progress in the investigation.
Several hundred law enforcement personnel are now working Nancy Guthrie’s case.
Newsmax anchor urges families to reach out to their mothers
When discussing the Nancy Guthrie case on Sunday, Newsmax anchor Lidia Curanaj urged Americans to spend more time with their mothers.
‘Nancy – she’s not just a headline, she’s somebody’s mother,’ Curanaj said of why she believes the case is getting so much attention.
‘She’s somebody’s mother, somebody’s grandmother who never did anything to anyone or anything, she didn’t deserve this, you know?’ she continued.
‘And as the nation holds its breath waiting for new information to surface, I hope that families across this country are also making that extra phone call, stopping by our parents’ house more, calling mom more, asking mom “What do you need?” And telling her “Mom, I love you.”
‘Because everyone of us knows a mother’s love,’ Curanaj said. ‘We’ve all had a Nancy in our lives and like many of you, we are all praying that she comes home safe.’
Exclusive:
Defiant sheriff hails fresh video hope
Shocking images released last week of a masked intruder at Nancy Guthrie’s home during her suspected abduction may not be the only video ultimately unearthed from cameras at the property, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told the Daily Mail.
Digital forensics examiners specializing in connected devices and cloud-based video systems at Google are working feverishly to extract information from cameras in Nancy’s home. The devices were initially thought to be of limited use because they were offline or not recording due to Guthrie not having active subscriptions.
‘Google said at first we don’t have anything, but we’re going to do our best to try to what they call “scratch,”‘ Nanos said in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
Tribute grows outside Nancy Guthrie’s home
Well-wishers have continued to share their hopes that Nancy Guthrie will be found alive, as they continue to leave flowers and other tribute outside her home.
Investigators not categorizing Nancy Guthrie case as any particular type of crime
Investigators are not categorizing the Nancy Guthrie case as any particular type of crime yet, a federal law enforcement source told NBC News.
The source said instead that there are a ‘myriad of theories’ but that authorities are not officially narrowing down any options yet.
What homeowners should know about Nest video doorbells
Nest video doorbells have faced scrutiny since the FBI announced that it was able to obtain video of a masked suspect at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the night she disappeared – despite her having an active account.
According to Google’s website, Nest home security cameras send footage to Google ‘only if you or someone in your home has explicitly turned the camera on or enabled a feature that needs it (such as Nest Cam monitoring).’
‘You can always turn the camera off,’ the company said.
It also notes that all Nest video history is ‘deleted on a rolling basis.’
‘That means that, depending on the Nest Aware subscription you have, older saved video is deleted from the cloud after a certain number of days.’
Users can still typically review video or photos from events within a three-hour history, even if they do not have a Google Home premium subscription.
Law enforcement throws cold water on burglary theory
Despite a report suggesting investigators were increasingly probing the possibility that Nancy Guthrie’s abduction on February 1 was a burglary gone wrong, an unidentified law enforcement source poured cold water on the theory.
‘This is not the working theory inside the unit,’ the unidentified source told Fox News, noting that nighttime residential burglaries are uncommon.
The source then went on to question why a burglar would target Guthrie’s home.
‘We don’t have any indication that [Guthrie] really kept anything valuable there, and if this was a burglary gone wrong, they don’t take the victim with them usually.’
‘I guess anything is possible but my gut says it’s something else entirely.’
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos also told the outlet that the information about the burglary theory ‘did not come from us’ and he has ‘no idea’ where it came from.
‘Even though that is one of many possibilities, we would never speculate such a thing,’ Nanos said.
‘We will let the evidence take us to the motive.’
