Tucson, United States. Authorities on Tuesday released video of a masked armed man tampering with a doorbell camera at the Arizona home of Savannah Guthrie’s mother shortly before the 84-year-old woman was abducted. Hours later, deputies detained a subject during a traffic stop south of Tucson, marking the first known arrest in the case.
Video released from doorbell camera
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department released footage captured outside Nancy Guthrie’s front door by a Google Nest camera. Authorities said the video was recovered from discarded data found in a “back-end” digital repository.
The sheriff’s department said the video showed an armed man in a ski mask tampering with the doorbell camera shortly before Guthrie was abducted nine days earlier in a presumed kidnapping for ransom.
Detention reported in connection with investigation
In an online statement Tuesday night, the sheriff’s department said its deputies had “detained a subject during a traffic stop” south of Tucson and that the person was “being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation.” The sheriff’s office declined to provide further details.
A U.S. law enforcement official separately told Reuters late Tuesday that a “suspect” had been taken into custody in Arizona, without elaborating.
Search conducted in Rio Rico
The sheriff’s department later reported that deputies and an FBI forensic team conducted a court-authorized search of a “location” in Rio Rico, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Tucson near the Mexico border.
A woman identifying herself as the mother-in-law of the detained man told CNN late Tuesday that authorities searched her Rico Rio home after telling her they were acting on a “tip that the lady was in my house.” She told CNN her son-in-law, a delivery man, had nothing to do with Guthrie’s disappearance, and said, “there’s nobody in my house,” adding that she had “nothing to hide.”
Timeline of disappearance
Authorities said Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the night of January 31, when family dropped her off at her home after she had dinner with them. Relatives reported her missing the following day, according to the sheriff’s department, after she failed to show up for Sunday church services.
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