TUCSON, Ariz. — New security footage from Nancy Guthrie's porch the night she went missing, together with a lot of police activity across Arizona and the arrest of a guy, had stoked hopes that the police were getting closer to a big break.
But the man was let go after being questioned, so it was still unclear on Wednesday what the status of the investigation was into the disappearance of Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" program host Savannah Guthrie.
FBI officers carrying water bottles to beat the 80-degree F (26.7-degree C) heat went among rocks and desert plants to Guthrie's home near Tucson. They also spread out across a neighborhood about a mile (1.6 kilometers) distant, knocking on doors and looking through cacti, bushes, and rocks.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department reported that the probe is growing across the area and that several hundred investigators and agents are now working on it.
Two detectives came out of daughter Annie Guthrie's house in a nearby area carrying a paper grocery bag and a white garbage bag. One of them, who was still wearing blue gloves, also took a stack of mail from the mailbox along the road. They left without talking to the press.
Barb Dutrow, who was jogging through a neighborhood where teams were looking, said an FBI agent informed her they were looking for anything that might have been thrown from a car. While in town from Louisiana for a convention, Dutrow added, "I can't imagine how the family feels to have their mother taken."
A day earlier, officials reported they had detained a man near the U.S.-Mexico border. This was just hours after the FBI published videos of a person with a pistol holster, ski mask, and bag walking up to Nancy Guthrie's home in Tucson. The man told the press early on Wednesday that he had been set go after a few hours and had nothing to do with Guthrie's abduction last week.
Authorities haven't explained why they stopped the man on Tuesday, but they did say he was let go. The sheriff's department claimed that its deputies and FBI agents also looked for the man in Rio Rico, a city south of Tucson where he lives.
It was the latest turn in an inquiry that has had the country on edge since Nancy Guthrie went missing on March 1. It looked like the police weren't getting very far in figuring out what happened to her or who was to blame until Tuesday.
The FBI's revelation of black and white photos of a masked figure trying to cover up a doorbell camera on Guthrie's porch was the first big break in the case. But the pictures didn't show what happened to her or help figure out if she's still alive.
Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, claimed that investigators spent days looking for photographs that were lost, damaged, or hard to get to.
The pictures don't reveal the person's face, but authorities are hopeful that someone will recognize who was on the porch. The Pima County sheriff's tip line had more than 4,000 calls in the last 24 hours, the department announced on Wednesday afternoon.
For more than a week, officials have stated they think Nancy Guthrie was taken without her will. The last time she was seen was at home on January 31, and the next day she was reported missing. Authorities said DNA tests proved that the blood on her porch was hers.
Savannah Guthrie shared the new security footage on social media and added that the family thinks their mother is still alive.
The former NBC personality and her two siblings have said they are willing to pay a ransom.The former NBC personality and her two siblings have said they are willing to pay a ransom.
We don't know if the ransom notes that asked for money with dates that have now past were real, or if the family has been in touch with the person who stole Guthrie.
TMZ said that on Wednesday they got a message from someone who said they knew who the kidnapper was and that they tried but failed to reach Savannah Guthrie's brother and sister. TMZ stated that the guy wanted bitcoin in exchange for the information. The FBI didn't answer right away.
Officials have claimed that Nancy Guthrie takes a lot of different medicines, and they were worried from the start that she might die without them.__
This article was written by Associated Press writers Hallie Golden in Seattle, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Ed White in Detroit.
