The picture of the man on Nancy Guthrie’s porch may be from the day before, before she disappeared
A series of photos circulating of a man on Nancy Guthrie’s porch were not all taken the morning she disappeared from her Arizona home — one was taken earlier, two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said Monday.
The photo showed a person dressed in black with a mask and gloves and – unlike other photos released by FBI Director Kash Patel – without a bag.
Patel said the image appeared on the same camera on Guthrie’s front door in the Tucson area as other images captured on the morning of her disappearance on February 1.
Also mentioned is the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie
A spokeswoman for FBI headquarters declined to comment Monday on the possible dates of the arrests in the photo or whether he is the same person seen in another security video released by the agency.
The County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Monday that there is no date or time stamp associated with the photo and that any suggestion that it was taken on a different date is “pure speculation.”
“That’s all speculation,” Sheriff Chris Nanos told NBC News. “We understand the reasoning behind it, but again, I remind everyone, we follow the rules of evidence. And right now we have no evidence to suggest that it happened that day or days ago.”
Nanos said the photos do not come with dates or time stamps and officials believe most of the photos were from Feb. 1 only because they show the door bell disconnected.
Guthrie, 84, who is the mother of Savannah Guthrie, a colleague of “TODAY”, was last seen on January 31. It was reported that she went missing at noon the next hour when she did not come to watch the church service with friends.
The week-long investigation into her disappearance, now involving local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, has drawn international attention. Although authorities believe Guthrie may have been taken from his home, no suspects or persons of interest have been publicly identified.
The photos released by the FBI on February 10 were a significant development in the investigation of Guthrie’s possible abduction. They showed a masked, armed man later identified as the suspect appearing to tamper with Guthrie’s Google Nest camera.
Finding those pictures seems to be a challenge.
Guthrie didn’t have a subscription that would have saved the video, and Nanos said the camera went off at 1:47 a.m. There are multiple cameras inside Guthrie’s home, he said, and a person was found at 2:12 a.m., though it’s unclear which camera caught that movement.
Patel said the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department worked with “private industry partners” to recover the images from “residual data in backend systems.”
Based on the photos, officials released identifying information for the man, describing him as medium build, 5 feet, 9 to 5 inches, 10 inches tall. He was wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, which is sold only at Walmart, authorities said.
Investigators have found multiple sources of DNA in and around the area, but tests have yielded no results.
Officials are working to test samples found at Guthrie’s home – which do not match him or anyone known to have recently arrived – through a process called forensic genetic genealogy in hopes of identifying a suspect.
Nanos said the genetic sample is mixed and contains genetic information from at least two people, and it will take a long time to test.
