The FBI announced on Wednesday that it was conducting an extensive search along multiple roadways near the Arizona home of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, who has been missing for 10 days. The development came after authorities released a man earlier in the day who had been detained in a traffic stop and questioned for several hours in connection with the investigation.
The FBI gave no indication of what it was looking for in its sweep of the Catalina Foothills area near Tucson, where Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing from her home on 1 February. A post from the FBI’s Phoenix bureau on X urged motorists and the media to remain especially cautious when passing law enforcement personnel near the roadways.
In a separate development, TMZ reported that it received a note early Wednesday from an anonymous person demanding one Bitcoin (about $67,000) from the Guthrie family in exchange for the name of the individual involved. The note has not been formally authenticated.
Meanwhile, an individual who identified himself to reporters as Carlos Palazuelos said he was the person held after a traffic stop on Tuesday in Rio Rico, about an hour’s drive from the Guthrie residence. Palazuelos, a 27-year-old delivery driver, told reporters he was terrified by his detention but insisted he was innocent, claiming not to have heard about the case. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced on Tuesday night that deputies had detained a subject during a traffic stop and that the person was being questioned in connection with the Nancy Guthrie investigation.
Chris Nanos, the Pima County Sheriff, said in a statement that his deputies and the FBI conducted a court-authorized search related to the investigation in Rio Rico, a town close to the Mexican border. Nanos gave no details about the search, and in a separate post on X early Wednesday said no press conference was scheduled at that time. Angelica Carrillo, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department, told the New York Times that investigators had completed their search of a property in Rio Rico.
The developments followed Tuesday afternoon’s release by the FBI of previously inaccessible still images and a 44-second video of a person in a ski mask prowling at the doorstep of Nancy Guthrie’s residence, captured by her doorbell camera on the morning of her disappearance. The black-and-white photographs depict a masked figure wearing gloves and a backpack approaching the door, and in one image the person waves what appears to be a plant. In another, they begin to dismantle the Nest camera. Also on Tuesday, the FBI announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
