From Nancy Guthrie’s porch on the night she disappeared, along with intense police activity across Arizona and the detainment of a man, had raised hopes that authorities were nearing a major breakthrough.
By that point, the man had been released after questioning, leaving the status of the investigation into last week’s disappearance of Guthrie— the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host—unclear on Wednesday.
On Wednesday morning, FBI agents spread out across a neighborhood about a mile from Guthrie’s home, knocking on doors and searching the dense desert terrain filled with cacti, bushes and boulders. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said several hundred detectives and agents are now assigned to the investigation, which is expanding in the Tucson area.
The day before, authorities said they had stopped a man near the U.S.-Mexico border, just hours after the FBI released videos of a person wearing a gun holster, ski mask and backpack approaching Guthrie’s home in Tucson. Early Wednesday, the man told media outlets he had been released after several hours and had nothing to do with Guthrie’s disappearance last week.
Authorities have not disclosed what led them to stop the man on Tuesday but confirmed he was released. The sheriff’s department said its deputies and FBI agents also searched a location in Rio Rico, a city south of Tucson where the man lives.
It marked a development in an investigation that has progressed slowly since Nancy Guthrie disappeared on Feb. 1. Until Tuesday, it seemed authorities were making little headway in determining what happened to her or finding who was responsible.
The black-and-white images released by the FBI—showing a masked person trying to cover a doorbell camera on Guthrie’s porch—marked the first significant break in the case. But the images did not show what happened to Guthrie or help determine whether she is still alive.
FBI Director Kash Patel said agents are working to find lost, corrupted or inaccessible images.
Even though the images do not show the person’s face, investigators are hopeful someone will recognize who was on the porch. The Pima County sheriff’s department said Wednesday afternoon that more than 4,000 calls had come into its tip line within the past 24 hours.
For more than a week, authorities have said they believe Nancy Guthrie was abducted. She was last seen at home on Jan. 31 and reported missing the next day. Authorities said DNA tests showed blood on her porch was hers.
Savannah Guthrie posted the new surveillance images on social media and said the family believes their mother is still alive.
Savannah and her two siblings have indicated a willingness to pay a ransom.
It is not known whether ransom notes demanding money with already passed deadlines were authentic, or if the family has had any contact with whoever took Guthrie.
TMZ reported it received a message Wednesday from someone claiming to know the kidnapper’s identity and that they had unsuccessfully tried to reach Savannah Guthrie’s brother and sister. The person asked for bitcoin in exchange for the information, TMZ said. The FBI did not immediately respond to a message.
Authorities have said Nancy Guthrie takes several medications and there was concern from the start that she could die without them.
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Associated Press reporters Hallie Golden in Seattle, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.