GUTHRIE FILES: New demands, suspects, the escape, and that camera
· Toronto Sun
As the investigation into the presumed abduction of TV star Savannah Guthrie’s elderly mom approaches the two-week mark, answers remain scarce.
Nancy was snatched from her Tucson mansion late on Jan. 31 or early on Feb. 1. So far, cops have not identified any potential suspects or said whether the 84-year-old matriarch is even alive.
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HERE’S THE LATEST
Since then, there have been at least two ransom notes sent to TMZ and now this latest one. The latest missive was sent to gossip site TMZ , demanding $67,000 in bitcoin for the “name of the individual involved” in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie.
Host Harvey Levin told Fox News he was given details of a “working bitcoin address.”
According to TMZ, the note stated: “If they want the name of the individual involved, then I want 1 bitcoin to the following wallet. Time is more than relevant.”
Levin added: “They said they want one bitcoin sent to a bitcoin address that we have confirmed is active. It’s a real Bitcoin address, and as they put it, time is more than relevant. So we have no idea whether this is real or not. But they are making a demand.”
According to the New York Post , the bitcoin address is not the same as one in the original ransom note.
DETAINED; RELEASED
A man detained for questioning on Tuesday in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie has been released, according to multiple reports.
The man was reportedly freed from custody early Wednesday, hours after investigators released chilling doorbell camera footage showing a masked person on the front porch of Savannah Guthrie’s mother the morning of her disappearance.
The man, detained after a traffic stop south of Tucson, told the New York Times , “I hope they get the suspect, because I’m not it.”
The man, a delivery driver, told reporters outside a home in Rio Rico, Ariz., that police released him after several hours. In an interview with KNXV, the man, only identified as Carlos, said he and his wife pulled their car over when they noticed that police were following them.
“They told me I was being detained for kidnapping. I asked them, ‘Kidnapping of who?’” the man said.
“I told them … I might have delivered a package to their house, but I never kidnapped anybody.”
NEST YIELDS INFO?
The frightening doorbell footage of Nancy Guthrie’s presumed suspect reveals critical information, a body language expert said. Susan Constantine told Fox News the video from the Google Nest camera reveals physical and behavioural traits. The man is wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun.
“Even with the mask on, we can still see his eyes, his body structure, his proportions and his gait,” Constantine told Fox News. “All of those things are identifiable.”
She added that the suspect’s jawline appears to jut out and also indicates a beard beneath the mask. Constantine said it also appears he is bald and was carrying a full backpack. He had “no signs of anxiety.”
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“Someone is going to notice something,” Constantine said. “The clothing, the gloves, the backpack — those are linkable details.”
HOW’D HE GET AWAY?
A former FBI agent said the lack of traffic cameras and street lights would have made it easier for Nancy Guthrie’s abductor to get away. So far, no vehicle has been linked to the kidnapper/kidnappers.
Retired FBI agent James Gagliano said the streets in the outer suburban area are the opposite of New York.
“I want you to think about Manhattan. This is exactly the opposite to that. This is almost like a Jackson Pollock painting,” Gagliano told Fox & Friends on Wednesday. “The way that the routes go in and out, the ingress could have been one way, and the egress could have been a different way.”
“There are multiple exits here. Some of them are covered by those dome traffic lights that keep an eye on traffic, determine whether or not the signals are working on time, and keep in mind the traffic patterns. Some of them aren’t.”
He added it’s unlikely the fiend fled on foot with his elderly victim in tow.
SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA!
The screengrabs and video footage are terrifying. A suspect wearing a balaclava and carrying a gun. The stills and video are from the Google Nest camera installed at Nancy Guthrie’s home.
However, she had not turned on the service. But on Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that footage had been recovered using residual data from backend systems after Nancy’s security camera was missing, and the grandmother didn’t subscribe to the camera’s backup storage plan.
“Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible,” Patel said in a statement.
One tech expert believes that the feds cobbled together what they needed from stored videos and data points. The FBI had earlier confirmed the Google Nest camera had been disconnected (presumably by the perpetrator).
Experts told NBC News it is possible to obtain data from the “complex infrastructure” of cloud-based cameras, including Google Nest devices.
Retired FBI agent Timothy Gallagher told the network that Guthrie’s Nest camera might have sent images to Google’s cloud service, or at least stored data points locally throughout the hardware of the device.
While you need to pay Google to save video clips from your Nest cameras, some devices record event histories and store them on-device. It’s possible that the suspect triggered the doorbell to store the “event history” in the cloud.
ZEROING IN ON THE GEAR
TMZ reports that the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department are zeroing in on the outfit the suspected kidnapper wore as he approached Nancy Guthrie’s front door. Police sources singled out the gloves, backpack, and gun visible on the Nest video. Law enforcement is now contacting manufacturers and retailers to figure out who may have purchased the items.
– with files from Ling Hui
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