The Pima County Sheriff’s Department issued a separate statement online late on Tuesday saying that deputies had “detained a subject during a traffic stop” and that the individual was “being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation.”
No further details were immediately available from either the US official or from the sheriff’s office. And it was not clear whether the “suspect” taken into custody and the individual described as a “subject” detained in a traffic stop south of Tucson were the same person.
But the apparent breakthrough came hours after authorities released video and photos of an armed man in a ski mask tampering with the door camera of Nancy Guthrie’s home near Tucson on the morning that she was taken from her residence.
The images released by the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department show the man, also wearing gloves, a backpack and what appears to be a gun in a holster, approaching Nancy Guthrie’s front door.
A law enforcement official said the images recovered from a Google Nest camera on the home’s front doorbell were recorded in the early hours of Feb 1, about the time that authorities have said Guthrie was presumed to have been kidnapped for ransom.
The sheriff’s department has said she was last seen on the night of Jan 31, when her family dropped her off at her home after dining with her. Relatives reported her missing the following day, according to law enforcement, after she failed to show up for Sunday church services.
Sheriff Chris Nanos has said the door bell camera of Guthrie’s home was disabled in the wee hours of Feb 1. He said Guthrie’s pacemaker disconnected from her phone about a half-hour later, and she was presumably taken from the house by force.
DNA tests confirmed that traces of blood found on the front porch were from Guthrie, officials said last week. Law enforcement and family members have described her as being of limited mobility, in frail health and in need of daily medication to survive.
The video and detention of a suspect marked a major turning point in an investigation that had seemed to stall in recent days. The sheriff’s department and FBI said late on Monday that they had yet to identify suspects or “persons of interest” in connection with the investigation.
At least two purported ransom notes have surfaced since Nancy Guthrie vanished, both of them delivered initially to news media outlets. But no proof of life is known to have surfaced following her abduction.
Savannah Guthrie, 54, and her brother and sister have posted several video messages on social media pleading for the public to help with tips and for the kidnappers to return their mother or communicate with them directly. The family has said that they would pay a ransom.
Savannah Guthrie, a longtime co-anchor of the NBC morning news program “Today,” shared the new images on Instagram on Tuesday with the caption: “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”
The elder Guthrie’s disappearance has attracted wide attention. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt began her press briefing on Tuesday by saying she and President Donald Trump had just reviewed the newly released images in the case.