Experts say Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper made a grave mistake when he broke into Elder’s home in Tucson, Arizona, on February 1st.
On Tuesday, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department released previously unreleased images and video taken with a Google Nest camera installed next to Guthrie’s front door. It showed a disguised suspect tampering with the device and eventually disconnecting it and taking it with him.
Perhaps the suspect thought that disconnecting the connection would delete the surveillance footage, or at least make it unrecoverable considering Guthrie didn’t have a Google Home subscription, but that wasn’t the case.
Longtime private investigator Andy Kaye later explained to Page Six how investigators were likely able to recover the footage.
“As long as the camera is connected to the internet, it will record to its server. Without a subscription, Nest says, it will usually be quickly overwritten by the next image. But if the camera is disconnected, there should be nothing to overwrite on the server,” said the founder of Kay & Associates.
Basically, for those who don’t have a subscription to the service, it’s pretty much the same as a live stream sent to a server. The new image will overwrite the previous image.
However, since this is the last image before the suspected kidnapper disconnects the camera, it is the last image sent to the server, so it can be recovered.
Kaye branded the suspected kidnapper, who apparently wore the murder weapon incorrectly in his pants, as a “rookie.”
A Google representative did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Newly released photos and clips show an unidentified masked and armed person (also wearing a backpack) approaching Guthrie’s front door and fidgeting with the camera.
The person turned and grabbed some leaves on the ground and tried to use them to hide the camera.
“Over the past eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Office have been working closely with our private sector partners to recover images and video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost, damaged, or otherwise inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices,” an accompanying statement released by authorities to news outlets said, noting that the footage was “recovered from residual data on back-end systems.”
The statement continued: “As of this morning, law enforcement, working with our partners, has discovered new, previously inaccessible images showing an armed individual who appears to have tampered with Nancy Guthrie’s front door camera on the morning of her disappearance.”
Her daughter Savannah Guthrie posted chilling photos and videos on Instagram shortly after the release.
“Someone recognizes this person. We believe she’s still out there. Please take her home,” the Today host, 54, implored, adding, “We believe she’s still alive.”
Amid the frantic search for 84-year-old Nancy, multiple ransom notes were sent to media outlets with demands for large Bitcoin payments, along with deadlines and specific details about her and her home.
Last Friday, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced they were “actively reviewing” “new messages regarding Nancy Guthrie.”
The memo demanded $6 million in Bitcoin and set a deadline of 5pm (Montana time) on Monday.
As the deadline passed without Nancy being seen or paid, an FBI spokesperson said in a statement that the Guthrie family had no “ongoing communication” with the matriarch’s kidnappers.
Since the “nightmare” began, Savannah and her siblings – sister Annie Guthrie, 56, and annoying Camron Guthrie, 61 – have posted several videos on Instagram pleading with their mother’s captors and agreeing to pay for their return.
On the night of Jan. 31, Nancy, who lived alone, took an Uber to Annie and her husband Tommaso Cioni’s house for dinner, and later that night Nancy dropped her off, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office previously said.
She did not show up for church services and was reported missing the next day.
Investigators believe Nancy was abducted while she was sleeping and was “harmed” in the process, with blood stains found just outside her front door. She needs medication every day, but it was left untaken.
