A person of interest has been detained for questioning by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, in collaboration with the FBI, in connection with the alleged kidnapping of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie‘s mother, Nancy Guthrie.
Authorities told ABC News that the individual was detained south of Tucson, Arizona, and law enforcement is preparing to search a location in relation to the detainee. Additional information, such as the individual’s name, age, or connection to Nancy, is currently unknown.
There was also no indication whether the person detained was the same individual in the footage of a masked man approaching Nancy’s home released Tuesday morning.
Nancy, 84, has been missing for nearly two weeks and is believed to have been taken from her home against her will. She was last seen on Jan. 31 and has been without the medication she is required to take daily.
On Feb. 8, Guthrie and her siblings addressed their mother’s alleged kidnapper in an Instagram video. “We received your message, and we understand,” she said, alluding to a possible ransom note. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.” Neither Guthrie nor the authorities have detailed the message they received. “This is the only way we will have peace,” Guthrie continued. “This is very valuable to us. And we will pay.”
Savannah posted her own video on Monday, Feb. 9, calling on the public’s help in locating her mother. “Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find her,” she said, but noted that the Guthrie family is “at an hour of desperation and we need your help.”
On Tuesday, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department released the first photos of someone possibly involved in the alleged kidnapping. The images were taken the morning of Nancy’s disappearance, and showed an “armed individual,” wearing a ski mask, and appearing to tamper with the camera on Nancy’s front door.
The “previously inaccessible” images were uncovered after authorities spent several days working with “private sector partners” to recover any images or video footage from Nancy’s home that “may have been lost, corrupted or inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices.” The video that these images came form, the department said, was “recovered from residual data located in backend systems.”
