Nancy Guthrie kidnapping: ex-FBI agent warns suspect may have fled to Mexico
Nancy Guthrie, 84-year-old mother of Today presenter Savannah Guthrie, may have been taken across the US-Mexico border, a former FBI agent has warned. No suspects have been named after five days.
Ex-FBI agent: Nancy Guthrie abduction was targeted, Mexico crossing possible
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC's Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, may have been abducted and transported across the border into Mexico, a former FBI special agent has told nypost.com — as mounting evidence points to a premeditated, targeted kidnapping.
The search entered its fifth day on Thursday, with the Pima County Sheriff's Department in Tucson, Arizona, yet to name any suspects.
"This was targeted"
Former Special Agent Tracy Walder, who served at the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office and previously as staff operations officer at the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre, told The Post that the location and layout of Nancy Guthrie's home ruled out an opportunistic crime.
"Her house is set pretty far back… It's on almost an acre of land. This isn't a place where the houses are really close together and people are looking for whatever's an easy opportunity," Walder said.
"I don't think some kind of botched robbery, because if it's a robbery, you don't want to burden yourself with a person that you're taking out," she added.
Walder said the perpetrator likely conducted surveillance over an extended period. "I think this is someone who probably established a pattern of life for Nancy. Sat in her neighbourhood, figured out her comings and goings. Was this Sunday dinner a thing she always did? It's known that she had staff who helped her because of her mobility issues. It sounds like she doesn't have staff 24 hours a day. So when do they leave? When do they come?"
Border crossing a serious possibility
Authorities have concentrated their visible search efforts on the Catalina Foothills, a low-crime suburb on the edge of Tucson carved out of the desert. Walder believes investigators are quietly casting the net much further.
"I definitely think that they would be expanding out the search, particularly all the way towards the border," she said. "Tucson's just about an hour's drive, 60 miles or so to the border, because you have to remember if this is a kidnapping, the kidnapper had at least nine hours until she was reported missing. You can get really far in nine hours."
Walder said co-ordination with neighbouring states and foreign authorities was likely already under way. "I would imagine they are working with all of their border states, California and New Mexico, and I think they're probably working with Mexican authorities as well."
Cellebrite kit spotted at the scene
Fellow former FBI agent Michael Harrigan pointed to a significant forensic detail: an investigator at the property was observed carrying a Cellebrite briefcase, a digital forensic device used to extract data from computers and mobile phones.
"Any cellphone that was in that area is going to have pinged off a tower. It's going to leave a signature or date timestamp that it was there," Harrigan told The Post. "They download the cellphone data from towers to identify what cellphones may have been in the area. And then they can go back with subpoenas or search warrants to the providers and then get the information on who that was."
Crime scene release draws criticism
Law enforcement drew attention earlier in the week when they vacated Nancy Guthrie's home, only to return to the property on Wednesday. Walder was openly critical of the decision to release the scene.
"I am very upset that they did that. Clearly it's a potential kidnapping situation. We don't know if they have a suspect. We don't know if Ms Guthrie is alive or not. If you have all of these questions, I don't care if you have fully processed a crime scene; you still wanna keep the crime scene," she said, adding that the Pima County department had likely not handled a case of this scale before.
Harrigan, however, read the return to the scene as a sign that investigators had received fresh intelligence. "Normally, once you surrender a crime scene, you're saying, 'I'm done with it, see you later, we've got everything we need.' But the decision to return indicates that from the time they surrendered the crime scene, some information — either forensic or testimonial — pointed to something in the residence that they may have missed or didn't consider at the time."
He suggested a specific item may have been identified as missing. "Maybe there's an item missing, and they're going to be able to collect potential DNA evidence around where that item was taken. That to me points that something came up after they cleared the scene."
Ransom note sent to media outlets
Officials' most concrete lead remains a ransom note sent to celebrity news site TMZ and two local television stations. The note contained insider details about the circumstances of the disappearance and a demand for millions of dollars in bitcoin. As of Thursday, the note's author had not made further contact and had not provided proof of life.
Harrigan told The Post he believes investigators have a firmer grip on events than public statements suggest. "I think law enforcement has a pretty good grasp on what happened at this point. They're just grinding through a lot of information here. Maybe they have an idea who it is, but their primary focus is always going to be: let's preserve life, let's get this person back, even if we have to delay an arrest or an interview of somebody who might be a suspect."
He outlined the legal reasoning behind that approach. "Once you arrest somebody, Miranda rights kick in and they don't have to say a thing. So you want to get that person back alive, or — worst-case scenario — recover the remains. If that, God forbid, was the worst outcome, you've got to have that closure for the family."
Family appeals directly to kidnappers
On Wednesday, Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings appeared in a video apparently addressed to whoever is holding their mother, pleading for those responsible to provide confirmation that Nancy is still alive. Authorities confirmed on Thursday that no proof of life has yet been received.
Source: The Sun