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Sheriff Asks Guthrie's Neighbors to Share Ring Camera Video; Black Glove Found Near Nancy Guthrie's Home; Confusion Over Abrupt, Drastic Flight Restrictions Over El Paso; Dawson's Creek Star James Van Der Beek Dead at Age 48. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired February 12, 2026 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are so sorry for your loss, your son David, and we see the picture of him again right behind you. He'd be proud of you. Appreciate it.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So could a black glove and new door cam footage crack the case? The new reporting now on what investigators just found near Nancy Guthrie's home and their new request now to Nancy Guthrie's neighbors.

And 24 hours later, essentially, it's still not clear exactly what led to the sudden and unprecedented shutdown of airspace around El Paso. Lawmakers are now asking for more detailed and the mayor there saying this should have never happened.

And a heart stopping moment, a boat, oh my God, carrying a family of six overtaken by a wave in California, surfers nearby jump into action.

Sara's out today. I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: All right, just in this morning, the new alert in the search for Nancy Guthrie as investigators hunt for a reported suspicious vehicle. The sheriff is asking neighbors who live near Guthrie's Arizona home to check their doorbell camera footage on two specific dates, January 11th, between 9 p.m. and midnight, nearly three weeks before she disappeared. And on January 31st, between 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., that's the day that Guthrie was last seen and when a potentially suspicious vehicle was spotted right around 10 a.m.

Also the New York Post reports that investigators have found a black glove less than two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Now it's not known if it's the same glove worn by the person seen in the doorbell video released by the FBI, but clearly that is an area they will investigate. They're also focusing on a backpack that the person was wearing in the video, as CNN analysis finds that it appears to be an Ozark trail hiker pack sold by Walmart.

With us now is CNN legal analyst and author of the book, "Five Bullets, The Story of Bernie Goetz," Elliott Williams, and that book will matter in just a second. We'll get to it.

Also with us, retired NYPD officer, Jillian Snider. And Elliott, let me just start with you on the issue of the gloves. And we have, you know, this side-by-side image here. This is the glove found about a mile and a half from the home. This is the glove seen in the video.

So people who watch CSI, you know, we're all attuned to this, hey, if this is the glove, it's surely a slam dunk, case closed.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. The operative thing you said there is people who watch CSI and the world's kind of been ruined, for lack of a better term, by a lot of these cop shows, because everybody expects DNA in every single case, because that's what people watch on television. Now, that said, assuming you can link a glove or a garment to a person, it does a few things.

Number one, it actually tracks where that person was. Clearly, that person was in this brush or bramble or whatever else, number one. Number two, there might be DNA on that glove, both of the victim, but also from the suspect or the perpetrator.

He or she in a scuffle, you know, might be putting DNA in a glove. So it could be useful but.

BERMAN: Also two things can be mutually exclusive here. This could be key. If in fact it is the same glove seen in this video, it could certainly help them find the person. Maybe it could be an investigatory tool.

What happens in a trial later, whether or not you can prove it --

WILLIAMS: Right.

BERMAN: -- that's for later.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BERMAN: Right. Finding her here is absolutely the key. Do we have Jillian with us? OK, we don't have Jillian here.

But Elliot, obviously, one other item that's come up that's of huge interest right now is the authorities asking for camera footage on these two dates.

This is January 31st. This is obviously the night that Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy, went missing. But they're also asking for footage here from Sunday, January 11th, three weeks before she went missing.

This may be about a suspicious vehicle was found. But it is interesting that they're looking at two separate times.

WILLIAMS: Yes. It's either suspicious vehicle, suspicious person --

BERMAN: Suspicious.

WILLIAMS: I can't talk, suspicious entity that was there in some way. Clearly, they're seeing a link between the two. We don't know what.

But it seems obvious to me, having seen a lot of these cases play out, there's the only reason why you would be 20 days apart, is that someone or something seemed to be relevant. Not necessarily the slam dunk, smoking gun, but relevant.

BERMAN: Jillian, let me bring you into the conversation on this. These two dates now, you know, what happens if they do find a match between something seen in the neighborhood this day and then on this day?

JILLIAN SNIDER, RETIRED NYPD OFFICER: So what they're doing is they had to receive some sort of credible tip or something they believe to be pretty credible.

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And that is why, as Elliot said, they're asking for the corroboration from the neighbors. But if they can put something from the 11th together with something from the 31st, that gives them even more reasonable belief that this person or this vehicle is involved.

BERMAN: And also, give us a sense, Jillian, in your area of expertise, you know, this is the picture of the glove the New York Post says was found about a mile and a half. What are authorities now doing with this glove that they found?

SNIDER: It's going to be tested, obviously, for DNA, any trace evidence possibly to compare to Nancy Guthrie or anything found in the home. It is critical at this time because it does very much resemble the glove that we've all seen now in that video footage. But until they have any conclusive DNA testing, we're just going to have to wait and see.

BERMAN: Again, these are the two pictures side by side. This is the glove in the video here. This is the glove found on the side of the street.

You have to believe that testing is going on right now in a major, major way. So, Elliot, this is the image from the doorbell camera right here. Since this was taken, authorities say they've received thousands and thousands of new tips.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BERMAN: And I brought up your book, which is on the Bernie Goetz case, which is a fantastic book, by the way. Obviously, the two cases are wildly different. But something that was similar in this case, there were thousands of tips.

There was a manhunt for Bernie Goetz. There were thousands of tips. What role did they play?

WILLIAMS: Right, often these tip lines end up being therapy for people, either sadness about the case or whatever else. Now, often tips -- and this was the case in the Bernie Goetz story that I wrote the book about. It's not the tip that identifies the person, but it's the tip that pulls the thread that sends police down the road.

Like here in mine, it was there's a guy named Bernie who talks about not wanting to be mugged, who lives in my building. And then the police went down the road and found a photograph of him and found a gun license that he'd looked for.

The same thing might happen here. Even though you have tens of thousands of tips, someone says the thing that sparks the thing that gets police moving, that ultimately gets them the document or the hair or whatever.

BERMAN: In the Bernie Goetz case, it was a tip that ultimately gave them a photo to search for. You know, Jillian, in this case, you know, these tips, so many of them. What's the type of information you think authorities are most focused on?

SNIDER: So they're looking for what they already know, and that's why we've seen Pima County Sheriff be very close to the vest with what they're releasing, same with the FBI. We're not getting as much information as that we typically get. And for two reasons, one, because they want to make sure that they're not putting anything out into the public so they can't corroborate it.

They need to be able to corroborate it. So by releasing it to the public, that's going to give everyone in the public knowledge. Second, though, we want to make sure that we're keeping the victim who's still out there safe.

So they want to make sure that they're not releasing too much to put her into danger. But these tips are just so important. I think we saw after the footage in the first 24 hours, 4,000 tips came into my knowledge.

What law enforcement is going to do now is they'll triage those. They will investigate every tip, but they're looking for that little piece within that tip that they already know something to tie those threads together, as Elliott said.

BERMAN: So interesting that this may explain why we're not hearing as much from them, because they want to be able to maybe make more of these tips with the information that is not public. Jillian Snider, thank you so much. Elliott, great to see you.

Terrific explanations on this -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Chaos, confusion and flight delays. New details this morning about the confusion that is still surrounding the unprecedented closure of airspace around a major American city. Was it drones? Was it lasers? And who was manning them?

Plus, Pam Bondi went to the Hill, clashed with lawmakers in a way that we haven't really seen in quite a long time. And now a well-known conservative voice says Bondi should resign or be fired for what went down.

And pipe bombs and a homemade flamethrower. These are the deadly hidden traps set by a suspected drug dealer who says he was inspired by none other than the movie "Home Alone."

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Drones, lasers and still tons of questions this morning after the El Paso Internet -- the El Paso airport was completely shut down yesterday. All flights in and out of the airport suddenly canceled. Sources tell CNN this morning that the closure was due to Customs and Border Protection using a counter drone laser like the one you're seeing a demonstration of here to shoot down balloons.

Sources say the Pentagon did not coordinate with the FAA that this was happening. But you'll also remember the Trump administration initially claimed the closure was due to drug cartel drones crossing into U.S. airspace. So there's still a lot that is not clear.

One person, though, who's been quite clear is the mayor of El Paso, who said that this should never have happened. That mayor, Renard Johnson, joins me right now. Mayor, thank you for coming in.

I mean, yesterday played out truly. I mean, you were awake, I'm sure, dealing with it. And we were dealing trying to follow this even during our show yesterday as it was a 10 day closure.

And then all of a sudden, eight hours later, the shutdowns lifted. And the explanation from the Trump administration has really been conflicting, as I mentioned, from Mexican drug cartel drones to military testing, new laser counter drone technology. And now this reporting that Customs and Border Protection were deploying this laser sparked all of this.

Do you have a good handle on a clear reason for the airspace being shut down?

MAYOR RENARD JOHNSON, EL PASO, TEXAS: Yes, so imagine, Kate, my community, when we woke up, what we were told was everything is grounded and there was no information, but our city was going to be shut down for 10 days. And that's all the information we got. And still to date, still today, we have no information and we have no correspondence with the FAA why there was a shutdown in our community.

Keep in mind that, you know, 9-11 shut down our airport for only two days, but a drone was going to shut down our community for 10 days.

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It just doesn't make sense to us here.

BOLDUAN: You said yesterday, as I mentioned, this should never happen. You said you cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. But it sure looks like that's exactly what they did.

I mean, if not a reason what led to the 10 day shutdown, have you heard a good reason why they didn't communicate or try to coordinate with the city at all?

JOHNSON: You know, we haven't heard any good reasons of why they didn't coordinate with us. We have an emergency operations center that should have been looped in at the very least. And I want to tell you that this created complete chaos and confusion in our community.

You start shutting down health care -- Medivac operations. Kids were afraid to go to school. Parents were calling. They didn't know what to do.

So this was a major disruption in a city the size of El Paso, we're the sixth largest city in the state of Texas, we're the 22nd largest in the United States. And you can't just come in and shut down the airport without giving us any notice or telling us why you're doing it.

So that created, again, complete chaos in a major city. It would be equivalent to shutting down the airport in Dallas, Houston, New York. You just can't do that.

And then the other thing, Kate, is they were able to turn it back on within hours. So was it something truly that we were going to be harmed? We're all for national defense here in this region.

We have one of the very largest military installations here. So we're very accustomed to exercises in our region. But to shut us down for 10 days with no explanation, that was unacceptable.

BOLDUAN: So that does lead me to wonder, no matter what happened, what about going forward? Texas Senator Ted Cruz said after a closed door briefing with the FAA administrator, what he said is, "At this point, the details of what exactly occurred over El Paso are unclear." The top Democrat on armed services, Jack Reed, he said this, "The conflicting accounts coming from different parts of the federal government only deepen public concern and raise serious questions about coordination and decision making."

Which makes me wonder, do you now question the reliability of what's coming out of the FAA, the Pentagon, Customs and Border Protection after this? Because they said they could not assure civilian aircraft safety over this. But then everything's OK.

JOHNSON: Well, I think we all agree that, you know, there's got to be better communication. You just cannot come into a community the size of El Paso. And again, we're one of the safest cities in the nation.

You can't come in here and without any notice tell us that when you wake up the next day that your airspace is going to be shut down for 10 days. You just can't do that. So I think at the very least, we've got to communicate.

And I think that the FAA or whoever wanted to do this exercise could have communicated. They don't want to communicate with my office, at the very least, communicate with our emergency operations center. But let them know -- BOLDUAN: But that's my thing, Mayor. Why not communicate with your office, especially after the fact? Like you really have not heard from the FAA or anyone within the federal government since this happened yesterday?

JOHNSON: No, we still have no correspondence, we don't know anything more today than we knew yesterday. All we did is we woke up and your airspace is shut down for 10 days. And that's what we're going on today.

I mean, you know, the stories that that you're reporting about drones and balloons and things that that's the information we're getting.

BOLDUAN: Mayor Johnson, I really appreciate your time. We will definitely stay close on what more we learn about this and what that means for your great city. Thank you.

This morning, new details about what James Van Der Beek's family has been facing along with and after his long battle with colorectal cancer. Now, just after his death, a fundraising effort for his wife and six kids has raised more than a million dollars to help keep them in their home. More this morning also about the cancer that killed him.

Plus, the head of Instagram takes the stand in a landmark trial about social media addiction. What he means when he testified that hours and hours of daily use is, quote, problematic, but not an addiction.

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BERMAN: Today so many are mourning the loss of James Van Der Beek. He died after battling colorectal cancer for years. He was just 48, young, right?

And this shines a light on a growing problem. With us now CNN Health reporter Jacqueline Howard. In that age, when we're talking about colorectal cancer, is very significant.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: You're right, John. It's so significant. And sadly, we are seeing more cases and sadly more deaths in adults under the age of 50.

So when you look specifically at that age group, it's actually estimated that there's a new diagnosis every 25 minutes when you look at people under 50. And colorectal cancer has now become the deadliest cancer type in this age group. So John, when you look at data from the American Cancer Society, it shows that since 2005, the cancer deaths from specifically colon and rectal cancers inched up by 1 percent each year since that time.

And so now, colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths. It's followed by breast cancer, and then brain cancer, and then lung cancer, and then leukemia. So on that list there, that's where you see the top five cancer types causing the most deaths in this young age group.

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And on that list, John, colorectal cancer is the only one that, again, we're continuing to see inch up, and we're continuing to see increases in deaths, which makes this so concerning. It's the exception when you look at that list, John.

BERMAN: Are there any answers as to why?

HOWARD: You know, some scientists point to diets, ultra-processed foods, obesity. Some scientists say there are genetic factors we can't ignore. There are environmental factors we can't ignore.

But overall, we do need more research in this area to pinpoint what exactly is causing this. And it likely could be a combination of those factors. But I will say, the takeaway message for everyone out there, John, if you do not have a family history of this disease, or you don't have a prior personal history, then you should start screening at age 45 if you are at average risk.

And the symptoms to look for, if you ever see unusual blood in the stool, if you ever have unusual changes in your bowel movements, if you have lingering pain or lingering sensation of having to use the bathroom, these are all things to talk with your doctor about. And most of us know our own bodies. If we feel like something's off, call your doctor.

BERMAN: Yes, these are all such important warnings for people in this age group, you know, 45 and older. It's, you know, it's my cohort. So we all care deeply about this.

Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for this reporting.

All right, just into CNN. This is an image of what neighbors of Nancy Guthrie are receiving from investigators asking them for to check for footage from their doorbell cameras on two specific dates. We're going to tell you why they're all receiving this note.

And how Lindsay Vonn is redefining success after undergoing a third surgery following her crash at the Olympics.

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