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CNN's Breaking News Coverage on the case of Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired February 11, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is CNN Breaking News.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world, I'm Rosemary Church.

We are beginning with brand new developments in Arizona in the desperate search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie. I want to go live now to Rio Rico in Arizona.

Lillian Donahue is a reporter for CNN affiliate station KNXV. Lillian, I understand you have some breaking news.

LILLIAN DONAHUE, KNXV REPORTER: Yes, things have been changing by the minute here in Rio Rico. I've been here since just before 9:00 last night. But in the last 10 minutes, we heard from my colleague, Ford Hatchett and photojournalist Danny Bavaro.

They were just up the street at another scene that was connected to this, where forensics analysis were going through this car behind me. They then saw the man that self-identified said that he was the one that was detained overnight for questioning in this search for Nancy Guthrie.

He said that he spoke with him, that he didn't even know who this woman was, that he works as a delivery driver and that, you know, we saw him drive his car back into this neighborhood, which has been shut down since well before 9:00 yesterday afternoon, Rosemary.

CHURCH: Lillian, I mean, this is a crushing blow, isn't it? There was an expectation that this man who had been detained for questioning could perhaps lead to the location of Nancy Guthrie. That does not appear to be the case, does it?

DONAHUE: It doesn't appear at this hour, too. And like I said, we are actively trying to confirm all of this with authorities. But as you can see behind me, the only thing left in this neighborhood is us and this car and the man inside who our team spoke with 30 minutes ago saying that he was detained, that he was then released and that he had no idea about all of this.

Another woman I spoke with when we first got on scene at 9:00 yesterday, you know, last night, she said that she was the mother-in- law of this man. She said that there was no way that he could have done this. She was very adamant about this, very kind of frantic in the fact that they were going through her house.

We saw plenty of county officials coming through, grabbing things with obviously going through the back part of the neighborhood. We saw forensic vehicles leaving.

But just in the past 10 minutes, they did open up the scene. They took down the crime scene tape. We saw Carlos, the same man that our other team spoke with that our Ford Hatchett spoke with just recently on all of that.

So we're actively trying to get more information and get this confirmed with officials as it just happened right now.

CHURCH: Absolutely. And Lillian, are you getting any sense of what happens now? I mean, what are next steps?

DONAHUE: Well, I can assume the investigation is ongoing. It's going to be ongoing as much as they shut down here. They also shut down another about a mile south of here with that other scene where they were looking through this car.

I assume that that is, you know, they're going to go back to wherever the drawing board was right before this, because this started with a traffic stop with the Pima County Sheriff's office. So with this sheriff's department, they said that they had to share the stop. They asked him questions, detained him throughout the night, and I assume they're going to be going back to other leads.

We have heard from the sheriff's department throughout this time here reporting on the ground that, you know, they have seen an uptick in people calling with tips. They've asked folks to not call if it's just to share their opinion. They really want to keep those lines of communication open.

But they've seen a lot of information flooding in. I guess now a lot of it has to parse through that information as they go back to, you know, other tips that have been coming through.

CHURCH: Lillian Donahue from CNN affiliate station KNXV, I want to thank you so much for giving us that update. You will, of course, remain there and we'll come back to you if there's any more developments. I appreciate you talking with us.

All right, I do want to bring in retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander and hostage negotiator Dan O'Shea. Dan, thank you so much for talking with us. I know you've been on for many hours and so we certainly appreciate you staying with us.

[03:05:00] We've just heard this news now that after law enforcement had detained this man at a traffic stop, had questioned him, he's now been released. And apparently there is no link or no apparent link to finding Nancy Guthrie. What are your thoughts here?

DAN O'SHEA, HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR, AND RETIRED U.S. NAVY SEAL COMMANDER: Well, this is part of the process. People don't realize just how challenging it is to find someone who's been taken hostage or kidnapped. It is literally finding the needle in a haystack and false leads and stops like this. That is just part and parcel of the story.

This investigation kind of broke some ground today with that release of that video of the suspect who was, we know now we can say, not purportedly, but was involved in the abduction of Nancy Guthrie. But we hope that the leads are going to be coming in from the tip line.

And we heard from your reporter that the tip line has received a flash of new calls coming in and it's going to be more false stops. There'll be more folks detained, but that's what they're going to have to do. That's what it's going to take to get this to be resolved.

CHURCH: And this is the problem, isn't it? When a video like this is released to the public, you're going to get false leads. As you mentioned, this takes many hours to try to determine if the person that's being questioned is going to lead to the location of Nancy Guthrie. And of course, all of this comes after that video was made public Tuesday of that masked person on the front porch of Nancy Guthrie's home.

How valuable is this video showing that person with a gun in a holster attached near his belt buckle displaying a lack of urgency? It seemed as he tried to cover up the doorbell camera. What was the value of that video? What did you see in it when you watched it?

O'SHEA: Well, to be honest, there is a treasure trove of information, everything from every article of clothing to the backpack to the style of balaclava, all that thing can be all those items can be drilled down.

And, you know, the law enforcement FBI said we didn't have a person of interest. We had no suspect. We know they've had this video for a while. So they've done an exhaustive research.

They know probably everything he was wearing, where it was manufactured and where it's sold. And that in and of itself is going to help in their investigation. I think they because of that Tuesday night, 5:00 p.m. deadline, I think they wanted to let the individuals involved with the abduction or individual to be lulled into complacency.

And I guarantee you, whoever is that individual in that video, he's running scared right now. And he might be even prone to more desperate measures. But I think we've reached that point in the investigation after that 5:00 p.m. deadline came and went.

I think that was the perfect timing. And we know we've seen activity, even though this false lead with this stop, it is a move in the right direction.

And it shows those in those responsible that the noose is tightening around them ever more. And that's hopefully we know it's going to be a treasure trove of weeds coming from that video yesterday.

CHURCH: Right. And, of course, we do have to be careful as we continue to cover this about what we do and don't know. And, of course, we don't know necessarily that the ransom notes are linked to the person we see in that video, do we?

O'SHEA: No. And to be frank, I've always thought the ransom notes were more of a diversion, a red herring.

I've always thought from the beginning, this is not a traditional kidnapping for ransom scenario. The group did not play by the rules and by releasing the ransom notes to the media, including a tabloid network called TMZ. They were almost guaranteed, you know, that those details were going to get out.

And a lot of that was that as much as I'm sure they probably wanted money, but I don't know if it's money as much as they wanted the media circus to keep the diversion away from them. And I think that was kind of a tactic to help them cover their tracks. But, you know, I think now they realize that the FBI and local law enforcement have probably been on their trail from the beginning.

But they haven't found the critical intel that's going to lead them to the suspects and hopefully Ms. Guthrie. And that's why this new video was released and the new stage, a new phase in this entire investigation.

CHURCH: And Dan, your area of expertise is as a hostage negotiator. So when law enforcement do find somebody who could possibly potentially lead them to the whereabouts of Nancy Guthrie. What questions would you be asking as a hostage negotiator to try to locate her once there's someone to question?

O'SHEA: Well, you know, from my experience in Iraq, whoever they roll up is going to have a lot of things on them from the vehicle they're driving to their cell phone, their DNA on them.

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And before they even ask the first question, they will do an entire forensic analysis of everything, including their cell phone. There's a lot of evidence that will come out of things on the radio towers, DNA collected from the car.

And so the first goal is you go in with all the information you've collected off the cell phone and others, and you kind of paint the picture that, hey, we already know everything. We know you were there, we have this in this and you presented that.

Listen, the gigs up. We know you're involved, we know you're guilty. Come clean. Give us a location of Ms. Guthrie. And I think that's probably what the tactics will start. But time will

tell. We've got to get someone who's connected to the kidnapping, you know, in custody first before we can go there.

CHURCH: Yes, that is certainly key to this. Dan O'Shea, thank you so much for staying up so late and staying with CNN to take us through all of this. We appreciate it.

O'SHEA: Thank you.

CHURCH: Well, authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Pima County Sheriff's Department at the number on your screen, that's (520)-351-4900 or contact the FBI.

And we have more on the Nancy Guthrie case, of course. But there's been a deadly mass shooting at a school in Canada where these sorts of attacks are extremely rare. And we will have the details on that after a short break.

Plus, authorities released new video in the apparent kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, how investigators were able to recover the footage. That is next.

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CHURCH: Back to our breaking news story. Authorities have cleared the scene after searching a home in southern Arizona as part of the investigation into the apparent kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie. The home is located in Rio Rico, not far from the Mexican border and about 60 miles south of Tucson, where Guthrie was last seen.

A person was detained during a traffic stop in Rio Rico and was questioned by law enforcement, a source tells us. But we've learned that person has been released. And despite the developments, authorities have still not been able to locate Nancy Guthrie.

Well, we are also learning more about how authorities came across the video from Nancy Guthrie's doorbell camera. Investigators undertook the extremely technical task of recovering any footage that might have been captured. But they needed help to make that happen.

CNN's Hadass Gold has more on that.

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HADASS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Authorities had previously said that Nancy Guthrie's doorbell camera, that was a Nest-branded doorbell camera, had recorded movement, but that Nancy Guthrie did not have a Nest cloud subscription that would have been able to save those videos and made it easily accessible for them to find. Also, the camera itself was removed or damaged, adding another obstacle. But now we do have some of this video that was recovered. And how it was recovered is FBI Director Kash Patel said that the video was covered from residual data located in the back-end systems.

Now, we've not heard officially from Google yet, which owns this Nest camera brand. But what could have happened, according to experts that I've spoken to in the field, is that Nest, even if you don't have a cloud subscription, it will save around three hours worth of video from events so that you can at least go back and watch a little bit of what has happened using their app.

And so for Nest to be able to record that video, it has to be living somewhere. That data has to live somewhere and it lives on Google's cloud.

So what could have happened is that Nest did record those three hours of videos. It was sent to Google Cloud and it was deleted as it should have been. But in computer systems, even when something is set to be deleted, it doesn't necessarily completely disappear and stop existing.

And that's because it doesn't stop existing in the computer system until it is overwritten by something else. So it's possible that out of pure luck and happenstance, this footage was sent to be deleted. But because it had not yet been overwritten by something else, the engineers were able to recover it.

There's a few other theories of what could have happened as to why they were able to recover this. But one thing that is clear is that Google, according to a source familiar telling CNN, did work with the FBI to help recover this. Google, of course, owns Nest.

NBC was reporting that Google put their top engineers on this and that they were working very hard to try and recover this video. And from people that I've spoken to who work in this space, they say this was a huge lift for Google. They said it's very atypical for Google to put so much effort into this and that they said it is essentially almost a miracle that they were able to recover this video that could be a key part in cracking this case.

Hadass Gold, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joining us now is retired LAPD detective, Supervisor Moses Castillo. Thank you, sir, for talking with us.

MOSES CASTILLO, RETIRED LAPD DETECTIVE: Yes, thank you.

CHURCH: So in what appears to be a major blow to this investigation, we have just learned that the person who had been detained for questioning by law enforcement has now been released. And we still don't know where Nancy Guthrie might be. What's your reaction to this latest development and what needs to happen next?

CASTILLO: Well, we're back to square one. And the bottom line is my appeal is to that one individual that has intimate knowledge about this case to please come forward and call the police. That person may be involved.

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That person is probably not happy on how things are going, how things ended up, how they escalated so quickly. And I'm hoping that they have a remorse and a change of heart and say, you know what?

I'm out, I want out. I want to call the police. And I'm going to turn myself in and I'm returning the other party responsible.

And more importantly, just take Ms. Guthrie to a local emergency room and drop her off since she will get the medical attention she needs and we'll deal with legal consequences later.

CHURCH: And we pray and hope that all of that happens. But once law enforcement get another tip and perhaps that leads to another person to detain and question, what do they need to be asking that individual to help them locate Nancy Guthrie?

CASTILLO: Well, let's get more information. Let's get the details. Let's try to interview this tipster in person, if at all possible, to kind of size them up.

Are they credible or are they just, you know, chasing us, making us chase ghosts, if you will?

So it's going to be very difficult. We're going to have some, it's going to be a roller coaster ride.

So what I do appreciate by the FBI and all the local officials, it appears that they're operating on what we call an A and B watch. They're working 12 hours on, 12 hours off. They're working around the clock because any tip can come in at any time.

CHURCH: Yes, of course. And on Tuesday, that new video was released to the public showing a masked individual approaching Nancy Guthrie's home with a holstered gun near his belt buckle, which a lot of experts have found very odd, and a clear lack of urgency as he tried to cover the doorbell camera with flowers. What did you see in that video that was significant to you?

CASTILLO: Well, the video shows us his height, his weight, his mannerisms, the way he walks, his gait, his clothing is very specific.

So somebody out there says, hey, you know what? This is my brother. Hey, this is my uncle, this is my cousin, this is my neighbor.

Somebody knows this individual. Please come forward, do the right thing. Time is of the essence. We need Ms. Guthrie in the hospital as soon as possible.

CHURCH: And I was listening earlier and I heard, I mean, there is facial recognition. Obviously, that's not helpful in this particular instance because of the mask. But apparently there's also gait or someone's gait. There's

recognition for that. But how do you utilize that if this person isn't in the system to pick up on their particular individual gait?

CASTILLO: Well, oftentimes there is some special software that goes through all social media platforms and tries to pick up any postings of this individual of his likeness and hopefully get some leads. But the bottom line is we need, no matter how great technology is or no matter how great of an investigator you are, you need the help from the public.

So please, I'm appealing to you that has that intimate knowledge. Pick up the phone, call the FBI and do the right thing.

CHURCH: And what was very interesting too is apparently a tattoo can be seen. It's only a part of a tattoo through the clothing, just in a gap there. What happens then? I mean, how do you actually search particular tattoos? Is that only helpful if someone who knows that person recognizes that tiny portion of a tattoo?

CASTILLO: Well, absolutely. Anybody that's familiar with that individual and recognizes that tattoo, they should call the police right away. But also there is some databases that police have access to and they'll do a search of tattoos and to see who else is in there.

And I'm sure they've already done this. They scour the area for any sex offender who lives in the area. Anybody who has been on parole recently, any of those investigative techniques, I'm sure already done.

And I'm hoping that that one person still comes forward with that information that could break this case.

CHURCH: Moses Castillo, thank you so much for talking with us. We do appreciate it.

CASTILLO: Thank you.

CHURCH: Well, an update on another breaking news story, the deadly mass shooting in Canada. There's a lot we still don't know. But the shooting happened in a remote town in the province of British Columbia.

At least seven of the victims were fatally shot. Dozens of others were injured and two people were found dead at a residence thought to be connected to the incident. The suspected shooter, who may be female, is also dead.

Canada's Prime Minister wrote that he is devastated by the horrific shootings and that he joins Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly. British Columbia's public safety minister is also speaking out.

[03:25:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NINA KRIEGER, BRITISH COLUMBIA MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND SOLICITOR GENERAL: This is only the beginning for so many who have families who have been impacted by today's tragic events. The shockwaves of this horrific event will continue to reverberate through the community and throughout the country for some time.

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CHURCH: CNN's Paula Newton has our report from the Canadian capital.

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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's utter shock, not just in British Columbia, but throughout the country as the details of this begin to become clearer. Now, police are not giving very detailed updates.

But what we know is that at least nine people have died and also apparently a suspect in this incident. Police say was found deceased of a self-inflicted injury. I want you to listen now to the RCMP giving their latest update.

SUPT. KEN FLOYD, ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE: Multiple injuries and multiple deceased were inside the school as officers progressed through the scene, locating them and triaging those events. We also located two deceased at another scene.

NEWTON: So just to understand what happened here, this was a small community that was put on alert for an active shooter in the early afternoon and police arrived at the school and you just heard there from RCMP as well, though, at least a couple of dozen people were treated either at the local clinic or had to be airlifted for the injuries.

Police not saying anything really about those injuries, also not saying who the suspect is, what they know about the suspect, except saying that it is a link to the alert and the description in the alert. The description was of a woman in a dress with brown hair.

They are asking for patience as they try and sort out these details, but you can imagine that in this community right now. The trauma people are dealing with, they were in lockdown for so many hours and so many parents and relatives and loved ones unable to even go to the high school to find out what was going on. They themselves in lockdown and now everyone trying to determine exactly what happened, where their loved ones are, and really the kind of support, continuing support that this community will need after such a tragedy.

Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.

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CHURCH: Just ahead, more on our breaking news in the Nancy Guthrie case, I'll speak with a law enforcement expert about the investigation and the search warrant executed at an Arizona home.

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[03:30:00]

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CHURCH: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom," I'm Rosemary Church. I do want to check today's top stories.

We are following major developments in the Nancy Guthrie case. Authorities in Arizona executed a search warrant at a home in Rio Rico, about 50 miles south of Tucson. The Pima County Sheriff's Office said a subject was being questioned after a traffic stop, the person who was detained has now been released.

Authorities are investigating Canada's deadliest school shooting in decades. At least nine people were fatally shot and dozens more injured in British Columbia. Two of those killed were found in a home believed to be tied to the incident. Police say the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, no word yet on a possible motive.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Israel's Prime Minister in the Oval Office in the coming hours, sources told CNN that Benjamin Netanyahu plans to discuss possible military options against Iran. This comes after U.S. diplomats held early talks with Iran on a new nuclear deal. Israel is doubtful that those negotiations will succeed.

All right, I want to head back to our breaking news story from Arizona. We are just learning that a person detained for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie case has now been released.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department also says that investigators have completed their search of a property in Rio Rico, south of Tucson, near the Mexico border. It added that the investigation is ongoing. A source says authorities have still not been able to determine the location of Nancy Guthrie.

Christian Hammond is an expert on A.I. and its uses. He's also a computer science professor at Northwestern University. And earlier he told CNN what details can be pulled from the limited camera footage of the person of interest.

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CHRISTIAN HAMMOND, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROF., NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ADVANCING SAFETY OF MACHINE INTELLIGENCE, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT: Facial recognition is really all based on relationships between objects on the face. It's not just your eyes, it's how wide your eyes are compared to your eyebrows, compared to your nose, your mouth. All of these ratios and we don't have a lot of ratio data coming off of these images.

But we have to remember that faces aren't the only things that we can recognize. And so how he moves, his size, the clothing he's wearing, the backpack, these are all now features that can be used to find things in images. And that's the thing that is exciting here, is that there's so much new information that can be used to actually mine other video sources, like the neighbors.

[03:35:05]

Along with the facial recognition technology, there's gait recognition technology, which is just as accurate. Because the way we walk and the way we move is as much a fingerprint for us as our fingerprints, as our faces. And what's going to be interesting here is figuring out a way to take all of these features and use them to guide the mining of other videos.

And when I mention the neighbors, it's like the reality is that there will be people in the neighborhood who also have cameras. And those cameras may have a different subscription service, and there may be more data on those cameras. And getting to that might actually get to more information about the movement, not in the house, but outside the house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: All right, let's go to Sunny Slaughter now. She is a law enforcement and litigation expert and joins me from Washington. Thank you so much, Sunny, for talking with us.

SUNNY SLAUGHTER, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND LITIGATION EXPERT: Good morning, Karen. Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: Of course, and of course, we are learning that the person who had been detained for questioning by law enforcement in Rio Rico has now been released. It's a major blow in this investigation. We still don't know where Nancy Guthrie might be. What is your reaction to this latest development?

SLAUGHTER: You know, (inaudible) it is all a part of the process (inaudible) and what has to happen when they are looking for persons of interest, people to question, and those that they are trying to identify that may have information. These individuals may not be directly related to a case, but they may be indirectly.

So they are following up on all the tips. This was another tip and a potential lead. They have done that.

They have secured the warrant, processed everything that they need to, and now they are moving on to the next one. Unfortunately, it's upsetting that we still do not know where Nancy Guthrie is. But we may see this play out more than once.

And I want to ensure the community that they are working diligently. Law enforcement is doing what they must to locate Nancy Guthrie. And they continue to need your tips.

And this CNN coverage is really critical. So please continue to call those in.

CHURCH: That is such an important message. And, of course, at the same time, we can't imagine the nightmare that this has been for the family, of course, especially when you think that you might have a lead here. So what needs to happen next in this ongoing effort to find Nancy Guthrie?

SLAUGHTER: So, Karen, that's a great question. Law enforcement just needs to continue to do what they have been doing.

That is follow every lead, continue to set processes in place that if they need to execute another warrant, they have the information already in a template. They can release it, drop it in, release it quickly, and process things and move forward.

This is going to be a daunting task. We hope within the next 24 hours that we will locate Nancy Guthrie. We can bring her home. The family can get resolution.

But we can also do it in a way that it does not impact the prosecution of this case, which means ensuring that everyone is focused on constitutional standards, not impacting people's lives unnecessarily. And although the individual was detained, questioned, and their home was gone through, you know, it's just a part of what's happening in these type of cases.

And we just want to bring Nancy Guthrie home to her family. I hope I'm wrong about what I said 24 hours ago and that we can find her, bring her home, and get resolution to this case in one form or another.

CHURCH: And, Sunny, once law enforcement are able to find someone perhaps linked to the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, what is the line of questioning that helps them find her, helps them locate her?

SLAUGHTER: So one of the things that they want to ask is, where is she? That is the first question. Where is she? Where can we find her? Is she safe? Is she well? And then they want to get into who else is involved.

But they might not want to start out with those questions because they're going to need to build a relationship with this individual. They're going to need to get the confidence, and they're going to need somebody that is a seasoned analyst that watches all of the video and then a seasoned person that can do the questioning. And you want to have two people in the room, you want to know eventually why this happened.

[03:40:00]

Are there other people involved, and is there something else that has been happening behind the scenes that may impact other people's lives? Are there other people that have been taken that they don't know about that might not be this high profile?

So they want to take care. They don't want to be disruptive. They don't want to come off like you see on television. They want to get the answers.

But the first question is, where is Nancy Guthrie, and how can they retrieve her safely? How can they get to her and ensure that they can bring her home one way or another? CHURCH: And Sunny, on Tuesday, a new video was released to the public

showing that masked individual approaching Nancy Guthrie's home with that holstered gun near his belt buckle and a clear lack of urgency as he tried to cover the doorbell camera with flowers. What did you see when you looked at that video?

SLAUGHTER: Well, first I was confused by the gun, the whole abstract that was used. I don't know what that was. And then the behavior, as you said, very relaxed.

And there was some form of preparation, but then no form of preparation because they didn't come able to take down the cameras. They were trying to be discreet in getting the cameras down, but then were not prepared.

The backpack, I want to know what's in that backpack.

Did they tie her up? Was there ropes or handcuffs in there? What is it that they have done to Nancy? Why were they there?

But I believe that they have been there before. I've said this before. I believe this person is familiar and familial.

That does not mean somebody in the family is involved, but maybe this doesn't have anything to do with Savannah Guthrie and maybe other siblings.

Maybe someone is trying to attack them, and this is the way that they did it. This person with this camera, they are trying their best, but we can see based on the body, the weight, the height, the shoes.

I was thinking about the shoes. If they can recover those shoes, they can get some of the gravel and some of the articles, you know, fabrics in that area to determine that that person was there.

Cell phone in the pocket, geo locations.

There's a lot there in this video.

CHURCH: Right, but still so many unanswered questions here. Sunny Slaughter, thank you so much for joining us and trying to answer some of those questions. I appreciate it.

SLAUGHTER: Thank you for having me.

Well the release of key images is often crucial to solving major criminal cases. Officials in Arizona are hoping for the same result in the Nancy Guthrie case. CNN's Brian Todd has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): April 2013, in the harrowing days right after the Boston Marathon bombing, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was working the case, says investigators were at a dead end and debated internally whether or not to release images they had of the suspects. They decided they had no choice but to release them to the public.

ANDRE MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: You always want to work silently and quietly if you can. But the fact was we were at an end point. There was no there were no other leads to pursue and I think that's very telling for what you're seeing in this case.

TODD (voice-over): The release of those images led to a flood of tips from the public. Law enforcement was then able to track two brothers, Tamerlan and Jahar Tsarnaev, to a Boston suburb. Tamerlan died following a standoff with police, his younger brother was captured hours later.

September of last year, moments after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University, surveillance footage showed a man getting off a roof of a nearby building.

STEVE MOORE, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Then to have somebody getting down off that roof with something that could be a weapon, again, it's not just helping the case, it's breaking the case.

TODD (voice-over): Those images were seen by a Utah man whose instincts told him the person in the black T-shirt and sunglasses was his son. He confronted his son and convinced him to turn himself in.

December 2024, following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan, it wasn't just the video of suspect Luigi Mangione lowering his mask to flirt with a woman in a nearby hostel that got him caught. It was a series of videos seemingly tracing his every move.

MOORE: The thing that got me, the thing that really told me that the world had changed, is when they were able to trace him to and from the shooting scene. I mean blocks and blocks, simply by following him on cameras along the route.

TODD (voice-over): Five days after the shooting, the manager of a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania called to report a suspicious customer, saying other customers there recognized the man's eyes and eyebrows from the surveillance images. Mangione was then captured.

[03:44:58]

TODD: Retired FBI agent Steve Moore says with the release of those images in the Guthrie case, the person seen in those images could now be rattled. That in and of itself, he says, could help investigators, because as more tips now come in stemming from those images, the person could alter their behavior and make a mistake.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

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CHURCH: A former FBI profiler analyzes the chilling doorbell video. Up next, she tells us what it would take for investigators to be able to find answers from a suspect during interrogation. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:50:00]

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CHURCH: More on our breaking news coverage of the Nancy Guthrie case. CNN affiliate KNXV reports the person who was detained for questioning in the Nancy Guthrie investigation has now been released. Law enforcement detained a person at a traffic stop near Tucson.

Authorities have also completed their search of a home in Rio Rico, Arizona. The Pima County Sheriff's Department added the investigation is still ongoing, but did not provide further details.

Former FBI senior profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole tells us what stood out to her when she watched the doorbell video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI SR. PROFILER: One aspect of the videos that I find particularly impressive, several things, but as he's on the porch, the subject is on the porch and he's walking around. He does not seem to really manifest really strong signs of being nervous, even though he supposedly is about ready to enter a home where he's going to carry off a kidnapping.

So he moves slowly, he walks slowly, he looks around, he makes an adjustment when he has to smudge up the camera, he comes back, but he just is not racing around, nor does he appear jittery, and that's impressive to me that he's like that. You can only get that kind of calmness from two things, your personality and your experience being in situations like this before. And in this case, it could be a combination of both.

When you talk about planning, it doesn't have to be perfect. And if you, for example, you take a look at the gloves that this person was wearing, they were so thick that it was very difficult, it looks like it was very difficult for him to even move his hands. And so to be able to do something to that camera lens, it may not have been possible to pull out something from the backpack and use that to put up against the lens.

It may have been too difficult to rip some tape and put that up against the camera as well. So he was able to come up with something that allowed him to at least probably smudge the front of that lens. He didn't have to roam around the yard, he found it pretty quickly, and he came back and he used it.

So it's not perfect, but he was able to adjust pretty quickly. So where does he get that ability to do that really when he's under pressure to just about initiate a very serious crime?

So I thought that that was really interesting as well. Then you combine it with the clothing and the type of clothing that he was wearing and the type of backpack that he was wearing. That to me shows certainly a certain amount of planning to put that outfit together and to have it serve a purpose, which seems to be to minimize the amount of physical evidence he might leave at that scene.

Just based on what I saw there at the front door, this is someone that's probably not flappable. Someone that would come into the interview and maybe be more relaxed and calmer than a lot of people would be. And what's important as an interviewer is that you match their emotion.

So if they're not getting really upset and angry, you can't do that either. And as a matter of fact, what you have to do is you have to come in and realize they don't have to talk to you. They can shut it down as quick as they walked in that room.

So you want to be very careful about coming in and being too strong with them and starting to show, look, I'm with the FBI. I need information and you're not leaving here until you give me the information I need.

I doubt that that would work under this circumstance unless this person shows a totally different side to them that we haven't seen at the porch. So I would tend to be listening, I would want to hear what they had to say, I'd be very careful about not bringing up Nancy right away.

I'd want to find out what the attitude is towards the victim because if Nancy does not matter, if Nancy was collateral damage in this case, and I hate to use that phrase, but if that's how he viewed it, to bring her up right away is probably not going to work. Instead, you have to focus the interview on the person sitting in front of you.

[03:55:04]

If you don't, you'll lose them. So when you get in there, you've got a couple of minutes just to read the room and to read the suspects. If you read it wrong from the beginning, they will shut down on you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Pima County Sheriff's Department at the number on your screen, (520)-351-4900 or contact the FBI.

I want to thank you so much for joining us this hour, I'm Rosemary Church. "Early Start" with Rahel Solomon starts after a short break.

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