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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

FBI Releases Footage From Nancy Guthrie's Doorbell Camera; Mass Shooting In Canada; FAA Closing Airspace Over El Paso. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired February 11, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:04]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: And while the search in that Arizona property is over, the sheriff's department says that the Nancy Guthrie investigation is very much ongoing. They hope that newly released images and video from her doorbell camera will help solve the mystery of this suspected abduction. CNN's Jake Tapper takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI released six brand new still photos and three videos of a potential subject captured from the front door of Nancy Guthrie's home on the early morning she disappeared. Nancy Guthrie's daughter, "Today Show" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, posted the video shared by the FBI and wrote, someone out there recognizes this person. We believe she is still out there. Bring her home.

FBI Director Kash Patel had said it appears the individual tampered with the camera. But these photos and videos were recovered through residual data located in back end systems. The FBI says the bureau had been working over the last eight days to recover any footage from Guthrie's home after the recording devices had been removed.

The reason why the break in the case was so significant today with the Nest camera footage recovered from Nancy Guthrie's porch is because it was thought that all that footage either did not exist or had been destroyed. And for the Nest cameras and ring cameras, and other security cameras of the houses around here, there is so much foliage like this that separates the houses from the roads and the houses from each other. None of it was any help at all.

Let's break down each of the photos here. In the first batch of photos that the FBI released, the first image shows a masked individual wearing gloves, and appears to have a gun at the front of their waist. You can also see the straps of a backpack. The second image, the person appears to hold up a plant as if to block the camera lens.

In the third image, the person is holding up their gloved hand to the camera. In the fourth image, the last from the first batch of photos the FBI released, you can see closer at the subject's eyes and mask. In a second batch of photos, the FBI released, you can see the person's full body gripping what appears to be a gun at his or her waist.

In another photo, you can see the build of the person right before the subject approaches the camera. The FBI also released video showing the person approaching the door with his or her hand on the holster. After spotting the camera, the person tries to cover it. As they turn around, you see a backpack with no label.

Then the person walks back to the entryway and bends over to grab something, and appears to tamper with the camera. In the last video, the person approaches the door looking down. You can see the person's gait, how they move. The White House today also weighing in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The President encourages any American across the country with any knowledge of this suspect to please call the FBI who continue to assist state and local authorities who are leading this investigation on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Jake Tapper, CNN, Tucson, Arizona.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: And 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 SENIOR PROFILER: 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 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SOLOMON: Authorities continue to ask anyone with information to contact the Pima County Sheriff's Department at the number on your screen, (520)-351-4900 or you can contact the FBI.

An update now on another breaking news story, the deadly mass shooting in Canada. There is still a lot we don't know this morning, 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 hurt.

[04:35:06]

These images show the area just outside the school. Two people were found dead at a residence thought to be connected to the incident and the suspected shooter, who may be female, is also dead. Investigators have not identified the shooter or the victims, nor have they revealed a motive. CNN's Paula Newton has more now from the Canadian capital.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is utter shock not just in British Columbia but throughout the country as the details of 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 the police say was found deceased of a self-inflicted injury.

I want you to listen now to the RCMP giving their latest update.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENT FLOYD, SUPERINTENDENT, 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 locate two deceased at another scene.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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 could 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: All right. Let's get to our other breaking news this morning. Concerning the airspace around El Paso, Texas, the Federal Aviation Administration is temporarily closing it for the next 10 days because of what the agency calls special security reasons. The restrictions will also apply to part of Southern New Mexico around the community of Santa Teresa.

Joining us now on the phone is Robert Moore, the Founder and CEO of the independent news organization El Paso Matters. Robert, do I have you?

ROBERT MOORE, FOUNDER/CEO, EL PASO MATTERS: Yes, I'm here. Hello?

SOLOMON: Good morning. Thanks for hopping on. What more can you share with us about this news? What are you learning?

MOORE: It's a big mystery. The local government officials were caught off guard by this. I think the military officials at Fort Bliss were caught off guard. But basically from what we understand that they're, from a 10 mile radius around the El Paso International Airport, it's essentially a no fly zone now. That includes military aircraft, medical evacuation, helicopters, law enforcement.

Nothing can fly. We've, obviously, seen anything like this here, at least since 911 when everything was grounded. The FAA is not talking. I was able to get through to an FAA official who actually was the one who put out the notice.

And he said he couldn't even tell me what it was about, not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't know. He was just told, get this notice out now. And so, it's this area around El Paso International Airport and El Paso is the nation's 23rd largest city. So this is a big deal.

And then to the west of El Paso, in Southern New Mexico, there's another pretty large area along the Mexican border that's also essentially a no fly zone now. The city government in El Paso put out an advisory an hour or so ago that basically all flights are grounded and for people to call the airport. But, you know, this is about a lot more than just air passenger travel. It's going to shut down all commercial flights, all private flights, all transportation of goods that come by air.

This region's kind of a major industrial hub along with Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, so this is going to be very disruptive and we just don't have an explanation at this point.

SOLOMON: Yes. And to that point, I mean, let's just circle back to that conversation you just shared with us with your source at the FAA. You said you were able to make contact with a source at the FAA. You asked what's going on here? And this person said, even I don't know, not because I can't share it with you, but because I don't know yet.

[04:40:13]

MOORE: Yes. And just to be clear, this isn't a source. They put the phone number for what they call the SOCS on the advisory. So I just called that number and identified myself as a journalist, and that was the answer I got, which was obviously kind of unnerving in and of itself.

SOLOMON: And so this closure is already in effect.

MOORE: Yes. And I noticed that Delta Airlines, which is one of the airlines serving El Paso, has already canceled its flights in and out tomorrow morning, expect to see the other airlines serving El Paso do that. The notices that the FAA put out are about as serious as you can get, basically warning that if you don't comply with the government is authorized to use deadly force to bring down the aircraft. I mean, it's a serious, serious advisory.

SOLOMON: Wow. Robert Moore, we appreciate you hopping on as information is still clearly quite limited. Appreciate the time this morning. Thank you.

MOORE: Thank you very much.

SOLOMON: We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back.

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[04:46:06]

SOLOMON: Back to our breaking news from Arizona, CNN affiliate KNXV reporting 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, which is south of Tucson near the Mexico border. It added, though, that the investigation is very much ongoing.

A source says that authorities still have not been able to determine the location of Nancy Guthrie. Now, these developments come after the FBI released this new video and images on Tuesday captured by Nancy Guthrie's Nest doorbell camera.

They show a masked, armed individual attempting to block the camera in the early morning hours of February 1st. Hours later, Nancy Guthrie was reported missing by her family, and authorities maintain their belief that she was abducted. They still have not publicly identified any suspect, but FBI Director Cash Patel says that the agency is looking at potential persons of interest.

And TMZ was one of the media outlets that received the initial ransom note for Nancy Guthrie. Founder Harvey Levin spoke to CNN earlier about what his law enforcement sources are telling him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARVEY LEVIN, FOUNDER, CNN: So we have talked with multiple law enforcement sources who are involved in the investigation, and they believe that whoever kidnapped Nancy Guthrie is from the Tucson area. One of the big reasons they believe that is because both ransom notes went to one or two local stations in Tucson, and the person who wrote the ransom note, and we are told that they believe that ransom note or they're operating under the belief now that ransom note is real, is legit, that it was written by somebody very familiar with the area, somebody in the area.

And also, when you look at what they said that -- they said, if you pay the money, we will get Nancy back to Tucson within 12 hours. So it's within a 700 mile radius of Tucson, but they believe it's within that television market. I think it's pretty easy to connect the dots that the person there, you know, who is completely covered up, who also has a gun, is probably the person who abducted Nancy.

Now, whether that person had help and that's the person who wrote the ransom note, I don't know. But they believe, and again, I don't want to say they are positive that the person is from the Tucson area. That is what they believe, and that they believe this ransom note is connected to the person who abducted Nancy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Criminologist and attorney Casey Jordan shared her thoughts with CNN about that new video and images captured by Nancy Guthrie's Nest camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST/ATTORNEY: First of all, we need to understand that the FBI and the Guthries may have had these images for a while, a day, two days. I have a hard time believing it took 10 days to get these images, even with the intense, you know, archiving they had to do to get them. So they may have been pursuing this all along.

According to reports, the Guthrie family does not recognize this person at all. They are clueless as to who this could be. But they probably spent a few days, at least a day, trying to figure out if they could figure out the identity of this person on their own. And it kind of coincides with Nancy's -- sorry, excuse me, with Savannah's video appeal yesterday afternoon for the return of her mother, Nancy, and really the first strength I have seen in the week from her.

You know, she was a different person. She looked ready for a solution, and she was begging for the help of the public. I think she did this on the eve of knowing this video would come out and knowing that those tips would come in during a personal appeal.

But we have to understand that a lot of these tips are not going to pan out. They may be well-intentioned, but wrong, they may be bad intentioned. Like, hey, I think I'm going to get my cousin Carlos into trouble because he kind of looks like this guy. They have to just take everything seriously. And I think we're seeing that unfold in real time right now at this house with the search warrant. We don't know how many tips they have had, but they are looking for the person on the porch or anyone who knows anything about him. And I do think it's just a matter of time before we know that person's identity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Kristian Hammond is an expert on AI and its uses. He's also a Computer Sciences Professor at Northwestern University. Here's what he told CNN about what details can be pulled from the limited doorbell camera footage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTIAN HAMMOND, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT: Facial recognition is really all based on relationships between objects on a 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, his -- 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.

Along with the facial recognition technology, there's gate 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)

SOLOMON: And the release of key images is often crucial to solving major criminal cases. And officials in Arizona are hoping for the same results in the Nancy Guthrie case. CNN's Brian Todd has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 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. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: 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 Dzhokhar 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.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: 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.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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, and blocks simply by following him on cameras along the route.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: 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.

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.

[04:55:19]

SOLOMON: Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Pima County Sheriff's Department at the number on your screen once more. That is (520)-351-4900. Or you can contact the FBI.

That'll do it for this hour of EARLY START, I'm Rahel Solomon in New York. I'll be back with another hour of EARLY START just after this short break.

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