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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
What Happened To Nancy Guthrie? Aired 8-9p ET
Aired February 15, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
PAULA REID, CNN ANCHOR: You've seen in the footage wearing an Ozark Trail Hiker backpack. Investigators also analyzing DNA that was found at her property which officials say does not match Guthrie or anyone close to her.
And stay with CNN for "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER," "What Happened to Nancy Guthrie?" That starts next.
Thanks for joining me tonight on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid. Have a great evening.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
It's been more than two weeks since Nancy Guthrie, mom of NBC's Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona. This past Friday night, SWAT teams were seen mobilizing in Tucson, another sign of the intense investigation underway by local police and the FBI to find the 84-year-old.
CNN's Ed Lavandera has been on the ground in Tucson reporting on this story, and over the next hour he'll bring you the latest on what we know about the police activity, along with the other leads and evidence investigators are following in order to try and find out what happened to Nancy Guthrie.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, DAUGHTER OF NANCY GUTHRIE: Nancy is our mother. She was taken and we don't know where.
CAMRON GUTHRIE, SON OF NANCY GUTHRIE: Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you.
S. GUTHRIE, DAUGHTER OF NANCY GUTHRIE: We beg you now to return our mother to us. We will pay.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Savannah, right here please.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Savannah, right up here.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Savannah Guthrie.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Savannah is one of the biggest stars on all of American television.
MATT LAUER, FORMER "TODAY" SHOW HOST: I'm pleased to be sharing this new day with Savannah Guthrie.
S. GUTHRIE: Good morning. It's an honor to be here.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The 54-year-old veteran news broadcaster has been the co-anchor of NBC's the "Today" show for well over a decade.
STELTER: The "Today" show averages about three million viewers at any given time, but she's also all across NBC's programing. She's there on election night. She's there for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. She is a household name for tens of millions of people.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Savannah's illustrious career has also included interviews with countless high profile figures.
S. GUTHRIE: Can you tell us anything about the status of the female American prisoner being held by ISIS?
Did you take a test on the day of the debate, I guess, is the bottom line.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I probably did.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But the professional success, she says, doesn't compare to the loving home that shaped her.
S. GUTHRIE: I am so proud of my family, and I have a sibling that I think our country can be proud of, too.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Savannah has an older brother, Camron.
CHARLES GUTHRIE, SON OF NANCY GUTHRIE: I'm lieutenant Colonel Charles Guthrie, and I'm Savannah's big brother.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And an older sister, Annie.
S. GUTHRIE: Annie's like the blood going through my veins. She's always been there all my life.
ANNIE GUTHRIE, DAUGHTER OF NANCY GUTHRIE: My sister and I are like the sun and the moon. Together we make a whole.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Their parents, Charles and Nancy.
S. GUTHRIE: My father was a man of deep faith and conviction.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Their father, Charles, died from a heart attack when Savannah was just 16 years old.
S. GUTHRIE: When my dad died, our whole family just hung on to each other for dear life because it was such a shock. We were just trying to figure out how to become a family of four, when we had always been a family of five. LAVANDERA (voice-over): Their father's sudden death brought Savannah
and her siblings all closer together especially to their now 84-year- old mother, Nancy.
S. GUTHRIE: Are you ready to cook?
NANCY GUTHRIE, SAVANNAH GUTHRIE'S MOTHER: I'm ready.
S. GUTHRIE: This is something I really remember you making all during our growing up.
N. GUTHRIE: Oh, yes. But it's on a special occasion.
S. GUTHRIE: Because it takes time.
N. GUTHRIE: We were always close. After Savannah's dad died, it's the kids and us. We just gravitated toward one another. Don't you think?
S. GUTHRIE: I agree 100 percent. I just want to say thank you for being a great example and for being my mom not just when I was a little girl, but right to this day. And I will never stop needing you.
N. GUTHRIE: Oh, it's an honor and a privilege. It really is.
ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: Nancy has a security camera mounted just to the side of her front door. And that security camera records an image of an individual approaching the front door.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): It's February 1st, around 1:47 a.m., just outside of Tucson, Arizona, roughly four hours after Nancy returned home from dinner at her daughter Annie's house nearby.
MCCABE: He walks up to the door and he begins using his hand almost kind of cupping his hand in an odd way and placing it over the lens of the camera.
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We see him turn around and walk back towards the entrance area of the porch. He doesn't walk with any sort of urgency. He seems to be very comfortable. He's looking on the ground, clearly looking for something. He then starts pulling some vegetation off the ground, some weeds or grass. He walks back to the security camera and then he appears to take that vegetation in his hands and tries to put it up against the lens of the camera.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): According to authorities, Nancy is on the other side of that door, alone in the primary bedroom of her nearly 4,000 square foot home, presumably fast asleep.
MCCABE: She's an 84-year-old woman with significant health issues. It's unlikely that she's somebody who'd be up at 2:00 in the morning.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The alleged kidnaper eventually disconnects the front door security camera. Less is known about what happens next. MCCABE: How did this person get into that residence? We haven't really
heard any officially released information from the investigators indicating that they found evidence of a forced entry into the house. We don't see any of the typical tools of forced entry that you would expect to see in the hands of a burglar or a kidnaper, or somebody who's trying to break into a house.
You don't see a crowbar. You don't see tools like screwdrivers to defeat a lock. And in fact he's wearing gloves that appear to be so thick that would also impede his ability to pick a lock.
BRYANNA FOX, FORMER FBI AGENT: Theres a few different possibilities for how this crime unfolded. The door could have been left accidentally unlocked, which happens quite frequently, and they could have let themselves in, or they could have entered through another pathway in. From a backdoor, a window, or sometimes even through a roof entry.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): At 2:12 a.m. motion is detected by a camera but investigators have not announced where or even what was detected, and the video from this time has yet to be recovered.
FOX: That makes us think that someone was going maybe in or out or coming from another zone in the property at that time. So perhaps there were two people on site or the person was moving around the property and trying to find a way to get in.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Sixteen minutes later, at 2:28 a.m., Nancy's pacemaker disconnects from her phone. The pacemaker, an implanted device that keeps the heart beating at a safe rhythm, sends a signal to her phone when she's in close proximity.
FOX: There's a disconnection. It means that the pacemaker and it's, you know, connected to the device were outside the radius so she was either being removed from her bedroom or taken out of the house at that time.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): In all, 41 minutes passed from the time her doorbell camera was disconnected to the time her pacemaker app lost connection with her phone.
FOX: That is quite a long time for somebody to be around a property that they don't own. My PhD research was on burglary, and the thing that I noticed over and over when talking with these burglars was they wanted to be in and out as fast as possible.
MCCABE: If you're going to her house knowing that you're going to kidnap her and take her away, you would need a car to transport her in. And she's not someone who can walk or cover long distance on foot. So it seems like this guy had to have had a car somewhere. But we really have no trace of that just yet.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: The challenge they face is we think all of this happened around 2:00 in the morning. This is a road in the middle of a suburban community, but a suburban community in the desert. There are no street lights there. So there's not an awful lot that a camera at a great distance is going to pick up that's definitive. This is not like the same event occurring on a suburban street in Southern California or in New York City.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Nonetheless, investigators have requested those living within a two-mile radius of Nancy's property to send in security camera footage for the entire month of January up until February 2nd.
MILLER: That matches up with some of these reports they got about suspicious vehicles. Did somebody's camera capture it? Crowdsourcing these questions shows that they have some leads that they have tried to run down themselves, that they think someone out there may have the key to.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The key to find Nancy and who abducted her. Investigators say the man is approximately 5'9" to 5'10" and has an average build.
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The backpack, they say, is a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack.
JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: There are certain clues that authorities are hoping the public will be able to notice. The first being the way this person walks. All of us have a unique gait. Sometimes criminals might try to hide the way they walk in their gait but it's very, very difficult to do. And so that's one thing that law enforcement is hoping that the public will do. See something in that video that they may recognize.
MCCABE: The mouth area of the ski mask it's pretty clear that he has facial hair. There's a spot just above the center of his top lip, where you can clearly see what appears to be a dark, close cropped mustache. And on the lower mouth, you can see some areas that are likely signs of a goatee or possibly even a full beard.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Former FBI agents say there's one thing that stands out the most about this man.
CHIP MASSEY, FORMER FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: He's got a holster in his front and it's holding a gun that's ill-suited for that holster.
MCCABE: He has a pistol in a holster that's hanging not where you would expect it to be. It indicates to us that this is not someone who was trained in carrying or deploying a firearm.
HARVEY LEVIN, TMZ FOUNDER: Whoever wrote this ransom note is smart.
MCCABE: If a normal investigation is a chess match, a kidnaping investigation is a sprint.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Sunday morning, February 1st, 11:00 a.m. The morning service at Good Shepherd Church in New York City was just beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, and welcome to church. My name is --
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Nancy Guthrie has been a devoted congregant for years.
STELTER: Back during COVID, when so many worshipers moved online, Nancy started to livestream Savannah's church service in New York. Nancy was going to be heading over to a friend's house kind of like a book club where people would get together on a predictable schedule. This routine was shattered that Sunday morning when Nancy didn't show up for the service.
CAMPBELL: Someone got concerned and called the family. They came to the home, noticed that she wasn't there. They called law enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- in reference a missing person.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): At 12:03 p.m., Pima County 911 dispatched police to Nancy Guthrie's house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To reference Nancy, a white female.
MCCABE: The first few hours are critical. Making a quick assessment of the situation and then calling in the assets you need to help you kind of really expand that investigation are absolutely key.
STELTER: The family members initially thought that she was in a hospital somewhere. The initial thought among the siblings was not about an abduction. The initial thought was about an injury.
CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF: We're pretty much just throwing everything at this as we can.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Helicopter and drones in the air. Investigators and search and rescue dogs on the ground.
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CAMPBELL: They very quickly determined that something has gone wrong here. First, you had the security camera that was actually taken from where it was supposed to be. Authorities noticed blood that had been splattered along the front porch area. Her medication was still at home. Her cell phone was still at home, and she was nowhere to be found.
MCCABE: The fact that she is not there and her phone is, is a red flag. The fact that she's not there and her Apple watch, which is synced to her phone and also to her pacemaker, is not there. And of course, her vehicle is present at the residence as well.
NANOS: It's very concerning what we're learning from the house.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The scene was so concerning they called in the homicide team.
NANOS: You know, it's not standard. Typically our homicide team comes out when we have a homicide, a body.
CAMPBELL: He wanted to bring in that team with those skill sets if this case ended up going in that direction.
MILLER: Homicide is usually where the very best and most experienced investigators are. And I think Sheriff Nanos took the signal from what the scene looked like that, A, she didn't wander off into the desert. B, she's not suffering from any lack of mental acuity. There is blood on the front steps and there's damage in the house. And this appears not to be gentle or voluntary.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Early Sunday evening, the Pima County Sheriff's Department first posted Nancy Guthrie was officially a missing person. By 9:00 p.m. it was becoming clear it was something more.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So you suspect foul play?
NANOS: I am not ruling it out.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Daybreak, February 2nd.
CRAIG MELVIN, "TODAY" SHOW CO-HOST: A deeply personal story for us, Nancy Guthrie, Savannah's beloved mother has been reported missing in Arizona.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The morning message from authorities was clear. Savannah Guthrie's mother was not just missing. She had been taken against her will.
NANOS: We believe now after we processed that crime scene, that we do in fact have a crime scene, that we do in fact have a crime.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Now, close to 40 hours since she was reported missing authorities were not sharing much about that crime scene.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there any like additional information that you can give us on what may have alluded to this being a crime scene?
NANOS: You know, I wish I could. I really do.
FOX: The ability to know the balance for how much we want to release so the public can be engaged, so they can be part of this fight, to find this missing person, versus releasing too much information where you may have disclosed something that will be critical to an investigation later on. That's a very, very difficult balance.
CAMPBELL: There was obviously a lot of frustration both by law enforcement, by members of the public, and certainly by the Guthrie family to have answers about what actually happened here.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The FBI was now involved.
MILLER: FBI headquarters operational technology division, the cellular telephone tracking people, crisis negotiators in case there's contact with a kidnaper, and FBI profilers. That's a lot of wheels turning within the first 24, 48, 72 hours.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Forty-eight hours into the investigation with no sign of her mother or word from the captors, Savannah Guthrie asks people to pray.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Our station received a message via e-mail. A possible ransom note linked to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.
LEVIN: We received an e-mail at TMZ from somebody purporting to basically issue a ransom demand.
LAVANDERA: Tuesday February 3rd, there's a potential break in the kidnaper's silence. There are reports that ransom notes have been sent to two local news stations in Arizona and to TMZ in California. And those notes contain details about Nancy Guthrie's home. The notes also make a ransom demand for $4 million to be paid in Bitcoin by Thursday, February 5th, and a second deadline of Monday, February 9th at 5:00 p.m. but this time the ransom would be $6 million.
(Voice-over): I spoke to Harvey Levin at TMZ headquarters in California.
Can you talk about what the tone of the letter was like and what it told you about who this kidnaper might be, or what it says about their personality?
LEVIN: There is no doubt in my mind that whoever wrote this ransom note is smart, educated, if you look at it, the construction of this letter is, you know, very organized. The grammar is perfect. This is a smart, tech savvy person. And I say tech savvy because we were unable to trace its origin. And I believe, based on what I know, at least at this point, authorities have not been able to either.
LAVANDERA: Are there any clues in that first letter where they're from and where they might be?
LEVIN: We immediately started thinking that this is somebody who was familiar with Tucson, somebody who knew the Tucson television market because the letter went to two local television stations there, and our law enforcement sources ultimately told us they believed as well that the kidnaper is from the Tucson area.
MCCABE: So the first job for the investigators when they receive a ransom note is to subject that note and that demand in whatever way it's conveyed to a certain level of vetting. You're looking for key facts that are now consistent with what you saw at the crime scene. All that is -- could lead you towards believing, OK, this could be the real thing. So now we want to start interacting with this person, and we want to make a demand for proof of life.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And that demand would come on Wednesday, February 4th.
S. GUTHRIE: We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. STELTER: NBC viewers always see Savannah at her best. All of a sudden,
we were seeing Savannah at her worst, having to look straight into a cell phone camera and beg for her mother's life. This video was so jarring. It was so difficult to watch. As someone who considers Savannah a friend, it was just utterly heartbreaking.
CAMPBELL: They wanted to humanize Nancy Guthrie and essentially tell the captor, this isn't someone who's just there to help you gain a quick buck, but this is a person. Someone that we love. Someone who is a valued member of our community.
MASSEY: Before that video comes out, we had -- we were just in isolation and the captors are in control. And that message that Savannah makes is that she is trying to direct this person and get them to open up that dial, that communication, inspire them to reach out directly.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And while the family appealed to the captors, authorities returned to the crime scene.
FOX: There's always this kind of willingness to go back over the scene. If we didn't get anything we were looking for, let's go back again. New eyes, new perspective. New information.
MCCABE: If a normal investigation is a chess match, a kidnaping investigation is a sprint. It is an absolute all-out sprint. From the first moment that that case file ends up on your desk, you are going as fast as you possibly can in every direction to try to get that victim back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight we devote this time to our dear sister Nancy.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): A victim, a mother, a grandmother, a woman of faith.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We pray together for God to intervene.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Will those prayers be answered?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We pray for our sister Nancy. Guide her, comfort and sustain her in this moment of need. Speed the way of those who search for her. Bring her swiftly to safety.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): As her family and community prayed into the night for Nancy Guthrie's swift return, investigators search on day five began with more clues and even greater questions.
NANOS: The blood on the porch. It came back to Nancy. That's what we know.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): DNA analysis confirmed the blood splatter found on the front porch of her home was indeed Nancy's.
MCCABE: It kind of confirmed what we all expected, that she was taken by surprise and taken by force in the middle of the night. We don't obviously know the circumstances of the injury, but of course the victim is always the most likely person to suffer in that interaction.
NANOS: I'm going to introduce, bring up here Heath Yankee, the special agent in charge for the state of Arizona out of Phoenix.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): After five days of investigating, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos welcomed an influx of federal investigative resources.
HEATH YANKEE, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: And we're going to start today by announcing a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
MCCABE: Investigators are going to use any technique or approach that they think could possibly increase the amount of information that's coming into the investigation. Those leads, those tips, that's literally the oxygen that keeps an investigation growing and expanding.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But so far, the tips that had trickled in did not appear to be bringing investigators any closer to Nancy Guthrie.
I think the question that so many people have is that we are five days into this. There are no videos or photographs. Does that mean you're not getting anything that is of true value?
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NANOS: We're still in the process, right? We've gotten some things back, but there's nothing that that you would say, aha, this is it.
YANKEE: We have brought in our critical incident response group from Quantico, Virginia. Members from our cellular analysis survey team are here, and they continue to collect and process digital information.
COOPER: And reports of ransom notes.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Ransom notes --
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: New information on the ransom letter.
LEVIN: Demands made in this ransom letter.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The most widely debated piece of digital information so far was, of course, the ransom note sent to various media outlets.
LEVIN: The subject in the e-mail was "Savannah Guthrie Ransom Note." It's basically one big paragraph.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Investigators were poring over every word. FOX: We're immediately thinking, how do we know that this is a real
kidnaping and a real ransom note? Or that the ransom note came from the actual abductor?
MILLER: What are the tells in the language? You know, in the old days, because of things like handwriting analysis, a ransom note was put together by cutting letters out of a magazine. But we live in the world of A.I. where you can take a script and say, make this a formal letter, make this in a certain wording or cadence, who or where your writer is from based on language, could have been disguised through technology now.
MCCABE: Nobody can be sure that this is the real thing. There was a reference to the location of the Apple watch that led investigators to believe that the person who wrote that letter may have actually been in the house or had direct knowledge of the abduction.
LEVIN: The other thing that really struck me was the floodlight, that the ransom letter doesn't call the floodlight a damaged floodlight. It says destroyed. That's an interesting word. Destroyed means somebody took an affirmative step to destroy it. It's not an accident. Somebody destroyed it.
MCCABE: All of these factors line up in a way that I believe suggests that someone Nancy Guthrie knows may have been involved. That would be the universe of family members, friends, social acquaintances, and people who come to the house to perform some sort of service.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Does the ransom note that you're working establish any communication protocols in it?
YANKEE: No, it does not, and that is what I think is important, that if someone has Nancy and is demanding ransom, that there is communication with the family.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): According to investigators, that communication never came. Neither did any proof of life. Yet the note's first deadline of four million in Bitcoin to be paid by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday was quickly approaching.
MCCABE: Those are very typical tactics. Simply placing the recipient under the pressure of a real or perceived time deadline makes it more likely that they'll make a defensive decision and comply. I'm sure that it had its intended effect on the investigators in that -- and the family in that it placed them under more pressure.
LAVANDERA: Choice one, pay the ransom, four million in Bitcoin. Hope it's real and they give her back. The risk is you're out millions of dollars without finding Nancy. Then there's choice two. You let that deadline pass without payment and you risk that the ransom note is real and your chances of finding Nancy grow even smaller.
It is a dreadful decision. But that deadline of 5:00 p.m. on February 5th came and went, and there was no word from authorities that a payment was ever made. MCCABE: But you really have to give the family predominantly and also
the investigators a lot of credit. I think what they did here was they made rational hard decisions. Despite that -- those deadlines, and of course, we won't know the full story of how all that's worked out until we find Nancy Guthrie.
C. GUTHRIE: Whoever is out there holding our mother we want to hear from you. We haven't heard anything directly. We need you to reach out, and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there a possibility that this is not a ransom situation? And if so, what else could it be?
NANOS: Your guess is as good as mine. I would say absolutely there's a possibility that this is not -- nothing to do with the kidnaping.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Up next.
S. GUTHRIE: We received your message and we understand.
FOX: When I first heard it, I was terrified.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:39:22]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Ransom revelations as the search for Nancy Guthrie enters its sixth day.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Friday, February 6th, a new note that appeared to be from the 84-year-old's captors.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. The Tucson television station that received one of the ransom notes for Nancy Guthrie has a new message.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There has been a potentially significant development at approximately 11:45 a.m., received a new statement via tip e-mail that could be connected to the Guthrie case.
MARY COLEMAN, ANCHOR, KOLD: This new note contains something that the senders seem to think will link them to the previous note and prove to investigators that they're the same persons or person.
[20:40:03]
I can't speak too much on the details within the letter because they are very sensitive. But I can say that it does seem like it might be in response to some of the pleas from the family.
MCCABE: Folks who have seen the language in the note, and they indicate that, like the first note, it was very coherent, well written. It did not contain a new or different deadline.
MASSEY: What is very encouraging is the fact that we now have a second note because for us as negotiators, dialogue is essential. Silence is deadly.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Hours after that new note surfaced, investigators returned to the scene of the crime.
COOPER: Looking at new video just in from Tucson, Arizona. You can see agents using flashlights on the property, and lights are visible inside the home.
LAVANDERA: Investigators have been back in the home of Nancy Guthrie. They've blocked off the street in front of her home. We have seen agents putting down evidence markers across the property. They've even been on the rooftop of Nancy Guthrie home. They're clearly coming back. We don't know why, but clearly, the amount of law enforcement presence out here today is much, much heavier than it has been.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: In just the last hour a very curious development. The car has been towed. It's a blue Subaru. This came as law enforcement flooded Nancy Guthrie's home.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The next evening a new 20-second message from the Guthrie family.
S. GUTHRIE: We received your message and we understand.
FOX: The message, the tone of it. How somber it was. It was so different than the previous message.
S. GUTHRIE: We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay.
FOX: When I first heard it, I was terrified.
STELTER: It raised questions about whether they believed Nancy was alive or dead.
MCCABE: I don't agree with any sort of embedded assumption that Miss Guthrie was no longer alive. I think the language is intentionally vague to raise the prospect that, hey, we are willing to pay, we are willing to comply with your demands to get our mother back, whether she's alive or dead.
MILLER: They're trying to communicate, we want her back in whatever condition she's in.
MCCABE: The language in the videos is all very carefully crafted by the family, the investigators who are working the case and the hostage negotiation specialists. And every word is parsed over.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): On the eighth day, the search for clues continued. Investigators examined a septic tank with a flashlight.
MILLER: It was a neighbor who suggested, you know, have you checked the septic tank?
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The night before, deputy sheriffs were seen leaving Annie Guthrie's house wearing gloves and carrying a bag.
MILLER: The investigators every time they sit down in that command center and they go back over it, and they do this more than once a day, somebody will suggest, well, do we have that? Did we test that? So they keep coming back to Nancy Guthrie's house, to Annie Guthrie's house.
SIDNER: Right now, the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie is entering its second week. Nancy Guthrie's possible kidnaper or kidnapers are demanding $6 million in Bitcoin by 5:00 p.m. today.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But around 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time that Monday, hours before the second deadline, Savannah Guthrie posted this video.
S. GUTHRIE: I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for all of the prayers and the love that we have felt. My sister and brother and I and that our mom has felt because we believe that somehow some way she is feeling these prayers and that God is lifting her even in this moment and in this darkest place. We believe our mom is still out there.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): In her one minute, 42 second video, she implores the public for their help.
S. GUTHRIE: So I'm coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are even if you're far from Tucson, if you see anything, if you hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement. We are at an hour of desperation and we need your help.
FOX: Now speaking to the public for the first time, not the alleged ransomers, and she said, I need your help.
[20:45:01]
CAMPBELL: Now, what does that tell us from an investigative standpoint? It tells us that there hasn't been communication with the captor.
MILLER: Which raises the really disturbing question here, which is, where is the further contact? Why did we never learn about some definitive proof of life?
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Without verifiable proof and the ransom deadline expiring, hope seemed to dwindle. But less than 24 hours later.
SANCHEZ: Breaking news into CNN. The FBI today releasing new videos.
MILLER: With the release of the video they basically re-energized the case.
FOX: The FBI, they're actually calling in more agents right now just to start going through those tips and prioritizing the leads.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): In the same day that groundbreaking video is released, another seemingly promising development.
COATES: 10:00 p.m. in Rio Rico, Arizona where the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI are doing a court authorized search of a home, and the sheriff says they have detained a subject.
MILLER: This is somebody who's 60 miles south down Route 19, close to the Mexican border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope they get the suspect. Because I'm not it.
FOX: We know this man was a delivery driver. He stayed for about eight hours. He was detained for questioning, but ultimately was released.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They thought you looked like that person in the video?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what they told my mother-in-law. They showed her a video.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So they thought you were the suspect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, because they said that my eyes and my eyelashes looked the same.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And then another bizarre twist on day 11 of the search.
BURNETT: Breaking news, TMZ is now reporting they've received a new note today from someone who said they are not the kidnaper but they know who the kidnaper is.
LEVIN: The letter essentially says, I've tried to get in touch with Savannah's brother and sister, to no avail, and then they sent it to us then and they said, if they want to get the name of the individual who is involved in this kidnaping send the Bitcoin, send -- give us a bitcoin through this address. And they say time is more than relevant.
FOX: This is very unusual because there was already a $50,000 reward that was promised for anyone that could provide information leading to the arrest of a suspect. So why would somebody ask for one Bitcoin, which at that time was about $67,000, only $17,000 more than what was being offered if they had legitimate information. There's so much about this case already that is just so unusual and so extraordinary.
So far, authorities have collected tens of thousands of tips from the public, and investigators find what may be a key piece of evidence.
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[20:52:13]
LAVANDERA (voice-over): After nearly two weeks of disturbing twists, new clues are emerging in this deepening mystery.
As the search for Nancy Guthrie enters its 12th day, authorities are asking neighbors here on her street to check their doorbell cameras for footage from January 1st on. That's a full month before she went missing.
FOX: It appears that law enforcement, they want this video because it's believed that somebody that would have committed this crime is surveilling the location well before the crime happened. Maybe it means something in terms of the start of when someone was showing up on the property. They cased the location. They drive by, they want to learn about the specifics of the home, the neighborhood.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Other possible clues, multiple gloves and other evidence have been recovered. According to the FBI, one of the gloves found by investigators near Nancy Guthrie's home appears to match the ones worn by the suspect in the surveillance video. They're analyzing DNA found in the glove, which could determine the identity of a possible suspect.
MILLER: You want anything that the kidnaper touched or that touch the kidnaper. And in this case, and you go from the different sections that extract different things, they will look at this glove literally inside and out.
On day 13 of the desperate search for Nancy Guthrie, officials say DNA was found at Guthrie's property and does not belong to her or those close to her.
NANOS: We have DNA, so if -- trust me, if we knew who it was, we'd be on it. But we do have some DNA and we'll continue to work with those with the lab on that DNA analysis.
LAVANDERA: Is that DNA that you have, you believe, might be the suspect's? It just doesn't match anyone in a lab or --
NANOS: What we have is we have some DNA and we don't know whose it is, so we'll keep looking.
LAVANDERA: Well, that's significant.
NANOS: It is. Yes
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Hours after investigators confirmed the recovery of DNA, there was a possible break in the case. A four-hour dramatic scene unfolded overnight.
We saw a long stream of law enforcement vehicles, forensic vehicles, SWAT vehicles, descending down this street. It is not clear what has happened in terms of who if anyone, has been taken into custody. It has been a very intense scene. This is not like anything we have seen in this two week long investigation.
(Voice-over): Law enforcement acting on a tip executed a search warrant at a home on the edge of the Catalina Foothills neighborhood, two miles from Nancy Guthrie's house.
A SWAT team with the Pima County Sheriff's Department swarmed the home. More than a dozen law enforcement vehicles, along with at least two forensic trucks were seen at the same location.
[20:55:04]
This search has lasted several hours. But they do not know whose DNA that is. So that is a huge piece of evidence at this moment, as we await to see where that might lead them.
(Voice-over): Later authorities and the FBI met up at a second location, a parking lot of a Cover's Restaurant, about a five-minute drive from the neighborhood they had sealed off earlier.
Investigators were seen searching a gray Range Rover in the parking lot taking photos inside the trunk. And using a sheet to shield it from view. The car was then towed from the scene. Law enforcement questioned one man but released him. No arrests were made that night.
Is this a sign that investigators are closer to finding Nancy Guthrie?
MILLER: Kidnappings don't operate on a normal clock. The fact that we're going into two weeks here is a signal that the speed of the deal laid out in the ransom note did not come out as planned, but it doesn't mean that investigators are at a dead end. They've got tons of leads coming in through those videos. Other suspects people were not aware of, new suspects that have emerged because of tips.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Yet the very tools designed to keep us safe have given kidnapers new ways to disappear.
MILLER: Kidnaping for ransom goes back to the beginning of crime, but the dynamics of this crime have changed exponentially. And just in the last few years, criminals know that technology has improved vastly, that there are cameras everywhere, that things have tracking devices, phones, AirTags. There's a myriad of ways to get caught in a kidnaping. In this case, the signs of the changing technology are you have a kidnaper who's not calling on the phone, not using a burner phone, not sending a letter cut out of a magazine.
They're sending it from e-mails with built in anonymizers where IP addresses are scrambled between hundreds of thousands of IP addresses. So every time you communicate, you never see the same IP address twice. It's almost impossible to trace.
CAMPBELL: This has at times been described as a kidnaping for ransom case. But the truth is, we still just don't know. We don't know the motive. We don't know where Nancy Guthrie is. There are so many different possibilities here. Was this a home invasion that went wrong? Was this someone who didn't even know the victim? Or was it targeted because of Nancy Guthrie relation to her famous daughter? Again, a lot of questions that remain which just add to this ongoing mystery.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Another mystery. Is it possible that we may never know what happened to Nancy Guthrie?
MCCABE: That's always possible. No one wants to be there at the end of this story. She is a uniquely vulnerable victim. We know that it's not uncommon for victims to experience deprivation of food, no access to nutrition, limited access to hydration. It's very hard to sleep if you are being held someplace where you're constantly afraid for your life. So all of these things combined make the experience of confinement incredibly stressful, and now understanding that Nancy Guthrie is someone by virtue of her health background, her age is someone who's going to be particularly vulnerable to that stress.
MASSEY: I do believe that she's still alive. Is it concerning that more time elapses? Oh, yes, every minute is harrowing every hour and day that goes by a medically fragile person of that age by somebody who seems unprofessional and ill-prepared to handle her condition. It's very worrying.
LAVANDERA: This search is about to enter its third week. As we sit here today, do you think Nancy Guthrie will be found?
NANOS: I -- yes, I believe she will be found and I believe that we are working as hard as we can to do that as fast as we can.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): With the clock ticking, Savannah Guthrie shared a home video on social media. Poignant memories of her mother and a caption that says it all. "Our lovely mom, we will never give up on her. Thank you for your prayers and hope.
COOPER: And tonight on 360, after putting 3,000 armed masked federal agents on the ground in Minnesota and killing two U.S. citizens at point blank range.
