Nancy Guthrie missing case: Why did FBI take 10 days to release Savannah's mother's kidnapping suspect footage?

The FBI released images on Tuesday showing a masked individual with a handgun holster outside Nancy Guthrie's home the night she went missing, marking the first significant lead in the high-profile case after 10 days. The footage shows the person, wearing a backpack and ski mask, lowering their head to avoid a doorbell camera while approaching an archway at the residence of Savannah Guthrie’s mother.

The investigation was slowed by two significant setbacks: the security camera was missing, and the 84-year-old grandmother hadn’t signed up for the camera’s backup storage service, according to the New York Post.

The footage captures the individual holding a flashlight in their mouth while attempting to block the camera with a gloved hand and a piece of a plant taken from Nancy Guthrie’s yard.

Although the videos, totaling less than a minute, offered investigators and the public an initial look at who was outside Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home, they did not reveal what happened to her or provide any indication of whether Nancy is still alive.

The delay in releasing footage of Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping suspect

Guthrie reportedly didn’t have a Google Home subscription, which would have saved her Nest camera footage even if the device itself was taken. The basic plan, which retains videos triggered by motion or “events” for 30 days, costs $10 per month or $100 per year.

Former prosecutor and current criminal defense lawyer John W. Day informed The Post, “It gives us some insight to what Google is capable of”.

“Even without paid subscription, there is a way to go to some data center and spend a lot of time and effort to try to find that particular camera, at that particular time without a subscription. You can only imagine how difficult that was if it took 10 days to get there," Day added.

The lawyer explained that investigators had three main ways to obtain the footage from Google: through a judge-issued search warrant, with the family’s authorisation for Google to conduct the search, or if Google voluntarily chose to provide it.

He noted that all parties shared the same goal of finding Nancy Guthrie quickly, saying that Google had strong reasons to cooperate and that both the family and law enforcement had good reason to be thankful. He added that this development could be a pivotal moment, potentially leading to a breakthrough in the case.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that over the past eight days, the agency, together with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, has been working to retrieve images or video footage that might have been “lost, corrupted, or inaccessible” for various reasons, including the removal of recording devices.

He added that law enforcement now obtained previously unavailable footage showing an armed person seemingly tampering with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the morning she disappeared.