AZ Nancy Guthrie, 84, (mother of TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie) missing - last seen in the Catalina foothills area on Jan 31, 2026

[SMK777]

Sean says "alleged" ransom letters. Is he starting to doubt TMZ's credibility???

It does make you wonder.

 

[penguinface]

I find the timeline of this weird. Like surely the neighbor wouldn’t have called much earlier than AG? I’m not understanding a window where APS would’ve shown up and left a card. Bc it seems like LE would’ve already been on the scene, so wouldn’t APS have just checked in with LE? Why leave the card?

The only way this makes sense to me is if APS was there before cops were called. Bc even if they somehow would’ve arrived before LE, AG would’ve been there. Very tight window assuming the card was left bc no one else was at the house. MOO

JMO but I’m thinking the card was left on the Monday, morning to early afternoon.

 

[Van Helsing]

Agree. Could be an airsoft due to the purported flood lights being damaged (shot them out?). Looks weird enough from the images that it could also be a stun gun of some sort.

JMO.

It would be nice to know when and how the flood lights were damaged. During the roofing work is likely, by a ladder or discarded roofing materials. MOO.

 

[Friday Fan]

It is curious that the gun show owner pointed out that they were "unusual names." That likely means they were not Hispanic names, which are very common in the U.S., and even more common in Arizona. JMO.

I have no idea why the sheriff is going after "unusual names", unless it's easier to research people with "unusual" names.

To pass the background check, the buyer must be a either a US citizen or legal permanent resident and must possess a valid photo ID

Firearms Checks (NICS) | Federal Bureau of Investigation

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) conducts background checks on people who want to own a firearm or explosive, as required by law.

www.fbi.gov

 

[wibbleflea]

No-Backpack man is not casting a shadow from the moonlight before he steps under the cover of the the porch (in the other videos, his shadow is obvious)

Speculation, following your excellent analysis: is there any chance that the shadow of the perp in the better footage comes from next door's Ring floodlight camera, and not moonlight? I don't have a good idea of the next door house's location relative to NG's house, but there's a previously posted three-minute video on X here from Mac Colson (CBS 5, etc.) showing LE fiddling with that floodlight camera yesterday. It looked like the investigators were may have been attempting to adjust the direction of the camera and light, among other things. Or perhaps just examine its direction.

I agree that all the footage and stills are of the same person.

 

[Skigh]

Sean says "alleged" ransom letters. Is he starting to doubt TMZ's credibility???

Could be alleged because letters might be being sent ,but the letters are from a hoaxer not the someone involved with the kidnap.

 

[CandyKiss]

DBM

 

[LRinCA]

It would be nice to know when and how the flood lights were damaged. During the roofing work is likely, by a ladder or discarded roofing materials. MOO.

Makes me wonder if the roofers have all been cleared.

JMO/MOO

 

[AuntTricia]

If the abductor arrived by vehicle, wouldn't someone on NG's street would have ring camera footage? Maybe it didn't pick up the license plate number but maybe they have a make, model and color? How long was it before LE released the info about the white Hyundai Elantra in the BK case?

 

[penguinface]

Sean says "alleged" ransom letters. Is he starting to doubt TMZ's credibility???

I think it’s used more as a legal “CYA”, as “alleged” and “allegedly” often are by the media.

JMO

 

[Chainspell]

New TMZ video uploaded. Talking about possibilities of Nancy in Mexico (LE is treating it as a potential lead allegedly), note demanding a different type of crypto from bitcoin, refers to media as being a 'go-between'. New crypto account it sounds like, mentions FBI at the gun shops (sounds like a dead end according to their sources).

 

[SRWCF]

What this did was divert resources away from finding Guthrie. The priority became identifying the offender, resources shifted toward DNA recovery, SAR became secondary unless new evidence would have forced it, which I do not believe happened.

You are probably right about that. I think a ground search by the public in the early days certainly wouldn't have hurt the investigation. I mean, in situations such as these, people really, really want to help and this would have been a good way to allow that to happen.

As a sidenote, I had a dream the other night that they found NG alive and she was being hidden in the desert in an underground tunnel / cave. This means I'm either a visionary, or I'm consuming too much social media on this case!

 

[Diddian]

Agree. Could be an airsoft due to the purported flood lights being damaged (shot them out?). Looks weird enough from the images that it could also be a stun gun of some sort.

JMO.

It doesn’t seem like an air gun projectile would have enough force to have done the damage that can be seen to the bricks behind the damaged floodlights. It looks like the backplate of the floodlights was forced back into the wall, like it was smashed by a sledgehammer.

https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/02/918/516/broken-flood-lights-nancy-guthrie-home.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

Source, image 3 of 4 in this article:

Nancy Guthrie's house equipped with floodlights; authorities probe alleged ransom note clues

The alleged ransom note in the case of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie references a broken floodlight at her Tucson home, the FBI confirmed during its investigation.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Bodhi]

There has been a lot of back and forth about a single image of the masked man which I'll call the No-Backpack Image
Note that the backpack straps and gun are not visible:

View attachment 646178

So far I've seen people claim:

• "The FBI used AI to manipulate the image"
• "Media used AI to manipulate the image"
• "This is proof that the FBI actually have more videos"
• "It's a different person altogether"

I don't know if any of those are true, but what I've done to check is downloaded each of the images and videos released by Cash Patel (Director of the FBI) from this source to compare them, and I've discovered a few interesting clues:

• The No-Backpack image is not a single frame from any of the three videos released to the public (altered or not) - The man has a completely different pose.
• There is no meta data showing the original date created (if there was, it was lost when the image was uploaded to X)
• The "Nest" logo is not shown (is it cropped?)
• The image size is tiny - resolution is 367 x 546 pixels - this is basically just a thumbnail
• No-Backpack man is not casting a shadow from the moonlight before he steps under the cover of the the porch (in the other videos, his shadow is obvious)

FIrstly, I have overlaid the No-Backpack image (367x546) over one of the FBI's other full resolution images (1536x2048) to compare the size. This makes the size / resolution disparity quite obvious:

View attachment 646173

Next I have grabbed a capture from one of the videos that shows the man, roughly in the same position, before he enters the porch (right).
No-Backpack man (left) casts no shadow. Backpack man (right) casts an obvious shadow from the Moonlight
(Note I have cropped/resized images to match each other)
View attachment 646175
For reference Moonrise on that night was around 4:54 p.m. local time, and moonset was about 6:44 a.m. the next morning.
At around 2am the moon (almost full, 98% brightness) was in the west (to the left looking out of the porch)
The weather in Tuscon at the time was clear. So there should have been bright moonlight all night.

So what does this tell us ?
1. No-Backpack image was taken at a different time

• Without meta data we don't know the date/time
• We can probably assume that it was before the other videos (since it looks like he eventually ripped the doorbell camera off its mount and took it with him)
• It could have been the same evening, but a random cloud was obscuring the moon at that moment
• It could be days before (a reconnaissance mission perhaps?)

2. The properties of No-Backpack image is significantly different to the other images/videos

• It's cropped (not full frame - refer to the image with the hand/glove - way more of the brick archway is visible)
• It is very low resolution - meaning it might be a thumbnail or a still image from a notification

Thumbnails are a graphic representation of one or multiple files, like when you're looking through a photo gallery with 18 images shown on your screen, each of those small images are a single, low resolution thumbnail file.
Without them, you would only see a list of filenames.

Notification images are like a snapshot of an event that might be shown in the Nest App. Again, low resolution.
With Thumbnails and Notification images, the metadata does not necessarily reflect the time that the original image was captured. So Google/FBI may not know what time/date the No-Backpack event actually happened.

3. Was the image manipulated/altered to remove the backpack/gun?
- We can't tell for sure, but I think it's very unlikely.

4. Is No-Backpack image from another video that hasn't been released?
- Probably not. If the FBI had a full resolution video, it would not make any sense to crop and resize a single frame to release to the public in such low resolution).

That's all I have. I hope it clears things up a little, and I apologise for the essay.

Excellent analysis! It helps enormously. It'll help focus the discussion of that image. It provides context for LE's interest in video from specific dates within certain time frames.

 

[girlhasnoname]

I love a good Walmart video at trial

Same - I've stated many times good ole' Wally World has single handedly help convict many a criminal.

 

[Mistermagoo]

New TMZ video uploaded. Talking about possibilities of Nancy in Mexico (LE is treating it as a potential lead allegedly), note demanding a different type of crypto from bitcoin, refers to media as being a 'go-between'. New crypto account it sounds like, mentions FBI at the gun shops (sounds like a dead end according to their sources).

Well there it is.

 

[Napoli]

I feel like there were no organized ground searches in Tucson where the public was involved because the sheriff came out immediately and adamantly stated that this was an obvious abduction and not a case of an elderly woman wandering off. I think that statement alone pretty much put the kibosh on anyone from the public wanting to organize one of those grid type searches you often see take place in the case of a missing person.

There has also not been any statement that I am aware of, cautioning people, that there is an armed and dangerous man on the loose who presents a significant risk to the community. They knew from the beginning this was a narrow and focused kidnaping. JMO

 

[SlimPickens]

After posting my in depth analysis of the No-Backpack image, someone bought me Guardianship.
But I don't know who.

Thank you so much, kind person

Here is something else I was looking at, mask man's shoes appear to have a distinct two tone black/white sole:
(Source - original FBI video, my own captures)

View attachment 646273

First impression is that appears to be brand new shoes. Not a lot of folks maintain their laces like that (at least around these parts). Companies tend to lace with the first lace on top, whereas most folks in my experience change it to stringing that first lace under. Or maybe the kids these days do it that way? I'm not entirely certain.

JMO.

 

[mzufall]

There has also not been any statement that I am aware of, cautioning people, that there is an armed and dangerous man on the loose who presents a significant risk to the community. They knew from the beginning this was a narrow and focused kidnaping. JMO

I could be wrong and mixing up cases im following, but I think Nanos did make a statement toward the beginning that he did not believe there to be any danger to the community, that it was their belief this was targeted. Again, I could be wrong. But I THINK it was mentioned early on.

 

[Gemmie]

There has been a lot of back and forth about a single image of the masked man which I'll call the No-Backpack Image
Note that the backpack straps and gun are not visible:

View attachment 646178

So far I've seen people claim:

• "The FBI used AI to manipulate the image"
• "Media used AI to manipulate the image"
• "This is proof that the FBI actually have more videos"
• "It's a different person altogether"

I don't know if any of those are true, but what I've done to check is downloaded each of the images and videos released by Cash Patel (Director of the FBI) from this source to compare them, and I've discovered a few interesting clues:

• The No-Backpack image is not a single frame from any of the three videos released to the public (altered or not) - The man has a completely different pose.
• There is no meta data showing the original date created (if there was, it was lost when the image was uploaded to X)
• The "Nest" logo is not shown (is it cropped?)
• The image size is tiny - resolution is 367 x 546 pixels - this is basically just a thumbnail
• No-Backpack man is not casting a shadow from the moonlight before he steps under the cover of the the porch (in the other videos, his shadow is obvious)

FIrstly, I have overlaid the No-Backpack image (367x546) over one of the FBI's other full resolution images (1536x2048) to compare the size. This makes the size / resolution disparity quite obvious:

View attachment 646173

Next I have grabbed a capture from one of the videos that shows the man, roughly in the same position, before he enters the porch (right).
No-Backpack man (left) casts no shadow. Backpack man (right) casts an obvious shadow from the Moonlight
(Note I have cropped/resized images to match each other)
View attachment 646175
For reference Moonrise on that night was around 4:54 p.m. local time, and moonset was about 6:44 a.m. the next morning.
At around 2am the moon (almost full, 98% brightness) was in the west (to the left looking out of the porch)
The weather in Tuscon at the time was clear. So there should have been bright moonlight all night.

So what does this tell us ?
1. No-Backpack image was taken at a different time

• Without meta data we don't know the date/time
• We can probably assume that it was before the other videos (since it looks like he eventually ripped the doorbell camera off its mount and took it with him)
• It could have been the same evening, but a random cloud was obscuring the moon at that moment
• It could be days before (a reconnaissance mission perhaps?)

2. The properties of No-Backpack image is significantly different to the other images/videos

• It's cropped (not full frame - refer to the image with the hand/glove - way more of the brick archway is visible)
• It is very low resolution - meaning it might be a thumbnail or a still image from a notification

Thumbnails are a graphic representation of one or multiple files, like when you're looking through a photo gallery with 18 images shown on your screen, each of those small images are a single, low resolution thumbnail file.
Without them, you would only see a list of filenames.

Notification images are like a snapshot of an event that might be shown in the Nest App. Again, low resolution.
With Thumbnails and Notification images, the metadata does not necessarily reflect the time that the original image was captured. So Google/FBI may not know what time/date the No-Backpack event actually happened.

3. Was the image manipulated/altered to remove the backpack/gun?
- We can't tell for sure, but I think it's very unlikely.

4. Is No-Backpack image from another video that hasn't been released?
- Probably not. If the FBI had a full resolution video, it would not make any sense to crop and resize a single frame to release to the public in such low resolution).

That's all I have. I hope it clears things up a little, and I apologise for the essay.

I'm also not seeing a gun in front of his crotch. Cropped from the images in your EXCELLENT post. You can see it in the image on the right, but not the one on the left.

Here's the same image showing their entire bodies. Also noticed that the guy on the right has that head light thing on, the other guy does not.