The sheriff leading the search for Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, has revealed the reason he won’t expose who was the last person to see her before she went missing on February 1.
Late on February 15, the Daily Mail published a new interview with Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos from the previous day, in which he discussed several details of the case, including the digital forensics that could give him and his department, as well as the FBI, new evidence to help catch the suspected kidnappers of the Today Show host‘s mother.
While Google’s cloud-based video system specialists are working to pull more information from cameras in Nancy’s Arizona home, Nanos remains silent on who was with her when she was driven home from Tommaso Cioni and Annie Guthrie’s home, 10 minutes away, after dinner and a game night. It comes after an ex-FBI agent revealed the hidden codeword that Savannah used in her message to the kidnappers.
“We know who it is, but… when we saw everybody was attacking everybody and saying it’s this we just thought, you know what? We’ll say it was family,” the sheriff told the Daily Mail.
Nanos remains firm that “nobody” has been cleared in the case, including workers at Guthrie’s home and family members. “I stay in touch with them, mostly Savannah. I’ve not been in touch with Tommaso or Annie too much,” he said.
The sheriff said the case “is a lot of stress,” but understands the “pundits are out there” who are saying Cioni was the last one to see Nancy alive.
He said, “We understand that stuff. But, my goodness, you’re putting a mark on somebody who could be completely innocent. And more important than that, he’s family.”
So, Nanos said he will not specify who was with Nancy when she returned home from her daughter’s and son-in-law’s house on January 31.
Early reports identified Cioni as the last person to see Nancy when she was dropped off at her home at 9:48 pm that night.
Nanos admitted that he and investigators changed that detail to just “family” in the statement “family drove her home” to ward off growing online rumors.
Nanos added that Guthrie’s entire family has been “nothing but cooperative” throughout every step in the investigation despite being fearful for Nancy.
“Everything we’ve asked for, they’ve given us. They’re in such a state of grief. But they’re also, you know, I think they’re a little weary too, of what’s been going on and being said about them,” Nanos said.
Nanos also remained tight-lipped about whether there were any signs of forced entry. Nor would he reveal whether Nancy was taken out the back or the front door to what was presumably a waiting vehicle.
He also declined to disclose where the cameras, which are now being forensically examined, were on the property, or whether any were in the house.
Initially, the devices were considered of limited use because they were offline or not recording due to inactive subscriptions.
However, a breakthrough on that front occurred last week, when investigators retrieved footage of a masked intruder at Nancy’s front door from her Nest camera.
“Google said at first we don’t have anything, but we’re going to do our best to try to what they call ‘scratch,'” Nanos told the Daily Mail.
“It’s hard. It’s like scratching through layers, think of it like you have eight layers of paint on your house. They want to go to the sixth or seventh layer and they have to be very delicate about it not to destroy what’s there.
“I just hope they can scrape a camera shot down that driveway to identify a vehicle. Because, my goodness, you can’t put a mask on a vehicle, right?”
Nanos’ interview with the Daily Mail came just after the FBI said a black glove recovered last week is believed to be the same one worn by the intruder in the video.
The agency had received initial DNA profile results from a Florida lab.
It comes as the man who claims to know Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper reveals the chilling reason he wants Bitcoin.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.the-express.com ’
