More than 10 days after Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Arizona home, investigators and family members are huddling as they continue an intense search for the 84-year-old woman, but there is still no sign of her. While the search is still ongoing as authorities follow up on leads, here’s everything they’ve found so far. But the question remains – Are they close to finding Nancy Guthrie?
Nancy Guthrie joined her daughters for dinner on January 31st. She took an Uber to her daughter Annie’s house. After dinner, Nancy was driven home by son-in-law Tommaso Cioni around 9:48 p.m.
When Nancy didn’t join her friends to watch their usual Sunday virtual services, they alerted her family. The sheriff and his officers arrived at Nancy Guthrie’s home to find a trail of forced entry. Upon further investigation, investigators also found blood on the front porch of Nancy’s home.
The sheriff later confirmed that the blood belonged to Nancy Guthrie.
After finding signs of forced entry and blood, it was concluded that the 84-year-old mother of the TV host Savannah had indeed been kidnapped.
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Two ransom demands demanding billions of dollars in bitcoins were also sent. The FBI later confirmed that the Guthrie family had received ransom letters demanding payment.
While police searched the area around the house and interviewed people Nancy knew, the family released videos in which they made emotional appeals to the kidnappers and the public.
“We’ll pay,” Savannah Guthrie said.
The first major breakthrough in the Nancy Guthrie investigation
Ten days after the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released the first photo of the suspected kidnapper on Tuesday, February 10.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that over the past eight days, the agency and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working to recover images or video that may have been “lost, damaged or unavailable due to a number of factors — including the removal of recording devices.”
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“Law enforcement has released these previously unavailable new images showing an armed individual who appears to have tampered with a camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning after she disappeared,” he said in the post.
On Tuesday, February 10, and 10 days after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released the first photo of the suspected kidnapper.
Video released by the investigative agency also showed a masked man wearing a gun holster approaching Nancy’s front door and then moving his hand to cover the front door camera. The video further showed him picking up some leaves and trying to cover the camera with them.
Later in the day, the person, identified as Carlos Palazuelos, was detained for questioning during a traffic stop south of Tucson, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
The department and the FBI also conducted a court-authorized search at a location in Rio Rico — about an hour from Nancy Guthrie’s home.
A woman who identified herself as the mother-in-law of Carlos Palazuelos told CNN that authorities searched her Rico Rio home after being told they were acting on “a tip that the lady was at my house.”
The woman denied any connection to the missing Nancy Guthrie case, saying her son-in-law works as a delivery boy and had nothing to do with her disappearance. Carlos was later released.
Nancy Guthrie’s whereabouts remain unknown despite the first images of the suspected kidnapper. The search for Nancy Guthrie is now on.