Carlos Palazuelos of Rio Rico, who said he was being held for questioning in the case of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, was later released, according to ABC15. He said he was held for several hours at the scene of the initial traffic stop.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), police said the individual was apprehended at a location south of Tucson, Arizona, where Savannah Guthrie’s mother lived. Several media reports also said a home in Rio Rico was searched and a woman, Josefina Maddox, who identifies herself as the detained man’s mother-in-law, claimed he was picked up by officials on a DoorDash delivery.
Who is Carlos Palazuelos?
Carlos’ nationality is still unknown, but he has been described as a “DoorDash driver” in several X posts, including one shared by the Surviving The Survivor podcast. New York Post senior reporter and columnist Paul Sperry wrote in the X post that Carlos “delivers packages on a contract ‘for UPS'” and drives a white van.
Josefina called Carlos a “good guy” and claimed he had no criminal record or history of violence, according to News Nation. After being shown surveillance images of the person captured on Nancy’s Ring camera, she denied that the person bore any resemblance to Carlos.
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Josefina said she was “positive” her son-in-law was home when Guthrie went missing. She explained that he stays at her house on weekends and doesn’t go anywhere.
Asked if he could have left at night, she said: “Oh, no, no,” adding that his van was not working at the moment.
Nancy Guthrie case update
Nancy Guthrie disappeared on February 1st, and the case has drawn national attention ever since. Until Tuesday, authorities appeared to have made little progress in figuring out what happened to the 84-year-old mother of “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie, or in identifying those responsible.
Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings issued several video appeals asking for their mother’s safe return and signaling a willingness to pay a ransom. Officials described Nancy Guthrie as mentally alert but with limited mobility. She relies on several medications, and Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has repeatedly expressed concern that she could face life-threatening consequences without them.
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Rio Rico, a community of about 20,000 people, is about an hour from Guthrie’s home and about 15 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Footage released earlier Tuesday shows an individual wearing a ski mask and backpack. At one point, the subject lowers his head and turns away from the doorbell camera as he approaches Guthrie’s front door. The video also shows the individual holding a flashlight in his mouth and attempting to block the camera with a gloved hand and a piece of plant pulled from the yard.
The clips, totaling less than a minute, offered investigators and the public their first glimpse of someone outside Guthrie’s home in the foothills near Tucson. However, the footage did not reveal what happened to her or whether she remains alive.
FBI Director Kash Patel said an “armed individual” appeared to be “tampering with the camera,” although it was not known if a gun was actually in the holster.
Patel said the videos were recovered from data on “back-end systems” after investigators spent many days trying to find footage that had been lost, damaged or otherwise unavailable.