TUCSON, AZ (AZFamily/13 News/AP/Gray News) — Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos addressed the late-night searches conducted near Nancy Guthrie’s home on Friday.
The sheriff told Arizona’s Family sister station, 13 News, that the searches were “Nothing more than a lead tracked down that led to a search warrant.” Nanos added that no arrests were made, though it hasn’t been confirmed if anyone was detained for questioning.
The FBI has yet to comment about the searches.
More than two dozen SWAT, forensic and unmarked vehicles were spotted Friday night at a house and a street close to the missing 84-year-old’s home.
Pima County Sheriff’s Department deputies had blocked off the area of East Orange Grove Road and North Camino de Michael, roughly a five minute-drive from Guthrie’s home.
Investigators confirmed the activity is in connection with the Guthrie case but the house does not belong to a former county attorney.
There were vehicles from several agencies, including the PCSD, Marana Police Department, Oro Valley Police Department, Sahuarita Police Department, and more, a typical deployment for Pima County SWAT, which operates as a multi-agency unit.
Just after 10 p.m., a convoy of about 10-12 unmarked law enforcement vehicles went through the blockade.
Cones were seen blocking the street as media members set up at the corner. Guthrie’s home is southeast of there, near Camino Miraval and Camino Escalante.
Just before 10 p.m., the sheriff’s department said no news conference was going to be held Friday night and a written statement is “forthcoming.” However, just before midnight, the sheriff’s department said, because they’re working with the FBI, “at the request of the FBI- no additional information is currently available.”
At least one SWAT vehicle was seen leaving the blocked-off area, but it’s unclear if more vehicles are still at the house.
Forensics teams with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department were seen going into the area around 9:45 p.m.
Experts say searching a home is not a simple task in an investigation like that.
“You’re looking at a substantial home. It’s going to take hours to go through. Anything you find has to be photographed before it’s touched. Then everything’s collected in a matter and documented so that way you can stay exactly where it was found, who picked the item up, if anything’s taken, etc.,” said John Iannarelli, a former FBI agent.
This comes hours after Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos spoke to the media for the first time in over a week about the apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie near Tucson. He says investigators are testing DNA and no one has been cleared in the case.
The sheriff’s department said Friday several gloves have been found as far as 10 miles away and as close as about 2 miles away from Guthrie’s home. The gloves are being tested.
Detectives denied reports that gloves were found inside her home or on her property.
The sheriff’s department said investigators have collected DNA that doesn’t belong to Guthrie or those close to her from the property. “Investigators are working to identify who it belongs to. We are not disclosing where that DNA was located,” the department said in a statement.
Nanos said the family members have been helpful with the investigation.
“Everybody, particularly the Guthrie family, but everybody has been very cooperative with us,” Nanos told Arizona’s Family. “We’ve done a number of interviews and investigations and taken DNA swabs from a number of different people. They’ve all cooperated with us.”
Investigators are going through more than 30,000 tips.
Nanos also disputed claims that he’s blocking the FBI from key evidence in the case. He told Arizona’s Family sister station in Tucson, 13 News, on Feb. 5 that he wanted all evidence to be submitted to the same lab for testing: DNA Labs International in Florida. He denied that he didn’t want something tested at the FBI’s lab.
“So their lab is a great lab. We’ve used them before. They’ve solved cases. Our lab is a good lab, too. We’ve used this lab for 40 years. So it’s not like, oh, whose lab is better? They’re both very capable labs,” Nanos told Arizona’s Family. “The FBI took the camera images and did that. When those camera images came back, what happened? FBI shares them with us. When our lab reports come back, we share them.”
He also confirmed that the rapid DNA testing was down in Tucson, so evidence was sent to the lab in Phoenix.
The FBI released Thursday new details about the suspect seen in surveillance video at Nancy Guthrie’s home and increased the reward in the case to $100,000.
The suspect is described as a man approximately 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-10 with an average build who was wearing a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack.
Agents said they got the new information after the FBI Operational Technology Division’s forensic analysis of the doorbell camera video that was released earlier this week.
“We hope this updated description will help concentrate the public tips we are receiving,” the FBI said in a written release.
Tens of thousands of tips
Tips can solve crimes — big or small — and eerie images of a mysterious male covered head to toe have been the most significant clues shared with the public during Guthrie’s nearly 2-week-old disappearance in the Tucson area.
Guthrie’s neighbors were also asked to check a month’s worth of their security footage.
In an alert sent to certain users of the Neighbors by Ring app, subscribers are asked to check their security video from Jan. 1 through Feb 2.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is specifically looking for video that includes vehicles, traffic, people/pedestrians or anything else neighbors deem out of the ordinary.
The alert went to residents who live within a two-mile radius of Guthrie’s home. The request comes directly from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which is verified through Ring with a blue checkmark.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work,” said Roberto Villaseñor, a former Tucson police chief.
“In a situation like this, you really cannot do what’s been done without tips and public input,” he said. “They have processed the scene. But once that’s done and exhausted, it’s hard to move forward without additional information coming in.”
The Pima County sheriff and the FBI announced phone numbers and a website to offer tips about the apparent kidnapping of Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.
Several hundred detectives and agents have been assigned to the case, the sheriff’s department said.
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