A person was detained and questioned on Tuesday in relation to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona. The man told reporters he was held in custody for several hours before being released.
The sheriff’s department hasn’t confirmed his release.
The person was detained during a traffic stop in Rio Rico, about 60 miles south of Tucson, according to two law enforcement sources. Rio Rico, a town of roughly 20,000, is just north of the border with Mexico. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, with assistance from the FBI’s Evidence Response Team, conducted a search in Rio Rico related to the investigation, officials said.
A man who identified himself as Carlos told reporters early Wednesday that he was the person detained and released. He said he wasn’t aware of the Guthrie case when he was taken into custody and called his detainment “terrifying.”
“I felt like I was being kidnapped,” he told reporters. “They didn’t tell me anything.”
News of the detention came just hours after law enforcement officials released images of a masked person outside Guthrie’s home near Tucson that appear to have been captured by a home surveillance camera.
The images mark a significant development in the case of Guthrie’s disappearance. The 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie was reported missing Feb. 1.
“Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors — including the removal of recording devices,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
The agencies discovered those images as recently as Tuesday morning, Patel added, “showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance.”
The images show a person in a ski mask, wearing a jacket and a backpack, with dark gloves on.
Patel also posted videos of the person seemingly fiddling with the camera.
Guthrie was reported missing Feb. 1 after she did not show up to a virtual Sunday church service viewing with friends. Pima County sheriff’s deputies found blood on the front door that was later confirmed to be hers.
According to a timeline laid out by investigators, Guthrie’s doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. that Sunday. The software detected “a person on the camera” at 2:12 a.m., though there was no video captured of the movement and therefore no way to know what it was, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said. At 2:28 a.m., Guthrie’s pacemaker was disconnected from the app on her phone.
Multiple messages purporting to be ransom notes have since been sent to media outlets.
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have posted multiple videos pleading for their mother’s return. On Monday, she urged the public to report “anything at all that seems strange to you” to law enforcement in connection with her mother’s disappearance.
“She was taken and we don’t know where, and we need your help,” she said in a video posted on Instagram. “We are at an hour of desperation.”
She shared the video and image of the person captured on her mother’s Nest camera on Instagram on Tuesday, writing: “Someone out there recognizes this person. We believe she is still out there. Bring her home.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.