This Nancy Guthrie investigation is a total mess. But MAUREEN CALLAHAN inches closer to the truth… as police insiders finally name possible prime suspect
Savannah Guthrie’s heartbreaking video raises more questions than it answers.
Released at the end of Day Four, it seems to indicate that the FBI is taking a ransom note demanding millions in Bitcoin for the safe return of Savannah’s mother, 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, very seriously.
And the video seems to have been produced with help from the authorities. The Daily Mail reported that authorities were spotted entering the home of Savannah’s sister, Annie, with a tripod and lights.
Making this development curiouser: Annie and her husband, Tommaso Cioni, are doubtless being appropriately scrutinized in the abduction of the family matriarch, who was taken from her bed sometime around 2am on Sunday morning.
In an interview for my podcast The Nerve airing on Friday, veteran crime reporter Ashleigh Banfield maintains that a highly placed law enforcement source tells her: ‘Annie Guthrie’s car has been towed by the police and put into evidence — and here’s the most important quote, and I’m using [my] source’s words exactly: “Son-in-law may be prime suspect now.”‘
Investigators were seen entering Annie and Cioni’s house earlier on Wednesday — hours before Savannah, Annie and their brother Camron shot that video — with a Cellebrite case, likely containing equipment which is used to extract digital data from electronic devices, even if that data has been deleted.
As to why the police have since denied that there are any prime suspects, let alone persons of interest, Banfield reminds us that investigators did the exact same thing in the Bryan Kohberger investigation — and in fact pulled him over twice as they built the case against him.
‘Nobody’s eliminated,’ Sheriff Chris Nanos said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.
Savannah Guthrie’s heartbreaking video raises more questions than it answers
Investigators say that Cioni was the last known person to see Nancy alive, driving her home on Saturday night at around 9.45pm and making sure she was safely inside.
New bits of information released at Thursday’s conference seem telling.
FBI agents have now joined the bumbling, seemingly spotlight-loving Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos in addressing the media.
Nanos had previously been leading this investigation and contradicting himself wildly. On Monday, he said that homicide detectives had been called in immediately, because Nancy’s home was so obviously a crime scene and he had a very bad feeling about the outcome.
On Wednesday, however, Nanos said that he was sure Nancy was alive, despite Nancy needing daily medication and offering zero evidence to prove his assertion.
Nanos also admitted to the assembled press that, if he was ‘Monday morning quarterbacking’, he would never have released the home back to the family just two days after Nancy was abducted — because guess what?
By Wednesday, with the FBI involved and President Donald Trump declaring that he would make federal law enforcement available to Savannah’s family in whatever way requested, crime scene tape once again went up around Nancy’s home.
As to whether the crime scene was now contaminated — highly likely, as NewsNation journalist Brian Entin walked right up to Nancy’s front door and captured blood spatter on video — Nanos said, ‘I’ll let the courts worry about that.’
So no surprise that the press kept asking to address Heith Janke, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Phoenix office on Thursday.
‘We’re going to start today by announcing a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance,’ Janke said. Interesting that he used the word ‘recovery’ and not ‘return’.
Quite a boost from the measly $2,500 reward previously announced by the sheriff’s office — an insulting figure that would incentivize no one who knew the perpetrators.
Also confirmed at Thursday’s news conference: Nancy, who had limited mobility, took an Uber to her daughter Annie’s house on Saturday, where she apparently had dinner.
That Uber driver does not seem to be a person of interest.
Cioni, Nanos had previously said, was the one who drove Nancy home — though, bizarrely, on Thursday the sheriff walked back that claim, saying only that Nancy was driven home by ‘family’.
At 2.28am on Sunday, Nancy’s pacemaker stopped communicating with her phone.
Curiously, law enforcement has now also tightened the timeline from the moment the Guthries were first tipped off that Nancy hadn’t attended church on Sunday — a scenario which itself seems problematic, given that there is reportedly no way for anyone to know who is watching the services online, as Nancy always did.
Originally, we were told that family were alerted around 11am, arrived at Nancy’s shortly after, and called 911 at noon — nearly 50 minutes to search a one-story house for a woman of limited mobility.
Now we’ve been told that the 911 call came within minutes of family arriving.
Just as the video Savannah made with her siblings seems a bit off — her sister and brother with their emotionless affect, Savannah barely looking at either one of them — Thursday’s press conference has only added to this unthinkable mystery.
Annie Guthrie and husband Tommaso Cioni were pictured leaving their Tucson home on Tuesday evening
The alleged ransom note set a deadline of 5pm local time Thursday for the money, amount undisclosed, to be deposited by Bitcoin.
If the money doesn’t come through, the ransom note threatens that come Monday, the consequences will be more dire.
As that 5pm deadline passed on Thursday, Savannah’s brother Camron shared a new video message addressing Nancy’s abductor or abductors.
‘Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you. We haven’t heard anything directly,’ he said.
When asked about what investigators plan to do next in the absence of any fresh evidence, Sheriff Nanos had the gall to say, ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
It shouldn’t be. If Nancy is to be found, the FBI needs to take full control.
Perhaps they’re doing so as we speak. Perhaps that’s why the FBI have seemingly helped Savannah and her siblings make these videos, in Annie’s house — for more than one reason.
Shooting in Annie’s home, setting up the lights and camera, may have allowed agents to roam around inside without a search warrant.
Investigators insisted Thursday that they don’t have any suspects. But in the same breath, when asked point-blank about Savannah’s brother-in-law, Sheriff Nanos said: ‘Everybody’s still a suspect.’
