Authorities detained a man who said he was questioned for hours Tuesday night and later released.
Sheriff's officials block the entrance to a road in Rio Rico Tuesday night while a home in the community about an hour south of Tucson was searched as part of the probe into tNancy Guthrie's disappearance.
The hours-long detention of the Rio Rico man occurred soon after the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department released images of a masked person on Nancy Guthrie's porch the night she went missing from her Tucson home.
The man, who was detained following a traffic stop south of Tucson, told several media outlets after his release that he had nothing to do with last week's disappearance of Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, the Associated Press reported.
Authorities have not said what led them to stop the man.
Authorities searched a house Wednesday in Rio Rico, a community about an hour south of Tucson where the man said he lives with his wife and mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law had told CNN Tuesday night on air that law enforcement officers had put her son-in-law, who works as a delivery driver in Tucson, in cuffs. "He has nothing to do with it, either," she had said. "We're not hiding anything."
She said investigators showed her the security camera video that was released earlier Tuesday, which depicted an armed, masked person at Guthrie's door early on the morning she went missing.
KNXV-TV in Phoenix interviewed the delivery man who said he had been detained by police on suspicion of kidnapping Guthrie. He said he and his wife pulled the car over when they noticed that police were following them. The man, who gave only his first name and said he lived in Rio Rico, said he was innocent and that police released him after several hours. His account could not be independently verified. Local and federal authorities have not confirmed that the person who they had detained was released, the Associated Press reported.
The man told KNXV-TV he is innocent and that police released him after several hours.
It was the latest twist in an investigation that has gripped the nation since Nancy Guthrie disappeared on Feb. 1 from her Catalina Foothills home. Until Tuesday, it seemed authorities were making little headway in determining what happened to her or finding who was responsible.
On Thursday, Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed investigators had recovered gloves among several items of evidence. All of it has been submitted for analysis, the department announced in its update.
This image provided by the Pima County Sheriff's Department earlier this month shows a missing person alert for Nancy Guthrie.
Patel: More than 1 person of interest
This image provided by the FBI shows surveillance images at the home of Nancy Guthrie the night she went missing in Tucson.
Investigators believe Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her home the early morning hours of Feb. 1.
On Tuesday images and video were released by the FBI and Sheriff's Department that showed a person wearing a backpack and a ski mask. The person can be seen in one of the videos tilting their head down and away from a door camera of Guthrie's home on the morning she disappeared.
ABC News was first to report Tuesday night that a person had been detained for questioning the in case, citing a law enforcement source who had been briefed on the situation.
"However, there is no indication that the person who was detained is the figure seen in the newly released video footage" from Guthrie's front door camera, ABC had said.
The New York Times also said Tuesday night, before reporting the man had been released, that it wasn't clear whether authorities believed the person being questioned was the same person in the video, quoting an unnamed law enforcement official familiar with the case.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News late Tuesday that FBI agents were looking at more than one individual as a “person of interest” in Guthrie's disappearance.
An investigator looks inside a Culvert Tuesday in the Tucson neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives.
lives.
“We are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest,” Patel said.
Patel did not elaborate on who might be under suspicion, but said authorities were undergoing a process to eliminate anyone who may not be involved.
Patel said the FBI’s outreach to the private sector has shown “there might be persons of interest in and around the area related to this event.”
Meanwhile, TMZ reported late Tuesday that "there has been activity in the Bitcoin account listed in the first ransom note in relation to the Nancy Guthrie case."
Chilling video and images
The video footage released earlier Tuesday shows a person at Guthrie's door holding a flashlight in their mouth and trying to cover the camera with a gloved hand and part of a plant ripped from her yard.
The videos — less than a combined minute in length — gave investigators and the public their first glimpse of who was outside Guthrie's home, but the images did not show what happened to her or help determine whether she is still alive.
By Tuesday afternoon, authorities were back near Guthrie’s neighborhood, using vehicles to block her driveway.
A few miles away, law enforcement was going door-to-door in the area where daughter Annie Guthrie lives, talking with neighbors as well as walking through a drainage area and examining the inside of a culvert with a flashlight.
