The search for Nancy Guthrie continues, with authorities exhausting everything to find the 84-year-old mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie. Surveillance footage is one of the top sources of authorities, but identifying the individuals caught on those videos has been tough.
But one video that could help shed light on the condition of Guthrie was the clip involving a masked man. According to retired FBI agent Andrew Bringuel, the unidentified masked suspect had different intentions when he approached the home of the missing 84-year-old woman on 1 February.
Suspect Botched Robbery?
After reviewing the video footage of the prime suspect, Bringuel suggests that the masked man appeared to look like a burglar instead of a professional criminal.
Backing his theory, he pointed out the backpack and the held instruments the suspect had. These elements suggest that the suspect was planning a robbery and had no intention of hurting anyone.
'Without knowing if anything of [value] was indeed stolen, my opinion is the subject's intent was to kidnap Mrs. Guthrie but something went wrong, violence took place, and she was injured but not killed,' Bringuel explained in a report by Newsweek.
'If his intent was to murder her, he could have done so with the weapon on his person. He clearly wasn't against the use of violence as the evidence suggests he caused an injury to Mrs. Guthrie,' the retired FBI agent added.
Bringuel went to add that the robber may have underestimated Guthrie when he tried to carry out the burglary. He suggested that it was possible that the 84-year-old resisted and got hurt.
Given her condition, there is no telling how badly Nancy Guthrie may have been injured. However, if that theory is true, it totally waylaid the original plan of the yet-to-be-identified burglar.
'I think he underestimated Mrs. Guthrie,' Bringuel stated. 'And if she resisted, he hurt her—how badly in her compromised state may have led to tragic consequences the subject didn't plan.'
'Strange Guy' Spotted by Neighbour
While Bringuel gave his analysis on the man caught on video, it also raised questions about whether the suspect mapped out plans before Guthrie went missing. One neighbour of Nancy Guthrie claims that there was a 'strange guy' roaming around the neighbourhood before the incident, something she admitted freaked her out.
Aldine Meister shared details of that strange individual when she appeared on the 9 March episode of the Brian Entin Investigates podcast. She has been living in the Catalina Foothills neighbourhood of Tucson, Arizona, for almost 30 years now.
Meister showed Entin which part of the house she spotted the stranger from. She saw the odd individual from the bathroom window, noticing there was something off about the person's wardrobe.
'I saw him out there. So I couldn't make out his face, although his hat was way down. He was walking down the road, I saw him, and I was like, 'Ohh that guy doesn't fit,' she shared. 'He was kind of hunched over, not in walking or hiking gear. He was dressed in street clothing. So I thought that was weird because that's not normal,' she added.
It remains unclear if this was the same man that was spotted at the porch of the Guthrie residents. However, considering the first thing the suspect did was to find the camera at the time, there is a possibility.
Now, over a month on, police continue to work on the gathered evidence they have to figure out what really happened to Nancy Guthrie. There remains no clarity on if the 84-year-old is alive. However, Savannah and people close to Nancy are hoping for the best as her disappearance continues to be a mystery.
