A series of widely circulated images of a man on Nancy Guthrie’s porch were not all taken the morning she disappeared from her Tucson-area home — one was captured earlier, two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said Monday.
The image in question showed the person dressed in dark clothing with a mask, gloves and — unlike other images released by FBI Director Kash Patel — without a backpack.
Patel said the image came from the same camera at Guthrie’s front door as other images captured on the morning of her disappearance on Feb. 1.
More coverage of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance
A spokesperson with FBI headquarters declined to comment Monday on possible dates tied to the image or whether the person is the same person seen in the other security video released by the agency.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a Monday statement that there’s no date or timestamp associated with the image and that any suggestion it was taken on a different day is “purely speculative.”
“That’s all it is is speculation,” Sheriff Chris Nano told NBC News. “We understand the thinking behind it, but again, I remind everybody, we follow the rules of evidence. And right now we have no evidence to suggest that it occurred that day or days before.”
Nanos said that the images do not come with dates or timestamps, and that officials only believe the majority of images were from Feb. 1 because they show the doorbell being disconnected.
The 84-year-old mother of “TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was last seen on Jan. 31. She was reported missing at about noon the following day when she didn’t show up to watch a virtual church service with friends.
The weekslong investigation into her disappearance now involves local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and has garnered international attention. While authorities believe Guthrie may have been taken from her home, no suspects or persons of interest have been publicly identified.
The images released Feb. 10 by the FBI signaled a significant development in the investigation into Guthrie’s possible abduction. They showed a masked, armed man later identified as a suspect appearing to tamper with Guthrie’s Google Nest camera.
Recovering those images appears to have been a challenge.
Guthrie did not have a subscription that would have saved the video, and Nanos has said the camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. There were multiple cameras inside Guthrie’s home, he said, and a person was detected at 2:12 a.m., though it’s unclear which camera was responsible for detecting that motion.
Patel has said the bureau and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department worked with “private sector partners” to recover the images from “residual data in backend systems.”
Based on the images, officials have offered identifying details about the man, describing him as a man of average build, 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall. He was wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, sold exclusively at Walmart, authorities have said.
Investigators discovered multiple sources of DNA in and around the crime scene, but testing has yielded no results.
Officials are working to get samples found at Guthrie’s home — which did not match her or anyone who was known to be there recently — tested through a process called forensic genetic genealogy in the hopes of identifying a suspect.
The sheriff has said the DNA sample is mixed and contains genetic information from at least two people, which could take longer to test.