Nancy Guthrie‘s neighbor is speaking out after the FBI released surveillance footage of a possible subject amid the search for Savannah Guthrie‘s mother.
“It was startling and a bit terrifying,” Laura Gargano, who has lived around the corner from Nancy, 84, for over a decade, told CNN on Wednesday, February 11. “But I immediately went to assess the physique of this person. I [looked at] the shape of the head, the size of the legs and the approximate weight to see if he looked familiar.”
Gargano quickly rallied other people in the area to see if they could recognize the person after the footage was released. “I assumed it was a male and I immediately started to run through the people I have worked with here,” she said. “A lot of times people share service people in the area.”
She continued: “I just immediately looked to see if the shape looked familiar to me. I did that more than being fearful — but also hopeful because now we have an image to go by. Momentarily I pulled out some hope.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Gargano revealed she suggested Nancy’s roof and septic tank as possible places where evidence could have been left behind, which prompted the FBI to conduct a search.
Nancy has been missing from the Arizona area since February 1. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month that evidence at Nancy’s home appeared suspicious.
“Something unusual at that house occurred that made us go, ‘Wow, something’s wrong here. Something doesn’t fit,’” he explained. “We’re gonna pull all the stops and go at all angles. We really do hope it’s a search-and-rescue mission and we find her and she’s safe and sound. But it would be unjust if we didn’t look at what’s in front of us and go, ‘We need to act.’”
Savannah, 54, and her siblings have since taken to social media several times to appeal to the person who potentially took Nancy from her home.
“We received your message and we understand,” Savannah said in a February 7 video following reports of ransom notes being sent to local news stations. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay.”
A deadline was reportedly set for 5 p.m. MST on Monday, February 9. Hours before, Savannah shared her belief that Nancy was “still out there,” adding in another Instagram video, “We are in an hour of desperation.”
Days later, TMZ claimed a new note was received demanding 1 Bitcoin for information on Nancy’s possible captor.
FBI director Kash Patel, meanwhile, is hopeful that releasing photos and video of the masked individual outside of Nancy’s home will help the investigation.
“[We went] into their systems and actually excavated material that people would think would normally be deleted and no one would look for,” he shared with Fox News on Tuesday, February 10. “And basically — without getting into too many of the details — that’s how the FBI worked with our private sector partners to pull out the material that people thought didn’t even exist because of the specific type of subscription service on the ring doorbell. But thanks to this brilliant partnership, we were able to get it out, sharpen it with our technical capabilities at the FBI and put it out for the world.”
A man named Carlos Palazuelos was detained during a traffic stop after the images were released and questioned by police. He has since denied having any involvement in Nancy’s disappearance.
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