It has been four months since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, and no suspect has been identified yet. Now, speaking of local law enforcement, FBI Director Kash Patel said, “We showed up immediately and offered our assistance. We were not let in for four days. And that’s their choice.”
FBI Director Kash Patel claims local Arizona law enforcement delayed involving federal assistance
Speaking with NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich on the missing case, Patel said the FBI offered support to Pima County law enforcement as soon as the 84-year-old was reported missing on February 1. However, they did not gain full access to the investigation for about four days.
Commenting on how the department handled evidence, including the decision to send DNA to a private testing lab, Patel said, “We offered our assistance to go test the DNA. And it’s up to them. They chose to use a private laboratory.”
Patel also noted that taking advantage of FBI assistance is up to local authorities and referred to footage of a suspect obtained from a camera at Guthrie’s home, “What the FBI is great at, what we did when we finally had access to the Ring doorbell camera, for example, we went to our partners at Google and we said, ‘Hey, we know that there wasn’t a paid subscription service, but let’s go look at the metadata and see if we can find a needle in a needle in a needle in a haystack.’” He further stated, “We continue to offer assistance. I even visited our Tucson office, where we had 150 agents and analysts working on the Nancy Guthrie race to provide intelligence.”
Nancy, mother of television journalist Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on the night of January 31 after arriving home from dining with family in the Catalina Foothills near Tucson, Arizona. Surveillance footage from her home showed a masked individual, and authorities discovered her blood at the location. According to the BBC, the family has offered a $1 million reward for information, alongside a $100,000 reward from the FBI.
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Originally reported by Meenaksi Sengupta for Mandatory