Nancy Guthrie video may have been erased after FBI kept out for days, director says

EXCLUSIVE: The delay in allowing the FBI to assist in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s suspected abduction may have cost crucial video evidence due to the elaborate process involved in recovering Nest doorbell footage from the crime scene when the victim did not have a cloud subscription and her physical camera was missing as well, according to the FBI director.

Guthrie, the mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1, according to authorities.

The FBI worked with Google to recover cached video from Guthrie’s Nest camera that was not intended for long-term storage and was on the verge of deletion, Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital.

If there was more, it was lost before the FBI became involved, and its evidentiary value remains unknown.

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“We were looking for the needle of all needles in all haystacks, because since she didn’t pay for it, they didn’t record that data,” he said. “But there was a chance that it was located in their cache just before it was being deleted.”

That’s where investigators found the video and still images that Patel made public on Feb. 10, in the hope that someone would recognize the suspect and turn him in.

A short time later, FBI experts had generated a rough physical description. The masked suspect is described as between 5 feet, 9 inches and 5 feet, 10 inches tall with a medium build. He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.

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A masked man appeared on Guthrie’s Nest camera at least twice — once on the day of her Feb. 1 abduction, and once about three weeks earlier, Fox News Digital has reported previously. Authorities have not publicly ruled out the potential for additional suspects in the case.

There is only a single still image publicly available from the earlier visit. Experts say it’s likely that video existed at one point.

If the FBI were involved sooner, agents may have been able to recover additional evidence, which potentially may have included a suspect vehicle, more footage of the masked intruder or even additional imagery from a prior visit to Guthrie’s home, Patel said.

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“What we do know is that the longer you wait, there’s no chance of recovering the video,” said Morgan Wright, the CEO and founder of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases. “The earlier you get started, the better your chances. Waiting four days may have been fatal to the recovery of some video that could have been more illuminating.”

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Time is the enemy of all investigations and the thief of vital evidence. You can never go back and get this evidence once it’s gone. Time is the most critical factor in any investigation whether it’s finding the suspect, finding the victim, or finding the evidence.

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Because Google and the FBI were able to recover at least some video through this process, it’s fair to infer that earlier video would have existed as well, Wright told Fox News Digital.

WATCH: Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell cam records masked suspect

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“If this was recovered from a backend cache and it was almost deleted, that implies that another video was deleted because they would have been able to recover more than what they did,” he said. “Timing is always an issue.”

At this point, however, whatever may or may not have existed remains unknown and unavailable to investigators.

“Time is the enemy of all investigations and the thief of vital evidence,” Wright said. “You can never go back and get this evidence once it’s gone. Time is the most critical factor in any investigation whether it’s finding the suspect, finding the victim, or finding the evidence.”

Patel has previously said the FBI was ready to help on day one and explained this week that he wanted to deploy scores of FBI personnel from the outset. However, local authorities didn’t request the FBI’s assistance for four days.

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By the time the FBI arrived, the crime scene had already been released. People had been allowed to knock on Guthrie’s front door, where her blood was on the porch. It was secured once more, and FBI agents spent hours examining the home and the yard, collecting additional home security cameras.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has countered that an FBI task force member was present during the initial stages of the investigation — however that officer is not a federal agent.

The sheriff’s department declined to comment for this story.

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Anyone with information on Guthrie’s kidnapping is asked to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI or 520-88-CRIME to remain anonymous.

The combined sum of rewards in the case is more than $1.2 million.