Authorities could be nearing an arrest of the masked, armed “porch guy” captured on Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera on the night she was abducted, a former FBI agent has said.
“I think they’re getting close to the porch guy and when they get the porch guy, the floodgates shall swing open,” former FBI Special Agent Maureen O’Connell told Megyn Kelly during an appearance on Kelly’s radio show, a claim that visibly surprised the host.
O’Connell, pointing to information from her own sources, said she was “75%” certain the disturbing figure who has avoided capture for nearly five months may soon be arrested.
“That’s big news. That’s huge — big if true, as the kids say,” Kelly replied, reacting with astonishment.
Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the predawn hours of Feb. 1. Investigators have not publicly named any suspects.
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Days after she vanished, officials released unsettling surveillance video showing a masked man armed with a handgun standing on Guthrie’s porch and looking directly into the security camera as he appeared to force his way into the residence.
The footage shows the man holding a flashlight in his mouth as he first tried to block the camera with a gloved hand, then grabbed flowers from Nancy’s garden in an apparent effort to obscure the lens. He was also seen wearing fleece and carrying a backpack.
O’Connell told Kelly that investigators may have delayed making an arrest because they have been carefully assembling a case strong enough to stand up once the matter reaches trial.
“… From day one, you’re doing your trial prep, practically. Everything you do is geared toward the trial and prosecution,” she said.
“You’re going to have the greatest defense attorney in the world handling this case, whoever takes this case, so you have to operate under the assumption that a couple of big chunks of your evidence may get tossed. So you have to put a case together in such a way that it would withstand losing some of these chunks of evidence,” she said.
