Former Las Vegas police lieutenant Randy Sutton said Friday that investigators should not dismiss the possibility of cartel involvement in the reported kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie.
Police are searching for Guthrie, 84, the mother of Today Show personality Savannah Guthrie, after she disappeared under mysterious circumstances from her Arizona home Sunday. Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle,” Laura Ingraham pressed Sutton on whether foreign actors play a role in the kidnapping.
“Remember that this location has very close proximity to the Mexican border,” Sutton told Ingraham. “Law enforcement sources that I’ve spoken to down there say that it’s very rare to have cartel kidnappings in the Tucson area.”
But, as Sutton went on to say, it’s not impossible.
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“But if you just go not too far to Phoenix, that’s a mainstay of the cartels’ methodology for raising money. They kidnap people for ransom all the time,” Sutton said. “So it absolutely should not be discounted if there is a foreign actor involved here. Remember that this is part of the power plays of the cartel, and they’re adept at it.”
Sutton said federal and local authorities, particularly the FBI, are closely examining whether the case matches the methods and patterns seen in past kidnapping-for-ransom operations.
“Now this seems something that I’m sure that the law enforcement authorities there, especially the FBI, are very, very cognizant of, and they’re looking for methods of operation for previous kidnappings that might have taken place that could have some similarities,” Sutton said.
A ransom note demanding payment for Guthrie was carefully crafted and contained details that authorities had not released publicly, according to people who reviewed it, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department reported that Guthrie was last seen Saturday evening. Investigators have not determined what clothing she had on at the time.
Authorities believe someone abducted Guthrie from her residence during the night after discovering blood inside the home. Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff Chris Nanos told TMZ that detectives think the suspect took her directly from her bed. Sources told the Los Angeles Times that investigators found blood alongside evidence of a break-in.
TMZ later reported receiving a purported ransom message seeking millions in cryptocurrency for Guthrie’s return. On a livestream, Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere said the message imposed a deadline, warned of consequences, and instructed payment to a confirmed Bitcoin wallet.
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