Friends Remember Nancy Guthrie's Last Days before Her Disappearance – Details

Just days before she vanished, Nancy Guthrie was laughing at her mahjong table and making Sunday plans. Nothing about those final hours suggested they would be the last time her friends would see her.

Two days before her disappearance, the 84-year-old sat in her living room, a log burning in the fireplace as she squared off against younger women she had once taught to play mahjong.

It was a chilly January afternoon, and she was dressed casually, laughing and playing strategically, just as she always had.

The Sunday That Broke the Routine

Before saying goodbye on January 30, 2026, Nancy confirmed plans with Anne Burnson for their Sunday ritual. The group would gather at 11 a.m. to watch a recording of the Manhattan church service attended earlier that morning by Nancy's youngest child, NBC host Savannah Guthrie.

They kept wafers and grape juice on hand for communion. It was a routine Nancy rarely missed. But on February 1, she did not arrive.

Friends texted, then called. When there was no answer, they contacted her older daughter, Annie, who rushed to Nancy's Tucson home. It was empty.

Beignets, Balloons, and One Last Dinner

In the days before she disappeared, Nancy had been celebrating.

January 27 was her birthday, and on the 26th, her friend Kris Federhar left a balloon and treats at her doorstep. On the big day, Anne, who has New Orleans roots, set out crystal, cooked shrimp and grits, and made beignets.

Just one evening before she vanished, Nancy had dinner and played games with Annie and her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni. He later drove her home.

Friends now replay those final gatherings in their minds.

"I keep thinking about every time I'd go in the kitchen door, and she'd be sitting there at the counter, just how her eyes would always light up as soon as she saw me," Anne said. "That's when you know you have a real friend."

Slowing Down, but Still Social

For decades in Arizona, Nancy embraced the outdoors — hiking, playing tennis, and attending spin classes.

In recent years, daily life had become more challenging. She had a pacemaker, relied on medication, and used a cane and powerful hearing aids.

She once told Kris she no longer felt comfortable climbing stairs at a movie theater, half-jokingly calling it a fire trap.

Still, she remained sharp and socially active. She never missed her monthly book club, played Wordle regularly, and read books sent to Savannah by publishers.

Even in her 80s, she insisted on walking to the end of her gravel driveway to get the mail.

The Doorbell Camera

Two weeks into her disappearance, one detail now stands out.

Four years ago, Nancy posted on the neighborhood app Nextdoor asking neighbors which doorbell camera brand they recommended. She did not suggest she feared for her safety.

She wrote that she simply wanted to see what animals might wander by at night. Nancy had long been fascinated by the desert surrounding her Catalina Foothills home. She once wondered whether javelinas would eat her periwinkle.

What she could not have known was that the device she researched out of curiosity would later become central to the investigation into her disappearance.

The Footage That Wasn't Supposed to Survive

Earlier on Tuesday, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Department released images and video from a Google Nest camera mounted outside Guthrie's front door. The footage was first detailed by Page Six.

The video shows a masked, armed individual carrying a backpack and approaching the home. The person appears to tamper with the camera before disconnecting and taking it. Yet investigators still obtained the footage.

Nancy did not subscribe to Google's $10-a-month storage plan, according to the New York Post, and the physical camera was also missing.

Former prosecutor John W. Day said, "It gives us some insight to what Google is capable of."

He added, "You can only imagine how difficult that was if it took 10 days to get there." Day called it "a miraculous turn of events because this could be the thing that leads to a break in the case."

Investigators have not detailed what prompted Google to help retrieve the footage. But the release of the images suggests cooperation led to new leads.

Did the Suspect Make a Critical Mistake?

Private investigator Andy Kay told Page Six that the suspect may have made a costly error.

"The cameras will record to the servers as long as they have internet. According to Nest, without a subscription, usually they are quickly overwritten by next images. But if the camera is disconnected, there should be nothing to overwrite on the server," he explained.

In simple terms, disconnecting the device may have preserved the final images instead of erasing them. Kay referred to the suspected kidnapper as a "rookie," noting that the weapon appeared to be holstered incorrectly.

The footage also shows the masked individual grabbing foliage from the ground in an apparent attempt to cover the lens.

Rookie - Or Experienced?

Still, former FBI senior profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole saw something different when analyzing the video.

"He doesn't seem to manifest really strong signs of being nervous... He's not racing around nor does he appear jittery. That's impressive to me," she noted.

O'Toole added, "You can only get that calmness from two things: your personality and your experience being in situations like this before." She also pointed to adaptability.

"Take a look at the gloves the person was wearing. They were so thick it was difficult for him to even move his hands... He was able to come up with something that allowed him to at least probably smudge the front of that lens," she said.

Entering Day 10

In nine days, the case moved from silence to a detention, a release, a house search, and footage recovered despite missing equipment and no subscription plan.

Now, as day ten unfolds, one major question lingers: if the man detained was released and the suspect on camera made a mistake that preserved evidence, what will the next break reveal?

Authorities say additional information will be released as it becomes available.