FBI releases detailed description of Nancy Guthrie suspect and backpack he was carrying as reward for info is raised to $100,000: Live updates

The FBI released more information about the suspect in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie on Thursday.

‘The suspect is described as a male, approximately 5’9” – 5’10” tall, with an average build,’ read a statement from Phoenix FBI.

‘In the video, he is wearing a black, 25-liter ‘Ozark Trail Hiker Pack’ backpack.’

The agency added that they have received more than 13,000 tips in the case and the reward amount has increased from $50,000 to $100,000.

Derrick Callella, the man charged with allegedly sending a fake ransom note in Nancy Guthrie’s case, is set to be arraigned in a federal courthouse in Arizona at 4pm local time today.

Callella sent a fake ransom text to Nancy Guthrie’s daughter in early February, a few days after Nancy had been kidnapped.

Callella texted Annie and Cioni on February 4: ‘Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction’.

Three minutes later, he phoned one of Nancy’s family members. The call lasted only nine seconds, the criminal complaint said.

He contacted the family shortly after Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, Annie and their brother Camron posted a video to Instagram begging for their mother’s return.

Callella allegedly admitted to sending the messages and told investigators he was ‘just trying to see if the family would respond.

Officials confirmed Callella had also been charged in a 2023 embezzlement scheme in which 13 Los Angeles County employees allegedly stole over $430,000 in unemployment benefits from the county.

A man who claims to know the identity of Nancy Guthrie‘s kidnapper sent a chilling note demanding $65,000 from her family on Thursday.

Grainy. Fleeting. Less than a minute in total. But for detectives investigating the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie from a quiet Tucson foothills home, the newly-recovered doorbell footage is dynamite.

The black-and-white images – released by the FBI in what officials describe as the first major break in the case – show a masked, armed figure on the porch of her $1 million home in the early hours of Sunday, February 1.

The individual appears to tamper with the doorbell camera, at one point holding a flashlight in their mouth while adjusting the device. It is the first time investigators and the public have seen the suspect.

Speaking to Fox News on Friday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the FBI was providing every possible resource to assist with the ongoing Nancy Guthrie investigation.

‘We are offering the full resources and weight of the federal government to help local authorities bring this case to an end to bring Nancy Guthrie home,’ Leavitt said.

‘President Trump immediately offered that when this case was first heard about, when this news broke and our hearts break every day that this goes on.’

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump reviewed the new security footage released by the FBI from Nancy Guthrie‘s home.

Leavitt said she was with the president as they reviewed the new evidence in the case which she described as ‘heartbreaking.’

The shocking footage revealed a masked figure with a latex glove tampering with a security camera at the home. It was released just hours before police detained a person of interest in the case near Tucson, Arizona.

Leavitt said President Trump reacted to the footage with ‘pure disgust.’

Retired Houston sketch artist Lois Gibson created an unofficial sketch of an unidentified police suspect captured in Nancy Guthrie’s home surveillance footage from the night she disappeared.

Gibson has not been brought on by Arizona police in the search and the sketch has not been officially released by authorities.

The forensic artist created a mock up of what the suspect could look like based on what little the surveillance footage reveals: eyes, lips and facial hair beneath the mask.

‘I couldn’t stop myself, I just couldn’t stop myself, I wanted to help, I felt the pain,’ Gibson told KHOU 11.

‘I’ve been in the room with people, their babies have been kidnapped and it takes you by the throat, it makes you feel like you’re choking over what they’re going through, so I wanted to help them.’

Nancy Guthrie’s neighbors have shown an outpouring of support since her disappearance from her home nearly two weeks ago.

Yellow bows have been seen tied to trees on the street of Nancy’s home in the Catalina Foothills in solidarity for the Guthrie family.

Yellow ribbons have been used for to show hope and support for someone’s safe return in missing persons cases.

A makeshift memorial has also been set up outside Nancy’s home, where flowers, handwritten messages, posters and candles have been laid in tribute

Nancy Guthrie has been missing for 13 days after she was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of Feb 1.

She was first reported missing on after she did not show up to attend a virtual church service at a friend’s house.

Authorities began searching for her that night. They confirmed the following day that her disappearance was being treated as a crime.

Nancy Guthrie made posts on a neighborhood app that revealed she had previous run-ins with criminals outside her $1 million home and the reason she decided to buy a doorbell camera.

The 84-year-old mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie was taken from her home in the upscale Catalina Foothills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona in the early morning hours of February 1.

She had lived in the home since 1975, raising her three children there, according to her profile on Nextdoor.

An Arizona sheriff was said to be blocking FBI access to key evidence in the investigation into the abduction of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, a source told Reuters on Thursday.

The FBI asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for physical evidence in the case, including a glove and DNA from the home of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, to be processed at the FBI’s national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

Sheriff Nanos has insisted instead on using a private lab in Florida.

He slammed claims that his department was ‘withholding evidence’ as ‘Not even close to the truth.’

‘Actually, the FBI just wanted to send the one or two they found by the crime scene, closest to it – mile, mile and a half…’ he continued.

‘I said “No, why do that? Let’s just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist.” They agreed, makes sense.’

The sheriff also argued that the gloves found at the scene by FBI investigators may not be as valuable as initially thought as police found multiple pairs on the side of the road near Nancy’s home.

‘We don’t even know the true value of these gloves,’ Nanos said, claiming there was ‘quite a number of them.’

Authorities announced on Thursday that the suspect who was seen trying to obscure a Nest doorbell camera outside Nancy Guthrie’s home on the night of her disappearance had been carrying a 25-liter ‘Ozark Trail Hiker Pack’ backpack.

The brand is exclusive to Walmart, and can only be bought new from the store.