Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera may have recorded her abductor. Why police can’t see the video
The night Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home, something activated her doorbell camera. But what — or who — was it?
Investigators don’t know because Guthrie had not subscribed to the camera’s service. The video it recorded no longer exists.
“It is concerning, it’s actually almost disappointing because you’ve got your hopes up,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told The Associated Press. “OK, they got an image. ‘Well, we do, but we don’t.’”
What could have been one of the most important pieces of the investigation was blocked by a paywall.
Why did the camera not save the video?
Nanos said that investigators had reached out to the doorbell camera’s manufacturer for access to any data it recorded the night Nancy Guthrie was abducted. The company could tell authorities that the camera sent a detection alert at 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1. But there was no way to recover any video recorded that night because Guthrie, 84, did not have a subscription that included retention of recorded video.
The Independent and other news organizations have reported that Guthrie had a Ring, a popular brand of doorbell cameras. However, Ring has confirmed to Straight Arrow News that it was not a Ring device.
Doorbell cameras broadcast a live feed when they’re activated but do not automatically save the video without a subscription plan. Ring, for instance, offers a plan for $4.99 a month that saves up to 180 days’ worth of video.
How do doorbell cameras work?
Ring doorbells and other major brands like Blink and Nest are unable to download their video to a hard drive or SD card. Instead, they upload via Wi-Fi to servers that store recordings. The subscription pays for storage on those servers. Some of these companies do sell additional devices that allow users to locally store video. Blink, for example, sells a device for $50 and does not require a subscription to use it.
Other brands, such as Eify, TP-Link, and Reolink, offer users a way to store footage locally, either via microSD cards or a device included with the doorbell.
However, even if Guthrie’s doorbell camera could store video locally, it wouldn’t have helped investigators. Nanos said detectives could not find her doorbell, so whoever abducted her must have removed it.
Home security experts suggest that using a security camera system and maintaining redundancies are the best ways to stay protected. One example is having a camera connected to the home’s electrical system with backup batteries in case the power goes out. Then, connecting the camera to a local server somewhere else in the house would allow it to upload videos that people could access. People can also have the server automatically upload videos to the cloud using free software.
What are investigators doing now?
Authorities said Guthrie had other cameras on her property, and they are working to determine whether they captured anything relevant to her disappearance. But investigators have run into another problem: the darkness.
Guthrie lives in a neighborhood located in a celebrated dark-sky region with no streetlights, according to USA Today. Homes sit far from the street, separated from each other by about an acre of land. Just in case, officials have asked neighbors with cameras to share footage from the night of Guthrie’s abduction.
“We are asking everyone to please check any security or doorbell camera footage, especially from Saturday night after 8:00 PM,” the Catalina Foothills Association said in an email cited by USA Today. “Your help could make a difference.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
