It was an affecting plea from a face familiar to millions of American households: “We are at an hour of desperation, and we need your help.”
The video message from Savannah Guthrie, released more than a week into a largely fruitless search for her 84-year-old mother, was a direct call to action to the far-reaching audience she has built as one of the country’s most-watched morning show hosts.
“I’m coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers,” she said, “but no matter where you are — even if you’re far from Tucson — if you see anything, if you hear anything, if there’s anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement.”
Report they did. The sheriff’s department in Pima County, Ariz., has received about 21,000 calls since Ms. Guthrie’s mother, Nancy, was reported missing on Feb. 1. More than 4,000 came in during the first 24 hours after the F.B.I. released the first images of a masked, armed suspect on Nancy Guthrie’s doorstep on the night she disappeared.
Callers have also inundated 88-CRIME, an anonymous tip line in Pima County, with more than 1,100 calls about Ms. Guthrie, said Fabian Pacheco, who oversees the operation for the Pima County Attorney’s Office. The tip line, which forwards leads to the county sheriff’s department, typically receives no more than a couple of dozen tips a day.
The F.B.I.’s tip line has also been taking calls about the Guthrie case, and is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information that leads to Ms. Guthrie’s return or the arrest or conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
But the calls, despite their staggering volume and the several hundred investigators assigned to sift them, have so far yielded few tangible results.
The first, and so far only, major break in the investigation was the release of black-and-white footage from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera that showed a person wearing a ski mask, backpack, gloves, and what appeared to be a holstered handgun at the front door of her home near Tucson shortly before she was abducted.
The chilling images reinvigorated public interest. But just two hours after posting them to social media, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department followed up with a message beseeching the public to submit only tips they could act on — not “commentary.”
“The Pima County Sheriff’s Department recognizes that members of the community may have thoughts, opinions, feelings or questions regarding the Nancy Guthrie case,” the department said. “However, 9-1-1 & the PCSD nonemergency line are not the appropriate venue for expressing those views.”
The simple tactic of soliciting tips from the public has led to significant breakthroughs in some criminal cases. In December, it was a tip from Reddit that helped authorities find the gunman in the Brown University shooting nearly a week after he killed two students and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Most law enforcement agencies have adjusted to, if not embraced, the need for dedicated personnel and technology to find patterns in the deluge of tips that a high-profile case elicits, particularly from amateur social media sleuths and true crime aficionados, said Michael Alcazar, a retired New York Police Department detective and an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Though 911 lines need to be left open for emergencies, he said the Pima department should not have dissuaded anyone from calling, no matter how daunting the task might be for investigators. “Somebody’s going to provide information — this is how this case will be solved,” he said. “Because, whatever Pima County is doing is not working right now.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department did not elaborate on the status of the investigation, and the F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment.
Callers to the FBI’s general tip line, 1-800-CALL-FBI, heard a recorded message warning of “higher than normal call volumes and extended wait times.” The tip line filters calls about cases currently highlighted in the news, asking callers to “press one” if they have information regarding Ms. Guthrie.
One caller to the FBI’s line, spurred by the release of images of the suspect, said he was stymied by long wait times on Tuesday night. The caller, Fred Talbott, a retiree in Virginia Beach, said he waited on hold for an hour, hoping to tell investigators that they should attempt to identify the suspect’s jacket, holster and backpack, and track down any retailers who might have sold them.
It was “common sense” investigative work, Mr. Talbott said. “I’m sure they’ve got great people working on it. But you see, I’m 77 years old, I’m retired. I’m sitting here, I see this thing, I think, ‘Maybe I can help.’”
He eventually wrote a letter to Kash Patel, director of the F.B.I., and dropped it in the mail.
Anushka Patil is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news around the world.
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