The CEO and founder of Ring doorbells is getting ripped online for positing that the Nancy Guthrie case would be “solved” if only there were more home surveillance cameras on the 84-year-old grandmother’s home.
“I do believe if they had more of it, if there was more cameras on the house, I think we might, you know, have solved” the case, Jamie Siminoff told Fortune on Tuesday.
“The video that they have,” he went on, “appears to be the best evidence they have of what happened.”
The FBI released surveillance video from Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the night she was kidnapped showing a masked suspect. FBI
The footage of the armed suspect was recovered from the “residual data located in backend systems” of Guthrie’s camera, according to FBI Director Kash Patel. FBISiminoff also told the magazine that Guthrie’s case is “just another example of, like, how important it is to have video at your house.”
Keyboard warriors quickly took to Reddit to blast the entrepreneur behind the $1 billion brand.
“If only we had universal mass surveillance,” one person wrote.
“The CEO of a monitoring company is hoping more people BUY a monitoring product. Why are we surprised by this?” someone else said.
“Basically admitting that a universal privately owned panopticon makes you even more under the thumb of government.
“Why get a warrant when you could just buy the information from Ring?” wrote another sarcastic commenter.
The FBI released photos and video from Guthrie’s Nest camera on Feb. 10, showing a masked man tampering with the security device around the time she vanished on Feb. 1.
“I do believe if they had more of it, if there was more cameras on the house, I think we might, you know, have solved” the case, Jamie Siminoff told Fortune on Tuesday. Emmy ParkThen, new surveillance video obtained last week from one of Guthrie’s neighbors’ cameras captured several cars driving near her Tucson home the night authorities believe she was kidnapped.
But Nancy notably had not paid her Nest subscription, and the footage of her suspected kidnapper was feared lost during the first desperate days of the investigation.
The images were able to be obtained, however, after the FBI worked with Nest to dig the files out of the recesses of its servers.
Though they have been the biggest break in the case – the images seemed to unequivocally confirm that Nancy had been kidnapped – little has come of them, as no suspects have been identified or arrests made in the more than a month that since she vanished.
Several people were detained, but each was soon released after questioning.
And DNA found at Nancy’s home has so far failed to yield any positive matches with any of the evidence police have gathered.
Nancy’s family – led by “TODAY” show host Savannah Guthrie – are now offering a $1 million reward for information leading to her return.
