Law enforcement in Tucson is continuing to build the evidentiary record in the search for Nancy Guthrie as the investigation moves into its third week, with the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department working in tandem, the Associated Press reported. Investigators said Guthrie, 84, was last seen at her home on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the next day. Authorities have also said they found Guthrie’s blood on the front porch.
In recent days, investigators have sought to expand the clues available to the case. The FBI released surveillance videos of what it said is a masked person wearing a handgun holster outside Guthrie’s front door in Tucson the night she vanished. A porch camera recorded a separate view of a person with a backpack who wore a ski mask, long pants, a jacket and gloves.
On Thursday, the FBI called the person a suspect, describing him as about 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build and saying he was carrying a 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack. Investigators initially said they had no surveillance video available at the home because Guthrie did not have an active subscription to the doorbell-camera company; digital forensics experts then kept working to find images in back-end software that might have been lost, corrupted or inaccessible.
Investigators also described forensic work that has been ongoing at the property level. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said investigators collected DNA from Guthrie’s property that does not belong to Guthrie or people in close contact with her and that investigators are working to identify who it belongs to. The department also said evidence requiring forensic analysis is being sent to the same out-of-state lab used since the start of the case, and that investigators found several gloves, including one about 2 miles from Guthrie’s home, and submitted them for lab analysis without specifying the type of gloves.
As the search progressed, local and federal investigators said they were also sorting through tips. The Pima County sheriff and the FBI announced phone numbers and a website for the public to provide information. The FBI said it collected more than 13,000 tips since Feb. 1, while the sheriff’s department said it had taken at least 18,000 calls. The sheriff’s department did not say whether any tips had advanced the investigation.
Authorities also carried out more active search steps. Late Friday night, law enforcement sealed off a road about 2 miles from Guthrie’s home, and a parade of sheriff’s and FBI vehicles—including forensics vehicles—passed through the roadblock. Investigators also tagged and towed a Range Rover SUV from a nearby Culver’s restaurant parking lot late Friday, and the sheriff’s department later said Saturday that the activity was part of the case but that no arrests were made.
On Tuesday, deputies detained a person for questioning during a traffic stop south of Tucson, and authorities confirmed the person was released. Deputies and FBI agents also conducted a court-authorized search in Rio Rico, about an hour’s drive south of Tucson.
While investigators pursued leads and forensic testing, family members continued to appeal to the public. Savannah Guthrie, her sister, and her brother posted multiple video messages on social media to Guthrie’s purported captor, with the family’s tone shifting from pleas and willingness to pay to requests for help that family members described as bleaker. The most recent video on Thursday was described as a home video of their mother and a message promising, “never give up on her.”
Authorities have said they are concerned about Guthrie’s health, citing her need for vital daily medicine. The reporting described sheriff’s dispatcher audio saying Guthrie has a pacemaker and has dealt with high blood pressure and heart issues. Guthrie lived alone in the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson in an upscale neighborhood where houses are spaced far apart and set back from streets by long driveways, gates and dense desert vegetation. Savannah Guthrie, who grew up in Tucson and joined “Today” in 2011, described her mother in a video as “a loving woman of goodness and light.”