FBI says DNA glove near Nancy Guthrie home matches suspect’s glove

Body

The FBI said Sunday it has sent a glove for DNA testing after preliminary results indicated the glove may match ones worn by a masked person seen near the Tucson home of missing Nancy Guthrie the night she disappeared. The investigation is entering its third week as law enforcement continues to gather evidence.

The glove was found in a field about 2 miles from Guthrie’s home, and the FBI said it received preliminary results Saturday while it awaited official confirmation. The FBI earlier released surveillance footage showing a person wearing a ski mask, gloves and carrying a backpack outside Guthrie’s front door the night she vanished.

Authorities said Guthrie was last seen at her home on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the following day. The FBI said two purported ransom-deadline dates for paying have already passed, and authorities have also reported finding Guthrie’s blood on the front porch.

Investigators have described concerns about Guthrie’s health because she needs vital daily medicine. A report in the case materials described sheriff’s dispatcher audio saying she has a pacemaker and had dealt with high blood pressure and heart issues.

Law enforcement has also been pursuing other forensic work. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said investigators collected DNA from Guthrie’s property that did not belong to Guthrie or people in close contact with her, and it said evidence requiring forensic analysis is being sent to the same out-of-state lab used since the beginning of the case. The FBI said it has also recovered about 16 gloves in various spots near the home, most of which were described as searchers’ gloves that were discarded.

While evidence collection continues, the sheriff and FBI announced phone numbers and a website to offer tips. The FBI said it has collected more than 13,000 tips since Feb. 1, and the sheriff’s department said it has taken at least 18,000 calls, though it has not said whether any tips have advanced the investigation. Investigators also detailed operational steps that have included a court-authorized search in Rio Rico and the detention of a person for questioning during a traffic stop south of Tucson, with authorities confirming later that the person was released.

At the same time, the family has kept a public focus on Guthrie’s disappearance. Savannah Guthrie, her sister and her brother have posted multiple video messages on social media to the person behind the purported abduction, and the tone has shifted over time from impassioned pleas and willingness to pay to bleaker appeals for the public’s help. In one video, Savannah Guthrie issued an appeal saying, “It is never too late to do the right thing,” and added that “we are here” while telling the person or anyone who knows where Guthrie is being kept that she is still asking for help.

Guthrie lived alone in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood, where homes are spaced far apart and set back behind driveways, gates and desert vegetation. Savannah Guthrie grew up in Tucson, graduated from the University of Arizona, and joined “Today” in 2011, crediting her mother in the area of family life after her father died in 1988.