DNA results have provided a shocking update in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case.
It has been over two weeks since the 84-year-old vanished without a trace from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on the night of January 31.
According to officials, there were no signs that Nancy had planned to leave, and her family has been insistent that the elderly woman, who has limited mobility and relies on daily medication, would never have gone anywhere on her own.
Making matters even more alarming, Nancy’s pacemaker and home monitoring devices were disconnected shortly after she disappeared.
Authorities have warned that, if found alive, she could be in urgent need of medical care after weeks without her vital medication.
And as the search for Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother enters its third week, investigators have received a shock DNA blow.
The disappearance that gripped America
The disappearance of Nancy quickly captured the attention of the entire country.
Savannah Guthrie has made a series of heartbreaking public pleas alongside her siblings Cameron and Annie, begging for their mother’s safe return.
Donald TrumpPresident Trump deployed some of the FBI’s most skilled officers to assist in the investigation, with FBI Director Kash Patel personally overseeing the case.
Chilling ransom demand
Just days into the search, a ransom note was delivered to law enforcement and local media outlets, demanding $6 million in bitcoin in exchange for Nancy’s safe return.
While investigators have not officially verified the note, they have been treating it with the utmost seriousness.
With the clock ticking, Guthrie posted an emotional video to Instagram just three hours before the ransom deadline on February 9.
Speaking directly to the suspected kidnapper and flanked by her brother and sister, the Today show host said: “We are at an hour of desperation. We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us, so that we can celebrate with her.”
She continued with words that stopped the public in its tracks: “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Despite the family’s desperate willingness, the deadline came and went without any proof from the alleged abductor that Nancy was still alive, something the family had explicitly requested before agreeing to send any money.
Surveillance footage rocks the investigation
On February 10, the FBI released shocking surveillance footage that added a chilling new dimension to the case.
Retrieved from the backend systems of Nancy’s home security camera, the black-and-white clip shows a masked individual lurking outside her front door in the early hours of the morning she disappeared. The person appears to be armed and is seen near the camera itself.
FBI Director Patel confirmed the footage during a briefing, saying: “The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems. Working with our partners, as of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance.”
Authorities have not confirmed the gender of the person in the footage. No suspects have been identified, and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department confirmed no further press conferences would be held until investigators had a clearer picture of what happened.
Following the release of the footage, Guthrie posted a simple but heartbreaking message on Instagram: “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”
A race against time
Former FBI agent Michael Harrigan said that the discovery could hold crucial DNA evidence, explaining that the key question was whether the glove had been worn directly against the skin or over another glove, a distinction that would determine the likelihood of any DNA transfer from a suspect.
“They’ll be looking all over for skin cell DNA that could have been transferred to the glove,” Harrigan said, adding that he expected investigators to send it to a laboratory for full analysis.
They had previously collected samples from outside her property, including blood droplets belonging to the 84-year-old herself.
Former Las Vegas Police Lieutenant Randy Sutton told Fox News that the new samples would be used to ‘eliminate individuals or obtain information about them.’
The FBI also announced a $50,000 reward for any information leading to Nancy’s safe return, with the bureau publicly stating: “Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home.”
The DNA update
On February 17, the investigation suffered a significant setback.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos confirmed to Fox News that DNA retrieved from the black glove, discovered approximately two miles from Nancy’s home, had been submitted to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, and returned no match.
“We’re hopeful that we’re always getting closer, but the news now, I think, is we had heard this morning that, of course, the DNA on the glove that was found two miles away was submitted for CODIS,” Nanos said. “And I just heard that CODIS had no hits.”
The sheriff then delivered a second blow, confirming that separate DNA recovered from inside Nancy’s home had also failed to produce any hits from the CODIS database.
In short, whoever is behind the abduction of the 84-year-old grandmother has no prior criminal record on file, at least not one linked to any DNA already in the system.
Fox News explains that investigators have begun using investigative genealogy in the search after DNA produced no matches in the FBI’s national CODIS database.
This technique involves comparing the unknown DNA to genetic genealogy databases to find potential familial matches, which can help narrow down the suspect’s identity by tracing relatives and building family trees, the same approach used in high-profile cases like the Golden State Killer.
Law enforcement hopes this method will generate leads toward identifying who the DNA belongs to, since traditional database searches have not yielded results.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI’s 24-hour command post, which continues to operate around the clock with crisis management experts, analytic support, and investigative teams dedicated to bringing Nancy home.