Police in Tucson have ruled out any link betweenbone fragments found near the Arizona home of missing 84‑year‑old Nancy Guthrieand her disappearance, confirming on Friday that the discovery appears to be prehistoric and unrelated to the ongoing criminal investigation.
For context, the latest twist in the Nancy Guthrie case began when a YouTube true crime streamer, operating under the handle A.J.DoubleU News, was filming near North Craycroft Road and East River Road on 7 May. About seven miles from Guthrie's house in the upscale Catalina Foothills area, he came across what looked like a human leg bone and quickly called police, triggering a brief surge of speculation online that the mystery of the missing grandmother might finally be nearing resolution.
Instead, officers and forensic specialists concluded they were looking at something much older, and from a very different story.
Responding at around 10 a.m. local time, the Tucson Police Department cordoned off the area and brought in outside experts to examine the bone. Within hours, the tone of the operation shifted.
'This will be a prehistoric anthropological investigation,' Tucson police spokesperson James Horton said, according to local reports. 'This is not a criminal investigation.'
The department called in the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department and the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, who assisted in the assessment. The Pima County Sheriff's Department, which is leading the hunt for Nancy Guthrie, later echoed that the find was not connected to her case and stressed that their own inquiry 'remains active.'
The firm dismissal undercuts a wave of social media chatter that followed the streamer's discovery. Many followers had been tracking amateur searches near Guthrie's neighbourhood, as frustration grew at the scarcity of solid leads more than three months after she vanished.
I'm live! Human bone found!https://t.co/CPb5woKunk
To recall, Nancy Guthrie, mother ofTodayco‑host Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing on 1 February after failing to arrive at a friend's home to watch an online church service. She had been dropped at her Catalina Foothills house the previous evening, 31 January, by her daughter Annie Guthrie and son‑in‑law Tommaso Cioni.
In the early days, Pima County detectives said evidence suggested she had likely been abducted during the night. Drops of blood were found on the ground outside her front door and identified as her own. DNA collected on the property contained material from more than one person, complicating efforts to match it through national databases.
Source: International Business Times UK
