Two weeks in, and the search for Nancy Guthrie has taken a turn nobody expected.
The 84-year-old mother of NBC Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie vanished from her home in the Catalina Foothills outside Tucson,Arizona, in the early hours of 1 February. Bloodstains confirmed as hers were found on the front porch. Ransom notes demanding millions in bitcoin surfaced. And yet, according to a source close to the investigation, this may never have been about kidnapping at all.
It was, investigators now believe, a burglary gone wrong.
We can now confirm through an inside source investigators believe Nancy Guthrie abduction was intended burglary, and DNA evidence is currently being tested from the Range Rover that was seen being towed away Friday.Here’s what we know and can report…pic.twitter.com/gr43wwWII4
CBS 5 true crime correspondent Briana Whitney broke the story on 15 February, citing an inside source who said detectives believe an intruder entered the Guthrie home intending to steal, not to abduct. Whitneyreported for Arizona's Familythat the 'widespread investigative belief' is that Nancy could still be alive.
That assessment did not come out of nowhere. Multiple former law enforcement figures had been saying much the same for days. Weaver Barkman, a crime analyst who spent 26 years with the Pima County Sheriff's Department, reviewed the doorbell camera footage andtold the Arizona Daily Starthe suspect's clothing and movement suggested someone who understood forensic evidence. Someone planning a break-in, not a snatch.
Gregory Vecchi, a retiredFBIspecial agent, went further. The suspect probably panicked after encountering Guthrie inside the house, he said, and improvised from there.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, for his part, would not be drawn. 'Motive is hard to place right now without a suspect in custody,' he told reporters.
The most promising forensic lead so far is asingle black glove recovered roughly two miles from the Guthrie propertyin a field near the roadside. TheFBI confirmed to CBS Newsthat it appears to match the gloves worn by the masked figure caught on Nancy's doorbell camera.
Investigators collected around 16 gloves near the property. Most were discards from the search teams. But one was different. It was sent to a private lab inFloridaon 12 February, and by 14 February, analysts had extracted an unknown male DNA profile. The FBI said it was awaiting final quality control before loading the profile into CODIS, the bureau's national DNA matching database. A hit in that system would give investigators a name.
Source: International Business Times UK
