Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing from her home near Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 1 after she did not appear at a friend’s house to watch Sunday morning virtual church services. Investigators have described the case as a possible kidnapping or abduction, and the FBI later recovered doorbell camera images of an armed and masked man outside her home.
Guthrie was last seen the previous night around 9:45 p.m. after she visited her daughter Annie Guthrie’s house on Jan. 31 and was driven back to her home in the Catalina Foothills. By the time she was reported missing around noon the next day, the search had already taken on the shape of a hostage case, with the FBI describing the armed and masked man as a suspect.
The detail that has most sharpened the case came in the form of evidence and language that have not matched neatly. Blood found on the porch outside Guthrie’s home tested positive for her DNA, and preliminary testing on gloves found about 2 miles away pointed to the DNA of an unknown male. Authorities said those gloves appear to match the gloves worn by a person seen in security video outside her home.
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That evidence sits alongside another thread that has complicated the investigation. At least three news outlets said they received ransom notes referring to Guthrie, and NBC News reviewed a copy of one note and said its contents were consistent with descriptions provided by the FBI and those outlets. No law enforcement agency has substantiated the notes so far, even as Savannah Guthrie said in an interview with Hoda Kotb that she believes two of them are legitimate.
Savannah Guthrie also said her mother was taken in her pajamas, without her shoes or medicine, and that the back doors of the house were found propped open. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Guthrie is believed to have been taken, possibly in the middle of the night. Together, those details point to a fast-moving disappearance that investigators still have not tied to a motive.
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The case now rests on whether the existing evidence can be made to line up with the story the investigators think they are seeing. For now, they have a missing woman, an armed suspect on camera, DNA evidence on the porch and gloves with an unknown male profile — but no public explanation for what happened inside the house near Tucson.
