Nearly four months after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Arizona home, investigators are still digging through more than 50,000 tips and advanced DNA evidence without a public arrest or named suspect. The case remains active, but the central question — what happened to the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie — is still unanswered.
That is why the search around Savannah Guthrie has persisted. Her mother was last seen around 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 31 after family members dropped her off at her home in the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson, Ariz., following dinner. When she did not show up at a friend’s house to watch an online church service the next day, she was reported missing around noon on Feb. 1.
Former FBI special agent Harry Trombitas said the sheer volume of leads has kept investigators busy. He said there have been over 50,000 tips, and that the names of the people involved are most likely buried somewhere in them. His view was that the case can only move forward if detectives keep building it carefully for a future prosecution, even if they are already closing in on someone.
That work now includes mixed DNA, including a hair sample recovered from Guthrie’s home, which was first sent to a private lab in Florida and then forwarded in April to the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., for advanced analysis. Trombitas said mixed DNA is harder to work with than a single-source sample and argued the FBI lab can do far more than a private lab, adding that he wished the evidence had gone there first.
Investigators are also working through other pieces of video and physical evidence. They are reviewing doorbell camera footage of a masked individual the FBI said was armed, video of a speeding car near the time of the disappearance, a backpack possibly bought online and a damaged utility box that may be connected to an internet outage reported around then. At least three people have been detained for questioning.
Even with that activity, the friction in the case is clear: Pima County sheriff and FBI investigators have not publicly identified any suspects or a motive, and the reason the home was targeted has not been disclosed. Sheriff Chris Nanos said on May 11 that he believed an arrest would come at some point and that investigators would not give up just because 100 days had passed. The public still does not know who took Guthrie, or whether the evidence already in hand is enough to stop it from becoming another unsolved disappearance.
