An independent search was underway near the U.S.-Mexico border for Nancy Guthrie's remains after an anonymous tip pointed to where her body might be. The effort centered on Nogales and drew a quick split between a volunteer group saying it helped coordinate the search and authorities saying they had no evidence to support it.
Buscando Corazones Nogales told local media it coordinated the search with local authorities, while the Pima County Sheriff's Department said it was aware of reports about the tip but had not been contacted by Mexican authorities. That leaves the search in a narrow space: active enough to draw attention, but still resting on information officials have not verified.
The case is still the disappearance of an 84-year-old woman who was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1. Surveillance images from outside Nancy Guthrie's house were released after she vanished, and the person who took her remains unidentified. That is why even an unconfirmed lead can pull in both sides of the border. Guthrie is the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, but the search now is about something more basic: whether the tip points to anything real.
Mexican authorities said there was no evidence, information or objective element suggesting that Guthrie entered, stayed in or traveled through Sonora, and the attorney general of the Mexican state involved said the Prosecutor's Office had not uncovered even preliminary information to support that line of inquiry. In other words, the search was launched before the supporting facts were in hand, which is exactly the friction in this case.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department said the investigation remains active and ongoing and that it will continue to follow up on any credible information. For now, the question is not whether the search happened — it did — but whether the anonymous tip can survive the basic test that authorities in Mexico say it has not yet met.
