Seventeen days after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson-area home, investigators say a key piece of forensic evidence has not led to a suspect.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday that DNA recovered from gloves found about two miles from the 84-year-old’s home did not match any entries in the national Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS.
“There were no DNA hits in CODIS,” the department said. “At this point, there have been no confirmed CODIS matches in this investigation.”
CODIS is a nationwide database containing DNA profiles of convicted offenders and crime suspects. A match could have pointed authorities toward a possible suspect in Guthrie’s disappearance, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing February 1 after spending the previous evening with family. Investigators later detected her blood on the porch of her home.
A porch security camera captured video of a man wearing a ski mask, jacket, long pants, gloves and carrying a backpack. The FBI described the suspect as about 5 feet, 9 inches tall with a medium build. Authorities have said the gloves found miles away appeared to match those worn by the individual in the video.
Investigators stressed that other forensic evidence remains under review.
“There is additional DNA evidence that was found at the residence, and that is also being analysed,” the sheriff’s department said.
According to the AP, authorities are also working with specialists to try to detect signals from Guthrie’s heart pacemaker in hopes of locating her. Parsons Corp said its BlueFly device — which can detect signals from wearable electronics and medical devices within about 200 meters — has been deployed both from the air and on the ground in Arizona.
The company declined further comment about its role in the search.
Over the weekend, Savannah Guthrie appealed directly to the public in an Instagram video.
“It is never too late to do the right thing,” she said. “And we are here. And we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, that it’s never too late.”
(With inputs from Associated Press)
