More than 19,000 tips flooded into law enforcement after four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death inside an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022.
But it was a fragment of DNA found on a brown leather Ka-Bar knife sheath that would finally lead investigators 2,500 miles across the country to Bryan Kohberger’s door.
Now, in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, DNA found on a glove and inside her home could be the key to tracking down her abductors and bringing the 84-year-old home safe before it’s too late.
To David Mittelman, CEO of Othram – the forensic genetic genealogy lab that identified Kohberger as the source of the DNA on the sheath, ultimately proving him to be the killer – timing is critical, especially given Guthrie could still be out there alive.
‘Unlike cold cases, when there’s an active case like this, time is of the essence,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘The faster it’s done, the more chance you can recover someone who has been abducted.’
He added: ‘It could be the difference between a case going cold and a case getting solved right away.’
In Tucson, Arizona, investigators found a glove in a field beside a road around two miles from the home of the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie. The glove appears to match those worn by a masked suspect captured on Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera on the night she disappeared.
Today show host Savannah Guthrie and her mother Nancy Guthrie in 2021. Nancy was last seen on the night of January 31
Investigators found a glove that appeared to match those worn by a masked suspect captured on Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera on the night she disappeared
DNA not belonging to Guthrie or any close contacts was also found inside her home.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department sent the samples to DNA Labs International, a private lab in Florida, for testing.
On Tuesday, Sheriff Chris Nanos said the DNA on the glove does not match the DNA inside her home. Neither were found to be a match to CODIS – the law enforcement database of known offenders – meaning that the individuals are not known to have committed any past crimes.
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It’s a development that, undoubtedly, marks a blow to the investigation.
‘When there is a match to a known identity, investigators can seek out this person to figure out why their DNA was there,’ Mittelman said.
‘If the person is not in the CODIS database, which is not uncommon, then it will need a different kind of DNA testing.’
This is where a lab like Othram might come in.
Othram uses a technique called forensic grade genome sequencing to take DNA from a crime scene and build a DNA profile that has hundreds of thousands of markers.
This unique, detailed profile can then be uploaded to genetic genealogical databases to search for matches to very distant relatives.
Whereas CODIS will only find a complete match to an individual, a parent or sibling, genetic genealogy can find matches stretching far back along distant branches of family trees, to narrow down the identity of the individual.
It was this technique that ultimately identified Kohberger, a then-criminology student at Washington State University, in the Idaho Four case.
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Bryan Kohberger at his sentencing in Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on July 23
DNA on the sheath led to Bryan Kohberger being unmasked as the murderer of four University of Idaho students
Just 48 hours after Othram received the DNA, the lab determined it belonged to a man whose ancestry went back multiple generations in the US, whose family derived from Pennsylvania, and who had a very specific Italian background.
Only two families in the whole of America fit that specific criteria. And among those families, only one man – Kohberger – could have been in Moscow on November 13, 2022, driving a white Hyundai Elantra captured on surveillance footage fleeing the scene.
Similarly, if IGG is used in Guthrie’s case, Mittelman explained it will be able to narrow down a potential suspect’s characteristics such as their ancestry, location and heritage, before landing on an individual.
All of this takes time, though.
‘It’s paramount to get answers as soon as possible. The DNA work has to be done as quickly as possible because it could take some time to investigate,’ Mittelman said.
‘In Kohberger’s case, the DNA profile was built in just a few days, but it took a few weeks to track it down, find the person, get the warrant, carry out a trash pull to get DNA for comparison and everything else. You don’t want any delays.’
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s office has already faced criticism for sending the DNA to the private lab rather than the FBI’s lab in Quantico, which is considered one of the fastest and most effective DNA labs.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos defended his decision, telling local outlet KOLD the same lab has worked on the investigation from the start and already had other DNA including that of Guthrie’s family. He argued it would not make sense to send the DNA evidence to multiple locations.
Othram’s lab uses a technique called forensic grade genome sequencing to take DNA from a crime scene and build a DNA profile that has hundreds of thousands of markers. This unique, detailed profile can then be uploaded to genetic genealogical databases to search for matches to very distant relatives
Mittelman said every case is unique. But, he confirmed it is possible to process DNA ‘very quickly’ and ‘the FBI is certainly exceptional at it.’
Where the pieces of DNA were located in Guthrie’s case is significant, Mittelman explained.
‘In a homicide or a sex assault, there is a lot of DNA that can be recovered from the crime scene. But you want to find the DNA that’s most likely to be probative, like DNA from a foreign male on a woman’s body or DNA on a weapon,’ he said.
In Kohberger’s case, there were several DNA profiles found inside the victims’ home and under their nails.
But, DNA on the knife sheath is what scientists regard as ‘probative’: it was found on part of the murder weapon found at the crime scene and so the person who touched it was likely involved in the crime.
If the glove was worn by one of Guthrie’s potential abductors, this could also be probative – and could potentially crack the case wide open.
‘In an abduction or disappearance, it can be hard to know which items might be probative. If investigators are confident the glove they’ve recovered matches the glove in the video, that is a good place to start,’ he said.
A chilling masked figure was seen outside Nancy Guthrie’s home the night she went missing
‘But other things like the plants next to the house, the doorway, the interior of the home, anything in the scene that the victim may have come into contact with could be valuable for figuring out who was there and who might have been involved.’
The DNA could also help identify a suspect quicker than the video footage, Mittelman explained.
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In the chilling doorbell camera footage, the suspect’s appearance was disguised with a mask. Investigators have been trying to narrow them down through his clothing and backpack, which is sold at a local Walmart.
‘When you have an active case like this, you have two investigative options,’ Mittelman said.
‘One is the visual stream from security and doorbell cameras. The other is the identity stream from DNA. So if there’s not anything uniquely identifying in the camera footage, then DNA becomes even more important. It’s your identity feed of all the people who were at that scene at some point in time, and that could include people who were involved in what happened to her and folk who might know something.’
Mittelman said this is a prime example of why DNA testing should be carried out at the start of an investigation – not after a suspect has been identified.
In Kohberger’s case, the DNA was sent for testing right away, despite multiple other leads – including the footage of the suspect vehicle – being explored.
‘And in the end, that ended up being an important part of that case, because they weren’t generating enough unique leads,’ he said.
The same was true in the investigation into Rachel Morin’s murder, after the mom-of-five was killed while running in Maryland. The suspect was captured on camera breaking into a home months earlier – but his identity was unknown. Through IGG technology, Othram identified the killer and he was captured.
‘Traditionally, investigators use camera footage at the very beginning to figure out who was there. For some reason, DNA testing is usually done on the back end when a suspect has been identified and investigators want to confirm they are right,’ he said.
‘The DNA should be tested on day one because it could cause a delay. Maybe the camera feed is enough to trigger a lead or maybe someone comes forward with a tip but if they don’t, then all roads will lead back to the DNA.’
‘No matter what the case is, the faster you can get the truth, the better for everyone.’
