THE sheriff leading the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance has hit back at a bombshell report claiming she was taken as part of a botched robbery.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said he’s leaning on a so-called getaway car theory to help track down Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mom, who has now been missing for over two grueling weeks.
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Savannah Guthrie’s mom Nancy has been missing since February 1Credit: Instagram/savannahguthrie
Cops are trying to hunt down a masked suspect who was seen outside Nancy’s home the night she vanishedCredit: FBI
Savannah shared a tearful message to her mother’s kidnappersCredit: Reuters
A law enforcement source who spoke to local Phoenix TV station KTVK said the leading theory is that Nancy’s kidnapping wasn’t planned.
While the insider claimed she was snatched from her $1million Tucson, Arizona home on February 1 by burglars, Nanos said this was bogus.
He pointed to the terrifying surveillance capturing the at-large suspect as proof that the intricate crime was thoroughly planned.
“This is somebody who’s disappeared from the face of the earth, and now we have a camera that says here’s the person who did this,” he told the Daily Mail.
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“And that’s what makes me say this is a kidnapping. The motivation for it is where we get stuck, right?
“Is it for money? I mean, we had the one demand where they asked for money. But is it really for money, or is it for revenge for something?”
Nanos said investigators are leaning on digital forensics to try to track down the suspect’s movements before and after Nancy’s kidnapping.
He felt confident that footage of a car was somewhere, but said the search process had been incredibly delicate and demanding.
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“It’s hard. It’s like scratching through layers. Think of it like you have eight layers of paint on your house,” he said.
“They want to go to the sixth or seventh layer, and they have to be very delicate about it, not to destroy what’s there.
“I just hope they can scrape a camera shot down that driveway to identify a vehicle. Because, my goodness, you can’t put a mask on a vehicle, right?”
President Donald Trump, who has voiced his support for the Guthrie family, insisted authorities were “working so hard” to find the truth.
“Hopefully there will be a positive result,” he said in a Truth Social post on Monday.
The search continues for Nancy after 15 days, with some evidence still being recovered from around the sceneCredit: Getty
DNA breakthrough
The sheriff’s comments come after a glove recovered near the crime scene has been found to have DNA evidence on it.
The FBI said the glove matches those worn by the man in the video, who appears to be about 5ft 9in to 5ft 10in.
Preliminary results arrived on Saturday, and the FBI is now waiting for quality control and official confirmation before putting the unknown male profile into the bureau’s national DNA database, a spokesperson said.
The process usually takes around 24 hours, indicating that a suspect may be found imminently.
Around 16 gloves were found at the scene and taken in as evidence, although most were searchers’ gloves that had been discarded.
Blood was also found at the property, but investigators have not said whose it is.
‘Never too late’
On Sunday night, Savannah Guthrie posted a fresh appeal on her Instagram.
“It’s been two weeks since our mom was taken, and I just wanted to come on and say that we still have hope and we still believe,” she said in a message directly to the kidnappers with tears in her eyes.
“I wanted to say that to whoever has her or knows where she is, that it’s never too late. And you’re not lost or alone, and it is never too late to do the right thing.
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“And we are here, and we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, and it’s never too late.”
The FBI has increased the reward for information from $50,000 to $100,000.
