The search for Nancy Guthrie appeared to intensify Sunday with the recovery of DNA from a glove resembling those worn by the shadowy figure who appeared on doorbell camera footage the night she went missing from her Tucson home.
The DNA will be added to the Combined DNA Index System national database known as CODIS to check for a match to a known offender or forensic scene, authorities told NBC News.
Sunday marked exactly two weeks since family members rushed to check on Guthrie after a friend told them she hadn’t shown up to watch a church service online as planned — and found the house empty.
Guthrie had spent the previous evening, Jan. 31, with her daughter Annie and their family and been driven home about 9:30 p.m. or shortly after.
The next day, Pima County Sheriff’s Department declared her home a crime scene and said the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie had apparently been abducted. A feverish search has been underway since, fueled by deepening concern over Nancy Guthrie’s lack of access to lifesaving medication she needs daily.
Last week the FBI retrieved video from Guthrie’s doorbell camera, which had been disconnected just before 2 a.m. the night she went missing. It revealed a masked man wearing black gloves as he tried to obscure the camera with foliage from the yard.
The glove was found in a field next to a road about two miles from Guthrie’s home, the FBI said. It was one of about 16 gloves found scattered in the vicinity, the FBI said, though most of them had been discarded by volunteer searchers.
“The one with the DNA profile recovered is different and appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video,” the FBI said in a statement obtained by TMZ.
AP Photo/Ty ONeil
A law enforcement agent checks vegetation areas around Nancy Guthrie’s home in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
On Friday, authorities accompanied a pair of pool cleaners as they dragged a net through the water. On Saturday, police cordoned off a road near a home about two miles from Guthrie’s house and sent a SWAT team into a home there, detaining but not arresting two or more people and conducting a search. However, on Sunday sources told NBC News the investigation was leaning away from people who had previously been scrutinized.
Savannah Guthrie, her sister Annie and their brother Camron have posted videos separately and together begging for their mother’s release and safe return. The last such communication came from Savannah last Monday as the deadline passed on the latest of several ransom demands sent to various media outlets that have come without communication information or proof of life.
On Thursday Savannah posted a nostalgic medley of home videos from their youth. The family has been silent since.
With News Wire Services
