A Tucson couple discovered a pair of blood-stained gloves and a rock with dried blood in the Arizona desert, roughly a mile from the home of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie. The couple, who asked to remain anonymous, informed the Pima County Sheriff's Department after stumbling upon the suspicious black gloves on the ground about 10 feet apart near Guthrie's Tucson neighborhood.
Guthrie was reported missing three weeks ago. Ring camera video from the night of her disappearance captured a pair of gloves on the hands of an armed intruder. Drops of blood identified as belonging to Guthrie were discovered just outside the front door of her home.
Investigators interviewed the couple, and evidence collection personnel remained at the scene until 2 a.m. The rock reportedly bore at least one blood splatter, and some analysts say it resembled blood spatter patterns. Whether the gloves and the rock are connected to Guthrie's case remains to be determined.
This is not the first set of gloves recovered. Several gloves have been found by investigators, including at least one sent to a DNA lab for testing. According to authorities, those results did not produce a hit in the federal DNA database of known criminals or match other DNA found inside the Guthrie home.
That dead end has pushed the investigation into more advanced territory, as Breitbart reported. Further searches in genealogical databases for possible matches to a suspect's relatives are reportedly underway. Genealogical DNA tracing has cracked cold cases before. Whether it yields results here depends on the quality of the sample and the breadth of the database matches available.
The Feb. 11 discovery in the Catalina Foothills adds another data point for investigators working on a case that has generated enormous public interest. The reward for information has increased from $50,000 to more than $200,000.
Public engagement in the case has been extraordinary and, in some ways, a double-edged sword. The Sheriff's 911 Communications Center has fielded hundreds of daily calls related to the case, with more than 32,000 to date. That figure is 10,000 more than the same period from a year ago.
The volume reflects genuine concern, but it also strains resources. Investigators have urged the public to submit only actionable tips to keep emergency lines available. The FBI tip line, 1-800-CALL-FBI, remains active for anyone with substantive information.
There is a tension in cases like this between the public's desire to help and the operational reality that law enforcement faces. Every call has to be processed. Every lead has to be assessed. When tens of thousands of those calls come in, the ones that matter can get buried under the ones that don't. Good intentions can slow the very investigation people are trying to support.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department is investigating what all available evidence points to as an abduction. An armed intruder on camera. Blood at the front door. An 84-year-old woman is gone.
The gloves found a mile from her home may prove critical, or they may prove coincidental. The desert terrain around Tucson is vast. Items turn up. But the proximity to Guthrie's home, combined with the blood staining, makes them worth every hour investigators spent at that scene.
The lack of a DNA match in federal databases is notable. It means that whoever was inside that home, assuming the tested gloves are connected, has no prior criminal record flagged in the system. That narrows some possibilities and opens others. The genealogical database search is the next logical step, a method that relies not on the suspect having a record but on a relative having submitted DNA to a commercial testing service.
An 84-year-old woman does not vanish from her home without someone knowing something. The physical evidence is accumulating. The public attention is immense. The reward money is substantial. Somewhere between the ring camera footage, the blood at the door, the gloves in the desert, and 32,000 phone calls, there is a thread that leads to Nancy Guthrie.
Investigators need to find it before the trail goes cold.
