FBI: DNA recovered from glove near Guthrie home that appears to match suspect's glove
The glove was found in a field at the side of the road. The FBI said in a statement Sunday (Feb 15) that it received preliminary DNA results Saturday and is awaiting confirmation.
This image provided by the FBI shows surveillance images at the home of Nancy Guthrie the night she went missing in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo: FBI via AP)
TUCSON: The FBI says a glove containing DNA was found about 3.2km from Nancy Guthrie’s home and appears to match those worn by a masked person outside her front door in Tucson the night she vanished.
The glove, found in a field near the side of the road, was sent off for DNA testing. The FBI said in a statement Sunday (Feb 15) that it received preliminary results Saturday and is awaiting official confirmation.
Approximately 16 gloves were found in various spots near the house, most of which were searchers’ gloves that had been discarded, the FBI said.
The discovery was revealed days after investigators had released surveillance videos of the masked person outside Guthrie’s front door. A porch camera recorded video of a person with a backpack who was wearing a ski mask, long pants, a jacket and gloves.
The Arizona sheriff leading the investigation into the abduction of US television journalist Savannah Guthrie's elderly mother says the biggest clue by far in the nearly two weeks since she vanished is the video of a masked prowler tampering with her doorbell camera.
"That individual is who we're looking for," Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said in an interview with Reuters as the search continued for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, presumed kidnapped for ransom from her home near Tucson.
"Are there others? We don't know that until we find him, or other evidence comes in to indicate that, but right now, he's who we want. Somebody out there knows who this is," Nanos said.
On Thursday, the FBI called the person a suspect. It described him as a man about 5 feet, 9 inches tall with a medium build. The agency said he was carrying a 25-litre “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack.
FACIAL RECOGNITION ANALYSIS
Experts have said that investigators were likely seeking to bring facial recognition analysis to bear on the video to produce a composite image of a suspect that they can run against a national database that includes all US drivers with Real ID licenses.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31, when family dropped her off at her home following an evening dinner with them, and relatives reported her missing the following day, authorities said.
The sheriff has said the doorbell camera was disabled shortly before her pacemaker app lost its connection with her telephone line early on February 1. That and the fact that Guthrie lacked the physical mobility to wander off far from home unassisted led investigators to conclude early on that she had been taken against her will, Nanos said.
Law enforcement and family members have described her as being in frail health and in need of daily medication to survive.
TRACES OF BLOOD
Traces of blood found on her front porch were confirmed by DNA tests to have come from Guthrie, officials said last week. On Friday, the sheriff's office said DNA from people other than Guthrie or "those in close contact to her" has also been collected from her property, and investigators are "working to identify who it belongs to."
At least two purported ransom notes have surfaced since she disappeared, both delivered initially to news media outlets and setting two deadlines that have since lapsed.
Savannah Guthrie, 54, co-anchor of the popular NBC News morning show "Today," has posted several video messages with her brother and sister, appealing to their mother's captors for her return, pleading for the public's help in solving the case, and even expressing a willingness to meet ransom demands.
Nanos told Reuters that no proof of life has surfaced since the abduction, but he was quick to add: "There's not been any proof of death either." He said his working presumption is that Nancy Guthrie remains alive.
"Hope is sometimes all we have, it really is," he said. "I have a team of 400 officers from federal government, state government, local government. I have a community of a million people here who are invested in this, who want her back. Sometimes all we have to go on is hope. I'm not going to kill that."
