Eleven days after the mother of the “Al-Youm” program presenter. Savannah Guthrie She disappeared from her home in the foothills outside Tucson, Arizona, investigators said He has not yet been identified A suspect or even a person of interest Wednesday.
What seemed like a big break on Tuesday — when authorities I detained someone for questioning – faded when the man was released hours later. The arrest came after another possible break earlier in the day when investigators released video footage showing a masked and apparently armed man. Nancy Guthrie Her doorstep the night she disappeared.
The general lack of progress has generated pressure and questions for local and federal investigators, who have not held a news conference in days. From the outside, it may seem as if solving the case and finding the 84-year-old Guthrie is increasingly unlikely, but investigators may be further along than they let on.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI analyst who worked on the years-long search for the Unabomber, said it’s not uncommon for cases to appear dead in the water at first, yet eventually be solved.
How do investigators deal with such cases?
Surveillance footage released Tuesday Show someone On Guthrie’s porch wearing a ski mask, a backpack and what looks like a holstered gun.
Recalling the hunt for Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber,” who was captured in 1996 after a years-long search, O’Toole said it represented the best opportunity yet for the public to help identify the suspect.
Kaczynski who executed A bombing campaign that lasted 17 years Which killed three people and injured 23 others. He wrote a statement that was published in the New York Times and the Washington Post before his arrest.
His brother recognized Kaczynski’s tone in the screed, notified the FBI, and Kaczynski was arrested at a cabin outside Lincoln, Montana.
Likewise, Luigi Mangione, who allegedly shot the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in New York, was arrested five days later when someone at a McDonald’s restaurant recognized him and tipped him.
In Guthrie’s case, releasing surveillance footage and Savannah Guthrie’s plea for the public’s help is the same strategy, O’Toole said.
Someone who knows the suspect may have noticed them behaving unusually, such as not going to work, following the news too closely, or making offhand comments about the case.
If they recognize anything familiar about the masked person appearing on camera, that could confirm their suspicions and lead them to inform investigators, O’Toole said.
Investigators said DNA from blood found on Guthrie’s porch matched hers, and O’Toole said investigators will continue to check the area for DNA from a potential suspect, including hair or fingerprints, which has helped solve other cases.
Brian Kohberger, the criminology student who sneaked into a home and stabbed four University of Idaho students to death in 2022, was arrested after a trace of DNA was found on a knife sheath left on one of the victims’ bed.
That DNA yielded no hits from standard law enforcement databases, so investigators turned to publicly available genealogy services, searching for possible relatives.
After turning to Kohberger by tracking his car using surveillance footage near the crime scene, investigators were able to arrive at the scene I got a Q tip from the trash outside his family home and DNA testing.
He matched the father of the person whose DNA was on the knife sheath.
In the days after a shooter killed two people at Brown University in 2025, investigators did not appear to be any closer to identifying a suspect.
When police finally shared photos of a person of interest, A.J The guy started posting on Reddit That he recognized the person and that police should look into the gray Nissan.
The source, identified only as “John” in a police affidavit, told investigators he bumped into a man in the bathroom and thought his clothing was “inappropriate and not appropriate for the weather.” John saw him outside again, acting nervous and nervous near the Nissan.
John’s information about the car helped identify the shooter, Claudio Nieves Valiente, six days later, leading investigators to a storage unit where he was found dead by suicide.
It is not clear whether John received a $50,000 reward for information provided in this case. The FBI offers the same amount for information about Guthrie’s apparent kidnapping and hopes a tipster like John will come forward. The Pima County Police Department said Wednesday that it has received nearly 18,000 calls since the day Guthrie was reported missing.
“Someone has that information that could help us get Nancy back home,” FBI spokesman Connor Hagan said in an earlier statement.