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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Three months after Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her home outside Tucson, Arizona, it's still not known where she is or who took her.
Few new details have been released about the case in recent weeks, but a spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told Newsweek that it is “still an active investigation.”
Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at her home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood on January 31 and reported missing on February 1. Authorities have said that she was taken against her will and that drops of her blood were found on her front porch.
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Despite a massive search involving thousands of law enforcement officers and the FBI assisting the sheriff’s department in the investigation, there’s been no sign of her since and authorities have not identified a suspect or provided the public with any major breakthroughs since the release of surveillance footage showing a masked man on her front porch.
But Kenneth Gray, a former FBI agent who is a professor in the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, told Newsweek that as with other cases, authorities will continue pursuing leads “waiting for the one lead that will break this case wide open.”
As the investigation enters a fourth month, Newsweek looks at questions that remain unanswered.
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Who Is the Masked Man at Guthrie's Front Door?
A breakthrough in the case came in mid-February, when the FBI recovered and released surveillance footage from Guthrie’s doorbell camera showing a masked person outside her front door on the night she vanished.
The FBI described that person as a suspect in the case and described him as about 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10 with an average build and said he was carrying a 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, a model sold at Walmart.
Authorities have not publicly identified the suspect or released any further details about him or the other items he wore: a ski mask, long pants, jacket, gloves and handgun holster.
But investigators will be working to identify those items and see “if there if there is any nexus they can make between the clothing and the backpack to any individual,” Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent, told Newsweek. “But that is a huge undertaking and it’s going to take an extensive amount of time.”
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said in February that members of Guthrie’s family, including her children and their spouses, are not suspects after rumors swirled online.
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Will DNA Evidence Solve the Case?
Last month, it was reported that the FBI is now reviewing DNA evidence—including a hair—that was recovered from Guthrie’s home that doesn’t belong to her or those in close contact with her.
In February, Nanos said that DNA was "mixed," meaning it contains genetic material from more than one person. He said the private lab that the sheriff’s department sent the sample to reported challenges with it, meaning it could be a while before the evidence gets to a point that it can be submitted for investigative genetic genealogy.
An FBI spokesperson said last month that the FBI had “asked to test this DNA 2 months ago with the same technology we’ve always had—when the local Sheriff instead sent it to a private lab. Any further developments we will share as soon as appropriate.”
If the DNA is able to be submitted to a national database, it could help solve the case. But Coffindaffer noted that it remains unknown if the DNA belongs to someone connected to Guthrie’s disappearance.
“I think the DNA is problematic because hairs are so transient,” she said. “I’m just not convinced that that's going to be the hair of the perpetrator.”
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Could Video Evidence, Tips Help?
Investigators will also be continuing to review hundreds of hours of footage to see if it can lead to a breakthrough in the case.
“Every road camera, light camera, Nest, Ring, all of those…they will literally be looking frame by frame at these videos to try to see if there's any vehicles,” Coffindaffer said.
If any vehicles of interest are identified, that footage will be sent to the FBI to enhance in a bid to identify a make and model of a vehicle, she said.
There’s also the vast number of possible leads that have been submitted by the public through tip lines since Guthrie disappeared.
Although the number of deputies and agents assigned to the case have dropped considerably, it is “not a cold case,” Gray said. “Interviews and leads from videos from neighbor security systems, and the large collection of potential leads from tip lines are being worked through.”
There’s also a significant reward on the table.
Guthrie’s family is offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to her recovery, and a separate reward of more than $200,000 is available for information about her whereabouts or that could lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
Is Nancy Guthrie Alive?
Guthrie’s condition and whereabouts are unknown, but her family has acknowledged that she might no longer be alive.
“We cannot grieve; we can only ache and wonder,” they said in a statement issued in March with the hope that someone might come forward with new clues into her disappearance.
Guthrie’s family also sought proof of life in a message responding to purported ransom notes sent in early February, but deadlines for payment passed without that proof being delivered.
There have been concerns about Guthrie’s health since the earliest days of her disappearance because she needs vital daily medicine, had a pacemaker and has with high blood pressure.
What Is the Motive?
Authorities have not revealed the motive for Guthrie’s kidnapping or if any of the purported ransom notes received by news outlets since her disappearance were credible.
But Coffindaffer said all signs point to it being a case of kidnapping for ransom.
“That's what makes most sense in this case,” she said, pointing to remarks made by Nanos, who is leading the investigation, and Savannah Guthrie.
Nanos said in March that investigators believe they know the motive, without elaborating, citing the integrity of the investigation.
"From day one, we had strong beliefs about what happened and those beliefs haven’t diminished,” he said.
Savannah Guthrie spoke about the possibility that her mother's kidnapping was motivated by her money in an interview in March month, the first since her mother’s disappearance. She recalled a conversation with her brother, who told her that he believed their mother had been kidnapped for ransom.
She also said she believes two of the ransom notes that her family responded to were real.
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