A hair sample recovered from the Arizona home of kidnapped 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie failed to produce a usable DNA profile, a setback in a case now approaching six months without an arrest or a confirmed suspect.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos disclosed the results Thursday, telling Fox News Digital that investigators and the FBI had sent the hair to a California laboratory for analysis weeks ago. The lab came back empty-handed.
Nanos did not sugarcoat the disappointment but stopped short of calling the evidence useless. The hair has been preserved, and the sheriff said other testing methods beyond DNA extraction may still prove valuable, particularly once investigators have a suspect to compare it against.
"Yes, there was a hair. We had it and thought, 'OK, well, we'll do the DNA first,' right? You're going to do DNA before something else. It came back...there's no DNA."
But Nanos added a qualifier that kept the door open: "Does that mean the hair isn't that of the suspect? We won't know that till we have the suspect's hair. You don't just destroy it."
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her home in Catalina Hills, an upscale suburb of Tucson, on Feb. 1. She has not been seen since. No arrests have been made. A combined reward of more than $1.2 million remains unclaimed.
The investigation has produced fragments of physical evidence but no breakthrough large enough to identify a suspect. Early in the case, the AP reported that the FBI identified a masked individual, described as a man roughly 5-foot-9 with a medium build, carrying an Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, on porch camera footage outside Guthrie's front door the night she vanished. DNA testing also confirmed that blood found on Guthrie's front porch matched the missing woman.
Investigators later recovered 16 gloves near the Guthrie residence. One stood out. The Washington Examiner reported that the FBI said a glove containing a DNA profile appeared to match gloves worn by the masked suspect in the surveillance video. That sample was sent to a private Florida lab, and results were expected quickly, though no public update on the glove DNA has been included in the sheriff's latest remarks.
The contrast is worth noting. One piece of evidence, the glove, reportedly produced a usable DNA profile months ago. The hair sample, announced this week, did not. Whether those two threads have been reconciled or remain separate lines of inquiry, Nanos did not say.
The investigation has also been complicated by deception from outside. Breitbart reported that the FBI determined all three ransom notes connected to the case are not genuine. Agents tested the notes by depositing cryptocurrency into the listed wallet address, which was never claimed. A senior FBI official told Reuters flatly: "None of the ransom notes are believed to be genuine."
That finding cast doubt on the original theory that Guthrie was abducted for ransom. One of the notes reportedly claimed she had died and was "buried with nature." If the notes are fabrications, the motive behind the kidnapping remains unknown, and the investigation is left without even a working theory it can share publicly.
Scammers have also tried to exploit the family's anguish. Pima County officials have warned the public about fake QR codes circulating online that fraudulently claim to be connected to the Guthrie case.
Days before the sheriff's announcement, Savannah Guthrie posted an emotional appeal on Instagram that appeared directed at whoever took her mother. The "Today" co-host described her family as living in a "nightmare that will not end."
As the New York Post reported, Guthrie's words carried the weight of nearly half a year of silence:
"The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place, and I know that you have tried to do things the right way. So I am asking you, begging you, to do the right thing now."
Authorities have confirmed no proof that Nancy Guthrie is still alive, though Newsmax reported early in the case that the sheriff's office was holding out hope she remains out there. The 84-year-old requires daily vital medication, has a pacemaker, and suffers from heart issues, conditions that make every passing week more dangerous.
Sheriff Nanos, for his part, maintained that the investigation is far from over. Multiple crime labs continue to analyze evidence collected from the home. Investigators are pursuing genetic genealogy research, a method that uses DNA databases to build family trees and identify potential suspects, to generate new leads.
Questions about coordination between the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Office have dogged the investigation for months, with reported tensions over evidence handling. Local officials have denied any wrongdoing, but the friction has added another layer of uncertainty to a case already short on answers.
Despite the DNA setback, the sheriff struck a forward-looking tone. "Anything we can grasp onto with DNA is a part of this investigation," Nanos said. He added that the hair sample's failure to yield a profile does not mean the evidence is worthless, only that its value depends on what comes next.
"That's really where some of my optimism is, that I just know that we're gonna get this thing resolved."
Optimism is one thing. Six months without an arrest, a missing 84-year-old woman with serious health conditions, fake ransom notes, and a DNA test that came back empty, those are the facts the Guthrie family is living with. Accountability in this case will not be measured by press conferences. It will be measured by whether someone is found, charged, and held to answer for what happened in Catalina Hills on Feb. 1.
