Nancy Guthrie Sheriff Finally Confirms if Her Abduction Is a ‘Cold Case’ After Report She May Never Be Found as the Case ‘Fizzles Out’
When an investigation passes 100 days without any clear leads, it’s understandable to start wondering if the case will ever be solved. That’s been the case with the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie’s mom, Nancy. She was taken from her home by a masked assailant sometime between the night of January 31 and the early hours of February 1 and so far, law enforcement have not identified a suspect of disclosed a motive.
But has the case gone cold? According to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, the answer is no. “Right now, I think our focus is on the tips, the leads and the evidence we have in front of us,” he says. “Digitally — the camera footages as well as biological, the DNA and those types of things.”
Related: Who are Savannah Guthrie’s siblings?
“My team, I’ve said all along, they’re gonna solve this,” he added. “I fully 100% believe that.
It’s just taken a while because of the amount of information that exists. “There’s thousands and thousands of video out there from intersections and Ring cameras that we have to catalog,” Nanos explains. “Maybe it’s all the white trucks are over here, all the red sedans are over here; you’ve gotta have it so that when you do find a suspect … ‘Hey, the suspect is John Doe, we got him,’ now we go and say, ‘Well, what else do we know about John Doe?’”
Then there’s the DNA recovered from the scene. “I know we have DNA that is unknown who the contributor or depositor is, but I think they’re getting closer to finding out who that was,” Nanos told People. “When the labs tell us, ‘Hey, there’s nothing else we can do,’ well, then maybe we’ve got a problem… we’ve got a cold case… but right now, the labs aren’t telling us that,” he added.
“When you have the best minds of the country working on problems, I think they’re gonna solve them,” Nanos said. “It just takes a while.”
His certainty comes after Lisa Ribacoff-Mooney, a polygraph expert and the owner of Interpoint Investigative Services, told RadarOnline that Guthrie is likely dead and she will probably never be found, because authorities just don’t know where to look.
“DNA, evidence, clues, could all be located at the crime scene, video or audio from neighbors’ cameras. Acquiring the license plate, even from a rental vehicle, is traceable,” she said about the difference between investigating a kidnapping and a murder, which “It is harder because authorities don’t know where to look,” she said, adding, “It is looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Page Six spoke to Lauren Serpa, a friend of Nancy’s for over a decade, about the concern that the case is indeed going cold at this point. “It’s starting to fizzle out, and I don’t want that to happen,” Serpa said. “It’s been 100 days, and people are starting not to forget, but not to think about it as much.”
“People are starting to move on basically. That’s what happens when it doesn’t affect their lives. So that’s why I’m trying to keep it in the forefront as much as possible,” she added.
