Nancy Guthrie’s home will be returned to the family as the search continues into the fourth week, sources said
Law enforcement is preparing to return Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home back to her family, sources said, as the search for her enters its fourth week.
The 84-year-old mother of “TODAY” host Savannah Guthrie was reported missing on February 1.
For weeks his home has been the focus of a number of law enforcement activities – including the discovery of DNA evidence. The activity seen Wednesday is related to efforts to repossess the home of the Guthrie family, two law enforcement sources told NBC News.
Officials agreed that law enforcement no longer felt the need to seal off the area as a crime scene or bar the family from entering.
It was not immediately clear what the FBI or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department were doing inside the home Wednesday, but it did not appear that they were doing anything outside of the home that was seen in previous visits that included an inspection or tracking their steps.
There have been more than 23,000 calls to the FBI’s hotline since Guthrie’s arrest, and 750 of those calls came in the first 12 hours after Savannah Guthrie posted on Instagram Tuesday offering a $1 million reward, a senior official familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
Guthrie was last seen on Jan. 31 around 9:45 p.m. following dinner at his daughter Annie’s home, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. He was reported missing the next day when he didn’t show up to watch a virtual church service with friends.
Authorities have not identified the suspect who may have been kidnapped.
The FBI on Feb. 10 released images taken from Guthrie’s Google Nest camera showing a masked, armed man later described as the suspect outside her home the morning she disappeared. In that clip, a person appeared to disturb the camera.
Most of those pictures showed a masked person carrying a backpack. But one didn’t, showing a person dressed in black with a mask and gloves outside the bag.
On Monday, two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said the photo without the backpack was taken earlier, not the morning of his disappearance.
The FBI declined to comment on possible dates associated with the photo. The County Sheriff’s Department said Monday that there is no date or time stamp associated with the photo and any suggestion that it was taken on a different date is “pure speculation.”
Nanos said officials believe that most of those photos are from February 1 only because they show the doorbell being disconnected.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI continue to pursue “all viable leads,” the department said Tuesday evening.
DNA evidence has been collected from Guthrie’s home and related search sites and has been submitted for analysis, the sheriff’s department said. But the tests so far have yielded no results.
Nanos said mixed DNA was found in his home, meaning a DNA sample containing genetic information from at least two people, but there were challenges with those samples.
