Investigators confirmed Thursday that the blood spotted by news cameras outside Nancy Guthrie’s front door belongs to her.
The grim discovery adds to the angst of the 84-year-old grandmother’s children, which includes Today show host Savannah Guthrie, who released a desperate plea to her abductors to let her return home alive.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos says that no other biological evidence has been recovered from Guthrie’s longtime southern Arizona home. Despite reports saying a family member is a “prime suspect,” the sheriff said there are no suspects or even a person of interest in the abduction.
“It’s really kind of reckless to report that someone is a suspect when they could very well be a victim,” Nanos told reporters, adding, “I plead with you to be be careful of what you put out there, because we don’t have anybody here listed as a suspect, and you could actually be doing some some damage to the case, but you can also do some damage to that individual, too.”
Guthrie was last seen Saturday evening. Nanos says she took an Uber to her eldest daughter’s home for dinner. After, she was driven home by her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, hours before she was taken in the dead of night.
A new timeline released by authorities states that Guthrie’s doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. Sunday. Forty-one minutes later, her pacemaker disconnected from an app on her phone.
Guthrie was reported missing by loved ones the following afternoon after she did not attend church. Nanos quickly asserted that Guthrie’s disappearance was being probed as a “crime” because of evidence at the scene.
The sheriff says that Guthrie, a widow who lives alone, is “sharp as a tack” cognitively but has a medical condition that requires she takes medicine daily to stay alive.
Nanos said Guthrie’s medication, phone, and Apple Watch were each left at her home when she was taken from her million-dollar home in the Catalina Foothills—an affluent community just north of Tucson, Arizona.
The Guthrie family has received multiple ransom letters, but Nanos says it is unclear if any are genuine. He alleged that at least one person has been arrested by the FBI for attempting to deceive the family into making a payment.
The FBI said in a news conference Thursday that any action regarding the ransom note will be up to the family to decide.
An FBI spokesperson said one ransom note, which included facts about damage to Guthrie’s home, set a deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday. A second deadline is set for Monday, but it is unclear what is being demanded. TMZ reported receiving a ransom note about Guthrie that demanded millions in Bitcoin.
