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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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A former FBI agent has explained how law enforcement are hoping for a “small miracle” to solve the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday that investigators are looking at inputting DNA evidence from the case into “genetic genealogy” databases. The sheriff’s department said DNA collected in the investigation so far did not match any entries in CODIS, the FBI’s national criminal justice database.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent, told Newsweek that law enforcement will be hoping that investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG, will lead them to the suspect in Nancy Guthrie's disappearance as it did in the case of Bryan Kohberger following the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in 2022.
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“Hopefully this will end up being a situation just like the miracle that happened with the knife sheath and that DNA of Bryan Kohberger being on that thumb snap,” she said.
“That’s what we're looking for here. A small miracle to solve this case.”
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Why It Matters
The search for Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, is in its third week. She was reported missing from her home near Tucson on February 1 after spending the previous night with family, authorities said. Authorities believe she was taken against her will and said her blood was found on the porch.
Last week, authorities released a description of a suspect caught on surveillance footage outside her front door on the night she disappeared. The FBI said gloves found about 2 miles away appeared to match those worn by the suspect.
If the unidentified DNA evidence in the case can be connected to someone in a genetic genealogy database, it could provide investigators with more information to go on and lead them to a suspect.
What To Know
IGG involves uploading DNA profiles to a genealogy database—such as GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA—to look for possible relatives of the person whose DNA was found at a crime scene.
In the Idaho case, DNA recovered from a knife sheath found in the home where the students were fatally stabbed led law enforcement to identify Kohberger as the suspect.
Investigators used genealogical sites to build a family tree and later matched the DNA evidence to DNA from Kohberger's father, which was recovered from trash outside the Kohberger family home. Kohberger was arrested six weeks after the slayings. He pleaded guilty to the murders in July and was sentenced to life in prison.
Coffindaffer said that it could take investigators longer to get “some sort of result” with the DNA evidence in the Guthrie case.
“It could take several weeks up to months but hopefully because of the urgency in the priority on this case, they would have something within the next several weeks,” she said.
She also noted that it remains unknown if the gloves recovered near Nancy Guthrie’s property actually belong to the man seen in the surveillance footage.
“Even though the glove has the likeness to the glove used by the perpetrator, we don't 100 percent know that it is the perpetrator,” she said. “But once they get the identity, they're going to be able to track down how that glove got there.”
The FBI said the suspect in the surveillance footage was a man about 5 feet, 9 inches or 5 feet, 10 inches tall with an average build.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said on Monday that the Guthrie family, including "all siblings and spouses," had been cleared as possible suspects in the case.
What People Are Saying
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday: “Investigators are currently looking into additional investigative genetic genealogy options for DNA evidence to check for matches. CODIS is one option of many databases that are available.”
CeCe Moore, the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs, told NewsNation's Brian Entin this week: "If someone leaves their DNA behind at a crime scene, then they absolutely can and eventually will be identified through investigative genetic genealogy. What is going to determine how long that takes is what population group that person is from. So if their ancestry is from Latin America and they have recent immigrant ancestors, it'll be much more difficult to identify that individual. So it could take a lot longer. We have a lot of those Hispanic cases, and they tend to take weeks, months or years compared to somebody who has deep roots in the United States and primarily Northwest European ancestry."
Savannah Guthrie said in a video posted on Instagram on Sunday: "We still have hope and we still believe. And I wanted to say to whoever has her or knows where she is that it's never too late. And you're not lost or alone. And it is never too late to do the right thing. And we are here. And we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, that it's never too late.”
What Happens Next
Anyone with information is urged to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), 520-351-4900 or 88-CRIME or visit tips.fbi.gov.
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