Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos revealed in a “Today” show interview Wednesday that he believes Nancy Guthrie’s abductor had a specific target in mind when she was taken from her home in the early hours of Feb. 1.
Nanos, who is leading the investigation into the disappearance of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie‘s eighty-four-year-old mother, offered some insight into investigators’ current thinking in a sit-down interview with NBC’s Liz Kreutz.
“I think this was an individual who had a target for whatever reason, and he has made it tough,” Nanos said. “But I’ve got some pretty tough investigators, too.”
Surveillance footage captured the morning of Sunday, Feb. 1 was released on Feb. 10 by law enforcement officials. In the footage, a gun-wielding masked man can be seen walking up to Guthrie’s front porch around the same time she is believed to have been abducted. The FBI subsequently released an official description of the suspect, describing him as male between 5’9″ and 5’10” tall with an average build.
The FBI is currently offering a $100,00 reward for any tip that leads to either Guthrie’s return home or an arrest connected to the investigation.
Public interest in the case has grown steadily ever since it first became part of the national conversation. While everyday citizens and amateur sleuths have been quick to offer their input, though, Nanos said he and his team are, for the moment, focused on the DNA they recovered at Guthrie’s Tucson, Arizona home, which reportedly does not match her DNA or any of her loved ones’.
“We believe we may have some DNA there that may be our suspect, but we won’t know that until that DNA is separated, sorted out,” Nanos explained. He also acknowledged a glove that was found two miles from Guthrie’s home and which, after being sent for testing, turned up zero matches in the national DNA database. The sheriff said he believes the DNA recovered at Guthrie’s home right now seems to him “more critical than any glove I found two miles away.”
Nanos additionally revealed that he has paid attention to the online theories that the man seen in the released surveillance video was wearing a ring under one of his gloves. “I look at the same photo you look at and I see it,” Nanos told Kreutz. “I see people have circled [where the ring might be] and I say, ‘I’m going to give that to my team.’ They’ll look at that.”
Elsewhere in Wednesday’s “Today” show broadcast, hosts Craig Melvin, Carson Daly, Al Roker and Hoda Kotb, the latter of whom is has filled in for Savannah Guthrie, showed their support for their co-host by wearing yellow ribbons on air, in a nod to the yellow flowers that folks living close to Guthrie’s Tucson residence have been placing near her home in the weeks since her disappearance.
“We got a suggestion from one of our viewers,” Kotb told “Today” show fans Wednesday. “We have yellow roses around Studio 1A, and we’re all wearing ribbons as we send our love to Savannah and her family.”
“I think we articulated it yesterday for the national collective — this is our missing mom,” Daly added. “And this is a nice symbol.”
While speaking with Kreutz, Nanos acknowledged the public interest in Guthrie’s disappearance and credited it to her daughter Savannah’s role on the “Today” show. “You’re in everybody’s family,” Nanos told Kreutz. “So they look at this and look at Savannah and go, ‘This is us.’”
This past Sunday, Savannah Guthrie shared a message of hope on social media as the search for her missing mother continues.
“It’s been two weeks since our mom was taken, and I just wanted to come on and say that we still have hope and we still believe,” the “Today” show host told her Instagram followers in the Guthrie Family’s fifth public video statement since her mother was first reported missing on Feb. 1.
“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,” Guthrie added. “We believe in the essential goodness of every human being, and it’s never too late.”
