AZ Nancy Guthrie, 84, (mother of TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie) missing - last seen in the Catalina foothills area on Jan 31, 2026

[subaw0067]

I don’t think the Army helicopters are, have been, or will be significant to this case. There are literally hundreds of military bases in the country and training happens on a near daily basis. IMO.

If they allowed those of us Experienced genetic genealogist’s to volunteer , after they uploaded the DNA we all could make backwards family trees and come up with 1-10 possible suspects to go get their thrown away cups, napkins etc. I do this for adoptees who want to know who their birth parents are and I have not had one I did not solve. It’s taken me anywhere from a couple days to a month or two with only ONE case talking me 10 months. But i eventually got it! I’ve offered to volunteer my services for cases such as these and for cold cases but no takers! Go figure! Btw we are a first responder family and know how private these searches need to be, yet no department has taken our offer!

because it is a liability to have unvetted civilians handling sensitive information

 

[moxiemom]

how many times do you need to be told?….

I edited it...

 

[Desperate Howswif Detec]

This is probably the weirdest case I've seen. And there's been some weird ones here on Websleuths and elsewhere!! Was it just today that LE was asking neighbors for camera footage?? I'd have thought they'd do that right away.

Saw this in a random comment on FB and I kinda feel the same!! "I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm about ready to pack a bag, fill the car up with gas, and go look for (NG) myself." I can't say it better myself, and not that I'd be any more help especially at this point. But this has been just strange. Trying to get back to brass tacks here:

Just some thoughts of mine:
- I don't necessarily rule out family, but I do not believe this is related at all to an inheritance or money to the family at all. A body or certain death is pretty necessary for a quick inheritance.
- Possibly an accident occurred and body was removed to cover up. If this is the case, the accident would have had to stem from an argument. IMO. Because otherwise, why wouldn't someone just call the emergency! So this is still possible IMO
- Plus, the footage/pictures released clearly show a masked individual tampering with the camera at whatever the time stamp was. If the above point is true, some family member masked themselves up and returned to the scene of the argument-caused accident to remove evidence to cover it up.

I do try to have some faith in LE. I assume if they have the footage of the masked individual then they have some footage of NG arriving home earlier in the evening. If they didn't have that footage or some solid proof, then the family members would have already been detained IMO. It's ridiculous to think LE would let them go without that kind of basic (IMO) information. Same with SG not being involved, same with the brother not being involved. If LE didn't have solid alibis for these people, they would have been detained. It's really ridiculous to think otherwise. So, given these thoughts, I believe NG made it home just fine at least. The attack or removal occurred later.

So let's just say the person(s) who drove her home and maybe walked her inside (although LE would have some record of this, no?), and some argument then accident occurred, person panicked. They left the house pretending all was well, went about their business, then middle of the night dressed up and came back to the house to remove the body because they believed the body contained some kind of evidence of their involvement in the crime. Certainly possible. I think unlikely. Unless both of the parties to the earlier evening events were involved, one or the other would be questioning the other's activities by now, right?

I personally don't think family is involved, at least not directly or even willingly. I also don't think most of the ransom demands are related to her disappearance. JMO

Another thought:
- Someone fascinated or even angry with SG...but why target the mother? Unless the notes (assuming they are legit) say something like "SG you are awful ... blah..." then how would anyone even know this was the point. IMO, if a perpetrator is trying to hurt someone by using a surrogate, they would want the target to know. Right?
- One of the other siblings mentioned something to someone...about money/valuables? Even if the siblings weren't involved, who did they talk to enough for that person to think there was some benefit in doing this?

To me, it's clear this was a planned attack or robbery, but I don't think kidnapping/murder was the initial goal. The suspect we see on footage took great care to hide his/her identity and disable the cameras. Was NG known to keep cash or other valuables in her house? Was her house a target in other ways, extra large or especially luxurious than the others in the neighborhood, that would attract organized robbers? I just kind of think that her home and maybe her person (with a famous daughter who I'm sure people assume is very wealthy) was targeted for a robbery. Something went wrong, and those individuals (I do believe more than one) took the body to hide evidence. Perhaps one of the perpetrators assaulted her in a way that would have caused her to have dna on her and they were savvy enough to realize it, and thought it was easier to take the body.

In any case, while I do hope that by some miracle NG is still alive, I find it unlikely at this point.

All JMO. I welcome any corrections to my line of thinking, if based on falsehoods!

 

[MassGuy]

Genetic genealogy is a very slow process. Can take months. Or longer.

Yup, it does vary though. It depends on how close the matches are and how complex the family tree is.

In the Kohberger case it took less than a month.

 

[Friday Fan]

Yes - to be clear, I'm not sure if they would be looking for a body at this point either. Maybe moreso a vehicle or some sort of hideout? And these flights weren't near the border at all, as I mentioned. I understand that US military does border monitoring from the air. This is just my opinion of course, and hope, given the federal government has offered its assistance, but neither of us can know for sure at least as far as what I can tell

If looking for Nancy, they would be flying in the day.

Who knows why BP is searching the top of the mountains? It's within their range, which is 100 miles.

Maybe there is a history of stuff that goes on up there? Maybe there are stash house/mansions or something?? I have no idea...

 

[KonaHonu]

I don’t think the Army helicopters are, have been, or will be significant to this case. There are literally hundreds of military bases in the country and training happens on a near daily basis. IMO.

because it is a liability to have unvetted civilians handling sensitive information

I agree. And Ft. Huachuca is not far from where these army helicopters are being seen. I think it's just routine training.

 

[Mistermagoo]

About that video 5 miles away, without going through the threads to see if its been talked about, I sure hope LE has tried to see what that guy was emptying into the trash compactor out of that other back pack.

 

[Desperate Howswif Detec]

No, it depends. I used to do adoption searches using genetic genealogy. It can be quite quick depending upon what kind of matches you get. Close matches means you could do it in a hour or so! If you cannot get close matches it may take longer. But you can narrow it down to certain locations, family surnames, and ethnic groups fairly quickly.

 

[subaw0067]

If looking for Nancy, they would be flying in the day.

Who knows why BP is searching the top of the mountains? It's within their range, which is 100 miles.

Maybe there is a history of stuff that goes on up there? Maybe there are stash house/mansions or something?? I have no idea...

Or it’s just an incidental part of their route, or terrain training. We don’t know that they are “searching”. As far as we know they’re just flying.

 

[nightowl2728]

I agree. And Ft. Huachuca is not far from where these army helicopters are being seen. I think it's just routine training.

These took off from public airparks, not Ft. Huachuca, but someone else said that the airparks are affiliated with the Arizona National Guard, which makes sense for training.

 

[PaulaDC]

They weren't going to risk her reporting them. Unfortunately, I don't believe she was alive for long after they got inside.

Someone upthread mentioned SG knowing lots of people in power. Hopefully, she'll get this nutty Sheriff taken off the force at some point. If it were my mother missing, I'd be angrier than a hornet's nest at this man's incredulity.

What is SG is the one who doesn't trust the fbi.....just a thought.

 

[RedHaus]

I toss my banana peel out the passenger side when I drive because the woods are on that side. Just saying.....

Is it Illegal to Throw Food Out of My Car?

It’s common knowledge that certain food scraps make good additions to your backyard compost bin, but those principles don't apply to the roadside.

takecareoftexas.org

"Throwing food scraps out of your vehicle does more harm than good."

FYI.

 

[AggieLou]

I see that too - mostly searches from Malwaki and then Somalia on January 21st. No other searches before/after that date except of course after February 1st of this year.

Could this be relevant? Some kind of cyber crime ring - 574 arrests and USD 3 million recovered in coordinated cybercrime operation across Africa

EDIT: NG's specific full home address (including number/street/city/zip code) had hits on January 3rd and January 29th as well. The January 3rd hits weren't identified in terms of a region, but Massachusetts and Texas show up as regions on the 29th.
For context, I also extended the searches back a couple of months and didn't see any hits. If we're to assume this is related (it could very well not be - I'm not very familiar with this Google search data), my assumption would be plans to go to NG's home only began in January and not before then.

I'm curious too if the Google search data also includes Google Maps? And if LE can pull that data from not only Google Maps searches but Waze, Apple Maps, etc. ?
If someone was driving there's a chance they would put the address in their GPS; if not while driving perhaps the same day so they could commit it to memory.

These are the dates LE has now asked residents to go back to and check their surveillance cameras. Strange there were searches of NG's address from there. This could be a stretch but Tucson does have a Somali population. Somalia is well known for kidnap for ransom in their area of the world, and piracy for ransom on the high seas. Maybe they are exporting
It's just such a coincidence LE is now looking back to January which includes those search dates.

 

[dkaras]

So if it was a robbery they should tell us if there are things missing, tell us to be on the lookout for something. It may help crack the case.

With all of that being said, the fact that not only are they not mentioning things that are missing, they are clearly stating that her phone, watch and personal belongings were left behind, which tells me that they went there to kidnap her and that is what they did, and that is why they are not treating the crime scene as a robbery.

RSBM.

Great point, there is that! I don't believe we've heard that anything was missing (right?).

To your next point.... if it was a targeted kidnapping, then I think "something went wrong", because as far as we know there has been no proof of life. Which IMO is key to receiving a ransom.

If the ransom notes (one, some or all) were valid, then the perpetrator(s) screwed up. Badly. Obviously this family would have paid. But have been unable to show proof of life If this is the case, I believe NG died in the initial invasion or shortly thereafter and they are just screwed. Along with the poor family.

 

[KonaHonu]

Yup, it does vary though. It depends on how close the matches are and how complex the family tree is.

In the Kohberger case it took less than a month.

I totally agree. My mother was adopted. I recently had my DNA done and a collaborator and I were able to identify my biological grandmother and her extended family back several generations in less than 2 hours. But after more than a month there is a half aunt we cannot place and an entire branch of the family that matches but we cannot find a connection.

Based on my personal experience with it, I think judges need to be far more restrictive on issuing warrants based on genetic genealogy. My partner has several close cousin matches that we know are impossible. I don't think DNA lies. But there are factors like pedigree collapse and endogamy that exist in many populations and the impact of these factors is far too complicated for a judge or jury to understand, yet far too easy for a prosecutor to misrepresent out of ignorance. They use DNA as a magic word for certainty when the reality is far from it!

The same factors make genetic genealogy high preducial against certain ethnic groups.

We've all been trained that DNA is so overwhelmingly reliable that a match can't be questioned. That's true in most situations but not when it comes to genealogy.

 

[SlimPickens]

Something that hasn't gone unnoticed by me with this whole case is that the FBI hasn't assumed jurisdiction. The only way they can do that here is if an abduction occurred and a component of the crime involved interstate commerce, or crossed state/national boundaries. So which of these two things is holding them up? For example, do they have strong evidence that NG was likely deceased prior to being removed from the home? Conversely, if they have compelling evidence that she was abducted and she was alive when removed from the home, then do they not already have evidence of interstate commerce via the ransom email(s) that almost certainly used proxy IPs that bounced through other states/countries?

So which component is restraining them? And which component is giving Pima county jurisdiction still?

These are important questions to ask, because the public has been given a ton of information alluding to an abduction and an as far untraceable (likely proxied/spoofed) ransom email, which implies federal jurisdiction, and yet Pima county still leads the investigation.

JMO.

 

[Friday Fan]

These are US Army helicopters - is Border Patrol part of the US Army? I don't believe so

Army helicopters are doing border surveilance in Texas.

If this ain't border surveilance, I don't know what it is? Got any suggestions?

If this was an actual military mission, they would take off from Laughlin AFB in Del Rio. There isn't a military installation in these neck of the woods.

Looks like an army helicopter just took off from Dimmit County Airport in Carrizo Springs and is heading toward Laredo again.

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

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[KonaHonu]

These are the dates LE has now asked residents to go back to and check their surveillance cameras. Strange there were searches of NG's address from there. This could be a stretch but Tucson does have a Somali population. Somalia is well known for kidnap for ransom in their area of the world, and piracy for ransom on the high seas. Maybe they are exporting
It's just such a coincidence LE is now looking back to January which includes those search dates.

That might be a valid hypothesis were the intruder we saw on video not obviously a tall white guy. Somalis are generally shorter and darker skinned.

 

[ab01]

I totall agree. My mother was adopted. I recently had my DNA done and a collaborator and I were able to identify my biological grandmother and her extended family back several generations in less than 2 hours. But after more than a month there is a half aunt we cannot place and an entire branch of the family that matches but we cannot find a connection.

Based on my personal experience with it, I think judges need to be far more restrictive on issuing warrants based on genetic genealogy. My partner has several close cousin matches that we know are impossible. I don't think DNA lies. But there are factors like pedigree collapse and endogamy that exist in many populations and the impact of these factors is far too complicated for a judge or jury to understand, yet far too easy for a prosecutor to misrepresent out of ignorance.

The same factors make genetic genealogy high preducial against certain ethnic groups.

We've all been trained that DNA is so overwhelmingly reliable that a match can't be questioned. That's true in most situations but not when it comes to genealogy.

The thing with genealogy is that its only used to narrow down a potential match.

Even in the Kohberger case they still retrieved a sample of his DNA to match with the known sample from the crime scene.

 

[Hans Olo]

Why? If this is a well regarded la