A potential lead in the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, appears to have resulted in a dead end, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. 

In a statement this week, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said that the black gloves discovered about 2 miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home were traced back to a local restaurant employee.

“That individual is not part of this investigation,” the department stated. “Lab analysis on other DNA evidence remains ongoing.” 

Local authorities are working with the FBI to locate Nancy Guthrie, who was reported missing on Feb. 1 after she failed to attend a virtual church service that morning. The elderly woman and mother of the "Today" show host was last seen around 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 31 after having had dinner with her family.

In a statement about the case, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos explained that the investigation remains ongoing, but he expressed confidence in investigators’ ability to recover Nancy Guthrie, as KVOA reported this week.

Nanos addressed a report that the police out in the field had discarded the gloves found at the scene, a claim that he said is “so far from the truth.” 

“We knew that at that time, we believed wholeheartedly that those gloves belonged to a restaurant and guess what? The owner of the glove, we found working at a restaurant across the street. It has nothing to do with the case," the sheriff stated. 

In a Feb. 15 statement to USA Today, a spokesperson for the FBI's public affairs office explained that investigators had collected approximately 16 gloves near the missing woman’s house. According to the FBI spokesperson, most of the gloves belonged to searchers who had discarded them after surveying the scene. 

“The one with the DNA profile recovered is different and appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video,” the spokesperson for the FBI’s public affairs office stated. 

On Feb. 17, the Pima County Sheriff's Department announced that DNA evidence from the gloves found approximately 2 miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home did not trigger any matches after it was submitted to CODIS. 

Investigators have highlighted a man captured on Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera as a potential suspect in the case.

In a Feb. 10 social media post, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office released images of a masked man wearing gloves at Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the morning of her disappearance. The images appear to show the suspect tampering with the camera. 

The FBI described the suspect in a Feb. 12 post on social media as a man with an average build who is estimated to be about 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall.

Last month, the FBI also released footage of the suspect outside of Nancy Guthrie’s door the day before the suspected abduction, suggesting that he might have scoped the place out beforehand.

“We are aware that doorbell images released earlier in the investigation depict a suspect in different stages of attire, including with and without a backpack,” Nanos said in a statement at the time about the report. 

“There is no date or time stamp associated with these images. Therefore, any suggestion that the photographs were taken on different days is purely speculative,” the statement continued. “This remains an active and ongoing criminal investigation. As with any investigation, conclusions will be guided by verifiable evidence and established facts.”

As the search for the missing elderly woman entered its fifth week, Savannah Guthrie shared a photo on her Instagram on Monday of the flowers people have left outside of her mother’s home. 

“[We] feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country,” Guthrie wrote, adding, “please don’t stop praying and hoping with us. [Bring] her home.”

In a video shared on Instagram on Feb. 24, Guthrie announced that she and her family are offering a $1 million reward for any information that leads to Nancy Guthrie’s recovery.

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/owner-of-gloves-in-nancy-guthrie-case-identified-report.html