DNA from someone other than Nancy Guthrie was collected from her property

There is law enforcement activity underway in the Tucson area that is related to the Guthrie case, the Pima County Sheriff's Department said late Friday local time.

The activity is happening at a residence near an intersection that is about two miles from Guthrie's home, according to the department.

Law enforcement activity happening in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood

04:11

The sheriff's department did not release any additional information, citing a request from the FBI.

Earlier Friday evening, the department confirmed that there was police activity in Guthrie's neighborhood and said a statement would be "forthcoming." A department spokesperson later said there would be no immediate statement.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department said on X that it will not hold a media briefing tonight regarding the Guthrie investigation but that a written statement is "forthcoming."

There is police activity tonight in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood, a spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed to NBC News. It's related to the investigation into her disappearance.

Pima County sheriff is blocking a street minutes from Nancy Guthrie’s home. Officials have confirmed the scene is related to the investigation into her disappearance Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC

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Nancy Guthrie's family has posted on social media several times pleading for her return since she disappeared nearly two weeks ago.

"TODAY" show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie on Feb. 2 posted “please pray” on Instagram, asking for the public to lift up prayers for her mother’s return. 

On Feb. 4, the journalist posted a video alongside her siblings, addressing reports of ransom letters. The following day, she shared a video of her brother, Camron Guthrie, asking the possible captor to reach out. 

In another video on Feb. 7, she said the family was willing to pay for her mother's return.

“We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” Savannah Guthrie said. “This is the only way we will have peace.”

“This is very valuable to us, and we will pay,” she added.

Paul Parker wasn't sure what to expect when he received an Instacart order to deliver flowers at Nancy's Guthrie's home. The father of seven, who lives more than an hour away, is in town visiting his wife at esthetician school and only knew bits and pieces about the investigation into Guthrie's disappearance. When he arrived to the makeshift memorial outside her house, he was overcome with sadness.

Paul Parker and his daughter outside Nancy Guthrie's home on Friday. Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC News

"I said a prayer for the family that they can feel the comfort of Jesus Christ, and no matter, no matter what happens, that they can feel that comfort and that she could return safe," he said while holding his 6-year-old daughter's hand.

Parker said he was surprised by the large media presence outside the home. Dozens of cars, trucks, vans and tents lined the narrow streets. Some neighbors had blocked their driveways with buckets.

He looked around at the frenzy and lamented that, while he feels deep empathy for the Guthrie family, other families whose missing loved ones didn't receive so much attention.

"People get kidnapped all the time, but this doesn't happen," he said, waving toward the media crews. "I still feel bad about this situation, but I also feel bad for those other families."

The disappearance of 84‑year‑old Nancy Guthrie has gripped the nation since she was reported missing on Feb. 1 from her Tucson‑area home, a case authorities are now treating as a kidnapping. Officials have also acknowledged the circulation of purported ransom notes demanding Bitcoin, although no law enforcement agency has confirmed that these notes are authentic or directly from the kidnapper. 

While crypto‑linked extortion is not new, experts say the Guthrie case reflects a troubling evolution. Historically, kidnappers targeted victims who already held cryptocurrency, but as attorney Mahmoud Abuwasel, managing partner at Wasel & Wasel, said, that landscape has shifted. 

“What this case suggests is something different,” he told NBC News. “Criminals are now demanding crypto from victims who don’t hold it, betting a terrified family will go acquire it under duress.” 

This approach, he said, “means the pool of potential targets is much larger than anyone has been treating it.” 

Here's everything we know so far about the suspect in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie:

• The FBI shared images retrieved from backend systems of Nancy Guthrie's doorbell camera showing a masked and armed individual at her doorstep
• The FBI has described him as a man of average build, between 5’9” and 5’10”
• He was also seen wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack

Images posted to X by FBI Phoenix on Feb. 12, 2026 show surveillance footage of a masked man and a black Ozark Trail brand backpack.   via FBI Phoenix

Jimmy Williams, host of YouTube true crime channel Dolly Vision, has spent five days camped outside Nancy Guthrie's home. Today, he sat under an umbrella surrounded by a small cooler, laptop, ring light, earbuds and a phone.

Jimmy Williams sits outside Nancy Guthrie's home in the Catalina Foothills community on Friday. Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC News

He arrives to the upscale neighborhood every day around 5 a.m. and livestreams to nearly 89,000 followers until noon, he said. Then he goes back to his hotel for two hours of rest before returning to his post until nightfall, he said.

This is Williams' "full-time job."

"Anywhere there's a mystery or something to try to figure out, I try to do my best. I consider myself an armchair detective, an internet sleuth, he said.

Williams, who flew in from Virginia, said he was captivated by this case. He's not alone. Since arriving, Williams said his audience has included people from all over the world. Followers have had pizza and other food delivered to him near Guthrie's house this week, which earned him a scolding from local law enforcement, he said.

Williams plans to stay in town "until we get more answers."

"Every minute matters," he said. "We've seen the pictures of the guy in the ski mask; he didn't look like a friendly man."

DNA from someone other than Nancy Guthrie and those in close contact to her has been collected from her property, the Pima County Sheriff's Office said tonight.

Investigators are working to identify who the DNA belongs to, officials said, noting they will not disclose where it was located.

The sheriff has said Guthrie does not have cognitive issues, characterizing her as “sharp as a tack.” However, he said, she has limited mobility and needs to take medication daily or “it could be fatal.”

“She is mobile. It’s a challenge for her to get, as the family says, she couldn’t walk 50 yards by herself,” he said.

She has a pacemaker — a device typically implanted under the skin to regulate heartbeat — which disconnected from its monitoring app on her phone early on Feb. 1.

A banner hangs outside of News 4 Tucson on Feb. 12, 2026 in Tucson, Arizona.  Brandon Bell / Getty Images

In an emotional video posted to her Instagram page, Savannah Guthrie pleaded for her mother’s return, noting her health is fragile.

“She lives in constant pain. She is without any medicine. She needs it to survive, and she needs it not to suffer,” Savannah Guthrie said in the video, flanked by her sister, Annie, and brother, Camron.

Darla Rodriguez drove nearly two hours from Phoenix to visit Nancy Guthrie's home today. The self-proclaimed true crime enthusiast said she has been glued to news coverage of the woman's disappearance.

"There's so much speculation about, you know, the why, and possible suspects," she said. "So it's just trying to peel back an onion, you know, with so many layers and possibilities."

Rodriquez said she has been a fan of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie since her 2019 interviews with Jeffrey Epstein survivors. She said she was struck by her unflinching look inside the story and her respect toward the victims. She wanted to offer that same respect to Guthrie.

"What's scary is thinking that you're just home ... in this beautiful neighborhood, and somebody comes in and just does this," she said. "That's unbelievable."

No gloves were found at Guthrie's residence, Sheriff Nanos told NBC News today. His comments clarify previous reports that a pair of gloves was found at the home.

The closest glove was found 2 miles from Guthrie's house, he said, adding that only one pair of gloves was found that close.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department is not holding any news conferences today. The department said there will be a briefing called only if and when there are updates to share.

While most Ring users have their footage saved for 30 days, those who own the products can set different durations of how long they want video to be stored — up to 180 days, the company’s founder told NBC News.

"It’s really up to the customer on how they’ve how they’ve set it up," Jamie Siminoff said, "But for sure, I would say we still are in the window of where we should have the data — that our customers should still have the video to be able to share if they do have it, especially in this case."

Although Ring cameras typically activate and record only when motion is detected, 24/7 recording is available, and users can adjust settings to always record.

Unfortunately, a lot of the homes near Guthrie's residence are far from the street and are obscured by shrubbery, Siminoff said, so collecting video data of cars on the road might be hard in this case.

Video evidence, like from a doorbell camera, has become a crucial piece of investigations such as the one into Guthrie's disappearance, said Jamie Siminoff, the chief inventor and founder of Ring doorbell cameras.

"I just think we're seeing that video footage is the most important thing in solving these crimes," he said, also pointing to how footage helped locate the Brown University shooter.

Siminoff said that although Guthrie’s house had a Nest camera, Ring is relevant in this case because others in the neighborhood may have had Ring cameras.

Investigators have asked community members to submit any video relevant to the Guthrie case, including footage from doorbell cameras that may show vehicles in the area around the time she went missing.

People stop to look at flowers and notes yesterday at the entrance to Guthrie's home. Brandon Bell / Getty Images

Siminoff explained how that works. Local police departments can send community alerts to neighbors via the Ring app, prompting them to upload video footage.

There is also a Neighbors app that people in the neighborhood use as a social media platform to discuss community happenings as well as crime and safety. Siminoff said police have also put a similar request out on that app.

"We’re seeing our systems used pretty heavily for this, as we’ve seen it in other serious cases," he said.

In order to send Ring video to the police, those who get the alert can look through their footage, select relevant video clips, and upload them through the system. A digital audit trail makes it "super easy and efficient," Siminoff said.

Sheriff Nanos told NBC News affiliate KVOA that "a number of gloves have been found in a large area around the house."

He said his office is working with the FBI to test the gloves and other evidence recovered from the residence for DNA. Details about the gloves, including how many, are not immediately clear.

Nanos reiterated that a Reuters report from last night, which implied the sheriff's department and the FBI were in disagreement over where to test the evidence, was false.

He explained that when evidence comes across his desk, he shares it with the FBI, which conducts analysis, and the FBI then shares those analyses with the sheriff's department. Nanos said similar procedures were underway with the purported ransom notes allegedly sent to news outlets over the past two weeks.

Nanos also said officials took cheek swabs from "different individuals we've talked to along the way," which means they have DNA samples from people investigators might be interested in. The identities of those people have not been released, and investigators have not identified any suspects or persons of interest.

The Catalina Foothills community, where Guthrie lives, has been on edge for nearly two weeks as authorities search for the 84-year-old. And with the release this week of a chilling video from Guthrie’s porch, neighbors’ fears are being renewed, they said. 

“Seeing that monster come onto the porch is, like, I mean, it’s horrible,” Nicollete Daly said. “My mom lives here in town. She lives alone — now I’m worried as heck about her.”

Daly is concerned for her own safety, too.

“I’m scared to be alone,” she said.

Derrick Callella, the man who has been arrested and charged with allegedly sending a fake ransom note to the Guthrie family, will be arraigned in a federal courthouse in Arizona today at 4 p.m. local time.

He is accused of allegedly texting a fake ransom note to the Guthrie family, demanding money in exchange for their missing mother.

As the search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother enters its 13th day, touching shows of support and messages are growing outside her home and throughout the Tucson, Arizona, community. Pops of yellow flowers and ribbons dot the desert neighborhood as a message of hope for the family.

02:53

The FBI has a new description of a suspect seen in videos on the porch of Guthrie’s home the morning she disappeared, saying he is approximately 5'9" to 5'10" and carried an Ozark Trail hiker pack. The new details mark a significant development in this case.

The Ozark Trail brand is a private label brand exclusive to Walmart. Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This time yesterday, officials and the public were working to identify the person's backpack. Now that officials know, they can review recent purchases to identify who purchased that specific model in the Tucson area in the past few months.

If officials can match a purchase to an individual's name or obtain surveillance footage of the backpack purchaser, they can cross-reference those names against driver's licenses and other identifiers to identify potential suspects.

Officials have also asked residents of Guthrie's neighborhood for doorbell camera footage from January and the early days of February, seeking footage of suspicious vehicles, as it remains unclear how the person shown in surveillance images outside Guthrie's home got there.

Investigators may at this stage feel that the person or people responsible for taking Guthrie knew the neighborhood well and had been there before.

The FBI is releasing new identifying details about the man seen in the doorbell camera videos from Guthrie’s front door. It comes as the FBI has doubled the reward to $100,000 for any information that leads to the missing 84-year-old.

In a phone interview with NBC News affiliate KVOA, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos also denied a report from Reuters claiming he is blocking FBI access to key evidence in the ongoing investigation.

When asked about last night's report, Nanos said it is "not even close to the truth" that the two agencies are in disagreement over where the gloves and other evidence should be tested.

Nancy Guthrie Case: FBI raises reward, gives details of suspect

05:16

As the grueling search for her 84-year-old mother continues, "TODAY" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie shared home video of her family from her childhood.

“Our lovely mom. We will never give up on her. Thank you for your prayers and hope,” she wrote on her social media post.

Savannah Guthrie releases a home movie of her mother as the search continues

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Today marks the 13th day in the search for Guthrie. The biggest break in the case came earlier this week, when chilling video from her porch was recovered and showed a suspect approaching her home during the window when authorities say she was likely taken. A look at what happened yesterday:

• The FBI today provided a new description of the suspect seen in video on the porch of Guthrie’s home the morning she disappeared. Authorities are looking for a male, who is 5’9” to 5’10” tall, with an average build. He was wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack based on the video, the FBI said.
• Savannah Guthrie shared home movies on Instagram of herself, her siblings and her mother when they were younger. In her caption, she wrote: “Our lovely mom. We will never give up on her.”
• Gloves were recovered as evidence and are being sent out for analysis, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said today. Pictures and videos released this week by the FBI showed a person wearing black gloves. 
• Authorities expanded their call for video. Police sent an alert through the Neighbors App to users within a 2-mile radius of Guthrie’s home. 

Law enforcement, who set up a tent covering Guthrie’s porch yesterday, put out another plea for video near her house, and said gloves and other evidence found near her home have been sent to be analyzed.

02:33

The FBI’s publication of videos from Guthrie’s Google Nest doorbell camera has reinvigorated questions that have dogged Big Tech companies as they have become a larger part of people’s daily lives: How much data are these devices collecting? What happens to that data? Is it ever truly deleted?

FBI Director Kash Patel said Tuesday that the footage had been recovered thanks to the bureau’s work with private companies, coming after Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said the video was unavailable because Guthrie did not pay for a Nest subscription.

While the details are still unknown, Patel said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening: “We were able to execute lawful searches and go to these private sector companies and expedite results, and then go into their systems and actually excavate material that people would think would normally be deleted and no one would look for.”

The capture of those videos was a relief, offering authorities and the public some information to use in hopes of finding Guthrie. But it also underscored how these systems can collect video even if people might not be aware that they are doing so, and that the modern systems that power these internet-connected devices can be harnessed by law enforcement — even when that data may not be available to the users themselves.

Read the full story here.

When it released new identifying details about the suspect seen on Guthrie's porch video, the FBI also announced that the reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction in the case had increased to $100,000.

The FBI said it hopes the updated description of the suspect will help “concentrate” tips, saying it has received more than 13,000 tips from the public since Feb. 1.

An FBI billboard in California displaying a missing person alert for Nancy Guthrie. via NBC Los Angeles

After a forensic analysis of doorbell camera video from Guthrie's home, the FBI said it had was looking for a male suspect 5’9” to 5’10” tall, with an average build. 

He was wearing a black, 24-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack based on the video.