The 911 communications center fielding tips in Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance has been swamped by calls.
But many of those calls are not from people seeking to provide potentially actionable leads, said Cecila Ochoa, dispatch manager for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. They’re from people who want to share theories, premonitions and opinions, she said.
“If you’re thinking about calling in a tip or a lead or if you have specific information regarding the case, I ask that you take a moment and think — is this tip viable, is it credible?” she said. “What we don’t want are the opinions and the thoughts and kind of wondering, are investigators doing a, b, c and d.”
In an update Wednesday, the department said that it does not track how many Guthrie-related calls the center has received since her family reported her missing Feb. 1. But its overall call volume has soared.
In the first 18 days of February 2025, the department said, there were 20,808 calls. In the same time period this year, there were 31,608. More than 23,000 of those calls were administrative, including calls to the non-emergency line, the department said. The rest were 911 calls.
The FBI said Wednesday that it has received more than 19,000 tips, and the sheriff’s department said that hundreds of personnel from various law enforcement agencies are involved in a case it has described as a possible abduction.
Some 400 FBI agents and sheriff's deputies are still working the case as the three-week mark quickly approaches.
Guthrie, 84, was last seen around 9:45 p.m. Jan. 31. The FBI released security video and still images last week from her home in Catalina Hills, an unincorporated community in the Tucson area, showing a masked man with a gun, backpack and gloves appearing to tamper with a doorbell camera in the overnight hours of Feb. 1.
The agency has since described that man, who is believed to be between 5' 9 inches tall and 5'10 " tall and was wearing a 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, as a suspect.
That suspect was also seen wearing a holster. Firearms expert John Correia said it appears to be a universal fit holster and isn’t one an experienced gun owner would use.
"This does not strike me as a highly trained professional," he told NBC News.
A glove that appeared to match the ones worn by the suspect was found roughly 2 miles from Guthrie’s home and contained DNA from an unknown male, authorities have said. That DNA does not match samples gathered from Guthrie’s home, nor does it match any samples in the FBI’s DNA database, CODIS.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said investigators plan to use genetic genealogy, a forensic tool that combines traditional genealogical research with DNA analysis, to test a partial biological sample found at Guthrie’s home.
The department has not said whether there were signs of forced entry at the house. Blood found on Guthrie's porch is believed to be hers, Nanos said.
“TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie has posted several videos on social media, joined in some by her brother and sister, pleading for their mother’s return and begging for her potential abductor to make contact with their family. Savannah Guthrie has said the family is willing to pay.
