Share and Follow
A 5th-grade educator, caught up in an unexpected online storm, is defending himself after amateur detectives descended upon his home, suspecting him in the Nancy Guthrie case.
Dominic Evans, 48, expressed his ordeal to The New York Times on Wednesday, February 25. His Tucson, Arizona residence became the focus of scrutiny following the February 10 release of FBI surveillance images. The footage captured a masked figure meddling with a doorbell camera at Nancy’s home, situated north of Tucson.
Dominic clarified to the publication that he crossed paths with Nancy, 84, only once back in 2011. The accusations, he explained, stem partly from his association with Tommaso Cioni, a member of his band and the brother-in-law of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie. Tommaso is married to Savannah’s sister, Annie.
“It’s as if my identity has been hijacked,” Dominic remarked. “I’m at a loss for the motive—whether it’s financial gain, clickbait, relevance, or mere entertainment—but it’s the innocent who suffer.”
The Guthrie family, including Annie, has been thrust into the public eye under distressing circumstances. On February 1, 2026, Nancy Guthrie was declared missing in Arizona after a family member alerted authorities. In the ensuing days, Annie and her siblings, such as Camron Guthrie, along with the Today show anchor, found themselves navigating this unwanted attention.
Dominic and his wife, Andrea, told the outlet that after the FBI images were released, his facial features were compared to the masked person in the surveillance footage. People online also brought up a past drunk-driving conviction and an arrest for a 1999 bar theft as further proof of his involvement.
The couple said they were too scared to pick up their two youngest children from their grandmother’s house on the day the photos were released because of the sheer number of people that had congregated outside of their home.
“It was all night looking through the window, trying to not let any light out of our home,” Andrea said, noting that she was “scared numb” by it all.
Days later, after local police and the FBI coordinated a February 13 home search and traffic stop in Tucson, more people swarmed to the Evans’ home, they said. (The police detained and later released four people in connection with a search warrant executed on February 13.)
The search for Savannah Guthrie’s mom, Nancy Guthrie, has resulted in a new theory surrounding Mexico. Nearly three weeks after Nancy was last seen alive in Tucson, Arizona, some crime watchers have speculated that the 84-year-old could have found herself in Mexico after being kidnapped from her home. While the Pima County Sheriff’s Office isn’t […]
“This one felt really, really, really scary, because it was like everyone was waiting for someone to come to our house,” Andrea said.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who is leading the search for Nancy with the FBI, told the New York Times that he felt sorry for Dominic. The teacher spoke only once to investigators and had not heard from them since, the Times reported.
“He’s going through hell, and it is horrible,” Nanos said. “And I don’t know what to tell him except he probably should be speaking with some attorneys and sue some of these people for libel.”
“I wish I could jump out and defend every single one of them that’s been falsely accused,” Nanos added.
Nancy Guthrie’s home is to be returned to her family as the search for the missing mom of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie nears the one-month mark, per NBC News. Police believe Nancy, 84, was abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1. NBC […]
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has not publicly ruled out anyone in its investigation with the exception of Nancy’s immediate family, including her son-in-law, who himself faced scrutiny after an unverified report that he was a person of interest early on in the investigation.
“To be clear … the Guthrie family — to include all siblings and spouses — have been cleared as possible suspects in this case. The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case,” Nanos said in a statement on February 16.
Nanos added, “To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel. The Guthrie family are victims, plain and simple.”
On Tuesday, February 24, Savannah and her siblings increased a monetary reward for Nancy’s return to $1 million as the search for the Guthrie matriarch nears the end of its fourth week.