A crucial clue has hit a dead end in the mysterious case of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. Investigators have confirmed that a hair sample found at her Arizona residence failed to produce a DNA profile, leaving them without any leads to identify her potential kidnapper, according to the latest briefing by the case’s lead investigator.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, facing mounting pressure, disclosed this setback on Thursday as the probe into the 84-year-old’s abduction approaches six months with few breakthroughs.
“Yes, we did find a hair,” Sheriff Nanos stated in an interview with Fox News Digital. “Our first step was obvious—conduct DNA testing. It’s the logical starting point before pursuing other avenues.”
Explaining further, Nanos revealed, “The analysis returned void of any DNA data. But does this exclude the hair as belonging to the suspect? Absolutely not.”
Sheriff Nanos cautioned that the investigation remains open-ended without a suspect with whom to compare the sample. “Until we have a hair sample from the suspect, we must preserve what we found,” he asserted, signaling the persistent challenges in the search for answers.
Local investigators, alongside the FBI, sent the recovered hair sample to a California laboratory for examination which came up empty handed.
“There’s other things that hair may prove valuable for, but right now it was just about, ‘Is there any DNA there?’ And the answer was no,” the sheriff said, adding “that was just a matter of weeks ago.”
Nanos added that the hair sample was only one part of the broader DNA work that is underway, but did not specify how many other samples are being examined, according to Fox News Digital.
Investigators will continue working with multiple crime labs to analyze the evidence collected in the home, as well as genetic genealogy research used to generate leads from a family tree.
“Anything we can grasp onto with DNA is a part of this investigation,” Nanos said.
“That’s really where some of my optimism is, that I just know that we’re gonna get this thing resolved,” Nanos told the outlet.
On Monday, Guthrie’s daughter, “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie, made a heartbreaking fresh appeal to her mother’s kidnappers to “do the right thing” — as she described how her family is living in a “nightmare that will not end.”
“The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place, and I know that you have tried to do things the right way,” Savannah said on her Instagram, appearing to address her mother’s abductors directly.
“So I am asking you, begging you, to do the right thing now.”
No arrests have been made since Guthrie was snatched from her home in the upscale Tucson suburb of Catalina Hills on Feb. 1.