Few leads in Guthrie investigation after 11 days, yet cases often break
unexpectedly
[February 12, 2026]
By JESSE BEDAYN
Eleven days after the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie
vanished from her home in the foothills outside Tucson, Arizona,
investigators had yet to identify a suspect or even a person of interest
Wednesday.
What seemed like a major break Tuesday — when authorities detained a
person for questioning — fizzled when the man was released hours later.
The detainment followed another potential break earlier in the day when
investigators released video footage showing a masked and apparently
armed man at Nancy Guthrie ’s doorstep the night of her disappearance.
The overall lack of progress has generated pressure and questions for
local and federal investigators who haven’t held a news conference in
days. From the outside, it might seem like solving the case and finding
the 84-year-old Guthrie is growing unlikely, but investigators may be
further along than they let on.
It's not uncommon for cases to seem dead in the water at the outset and
still eventually get solved, said Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI
profiler who worked on the yearslong search for the “Unabomber.”
So how do investigators tackle cases like this?
The masked figure and the Unabomber
Surveillance footage released Tuesday showed a person on Guthrie's porch
wearing a ski mask, backpack and what looked like a holstered handgun.
It offered the best opportunity yet for the public to help identify the
suspect, said O'Toole, thinking back to the hunt for Ted Kaczynski,
known as the “Unabomber," who was caught in 1996 after a yearslong
search.
Kaczynski, who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three
people and injured 23 others, wrote a manifesto that was published in
The New York Times and The Washington Post before he was caught.
His brother recognized Kaczynski's tone in the screed, tipped off the
FBI, and Kaczynski was arrested in a cabin outside Lincoln, Montana.
Similarly, Luigi Mangione, who allegedly shot the CEO of
UnitedHealthcare in New York, was arrested five days later when someone
recognized him at a McDonald's and called in a tip.
In Guthrie's case, the release of the surveillance footage and Savannah
Guthrie's plea for the public's help is the same strategy, O'Toole said.
Someone who knows the suspect may have noticed them acting unusual, such
as not going to work, following the news closely or making offhand
comments about the case.
If they recognize anything familiar about the masked person on camera,
that could confirm their suspicions and lead them to tip off
investigators, O'Toole said.
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Law enforcement agents check vegetation areas around Nancy Guthrie’s
home in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
DNA and the University of Idaho murders
Investigators said DNA from blood on Guthrie's porch matched her,
and O’Toole said investigators will still be casing the area for DNA
from a possible suspect, including hair or fingerprints, which have
helped solve other cases.
Bryan Kohberger, the criminology student who sneaked into a home and
stabbed four University of Idaho students to death in 2022, was
arrested after trace DNA was found on a knife sheath left on one of
the victim's bed.
That DNA didn’t yield any results from standard law enforcement
databases, so investigators turned to publicly available genealogy
services, searching for possible relatives.
After homing in on Kohberger by tracking his car using surveillance
footage near the crime scene, investigators got a Q-tip from the
trash outside his family's home and tested the DNA.
It matched the father of the person whose DNA was on the knife
sheath.
Strange encounters and the Brown University shooting
In the days after a shooter killed two people at Brown University in
2025, investigators didn't appear any closer to identifying the
suspect.
When police eventually shared images of a person of interest, a man
started posting on Reddit that he recognized the person and that
police should look into a gray Nissan.
The source, named only as “John” in a police affidavit, told
investigators that he'd bumped into a man in the bathroom and
thought his clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the
weather." John saw him again outside acting nervous and jumpy near
the Nissan.
John's tip about the car helped identify the shooter, Claudio Neves
Valente, six days later, leading investigators to a storage unit
where he was found dead from suicide.
It's unclear if John took the $50,000 reward for information that
was offered in the case. The FBI is offering the same amount for
information in Guthrie's apparent abduction and hoping a tipster
like John may come forward. The Pima County Sheriff's Department
said Wednesday that they have received nearly 18,000 calls since the
day Guthrie was reported missing.
Connor Hagan, a spokesperson for the FBI, said in a previous
statement: “Someone has that one piece of information that can help
us bring Nancy home."
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