More than two weeks after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, a criminal expert has put forward a haunting theory about what may have unfolded in the early morning hours the 84-year-old vanished.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on January 31 after her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, dropped her off at her home following dinner with her daughter Annie.
When she failed to join her weekly church livestream the next morning – something loved ones say she never misses – alarm bells rang. She was reported missing soon after. Since then, the search to find the mother of three has intensified.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told KOLD that investigators have “good leads” in Nancy’s case, but her whereabouts remain unknown. What has surfaced publicly, however, is deeply unsettling.
Blood evidence raises disturbing questions
Authorities confirmed that blood splatters discovered outside Nancy’s Tucson home belongs to her. The droplets were reportedly found on the porch and driveway, alongside a single black glove.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden weighed in on the evidence in an interview with Fox News and said the reported blood patterns indicate she was bleeding from “either the hands or the face.”
“She’s coughing up blood or dripping from the nose,” Baden explained, adding that “this blood dropped onto the porch area during an abduction.”
“They indicate that it did not occur by innocent means. They happened not in a normal, innocent way where it could be covered up or have iodine and bandages put on it,” he said.
Morgan Wright, a cybersecurity and law enforcement expert, recently said in an episode of the SmartHER News podcast with Jenna Lee, that the blood patterns indicate a “low velocity blood impact,” meaning “she was closer to the ground,” possibly having the suspect “dragging her out.”
Doorbell footage and a masked figure
For days, investigators struggled to establish a firm timeline. Then came a breakthrough.
Previously unrecoverable doorbell camera footage was retrieved, revealing a masked individual standing outside Guthrie’s front door at approximately 2:00 a.m. The suspect is described as a male, roughly 5’9” to 5’10” tall with an average build. He was seen wearing gloves, a ski mask and a black 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack.
Suspect ‘knows the camera’s there’
Pointing to the clip where the suspect’s “head goes down” before turning off his bite light as he enters the porch, Wright told Lee that “this person knows the camera’s there.”
According to Wright, the suspect did not appear amateurish.
He described the individual as “comfortable” and “experienced,” suggesting familiarity with burglary tactics based on the gear and body language visible in the footage.
Chilling motive theory
Perhaps most unsettling is Wright’s theory about why this may have escalated.
If the masked individual initially intended to commit a property crime, something may have changed, shifting it from burglary to abduction in seconds.
Drawing on his behavioral analysis experience, Wright theorized, that if the suspect realized he would be recognized, “they could not leave her there at the house or leave her in that state. And that’s one of the reasons why she may have been abducted.”
He noted that it is uncommon for criminals to escalate from property crimes to violent offenses without a trigger – such as fear of being identified.
The most crucial piece of evidence, however, may not be visual – but digital.
Pacemaker data narrows the window
Nancy’s pacemaker was “the best unbiased” witness, Wright said.
Wright revealed that the device’s data stopped communicating with her phone at 2:28 a.m., creating a defined timeline for investigators.
“If you get too far away from your phone, it won’t ping, but it doesn’t show that anything’s wrong. You come back into range, it tracks, it says, ‘Okay, everything’s okay.’ Well, that quit working. So now we can narrow down our time from sometime from 2:10 (a.m.).”
That narrow timeframe has significantly sharpened the focus of the investigation.
‘Was the heart rate spiking?’
And that is where the pacemaker data becomes potentially crucial – if Nancy encountered someone unknown, investigators may be able to see the physiological impact of that moment.
“Is she under duress or is her heart normal? Cuz an 84-year-old person with heart problems, if I break into your house that time of night, even a healthy person, your heart rate’s going to go up. So was the heart rate spiking?”
However, according to The New York Times, the information stored in a pacemaker can be limited. If a patient is not enrolled in remote monitoring, doctors typically only see the device’s data during an in-person visit.
There is, however, one critical detail a pacemaker can provide after a person dies: the exact time the heart stopped beating.
“It’s kind of like a black box on an airplane,” Dr. Michael Lauer, a cardiologist and former deputy director at the National Institutes of Health, told the New York Times.
In fact, a pacemaker played a key role in solving another mystery just last year. When actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead in their Santa Fe home, there were no witnesses. By examining Hackman’s cardiac device, a pathologist was able to determine that he died roughly a week after his wife.
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