Sheriff warns Nancy Guthrie suspect could 'absolutely' strike again, hints at motive
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos says the suspect behind Nancy Guthrie's disappearance could "absolutely" strike again, warning of a continuing public safety threat 40 days after she vanished and offering few new details about a possible motive.
"Criminal minds are criminal minds," he told NBC, where Guthrie's daughter Savannah Guthrie co-hosts the "Today" show.
Nanos said he has an idea of the motive behind Guthrie's kidnapping but declined to share it publicly.
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"We believe that it was targeted, but we can't — we're not 100% sure of that," he said. "And so it would be silly to tell people, 'Yea don't worry about it. You're not his target.' No, you could be."
The 84-year-old mother and grandmother lived alone in the Catalina Foothills, a wealthy enclave in northern Tucson, Arizona.
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She vanished under suspicious circumstances on the morning of Feb. 1 and has not been seen since.
"When the sheriff says investigators believe they know the motive but won’t share it, there’s an investigative reason," said Jason Pack, a retired FBI supervisory agent and the CEO of Media Rep Global Strategies. "This is it: You don’t hand the suspect a roadmap of what you know."
However, the suggestion that the perpetrator could strike again complicates things, he told Fox News Digital.
"Once you put that out there, every person watching wants to know who’s at risk and what they ought to do about it," Pack said. "If you can’t answer those questions, you probably shouldn’t lead with that statement."
Answers have been in short supply throughout the ordeal.
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Guthrie's front doorbell camera is missing, but her phone and Apple watch were left behind. Authorities have so far been unable to recover any video from her other home security cameras.
Investigators said previously that her pacemaker last synced via Bluetooth around 2:30 a.m. the night she went missing.
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And although the FBI and Google were able to recover some footage from her front door showing a masked man with a gun, he has not been identified.
A mixed DNA sample sent to a private Florida lab rather than the FBI has also not yet been unraveled, according to the report.
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Federal law enforcement sources previously told Fox News Digital it provided only a partial profile that was insufficient for the FBI's CODIS database of known offenders as well as investigative genetic genealogy techniques.
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Separately, Nanos confirmed that investigators are looking into some kind of power or internet outage the morning of Nancy's abduction, but he said it was not connected to a utility box around the corner from the home showing signs of having been tampered with.
Authorities said last week they had looked into the box and ruled it out.
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He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
There's a combined reward of over $1.2 million for info that cracks the case.
The family is asking anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.