The FBI is being prevented from obtaining key evidence in the ongoing search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie, Reuters reports.
An anonymous law enforcement official said Thursday that the Pima County Sheriff’s Office sent the physical evidence to a private DNA lab in Florida rather than the FBI’s national crime lab in Quantico.
Evidence being analyzed reportedly includes a black glove found near Nancy’s home in Tucson, Arizona, and DNA recovered from the home.
“There is a risk that the progress of this increasingly urgent case may be further delayed,” the official told Reuters. “It is clear that leveraging federal resources and technology is the quickest solution.”
“Anything more will only prolong the Guthrie family’s grief and the community’s wait for justice,” the official added.
The person also claimed that the county spent about $200,000 to send evidence in the case to a laboratory in Florida.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has denied claims that he is hiding evidence from the FBI.
“This is far from the truth,” Nanos told NBC Tucson affiliate KVOA on Thursday.
The sheriff maintained he was cooperating with the FBI throughout the investigation.
“Really, the FBI just wanted to send the one or two people they found at the crime scene to the closest place to the crime scene, a mile, a mile and a half away…I said, ‘No, why would you do that? Let’s send them all to where all the DNA is, all the profiles and markers are.’ They agreed, it made sense,” Nanos said.
Nanos added that authorities “don’t even know the real value of these gloves,” noting that there are “quite a few.”
Nancy was last seen on the night of January 31st and was declared missing the next day.
Her residence was treated as a crime scene after bloodstains were found outside her front door, and the FBI began working with local authorities to search for the 84-year-old man.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday released surveillance footage showing a person wearing a ski mask tampering with the doorbell camera at Nancy’s home in the early morning hours of February 1st.
Patel said the footage “may have been lost, corrupted or otherwise inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices.”
The FBI said Nancy’s alleged abductor was a man of “average build”, approximately 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, and was carrying a 25-liter black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack.
The FBI also said it had collected more than 13,000 tips from the public related to the case.
The reward for any information regarding this case has been increased to $100,000.
