Nancy Guthrie Disappearance: DNA and suspect’s saliva emerge as crucial clue in investigation? Expert makes explosive claims as mystery intensifies

Nancy Guthrie Disappearance: The investigation into the mysterious case of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of ‘Today’ show host Savannah Guthrie, continues more than 10 weeks after she vanished from her Tucson home in Arizona on January 31, 2026.

As authorities continue their search for Nancy, multiple theories surrounding her alleged abduction, suspects, and evidence have emerged, attempting to explain what might have transpired on the night she disappeared. She was reported missing on February 1, 2026, when she failed to attend church service.

Authorities have not identified or arrested any suspects in the case so far despite Savannah offering a $1 million reward in exchange for information leading to her mother’s recovery. Now, a DNA expert believes that key evidence from “porch guy” should be the focus of the investigation.


“Porch guy” in this case is a masked suspect caught on Nancy’s doorbell camera with a bit of a flashlight in chilling images and footage released by the FBI in February 2026. The suspect was given this label by many following the case.

On February 10, 2026, the FBI had stated that it managed to recover doorbell camera video of what it described as an armed person tampering with a camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door.

In an interview with NewsNation, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore said that she thinks investigators need to swab for more DNA at the 84-year-old’s Catalina Foothills home. She also emphasized that the saliva of the unidentified man can be a high potential lead.

“It’s hard to know what they have already collected,” Moore acknowledged. “It’s possible they collected dozens or hundreds of swabs, and they’re still going through testing those.”

“It’s so hard for a crime scene investigator to know exactly what to swab, since most DNA is invisible to the eye, right? So sometimes, it just is a trained intuition that causes them to swab the correct thing. Now, if they have tested everything and haven’t found a good sample of the perpetrator’s DNA, I do think that it is possible to go back to her home and do some more swabbing.” Moore also suggested that investigators’ most promising lead could be finding saliva from the unidentified man.

“DNA is hardy. So it’s certainly possible there is still some DNA there—and in particular, I really do think that saliva is the most likely. And that is because of what appeared to be that bright flashlight in his mouth,” Moore explained. “Somebody wrote to me that has used one of those and agreed with me that it would produce a lot of saliva, and it would be very difficult not to leave some of that behind.”

Earlier, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said that DNA samples sent off to a lab revealed “mixed DNA,” meaning genetic material from more than one person. Nancy was last seen at her Tucson home on the evening of January 31, with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department launching its search on February 1. The FBI joined the investigation a few days later.