Nancy Guthrie abduction: FBI analyzing DNA recovered from her home, sources say

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In this May 4, 2015, file photo, Australian-born presenter, Savannah Guthrie poses alongside her mother Nancy Guthrie during a production break while hosting NBC’s ‘Today Show’ live from Australia at Sydney Opera House in Sydney. (Don Arnold/WireImage via Getty Images, FILE)

The FBI recently received and is now analyzing potentially critical DNA recovered from the Tucson, Arizona, home of Nancy Guthrie, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her home early on Feb. 1.

A private Florida lab that works with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department sent the sample to the FBI in recent weeks, the sources said. The FBI is now using new technology to conduct advanced analysis on the DNA sample to see if it can lead to Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper, according to the sources.

The sample itself is not new, but has been part of the investigation since it was collected in February, one of the sources said.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has previously described the DNA recovered from Nancy Guthrie’s home as a sample that came from more than one person and therefore needed to be untangled.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos recently told a Neighborhood Watch group that it could take six more months to separate the strands and isolate what investigators need.

The sheriff also said as many as five other labs around the country are working on the Guthrie case. It was not immediately clear which ones, what their roles are or whether there are additional DNA samples that are potentially relevant.

About two dozen Pima County and FBI investigators are still actively working the Guthrie case. After investigators released key evidence, like images from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera, early on, seemingly little progress has been made on her whereabouts or the person or people who abducted her.

Last month, Savannah Guthrie spoke out in her first interview, telling her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb that it’s “too much to bear to think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me.”

I’m so sorry, Mommy, I’m so sorry,” Savannah Guthrie said.

And to her family, she apologized through tears, “If it is me, I’m so sorry.”

But she added, “We still don’t know … Honestly, we don’t know anything.”

Savannah Guthrie said her family “cannot be at peace” without answers.

“Someone can do the right thing,” she said.

Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.

Editor’s Note: The story has updated the time frame of when the DNA sample was received

Additional reporting by Luke Barr.