‘Something Decomposed’ Potentially Found Near Nancy Guthrie’s House as Ex-FBI Suspects Her Abductor Had a ‘Personal Grievance’

At this point in the Nancy Guthrie investigation, it feels like all possibilities have to be explored. Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared sometime between the night of January 31 and the morning of February 1st, with law enforcement confirming she has been kidnapped.

Multiple ransom notes have been received, though police have been unable to verify them. And though there has been some movement in the investigation, with police releasing photos and surveillance video of one suspect as well as a description and finding a glove that they hoped could have DNA evidence, it feels like, at this point, no one really has a concrete idea of what exactly happened.

Now, law enforcement is expanding the search. Yesterday, volunteers recovered a backpack that was handed over to authorities. And they’re continuing the search. Tucson resident Lupita Tello told reporters, “If it smells bad like something decomposed, that’s where we start.”

Her group, Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, a non-profit from Mexico, is one of many groups volunteering to help with the search.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said in an interview on Feb. 21 that DNA found on Guthrie’s property was mixed, aka it came from more than one person, which made identification harder. The DNA evidence is still undergoing testing, and no suspects have yet been named.

Where does that leave the investigation? Jonny Grusing, who worked in the FBI’s Denver Division for 25 years, told Fox News Digital that there is reason to believe the suspect lured Nancy out of her house, based on the publicly available information.

Grusing said about the video footage, “The first thing [the suspect] does is with his glove, and with his glove, it doesn’t look like he’s trying to take [the doorbell camera] off. It looks like he’s trying to cover it with his right hand. And then he looks down, he looks around, and he gets the branches, and he puts the branches up in front of it.”

“Is there a chance, since we don’t have audio, that he is either knocking on the door loudly or that he has pressed the ring doorbell, [that] he’s trying to get Nancy to answer the door, and he’s shielding himself from being seen as a masked person, so she will, in her confusion, open the door?”

Grusing also pointed to reports of blood spatter being found on the porch and driveway as proof that Nancy Guthrie was likely lured outside, and said the gun the suspect was carrying might have been a prop to frighten Nancy. This possibility had been suggested before, because of where the suspect was carrying the gun and how hard it would be to fire it with gloves on.

“So, if the gun’s a prop, if he’s shielding himself from being seen, if he’s actually ringing the doorbell or knocking on the door, getting her to come, he wants to confront her about something in my opinion,” Grusing said, implying the suspect could have had a personal grievance with Nancy.

“I’m just trying to use the experiences of different cases and trying to apply any sort of logic to this in the hopes that someone from the public who has thought it might be someone they know whether it’s his family or whether now it’s a coworker or friend or associate or whatever, to put that one puzzle piece together that says, ‘Yes, and now I think it could be him.’”