What To Know
- Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, remains missing more than six months after disappearing from her Tucson, Arizona, home.
- Retired FBI agent Maureen O’Connell criticized the initial handling of the crime scene, citing insufficient evidence preservation and inadequate area lockdown.
- O’Connell believes early mistakes in processing the scene may have contributed to the current lack of progress in the investigation.
Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie‘s mother, Nancy Guthrie, is still missing — and a retired FBI agent slammed crime scene “mistakes” made on day one.
During an interview on Brian Entin Investigates published on August 10, former FBI special agent Maureen O’Connell sat down with NewsNation’s Brian Entin to discuss the case after investigators recently returned to Nancy’s Tucson, Arizona, home.
“Do you think us being at this place now — more than six months later, where things feel like they’re at a bit of a standstill — goes back to mistakes made with the crime scene and the way that it was processed?” Entin asked. “Do these issues now all go back to the way it was processed initially?”
To that, O’Connell admitted, “Possibly.” She added, “I mean, the crime scene, if it was an FBI case initially, and we saw that she was likely removed from the front of that house but intended to go out the back of the house, those pots would have been gone, the door handles would have probably been gone. That mat, 100 percent, would have been gone.”
The retired FBI agent continued, “Our crime scene yellow tape would have been — the street would have been blocked off because we would have been looking for tire impressions and shoe impressions, even though the original deputies pulled up because they thought it was a walk-away, as I said, over 90 percent of these cases are.”
O’Connell explained that even if one or two cars had already pulled up the driveway, deputies should have shut down the crime scene to prevent potential evidence from becoming tainted.
“Just lock that whole area down,” she stressed. “That circle drive in front should have not been accessible. There should not have been cars on that… You’re looking very closely — and I mean very closely — and with oblique lighting and everything else, trying to find any shoe impressions, tire impressions, any evidence that people were walking around, any crushed grass below any window on the entire circumference of the residence. You’re looking for any broken glass, which I’m sure the initial deputies did. But this all has to be done by the crime scene team.
Finally, O’Connell said she believes the “crime scene should have been 15 times bigger than it was.” She added, “And people should have been directed. And I told you, I think early on, when your scene looks like this scene, we’ve talked about how hard it is to collapse a scene. And that’s why you want it bigger initially. You can always make it smaller as you go on, as days go by.”
Nancy, 84, was last seen at her Catalina Foothills home on the evening of January 31. Although investigators released footage of a masked suspect on Nancy’s front porch and two alleged ransom notes, no suspect has been named in the case. Savannah, meanwhile, is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to an arrest.