The unknown DNA investigators obtained in the case of Nancy Guthrie’s abduction is going to be helpful when investigators have a suspect, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller said.
Officials have not been able to determine who the DNA belongs to, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos.
This means it didn’t match the “known contributors,” Miller said, meaning the people who have been around or inside Guthrie’s house for other reasons.
It’s also “not somebody who’s been convicted of a felony or arrested on a serious charge where that DNA would be in the FBI system,” Miller said. Investigators would have run it through that database, he said.
In an interview with CNN this afternoon, Nanos said the Pima County Sheriff’s Department wanted to send a glove found by a search team to their lab rather than to the FBI’s. The sheriff’s department’s lab already has DNA from Guthrie, her family, her landscaper and housekeeper, he said.
“Trust me, if we knew who it was, we’d be on it,” Nanos said. “But we do have some DNA, and we’ll continue to work … with the lab on that DNA analysis.”
Moving forward in the investigation, the DNA will be critical in both ruling people out and, when there is a suspect, placing them at Guthrie’s house, according to Miller.
“It’s that clue that you put on the side and you run it against everybody that you can run it against,” Miller said.