Gloves recovered near the Tucson home of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie have been traced to a nearby restaurant worker, dashing investigators' hopes that the evidence would bring them closer to finding her.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said DNA from at least one glove matched an employee at a restaurant across the street from where it was found, confirming the item had nothing to do with Guthrie's disappearance.
The worker has been interviewed and cleared, and authorities now consider that glove a piece of unrelated litter that happened to be discovered inside the active search zone, according to ABC News.
The glove was collected in mid-February along a roadside about two miles from Guthrie's Tucson home and appeared similar to the ones worn by the armed man seen on doorbell surveillance video at her front door. Investigators initially treated the find as a promising lead and sent it for forensic testing, raising public expectations that DNA might identify a suspect.
In total, authorities recovered more than a dozen gloves from fields and roadways near Guthrie's neighborhood as volunteers and officers combed the area. Many of those items are believed to have been dropped by searchers or to be ordinary trash, but they were collected out of caution and submitted for analysis.
Nanos emphasized that other gloves are still being reviewed and may yet yield different DNA profiles, including a partial profile believed to belong to an unknown man. However, officials cautioned that mixed DNA and degraded samples could slow the process and may never produce a clear match, the New York Post reported.
Guthrie, the mother of "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her home in the early hours of February 1, and investigators say evidence inside the house shows she did not leave voluntarily.
Bloodstains confirmed to be hers, a removed doorbell camera, and personal items left behind led authorities to treat the residence as a crime scene and to investigate the case as a likely abduction.
Despite weeks of searching, Guthrie's location and condition remain unknown, and investigators say they still have no leading theory about motive. A combined reward of up to $1.2 million is being offered by the family and the FBI for information that leads to her recovery, as per CNN.
