The Arizona sheriff leading the search for missing Nancy Guthrie has dismissed claims that the elderly matriarch’s disappearance was the result of a burglary gone bad.
“This is somebody who disappeared from the face of the earth, and now we have a camera that says here’s the person who did this,” Chris Nanos, the Pima County Sheriff, told the Daily Mail.
Investigators are no closer to finding Nancy, 84, who has now been missing for more than two weeks. Cops have not made any arrests – despite receiving more than 40,000 tips – and have been accused of bungling the probe.
From an early stage in their probe, authorities have suspected Nancy was taken against her will. Nanos still believes there was a kidnapping — dismissing a theory touted by an unnamed source in the probe that her disappearance was linked to a botched robbery — but couldn’t reveal a motive.
“That’s what makes me say this is a kidnapping. The motivation for it is where we get stuck, right?” he said.
“Is it for money? I mean, we had the one demand where they asked for money. But is it really for money, or is it for revenge for something?”
Nanos, who has been the Pima County Sheriff since 2015, previously told Fox News the burglary theory didn’t come from police.
The search for Nancy, who was last seen on Jan. 31., is now in its third week and investigators are hoping for a breakthrough after a glove containing DNA was found two miles from her million-dollar Catalina Foothills home in Tucson.
“The one with the DNA profile recovered is different and appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video,” an FBI spokesperson told Fox News.
Nanos believes there is someone who knows the person in the video.
“I believe somebody out there can look at that video and go, ‘I know exactly who that is,’” he told the Mail.
Around 16 gloves have been found in areas near Nancy’s home over the past two weeks.
Darrin Porcher, a former NYPD lieutenant, said the DNA discovery could help push the case forward.
“It’s truly a breakthrough in the case,” he told Fox News Digital.
“The DNA will go into the CODIS database, and I’m hopeful a match will occur.”
Porcher explained how the private sector could help create an image of a person based on the DNA that was found.
The video released last week showed a masked thug wearing black gloves tampering with Guthrie’s camera.
He had a handgun holstered in his pants, which former FBI agent Mark Harrigan described to The Post as a “very non-conventional way” to carry a weapon.
“He has it in the open, which is unusual, because normally you would want it concealed when you’re going to do a crime, so you’re not calling attention to yourself with an exposed firearm,” he added.
Nanos warned that authorities are not underestimating the suspect. “You never underestimate anybody,” he said.
“It’s easy to go… “he’s kind of a goofball. He may be a lot smarter than people are giving him credit for.”
The man in the video is wearing a 25-liter Ozark Trail hiker backpack, according to the FBI.
Nanos previously described himself as a “Monday morning quarterback” when alluding to errors investigators made at the early stages of the probe.
It has sparked criticism among some that authorities had dropped the ball.
Nancy’s home was released back to the family before investigators had finished combing it for evidence.
Nanos previously admitted he would’ve delayed the decision to do that with the benefit of hindsight.
Nancy’s daughter, Savannah, posted another appeal on social media, telling her mom’s alleged kidnappers it’s not too late for them to do what she described as the “right thing.”
“I wanted to come on … it’s been two weeks since our mom was taken and … I just wanted to come on and say that we still have hope and we still believe,” ‘Today’ star Savannah said in an Instagram video.
“And I wanted to say that to whoever has her or knows where she is, that it’s never too late. And you’re not lost or alone, and it is never too late to do the right thing.
“And we are here, and we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, and it’s never too late.”
The FBI reward for information that leads to an arrest has since been doubled to $100,000.
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