US President Donald Trump has reportedly said he will instruct the Justice Department to seek the death penalty if Nancy Guthrie is not found alive. She has been missing since February 1.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was kidnapped from her home in Arizona on February 1. Doorbell camera footage captured disturbing images of the masked assailant, but the investigation soon went cold.
The president said the kidnappers would face “very, very severe — the most severe” federal consequences if Nancy Guthrie is found dead after she was kidnapped, the New York Post reported.
Asked if that meant the Justice Department would seek the death penalty, Trump said: “Most do — that’s true.”
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Earlier, Trump, spending the long Presidents Day holiday weekend at his golf club in Florida, posted on Truth Social that he was following coverage of the case, AFP reported.
Praising those who “work so hard, with such expertise and knowledge”, the 79-year-old wrote: “Hopefully there will be a positive outcome!”
NBC’s Today co-host Savannah Guthrie made an emotional public appeal, urging her mother’s kidnappers to “do the right thing” as the disturbing case continues to baffle investigators and captivate the country.
Guthrie shared a video message on social media late Sunday in which she spoke directly to those responsible for her mother’s abduction and pleaded for her safe return, AFP reported.
“Whoever has her or knows where she is,” Guthrie said, “it’s never too late and you’re not lost and you’re never alone and it’s never too late to do the right thing and we’re here.”
Read also | Nancy Guthrie Case: Savannah Expresses Hope, Shares Message: ‘It’s Never Too Late’
“We still have hope and we still believe,” she said, according to AFP.
DNA study
On Sunday, more than two weeks after the abduction, investigators told US media that the glove – believed to have been worn by the person seen in the doorbell footage – had been found about three kilometers from the house. A DNA test is currently being carried out on the object, AFP reported.
According to an AP report, authorities said detectives recovered DNA evidence from Savannah Guthrie’s possessions that did not match her or anyone known to be in close contact with her. The sheriff’s department added that investigators are now working to determine whose DNA it is.
Evidence requiring forensic analysis is being sent to the same out-of-state lab that has been used since the case began, the department said, according to the AP.
The glove is one of about 16 collected by investigators in recent days in a roadside field about two miles from the Tucson-area home of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of American television journalist Savannah Guthrie. Most of the gloves investigators found turned out to have been dropped by nearby searchers, the FBI said, as reported by Reuters.
But the one submitted for DNA analysis is “different and appears to match the gloves” worn by a man in a ski mask who was seen trying to disable a camera on Guthrie’s door in the early morning hours shortly before she was abducted, according to an FBI statement.
(With input from agencies)