Nancy Guthrie Mystery Deepens as Expert Points to Possible ‘Revenge’ Motive Amid Lack of Clues

More than 70 days after the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, authorities still have no new information about her whereabouts. Renowned FBI profiler Dr. Ann Burgess, who played a key role in establishing the agency’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, has shared a new theory about what may have happened to the 84-year-old.

Dr. Burgess, who inspired the character Dr. Wendy Carr in the Netflix series Mindhunter, suggested the motive could be linked to a revenge plot targeting a member of the family.

Speaking to Brian Entin on the latest episode of Brian Entin Investigates, Dr. Burgess said she believes something went terribly wrong inside the home.

“I think something went very wrong inside the house and that either she wasn’t alive when something happened because you know there was blood,” she said. “The target was somebody else in the family and the object was to get someone that was close to that person. Who in her orbit would be hurt the most? It’s a very mean, angry and horrible thing to do,” Dr. Burgess added.

She pointed to a possible revenge angle involving Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, the victim’s daughter. “Is there retaliation? Is there revenge? Is this some way of getting even? Those would be possible motives,” the expert noted. “What’s the real motive? Is this something against her, an 84-year-old woman, or is this against somebody else within the family?”

Dr. Burgess said she initially believed the case would be solved relatively quickly. “But we’re pretty handicapped; we don’t have a lot of information that we can use. Normally, we would have a lot more information. We have almost zero,” she said.

Addressing the mixed DNA sample recovered from the scene, she added, “It’s going to be very hard to separate the DNA. The only thing that makes me think you could break open this case is if there are more than one person involved in this. If you have multiple offenders, you can sometimes get them to break.”

She also suggested the possibility that someone may have been waiting for Guthrie to return home. “We have to speculate that it was someone that either watched when this garage door went up or had been in there when she had gone out and was hiding there,” she said.

Initially, authorities believed Guthrie had wandered away from home and didn’t treat the case as a criminal matter, an insider in the law enforcement community told NewsNation.

Dr. Burgess said investigators should consider releasing more details. “I think that they could release something about entry. I think there are other small bits of evidence that could be released that people could then have more to be able to help,” she said.

Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her Catalina Foothills home on February 1 following a family dinner and game night.

Despite extensive efforts by the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, no suspect has been identified so far. Sheriff Chris Nanos has previously warned that the suspect could strike again.