Nancy Guthrie Update: Cold Case Expert Makes Bold Call to Action

Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie‘s mother, Nancy Guthrie, remains missing nearly nine months after she was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, home — and a cold case expert just made a bold call to action.

In an October 21 episode of Brian Entin Investigates, NewsNation’s senior national correspondent, Brian Entin, spoke with police detective Aaron Benzick, a cold case specialist from Texas.

“I was really hesitant for a long time to call it a cold case just because of all the work going on behind the scenes,” Entin pointed out. “And there’s still this dedicated task force made up of sheriff’s detectives and also FBI agents, that this is the only case they work on every day.”

He continued, “But as more time goes on, it is starting to feel cold, at least based on the information that I have,” Entin pointed out, of 84-year-old Nancy. “At what point do you technically classify something a ‘cold case’?”

To that, Benzick explained, “What that’s going to be dependent, Brian, on are the things that we still have outstanding that can be followed up on… Obviously, from the public’s perception, when things are quiet from the agency — we’ve got almost a year’s gone by, we haven’t found Nancy — it’s going to feel like things are cold or stale. But from an investigative point of view, we’re not at the cold case stage.”

Additionally, Benzick advised a different strategy at this point in the investigation.

“It’s definitely time to take an approach that you may approach a cold case with,” he explained. “…You’re in a stage of the investigation where you haven’t found Nancy, there have been some roadblocks, some things and some struggles that we’ve had. But it’s OK to take a step back, even bring in some different approaches, different eyes on this case, and look at what you have. Getting things organized.”

Benzik said that there are likely “thousands and thousands” of tips still being organized in addition to physical and digital evidence.

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“In this stage of the investigation, you’re wanting to look at the stuff. You’re going to want to see what do I have?” he detailed. “And I’m going to be honest with you, Brian, if you go to many an investigative room in agencies across the nation, all of these large amounts of data, law enforcement is not equipped right away for this amount of large amounts of data.”

Two aspects of Nancy’s investigation Benzick said he would focus on are timeline information a month leading up to the abduction and tips.

He explained, “I would want to see what are the actual facts that I have in the case — the verifiable, hard facts — what are some things that we’ve assumed, and what are some things that are just open-ended? And are they being accounted for?”

Nancy was last seen on the evening of January 31, with her family reporting her missing on February 1. Although investigators released photos of a masked suspect on her front porch and published alleged ransom notes, no suspect has been named in the case. Savannah has also offered $1 million in addition to other reward money.