Human Remains Found In A Tucson Wash Confirmed Not To Be Missing Nancy Guthrie

TUCSON, Ariz. — Human remains discovered in a desert wash near Tucson this week are not those of Nancy Guthrie, a federal source confirmed to Fox News, resolving fresh public speculation over whether the discovery was connected to the ongoing search for the missing 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.

The remains were found early Thursday, August 13, in a wash off South Santa Cruz Lane near Interstate 10 and Silverlake Road, according to the Tucson Police Department. KOLD News 13 anchor Mary Coleman first reported the discovery on X, writing that police had confirmed decomposed human remains were found in the wash near Silverlake and Santa Cruz Lane. According to police, the remains were mostly bones and appeared to have been at the location for an extended period, indicating they were not connected to any recent event.

Fox News correspondent Matt Finn quoted Coleman's post and added confirmation from his own reporting shortly afterward, writing simply that a federal source had told him the remains were not those of Nancy Guthrie.

The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner took custody of the remains and will work to determine the person's identity and cause of death. Tucson police have classified the case as an unknown death, and no identity had been publicly released as of this week. The discovery is being handled as a separate matter from the active Guthrie investigation.

The Thursday discovery marks at least the third time human remains or bones have been found in the Tucson area since Guthrie's disappearance in February, each instance prompting renewed public attention before authorities determined the finding was unrelated to her case. In February, just over a week into the search, the Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed that remains found at a home near Irvington and San Joaquin were unconnected to Guthrie, with the department stating at the time that there was nothing criminal about the discovery. In May, an amateur searcher using the online name AJ Wysopal came across an exposed bone in the desert less than five miles from Guthrie's home, a discovery that led investigators, along with the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department, to determine the remains were prehistoric, belonging to a Native American individual who lived centuries earlier based on ceramic artifacts recovered at the site. Those remains were subsequently transferred to the Tohono O'odham Nation, a Native American tribe with a reservation west of Tucson.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her home in Tucson's Catalina Foothills neighborhood on the night of January 31, and was reported missing the following day. Investigators believe she was taken from her home, and the FBI has said an armed individual appeared to tamper with her doorbell camera around the time of her disappearance. Blood found at the scene was confirmed to belong to Guthrie.

The case continues to be investigated as a kidnapping for ransom. Two ransom notes tied to the case were released publicly in late July, including one demanding a large sum of money in bitcoin and another claiming Guthrie had died. The FBI has said some of the communications received during the investigation appear to have been extortion attempts unrelated to Guthrie's actual whereabouts, while other demands remain under examination as investigators work to determine their authenticity.

A reward of up to $100,000 remains available through the FBI for information leading to Guthrie's location or to an arrest and conviction in the case. Separately, the Guthrie family has offered its own reward, which has been reported to exceed $1 million in total.

Savannah Guthrie has continued to make public appeals throughout the investigation, including an emotional message shared on social media marking six months since her mother's disappearance, in which she said the family would never stop searching for answers. No suspect has been publicly named in the case, and no arrests have been made.

With this week's remains now confirmed unrelated to Guthrie, the underlying investigation into her disappearance remains open and active, with authorities continuing to pursue leads more than six months after she was reported missing from her Tucson home.