Yuma Police Seek Break-In Suspect After a Post Claims Gloves Match the Guthrie Case Look

YUMA, Ariz. — Police in Yuma asked the public this week to identify a man who smashed through a glass door at a business. A YouTuber then compared his gloves to footage from the unsolved disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, 240 miles away. Authorities have not linked the two cases.

The Yuma Police Department said detectives need help identifying "the male subject pictured" in case 26-63886. "Between the dates of 08/23/2026 and 08/24/2026 from the hours of 3:00 p.m. to 3:40 a.m. the subject unlawfully and forcefully entered a business through a glass door causing approximately $1,000.00 in damages," the department said. Anyone with information was asked to call 928-783-4421 or 78-CRIME to remain anonymous. Officer Hayato Johnson released the appeal.

The still image shows a masked person in dark clothing and red gloves. An account that follows Arizona crime, 857Tucson, posted the flyer with the line: "Yuma Arizona Police looking for man in break in with same style gloves as the perp in the Nancy Guthrie case."

That is the claim that traveled. It is not a police finding. The person captured on doorbell video at Nancy Guthrie's Catalina Foothills home near Tucson on the night she vanished appeared in a mask, a backpack sold at Walmart and thick black work gloves. The Yuma photo shows red gloves. Commenters on the post split immediately. Some wrote that copycats were "creeping through the nights in Tucson." Others said the gloves were not the same and that police had not said they were.

Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen about 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 31 after a relative dropped her at home. She was reported missing Feb. 1 when she did not appear for a remote church service. She left without her phone or essential medication. The house was treated as a crime scene. Investigators released footage of a masked figure on the porch and, months later, the text of two notes — one a ransom demand, another claiming she had died. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said the investigation is active. "We're working this as hard as we can," he told "Today." "We have so much DNA to sort through. We have so much in terms of video evidence to look at. So I'm still positive that we're gonna resolve this case."

A sheriff's spokesperson, Angelica Carrillo, said in August that a task force of Pima County investigators and the FBI "remains committed to finding Nancy and providing answers to her family." Human remains found later near West Ajo Way and South La Cholla Boulevard were described by officials as appearing long-deposited and not tied to Guthrie. Early in the case, gloves collected near the home included one that went to the FBI for DNA work and was traced to a restaurant worker across the street with no connection to the kidnapping.

Savannah Guthrie has repeatedly asked the public for information. In July she posted: "It has been months since our mom was taken from us. Our family is in agony. We are in a nightmare that will not end. Nothing about our situation has changed. We have done our part. We will never stop looking for her." In an August caption she wrote that the family had "lived every moment, every breath, and every heartbeat in agony and despair" and that "our hearts are in ruins."

Seven months on, no suspect has been publicly named. Online sleuths fill that vacuum with side-by-side photos. Gloves are an easy object to compare and a weak one: work gloves are sold in every hardware aisle. Color is the first mismatch here. Style is a judgment from a compressed still, not a lab match.

Yuma's case is a commercial burglary with about $1,000 in damage. Guthrie's case is a missing-person investigation with ransom notes, mixed DNA and a porch video that has not produced an arrest. Treating them as one story because two people wore gloves is how tips go stale. It is also how families get called about leads that police have already set aside.

What is on the record is narrower. Yuma wants a name for a masked man in red gloves. Pima County and the FBI still want a name for a masked figure in black gloves on a Tucson doorstep. Neither agency has said those people are the same. Until one of them does, the "same style gloves" line belongs to a YouTube caption, not to the case file.