A woman's body turned up along a canal bank in Phoenix on Friday, more than 100 miles from the Tucson home where 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie vanished on Feb. 1. Authorities say they have no confirmed link between the two cases, but the discovery lands in the middle of a sprawling investigation that still has no answers.
Phoenix police said officers responded to a call about an unresponsive adult female on the canal bank. They found the woman and pronounced her dead at the scene. Her identity has not been released.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department moved quickly to tamp down speculation. In a statement to Fox News Digital, the department said it has not been alerted to any connection between the Phoenix remains and the Guthrie disappearance.
Newsmax reported that authorities are still working to identify the deceased woman and determine the cause and circumstances of death. No link to Nancy Guthrie has been confirmed at this stage.
That hasn't stopped the public from connecting dots. And who can blame them?
Nancy Guthrie, mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared under alarming circumstances. Security footage from her doorbell camera captured a masked man, possibly two different men, loitering on her doorstep the night before police believe she was kidnapped. A large amount of evidence recovered from her home, including traces of blood, is still being investigated.
The sheriff's department told The Post that the investigation remains very active. The numbers back that up: some 300 to 400 personnel are still assigned to the case.
But Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has warned the public to brace for a long wait. He said it could take up to "a year" to analyze all of the evidence, particularly items containing DNA.
A year. For a family desperate for answers, that timeline is brutal.
Savannah Guthrie has offered a $1 million cash reward for information leading to her mother's safe return or recovery. That kind of money signals both deep love and deep frustration with the pace of official progress.
The Guthrie case has drawn scrutiny from multiple angles. A former FBI assistant director has publicly questioned whether the disappearance was truly a kidnapping, raising doubts about the investigative assumptions driving the search.
Meanwhile, criminal behavior experts have warned that whoever took Nancy Guthrie may revisit the crime scene or memorial, a chilling possibility that underscores how little investigators have disclosed about suspects.
Key unanswered questions include:
Phoenix has seen canal-related discoveries before. The Washington Times reported on a 2016 case in which a man's body was found in an underground irrigation aqueduct near the Phoenix area more than two weeks after a fatal car crash, a reminder that Arizona's vast canal system can conceal grim evidence for extended periods.
Three hundred to four hundred personnel on the case sounds impressive. But personnel counts don't matter if results don't follow. An 84-year-old woman vanished from her own home, and a month later the public has doorbell footage, traces of blood, and a sheriff telling them to wait a year.
The Friday discovery in Phoenix may turn out to be entirely unrelated. If so, it still serves as a stark reminder: someone's mother, someone's grandmother, ended up dead on a canal bank. That demands answers too.
Families deserve more than patience. They deserve accountability, and the kind of law enforcement urgency that treats every missing person like she matters.
