Nancy Guthrie Update: Former FBI Special Agent Says Blood Pattern Outside Home Suggests a Critical Sequence of Events
Retired FBI special agent Jim Clemente says blood evidence found on the front stoop of Nancy Guthrie's Arizona home may help reconstruct what happened in the moments before she disappeared. In a recent breakdown of the scene, Clemente pointed to the placement and structure of the blood spatter as potentially revealing key details about her position and movements.
"This tells me a number of things, and it's very specific. One is that … at this point, Nancy's face was very close to the ground, within a foot of the ground. This could be she was either on her knees, hunched over, or actually lying on the ground," Clemente told NewsNation of the spatter pattern.
He explained that certain blood patterns can form when a person coughs or aspirates blood-which is what the spatter on Guthrie's front stoop shows.
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"Medium velocity can be created when somebody actually aspirates blood and then coughs it up," he said. "You can see three circular blood spots, but they are hollow. You see mainly the rings. This definitely came from her. She coughed it out."
Authorities have already run DNA tests on the blood spatter and have confirmed that is indeed Guthrie's.
Clemente explained that the pattern appears to shift further along the walkway, leading him to believe that Guthrie was carried "perhaps with her face up" as the blood drops didn't continue down the length of the walkway.
Back in February, forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden told Fox News Digital that he believes that Guthrie was bleeding from "the hands or the face." He also noted that the pattern could have come from Guthrie coughing.
"The nature of the blood spots with little pale centers or donut shapes are typical for drops that come from the nose or mouth, because they're mixed with air," Baden told the outlet at the time, adding, "that means she's coughing up blood or dripping from the nose. Otherwise, there would be a dripping from a cut from above, possibly from the hands or face."
Guthrie, 84, has been missing since Sunday, Feb. 1.
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This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 3:08 PM.