Ex-FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer shared that there were some ‘similarities’ and ‘dissimilarities’ between the Nancy Guthrie and Nancy Woodrum cases. Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of TODAY show host Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing from her Catalina Foothills home near Tucson, Arizona, on February 1.
Authorities believe she was taken the night before. However, more than a month on, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, who are lead on the case, and the FBI are yet to name any suspects. Guthrie has not been found either –even as investigators had flagged early on that time was of the essence, given her advanced age and medical conditions. As per reports, Guthrie had cardiac issues, high blood pressure, and used a pacemaker.
With no visible solution to the Guthrie case, many have started to recall the Nancy Woodrum case, especially after a documentary on her ‘vanishing’ dropped on March 13. Amidst this, Coffindaffer shared her expert insights on the similarities and dissimilarities in the two cases.
Nancy Guthrie v Nancy Woodrum case: Ex-FBI agent’s insights
Coffindaffer on X shared her insights about the similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases.
“There are similarities in the Nancy Guthrie case to the Nancy Woodrum case, but there are also dissimilarities,” she wrote on X.
The former FBI agent added “Nancy Woodrum –Only 62 YO at the time of her death (Nancy Guthrie 84), A worker at her home, Carlos Fuentes Flores, raped Nancy in her home leaving behind his DNA. Flores then took Nancy to a remote area where he bludgeoned and strangled her to death. Carlos did not wear a mask or clothes to conceal his identity when he went to her home and viciously raped her.”
Coffindaffer then addressed the Guthrie situation and wrote “We don’t know what happened to Nancy Guthrie for 41 approximately minutes, but nothing is off the table. We don’t know where the DNA with more than 2 mixed profiles was recovered from in Nancy Guthrie’s house or whether it was blood, semen, saliva, sweat, hair, touch. We just don’t know. But, the sheriff said he is hopeful that the DNA will provide answers. I hope he is right.”
What to know about the Nancy Woodrum case
Woodrum, 62, was the owner of a a hair salon in Paso Robles, California. She lived alone in her Victorian-style ranch home, Paradise Ranch. Woodrum’s daughter, Amanda Peel, got a call on May 5, 2018 that her mother had not shown up to her Bible study group.
Notably, Guthrie too was reported missing after missing Sunday Church service.
Woodrum was a devout Jehovah’s witness so the absence sent off red flags. When Peel went to investigate, she found what appeared to blood splattered in her room and the bedsheets were missing. Investigators found her missing bedding and clothes some ways off but the case eventually languished for several months as the cops appeared to exhaust leads.
Then, they made use of geofencing – a cell phone tracking technology. Here, “You can put a fence, a virtual fence around an area, a house, a property, and Google will track which Google accounts, emails or cell phones come within that fence in a given period of time,” ABC News reported a prosecutor say. “In order to obtain Google geofence information, search warrants needed to be written and served upon Google for a very specific time period,” they added.
Using geofencing, they can identify devices which entered Woodrum’s house on the night of her disappearance. This eventually led them to Carlo Fuentes Flores, part of the painting crew contracted out for renovations at Paradise Ranch.
He confessed to killing sexually assaulting her when intoxicated and then suffocating her with a pillow to cover up the assault. He also led authorities to Woodrum’s skeletal remains. Flores got life in jail without parole in February 2022, as a result of this crime.
