In these photos released by the University of South Florida Police Department, Nahida Bristy is shown. (University of South Florida Police Department)
(TAMPA, Fla.) — Investigators said Friday they identified remains found this week as part of the investigation into the murders of two missing University of South Florida doctoral students as Nahida Bristy.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said that forensic investigators took several days to identify the remains of the 27-year-old student because of the advanced stages of decay her body was in.
The announcement came a week after investigators found and identified the remains of Zamil Limon, 27, a friend of Bristy who was also reported missing from the campus on April 16.
“We are now actively working to release both bodies for religious reasons back to the families who live in Bangladesh,” Chronister told reporters.
Investigators allege that Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, Limon’s roommate, murdered the pair and dumped their bodies.
Chronister said that Limon was stabbed repeatedly. He did not reveal how Bristy was killed and said the investigation is ongoing.
“At this point we don’t know what the motive is. The why, we don’t know yet,” Chronister said.
Abugharbieh was arrested on April 24, following a standoff with police. His family called 911 about a domestic dispute involving Abugharbieh.
He was charged on with with two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon and ordered to be held without bond.
The sheriff revealed more details about the investigation, including that Abugharbieh allegedly used a cart that belonged to the apartment building he lived in to move the bodies to his car.
Chronister alleged that Abugharbieh searched for terms on his Internet devices related to murdering the victims including “can you bury a body in a trash bag and throw it in a dumpster” and “can a knife penetrate a skull?”
“This is someone very calculated,” the sheriff said.
Prosecutors alleged that the suspect used ChatGPT for those searches and it answered “that it sounds dangerous,” and then Abugharbieh allegedly asked, “How would they find out.”
Chronister added that tech companies have been cooperating with the investigation by providing them with the suspect’s search history.
“This might be able to provide us with the why that we are still searching for,” he said.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court, December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The judge overseeing Luigi Mangione’s federal case may decide on Friday if the death penalty will remain a sentencing option if he’s convicted.
Mangione, who is accused of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024, will return to the federal courtroom on Friday. He has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
The defense argued that stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted of the federal charges. The defense also argued that the decision to seek the death penalty was political and circumvented the federal government’s protocols.
Judge Margaret Garnett has said Mangione would stand trial for the federal case in January 2027 if capital punishment remains on the table, and that the federal trial would begin in October if the death penalty is taken off the table. Either way, she set jury selection for Sept. 8.
Federal prosecutors contend the Altoona Police Department’s search followed departmental procedures. Mangione’s lawyers have argued the backpack search was illegal and police should not have had immediate access to the items inside, including the alleged murder weapon, a notebook and writings.
In making their case for a July 1 state trial, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said the state has a “deep interest” in upholding the right to life, maintaining public order and delivering justice for Thompson’s family.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats in the Hart Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Hackers breached FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The majority of the emails were from prior to 2019, according to sources, and appear to be from before his tenure at the FBI. There were a few emails from 2022, sources told ABC News.
“The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information, and we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity. The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information,” the FBI said in a statement Friday.
It is unclear which country hacked the director’s old emails, however, Iranian-linked hackers online have claimed credit for the hack.
“The Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program offers up to a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification of the Handala Hack Team out of Iran — a group that has frequently targeted U.S. government officials,” the FBI said.
Reuters was the first to report the breach.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
In an aerial view, Nancy Guthrie’s residence is seen on February 17, 2026 in Tucson, Arizona. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Authorities said they’re looking into using genetic genealogy in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s mysterious abduction, and an expert says the cutting-edge technique could be the key.
While authorities may find Guthrie’s kidnapper through other avenues of investigation, “if they don’t, investigative genetic genealogy definitely will,” genetic genealogist CeCe Moore told ABC News.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1 by an unknown suspect.
The FBI ran DNA from a glove found during a roadside search through the national criminal database known as CODIS, but did not get a match to any of the roughly 22 million samples in the database, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
That glove — which was found about 2 miles from Nancy Guthrie’s house — also did not match DNA found at her property, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Moore, a former ABC News contributor, said, “I think we have to exercise a lot of caution in putting too much emphasis on” the glove.
“If it had had Nancy’s DNA, or had matched the DNA at the crime scene, obviously that would be different. But with it being found at such a distance, I always was a little hesitant to get too hopeful about that,” she said. “I think the DNA found at the home is far more compelling.”
While the DNA found at Nancy Guthrie’s property is still being analyzed, the sheriff’s department said on Tuesday that investigators are “looking into additional investigative genetic genealogy options for DNA evidence to check for matches.”
Genetic genealogy takes the DNA of an unknown suspect left behind and identifies the suspect by tracing the family tree through his or her family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to a genealogy database. Genetic genealogy has been used to solve hundreds of cases since it was first implemented in the 2018 arrest of the “Golden State Killer,” a cold case that had stumped California law enforcement for decades.
“Just like in the hundreds of cases where we’ve been able to identify a violent criminal that couldn’t be found any other way, genetic genealogy has the power to do so through reverse engineering this individual’s family tree based on his DNA alone,” Moore said. “When you have this person’s DNA, you have so much information about their family tree at your fingertips. And so you can piece that tree back together … you just have to spend the time to look at all that information and sort through it.”
“So genetic genealogy often steps in and is successful when all the other leads have been exhausted,” she said.
In the Guthrie case, investigators “were very smart to start [pursuing genetic genealogy] early, and not wait for all those other leads to be exhausted,” Moore said. “Because if he’s not identified any other way, investigative genetic genealogy will definitely be the key — it’s really just a matter of time.”
And when it comes to that timeframe, Moore said, there are two factors: “the population group from which the person of interest descends — and luck.”
“Sometimes you just get lucky and somebody has a close relative in these very small databases,” Moore said.
“If the population group is one that’s not well represented, then that can make it extremely difficult. If the person has deep roots in the United States and primarily Northwest European ancestry, they may be identified in a matter of minutes or hours, because that’s the population group that’s best represented, and it’s also the one that we have the most information about being here in the United States,” she said. “If someone’s born in another country, or even as far back as their great-grandparents were immigrants, there’s far less representation in the databases that we’re able to use, and it’s also more difficult to work with records outside of the U.S.”
In the Guthrie case, law enforcement sources told ABC News on Wednesday that the FBI has reached out to Mexican authorities. There’s no evidence Nancy Guthrie was taken to Mexico, but it’s an avenue investigators are exploring given Tucson’s proximity to the border, the sources said.
If the Guthrie suspect’s parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were born in Mexico, Moore said, “it will likely take longer.”
Moore said she predicts the genetic genealogy process in the Guthrie case “won’t take more than weeks, maybe months.”
“I have worked on cases for years. However, I don’t think this case will take that long because of the large amount of resources being dedicated to it. I would suspect the FBI genetic genealogy team would be brought in if it takes too long, and they have 200 agents,” she said.
Moore also noted that investigative genetic genealogy can be slowed due to law enforcement’s limited access to DNA profiles.
“There are over 50 million people who have taken direct-to-consumer DNA tests, but most of them are in the three largest databases, and those companies have barred law enforcement from using their databases for these purposes,” Moore said. Currently, law enforcement is limited to accessing three smaller databases, which combined have about 2 million DNA profiles, she said.
“I do expect that if [the Guthrie suspect] is not identified soon, then law enforcement very likely will serve a warrant on those bigger databases” to try to request access, she said.
