Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s mother Nancy Guthrie was reported to be missing on February 1 and she was last seen at her home in the Catalina Foothills near Tucson, Arizona, on January 31. Since then, the search for the missing 84 year old is going on, though no solid leads regarding the suspect or the motive has yet been found.
As Nancy Guthrie remains missing for over a month now, an old clip of the Today show has now resurfaced. In this clip, she is seen to be standing in her room, the very place from where she was probably taken on the night she went missing.
Now, legal expert Chad D. Cummings has examined the resurfaced clip and highlighted how this video might actually be connected to Nancy’s abduction. Talking to Irish Star, Cummings said, “The wood nightstand and the table lamp were the two objects within arm’s reach that Nancy could have used to defend herself.”
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He then added, “An 84-year-old woman waking to an intruder in darkness has one chance to create noise, not to win a physical contest. The lamp, thrown or knocked to a tile floor, would have produced a sound audible to neighbors.”
However, the police have not yet reported any neighbor hearing any disturbance coming from Nancy’s house on the night of the fateful event. Emphasizing on the same, Cummings said, “The fact that no neighbor reported hearing a disturbance suggests either that the abductor controlled the situation before Nancy reached full consciousness or that the FBI has not been entirely transparent in the course of events.”
While the suspect’s identity and motive still remain in the dark, Dr Ann Burgess, a psychiatric nurse and criminal profiler, central to the FBI’s method of profiling serial killers, provided some opinion regarding the suspect and what might have made them commit the crime.
Appearing on the true crime podcast Surviving the Survivor, he opined that the crime seemed to have “personal” motivations. Answering to the host Joel Waldman’s question about the possibility of the suspect being obsessed with Nancy’s daughter Savannah, Ann said, “Yes. I think this is much more of a personal kind of a crime, that there is some grievance out there that is playing its… trying to play itself out. We don’t know, but you always have to ask who benefits from this or who… or is going to be.”
She then added, “Who’s this going to affect the most? You have to ask those kinds of questions when we just don’t know as much as…. at this point. And it looks like I don’t, as far as I’ve learned, there’s nothing in Nancy Guthrie’s background that would make her a prime target, so to speak.”
She continued, “But certainly, the daughter is so well known, obviously. And is there something that’s going on there that might explain something or give us some hints?” Anne’s explanation did make sense and given how following the ransom, there were ransom notes sent to media houses instead of the family, it seemed like the kidnapper wanted to make a show, which could very well be triggered by personal malice.
It’s day 40 in the search for Nancy Guthrie, and PCSD said the Honda connected to the case will be returned to the family soon. Investigators are still actively seeking tips and leads in the ongoing search. https://t.co/2nfdhly9nS
— KVOA News 4 Tucson (@KVOA) March 12, 2026
Cummings also talked about the ransom notes, as he said, “Whoever wrote those notes described the interior of the bedroom with specificity that the bureau treated as evidence of access (i.e., they assumed whoever wrote the note had actually been in the house). But that same detail was available to anyone who watched NBC’s own broadcast.”
He then added, “If the FBI spent investigative hours chasing ransom demands written by someone who watched a YouTube clip, that is time the bureau did not spend on cell tower analysis, ALPR data, or canvassing, which is where energy should have been focused within the first 48 hours and which might have changed the direction of the investigation altogether.”
Previously, footage of a man at Nancy’s door was revealed by the police but that too did not lead to any fruitful result for the investigation. With days passing and no update on the wellbeing of Nancy, the situation is looking quite grim for the Guthrie family.
