One week after the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie, former CIA officer and FBI special agent Tracy Walder described the Today host’s recent plea to her mother’s potential kidnapper as “scripted,” citing an alleged “body” theory.
For the unversed, Nancy went missing from her home in Arizona on January 31, 2026, with authorities believing she was abducted. Since then, the potential abductors have sent at least three ransom notes to different media outlets, with the recent one being sent to Tucson television station KOLD News 13, News Nation reported.
After news about the latest message was made public, Savannah, alongside her sister Annie Guthrie, 56, and brother Camron Guthrie, 61, shared another plea to her mother’s potential abductors in an Instagram video.
“We received your message, and we understand,” said Savannah Guthrie in a February 7 video, adding, “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us.”
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Reacting to the video, former CIA officer and FBI special agent Tracy Walder, in an interview with Page Six, said that Savannah Guthrie’s remarks felt “very contrived” and “also scripted.”
According to Walder, they use a “lot of coded language in there,” like, “‘This is very valuable to us'” and “‘So that we can celebrate [with] her,'” stating, “That’s not normal words we use to describe a situation like this.”
As a result, Walder questioned whether this is a “ransom for a dead body?” The officer asked, “Are we paying to get a body or a human back? She further added that words like “celebrate” imply “memorial or funeral, but it also infers they want to have a party when she comes home.”
Previously, on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings made another emotional plea to her mother’s potential kidnapper.
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“We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her,” said Savannah in the video, asking for her mother’s safe return.
Comparing the two videos, Walder stated that in the first video, the siblings “humanized their mom in present tense,” noting that the recent video does not “humanize their mom at all,” and seemed more “muted” and “somber.”
“It’s matter of fact, to the point. They’re being methodical. They’re deliberately answering [the captor] back,” she added.
In the recent video, the Today host also pleaded with Nancy’s potential abductors, saying, they will pay them.
In response, Walder said that her willingness to do so was “not surprising”, noting that “any person would pay to get their 84-year-old mom back.” She also noted that Savannah looked “defeated” and not “hopeful” in the video.
Meanwhile, retired FBI agent Jason Pack offered remarks that contradicted Walder, saying the Guthries are “responding as if their mother is alive and being held,” calling it “the right posture.”
“Savannah could’ve said a lot of things. She said she wants to ‘celebrate’ with her mother. Now, you don’t use that word by accident when your mama’s been missing for a week. That’s a family telling whoever’s on the other end of this, ‘We’re not out for blood; we just want her back.’ That’s about as graceful as a human being can be under that kind of pressure,” added Pack.
