Savannah Guthrie offers $1 million reward for information about mother
The “Today” host posted an emotional video on Instagram as authorities in Arizona continue to search for his mother, Nancy.
Law enforcement is asking anyone with information to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Pima County Sheriff’s Office tips.fbi.gov. (520-351-4900) or 88-CRIME.
No major progress has been made in the search for Nancy Guthrie, but the missing persons investigation surrounding Today anchor Savannah Guthrie’s mother is far from resolved.
Guthrie’s daughter called on fans and the public in an Instagram video on Friday, February 27, to contact authorities with any relevant information.
“Please, be the person who brings her home. As explained here, tips can be anonymous and rewards can be paid in cash,” Savannah Guthrie wrote in a segment on the “Today” show explaining the process of submitting a tip to the FBI.
Law enforcement officials stressed that the search for the 84-year-old remains an active investigation, although public announcements of new developments have dried up as of this week.
Nancy Guthrie was in fragile health, her family said, and was last seen on January 31, after she was dropped off at her home in Arizona after a family dinner. The next day, a friend called her family and she was reported missing. Authorities said they believe she was taken against her will.
In a news release Tuesday, Pima County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Angelica Carrillo said detectives and FBI agents were working “around the clock” to pursue all possible leads. However, rather than providing daily updates on the investigation, police will limit updates to “when new information should be made public.”
As the search for Nancy Guthrie reaches its one-month mark, here are the salient details of the case.
Has anyone been arrested in the Nancy Guthrie case?
Police have not yet arrested any suspects, but several people are being targeted in the investigation, including a man who allegedly sent a fake ransom note to Guthrie’s family, a man who was detained during a traffic stop and later released, and a 34-year-old man who was arrested in front of Guthrie’s home on a misdemeanor DUI charge in an unrelated incident.
Nevertheless, authorities continue to search for clues about the male suspect seen in security footage from Guthrie’s home.
What does the Nancy Guthrie Search video show?
On February 10, FBI Director Kash Patel released several surveillance photos and videos on X of a masked man standing on Nancy Guthrie’s doorstep before her disappearance, providing the first major glimpse of the suspect in the case.
The photo showed an “armed” man, later described as “approximately 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall and of average build,” approaching Guthrie’s front door camera on the morning of February 1. The images were extracted from videos that were “recovered from residual data on back-end systems,” the FBI director said.
Patel also shared a video showing an unidentified man tampering with a door camera.
In the two videos, the suspect appears to be wearing a mask and gloves, holding a flashlight in his mouth and trying to hide the camera with leaves. Another video shows a man wearing a dark zip-up jacket, light pants and a backpack walking toward his home with his head down and what appears to be a holstered weapon on his hip.
Later, media reports said the images of a masked man standing on the porch of Guthrie’s home appeared to be taken on two different days. In some of the surveillance footage, there appeared to be differences in what the suspect was wearing. In some shots, the suspect was seen carrying a backpack that appeared to be fully loaded and had reflective tape on the shoulder straps. In another image, the person was not wearing a backpack and a holstered gun was not visible.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office said in a Feb. 23 statement that the images from the camera had no date or time stamp associated with them. “Any suggestion that the photos were taken on different days is therefore purely speculative,” said spokeswoman Angelica Carrillo.
How did Nancy Guthrie break into the house?
The exact timeline of how Nancy Guthrie’s alleged abductor carried out the abduction has not yet been revealed, but current details of the investigation suggest he entered her home through the front door.
At 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1, about four hours after Guthrie was dropped off at his home after a family game night, the doorbell camera in front of Guthrie’s home was disconnected, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said in a Feb. 5 press conference.
After nearly 30 minutes, Guthrie’s smart home software detected a person on the camera, but video was initially unavailable. About 15 minutes later, Guthrie’s pacemaker app showed it had been disconnected from his phone.
Aerial photos reviewed by USA TODAY show authorities remained stationed at Guthrie’s home until Wednesday, Feb. 25. One photo appears to show law enforcement officers walking through the backyard area of Guthrie’s home.
Despite previous reports that law enforcement planned to return Guthrie’s home to his family this week, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office told People on Thursday, February 26, that the residence had been “processed and made available to Guthrie’s family since the first week of his disappearance.”
Are Savannah Guthrie and her family suspects in Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping?
On February 16, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos addressed speculation that the Guthrie family or their spouses were suspects in the case, saying they were “100% cooperative.”
Since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, misinformation about her family has increased online with the help of streamers and tabloids. But Nanos said the Guthrie’s were ruled out as suspects in the “first few days” of the investigation.
“There are no suspects in the family,” Nanos told 13 News. “So from today onwards I say to you: You (media) need to shut this down and stop. People are being hurt. They are victims. I say they are clear. We got rid of them.”
What happened to Nancy Guthrie’s backpack?
Surveillance video and photos of the suspect in Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance show a man carrying a backpack.
During a Feb. 13 appearance on the “Today” show, NBC correspondent Tom Winter said the backpack, a 25-liter black “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack,” is a private label brand sold exclusively to Walmart. Winter said if the backpack was purchased new, police could subpoena the retailer for a list of people who recently purchased the backpack in the Tucson, Arizona, metropolitan area.
In a statement shared with USA TODAY on Feb. 16, Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Brittany Abar said the suspect’s clothing “may have been purchased from Walmart,” but that the store “does not have exclusive access.” The same day, Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News he believed Walmart was the vendor, but investigators were still looking into “promising” leads.
On February 22, search volunteers recovered another backpack from the incident and turned it over to a deputy. However, the next day, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged that “after reviewing the bag and its contents, we do not believe this will be a viable lead in our investigation.”
The bag did not appear to be the same brand as the backpack seen in the doorbell surveillance video, the sheriff’s office said, and it “appeared to have been left outside for more than three weeks” and contained the minor’s ID.
Why doesn’t Agent Nancy Guthrie provide DNA test results?
DNA recovered at the scene included dried blood droplets found on the Spanish tile entryway of Nancy Guthrie’s home on February 3, which the Pima County Sheriff’s Office later confirmed was the 84-year-old woman’s blood.
Additionally, the sheriff’s office revealed on February 13 that investigators collected DNA from the home that did not belong to Nancy Guthrie or anyone she had close contact with.
The FBI confirmed that approximately 16 gloves were collected near the Guthrie home, but said most were “gloves that were discarded in various areas as searchers searched the area.” The gloves closest to the property, about two miles away, were sent for testing (DNA evidence was sent to DNA Labs International, a private laboratory in South Florida).
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on February 17 that preliminary results did not match DNA taken at her home to gloves that the FBI said resembled the suspect’s gloves seen in surveillance video. The DNA profile also did not match anyone on the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS.
In a Feb. 17 interview with NBC News, Nanos said the lack of a match from the DNA found on the glove was “not the end of the world,” and that investigators would focus on “the family tree and some of the partial DNA that’s in the house.” Days later, the sheriff’s office announced in an update that “DNA analysis is underway based on biological evidence,” but warned that “this process may be long.”
“We believe there may be DNA there that may be our suspect,” Nanos said at the time. “But we won’t know until that DNA is isolated, sorted, and admitted to CODIS, perhaps through genealogy.”
Timeline of the Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping
At a Feb. 5 press conference, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told reporters that doorbell camera footage helped authorities piece together the timeline of Guthrie’s kidnapping.
- January 31st 5:32pm Guthrie traveled to his family’s home for the night of the game.
- January 31st 9:48pm When her family dropped her off at home, the garage door opened.
- January 31st 9:50pm The garage door is closed.
- February 1st 1:47am The doorbell camera in front of Guthrie’s home was disconnected.
- February 1st 2:12am The smart home’s software detected the person with a camera, but video was not initially available.
- February 1st 2:28am Guthrie’s pacemaker app shows it has been disconnected from her phone.
- February 1st 11:56am Her family is checking on her.
- February 1st 12:03pm Her family called 911 to report her missing.
- February 1st 12:15pm A police car arrives.
Contributors: Brendan Morrow, Taijuan Moorman, Ramon Padilla, Anna Kaufman, Melina Khan, KiMi Robinson, Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY; Perry Vander, Richard Ruelas, Sara Lapidas, Arizona
