Jonathan Allen and Jacques Billeaud
Updated ,first published
Arizona/New York: Investigators have found signs of forced entry at the Arizona home of US Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother, a person familiar with the investigation has said, as Guthrie asked for prayers to help bring back the 84-year-old, who is believed to have been taken against her will.
Savannah Guthrie described her mother, Nancy, in a social media post as “a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant”. She asked supporters to “raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment. Bring her home”.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and the Tucson FBI chief held a news conference on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) and urged the public to offer tips but revealed few new details about the investigation.
The person who spoke to the Associated Press said investigators found specific evidence in the home showing there was a nighttime kidnapping. Several of Guthrie’s personal items, including her mobile phone, wallet and her car, were still there after she disappeared.
According to the LA Times, authorities also found blood inside the house. The sheriff declined to say whether the disappearance was thought to be random or targeted or to describe the evidence found at the property.
“We believe 100 per cent right now she could not have walked away from that home,” Nanos told CBS News. “I believe she was abducted, yes. She didn’t walk from there. She didn’t go willingly. We don’t believe that.”
Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her home on Saturday night, when her children visited, and was reported missing on Sunday afternoon, Arizona time.
Nanos said a family member had received a call from someone at church saying Guthrie wasn’t there, leading the family to search for her at her home and then calling 911.
She has limited mobility and needs daily medication that she could die without, the sheriff said. Asked whether officials were looking for her alive, he said, “We hope we are”.
“This is not dementia-related; she is as sharp as a tack. The family wants everybody to know this isn’t somebody who just wandered off,” Nanos told reporters.
DNA samples have been gathered and submitted for analysis as part of the investigation. “We’ve gotten some back, but nothing to indicate any suspects,” Nanos said.
Investigators are reviewing surveillance video from nearby homes and analysing data from mobile phone towers. Police are also reviewing information from licence plate cameras in the area, according to the AP source, who was not authorised to publicly discuss details of the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The motive remains a mystery. Investigators do not believe at this point that the abduction was part of a robbery, home invasion or kidnapping-for-ransom plot, the person said.
TMZ reported that it received a purported ransom note demanding payment in cryptocurrency for Guthrie’s release. Separately, a journalist with Tucson television station KOLD said in an X post that the station had received what appeared to be a ransom note.
Both outlets said they turned over the notes to investigators. The sheriff’s department said it was taking the possible ransom notes and other tips seriously but declined to comment further.
US President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon (Washington time), said he planned to call Savannah Guthrie “later on” and described the situation “terrible”.
“I always got along very good with Savannah,” Trump said.
For a second day, Today began with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, but Savannah Guthrie was not at the anchor’s desk. Savannah Guthrie was born in Melbourne, where her father worked at the time, and grew up in Tucson, Arizona.
The youngest of three siblings, Guthrie credits her mother with holding their family together after her father died of a heart attack at age 49 when she was just 16.
Nancy Guthrie raised the family alone, and her daughter often brought her on Today as a guest.
“When my dad died, our family just hung onto each other for dear life because it was such a shock. We were just trying to figure out how to become a family of four when we’d always been a family of five,” she said on Today in 2017.
“She has met unthinkable challenges in her life with grit, without self-pity, with determination and always, always with unshakeable faith,” Savannah said on the show in 2022 on Nancy Guthrie’s 80th birthday.
“She loves us, her family, fiercely, and her selflessness and sacrifice for us, her steadfastness and her unmovable confidence, is the reason any of us grew up to do anything.”
Reuters, AP
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