TUCSON, Ariz. – Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, issued a tearful plea Tuesday for anyone with information about her missing mother to come forward. Her appeal came one day after news outlets reported that a ransom note sent months earlier suggested her mother had died.
“We are in agony, and we cannot be at peace. … We love our mom. We’ll never stop looking for her,” Guthrie said from the “Today” desk in New York, visibly emotional as she held a tissue in her left hand.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing from her home in the Tucson area on Feb. 1. She lived by herself. More than a week after she vanished, the FBI released doorbell camera footage showing a masked person outside her front door. Investigators also found her blood on the porch, but no resolution has been announced in the case.
Several media organizations had earlier acknowledged receiving ransom notes shortly after Guthrie disappeared, though they withheld specific details while authorities were in the early stages of the investigation. Guthrie’s family had been informed about the notes.
Tucson television station KOLD reported Monday that it received two notes: one demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin for Guthrie’s return, and a second claiming she was dead. CNN separately reported on the contents of the notes, citing law enforcement sources.
According to CNN, one of the notes stated that the people who abducted Guthrie had not intended to kill her, but that she died soon after she went missing.
“I don’t have any comment on this story. I’m not involved in our coverage,” Savannah Guthrie said Tuesday, referring to NBC News. “But I can’t pretend I’m not here. And since I am, I want to just take the opportunity to ask people — really to beg people — to come forward. Somebody knows something.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department directed questions about the ransom notes to the FBI. A request for comment sent by email was not immediately returned.
Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the weeks after Nancy Guthrie vanished. A group recently conducted a search near the Arizona-Mexico border but didn’t report finding her.
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings occasionally appeared in social media videos earlier in the saga, urging the public to come forward with tips. She asked people to “raise your prayers with us” and acknowledged that her mother might be in heaven dancing “with our daddy.”
