Savannah Guthrie has made a poignant plea for information regarding her missing mother, Nancy, marking a notable shift in her approach. This recent appeal seems to target the conscience and potential motives of those involved in her mother’s abduction or potential harm.

On Tuesday morning, Guthrie shared a heartfelt video on Instagram, her first public statement in over a week. It has now been 24 days since her 84-year-old mother vanished without a trace.

In the video, the emotional Today show host directly addressed those who may have taken her mother, saying, “We need to know where she is, we need her to come home.”

For the first time, Guthrie acknowledged the grim possibility that the search might now be about recovering her mother’s remains rather than bringing her back alive. She expressed, “We need to know where she is,” and accepted the possibility that if her mother has passed away, “we accept it.”

She further stated, “We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone.”

Former FBI special agent and crisis negotiator Jason Pack suggests that the wording in Guthrie’s emotional message was carefully chosen and intentional.

He explained: ‘Savannah’s language, ‘We believe in the essential goodness of every human being, it is never too late,’ is not just a grieving daughter reaching for comfort.

‘That is a theologically grounded appeal to conscience, and it is one of the most powerful tools in a negotiator’s kit.

Savannah Guthrie posted a new emotional video on Tuesday offering a $1 million reward for the recovery of her mother

‘When someone is holding a secret that heavy, the belief that redemption is still possible is sometimes the only thing that moves them. The family’s visible, public faith is not incidental to this case. It is a strategic asset.’

In the video, Guthrie also announced that the family is offering a reward of up to $1 million for the recovery of their mother, who has not been seen since January 31.

The decision to increase the reward money at this stage serves a dual purpose, according to Pack.

It reignites flagging public interest in a case where ‘tip fatigue’ has already set in and it sows potential discord between any criminals or accomplices who have conspired to conceal the truth about what happened to Nancy.

He said: ‘A million-dollar announcement generates a new news cycle and sends people back to their phones scrolling through memories of anything unusual they saw in the Catalina Foothills in January.

‘It applies psychological pressure on any accomplices. Ransom schemes involving multiple people are inherently unstable.

‘The more time passes, the more financial disparity between holding out and collecting $1 million starts eating at the weakest link.

‘And, whether she is alive or dead, someone knows something. That is the message. Bottom line.’

Today show host Savannah Guthrie and her mother Nancy Guthrie in 2021. Nancy was last seen on the night of January 31

Nancy Guthrie is believed to have been taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1

Pack said bluntly: ‘A seven-figure private reward announced on day 24 either cracks the case or confirms what the evidence is already pointing to.’

Guthrie reportedly wanted to offer the reward at the very beginning of the investigation but was advised by law enforcement to ‘hold off’ at that time, for fear of ‘overwhelm[ing] the infrastructure set up to field leads, tens of thousands of which have been coming in organically,’ a source told Fox News.

As well as the reward for their mother’s recovery, Guthrie also announced that the family is donating $500,000 to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, acknowledging that, ‘there are millions of families that have suffered with this kind of uncertainty.’

It has now been more than three weeks since Nancy was last seen alive and investigators still have no suspects in her disappearance.

The biggest clue to date has come from Nest camera footage which captured a masked man at her front door in the early hours of February 1 – when investigators believe she was taken against her will from her home in Tucson, Arizona.

Despite the footage and several still images of the suspect being released by the FBI earlier this month, the mystery figure is yet to be identified.

Sources have now told multiple outlets that the masked man was caught on camera at her home at least once before the night of the abduction.

In the video and several images, the man is wearing a mask, gloves, an Ozark Trail Hiker backpack and appears to be armed.

The biggest clue to date has come from Nest camera footage which captured a masked man at her front door in the early hours of February 1 

Sources have said that this image was taken on a different night – earlier than February 1 – indicating that the suspect had visited her home more than once 

In one image, the backpack is missing and sources say this was from a different visit to her home sometime before February 1.

It is not clear when this visit took place. But this revelation could explain why investigators have been asking local residents for home security footage dating as far back as January 1.

To Chris McDonough, a retired homicide detective who now works with the Cold Case Foundation, multiple apparent visits to Guthrie’s home suggests there was an escalation in the perpetrator’s plans over time.

In the first image, not only is the suspect not wearing a backpack – he also does not appear to be carrying a firearm, he pointed out.

‘This shows he had an uptick in behavior as he came back the second time with a weapon and a backpack, containing we don’t know what,’ he said.

‘He came back prepared – and prepared to use deadly force. So his thinking changed.

‘The backpack and gun could indicate the plan has changed and he is now coming prepared to escalate the event.’

The suspect could have planned to abduct Nancy the first night but backed out, perhaps being spooked by the security cameras. Or the suspect was perhaps ‘testing the water’ before executing the real thing, McDonough said – likening him to Bryan Kohberger who is believed to have surveilled the Moscow area and his victims before breaking into a home and killing four students one night.

A woman places flowers at a memorial set up at the entry to the driveway leading to Nancy’s residence in Tucson

But, to McDonough, one thing he strongly believes the multiple visits to the home shows is that this was a ‘targeted’ incident where Nancy had crossed paths with her abductor in advance.

‘This guy was wearing a mask. He didn’t want to be identified – not only by the public but also by Nancy,’ he explained.

‘We don’t know if Nancy got alerts on her phone when someone was at her door. But she could have watched the footage from the first time and seen the guy. He didn’t want her to see his face.’

That is because, if she had seen the man’s face, she likely would have recognized him, McDonough believes. ‘She was a targeted victim and the perpetrator had an association at some point with her house or the victim.’

Pack agrees that, if the masked man visited on more than one occasion, it proves a certain level of planning went into the abduction.

‘That’s a pattern. And a pattern tells investigators this wasn’t impulsive. This took planning,’ he said.

‘When you see someone appearing in video at different locations, different timeframes, potentially different phases of the same criminal act, investigators immediately begin asking: what was the purpose of each appearance? Was the first video a surveillance run, checking the environment, checking the exits?

‘And that matters significantly from a legal standpoint, because premeditation and planning elevate the severity of what investigators are looking at.’

Nancy and Savannah Guthrie on the set of the Today show. Savannah acknowledged in her latest video that her mom may no longer be alive

Pima County Sheriff’s Department will not confirm whether the doorbell images were taken on different days, claiming in a post on X: ‘There is no date or timestamp associated with these images. Therefore any suggestion that the photographs were taken on different days is purely speculative.’

But if they are from different dates, it’s likely this discovery has shaped the investigation, Pack said.

‘Investigators are now building a timeline. Two videos don’t just confirm identity. They begin to reconstruct a story. And, in my experience, once investigators have two confirmed sightings they don’t stop looking,’ he said.

‘They go back to every camera in a wide radius, every gas station, every intersection. Because if you appeared twice, you likely appeared more than twice.’

Investigators have asked local residents to hand over any footage of suspicious people or vehicles as far back as January 1 – a month before Nancy’s abduction.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said that investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the suspect had an accomplice.

Despite the video evidence, multiple ransom notes being sent to the media and several individuals being detained and then released without charge, investigators appear to be no closer to catching the perpetrator or perpetrators.

DNA evidence has also so far yielded no strong leads in the case.

Investigators found a glove that appeared to match those worn by the masked suspect 

The glove was sent for testing but DNA found on it did not come back a match to CODIS or to DNA found inside Nancy’s home 

Investigators found a glove in a field beside a road around two miles from Nancy’s home that appeared to match those worn by the masked suspect. DNA from the glove does not match the DNA inside her home and also did not trigger a match in CODIS – the law enforcement database of known offenders – meaning that the individuals are not known to have committed any past crimes.

DNA not belonging to Guthrie or any close contacts was also found inside her home and sent to DNA Labs International, a private lab in Florida, for testing.

However, this DNA is reportedly ‘low-level,’ meaning it may not yield a usable profile for comparison.

Investigators have turned to investigative genetic genealogy – the technique used to catch Kohberger for the Idaho murders – in the hope that the DNA could lead to a long-awaited breakthrough in the case.