The search for missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, has stretched into a second, agonizing week with investigators facing increasing pressure and the family grappling with uncertainty.
Guthrie was last seen on January 31, before she was apparently kidnapped, disappearing from her secluded home in the Catalina Foothills of Arizona without her phone or vital medications.
There have been long, troubling twists and turns since her disappearance: alleged ransom notes demanding millions of dollars, an intense investigation, an emotional video appeal by Guthrie’s children publicly begging for their mother’s return, and the release by authorities of video of an armed, masked man tampering with the doorbell camera at Guthrie’s home.
The timeline of major events in this case is as follows:
Nancy Guthrie joined her family for dinner and games on Saturday evening, leaving for her older daughter Annie’s nearby home at approximately 5:32 p.m. Hours later, family members dropped her off back home. Guthrie’s garage door opens at approximately 9:48 and closes at 9:50
“This is the time when we assume Nancy is at home and probably going to bed,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said at a news conference a few days after her disappearance.
Guthrie’s doorbell camera disconnects at 1:47 a.m. and about 25 minutes later, surveillance camera software detects activity. At 2:28 a.m., data from Guthrie’s pacemaker app showed that the device had disconnected from his phone.
More than nine hours later, at 11:56 a.m., the family discovered he was missing after checking on him at home. A person close to the family told CNN that Guthrie typically spends his Sundays watching virtual church services with friends at a nearby home. When she did not arrive Sunday morning, her friends informed the Guthrie family.
Relatives called 911 at 12:03 a.m. to report her missing, and Pima County Sheriff’s Department patrolmen arrived by 12:15 a.m.
Investigators investigated the scene, and found blood on the front porch, which was later confirmed to be Guthrie’s.
The sheriff said later on February 5, “There are additional items submitted. We have not received them back yet.”
On the third day of the search for Guthrie, multiple media outlets, including TMZ and CNN affiliates KGUN and Cold, received alleged ransom letters demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin for his return. In a note, the first deadline is Thursday, February 5 at 5 p.m., and the second deadline is Monday, February 9.
In an emotional video posted to Instagram on Wednesday evening, Savannah Guthrie – along with her siblings Annie and Cameron – plead with their mother to come home, four days after she went missing. “We need to know without a doubt that he is alive and that you have him,” Guthrie said in response to reports of the ransom notes. “We want to hear from you and we are ready to listen. Please contact us.”
The Sheriff’s Office says law enforcement activity suddenly increased Wednesday evening as detectives were “following up” at Guthrie’s home. Fresh crime scene tape is wrapped the entire length of the house – and removed within a matter of hours.
Cameron Guthrie issued another plea in a video posted on social media at 5 pm local time after the first deadline given in the alleged ransom note passed.
“Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you,” he says. “We haven’t heard anything directly. We need to contact you and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward.”
The FBI, now jointly working on the case with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, offers a $50,000 reward for information leading to Guthrie’s recovery “and or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in his disappearance.”
CNN affiliate Cold received a new alleged ransom note on the sixth day of the search. The news station said it forwarded the message to law enforcement along with the IP address from which the note originated. According to an anchor of the news outlet, the new note includes sensitive information but has no time limit.
Later that evening, gloved investigators were seen discussing Nancy Guthrie’s property, marking evidence, and climbing onto the flat, white roof of her home. Agents peer into the bushes and scour the ground, as a car that appears to be Guthrie’s is towed away.
One week since Guthrie disappeared, her three children tell her would-be captor in a new social media video: “We will pay.”
“We got your message and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie says in the new video. “Now we beg you to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will find peace. She is too precious to us, and we will pay the price.”
Hours after the brother-sister’s new video, law enforcement officers show up to Annie Guthrie’s home. They leave with a bag shortly after 10:30 pm and a deputy sheriff is seen wearing blue latex gloves.
Just before 11 a.m., investigators return to Nancy Guthrie’s home and are seen examining the septic tank near her property. The video shows investigators poking around a long stick in the tank, sometimes striking it repeatedly, and using a flashlight to look inside.
“Detectives and agents are continuing to follow up at multiple locations,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
CNN affiliate KGUN, which obtained the first ransom note sent to some media stations, reports new details from the letter: The alleged kidnapper demanded $6 million and threatened to take Guthrie’s life if a deadline of 5 p.m. Monday, February 9 was not met.
Around 1:30 p.m., a few hours after the letter’s second deadline passed, Savannah Guthrie posted another video on social media, this time appealing to the public instead of her mother’s alleged hostage, asking for assistance.
“We’re in a desperate time, and we need your help,” the “Today” show host says, asking people to report anything “weird” to law enforcement.
Second deadline in alleged ransom note passed at 5 pm
The FBI has released new photos and video from Nancy Guthrie’s home camera, showing a man armed and masked.
According to a post on FBI Director Kash Patel’s
“For the past eight days, the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that were lost, corrupted, or rendered inaccessible due to a number of factors – including the removal of recording devices. The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems,” Patel wrote in the post.
The post continued, “Working with our partners – as of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images, showing an armed man tampering with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the morning of her disappearance.”
Shortly after the photos were released, Savannah Guthrie posted them on her Instagram account.
Guthrie writes, “We believe he is still alive.” “bring him home.”
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