“Today” show host Savannah Guthrie made an emotional appeal to viewers Tuesday to come forward with any information about her missing mother, a day after news organizations said a ransom note received months ago had indicated that she was dead.
“We are in agony, and we cannot be at peace. … We love our mom. We’ll never stop looking for her,” Guthrie said at the “Today” desk in New York, holding a tissue in her left hand.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, who lived alone, was reported missing from her Tucson-area home on Feb. 1. The FBI released video more than a week later from a camera outside her front door showing a masked stranger. Her blood was found on the porch, but the case remains unsolved.
Some media outlets had previously reported receiving ransom notes in the days after Guthrie’s disappearance but had not disclosed the details while the investigation was at an early stage. Guthrie’s family was aware of the notes.
Tucson TV station KOLD said Monday that it had received two notes, one demanding millions in Bitcoin in exchange for Guthrie’s return and another that said she had died. Separately, CNN cited law enforcement sources in reporting on the contents of the notes.
CNN said a note indicated that those who kidnapped Guthrie did not mean to kill her but that she died shortly after her disappearance.
“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 referred questions about the ransom notes to the FBI, which declined to comment.
Tom Morrissey, a retired chief U.S. marshal in Arizona who isn’t involved in the Guthrie investigation, said details of a ransom note might be publicly released in investigations if authorities think it might help to identify a suspect. But he said specifics, such as whether a victim has died, are often held back simply to protect the investigation because authorities aren’t certain where their inquiry is headed.
“It’s still an open investigation,” Morrissey said. “These things can go into directions you wouldn’t believe to be possible.”
Bob Krygier, who retired as a lieutenant with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in January, said it goes against procedure and common sense for investigators to reveal that a missing person has died until a body has been found or several years have passed since the person disappeared.
“Once you start making statements from the law enforcement side that has speculation, you lose so much credibility,” Krygier said.
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.”
