Today show host Savannah Guthrie posted a new video on social media Monday, pleading with her mother’s captor to come forward nearly six months after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, home.
Guthrie shared the appeal on Instagram as the case approached the half-year mark with no suspect identified. She said nothing about if her family’s situation had changed since her mother vanished in the early hours of Sunday, February 1.
The morning host directed her message at the abductor.
“We are in a nightmare that will not end,” Guthrie said. “I’m asking you, begging you. Make the right choice. Help us find her. Tell us where to look for her.”
Guthrie added that it is never too late to act.
“Help us bring this situation to an end,” she said. “For all of us, no matter where we’ve been and what we’ve done, I believe there is always a way home. Please make the right choice.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said the case remains open but reported no significant development. Investigators have identified no suspects. The department said analysis of DNA and digital evidence has run for six months and remains time-intensive, adding that it is still pursuing answers alongside the FBI.
Several ransom notes reached the media after Nancy Guthrie disappeared. A second note emailed to a Tucson television station, made public in June, claimed she “perished shortly after she was taken” and was “buried in nature now.” Authorities have not confirmed or denied the letters. Retired FBI hostage negotiator Jason Pack noted the apology in the note stood out.
“People who have leverage do not apologize. They demand,” Pack said.
The FBI released footage in February showing a masked man tampering with Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera the morning of the abduction. Investigators described the suspect as average build, roughly 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches, wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack. A glove found about two miles from the home was later ruled unrelated. Savannah Guthrie added $1 million to the reward in February, bringing the total to $1.2 million.
The renewed plea comes as Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, a Democrat, has faced reporting that his office boxed out federal agents early in the case. Reuters reported he declined an FBI request for a glove and DNA and routed forensics to a Florida lab rather than the bureau’s Virginia facility, a claim detailed alongside the fact that Nanos’s own department was once probed by the FBI. FBI Director Kash Patel said the sheriff kept the bureau out early on. Nanos has disputed that account, and his office insisted coordination with the FBI “began without delay.”
Nanos has insisted the case will “100%” be solved.
