More than a month after ‘Today’ host Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home, the sheriff handling the case has revealed more details, and said he believes the ‘kidnapper could strike again.’
“Don’t think for a minute that because it happened to the Guthrie family, you’re safe. No, keep your wits about you,” he continued. “From day one, we had some strong beliefs about what happened, and those beliefs haven’t diminished,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told “NBC Nightly News” on Thursday, 12 March.
Nancy Guthrie kidnapping
Nancy Guthrie was last seen around 9:30 PM (local time) on Saturday, 31 January, after being dropped home by a family member. When she failed to attend church Sunday morning, another churchgoer alerted the family, prompting a welfare check and a 911 call around noon.
An exhaustive search for both her and her abductor has since swept across Arizona, while the Guthrie family has released direct pleas to the suspect, mentioned a report by USA Today.
“We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted,” Nanos told NBC correspondent Liz Kreutz on Thursday. “We’re not 100% sure of that, so it would be silly to tell people, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it, you’re not a target’” he added.
Nanos also told NBC that police are looking into a potential Wi-Fi jammer being used to interrupt Guthrie’s internet service the night of the crime.
Unidentified body found in Tucson desert amid search
Amid the ongoing search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, a deceased person was discovered in southeast Tucson on Thursday..
Current reports suggest the body has not been officially identified; however, investigators believe it is unlikely to be Guthrie. The Tucson Police Department noted that preliminary evidence does not suggest foul play in this specific discovery.
Days following Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance on February 1, the FBI released surveillance footage from a camera outside Guthrie’s front door depicting a masked intruder. Evidence of her blood was also discovered on the porch, as per reports.
Earlier this month, Savannah Guthrie returned to her mother’s home outside Tucson with her sister and Annie Guthrie and brother-in-law Tommaso Cioni and laid down yellow flowers.
In an Instagram post, she wrote, “we feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country 💛 please don’t stop praying and hoping with us.”
