Nancy Guthrie case continues to captivate the public three weeks after her disappearance

There is no television program in the United States that is not talking about the disappearance in Tucson, Arizona of Nancy Guthrie the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, one of NBC’s star journalists.

Fox News has been leading its newscasts with her disappearance for a week now. Major American media outlets are providing extensive coverage and dedicating significant airtime to every tiny development in a case that broke on January 31. That day, Nancy Guthrie’s children reported her missing when she failed to show up for a meeting with a friend to watch a church service on television. Even CNN has fully embraced the story, which has gripped a country where more than 100,000 disappearances are reported annually, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). Other public sources, such as the National Crime Information Center, put the number of missing persons as high as 600,000, although they acknowledge that a very high percentage of cases are solved.

The Guthrie case has all the ingredients to become one of those morbid episodes that captivate viewers. The alleged kidnapping of an 84-year-old woman, the mother of a television star. A distraught family posting videos pleading for mercy from the alleged kidnappers. A sheriff lost in the investigation, and a swarm of podcasters and influencers loitering around the victim’s house to fuel the spectacle.

But there’s more. Nancy Guthrie is in delicate health. She needs daily medication, wears a hearing aid, and has a pacemaker that has stopped sending out signals. Some local and online media outlets claim to have received ransom notes, although the deadline for payment has reportedly passed. The tabloid TMZ reports receiving up to four notes offering details of the disappearance in exchange for Bitcoin, the latest on Monday. The police are treating this information with caution.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos appears to be leading an erratic investigation in the joint effort with the FBI. During the first few days, he held news conferences where he revealed some details about the case, including the contamination of the crime scene and the search of the victim’s home where traces of blood were found.

A video recorded by Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera was leaked two weeks later. It shows an armed man, wearing a ski mask, latex gloves, and a large backpack, approaching the house in the middle of the night. Police were able to determine the man’s height from the size of the house’s bricks and his shoe size from the size of the tiles in the driveway where he arrived.

The suspect

After nearly three weeks of a slow-moving investigation, the FBI acknowledged on Thursday that the person seen in the video is the suspect. Investigators described him as a male of medium build, approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall. They noted that the backpack he was carrying was a 25-liter Ozark Trail backpack, commonly sold at Walmart.

The FBI offered a reward of $50,000 for any information that helps find the victim, but the lack of progress in the investigation has raised the amount to $100,000.

Nancy Guthrie’s house is spacious, red brick, and single-story. It occupies half a hectare in a gated community in Catalina Foothills, a town of about 50,000 residents near Tucson. The area is dotted with ranch-style single-family homes, scattered and hidden from view by acacias, prickly pear cacti, palo verde trees, and saguaros, a type of giant cactus. The landscape is rocky, shaped by the Santa Catalina Mountains, and dotted with hills and the area’s abundant vegetation. It’s less than 62 miles (100 km) from the Mexican border. For now, there are no reliable witnesses.

The case coincides with a decline in public appearances by Donald Trump, who usually dominates the news cycle with events and statements. This past week he has reduced his public appearances as criticism mounts over his handling of immigration, which has led to another government shutdown, and as the Jeffrey Epstein papers reveal contacts between members of his administration and the convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.

Trump calls for the death penalty

The U.S. president has barely held any public events this week, whereas he usually holds meetings with the press almost every day to deliver three or four political messages along with some bravado.

Trump has intervened in a case that has gripped the American public. In a message posted last week on his social media platform, Truth, he asserted that he would dedicate all available law enforcement resources to solving the case. This Monday, he stated that he would order the Justice Department to seek the death penalty for the kidnappers if Nancy is found dead, according to a telephone interview with the New York Post. The president declared that the consequences would be “very, very severe — the most severe” for the kidnappers if they kill Savannah’s mother. When reporters asked if he meant the death penalty, Trump replied, “The most, yeah — that’s true.” The president has not missed an opportunity to fuel the case.

Meanwhile, the Nancy Guthrie case has gained momentum. The release of a video two weeks ago, showing the missing woman’s three children sitting on a couch, with Savannah between her siblings, pleading with the alleged kidnappers to allow their mother to return, moved the nation. “Our mother is a kind, faithful, loyal, fiercely loving woman of goodness and light,” said the host of NBC’s popular Today show.

The family

“She is funny and intelligent. She’s funny, spunky and clever. She has grandchildren that adore her and crowd around her and cover her with kisses,” she added. One of the most poignant moments was when her sister, looking directly at the camera, addressed their mother: “If you’re listening, we need you to come home.”

This hasn’t been the family’s only attempt to move the alleged kidnapper. Over the past three weeks, they’ve shared several messages on social media. The tone of the recordings has shifted. Last Thursday, they released a home video of their mother with the message that “you should never give up.” Three days later, this past Sunday, Savannah Guthrie posted a plea to the alleged kidnapper on Instagram. “It’s never too late,” she said. “You’re not lost or alone. And it is never too late to do the right thing.”

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Savannah Guthrie sends a message to her mother's kidnappers

The fact that the missing woman was a vulnerable, sweet and resilient grandmother who raised her family, that they are white and well-off, and that the children seem devastated by her disappearance adds to the morbid fascination of the case.

The family recounts that their last contact with their mother, a widow since 1988, was on the night of Saturday, January 31. That day, she had dinner at the home of her daughter Annie, Savannah’s older sister. According to investigators, Annie’s husband dropped Guthrie off at the front door shortly before 10 p.m. The son-in-law stated that he saw her enter through the garage door.

The investigation

That was the last time anyone saw Nancy. The next morning, she didn’t show up at a friend’s house where she was supposed to have gone. When she didn’t answer her phone, her family reported her missing. During the investigation, officers found her cell phone inside the house, along with other evidence indicating that she hadn’t left home voluntarily. Police found blood spattered on the front porch.

A black latex glove was also found a few hundred yards from the house. The glove appears to match those worn by the masked individual who was lurking near the house’s entrance, the FBI said Sunday. The agency sent the glove for DNA analysis but has not yet released the results.

But the FBI has also acknowledged that another dozen gloves were found near the house, which turned out to belong to investigators who combed the scene of the alleged crime.

The federal agency headed by Kash Patel reported that more than 100 agents have been assigned to the investigation. It claims to have collected more than 13,000 leads. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s department says it has received more than 18,000 calls about the case.

The effect of ‘true crime’

Journalists and podcast producers of true crime stories, a very popular genre in the United States, have flocked to the scene. For three weeks, they have been gathering outside Nancy Guthrie’s house, at times hindering the police investigation and spreading false information and conspiracy theories. Several fast-food delivery drivers have come within feet of the house to deliver orders to influencers and curious onlookers who have come to snoop or advertise.

For a few days, while the investigation was still ongoing, the police opened the crime scene, and many journalists were able to approach the house and see the bloodstains attributed to Nancy Guthrie. As the case gained media attention, they re-established a perimeter around the house.

The haphazard investigation has fueled the rumors. On Friday night, police blocked a road 1.8 miles from the missing woman’s home as part of the investigation, without explaining why. A few hours earlier, they seized a Range Rover SUV parked next to a nearby restaurant.

The Sheriff’s office arrested a man during a traffic stop in Tucson last week, but did not specify the reason for the arrest or whether it was related to the case. The man was released a few hours later.

Three weeks after the disappearance, investigators’ impressions are beginning to grow grimmer about a case that has shocked the United States.

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