By Jack Phillips
“Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie said in an interview this week that the door to her mother’s home was “propped open” when she went missing, providing a new detail about the nearly two-month-old case.
In an interview with the NBC-owned program, Guthrie described how her sister discovered that her mother was gone from her Tucson, Arizona-area home. Her mother, Nancy Guthrie, was reported missing on Feb. 1, as officials have said they believe she was likely abducted, and added they discovered a crime scene at her home.
“She said, ‘She’s gone,’” Guthrie told “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb, referring to what her sister told her. “And we—she was in a panic. I was in a panic. I’m, like, ‘Call 911.’ She’s like, ‘I did. We’ve called them. They’re here.’ We thought that she must have had some kind of medical episode in the night and that somehow the paramedics had come, because the back doors were propped open, and that didn’t make any sense.”
The interview with Kotb this week is the first televised interview Guthrie has given since her mother went missing. So far, no arrests have been made, and no suspects have been named.
Guthrie said that it was not a case “where someone wanders off” and added “she can’t wander off” due to health problems.
“Her back was very bad. You know, she was trying to, on a good day, she could walk down to the mailbox and get the mail but most days not, so there was no wander off,” Guthrie said. “And the doors were propped open, and there was blood on the front doorstep, and the ring camera had been yanked off and so we were saying, ‘This is, this is not okay. This isn’t, something is very wrong here.’”
In another part of the interview, Guthrie said that she feared her mother may have been abducted for money due to the “Today” show anchor’s fame.
“I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought, ‘Oh, that girl— that lady has money. We can … make a quick buck.’ I mean, that would make sense,” she said. “But we don’t know. Which is too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside. That it’s because of me.”
Alongside $100,000 being offered by the FBI and just over $100,000 by a local crime stoppers group, the Guthrie family is offering a $1 million reward for her return.
Video footage and photos released by the FBI last month showed a masked male trying to tamper with Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera. The male was described as having a medium build and standing between 5 feet, 9 inches, and 5 feet, 10 inches tall.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona has set up a tip line where people can submit information. An online form where people can submit information to the FBI is also available.
Guthrie’s family last weekend appealed to neighbors in Arizona to search back through their memories for anything they might have seen that could help the investigation.
“No detail is too small,” they said.
Little information about the investigation has been publicly released by authorities in recent weeks. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI said Wednesday that investigators continue to examine leads.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
