NBC’s Today anchor Savannah Guthrie has spoken publicly for the first time since her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, disappeared from her Arizona home nearly two months ago and her words were filled with grief and guilt.
In an emotional interview with her close friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb, Guthrie fought back tears as she struggled with the thought that her fame might have put her mother at risk.
“It’s too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside … and it’s because of me,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry. … to my sister and my brother and my kids and my nephew and my brother-in-law. I’m so sorry if it is me.”
She also suggested a possible reason someone might have targeted her mother: “I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought, ‘That girl has money, we could make a quick buck.’ That would make sense.”
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Were ransom notes real or fake?
After Nancy’s disappearance, the family received many ransom demands. One note which came in February asked for millions in bitcoin and said Nancy was safe but scared. When the note first arrived, the family contacted the Pima County Sheriff and within hours, the FBI began making calls.
Guthrie believes most of the later notes were fake but she thinks the two her family actually responded to were real. “There are a lot of different notes, I think that came and I think most of them … are not real and I didn’t see them,” she said. “But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”
She also criticized anyone sending fake ransom notes to a grieving family. “A person that would send a fake ransom note … really has to look deeply at themselves … to a family in pain,” she said.
Adding to the mystery, Guthrie said that although her family was willing to pay the ransom at first but then the bitcoin address was monitored and no money was sent.
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Savannah Guthrie reveals new details about the case
Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on February 1. The family first realized something was wrong when she didn’t show up for church. Savannah recalled the moment her sister Annie called with the news:
“My sister called me and I said, ‘Is everything OK?’ And she said, ‘No,’ she said, ‘Mom’s missing.'”
At first, the family thought Nancy might have had a medical emergency and been taken to the hospital.
“The back doors were propped open, you know, and that didn’t make any sense,” Guthrie said. “We thought maybe they came and there was a stretcher, and they took her out the back … But her phone was there, and her purse was there, and all her things and it just didn’t make any sense.”
Their fears grew when they found blood on the front porch and saw that the doorbell camera had been removed. Footage from that camera showed a masked man outside the house the evening Nancy disappeared, making authorities believe she was taken against her will.
“I mean, it’s just absolutely terrifying,” Guthrie said about the footage. “I can’t imagine that that is who [my mom] saw standing over her bed. It’s too much.”
However, nearly after two months of the Nancy’s disappearance, her family is still waiting for the answers.