Nancy Guthrie, 84, (mother of TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie) missing - last seen in the Catalina foothills area on Jan 31, 2026

[stmichael]

Whole thing reeks of amateur hour to me.

No proof of life, no direct contact, leaving blood spatter for an 80+ year old woman.

That being said, another case of poor residential security/PERSEC. Cameras with no subscription service (no cloud upload/push alerts, RING was $100/year for all your monitoring includes cam cloud, plus fire and police monitoring).

Family dynamics a bit strange, but that's not unusual (daughter and SIL live 10 minutes away, yet an 80-ish woman took an uber to dinner).

 

[MissPie]

Forgive me this is probably a silly question but I keep wondering, how was a person/movement detected on the doorbell at 2:12am, after it was disconnected at 1:47am?

According to the sheriff yesterday, there was more than one camera. ETA: at least that’s what I understood him to say. The press conference was often confusing!

 

[acutename]

And my garage door seems to take about 20 seconds at least to fully open before I can even walk in. And I refuse to walk under it until it’s fully up and stopped because I have an irrational fear of it falling down while moving. We didn’t get time down to the millisecond so it could be closer to 1 minute and 2 seconds between start of opening and closing. She would probably have to wait around 10 seconds for the garage door to get up enough for her to have enough room to walk under it (if she was rational enough not to worry about it falling on her!), so it could be we’re working with 52 seconds for a person with lower mobility to walk from the front to the back of the garage. Maybe she had an empty plastic water bottle in her hand, or a tissue that she figured she would throw away before going inside and her trash can was on the other side of the garage from the door closer button, so she went to the trash can first, taking up another 10 seconds. I am so confused as to why people are so hung up on the “2 minutes” (anywhere between 62 seconds and 120 seconds), even if she already out of the car and standing right in front of the door when it started to open.

they think that some one is creeping in after her. does not align with the "open" back door

 

[Deleted member 117884]

I think it's an hour drive from Tucson to the border.

I don't think the perp took her to Mexico if he plans to bring her back. Crossing the border back to USA would be a risk, imo.

 

[thefragile7393]

TUCSON, Ariz. (NewsNation) — A high-level law enforcement source told journalist Ashleigh Banfield Tuesday that the son-in-law of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie “may be the prime suspect now” in her disappearance, according to reporting Banfield shared Tuesday night.
Eta

Banfield: Source gives info on cameras, clues and possible suspect in Nancy Guthrie case

Ashleigh Banfield reports on what a longtime, “impeccable” law enforcement source tells her about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

www.newsnationnow.com

Google says 60 miles to the border
JMO

border really likely isn't playing a part here, IMO. It's true it's not that far but it's a couple hours at least, depending on where you're going

 

[thefragile7393]

I don't think the perp took her to Mexico if he plans to bring her back. Crossing the border back to USA would be a risk, imo.

especially with needing a travel card or passport now, even to border cities.

 

[ab01]

Or an error on someone's part. If it was a ruse, it would be significant. Unless LE doesn't want someone to know that.

I could also entertain a situation where the person that dropped off NG may have went home and said, hey she says she’s going to go to church tomorrow.(Even though she may or may not of said that). Maybe you should check with so and so in the morning to make sure she made it ok. Or maybe you should text so and so tonight and have them let us know in the morning if she made it ok. Just hypothetical

 

[LaLaw2000]

Nancy's birthday.

If it was a birthday celebration at Annie's, wouldn't whomever drove her home help her take any gift(s) she may have gotten for her birthday inside the house? Presumably, that person would help her out of the car, walk her to the garage and into the house? It would seem to me that would take longer than the 2 minutes the garage door was supposedly open. This is all so crazy!

 

[stmichael]

Forgive me this is probably a silly question but I keep wondering, how was a person/movement detected on the doorbell at 2:12am, after it was disconnected at 1:47am?

This is a good question asked by some "legal experts" on news sites.

Having deal w Ring cams, if they removed it and put it in their bag/pocket etc. it can still detect motion if hooked up to the wifi. It may be an erroneous reading or a butt-dial type of detection in that case. I have a flag that blows in the wind that comes up as "person detected" as well as deer that are tall enough, though the algorithm is quite decent. With these systems placement/angles, detection zones, etc. are very important. This one didn't even have a subscription to a cloud. I doubt it was an optimal set-up, and the skell would have seen that.

 

[rosesfromangels]

My opinions only:

What are the chances that Nancy Guthrie is still alive? <20%

What are the chances the one responsible was a healthcare person, gardener, maid, electrician, etc? 40%

What are the chances the one responsible was a family member? 60%

What are the chances the police and FBI will eventually solve this case? 80%

When do I think a person(s) will be arrested? Within the next 10 days.

For your first two questions I would say 2% and 95%.

I assume LE is questioning service providers, repairmen, etc. ??

this would be someone with routine access to the property, IMO.

Amateur opinion and speculation only

 

[SRWCF]

especially with needing a travel card or passport now, even to border cities.

Maybe. My mother, now in memory care, crossed the border in October 2025 from Yuma AZ into Mexico on foot without having a passport or travel card. She went to have dental work done and they let her through!

 

[Alkali13]

How do you account for the fact that the ransom note mentioned the location of the watch or other inside details? I mean, I guess they could have made a good guess... or it could've been placed into the fridge by the captor and that's where it was located. Hypothetical ofc. MOO

It sounds like the news outlets got the letters around the same time, and I swear we knew the pacemaker information beforehand. Also, do we actually know what the notes said about the floodlight? That one was broken? Or is this speculation?

 

[thefragile7393]

I have only seen one post mentioning the Scottsdale home invasion. Perhaps I’ve missed more. Thoughts on any connection, based on this article?

Teens charged in $66M crypto home invasion plot in Scottsdale as search for Nancy Guthrie continues in Tucson

Two California teens were arrested in a $66M crypto-related Arizona home invasion just before Nancy Guthrie vanished from Tucson. Authorities have not said if the cases are linked.

www.foxnews.com

no connection if you look at the circumstances of the Scottsdale incident. IMO

 

[Diddian]

I assume NG's floodlights are motion-activated (since some news coverage indicates that continuous light floodlights are not permitted in that neighborhood).

Given that it appears NG must have had a SMART garage door opener (since LE was able to determine what times that door opened and closed Saturday night), I wonder if the floodlights were also SMART devices (connected to a wireless network and able to send notifications, if they detected movement and turned on OR if a bulb failed). If SMART, then information may be accessible to LE about what times they detected movement and when they were disabled, enabling LE to tighten timelines. Alternatively, they may just have operated from sensors detecting motion (since some news coverage has indicated that continuous light floodlights are not permitted in the area).

If motion-activated, the floodlights should have turned on when NG returned home and that would have been evident as her family's car drove up the driveway to drop her off Saturday night. And if they did not turn on as expected, that would be alarming and motivate family to do more than just drop NG off and let her go inside (especially since there are two floodlights and one would not expect both bulbs to naturally fail at the same time).

I assume LE has inquired whether the floodlights were operational when NG was returned home and since NG was just dropped off rather than accompanied inside, I assume the answer was yes, they were operational at that time (and if the floodlights are SMART, that information might be verifiable).

It seems to me the disabling of the floodlights would be done for various reasons:

• To leave NG returning home to a dark front yard and front door late in the evening. This would point to the floodlights being disabled while NG was away at family's for dinner, and point to a perpetrator who is unaware that NG would be returned to the driveway and garage rather than to the front door (where she probably left from when taking an Uber to her family's home). However, it raises the question why family and NG would not have noticed that the floodlights did not turn on when they drove up the driveway.
• To avoid the perpetrator being seen by neighbors or drivers-by when approaching the front door (to disconnect the NEST camera in the early morning hours). LE has been close-mouthed about answering whether this camera was taken rather than left behind, which is interesting to me because it could indicate that the perpetrator believed that his image and/or his vehicle's image might be stored in the camera itself.
• To avoid the perpetrator and the abducted-NG being seen by neighbors or drivers-by when they are leaving the home via the front door to a waiting car.

 

[Nikynoo]

I have wondered if she hit her head, bled, and then wandered out dazed and confused. I know that they say she couldn’t walk very far, but who knows? Her body would probably be found not too far away from the house though. What a twist that would be, if this wasn’t a crime at all.

Didn’t they walk back that the doorbells were smashed?

That was my initial thought too, but it doesn’t explain the missing ring door bell.

 

[stmichael]

I don't think the perp took her to Mexico if he plans to bring her back. Crossing the border back to USA would be a risk, imo.

IF

They took an 84 year old ill woman with a pacemaker, in an apparent struggle (left blood drops) and didn't take her life-sustaining meds. They are offering no proof of life as is key in cases like this. They didn't really handle this well.

 

[Deleted member 117884]

Maybe. My mother, now in memory care, crossed the border in October 2025 from Yuma AZ into Mexico on foot without having a passport or travel card. She went to have dental work done and they let her through!

Sure, but she wasn't a missing person that the nation is looking for, ykwim?

jmo

 

[shonyakay]

Forgive me this is probably a silly question but I keep wondering, how was a person/movement detected on the doorbell at 2:12am, after it was disconnected at 1:47am?

One theory is that one camera was disconnected and another camera possibly caught some movement on it. Sheriff Nanos said it could be movement of a person or an animal.

From my understanding since she didn't have a subscription the video was not saved to an account that can be viewable. Which is really unfortunate.

 

[thefragile7393]

Maybe. My mother, now in memory care, crossed the border in October 2025 from Yuma AZ into Mexico on foot without having a passport or travel card. She went to have dental work done and they let her through!

That's changed since then unfortunately. With everything going on with the administration, your best bet is to carry one of the two so you don't have issues going to or from. My kids get their dental there and....it's been fun.

 

[Friday Fan]

Maybe. My mother, now in memory care, crossed the border in October 2025 from Yuma AZ into Mexico on foot without having a passport or travel card. She went to have dental work done and they let her through!

WTF???
Did she need to show it when she returned?