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

[birdbox]

Agreed. If it was someone close to her it could’ve been anything. She could’ve become aware of something and they needed to keep her quiet. The possibilities are endless. Especially for true crime followers and anyone who likes murder mysteries. I could literally list off a thousand different scenarios and end up being completely off. It is usually Occums Razor but I feel like there’s been at least one recent COMPLETELY random crime. Oh Brian K being the person who murdered the 4 college students. Occums razor would be someone known to the victim. But every now and then it’s someone totally out of left field.

Good points

 

[SouthernSummer]

I posted a few pages back about a handyman case and the motive was to silence an elderly woman before she exposed him for a minor fraud. I think we should include silencing her to cover up something as a motive versus robbery, What if someone in the family or extended family did something bad or illegal and NG found out. She is religious and a kindly, moral woman. She couldn’t keep the secret much longer; she wanted to go to her priest; it was eating at her, so the person silenced her in an act of desperate self-preservation. She was 84 - so the person justifies that she was old with limited years to live - versus themselves with a lot more life to live at risk if whatever damaging information became known?

Wow. I just posted something with the similar thought. And I’ve seen the episode of Forensic Files you’re referring to

 

[NervousNellie]

I’ll take door number 3.
I have a hard time imagining a family member hurting her…I know it happens, but my brain can’t process it.
The kidnapping scenario seems to be superficially implemented.
Number 3 for me.

I really hope you’re right!

 

[MassGuy]

Did they take the yellow tape down?

Yes, apparently so.

 

[Bluewing3102]

When she is saying he may be the prime suspect but LE are saying they have no person of interest or suspect, she is vulnerable to a defamation suit. What is more interesting to me is who gave her the information and why her? I assume some person in LE gave her that info. Did they also give it to other news outlets? Did the other news outlets pass on it because their legal departments couldn't get anyone on record?

Every time she said it though, she explicitly made sure to quote her source. So technically isn't she not the one saying it if she's directly quoting somebody. And under what circumstances does this fall under free speech/press. I just feel like there are a lot of loopholes here.

JMO

 

[nhmemorymaker]

DBM lmfao I thought SIL mean sister in law and now realize its son in law.

This has been driving everybody cray-cray from the get-go.
We could try to type SonIL--but that won't stick either!
and technically we should not use his initials.... so we just deal with it.

 

[Aquabot13]

AMPM, IMO.

Whoops! To clarify - the gas brand is ARCO. It's separate from the convenience portion.

MOO

 

[thefragile7393]

Is the photo implying the guy in line onscreen is of interest? An older man wearing a work lanyard with an ID?

no that is the person being interviewed

 

[birdbox]

My similar aged Granny agrees and approves of that statement!

My 90 year old grandparents were fiercely independent!! It just all depends on the person!! I am guessing NG having lost her husband when SG was factored to her being very independent perhaps.

 

[Herat]

The most time consuming part of this is getting out the vehicle. I pretended like I had been after I had back surgery and it took me a minute to gets out of the vehicle and get my cane. The slow walking part took about 30 seconds. Of course, it depends on when the garage door was opening in all of this. If they open it after she gets out of the vehicle then it would take much quicker than if they open it when she is still in the vehicle.

I really cannot imagine dropping off an 84 year old lady in front of the garage in the dark and then waving her off as you drove off.

My experience would be to get out of the car, open the car door for her, and firstly making sure she got into the house OK (that single garage step can be a really doozy if you are a bit fragile. Then making sure the lights in the house are on and everything is OK before leaving, taking care to make sure she locks the garage door and the front door before leaving.

 

[Cardgame]

Did the perpetrator(s) leave a camera of their own at the scene to keep an eye on things after the fact?

Wow you called this before the police found that camera today!

 

[thefragile7393]

Slapping my head like a dummy. I was thinking Circle K was a campground.

maybe you're thinking of KOA? That's a chain of campgrounds

 

[ShouldBWorking]

If it were to be number 1, they must be choking on the possibility that SG could potentially be about to fork out millions to a fake kidnapper.

I think if you do this to an 84 year old woman, you care about very little. Monster!

 

[Melisende10]

I posted a few pages back about a handyman case and the motive was to silence an elderly woman before she exposed him for a minor fraud. I think we should include silencing her to cover up something as a motive versus robbery, What if someone in the family or extended family did something bad or illegal and NG found out. She is religious and a kindly, moral woman. She couldn’t keep the secret much longer; she wanted to go to her priest; it was eating at her, so the person silenced her in an act of desperate self-preservation. She was 84 - so the person justifies that she was old with limited years to live - versus themselves with a lot more life to live at risk if whatever damaging information became known?

It could be something like that. We really don't know anything so far about the non family people in her life, like caretakers, housekeepers, maintenance people, church groups, social groups, friends etc. Whoever that might be motivated to kidnap /kill may know her, and may even be known by the family but we the public would not know.

 

[Baba O'Riley]

So we either have:

1) someone in the family, most likely SIL and/or Annie motivated by some kind of financial gain that they hoped to gain from her passing, and the ransom stuff is just someone trying to capitalize on the situation. Or I suppose the responsible family member(s) could have orchestrated the ransom hoax as a distraction.

2) an actual professional kidnapper who has experience doing this and saw NG as a good target (at least in part because SG wealth).

3) someone not in the inner circle, but someone who is familiar with NG and her house and was in her extended circle somehow. Either a lawn guy, an electrician, a pool guy, etc. that knew who she was, knew who her daughter was, and hatched some half baked plan to either rob her, kidnap her, murder her, etc and then sloppily executed it. The motive here would be money as well in the form of ransom.

4) some deranged politically motivated person who disagreed with SG or felt slighted by SG somehow and was interpreting her on TV from his basement and decided to lash out in this way. Similar to a politically motivated mass shooter or incel type.

5) I hesitate to even write this, but a sexually motivated rapist, murderer, kidnapper who saw her, stalker her and executed a plan on her that night. You wouldn’t think that this would happen to an 84 yo but sadly it does.

Taking everything we know currently into account, I would rank them 1,3,4,2,5.

What say you, WS?

I would rank them 3,1,2 4,5. Interesting list. Thanks.

 

[SMK777]

I posted a few pages back about a handyman case and the motive was to silence an elderly woman before she exposed him for a minor fraud. I think we should include silencing her to cover up something as a motive versus robbery, What if someone in the family or extended family did something bad or illegal and NG found out. She is religious and a kindly, moral woman. She couldn’t keep the secret much longer; she wanted to go to her priest; it was eating at her, so the person silenced her in an act of desperate self-preservation. She was 84 - so the person justifies that she was old with limited years to live - versus themselves with a lot more life to live at risk if whatever damaging information became known?

I have been thinking exactly this same scenario from the beginning. Especially because there was a similar scenario that occurred in a case nearby to me some years ago.

 

[browneyes]

Is the photo implying the guy in line onscreen is of interest? An older man wearing a work lanyard with an ID?

I think that’s a detective. @MassGuy posted about it.

 

[cady]

Did they take the yellow tape down?

No worries, lol, they'll be back. JMO

 

[lucegirl]

I would think that NG would have mentioned this to AG, if not SG.

Agree. The fear of “telling Savanah” - the Golden Child - combined with years of resentment over her success and popularity.

 

[Sadi]

View attachment 642411

Is this stating one of the two individuals is who they are looking for as a possible suspect? Both have some sort of id badges, LE would be able to see the details better showing here.