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

[turaj]

i am keeping an eye out for Brian Entin and hoping he has Maureen on. If LE knows she is dead they will say nothing until NG body is found.

 

[Moonchime]

I do think it might be important that she is the mother of a very well known media figure. This is another out there take but did someone want SG to not be in Italy for the Olympics for some specific reason?

This thought has surely crossed my mind.

 

[Pleeang]

Sending prayers to all the family and friends of Nancy's. I hope there will be a happy ending. I also wish all the families and friends of people missing, would get this much help with finding their loved ones. I have a friend that her grandaughter was killed over 5 years ago. There has been no body found, no death certificate issued. And the people that killed have been in jail for 5 years and they haven't even went to trial yet. How can a family ever get justice and closure? I am sure this isn't the only story like this. Why can't normal people get the FBI and the President to help and leave no stone unturned? Our loved ones much just as much as Nancy does to her family.

 

[Melisende10]

Well, I've watched a LOT of YT broadcasts on YT featuring ex-FBI, LE etc and almost all do not think the kidnap/ransom is real and think 'something else' happened to Ms Guthrie. Add the assertion of AB's source which I really, really (really) did not want to believe and...

Of course for the siblings, they'd want to put their belief in considering kidnap - pay ransom - get her back as it was the most hopeful scenario, until it wasn't... yet still they will pay.

I just think if ransom was real it would have been a lot 'neater' (negotiations) instead of this long, drawn out, going nowhere... although I will acknowledge with technology being what it is today I have NO idea what that would look like (without detection)

I share your thought process too. However, my only thing is I don't think the FBI would let it get this far if the FBI really believed the ransom note writer had nothing to do with it. I think they would tell the family strongly it was a hoax.

My concern is that with AI, it is very easy to fake a convincing video of someone. But again, I feel like if the FBI got proof of life and it was faked, they would tell the family.

 

[Magic8Ball]

Well, I had the age range right. I didn’t really think about their occupations, just thought generic gamer. Which actually brings me to another theory, what if a child of the family, gamed and was groomed online and gave family information out?

I have experience of this, my then 12 year old received an expensive gaming keyboard in the post. Turned out to be from a 48 year old man who the child had met whilst gaming online. Reported to police asap and online activity of 12 year old was severely limited to those known personally to our family. This was about 15 years ago and I didn’t realise at the time that gaming communities could be accessed by anyone.

I'm of the opinion that all gaming systems and related accessories should come with a big parental warning label on the front indicating the risks of online predation to anyone under 18 yoa.

Sometimes technology is a resource.
Sometimes technology is a weapon.

We're seeing a prime example of how technology can be used for nefarious purposes in NG's case.

JMO.

 

[katydid23]

Things that are unusual IMO:

1. Kidnapping for ransom, just generally
2. Kidnapping an 84-year-old, specifically
3. Sexually assaulting and then kidnapping an 84-year-old
4. Sending a delayed ransom note with two different deadlines

Things that are normal or at least normal in some families and are not a sign of some nefarious intent IMO:

1. Entering a home via the garage
2. An 84-year-old living independently
3. Taking an Uber to someone's house if you don't want to drive home for some reason
4. A son-in-law driving his mother-in-law home unsupervised
5. Not walking an elderly relative inside
6. Acting odd while filming a video under unimaginable stress

Not all of the above are necessarily what I would do with my own 88-year-old father, but none of them seems wildly inappropriate to me. The only thing that ever made me raise an eyebrow regarding AG and TC (besides their proximity to the victim and basic crime stats) was the report that it took them an hour to call 911 but even that has now been debunked.

The only thing that ever made me raise an eyebrow regarding AG and TC (besides their proximity to the victim and basic crime stats) was the report that it took them an hour to call 911 but even that has now been debunked.


Has it been 'debunked' though? I've seen the new timeline, and now it says they arrived 50 minutes later than originally reported.

But I have not heard any explanation for that discrepancy. Which time was the accurate one?

 

[thefragile7393]

Hold up, might be doing Insta because they have info shes in Mexico and would not get local televised news or any US news.

IMO, no. You can get news easily in Mexico from the US-and even Telemundo and Univision are having coverage of this.

 

[nerosleuth]

At this point, even if we're looking at two separate crimes and this evil creep turns out to be a hacker/hoaxer exploiting a tragic situation for personal gain but not the evil creep guilty of disappearing NG, he should receive just as severe a punishment as if he were.

NGs family has been put through sheer torture in the wake of NG's disappearance with these ransom demands.

The implication of SG's video appears to be that the person who contacted them has insinuated NG is dead.
If this ransom demand stuff proves to be a hoax, doing this to a victim's family is next-level sociopathy.

If it's not a hoax, it's every bit as evil.

This most recent contact may help the FBI to track/trace/apprehend this monster.
A sliver of a silver lining. But something, at least.

JMO.

I agree that if a person sends a hoax ransom demand, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I mentioned in an upthread from yesterday that a person who sends a hoax ransom demand should also be charged with extortion and obstruction of justice.

I now believe that person who sends a hoax ransom demand should also be charged with kidnapping or being an accessory to kidnapping.

And should a death occur from the kidnapping, then the person who sends a hoax ransom demand should also be charged with murder or being an accessory to murder.

I say the law should throw the book and play hardball against the durn fools that sends hoax ransom demands.

 

[watson1]

Same with the suggestions that NBC should pay the ransom. That would open up the same issues for NBC in relation to SG and also for other well-known show hosts at NBC. And if they did it for one, why not another. Could they give SG a loan/advance in her salary/pay? Possibly.

There are insurance policies that cover kidnapping. Presuming NBC would have the insurance for their key people. Whether a parent falls within the definitions of "who is covered" would be part of the determination of whether the insurance would be involved. It almost certainly would cover SG, her husband and children.

 

[SRWCF]

Do you all think that they're asking for their Mom's remains? The wording is odd.

No. Because the word "celebrate" would not have been used. That is a positive word.

 

[Luna20]

I hate to say it but there will be no return of her alive. That’s just not happening a week plus later. Far too great of a risk for the supposed kidnapper even if she is still somehow alive.

Nancy or the perps would have had to be masked the entire time. They won’t want her to see who they are so there has to be a way for concealed identity. I hope that she wasn’t tied up.

 

[Sundog]

$650k home purchased in Mar 2025. $140k home sold in Jun 2025. I don't know what they owed to their mortgage company to close out that loan. Plus, there are realtor and closing costs. If nothing else, they needed this $300k in the bank well before they closed in March. They had to get it from some place. Maybe, they saved that money. Maybe, they borrowed it from the NG with the promise to pay her back as soon as their house sold.

I do know that when we loaned our son a substantial amount of money to purchase his home, we had to sign a document stating that the money was a "gift" to him. The mortgage company wanted to make sure that there was not another major loan debt that had to be paid.

If NG lent them this amount of money, she surely would have had to do the same. Of course, some family members will honor their debts. Others stall and pay partial or won't pay at all. Who knows?

Just throwing that out there for consideration.

JMO.

IIRC, there are specific bank loans you can get if you purchase a new home before you sell your old home. We looked into it a while back when we saw a property we were considering buying but we knew it would go fast and our current house wasn't ready to go on the market that fast.

 

[iluvmyelement]

Mary Coleman (local TV reporter) saw the second note and said that it did not contain anything to do with a ransom - which may mean that the communication was to tell the family that NG is no longer alive.

 

[Ellis' Mom]

I just checked the Pima County assessor website, and the house is listed under a name that strongly suggests it is a revocable trust. I can't link directly to the source because the assessor site does not provide an obvious way to link to a single record, but anyone who wishes to verify can do so very easily on their own.

This should work:

Pima County - Parcel Detail

 

[mikeshanty]

For those of us WS members outside of the USA, how common are abductions and ransoms in the USA? Appreciate the circumstances in this case are very unusual, but does this happen often? In my country, this does not happen, although there are sometimes cases of people being abducted and killed but it is exceptionally rare and people are brought to justice very quickly.

 

[Wsimm]

I see where you are going with this argument, but the target makes no sense. States or state-adjacent actors choose targets that advance a political objective (symbolic sites, officials, infrastructure, or mass-casualty events). The mother of a morning show anchor has no strategic value, sends no coherent message, and doesn’t map onto ICE, Venezuela, or U.S. foreign policy in any intelligible way.

If this happened to Jane Doe’s mom in Wisconsin I’m guessing the majority of us wouldn’t be here posting our comments? Many who only watch their local news may have zero knowledge of this tragedy even occurring, depending on the news day in their area. That this is happening to SG’s mom I find a bit strategic and well planned. Jane Doe’s mom = no attention….SG’s mom = off the chart attention.

 

[Charlot123]

I agree. I don’t think they would get her back if she is deceased. The body would have evidence and lead to the killers.

Maybe not, or perhaps there is another option besides homicide.

There may be a not quite impossible situation of a natural death on late evening of January 31/very early morning of Feb 1st and whoever witnessed it, trying to exploit the situation to squeeze the family for money.

 

[whitelilac]

My interpretation of "THIS is very valuable to us" is this, as in the act of her being returned.

Yes exactly....it's what I meant by my saying that they wish to lay her to rest and be close to their mom.
Awful to think they could never know where she is if not returned.

 

[mikeshanty]

This is gonna sound crazy, it does even to me. Could she be released during the Super Bowl Halftime show to take all attention off of it? I know crazy right? I'll show myself out. IMO

I really don't think so...

 

[flabbergastedfart]

Yep. Ive thought about that. A friend of my mother in law got twisted up in something like this. It made no sense, but the friend believed it to be true. Her family is in the process of trying to protect her assets, but it’s difficult when the senior citizen is apparently of sound mind. But in NGs case, I assume they would have checked her internet history and emails and phone.

That's so terrible and I'm sorry to hear that about her friend.

I hope Annie and Tommaso would keep tabs on her internet usage more but the fact that she didn't have a subscription to her cameras seems like she slipped through the cracks. Annie and Tommaso are creatives and they may not be the most organized with keeping up on subscriptions and all that. I'm saying this as someone who's also on the more creative side with ADHD!