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

[submarine7]

So that might be a strong reason not to use it, unless instead of burying she were sadly thrown down a ravine.

Lots of abandoned mines in the area.

 

[maskedwoman]

I agree.

For all the public comments that have said otherwise, this seems like a professional kidnapping to me. Except for one thing. They got her and left minimal evidence. The only thing they haven't done is provide a verifiable ransom demand with proof of life.

That's what is driving me bonkers. If it was a robbery gone wrong, those bodies are rarely moved very far.

If it was a professional kidnapping, they completely botched the ransom demand and have done nothing to fix it.

If it was the cartel or some other criminal enterprise, what was their motivation? SG is a network newsperson that primarily anchors these days. She's not investigating the cartels, no one in the family seems to work for the DEA, any gangs or cartels. Professional criminals commit many different crimes but the motivation is almost always about money/power/their business. When they murder or kidnap someone, they have a specific reason and they make sure you know what it is so they get what they want. If a cartel took her releasing any video other than giving them what they want would be pointless.

If it was targeted against the family or a specific member by anyone else, I truly don't understand what the payoff was supposed to be.

If it was a straight up professional murder, with unknown motivation, why remove the body?

 

[SMK777]

Lots of abandoned mines in the area.

I wonder if they have been searched?

 

[LRinCA]

That's what is driving me bonkers. If it was a robbery gone wrong, those bodies are rarely moved very far.

If it was a professional kidnapping, they completely botched the ransom demand and have done nothing to fix it.

If it was the cartel or some other criminal enterprise, what was their motivation? SG is a network newsperson that primarily anchors these days. She's not investigating the cartels, no one in the family seems to work for the DEA, any gangs or cartels. Professional criminals commit many different crimes but the motivation is almost always about money/power/their business. When they murder or kidnap someone, they have a specific reason and they make sure you know what it is so they get what they want. If a cartel took her releasing any video other than giving them what they want would be pointless.

If it was targeted against the family or a specific member by anyone else, I truly don't understand what the payoff was supposed to be.

If it was a straight up professional murder, with unknown motivation, why remove the body?

It's so haphazard. Every theory I explore falls apart for one reason or another. I hope LE has a lot more puzzle pieces to work with because as an outsider, it's like looking at the back of the messiest of needlepoints.

JMO/MOO

 

[SMK777]

That's what is driving me bonkers. If it was a robbery gone wrong, those bodies are rarely moved very far.

If it was a professional kidnapping, they completely botched the ransom demand and have done nothing to fix it.

If it was the cartel or some other criminal enterprise, what was their motivation? SG is a network newsperson that primarily anchors these days. She's not investigating the cartels, no one in the family seems to work for the DEA, any gangs or cartels. Professional criminals commit many different crimes but the motivation is almost always about money/power/their business. When they murder or kidnap someone, they have a specific reason and they make sure you know what it is so they get what they want. If a cartel took her releasing any video other than giving them what they want would be pointless.

If it was targeted against the family or a specific member by anyone else, I truly don't understand what the payoff was supposed to be.

If it was a straight up professional murder, with unknown motivation, why remove the body?

Indeed, a kidnapping which seems not to be serious about collecting ransom by showing proof of life or at least leading to a body is bizarre to say the least.

This case is a puzzle within a puzzle.

 

[iluvmyelement]

There is a land fill not far away.

Yes - but is that there is a chance if a landfill is involved that it is the one on the north side (Marana) and not that one - I hope they check both.

 

[scandiamerican]

Re: Conversation with a criminologist acquaintance who is NOT working this case: I did not mean to leave anyone in suspense; I asked if I could post and then my family was hit by the flu the next morning after a mod said I could post under MOO. I did take some notes but this was nearly a week ago now, so some parts of the case understanding may have shifted since that conversation, and if there are errors in accuracy, I am sure they are mine. All of this should be taken with a dose of JMO, etc.

Amidst the family illness, I’ve given up on trying to get it all out quickly, but I will post some in pieces.

I should also say anything is possible. Outliers exist. But we were discussing probabilities, not rare exceptions beyond this whole thing being a rare exception. As we say in my own field, first think horses, not zebras.

So my own understanding now, part 1:

Regarding the theory that Savannah had an obsessive stalker who went after her mom: Unlikely. In general, abducting her mom would be a very rare expression of that sort of obsession. If Savannah had a stalker like that, that person would have made increasingly intimate and extreme efforts at forms of contact with SG before trying to abduct someone, so that person would very much be on the LE radar. But the behavior after NG’s disappearance also does not fit that at all. The person would desperately want to communicate with Savannah directly and would feel compelled to tell her specific and probably very outlandish things. Instead, we have no direct communication with SG re: the abduction, random, etc.

What is much more possible re: SG is that someone local discovered there’s an accessible individual with a high-net-worth family member, making NG someone to target not because they care about SG other than her being a source of funds, but because NG is convenient to them, appears vulnerable on some research/recon, etc. That might be because someone mentioned to them a famous and successful ‘hometown girl’ whose mom still lives around here, or from Today Show coverage that included SG, etc.

And NG had lived 50 years in that house without being targeted, and without violent crime in her neighborhood, so it was not a focus as a possibility. So while we can all think in hindsight they should have made NG more secure in X, Y, or Z ways, NG was just living her life by her long-term standards of peaceful expectations, and people should be careful not to shame or blame her family, who are going through hell, for not anticipating this incredibly rare risk.

Again, MOO after the conversation, etc.

Will post more in the next day or two as I can.

Part 2 from conversation (JMO, etc.):

Who drops the glove out the window??

Apparently …


The glove potentially being tossed two miles away by someone who tried to be very careful at the scene is not outlandish, even though many of us thought it was a weird focus. Frequently criminals in home invasions will be very focused on not getting caught at the scene or leaving things at the scene. They are very focused on getting away safely initially, but in a remarkably short distance (200-300 meters), it is common for the mindset to rapidly shift–and this is happening in the context of extreme emotions after the period of trying to be so careful and steady. Suddenly, there is elation from getting away with it, but it is mingled with the objects that provided safety before (mask, gloves, etc.) now seeming to be THE things that COULD get them caught if they are recorded on a street camera, seen by other drivers, pulled over by police, etc. So there is this zone outside of the closest buffer zone from the crime scene, but still (to our observing, non-reactive-state minds) way too close to the scene of the crime, where it is common for perpetrators to discard objects related to the crime.

With a single pair of gloves from a perp, it’s sometimes possible to retrieve finger or handprints, or DNA.

And a perpetrator double-gloving to avoid DNA at the scene is likely to sweat more, so that if the inner pair of gloves is a form that transfers sweat, there is a rich transfer of shed skin cells carried by sweat through the inner gloves into the interior of the outer ones. And if the person is doing something like doubling up on nitrile gloves, there is often sweat pooling and transferring skin cells from the inner pair to the outer pair at the exit point of the wrist of the two sets of gloves.

A few links from the rabbit hole this led me down around related stuff:



https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379073825002257 (If someone wants to read this in its entirety but can’t access it, I may be able to share the PDF in a message)



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274697121_Geographic_Profiling_Using_home_to_crime_distances_and_crime_features_to_predict_offender_home_location#:~:text=Abstract,Decay phenomena (Levine, 2004)?



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389999476_From_crime_scenes_to_digital_spaces_A_mundane_object's_journey_through_forensics



https://medwinpublishers.com/IJFSC/development-of-latent-fingerprints-on-different-types-of-gloves-by-using-physical-and-chemical-methods.p

 

[submarine7]

I wonder if they have been searched?

Im guessing any that have noticeable disturbances at or around them.

 

[Napoli]

That's what is driving me bonkers. If it was a robbery gone wrong, those bodies are rarely moved very far.

If it was a professional kidnapping, they completely botched the ransom demand and have done nothing to fix it.

If it was the cartel or some other criminal enterprise, what was their motivation? SG is a network newsperson that primarily anchors these days. She's not investigating the cartels, no one in the family seems to work for the DEA, any gangs or cartels. Professional criminals commit many different crimes but the motivation is almost always about money/power/their business. When they murder or kidnap someone, they have a specific reason and they make sure you know what it is so they get what they want. If a cartel took her releasing any video other than giving them what they want would be pointless.

If it was targeted against the family or a specific member by anyone else, I truly don't understand what the payoff was supposed to be.

If it was a straight up professional murder, with unknown motivation, why remove the body?

It was my deranged, delusional, unhinged SG stalker. It's the only thing that fits! Payoff was getting the attention OF SG! Mom was his trophy. He may have gathered some family mementos from inside the house. However, his primary purpose was not burglary. It isn't a burglary gone wrong per NANOS. IMO it is an abduction gone right! MOO JMO

 

[LRinCA]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2024961811230114220

 

[Lebowski]

LE has stated this is not a burglary gone wrong. It's amazing to me that people accept what LE has said and links are posted for sources but when they say something that goes against someone's personal narrative, what LE has said has no merit. Not personal to you bigcityaccountant AT ALL, I like your posts but LE (NANOS) said it was a targeted kidnapping. NOT a burglary gone wrong. This came out this week. We have no idea if she even had a safe. Maybe she fell and fainted. Maybe the perp stopped long enough to make a ham sandwich for the road! He may have knocked her out, drugged her, then tied her up and while disabled, taken her away in a space ship. WE KNOW NOTHING, really! We can go by what has been stated and even that may be said by LE in an effort to keep the perp confused. It's all about motive, imo. MOO

bbm

fair enough, and i hadn't seen that he'd said that. i would soften your statements a little. he said that's his belief, not necessarily something they know. but he does know more than us, so his belief should be given weight.

 

[cait2007]

What crime was committed, though? Not burglary. Kidnapping...Assault....WHY???????? JMO

I can only think of couple options:

1. NG was not compliant in giving information perp wanted (ie account logins, safe code, etc..). She unexpectedly passed away during the encounter.
OR
2. It was a planned kidnapping for ransom, but she succumbed to injuries after leaving, which gives no way to ensure proof of life.
OR (least likely IMO)
3. The sole purpose of entering the house was to kidnap her for an unknown reason. Perp enjoys being in sadistically in control and had prepared prior with supplies to keep her alive.

 

[maskedwoman]

If they take nothing of hers with them they don’t have to be concerned with losing track of something (and revealing themselves as the kidnappers).

True. But when you kidnap an 84 year old women, you should assume there would be differences between kidnapping the senior citizen and a 24 year old.

 

[DizzyB]

Could they (I do believe it was more than one person) have not wanted to murder her, but buy themselves some time to get away from the scene? If they just intended to burglarize the house-they could have decided to drop her somewhere remote, with no phone or ability to walk and get help. She may have expired before they dropped her off, or after.

 

[thefragile7393]

DBM

 

[shonyakay]

“We also have some things at that scene that indicate to us that she was removed from that scene against her will." - Sheriff Nanos

I think this is very important for all of us to consider because this seems to indicate that Nancy was alive when she was removed from her home sometime Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Otherwise they wouldn't have evidence that she was removed "against her will."

You can't make that claim about a deceased individual.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/03/us/nancy-guthrie-missing-savannah-mom

 

[cait2007]

The odd behavior of the front porch intruder can be explained by assuming that a change had to be made to the kidnapper’s original plan to exit the house by the same path used to enter the house; namely, by the back door. The following paragraphs explain this further.

The first figure shows the first frame of video from the front door camera that shows the intruder approaching the front porch. Notice that the intruder is stepping onto the front walk from a position to the left, and not from the right or from straight ahead. Therefore, it is unlikely that he came up the front walk steps where the hand rail is located. So, where could he be coming from?
View attachment 647008
The answer can be found by looking at the second figure, which shows an aerial view of the front of the house.
View attachment 647010
This view shows the intruder’s position with a red rectangle. It is immediately in front of a white circular stepping stone that can be seen in both the door camera video and the aerial view of the house. Now, this position is approached most easily by a clear path to the corner of the house as shown by the red dots in the aerial view. It is unlikely that the intruder entered this bath from any point short of the corner of the house because he would have had to climb over a two-foot high pile of rocks to reach the path as shown in the third figure – something not impossible, but a hassle that one would have preferred to avoid especially at night.
View attachment 647011
Therefore, it appears that the intruder came to the front door from a point beyond the corner of the house. This point was most likely the point of entry into the house, which we are told by authorities was the door to the back porch. If this is the case, then most likely the intruder came from inside the house before he approached the front door.

Now, let’s assume that that the original plan was to for the kidnapper(s) to exit the house by walking out the back door with their victim walking beside them to their vehicle located somewhere down the street. This would have been their safest option to avoid other cameras. And parking the vehicle on the street would have made it easier for a fast getaway than parking in the driveway, where they could have been blocked in. Unfortunately, while they were inside the house it became apparent to them that it was impossible for Nancy to walk to the vehicle where it was, either because Nancy told them she couldn’t walk that far or because they could see for themselves that she couldn’t walk that far (they could have spotted the walker she used inside the house). Therefore, they were forced to make a change in their exit plan and to bring the vehicle closer to the house so Nancy wouldn’t have to walk as far. The front door was decided to be the best option for doing this.

Therefore, while one of the kidnappers remained with Nancy to ensure that she didn’t call the police, the other kidnapper exited out the back door to get the vehicle. While on his way to get the vehicle, he remembered that there was a front door camera that could see the vehicle approach the front of the house, watch them enter the vehicle, and make their getaway. He knew this camera existed because of his reconnaissance of the house a few weeks earlier, when he was spotted unknowingly by the front door camera. Therefore, he had to either cover up the camera or remove it entirely before bringing the vehicle to the house. So, he went directly from the back porch to the front porch to disable the camera.

One can see on the camera video that he knew the camera existed because he held his head down while approaching the camera from the side. When he was unable to remove camera easily, he decided to temporarily cover it up with something so that it could not see the vehicle, assuming he could find a tool later in the vehicle or in the house that would help him remove the camera while they were exiting through the front door. So, he decided to use some nearby vegetation to disable the camera. While covering it with vegetation appears to most people to be a sign of gross incompetence, it actually served his purpose quite well because the camera was unable to see him later bring the vehicle to the front steps, get out, and approach the camera once more to remove it, either by approaching it from outside the house or from the inside. Then, after the camera was removed, no one could see them take Nancy down the front walk, put her in the vehicle, and then leave in the vehicle. And we know that they exited this way because of the blood on the front porch that wasn’t there when the intruder approached the camera the first time.

So this change of exit plan explains the following:

1) The front door video occurs while leaving the house and not while entering the house.
a. The intruder at the front door was inside the house prior to going to the front door and was likely the driver of the vehicle.
b. This explains the full backpack used by the intruder at the front door. It contains objects taken from inside or outside the house like possibly cameras, and other objects of value, and not just tools for entering the house.
c. It explains why covering the camera with vegetation was an effective action and not a sign of gross incompetence.

2) The intruder on the video at the front door likely had an accomplice.
a. Someone had to guarantee that Nancy would not call the police while the intruder was at the front door.
b. Someone had to guarantee that Nancy would not call the police while someone else disabled cameras and flood lights before exiting the house, which could have caused sounds that Nancy might have heard. (Nancy was hard of hearing and used hearing aids, but the kidnappers likely did not know this ahead of time).
c. The intruder appears to not have full use of his right hand, right elbow, and right leg, making it difficult for him to climb to the roof to remove cameras.
d. If the intruder did not have an accomplice, then he had to ensure that Nancy could not call the police while he was absent by tying her up with tape or cord. But it still would have been risky to leave her alone.

3) Change of exit plan does not depend upon how Nancy entered her house prior to her kidnapping.

4) Change of exit plan does not depend upon how the kidnappers entered the house.
a. Either Nancy left the back door unlocked, or
b. Someone else had left the back door unlocked, or
c. The kidnappers picked the lock on the back door. (There was no forced entry).
d. The kidnappers could have entered the house via a sliding door to the bedroom. In this case they would have still planned to exit via the back door because exiting via the sliding door would have required the victim to climb over a low brick wall. The rear porch did not have a sliding door.

5) The camera removed by the FBI from the roof of the guest house would have seen all entry and exit movements by any intruders via the back door. This camera was overlooked by the kidnappers because it was not on the roof of the main house. At this time only the FBI knows how much of this video data was stored within this camera, stored onsite in the house, or transmitted to the cloud. Perhaps some data was stored. Perhaps none was stored.

Another idea would be that the red circle *looks* like a flood light nest cam, so it’s possible they parked in the marked purple spot. This would avoid the flood cam and the front door cam. The car, if parked there, most likely wouldn’t be seen from the street without really paying attention.

I still don’t see the point of going up to the front door camera at all. It could’ve been covered or broken from INSIDE the front doorway without being seen at all, especially if he had already entered the house from the back. JMO

 

[Lebowski]

That's what is driving me bonkers. If it was a robbery gone wrong, those bodies are rarely moved very far.

If it was a professional kidnapping, they completely botched the ransom demand and have done nothing to fix it.

If it was the cartel or some other criminal enterprise, what was their motivation? SG is a network newsperson that primarily anchors these days. She's not investigating the cartels, no one in the family seems to work for the DEA, any gangs or cartels. Professional criminals commit many different crimes but the motivation is almost always about money/power/their business. When they murder or kidnap someone, they have a specific reason and they make sure you know what it is so they get what they want. If a cartel took her releasing any video other than giving them what they want would be pointless.

If it was targeted against the family or a specific member by anyone else, I truly don't understand what the payoff was supposed to be.

If it was a straight up professional murder, with unknown motivation, why remove the body?

bbm

also, a planned kidnapping for ransom would be super rare nowadays.

and if it was a kidnapping for some other reason, what could the motive be?? NG's not a child whose parents are in the middle of a custody dispute. i assume traffickers focus on children and young women? i don't get it.

 

[SMK777]

bbm

also, a planned kidnapping for ransom would be super rare nowadays.

and if it was a kidnapping for some other reason, what could the motive be?? NG's not a child whose parents are in the middle of a custody dispute. i assume traffickers focus on children and young women? i don't get it.

Yes, all the literature about abductions for various reasons shows that NG's case is very, very rare statistically speaking.

 

[NoseyRecluse]

Interesting, in conjunction with others here suggesting that the way that the perp bends to pick up the lantana is somewhat of a way that golfers pick up the golf ball. The $199 golf shoes don't seem to align with the "Walmart outfit" though. JMO

Maybe it was his attempt at a disguise? Not being the brightest crayon in the box, he left his golf shoes on? MOO.