Nancy Guthrie, 84, the “Today” show anchor’s mother, vanished from her Arizona home on Feb. 1.
Law enforcement officers outside the home of Nancy Guthrie near Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 2.Credit…Sejal Govindarao/Associated Press
The authorities in Arizona are searching for Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of the “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, who has been missing since Feb. 1. Her disappearance, which has gripped the nation, is being investigated as a kidnapping.
Ms. Guthrie was last seen at her home near Tucson on Jan. 31. That evening, she had dinner at the home of her older daughter and her son-in-law, who dropped her off at her house around 9:50 p.m., said Chris Nanos, the Pima County sheriff.
A masked person arrived at her home in the early hours of Feb. 1, around the same time a doorbell camera was removed, according to doorbell camera footage released by the authorities.
Here’s what we know.
The authorities released surveillance images of a masked suspect.
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This week, the authorities released surveillance footage from Ms. Guthrie’s doorstep showing a person standing at her front door, wearing a ski mask, gloves and a backpack on the morning of Feb. 1.
The person, who was armed, is believed to be a man between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-10, the F.B.I. said.
The video footage showed the person approaching Ms. Guthrie’s doorbell camera on the night of her abduction, blocking it with a gloved hand and then appearing to try to use some leaves to obscure the camera.
Ms. Guthrie’s doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1.
A timeline, but few clues.
The investigation into Ms. Guthrie’s disappearance began after she failed to arrive at a friend’s house to watch a live-streamed church service on Feb. 1. The friend notified Ms. Guthrie’s family, who went to her home in Catalina Foothills, an unincorporated community near the Santa Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson.
When they did not find her there just before noon, they called 911. Early in the investigation, Sheriff Nanos described Ms. Guthrie’s home as “a crime scene.”
Ms. Guthrie has limited mobility and requires medication every 24 hours, but is mentally sharp, according to the authorities.
Ms. Guthrie’s pacemaker app showed that it had been disconnected from her phone at 2:28 a.m. on the night of her disappearance, indicating she was no longer near the phone, which was left inside her house.
Ms. Guthrie, whose daughter Savannah had included her in several “Today” show segments, was described as 5 feet 5 inches with brown hair and blue eyes.
There are still no known leads.
Investigators have found several items, including gloves, while scouring the foothills around Ms. Guthrie’s home, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said. The masked person in the doorbell camera footage was wearing gloves.
Several gloves have been found in the community so far, the department said, but none closer than roughly two miles away from Nancy Guthrie’s home.
On Friday, a sheriff’s department spokeswoman said that investigators had found DNA on Nancy Guthrie’s property that was neither hers nor that of anyone in “close contact with her.” The police did not say where the DNA was found but were trying to figure out to whom it belongs.
Later that day, police were investigating a house on the edge of the Catalina Foothills neighborhood, a short drive from both Nancy Guthrie’s home and the home of her older daughter and son-in-law, the sheriff’s department said.
The authorities briefly detained a man this week, but released him after questioning.
The Guthries said they would pay a ransom.
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have released a series of videos pleading with whoever is involved in her mother’s disappearance to reach out to them. They said they would listen to ransom demands.
They have also said that they were willing to pay for their mother’s return.
“We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” Savannah Guthrie said in one of the videos. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
In the first video that Savannah Guthrie and her siblings posted, she said that they were willing to listen to ransom demands if they received proof that their mother was alive.
The F.B.I. said this week that it was “not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers.”
Officials are investigating a message.
The authorities said last week that they were reviewing a message sent to a Tucson television station, but they did not confirm whether it was related to a purported ransom note sent to several news outlets in the days after Ms. Guthrie’s disappearance, which demanded millions of dollars in Bitcoin.
A deadline mentioned in a ransom note passed last week, and it remains unclear whether the person who sent that ransom demand is connected to Nancy Guthrie’s abduction.
Savannah Guthrie withdrew from NBC’s Olympics coverage.
Savannah Guthrie, 54, is best known as one of the anchors of the NBC morning show “Today,” a job she has held since 2012. She joined NBC News in 2007, after working in local news and as a lawyer. She did not go to Italy for the Milan-Cortina Olympics, where she had been expected to play a key role in NBC’s coverage of the Games.
Savannah Guthrie grew up and attended college in Tucson, Ariz. She lives in New York with her husband, the communications consultant Michael Feldman, and their two children.
