It’s been a particularly long week for Savannah Guthrie.
This Monday marks 100 days since the “Today” show star’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, disappeared without a trace from her home in Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie, 54, wore yellow to mark the occasion, a color that has become a symbol of family unity and hope. During the two months she was away looking for Nancy, her colleagues wore yellow ribbons as a symbol of hope.
Even if she had to make it clear, Nancy never leaves her daughter out of her mind.
Guthrie took a break from the show Friday morning, but she’s been holding on, but not without tears. As Page Six revealed, she sometimes got emotional during commercial breaks, but was able to quickly calm down before the cameras started rolling again.
“We will never stop looking for you,” Guthrie wrote in an Instagram post on Mother’s Day. “We will never be at peace until we find you.”
“Of course, Savannah is not going ‘back to normal,’ and no one expects that to happen,” said a person familiar with the matter. “The grace and strength she shows every day as she puts one foot in front of the other, despite the pain, is truly inspiring.”
“It’s very difficult to grasp that there are no new strong leads and no significant evidence other than doorbell camera footage. How is that possible?”
But beyond the pervasive sadness and helplessness felt by Guthrie, her siblings Annie and Camron, and everyone affected by this incident, there is an underlying frustration and anger.
The Guthrie family has not hired a private investigator and the case is reportedly still being handled at the state level, while Arizona’s Pima County Sheriff’s Department continues to work closely with the FBI.
However, they only had a hair left, along with a pair of gloves found near Nancy’s house, as well as doorbell camera footage of an armed masked man.
Another source said: “We haven’t had a single clue since that video came out,” adding, “We can’t see his face, but we can see his eyes, we can see his height, we have a backpack that’s recognizable…come on.”
FBI officials told Page Six that the Guthrie case remains a “top priority,” while Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who has been dragged over hot coals responding to the investigation, insisted this week that police were getting closer and closer to answers.
“Our DNA lab works with researchers every day to brainstorm different ideas and thoughts about how to make this DNA work for us,” he told People.
“How can we do more with what we have? That’s why I’m saying that. I think we’re getting closer to it.”
The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Nancy’s return or arrest in the case. Guthrie and his family are offering a $1 million reward.
“I respect law enforcement. They have a very difficult job. I don’t mean to be unduly critical in any way, but it does raise some questions about the crime scene itself,” former federal prosecutor Neema Rahmani told Page Six.
“There was a reporter walking through the crime scene. That doesn’t preserve a crime scene…Was it a kidnapping? Was it a home invasion? We had all kinds of leads, but they didn’t lead us anywhere. We couldn’t identify anyone on the doorbell footage.”
“After 100 days, I don’t think we’re any closer to making an arrest than we were when we started.”
“We really need to talk about the very real possibility that this is a murder case. It’s no longer a missing person. It’s no longer a kidnapping. We’re talking about a location close to the border. Have these people escaped? Have they been missing for a long time? There are a lot of questions, a lot of speculation.”
Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment in recent weeks was when Guthrie broke down in tears during his first interview with friend and former co-anchor Hoda Kotb, filling in for him on Today after Nancy’s disappearance.
She admitted that she was worried that her fame would do this to her mother.
“I don’t know. I think it’s because she’s my mother and someone thought, ‘Oh, that girl, that woman has money. We can…make some quick money.'” I mean, it makes sense, she said.
“But we don’t know. I can’t bear to think that I brought this to her bedside. It’s my fault.”
Investigators have not yet determined a motive, but Guthrie added, “I just want to say, ‘I’m sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry.'” I feel sorry for my sister, brother, children, nephew and brother-in-law Tommy. ”
“If it were me, I’d be sorry. I’m sorry.”
“We all believe (Nancy’s kidnapping) was targeted,” a neighbor, who requested anonymity, said this week. “I’m still scared. I’m so sad. Nancy was a wonderful 84-year-old woman. What soulless person would do something like this? None of us feel safe.”
“(Since Nancy’s disappearance) I have five cameras. There are special locks installed. There was always an alarm system, but there were no special door locks and I never had a camera,” the neighbor added.
Now, neighbors said, the neighborhood is full of “creep YouTubers” intent on solving crimes. “I’ve lived in this house for 23 years. I grew up on the north side of the street. I don’t plan on going anywhere. I don’t think it was some random random event. I think it was a targeted event.”
Nancy went missing in the early hours of February 1st.
Just two weeks ago, the resident said she saw a strange man walking near Catalina Hills.
“Around January 8th or January 11th, I looked out the window and said, ‘That person doesn’t belong’…It’s not an area with sidewalks. It’s hilly. It’s difficult to get in here. The roads are windy.
“I wrote it down and told my husband and my mother. The day Nancy went missing, we all went out and looked for her. But the police never came and asked us (nothing).”
“Why didn’t they (police) have a roundtable discussion when this happened?”
Looking forward, “It’s important because the compensation has been increased. Cold cases break all the time,” Rahmani said.
On Monday, Guthrie appeared on “Today” with NBC stablemate Jimmy Fallon to announce that he will host the network’s new game show “Wordle,” which Fallon will produce.
“We’ve been working on this for a really long time, and it was actually in February that we found out we were picked up and scheduled to shoot in March,” she said.
“And I just want to give a quick thank you to NBC, to Jimmy and his production company, to the New York Times, to the studios, to Universal, because when something happened to me and my family, they stopped everything and said, ‘We’ll wait.'” And Hollywood is a really tough business, and I wasn’t expecting that, and I just want to say thank you, it means so much to me. ”
“We can’t do it without you,” Fallon assured her.
In December, she showed her mother the pilot for “Wordle,” so Nancy got a glimpse of it.
“It feels kind of weird to do all this right now, but it’s filled with joy,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie continues to rely on her deep Christian faith to get through this crisis and just wants comfort for her mother.
She attended Good Shepherd Church in New York, and Nancy watched Good Shepherd services every Sunday.
Officials at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, where Nancy also attended the service, said, “We pray for peace for the family and a resolution to this situation.”
“We know for a fact that this family has a very strong faith. The fear is unimaginable. Faith is what brings us all together.”
Anyone with information regarding Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is asked to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or the Pima County Sheriff’s Office at 520-351-4900.
