More than a month after anchor Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home, the sheriff handling the case has revealed more details, saying he believes ‘the kidnapper may strike again.’
“Don’t think for a minute that because this happened to the Guthrie family you’re safe. No, keep your wits about you,” he continued. “From day one, we’ve had some strong beliefs about what happened, and those beliefs are not diminishing,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told “NBC Nightly News” on Thursday, March 12.
The kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie
Nancy Guthrie was last seen around 9.30pm (local time) on Saturday 31st January after being driven home by a family member. When she didn’t show up to church Sunday morning, another churchgoer alerted the family, prompting a Social Security check and a 911 call around noon.
An exhaustive search for her and her abductor has since swept through Arizona, as the Guthrie family issued direct pleas to the suspect, according to a USA Today report.
“We believe we know why he did it and we believe it was targeted,” Nanos told NBC correspondent Liz Kreutz on Thursday. “We’re not 100% sure, so it would be silly to tell people, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it, you’re not a target,'” he added.
Nanos also told NBC that police are looking for a potential Wi-Fi jammer that was used to disrupt Guthrie’s Internet service the night of the crime.
Unidentified body found in Tucson desert during search
Amid the ongoing search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, a dead person was discovered Thursday in southeast Tucson..
Contemporary reports indicate that the body has not been officially identified; however, investigators believe it is unlikely to be Guthrie. The Tucson Police Department noted that preliminary evidence does not indicate foul play in this particular discovery.
Days after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance on February 1, the FBI released footage from a camera outside Guthrie’s front door showing a masked intruder. Evidence of her blood was also discovered on the porch, according to reports.
Earlier this month, Savannah Guthrie, her sister and Annie Guthrie and brother-in-law Tommaso Cioni returned to their mother’s house outside of Tucson and laid yellow flowers.
In an Instagram post, she wrote, “We feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, the Tucson community and across the country 💛 keep praying and hoping with us.”
