{"id":199531,"date":"2026-02-07T13:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T13:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/blood-droplets-a-white-van-a-ransom-note-where-is-savannah-guthries-mother-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T13:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T13:48:07","slug":"blood-droplets-a-white-van-a-ransom-note-where-is-savannah-guthries-mother-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/blood-droplets-a-white-van-a-ransom-note-where-is-savannah-guthries-mother-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood droplets, a white van, a ransom note: where is Savannah Guthrie\u2019s mother? – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The astonishing case of the missing Today morning show anchor\u2019s mom is six days in so far and without resolution
A<\/span> missing 84-year-old mother of a famous TV morning show anchor; droplets of blood and a mysterious white van; a ransom note sent to a celebrity news website; no suspects; a city surrounded by desert near the US-Mexico border<\/a>; frustrated investigators; and a concerned US president.
It is for all these reasons that the astonishing case of the missing Nancy Guthrie has captivated US public attention in a six-day mystery that still has no resolution. It leads the US news and dominates the headlines, fusing crime and celebrity together in ways not seen since OJ Simpson or the Lindbergh baby.
The Pima county sheriff\u2019s department, which covers Tucson, Arizona<\/a>, says that Guthrie, mother of Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at 9.48pm on 31 January when she was dropped off at her single-story home after dining and playing games with her daughter Annie and husband Tommaso Cioni. At 9.50pm the garage door closes.
Then, at 1.47am, Guthrie\u2019s Ring doorbell camera disconnects. At 2.12am, the software detects movement, perhaps a person, on camera. But there\u2019s no film because the account wasn\u2019t set up. At 2.28am, Guthrie\u2019s pacemaker app disconnects from her phone. The following day, at 11.56am, the family checks on Guthrie after she missed church: she is missing.
At 12.15 a patrol car arrives. The Ring camera is missing. Guthrie\u2019s phone and Apple watch are in the home. There are blood droplets on the porch, later confirmed as hers. Authorities have been searching for her since, warning that she has \u201csome physical ailments, has some physical challenges, and is in need of medication\u201d.
It might have been a missing person\u2019s case were it not for three ransom notes received via email by the celebrity news site TMZ<\/a> and two Tucson-area outlets, KOLD<\/a> and KGUN<\/a>, that included a demand for millions in Bitcoin, two deadlines and details about the crime scene.
Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI\u2019s Phoenix office, said details about an Apple Watch and a broken floodlight were included in the alleged notes. The FBI has said it does make recommendations when a ransom is received, and \u201cany action taken on any ransom is ultimately decided by the family.\u201d
In a tearful appeal posted to Instagram<\/a>, Savannah Guthrie, who had to cancel her assignment to report from the winter Olympics and was flanked by her brother and sister, described their mother as \u201cfunny, spunky, and clever\u201d, saying: \u201cMomma, if you\u2019re listening, we need you to come home. We miss you.\u201d
To her mom\u2019s presumed captors, she said: \u201cWe need to know without a doubt that she\u2019s alive and that you have her.\u201d She asked for \u201cproof of life\u201d and addressed the possibility of people creating deepfakes. \u201cWe live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated.\u201d
FBI\u2019s Janke said: \u201cWith AI these days you can make videos that appear to be very real. So we can\u2019t just take a video and trust that that\u2019s proof of life because of advancements in AI.\u201d
Criminal activity and its motivation may be relatively similar across eras, but advances in technology have changed how they are conducted and resolved. The Guthrie case is both old-fashioned \u2013 a ransom note sounds almost quaint \u2013 and what might have once been a demand for a suitcase of cash in non-sequential, used, small-denomination bills at a drop-off is now a transfer of cryptocurrency.
In December, the FBI warned that people<\/a> posing as kidnappers can provide what appears to be a real photo or video of a loved one, along with demands for money. In this case, Guthrie is missing, presumed abducted. Investigators won\u2019t say if there was a forced entry to the home and say they believe Guthrie is \u201cstill out there\u201d.
Pima county sheriff Chris Nanos told reporters: \u201cWe have no suspect, no persons of interest.\u201d
A neighbor of Guthrie\u2019s has reported seeing a white panel van nearby in the days before Guthrie went missing. A clue perhaps? Nanos said on Friday authorities won\u2019t hold another news conference until there\u2019s major news. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty pointless to just keep hounding the same things over and over,\u201d he said.
Bryanna Fox, a former FBI profiler and professor of criminology at the University of South Florida who has previously appeared on NBC\u2019s Today show with Savannah Guthrie, says the case is indeed perplexing.
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a case where the ransom notes were sent to the media and the family\u2019s response was not done at a press conference but posted on Instagram,\u201d she says. \u201cThe ransom itself was not asked for as cash in a bag, and we can\u2019t even rely on the ransom is real and proof of life is real because of artificial intelligence.
\u201cAnd all of it \u2013 Bitcoin, AI, TMZ and Instagram \u2013 wrapped together in a conversion of pop culture things,\u201d Fox adds.
Then, naturally, there is a political fringe to it. Almost as soon a Guthrie\u2019s disappearance became public, there was speculation online of involvement of the Mexican cartels operating the border. Had Guthrie tipped off would-be abductors when she invited Today cameras in her mother\u2019s home months ago?
Or could it be related to anger at the media in the age of Donald Trump<\/a>?
But the TV anchor Guthrie is one of the most politically neutral in the business \u2013 the friendly face to whom millions of TV viewers wake to weekday morning. She became co-anchor of Today in 2012 after serving as both White House correspondent and as a legal analyst and correspondent.
Trump called Guthrie to offer his support and posted on social media that the federal government is making available \u201call resources to get her mother home safely. The prayers of our Nation are with her and her family.\u201d Guthrie thanked Trump for taking the time to call her family.
On Thursday, a California man was charged with sending text messages to the Guthrie family seeking bitcoin after following the case on television \u2013 but there is no indication he is connected to the case. TMZ founder Harvey Levin speculated that the kidnapper or kidnappers could still be in the Tucson area and described the purported ransom email as \u201cvery specific\u201d and \u201cwell-organized\u201d.
Levin told Fox News\u2019s Sean Hannity: \u201cThe letter begins by saying she is safe, but scared, and they go on to say she knows exactly what the demand is.\u201d He said the Bitcoin address is real, and the ransom note was not AI generated. \u201cThis is not a letter that was thrown together in a couple of minutes.\u201d
Nanos, meanwhile, has said he\u2019s not ruling anyone out. \u201cWe\u2019re actively looking at everybody we come across in this case. Everybody. It would be irresponsible if we didn\u2019t talk to everybody.
\u201cThe Uber driver, the gardener, the pool person, whoever, everybody. It\u2019s so cliche, but everybody\u2019s still a suspect in our eyes. That\u2019s just how we look at things and think as cops.\u201d
The ransom note or notes, says Fox, is the strongest piece of evidence for investigators to decode, but she points out that more than 100 people confessed to the Lindbergh baby snatching in 1932.
During Fox\u2019s training at the FBI\u2019s Quantico headquarters, her FBI intake were tasked with analyzing the ransom note<\/a> left at the scene of another famous case, that of JonBenet Ramsey in 1996. \u201cYou get so much information about who could have done this, their motivation, is it legitimate?\u201d
In the Guthrie case, she points out, investigators can\u2019t know that the note is real because it wasn\u2019t left at the scene.
\u201cSo we\u2019re already starting out with doubt,\u201d Fox says. \u201cThe question is, are there details in the letter that only a kidnapper could know, because you never know what detail is going to become critical. People get frustrated with the police, but their only goal is find her [Nancy Guthrie] alive. They don\u2019t care about the public\u2019s insatiable interest in crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The astonishing case of the missing Today morning show anchor\u2019s mom is six days in so far and without resolutionA missing 84-year-old mother of a famous TV morning show anchor; droplets of blood and a mysterious white van; a ransom note sent to a celebrity news website; no suspects; a city surrounded by desert near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-199531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}