Topline
“Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie issued an emotional plea to viewers on air Tuesday morning begging for more information after new reporting into her mother’s disappearance revealed a ransom note sent to her family in February claimed her mom, Nancy, died shortly after she was abducted from her Arizona home.
Savannah Guthrie at Rockefeller Plaza on June 12, 2026.
GC Images
Key Facts
Guthrie, who returned to the anchor desk of the NBC morning news show two months after her mother was abducted on Feb. 1, on Tuesday told viewers she doesn’t have “any comment” on the story about the ransom note that broke late Monday, but added, “I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask people—really, to beg people—to come forward.”
Guthrie said she and her siblings “are in agony” and “cannot be in peace” without finding their mom, and begged people to “do the right thing.”
Guthrie said her family will “never stop looking” for Nancy and offered a $1 million reward for her return in addition to the $100,000 reward for information being offered by the FBI.
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CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Somebody knows something. This is a news story today that is on your radar, because this is the life my sister lives, that I live, that my brother lives and our extended families live, that our children live every day,” Savannah Guthrie said on air Tuesday. “We are in agony. We cannot be in peace.”
NEWS PEG
New details about ransom notes sent to the Guthrie family emerged Monday night. Investigators reportedly received a message from the kidnappers on Feb. 2, the day after Nancy disappeared, asking for $4 million for her return. By Feb. 6, they and several news outlets were sent a second note claiming Nancy was dead. Reporter Briana Whitney, who now works for Crime Junkie but was a reporter in Arizona at the time of the disappearance, said she’s personally seen the letters and that they did contain confirmation of Nancy’s death. She said the kidnappers claimed to not have fully known the seriousness of Nancy’s health conditions before they abducted her and that they did not mean for her to die. They reportedly said Nancy had been “buried with nature” and did not request any payment for the release of her body. Savannah and her siblings shared a video on Feb. 7 in which they appeared to address the kidnappers by saying: “We received your message, and we understand,” and asked they “return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.”
Key background
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of longtime “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home near Tucson on Feb. 1. Investigators quickly concluded she’d been abducted because of blood found near her front door, signs of a struggle, that her essential medication had been left behind and doorbell camera images showed an armed, masked person outside her front door. The FBI and local authorities launched a major investigation involving forensic evidence, surveillance footage and thousands of leads. Several apparent breakthroughs, including DNA found on gloves near the scene and the arrest of a person of interest, ultimately failed to identify a suspect. More than four months after her disappearance, no arrests have been made and Nancy Guthrie has not been found.