It’s been a particularly long week for Savannah Guthrie.
This Monday marked 100 days since the “Today” show star’s 84-year-old mother Nancy Guthrie disappeared without trace from her home in Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie, 54, wore yellow to mark the occasion, a color which has become a symbol of solidarity and hope for the family. In the two months she was away searching for Nancy, her colleagues wore yellow ribbons as a symbol of hope.
If it even needs making clear, Nancy is never out of her daughter’s mind.
Guthrie, who was off the show Friday morning, has been holding it together — but that’s not to say there haven’t been tears. As Page Six revealed, she’s gotten emotional between commercial breaks, but has been able to quickly compose herself before cameras start rolling again.
“We will never stop looking for you,” Guthrie wrote in a Mother’s Day Instagram post. “We will never be at peace until we find you.”
“It’s of course not ‘back to normal’ for Savannah, nor does anyone expect it to be,” a source in the know told us. “The grace and strength she shows each day, putting one foot in front of the other despite the pain, is truly inspirational.”
“It’s incredibly difficult to grasp that there have been no new viable leads, and no significant evidence beyond the doorbell camera footage. How is that even possible?”
But beyond the percolating grief and helplessness felt by Guthrie, her siblings Annie and Camron, and everyone affected by the case, there is an underlying frustration and fury.
The Guthrie family has not hired any private investigators, we’re told, and the case is still being handled at state level, while the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona continues to work closely with the FBI.
However, they have little beyond a single strand of hair and doorbell camera footage of an armed, masked man, alongside a glove found near Nancy’s home.
FBI sources told Page Six that the Guthrie case remains a “major priority,” while Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who has been hauled over hot coals for his handling of the investigation, this week insisted police are increasingly getting closer to answers.
“Everyday our DNA labs are working with our investigators and they’re coming up with different ideas and different thoughts of how to help them make this DNA work for us,” he told People.
“How can we do more with what we have? And so that’s why I say it is — I think we’re getting closer.”
The FBI has offered a $100,000 reward for any information leading to Nancy’s return or an arrest in the case. Guthrie and her family are offering a reward of $1 million.
“I respect law enforcement, they have a very difficult job – I never want to be unduly critical, but some questions have been raised about the crime scene itself,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Page Six.
“There were reporters walking through the crime scene. That’s not how you maintain a crime scene…Was it a kidnapping? Was it a home invasion? There’s been all sorts of clues that have not ended up anywhere – the doorbell footage hasn’t been able to identify anyone.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere closer to an arrest 100 days in than we were when we started.”
“We really need to be talking 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 that’s close to the border. Have the individuals absconded? Are they long gone? A lot of questions. A lot of speculation.”
Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment in recent weeks came when Guthrie wept during her first interview since Nancy’s disappearance with friend and former co-anchor Hoda Kotb, who stepped in for her on “Today”.
She admitted she feared that her fame had brought this on her mother.
“I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought, ‘Oh, that girl— that lady has money. We can … make a quick buck.’ I mean, that would make sense,” she said.
“But we don’t know. Which is too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside. That it’s because of me.”
While investigators have still yet to reveal any motive, Guthrie added, “I’d just say, ‘I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.’ I’m sorry to my sister and my brother and my kids and my nephew and Tommy, my brother-in-law.”
“If it is me, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“We all kind of think it [Nancy’s kidnapping] was targeted,” a neighbor, who wished to be unnamed, told us this week. “It’s still scary. It’s so sad. Nancy was a lovely 84-year-old lady. What soulless human being would do this? None of us feel safe.”
“I have five cameras (since Nancy’s disappearance). I have special locks that were installed — I’ve always had an alarm system, but I did not have special door locks and I didn’t have cameras,” the neighbor added.
Now, the neighborhood is full of crime-solving “YouTubers creeping around”, said the neighbor, “I’ve lived in this house for 23 years – I grew up a street north. We’re not going anywhere. I dont think it was a random weird thing. I think it was a targeted thing.”
Nancy went missing in the early hours of February 1.
Just two weeks beforehand, the resident said they had seen a strange man walking around the neighborhood of Catalina Hills.
“Around Jan. 8 or Jan. 11, I looked out my window and said ‘that guy doesn’t fit”…It’s not a neighborhood that has sidewalks. It’s hilly. It’s hard to get in here. The roads are windy.
“I made note of it, i told my husband, I told my mother. The day Nancy went missing we all went out and looked for her. But the police never came and asked us (anything)
“Why didn’t they [cops] have a roundtable when this happened?”
Moving forward, “The reward has been increased so that’s important,” said Rahmani, “Cold cases get broken all the time.”
On Monday, Guthrie was joined on “Today” by NBC stablemate Jimmy Fallon to announce she is hosting the network’s new “Wordle” game show, which Fallon is producing.
“We’ve been working on this for a really long time, and actually we just found out in February that we got picked up and we were supposed to shoot in March,” she said.
“And I just want to say a quick thank you to NBC and to Jimmy and his production company and the The New York Times and the studio and Universal because when everything happened with me and my family, they just stopped everything and said ‘We’ll wait for you.’ And Hollywood is a really tough business, and I didn’t expect 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.
She showed her mom the “Wordle” pilot back in December, so Nancy got to glimpse it.
“It kind of feels strange to do everything right now, but this is something that’s full of joy,” Guthrie said.
Through everything, Guthrie has been relying on her deep Christian faith to help her through this crisis and just wants peace for her mother.
She attends the Good Shepherd New York church, while Nancy watched the Good Shepherd services each Sunday
“We’re just praying for peace for the family and a conclusion for this,” a source at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, where Nancy had also attended services, told us.
“We know for a fact it’s a family of very strong faith. The horror is unimaginable. Faith is what’s holding everyone together.”
Anyone with information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is asked to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
