Savannah Guthrie’s heart-wrenching “Today” interview with Hoda Kotb could leave her mom Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper “terrified” as more eyes are on the mysterious case.
Former FBI agent Jason Pack exclusively tells Page Six, “This interview doesn’t hurt the investigation. What it does is keep Nancy’s name in the news at the exact moment national attention starts to drift. The whole country has been praying for this family.
“Every time Savannah speaks, somebody sitting on information hopefully gets a little closer to picking up the phone.”
Pack goes on to explain how the kidnapper now has “the FBI, a million-dollar reward, and the entire country looking for them.”
“In my experience, suspects who have done something like this are usually terrified. They have been scared for two months,” Pack believes. “Every knock on the door. Every slow moving car. They are waiting on that one tip that leads law enforcement straight to their doorstep and finally tells the world what happened to Miss Nancy.”
Pack sees Savannah as a “daughter who loves her mother.”
“This isn’t necessarily a law-enforcement strategy,” Pack says of the “Today” interview. “This is what grief looks like. It’s a family carrying something too heavy to hold alone, and a woman who decided she was done holding it in silence. Think about who she chose to sit down with. Hoda Kotb. Her friend. Her colleague. Someone she trusts with her life. Savannah didn’t walk into a press conference.
“She walked into a safe space and let herself be human. That’s what grief looks like when it finally gets room to breathe.”
On Wednesday, a clip of Kotb’s interview with her former co-host aired in preparation of a two-part interview set to air Thursday and Friday.
Savannah, 54, said in between tears, “Someone needs to do the right thing, we are in agony. We are in agony. It is unbearable.
“And to think of what she went through, I wake up every night in the middle of the night, every night, and in the darkness, I imagine her terror, and it is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought and I will not hide my face, but she needs to come home now.”
The interview comes days after Savannah pleaded with the kidnapper in a statement to station KVOA, which Pack told Page Six was a “deliberate” move, as staying relevant in the news cycle is an “uphill fight” and investigators “have not helped keep the case in front of the public.”
“Law enforcement has not held a press conference in over a month, and it had been nearly three weeks since the family last made any public appeal before Saturday night,” Pack explains. “When investigators go dark and the media moves on, tip volume likely drops. That is just the nature of it.”
Nancy was reported missing on Feb. 1 after missing a virtual church service.
The 84-year-old was abducted in her sleep and “harmed” in the process, with authorities confirming a trail of her blood seen outside of her home was identified as hers.
Video and photos of a masked individual were released to the public on Feb. 10, as the images showed the individual breaking into Nancy’s home with gloves and a backpack.
Authorities have made no arrests in the case, though multiple people have been questioned. The investigation remains ongoing.
Savannah and her siblings, Annie and Camron, have been multiple public pleas for the safe return of their beloved mother.
