A distraught Savannah Guthrie said it is unbearable to think her mother, Nancy Guthrie, may have been kidnapped from her Arizona home because of the “Today” anchor’s high-profile name — sobbing, “I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.”
The NBC star gave a gut-wrenching first interview since her 84-year-old mom vanished nearly two months ago, in which she shared her overwhelming guilt related to her mom’s case.
“It’s too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside… and it’s because of me,” an emotional Guthrie told her former morning show co-host, Hoda Kotb, in the sit-down that aired Thursday.
“I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry. … to my sister and my brother and my kids and my nephew and my brother-in-law. I’m so sorry if it is me.”
“I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought ‘that girl has money, we could make a quick buck.’ That would make sense,” she added.
The full tell-all, airing in two parts on Thursday and Friday, is the first time Guthrie has been interviewed since her mom was reported missing back on Feb. 1.
Based on eerie surveillance footage from Nancy’s doorbell camera, authorities believe she was taken against her will after a masked man was caught loitering on her doorstep the evening she vanished.
Guthrie recalled the moment she received the chilling phone call from her sister, Annie Guthrie, to say their mother hadn’t shown up for church — initially fearing the grandmother had suffered a medical episode.
“My sister called me and I said ‘Is everything OK?’ And she said ‘no, she said ‘mom’s missing,’” Guthrie recalled to her close friend Kotb, who also wiped away tears during the emotional interview.
Initially, the family believed the grandmother must have suffered a medical emergency in the middle of the night and had been taken to hospital.
“The back doors were propped open, you know, and that didn’t make any sense,” she revealed. “We thought maybe they came and there was a stretcher, and they took her out the back … But her phone was there, and her purse was there, and all her things — and it just didn’t make any sense.”
They realized something was “very wrong” when they noticed blood spatters on Nancy’s front porch and that the doorbell camera had been yanked off — fueling immediate fears she may have been kidnapped for ransom.
As cops frantically started the search for the elderly woman, distressing surveillance of the masked suspect surfaced and the family were inundated with a spate of sickening ransom demands.
“I mean, it’s just absolutely terrifying,” Guthrie said of the images of the apparent perpetrator.
“I can’t imagine that that is who [my mom] saw standing over her bed,” she added. “It’s too much.”
Guthrie added, too, that the family believes only two of the ransom demands they received were actually real.
“There are a lot of different notes, I think that came and I think most of them … are not real and I didn’t see them,” she said.
“But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”
“But, you know, a person that would send a fake ransom note … really has to look deeply at themselves … to a family in pain,” Guthrie added.
In response, Guthrie and her two siblings released a handful of recorded messages on social media pleading for their mom’s safe return, saying at the time that they were ready to talk but wanted proof their mom was still alive.
“It is surreal,” Guthrie said of the videos she and her family made.
“How is it possible that we are having to make a video? Speaking to a kidnapper who took an 84-year-old woman. In the dead of night, in her pajamas with no shoes, without her medicine, this little person. And to beg for mercy.”
Despite a $1 million reward and countless heartbreaking pleas from the Guthrie family, there has been little movement in the chilling case that quickly captivated the nation.
As the search inched closer to the two-month mark, investigators still hadn’t narrowed down any suspects.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and FBI insisted Wednesday that investigators were still examining leads and hadn’t given up.
A tearful Guthrie, for her part, begged anyone with information to come forward.
“Someone needs to do the right thing,” she said, adding, “she needs to come home, now.”
As the search entered its 54th day, Guthrie said she is still holding out hope and still thinks about her missing mother in the “present tense.”
“My mom is so incredible,” Guthrie said.
“She’s resolute and strong. A quiet strength, a quiet face,” she continued. “She’s funny and a little mischievous in her humor. She’s a noble creature, she does what’s right, she walks in faith but not fake pious put-on.”
The interview aired just as embattled Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who has been the face of the investigation, was facing calls to resign over his handling of the probe so far.
