In her first interview since Nancy Guthrie disappeared nearly two months ago, Savannah Guthrie recalled the “chaos and disbelief” of learning her mother had gone missing from her home.
In the first of a three-part interview with Hoda Kotb that aired on TODAY March 26, Savannah said the back doors of her mother’s house in Arizona were found propped open when her family members first got there. She noted that Nancy had been living with “tremendous pain” that limited her mobility before police believe she was forcibly taken from her home.
She recounted to Hoda how she first learned on Feb. 1 that her mother had gone missing. Her husband, Mike Feldman, had just returned from a guys’ trip to play tennis that she had gotten him for Christmas, while she and her two children were back home after spending time with TODAY co-host Carson Daly and his family.
“And my sister called me. I said, ‘Is everything OK?’ And she said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Mom’s missing,’” Savannah said. “And I said, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘She’s gone.’ And she was in a panic. I was in a panic.’”
Savannah’s sister, Annie, had already called 911, and the police had arrived at Nancy’s home.
“We thought that she must have had some kind of medical episode in the night, and that somehow the paramedics had come because the back doors (of Nancy’s home) were propped open, and that didn’t make any sense,” Savannah said. “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.”
Annie and her husband, Tommaso, called around all the local hospitals, and Savannah did the same.
“So then I started calling the hospitals, and the police were there and talking to (Annie) at the same time, and it was just chaos and disbelief,” Savannah said.
Savannah immediately arranged travel to get to Tucson to be with her family. Savannah then joined her two siblings, Annie and Camron, in Arizona as they tried to figure out what could have happened to Nancy. She said they conveyed to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos that it was not a case of an older woman with dementia wandering off.
“Just disbelief and hugging each other,” she said. “And I think we were on the phone with the sheriff and trying to really make clear — from the very early moments, Annie and Tommy were saying, ‘This isn’t that case that you are used to where someone wanders off. She can’t wander off.’”
As Nanos noted in his initial press conference after Nancy was reported missing on Feb. 1, her mobility was severely limited.
“My mom, she was in tremendous pain,” Savannah said. “Her back was very bad. On a good day, she could walk down to the mailbox and get the mail, but most days not. So there wasn’t a wander off. And the doors were propped open, and there was blood on the front doorstep. And the Ring camera had been yanked off. And so we were saying, ‘This this is not OK. Something is very wrong here.’”
On Feb. 10, the FBI released images from Nancy’s doorbell camera of an armed and masked man seen at her home the night she disappeared. Authorities have been working to identify the person since.
The search for Nancy has now stretched into its eighth week. The Guthrie family is offering a $1 million reward for her return. The FBI is also offering a $100,000 reward and encouraging anyone with information to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.
The third part of Savannah’s interview with Hoda will air on TODAY on Friday, March 27.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
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