Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance Nears Nine Months With No Arrest and No Public Answer From Pima County

TUCSON, Ariz. — Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, has been missing from her Catalina Foothills home since Feb. 1, and the case remains unsolved as it approaches nine months with no arrest and no public determination of whether she is alive.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said at a Feb. 2 news conference that he was investigating the disappearance as a kidnapping. The next day he said the motive was unclear and that he could not confirm whether the incident was random or targeted. The FBI later described a male suspect, about 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall with an average build, seen on a doorbell camera wearing a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack. The reward for information leading to Guthrie's location or to a conviction was raised to $100,000.

Ransom communications have complicated the investigation. Initial notes in early February claimed she was held for bitcoin and, in one message, that she had died. Investigators determined the early notes came from the same source and have not verified the death claim. Derrick Callella was sentenced in August to 10 years of probation for sending fabricated extortion demands. In September the sheriff's department said a new possible ransom text was not credible. Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has said she received four ransom emails in April and reported them; she described them as attempts to take advantage of the investigation.

Luke Daly, 37, who was detained and released without charges in February after a traffic stop near the home, was later booked on unrelated charges of misconduct involving weapons and possession of a narcotic after a September search of his residence found a substance that tested positive as crack cocaine. Those charges are separate from the Guthrie case.

Nanos said in late July, as the investigation neared six months, that the case was far from cold and that crime labs and the FBI remained active. No comparable public update has closed the gap since. The Economic Times noted this week that Pima County continues to handle other serious incidents while the Guthrie file stays open, and that the lack of a resolution has kept attention on the department. The nine-month mark will fall in early November.

A kidnapping investigation that has produced a suspect description, a reward, multiple false ransom notes and no charged perpetrator is still an open file. The doorbell video and the early classification as a kidnapping are the public facts. What happened after the camera stopped recording is not.