The desperate search to find Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother is now approaching its fourth day – and investigators and experts are beginning to sketch a chilling profile of the man they believe abducted her.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was snatched from her home in the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson, Arizona, late Saturday night, after having dinner with her other daughter, Annie.
Investigators say there were signs of forced entry and that Guthrie’s pacemaker stopped syncing with her Apple Watch data at around 2am Sunday morning – suggesting this was the moment she was taken from her bed.
More than 48 hours on, officials are now in a race against time to bring her home safely.
As the search intensifies, experts told the Daily Mail that key clues at the scene suggest Guthrie was abducted by a stranger – likely a man in his 30s or 40s.
Dr Bryanna Fox, a former FBI special agent in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and criminology professor at the University of South Florida, said: ‘If it was a family member or somebody who knows the house, they wouldn’t have forced entry.
‘If she knew them, they would have been likely to have carried out a ruse to get her to go with them and get into the vehicle.’
The desperate search to find Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother is now in its third day, with the motive, kidnapper’s identity and the 84-year-old’s whereabouts still a mystery
Investigators said Nancy’s $1 million home in Tucson, Arizona (pictured on Tuesday) showed signs of forced entry, and forensic teams found blood inside the property
The fact that Guthrie left her cell phone and medications behind – plus the trails of blood found at the property – indicate this was not the case and that she did not go willingly.
But being a stranger doesn’t mean that Guthrie was targeted at random.
Whoever abducted her had most likely selected the elderly woman in advance and had surveilled her, learning her habits.
‘This was not just a random selection of the victim. This was probably a person or a group of people that selected her, probably cased her pattern of life, what time she goes to sleep, knew that she didn’t have security, knew that she lived alone and would be sleeping alone,’ Dr Fox said.
Chris McDonough, a retired detective with Oceanside PD, told the Daily Mail that he believes the suspect will have at least ‘crossed paths’ with Guthrie at some point prior to her abduction.
‘That could be a gardener or a delivery person or so on,’ he explained.
‘It’s somebody who knew that she was around 84 and living in that house on her own. At some point, they had crossed into her environment.’
Why Guthrie was seemingly targeted remains unclear.
Authorities give update on search for Savannah Guthrie’s mom
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Elder abduction is very rare, both McDonough and Fox explained.
When it does happen, it is usually personal such as domestic violence-related or it is financially motivated.
Guthrie lives in a $1 million home in a wealthy neighborhood. Savannah is estimated to make around $7 million a year as one of the nation’s most well-known faces on the Today show.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos refused to say Tuesday if a ransom demand had been made in Guthrie’s case. The sheriff’s office later confirmed it was ‘aware’ of a note sent to TMZ demanding millions in Bitcoin for her release, but it is currently unclear if the note is genuine.
Nanos previously said he does not believe Guthrie was targeted because of her daughter’s fame and fortune.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean there is no financial motive. Fox explained that the days of ransom money being left and kidnap victims handed over are long gone because ‘they rarely work’ today with cameras everywhere, electronic surveillance and cell phone tower technology.
‘It is incredibly hard to pull it off these days,’ she said.
Instead, a financially-driven assailant would be more likely to seek remote access to a victim’s bank accounts, pension or 401K – and perhaps transfer funds to Bitcoin so it is untraceable, Fox said.
If the motive isn’t financial, the other alternative is more chilling: ‘That the motivation is purely for violence and thrill-seeking.’
Fox pointed out that Guthrie does fall into several risk factors that could make her a vulnerable target: she is elderly, has poor mobility, lives alone, lives in a wealthy area, and has little to no security at her home.
Officials say Nancy, 84, is frail and has poor mobility, and suffers from a condition that requiries her to take medication daily
While investigators said they have not yet identified a person of interest, Fox said she would expect their profile to be ‘a male between the ages of 30 and 45, who has a criminal record, is sophisticated enough to know what law enforcement is going to be looking for, and has committed a series of escalating types of crimes.’
‘This doesn’t strike me as someone on their first attempt.’
Investigators will be seeking to eliminate any sex offenders within the area, McDonough said.
The search will also involve canvassing the neighborhoods, looking for any footage of interest or footprints.
But, Art Del Cueto, a veteran US Customs and Border Protection officer who lives just minutes from Guthrie’s home, told the Daily Mail that such efforts will be challenging due to the area.
Drawing on years spent tracking suspects through harsh terrain, conducting search-and-rescue missions and body recovery operations, Del Cueto warned that the area surrounding Guthrie’s home is brutally remote, a maze of dense desert vegetation where mesquite, brush and scrub choke the space between homes and the road.
That unforgiving landscape, Del Cueto explained, makes even modern surveillance unreliable. Neighboring cameras may be rendered useless, their views blocked by thick foliage that can easily hide a person – or a vehicle – moving in or out.
Investigators said they do not believe Nancy walked out of her Arizona home (pictured), and said she would not have been able to walk ’50 yards’
Outside Nancy’s Arizona home, where neighbors left a sign saying they ‘stand with’ the 84-year-old and her family
While Guthrie’s high-profile family connection may have been known locally, Del Cueto – who has offered to help in the search – is careful not to jump to conclusions.
What he does emphasize is geography, with southern Arizona sitting on the edge of the US-Mexico border.
‘We’re on the southern border. You’re dealing with international crime all the time, and there are just too many variables to rule anything out,’ Del Cueto said, adding that investigators could be holding details close to the vest.
‘If somebody gets spooked, they can make it into Mexico in under an hour and a half – that’s why authorities may not be sharing everything they know.’
