Savannah Guthrie offers $1 million for tip leading to mother’s return

By NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS

Television news anchor Savannah Guthrie said Tuesday that her family is offering up to $1 million for information that leads to finding her mother, Nancy, who was abducted from her home more than three weeks ago.

Guthrie, a “Today” show host, made the new offer in a four-minute video posted on Instagram in which she acknowledged that her 84-year-old mother may already be dead, but said the family was holding out hope for a miracle. If Nancy Guthrie has died, she said, the family still needs to know where she is.

The family is also donating $500,000 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit group that works to find missing children and stop children from being sexually exploited.

The reward of $1 million is in addition to a current FBI reward of $100,000, and both would be paid to anyone offering information that leads to locating Guthrie. There is also a $100,000 reward being offered by a Tucson, Arizona-based crime hotline.

“If you’ve been waiting and you haven’t been sure, let this be your sign to please come forward,” Guthrie said. “Tell what you know, and help us bring our beloved mom home, so that we can either celebrate a glorious, miraculous homecoming, or celebrate the beautiful, brave and courageous and noble life that she has lived.”

The family’s reward will be paid “only for recovery of Nancy Guthrie,” consistent with the FBI’s own criteria, Savannah Guthrie said in the caption of her Instagram post. The FBI has said its reward is for information “leading to the location” of Guthrie or the conviction of anyone involved in her abduction.

Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home just north of Tucson early in the morning on Feb. 1 — “taken in the dark of night from her bed,” Savannah Guthrie said in her newly posted video.

The FBI and local sheriff’s department have received tens of thousands of tips, but have offered few clues about who might have taken her. The key evidence so far has been 44 seconds of footage from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera that showed a masked, armed man approaching her door shortly before her abduction.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department publicly ruled out Guthrie’s family — including Nancy Guthrie’s children and their spouses — as suspects last week. Hundreds of investigators from the department and the FBI are assigned to the case, authorities have said.

Savannah Guthrie’s video Tuesday was the first time in more than a week that she had spoken publicly. She and her siblings had released several other videos early in the investigation, offering to negotiate a ransom payment to any abductor.

Since then, however, there has been little discussion from authorities or the family about any purported ransom demands. Over the past two weeks, the focus of investigators and the family appears to have turned to trying to generate tips.

In her video Tuesday, Guthrie said she also hoped that people would give their attention to other cases of missing people who are not tied to celebrities like her.

“We are hoping that the attention that has been given to our mom and our family will extend to all the families like ours, who are in need,” she said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is headquartered in Virginia, said on social media that it was grateful to the Guthrie family “for turning their personal heartbreak into a commitment to helping others.”