Savannah Guthrie’s Today Interview Could Be Key to Finding Nancy’s ‘Terrified’ Abductors as Sources Detail Her Secret ‘Strategy’—’The Entire Country Is Looking for Them’
It’s not that we hadn’t heard from Savannah Guthrie since her mom, Nancy, was kidnapped. The Today show co-host had posted several videos on social media pleading for her mom’s safe return, some with her siblings, some alone. But when Guthrie appeared on the Today show on Thursday, March 26, it was the first time she was actually giving an interview about this difficult moment in time.
Speaking to Hoda Kotb, Guthrie detailed the moment she found out her mom was missing and the initial steps the family took. She explained she was at home with her two kids, “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.’”
Related: Who are Savannah Guthrie’s siblings?
Savannah also spoke of the possibility that her fame could have led to her mom’s kidnapping. “I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought, ‘Oh, that girl— that lady has money. We can … make a quick buck.’ I mean, that would make sense,” she said. “But we don’t know. Which is too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside. That it’s because of me.”
She also spoke about the ransom notes received, saying that she believes the majority were fake, but two probably weren’t. “I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real,” Guthrie said. “But, you know, a person that would send a fake ransom note really has to look deeply at themselves to a family in pain.”
Former FBI agent Jason Pack told Page Six that the interview doesn’t hurt the investigation and might end up helping it. “This interview doesn’t hurt the investigation. What it does is keep Nancy’s name in the news at the exact moment national attention starts to drift. The whole country has been praying for this family.”
He added, “Every time Savannah speaks, somebody sitting on information hopefully gets a little closer to picking up the phone.” Because the kidnapper now has “the FBI, a million-dollar reward, and the entire country looking for them.”
That, he believes, could make the difference. “In my experience, suspects who have done something like this are usually terrified. They have been scared for two months,” Pack said. “Every knock on the door. Every slow moving car. They are waiting on that one tip that leads law enforcement straight to their doorstep and finally tells the world what happened to Miss Nancy.”
However, Pack also said the interview wasn’t exactly a way to draw out the kidnappers. “This isn’t necessarily a law-enforcement strategy,” Pack said. “This is what grief looks like. It’s a family carrying something too heavy to hold alone, and a woman who decided she was done holding it in silence. Think about who she chose to sit down with. Hoda Kotb. Her friend. Her colleague. Someone she trusts with her life. Savannah didn’t walk into a press conference.”
“She walked into a safe space and let herself be human. That’s what grief looks like when it finally gets room to breathe.”
