Cops are investigating fans of Savannah Guthrie who “crossed the line” with crazed, unsolicited communications, after the Today star’s elderly mother was abducted, according to the Daily Mail.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, disappeared from her home in the Catalina Foothills in Arizona on Saturday night, with the family reporting her missing around noon the next day. “I believe she was abducted, yes,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News. “She didn’t walk from there. She didn’t go willingly.”
Indeed, on Tuesday, TMZ received an alleged ransom note demanding millions for the safe return of Nancy. The unconfirmed note, which has been passed on to law enforcement, demands that a Bitcoin payment be initiated if the family wants to see the widowed mother of three again.
And now, with no suspects identified, cops are probing communications sent to Savannah Guthrie, 54, by her fanatical fans.
“There are so many people who reach out and just get a little bit too familiar. So many,” a senior NBC source told the Daily Mail. “That’s always been an issue, as long as I’ve been here.”
They added of the popular morning anchor, “I don’t think Savannah has more crazies than anyone else, but she has had a few people who just cross the line, too much communication, sending gifts, asking her out, just not knowing boundaries.”
The source added that they were unsure whether these communications were reported to NBC hierarchy, and that Guthrie would usually brush them off.
“I don’t know of any that really scared her, but there are definite fans that make her go, ‘Hmm.’ That’s the nature of being on TV. People don’t know boundaries,” they said.
Dr. Bryanna Fox, a former FBI special agent in the agency’s behavioral science unit and a criminology professor at the University of South Florida, said the abduction was likely targeted.
“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,” she said.
Nancy Guthrie, who is physically handicapped but still “sharp as a tack,” is without the medication she needs to survive. Meanwhile, a new video from outside her home shows drops of blood by her front door, where a Ring doorbell camera is also missing, NewsNation reported.
A law enforcement source told Fox News that Guthrie’s pacemaker stopped syncing with her Apple devices around predawn Sunday.
Savannah Guthrie posted to Instagram on Monday night in a plea to “bring her home,” asking fans to “raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment.”
Guthrie added, “We need you.”
A Pima County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told the Daily Beast that investigators have no suspects in Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
“At this time, no suspects have been identified,” the spokesperson said. “Detectives continue to speak with anyone who may have had contact with Mrs. Guthrie. We are also awaiting additional forensic results.”
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