Savannah Guthrie’s latest plea to her missing mom Nancy Guthrie’s abductor raises a chilling question, according to an expert.
On Saturday — in her second Instagram video since 84-year-old Nancy was taken from her Tucson, Ariz., home last weekend — Savannah, 54, said publicly to the kidnapper, “We received your message, and we understand.”
The “Today” show host — who was joined by sister Annie Guthrie, 56, and brother Camron Guthrie, 61 — added, “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Former CIA officer and FBI special agent Tracy Walder subsequently told Page Six that the message seems “very contrived” and “also scripted.”
She explained, “I feel like they use a lot of coded language in there: ‘This is very valuable to us.’ ‘So that we can celebrate her.’ … That’s not normal words we use to describe a situation like this.”
Therefore, the NewsNation contributor wondered, “Is this a ransom for a dead body? Are we paying to get a body or human back?”
Walder went on to compare Saturday’s video with the one Savannah and her siblings posted Wednesday, noting that in the first one, the trio “humanized their mom in present tense.”
The new one, she argued, is more “muted” and “somber” and does not “humanize their mom at all.”
She continued, “It’s matter of fact, to the point. They’re being methodical. They’re deliberately answering [the abductor] back. Using words like ‘celebrate’ infers memorial or funeral, but it also infers they want to have a party when she comes home.”
Walder pointed out that Savannah, who is the only one who spoke in the new video, now “looks defeated” and not “hopeful.”
She also said that the broadcast journalist’s willingness to pay is “not surprising” given that “any person would pay to get their 84-year-old mom back.”
Retired FBI agent Jason Pack also weighed in on the video, telling us it “took guts” and told him “everything” he needs to know “about who the Guthries are.”
He elaborated, “Savannah could’ve said a lot of things. She said she wants to ‘celebrate’ with her mother. Now, you don’t use that word by accident when your mama’s been missing for a week. That’s a family telling whoever’s on the other end of this, ‘We’re not out for blood. We just want her back.’ That’s about as graceful as a human being can be under that kind of pressure.”
He praised Savannah for being straightforward with Nancy’s kidnapper: “No conditions, no fine print, no lawyers talking in circles.”
“They’ve been out there on social media, on camera, baring their souls to the whole country. The ball is not on their court anymore,” Pack explained, adding, “The smartest thing anyone involved in this can do right now is take the Guthrie family up on their offer before that option isn’t on the table anymore.”
Unlike Walder, Pack believes the family “is responding as if their mother is alive and being held,” calling it “the right posture.”
Amid the search for Nancy, multiple ransom notes were sent to news organizations describing demands for a large Bitcoin payment along with deadlines and specific details, like the victim’s clothes and items in her house.
On Friday night, the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced that they were “actively inspecting” a “new message regarding Nancy Guthrie.”
Shortly after, President Trump claimed to reporters on Air Force One, “I think we could have some answers come up fairly soon.”
He cryptically clarified, “I’m not talking about a search; I’m talking about a solution. … A lot’s taken place in the last couple of hours. A lot of things have happened with regard to that horrible situation.”
Asked whether investigators had a suspect, Trump replied, “It could be definitive.”
Earlier in the day, investigators seized a car parked inside Nancy’s garage as well as a wired camera from the roof of her house after receiving a tip from one of her neighbors.
On the evening of Jan. 31, Nancy took an Uber to Annie and her husband Tommaso Cioni’s house for dinner, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has previously shared, adding that Cioni dropped her back off around 9:45 p.m.
Around 1:45 a.m. on Feb. 1, Nancy’s doorbell camera was disconnected. About 30 minutes later, the software detected a person, but Nanos said there’s no video available because Nancy didn’t pay for the subscription service.
Just before 2:30 a.m., her pacemaker disconnected from the app on her phone.
Then at around 11 a.m., a parishioner at her church called her family to let them know that she did not attend that morning’s service, which was unusual.
The family then went to Nancy’s house to look for her and called 911 just after 12 p.m.
Nanos previously said that he and investigators believe Nancy was abducted in her sleep and “harmed” in the process, as a trail of her blood was seen just outside her front door.
The FBI is now offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the recovery of Nancy and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
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