A year after “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie highlighted her hometown roots and introduced viewers to her mother and favorite haunts, the broadcast is drawing new scrutiny over whether it could have helped make Nancy Guthrie a target in her still-unsolved kidnapping.
According to several experts who have been following the case, the same segment could have provided information that influenced the kidnapping — or allowed someone to fake inside knowledge afterward.
“There’s nothing about the house, but you could easily infer that she would still be wearing that watch two months later,” said Morgan Wright, the CEO and founder of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases and an expert on digital forensics. “And again, it’s not an unreasonable assumption to think that elderly people would take their watch off at night.”
As Fox News Digital has reported previously, investigators were divided over whether the two early ransom notes were authentic and have not publicly identified their sender.
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But Savannah Guthrie’s prominence, combined with the personal details included in the segment, could also have caught the attention of someone with malicious intent, according to experts.
“I think the segment is worth considering as a very possible spark for someone’s interest in Nancy,” said Lisa Miller, a retired detective and law enforcement executive at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office who has been following the case. “Whether this involved a kidnapping for ransom, someone fixated on Savannah, or another motive, that broadcast could have introduced a potential offender to Nancy and planted the seed of an opportunity.”
She called the segment’s influence on her abductor or abductors “a strong possibility to investigate” while noting the motive remains unclear.
“I want to be very clear — none of that places responsibility on Savannah,” Miller said. “She shared her love and pride in a strong woman who raised a family, spent part of those years parenting alone and built a successful career.”
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Jim Clemente, a retired FBI supervisory special agent and profiler, separately told the “Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno” podcast that Savannah Guthrie’s fame may have caught the perpetrator’s attention.
“Whether it actually caused I can’t say that, but certainly Savannah’s popularity and the fact that Nancy was on her shows and the relationship between them could have caused some sort of, some type of jealousy or some type of feeling that they belonged to this person, and they wanted to get back at her for not feeling the same way,” he said. “It’s not logical. It’s not something you can anticipate. But it could be possible.”
What the segment revealed — and what it didn’t
“Until that story, I didn’t even know she was from Tucson,” said Bob Krygier, a retired SWAT commander with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which is headquartered in the city. “I’ve always had a bit of a feeling that there was some connection.”
- The segment shows Savannah Guthrie returning to Tucson, where she says she grew up and attended college
- In it, Guthrie says her mother still lives in the city
- The “Today” co-host visits her former sorority, Pi Beta Phi, at the University of Arizona
- She also stops by El Charro, a popular local restaurant, where she introduces viewers to Nancy and her sister, Annie, describing it as a place she visits whenever she comes home
- Nancy says the family put down roots in Tucson in the 1970s
- It does not disclose Nancy’s address or neighborhood
- Near the end of the clip, the “Today” cast raised a toast to Nancy Guthrie.
It also shows Nancy Guthrie wearing a white Apple Watch.
The watch detail could have been used by whoever wrote the notes, said Wright, the expert on digital forensics — even if they had no connection to the abduction.
One of the notes included references to the crime scene that may not have been public at the time they were sent — including details about the location of Guthrie’s Apple Watch and the smashed floodlight in her backyard. Fox News Digital first learned about the watch on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 3. According to authorities, the note had been sent the day before, on Monday, Feb. 2, indicating the sender knew about it before the information began to seep out into the public sphere.
But it could also have been a lucky guess, Wright said.
“So I believe none of the ransom notes are credible, and that, that information could have been easily obtained from just watching a video,” he said.
Krygier said public figures should be cautious about what they share online in today’s environment.
“You need to be careful, but I also don’t think they need to go into a complete shell,” he said. “It’s a balance, but being careful is incredibly important.”
The ‘evolved wrench attack’ theory
Visit Tucson, a local nonprofit created to attract tourists and business to the city, sponsored the segment, which remains visible on YouTube. It featured some of Savannah Guthrie’s favorite locations in her hometown — and the Sonoran Desert’s iconic saguaro cactuses.
“People ask me, ‘Where are you from?’ I’m always proud when I say, ‘Tucson, Arizona,'” Savannah Guthrie said in a segment that aired on Nov. 5, 2025. “I grew up there, went to college there, my mom still lives there and honestly a part of me has really never left.”
Guthrie was taken from her home in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills neighborhood in the early hours of Feb. 1. After she missed a gathering with friends for church, her family discovered she was missing and called police.
The FBI and Google teamed up to recover home security video from her missing Nest doorbell camera, which showed a masked intruder wearing gloves and carrying what appears to be a gun on her front porch. But nine months later, his identity remains unknown — as do her whereabouts.
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“From what we know publicly, I see little that would explain Nancy becoming a target apart from her connection to Savannah,” Miller told Fox News Digital. “I also have difficulty reconciling her removal from the home with a straightforward burglary gone wrong.”
Her abduction required planning and a “consequential decision,” Miller told Fox News Digital.
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“That does not establish the motive, but it is a central reason I believe Nancy herself was the target, a pressure point to reach Savannah,” she said.
In a prior interview with Fox News Digital, Miller floated the idea that the abduction may have been an “evolved wrench attack” — an effort to extort money out of the wealthy and famous Savannah Guthrie by threatening her mother.
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“The question is whether someone recognized that targeting a vulnerable family member could create leverage over Savannah,” Miller said Wednesday. “But the segment’s potential significance isn’t limited to that theory. Someone with a fixation on Savannah could also have redirected that attention toward her mother.”
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Where the case stands now
“Behind every theory is a woman who deserves to be brought home and a family living with an anguish most of us cannot comprehend,” Miller said. “I have grave concerns about Nancy’s fate, but the evidence must answer that question. My sincere hope is that evidence and tips lead investigators to those responsible, bring Nancy home and give her family answers. Every family deserves no less than that.”
No arrests have been made. No suspects have been publicly identified.
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Savannah Guthrie renewed her public plea for help on Nov. 1, nine months after her mother’s abduction.
“I think it’s important for Savannah and her siblings to really look at every communication that they’ve had from whatever source, whether it’s social media, email, telephone, in-person contacts, because somewhere in that mix, this person has likely interacted with one or more of them, including Nancy,” Clemente said.
Anyone with information is asked to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI or 520-88-CRIME.
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